Innocent perception and the actual present.
Time is always an interesting subject to
talk about. Apart from being just interesting, it is also intriguing and hides
a great deal of mystery. The
mysterious side of time has become
a source of inspiration for many a science fiction writer. We are familiar with a number of science fiction films which focus on
travelling through time. We can't help wondering whether it could be at all
possible.
Time
that we can easily identify with has to be chronological time. We need to make a point of time such as
three o 'clock and a period of time such as five hours just to make life a bit
easier. Even though time measuring
is based on the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, it is still a
man-made one. Standard time, which
is based on solar time, was introduced in 1883 by international agreement to
avoid the complications that followed in railroad time schedules when each
community used its own local solar time. The earth was divided into 24 time
zones. The base position is the zero meridian of longitude that passes through
the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, England and time zones are
described by their distance east or west of Greenwich. Greenwich mean time
(GMT) or universal time is used as a basis in calculating time in most parts of
the world. If the time at Greenwich is twelve noon, 15 degrees longitude to the east is an hour later and 15
degrees longitude to the west is an hour earlier and this carries on
respectively. It would be chaotic if we didn't have a twenty four hour
time schedule to refer to so that
we know when to get up, send children to school, meet a friend, go to work,
catch a bus and so on. Animals and plants do not have chronological time, so
their lives relate to the sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and the change of
temperature in different seasons, etc.
Apart from chronological time, we also have psychological time. Time
measurment may have some complications but certainly it is not intriguing and
mysterious like psychological time. What does psychological time mean ? Let's
put chronological time aside from now on and investigate deeper into
psychological time. When I use the term "time" it should
be understood that I refer to psychological time and not objective time.
Initially it is difficult to
say what time really is
because it isn't a tangible thing we can put our fingers on. We cannot
sense it with our five sense
organs. When we do something
we love and enjoy, time seems to have wings and flies away very quickly. In the
contrary, when we do something we most hate and dislike, time seems to stretch
on indefinitely. When we cannot sleep in the middle of the night, every minute
seems like a life time. This is the psychological time which we can all
identify with.
Time
definitely holds a great deal of mystery. We don't really know what time is but we do know that there is something which is the main factor
that conditions the changes in absolutely everything. These changes happen
without us having to do anything, for example: a pear is hard and green; we don't have to
do anything to it; we simply leave it in a fruit bowl and a day or two after, we begin to see the
change in the colour of the skin and we all know that it also tastes sweeter
and juicier than three days ago. As for us, human beings, we begin our
lives as a new born baby, gradually change to an infant, a
toddler, a little boy, a young boy, a teenager, a young man, a grown man, a
middle aged man, an old man, a very old man, a dying man and eventually a dead
man. The appearance of different
stages in life changes accordingly from smooth, tight and firm skin to creased,
tough and bumpy skin, from dark and shiny hair to white and unattractive hair. When we look at the environment around
us, we also see the changes in absolutely everything; some things change much
quicker than others. A poppy
blooms in the morning and its petals can drop off by evening while an oak tree
seems to last forever.
These changing appearances are definitely not the time itself but we know that they are the direct result of time. It is this changing appearance in absolutely everything which
gives us a sense of psychological
time. Somehow, we know that we did not look like we do now ten years ago and we
also know that we won't look like
this ten years on from now.
We can say that psychological time is a sense of having a past and a future and therefore they
exist in our minds only. Some people might not agree because past and future
seem to be obvious things. As I said the changes in appearance of all things
are the direct result of time but
they are not the time itself, are they ? No matter how objective we all consider the
existence of the past and the future to be, we cannot deny that they exist only
in our heads. When we talk about
yesterday, last week, last month, last year, last century or tomorrow, next
week, next month, next year, next century, etc., is it true that we talk about
it in the way that we project from our thoughts ? All these different stages
and periods of time we talk about are not the apparent states, they can only
come up in our talk and speech; basically language. And language is the direct
result of our thoughts. In this respect, past and future are similar in the way that they both
do not exist now. They are
concepts in our heads. The past has gone, the future has not yet
arrived. They both have zero value
all the same. The difference is that the past has left more changing
appearances for us to witness while the future leaves us nothing whatsoever.
The future is merely in our imagination, speculation, expectation. In fact, we
can learn a great deal from the past but not the future. We can only say that
we can build a better future. Then again, no one can possibly know for sure
what the future will be like.
Let's look a bit closer into the future tense. Tomorrow, next year, next
century and even the next life can be all equal because they will never arrive.
In fact, from our next breath to next few seconds all the way to the next life
will never happen. The tomorrow that we talk about will always become today and
we will always have another tomorrow. As long as we have today, we will always
have tomorrow. And that tomorrow will never arrive. The reason that tomorrow
never arrives is because it only exists in our minds. Past and future can be
projected through our thoughts.
Alternatively, we can only think about the past and the future. They can
never be here or be real.
Please try not to be confused that this is a matter of wording. I am not
simply playing with words to confuse readers. It is important to understand
future in the psychological sense because this will link to what I have to say
later. I am not arguing about the future as if the 25th December will ever
arrive when I am writing this text in February. Of course, Christmas day and
our next birthday will always arrive even after we die.
The only thing that probably
has reality is the present. From the present, we look into the past with the
help of our memories and into the future with the help of our imaginations.
When we look at the pyramids, ruins, the remains of anything which we reckon
dates back thousands of years, we merely look at them from the present and
project our minds into the past. From looking at the evidence, we subsequently
try to work out in our heads
when those past events were likely to have happened. There is no way we
can know exactly what really happened, for example: how the great pyramids at
Giza were built, how the cave men lived, how enormous creatures like dinosaurs
could become extinct, and so on. We can only do our best by judging from the found evidence and try
to imagine what was most likely to happen.
As far as past and future are concerned, they do exist in our minds.
They are concepts and therefore they
are called psychological time or mental time.
Let's move on to the state of the present. I said earlier that the only
reality is probably the present. I used the word probably because we take it for granted that we all know the
present. How complicated can it be ? The present is the present. I am here, you
are here, we are all here. This is presence enough, isn't it ? What else can it
be ? I would like to ask how much
we can understand the following sentence: But
mummy today is tomorrow. At first glance, we might think that it is just
the way young children talk and they do get words all mixed up at times. As for
now, I would like to say that if we think that young children get their words
all mixed up, we don't really understand the present yet whilst young children
do.
All
mothers who have young children
often come across the above sentence. Mummies have to promise their children something. But because children have no sense of time, adults
have to refer to something else which children can identify with. The following
conversation is a simple example
which all mums and young children
have.
Mum: Mummy
will take you to the park tomorrow and we are going to have a
picnic.
Child: But
when is tomorrow, mummy ?
Mum:
Well, tomorrow is when you go to
bed tonight and get up in the morning and you will have your breakfast and that
is tomorrow.
Children can be happy with the
answer because they can relate with going to bed, getting up and having
breakfast. There are times when
mummy does not keep her promise. Her young child will come and remind mummy about what she has
promised. When mummy resists by saying: OK,
we will definitely do it tomorrow or You
can have it tomorrow. This is the time when a child would say: But mummy today is tomorrow.
We'll be surprised if it turns out that in fact, young children know the
present far better than us, adults. And that's why children can say "Today
is tomorrow." I am sure a lot of people are beginning to find this
issue rather intriguing and complicated.
There is something about the present which has a significant value which people like to stress. In Buddhism, practitioners
engaging in meditation get used to
being told to be with the present and not to wander off either into the past or
the future. In my Tai chi class, I often tell my students to be with their
immediate movements. Psychologists, psychiatrists and mind experts like to tell
people, who are in mental turmoil,
not to think about the past and that they should live in the present and try to
build a better future. The past has gone,
don't think about it. Try to let go and focus on your present. Those
are familiar words when we go to
see our GP with a bit of stress or depression. When I was a girl between ten
and twelve years old, my eldest brother who, is eleven years older than me, was
very much taken by an American
author named Del Carneky. He had a whole collection of this author's books. One
of them was about how to overcome suffering and be happy. He talked about how
to live our life in the world of today.
I 'd be surprised if he claimed that his idea did not come from Buddhism.
However, is it that easy to live in the world of today ? As far as I am
concerned, living in the world of today is probably much easier than living in
the world of the present. These two states are totally different which is
something that most people do not realise.
We will find that there is a great deal of ambiguity in the way we use
our present tense. When we use the term today,
we all know that we must use the present tense. But when exactly is the present
? If we are at midday right now, we refer to the first half of the morning in the past tense. Whatever activities
we did before midday are classed as past events. We
use the present perfect tense to refer to
any activity that has
finished shortly before midday but the meaning still implies the past
mode. When we talk about any activity which will happen after midday from
afternoon, late afternoon, evening, tonight, we use the future mode. We use the
present continuous tense to refer to any activity we are about to do in the
very near future. Again, it still implies the future mode.
Let's look even closer at the moments when we breath in and breath out.
When we are breathing in, breathing out will be the future mode because it
hasn't yet happened. Vice versa,
when we are breathing out, breathing in is already the past because it has
gone. Where exactly is the present ? Readers can see that I am trying to
pinpoint the state of the immediate or the actual present.
If we look carefully, the actual present exists in between the immediate
past and the immediate future, doesn't it ? Let's look at the face of a clock
which has a second hand ticking away every second. Our past, present and future
work exactly the same as what we see on the face of a clock. The second hand
represents the actual present which is the buffer state between the immediate
past seconds and the immediate future seconds. The difference is that the
actual present does not remain still
even for a fraction of a moment as the second hand on the clock does.
Nothing in the universe can be more dynamic than time. And there is absolutely
nothing which can stop the ever constant movement of time. We can easily see that the actual
present state is changing all the time.
There is always a new immediate past and a new immediate
future and of course, a new immediate present. The actual present rolls
on continuously and indefinitely. So, what we always assume to be the present
like this century, this year, this month, this week, this morning, this hour,
this minute, this very moment or
even this breath we are taking, is in fact very far from the true ideal of the
actual present. Consequently, the present we think we are living in might not be the
present at all. The present we refer to might just be either the immediate
past or the immediate future which still exists only in our thoughts as I have
explained earlier. We might be living in the world of today but not in the
world of the actual present. Maybe
this is the reason why we cannot really overcome suffering and be happy like
mind experts have suggested because there is a great deal of difference between
living in the world of today and the world of the immediate present.
Maybe this can explain the feeling of boredom which bites people away
like rust eating steel. Boredom is the direct consequence of time eating itself
up. The fact is that we all adore and give value to something new because there
is a feeling of excitement and novelty attached to it. They are nice feelings.
There is a Zen Koan which says: "No
one can dip their feet in the same river twice." This Koan also
refers to time eating itself up. This is the fact which makes people feel fed
up of what they are and have. When
we know the truth about the rolling on of the immediate present, we also know
that nothing can stay new forever and nor can the feeling of excitement and
novelty. We know far too well that novelty wears off very quickly. This is the
reason why children's toys have to change so quickly just to find them excitement and novelty to occupy
their minds.
We like to blame children for getting bored very easily.
Adults are not any different at all. In fact, we are much worse than children.
That is because adults' toys come in different guises to children's. Grown up toys are everything that constitutes
our whole way of life from the material objects like food, cars, houses, jobs
to mental objects like status and power which help to boost our ego. It is much
worse when adults get fed up with their toys and this has become part of the
main reason causing upheaval in our modern society. We often hear of people
moving houses simply because they are bored of what they have. Many house wifes
cannot be content in her own
living room if she cannot change
her curtains, three piece suites, carpets and so on every now and again, let alone
the pressure from competition with
their neighbours. We hear of women who go into hundreds of thousands of pounds
of debt because they cannot stop spending money shopping. The social problems in society intensify and
become very complex when adults
get fed up with their mental toys. No matter what kind of wealth, status
and power we have, after a while we all get used to the idea and can't
help getting bored and fed
up. People who never have the
chance to get to the top will thrive on the excitment that maybe one day they
will strike it lucky and be someone in their dreams. Those who already have recognised status are not different.
They also want more and more because this is about trying to find out how long
a piece of string is. Only those
who have reached the very top in whatever area they pursue will know that once
they have it, that is all there is to it.
After a while, the excitement and novelty vanishes. I can always remember a film about a woman who came from a normal
and rather poor background. She found a man in her dream who had everything she
always wanted and could transform her life. She became wealthy, being
recognised and really enjoyed being someone. Once all the excitment and novelty
had subsided, bordom set in and
began biting her life away, she then screamed with frustration: Is this really all there's to it ? I think this film can sum up our
private feelings which we may not want others to know.
The worst problem
must be when married couples are fed up with each other. When all the magic of
having each other disappears, the
partners begin to become estranged. Family breakdown has become the problem
which shakes the core of our society.
If we have a good look, our
so called civilisation is based on trying to conceal our boredom. The entertainment, the advanced technology, etc. are all
geared up for us to experience something new and exciting so that we can get
away from our boredom. The way to keep the world exciting all the time is about
indulging, consuming and using up our natural resources. During the process of
pursuing the excitment and brushing away our boredom, our world is inundated
with problems, turmoil, exploitation, war and suffering. All these problems
link directly to our ignorance of
the state of the immediate present.
People may wonder why we have to live in the world of the immediate
present ? Why do we have to put so much stress on it ? What is its significance
? The significant value in the state of the immediate present has to be
the representation of the true entity of life. If we look very carefully,
the essence of life is the moment of
here and now, isn't it ? To
be more precise, they are the immediate here and the immediate now. Every
moment of our life moving on is like the second hand on the face of a clock. The actual present is ticking
away all the time and does not
stay still for even a split second. It is a continuous state between the
immediate past and the immediate future. And this moves on indefinitely. The dynamic immediate present is the only moment which can be
claimed as real, tangible, actual
and therefore is the only real entity or the true essence of life. This is merely a
fundamental fact. The subsequent result is that if living in the world of today
can truly bring us happiness like
mind experts claim, living in the world of the immediate present has to
be millions of times better. Indeed, this is really the case. Among all mind
experts, in my opinion, the Buddha happens to be the best. It was the Buddha who gave
humanity the profound wisdom about the idea of living in the world of
the immediate present instead of in the world of today. That is because in
that magic moment, we can truly find
real peace of mind and fulfilment in life. These two simple feelings are
universal and we all need them as parts of our mental survival. The question that we should ask is how
easily can we live our lives in the state of the immediate present ? Is it as
easy as we all think ? According to the Buddha, we can live in the world of the
actual present only when we can grasp it.
This is the most dynamic thing that we have to deal with and therefore
trying to grasp it is not as easy as we think at all. Let's investigate
further.
Past
and future exist in our thoughts and therefore there is no real entity to them
and that's why we have to learn to let go of the past and probably the future
too. Letting go of the past and the future basically means letting go of our
thoughts. We can begin to see the
connection between the past, the future and our thoughts. If that is the case,
the immediate present which has the real entity cannot be projected through thoughts or belong to the
faculty of thoughts. It means that
if we want to live in the actual
or immediate present, we (our heads) must be void from thoughts. Readers who
are not used to this Buddhist
concept will begin to get worried because they don't like the idea of their head being void from
thought. People don't realise that in fact such a moment is the best part of
our life because we can all simply just be ourselves. When our head is void
from thought, life is simply the state of BEING
or JUST BE. When we go into a deep
sleep, all thoughts are wiped off from our heads and that's why we can have a good night sleep. The problem
begins rather when we cannot wipe our thoughts away, doesn't it ? We all know
how long every second can drag on and how awful we feel when we cannot sleep.
As a matter of fact, our mental settlement is the direct result of all our mind's chatter coming to an
end. We can begin to link the
state of our inner peace and the state of being void from thoughts. So, let's
understood that past and future belong to the faculty of thoughts whilst the present
belongs to the state of BEING or JUST BE.
I will assume that the reader also understands the state of the host
mind and its visitors as I have talked about in my previous chapter. I will try
to connect all these concepts together. As if the host mind and its guests cannot share the
same seat, past and future cannot
share the same seat with the present either. As a matter of fact, the state of
the immediate present is the state of the host mind itself.
When the host mind is shining away, that is the moment when life is simply
"just be" or "being". And that is indeed the very moment
when we can actually live in the immediate present as well as living in peace
and in harmony. We can make a blunt conclusion here that if we want to live in
the immediate present, we must learn how to be by switching off all thoughts. I never read Hamlet so, I don't have a clue what Shakespeare meant by
saying To be or not to be, that is the question. I don't know whether
that famous sentence contains any spiritual meaning or not. But I certainly
know that as far as this chapter is concerned, we are reaching the point
of to be or not to be, that is the
question as well.
To learn how to be is in fact the core practice of Buddhism. It actually
came from the teaching of the
Buddha to a young man named Pahiya. This is the story.
During the Buddha's time, Indian society was taken over by the culture
of searching for ultimate
enlightenment. There were different schools teaching different paths which
claimed to be the one that could help people to reach a higher level of
spiritual knowledge. As a matter of fact, the young prince Sidhartha Gotama was
one of those curious young intellectual people who was eager to find out the
ultimate truth as well. Pahiya was also one of the many young men who joined in
the meditation culture hoping to find a way to reach the ultimate purpose of
life like others. Well, whether they were all successful or not is totally another
matter. Among those spiritual explorers, ascetic Gotama was the only one who
stood out and bravely claimed that I am the fully enlightened one, I am the
awakened, I am the knower, I am the joyous and I am a Buddha. It means that Ascetic Gotama had
reached ultimate enlightenment or
the ultimate purpose of life, found the ultimate truth or the absolute element
in nature. There was no one else during that time who could claim this.
There were also some ascetics who falsely claimed that they were the
enlightened ones for the purpose of gaining material wealth
and higher status. Pahiya was in fact one of them. He later on heard
about the growing reputation of the Buddha Gotama who claimed his ultimate enlightenment. Pahiya,
feeling very guilty about his bogus claim, became restless and eager to find
out the truth. He set out in search for the Buddha.
He eventually found the Buddha when he was in the middle of collecting
his alms along with his Bhikkus (Buddhist monks). Pahiya was so
unsettled that he could not wait a moment longer. He approached the
Buddha right away and asked him the serious question right away.
Please my lord, please tell me the
essence of your teaching. Pahiya urgently asked the Buddha.
The Buddha looked at Pahiya and answered very calmly that:
Pahiya, please wait until I finish
collecting my alms first and then I will talk to you. This is not the time.
Pahiya felt even more desperate and felt that he might
even die between now and then and would miss the chance of hearing the sublime
teaching of the Buddha. He could not wait as the Buddha had just told him.
Please, my lord. I don't think I
could wait a moment longer. Please do tell me very briefly about the essence of
your teaching.
The Buddha paused and looked at the young man in front
of him. He could clearly see that
Pahiya was in such a desperate state due to his ripened karma to know
and understand the truth he was about to give. The Buddha then said:
All right Pahiya, please sit down and listen very carefully. I am going
to tell you very briefly about the essence of my teaching as you have
asked.
When your eyes see an object, just see.
When your ears hear a sound, just hear.
When
your nose smells a smell, just smell.
When your
tongue tastes a taste, just taste.
When your body
feels a touch, just feel.
When your mind knows a
thought, just know.
Pahiya, if you can do these, the
end of suffering will not be too far from you.
Indeed, Pahiya attained
the state of Arahantship as soon as the Buddha finished his teaching.
The brief teaching of
the Buddha to Pahiya has been known as the core practice of Buddhism. This is
also the focus point in Zen Buddhism. And this is also what I have stressed all
along in my Tai chi class. It was only in the autumn term of 1997 when I
suddenly found that the term "innocent
perception" can clearly represent what the Buddha meant by telling
Pahiya to just see, just hear, just smell, just taste, just feel and just know.
The Buddha might have put it very simply and made it sound rather easy to
practice which caused Pahiya to simultaneously attain ultimate enlightenment and become a Pra Arahant. In fact,
there were quite a number of people who attained the state of Arahanship
simultaneously as soon as the Buddha finished his teaching. This event does
make it look like it is extremely easy to attain ultimate enlightenment, reach the end of all suffering and
become a Pra Arahant. That is not the case at all, those people who easily
became Pra Arahants during the Buddha's time had spent so many life times
making vows of meeting a Buddha in one of their future lives, to listen to a Buddha's teaching and hoping to be
enlightened. They have built up all the necessary karma for them to eventually achieve ultimate enlightenment. Having a chance
to be born in the same period of time as a Buddha and listen to his teaching is
certainly not a coincidence as far as the law of karma is concerned. As for
those people, listening to the teaching of the Buddha was the very last push
they needed to enable them to
reach the top or the ultimate purpose of life. These were groups of people who had the high level
of spiritual ability as I explained to my students.
The truth is that innocent perception is not an easy practice at all
especially if we don't have the
right tools for the job. I have
mentioned in my previous chapters of how I tested my students by asking them to
call out the conventional names of different objects I showed them in class.
The students spontaneously and instinctively called out the names of every objects I showed them.
The quicker the response is, the more difficult we can understand the innocent
perception. Even though innocent perception is human's fundamental instinct, we
have nearly lost that special gift and we no longer know how to use it. Ironically this basic
instinct or innocent perception is the crucial factor which enables us to reach
the ultimate goal of life, in other words, knowing the real entity of life.
(Please refer to the chapter called Uncle, why does everything have a name
?)
However, it
is indeed the innocent perception
which allows us to slip into the state of the immediate present. This very
moment is the state of to be or just being, alternatively the state of is-ness therefore, it is a matter of
knowing how to balance our minds on the point of the equilibrium where all
thoughts vanish unless we can truly understand and practise what the Buddha
said: when your mind knows a thought, just know which is not an easy
practice at all. This is certainly not a matter of trying to thrash out a
solution, an equation or some hypothesis.
As far as searching for any
knowledge is concerned, the way of knowing the is-ness is another ball game
altogether. We cannot use all the different conventional techniques or tools as
we do to our intellectual knowledge. In trying to balance our minds on the
point of the equilibrium where there is no trace of thoughts, we have to use
something else which is different altogether. And that very tool is the high level of self-consciousness. I am now linking up to what I have said in my previous chapter and
that is the technique of waking Tom up (Please refer to the chapter called Fighting
in the right battle field).
Tom is the high level of self awareness or consciousness which is a tool
that doesn't look like any tool we know as far as tool using is concerned. No matter what we want to do and
achieve, we need to have the right tools for the job. A human is the most clever creature who can always find
the right tool for the right job.
The next to the ultimate tool is in fact our body as eyes, ears, nose,
tongue, limbs and the ultimate tool is of course our mind or thoughts. When
these fundamental tools are not sufficient, we know how to extend them to widen
the capacity of our perceptions. We use magnifying glasses which developed into
telescopes to look at things which are far away, as far as another galaxy. We
use microscopes to look at things which are very small and minute. Physicists
can even build tools which can penetrate into the minute entity like an atom.
We also expand the capacity of our limbs by creating cars, trains, submarines,
aircraft and space craft just to take us to wherever we want. But no matter how
complicated these tools are, they are still the conventional tools which are
based on extending the ability of our perceptions and limbs. All these
conventional tools have to be used hand in hand with the ultimate tool which is
our precious thoughts, mind power or intellect. The high level of self
awareness or Tom do not belong to any of those conventional tools and this is the reason why I keep on
saying that we need to rely on the wisdom of the Buddha to tell us what the tool
is and how to use it so that we can reach the state of just being or the
is-ness. I am not going into any
great length to talk about Tom any more.
So, we have reached the point
of the title of this chapter.
The innocent perception is the essential factor which enables us to be with
our immediate present which is also the only real entity of life. That is also
the magic moment when life can simply BE
where there is no bearing of any feeling or emotion. It may sound rather boring
to people who still have a lot of dust in their eyes. As for those whose karma
has been ripened and is ready to know about this piece of good news, they will
find this whole issue rather fascinating, inspiring and truly want to be part
of it. As for those who have already taken on the practice especially innocent
perception or vipassana-bhavana will certainly find that the moment of just being is glorious, holy, yet
simple, and ordinary. Above
all, this is also the moment where all doubts about life and everything else
come to an end. This is the moment where the true wisdom surfaces and allows
the practitioner to know exactly
where his standing point is in this gigantic universe
as well as understanding the realm of samsara or re-incarnation. What kind of happiness can be
greater than the end of all suffering ?
The next connection which I need to make since this chapter is talking
about time. The teaching of the Buddha or dhamma has been known as something
which can never be out of date. We
have to pinpoint which part of Buddhism exactly is not out of date and is above
time. The word dhamma which is widely used among all Buddhist has a few
different meanings. Most Buddhist understand it as the teaching of the Buddha.
The dhamma which can exist beyond
the existence of time has to point
to the state of the ultimate or the absolute. I called it in my previous book the absolute element in nature. When we
engage in talking about this ultimate
issue, we have already thinned
down all the irrelevant or indirect issues and are involved in only the
essential or the most direct subject. In fact, those few direct issues are only
two main ones which are the fruit or the end purpose and the path. The fruit is
about the ultimate state itself which can be called by different names such as: Nirvana, ultimate enlightenment, the absolute
truth, nonself, voidness, the end of all suffering, Pra Arahanship and the path reaching the state of the ultimate
is about vipassana-bhavana, innocent perception, immediate present, natural
morality and so on. It is as if we build a pyramid, near the top, there are less and less bricks we have to
handle. There is only one sole brick on the top but it connects with every
single one down below.
However, one of the
qualities or characteristics of the ultimate state is also known as being beyond the existence of time. I do
not want to go into much detail since it can sound like a matter of wording
which is true in a way. Since the state of the absolute is the point where
absolutely everything begins and ends, therefore whatever we talk about can
always lead to that ultimate end. Without thoughts, the sense of time ends
too. The state of the actual
present which still implies the sense of time has to be used so that it can be
compared to past and future which is the conventional way of talking and
explaining time. We can only sense time as past, present and future. As a
matter of fact, there is no sense of time as present in the state of the
immediate present either. The
state of just being or is-ness is beyond the limitations of time and space.
That's why it can be claimed as the ultimate liberation of life. Learners who
adopt the practice of innocent perception can clearly understand the meaning of
this timeless moment.
This can also explain why young children can say: But mummy, today
is tomorrow. Young children have no sense of time. Their lives are engulfed
with their immediate present because their natural instinct of innocent
perception is still intact or in good working order. Their minds are not
complex because there are not many thoughts. That's why they can truly enjoy
life much more than adults whose minds are inundated with mind's chatter.
Consequently, as for young children, their tomorrow does arrive whilst for us,
adults, our tomorrow will never arrive. This psychological time will follow us
like our own shadow.
As long as we cannot understand the state of the immediate present, we
will always chase after tomorrow which may contain some excitement in it. They real problem is not time which
causes everything to become old too quickly and causes us unbearable boredom. The real boredom is
in fact our repeated thoughts which do not want to back down. It is indeed the
repetition of thoughts which keeps on remind us about our problems, worries,
pain, and so on, is the true bordom. Our real problem is that we do not know
how to balance our mind in the state of the actual present where there is no
thought and learn how to be. Only when we can do so, can we begin to find the
real magic of life and of living. We'll soon learn how to come out from our
living dream which is made up
of past, future and
boredom. The magic of life
is not the excitement nor the thrill of chasing after some cheap exciting
action but it is the contrasting feeling of contentment rather.
If we look carefully, when we want or desperately desire something, we shut ourselves away from everything else we have. It
makes us lose everything we already have. The feeling of pulling a piece of
string hoping to find something special on the other end is such a desperate
feeling, isn't it ? It isn't a nice feeling at all. And this is exactly how we
are when our lives thrive on finding
new excitement. The sad truth is that this piece of string can go on
forever until we die and yet, we cannot find anything special at all. In this
respect, people who chase after tomorrow are mentally and spiritually poor
because they can never have everything, even though they already have them. The
rich people are the ones who are content in what they are and have. The real magic of our life is hidden
in contentment because we can have
everything even though we don't own them. When people are content with
themselves, they indeed have the whole universe in them. This can, nevertheless, be a shocking
thought to a lot of people. What
will life be like if we stop chasing after excitment and be content with
what we are ? We do not realise that
the way we highly value our newness and excitement is merely a living dream which is
created by our own thoughts. Thoughts are merely illusions or reflections which
are like bubbles or hologram and they will pop or disappear sooner or later. If we look carefully, people who mentally
survive are those who have contentment in everything. People who live close to
natural environments do not suffer from mental turmoil because they are
content. At times, we like to use our urban concepts and our standard of living
to judge those who live simply in the wild like tribal people or nomads that
they do not have civilisation. This all depends on how we are going to define
the word civilisation. If we judge
from the rate of people who suferring from stress and different levels of
mental turmoil, it might turn out that we have much less civilisation than
those who live in the wild. Because those people do not have stress or mental turmoil. Some tribes don't
even have such a word like suicide. The Buddha said that
humanity would find it very difficult to survive without his ultimate wisdom.
As a matter of fact, part of the ultimate wisdom is the feeling of contentment
which has been acknowledged by
those who live close to the natural environment without having to know the teaching of the Buddha. And this has been the main reason for
their mental survival. This is what the Buddha tries to tell us. The path which
leads to the real kind of happiness is already within us but we don't know how
it comes about. We subsequently search for something else which we think is more meaningful
and of course exciting as well. The state of ultimate enlightenment, the state of is-ness, the end of
suffering or eternal life is not at all exciting as we would like to think and imagine. It is indeed the
state of the utmost simplicity and ordinariness. And it is this very normal way
of life which allows some people
to truly survive. It is we, who live in the concrete jungle, who face the real
dilemma as far as mental survival is concerned.
The true meaning of life is not
the matter of whether tomorrow
will ever arrive but is about learning how to be which is also about how to live beyond the sense of time
altogether. In the end, vipassana-bhavana is the only key practice which enable
us to Be. All these words might not make any sense at all to some people. The true understanding
can only happen when people begin to practise their mental skill, comprehend
the innocent perception and
maintain the state of
is-ness. Again, this is all I focus on in my Tai chi class.