dharmatalks

There is a Hindu proverb, which says that pleasure is the mere shadow of happiness. Many times, for those who are sincerely seeking a place on the spiritual path, including many respected and wise teachers, this is interpreted to mean that by forsaking pleasure, one can eliminate those things which distract us from true happiness itself.

That is surely an approach that has worked for millions of traditional Buddhist monastics, for some 3,000 years. My teacher often said, quoting one of the sutras, “Pleasure is the happiness of madmen, while happiness is the pleasure of sages.” I think that when we truly contemplate the layers of deep wisdom in that passage, we can discover a more liberating “middle way”, which I personally find more consistent with the spirit of the Dharma.

Reading an interesting commentary on another blog, in which the Surangama Sutra’s Four Unalterable Truths were quoted:

1) One cannot become a Buddha until there is an complete end to and no more acts, thoughts, and desires of killing.
2) One cannot become a Buddha until there is an complete end to and no more acts, thoughts, and desires of stealing.
3) One cannot become a Buddha until there is an complete end to and no more acts, thoughts, and desires of lying.
4) One cannot become a Buddha until there is an complete end to and no more acts, thoughts, and desires of lust and sex,

caused one of my students to become concerned. They recognised that many have used this passage to discredit genuine Dharma teachers, and to reinforce their own attachments to this teacher or that one. They asked me if I could comment on it.

My response to their email was the following:

“Although I am called a lama, I cannot give a fully enlightened response, my brother, because in the end, I am nothing more than a simple monk. I am not a Buddha.

“It occurs to me, however, that nothing the Buddha says is ever said without deliberate choice of words. Just as the Anointed One said that what some refer to as ‘God’ is Love, so too did the Buddha very specifically say ‘until there is a complete end to, and no more acts, thoughts or desires of…’

“In other words, Enlightenment is only attained when one’s perception moves beyond that of the ordinary and phenomenal and into the truth of the numenal world.

“He did not say ‘One cannot become a Buddha until (s)he no longer acts on, thinks about or desires (killing, stealing, lying, or inappropriate sexual behaviour).’ He said until those things no longer exist, one cannot be a Buddha.

“Those things are all phenomena… distractions… illusions. They never have existed, and they never will exist, outside the cloud of sensations of the phenomenal world — Maya.

“No one is qualified to tell you who your teacher is… not even your previous teachers. The Mind of Enlightenment knows when it is in the right place. And when it is no longer there, it moves onward on the journey, without judgment, without prejudice, and filled with gratitude.”

In the Kalama Sutra, the historical Buddha teaches a primitive tribe of people in the following way (my commentary is included in brackets):

“Do not believe something just because it has been passed along and retold for many generations.

[Understand the cultural context of teachings and traditions. The Buddha always adapted his teaching to the particular audience before him. The Vinaya rules were developed to address the expedient formation of a particular people, in a particular culture, at a particular time. It is folly to presume, as fundamentalists do, that there is no other way to live as a genuine contemplative, and achieve enlightenment.]

“Do not believe something merely because it has become a traditional practice.