Buddhism:

The Heart of the Matter

David Bradley
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Buddhism: The Heart of the Matter

Author: David Bradley
First edition: January 2024
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25059785

About the Author

David Bradley studied Philosophy at the Universities of London (1972-5) and
Cambridge (1975-9). He was a student of the Venerable Myokyo-ni (posthumous title:
Daiyu Myokyo) from 1981 to her death in 2007.

Previous works
Buddhism: Teachings and Practice https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13443500
Buddhism: A Mahayana Perspective https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13443092

Dedication
This book is dedicated in deepest gratitude to the late Ven. Myokyo-ni, Daiyu Myokyo.
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Table of Contents
Buddhism: The Heart of the Matter........................................................................... 2
About the Author ................................................................................................... 2
Previous works ...................................................................................................... 2
Dedication.............................................................................................................. 2
Table of Contents .................................................................................................. 3
Preface ................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 5
Finding our Spiritual Path ................................................................................. 5
Means and Ends................................................................................................. 6
The Heart ........................................................................................................... 7
The Buddha ....................................................................................................... 8
Suffering .............................................................................................................. 10
The Cause of Suffering........................................................................................ 11
The Three Fires................................................................................................ 11
Adherence ........................................................................................................ 12
The Sticky Self ................................................................................................ 14
Ignorance ......................................................................................................... 15
The Path to the End of Suffering ......................................................................... 17
Faith ................................................................................................................. 17
The First Step .................................................................................................. 19
Motivation ....................................................................................................... 20
Repentance ...................................................................................................... 21
The Middle Way .............................................................................................. 22
The Noble Eightfold Path ................................................................................ 22
Right View................................................................................................... 22
Conceptual Understanding ...................................................................... 23
Experiential Knowledge .......................................................................... 29
Right Thought / Intention ............................................................................ 32
Right Action ................................................................................................ 33
Right Speech................................................................................................ 36
Right Livelihood.......................................................................................... 37
Right Effort.................................................................................................. 38
Right Mindfulness ....................................................................................... 40
Right Concentration..................................................................................... 40
The End of Suffering ........................................................................................... 46
The Perfection of Virtue .................................................................................. 46
Beyond Idealization ......................................................................................... 47
Collectedness ................................................................................................... 49
Wholeheartedness ............................................................................................ 50
The Bodhisattva Spirit ..................................................................................... 51
Works Cited ......................................................................................................... 53
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Preface
The conceptual framework underlying what follows is Buddhist in form,
specifically it belongs within the Zen tradition. But the Zen Way, properly understood,
is not dogmatic. Essentially it is a matter of learning how to live life to the full, with
unshakeable peace of heart, whatever the circumstances. This is worth cultivating for
this present life in all its phases, and for any other life in any other form or realm which
we might come to experience in the future.
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Introduction
Finding our Spiritual Path
The heart of the matter is that Buddhism, like all serious religion, is essentially a
matter of the heart, where ‘heart’ should be understood in the broadest sense, including
the emotions and all those aspects of thought, speech and deed which are conditioned by
the emotions.
What moves us to take up a spiritual practice such as the Buddhist Path? Clearly we
would not consider making the required sacrifice of time and effort if we were perfectly
content with ourselves and the world around us. Our hearts are not at peace and the
resulting restlessness is a form of suffering. And since suffering is, by definition, not
our optimal state, it is only natural that we should seek liberation from it.
But if we follow a course of treatment based on a misdiagnosis of a disorder, our
suffering will continue and may even be worsened by the very treatment which was
supposed to relieve it. So the first step must be to improve our understanding of the
nature and causes of our suffering. Then we will be able to see whether it is inescapable,
or whether liberation from it is possible. If we decide that it is possible, then with hope
in our hearts we can begin to investigate by what means it may be achieved. But for that
we need a reliable guide to show us the way, and hopefully some good companions for
the journey, for, unfortunately, no spiritual path worth following is either short or easy.
Religion is a practical matter. Practical knowledge is that which we gain from our
own experience. It includes the use of reason but goes beyond it. Following a spiritual
path we evolve in the way we live our lives. It is not a question of simply giving our
intellectual assent to some dogma or other. So the fact that the realization of the highest
religious ideal is something we can live but not describe adequately should not concern
us unduly because the same can be said for the realization of the highest levels of
performance in music, art, athletics, chess, or anything else. And, as in any other field,
the highest levels are reached through long, dedicated practice. Of course, there is never
a shortage of people trying to sell us the idea that there are secrets, techniques,
shortcuts, tricks, hacks, or whatever, which can shorten the path. But these should all be
totally disregarded as being either deluded or deceitful. Even the earliest Buddhist sutras
warn against falling prey to them.
Asking how long it will take to achieve liberation from suffering is like asking how
long it will take to walk to London. Where are we starting from? What shape are we in?
Do we have a reliable guide and map? Are we well-equipped for the route and the
conditions? How much excess baggage are we carrying? Will we be travelling in good
company? Impatience is itself an obstacle. But what does it matter how long it will take,
if the journey is worthwhile? The point about the spiritual path is that it is its own
reward insofar as every step we take is a step away from suffering.
But where to start? Pablo Picasso said, “I do not seek, I find”. Unfortunately, for
most of us the sad truth is that we do not find what we need until we have wasted a lot
of time and effort seeking something which matches the preconceived ideals we have
concocted.
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There is a Japanese term ‘innen’ which refers to the multiple causes and conditions
which bring about a certain occurrence. In the Zen school it can be used to refer to the
factors which bring a student into contact with the teacher and the teachings. The point
is that these factors are way beyond the control of any individual. We usually only
become aware of them in retrospect after they have triumphed over the obstacles
generated by our own interfering efforts at picking and choosing according to whatever
happens to take our fancy at any given moment.
When we finally have the good fortune to come into contact with the spiritual path
and a teacher which fit our needs, the heart responds. But since the path and the teacher
may not tick all the boxes on the list of our expectations, we may be tempted to ignore
this response of the heart. This will only lead to more confusion and suffering until we
are finally able to put our preconceptions and prejudices to one side and pay attention.
So finding the right spiritual path is not an exercise in comparative religion with the
aim of deciding which set of beliefs we find credible enough to give our assent to. And
not because all religions have elements which lie beyond the realm of intellectual
speculation, but rather because the discovery is not the conclusion of a rational
argument: it is something felt and recognized as somehow familiar, although we might
not be able to put it into words.
However, simply coming into contact with the teachings and a teacher is not
enough. We ourselves have to be at a stage in our development where we are capable of
responding fruitfully. Sometimes it is like when we buy a book on impulse, only to
consign it to the bookshelf after a few pages declaring it to be unreadable. Then,
perhaps years later, something leads us to pick it up again and, to our surprise, we find it
absolutely compelling. Something has changed, and it is not the book!
The fact that some will respond to the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim teachings,
while others will feel more at home in the Hindu, Buddhist, or some other tradition,
does not mean either that anyone is on a ‘false’ path. But that is not to say that the
elements which differentiate one path from another are somehow dispensable or
optional, as if we were loading our plate at a spiritual buffet libre.
The all-too-human failings of some representatives of any given organized religion
do not invalidate the helpfulness of its dogmas, rituals and practices which combine to
form a carefully balanced and nutritious diet for the followers of that tradition. Any
attempt at picking and choosing elements from different traditions to concoct a diet to
our own liking is most likely to give us serious indigestion, if not something much
worse. A sick person with a raging fever and no medical experience is in no condition to
evaluate his or her condition and decide on the best course of treatment.
It is sometimes suggested that Buddhism is special in that the emphasis from the
start is on direct experience as the basis for judgement, rather than blind faith. But
regardless of how it is dressed up, be it in the robes of a Zen monk, a Sufi, a Trappist or
a Yogi, the genuine spiritual path is always all about direct experience.

Means and Ends

Consider two sets of climbers who propose to ascend a mountain from different
directions. One chooses a route which is a sun-kissed vertical precipice. The other
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chooses a steep incline which is covered in snow and ice because the sun never touches
it. Each route requires a different set of equipment and skills. Many of the obstacles and
difficulties of ascending, and therefore much of the equipment required, will be
particular to a specific route. On the other hand, there will be aspects of the ascent
which both teams share. For example, the difficulty of breathing at 3000ft is the same
whichever route we choose. And strength and determination are basic requirements for
everybody. And once they reach the summit, they can all lay down their equipment in
gratitude and share the same elation, and the same view.
But the fact that no particular set of equipment or skills is needed to reach the
summit does not mean that the summit can be reached without any equipment or skills
at all, or with a hotchpotch of equipment and skills which we have chosen simply
because we find them attractive. For example, each traditional spiritual path develops
and explains techniques of meditation which are helpful for its followers. It is a mistake
to suppose that a certain meditation technique, or other form of practice, of proven
efficacy for the followers of a given tradition will be helpful when applied without the
requisite supports the home tradition offers.
So serious seekers would be best advised to simply commit themselves to
whichever path evokes the strongest response in their hearts and then dedicate
themselves to acquiring the appropriate equipment and skills for their chosen path
without worrying about the equipment and skills used by those who find other paths
more congenial.
However, that the seekers of different times were seeking the same end does not
imply that the conceptual framework and practices which were useful for those of a
particular culture, at a particular point in their development, are going to be equally
useful for the people of another time and culture. The teachings and practices of any
living tradition must evolve and be adapted in order to meet the needs of followers born
into new times and different cultures from those lived by their founders. During such a
process, inappropriate cultural accretions, and dogmas based on the mistaken
speculations of past philosophers, are discarded. However, we must take care not to
throw out the baby with the bathwater: the living spirit must be preserved.

The Heart
The opponents of religion often deride popular religious beliefs as being childlike
and urge us to claim our autonomy from them as adults. This is a reasonable aspiration,
although their derision shows a lack of compassion for those who still need the support
and comfort of such beliefs. Moreover, they fail to realize that this is a quite natural step
for a maturing religious consciousness. It is but an intermediate step towards the joy of
that child-like, but not childish, innocence of heart which comes with true maturity in
religious practice.
Since our discussion will be concerned with the heart, let us begin by considering
the condition of a certain lady who keeps all her beloved valuables in a locked chest.
Over time she has accumulated quite a few, but each time she walks past a jeweller’s
she is captivated by the sight of another piece which would finally ‘complete’ her
collection. Yet, however many she collects, she is never quite satisfied. Furthermore,
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she is always haunted by the fear that someone might gain access to the chest and steal
all that she treasures.
One day her young daughter goes off to the park with her lunch box. After eating
her sandwiches she settles down for a rest, leaving the box open on the grass. Soon
enough a line of ants forms to carry away the crumbs left in the bottom of the box, and
she happily admires how efficiently they clean it. Then a light shower half fills the box
with water. Watching from beneath a nearby tree, she sees a thirsty dog come along and
encourages him to drink from the box. The sun soon dries the rest, and before long a
little kitten turns up, plays with her for a while and then settles down inside the box for
a nap. When it wakes up and runs off, she waves it goodbye and is delighted to see a
beautiful bird come and collect the kitten’s fur for her nest. Finally, she fills the box
with rose petals to take home for her mother.
Here we have a contrast between two perspectives. The lady’s heart is closed in
defence of her locked chest. Her love and concern are focussed upon the treasures
within it, to which she clings fearfully. Her daughter’s heart is as open as her lunch box.
She delights in the things which enter it but has no thought of clinging to them. Her love
is infinite, not because her box is much bigger than her mother’s but rather because it is
unbounded, open to all.
The Buddha’s concern was to show the way out of the suffering arising from the
perspective of the closed heart. In the teaching of the Four Noble Truths he declared the
fact of that suffering; its cause; its end; and the way to that end. We engage in the
practice of Buddhism in order to optimize the conditions for the opening of the heart.

The Buddha
It is said that there is a particular path to recovery from the sickness of heart from
which we suffer which, though ancient, often falls into disuse and is forgotten. He who
rediscovers this path is called a Buddha. So the appearance of a Buddha in the world is
an epochal event. In the course of rediscovering this ancient path a Buddha heals
himself. He then sets out to point the way to health for others to follow.
The Buddha of our epoch was born as the prince Siddhartha. At the age of 29, he
was the epitome of the person who possesses everything the world has to offer. He was
young, well-endowed physically and mentally, well-educated, rich, and powerful, the
designated heir to his father’s kingdom. He had loving parents, and a beautiful young
wife who had just borne him a healthy young son. But those who have most, have the
most to lose.
Thanks to the efforts of his father, the prince had been living in a gilded cage. But
when circumstances finally obliged him to face up to the inevitability of old age,
sickness, and death, he could no longer find any peace. Then the sight of an ascetic
sitting serenely by the roadside impressed him deeply, giving him hope that he might
find a cure for his restlessness. So, with a heavy heart, he abandoned wife, family, and
all he possessed, to begin his search.
At the age of 35, after six years of intense investigation, first with the two best
teachers of meditation of his time, later with a group of extreme ascetics, and then
alone, he finally attained the unshakeable peace of heart he had been seeking. And more
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than that, he gained profound insight into the means by which such peace of heart may
be attained, by all manner of beings, under all manner of circumstances. It is this
knowledge which sets him apart as the supreme healer.
He did not claim to have discovered anything new, only to have rediscovered an
ancient path. And he then dedicated the remaining 45 years of his life to showing the
way to everyone willing and able to listen. He always adapted his method of exposition
to the needs of his audience, but the principal formula used, acknowledged by all
schools of Buddhism, is that of the Four Noble Truths concerning suffering.
But why, we might ask, should prince Siddhartha have been so uneasy in the face
of impermanence? Why couldn’t he just count his blessings, enjoy life to the full, and
die content at the thought of a life well-lived? And, of course, we would be well-advised
to ask the same question of ourselves.
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Suffering
We are human beings, so, naturally, we have our preferences: some like tea, others
prefer coffee; some like jazz, others classical; some like the summer, others prefer
winter; almost everyone prefers to be healthy and to be loved. But, since we live in a
world of change, we need to come to terms with the fact that our ability to influence the
course of events, given that they are the product of innumerable conditioning factors, is
minimal.
We’d like to sleep in for another hour but have to get up and go to work. We want a
hot shower, but the water heater is playing up again. We want the heater fixed today,
but the plumber can’t come until next week. We’d love a piece of toast for breakfast,
but our partner or the kids have finished off the butter. We want a night out but have
come down with the ‘flu. And if, in addition to the minor inconveniences of daily life,
we take into consideration the possibility of having to live through war, plagues,
famine, drought, earthquakes and the like, it becomes clear that a certain amount of
unpleasantness is unavoidable in this life.
But if we react to circumstances we find unpleasant or painful with resentment,
irritation and aggression, or depression and withdrawal, considering ourselves to be the
undeserving victims of fate, malice, or injustice, and making ourselves and everyone
around us miserable with our groans and lamentations, then we are adding a different
kind of suffering to that which is inherent in the situation.
The Buddha’s teachings point the way to liberation from this additional suffering
which is the inevitable consequence of a certain way of seeing ourselves in relation to
others and the world we inhabit.
In the Buddhist pantheon it is the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara who hears the cries
for help of all sentient beings and is the embodiment of the spirit of compassion of all
the Buddhas. It is hard enough to witness the suffering of someone close to us, so it is
almost impossible for us to imagine what it would be like to emulate Avalokiteśvara
without being overwhelmed with grief.
At the beginning of her twelve years’ training at Daitokuji monastery in Japan,
Irmgard Schloegl, on reading that a Zen master could play around freely in the deepest
hell, became indignant at the apparent lack of compassion. But her teacher pointed out
that if the master were to be overwhelmed by the suffering he encountered in hell, he
would simply become another inhabitant, and so be rendered incapable of helping
anybody else.
So in the process of liberating ourselves from our own self-imposed suffering, the
Buddha’s way also enables us to cultivate the strength, wisdom, and compassion to be
able to help others towards their own liberation.
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The Cause of Suffering

The Three Fires
We are walking along the High Street one day and are stopped in our tracks by the
sight of a delicious chocolate cake in a shop window. Our mouth begins to water, and
we find ourselves stepping towards the door, when we suddenly pause, remembering
our recent resolve to lose weight and the doctor’s stern warning about our blood sugar
level. Now it could go either way, depending on the person and the circumstances. Are
we having a good day and feeling strong and positive about ourselves? Or are we
feeling depressed and in need of something to cheer us up? The point is that, in spite of
reasoned opinion advising restraint, we might very well find ourselves driven into the
shop and consuming the cake. Of course we might try to invent all sorts of justifications
for our action, but if we are really honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we acted
under the influence of a force much stronger than any puny resolve based on reason. But
this reflection is rather unsettling. For we like to think of ourselves as being the rulers of
our own house, and the realization that we share it with something which can push us
around is unwelcome, to say the least.
But what is this force? It is inflamed desire, generally referred to in the classic
Buddhist texts, the Nikayas, as craving. “Ah!”, we say, relieved. “If it is desire, then it is
my desire, so I am in charge after all.” But if we really think that, we are deluded. It is
as if a Japanese emperor in the times of the Tokugawa shogunate, the military
dictatorship which ruled Japan for over 250 years while keeping on the emperor as a
puppet, were to claim that the army was his. Certainly, it was his inasmuch as it did not
belong to the emperor of China, but it was not his to command.
It is one thing to identify with inflamed desire to the extent that we admit both to
ourselves and others that it exists in us, but quite another to assume that it is subject to
our will. This type of appropriation is due to either ignorance or wilful self-deception.
For the fact is that, unless well-advanced in the practice, we are probably driven by
desire and comforting ourselves by thinking that we are in control. And though desire
often drives us to do things against our better judgement, we prefer to confess to
inconsistency as its master, rather than to impotence as its slave.
In the normal sense of the word ‘free’, we consider our actions to be freely willed
in the absence of external coercion. But to be truly free, they should also be free from
the inner coercion of inflamed desire. The freedom the selfish man prizes, to be able to
do as he pleases without any consideration for others, is the freedom to hit the rocks of
the man who has fallen off a cliff. The selfish man is powerless to resist being driven by
the impassioned urge of the moment towards gratification, just as the falling man is
powerless to resist being pulled by gravity towards the rocks. They can only feel free in
what they are doing insofar as they identify with the forces which compel them. It is not
them, but the forces they identify with, which are ‘free’, and then only in the sense that
circumstances happen to permit them to act without impediment.
True freedom of the will does not mean the freedom to chase after whatever
happens to be desired most in each situation. It consists rather in the freedom to be able
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to choose whether to chase after it, or not, however strong the desire. In other words, it
refers to freedom both from external coercion and from being driven by the passions.
The root of the suffering the Buddha was concerned to alleviate is our ignorance
concerning ourselves as manifested in our tendency to appropriate and over-identify
with desire. When, and to the extent that, there is appropriation of desire, the will
becomes wilful; frustration becomes intolerable and is met with resentment, irritation,
anger and aggression, or depression, despair, and withdrawal; and our natural likes and
dislikes are inflamed into the passions of lust and hate. In the Buddhist teachings,
ignorance, and the two faces of inflamed desire to which it gives rise, lust, and hatred,
are referred to as the Three Fires.

Adherence
In one of the classic texts the Buddha explains that the key to liberation from
‘craving’, inflamed desire, is the realization that “nothing is worth adhering to” 1. If we
understand this to mean that the problem lies in the properties of the things we adhere
to, then we might become embroiled in disputes about the nature of the failings of those
things. For example, some might argue that we suffer because the things we adhere to
are impermanent; others that it is because they are empty, or unreal, or illusory, and so
on.
The practice of focussing on undesirable aspects, however conceived, of something
we crave, in order to provoke disenchantment with it, has a long history, and not only in
religious circles. Many a spurned lover has been heard to declare his or her amazement
that they could possibly have been obsessed with such a despicable person as the one
who has just abandoned them. Unfortunately, no sooner have they declared their
independence than they are to be seen casting around for a new candidate to occupy the
recently vacated pedestal. The point being that disenchantment with specific objects of
desire is no guarantee that the underlying tendency to become enchanted has been
eliminated. The root source of our suffering is to be found not in the nature of the things
we adhere to, but rather in the underlying tendency to adhere to anything at all, be it
permanent or impermanent, empty or not, real or not.
Adherence here is not mere clinging. There is nothing problematic about clinging in
itself. It is perfectly natural that a man who has fallen over a cliff should cling to a ledge
to avoid falling to his death. Adherence is the wilful clinging which makes it difficult to
let go with good grace when the situation demands it. The difficulty in letting go arises
from over-identification with desire. We over-identify with a given desire to the extent
that we take the fullness of our sense of who we are to depend upon the satisfaction the
desire in question.
A certain lady was very fond of cats. Unfortunately, she had a tendency to become
over-attached to each cat she owned. She couldn’t keep her cat locked in all day because
she lived in a small flat, but when it was out and about she would be consumed with
fear for its safety. Some would die in accidents; others would grow old and sick before

1 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 37 Cūḷataṇhāsankhaya Sutta
The Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving: 3.
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passing away. And when they died, she would suffer terribly. After many years,
following the demise of her latest beloved companion, she firmly declared that she
would have no more cats. Her reason was that she could no longer bear the thought of
losing another. And so she passed her final years alone.
This lady craved, to the point of lusting after, the pleasure of the company of her
cat, and wilfully clung to it. But with wilful clinging comes the suffering associated
with the fear of loss. She hated the unpleasantness of the feeling of grief so much that
she eventually sought refuge in the ‘peace’ of feeling neither the pleasure of a cat´s
company, nor the pain of its loss. But this too was a state of suffering, because she had
turned her back on life, anaesthetising herself. To love and to lose, and then to have the
courage to pick ourselves up and love again: that is to live life to the full. Even in her
final years of solitude she could not have been at peace because she would have been
haunted by the fear of being seduced once more into an emotional attachment.
This type of reaction, said the Buddha, is rooted in ignorance because it arises from
supposing that there is no escape from the suffering provoked by our hatred of painful
feelings other than by wilful avoidance of them through either the lustful pursuit of
pleasant feelings, or clinging to the supposed safe refuge of feeling neither pleasure nor
pain, a state which, like all others, is inherently impermanent. 2
So what is to be done? Wilful clinging to anything, however refined, even if it be
the equanimity achieved at the four highest levels of the type of meditation employed
by the Buddha himself, is to be abandoned. But how? Through the cultivation of
dissociation, or ‘non-identification’.3
Focussing on disagreeable aspects of specific things we desire may well help us
towards dissociating from them and hence reduce our wilful clinging to them. But such
practices do not address the underlying tendency to wilful clinging in general which is
rooted in our over-identification with desire itself. So the key to complete liberation
from suffering is the cultivation of dissociation from desire itself.
The detachment which is the fruit of dissociation from desire gives us the freedom
to either contain and suffer through craving, or to act in order to relieve it, in accordance
with our best judgement.
Pleasure and pain are reduced to passing phenomena which no longer entrap us into
wilful clinging to, or rejection of, whatever gives rise to them.
whatever feeling he feels, whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-
pleasant, he abides contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating
fading away, contemplating cessation, contemplating relinquishment.
Contemplating thus, he does not cling to anything in the world. When he does not
cling, he is not agitated. When he is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbāna.
The Buddha 4

2 Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, IV 36 Vedanāsaṃyutta, 6.

3 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 137 Saḷāyatanavibhanga Sutta
The Exposition of the Sixfold Base: 20.
4 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, 37 The Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving: 3.
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The Sticky Self

Some like cycling, others would rather walk. It is perfectly natural to prefer
whatever gives us greater pleasure. A preference for something may grow into an
attachment: no harm in that. And our attachments vary in strength according to the
feelings they generate in us. We all have a range of emotional attachments to all sorts of
things: people, collectives, places, possessions, status, power, habits, routines, opinions,
tastes, and so on. And we tend to identify ourselves in terms of these attachments,
which also is harmless enough.
For example, it is natural and healthy that a young woman should be delighted with
her new role as a loving and protective mother. And it is all to the good that she should
identify with that role in the sense of experiencing the appropriate feelings and willingly
assuming the responsibilities it entails.
But if, over the years, she comes to feel that her child’s dependence on her is what
gives meaning to her life and defines who she is, then she will be unwilling to grant the
growing child the freedom it requires for maturing. She clings to the maternal role,
unwilling to let go. She cannot find a perspective from which she can stand back from
her desire for it and evaluate it, and so is enslaved by it.
When there is wilful clinging to our attachments, they become sticky, difficult to
renounce. Identifying ourselves in terms of these sticky attachments generates the sense
of a self around which the heart closes defensively, isolating and putting us at odds with
others and the world in general. This attitude makes us feel vulnerable and isolated,
depriving us of the sense of communion which brings fulfilment. So the sense of self
based on sticky attachments is inherently harmful.
This sticky sense of self is not constructed solely on the basis of our great
attachments such as family relationships, social status and the like. We insist, to varying
degrees, on having things to our liking regarding a vast multitude of tiny factors in our
lives. And at the beginning of the training, it comes as an unpleasant surprise to
discover not only the frequency with which we wilfully insist on getting our own way,
but worse, the absolute pettiness of much of it.
It is one thing to have a natural preference for tea over coffee, and even to have
moments when we absolutely crave a cup of tea. But it is quite another to feel ourselves
to be personally offended, slighted, belittled, an enraged or depressed victim of
malevolence, if that cup of tea is not immediately forthcoming. We might be tempted to
dismiss this example as too trivial to be relevant. But there we would be mistaken. For it
is precisely our tendency to dismiss as insignificant the multitude of tiny reactions like
this which we have in everyday life which blinds us to how deeply rooted this attitude
is. Of course, we often feel obliged by circumstance to conceal from others, or by shame
to conceal from ourselves, our discontent when our craving is left unsatisfied, but the
signs are always there: the little tut, the sigh of irritation, the brusque gesture, the
strained tone, the simmering resentment, the angry protest, the blow, the unhappy
brooding, the thirst for vengeance, the withdrawal, the depression, and so on.
There is no point denying the existence of this sense of self we have fabricated out
of our sticky attachments. While it lasts, it is real enough to cause our suffering. If
 15

someone feels that their status in society, or anything else, is essential to their sense of
fulfilment, then they will behave and suffer accordingly. Refusal to acknowledge it is
mere hypocrisy.
The Buddha’s doctrine of anatman, no-I, does not deny the existence of the sticky
self as a psychological phenomenon. What it does say, in effect, is that we are deluded
in supposing that we cannot live without it.

Ignorance
Wilful insistence on having our own way is divisive, distancing us from whoever or
whatever might stand in our way. Our relationship to others, and to circumstance itself,
is basically felt to be a power struggle. When our fundamental commitment is to the
defence of our sticky attachments, then we inevitably feel ourselves to be isolated,
independent beings who are either victor or victim of circumstances according to the
extent to which we can mould them to our personal preferences.
But how we can we possibly hope to control the countless factors which contribute
to the arising of any given situation? In our hearts we know this to be impossible, hence
we are haunted by feelings of vulnerability and insecurity.
And however many victories we score in the struggle to defend our personal
interests, we can’t help feeling that something vital is missing, something which would
bring a sense of completeness. This feeling is sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker,
but it never completely goes away. It is this feeling which gives us no peace and drives
our restless search for fulfilment.
Hence, we are trapped into the wilful pursuit of whatever we have projected our
hopes for fulfilment onto, only to be disappointed time and again. All would be well,
we think, if only we could secure a certain relationship, ambition, possession, state of
health, holiness, or whatever. Consequently, we find ourselves in an endless cycle of
hope and disappointment. This is the deepest sort of suffering.
And why is our search endless? Because the wilful pursuit of something to add to
what we have under the delusion that possessing something more will fill the emptiness
we feel, only feeds the attitude of self-centred possessiveness which is precisely what
deprives us of that sense of connection and communion with others and the world we
inhabit, which is the only thing which will bring us peace of heart and fulfilment.
So our suffering is perpetuated by the fact that our search for fulfilment is
misdirected: in our ignorance, we imagine it can be achieved by adding to, changing, or
clinging to our sticky attachments. Yet it is not that we are unfamiliar with the true
sense of fulfilment. We have all experienced it. For example, we spend a long summer’s
morning hard at work in the garden. Then sitting down and surveying the results we feel
a deep sense of peace and satisfaction, entering into a sort of communion with the
garden which seems to give us its thanks in return. But we mistakenly suppose that our
fulfilment is to be found in the gardening which we love so much, whereas the real
source of our fulfilment is not the activity itself but the attitude with which we
participate in it, best described as wholeheartedness.
It is wholeheartedness which brings fulfilment. But our problem is that we are
usually only wholehearted with respect to what we want. If required to do something
 16

towards which we feel indifference or repulsion, we do our best to put it off or avoid it
altogether. And if obliged, then we do it at best half-heartedly, usually trying to distract
ourselves by any means possible. This, of course, is a thoroughly dissatisfying state of
affairs which leaves us either depressed or irritated.
It is precisely this habit of avoiding or refusing to fully accept and participate in the
side of life which is not to our liking which leaves us haunted by a feeling of emptiness
and unfulfillment. But here we reach a barrier to our understanding. From our habitual
perspective, wholehearted participation in, and acceptance of, circumstances which are
not to our liking is incomprehensible because the measure of how much we are prepared
to voluntarily give ourselves into a situation is precisely the extent to which we suppose
it to be to our liking.
So a change of perspective is required. But it cannot be achieved through a mere
change of opinion because the perspective in question, our way of seeing and relating to
others and the world around us, is conditioned by deeply entrenched habits of thought,
speech and action which can only be uprooted by long and dedicated cultivation of an
alternative. Hence the Path.
 17

The Path to the End of Suffering

Faith
When we somehow hear of the Buddha’s teachings and start informing ourselves
about them, we are already exercising a certain degree of faith by trusting that we are
not wasting our money when we buy a book, or our time when we listen to a talk. It is a
calculated risk. If we find the book or talk worthwhile, our faith is strengthened by the
experience, and so we gain the confidence to invest our time and energy in looking for a
teacher.
When we come into contact with a teacher who presumes to know what he or she is
talking about, the Buddha advises caution. False prophets and gurus are nothing new.
Of course, it can be a bit tricky trying to evaluate a teacher’s behaviour, because we
often arrive with all sorts of silly ideals in our heads which we use to measure ourselves
and others against. So rather than making an intellectual judgement, we should consult
our heart. How does it respond to this teacher? If it is warmed and attracted, despite our
intellectual confusion, that is a good sign. A good teacher may be strict, even
intimidating, when the occasion demands. But if he or she never shows any sign of
warmth and good humour, beware.
When we decide to try and follow the instructions we are given for starting out on
the Path, we are showing a certain degree of faith by trusting that the teacher knows
what he or she is doing and is well-intentioned towards us. And once we begin to settle
into the practice, we begin to notice certain changes which confirm that we are not
wasting our time, and so we begin to gain a little more faith in the Path itself. Faith
plays an important role at all stages of the Path, but at no stage is it in any sense ‘blind’.
Suppose we have started on the practice and have followed the teacher’s
recommendation to set ourselves a time to meditate each evening, but tonight we are
tired and there is a good film on television. We are tempted to make an excuse and take
the night off. On the other hand, something in our heart asks us to make the effort to
respect our timetable even though the alternative attracts us. This is actually a very
interesting situation which is worth pondering well. In the early stages of the practice,
after the initial enthusiasm has worn off, we find ourselves ignoring that little voice
more often than we like to admit. Of course, we feel guilty and inadequate afterwards
and resolve to be stronger in the future. But somehow, we fail, time and again, which, of
course, is discouraging. We have not yet acquired the trust, gained through experience,
which gives us the strength to overcome the desire for the immediate satisfaction with
which we are so familiar. This trust cannot be gained in a day. It is not simply a matter
of giving our intellectual assent. We need to suffer through the emotional reaction
which comes from the frustration of our desire for immediate satisfaction and feel the
resulting increase in our confidence in the Way and our ability to walk it.
This trust must be built up little by little, beginning with resisting the tiniest of
temptations to say ‘No’ which occur throughout the day. Usually we are convinced that
such occasions, if they exist at all, are very few in number – certainly not enough to
give us sufficient practice. Then we come in for a surprise when asked to explicitly
 18

mark each such occasion in some way in order to cultivate our mindfulness concerning
them.
The alarm goes off in the morning. Do we respond immediately and wholeheartedly
by getting up straight away? Or do we turn the alarm off with a sigh, yawn, stretch and
then force ourselves up? We have a quick breakfast because we feel in a hurry. Washing
the dishes would take about two minutes. Do we do it, or do we rush out with the
excuse that we have no time? And on, and on, we go through the day.
Our attempts to minimize the importance of the matter in hand is the oldest trick in
the book of self-deception, as we soon discover if we ignore the temptation to have our
own way and just do whatever the situation requires. For there will be some sort of
emotional reaction. It may only be given expression by a little grunt, or deliberate
carelessness in the handling of something. But it will be there, and hence the importance
of sincerity in the practice. For we need the honesty to acknowledge that we are not
quite as well-behaved as we would like to imagine. The insight thus acquired into our
own emotional household, and our habitual insistence upon getting our own way, is the
seed of the wisdom to be cultivated.
When our desires conflict, although on a given occasion we might follow one or the
other, we come to discover that in our hearts that there is a hierarchy. For example, we
might want another drink because we know it will be a pleasant experience. On the
other hand, we have to drive home and don’t want to cause an accident. Whether we
actually take that extra drink or not on this occasion might depend on many factors, but
in the cold light of day we may acknowledge that our desire to avoid an accident which
might hurt others should take precedence over short-term gratification. When that
consideration decides our behaviour on the night and we willingly suffer through the
resulting frustration, we eventually calm down and experience a satisfaction which is
deeper than whatever pleasure the extra drink would have given us, however strong our
craving for a drink had been. In fact the stronger our craving had been, the deeper our
satisfaction at having chosen wisely. It is faith and trust in this outcome resulting from
the abandonment of inflamed craving and consequent renunciation of wilful grasping
and clinging which we cultivate in the practice. It is always faith grounded in, and
confirmed and strengthened by, experience. The deeper satisfaction of being in accord
with what the wider perspective of the open heart asks of us brings a peace which the
mere satisfaction of self-centred desires can never match.
The hierarchy of desire does not concern the relative brute strength of conflicting
desires at a given moment, but rather their relative depth when considered in the light of
clear seeing. The point is that this hierarchy exists in the heart whether we are conscious
of it or not: if we are not, then it is precisely our ignorance of it which perpetuates our
suffering; if we are, then it is our ignoring it in our wilfulness which is the problem.
Our deepest desire is to be in harmony with the perspective of the open heart. And
when we finally gain some real experiential insight into our own nature, we awaken our
faith in the possibility of living life from that perspective in which the wilful pursuit of
self-interest plays no part.
 19

The First Step

Imagine going twice a week to the gym in order to build up our leg muscles in
preparation to do the 800km pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. We also read and
watch videos about the routes, the necessary equipment, other people’s experiences, and
so on. Does all this make us a pilgrim? Of course not. We become a pilgrim once we
take the first step along our chosen route.
Likewise, going somewhere to meditate twice a week with a group, listening to
talks and reading books about Buddhism, does not make us a follower of the Way. For
that we must take the first step of putting it all into practice from moment to moment
throughout the day.
But how are we going to fit the practice in to our busy lives? No need to worry. The
practice is not another activity to be added to our schedule. It is a matter of changing the
way we do the things we already do, of changing our attitude. Of course, this requires
effort because we are dealing with deeply rooted habits of thought, speech and action
which have been a refuge of sorts for a long time. So it will be neither quick nor easy to
change.
The practice requires no special circumstances, no special place or time, for it
continues from moment to moment regardless. However, this is not to deny that some
conditions are more favourable than others. We are advised to keep good company,
good habits, and so on. But when conditions are unavoidably difficult, we should
simply regard it as grist to the mill which will make us stronger.
When the cultivation of the right attitude is well under way, then the practice takes
on a momentum of its own. No need to force it. After all it is flowing from the yearning
of our own heart and must ripen in its own time. It is a natural process over which we
have no more conscious control than we have over our digestive system. Which is not to
say that we cannot cause problems by acting against our own best interests. On the other
hand it requires the cultivation of certain skills, such as mindfulness and concentration,
which can only be developed through dedicated and constant practice.
The practice consists in cultivating a new perspective on life. Our perspective on
life is the fruit of our experience and is now deeply rooted in our habitual ways of
thinking, speaking, and acting. And we have a lot of emotional capital invested in those
habits, which is something which we might not be too keen on admitting to ourselves.
But our view of life, our way of seeing and treating ourselves, others, and the world we
inhabit is not something immutable. It is conditioned and can therefore be changed.
However, there are obstacles to be overcome, the greatest of which is fear. Any
addict, such as an alcoholic, is trapped in a web of habits of thought, speech, and action
to which he or she clings for fear of the abyss they feel they will fall into if they lose
that support. And this fear is not unfounded, because letting go of that web and allowing
themselves to fall will indeed be experienced as a kind of dying. And the courage to go
through with that will come from the faith and hope that the death of the self as addict
will be followed by the birth of a new self which is liberated from the suffering of
addiction. But drug addiction is only a specific form of a much more general type of
suffering to which we are subject.
 20

So the first step on the spiritual path is to recognize our suffering for what it is and
admit to ourselves that we are trapped in a web of habits of thought, speech and action
which prolong it. However, this is not as easy as we might think. The alcoholic may
grasp the concept of alcoholism perfectly well yet find it difficult to admit that it applies
to him and is the source of all his personal difficulties.
Liberation does not come cheap, and there are no short-cuts. So sustained effort and
great patience are also necessary. In short, it is a serious business, which needs to be
taken seriously, though not over-seriously!

Motivation
We follow the Path by responding wholeheartedly in obedience to the needs of the
present situation, regardless of our personal preferences, giving ourselves into it,
wearing down our wilfulness by eliminating our tendency to over-identify with our
attachments.
But what could motivate us to override our personal preferences? Ideally, as
followers of the Buddhist Path we disregard the wilfulness generated by the sticky sense
of self for love of something greater than that sticky self, namely the perspective of the
open heart which we learn of, gain faith in, and then discover for ourselves as the sticky
attachments which underpin the sticky sense of self are dissolved away.
But this love for something greater is not a self-centred, possessive love. It is
simply an aspect of the universal, unconditional love of the open heart for all. The open
heart does not isolate us from others and the world we inhabit. But if we are to love our
enemies as ourselves, we must also love ourselves. And if we love ourselves then we
are motivated to seek a remedy for our suffering.
The potential for the universal, unconditional love of the open heart is inherent in
us, like a seed awaiting the right conditions to germinate. Therefore, in a sense, it is
operative from the start. But, unfortunately, at the beginning we do not recognize this
love for what it is, but only know the yearning for fulfilment which it engenders in those
who are trapped in the perspective of the heart closed in defence of a harmful sense of
self based on sticky attachments.
In our ignorance we are driven blindly by inflamed desire which feeds an attitude of
confrontation with whatever might stand in the way of its satisfaction. This attitude
deprives us of that sense of communion with others and the world around us which
brings fulfilment, leaving us with the feeling that something is lacking but without the
insight into the cause of that feeling which would guide us towards a remedy. We come
to suppose that fulfilment must lie in the complete satisfaction of self-centred desire and
so are driven into an endless pursuit, doomed to failure, of whatever we happen to
project our hopes of fulfilment onto.
When we come to suspect that this is a delusion and begin to cultivate sufficient
dissociation from inflamed desire to be able to evaluate it, we get our first glimpse of
the perspective of the open heart and the promise of genuine fulfilment. Then we neither
give inflamed desire free rein, nor do we try to deny it or suppress it by force. We train
ourselves to contain and evaluate it in terms of its wholesomeness. Any desire, even the
desire to do good, is considered unwholesome if it is wilful. Wilfulness is the result of
 21

the over-identification which appropriates desire into a sticky sense of self thereby
inflaming it. If a desire is wholesome, we can freely choose to follow it. If
unwholesome, it is contained while any emotional reactions are suffered through until
they burn out. In this way we slowly develop the strength to contain and suffer through
whatever emotional reactions restraint brings up.
The faith that a way of life free of those supports which we have supposed to be
essential to us can be gradually cultivated by suffering through the experience of
abandoning them over and over again. This is not to promote masochistic extremes of
asceticism or cold-hearted indifference to the pleasures of life. We still have our natural
preferences. If coffee is available, we accept it with gratitude. But if we are obliged to
drink tea, we can accept it without complaint. Denying or suppressing our preferences
will only breed resentment. And an attitude of sad resignation only puts us on a par with
beasts of burden.
The Path produces a transformation of perspective in the heart of the wayfarer
through a natural process of healing. Through the practice, we are gradually weaned off
the perspective of the heart which is closed in defence of the sticky attachments which
are taken to give substance to the mistaken notion of a limited, separate self, until a
point of inflection is reached, after which the basic perspective is that of the heart which
is open to all in the spirit of unconditional love and acceptance, manifesting as
compassion tempered by wisdom.
This new perspective then needs to be developed and deepened. By our own efforts
we can only facilitate this process by removing any obstacles which might impede it.
But the process itself has its own dynamic and rhythms. Any attempt at wilful
interference will be counterproductive. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.

Repentance
After settling in to the practice we may well become distressed after a while by the
notion that we are getting worse rather than better. We seem to be lazier, more irritable,
pettier, than we were. This is not so. Rather it is a sign of progress. For we are
becoming more mindful and alert and therefore noticing tendencies which we had
previously preferred to ignore or play down. It would be a mistake to let our newfound
awareness of our weakness discourage us. Such a lesson in humility is an excellent start.
We should think of the temptations to which we find ourselves subjected as we would
of weights being added to the bar we are lifting in order to develop our muscles. How
could we gain strength, if we had no temptations to work with? Which is not to say that
we should go out looking for temptations to prove ourselves! That would be wilful
interference in the practice and would end badly. Better to develop the attitude that the
temptations we have are the ones we need to grow, no more, no less.
Theoretical learning is all very well and has its place in the scheme of things. But
when it comes to practice, we learn from our mistakes. We will never become good
riders without ever falling off our horse. Just so, we will never make progress on the
Path without ever having gone astray.
But when we found we have gone astray, how do we find our way back onto the
Path? We do so through an act of sincere, wholehearted repentance. But if we now sink
 22

into despair about our own failings, our repentance will be of no avail. To bear fruit, it
must be accompanied by the firm resolve to make every effort to avoid making the same
error in the future. This brings renewed energy.
But the act of repentance is not simply for the occasions we remember. Taking into
account that we are in the business of transforming the heart which has been
conditioned by the countless past occasions in which we have erred, it is of great help to
perform a general act of repentance for all past errors. Hence, in the Zen school the first
chant to be performed every morning is the Repentance Sutra.

The Middle Way

Encouraged by his father, Siddhartha first followed a life of self-indulgence. Then,
disillusioned, he left home for a life of self-mortification. But the mistake made by
those who fall into extremes of asceticism, as did Siddhartha, is to suppose that the
renunciation of self-centred love requires the embracing of self-hate. The problem does
not lie in enjoyment, but in what is enjoyed and in how we stand in relation to that
enjoyment. If what is enjoyed is wholesome and we do not fall into the trap of wilfully
clinging to enjoyment or its object, then there is no reason to fear harm from it.
It was the realization that extreme asceticism was an error which led to the
discovery of the Middle Way in which the preferences and attachments in terms of
which we tend to think of ourselves are neither denied and suppressed, nor over-
identified with and wilfully clung to. It is possible to identify ourselves in terms of
them, and yet accept their impermanence with equanimity and good grace.
The principal formula which the Buddha used to teach the cultivation of the Middle
Way is that of The Noble Eightfold Path.5 This is an exposition of the Path in terms of
eight factors, each of which support each other, and are to be cultivated together: Right
View, Right Thought/Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right
Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.

The Noble Eightfold Path

Right View
The message of the Buddha, as appropriate today as it ever was, is a rather hard
and demanding one, but one that is concretely feasible. It requires more than an
experience of ecstasy, which as such, whatever its length or frequency, is not
productive of a real change of heart, a transformation of energy and thus a re-
structuring of the total man as a result of a new way of seeing.
This ‘clear seeing’ is a change of attitude, and as such, is the first step with
which training begins; as the developed clarity it finally results in genuine insight
into one’s own nature, which is that of man.
Irmgard Schloegl (Daiyu Myokyo) 6

5 Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Pt.V, 56:11.

6Schloegl, The Zen Way, ch.IV.
 23

Conceptual Understanding
The first step towards Right View is made by gaining a conceptual understanding
of the basic teachings through study and reflection to the point where they appeal
enough for us to be willing to make the effort to try and confirm their truth
experientially. This was the Buddha’s own recommendation. His teachings are not
dogmas to be believed in blindly, or on the authority of anyone else, even the Buddha
himself. The correct understanding of the Buddha’s teachings arrived at through study
and reflection is known as the ‘soil of wisdom’ because it is the essential preparation for
the arising of direct, experiential knowledge.
The Buddha always adapted his method of exposition of the teachings to suit his
audience, and one of the obstacles to progress is that we are liable to become embroiled
in speculation and disputes about the interpretation of details of doctrine which are
ultimately inconsequential.
The Six Bases
For example, one of his approaches uses a schema which analyses our sensory
experience in terms of the factors which condition it. The model is structured in terms
of the faculties involved. For each faculty there is said to be an organ, a corresponding
object, a type of consciousness arising from contact between organ and object, and a
resulting feeling. The model is referred to as the Six Bases: six because the mind is
treated as if it were a sensory organ. This is a tempting topic of debate for those of a
philosophical bent. However, if we now get caught up in heated arguments about the
pros and cons of such a model, we are missing the point entirely because the model is
only serving as a way of referring to all our experience. It doesn’t matter to what degree
this model, or any other, is accurate, because the crucial question here is how we stand
in relation to our experience and the factors which condition it, however they are
schematized.
The point the Buddha makes is that our suffering is due to our not knowing and
seeing those factors as they actually are. But knowing them ‘as they actually are’ is not
a matter of devising an accurate ‘scientifically objective’ description, but rather of
seeing them in a way which is undistorted by the over-identification which appropriates
them into a sense of self based on our sticky attachment to them. Such distortion leads
to our clinging to them, seeing them as essential to our sense of completeness, and
thereby inflaming the feelings they evoke.
Bhikkhus, when one does not know and see the eye as it actually is, when one
does not know and see forms as they actually are, when one does not know and see
eye-consciousness as it actually is, when one does not know and see eye-contact as
it actually is, when one does not know and see as it actually is [the feeling] felt as
pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as
condition, then one is inflamed by lust for the eye, for forms, for eye-
consciousness, for eye-contact, for [the feeling] felt as pleasant or painful or
neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as condition.
The same applies for the factors conditioning the other faculties. And the Buddha goes
on to spell out the consequences.
 24

When one abides inflamed by lust, fettered, infatuated, contemplating

gratification, then the five aggregates affected by clinging are built up for oneself in
the future; and one’s craving — which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by
delight and lust, and delights in this and that — increases. One’s bodily and mental
troubles increase, one’s bodily and mental torments increase, one’s bodily and
mental fevers increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering.
The Buddha 7
The schema of the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, volitional formations,
and consciousness) is intended as an analysis of the individual person into the factors
with which we are liable to over-identify. Again it would be a mistake to become over-
concerned with the details of the analysis. The point is that when, in our ignorance, we
over-identify with any aspect of ourselves, we tend to cling wilfully to it and suffer in
consequence.
The Six Realms
‘Renewal of being’ refers to our becoming trapped into one of the sets of habits of
thought, speech and action which are characteristic of the state of heart and mind of
someone who is caught up in suffering. We might find ourselves in such a state for a
short time, but if we do so repeatedly then the habits which characterize that state
become entrenched and dominant.
For example, we might become enraged about something and respond aggressively.
This is described as the state of a ‘fighting demon’. If the circumstances were
exceptional and our reaction unexpected, then others will regard it as out of character.
However, if such behaviour becomes habitual, then people will become careful around
us, and we will have gained the reputation of being an aggressive person. In Buddhist
terms, we will have been ‘reborn’ into the realm of the fighting demons.
There are said to be six such characteristic states through which we move, ‘dying’
to one and ‘being born’ into another. The other realms are those of miserable beings,
lost in the misery of not having what they crave; hungry ghosts, lost in the craving for
what they do not have; animals, lost in a state of dumb resignation to their ‘fate’; beings
in a state of heavenly bliss, lost in the pleasure of having what they crave; human
beings, not lost or carried away in any of the other states, yet still deluded.
Of course, we could easily devise alternative ways of classifying the states of heart
and mind of those who are lost or carried away, but again, the exercise would be
pointless because the only state relevant to the practice of the path out of suffering is
one in which we are not lost or carried away by anything, however conceived. Such a
state is referred to in the Buddhist schema as the ‘human’ state. Note that inhabiting a
human body is no guarantee in itself of being able to dwell in the human state of heart
and mind; and that the ‘human state’ is itself still considered to be a realm of suffering
because it is a state of delusion in which the underlying tendencies to become lost or
carried away in various ways still persist.

7 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Mahāsaḷāyatanika Sutta The
Great Sixfold Base 149:3.
 25

The entire realm of suffering, which includes all six states, is called Samsara, and
the aim is achieve liberation from it in this life. One who has eliminated the underlying
tendency to enter into any of the six realms of Samsara is said to dwell, here and now,
in Nirvana.
Identity
Essence
The content of the self-image we construct, our own sense of what it is that makes
us who we are, certainly has a bearing on our progress towards liberation from
suffering. For example, the more we think of ourselves as followers of the Path, the
better. However, much more important is our attitude towards whatever content we
identify with. Specifically, the direct cause of our self-inflicted suffering is our over-
identification with whatever we deem to fall within the scope of our sense of self.
We over-identify with something to the extent that we feel that in order to be fully
ourselves, it is essential for us to be, do or have such and such. So we are forever
wilfully grasping for, and clinging to, the things which we imagine will complete us. A
sense of personal identity develops around our sticky attachments. Consequently, we
come to feel that the loss of our attachments would be a threat to the integrity of our
sense of self, and so feel driven to defend it against all-comers, thereby increasing our
feelings of isolation and vulnerability.
Note that although our own survival is usually included among the things we over-
identify with, it is not necessarily so. Many have chosen to sacrifice their lives for a
person or a cause they love.
The path out of our suffering involves abandoning the idea that any of the factors
we cherish as constituting our sense of personal identity are actually essential to that
identity. However, such a notion might make us feel a little queasy and disoriented.
How can we maintain a sense of our own personal identity, if we have nothing
unchanging on which to make a stand? Are we somehow deluded in thinking that we
exist, in any meaningful sense, at all?
Scale
In certain fields, such as geometry, or well-defined games, such as chess, we can
identify objects by reference to unchanging sets of essential characteristics which define
them. But in the world of everyday experience we identify things using different
criteria. For example, we do not give names to wisps of fog or small showers of rain,
because we experience them as constantly changing, ephemeral phenomena. But we do
give names to large scale weather systems such as hurricanes, and we follow their
development with keen interest. Through satellite images we observe the beginnings of
a hurricane as a disturbance formation over the ocean; if it survives 24 hours it is
considered to be a tropical disturbance; when it can sustain wind speeds of 23-38mph
and begins to rotate it is said to have grown into a tropical depression; from 39-73mph it
is considered to be a tropical storm; beyond wind speeds of 74mph it takes the true form
of a hurricane with a completed eye; but later, when passing over land, it begins to
weaken, breaking up into thunderstorms and finally dying out in the gentle patter of
scattered showers.
 26

Although seen up close a hurricane is a maelstrom of wind, rain, and flying debris,
seen from a satellite it takes on a form which is sufficiently stable to be identifiable and
named. The point is that here the basis for establishing identity is not the complete
absence of change, but rather, an acceptable absence of noticeable change to a form
which is apparent from a given vantage point.
Clearly, the noticeability of change, and its relevance to identity, is relative to scale.
The fact that the human body appears as an ever-changing multitude of cells when seen
through an electron microscope at a magnitude of 500,000 does not imply that its
stability as a solid body as experienced through the senses is somehow illusory or false,
only that it is relative and conditioned. It simply makes no sense, under normal
circumstances, to say that Mary is not the same person as she was 5 minutes ago on the
grounds that there have been countless changes at the atomic level during that period.
From the perspective of the unaided human senses there will have been no change of
sufficient significance over a period of 5 minutes which could sustain a reasonable
doubt concerning the continued existence of the Mary we all know and love, unless she
has had a terrible accident of some sort.
Our identification and naming of human bodies is perfectly reasonable and
meaningful when understood to be relative to a certain scale and perspective. Increasing
the magnitude of a telescope does not bring us any closer to reality, it only alters the
conditions under which we experience it. A human being is no more or less ‘real’ than a
cell, an atom, or a quantum particle.
So, it is the relative stability of the characteristics we identify with which gives us a
sense of personal identity. A certain degree of noticeable change, though unpleasant,
may be tolerated. Sudden, dramatic changes might be traumatic and take a good deal of
adjusting to. But, ideally, however important we may feel a given factor to be to our
sense of who we are, we should be able to suffer through its loss without feeling that we
are losing ourselves, entirely or in part.
However, when we over-identify with any of these characteristics, we become
incapable of accepting their absence or loss. To be able to do so, we must learn to let go.
But that is not a matter of abandoning our preferences and personal attachments
altogether. Non-essential does not mean unimportant.
But what is to prevent our falling into nihilistic despair upon abandoning the
conviction that we have an unchanging personal essence? Such despair arises at the
thought that it is impossible to attain, or retain, whatever we feel to be essential. But
when we have abandoned the conviction that in order to be, it is essential for us to be
something in particular, such despair can no longer arise.
But if not despair, then perhaps the result will be just a sense of emptiness and
pointlessness: imagining ourselves to be nothing more than ever-changing bundles of
flotsam drifting aimlessly down the river of life.
On the contrary, with the renunciation of wilfulness and the dissolution of the sense
of a self based on sticky attachments which isolate it, the heart opens to a sense of
communion, manifesting in compassion tempered by wisdom towards all. This enables
the wholehearted participation and acceptance which brings fulfilment.
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Continuity
It is sometimes suggested that the Buddhist doctrine of anatman, no-self, can be
explained by analogy with the type of optical illusion we experience in the cinema. The
idea seems to be that reality can only be truly perceived by concentrating on the
extensionless moment which is present right now. Everything else is a delusory
construct of the mind.
But we are not deluded in our sense of the physical continuity of ourselves and
events. The illusion of continuity produced by means of rapid change of images, as
experienced in the cinema, is not a good analogy for normal perception. When we are
watching a cat climb a tree in our garden, our brains are not constructing the impression
of continuity from a series of still images.
Furthermore, the cinematic illusion of continuous movement is created on the basis
of the proportion of time spent watching a still, to that spent on the change from one
still to another. But though we may consider these times momentary, in everyday
experience a moment in time, however short, always has duration.
No illusion of continuity can arise from a sequence of extensionless points in time
or space. Zero multiplied by anything is zero. Reality is a continuum. It is the point in
space or time which is the abstraction.
Form
The form our experience takes is conditioned, on the one hand, by the potential of
world to affect us at any given time, and on the other, by the nature and condition of our
faculties at that time. This means that it is relative, not that it is unreal. If everything is
in working order and there is a mountain to be seen by beings with our capacities, then
our experience will be that of seeing a mountain. There is nothing between us and the
mountain which has to be interpreted as a mountain. It is not as though there were a
little observer inside us receiving pictures of an outside world which he can never see
for himself. If that were a valid model of perception, it would lead to an infinite
regression. For, in order to see the picture received, the little observer would need a
little observer in his head to see a picture of the picture, and so on.
When we see a mountain, we are not seeing and interpreting a representation, in the
form of ‘sense data’ or anything else, of a mountain, we are seeing a mountain. The
possibility of mistakenly supposing ourselves to be seeing a mountain due to
hallucination, dreaming, or being deceived by appearances, only comes into
consideration when there are reasonable grounds for doubting that our current
experience is in fact that of seeing a mountain. The answer to the sceptic who doubts the
existence of the world is that in the absence of reasonable grounds for doubt, there is no
doubt.
When there is a need for interpretation, it is interpretation of reality itself. When we
ask whether that gun is real, we mean to ask whether that is a real gun rather than a fake
or illusory gun. A fake gun made of wood is quite as real an object as the original made
of metal which it resembles. The mirage of a lake in the desert is a real atmospheric
phenomenon, though it is not a real body of water. It only makes sense to call
something an illusion in reference to an original which is known. The assertion that the
 28

world is an illusion of we know not what, because we only know the appearance, should
be dismissed as incoherent.
It was said earlier that the form of our experience is conditioned on the one hand by
the potential of the world to affect beings with our bodies and faculties, and on the other
hand by the nature and condition of our bodies and faculties. But, in fact, our
understanding of our full potential as sentient beings is in its infancy. There is a great
deal of evidence supporting the idea that we have faculties which can operate quite
independently of our brains. For example, there are innumerable verified cases of
people in intensive care with cardiac arrest and no electrical activity in the brain who
have later been able to accurately report what people around them, and even people in
completely various locations, were saying and thinking while they themselves were
clinically dead. This suggests that the body we are familiar with would be better
considered a vehicle for some other form with its corresponding faculties. Such matters
should be discussed in the context of open-minded empirical investigation rather than
being defended or denounced with reference to unquestioned dogmas (be they religious
or materialist). But whatever alternative forms and faculties we might be able to enjoy,
the form of our experience will still be conditioned by the nature and conditions of those
faculties, and by the world’s capacity to affect them.
The world we know, though real, is mysterious enough without complicating things
by viewing it through the distorting lens of misleading metaphors.
Consciousness
The word ‘consciousness’ has a perfectly well-established meaning which
facilitates communication in a wide variety of everyday contexts. Any deviation from
that meaning needs to be explained and justified.
In the normal sense of the word, consciousness is a property of sentient beings with
some sort of form. It is not a thing which can exist independently of form. Which is not
to say that the form in question must be of flesh and blood.
Consciousness itself is a capacity: the capacity to think, speak, remember, register,
and respond to sense stimuli such as sights, sounds, tastes and so on. This capacity
admits of degree. We, as sentient beings, may be unconscious, semi-conscious, fully
conscious. And we have no problem with the notion of the continuity of the subject
during the temporary absence of consciousness. Although philosophers are often
tempted to take consciousness as the basis of personal identity, the fact is that nobody in
their right mind supposes that they cease to exist when mental activity is temporarily
suspended in dreamless sleep.
According to the Vedanta tradition in Hinduism, there is consciousness even when
we are in a state of deep dreamless sleep. But this is a new use of the word
consciousness which needs to be explained. In the normal sense of the word, to say that
we are conscious when we are unconscious is self-contradictory, and therefore
nonsensical. But for this new use of the word ‘consciousness’ to continue to bear any
meaningful relationship to the one we are familiar with some account should be given
of the nature of the form which has this type of consciousness as a property, since it
must be other than, yet related to, the physical form which is unconscious in the normal
 29

sense of the word. Which is not to deny the possibility of supplying such an
explanation.
However, the same considerations apply to consciousness as to anything else we
may become attached to. If we are to age gracefully, we must learn to relax our grip on
the capacities we took to define us when we were young and strong: our excellent
memory, our capacity for sustained concentration, our command of language, our
eyesight, hearing, endurance, and the rest.
Experiential Knowledge
Direct Insight
Experiential knowledge is that which comes from the sort of insight which is
registered in the body. The contrast between conceptual and experiential knowledge is
clearly illustrated through the analogy with swimming. Suppose a certain lady
understands perfectly well the principle of Archimedes and its relevance to swimming.
Yet when she is in the water, though she may fight her way along for a little, she cannot
bring herself to just lie back and float. It is pointless explaining the principles of
flotation to her, because she understands them perfectly. Her problem is not lack of
conceptual knowledge, but rather lack of faith. She cannot bring herself to trust the
carrying power of the water, and so is in the grip of an irrational fear of renouncing her
dependence on her own wilful efforts to remain afloat.
However, if she applies herself patiently to the long slow process of learning to
trust the water, there will eventually come a moment when she is able to let go, relax,
and let it carry her. The moment of release is sudden, but it has been made possible by
the gradual cultivation of confidence and faith in the carrying power of that to which
she finally finds herself able to give herself over to, relinquishing control.
This is what is known as the experiential, true, or direct insight which is registered
in the body, and once learned, never forgotten. With such insight, this lady’s attitude
towards, and behaviour in, the water is transformed. Now that she has that basic trust,
she no longer exhausts herself fighting to stay afloat.
But although she might have discovered, and be able to delight in, the carrying
power of the water within the safe confines of the swimming pool, she would certainly
find herself in difficulty if she fell off a boat in the middle of a rough sea. So now she
must devote herself to building her confidence and learning the various techniques
which will help her adapt to whatever conditions circumstance might throw at her.
Clearly, the barrier to experiential insight into the carrying power of water is the
fear generated by lack of trust in that power. Similarly, it might be said, in the context
of the Path, the barrier to experiential insight into the carrying power of something
beyond our own willpower, is our lack of trust, or faith. But analogies only go so far
and so need to be treated with caution. We might easily misunderstand the swimming
analogy to suggest the idea of a power, other than and greater than our willpower, which
always supports us and guarantees our personal well-being. Although they are free of
the fear, stress, and anxiety of those who suppose their survival in the water to depend
entirely upon their own efforts, accomplished swimmers are not exempt from the danger
of drowning.
 30

Having faith in the ‘carrying power’ of something beyond our own willpower does
not mean abdicating our responsibility to an external power which can be trusted to
satisfy our self-centred desires. It is a matter of relaxing into full recognition of our
limitations and full acceptance of all outcomes. The carrying power concerned is that of
a specific attitude, which might be expressed by the phrase ‘If it can’t be helped, then so
be it’, or by ‘Thy will be done’ uttered by the Christian. This is not faith that the
outcome will necessarily be optimal in terms of our personal creature comforts, but
rather it is trust that full acceptance in and of itself will bring the harmony, peace, and
fulfilment for which the heart yearns.
Dissociation
The abandoning of wilfulness requires dissociation from desire. But our over-
identification with desire is not a mere opinion which we can change without cost,
because it has long conditioned habits of thinking, speaking, and acting which are now
deeply rooted. Since desire has been appropriated into our sense of who we are, we have
a considerable emotional investment in our identification with it, and the idea of losing
that inevitably frightens us. Therefore we need to approach the matters of dissociation
and renunciation with care and gentleness. Brute force will only produce trauma and
rejection.
For example, suppose a certain lady comes to over-identify with the achievements
of her daughter, incorporating them into her own sense of self-importance. The child
plays the piano prettily enough but is obviously no great talent. This, the mother refuses
to accept. She makes her daughter’s life a misery, dragging her from one music teacher
to another in search of the one who will ‘discover’ her. For this lady to be able to
renounce her wilful insistence that her child is an unrecognized prodigy, she must first
admit the importance this idea has for herself. And she will only be able to curb her
wilfulness in this matter to the extent that she manages to dissociate herself from the
idea of her daughter as gifted, recognizing that although it is something she would
certainly prefer, it is also something which she can bear to live without.
However, effective dissociation from whatever we are in the habit of over-
identifying with is not simply a matter of thinking to ourselves that such and such is not
essential to us, that we can live without out it. We must do so with the firm intention of
suffering through the process of breaking the habit of thinking, feeling, and behaving
the contrary. And the main obstacle to doing this is fear.
For this reason, it is necessary to begin by working on the tiny, apparently
insignificant things concerning which we display symptoms of wilfulness. For example,
perhaps we are impatient drivers. Every time we are forced to wait for a traffic light to
change, we put on the radio, or light a cigarette, or check our phone, in order to distract
ourselves from the seething resentment we feel at being delayed for a minute.
Obviously, to be able to work with this, the first requirement is that we be sufficiently
self-aware and honest to admit what is going on and face up to our own pettiness. Then
we have to exercise restraint, refraining from seeking distraction and focussing on what
is happening. With restraint comes an emotional reaction whose force might surprise us.
If we are used to denying it, it might frighten us because we realize that it is actually
much stronger than us and capable of driving us to behave in ways we will regret later,
 31

in spite of any mere opinions we might have about correct behaviour. However, since
there is little at stake here, no public to judge us and so on, we should be able to handle
the matter and suffer through our reaction until it passes. If not, we must start with
something even smaller in significance for us.
However, if we do this successfully, we will have gained a little more containing
strength, and a little more faith in our ability to survive the renunciation of wilfulness.
The repeated practice of this in our daily lives enables us to accumulate the strength and
faith we need in the practice of formal meditation.
The renunciation of wilfulness is not an abdication from our responsibility to exert
our will to the full in order to better a situation where possible. It is, rather, the
abandonment of the appropriation of the desire to act which would inflame our feelings
and create the wilful attitude which cannot tolerate the prospect of frustration.
Insofar as we are able to renounce our wilfulness, we are renouncing our over-
identification with our attachments. And in so doing, we abandon the viewpoint from
which an intention which may go contrary to inflamed desire is felt to be ‘other’ or
‘external’ to ourselves. Under such circumstances, submission to a discipline, which
implies the frustration of inflamed desire, is felt not to be self-negating, but rather self-
transforming. A new concept of who and what we are is affirmed and strengthened with
each act of submission.
We are afraid of abandoning our wilfulness because we think it would be a form of
suicide. This is understandable because it does in fact imply the definitive renunciation
of the harmful concept of self which we have held for so long. The full transition from
commitment to the defence of the attachments with which we over-identify to the point
where we take them to define who and what we are, to open-ended benevolence which
knows no boundary dividing the interests of self and other, is no small matter. It is
experienced as the renunciation of a life, which, in the Zen tradition, is known as the
Great Death. This not a renunciation of life itself, but of our clinging the notion of a life
which is the possession of an autonomous entity, isolated and divided from others. It is
not a nihilistic act of suicide, which is an act of wilful destruction aimed at reducing us
to nothing. It is an act of willed, but not wilful, transformation. It is a self-emptying
which leads to a fullness beyond anything we can conceive. It is the culmination of a
natural evolution from an unhealthy state of heart to its state of optimal health. Our
efforts in walking the Path only serve to remove any obstacles to the natural process.
True peace of heart is not to be confused with the happiness contingent upon
circumstances being favourable to our particular interests. It is much more profound. It
holds whatever the circumstances. Such peace is only for the heart which is truly open.
But the barrier of fear is very real and deeply rooted, so, as with any other strong
fear, we will never overcome it by mere reasoning. Hence the strong emphasis in Zen
training on the physical aspect of the training. Gaining some insight is not so difficult
but remaining in conformity with it at all times requires strength and wisdom. Although
we are inherently endowed with the capacity for this insight, strength, and wisdom, they
all must be cultivated to be brought into full flower. The seed of faith and trust has to be
nurtured to full maturity so that it is strong enough to support us under all
circumstances. Needless to say, this nurturing is a long and gradual process requiring
 32

constant, dedicated effort and patience. With this the heart gradually opens as the
passions are transformed, and new vistas open as we reconnect with all and become
accustomed to the perspective of the open heart.
Right Thought / Intention
Karma is the principle that intentional behaviour in thought, speech and action has
consequences for the agent. What we think and do contributes to the formation of habits
which condition our future behaviour. As the Buddha said, we are the heirs of our
actions.8 So we should be mindful of their effects.
Wholesome intention, not to be confused with the wilful interference of the dreaded
do-gooders, has beneficial consequences, unwholesome intention has detrimental
consequences. Intention is wholesome insofar as it contributes towards our progress on
the path, unwholesome insofar as it hinders such progress.
Since we naturally prefer benefit over harm, a belief in the law of karma
incentivizes good behaviour, as does the belief in a judgemental God for a theist. Any
society which neglects to install some such belief in its members, most of whom are
pawns of the passions, has only itself to blame for its own decadence. Legal systems are
no substitute for conscience, because their effective application presupposes the
goodwill of those who implement them, and the guarantor of that goodwill is precisely
the conscience of each person responsible for their implementation.
The naive way of thinking of workings of karma is to imagine intentional behaviour
as being like hitting a billiard ball and waiting for the knock-on effect to come back to
us. But it would be more helpful to think of the karmic effect as the velocity, direction
and spin the ball receives. If we behave badly we put a negative ´spin’ on our state of
heart and mind. Precisely how that negative spin will work itself out over time might be
incalculable, but that doesn’t matter because it is sufficient to know that the payback in
the form of suffering is inevitable.
Good behaviour in thought, speech and action is the foundation of spiritual
development in all serious traditions. To understand why, we need to appreciate that we
are in a state of constant change. Old habits of thought, speech and action are fading,
new ones are arising and developing. The thoughts we entertain, the intentions we form,
the actions we perform, all contribute towards strengthening or weakening our habits,
preferences, inclinations, and so on, in other words, all the factors which together make
up the sort of person we are becoming at any given time. Insofar as they contribute
towards maintaining or strengthening our delusory identification with a self, composed
of our sticky attachments, which is the root of our suffering, they are inherently
harmful. Insofar as they contribute towards reducing or eliminating that delusion and
the accompanying enslavement to inflamed desire, which is at the root of our suffering,
they are inherently beneficial.
If we habitually spend our evenings watching films where the protagonist seeks
violent revenge, we will find the theme of revenge occupying our thoughts when we try
to go to sleep. It will start appearing in our dreams and daydreams. As we become

8 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, 57 Kukkuravatika Sutta The Dog-Duty Ascetic, 8.

 33

habituated to the idea of revenge, the idea becomes acceptable, and we develop an
inclination towards it. Sooner or later, we will be able to convince ourselves that
revenge for some imagined slight, or injury, is justified. On this basis the intention to
act takes form. The first vengeful act might be quite petty. But if we allow ourselves to
savour it, we will develop a taste for revenge which will be difficult to abandon. Clearly
then, we need to be mindful about what we permit ourselves to think about and ponder
upon.
Of course, we cannot stop an unwholesome thought popping into our mind, but we
can choose not to dwell on it. Or if we find that we have been inadvertently caught up
by such a thought, we can choose to stop dwelling on it. We can also avoid contact with
whatever we think might give rise to unwholesome thoughts, such as violent films,
scurrilous gossip and so on. On the other hand, we can cultivate the habit of reading the
teachings, listening to dharma talks, having conversations with good friends about the
practice and so on. Then again, thinking, even when it is concerned with wholesome
topics, should be limited to the appropriate occasion and should not be over-indulged
in.9All this comes under the headings of Right Mindfulness and Right Effort with
respect to thought and intention.
The person who commits, say, an act of cruelty, in the very performance of the act
does himself harm. Worse, he does himself harm even in forming the intention to
perform the act, though he may not succeed in performing it. Worse still, he does
himself harm even in merely entertaining the idea of performing the act, though he may
not actually form the firm intention to do it. Which is why Right Thought/Intention is
such an important factor of the Noble Eightfold Path.
So, good behaviour is in our own best interest, not because of some chain of
external causes and effects which somehow eventually come back to us, but rather
because in allowing ourselves to entertain certain types of thought, to form certain types
of intention, or to perform certain types of action, we contribute directly to the
conditioning which either reduces or increases our suffering by determining the sort of
person we are becoming. Of course, ‘best interest’ should be understood to refer to the
true best interest of the agent which consists in his recovering from the sickness of heart
which gives him no peace. It is not being suggested that good behaviour will necessarily
make us more successful, powerful, famous, or affluent.
Since good behaviour is inherently in our true best interest, then the rewards of the
Path are reaped with every step we take.
Right Action
Each social context has its own rules of good conduct. The traditional formula for
Right Action clearly has forest dwelling monks in mind and warns them against the
temptations they might be subject to. A hungry young novice monk who must go
begging house to house for food, and is forbidden to eat anything after midday, might
well be tempted to rob an apple, or to kill a chicken, if he finds his bowl empty late in
the morning. Then again, having recently left family life, he might be inclined to fall

9 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, 19 Two Kinds of Thought: 8.

 34

helplessly in love with a householder’s beautiful daughter. So Right Action is explicitly

said to include abstention from such wrong action as killing, taking what is not given,
and allowing oneself to become intoxicated with the things of the senses (which, in the
Buddhist scheme of things, includes the products of the sixth sense, the mind).
However, what counts as wrong action in one social context might not be so
considered in another. For example, it would be absurd to suggest that a vet who, out of
deep compassion, feels obliged to put an animal out of its suffering by giving it a lethal
injection, is acting wrongly.
So, in a more general sense, Right Action is said to be a matter of doing as much
good and as little harm as possible, and thereby purifying the heart. However, the
Buddha distinguishes two sorts of Right Action: that which is done for worldly motives,
and that which is truly noble. If we do what is considered right, in the hope of some
reward, either in this or some other existence, then our motives are worldly. But if the
action is performed from no selfish motive, then it is truly noble and purifies the heart.
Which is all very well, but the question remains of how we can practice in such a
way as to cultivate noble Right Action, given that we start from a state of heart and
mind which is tainted by ignorance, distorted by a sense of self based on our sticky
attachments and susceptible to being swayed by inflamed desire.
Firstly, we should bear in mind that we are not inherently incapable of selfless
Right Action. On the contrary, the training is designed to help us realize our innate
capacity for such behaviour.
Secondly, it is better to perform an action which is, in principle, good and to deal
with our mixed emotions as best we can, than to abstain from it. It is better to apologize
through clenched teeth, than not to apologize at all.
The tell-tale sign of wilfulness is the anxiety and fear which the prospect of
frustration evokes, and the depression or anger which actual frustration evokes. So, if
we are wondering whether we are freely choosing a proposed course of action or are
being driven to it by the passions, we need only consider how we feel about the prospect
of frustration. If we notice the slightest rearing up in protest, we can be sure that the
fires are burning beneath the surface.
But old habits die hard, and it can require considerable effort not to be carried away
by the urges they produce. Furthermore, the containment of any emotional reactions
which restraint might produce requires a strength which needs to be cultivated. This
cultivation should be continuous throughout the day. Most of the hard work is done in
daily life practice, which offers endless opportunities for restraint on the countless
occasions when we feel we absolutely must, or must not, do have or be such and such:
have another 5 minutes sleep in the morning; have our breakfast just the way we like it;
leave washing the dishes until later; defend our opinions about this, that and the other;
impose our will concerning the way something is done; and so on. Here we cultivate the
strength and patience which will stand us in good stead in periods of formal meditation.
So how do we engage in the practice? Generally speaking there are three aspects of
a situation which are relevant to the practice of right action: that which we have no
power to improve, must therefore be endured, and so requires acceptance; that which
invites a course of action which should not be taken, and so requires restraint; and that
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which invites a course of action which should be taken, and so requires right effort in
order to overcome any reluctance.
We need to begin with situations where we do not feel that too much is at stake. For
example, we voluntarily set ourselves a time for getting up in the morning, allowing for
an hour extra in bed one day a week. The idea is to react immediately to the sound of
the alarm by getting out of bed before dwelling on how we feel about it. The first couple
of days we leap out of bed with a gratifying sense of achievement. But perhaps on the
third morning the alarm sounds and suddenly we find ourselves faced with some kind of
thought demanding a slight delay on the grounds that we haven’t slept very well, or that
a minute or two makes no difference, or that we are not fanatical ascetics, and so on. To
advance in the practice we simply need to discard the initial thought and jump up
anyway. To get caught up in the train of thoughts which follow the first one is to
regress.
Note that the daily life practice does not consist in mindless spontaneity. It is not
suggested that our response to the demands of a situation must be without any thought
at all. The necessary thinking for the practice with the alarm clock has been done in
advance. But in daily life new situations arise and must be evaluated before we decide
on the appropriate action. The practice is a matter of acting, when required, without
regard for value judgements formed on the basis of our personal preferences. For
example, we have allotted an hour in our timetable for housework. Considering what
needs to be done we notice on the one hand that the garage is a bit untidy, and on the
other that the bathroom is an absolute disgrace. But we enjoy fiddling around in the
garage and find cleaning the bathroom to be extremely tedious. It is perfectly clear what
the situation demands of us, but are we capable of responding and doing so with all our
heart? Actually we are, but we often suppose that we are not. And it is precisely that
supposition that constitutes the ignorance which keeps us trapped in our suffering.
The key is to realize that in practice we can actually throw ourselves
wholeheartedly into responding to whatever a situation requires of us despite the
reservations which would impede us if we dwelt on them. How? Before getting caught
up in judging possible courses of action in terms of our preferences, just respond. Then
get used to dealing with any emotional reactions which might come up by containing
and suffering through them. The repeated containment and patient endurance of the
emotional reactions which such Right Action produces weakens our habitual
overidentification with desire thereby developing our capacity for acceptance of the side
of life which is not to our liking.
However, when we really start to do the practice, we are in for an unpleasant
surprise. Most of us like to think of ourselves as fairly reasonable and mature, yet when
we throw ourselves into doing a task which we dislike or have prejudged to be boring,
trivial or worthless, we find ourselves seething within like a spoilt brat. And we are not
talking about reactions to tremendous events here, but to the multitude of tiny things we
habitually avoid doing with the excuse that they are insignificant: putting the top back
on a bottle, hanging a towel neatly on the bathroom rail, washing a cup instead of
leaving it in the sink, and so on. Realizing the absolute pettiness of our reactions to not
 36

doing things our own way is a blow to our self-esteem. But we should not be
disheartened because in fact this is an excellent sign that we are on the right track!
So the next aspect of the practice concerns these wild emotional reactions. Here we
must be very careful because attitude is all important. Our aim is not the extinction of
the passions, which would leave us feeling wooden and listless, but rather their
transformation. But what is meant by a transformation of the passions and how is such a
thing even possible? The passions are no more than desire inflamed by over-
identification. When desire is inflamed, we are at its mercy, driven to satisfy it, even
against our better judgement. Since desire gains its power over us through our over-
identification with it, the key to emancipation from coercion by desire is dissociation
from it. Instead of defining ourselves in terms of our desires, thinking their satisfaction
to be essential to our sense of who we are, we should strive to think of them as passing
phenomena. As such they are no longer over-identified with and can be contained
pending evaluation.
In the course of liberating ourselves from the dictatorship of desire, we undermine
the foundations of the sense of self built from our sticky attachments, hopefully to the
point where, one day, it all falls down enabling the heart to open in wholehearted
acceptance.
Right Speech
Here, ‘speech’ should be understood to cover all forms of communication, verbal,
written and visual. It is, of course, an action. So why did the Buddha single it out for
attention as a separate factor of the Noble Eightfold Path? Perhaps because it is a
particularly potent form of action. A man with a gun might go on a rampage and kill a
few people, but if he ascends a podium and gives a speech inciting hatred, millions
might suffer violence as a result. Someone who shares his food with another certainly
does good. But if he can teach a multitude the benefits of generosity, millions might be
saved from starvation. Furthermore, the fact that at the time of the Buddha the teachings
could only be transmitted orally would put a premium on sincerity and accuracy in
speech.
Our speech should be right in three respects: what we say, how we say it, and when
we say it. It should be neither false, nor divisive, nor harsh, nor idle.10
If something is false, don’t say it. If it is true, but harmful, don’t say it. If it is
neither false nor harmful, but is no more than idle chatter, don’t say it. If it is neither
false, nor harmful, nor mere idle chatter, but the time is not right, don’t say it. If it is
neither false, nor harmful, nor mere idle chatter, and the time is right, but we cannot
bring ourselves to say it gently, don’t say it. So, clearly, the key to Right Speech is
restraint.
Nowadays people are quick to defend the right to freedom of speech, but reluctant
to recognize the responsibilities which condition the right to that freedom. Or rather,
they only seem inclined to appeal to such responsibilities in order to condemn speech
they find offensive to themselves.

10 Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, 45 On the Path: 8.

 37

And what are the responsibilities which condition our right to speak freely? In
general terms, as followers of the Way, they might be summarized as to do as much
good, and as little harm, as possible, both to ourselves and to others.
We do ourselves harm in speaking, when, through lack of mindfulness, we allow
ourselves to give vent to the passions. This does us harm because it strengthens the
habits which keep us trapped in the suffering of Samsara. On reading this, the type of
behaviour which probably first comes to mind as an illustration is that of someone
shouting in anger. We are less aware of the passion behind our attempts to impose our
opinions on others, which might be carried out in the softest tones. If there is any doubt
on this score, we need only check our reactions to having our opinions flatly
contradicted, laughed, or sneered at. Nor are we usually conscious of how we indulge in
idle chatter as a safety valve in order to avoid working with the energy of any emotional
reactions which we have been containing.
Lying, harsh and malicious speech, are all obviously harmful to others, and are
therefore to be avoided as far as possible. Why ‘as far as possible’? Because sometimes,
for example, it might be in the best interests of someone to believe a ‘white’ lie or
receive a harsh reprimand. In the end it is the intention which counts, with the proviso
that it is not wilful intention: the latter being the sort to be found paving the road to hell.
Nowadays our tongues are too loose. So, to practice Right Speech, let us first learn
to be silent.
Right Livelihood
We might suppose ourselves to be unfortunate in that our personal circumstances
do not favour our progress in the practice: the family distracts us; work disturbs us; we
were not blessed with legs flexible enough to be able to meditate in the full lotus
position. We think that if only we could get a job which wasn’t so stressful, or get away
and live in a temple, or find a teacher who was more understanding of our little ways,
and so on, then we would do so much better. Or if only we weren’t so hopeless, so
inconsistent, so stupid, then it would all be alright.
But all of this is self-serving nonsense. The only obstacle worth mentioning is our
own wilfulness which makes it impossible for us to gratefully accept whatever
circumstances we have been given. Whenever we find ourselves in trying
circumstances, rather than lose heart, we should look for the lesson to be learnt which
will help us mature in the practice.
For monks, Right Livelihood is a matter of following the rules laid down for the
Sangha concerning when and where to beg for food, and so on. For the layperson, it is a
matter of earning a living in a way which does as little harm, and as much good, as
possible.
But the question of whether such and such an occupation is fitting for a follower of
the Path cannot be answered. What can be answered is whether following this
occupation is helpful for this follower of the Path at this level of development. A
teacher can advise us, but we each must decide for ourselves after consulting our own
hearts. Every occupation brings its own difficulties for the follower of the Path. And
 38

provided those difficulties are not overwhelming, they should be considered a gift to the
practice
Right Effort
The Path is a discipline which is voluntarily undertaken. Therefore, it exists for
those who choose to follow it. But the first difficulty we encounter is that of grasping
how to walk it. The greatest temptation is to appropriate the practice and any benefits it
brings to ourselves.
The motivation and the energy to follow the Path come from the heart which yearns
for peace and fulfilment, but this heart is not ‘my’ heart’. It cannot be appropriated into
the sense of self built from sticky attachments because the perspective of such a self is
inherently dualistic, limiting us to wholehearted acceptance of only that which is to our
liking, and rejection of whatever is not. Peace and fulfilment can only be found through
the transcendence of that limited perspective.
The barrier to renunciation of wilfulness is the fear of annihilation which is
inseparable from the perspective of the heart which is closed in defence of the sticky
sense of self. So the process of reducing that fear to the point where we can voluntarily
let go of our clinging cannot be directed from that perspective. In other words, the
practice is not ‘my’ practice. It is not something ‘I’ can do, and there is nothing in it for
‘me’. So of what possible interest is it? Well, it is of interest because it liberates me
from my suffering. But it does not liberate ‘me’ from ‘my’ suffering.
Whenever wilfulness appears, even for what we have convinced ourselves are the
best of motives, it must be abandoned. This is why it is so important to begin the
training under the guidance of a good teacher, and preferably in the company of fellow
practitioners. For the teacher has a sharp eye for self-deception; and sharing with others
the same experiences of being corrected puts our own frustrations and impatience into
perspective.
Following the Path requires effort. For that effort to be right, it must be of the right
quality, and it must be well-directed. As for the direction of our efforts, obviously they
should be directed towards the cultivation of the factors of the Path. As for their quality,
they should be wholehearted but not wilful. But it is not easy to get this right.
The quality of effort required is illustrated in the story of the barefoot monk. One of
the Buddha’s over-enthusiastic young monks insisted on going barefoot at all times,
even in the forest where the ground was full of sharp stones and roots. Eventually the
Buddha set out to find him, which was quite easy to achieve by following the trail of
blood. Now before becoming a monk this fellow had been a musician, so the Buddha
took along a harp whose strings he had loosened. When asked to play the Buddha a
tune, the young monk laughed saying one could not possibly play an instrument with
the strings so slack. So, the Buddha tightened the strings to the limit and repeated his
request. Again, the monk laughed and explained that one could not play an instrument
with the strings over tense: they should be neither too slack, nor too tense. At which the
Buddha explained that the same goes for the practice. 11

11 Sujato, Numbered Discourses, 6,55 With Soṇa.

 39

Effort, or energy, should be neither too slack, not too tense. Energy is too slack,
when accompanied by lassitude, sloth, and torpor. It is too tense when it has become
wilful.
Why is our energy so often too slack? Suppose we are staying at a temple, and this
morning have been given the task of cleaning windows. But we do not like cleaning
windows. So how does it go? Do we throw ourselves into it with all our heart for the
three hours until the bell goes for lunch? If so, excellent! The morning is sure to have
flown by, and it might have been discovered that cleaning windows is not so bad after
all. If not, how did it go? Half and hour’s half-hearted wiping punctuated by tuts and
sighs? Anger and resentment? Furtive rests filled with anxiety that we might be
discovered? Scheming to avoid being assigned such a boring task in the future?
Lunchtime arrives and we feel thoroughly dissatisfied and unfulfilled.
We tend to make the mistake of assuming that we are only going to find fulfilment
in doing the things which we suppose will bring us pleasure. So, anticipating that a task
will be unpleasant, if we cannot avoid it, we do it half-heartedly. This brings
dissatisfaction, which seems to confirm our opinion about the unpleasantness of the
task.
However, if we can give ourselves wholeheartedly into performing the task, despite
our misgivings, we often finish it with a surprisingly deep feeling of satisfaction. In fact,
quite often we discover that such a task is not so unpleasant after all. Furthermore, if we
are attentive, we might notice a little bubble of joy as whatever we have been working
on said, ‘thank you’, or so it seemed. It is moments like this which encourage the heart
to open a little more.
But wholeheartedness is cultivated not by consulting our feelings, but rather
through an exercise of the will. We practice throwing ourselves energetically into what
needs to be done, without letting any negative feelings obstruct. Obviously, this can
give rise to emotional reactions. But these are to be contained and willingly suffered
through.
And when is our energy too tense? In the context of the practice, it is often when
we are in hot pursuit of some ideal we have fabricated for ourselves to live up to, such
as a ridiculously demanding timetable or ascetic practice, as in the case of the barefoot
monk.
If our energy is too tense, it is a sign that we are over-identifying with the idea of
doing, having or being something, thereby inflaming our desire and, as it were, ‘tensing’
our energy. Consequently, our efforts become wilful.
Wilful insistence on having things to our liking is to be abandoned because, in
turning its back on the part of life which is not to our liking, it is an obstacle to
wholeheartedness, and it is wholeheartedness which brings fulfilment.
Wholehearted participation in whatever situation arises, regardless of our personal
preferences, brings fulfilment, not in the form of some future reward, but rather
because, in itself, it brings the joy and fulfilment of the open heart which is liberation
from the suffering caused by our self-ignorance.
However, wholehearted participation in a situation is not a matter of passively
going along with whatever happens to be in progress. We respond to the need to
 40

improve the situation, if we can. But if we can’t, then so be it: we accept it, without
taking our impotence personally.
And why do we feel a need to improve a given situation? Because, with the opening
of the heart, the suffering of another becomes our own. And that goes not only for other
people, but also for the hungry stray dog, the garden which is crying out for attention,
the bin which needs emptying, the table which needs a polish, and so on.
But let it not be thought that effort which is not wilful must lack strength and
determination.
When, bhikkhus, the Dhamma has thus been well expounded by me,
elucidated, disclosed, revealed, stripped of patchwork, this is enough for a
clansman who has gone forth out of faith to arouse his energy thus: ‘Willingly, let
only my skin, sinews, and bones remain, and let the flesh and blood dry up in my
body, but I will not relax my energy so long as I have not attained what can be
attained by manly strength, by manly energy, by manly exertion.
The Buddha 12
Clearly, the prince Siddhartha, destined to lead men either as a great king or as an
outstanding sage, was no slacker.
Right Mindfulness
Walking the Path is a specific way of leading our lives, not a specific activity which
we need to find time for among all our other commitments and interests. Therefore, it
requires constant mindfulness. But mindfulness concerning what?
Obviously, we need to be mindful that our practice of each of the other factors of
the Path is what it is supposed to be. But more specifically, we need to make a constant
effort to be mindful of the root cause of our self-inflicted suffering, our tendency to
wilfully insist on having things our own way, and to become resentful, irritated, or
depressed when they are not. And we must be particularly alert to the danger of
wilfulness in the practice itself.
But can the practice of mindfulness itself be wilful? Yes, when it becomes self-
conscious, making us inhibited, nervous, stiff. For example, we are told that even cups
and saucers are to be treated with the respect due to the Buddha. Then we find ourselves
trying to put down our cup of tea without making a noise. We move it slowly down
towards the saucer, becoming increasingly tense and nervous. But however slowly it
goes, it finally lands with an embarrassing clunk. In trying too hard not to be careless,
we have been too careful.
In walking the Path, we need to find the middle way between being too slack and
careless and being too tight and self-consciously wilful. Then, like a well-tuned string,
we will respond in harmony with the situation.
Right Concentration
We cannot get to know ourselves and the forces that move us, if we are helpless
prey to any impulse which arises. The practice of Right Concentration is the cultivation
of that state of collected, mindful alertness which can withstand the winds of the

12 Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Pt.II, 12:21 (1).

 41

passions. Collectedness may be cultivated through various techniques of focussing the

attention on something or other, but it should not be confused with focus: we can be
collected without being focussed on anything in particular.
’And your lines of reasoning are far too many whereas your power of stable
concentration is not enough.’
Master Daie Soko
We can check it out at the sesshin here…. Can we peacefully sit in the zendo in
stable concentration? But we have to be careful with the term ‘concentration’
because we so easily fall into the trap that ‘I’ must concentrate… But the more ‘I’
concentrate, ‘I’ concentrate, ‘I’ concentrate, the more focused this becomes. And
the more it excludes everything else, doesn’t it? With this ‘I’ concentration,
everything else is shut out.
But the Buddhist concentration, on the other hand, being Eastern, is to open up,
and, like a mirror, to take in just what is without any kind of exclusiveness. Such
concentration takes in just what is, and like a mirror when it turns away a little bit
to something else, it lets what was in it before drop, and takes the new picture in.
Please do not forget, the Buddhist concentration is the mirror. That’s why
Buddhism so often talks about the heart mirror. Whereas ‘I’ concentration is ‘I’
focusing and is totally exclusive. And so perhaps ‘concentration’ is not exactly the
right translation here, perhaps we could say your power of ‘stably beholding’:
‘stably remaining in the situation’ or ‘stable being’ is too weak.
Myokyo-ni (Daiyu Myokyo) 13
The consciousness of the enlightened mind is often likened to a mirror. This is
sometimes understood to mean that the mind is fundamentally passive like a reflective
surface. Not so. The point of the mirror metaphor is that the mirror does not add
something from the previous image, nor does it cling to the present image. In other
words the mind deals with things as they present themselves without distorting
prejudices and presuppositions, and without clinging to them. None of which implies
inactivity. Non-action means non-interference, not inaction. The enlightened heart/mind
is fully responsive to circumstances. It only differs from the unenlightened heart/mind
in the quality of its responsiveness. This capacity for clear, undistorted, unclinging
responsiveness is the fruit of collectedness.
The point of meditation is the cultivation of this collectedness and the insight which
it facilitates. When it holds, and insofar as it holds, things are seen in the absence of
conceptual discrimination i.e. as they are. But it is the very collectedness which clears
the view by holding the clouds of discriminatory thoughts at bay or dissolving them
when they appear. Collectedness is only ‘calm’ in the sense that one remains stable in
the midst of whatever storm might brew up. It does not refer to the total absence of
storms, or of feelings.
Only by dwelling in this state can we come to see clearly ourselves, others, and the
world we all share. This collected awareness needs to be sustained throughout the day,

13 Myokyo-ni, ‘Selected Sayings of Master Daie Soko - Commentary’.

 42

it is not a state to be sought only during periods of formal meditation. However, regular
practice of formal meditation is essential because it hones mind and heart to the level of
collected awareness necessary for insight to occur.
In the very process of developing collectedness, we gain a certain degree of insight
into the root of our suffering as we restrain ourselves from being distracted and contain
any emotional reactions which such restraint might provoke. However, collectedness is
only the pre-condition for the specifically Buddhist type of meditation, called insight
(vipassana) meditation. Being collected and fully aware, we contemplate whatever
arises, be it related to the body, feelings, sensations, or mental events such as thoughts
or memories. And we contemplate it ‘as is’, which is to say, mindful that it is something
with which we should not over-identify in terms of ‘I, me, or mine’. However, such
contemplation is not, in itself, the insight which transforms us. That insight is not a
mere change of opinion on the intellectual level, it is something which comes in its own
time and is registered in the body.
Although we should seek a spot for meditation where the conditions are not
overwhelmingly distracting for us at our present level of development, we should not
try to avoid distractions altogether. For it is precisely by learning to hold our
concentration in the face of distractions that our capacity for collectedness is
strengthened. However, as in any other field of activity, for the learning, honing and
intensive practice of our skills, it is useful to have access to a safe environment, like-
minded companions, and the guidance of an experienced trainer or teacher. For this
reason, the footballer goes to the practice pitch, the martial artist to the dojo, and the
follower of the Path to the meditation hall.
So how does it go? Suppose there comes a time, perhaps during a longer sitting,
when the pain in our legs, or back, or shoulders, or neck, or wherever, brings us to the
point where we are desperate to alleviate it. At this point we are forced to consider the
various strategies open to us.
Since we are naturally averse to pain, our first impulse is to escape from it
somehow. This impulse comes with a thought like ‘I must move’. So first we need the
mindfulness to feel this impulse coming and the strength to check it before it drives us
to move. This mindfulness and strength have been acquired in our daily life practice on
the innumerable small occasions when we have practised throwing ourselves
wholeheartedly into doing whatever the situation required, regardless of our personal
preferences, and containing whatever emotional reactions have come up.
As our discomfort increases, we feel the energy behind the impulse to move
building up, and so we need to increase our efforts to maintain our focus on counting
the breath, or whatever device we have chosen to keep us from being swept off.
‘I must move’ is followed by other thoughts trying to justify it, like ‘Surely one
should move in order to avoid serious injury’, ‘The Buddha rejected extreme
asceticism’, and so on. We cannot stop such thoughts arising, but we can refuse to get
on the train that follows them and stay with the count. Or if we suddenly realize that we
are on that train, we can grab hold of the count and pull ourselves off it.
 43

When the emotional reaction which has been building up is gaining enough energy
to break out and drive us to action, we must find some way of dealing with it. At this
point we might be tempted to follow one of the following four unprofitable strategies.
The first, and most drastic, strategy is that of the quitter, which is simply to give up,
get up and walk out. Nobody will stop us. Anyone can have a bad day. On the other
hand, it may be a long time before we are allowed back. There is no blame here. It is
simply that our present capacity has been overestimated both by our teacher and by
ourselves. All we need do is rejoin a beginners’ group and start from scratch once more
in order to cultivate the required strength. Any feelings of humiliation, remorse, anger,
self-pity, or whatever, just need to be suffered through. We are not the first to have felt
them and they are all best considered as just grist to the mill.
The next option is the strategy of the faker, which is epitomized by the surreptitious
wriggle. This may bring a little relief for a time and get us to the end of a normal sitting
of three or four 30-minute periods strung together. But it won’t help much during a five-
day sesshin where we might be sitting endless hours each day. And what is the point?
We are only fooling ourselves. Nothing will be learnt until we face up to such a crisis.
So, we might decide instead for the strategy of the hero, summoning all our
willpower to suppress our urges to escape the pain, and braving it through on the
strength of that. This works up a nice sweat and gives a certain sense of victory when
the bell signals the end of a period. We get up, full of ourselves, and at the first
opportunity the repressed emotions erupt in a reaction to release the tension. But serious
spiritual practice has a very long history and is designed to counter all such self-centred
strategies. So sooner or later we will find ourselves in a situation where we know that
we just cannot summon enough will power to get through. And then what?
Perhaps we should opt for the strategy of the escape artist. Myokyo-ni used to tell
of a South African fellow who spent a while at her monastery in Japan sitting zazen
with the monks. He confessed to her that at the start of each period of sitting he would
imagine himself climbing into his red convertible sports car. Then he would visualize
the whole journey from his home up to the summit of a famous mountain nearby, and
back again. And he timed it so that as he stepped out of his car, the bell rang for the end
of the period. And what precisely is achieved by such a strategy? Absolutely nothing.
He could have saved himself the expense of the trip to Japan and simply driven out
every day. At least he would have got some fresh air and a decent suntan.
At this point we must be careful not to fall into the trap of asking ourselves whether
we are essentially a quitter, faker, hero or escape artist. These are not categories which
define us. They are ways of behaving which we are free to adopt or not. In practice we
are all at times a bit of one or the other, or even a mixture of several within the space of
a single sitting. The danger, as explained in the teaching of the Chain of Conditioned
Arising, is that of allowing one of the unhelpful strategies to become entrenched as a
habit. Then indeed, in the sense of the teaching, we are ‘born’ as beings who are trapped
into certain patterns of behaviour.
So, hopefully, we finally pay attention to what we have been told and follow the
strategy of the follower of the Path. This consists in willingly suffering through
whatever circumstances require of us – in this case, patiently enduring the pain, and
 44

whatever emotional reactions might come up. But in order to achieve this we have to
come to terms with the tremendous energy of that emotional reaction which is directed
towards averting the pain. But how?
First, we need to recognize this power within ourselves, accept its presence and
overcome our fear of it. Yes, we do fear it, because we know that it can take us out of
ourselves and drive us to do or say things which we later regret. We are afraid of losing
control. So the first thing we need to realize is that this energy is not the enemy. In its
untamed state, it manifests as inflamed desire. But when tamed and assimilated, it
manifests as the warmth of the open heart, overflowing with benevolence. So we need
to approach it, as we would a wild bull. We need to become familiar with it, make
friends with it, and learn how to contain it.
So how do we go about doing that? First, let us be clear that we are not advocating
any form of masochism, suggesting that we should somehow learn how to enjoy pain.
Nor are we suggesting any alternative escape routes, such as becoming insensible to our
sensations. So how are we to suffer through the pain in spite of the urge not to.
We are at the mercy of any desire to the extent that we over-identify with it. So, the
first step is to dissociate the object of desire, freedom from pain, and from the felt
imperative to attain it. ‘I must move’ is reduced to ‘I must’. This act of dissociation
demotes the object of desire from being something felt to be essential to us down to
being a mere option, thereby enabling us to evaluate it and freely decide whether to act
on it or not.
But the urge to escape the pain is not a mere opinion we have been holding, it is a
physical urge of great emotional energy. So, the next step is to dissociate ourselves from
the felt imperative itself by dropping the ‘I’ from ‘I must’ and focussing our attention on
the energy of the ‘must’. But here it is crucial to adopt the right attitude. We practice
acceptance and reverence towards it, using the formula:
The fires are burning.
‘I’ am still here.
Precious energy arising,
Please burn ‘me’ away.
The fires are the passions, desire inflamed by its appropriation into a harmful sense
of self. ‘I’ refers to this harmful sense of self. The energy in the inflamed desire and the
emotional reaction which frustration provokes is not to be devalued, suppressed,
ignored, or extinguished. It is precious, because it is the very energy of the passions
which, when transformed, shines forth as the warmth of the open heart. Our emotional
reactions to restraint and containment, churning and burning within, are to be willingly
suffered through, as through a purifying fire.
Initially, we are hesitant to approach what these steps ignite in the crucible of the
heart. This is only natural when confronted with something which might burn us. It can
be compared to the caution with which we enter a hot bath. The warmth it gives off
attracts and begins to relax us. So we test the water with our big toe. If we find the heat
bearable, we gradually immerse more of the body. At some point we might break into a
sweat, but knowing that to be part of the process, we accept it. As we enter further, the
heat suffuses our body, until we have gained enough confidence to submerge ourselves
 45

fully and let go, relaxing all our muscles completely. In practice, it can take a long time,
even years, before we acquire this degree of confidence in the precious energy of the
heart.
So we suffer through the effects of restraining the urge to escape the pain, or any
other urge, until it passes. Each time we engage in this process, we gain a little more
bearing strength in the body to contain our emotions, and in this way we gain a little
more insight into the fact that we are mistaken in over-identifying with our impulses to
the point at which we are helplessly driven by them, and a little more faith in the
carrying power of something beyond our self-centred will. But, clearly, gaining this
insight and faith is not a matter of simply giving our intellectual assent to a new
opinion: it must be realized in the body.
Of course, when pain is truly extreme, the body takes over and does whatever is
necessary to seek relief. But when that happens, there is no delusion, because there is no
thinking involved. We often try to justify being driven by our impulse to escape by
claiming that the pain had reached such a point, but in our hearts we know this not to be
true. Military training, particularly for the special forces, is designed to make us fully
aware of the difference. Does this mean that members of the S.A.S are all enlightened?
No. But they have at least learned in their bodies that in extreme situations they can
trust in reserves of strength and energy which in normal circumstances the mind is
unaware of.
So, strange as it may seem, the Path out of suffering leads us directly through the
fires, time and again, until all delusion has been burnt away.
 46

The End of Suffering

The Perfection of Virtue
The Buddha argued that the mere absence of bad behaviour is no guarantee that an
ascetic has achieved the highest state.
If that were so, …, then a young tender infant lying prone is accomplished in
what is wholesome, perfected in what is wholesome, an ascetic invincible attained
to the supreme attainment.
The Buddha 14
To achieve the highest state it is necessary to understand the nature and cause of
our suffering.
Habits and intentions which promote or prolong our suffering are said to be
unwholesome, whereas those which contribute to its reduction and elimination are
called wholesome. The origin of habits and intentions which are unwholesome is the
heart and mind affected by the ‘Three Fires’ of lust, hate and delusion.
As a first step, unwholesome tendencies need to be eliminated and replaced by
those which are wholesome. In the beginning this might involve a fair degree of
struggle. The Buddha likens the process to that undergone by a young thoroughbred colt
being trained to be fit for a king to ride.
Bhaddāli, suppose a clever horse-trainer obtains a fine thoroughbred colt. He
first makes him get used to wearing the bit. While the colt is being made to get used
to wearing the bit, because he is doing something that he has never done before, he
displays some contortion, writhing, and vacillation, but through constant repetition
and gradual practice, he becomes peaceful in that action.
When the colt has become peaceful in that action, the horse-trainer further
makes him get used to wearing the harness. While the colt is being made to get
used to wearing the harness, because he is doing something that he has never done
before, he displays some contortion, writhing, and vacillation, but through constant
repetition and gradual practice, he becomes peaceful in that action.
The Buddha 15
This process is repeated through all the stages of his training until the colt is finally
fit for a king to ride. And so it is for us in our training. Each of us will find it easier to
settle into certain aspects of the practice than others. Some take easily to meditation
while others may take years to overcome their aversion and ‘become peaceful in that
action’. Some take to chanting like a duck to water, while others are inclined to see it as
a form of torture. No matter. If we persist, we will eventually become settled and
peaceful in our wholesome habits and then be said to have become ‘accomplished’ in
the wholesome. So far, so good.

14 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Samaṇamaṇḍikā Sutta 78:8.
15 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, Bhaddāli Sutta 65:33.
 47

The next step is to stop ‘giving ourselves airs’, supposing ourselves to be somehow
superior to others who are not so advanced in the practice. When, though virtuous, we
have eliminated any tendency to over-identify with our virtue, we are said to have
become ‘perfected’ in the wholesome.
In those who are truly perfected in the wholesome, the Three Fires have been
extinguished. Since such people are longer capable of even formulating evil intentions,
they will quite naturally act for the good. Then terms like ‘wholesome’ and
‘unwholesome’, insofar as they have been applied with reference to conventional codes
of behaviour, are no longer applicable. Hence it is said that ‘wholesome’ habits too
must cease.
And where do these wholesome habits cease without remainder? Their
cessation is stated: here a bhikkhu is virtuous, but he does not identify with his
virtue, and he understands as it actually is that deliverance of mind and deliverance
by wisdom where these wholesome habits cease without remainder.
The Buddha 16

Beyond Idealization
We have a tendency to fabricate and over-identify with ideals of perfection to
which we cling. We feel that we cannot be completely happy unless we are perfectly
healthy, so every pulled muscle becomes a drama. We lovingly choose the colours and
accessories for our new car and are enchanted when we receive the keys. But no sooner
do we start the motor, than we are consumed with anxiety at the possibility of a scratch.
We buy a house and immediately set about reforming it to our taste, but, as time goes
by, one thing after another needs repairing, and we fall into despair at ever being able to
enjoy our personal paradise fully. We dedicate a whole morning to making the kitchen
spotless, only to become hysterical when someone ruins our efforts by coming in to
make a cup of tea and letting a drop of water fall to the floor. We become increasingly
aware of our own imperfections and become obsessed with diets, fitness regimes, self-
help manuals, makeup, cosmetic surgery, fashion. But the changes we make only make
us more self-conscious and neurotic about our failure to live up to the ideals of the
moment.
Then we start reflecting on the state of our hearts and turn our attention to matters
of the spirit. We do the same here, fabricating ideals of perfection based on accounts of
the lives of Buddha, Chuang Tzu, Jesus, yogis, saints, sages, gurus, zen masters,
mystics, monks, spiritual teachers and so on. How can we ever get rid of all the
imperfections we are ashamed of and become perfect like them? We look for formulae
to apply to our behaviour, our reactions, our routines, our breathing, our thinking, our
emotions, in order to measure up to the ideals we have set up. We become judgemental
of ourselves and of others. In any given situation we fret about what is the right thing to
do, which formula to apply. Someone asks for money in the street. If we give them
something, perhaps they will use it to buy drugs or alcohol. If we don’t, where is our
compassion? If we do, how much? Should we buy them a hamburger instead? But what

16 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, Samaṇamaṇḍikā Sutta 78:11.

 48

if they are vegan? And so on. This obsession with ideals of perfection causes us much
anxiety.
Of course, while we are still liable to be carried away by the passions, we will need
general guidelines for good behaviour. The most elaborate set of such rules were
devised by long ago by the Chinese philosopher Confucious. But the Taoist Chuang Tzu
was critical.
Chuang Tzu was not demanding less than Jen (compassionate and devoted
love, charged with deep empathy and sincerity, which enables one to identify with
the troubles and joys of others as if they were one's own) and Yi (completely
disinterested sense of justice, responsibility, duty, obligation to others), but more.
His chief complaint of Ju (the classic philosophy of Confucius) was that it did not
go far enough. It produced well-behaved and virtuous officials, indeed cultured
men. But it nevertheless limited and imprisoned them within fixed external norms
and consequently made it impossible for them to act really freely and creatively in
response to the ever-new demands of unforeseen situations.
Thomas Merton 17
Consider the neighbour who is a keen follower of some religious sect and always
on the look-out for opportunities to help others. Of course, we feel grateful for the help,
but when he or she responds to our thanks with a comment such as ‘Well you have to
help your neighbour, don´t you?’, we can’t help feeling a little disappointed in them.
Why? Because they give the impression that they have simply been following a
rulebook and looking for brownie points, rather than acting from the heart.
In the not so distant past our doctor would know our medical history, and perhaps
even that of our family. He would ask what ailed us, listen carefully, check whatever
needed checking, and prescribe accordingly. Nowadays, perhaps the very rich can
afford to be treated as individuals, but the vast majority are treated according to general
guidelines drawn up on the basis of statistics. The doctor spends more time looking at
the computer screen than at the patient, who he barely knows and can only give ten
minutes of his attention. He prescribes whatever the representative of the
pharmaceutical company with the most influence has managed to have had adopted as
the standard cure and recommends the highest dosage in order to avoid repeat visits.
Doctors obliged to work under such a regime are themselves demoralized and their
work only exhausts them. Even now they are being replaced by automated systems. And
why not? There is little left of humanity in what they do.
The true man of the Way acts from an empty heart, selflessly responding
wholeheartedly to the needs of each situation in all its particularity. This does not mean
he is infallible, only that his mistakes are not due to egocentric interfering.
Prompted by his deep compassion, he throws himself into the dusty world and
by virtue of the great vow he reaches out a helping hand to rescue all beings. Can
his action be called moral or religious? No, neither. The vitality of Zen pervades all
his doings freely and unhindered and is not confined by moral or religious

17 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 22.

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regulations. No one can define his playful and freewheeling life. Itself beyond all
rules and moral laws, it is yet at the same time the place from which all moral and
religious norms arise.
18
Otsu
As the Buddha said, one constructs a raft to cross the river, but once safely on the
other shore there is no point carrying the raft on your head. 19

Collectedness
There is a sutra in which the Buddha describes the state of heart and mind which he
himself cultivates towards his disciples and by virtue of which he is a teacher fit to
instruct them.
He teaches his students out of compassion and concern for their welfare and
happiness. Sometimes none of the students are interested in listening to or following the
teachings, sometimes they are all keen to listen and put the teachings into practice, and
sometimes there is a mixture of the keen and the reluctant. Now it is important to note
that the Buddha is not indifferent to the reactions of his students. He is satisfied when
they pay attention and dissatisfied when they do not. But the practice is concerned not
with the type of feelings which different situations provoke in us, but rather with how
we stand towards those feelings. So, regardless of the type of feelings his students cause
to arise in him, the Buddha ‘dwells unmoved, mindful and fully aware’ 20 in relation to
these feelings, in other words he is not moved towards their inflammation into craving
or hatred. But do we have a choice of stance towards our feelings? Only if we have
learnt how not to over-identify with them.
The state described by the Buddha is one in which the heart resides in a state of
collectedness. But collectedness doesn’t mean abdicating our responsibility to better a
situation when we can; nor does it mean cultivating indifference as to whether
something is pleasant or painful; nor does it mean the resignation which might be
accompanied by resentment. It means being able to respond to any given situation with
the appropriate emotion in the appropriate degree. But what is the appropriate degree?
However intense the emotion the situation may merit, we should be able to live
through it without being overwhelmed. At the funeral of a loved one we may feel
deeply sad yet still be able to appreciate the beauty of the flowers, the service and the
sentiments expressed by other mourners; at the wedding of one of our children, we may
be overjoyed for them, yet not be blinded to the sadness of a guest who needs a word of
comfort. Of course we have every right to feel devastated when tragedy strikes. But life
goes on and we have to learn to live with the scars it leaves without obsessively picking
at them so that they can never heal. And of course we have every right to celebrate our
good fortune when circumstances favour us. But ideally we should always maintain a
healthy awareness that since we live in a world of impermanence, our good fortune is

18
Otsu et al., The Bull and His Herdsman, X Intro.
19 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 22 Alagaddūpama Sutta, 14.
20 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, 137 Saḷāyatanavibhanga Sutta The Exposition of the Sixfold Base:21-24.
 50

not guaranteed to last, yet without then being haunted by the fear of losing what we
have gained.
Freedom from enslavement to the passions can ultimately only be achieved through
the ending of over-identification with desire. In this way, our attachments lose their
stickiness, wilfulness is abandoned, the heart opens, we free ourselves from the notion
that we are isolated, independent beings and regain our connectedness with others and
the world around us. We come into full awareness that we are integral to the whole,
though we are not the whole.
One of the favourite analogies of the Zen school for this is that of wave and ocean.
The wave has an individual existence as such, but its nature is that of the ocean. We
bring suffering upon ourselves when we over-identify with wave consciousness,
thinking of ourselves as nothing more than an individual wave which has arisen from
the ocean of being, will endure for a short time and then disappear without trace. We see
ourselves as separate from the other waves and from the ocean itself and this leaves us
feeling isolated, vulnerable, and unfulfilled. Over-identification with the wave sacrifices
that sense of communion with the rest of existence which eliminates fear and brings
fulfilment.
So we might be tempted to seek refuge in ocean consciousness, thinking of
ourselves as no more than mere movements of the vast ocean. But over-identification
with the ocean sacrifices respect for the integrity of the individual and breeds inhumane
fanaticism. We cannot love ‘others’ as ‘ourselves’ if we have lost our capacity to
recognize and respect individual differences.
The perspective of the ocean puts our private affairs in the context of the whole,
thereby restraining us from over-identification with our particular joys and sorrows.
Ocean consciousness is not a matter of thinking of ourselves as physically dissolved in
some sort of soup of basic particles. It concerns the dynamics of life and our attitude
towards circumstance. The perspective of the wave reminds us of our humanity and
individual responsibility, thereby restraining us from losing our integrity. The wise one
is skilled in shifting between these two perspectives as needed without falling into the
trap of clinging to either. This the Middle Way of the collected heart.

Wholeheartedness
When the Path comes to an end, we walk on as a fully realized person of the Way.
We are no longer at the mercy of inflamed desire. We still have our preferences and
attachments and identify ourselves in terms of them. The sense of a personal self, based
on our memories, preferences and so on, continues, but there is no stickiness involved.
We do not cease to feel pleasure when our personal preferences are satisfied and
displeasure when they are not. But since we have freed ourselves from the conviction
that the satisfaction of all desire is essential to our sense of who or what we are, we are
able to accept frustration with good grace. We do not wilfully insist on getting our own
way, nor do we become angry or depressed when we can’t. Hence we are no longer at
odds with the world, separating ourselves from others by prioritising our self-interest
over theirs.
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Now that our way of seeing things is no longer distorted by self-centredness, we

evaluate the needs of the situation objectively and act accordingly in the interests of all.
This does not mean that we neglect our own welfare, only that it has ceased to be our
sole and principal concern. We do not cease to love ourselves. But we come to love
others, indeed all creation, as ourselves, for the barrier of self-centredness which
isolated us has been eliminated. Nor do we cease to value the benefits life brings us. But
we no longer consider the value of our lives to be measurable only in personal terms.
Feeling ourselves to be part of the whole, we take into consideration the beneficial
effect that our lives and how we live them might have on others, despite, or even
precisely because of, the personal suffering we have to endure and the way we endure it.
The renunciation of wilfulness does not compromise our integrity as individuals.
There is no sense of an isolated self which could feel subservient or manipulated,
because there is no longer any such sense of an isolated self at all. The sense of an
isolated, independent self was built of attachments whose stickiness has been
eliminated. With this the heart opened and we regained the sense of union with, not only
other sentient beings, but with the whole of existence. It is the individual heart which
opens and overflows with love towards all. But this overflowing is only possible
because the individual heart is no longer appropriated to a sticky sense of self through
the possessive attitude which turns my heart into ‘my’ heart. Since it is our own heart
which overflows with this love, we put ourselves freely and willingly at its service, and
are therefore in no sense coerced, either by a power which is external, or by the
passions.
In the absence of wilful clinging to anything in the name of ‘I, me and mine’, we
are free to participate in life, with all its ups and downs: laughing without being swept
away by joy, crying without drowning in tears. We might suppose that this is only
possible by being half-hearted in our laughing or crying. But it is not so. Wholehearted
joy or sorrow is not to be confused with the sort of impassioned joy or sorrow which
sweeps us up out of ourselves. Our laughing or crying is to be wholehearted yet
detached. This is the Middle Way between hot-headed passion and cold-hearted
indifference. But it cannot be understood from the perspective of the heart which is
moved only by self-interest.
Only the heart which is not at the mercy of the passions, the collected heart, is free
to respond wholeheartedly regardless of personal preferences. And it is this
unconditional wholehearted responding which heals the heart and brings fulfilment.

The Bodhisattva Spirit

The bliss of unshakeable liberation of heart and mind, the goal of the spiritual life,
is not to be confused with the happiness we measure by the degree to which our
personal desires are satisfied. 21 This bliss is peace of heart, a state of rest, and is
measured by the degree to which it is unshakeable. When it is so well-established that it
holds under all circumstances, pleasant or painful, we are said to dwell in Nirvana.
Therefore, Nirvana is a state which is attainable in this very world of impermanence

21 Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, 29 Mahāsāropama Sutta, 7.

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with all its ups and downs. Samsara and Nirvana are simply different states of heart and
mind.
Those whose state of heart and mind is such that they can be said to dwell in
Nirvana live in the same world of impermanence as the rest of us who dwell in Samsara.
Although one who embodies the Bodhisattva spirit may renounce the possibility of
remaining in a heavenly state of personal happiness for the sake of helping sentient
beings, he nevertheless remains in Nirvana. If he did not, he could not descend into the
deepest pits of misery in order to help the beings trapped there without becoming
overwhelmed himself. So, Nirvana and Samsara should not be confused with Heaven
and Hell.
Considerations of personal pleasure and pain are not irrelevant, but they do not take
priority in determining the actions of Bodhisattvas, because they are subsumed under
their concern for the welfare of all beings. Those who see all in themselves, and
themselves in all, participate wholeheartedly in the play of life for the benefit of all.
If we suppose the ideal of the Bodhisattva to be remote from modern life, if not
downright mythological, we are much mistaken. An excellent example was displayed in
the actions of seven Catholic monks of the Trappist order who were living in a small
monastery in a remote part of Algeria in the 1990’s. Those were troubled times and a
small village had grown around the monastery, which provided medical help and
friendship to the poor villagers. One day members of a group of Islamic extremists
came to warn them that they would be permitted to live in the monastery, if they kept to
themselves. But if they continued to have any contact at all with the villagers, they
would be killed. They took this threat very seriously and held a series of discussions
about what they should do. The content of these discussions was noted down, so we
know how they arrived at their final decision, which was to stay. They did not stay to
promote the Christian religion, as that was forbidden. They stayed to bear witness to
their sense of communion with their brothers and sisters, the poor Muslim villagers,
whom they felt they could not abandon in such difficult times. So having forgiven their
killers in advance, they continued to deal with the villagers as before. Then one night
they were kidnapped, and eventually they were killed. Later the Catholic church
declared them martyrs. However, they were not martyrs to any specific religion, but
rather to the spirit of unconditional love, which is the Bodhisattva spirit. 22
Though he can, and does, work ‘miracles’, they are entirely human; his heart is
open, his total love and compassion soften sorrow and ugliness at a touch; his bliss-
bestowing hands lift up his fellow beings, and less by words than by being what and
as he is, he points the Way for those who wish to tread it - that Way of which the
Buddha said that he had rediscovered it, an ancient way that leads to an ancient
city. This is the Way of the Heart, as old as man, which can be walked by all who
are so inclined. It is always available, and leads to that ancient city, the full human
Heart, which is also the Buddha Heart.
Irmgard Schloegl (Daiyu Myokyo) 23

22 Fr. Thomas Keating: Who Is Called to Be a Contemplative?

23 Schloegl, The Zen Way, ch. IV.
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Works Cited
Bodhi, trans. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta
Nikāya ; Translated from the Pāli. The Teachings of the Buddha. Boston:
Wisdom Publ, 2000.
Merton, Thomas. The Way of Chuang Tzu. New Directions, 1969.
Myokyo-ni, Ven. ‘Selected Sayings of Master Daie Soko - Commentary’. Zen Traces
29, no. 3 (June 2007).
Ñāṇamoli, and Bodhi, trans. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A [New]
Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya ; Translated from the Pali. 4. ed. The
Teachings of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publ, 2009.
Otsu, R, Kōichi Tsujimura, Hartmut Buchner, Kōichi Tsujimura, and England) Zen
Centre (London. The Bull and His Herdsman: A Zen Story from Ancient China.
London: Zen Centre, 1989.
Schloegl, Irmgard. The Zen Way. London: Sheldon Press, 1977.
Sujato, Bhikku. Numbered Discourses: A Sensible Translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya,
2016. https://suttacentral.net/edition/an/en/sujato?lang=en.
Who Is Called to Be a Contemplative?, 2020. https://youtu.be/j62yjIkdDUE.