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Dhammaratana Journal is published byWat PadhammaratanaThe Buddhist Meditation Center of Pittsburgh5411 Glenwood Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15207Tel(412)521-5095E-mail : [email protected]@yahoo.comHomepage : www.bmcpitts.orgwww.facebook.com/bmcpittswww.youtube.com/bmcpitts
Since this article is appearing within the pages of a Buddhist pub-lication, one would correctly assume that the truth search de-scribed in the title refers to the writer’s eventual discovery of the
Buddhadhamma and how that discovery changed his life forever. Two thousand six hundred years ago a young prince of northern India left the comforts and pleasures of his father’s palace to embark on an ardu-ous six year journey to find an enduring happiness. He had come to the conclusion that this inner peace could not be found within his role as a future king and so, much to the sadness and consternation of his parents and young wife and infant son, he left the palace discarding his princely robes for rags, beginning a life of homelessness and deprivation in his search for truth. He did this for himself of course, but additionally he did it out of compassion for his loved ones and all living beings who were to come after him. When he found the answer by his own efforts six years later, after almost dying of starvation; again, out of compassion, he de-cided to teach others the way to this lasting peace and happiness, includ-ing his family. The basic tool that he left all mankind to lead them to this victory over suffering and unhappiness was the practice of meditation. Meditation is the starting point on the path to this state of personal last-ing happiness and the end of suffering. I “stumbled upon” the practice of Buddhism five years ago, which for me was the beginning of the
end of a most unhappy and problematic life which had been filled with pain and increasing despair. How I embarked on the path which the Buddha pioneered all those years ago is my per-sonal story of deliverance. Therefore an opening state-ment on Buddhist medita-tion would be in order.
The skillful and persistent practice of meditation as taught by Siddhattha Gotama, otherwise known as the Buddha, is the one and only way in this unimaginably vast universe to complete the most difficult assignment one could ever accept; that of controlling and purifying one’s mind and experiencing everlasting happiness. I realize that is a bold statement coming from the pen of a layperson, and you should not automatically believe it just because I wrote it, and because it may sound plausible to your common-sense. Then again it may not sound plausible at all and will lead you to stop reading right here. For those of you continuing, I freely admit I am not the author of such a wonderful state-ment, only a messenger of the good tidings. Now consider a statement on the same topic from someone who unlike me, has devoted their entire life to the study of mind, and the pursuit of lasting happiness through the practice of Buddhist meditation. To quote the Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, a Theravadan monk and author of numerous books on the subject; “Meditation sharpens your concentration and your thinking power. Then piece by piece, your own subconscious motives and me-chanics become clear to you. Your intuition sharpens; the precision of your thought increases and gradually you come to a direct knowledge of things as they really are, without prejudice and without illusion.” Very perceptive and illuminating of course, but one should not even directly accept what Venerable Gunaratana says as the truth. In fact, the Buddha told his disciples that they should not believe anything he told them ei-ther! If one should not believe even the Buddha’s own words then who should one believe? No one! That’s correct, no one. The Buddha said that the only trustworthy source of truth was your own direct experience, which would verify the truth of what he had said. Again, the truth will
IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTHBy William Anderson
ธรรมรตน Dhammaratana ธรรมรตน Dhammaratana4 5be revealed as the truth, only when you have the experience of it. Get it? The Venerable Gunaratana continues, “ So, is this reason enough to bother meditating? Scarcely! These are just promises on paper. There is only one way you will ever know if meditation is worth the effort; learn to do it right, and do it. See for yourself.” Now, with respect to promises on paper; I have read many dif-ferent explanations of the meaning of life, and the achievement of a seemingly elusive lasting happiness. These paper promises came within the pages of numerous works of literature, poetry, philosophy, religion, psychology and various versions of metaphysics. The results of this reading and pondering only brought me to the conclusion much later in life, that none of these authors actually had it all together; they only had bits and pieces of truth that could not be assembled into one cohe-sive and understandable form. Despite all of my reading of such writ-ings, I always came away feeling that there was no concrete and realistic way to implement this wisdom into my daily life and thus solve all of my many emotional problems. All of these theories of the meaning of life and happiness are similar to the manner in which modern physicists postulate a single explanation for the existence and interrelationship of all the forces which hold the universe together; what they call a uni-fied field theory. I too was seeking one such gift-wrapped package that when opened contained unchanging happiness. After a lifetime of read-ing such theories I realized I was not the only one who was unhappy and confused about life. I came to the conclusion that absolutely everyone is in the dark on these life and death issues, whether they are honest enough to admit it or not. Some give up the search at some point and resort to the pursuit of one distracting behavior after another as a cheap temporary substitute for true lasting happiness. Others as well, never even consider asking such questions of life and feel that the only pur-pose to existence is simply enjoying themselves and seeking pleasure. Never totally abandoning my search; I did however, spend the majority of my adult years following one dead end after another in the deserts of confusion. I attempted during these wanderings to cover-up the increas-ing pain and dissatisfaction of my life with the placebo of sensual plea-sure, but more on that later. In any good story one usually starts at the beginning, and for me the search for the truth began at a very early age. As a young boy I wanted to know who made the world in which I found myself living.
Who was God and where was he located? I was led to believe that God was a male with no name other than God, and that he was somehow this but also my father; very confusing. In fact, although I had a name like everyone else, I never felt fully comfortable with mine as if I had some secret identity that no one could tell me. I was raised in the Christian tradition and baptized as an infant. This procedure required an authority figure to sprinkle water over my head while I probably cried in protest. The purpose of this early unwanted exposure to cold water was to pro-tect me from the Devil, who was the inventor and perpetrator of all the evil in the world. Imagine, all you need to be safe in this chaotic and violent world is a little water properly applied! This chaotic and violent world of course had been created by a supposedly all-powerful God, who was also my father. The key which was to unlock the mystery of God was the fact that he had a son named Jesus, who was also some-how my brother. I was told that this brother of mine had died a horrible bloody death because of my sins (those wrong behaviors which I would continue to perform throughout my life). The only sins that I had com-mitted as a small boy would have been occasional lies and perhaps the taking of something that didn’t belong to me, a cookie for example or another child’s toy. Because of these simple childlike sins I was to for-ever feel guilty and worthless because I had somehow brought about the death of my brother Jesus due of these behaviors. Confused yet? Imag-ine how I felt. Returning to this Devil character, it seems he had an army of evil friends called demons who would invisibly sit on your shoulder and somehow whisper in your ear to do bad things The Devil it seemed was very successful in spreading violence and unhappiness around the world despite the supposed all- powerful God, who was also my father. Since I was never to know or even meet my earthly father I was doubly confused. Why would God permit people to suffer so greatly and permit them to be so universally unhappy? As a child you were not to ask such questions and if you did, you quickly discovered that no one had a sen-sible answer. We were taught that God understood all of this and would one explain if all in Heaven. Despite all the evident suffering and chaos in the world I was taught that if I was good I would go to this wonderful place when I died and be with God, who was also my father, and Jesus his son who was also my brother. Unfortunately I was never able to be “Good”, but instead found myself committing many sins every day. I felt helplessly trapped within this unbending system of reward and
ธรรมรตน Dhammaratana ธรรมรตน Dhammaratana6 7punishment because I felt the requirement to be perfect. After all, Jesus himself told his followers, “Be ye perfect as I am perfect.” I found that I could be “perfect” for perhaps thirty seconds if I didn’t count sinful thoughts which constantly circulated within my mind. As I got older I noticed that the thoughts became progressively more complicated, sinister and numerous. Much later, I realized that this was due to my experiencing life every waking second, and that my brain was constantly making a record of these experiences. Our brains are so sophisticated that they even record thoughts, about our thoughts, in the form of judgments and opinions, like and dislike. Of course as a child I had no clue how my mind worked. All I knew was that I con-stantly had unhappy and fearful thoughts with the occasional break of a happy thought or experience which I desperately tried to hold onto. This story of my search for the truth will continue at another time, but for now I leave you with a quote from the pen of the poet A. E. Houseman which beautifully sums up how I felt leaving childhood and entering adolescence, and is from Houseman’s The Last poems; “I, a stranger and afraid in a world I never made.”