refuge

In Buddhism we keep hearing that the world around us is unstable and unreliable. Yet we still pursue it in a myriad of ways, investing our time into people and activities which ultimately do not serve us, and which will not lead to true happiness.

One passage from the EBTs that I have been reflecting on again and again of late, is the questions that the Buddha asked himself when he was still on the path to awakening, and searching for answers. It’s from the Pāsarāsisutta, The Noble Search, MN 26. Before the Buddha makes a breakthrough to full awakening, he asks himself -

Kiṁ nu kho ahaṁ, attanā jātidhammo samāno jātidhammaṁyeva pariyesāmi
Why do I, being liable to be reborn, seek what is also liable to be reborn?

This is is one of many questions - he also asks the same of old age, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement. Why, when he is beset by these things, and intends to come out of them, is he still pursuing things which lead to more of the same? What if he were to pursue something else, something beyond rebirth?

As Buddhists we take it for granted that such a possibility is even possible, but at the time Siddartha was asking these questions the path wasn’t clear, he had to discover this himself, which makes his proposition even more powerfully bold and striking.

Yet, at the same time, it is so obvious. How can we be expected to let go of our suffering if we continue to pursue the very things which fuel it?

Lately I’ve been preoccupied by saṅgha dynamics, in terms of how I relate to the people I am living with. I suppose this makes sense to a newly ordained sāmaṅera. I’m still at the entry point to integrating into the community here, still finding solid footing and intial definition in robes, so it makes sense that I would be questioning my place, and my relationship to those around me.

I’ve felt of late a kind of pulling back from the people around me, and have been examinging where this is coming from, and if indeed it is coming from the right place. I’ve felt a falling away from my fellow monks, and I’ve spoken about this in a previous post in relation to the commonplace lack of maturity amongst monastic men, and the alienating effect this is having of being able to feel like I am part of a community. It think I’ve reached a point where I am giving up hope of reconciling this, and learning to accept that I will be lonely in robes, as finding people on the same level of emotional development seems limited, at least for the time being. That may change with a few vassa under my belt and the ability to spread my wings.

I’m not looking to leave. I’m here to stay. It’s not about leaving, it’s about making peace with where I am. What I do know is that the work I have done on myself in the interim between my former monastic life and this one, has led me to a point where I can see so very clearly who is living through the filtered projections of their damage, and who is not. It’s as clear as day. That’s new for me, and I don’t think living in lay life would change that, as the majority of people in lay life also haven’t begun healing their psychological issues either, but it’s changed the way I look at the monastic community drastically.

The difference between lay life and monastic life is that with more mobility in lay life you can go and find people that have done the work, where as in robes the fishbowl is much, much smaller, and you are thrown together with a motley crew of people that, to be honest, you wouldn’t really associate with in lay life if you had the choice, and who, on aggregate, are much less likely to have healed this aspect of themselves. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as there are lots of lessons to be learnt in relinquishing the choice with who you hang with, but it still doesn’t solve the problem of finding people on your frequency.

I have, and have always had, this ideal version of myself playing out in my head that I have never been able to live up to. I think we all have this, and it’s usually centred around the way we think we should be living and how we should be spending our time, versus how we actually live. Of course I can never meet the high standards I set for myself. I used to berate myself for this constantly, like some tyrannical task-master, relentlessly hounding myself to do better, be better. A lot of that has gone now that I’ve done more work on healing latent trauma, and ironically, the ‘ideal me’ that I sought so desperately, is now emerging, through letting go of that ideal all together. It was the pursuit of it which was blocking it’s emergence the whole time. Of course I still waste time, I still run away from myself, I still get insecure about how I’m perceived by others, but my attitude towards those things is more forgiving, with a softness rooted in security. And a lot of the time, it’s just not there anymore.

This to me feels more like refuge, and I think it’s the reason I am pulling back from those around me. I’m realising that the answers I seek are never going to present themselves in a friendship or a community. It’s not to say that connection isn’t important, but that I just can’t rely on it, and should probably be spending my time on more important projects, like my mind. It’s easy to say this, as it’s what we are all meant to be saying, but I can see that when similar sentiment is parroted by some of those around me, I am simply looking at my old self, the old me that used the path as a bypass, used a teaching aimed at coming out of suffering, to avoid confronting suffering. The old me that rationalised avoidance as seclusion, and a cloying need to belong as kalyaṅamitta. Something has changed.

I learn more from being with my breath thoughout the day, and watching what my mind flicks out at to try and get involved and stimulated with, or what it avoids to try and run away from and minimise exposure to things it doesn’t like, than any amount of conversation and intellectualisation of the path, as interesting as that can be. That being said, I cringe at the neophytes who maintain that experience trumps all, and that the only true cornerstone of truth is one’s own direct experience, as this strikes me as the most arrogant, peurile approach to the path one could make, and is destined to fail, unlesss one fancies oneself Maitreya.

It’s simple things like the breath, or kāyagatāsati which are becoming my true refuge. The world can waver in it’s madness, and they will still be there. They lead me on to the path inside the present, the Dhamma that is always unfolding, and the promise of liberation from this mess. It’s through pursuing them that I am following in the footsteps of Siddartha when he made his bold propositon, and beginning to answer his question, which is my question also. It takes doing something different, if you want to experience something different, and this is going to be a wild, and scary ride at times, but it must be done.

This fading out I am experiencing, as confronting as it feels at times, is not a little boy wanting to hide from the world. It’s a man who has confronted some powerful demons and sent them scurrying, and now wonders what else he is capable of. To brush aside expectation, to live life with such brazen disregard for how we are told to live, to move past the illusory bondage and realise the chains that bind were never really there, that there is a state of mind that basks in release, and that our mind is not our own and never was, seems like the only game in town.

• Peace.