Things as They Function

There’s an adverb the Buddha uses to describe how the ideal meditator sees things: yathābhūtaṃ. Sometimes it’s translated as “seeing things as they really are.” But the word bhūtaṃ means, “having come into being.” So it’s more accurately translated as “seeing things as they’ve come into being,” right here in your mind. Which indicates it’s not just static things or things in and of themselves that you’re watching. You’re seeing processes: what leads to what, what causes what.

That’s because the mind is an active process. Everything we experience in the present moment is fabricated, put together—the word is saṅkhāra: results of past fabrications and our present fabrications. We’re fabricating things for the sake of happiness. We’re not just static.

The present moment is not a frozen moment in time, it’s part of a process going from right now into the future, building on the past. And it’s because we do these processes in ignorance that we suffer. So it’s not a question of stopping the processes right away. First we have to understand them. Where are they coming from? Where are they going? How do we do it? We learn not by focusing directly on the mind to begin with. We give the mind something else to focus on and then we watch the mind as it’s focused.

This is why we have the training in the precepts, training in concentration, training in discernment. The Buddha’s giving us good things to do so that we can see clearly what it is for the mind to do something. As he says, we suffer because of the cravings that lead to becoming. So he has us engage in some skillful becoming, which means there will be some craving in the practice.

Sometimes you hear it said that you have to practice without any desire. But how can you do that? As the Buddha said, everything is rooted in desire. The basis for success in the practice starts with desire. So the Buddha’s strategy is to give you something good to desire.

You start out by wanting to be harmless in your actions. He gives you some rules—training rules. What happens to your mind when you follow these rules? No killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking intoxicants: He says that if you follow these rules in all situations, you’re giving universal safety to the world around you. In other words, nobody has any reason to fear that you’re going to harm them. And you’ll have a share in that universal safety as well.

That clears a good space to practice. But you also get practice in looking at your own mind, because there will be intentions that come up that want to break the precepts. Some of them can argue their case pretty strongly. But part of the training is learning how to say No, and then seeing where anything that goes against the precepts is to be said No to, and why.

It’s like Ajaan Fuang’s comment one time. He was not the sort of person to explain things all the time. He said you have to learn how to do some explaining of your own. If an ajaan does something, he has his reasons. He may tell you his reasons, he may not. But just assume that he has his good reasons. What would those good reasons be? When you think in these ways, you expand your sense of what’s reasonable. And if the ajaan is a really subtle person, your reasoning gets subtler, too.

It’s the same with the precepts. The precepts are there for a good reason. You learn about yourself as you follow them. In particular, you get sensitive to your intentions.

This is going to be useful as you engage in concentration. You set up the intention to stay with one thing. And again, the Buddha doesn’t have you focus directly on the mind. He has you focus on the breath. Now, he says that as you focus on the breath, your mind will be there. It can’t help but be there.

Eventually the focal point will move from the breath to the mind as it’s with the breath, but for the time being, focus a lot of attention on the breath, because here you’re creating a state of becoming. A state of becoming is basically centered on a desire. Then there’s a sense of the world in which that desired object can be found, and there’s the question of what identity you have to assume in that world in order to achieve that desire. This is a type of thinking we do all the time.

As the Buddha said, we do it in ignorance, so we’re going to suffer. But here we’re going to do it with knowledge, with awareness. We have the desire to get the mind to settle down with the breath. The world in which the breath is located is just the world of your body, along with the cocoon of energy surrounding the body. And you, of course, are the meditator.

Where are you located right now? You can focus your attention anywhere in the body. Watch the breath energy at that spot and then gradually adjust the breath so that it feels good. Then you can spread that good feeling around the body. Think of it going through the nerves, through the blood vessels, out to every pore in your skin.

You’re fully inhabiting this world, fully inhabiting this identity as the meditator. And it is a state of becoming, so there will be some stress in it. But it’s done with knowledge. That makes it a path.

Now, to maintain this intention, it’s good to have a good sense of comfort in the body.

Whatever parts of the body you can make comfortable, focus there. If you can’t do the whole body, at least have a part of the body. As Ajaan Lee once noted, if there’s no comfortable spot anywhere in the body at all, you’re going to die. Well, you’re not dying, so there must be something good someplace. Even if it’s just the cocoon of energy around the body. Focus your attention there. It’s unrestricted.

Settle in and get to know the states that come up to challenge your focus, because there will be other desires. You want to think about this, you want to think about that: Those are little becomings in the mind.

You want to learn how to see them as they’re forming and stop them. By stopping them, one, you keep your original intention intact. And two, as you get quicker and quicker at stopping them, you begin to see the stages, the steps by which a thought world develops around a desire that forms the kernel, the nucleus.

But you also see that you don’t have to go there. And you can see the steps from the outside and not go in. That way, you can stop these little potential becomings in their tracks before they turn into full-fledged becomings. This is how you start to observe your mind as you’re anchored in the breath.

The Buddha talks about the different frames of reference for establishing mindfulness. There’s the body, feelings, mind, mental qualities. He says you can watch all four of them by staying with the breath. The breath itself, of course, is an aspect of the body. There will be feelings of pleasure or discomfort associated with the breath: That’s feelings. There’s mindfulness and alertness: That’s your mind state. And then there are mental qualities, either those that obstruct the concentration or are conducive to it.

These things are all right here. When you’re with the breath, you get to see them all clearly. And you get to see how they function. That’s the important part. When you see how they function, then when you see yourself assembling something that’s unskillful, you can take it apart. You can sabotage it in the early stages before it becomes a state of becoming.

That’s the Buddha’s strategy. So you’re looking to see things not as they are. You’re looking to see things as they function. By making your mental events function in a good way, you see things as they can be.

Eventually, even the path is something you’ll have to abandon. But before you abandon it, you want to develop it really well. It’s in the course of developing it that you can fight off a lot of ignorant emotions in the mind. At the same time, you see the process of forming a becoming right here as you’re doing the path. This is the best way to watch it, because you know you’re doing something good. It’s a lot easier to observe the mind when you know the mind is doing something good.

You don’t have to lie to yourself about what you’re doing. You can be open and aboveboard. And it gives you the confidence you need when something unskillful comes up. Especially an attitude that’s demeaning to yourself, that’s discouraging—you don’t have to identify with it. You’ve got some proof that you can do good things.

And you can do better things—and you can be observant of what you’re doing while you’re doing it. That’s how you get to know the mind in a way that’s really useful. Remember, we’re here to understand why the mind is causing suffering and how it can stop. That’s the knowledge you want to gain.

So focus on the Buddha’s strategy. Follow his strategy. Learn how to think strategically yourself. That’ll be the discernment that opens things up to release—release from this habit of creating suffering again and again and again. When you solve that problem, then you’re free to go as you like, wherever you like.

Think of the image of the raft. You hold on to the raft that you’ve made out of what? Out of the twigs and branches on this side of the river, the side that’s dangerous—in other words, the linging-aggregates. You hold on to the raft as you go across the river, then you let it go. Then you’re free to go as you like. The Buddha’s helped you solve your big problem, and from that point on, you’re totally free.