More Buddhist Engineering

We’ve come to make merit for the princess who passed away yesterday. Think of that as making happiness, making ourselves happy by doing good things, and then dedicating the happiness to her. May she know of what we’ve done and approve of the fact that we’ve done it. That should make her happy. That becomes her merit.

We use the phrase “making merit,” and it’s appropriate, even though when we translate it as “making happiness” it sounds artificial. Still, we’re dealing with natural realities. When you’re generous, you’re happy. When you’re virtuous, you’re happy. When you extend thoughts of goodwill to all beings, it’s a happy act. And it’s a happiness you can make.

You see that there’s a problem. Someone has died. There’s a lot of unhappiness around death. But there are ways you can compensate for that and actually turn this into a happy occasion. Even though there’s death, there are still ways that we can help one another.

The idea of making happiness may sound artificial, but it’s actually a skill. That’s what’s appealing about Buddhism. It takes things that in other systems of thought are pretty random and shows that they can be nurtured as a skill. This applies not only to the act of making merit, but also to the act of making the path.

Sometimes people see a clear distinction between making merit, which sounds like you’re working to bring about your desires, and then the “real practice” of the path, where you’re not supposed to have desires at all.

But that’s a huge misunderstanding.

The Buddha did say that we suffer from not wanting to die, but then he offered a path to the deathless. We suffer because we just want the desire not to die to do all the work. And, of course, if you stop there, there’s going to be suffering. But the Buddha discovered there’s a path you can practice, a path that you put together that can put an end to suffering. If you get the causes right, the results will have to come.

You can construct virtue, concentration, and discernment, like a bridge that takes you across a river, or a road that takes you to a mountain. You don’t build the other side of the river, you don’t build the mountain, but you can build the way to get there.

We talked the other day about Buddhist engineering. And it’s good to think about the Buddha as an engineer. Engineering is not like pure sciences that start with first principles. Engineering starts with problems. You have a problem and you have to decide if it can be solved, how it can be solved, and whether it’s worth the effort to solve it. In the course of creating the solution, you may be drawing on the first principles of other fields like physics or chemistry, but there’s never the question as to whether those first principles allow you to manipulate them.

Engineers assume that of course you can manipulate them. The question is, how much? And can it be done in such a way that you can solve the problem you have? And is it worth it? That’s the kind of science we’re dealing with here.

The Buddha discovered that, Yes, the causes of life, your actions, can lead to the deathless, and the effort to do that is eminently worthwhile. You can train your intentions so that they’re virtuous and generous, and then you can train them further so that they develop a good, strong state of concentration.

Again, concentration is something you make. Ajaan Lee’s analysis is really helpful here. Of the five factors of the first jhana, three of them, he said, are causes and two of them are results.

The causes are the things you do.

Directed thought: You direct your thoughts to the breath. You keep them directed to the breath. And if those thoughts wander away, you can bring them back and direct them to the breath again.

Evaluation: You evaluate the breath. You evaluate the mind. Do they fit together well? What way of breathing would provide a good place to stay? When you’re trying to develop a state of concentration, you want something pleasant to stay with, something all-around good, so that you feel really stable, solid here.

What way of breathing would do that? Think of the breath not as the air coming in and out through the nose, because that’s pretty hard to get really comfortable. Think of it as the energy flow through the body. You can get sensitive to that, and it’s something that can be adjusted in lots of ways.

What way of adjusting it right now would feel really good? Remember not to push the breath or to force the breath. You’re allowing the breath to flow through the body so that when you breathe in, there are no blockages in the torso, in your arms, in your legs, in your head.

And then singleness of preoccupation: You stay with this one topic.

Those are the causes. Those are the things you do.

The pleasure and the rapture that come from those causes are the results. You don’t do pleasure; you don’t do rapture. They come about because you’re doing the directed thought, the evaluation, and you’re single-minded in doing this.

The same with developing discernment: It doesn’t just happen. You have to want it to happen. You have to want to go beyond concentration, because you see that no matter how good concentration gets, it’s still fabricated, and things that are fabricated are going to fall apart.

If you just spend all your time on the road or on the bridge, and never get to the mountain, never get to the other side of the river, there will come a point where the road begins to wear down, the bridge begins to fall apart. You’ve got to get over it.

I’ve been looking at the different things the Buddha said are necessary for gaining awakening. The principle of practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma is crucial. It’s not just a matter of following what the Buddha had to say. It’s wanting to take the practice all the way to the attainment of disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, release. You have to start asking the questions that will take you there.

So desire underlies the whole path. We have to be frank about that. There’s a desire to put an end to suffering and a desire to follow whatever steps are needed. Like a good engineer, once you decide that your desire is for something that’s attainable and it’s worthwhile, then you stick with that desire. Take it all the way.

There are people who say, “When we’re on the path, we have to learn not to have any desires, not to want things to be different from what they are.” But what they are right now is that you’re not awakened. You haven’t found the deathless. The deathless is attainable and it can be found. The path there is something you can make. You can be a good road engineer like the Buddha who found how to build the road to nibbāna and tells us how we can build our roads to nibbāna, too.

Once you get there, you don’t need the desire anymore. You put it aside. But right now you don’t just accept things as they are. You accept things as they function so that you can manipulate them. You stick with the assumption that you can manipulate them in the direction you want. You do have freedom of choice in these matters. That’s how we get across. That’s how we get to the mountain. Once you get there, then you can put the desire aside. Then you can stop making.

But in the meantime, hold on and realize that this is not a selfish quest. This is making merit, making happiness. It’s not selfish. You can dedicate the happiness to others, because the happiness of generosity, virtue, and goodwill is something that spreads around. It has no boundaries. And when you follow the path and gain the results, you can share your knowledge with others. You can show them, “Yes, it still is possible to reach the deathless. This is not a made-up fairy tale about 2,600 years ago. This is a reality that’s the same for everyone—no matter where, no matter when, no matter what culture you come from.”

That can be your gift to the world.