Q&A

Q: Is it possible to send thoughts of goodwill to dead people?

A: Please do. After all, they’ve been reborn—either that or they’re looking for a place to be reborn—and either way, they can benefit from your kind thoughts of goodwill for them.

Q: It seems as if there’s no discussion of affection in the suttas. It’s a beautiful sentiment. Is it associated with too much attachment?

A: Not necessarily. In the Vinaya, the new monk is told to regard his teacher with the same affection that he would regard his father, and the teacher is supposed to have the same affection for the new student as he would for a son. In Pāli there is a word, anukampa, that means kindness or sympathy, and it’s used many times in the Canon. It’s especially associated with situations where you develop the proper caring relationships with other people. That’s when you have to develop affection for one another.

Q: Those who attain the first jhāna: Are they able to attain it whenever they like afterwards? I have trouble imagining that one can get past the five hindrances definitively. How can one know if a person has entered into the stream?

A: Just because you get into the first jhāna once doesn’t mean that you’re going to enter it again. You have observe your mind to notice what actually helps it to settle down, and this can often involve a fair amount of trial and error. As for getting past the five hindrances, you have to get to at least one of the noble stages before you can say that you’ve definitely gone past any of those five. With sensual desire, not even stream-enterers are past that particular hindrance. You have to get to the third level of awakening, which is called non-returning, to go definitively beyond sensual desire. As for stream entry, I’ll save that for later.

Q: During walking meditation, is it possible to be very attentive to the sensations of the breath in different parts of the body—for example, the back of the neck, imagining that the energy circulates there to open it up if it seems to be closed and to cool it down if it seems to be inflamed?

A: Yes, it is possible. In fact, this is one of the activities that make walking meditation interesting and fruitful.

Q: Often the thought of focusing my attention on a particular part of the body generates tensions in that particular spot. It’s the opposite of what I’m looking for. How to avoid this?

A: When they teach you how to go hunting for mushrooms in a forest, they teach something called “scatter vision,” in which you try to give equal weight to all areas of your visual field. That’s because you don’t know exactly where the mushrooms are going to be. They could be anywhere in your visual field. If you get used to developing that kind of scatter vision, then when you sit down to meditate, it’s easier to focus on one spot and disperse the tension at that spot at the same time. You look at the body as a whole first, and allow the energies to be diffuse, open, and relaxed. Then you focus on one spot while trying to keep that same open and relaxed gaze on that spot. That helps to counteract a tendency that most of us do have, which is to tense up where we’re focused.

Q: I’m worried about my father who is 78 years old and whose health is declining. I’ve seen him act in ways that are more and more unskillful. He’s become an alcoholic, he often makes disagreeable remarks to my mother, and he seems interested in things that are more and more pointless. When he was young, he was a Catholic, but he hasn’t believed in anything for decades. He almost never poses any questions to me about Buddhism. What can I do to help him? Can I help him remember the things that he did in the past that were good? Any other ideas?

A: Yes, help him to think about the good deeds he did in the past. You could also take some books on Buddhism and casually leave them around the house in case he gets interested. I would recommend Les Cinq Facultés and Bonté et Bonheur. It would also be good to talk to him in ways that get him inclined to want to be generous right now. If he’s soured on religion, maybe he could give to a secular charity.

Q: Certain people cannot stand the idea that they would no longer exist when other people continue to live. What kind of fear is this?

A: It’s largely egoism. They have a sense that they should have some control over what’s going on in the world and they don’t like the idea that the world would continue after they’ve gone. Under the four fears associated with death that the Buddha listed, this would come under the fear that comes from not knowing the true Dhamma. You feel that you have some control over the world right now, but you actually have less control than you think. Remember our definition of becoming: your sense of yourself in a world of experience. We tend to identify a lot of that world as part of ourselves, so there can be the feeling that when you die, you’ll have no world at all left to yourself—without realizing that you’re actually in the process of creating another world of becoming to go to. But you’ll probably be very attached to that one, too.

Q: From your teachings, it seems that fear of death actually is useful so that you can do what is necessary in order to make this passage properly. If you don’t have fear of your next lifetime, is this a lack of compassion for the being that’s going to be reborn or is this foolishness?

A: Think about your being reborn. What kind of world would this being to return to? Go down to an old folks’ home and see the old people who haven’t practiced any Dhamma at all and ask yourself, “Do I want to be like that next time around?” That should give you some fear of rebirth so that you should determine, “I want to come back to a place where I can practice.”

Q: A friend of mine is suffering and is going to die and asks my advice, knowing that I am Buddhist, “Do I have to accept all the way to the end the sufferings that are getting more and more intolerable? Or can I speed up my rebirth with the aid of assisted suicide?” What should I tell that person without at the same time taking the easy way out of not responding in the name of certain praiseworthy motivations?

A: One thing to tell that person would be to say that, from the Buddhist point of view, we really don’t know where we’re going to go after death. We don’t know if where we’ll go next time will be better or worse. So we should take advantage of this opportunity to get to learn how to understand pain and not be overcome by it, because as a human being this is a skill you can develop that will hold you in good stead wherever you go. Whether that person accepts your advice or not is another matter, but that would still be the best advice to give the person.

Q: A relative who does not believe in rebirth has told me that she wants to die with dignity, so she plans to sign up for an assisted suicide program. What can I tell her to dissuade her from going ahead with this plan?

A: Appeal to her compassion and her sense of social responsibility. Ask her what kind of society she would want to leave behind as a gift for following generations. If assisted suicide becomes more and more the norm, there will be sick and old poor people who are inconvenient to society who will get pushed, willingly or not, into agreeing to sign on to assisted suicide. Is that the kind of society we would want leave behind as a gift to others? It would be a nobler thing to learn how to deal skillfully with pain, and leave that as an example to those she is leaving behind.

Q: I’d like to have a couple more detailed explanations of buddho: what it is that knows, consciousness, wisdom. I have a sense that some of these mental functions are contained in one another.

A: Let’s start out with consciousness. Consciousness, within the five aggregates, is the receptivity of the mind to sensory contact. In the Thai forest tradition, the “one that knows” is basically this consciousness. A common concentration exercise is to stay at this level of simple receptivity, and not to add any further elaboration to the plain awareness of sensory contact.

Wisdom is the understanding with which you begin to see into how you’re creating suffering and how you can put an end to it. That requires a lot more activity than mere consciousness.

Then buddho, within the Thai forest tradition, is the name for consciousness without surface, the consciousness that lies outside of the aggregates and is known apart from the six senses.

There’s some confusion in Thailand about this matter, especially the relationship between ordinary consciousness, which is called the one that knows, and awakened consciousness: in other words, between regular consciousness in the five aggregates on the one hand, and consciousness without surface on the other. There’s a problem in the Thai forest tradition in that Thai people in general, including the Thai junior monks, are often afraid to ask questions of the teacher. There’s a tendency in the Thai education system to discourage the students from asking questions because the implication is that if you have to ask questions, it means the teacher didn’t explain things properly. So, for a long time among Ajaan Chah’s students, there was confusion as to whether the one that knows is the same thing as awakened consciousness. It took a French monk to ask him the question: “Is what knows” the same thing as awakened consciousness, i.e., is it the same thing as buddho?” And Ajaan Chah said, “No, of course not.” If you want to read the transcript of this conversation, I don’t think it’s been translated into French, but it is available in English in the book, Still, Flowing Water, available on dhammatalks.org. It’s the very last talk in that collection.

Q: My question has to do with how to stop anger. If I’ve correctly understood what you’ve said, anger is incited by something that takes its roots in our attachment to a sense of me or to a frustrated desire. Once initiated, it becomes more or less independent of its point of departure and becomes more focused on the object upon which it is projected. A sort of attraction keeps reviving it and entertaining it without remembering its point of departure. How can one proceed in order to stop it? To attack it at the roots, which is the desire or the attachment to me? Or to study it as a process? Or to spread thoughts of goodwill for myself and the objects of my anger?

A: All of the above, in the proper order. To deconstruct anger, the first thing you’ve got to do is have goodwill for yourself and goodwill for the object of your anger. Then you basically do your best to see that the object is not really worth the anger. That turns your attention in to the anger as a process inside the mind. This is where you use those five steps of analysis, focusing your attention most precisely on what is the allure of the anger, why part of you likes it. Then, when you see that the drawbacks outweigh the allure, you can drop it. As this analysis goes deeper and deeper, it ultimately gets you to drop any sense of “me” or “mine” around the processes that would lead to further bouts of anger.

Q: In the chant on true friends, it says those who rest calm in the presence of nibbāna are particularly praised.

A: That’s a chant that I don’t know. There is, however, a chant that says that if you show proper respect for the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, you respect concentration, you respect the training, and you have respect for welcoming guests, then you are in the presence of nibbāna.

Q: Continuation of the same question: Does this mean that agitation is what obstructs the perception of the entry into nibbāna, and that nibbāna is simply everywhere and at all times?

A: There’s a lot more than simple agitation that gets in the way of realizing nibbāna. All of our ignorance about how we’re causing suffering and how we can put an end to suffering gets in the way, so that’s what you have to learn how to overcome before you can find the opening to nibbāna. You sometimes hear the idea that nibbāna is just waiting for us to just open up to it, but the actual realization of nibbāna is a lot more difficult than that.

Q: I’ll try to give a summary of what I think the next question is.

Sometimes I see in myself a tiny little impulse who becomes Darth Vader, nasty and immoral, without any scruples. By the time I realize it, the unskillful action has already been done. So what to do when you discover something like this?

A: You call on the entire Force. In other words, remember that you have other members of the committee as well. And knowing that you do have Darth Vader in your committee, you have to be extra vigilant. The fact that you can give him a name is a good thing. It allows you to separate yourself from him. And don’t be surprised when he shows up again. Just remember that Darth Vader doesn’t come on to the scene full-blown and all at once. He first sends his little spies and minions to find which other members of the committee are in agreement with him. They try to do all of this activity underground, but actually, it’s not totally underground. You see it, but then you pretend that you don’t, which is one of the reasons I said that seeing the allure of something is often very difficult. The mind has this tendency to lie to itself.

You can see this while you’re meditating. There will be parts of the mind that want to go someplace else besides the breath and they’ll actually come to an agreement, saying, “When there’s a lapse mindfulness, we’ll go.” Then they pretend that this didn’t happen, but actually, the decision has already been made. Then, sure enough, when there’s a lapse in mindfulness, they go. So instead of pretending that you didn’t see all this happening, you have to learn how to admit to yourself, “Yes, Darth Vader is there with his spies and minions, but I’m not going to give in to them.”

Q: Two questions on dependent co-arising. First question: In the twelve links of dependent co-origination, can you explain how the link of suffering aging, illness, and death leads to ignorance?

A: Dependent co-origination is not a circle. It comes in the form of many circles with many feedback loops. Now, underlying the whole thing is ignorance. As long as there’s ignorance, then the feedback loops can continue going around creating more suffering. But when you can apply knowledge of the four noble truths to any of the links in this series of feedback loops, that’s what begins to unravel the process. There’s a sutta saying that when you bring knowledge to the experience of aging, illness, and death, it leads, not to more ignorance, but to conviction that there must be a way out. That conviction then becomes the basis for the development of the rest of the path, all the way to release.

There’s a book in English called The Shape of Suffering, and one of the reasons it’s called that is to make the point that dependent co-arising is not just a simple cycle.

Q: Second question: Is kamma created or equivalent to 1) saṅkhāra, 2) viññāṇa or 3) nāma-rūpa?

A: In dependent co-arising, you find kamma in two places: 1) Under nāma-rūpa or name-and-form, it’s there as intention. 2) As for saṅkhāra or fabrication, fabrication is defined often as intention.

Q: Why do those who are awakened continue to meditate? We meditate to advance along the path, but those who have gained awakening are at the end of the path and they have let go of the raft.

A: They keep the raft around because it’s fun to go up and down the river every now and then. In the Canon, they say that those who are awakened practice concentration it because it’s a pleasant thing to do, and also because it’s good for mindfulness and alertness. Something else you see again and again in the Canon is that if someone like the Buddha is teaching, it takes a lot of energy, and practicing concentration is a really good way of getting your energy level up. There’s a passage right before the end of the Buddha’s life where Ven. Ānanda is commenting on how old the Buddha looks—his skin is wrinkled, his back is bent over—and the Buddha says, “My body is like a cart that’s being kept going by straps”—a cart that’s falling apart, so you have to strap it up—and the straps are his practice of concentration.

Q: In practice, what does it mean to be in karmic debt to someone else, for example to one’s parents? Do we have to pay back the debt, and if so, how?

A: Yes, the Buddha said the best way to repay your debt to your parents is to get them to be generous and virtuous and to practice the Dhamma. He said that if you could carry your parents around on your shoulders, feeding them and wiping off their urine and excrement, that still wouldn’t repay your debt to them, because after all, they were the ones who gave you life. Even if they weren’t the best parents, at least you have this body because they gave you life. I mentioned this one time to the mother of one of my monks, and she said, “Okay, I like the idea of my son teaching me the Dhamma, but can I have at least a little time of him carrying me on his shoulder?”

Q: Thank you for your presence. I’m happy to be here, thank you. My practice has become more stable since we’ve had this retreat. As far as sensations in the body, I do the body scan from top to bottom and then bottom to top, and I discover each part of the body. This happens sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. What I’ve discovered is that when I do the scan of the body, there’s always a moment when my body just relaxes. I thought it was sleepiness, but then I realized that wasn’t it, because if I visualized my body from another angle, this feeling of sleepiness didn’t overpower the mind. I don’t work with the breath energies, but I feel my body almost in its entirety. The first question is, do you have to feel this breath energy?

A: As long as the body is comfortable, you don’t have to think about the breath energy.

Q: Continuation of the same question: Then today, at the end of the body scan, it was my mind that was taking over, and I had the feeling in my mind, and so I meditated on the mind in the mind. I wasn’t feeling my body except for the hands, feet, shoulders, and the pains in my buttocks just from sitting. Sometimes it felt as if the fact that I was meditating on the mind itself made me rock my head back and forth, left and right, with movements that were more or less pronounced. There were sensations sometimes of opening, sometimes of confinement, closing off, sometimes headaches, sometimes the body was more or less present. What should I do with this presence?

A: What’s happening is that, as you focus on the mind, you’re unconsciously releasing tensions in parts of the body, and when these patterns of tension get released, they ripple through the body. This is what’s causing your head to move back and forth. It can also cause other parts of the body to move as well. As you allow these patterns of tension to disperse in this way, you’re actually subconsciously working with breath energies. After a while, the effects of these waves propagating through the body will die down. So, focus not on the movement of the body, but just on the sense of relaxation throughout the body, and things will calm down.

Okay, we’re getting past time. I apologize for the questions we didn’t get to. Come to the next retreat.