Why the Monkeys Washed out Their Ears
Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives C01313
“Is it possible to practice ānāpānasati without first understanding dependent origination and the five khandhas? I think wisdom is developed from meditation, not from books. I do not like to read books and listen to Dhamma talks. I don’t understand, maybe it is better for me to stop practicing ānāpānasati?”
~ Response by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
If you ask the question that way, then we will respond with another question. If that’s how you feel, then why bother practicing ānāpānasati? If that’s how you feel, why are you wasting your time practicing ānāpānasati? If one is practicing ānāpānasati, one ought to know why one is practicing it. If we speak about wisdom, we have to have some understanding of what wisdom is. Otherwise we don’t really know what we’re doing, we’re not really meditating. The reason we practice ānāpānasati is in order to have a life free of dukkha, a life that is free of all problems. We study paṭiccasamuppāda (dependent origination) because it helps us to understand in the beginning what dukkha is, what our problems are, and how they happen. This is just for a start, it’s not the end. But the more we understand what our problem is, the more we will understand how to meditate in order to solve the problem. So there’s the understanding about what our problems are, what dukkha is, and there’s the way of practice for dealing with those problems and eliminating dukkha. These two go together.
To put it a little more briefly, dependent origination helps us to understand ourselves, to understand our own lives, and then it shows us what we need to do in order to solve the problem of our lives. But at this point we’re still unable to solve that problem, so we must also practice ānāpānasati until we have the ability to solve the problem. We could say that understanding dependent origination is like our map that shows us where to go, where to walk. Then ānāpānasati is walking according to the directions of the map. The two must go together – you can’t have one without the other.
(From the retreat “Why the Monkeys Washed out Their Ears,” as translated from the Thai by Santikaro)
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Dhamma Questions & Responses sessions were offered by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu in 1990-1991 to foreign meditators attending Suan Mokkh International Dharma Hermitage courses.
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