Why the Monkeys Washed out Their Ears
Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives C02185
“You have spoken at length about using the law of nature to explain and justify Buddhist philosophy and practices. Yet even within this impermanence that highlights the law of nature, virtually all living beings are giving individual and/or collective mechanisms for violent self-defense when attacked. How does this aspect of the law of nature relate to Buddhist ānāpānasati and human self-defense needs?”
~ Response by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
As we said earlier, the law of nature – that is dependent origination – helps us to know ourselves and know what the problem of dukkha is, and then it shows us what we must do to end dukkha. It shows us how dukkha ends, but still we can’t reach this end of dukkha, and so we must practice ānāpānasati. Ānāpānasati is the way to develop ourselves so that we can reach the end of dukkha. When we have reached this end of dukkha then our problems are finished, and there are no more problems left to worry about. We have received the best thing that human beings can get from life. So in short, the law of idappaccayatā (conditionality) or paṭiccasamuppāda (dependent origination) shows us what’s wrong and what to do about it. Then ānāpānasati is the way to do what needs to be done until we are successful.
Because our lives are under the power of positiveness and negativeness, we’re always spinning around and acting according to this power, so there’s no real freedom in our lives, and this is dukkha. This lack of freedom that’s always at the beck and call of positive and negative is dukkha. Dependent origination helps us to understand this and then shows us the way to get free, to liberate ourselves from this bondage to the positive and the negative. And then we practice ānāpānasati in order to get free. So in short, what this is about is conquering the positive and the negative – conquering all problems instead of letting them conquer us and enslave us. Paṭiccasamuppāda is like the map and ānāpānasati is like the travelling. To travel you need a map, but a map without travelling is meaningless. So these go together – the map and the travelling are inseparable.
Because there are problems in life, we must solve them, but to solve them with violence just increases the dukkha. To have a problem in the first place is dukkha, and to solve it through violence just makes more dukkha. So we should learn to solve our problems without violence, then we will not add to the dukkha of having problems. You should understand that problems are of two kinds: there are material problems and mental or spiritual problems. For example the animals have their material problems such as finding food, and they must solve these problems to the best of their abilities. But human beings have another kind of problem which is deeper, more subtle and profound. This is a problem in the mind, a problem of understanding. Neither of these kinds of problems should be solved with violence. If we solve both external and inner problems violently, we just create more trouble, so we should solve them with a way that is more subtle and refined so that we don’t create more dukkha. We should never use violence to solve problems.
(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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