Masterbation...or Nibbana?

This Indian brave walks into the chief's teepee and see the chief wanking. Embarrassed, he backs out in shock. A few hours later he goes to the chief's teepee again and there's the chief, still wanking away. The brave leaves the teepee and goes to the tribal elders and says, "I think the chief need a woman."

So, they arrange for a beautiful young woman to go to the chief's teepee as a companion. At long last the chief gets back to his duties, and the tribe is run smoothly. The brave asks the chief, "How are things with the woman? Keeping you happy?" and the chief says, "Yes, really great. Thanks for the help."

Then one day the chief doesn't appear at a tribal meeting and the brave is sent to get him. He walks into the teepee and see the chief wanking again.

The brave asks, "hey... what happened to the beautiful woman?", and the chief says, "her arm got sore."
~~~

Speaking of wanking, I wanted to write about how our (my?) minds get wrapped up in thoughts and thoughts and thoughts, and how this can be very pleasing, and in a way, this is a form of masturbation. I take full responsibility to acknowledge that my rantings to you are just that. That said, I do hope at times they move you in ways that are beneficial and useful, and not simply for my pleasure alone.

I wanted to broach this topic because a few weeks ago, I went to the World Federation of Buddhists monthly meeting in Bangkok and heard an interesting talk on thought and meditation.

The speaker was a professor at Mahidol University, where I used to work. He talked about how problems we all encounter in our daily life can become quite difficult for us, and if you reflect now just briefly, I am sure there might be something that gives rise to some sort of vexation or stress in your life...it could anything from your job situation, a paper that is reaching a deadline to write, where to find a parking spot, and the thousand and one other things that eventually add up to add stress and confusion to what we are doing.

It can be exasperated by all the various input we are bombarded with in this modern day and age...so many things to do, so little time, so much to think about, so much to juggle... and this really can cause us stress.

In trying to resolve this stress, we use our thinking faculty most of the time, that is, we think about our problems, and think about them, and think about them, searching through a plethora of the ideas that pop up to find the solution. Most certainly, many of our day to day circumstances are resolved through this remarkable faculty of memory, reason, and logic. We are, after all human, and we seem to best be suited for using this mind in ways clearly no other creature so far has been able to match (and I don't mean to downplay Flipper, rather to say his brain suits him, our brain suits us).

In the case of stress, the problem with using thought to solve thought issues is that it's a closed circuit. We can go around and around and around trying to assuage the stress with something that, well, created it in the first place. And so constantly thinking to solve stress then is well, a form of masturbating...the release might occur, but it's only a matter of time before the itch starts all over again.

So, thought is not the best tool for the job. We need something other, and this is where meditation comes in.

Meditation (the kind called Samadhi [calming] and Vipassana [insight])are really useful tools to allow our thoughts to stop and get back to the original mind. We can use this tool very effectively for most stress we have in our lives, and extinguish the thought problems at the source before they start spinning out of control.
~~~

Ajahn Buddhadasa, the venerable monk of the Forest tradition from whom I learned Buddhist meditation here in Surat Thani, is actually more of a revolutionary than I realized.

After failing to pass the Buddhist exmas in Bangkok, he headed back with disdain of the whole bureaucracy to his home and went to the forest to read the original Pali writing of what the Buddha spoke to come to his own understanding. It is through his own efforts and scholarship he came upon three very radical notions that affect Theravadan Buddhism.

Firstly, he rejected the idea of reincarnation, of heaven and hell and all the creatures that one might become in the "next life". Upon close reading he came to the conclusion the notion of life and death is not a lifespan as we know it, but rather in every possible moment we are born and die in a very rapid succession. It is pretty clear: our cells die at a rate of a billion a minute. You are NOT the person you were seven years ago, other than as stored as memory.

While memory is a useful and important part of our faculties, it can store anything, and this is where we must be careful. Imprinting, habits, conceptions (thoughts!) are a double edged sword--used wisely we can live happy and unstressed, used incorrectly, and well, we suffer.

The second major point Buddhadasa said that we really ought to look carefully at this to see its verity for ourselves. It means that we actually don't accumulate "merit" which we pass along to whatever happens next in our next life; rather, it's this life that counts and it is here an now to realize it. For example, people believe their good deeds will stand them in good stead for what may come after we have "shuffled off this mortal coil". But, really, good deeds are goods deeds for the here and now, for the benefit for everyone around us, and the idea of "banking" these merits is yet thought taking something quite basic to our existence and making a mountain out of it.

The third big contribution Buddhadasa made to Theravadan Buddhism is that "Nibbana" is not attained through working out one's kilesas (defilements), rather Nibbana, as described by the Buddha and interpreted here, is contact with the void (sunnyata) from whence all things arise. Buddhadasa taught that this void is readily touchable by everyone...it it completely within our efforts to find it. And this then really frees up everyone to be able to know the state of perfection right now, right here, in every waking moment. Dipping into the void is where we can find a relaxed, fresh, inner peace, and it is from this all our action derive.

So, please use meditation as your canoe to get to the other side. Your thoughts just won't cut it, because, well, like the chief's woman in the joke above, they just get too sore.

Happy rowing!