by Sister Medhini
It is in virtue of intentionality that actions are actions.
The quality of an intention is its motivation. Whether an action is harmful or harmless; blameworthy or blameless; good or bad, depends entirely and solely on what motivates it.
Regardless of everything else – the specific situation, the immediate or superficial outcome, and whether people approve of it or not – an action motivated by greed cannot be harmless or blameless. The same applies to any action motivated by aversion (which includes fear, irritation, impatience and so on, as well as outright anger). And the same also applies to whatever is motivated by sheer carelessness or disregard.
These attitudes are, in themselves, the essence of limitation, discord and crookedness – they are, in short, suffering. And all they can do is perpetuate suffering.
Whenever beings have brought misery to themselves and to others, and whenever there has ever been conflict, oppression, cruelty and destruction, it has always been through actions born of greed, aversion and carelessness. Whenever beings act from these motivations, they participate in creating the misery of the world. They then inherit the misery of the world they create.
Therefore, if a person wants to cease to participate in the world’s misery and its crookedness, his task is this: he should train himself to not act, speak or think in ways that are crooked by greed, crooked by aversion, or crooked by carelessness.
*
This task is not complicated. It is, however, subtle and challenging in a way that is not comparable to any other aim; and it is missed by virtually the entire world. What makes it so?
Acting in these crooked ways implies that one’s entire perspective is crooked through and through. In particular: to the extent that one is greedy, they do not see their own greed, but only the thing they want. To the extent that one is averse, they do not see their own aversion, but only the thing they want rid of. To the extent that one is careless, they must be careless first and foremost of their own carelessness. In this way, one’s vision of what one needs to give up is obscured by those very things.
So, since each person is already living to some degree greedily, aversely and carelessly, their very efforts to give up their own crookedness will begin crookedly. They will be too tight, (aiming to get rid of irrelevant things that do not pertain to the problem at hand) or too loose (failing to abandon important things that very much do pertain to the problem). Or, often, some of both.
How, then, to begin in such a way that, if it were followed through to its conclusion, would lead to un-limiting what is limited and straightening what is crooked, rather than creating further layers of limitation and another variety of crookedness?
*
Certain behaviours are of a nature to be always blameworthy and harmful. Killing is the first example: only one who is motivated by at least a degree of greed, aversion or carelessness, can deliberately kill another living creature. The same applies to stealing and lying. It also applies to sexual misbehaviour, and the use of intoxicants.
So for one wishing to train themselves in the task being described, these things prohibited by the five precepts are the first basic reference points for what one must be willing to not do, ever again.
Undertaking even this much, in the unconditional manner that the task demands, requires a degree of faith at first. It might be reasonably obvious that these actions are generally bad (especially when you are on the receiving end of them). But it cannot be self-evident from the beginning why they are always bad, without exception.
Even if you are not particularly tempted to act in such ways at this moment, a degree of honest reflection will show that situations could arise in which you would feel compelled to do so. They would seem to offer the only hope of getting out of a certain constraint, or relieving a particular kind of burden. And under the weight of that burden, and the force of that constraint, you would want to justify doing something drastic about it, even if there were no guarantee that it would work – even knowing that, sooner or later, a time will have to come when everything in your power will be powerless against it.
Even now in simply thinking about it, you can recognise and feel the unease in being liable to that precise kind of burden and constraint.
It is this unease – this suffering, and no other, that needs to be fully understood; for it is right here that there is all the difference between a crooked view and a straight one. If you could fully understand this very suffering and see the nature of this difference, right there and then you would be free from it.
*
The difference is this. The attitude of greed, aversion or carelessness that is present wherever there is that sense of burden and constraint, is the source of the entire burden and all of the constraint. There is no other source of suffering but this.
No matter what you might want: whether coarse, subtle, far, near, internal, external, great or little – while not having, and while having it; while keeping it and while losing it, the greedy attitude in regard to it is suffering in the beginning, suffering in the middle and suffering in the end. No matter what you might fear, dislike, want rid of: while dreading it and while running from it, while avoiding it and while caught with it; the aversion in regard to it is all of the suffering in each and every way of it. And in whatever is neither wanted nor unwanted, the attitude of carelessly disregarding it is already suffering in and of itself.
But, as was said in the beginning: the nature of being greedy is to only see the thing you want, and not your own greed. And not seeing your own greed is how you continue to be greedy.
So to clearly see and comprehend the full and exact extent of your own greed while it is there, as opposed to later when you have already acted out of it; would have to mean ceasing to be greedy right there and then. Only then would you truly see that very greed as the source of suffering. And by the same token you would know clearly what greed is, and you would know exactly how to not act in ways that are crooked by greed – or aversion, or carelessness – which are really just different styles of the same thing.
*
This is not something that one can simply choose to see, because both one’s choices and one’s seeing are crooked from the start. By being greedy, you continue to not see your own greed. And ‘being greedy’ means doing greedy actions, speaking greedy words and thinking greedy thoughts.
That is why the only possible beginning that can lead one in the right direction is resolving to not do actions based on that specific kind of burdened-and-constrained motivation, for which the basic precepts are the essential reference points.
It is better to begin by sincerely taking just the five precepts as reference points in this sense, then to take on a great many rules to follow just because they are rules. Having developed this to a sufficient degree, the eight precepts are not seen as ‘additional rules’. They are, rather, a more refined or detailed description of the very same framework in which one is already training. (The most important example of this is the deliberately vague phrase ‘sexual misbehaviour’ – one could regard ‘non-celibacy’ as simply a less vague term for the same precept.) And the entire gradual training and practice can, and should, be seen as nothing but the development and refinement of this same thread through to its conclusion in every respect. There is nothing extra to add to it.
Not perpetuating these actions, and not adding anything else to fill the gap: that is how there is the un-limiting of what is limited and the straightening of what is crooked in your own perspective – in spite of yourself.
It has to be ‘in spite of yourself’ in this way, and it is this that makes this task so challenging in a way unlike any other: in order to even begin to purify your own point of view, you must be willing to undermine and put that point of view second – which each person implicitly cherishes and wants to keep above all else.
Yet even here, the root cause of the difficulty is one and the same: whatever anxiety and unease there is in the thought of undermining the thing one wants to keep, is rooted in nothing but the greed of wanting to keep it.
*
Greedy, absorbed and entranced with pleasures,
They are hard to correct, being set in crooked ways.
Brought into suffering, they lament:
“What will become of us when we fall from here?”
So a person should train themselves in this way:
Whatever they might recognise as crooked in the world,
They should not let that cause them to act crookedly,
For this life is not long, as the wise would say.
Snp 4.2
“Bhikkhus, abandon the unwholesome! It is possible to abandon the unwholesome. If it were not possible to abandon the unwholesome, I would not say: “Bhikkhus, abandon the unwholesome!’ But because it is possible to abandon the unwholesome, I say: ‘Bhikkhus, abandon the unwholesome!’
If this abandoning of the unwholesome led to harm and suffering, I would not tell you to abandon it. But because the abandoning of the unwholesome leads to welfare and happiness, I say: ‘Bhikkhus, abandon the unwholesome!’
AN 2.19
A noble disciple understands the detrimental and its root, and the beneficial and its root. To this extent a noble disciple is one of right and straight view, who has absolute confidence in the Dhamma, and has come to the true Dhamma.
But what is the detrimental (unwholesome) and what is its root? And what is the beneficial and what is its root? Killing living beings, stealing, and sexual misconduct; speech that’s false, divisive, harsh, or frivolous; longing, aversion, and wrong view. This is called the detrimental.
And what is the root of the detrimental? Greed, aversion, and muddledness (= carelessness, disregard). This is called the root of the detrimental.
And what is the beneficial? Abstaining from killing living beings, stealing, and sexual misconduct; avoiding speech that’s false, divisive, harsh, or frivolous; non-longing, non-ill-will, and right view. This is called the beneficial.
And what is the root of the beneficial? Non-greed, non-aversion, and non-muddledness. This is called the root of the beneficial.
MN 9
‘Bhikkhus, one who sees suffering also sees the origin of suffering, also sees the cessation of suffering, also sees the way leading to the cessation of suffering. One who sees the origin of suffering also sees suffering, also sees the cessation of suffering, also sees the way leading to the cessation of suffering. One who sees the cessation of suffering also sees suffering, also sees the origin of suffering, also sees the way leading to the cessation of suffering. One who sees the way leading to the cessation of suffering also sees suffering, also sees the origin of suffering, also sees the cessation of suffering.’ (SN 56.30)
The king asked: ‘Why is it, friend chariotmaker, that the wheel that took six days to finish rolled as far as the impetus carried it, and then wobbled and fell to the ground, while the wheel that took six months less six days to finish rolled as far as the impetus carried it and then stood still as if fixed on an axle?’
“The chariotmaker replied: ‘The wheel that took six days to finish, lord, has a rim that is crooked, faulty, and defective; spokes that are crooked, faulty, and defective; and a nave that is crooked, faulty, and defective. For this reason, it rolled as far as the impetus carried it and then it wobbled and fell to the ground. But the wheel that took six months less six days to finish has a rim without crookedness, faults, and defects; it has spokes without crookedness, faults, and defects; and it has a nave that is without crookedness, faults, and defects. For this reason, it rolled as far as the impetus carried it and then stood still as if fixed on an axle.’
“It may be, bhikkhus, that you think: ‘On that occasion the chariotmaker was someone else.’ But you should not think in such a way. On that occasion, I myself was the chariotmaker. Then I was skilled in crookedness, faults, and defects in wood. But now I am the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, skilled in crookedness, faults, and defects of the body; skilled in crookedness, faults, and defects of speech; and skilled in crookedness, faults, and defects of mind.
“Any bhikkhu or bhikkhunī who has not abandoned crookedness, faults, and defects of the body, speech, and mind has fallen down from this Dhamma and discipline, just as the wheel that was finished in six days fell to the ground.
“Any bhikkhu or bhikkhunī who has abandoned crookedness, faults, and defects of the body, speech, and mind is established in this Dhamma and discipline, just as the wheel that was finished in six months less six days remained standing.
“Therefore, bhikkhus, you should train yourselves thus: ‘We will abandon crookedness, faults, and defects of the body; we will abandon crookedness, faults, and defects of speech; we will abandon crookedness, faults, and defects of the mind.’ It is in this way that you should train yourselves.”
AN 3.15