FREE YOUR SELF by Kumara Bhikkhu

FREE YOUR SELFby Kumara Bhikkhu

Walk the Noble 8-fold Path to comprehend your suffering, abandon its origin and BE FREE!

Many people want to be free from suffering. What about you ?

Surely anyone with some sanity wishes to be free. However many Buddhists, even some long time meditators, aren’t making any progress.
Some even become worse. Why ? The answer is simple: They have not done it right. And why is that ?
As I see it, it’s only because of not understanding the Buddha’s teaching well enough.

Here are some things that people usually miss out.

1.  Suffering is to be comprehended

Suffering is to be comprehended. This is what the Buddha instructed in Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. When we meet with suffering, what do we normally do ?
What do you normally do ?
Understand it ?
Try hard to get rid of it?
Get busy with work ?
Look for distractions ?
Sleep ?

If freedom from suffering is what we want, then we need to understand suffering thoroughly:
What is suffering ?
How does it arise ?
Only when we have enough understanding of it can its origin or cause be abandoned.
When that is abandoned, then there is no condition for the suffering to arise.

2. Right Knowledge

To comprehend suffering we need to observe it directly.
But before we do that, we need right knowledge or understanding:
All phenomena is just nature. Suffering is also a natural phenomenon.
It arises because it has to, because the conditions are there for it to arise.
So long the conditions are there for a certain kind of suffering to arise,
so long that suffering arises. So, it’s a matter of cause and effect, it’s not personal.
When we take suffering personally—I am suffering, this is my suffering—
already defilements are at work, delusion in particular.
With such I-dentifying with suffering, we would naturally react to it in unwise ways:
resisting, clinging, ignoring. In reacting to suffering in these ways, suffering persists and grows.
Therefore, we need to check if we have this right understanding.
Only when there is right understanding can we observe suffering objectively.

3. Right Motivation

Another way to check whether we are doing it right is to look at our motivation.
Are we observing to get rid of the unpleasant experience ?
Are we trying to control our experience ?
If we truly understand that suffering is not personal,
but a natural phenomenon arising due to conditions,
we would not have these wrong motivations.
Nonetheless, habit is habit. We tend to cling to our old patterns of coping with suffering.
These habitual ways of coping make things more complicated.
So, we need to watch them first.
And remember, habits too are natural phenomena arising due to conditions.
They are not personal.
Right Release through Knowing and Seeing
Earlier I asked: How does suffering arise ?
If you have heard or read some Dhamma,
you would have the theoretical knowledge that suffering originates from craving.
Yes, that knowledge is important, but for the sake of freedom, that is not enough.
We need direct knowledge.
In other words, we need to see craving in action, how it creates suffering.
This is different from thinking about it, or trying to figure things out.
To understand suffering fully, we need to step out of the story of “my suffering”,
so that we can have an overview of what’s happening.
We need to train ourselves in proper awareness.
Proper here means it is :

• full (inclusive, not rejecting anything, seeing the big picture,
not absorbed or lost in thoughts),

• self-directed,

• kind and gentle (not forcing, not trying to control what we experience,
not trying to get something or get rid of something),
and

• wise (intelligent, circumspect, intuitive, direct, stepping back from the stories in the mind).
Take note that not being absorbed or lost in thoughts does not mean trying to get rid of thoughts.
Thinking happens, just as seeing, hearing and feeling. It’s not a problem.
We need right thinking to practise well.
On the other hand, when we’re lost in any kind of thinking,
the thinking comes from a confused state.
We can’t have proper awareness that way.
As we train the mind in proper awareness,
it grows in its ability to know and see things as how they actually happen.
As the mind watches our experiences—seeing, hearing, sensing, and cognising—
without getting involved with the stories that the mind creates out of what is seen,
heard, sensed or cognised; it learns very well intuitively.
Then wisdom grows. When the mind has understood enough,
then only is there the wisdom to end the suffering.

Ending suffering is not our job.
If we can end suffering as we like,
then life would be a breeze, wouldn’t it ?
And we wouldn’t need a Buddha to teach us, would we ?
Ending suffering is the job of wisdom.
What then is our job ?
To provide causes for wisdom to grow.
So, to end suffering, we need to cultivate wisdom by being aware of our experiences in the proper way.
For right here is where suffering arises,
and so right here is where we need to pay attention.

Conclusion

To conclude,
if we want to work towards freedom from suffering,
we need to make sure that we have the right information.
What I’ve provided here are merely pointers-
pointers to some aspects of the Buddha’s teaching that people usually miss.
With these pointers, may you be able to walk the path properly for the sake of freedom from suffering.