The second Noble Truth is the truth of the cause of suffering (dukkha sacca). According to the Buddha, the cause of suffering or unsatisfactoriness is attachment (tanha). It is just like a monkey that will not let go of the banana even in the face of being trapped or captured. To be free from suffering or to gain true happiness, we have to detach or LET GO. Children learn how to let go by singing this nursery rhyme – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I caught a fish alive, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Then I LET it GO again. Singers, Engelbert Humperdinck and Indina Menzel learn how to let go by singing these songs respectively – Please release me LET me GO. For I don’t love you anymore. LET it GO! LET it GO! Can’t it back anymore! LET it GO! LET it GO! Turn away and slam the door! A kite helper learns how to let go by holding the kite and LET it GO. By holding the ball of string, a kite flyer will fly the kite soaring in the sky. A waiter learns how to let go by accidentally holding a glass of boiling hot water and instantly, LET it GO. Yogis learn how to let go by practising Vipassana meditation. Consider the story of the fisherman who finds something in his fish trap. Thinking it is a fish, he reaches his hand into the trap. The minute he brings it out and sees the striped skin, he throws it down straight away. He does not have to wait for someone to call, “It’s a snake. LET it GO!” The sight of a poisonous snake tells him what to do much more clearly than words could do. Why? Because he sees the danger! Snakes can bite! Who has to tell him to LET it GO? In the same way, if yogis or meditators practise Vipassana meditation till they see things as they really are, they will not meddle with things that are harmful. The yogi or meditator no longer finds delight in these baneful aggregates of corporeality and mentality. He finds them detestable and wearisome. This is nibbidā ñāna, insight knowledge of disgust or disenchantment. The Blessed One was referring to this state of mind when he said, “Rūpasmimpi nibbindati : He grows wearied of form. Before the development of nibbidā ñāna, one may be quite satisfied and happy with ones present physical form, and satisfied and happy with the expectation of human or celestial physical form in a future existence. One craves for and looks forward to the happiness of human or celestial existence and a beautiful, healthy body. With the arising of this knowledge, one no longer feels happy, no longer lives with joyful expectation. The so-called happiness of human life is made up of incessantly arising and ceasing corporeality and mentality. The meditator also visualises that the so-called happiness in a celestial being is similarly constituted of fleeting corporeality and mentality for which he has developed detestation and weariness. It is just like the fisherman holding a poisonous snake, thinking it to be an eel. Once he realises that he has a poisonous snake in his hand, not an eel, he wants to throw it away or LET it GO as quickly as possible. This illustration was described fully in the discourse on the Sīlavanta Sutta by Mahasi Sayadaw. Attachment (tanha) causes dukkha! Detachment (vitaraga or alobha) causes sukha! The man of wisdom, leaving the home of craving and having Nibbana as his goal, should give up dark, evil ways and cultivate pure, good ones. He should seek great delight in solitude, DETACHMENT and Nibbana, which an ordinary man finds so difficult to enjoy. He should also give up sensual pleasures and clinging to nothing, should cleanse himself of all impurities of the mind. -The Dhammapada Verses 87 & 88-
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 22:49:19 +0000
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