My approach to the subject of the Nikāyas is mostly: “What is of benefit, here, in respect of human understanding of the big questions?” For me, the big questions have been: the matter of identity, the meaning of life, and of the awakening of full human potential. Are we really this “busy monster, manunkind”? (e.e.cummings)
The development of positive human qualities has been my concern for forty-five years – not always nurtured skilfully, I admit. A broad Buddhayana (a path which includes almost all schools) is my way, but the Nikāya texts are my main interest.
As I have developed since a young man, I’ve come to understand what a dramatic part fear of death plays in human life – largely unconsciously. It has been there for me since I was a small child, but now I see what a prominent role it plays in all human life. So, I took up the way of the mindfulness of death, because death is a part of life. This acceptance probably began as a haiku writer when I was twenty.
oh, snail –
after rain,
life is short!
Then, when this blog began. last year – in part, as a way to keep myself on track with awareness of death – my focus shifted from a more Tibetan-influenced approach to death and dying, to an enquiry as to how dying and the preparation for it was treated by Nikāya Buddha. Of course, mindfulness (resting in the nature of the openness of mind) continued to be present, but now I asked myself, “What is the Nikāya Buddha’s focus, when he speaks of dying?”
And, I think we have two answers, each according to the development of the people to whom he was speaking. If people were ready for it, or asking for it, he went straight to the core matter – nibbāna. Otherwise, he advised them to develop in virtue, because that will give them an opportune rebirth.
I am interested in the first motivation, because that is, to me, the real deal, for a planet in such peril.
The Nikāya Buddha primarily ties relating to death to developing mindfulness. To be mindful, to live wakefully, is to be free from death. Mindfulness culminates in knowing what he called ‘the deathless element.’
Awareness is the place of the deathless;
Unawareness is the place of death.
The aware do not die;
The unaware are as though dead already.
– Dhammapada, verse 21. Translated by Valerie Roebuck.
This takes a fierce commitment. In the Anguttara Nikaya there are two suttas together, each called the Mindfulness of Death Sutta (Maranassatisutta 1 and 2), which reflect the spirit of this fierceness. In the first one, the Nikāya Buddha
powerfully says:
“(W)hoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, ‘O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food… for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal’ — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.” (Thanissaro).
“For the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in“: the requisite attention is that finely attuned. Awareness can be present in the most infinitesimal gap. (The gap between the breaths is a powerful, still point.) “That I might attend to the Blessed One’s instructions” is code for: the practice aimed at realisation of the unborn, the un-ailing, the undying, the deathless.
If I can be awake in the world as it is, I would have accomplished a great deal in this life. If I can develop mindfulness in each breathing instant, I am dwelling in the world with heed for what matters. When a person fully awakens in the Nikāyas there is usually a line which says, “And she (or he) had done what had to be done.” A life fulfilled.
In the other Anguttara Nikāya Mindfulness of Death sutta he says:
“Further, there is the case where a monk, as night departs and day returns, reflects: ‘Many are the [possible] causes of my death. A snake might bite me, a scorpion might sting me, a centipede might bite me. That would be how my death would come about. That would be an obstruction for me. Stumbling, I might fall; my food, digested, might trouble me; my bile might be provoked, my phlegm… piercing wind forces [in the body] might be provoked. That would be how my death would come about. That would be an obstruction for me.’” (Thanissaro)
In this sutta, the he suggests that a practitioner should have a single-mindedness about liberation: “Just as when a person whose turban or head was on fire would put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, undivided mindfulness, & alertness to put out the fire on his turban or head, in the same way the monk should put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, undivided mindfulness, & alertness…”
Mindfulness (supported by the other six qualities of the awakening mind – joy, grounded enquiry, perseverance, calm, contemplative presence, and equanimity) makes it possible to feel and accept our greatest fear: voidness.
If we meet voidness in developed mindfulness, confidence follows; confidence in groundlessness, because we don’t interpret voidness, conceive of it, or project onto it. We experience it directly, and when the mist of ignorance falls dissolves, this very voidness is the source of all true values.