Nibbana Is Giving Up, Letting Go, and Being Free

Old persons can see impermanence, suffering, and lack of self, and give rise to dispassion and disenchantment, because the evidence is right there within them all the time. I think that’s good.

Having the inner sensitivity that is always aware of\r\nright and wrong is called buddho. It’s not necessary to be continually\r\nrepeating “buddho.” You’ve counted the fruit in your basket. Every time you sit\r\ndown, you don’t have to go to the trouble of spilling out the fruit and\r\ncounting it again. You can leave it in the basket. But someone with mistaken\r\nattachment will keep counting. He’ll stop under a tree, spill it out and count,\r\nand put it back in the basket. Then he’ll walk to the next stopping place and\r\ndo it again. But he’s just counting the same fruit. This is craving itself.\r\nHe’s afraid that if he doesn’t count, there will be some mistake. We are afraid\r\nthat if we don’t keep saying “buddho,” we’ll be mistaken. How are we mistaken? Only\r\nthe person who doesn’t know how much fruit there is needs to count. Once you\r\nknow, you can take it easy and just leave it in the basket. When you’re\r\nsitting, you just sit. When you’re lying down, you just lie down, because your\r\nfruit is all there with you.

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Practicing virtue and creating merit, we say,\r\n“Nibbana paccayo hotu”—“May it be a condition for realizing nibbana.” As a\r\ncondition for realizing nibbana, making offerings is good. Keeping precepts is\r\ngood. Practicing meditation is good. Listening to dhamma teachings is good. May\r\nthey become conditions for realizing nibbana.

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But what is nibbana all about anyway? Nibbana means\r\nnot grasping. Nibbana means not giving meaning to things. Nibbana means letting\r\ngo. Making offerings and doing meritorious deeds, observing moral precepts, and\r\nmeditating on loving-kindness—all these are for getting rid of defilements and\r\ncraving, for making the mind empty—empty of self-cherishing, empty of concepts\r\nof self and other—and for not wishing for anything, not wishing to be or become\r\nanything.

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Nibbana paccayo hotu—“Make it become a cause for\r\nnibbana.” Practicing generosity is giving up, letting go. Listening to\r\nteachings is for the purpose of gaining knowledge, to give up and let go, to\r\nuproot clinging to what is good and to what is bad. At first we meditate to\r\nbecome aware of the wrong and the bad. When we recognize that, we give it up,\r\nand we practice what is good. Then, when some good is achieved, don’t get\r\nattached to that good. Remain halfway in the good, or above the good—don’t\r\ndwell under the good. If we are under the good then the good pushes us around,\r\nand we become slaves to it. We become the slaves, and it forces us to create\r\nall sorts of kamma and demerit. It can lead us into anything, and the result\r\nwill be the same kind of unhappiness and unfortunate circumstances we found\r\nourselves in before.

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Give up evil and develop merit; give up the negative\r\nand develop what is positive. Developing merit, remain above merit. Remain\r\nabove merit and demerit, above good and evil. Keep on practicing with a mind\r\nthat is giving up, letting go, and getting free. It’s the same no matter what\r\nyou are doing: if you do it with a mind of letting go, then it is a cause for\r\nrealizing nibbana. When your mind is free of desire, free of defilement, free\r\nof craving, then it all merges with the path, meaning noble truth, meaning\r\nsaccadhamma (ultimate reality). It is the four noble truths, having the wisdom\r\nthat knows tanha (restless, anxious craving), which is the source of dukkha.\r\nKamatanha, bhavatanha, vibhavatanha (sensual desire, desire for becoming,\r\ndesire not to be): these are the origins, the source. If you go there, if you\r\nare wishing for anything or wanting to be anything, you are nourishing dukkha,\r\nbringing dukkha into existence, because this is what gives birth to dukkha.\r\nThese are the causes. If we create the causes of dukkha, then dukkha will come\r\nabout. The cause is tanha. One becomes a slave to desire and creates all sorts\r\nof kamma and wrongdoing because of it, and thus suffering is born. Simply\r\nspeaking, dukkha is the child of desire; desire is the parent of dukkha. When\r\nthere are parents, dukkha can be born. When there are no parents, dukkha cannot\r\ncome about—there will be no offspring.

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This is where meditation should be focused. We\r\nshould see all the forms of tanha, which cause us to have desires. But talking\r\nabout desire can be confusing. Some people get the idea that any kind of\r\ndesire, such as desire for food and the material requisites for life, is tanha.\r\nBut we can have this kind of desire in an ordinary and natural way. When you’re\r\nhungry and desire food, you can take a meal and be done with it. That’s quite\r\nordinary. This is desire that’s within boundaries and doesn’t have ill effects.\r\nThis kind of desire isn’t sensuality. If it’s sensuality, then it becomes\r\nsomething more than desire. There will be craving for more things to consume,\r\nseeking out flavors, seeking enjoyment in ways that bring hardship and trouble,\r\nsuch as drinking liquor and beer.

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Some tourists told me about a place where people eat\r\nlive monkeys’ brains. They put a monkey in the middle of the table and cut open\r\nits skull. Then they spoon out the brain to eat. That’s eating like demons or\r\nhungry ghosts. It’s not eating in a natural or ordinary way. When doing things\r\nlike this, eating becomes tanha. They say that the blood of monkeys makes them\r\nstrong. So they try to get hold of such animals, and when they eat them,\r\nthey’re drinking liquor and beer too. This isn’t ordinary eating. It’s the way\r\nof ghosts and demons mired in sensual craving. It’s eating coals, eating fire,\r\neating everything everywhere. This sort of desire is what is called tanha.\r\nThere is no moderation. Speaking, thinking, dressing—everything such people do\r\ngoes to excess. If our eating, sleeping, and other necessary activities are\r\ndone in moderation, then there is no harm in them. You should be aware of\r\nyourselves in regard to these things, then they won’t become a source of\r\nsuffering. If we know how to be moderate and thrifty in our needs, we can be\r\ncomfortable.

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Practicing meditation and creating merit and virtue\r\nare not really such difficult things to do, provided we understand them well.\r\nWhat is wrongdoing? What is merit? Merit is what is good and beautiful, not\r\nharming ourselves or others with our thinking, speaking, and acting. Then there\r\nis happiness. Nothing negative is being created. Merit is like this.\r\nSkillfulness is like this.

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It’s the same with making offerings and giving\r\ncharity. When we give, what is it that we are trying to give away? Giving is\r\nfor the purpose of destroying self-cherishing, the belief in a self along with\r\nselfishness. Selfishness is powerful, extreme suffering. Selfish people always\r\nwant to be better than others and to get more than others. A simple example is\r\nhow, after they eat, they don’t want to wash their dishes. They let someone\r\nelse do it. If they eat in a group, they will leave it to the group. After they\r\neat, they take off. This is selfishness, not being responsible, and it puts a\r\nburden on others. In practicing generosity, we are trying to cleanse our hearts\r\nof this attitude in order to have a mind of compassion and caring toward all\r\nliving beings without exception. This is called creating merit through giving.

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Ajahn\r\nChah – Lion’s Roar