The Meaning of life: What, Why and How?

This is taken from UNIBUDS Annual Magazine 2002, from a talk given by Venerable Mahinda

   

What is life? The basic components of life are mind and body which often referred to as nama rupa. Let us start to analyse ourselves step by step. Mind (nama) can classified into several components. Nama is the collective term for mental activities.

• Feeling (Vedana)
  Sometimes you feel happy and occasionally you feel sad. This is referred to as feeling.
• Perception (Sanna)
  It is the ability to perceive and recognise things. Sometimes our perception could be right but sometimes it could be wrong. For example, a table clock is perceived as a clock but for some people in other places, it could be perceived as something else. We can spend a lot of time arguing about our perceptions. However, the bottom line is that we create different ways of looking at things.
• Mental formation (Sankhara)
  It is the process of thought formation.
• Consciousness (Vinnana)
  It enables us to be aware of the presence of something within the reach of our sense. For example, when the wind is blowing, we can be aware of the cool sensation. We have to be conscious to realise the existence of things.

The other component is called rupa or the physical aspect. The body consists of a number of different elements. We have the earth, water, fire and wind elements. Proportions of those elements exist in each being. For certain people, there is more earth element in them. Some people may have more heat element in them. Some have less. We cannot see the wind and the heat but we can feel them. And that is why we can not see some beings when they have higher proportions of the wind and the heat elements in their bodies. We can only see them when they have more earth and water elements. So the differences in the forms are due to the proportions of these body elements.

How are we born? The father and mother provide the physical material and this must be at the right time. However, there must be one more importatnt factor, which is the readiness of a being to be born. This is how we explain childless parents. Even when the parents are fertile there were no beings ready to take birth.

When a person dies, the body disintegrates but the being does not disappear. The earth element returns to the earth and the water element returns to the water. But the mind and consciousness continue to exist in some form, depending on their karmic or molding force. Karma means intention. Thoughts, speech and action create the karmic energy that molds us.

In each moment, we are experiencing the results of our karmic action. That is why sometimes we feel happy, and sometimes we feel sad. Those are the conditions created int he past. It is because of our karma that certain conditions are created. However, the important thing is that we have the power to get out of these conditions. These conditions create the situation we are n right now, but we have the choice, either to free our mind or to cling to these conditions. If we cling to the conditions, we will go round and round in the state of happiness and sadness.

So how do we live? We have to ask ourselves on more question: “How do we live happily?”. The answer is to be in the present. To be in the here and now. Close our eyes and bring your attention within for a few seconds. You can hear something or you might feel something. However do not cling to it and do not have any aversion. Just be in the here and now for a few moments. Now open your eyes.

How do you feel? Do you feel happy or sad or just peaceful? Happiness is achieved when you live in the here and now. Some people have different conceptions of happiness. They think that if they have the thrills, then they would be happy.

Are you living in the present moment? Here are a few examples to illustrate this point. Before the exams, your mind goes wandering and thinking about the exam. You have some tension. You are worried about the exam. That is called living in the future. Sometimes the thoughts wander into the past. You may have these small conversations in your mind. “Why did he treat me like that? He was always like that”. and so forth. That is said to be dwelling in the past.

The art of living is to live in the here and now. However, we still need to pass the exams. Therefore, you make the determination: take the book, study it and tell yourself not to worry. You live in the here and now and become peaceful. You do not let other thoughts get into your midn. What happens when your mind dwells in the past, thinking about other stuff? Five minutes is gone, then half an hour is gone. Even after two hours, you are still on the same page. Then you get panicky and that will worsen things.

How do we live in the present? This is something that we need to cultivate. We need to correct the wrong habit of the mind.  The habit of mind is to keep thinking about the past and the future. The habitual pattern needs to be checked and broken so that we can let go of the past and the future. But we still can make plans. Just do not cling to it. If we keep worrying about tomorrow, when tomorrow arrives, we will not be prepared.

Sometimes we don’t know our state of mind. We do not know that we are angry for example. When i was a student I was told to encounter anger in several ways:

• From my mother: I was asked to drink cold water when I was angry. But it didn’t work.
• From my friend in New Zealand: When I was still a student in New Zealand, someone asked me to count to ten. But it didn’t work.
• Using the Chinese way: putting your tongue above the palette so as not to talk. It doesn’t work either. The anger was still there.

I also tried praying to Chinese deities, but none of them worked for me at all. It took a long time for me to let go of the anger and to realise where the anger comes from. It is due to our won attachment and craving. When we do not have what we want, we get angry.

The way to train our mind is to correct the habitual pattern of the mind. The mind has a wrong habit of creating more and more thoughts. The habit can easily become the character of oneself. We have allowed the mind to have its own free play for a very long time. When you are creating more and more thoughts, your desire and craving become stronger. The desire is a force or a drive that drives us to get what we want. If we get what we want, we will be happy and satisfied for awhile. What has happened then with the desire? The desire will become stronger. The force will be stronger to drive us to get more and more. We have actually fed the desire.

That is what happens to people with addiciton. That is why people are addicted to foods, drugs, or even relationships. Because when they please their desires, they do not realise that they have made their desires stronger, driving them to crave for more. The more intelligent we are, the more we can find ways to feed our desires. And this in turn will drive us even more. The force is so strong that our mind keeps thinking of how to satisfy ourselves.

We need to train the mind so that it becomes peaceful and quiet. We can not say that we do not want to hink. The thoughts will not go away but they will keep coming back because the mind is not trained. The mind does not know how to let go. That is why Buddhist meditation teaches us to be mindful about the body, the mind, and the occuring phenomena.

Using mindfulness we develop our concentration to focus on one object for a long time. Then our mind will slowly develop until it becomes still and quiet. In the stillness and quietness we can see the impermanent nature of things. We see that things come and go. We can see that all things arise in a state of flux. Any thoguts that arise, we know that it it is impermanent and we can let go. When the mind has wisdom, it is mature and can let go.

Slowly develop your meditation from five minutes, ten minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour until the silence is so strong that it can break the habitual pattern. The mind is so silent that it does not create any more thoughts. It can let go. This is how to break the habitual pattern. For example, somebody scolds at you. You know it, you understand it, but your mind is so still that it does not create any thoughts, then the mind will let go. This is how we learn to break the habit.

When we try to discipline ourselves, we can see a lot of thoughts arising. We can see there is a lot of anger, and craving. We understand that we still have a lot of anger and desire that create a lot of problems for ourselves and others. So there is a need to develop and to purify our mind. It begins with making our mind quiet. Nowadays life is so busy and everybody is so busy with activities. A lot of business people can manage three businesses well, but they do not know how to live. That creates a problem too.

Here you are studying, to pass the exam, but passing the exam alone doesn’t make us successful. You need to learn how to live, to get along with people. We therefore need to understand other people’s mentality. But how can we understand others when we do not understand ourselves first?

What is Buddhism all about? It teaches us to understand ourselves. By understanding ourselves, we can understand others better. Now you are preparing yourself, learn the art of being with yourselves. When there is no exam pressure, just be with yourselves even for just three to four minutes. Observe what happens within you. This is how we rest our mind. When you come out again, you are fresher. Sometimes, you can start to perceive things in different ways and from different angles.

If you ask me for a one-word answer what life is, it is NOW. The present moment. The past is not our lives. The future has not come and is also not our lives. Learn the art to live in the here and now, little by little.