Things Never Heard Before: The Buddha s Applied Dhamma Following is an edited and condensed version of a talk given by Goenkaji in September 1991 at Yangon University in Myanmar. Right from my childhood, like any Hindu, my mind was conditioned to believe that the Vedas are the source of all the world s religions and spiritual wisdom, including the teaching of the Buddha. When a friend suggested that I learn Vipassana from Sayagyi U Ba Khin, I thought to myself, What is the use of going to this person and learning his technique when the same thing exists in the scriptures of my own religion? But it was some very good past deed that brought me to Sayagyi. And as I underwent the process, I realized that what I was learning from him was applied Dhamma. Everything else that I had studied, discussed or debated, everything I had taught others was only an intellectual or devotional game, requiring people to believe in certain scriptures or philosophies. Goenkaji gives a public talk, Myanmar, 2010. Instead of beliefs, the Buddha taught how to practice. That practice is what I learned from Sayagyi when I came for a Vipassana course under his guidance. First was the training of sīla, moral conduct. Very good, I thought. I have no objection to that. Next was the training of samādhi to gain control over my mind. Again I thought, Very good. But at once I noticed something new to me. Sayagyi taught mental control through the practice of Anapana, that is, observing respiration. The tradition in which I had been born and raised also taught observation of respiration, but along with the breath a word was usually added, a verbalization. Or else it might be a visualization, perhaps the image of a deity or saintly person. The meditator would imagine something to accompany the respiration.
To all of that, Sayagyi said no. He told me, Observe the respiration as it is, yathā-bhūta. No verbalization, no visualization, no imagination. The breath as it is. He also told me: Don t make this a breathing exercise. You are not here to control your breath. This was the opposite of what I had learned to do in the yogic exercise of prāṇāyāma: inhale deeply, then stop the breath for some time, then exhale and stop for some time. Instead my teacher said, Observe the natural respiration as it is, not as you would like it to be. Oh, this was something new taught by the Buddha: yathā-bhūta, as it is. If the breath is deep, let it be deep. If it is shallow, let it be shallow. Don t interfere with nature, let it play its own role. Just observe. Do nothing. This was not what I had practiced before, and mentally I kept arguing about it, questioning it. But I also kept working as my teacher told me, and I started getting the benefit. As I focused on the small area below the nostrils, the reality started to become clear the reality pertaining to mind (nāma) and matter (rūpa). I began to understand that the breath is not merely a physical function. Suppose you are observing respiration. You observe two or three breaths and then the mind wanders away. Again you bring it back. Another two or three breaths and again the mind wanders. This happens with everybody at first. But eventually the mind starts getting concentrated, and the breath becomes shorter, subtler, finer. Then suddenly your mind wanders to a past incident when someone abused you. You recall it and you start reacting with anger. At once, you notice that your breath has changed. It has become harder, faster. And when the anger passes, the breath returns to normal. The same happens with passion or any other strong emotion that arises in the mind. If you add a word or image to the observation of breath, if you make it a breathing exercise, you won t be able to understand what the Buddha wanted to teach you: how mind and matter are interrelated, how one influences the other. You have to understand it at the experiential level. As you observe natural breath, you start understanding, Yes, the breath is related not only to the body but also to the mind, and especially to the impurities of the mind. On the fourth day of my course, I learned the practice of Vipassana. Sayagyi told me to start from the top of the head and move the attention down to the tips of the toes, and then go from the tips of the toes up to the top of the head, observing every little part of the body. As meditators do this exercise, they find that every part of the body has some sensation or the other, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Whatever came up, Sayagyi told me just to observe without reacting.
Wherever there is life, there is bound to be sensation. Wherever mind and matter come into contact, there is bound to be sensation: phassa-paccayā vedanā. Sensation occurs in the body but it is felt by the mind. Mind and matter both are included in it. Just as the breath changes when anger or another strong emotion arises, similarly the physical sensations change according to what happens in the mind. The meditator might feel heat arising, or tension or pressure. Some biochemical reaction starts, some sensation. Goenkaji gives a public talk, Myanmar, 2003. This is what the Buddha wanted us to understand. Throughout Indian spirituality, nobody had talked of vedanā before him. It was after becoming enlightened that he said, Pubbe ananussutesu dhammesu cakkhuṃ udapādi The eye of wisdom opened in me concerning things of which I had never heard before. He had never before heard any spiritual teacher talk of the importance of vedanā. It was the Buddha who recognized the role of vedanā, and this was what made him an enlightened person. Before him, teachers in India told their followers, Don t react toward sensual objects with craving or aversion. Only the Buddha recognized that the reaction is not to the outside object but to the sensation related to it in the body. As he said,saḷāyatana-paccayā phassa, phassa-paccayā vedanā, vedanā-paccayā taṇhā Dependent on the sense door, contact arises; dependent on contact, sensation arises; dependent on sensation, craving arises. Between the object and your reaction is a sensation. You react with
craving when you experience a pleasant sensation in the body, and you react with aversion when you experience an unpleasant sensation. He recognized the sensation as the root of the problem. Unless you strike at the root, you cannot find a solution. This is what he practised himself, and this is what he taught: to change the habit pattern of reacting to vedanā. People of every spiritual path talk about coming out of craving and aversion. But at the deepest level of the mind, blind reaction continues. A pleasant sensation comes, and you react with craving. An unpleasant sensation comes, and you react with aversion. This goes on constantly day and night, but we are ignorant of it. The Buddha told us, Go to the depth of yourself and understand what the reality is how every moment, out of madness, you are harming yourself. Out of ignorance, you are harming yourself. If you do not go to the depth of your mind and root out the habit pattern of reacting with taṇhā,with craving or aversion, you are far away from liberation, far from nibbāna. The Buddha s teaching is to go to the depths of the mind. He started by explaining dukkha. All right, what is dukkha? He began with the superficial truth that everyone knew then and knows now: Birth is suffering, decay is suffering, death is suffering. It was all well known before him. He then said, Dissociation from the pleasant is suffering, association with the unpleasant is suffering. And he went on: Not getting what one desires is suffering. This was all still common knowledge. But then the Buddha said, Saṅkhittena pañcupādānakkhandhā dukkha. In short, we have immense attachment to the five aggregates that is, the body or matter and the four mental aggregates of consciousness (viññāṇa), perception (saññā), feeling/sensation (vedanā) and reaction (sankhāra). The aggregates result from this attachment, producing an ongoing cycle of misery. This concept pañcupādānakkhandhā dukkha was new to the Buddha. This was his contribution. But it does not help us if we merely accept it intellectually or out of devotion. He said, See for yourself. Only then do you really know, only then do you have wisdom. You have to observe the five aggregates of mind and matter and the way they interact. Then you will see how craving and aversion start. If you observe the process directly, ignorance goes away. Then you can see: Look, this vedanā has come up because of the contact of mind and matter. It may be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, yet it is impermanent. What is the meaning of reacting to it? Something that is so impermanent, so ephemeral is bound to pass away sooner or later.
It is not going to stay. Let me see how long it lasts. If you begin to observe, you start changing the habit pattern of your mind. You stop generating craving and aversion. You have started liberating yourself. This teaching drew me irresistibly toward the Buddha. It fascinated me. From childhood, I had heard about removing craving, aversion and ignorance. But when I learned from Sayagyi U Ba Khin to practice the teaching of the Buddha, I found that this is applied Dhamma. Anyone may teach theory. The contribution of the Buddha was to show us the applied Dhamma, the practical aspect of Dhamma. If this experiential aspect is missing, everything is missing. The Buddha wanted us to experience the truth ourselves. He wanted us to develop bhāvanā-mayā paññā, the wisdom born of experience. Goenkaji explains the Dhamma, India, early 1970s. In India, from ancient times to the present, the word veda (used for ancient scriptures) has meant knowledge based on experience. When you have a vedanā, when you are experiencing something, this is your own knowledge. For example, there is a sensation, pleasant or unpleasant. And look, you are reacting with craving or aversion. This is your experience. And you see that you become miserable when you react with craving or aversion. You also see that when you do not react with craving toward pleasant sensations and aversion toward unpleasant ones, there is no misery for you. The law becomes clear to you. This is your veda. Your direct experience, that is vedanā. If you are unaware of vedanā, whatever you try to understand of Buddha s teaching is just at the surface level. Sayagyi taught me to observe vedanā, sensation. Observing it enabled me to understand that the role of vedanā is what makes the Buddha s teaching unique. It is missing
everywhere else: the understanding that your misery starts with vedanā because taṇhā starts with vedanā. You have a pleasant sensation, and craving starts. You have an unpleasant sensation and aversion starts. Both the craving and the aversion start because of vedanā. Suppose you feel the pleasant sensation and do not react with craving. You feel the unpleasant sensation and you don t react with aversion. If so, you are coming out of misery. It is so simple. If you generate craving and aversion, you are bound to burn. Nobody on earth can save you. Whether you call yourself a Buddhist, a Hindu or a Muslim, you are bound to burn. Whatever philosophy you believe, whatever religious ceremonies you perform, you are bound to burn. If you don t want to suffer the misery of burning, the best thing is to stay away from fire. If you keep away from craving and aversion, you won t burn. Whatever label you give yourself doesn t matter; you won t burn. But how can you avoid generating craving and aversion? This is what the Buddha taught. If you act with the base of ignorance, you will generate craving when sensation arises, and you are bound to suffer. If you stop acting from a base of ignorance, there will be no reaction of craving or aversion when a sensation arises. And if there is no craving or aversion, there is no suffering. This contribution of the Buddha strongly attracted me, and now I find it is attracting people around the world even people highly suspicious of the Buddha s teaching. They all can benefit, provided they practice. Without actual practice, it doesn t work. The Buddha showed us the deepest cause of our misery: vedanā-paccayā taṇhā. You have to learn to be aware of the vedanā, and then you can stop taṇhā. There is no magic, no miracle. Bhāvanā-mayā paññā changes the habit pattern of the mind so that it gradually reacts less, and finally one reaches the stage where there is no more craving, no more aversion. It is a wonderful path, a wonderful technique. But you have to walk on the path. You have to practice the technique and experience it. Only the actual practice can help. May all of you experience pure Dhamma. May all of you come out of your misery and experience real peace, real harmony, real happiness. From the International Vipassana Newsletter, June 2016 Issue: Vol. 43 (2016), No. 2