Observe your anger. Observe what your mind contains. Refrain from reacting. This is the first step towards coming out of suffering, advises Vipassana meditation master S.N. Goenka
Sectarian rites and rituals, sectarian beliefs or philosophies, sectarian religious ceremonies or outward appearances have nothing to do with dharma.
Dharma is totally different. Dharma means what your mind contains now. If what it contains is wholesome, it rewards you. If it is unwholesome, it punishes you.
That means, is one keeping one's mind pure, free of impurities, free from negativities? If you keep generating anger, hatred, ill will, animosity and other negativities, you are not a dharmic person.
You may perform some rite or ritual. You may go to a temple and bow before a particular idol, or to a mosque to recite namaz. You may go to church to say prayers, or to a gurudwara to chant kirtans. Or you may go to a pagoda and pay respect to the statue of Buddha. These do not help at all.
When you generate negativity in your mind, you may blame various outside reasons for your misery. You may find fault with others. You may be under the wrong impression that you are miserable because so-and-so abused or insulted you, or because something which you wanted has not happened, or because something that you did not want has happened.
You remain deluded for your whole life that you are miserable because of these apparent external reasons. Because dharma was lost to the country, we have forgotten to go deep inside to find the real cause of misery.
Suppose someone abuses me, and I become miserable. Between these two events, something very important happens inside me. But that link remains unknown to me.
When somebody abuses me, I start generating anger and hatred; I start reacting with negativity. Only then do I become miserable, not before.
The reason I am miserable is not because somebody has abused me, nor because something unwanted has happened. Rather, it is because I am reacting to these outside things. This is the real cause of misery.
You cannot understand this by listening to discourses such as this, by reading scriptures, by intellectualising or accepting it on the emotional or devotional level. The real understanding of dharma can only come when you start experiencing it within yourself.
To illustrate this point: Suppose by mistake I have placed my hand in fire. The law of nature is such that the fire starts burning my hand. I take my hand away because I don't like being burned. The next time, I again make a mistake and put my hand in fire. Again, my hand gets burned, and again I take my hand back. I may do this once, twice, or three times, and then I start to understand: "This is fire, and the nature of fire is to burn. I had better not touch the fire." This becomes a lesson, and I begin to understand at the experiential level that I must keep my hand away from fire.
In a similar way, one can learn how to practice dharma using a technique which was very common in ancient India. To learn dharma means to observe the reality within oneself.
The word that was used for this was "Vipassana", which means "to observe reality in a special way", to observe it as it is - not just as it appears to be, not just as it seems to be, not coloured by any belief or philosophy, not coloured by any imagination - but to observe it by working in a scientific way.
For example, when anger has arisen, you observe the reality that anger has arisen. Cutting yourself off from the external object of anger, you simply observe anger as anger, hatred as hatred; or passion as passion, ego as ego. You observe any impurity that has arisen on the mind. You simply observe it, observe it objectively, without identifying yourself with that particular negativity.
It is very difficult to observe objectively. When anger arises, it is like a volcanic eruption, and we get overpowered by it.
When we are overpowered by anger, we cannot observe anger. Instead, we perform all the vocal and physical actions which we did not want to perform. And then we keep repenting: "I should not have done this. I should not have reacted in this way." But the next time a similar situation occurs, we will react in the same way, because we have not experienced the truth within ourselves.
If you learn this technique of observing reality within yourself, then you will notice that, as anger arises in the mind, two things start happening simultaneously at the physical level.
At a gross level - at the level of your breath - you will notice that, as soon as anger, hatred, ill will, passion, ego, or any impurity arises in the mind, your breath loses its normality. It cannot be normal. It will become abnormal - slightly hard, slightly fast.
And once that particular negativity has gone away, you will notice that your breath becomes normal. It is no longer fast, no longer hard. This happens in the physical structure at a gross level.
Something also happens at a subtler level, because mind and matter are so interrelated. One keeps influencing the other, and getting influenced by the other. This interaction is continuously happening within ourselves, day and night.
At a subtler level a biochemical reaction starts within the physical structure. And electromagnetic reaction starts and, if you are a good Vipassana meditator, you will notice: "Look, anger has arisen." And then what happens? There is heat throughout the body; there is palpitation; there is tension throughout the body.
One need not do anything except observe.
Do nothing. Just observe.
Don't try to push out your anger. Don't try to push out the signs of the anger.
Just observe, just observe.
Continue to observe, and you will notice that the anger becomes weaker and weaker, and passes away.
If you suppress it, then it goes deep into the subconscious level of your mind. When it is suppressed, it does not pass away.
Whenever misery comes, we think that the cause of this misery is something outside, and we make a great effort to rectify external things: "So-and-so is misbehaving. I am unhappy because of this person's misbehaviour. When this person stops misbehaving, I will be a very happy person."
We want to change this person. Is this possible? Can we change others? Well, even if we succeed in changing one person, what guarantee is there that somebody else will not appear, who will again go totally against our desires? It is impossible to change the entire world. The saints and sages, enlightened people, discovered the way out: To change yourself.
Let anything happen outside, but do not react.
Observe the truth as it is. But when we don't know the technique of observing ourselves - the technique of self-realisation, the technique of truth realisation - then we can't work out our own salvation.
For example, you may try to divert your attention. You are very miserable and you can't change the other person or the outside situation, so you try to divert your mind. You go to the cinema or a theatre, or worse, to a bar or gambling casino, to divert your attention.
For a while you may feel that your misery is gone. This is an illusion: You have not come out of your misery; it is still there. You have merely diverted your attention, and the misery has gone deep inside. Time and time again it will erupt and overpower you. You have not come out of your misery.
There is another way of diverting your mind, this in the name of religion. You go to a temple, a mosque, a gurudwara, or a pagoda, to chant or pray. Your mind will be diverted, and you may feel quite happy. But again, this is an escape. You are not facing your problem. This was not the dharma of ancient India.
We have to face the problem. When misery arises in the mind, face it.
By observing it objectively, you go to the deepest cause of misery. If you can learn to observe the deepest cause of misery, you will find that layers of this deep-rooted cause start getting eradicated. As layer after layer gets peeled off, you start to be relieved of your misery. You have neither suppressed your negativity, nor expressed it at the vocal or physical level and harmed others. You have observed it. Doing nothing, you have just observed.
Anger
When someone is abusing me, it is that person's problem, not mine. If they are abusing, it means that they are generating negativity in the mind. This person is a sick person, an unhappy person, a miserable person when he is generating anger and shouting. Why should I generate anger? Why should I shout and make myself miserable?
This understanding can not come unless you have experienced it. It is like the experience when you touch fire and learn not to touch it again. Similarly, you can develop the ability to observe what is happening inside. Anger has arisen and you will immediately notice that there is fire, and it has started burning you: "Look, I am burning! I don't like burning. Next time I will be more careful." Or, "No, here is anger. If I generate anger, I'll burn."
By mistake you have again generated anger, again you observe it. Again you generate anger, and again you observe it. After a few experiences, you start coming out of it.
Understanding
To observe anger as anger, or hatred as hatred, or passion as passion, is very difficult. It takes time. That is why the wise people, the enlightened people, the saints and the seers of India advised: "Observe yourself."
Observing oneself is a path of self-realisation, truth-realisation - one can even say "God-realisation", because after all, truth is God. What else is God? The law is God, nature is God. And when one is observing that law, one is observing dharma.
Whatever is happening within you, you are the just the silent observer, not reacting.
As you observe objectively, you have started taking the first step to understanding dharma; the first step towards practicing dharma in life.
By practicing dharma, you won't run away from external activities like going to this or that temple, or performing this or that rite or ritual. But at the same time as you are doing these things, you will start observing the reality pertaining to your mind at that moment: "What is happening in my mind at this moment? Whatever is happening in my mind from moment to moment - this is more important for me than anything that is happening outside."
You will start to notice how are you reacting to things outside. Whenever you react, this reaction becomes a source of misery for you. If you learn not to react but simply to observe, you will come out of the suffering.
Excerpts from 'The Gracious Flow of Dharma' by S.N. Goenka. Published by the Vipassana Research Institute, Maharashtra, India.
Visit http://www.dhamma.org/ for more information about Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka.
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