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List of Dhammatalks Biography of Ajahn
Chah
A Dhammatalk by Ajahn Chah
Convention and Liberation
http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/About_Ajahn_Chah.php
Convention and Liberation1The things of this world are merely
conventions of our own making. Having established them we get lost
in them, and refuse to let go, giving rise to clinging to personal
views and opinions. This clinging never ends, it is samsāra,
flowing endlessly on. It has no completion. Now, if we know
conventional reality then we'll know Liberation. If we clearly know
Liberation, then we'll know convention. This is to know the Dhamma.
Here there is completion.
Take people, for instance. In reality people don't have any
names, we are born naked into the world. If we have names, they
arise only through convention. I've contemplated this and seen that
if you don't know the truth of this convention it can be really
harmful. It's simply something we use for convenience. Without it
we couldn't communicate, there would be nothing to say, no
language.
I've seen the Westerners when they sit in meditation together in
the West. When they get up after sitting, men and women together,
sometimes they go and touch each other on the head2! When I saw
this I thought, ''Ehh, if we cling to convention it gives rise to
defilements right there. '' If we can let go of convention, give up
our opinions, we are at peace.
Like the generals and colonels, men of rank and position, who
come to see me. When they come they say, ''Oh, please touch my
head3.'' If they ask like this there's nothing wrong with it,
they're glad to have their heads touched. But if you tapped their
heads in the middle of the street it'd be a different story! This
is because of clinging. So I feel that letting go is really the way
to peace. Touching a head is against our customs, but in reality it
is nothing. When they agree to having it touched there's nothing
wrong with it, just like touching a cabbage or a potato.
Accepting, giving up, letting go - this is the way of lightness.
Wherever you're clinging there's becoming and birth right there.
There's danger right there. The Buddha taught about convention and
he taught to undo convention in the right way, and so reach
Liberation.
This is freedom, not to cling to conventions. All things in this
world have a conventional reality. Having established them we
should not be fooled by them, because getting lost in them really
leads to suffering. This point concerning rules and conventions is
of utmost importance. One who can get beyond them is beyond
suffering.
However, they are a characteristic of our world. Take Mr.
Boonmah, for instance; he used to be just one of the crowd but now
he's been appointed the District Commissioner. It's just a
convention but it's a convention we should respect. It's part of
the world of people. If you think, ''Oh, before we were friends, we
used to work at the tailor's together,'' and then you go and pat
him on the head in public, he'll get angry. It's not right, he'll
resent it. So we should follow the conventions in order to avoid
giving rise to resentment. It's useful to understand convention,
living in the world is just about this. Know the right time and
place, know the person.
Why is it wrong to go against conventions? It's wrong because of
people! You should be clever, knowing both convention and
Liberation. Know the right time for each. If we know how to use
rules and conventions comfortably then we are skilled.
But if we try to behave according to the higher level of reality
in the wrong situation, this is wrong. Where is it wrong? It's
wrong with people's defilements, that's where! People all have
defilements. In one situation we behave one way, in another
situation we must behave in another way. We should know the ins and
outs because we live within conventions. Problems occur because
people cling to them. If we suppose something to be, then it is.
It's there because we suppose it to be there. But if you look
closely, in the absolute sense these things don't really exist.
As I have often said, before we were laymen and now we are
monks. We lived within the convention of 'layman' and now we live
within the convention of 'monk'. We are monks by convention, not
monks through Liberation. In the beginning we establish conventions
like this, but if a person merely ordains, this doesn't mean he
overcomes defilements. If we take a handful of sand and agree to
call it salt, does this make it salt? It is salt, but only in name,
not in reality. You couldn't use it to cook with. It's only use is
within the realm of that agreement, because there's really no salt
there, only sand. It becomes salt only through our supposing it to
be so.
This word 'Liberation' is itself just a convention, but it
refers to that beyond conventions. Having achieved freedom, having
reached Liberation, we still have to use convention in order to
refer to it as Liberation. If we didn't have convention we couldn't
communicate, so it does have its use.
For example, people have different names, but they are all
people just the same. If we didn't have names to differentiate
between them, and we wanted to call out to somebody standing in a
crowd, saying. ''Hey, Person! Person!'', that would be useless. You
couldn't say who would answer you because they're all 'person'. But
if you called, ''Hey, John!,'' then John would come, the others
wouldn't answer. Names fulfill just this need. Through them we can
communicate, they provide the basis for social behaviour.
So you should know both convention and liberation. Conventions
have a use, but in reality there really isn't anything there. Even
people are non-existent. They are merely groups of elements, born
of causal conditions, growing dependent on conditions, existing for
a while, then disappearing in the natural way. No-one can oppose or
control it. But without conventions we would have nothing to say,
we'd have no names, no practice, no work. Rules and conventions are
established to give us a language, to make things convenient, and
that's all.
Take money, for example. In olden times there weren't any coins
or notes, they had no value. People used to barter goods, but those
things were difficult to keep, so they created money, using coins
and notes. Perhaps in the future we'll have a new king decree that
we don't have to use paper money, we should use wax, melting it
down and pressing it into lumps. We say this is money and use it
throughout the country. Let alone wax, they might even decide to
make chicken dung the local currency - all the other things can't
be money, just chicken dung! Then people would fight and kill each
other over chicken dung!
This is the way it is. You could use many examples to illustrate
convention. What we use for money is simply a convention that we
have set up, it has its use within that convention. Having decreed
it to be money, it becomes money. But in reality, what is money?
Nobody can say. When there is a popular agreement about something,
then a convention comes about to fulfill the need. The world is
just this.
This is convention, but to get ordinary people to understand
Liberation is really difficult. Our money, our house, our family,
our children and relatives are simply conventions that we have
invented, but really, seen in the light of Dhamma, they don't
belong to us. Maybe if we hear this we don't feel so good, but
reality is like that. These things have value only through the
established conventions. If we establish that it doesn't have
value, then it doesn't have value. If we establish that it has
value, then it has value. This is the way it is, we bring
convention into the world to fulfill a need.
Even this body is not really ours, we just suppose it to be so.
It's truly just an assumption on our part. If you try to find a
real, substantial self within it, you can't. There are merely
elements which are born, continue for a while and then die.
Everything is like this. There's no real, true substance to it, but
it's proper that we use it. It's like a cup. At some time that cup
must break, but while it's there you should use it and look after
it well. It's a tool for your use. If it breaks there is trouble,
so even though it must break, you should try your utmost to
preserve it.
And so we have the four supports4 which the Buddha taught again
and again to contemplate. They are the supports on which a monk
depends to continue his practice. As long as you live you must
depend on them, but you should understand them. Don't cling to
them, giving rise to craving in your mind.
Convention and liberation are related like this continually.
Even though we use convention, don't place your trust in it as
being the truth. If you cling to it, suffering will arise. The case
of right and wrong is a good example. Some people see wrong as
being right and right as being wrong, but in the end who really
knows what is right and what is wrong? We don't know. Different
people establish different conventions about what's right and
what's wrong, but the Buddha took suffering as his guide-line. If
you want to argue about it there's no end to it. One says
''right,'' another says ''wrong''. One says ''wrong,'' another says
''right.'' In truth we don't really know right and wrong at all.
But at a useful, practical level, we can say that right is not to
harm oneself and not to harm others. This way fulfills a
constructive purpose for us.
So, after all, both rules and conventions and liberation are
simply dhammas. One is higher than the other, but they go hand in
hand. There is no way that we can guarantee that anything is
definitely like this or like that, so the Buddha said to just leave
it be. Leave it be as uncertain. However much you like it or
dislike it, you should understand it as uncertain.
Regardless of time and place, the whole practice of Dhamma comes
to completion at the place where there is nothing. It's the place
of surrender, of emptiness, of laying down the burden. This is the
finish. It's not like the person who says, ''Why is the flag
fluttering in the wind? I say it's because of the wind.'' Another
person says it's because of the flag. The other retorts that it's
because of the wind. There's no end to this! The same as the old
riddle, ''Which came first, the chicken or the egg?'' There's no
way to reach a conclusion, this is just nature.
All these things we say are merely conventions, we establish
them ourselves. If you know these things with wisdom then you'll
know impermanence, suffering and not-self. This is the outlook
which leads to enlightenment.
You know, training and teaching people with varying levels of
understanding is really difficult. Some people have certain ideas,
you tell them something and they don't believe you. You tell them
the truth and they say it's not true. ''I'm right, you're
wrong...'' There's no end to this.
If you don't let go there will be suffering. I've told you
before about the four men who go into the forest. They hear a
chicken crowing, ''Kak-ka-dehhhh!'' One of them wonders, ''Is that
a rooster or a hen?'' Three of them say together, ''It's a hen,''
but the other doesn't agree, he insists it's a rooster. ''How could
a hen crow like that?'' he asks. They retort, ''Well, it has a
mouth, hasn't it?'' They argue and argue till the tears fall,
really getting upset over it, but in the end they're all wrong.
Whether you say a hen or a rooster, they're only names. We
establish these conventions, saying a rooster is like this, a hen
is like that; a rooster cries like this, a hen cries like that...
and this is how we get stuck in the world! Remember this! Actually,
if you just say that really there's no hen and no rooster, then
that's the end of it.
In the field of conventional reality one side is right and the
other side it wrong, but there will never be complete agreement.
Arguing till the tears fall has no use.
The Buddha taught not to cling. How do we practise non-clinging?
We practise simply by giving up clinging, but this non-clinging is
very difficult to understand. It takes keen wisdom to investigate
and penetrate this, to really achieve non-clinging.
When you think about it, whether people are happy or sad,
content or discontent, doesn't depend on their having little or
having much - it depends on wisdom. All distress can be transcended
only through wisdom, through seeing the truth of things.
So the Buddha exhorted us to investigate, to contemplate. This
'contemplation' means simply to try to solve these problems
correctly. This is our practice. Like birth, old age, sickness and
death - they are the most natural and common of occurrences. The
Buddha taught to contemplate birth, old age, sickness and death,
but some people don't understand this. ''What is there to
contemplate?'' they say. They're born but they don't know birth,
they will die but they don't know death.
A person who investigates these things repeatedly will see.
Having seen he will gradually solve his problems. Even if he still
has clinging, if he has wisdom and sees that old age, sickness and
death are the way of nature, then he will be able to relieve
suffering. We study the Dhamma simply for this - to cure
suffering.
There isn't really much as the basis of Buddhism, there's just
the birth and death of suffering, and this the Buddha called the
truth. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is
suffering and death is suffering. People don't see this suffering
as the truth. If we know truth, then we know suffering.
This pride in personal opinions, these arguments, they have no
end. In order to put our minds at rest, to find peace, we should
contemplate our past, the present, and the things which are in
store for us. Like birth, old age, sickness and death. What can we
do to avoid being plagued by these things? Even though we may still
have a little worry, if we investigate till we know according to
the truth, all suffering will abate, because we will no longer
cling to them.
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Footnotes
...1
An informal talk given in the Northeastern dialect, from an
unidentified tape
... head2
To touch a person's head in Thailand is usually considered an
insult.
... head3
It is considered auspicious in Thailand to have one's head touched
by a highly esteemed monk.
... supports4
The four supports - robes, alms-food, lodgings and medicines
