Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [38]
5. Consciousness
A dog walks into the room, and you become conscious of it. A loud radio blares on the street, and the sound stimulates your ear consciousness. The Buddha, who was very precise in his psychological analysis and definitions, taught that there is visual (eye) consciousness, auditory (ear) consciousness, olfactory (nose) consciousness, gustatory (taste) consciousness, tactile (body) consciousness, and mental consciousness. In short, one is conscious of each of the six senses; this consciousness, which you presently think of as yours, is comprised of six different basic facets.
Now what, you may ask, do the Five Skandhas have to do with the First Noble Truth? Buddha Dharma, which directs our attention to the real possibility of living something deeper and ultimately more satisfying, outlines the Five Skandhas as a way to point out the tenuous and unreliable nature of the shifting conditional reality we know as life.
Our bodies have limited shelf lives; they are impermanent and changeable. This is not religious dogma; this is just how it is. Being ephemeral, our bodies are ultimately dissatisfying. Who can get lasting fulfillment from a mere body, from sensual experiences? Even the most exquisite body experiences are fleeting and ephemeral, leaving us thirsting for more.
Our feelings are certainly ephemeral; so are our perceptions. Ditto our intentions. States of consciousness change all the time. In fact, we are all works in progress; like it or not, we are never the same. Remember the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who said, “You can’t step into the same river twice.” Each of us is like a river, whose waters are forever changing. Westerners often use “mind” as a primary definition for the self. “I think, therefore I am.” But Buddhism points out that you are not what you think; like the weather, what you think is unpredictable and subject to change. Because of this the untrained mind is also essentially unreliable. Your thoughts and feelings lack permanence. This is a fact of conditioned, conventional existence. Moreover, who and what are you when you are not thinking, or in the brief moment in between thoughts? Do we intermittently cease to exist?
On the other hand, your innate, ineffable Buddha-nature is not impermanent; it is not subject to change. This inner light is unbound, untrammelled, and immaculate. It can be relied on; it can be depended upon. It is perfect, inherently wise and warm, free and complete from the beginningless beginning. Actualizing that luminous, formless, and intangible core is what awakening is all about.
FACT OF LIFE #2
The Second Noble Truth tells us that there is a cause for life’s difficulties (or dukkha) and that cause is craving. The Pali word is tanha, and it suggests a state of incessant, never-ending thirst—a craving that won’t quit. Because all of us consistently desire, hunger, and thirst for various experiences and different things, we continue to suffer. It’s not that we have to get rid of the things we desire. The objects are not the problem. It is our attachment and our identification with what we crave that causes suffering. Tilopa, a wandering tenth-century yogi, sang, “It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us.”
People who misinterpret the Buddha’s teachings often worry that if they rid themselves of craving, they will no longer be able to love or live with passion. Quite the opposite is true. We will still have our healthy desires, but now they won’t be contaminated and misdirected by insatiable