The Ontology of the Middle Way

For The Gain of The Many For The Welfare of The Many

Who in the world
is a man constrained by conscience,
who awakens to censure
like a fine stallion to the whip?
Those restrained by conscience
are rare —
those who go through life
always mindful.
Having reached the end
of suffering & stress,
they go through what is uneven
evenly;
go through what is out-of-tune
  in tune.

True Teachings of The Awakened One

The Prison World vs. the World Outside

Our
mind, if we were to make a comparison with the world, is a perpetual
prisoner, like a person born in jail who lives in jail, behind bars,
with no chance to get out to see the outside world — someone who has
grown from childhood to adulthood entirely in a prison cell and so
doesn’t know what there is outside; someone who has seen pleasure and
pain only in the prison and has never been out to see what kind of
pleasure, comfort, and freedom they have in the outside world. We have
no way of knowing what kind of happiness and enjoyment they have there
in the outside world, how they come and go, how they live, because we
are kept in prison from the day we are born until the day we die. This
is a comparison, an analogy.

We have only the pleasure and pain
that the prison has to offer, with nothing special, nothing obtained
from the outside world so that when it enters the prison we could see
that, ‘This is something different from the prison world — this is from
the outside world, outside the prison;’ so that we could make
comparisons and know that, ‘This is like this, that is like that; this
is better than that, that is better than this.’ There is nothing but the
affairs of the prison. However much the pleasure and pain, however
great the deprivations, the difficulties, the oppression and coercion,
that’s simply the way it’s been all along from the very beginning — and
so we don’t know where to look for a way out or how to free ourselves.
We don’t even know where the outside world is, because we have seen only
the inside world: the prison where we have always been locked away,
oppressed, starved, beaten, tortured, deprived. Even our bedding, food,
belongings — everything of every sort — is like that of a prisoner in
jail. And yet people like this can still live this way because they have
never seen enough of the outside world to be able to make comparisons
as to which is better, which is more pleasant, in order to feel inclined
to search for a way out to the outside world.

A mind controlled
by the power of defilement and mental effluents is like this. It has
been imprisoned by various kinds of defilement for aeons and aeons. For
example, in our present lifetime, the defilements that hold sway over
the hearts of living beings have been with us since the day of our
birth. They have kept us in continual custody, never giving us any
freedom within ourselves at all. For this reason, we have difficulty
imagining what sort of pleasure there could be above and beyond the way
things are, just like a person who was born and has always lived in a
prison.

What sort of world is the world outside? Is it a good
place to visit? A good place to live? The Dhamma proclaims it loud and
clear, but hardly anyone is interested. Still, there are fortunately
some places where some people are interested. In places where no one
proclaims it, where no one speaks of what the outside world — a mind
with Dhamma in charge — is like, no one knows what the teachings of the
religion are like. No one knows what the happiness that comes from the
Dhamma is like. Such people are so surrounded by darkness, so completely
drowned in attachment, that not even a single limb shows above the
surface, because there is no religion to pull them out. It’s as if the
outside world didn’t exist. They have nothing but the prison, the
defilements, holding the heart in custody. Born in this world, they have
only the prison as their place to live and to die.

A mind that
has never known what could give it greater pleasure, comfort, and
freedom than it has at present, if we were to make a different
comparison, is like a duck playing in a mud puddle under a shanty. It
keeps playing there: splat, splat, splat, splat, splat. No matter how
dirty or filthy it is, it’s content to play because it has never seen
the water of the ocean, of a river, of a lake or a pond large enough for
it to swim and immerse its entire body with ease. It has known only the
mud puddle that lies stagnant under the shanty, into which things in
the shanty get washed down. And so it plays there, thinking it’s fun,
swimming happily in its way — why? Because it has never seen water wider
or deeper than that, enough to give it more enjoyment in coming and
going or swimming around than it can find in the mud puddle under the
shanty.

As for ducks that live along broad, deep canals

,
they’re very different from the duck under the shanty. They really enjoy
themselves along rivers, lakes, canals, and ponds. Wherever their owner
herds them, there they go — crossing back and forth over highways and
byways, spreading in flocks of hundreds and thousands. Even ducks like
these have their happiness.

What do they stand for?

They
stand for the mind. A mind that has never seen the pleasure, the
comfort, the enjoyment that comes from the Dhamma is like the duck
playing in the mud puddle under the shanty, or those that enjoy swimming
in canals, rivers, or lakes.

We at present have our pleasure and
happiness through the controlling power of the defilements, which is
like the happiness of prisoners in jail. When the mind receives training
from the outside world — meaning the Dhamma that comes from the
transcendent (lokuttara) Dhammas, from the ‘land’ of nibbana on down,
level by level to the human world, revealing every level, every realm —
we find that those of us who are inclined, who are interested in the
outside world, in happiness greater than that which exists at present,
still exist. When we hear the Dhamma step by step, or read books about
the outside world — about Dhamma, about releasing ourselves from the
pain and suffering we are forced to undergo within our hearts — our
minds feel pleasure and enjoyment. Interest. A desire to listen. A
desire to practice so as to reap the results step by step. This is where
we begin to see the influence of the outside world making itself felt.
The heart begins to exert itself, trying to free itself from the tyranny
and oppression from within, like that of a prisoner in jail.

Even
more so, when we practice in the area of the mind: The more peace we
obtain, then the greater the effort, the greater the exertion we make.
Mindfulness and discernment gradually appear. We see the harm of the
tyranny and the oppression imposed by the defilements in the heart. We
see the value of the Dhamma, which is a means of liberation. The more it
frees us, the more ease we feel in the heart. Respite. Relief. This
then is a means of increasing our conviction in ascending stages, and of
increasing our effort and stamina in its wake. The mindfulness and
discernment that used to lie buried in the mud gradually revive and
awaken, and begin to contemplate and investigate.

In the past, no
matter what assaulted us by way of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or
mind, we were like dead people. We held these things to be ordinary and
normal. They never provoked our mindfulness and discernment to
investigate and explore, searching for beginnings and ends, causes and
effects. Even though these things had been our enemies for a long, long
time, making their assaults both day and night, we were never
interested.

Now, however, we develop an interest. When the heart
begins to enter the current of the Dhamma in which it has been trained
to the point of developing a basis for mindfulness and discernment, step
by step, it is bound to see clearly both what is beneficial and what is
harmful, because these things dwell together — benefits and harm —
within this heart. The mind develops agility in contemplating and
investigating. The heart develops boldness in its explorations. Seeing
harm, it tries to remedy it. Seeing benefits, it tries to open the way
for them; it tries to foster them in ascending stages.

This is
called the mind gradually gaining release from tyranny and oppression —
the prison — within. At the same time, it is gaining a view of the
outside world, seeing what sort of world it is, seeing whether it’s like
the prison that exists at present. Our eyes can see the outside world
to some extent, can see how those in the outside world live, how they
come and go — and what about us in the prison? What is it like to live
overcome by defilements? How does the mind feel as we gain gradual
relief from the defilements? We can begin to make comparisons.

Now
at last we have an outside world and an inside world to compare! The
happiness and ease that come from removing however many of the
defilements we can remove, appear. The stress that continues as long as
the remaining defilements still exert their influence, we know clearly.
We see their harm with our discernment on its various levels and we try
continually to remedy the situation without letting our persistence
lapse.

This is when mindfulness, discernment, conviction, and
persistence stir themselves out to the front lines: when we see both the
outside world — however much we have been able to liberate the heart
from defilement — and the inside world, where the defilements keep up
their oppression and coercion. Before, we never knew what to use for
comparisons, because we had never seen anything other than this. Because
we were born buried in pain and suffering this way, no pleasure from
the outside world — from the Dhamma — ever appeared to us.

What
did appear was the kind of happiness that had suffering behind the
scenes, waiting to stomp in and obliterate that happiness without giving
a moment’s notice.

Now, however, we are beginning to know and
see. We see the happiness of the outside, that is, of the outside world,
of those who have Dhamma reigning in their hearts; and we see the
happiness inside the prison, the happiness that lies under the influence
of defilement. We also see the suffering and stress that lie under the
influence of defilement. We know this all clearly with our own
mindfulness and discernment.

The happiness that comes from the
outside world — in other words, from the current of the Dhamma seeping
deep into the heart — we begin to see, step by step, enough to make
comparisons. We see the outside world, the inside world, their benefits
and drawbacks. When we take them and compare them, we gain an ever
greater understanding — plus greater persistence, greater stamina — to
the point that when anything connected with defilement that used to
tyrannize and oppress the mind passes our way, we immediately feel
called upon to tackle it, remedy it, strip it away, and demolish it step
by step through the power of mindfulness and discernment backed by
persistent effort.

The mind will set itself spinning. When its
awareness of harm is great, its appreciation of what is beneficial is
also great. When the desire to know and see the Dhamma is great, when
the desire to gain release is great, persistence will have to become
greater in their wake. Stamina and resilience will also come in their
wake, because they all exist in the same heart. When we see harm, the
entire heart is what sees it. When we see benefits, the entire heart is
what sees. When we try to make our way with various methods in line with
our abilities, it’s an affair of the entire heart making the effort to
free itself.

This is why these things, such as persistence, that
are the mind’s tools, the mind’s support, come together. For example,
saddha, conviction in the paths (magga) and their fruitions (phala),
conviction in the realm beyond suffering and stress; viriya,
persistence, perseverance in gaining release for oneself step by step;
khanti, stamina, endurance in order to be unyielding in passing over and
beyond: All of these things come together. Mindfulness and discernment,
contemplating along the way, seeing what is right and what is wrong,
will come in their wake.

If we were to speak in terms of the
principles of the formal Dhamma as expressed by the Buddha, this is
called the path converging (magga-samangi), gradually gathering itself
into this single heart. Everything comes together: Right View, Right
Resolve, Right Speech, Right Action, all the way to Right Concentration,
all come gathering into this single heart. They don’t go anywhere else.

Right
Action: Our only right undertakings are sitting and walking meditation,
because we have reached the stage of precision work where the heart
gathers together. The mind is in a state of the path converging —
gathering itself into a single heart.

Right View, Right Resolve:
These refer to the concerns of discernment, always exploring the affairs
of the elements, the khandhas, whatever appears or makes contact,
arises and vanishes, whether good or evil, past or future, appearing in
the heart. Mindfulness and discernment slash these things to bits step
by step without bothering to waste time.

Right Action: On the
level of the body, this refers to doing sitting and walking meditation,
making the effort to abandon the defilements no matter what our posture.
On the level of the heart, this refers to persistence within the mind.

Right
Speech: We speak only of the Dhamma. Our conversation deals only with
the topics of effacement (sallekha-dhamma), topics of polishing away or
washing away defilements and mental effluents from the heart, telling
what methods we can use that will utterly end the defilements: This is
Right Speech.

Right Livelihood: When the heart feeds on any
object that’s its enemy, this is called maintaining a wrong livelihood.
Since the object is an enemy of the heart, the heart will have to be
clouded. There’s nothing good about it at all. It has to lead to greater
or lesser amounts of suffering and stress within the heart in
proportion to the heart’s crudeness or refinement. This is called
poison. Wrong livelihood. We have to correct it immediately.
Immediately.

Any mental object that’s rightful, that leads to
happiness, well-being, and ease, is a fitting preoccupation, a fitting
food for the heart, providing it with peace and well-being. This is how
Right Livelihood is maintained with Dhamma on the ascending levels of
training the heart. As for Right Livelihood on the physical level,
dealing with food or alms, that applies universally for Buddhists in
general to conduct themselves in line with their personal duties.

Right
Effort: What sort of effort? This we know. The Buddha taught four kinds
of effort: (1) Try to be careful not to let evil arise within yourself.
(2) Try to abandon evil that has already arisen. In being careful not
to let evil arise, we have to be careful by being mindful. Using
mindfulness in trying not to let evil arise means being alert to the
mind that thinks and wanders about, gathering suffering and stress into
itself. This is because thought-formations of the wrong sort are the
origin of stress, and so we should be careful to guard against them.
Don’t be careless or complacent. (3) Try to develop what is skillful —
intelligence — so as to increase it step by step. (4) Try to safeguard
the skillful things that have arisen so as to develop them even further
and not let them deteriorate. All of these right exertions apply right
within us.

Right Mindfulness keeps watch over the heart.
Mindfulness and self-awareness keep constant track of its behavior and
activities. Whatever makes contact by way of the eye, ear, nose, tongue,
or body, if it doesn’t go into the heart, where does it go? The heart
is an enormous place, always ready to be informed of various things,
both good and evil. Discernment is what contemplates and deliberates.
Mindfulness is what keeps vigilant, inspecting whatever comes in to
engage the heart. Whatever the preoccupation, good or evil, mindfulness
and discernment contemplate and are selective of what engages the heart.
Whatever they see as improper, the mind will reject immediately.
Immediately. Discernment is what makes the rejection.

Right
Concentration: Our work for the sake of making the defilements quiet
through concentration is steady and constant, to the point where the
results appear as peace and calm in the heart, as a true place of rest
without any distractions coming in to disturb the heart at that moment.