REALIZATION
and
the TRIO of PRECEPTS-CONCENTRATION-WISDOM
As you know, realization is a clear and complete understanding of a problem, an event, or a stable content. With that, it must go through some time of research, study and examination. Then, another time for the practice of those perceptions in life to gain experience and prove that our theoretical comprehension is correct. Thanks to that repeated application, the first to the last steps in the process of building-up knowledge are easily recorded in our memory. Due to the experience accumulation in the long time, the final recognition is always correct, practically and theoretically. For instance, a good tennis player. He gets a right technique because he has learned the correct theory and has regularly practiced it. Those generate him fast reactions and a lot of experience. Another example, a driver who occasionally got citations for speeding on the freeways. This guy does not have the correct driving knowledge. He might have a wrong understanding of freeway driving, i.e., assuming that no policeman over there and the roads are not traffic, so, he keeps speeding.
Therefore, the right knowledge will provide good results whereas the wrong one the consequences. But what are the reasons for the latter? It is our very subjectivity. We might be careless, absent-minded, and not comply with the laws and regulations. If our mind is still deeply mundane in greed, desires, angers and passions, our understanding might be erroneous.
Knowledge plays a very important and essential role in daily life. To get good results from everything, there should always be the right understanding about it. What are the standards for that rightness? It should be conducted in accord with the laws, morality and the good traditions of a society and religion; it should be useful for us without harming to others.
Realization directs our thinking, speech and actions since we are intelligent enough until now. But we may not know it. That is why both pleasure and unpleasure happen in our life. We are distressed and agitated because we do not have the right perception of life and the earthly truths that govern the world.
When we start reviewing our drawbacks in life, it means we begin to wake. We come to reach the Buddhist Dharma and learn the teachings of the Awakened.
The eternal truths, unchanged with time and places, and experienced by the Buddha, actually are not too mysterious and far beyond our reach that we have to manage to look for them somewhere outside this world. They are the reality right in front of our eyes at this very moment. They are clearly shown and never hidden.
Observe the reality seriously, then you will realize it right away. Why are this tree's leaves green and lush? But that one is dry and withered? Ah! Lack of water! Why is this folk gently-behaved and good-hearted while the other raged and furious? Maybe the first is cared, loved and well-brought by his parents while the latter is not. We will immediately recall the important laws manipulating this life that the Buddha realized. It is the Nature of Based- on -Conditions. Everything is generated by the overlapped and innumerable causes and effects.
Also, other thoughtful comprehension arise from that detect:
- Due to countless preconditions, everything must depend on causes and conditions to constantly change themselves. The Buddhist term for that is the Impermanence.
-That is why Conflict, or Dissatisfaction, or Sufferings happen. We just want to grab and hold what belong to us, or what are ours.
- Due to continuous changes without solid core and specific essence, it is the Non-Self, or the Nature of Non- Substantiality.
- Then, the nature of life is the Emptiness.
- This world physically exists but it is merely illusionary or temporary.
- The ultimate essence of life is the Suchness without any further possible discussion.
- Everything and everyone are Equal to each other. The reason is that all the characteristics of this earthly life are applied in equality for all excluding no one and nothing.
With those, wisdom comprehends all truths in life. They are realizations. We have studied the scriptures clearly taught by the Buddha in the old days. But how come we are still anxious and unrestfull, expect trivial things and want to keep them? Everything will flow down away like water held in hands.
Knowing such is life, let’s begin the journey to get back the true happiness. Is there anything in life that does not move in stream like water? With that, what could we do to steadily stay in peace and help the others to do the same?
Firstly, take the basic Five Commandments:
- Abstain from killing beings
- Abstain from cheating and material-grubbing
- Abstain from sexual misconduct
- Abstain from lying
- Abstain from drugs and alcohol
Keep our body, speech and mind pure. Do not commit to evils. One step later is to frequently involve in good deeds, kind-hearted speaking and wholesome thinking.
At the primary time of this practice, wisdom is necessary to differentiate between good and evil. It means the righteous comprehension is very important. It is also the commandements leading to equanimity in mind and life without anxious concerns, worries, fears and remorses. Simultaneously, compassion, loving-kindness, pleasure and renunciation are yielded. Be appreciative and in good rapports with everyone. Be ready to assist anyone in need. Be pleasant to others’ joys and happiness. So, in the early observance period of the Five Precepts, we can begin put ire, avarice, arrogance and jealousy under control.
Gradually, evil and unwholesome thoughts do not arise, our mind, then, is calm and peaceful No more being attached to worldly phenomena. It is the concentrating mind in life. It is the steady concentration from which wisdom is more and more developed. Our view of the reality will be as-is and objective. No more shaken thinking, judging, criticizing, hating or loving. No more bad karmas. Equanimity is the noblest mind leading us to enter the Nature of Equality and stay in the Wisdom of Non-Discrimimation.
Nowadays, there is one more so simple approach which starts with the Ceremony of Taking Refuges in the Three Precious and applying the Five Precepts. Many of us have done it. But how many of us have ever wondered: “Why do I not get any improved in mind practice though I have gone through a long distance?” If yes, is there any reply?
The plain answer is that it is not enough the right understanding about the Ceremony of the Three Refuges in the Three Precious and the observance of the Five Precepts as well.
In this piece of writing, I do not remind the meanings explained in the above ceremonies and the handing down of the Five Commandments. The point here is that the importance and necessity of those rituals have not been thoroughly understood. Shortly, the rites of the Three Refuges in the Three Precious aim at sowing the Bodhi seeds into our mind. With them, the roots for the Enlightenment, we get prerequisites to caring for and nourishing our mind. Those will bear green and fresh leaves that are useful for both ourselves and others.
Furthermore, the Five Precepts are the virtuous grounds for human personalities. In our life, when we solemnly keep those Five Commandments, we can hit the targets of releasing sufferings for ourselves and the others. And finally, we do reach the last end of the mind improving pathway.
Concentration is the default result of the Precepts. And Wisdom is the mere fruits from Concentration. That is to say, the seeds of Concentration and Wisdom have already rooted within the Commandments.
If you access into the path of Dhyana, Concentration, then inside it, there should be the shoots of the Precepts and your Insight. Lack of Wisdom, Concentration is just false and delusional. Lack of Precepts, just the unrighteous-minded one. When you cannot plunge yourselves in the Five Precepts accepted in the Ceremony, Concentration or Wisdom are illusionary.
In short, no matter what entry we enter to transform our mind, we must test ourselves whether we thoroughly and simultaneously conduct ourselves in the Trio of Precepts - Concentration – Wisdom. It is then the true self-liberation.
Bhikkhuni Thích Nữ Triệt Như
Written at the Sunyata Monastery, June 2, 2021
English version by Ngọc Huyền
Link to Vietnamese article: https://tanhkhong.org/a1992/triet-nhu-snhp004-nhan-thuc-va-gioi-dinh-hue
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