Clinging
Clinging is the cause of all suffering and stress. It’s what gives rise to states of becoming and birth. It’s not at all safe. Whatever appears and takes shape is bound to create suffering. Just as when a person’s money appears in a way that other people can see: there are bound to be thieves who will steal it away. When you have money, you’re afraid if people see it. You’re afraid even if they don’t. In the same way, when people cling to the five aggregates as their self in this world, they suffer. When they die and go to the next world, they suffer still.
The clinging we feel has three kinds, or three time frames: past, present, and future. In each time frame there are five aggregates, which means that each of us has 15 aggregates. And when we have so many aggregates to carry around, it’s no wonder we suffer. When we look ahead, we start wondering: “If I live until 60, 70, or 80, what’s it going to be like? If I fall into poverty, what will I do?” When we think like this, we start worrying in all kinds of ways. If we think about good things, we get enthralled. If we think about bad things, we get disheartened. Some people think about bad things so much that they get really discouraged and despondent. That’s because they cling to their thoughts and preoccupations. This is called having five heavy stones placed in front of us.
Then we turn around and look behind us: “When we die, what will happen to our children and grandchildren?” We might think of giving them part of the family fortune so that they’ll be able to set themselves up in life. But then we think of how foolish they can be. “If they take our family fortune and gamble it all away, what will we do?” When we think like this, it makes us discouraged. Other times we think of our own good qualities, our children’s good qualities, in the present, and it makes us happy. That’s another five heavy stones. So altogether we have five stones in front of us, five stones behind us, and five stones in the present. Our right hand clings to physical phenomena, our left hand to mental phenomena. We hold on to form, feeling, perception, thought-constructs, and consciousness as our self. So we carry a burden in our right hand, a burden in our left hand, and more burdens placed on a pole over our shoulder. If we keep carrying these things around without ever putting them down, we’ll meet with nothing but suffering. Then we grab onto the suffering so that we suffer even more, to the point where our faces are all contorted and our shoulders twisted out of shape.
This is why the Buddha had such compassion for us and taught us to cāgo paṭinissago, to relinquish and let go. Whoever doesn’t put down the pole on his or her shoulder will never get away. If we can first let go of our thoughts of past and future, things will be somewhat lighter. If we’re only carrying things in our hands there’s some hope that we’ll be able to keep going. In other words, if we don’t practice concentration, keeping our minds still and away from the Hindrances, we’re still carrying a pole over our shoulders with burdens in front of us and behind us, all because we can’t let go of our thoughts of past and future. Thoughts of past and future are things we don’t need to think about. Whether they’re our own affairs, the affairs of our children or grandchildren, or our business or financial affairs: when we’ve come to meditate like this, there’s no need to think about anything at all. Be intent on sitting still. Keep your body straight, focus on watching only the present—the breath—and light will appear. Even though your right and left hands are still holding onto physical and mental phenomena, at least you’ve put down both burdens that were on your shoulders.
As for the physical phenomena that are still heavy, that’s because the King of Death keeps sprinkling poison on them. For example, our eyes: At first they are clear. Everything we see is sharp and bright. But then the King of Death sprinkles his poison in them, making them murky and dark, or giving us cataracts. So we have to go running to have our eyes examined, to get glasses for them, to put medicine in them, to go in for surgery. They make us suffer in every way, so that our tiny little eyes start weighing as much as a fist in the face.
As for our ears, at first they can hear all kinds of sounds. Then the King of Death comes and sprinkles his poison in them so that they start ringing or going deaf. We can hardly hear what other people are saying, we can’t understand what they’re getting at, and this makes us irritable. They say bad things, and to us they sound good. Or they say good things, and to us they sound bad. We get things right and wrong, and this gives rise to quarrels and disagreements.
The same with our nose. At first it’s in good shape, but then the King of Death sprinkles poison in it, so that tumors and growths develop. We have to go looking for medicinal snuff and inhalers, or for doctors to zap the growths with electricity. Our nose starts smelling bad and disfigures our face.
As for the tongue, body, and mind, they pile us high with pain in just the same way. This is why we’re taught, rūpaṁ aniccaṁ: all physical forms are unstable and inconstant. If we get stuck on thinking about these things, it sets us on fire. Our skin and flesh grow flabby and wrinkled, our backs get bent, and as we grow older like this it’s a burden both to our own hearts and to the hearts of our children and grandchildren. In addition, it’s a burden in terms of the money we need to spend to look after ourselves.
Whoever holds onto unstable things as being his or her self will have to walk in an unstable way. Most of us tend to cling to the body and other physical things as being ours. Sometimes we cling to mental phenomena— feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, and consciousness—as being ours. This is called carrying things in both hands. Still, it’s better than carrying loads on a pole over our shoulder, for as long as our burdens are only in our hands we’re able to sit or lie down. But if we have burdens on a pole over our shoulder, we can’t sit down. We have to keep standing.
For this reason we should train our hearts to be peaceful and still—in other words, to develop concentration. When the heart’s tranquil and still, discernment will arise. When discernment arises, we’ll understand our own birth: When we were born, we didn’t bring along even a single tooth or piece of cloth. However we came is how we’ll have to return. We won’t be able to take a single thing along with us, aside from the good and evil that will take us to be reborn in good or bad destinations or that will send us to nibbāna. People who can meditate in this way will become light and unburdened, for they’ll be able to let go of what they’re carrying in their hands. In that way they’ll be happy, for they’ve received three jewels to adorn themselves. When they get to the other side, they’ll be able to sell them for a good price. As long as they stay here, they’ll have good things to dress up with. Whoever has the intelligence to practice letting go in this way will receive wealth that’s of value everywhere—like gold: No matter what country you go to, gold is recognized as having value. It’s not like paper money, which is recognized only in your own country.
For this reason, when we can train the mind to let go—so that it’s released from holding on to the future, the past, and the present— it’s as if we’ve received an entire ingot of pure gold. We’ll be happy at all times. But if we’re stupid enough to hold onto things as our own, we’ll set the mind on fire so that it won’t know any peace.
This is why the Buddha has warned us: Whoever clings to physical or mental phenomena, or to mental labels and thoughts, will have to be so burdened that they won’t be able to get anywhere. Ultimately, they’ll have to die stuck in the world, like the monkey who stole melons from the old couple’s field and ended up getting stuck in a tar trap and dying on the spot. It’s a story they tell as an analogy of how painful and difficult clinging can be.
The story goes like this: Once an old couple lived at the edge of the forest near the foot of a mountain. It so happened that their rice fields were flooded and they couldn’t grow any rice, so they cleared fields on the mountainside and planted them with corn, beans, watermelons, and cantaloupes to have enough food to make it through the year. At night, though, porcupines and other animals kept coming to eat their crops; while during the day, birds and monkeys would come and harass them. So eventually the old couple decided that they’d have to sleep out in the fields to keep watch over them and set out traps to protect them. The old man would keep watch at night, while the old woman would keep watch by day.
One day a troop of monkeys came and invaded the field. No matter how much the old woman tried to chase them away, they wouldn’t leave her alone. They’d jump from that tree to this, teasing and pestering her to the point where she had no time for her midday rest. So she came up with an idea. She went into the forest and found some tree sap that she boiled until it was a nice sticky tar. Then she took the tar and spread it all over any trees or stumps that the monkeys liked to use as their perches.
The next day a huge troop of monkeys came, stealing watermelons and cantaloupes and eating their fill. Now one of the monkeys, a female, had two babies. One of her babies was sick, so she left it home with her husband for him to look after, while she came along with the troop with the other baby hanging down in front of her chest. While eating the melons she thought of her sick baby, so she decided to take some back for the baby and her husband. When she had eaten her fill, she stuffed two tiny melons into her cheeks for her baby and grabbed a largish melon that she hugged to her chest for her husband. As for the baby hanging in front of her, she had it hang onto her back.
Just as she was all set to go, the old woman—carrying a shovel—happened to come across the monkeys and gave chase. Startled, the monkeys all ran off—except for the mother monkey, who could do nothing but jump back and forth because she was so weighed down: weighed down in front, weighed down in back, weighed down in her mouth. She tried calling for help, but no sound came out. She happened to jump up onto a stump that the old woman had smeared with a thick, soft glob of tar. The old woman came straight at her with the shovel, so the monkey decided to jump away but she couldn’t budge. Her tail was curled up and stuck in the tar. She tried to pry her tail loose with one of her paws, but the paw got stuck. She used her other paw to pry off the tar, but that one got stuck, too. Seeing that the tar on her paw was black and sticky, she sniffed it, only to get her paw stuck to her nose. With one of her back feet she tried to push herself off the stump, but the foot got stuck. Then she used the other foot to wipe the first one off, but her two feet got stuck together as if they were tied up with a rope. She couldn’t move. All she could do was look around grimacing, just like a monkey. After a moment’s thought she bent down and bit the tar in furious anger. She wanted to bite the old woman but all she could do was bend down and bite tar.
As for the old woman, when she saw the monkey all stuck in the tar like this, she called the old man to come and see. Then the two of them found a red ants’ nest and broke it over the monkey. Then they set fire to her hair, tormenting her there on the stump. Finally one of them took a hoe handle while the other took a shovel handle, and the two of them beat the monkeys—mother and baby—to a miserable death.
This is the result of clinging and attachment: clinging to the future, clinging to the past, clinging to the present: the baby on her back and the melon she was holding to her chest. That’s why she had to suffer so much.
For this reason, the Buddha taught us to let go of labels and thoughts of past and future, and all five aggregates in the present. Physical phenomena are like the melon the monkey held to her chest; mental phenomena, like the baby hanging from her back. We can’t get away because of our heavy burdens.
Whoever clings is said to be heavily burdened. As long as we’re alive, we have trouble finding true goodness. When we die, we have heavy burdens lying in our way. This is why the Buddha teaches us to let go. Don’t grasp onto thoughts of past, future, or present. Make the mind like water on a lotus leaf, which doesn’t seep in. It reaches a quality that doesn’t die, doesn’t come back to be born in this world or any other. Free from suffering and stress, it reaches the highest, most excellent ease.
So we should all try our best to lighten our burdens.
