YOU’RE LIVING IN a Dhamma hothouse. An oasis of Dhamma. Not a barren land bereft of Dhamma. Yet you’re searching for the Dhamma. If there’s really something to search for, it ought to be something hidden, something not in plain sight.

So contiguous is the Dhamma that it verges on coming into contact with all six of the sense faculties. For all its contiguity, you still don’t see it. While being bathed in light, you’re searching for light; for your eyes are shrouded with ignorance.

If you’re searching for the Dhamma, then go along the path taken by Lord Buddha. Study the path taken by him. Prince Siddhārtha, despite having come along for over four incalculable periods and a hundred thousand eons fulfilling the perfections, until he was 29, didn’t have the faintest whiff of his journey’s objective that he so came pursuing. A hint of what he trained himself for in saŋsāra resurfaced only upon seeing the four harbingers―a wizened old man, a terribly ill person, a funeral procession, and an ascetic. Until then, the prince lived a frolicking life in a stage-managed social environment, artfully contrived by the machinations of his father, that was denuded of suffering. What the prince, who went forth from household life in search of the Dhamma, first did was, he let go of everything. Princess Yasodharā, prince Rāhula, the cornucopia of royal comforts, all were let go of. That was the first stage. Having let go of everything, it was to the forest that he went. Having gone into nature, into the natural environment, what did he do?

Reading material and dhamma books for the prince to read, meditation classes, dhamma talks, dhamma discussions… did he have any of those? Did he have the Tipiṭaka―the pāli canon? The threefold refuge hadn’t yet come into existence in the world. Against this backdrop, what was the path the prince took? Leisurely, think! Thinking, gain insightful understanding. The prince went into the forest and watched nature, the environment, arising-passing thoughts. There wasn’t anything else to look at or see in the forest. The prince saw the sun, rising in the morning. Setting in the evening. The moon, rising at night. Setting in the morning. Rain sets in. Rain ceases. The dew, the cold, the wind, the clouds, the rainbows come and go. Droughts come. Floods come. The same thing happens again and again. Trees sprout new leaves. New leaves grow into leaves proper. Leaves yellow. Leaves fall. The very thing happening time and again. Flowers appear. Bear fruits. Fruits ripen. Fall on the ground. Saplings grow out of them. The sapling turns into a tree. The same thing, repeating iteratively. Shaves the head and beard. Happens again and again. Feels hungry. Eats food. Happens again and again. Every single phenomenon of the body, every single phenomenon of the environment, without remaining permanent, becomes impermanent. It is this nature that the bodhisattva prince,[i] being in the forest, must have seen. There isn’t anything else to see in the forest. In that case, the essence of the Dhamma must lie within the above range. Because the bodhisattva prince’s mind, disencumbered and undefiled on account of the letting go of everything, was in a constant state of samādhi, he will have seen and felt the above natures ever so clearly. Right until the moment of attaining the omniscient self-enlightenment, it is through nature, through the environment that the bodhisattva prince gained insight. As he observed nature and his own mind and body with a samādhi brought about by letting go, the bodhisattva will have discerned that there’s no other nature other than ‘impermanence’ here. This was the path our master trod for the purpose of extinguishment. Even the pacceka buddhas that emerge during the void interludes between dispensations of buddhas―throughout which the Dhamma remains completely concealed from human knowledge―realize enlightenment by following the above path of a buddha.

You, seeing the impermanence of the mind, let go of those paths of pleasure, shortcuts, tortuous paths and paths of idly biding time your impermanent mind gives you. Tread the real path of a buddha. Just as it is a foregone conclusion that if a milk-sap tree were pierced, milk-sap would exude, much in the same way, if you take the aforesaid path of a buddha, extinguishment is a certainty; for it was the very path the bodhisattva took.

It is also this above path that Buddha referred to as ‘Dhamma-Vinaya’. Dhamma means ‘nature’―the true nature of ‘nature’. Vinaya connotes ‘mindfulness’.[ii] “Observe nature with mindfulness” is what it means. During the first two decades of the current dispensation, [even] without the Vinaya rules having been laid down the Order of monks trained effectively, practising restraint. This was because they observed nature with mindfulness. Its result: enlightenment! Later on, though, due to the emergence of monks who looked at nature without mindfulness, Buddha had to lay down the Vinaya so as to engender mindfulness.

Be skilful to watch nature with mindfulness. What you will then see is the nature of Dhamma. The nature of Dhamma isn’t anything else; it is but ‘impermanence’. Nature and you aren’t two different things but one and the same. Both are made of the solid, liquid, warm and airy elements. The nature of these is ‘impermanence’. Nature and your body both are creations made of the above elements. Above elements become impermanent at an ever-so-high velocity, are not visible to the eye and are perceptible only with wisdom. Above elements, each and every turn they become impermanent, also give rise to a space element. Each moment the elements arise and pass away, the space element, too, becomes impermanent. All these are phenomena that, having made your way beyond the stretch of morality (sīla) and concentration (samādhi), are seen with wisdom (paññā).

What we see as both nature and the body are simply the four fragments of elements that are diverse, [appearing] as shapes, colours and properties of kaleidoscopic variety. Due to the ignorance of the eye, they are each conceived with a name dictated by convention. So, put nature and body into the same lot. Observe the mind that stirs them into motion. Even in the mind what you see is only ‘impermanence’. The mind, which is alien to you, which arises by external forms, internal faculties and consciousness coming into contact, belongs to ‘impermanence.’ So, all these phenomena are impermanent phenomena. All you have to do is keep looking at all this with mindfulness. Then, what develops in you without any effort is the fourfold establishing of mindfulness―the four satipaṭṭhāna. In the path to enlightenment, this fourfold establishing of mindfulness is the decisive force for extinguishment. Body, mind, feeling and phenomena are the world. To see these four bases of mindfulness with penetrative insight, is to realize the Dhamma; is to insightfully penetrate the world.

You let go of everything. With the impermanent mind, keep observing the impermanent body. Then you will receive everything. When you receive that everything, you won’t need any of it; for you will have insightfully realized everything as impermanent.  

[i] The Sanskrit term ‘bodhisattva’, having now gained wider familiarity and even making its way into some English dictionaries, has been used here in lieu of the proper pāli term ‘bodhisatta’ (see bodhisatta).

[ii] Dhamma is defined as the truth of the way things actually are. It refers, in an ontological sense, to the nature of being or a timeless law of how things truly operate in keeping with causality.  Vinaya is the monastic training rules of virtue laid down by Buddha.