Post #176: Just Walking (Enjoy Your Suffering)

25 April 2025

“In seeing there is only seeing, in hearing only hearing, in feeling only feeling, in awareness only awareness. When you train yourself thus, Bahiya, you will no longer be with that, or in that; you will be neither here nor there, nor anywhere in between, and suffering will come to an end.”

—Udana 1.10 (Bahiya Sutta)*

     The bark-wearing wanderer Bahiya, like many of the mendicants in India at the time, was quite a walker: some seven hundred miles he covered, resting only at night, after it was revealed to him that he was not in fact the liberated being he took himself to be, and that to complete his journey he would need to follow the Path laid out by the Buddha.

     When he arrived in Shravasti, the Awakened One and his disciples were making their alms-rounds, but the seeker was not to be deterred: “Teach me the Dhamma,” he pleaded on the spot, three times, despite being reminded that this was not a suitable time, until the Buddha at last relented before the unanswerable argument that there was, after all, no telling whether either of them would be alive long enough if they delayed. (As if to validate this importuning of the Awakened One, Bahiya was killed, not long after the encounter, by a mother cow protecting her calf. No further details have come down to us.)

     It is of all the Buddha’s teachings perhaps the most counter-intuitive, this strange insistence that the self of which we feel so sure can not only be dismantled by patient practice, but that it will turn out, upon careful scrutiny, never to have existed in the first place. There simply is no self to be found above and beyond sentient experience, we are told; there is only the experience itself, with awareness inseparable from it. And this is presented to us not as a belief we are asked to espouse or a proposition we are expected to adhere to, let alone to profess (as if it were a doctrinal tenet or a creedal article), but a lived truth that will supposedly have to be revealed not just intellectually but experientially before it can stick. And with it, so we are promised, comes liberation from suffering. (Nibbana is nothing other than this complete cessation, the existential itch disappearing even in its subtlest forms, though perhaps only for a few unforgettable moments. What revelations or powers may come along for the ride is not insignificant, but incidental from the orthodox perspective.)

     A good dose of no-self would, it must be said, provide a most welcome element of relief during Vipassana retreats themselves. There is something unrelenting, at times almost brutal, about how one sitting follows another, hour after hour, day after all. Although there can be soaring moments as much as crashing ones, the beau ideal (if only one could get there) is not a joyride and not a protracted visit to the dentist’s chair, but the ability to watch it all unfold, dispassionately, moment by moment, as if it were all just an object of curiosity, not occasion for misery or elation. From the vantage point of no-self as much as possible, in other words.

     For a long time the structural toughness of these retreats made it quite impossible for me to enjoy them. I could smile at the amusing notion of taking joy in one’s suffering, but little more (#11). And I still struggle with how rough the inner seas can get, seasickness, dread of drowning and all. Even the best hospital is still a hospital, I argued for the longest time, not a home; you are supposed to get better at Magic Mountain and return to your life, not linger in the manner of a Hans Castorp (to be discharged only upon the outbreak of a world war).

     And yet, as the seemingly endless cycle of retreat after retreat keeps repeating—with its rounds after rounds on the never-ending inner carousel—the whole thing does take on an increasingly washed-out hue. Not that the intensity is necessarily diminished, but that the fabric of self does seem to thin out and become rather bare with so much rubbing away, even if it the touch of one’s rounds may seem as insubstantial, beside the heavy imprint of one’s entrenched mental patterns, as a handkerchief wiping at a mountain range (to use a traditional image meant to emphasize just how colossal an undertaking we have before us).

     So it is break-time once more, and I find myself walking “with mindfulness,” prison-yard style but cheerfully. What I see of the ground before me (no looking up for seasoned travelers) seems to separate out, from one moment to the next, from what I am hearing and feeling and smelling. It becomes plausible, if only for an instant, that what I mistake for “me” is indeed mere overlapping transparencies, as it were, overlaid with one another so cleverly as to give the impression of an integrated, abiding being, not just a momentary phenomenon. Where is the vaunted self now, what becomes of it in such a glimpse of the distinct layers? What if “I” were to stop “looking out” from behind my eyes? What if I let go of the strings by which (or so I normally believe along with almost everyone else) I am leading this rag-doll, this colorful toy of a body, this foam of a wave, this shadow of a shadow (as the Dhammapada expresses it, at least in Thomas Byrom’s rather free rendition)? And lo, it can walk quite well all by itself, this animated puppet, and think too, I know not how, and do all the things quite automatically that we would normally assume require deliberate direction, or that are at least amendable to it.

     Sam Harris, delving into these deepest of waters during a four-and-a-half-hour talkathon with Andrew Huberman,** keeps repeating that despite our self-assurance to the contrary, we never in fact know what we will do or say next. We do not make it happen so much as it is revealed to us in a seamless process of unfolding in which we are not in fact the discrete agents that we take ourselves to be. I don’t fully understand either what this means or what it implies for our lives; but the puzzling uncertainty about what I will do next, or why, not superficially but at bottom, this I recognize very well: “I have become a mystery to myself,” St. Augustine once confessed. Not only he.

     I am quite unsure how far we can really shed the sense of self: it is said to linger like the scent on fresh laundry—or the stench, back in the Buddha’s day, when urine, lye, and even cow dung were used for washing (#30)—long after the cruder impurities have been wiped off the mind (Samyutta Nikaya 22:89). Only the fully and finally liberated, we are told, are truly done with self: the subtlest traces of self-belief that block our view of what is really going on are said to be the very last obstacles to be cleared out of our way on the Path. It seems impossibly far off from where I am sitting, and I might be tempted to dismiss the vision as chimeral if the burden of self had not by now come into view for me with such painful clarity and force that I no longer doubt how liberating it would be to let it go at last, if only I were able.

     So long as we are in the habit of seeing selfhood in the world as a kind of game that can be won, or at least contested to a draw, we will surely be stuck with it, and with the defeats it must bring. Not so very long ago, I still retained some such high hopes, and I continued to cling with corresponding tenacity to the adult persona I’ve tried to build in hopes of making something beautiful of my life. It is not just that I have come to the realization that it is not working out, which would be one thing, but that it really cannot succeed as we wish. It is a losing proposition from the start, not as a debating point, but as a point of hard-won realization. Tainted with bitterness, you say? I’m not sure, but certainly acquired in defeat—how could it be otherwise? If the unavoidable frustrations and fiascos along the roads of life will not teach you, ageing, sickness, and death will do so for sure. Better to wisen up before the lesson gets beaten into you by teachers not known for their gentleness.

     Dukkha, the unsatisfactory element in all sentient existence (“the rain could turn to gold and still your thirst would not be slaked,” thunders the Dhammapada), remains inescapable so long as we are determined to hold on to our sense of self—like the pitiable simians who, with their hands stuck in certain African monkey-traps, cannot free themselves because they are unwilling to let go of the prizes they are clutching, even if by opening their hands they could easily get out of their predicament and escape before the hunters arrive.***

     There is no extra credit to be earned by turning the unavoidable dissatisfactions of life into outright misery, or even agony, as we are wont to do. So is there a way to enjoy the show with all its tragic elements, and the farcical ones too—“the whole catastrophe” as Zorba the Greek proclaims? I don’t vaunt myself on any impressive ability to do so, not at all; I merely acknowledge how appealing it has begun to look—perhaps a little more viable, too, and definitely more worth investing one’s hopes in than the heavy, tattered rags of a spectral self that is liable to dissolve upon close inspection even while its burdens can cause us such untold miseries.

     While I insist on taking things to be happening to me—rather than unfolding or flowing along in an impersonal process of becoming—any ensuing suffering must also be experienced as none other than mine, thus very real, very substantial, and potentially very, very painful. Only it does not have to be so. The power of dissociation as a last line of defense when pain becomes unbearable is something known to most victims of severe abuse, though usually at the cost of losing their ability to feel anything properly. There is a better way, however, that combines a heightened awareness and sensitivity with more detachment at the same time, without repressing or denying anything. Improbable as it may sound, it really is possible to distance yourself from your own sensations at the same time as learning to observe them, with equanimity, more attentively and intensely than ever: that is the great Vipassana secret, hidden in plain view, for all to see who are willing to come and look, if they can muster the patience and resolve to sit things out long enough. Hence the seemingly unreasonable, but in fact indispensable ten-day barrier to entry.

     If this most crucial insight keeps eluding us and receding from view again even after we’ve been given some glimpses behind the clouds, it is not because anyone is concealing anything from us, but because the contrary patterns of habit, ignorance, and delusion are so powerful. And no wonder: as creatures of survival (and procreation), we have the most urgent reasons for constantly evaluating our sensations for any hint of problems or opportunities: by this evolved signaling system, the very core of our creatureliness, ten thousand or so generations of humans, and their ancestors going back to the very beginnings of life on our planet, were able to pass their genes along to us in an unbroken line. We should not be surprised, then, at the effort it takes to go against so primeval and basic an instinct, inscribed upon our very cells; we should rather be amazed that such an effort is possible at all! And it is possible with determined practice and patience, to the most purifying, even liberating effect.

     We all play “the game of sensations” to some extent, chasing what is pleasant and recoiling from the unpleasant. It is not a matter of breaking free completely, any time soon, but of recognizing what we are doing and beginning to change our conditioning, bit by bit, one moment at a time. The true breakthrough in this process comes not so much with spectacular revelations, on or off the mat—the various fireworks of the practice by which humans tend to get so impressed—but with a very simple realization: it does not actually matter much, for the purposes of the technique, exactly what there is to observe. If there were a judgment to be made of our sittings, it would have little to do with what we are shown, or how strong and focused our minds appear to us, and everything with whether we are able to observe whatever is happening without any preferences or prejudices whatsoever.

     To the serious Vipassana meditator, it is all just a river to be watched as it flows by, carrying now this, now that bit of flotsam. What precisely floats by may matter most vitally from the perspective of practical life; but from the Vipassana angle, the only yardstick of success and progress is how equanimously one learns to treat each and every item of experience, taking no sides and playing no favorites. Whatever may be unfolding, just study it with detached curiosity and you are practicing Vipassana. How to integrate this outlook intelligently and pragmatically with the rest of your life might be called the great Vipassana koan.

     It is not enough to make such discoveries once and be done with them; we must keep rediscovering them again and again, and that is not without its frustrations. Even so, the remarkable thing is not the difficulty of making our escape, but that there is any way out at all. However long and daunting the Path may prove, it is a great boon to have a reliable direction in life, at least, and to be free to take one’s steps, however small they may seem, towards a worthwhile goal, however far away it may appear to be. Drop by drop a dripping faucet can eventually fill an entire swimming pool, or even an ocean bed if one’s time-horizon is long enough.

PS: As such sage thoughts were swirling around my not-quite-unselfing head (I report them after the fact: writing is not allowed on Vipassana retreats for good reasons), the bell called me to the next group sitting. Most inopportunely, nature too chose the moment for calling, leaving me to make a mad dash for the meditation call when I was done.

     Sure enough, the course manager was awaiting me at the door, not to give me a welcoming hug (forbidden at centers), but to admonish me (ever so gently): not for my late arrival, it turned out, but for my shorts, which, though reaching down to my calves, had been riding up inadmissibly, to reveal the shocking sight of a knee (in a room full of strangers who are supposed to keep their eyes closed and their gazes down). My adverse inward reaction can be imagined: so much for no-self.

     I pointed at the conspicuous length of my pant-legs, then tipped the side of my head, not with a single finger (I am relieved to report), but with the whole of my hand, for a more ambiguous gesture. By nightfall, before the evening group-sitting, my activated karmic baggage had become so formidably heavy, it seems, that when I was readying myself with a few minutes of preparatory sitting in my room, the meditation platform, a seemingly sturdy industrial-style contraption, broke clean through as I was sitting down on it! The jagged edges were something to behold: I felt very lucky not to have been injured. Dhamma works.

*Strictly literal translations of the passage are freely available in several variations online, but they are rather cumbersome; I am paraphrasing.

**Huberman Lab 105, January 2023.

***As Ajahn Chah liked to say (see the Preface to his Collected Teachings, Aruna 2011): “If you let go a little you a will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace.” But what deceptively little words they are, letting go, for something so big that it is never done once and for all, but confronts us again and again with its promise and its demands…