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Questioning (1 of 5): Come and See

So, good morning. Good morning again. It's lovely to be here and to practice together. There's something quite wonderful about this long list of people in the chat box saying good morning from all over. There's something really touching about it. So thank you for all of you who are showing up for these 7:00 a.m. meditations and talks.

As many of you know, maybe as all of you know, the reason why we practice, or the purpose of the Buddhist teachings, is to establish a path to the ending of suffering. We can interpret suffering in such a broad range of ways—maybe all forms of discomfort, or unease, or stress, or however we might understand suffering, from the most acute to just a little bit of irksome. The Buddhist teachings are ways to mitigate, minimize, and with awakening, to come to an ending of suffering. Which, of course, isn't the same as the ending of pain. There will still be physical discomfort as long as we have human bodies. It doesn't mean that we won't have an emotional life; it just means the suffering will have drained out of our experiences.

And of course, these teachings are called the Dharma^[1]. You might have heard that there are a number of places in the suttas^[2] where the Dharma is described as having these qualities: as being directly visible, immediate, inviting one to come and see, applicable, to be personally experienced by the wise. Today, I'd like to unpack this third quality: inviting one to come and see, ehipassiko^[3].

It is noteworthy that this idea of inviting one to come and see is not the same as inviting one to come and believe. There isn't an insistence that we accept everything by faith. There isn't a requirement that we adopt beliefs. The invitation is to verify it for ourselves. I imagine for many practitioners this is part of the attraction of Buddhist practice. I know for me it certainly is—this idea of verifying it for myself, checking it out: does this make sense? Is this in accordance with my experience? The disciples who followed the Buddha did this on the basis of their own understanding, not from obedience or some unquestioning trust, but from the sense that they had some experiences which the Buddha encouraged them to have. They said, "Okay, I'm going to follow these teachings."

To be sure, all of us may want there to be someone who has all the answers. We may believe that somehow, if we had all the answers that we could get from somebody else, that would protect us or provide security. Or it would be an immunization of sorts from suffering, because we do, of course, want to feel protected against difficulties. But the truth is, we don't know the future. We don't know what's going to happen next. We can speculate, we might have some good predictions, but anybody who knows what the future is—those who "know" the future just don't know that they don't know the future. So this invitation to come and see is also not an invitation to go and see. That is, it's not an invitation to go find some person, some entity that can provide all the answers, that can zap us in some kind of way that will end our suffering. We can't end suffering by expecting some external authority to do it for us.

To be sure, there are people who help, and who guide, and who teach. But there isn't some entity that is going to do all the ending of suffering, all the work, all the effort that's needed for us. In the suttas, the Buddha even gives instructions on how to evaluate somebody as a potential teacher. This relies on the idea that we have to have some discernment and use our faculties of wisdom and our own experience to help guide us in finding a teacher. This way, we can have somebody who guides us without throwing out the way that we might think for ourselves or our common sense. Some of the guidelines that the Buddha gave are some obvious ones: do they exhibit any signs of greed, hatred, and delusion^[4] such that they're causing harm to others?

The Buddha called himself a guide and a teacher in a number of places. In the Dhammapada^[5], there's this line: "You yourselves must make effort; the Tathagata^[6] only points the way." The Tathagata was the way that the Buddha spoke about himself. "You yourselves must make effort; the Tathagata only points the way."

So this invitation to come and see is acknowledging our capacity for spiritual development while also respecting our intelligence and respecting our autonomy. But where do we come and see? Where do we come to see the Dharma? The answer, of course, is to our experience. It is an encouragement to investigate our experience, an encouragement to see and hear and feel, taste, sense our experience. And then we might understand that to see for ourselves is the Dharma in some kind of way. The Buddha's teachings describe a path to liberation, and this metaphor of a path draws on the idea of a cleared passageway that allows one to move through what otherwise would be impossible.

Often when we think of this idea of a path, we might think of a path in the forest if you go hiking, or maybe even a road to drive on. They're usually clear whether we are there or not; that passageway exists whether we are there or not. But there's an important difference between this metaphor of a path and our practice. That is that the Buddhist path, the Dharma, only exists with our engagement with it. It doesn't exist independent of us; it arises when we are present with our experience in a mindful way, with a particular approach.

So we create the path with the activities of our minds, with the activities of our bodies, with the activities of our heart—the way that we show up, the way that we interact with others, the way that we interact with ourselves. Because both the path and the obstacles to the path are found inside of us, in our experience, the Buddhist path requires us—or asks us—to take responsibility. Take responsibility for our thoughts, our attitudes, our actions. It builds on this principle that we can move towards liberation by disengaging from perspectives and behaviors that weigh us down, and replacing them with behaviors that lighten us and support us.

Investigation—investigating what's here, what is this—is a way in which we engage with our experience in which the Dharma is visible, with this encouragement to come and see. Investigation is not the same as thinking about or speculating. It's more about inquiry or curiosity with openheartedness. It's not about studying for exams, with the sense that we have to figure it all out and have it memorized. Our lives aren't problems that we have to solve; they are realities that we can experience. In this way, the teachings ask for an open and listening heart, an open and listening mind, an open and listening body—bodily experience.

We might think of investigation as a kind of intimacy with our experience, where the attention or the mindfulness draws close, where it touches and connects with whatever our experience might be at that moment. It's a way of looking, a way of being with experience, to say, "What is this? What is here? What is this experience? What's actually going on?" And to do this inquiry is a way that's onward leading, that supports us with practice.

There may be some forms of inquiry which can feel like a cul-de-sac^[7], a dead end. We're not asking the question, "Why do I always get angry when there's some physical discomfort?" That just leads to some contraction, and we just kind of go around and around. Instead, it can be, "What's happening here?" We're not asking, "What happens after I die?" That's not knowable in this life. It's not so much onward leading, and it's taking us away from our direct experience. Is there a way in which we could have inquiry, in which we can have questioning that is a support? It's one way in which the Dharma is expressed and experienced, and that can be a support for us. And can we do this as best we can from an embodied place, and with some kindheartedness, some warmheartedness?

So maybe today, as you go through your day, you might explore this idea of, "What is this? What is here?" And listening, maybe with a spirit of wonder, some openheartedness. Not that we have to find the answer—we don't have to dig to find the answer. But more, it's this openness: "What is this? What's here?" Also, not with an understanding that comes from some previous idea, like, "Okay, I already know this." But can we bring our beginner's mind to this experience as a way to connect us with it? In this way, may our openheartedness, our openness, our spirit of inquiry allow us to be with what's actually happening. And maybe we might see how we might be able to serve others, and be able to support ourselves. So that our practice can be for the benefit of everyone, all beings. Thank you.