The Place of Perfect Naturalness | Dhamma Siddhi Thero

මුල් සිංහල වීඩියෝව සඳහා Play කරන්න

The Place of Perfect Naturalness | Dhamma Siddhi Thero

If we speak of a group of people who act with understanding or realization (avabōdhaya), it implies there is some kind of method. There is a "method of understanding," and one must exist within that method. But that’s not really how it is.

Look at these trees. Are they existing with "understanding"? No. Are the trees doing a "job"? Do they do something in order to eat? No, a tree simply exists according to its nature. This is precisely what is in the Buddha's teaching: the way of being natural.

Over different periods of time, various people who suffered from distortions of this natural way have sought, in their own ways, how to return to that natural state (prakrutimat). They have expressed this in ways that were compatible with their cultures and understandable to their people. For a time, this works. Then, a group comes along and thinks, "Oh, this story is wonderful, this way of talking is marvelous," and they develop it as a set of qualities or virtues, and somehow, they carry on with that for a time.

In this context, when we speak of Buddhism, the person Siddhartha Gautama was searching for a way to remove all of his own distortions and become a completely natural human being. There was a reason for this. From a young age, his family knew that if this man was allowed to follow his natural path, he would end up in a different place [i.e., not as a king]. So they decided he must be conditioned to a level where he would not go down that path. His entire environment was made into a distortion, an artificiality. For a long time, he couldn't see through it.

But when the time came for him to understand, he slowly, slowly began to realize: "There is one world they are showing me, these sense objects, but there is something else altogether. There is a great oscillation between the two." It was then that he needed to know, "What is the truth in this?" His father, King Suddhodana, had created an environment that was a distortion. So, from that point on, his search was for how to become a completely, perfectly natural human being.

That state he arrived at… now, this world is structured for what we call "development." The expansion of human craving (taṇhā), this chasing after things that has grown into what we today call the "open-market economy," all had to start from a point of minimal desire. The state I am speaking of is even below that starting point. It is not an easy state to get to.

This perfect natural state I speak of, Venerable Sir… those beings in it, they just exist. They do not do anything for the sake of existence. They do nothing for their survival. They just are. There are no conditions placed on another—no "you must be like this," or "you must be like that." There's nothing of the sort. It is a certain way of being at a particular "vibration level." Therefore, the state I am describing is an exceedingly effortless place.

If you subtly observe many who live the ascetic life today, if you associate with them closely for even a day, you will understand in which places they are tied up, stuck, and blocked. This isn't to say it applies to everyone who has ordained. They too have created a "something that must be done" and a "something that must not be done." It is a life trapped within that framework. Even a layperson can arrive at this beautiful state. It's not about the robe one wears. Do you understand? Ordination is not some special thing in itself. Ordination? It is an institution the Buddha established. He established it for a reason: once you have "updated" yourself in the way the Buddha taught, it is easier to live that life by setting aside the cultural baggage and attachments. Along with the robe, you leave behind those cultural ties and join a different community.

However, just because you have come to that community doesn't mean you stop doing what you did before. You still come and go, eat and drink, and maintain all the general postures and behaviors. Everyone bathes, all of that is there. This structure was created so that one can exist in perfect freedom from the other society [lay society]. If you live in that other society, you are invariably dependent—on a person, on a thing, on something. But if you can exist with understanding, you can exist naturally. They accept the natural vibration; they surrender to that plane of natural vibration. For nature, it doesn’t matter if it’s a robe or a cloth. What is important to it is the frequency level this person is at, the vibration at which he exists. It's a different thing.

These things cannot be taught to people as sermons, nor can they be explained and given to people. It's not like that. People have to listen, and after listening to whatever they listen to, they must have a genuine need to change. As you begin to examine yourself in your daily life, little by little by little, you begin to understand. The environment you perceive now is not the one that was there before. What I see now is not what I saw before. The way people look at me now is not how they looked at me before. The way people interact with me now is not how they did before. We realize this entire reality is changing day by day.

The meaning of this is not that they have actually changed, but that I have changed. My change, my reflection, is what is coming back at me from the outside. As long as I am prone to anger, I will only meet people who are prone to anger. Do you understand? But once that tendency for anger is gone from me, everyone I meet speaks to me in a wonderful way.

So, there is no separate "outside." The outside is me. My preferences are what exist outside. In truth, I myself am what is called "the outside." That's how it is. Go stand in front of a mirror and scowl. See if it smiles back at you. It won't. The very same thing is reflected. Is this not what we call Kammassakatā Sammā Diṭṭhi (Right View of being the owner of one's kamma)? This isn't just any view. It is the state of freedom from all views. It's a plane of existence.

After a person becomes free, the way they live out the rest of their life until they die… they are like someone who, after having created massive programs and plans to build this world, creating institutions and companies, building countries, and doing all this and that, has now retired with a pension and is sitting on the side. When he's sitting there, he can see the plans he drew. He sees how the company is running, how those people are working, how they have new updates, and how these changes have occurred. The old man just watches it. He's retired. He doesn't know when his final journey will be. Until then, there is a plane he exists on. Although he previously did all the programming and struggled to build something on that very plane, now there is no such struggle. But he sees it. The entirety of what he sees is his own program. He sees what he created. His things, his objectives, what was built up for his eye and ear—it is the world we ourselves made that we see.

Venerable Sir, on the day you came here, if I had not "created" you, if I had not accepted you, or if I had accepted you in a wrong or off-putting way… then you would see. If I spoke about these things and someone reacted by saying, "Oh, here is this monk who doesn't even know how to speak properly to a senior member of the Sangha," you might speak to me on two or three occasions, and then it would end there. If I myself had not created you favorably on that day, I am telling you, an event like this today would not have happened. Do you understand?

So, who created this event? You might think it was created because I came. That's the thought, isn't it? This was created for me, from my own side. It has been created for you, Venerable Sir, because you created it. Today, this person has come here, and he is writing down a whole story about a heap of name-and-form (nāma-rūpa), this environment, everything. At a time when you feel like it, either with me or alone, you will reflect on it. He is going into the world that he created.

When we live our lives in seclusion in the final stages—and by the final stages of a human life, I mean when one is at the final plane of the stages of realization—one sees the world. There are no secrets in the world. Why? Because it was he who created all the secrets. He created the world. One only sees the world created by the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. That is all one sees. You can't say new things are coming. When someone new comes into the environment, the thought doesn't even arise to question, "I wonder where this person came from? What is his name? What does he do?" But previously, upon seeing such things, a complete file would be created. You would ask questions. "Where are you from? How did you come? Where did you come from?"—a million questions. But now... someone comes, someone goes. You don't program it any further. However, the things that have already been programmed, we will meet them again and again. But when we meet them, it's not a problem, because we are standing outside the program looking in.

That is the place a person must come to. Then, none of the so-called problems or issues arise. Why? As long as you are in the program, the fragment that says, "this should be so" and "this should not be so," exists. The fear of things happening exists. The dislike of change exists. The person outside the program is merely a spectator.

As long as you are on the ground playing, you have to get a wicket or score runs; there is always something. But once you have gone to the spectator's pavilion, you have no responsibility for it. You are just a person watching. What happens? Does the umpire raise his finger? Is it a six? A four? A wicket? Oh, a wicket. That's it. There's nothing else to do. You just accept what happens. There is no such intense critique of the world. It is very free.

So, I am saying, that is where this perfect naturalness lies. The trees, the plants, the animals—the entire ecosystem exists within this natural plane. Before, when we saw one animal about to prey on another, a disturbance arose within us. Now, you can watch it beautifully. Do you understand? That is the process. If I go to stop it, that would be wrong. It would be an injustice to one of them.

Think about these days, with the two elephants fighting. They are trying to stop them by tranquilizing them with injections. When the two bull elephants fight, and the effect of the drug wears off, their energy returns. But they won't fight again in that same spot. They know that if they fight there, someone will come and do something to them again. So they go to another forest, another area. But those two will fight. You see? What should we do? The end of that fight must be the death of one, or one must be driven out of that territory. He must accept defeat and flee. That is how the fight ends.

So we ask, should we interfere? Throughout history, during their mating seasons, if an outsider comes—meaning, if some rogue elephant tries to join the herd—a fight will ensue. The herd's dominant male will not allow another to mate. That's the fight. "The village belle for the village lad," as the saying goes. This is the nature of things (Dhammatā).

So, we do not try to change the nature of things; we accept the nature of things. When you accept it, every process that happens is an enjoyment, it's fascinating. That's what it means to experience it. You don't get carried away with it.

So, when a Buddha shows the path, he tells you to go to that place of freedom and stop. Your mind has been running. Stop. But before stopping, there are all these dreams: "After I stop, I will do this. After I stop, I will make many others stop." A person who has truly stopped has none of those things. Nothing. As long as those things are there, you are still running; you haven't stopped. For them, the causes for continued wandering have been uprooted.

They do nothing for their survival. They just surrender the way they exist. That is all there is. That is the true nature of things. No animal starves. The moment hunger arises, things appear to it as objects. Do you see? The hawk high in the sky can see the tiny animal on the ground. Everything else fades and that one thing zooms into focus. A small mouse that we might not see from here, that hawk sees it perfectly. At other times, when it's not hungry, it doesn't see a single one.

When chaos comes, you learn to find the chaos and exist beautifully with the chaos. If a drought comes, what do we do? Do we say, "Let's dig a hole and hide"? No, you learn to live with the heat.

Original Source (Video):

Title: පරිපූර්ණ ස්වභාවිකත්වය ඇති තැන | ‪@dhammasiddhi‬

https://youtu.be/FzzWSEyEcwk?si=_ek_lbruuw2O3G0-

Disclaimer

The translations shared on this blog are based on Dhamma sermons originally delivered in Sinhalese. They have been translated into English with the help of AI (ChatGPT & Gemini AI), with the intention of making these teachings more accessible to a broader audience.

Please note that while care has been taken to preserve the meaning and spirit of the original sermons, there may be errors or inaccuracies in translation. These translations are offered in good faith, but they may not fully capture the depth or nuance of the original teachings.

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