To free us from stress & suffering, Gotama teaches us to see the world as the experience of our senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, & thinking (mind is a sense, just as sight is). We can see all this continuously arising & passing away. No sight, sound, or touch is a solid self—who or what we are; there is only this continuous process, not a someone doing something. He calls this understanding of experience “dependent arising” (paṭiccasamuppāda). Craving, taṅhā, or wanting something to be different (more pleasant, less painful) becomes the key point where the well-trained mind can interrupt the arising of the process of dukkha, through mindfulness. By seeing directly (through training in meditation) how experience arises, we see how suffering & stress arise; we can let go of mental activities that cause suffering, dukkha, when they are still sparks, rather than allowing them to burst into flames. Dependent arising, clearly seen, embraces the whole of Gotama’s teaching.1 The sensation of a solid self is seen as an illusion arising dependent on conditions, including habits of mind. We grasp after forms, sensations, perceptions, habits of reacting to what we see, hear & think. This is our painful untrained way of experiencing the world, but we can change it.
- See the touchstone teaching, “I teaching only suffering & the end of suffering,” pubbe cāhaṃ, bhikkhave… ↩