Published Wednesday, 20 March 2019
For many lives I have wandered
looking for, but not finding,
the house-builder who caused my suffering.
But now you are seen
and you shall build no more.
Your rafters are dislodged
and the ridge-pole is broken.
All craving is ended;
my heart is as one with the unmade.Dhammapada v.153-4
Craving (the house-builder) causes attachments to views and opinions (the houses), and we then feel obliged to spend a great deal of energy on maintenance. Attaching to views and opinions might provide a relative sense of identity; however such an approach to seeking security is energy extravagant and ultimately unreliable. The Buddha’s advice is instead to invest our energy in finding a truly secure abiding, a dependable sense of identity, that is, in awareness itself: silent, selfless, spacious, just-knowing awareness. This is ‘the unmade’ to which the Buddha referred. Trusting in this possibility still takes energy, but the effort doesn’t have to deplete us. Such a trusting disposition in fact generates energy, lessening the impulse to promote ‘me’ and ‘my way’, which means we have attention available to listen to others.