Going Against the Stream

~ By Ajahn Pasanno ~

In a short dialogue between a deva and the Buddha; the young deva asks:
‘Always anxious is this mind,
The mind is always agitated
With unarisen problems
And about arisen ones.
If there exists release from fear,
Being asked please declare it to me.’

It is a quest for freedom from fear, which we experience all the time, and during this particular time it is even more relevant and more prominent.

And the Buddha replies:
‘Not apart from enlightenment and austerity,
Not apart from restraint of the sense faculties,
Not apart from relinquishing all,
Do I see any safety for living beings.’ (SN 2.17)

Indeed, one needs to embark on a noble seeking, a noble search to go against the flow and go against the stream. It’s a willingness not to just give into ones desires and habits — not give into the conditions and preferences of the world — but to resist the habits of the mind. That resistance is energy that arises when applying austerity, simplicity and directness to our practice.

This helps lead to peace, to a freedom of heart. But one must experiment with their practice. One must have a willingness to go against that fear of doing it wrong, to overcome exactly what the sutta is pointing to. We must have a willingness to search, try things out, fail, try again and find a way out of suffering.

(From ‘Freedom From Fear & Anxiety,' a Dhamma talk offered at Abhayagiri Monastery on 25 April 2020.

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Photograph: From Abhayagiri Monastery Website.