Cutting Craving at the Root

The mechanism behind craving (tanha) is not something a being can fully grasp with the ordinary mind. It forms deep within the mechanisms of mind itself, and the craving present in the universe only becomes visible to someone who has developed Buddha-nana — the wisdom of full awakening — to its highest degree.

The four aspects of Buddha-power

Buddha-power is described here in four related aspects. 'Buddha' is the purest possible intention to establish awakening within a being's own stream of thought, upon their karma, their world, and their life — realized both in the inner world and as it acts upon the outer world. 'Buddha-nana' is the knowledge that lets a Buddha teach the Dhamma like fruit held in the palm of the hand — knowledge spanning the boundless, beginningless and endless field of Buddha, mind (citta), karma, and world across the entire universe. 'Buddha-deshana' is the teaching itself: presenting the Dhamma matched to a being's karma and their position on the middle way, connecting cause and effect in a way they can actually absorb. 'Buddha-daragenima' is the sheer capacity to carry — to hold this vast teaching, built up over inconceivable aeons, along with the beings it serves and everything bound up with it.

A being is a mind-first existence

A being is, at root, an existence built on mind. Within that mind, consciousness arises founded on the eye, ear, and nose — sense-based consciousness alongside mind-based consciousness — and a being lives by treating that bundle of consciousness as "the world." That world was not built from nothing; it was built on action. Action is what karma actually is. If a world could form without action there would be no problem, but this world is built on action — and the consciousness of that action, entangled with a sense of "I, in my own way," persists bound to karma, arising dependently, moment to moment.

Within that consciousness, within that world, a being exists as "me, mine" — sometimes in a Dhamma-aligned way, sometimes in an ordinary, unawakened way, in countless variations. The self-view centred on consciousness, together with the karma that drives it, combine to form what we call a being. That being is born and dies on karma itself, born and dies on that sense of self itself — arising on it, ceasing on it. Beings caught this way have done exactly the same thing throughout samsara: eating, drinking, and everything else has really only ever been one activity — feeding consciousness. That was true in the past, is true now, and will be true however many more aeons pass, unless something changes.

Consciousness as light

So what is this consciousness? A sign arises at the eye based on light. What does sound travel on to reach the ear? Also light. Smell is sensed at the nose on the basis of light; taste at the tongue on the basis of light; touch at the body on the basis of light. Light is what creates the differentiation of the four great elements. Take an ice cube: the amount of light available determines the amount of water, the density, present in it. The theories of how much light a given density of matter can hold, absorb, and reflect back are built into how everything in this world forms. Concrete was made based on principles inherent in light. Everything in this world exists founded on light — and Buddha is, in this analogy, another kind of sun: one that removes a being's darkness of delusion.

What is that darkness of delusion? It is a light-object — the same sunlight that gives rise to the five sense-fields, contacting the mind faculties, founded on eye-, ear-, and nose-consciousness, revolving on and acting through cells built from that light-composition. If, one day, this sun were to vanish from the universe, consciousness itself would cease — as if it had passed into final extinguishment. If the sun disappeared, a being's consciousness would disappear. The real problem is that the sun does not disappear.

On this light-element — this thing we call vinnana (consciousness) — a self-concept, "I," is built up, and because a being's individual, personal action is constructed on that self-concept, the nature we call "a being" operates. This light-mass born of the sun, this light-element, is precisely a being's confusion; a being's world. This is even where dreams come from. The Dhamma is trying to be grasped through this same consciousness — that is, trying to be grasped through ignorance. If a vision of the Dhamma arises within your ignorance, you think, 'ah, now I understand.'

But real understanding is not that. It is not the sense of having grasped it, or of remembering it, or of it fitting neatly with your existing consciousness. So what is it? It requires that the light — the wisdom-light — of Buddhas and great arahants (who are themselves Buddhas, not confined to any single school such as Theravada or so-called "Hinayana") actually reach a being. It requires contact with that state where one is not constructing things through consciousness, not fabricating conclusions through consciousness — a state given, not self-assembled, one that shows how to exist without manufacturing karma.

How that Buddha-light is kindled

How, relative to this ignorance-laden light we call consciousness, is the light called Buddha kindled within a being? In the time of Gautama Buddha, he and the arahants walked from village to village, house to house, on the alms round, and in doing so built cause-and-effect Dhamma directly with beings. Through that contact, a sprout of Buddha begins to grow within the listener too. The light called Buddha slowly, gradually increases. As it grows, the story written in the world of consciousness slowly starts to become comprehensible. A person starts to ask: what exactly am I stuck on? Am I not doing the very same thing over and over? Eating the same thing, over and over? Am I not trapped? Shouldn't I be getting free of this? — these questions start to arise within the Buddha-quality growing in them. Buddha is precisely that wisdom-laden light; and the pull of the ignorance-laden light begins to weaken. A being starts to come loose from the sun that carries ignorance-light, and starts to join instead with the Buddha-sun.

Buddhas and arahants do not appear in the world simply to preach sermons — preaching alone does not actually land. The question is how a being is to be freed from samsara at all, when they are this entangled in karma: born through karma, dying through karma, unable to break free of it. What has to happen is the building of wholesome cause-and-effect (kusala hetuphala) — wholesome causes, wholesome karma. Once that is underway, the Dhamma starts to become intelligible from within the being itself. That is precisely why Buddhas and arahants appear — for beings, not to preach at them (preaching alone doesn't land) but to help them build wholesome cause and effect, so that wholesome results can follow.

Karma paths as vibration

Seen through Buddha-eyes, every being has a karma path relevant to them — wholesome karma paths and unwholesome karma paths. Every object, every particle in this world has motion; has vibration. The sun moves. The earth moves. Particles move. In the same way, within you, there is a vibration founded on that self-concept we call "I" — centred on light, centred on sunlight, centred on ignorance.

The way this vibration arises differs according to each being's particular sense of self. Someone who develops their wisdom far enough to actually see how these vibrations arise can read karma paths — much the way people once read star charts to navigate. A person with that knowledge can influence the vibration, can influence the karma path. Within that influence, life, the pattern of living, the way one thinks — much changes. Why? Because the frequency of the vibration changes. That vibration is exactly what a being is bound to, clings to, is caught in. When a being, standing in sincerity, connects with their karma path, that vibration can be shifted so that it no longer carries forward into another existence. This is precisely what is meant by the Maithri Buddha sasana.

Tanha, rati, and raga

There is an explanation for the deeper content held within greed, hatred, and delusion (raga, dvesha, moha) as they exist within the consciousness, karma, and karma paths of every being, within nature itself — described through the three terms tanha, rati, and raga. Explained at the level of an individual, being, or self, this is the same Dhamma that greed-hatred-delusion describes; but explained from within universal, world-level Dhamma, from within Buddha-wisdom, it has to be explained through tanha, rati, and raga instead.

Within the Maithri Buddha sasana, what meaning is given to tanha, rati, and raga? The explanation is offered by showing the underlying principle contained within tanha, the principle contained within rati, and the principle contained within raga, respectively.

Tanha is, in essence, a kind of contact-arising. Deep within every being, at the centre of the brain — at the nucleus (something like, though not confirmed to be, the pineal gland) — there is something extremely small and subtle, like the tip of a signal-pillar, that touches on wave-like vibration. It is like a tiny pilot light. Whether it is physically visible is not known, but it is something a Buddha can perceive, and it exists within every being. A subtle force inherent within nature makes contact there, and something like a fine spark comes into being. Through that, the thought "I exist, I want" arises in a being — that is the phenomenon called tanha coming into being.

Tanha, in this sense, is something inherent in nature that has been handed down to a being as a kind of inheritance. For one who has fully developed the four bases of psychic power (iddhipada), the point where nature and being connect — where that spark occurs — is something that can itself be directly seen.