Forest Path - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

216 forest path
sàvakas truly penetrated those teachings, it follows that each one of
us, wherever we’re from, wherever we were born, whatever language
we speak, man, woman, old or young, we all bear within us
this capacity to realize the truth. Human beings can attain Awakening,
can realize Nibbàna, because we’re the fish in the water — why
shouldn’t fish be able to understand what water is? It’s all around
us, it’s all within us. All we have to do is learn how to open our eyes.
It’s common amongst Buddhist practitioners, however, to realize
that their strong sense of saddhà, or faith in the Buddha, Dhamma
and Saïgha, a profound trust and confidence in the truth of the
Buddha’s teachings, is not matched by faith in their capacity to
realize that truth. But without this faith in ourselves, the five indriyas
have no opportunity to mature. This lack of faith in our potential for
enlightenment is crippling and it’s unwise. The doubt is based on a
mistaken way of looking at ourselves. Swallowing the whole myth
of the independent ‘I’ gives us spiritual indigestion.
We can’t force ourselves to have faith and we don’t need to. We
merely have to remove the wrong thinking that prevents faith from
arising, and start paying more attention to our experience.
Our tradition makes an important distinction between two levels of
truth: the conventional and the absolute. The term ‘conventional
truth’ refers to the conditioned, phenomenal or relative sphere: in
this sphere it is valid to talk about ‘self’, ‘human beings’, ‘monasteries’
and ‘monastic orders’. The ‘absolute truth’ refers to the way
things are, unmediated by concepts and bias; in this sphere language
and thought are transcended. The wise person uses conventional
truths in order to communicate, but he is not fooled by them. Understanding
this way of exposition, certain Buddhist teachings which
would otherwise remain quite puzzling, become clear. In particular
those regarding ‘self’.
The number of references in the suttas to ‘self’ — for example, the
famous saying that the self should be the refuge of the self, and the
instructions on various kinds of self-development — these are
expressions on the conventional level. They do not clash with the
‘absolute’ truth of anattà. The teaching of anattà does not mean that
the Buddha is refuting the self on the conventional level; he is simply
reminding us not to confuse a useful social fiction with ultimate