Neither Here nor There
April 12, 2023

The Buddhist definition of concentration is singleness of mind, cittass’ekaggatā. Eka means one. Agga can mean point, or gathering place. You’ve got the mind gathered around one place. It could be the tip of the nose—any place in the body that you feel comfortable staying centered. And even though we try to develop a full-body awareness as we get deeper into concentration, we need an anchoring point, both to maintain the concentration—to keep it strong—and to give us something to study—what it means to be gathered around one place, to be right here.

The essence of the state of becoming is to have a spot around which the becoming grows. This is what we want to study: how it happens. Usually it happens very fast, and we jump around from one becoming to another an awful lot. We go through many becomings in the course of the day, focusing our desires here and then jumping over there, and then coming back here again and then someplace else. It all comes from our cravings.

The cravings, of course, are the cause of suffering. They’re precisely what we need to study if we want to get past suffering. We have to understand cravings so that we can abandon them. If you look simply at the suffering without going to craving and understanding it, you’ll never get done with it. You’ve got to attack the problem at the cause. So we have to understand what it means to be in a place like this.

Part of the Buddha’s definition of the craving that leads to becoming is that it delights now here, now there. In other words, it has a location.

When he talks about craving in the context of mindfulness practice, he always asks the question, “Where is does the craving arise? Where does it settle? Where can you abandon it?” Sometimes its spot is not where you might think it would be. Say you have a desire for a person. Do you really desire that person? Is that the location of your craving? Or is the craving located in your perception of the person? Or in your thoughts about the person? Or in the way you evaluate the person? The appearance of the person? Your role with regard to that person? If you’re going to understand your craving, you have to know where it’s located. Otherwise, you’ll never really see it.

You have to be able to catch it very quickly. So as we practice concentration, we’re taking a desire to be centered right here, to stay right here, and we try to maintain it. It requires mindfulness, ardency, alertness to hold the mind in this one spot. Then we can see what it means to stay here. But of course, once you make up your mind to stay right here, there will be movements in the mind to go someplace else, but you have to say No. And it’s in your ability to notice them as you say No and reestablish that center: That’s how you come to know more and more what it means for the mind to have a location.

I was reading a piece one time by someone who said, “The mind has no physical location, so once you realize it has no physical location, that’s the end of the problem.” But the Buddha didn’t limit the term location just to physical places. There are mental places as well. In fact, those are where most of our cravings are located: in ideas, in perceptions.

So we try to get used to being centered here. There can be a great sense of well-being as you’re allowed to stay centered in one place and not have to move around so much. A lot of the suffering of the mind is the fact that it’s jumping from one thing to another. It has so many different conflicting locations where it could be at any one time that sometimes it can’t really choose one. Einstein complained that as an older scientist, he found it difficult to stay concentrated on one topic. When he was younger, he could take one topic and pursue it doggedly. But as he got older, he found it more and more difficult: So many implications led in so many directions. The difficulty in pursuing one thing was what kept him from making any really great discoveries as he got older. There’s a certain pleasure that comes when you can stay centered and not have to move. And there’s an understanding that can come when you’re centered.

The irony, of course, is that when the Buddha talks about the state of someone who’s totally released, he says they’re released from locations. There’s a phrase in a lot of poems in the Pali Canon saying that the arahant is “everywhere released.” What it means is that the arahant, with no cravings to create locations, has no location. After all, the arahant doesn’t stay here in this life, doesn’t go on to another world. Even when they say that someone “enters” nibbana, the word “enters” doesn’t exist in those phrases in the Pali. Basically, a person is unbound or unbinds, with no sense of going to any particular place.

That’s the whole point. As the Buddha said, the mind at that moment is not established anywhere and cannot be found. There’s a famous story about the monk who became an arahant right as he was committing suicide. The Buddha takes the monks to the location where his body is, and there’s a dark shadow moving around to the north, the east, the west, and the south. The Buddha says, “Do you see that dark shadow? That’s Mara trying to find where the consciousness of this monk is located, but’s not established anywhere.” Other passages actually say that nibbāna is neither here nor there, nor between the two. And the arahant is neither here nor there, nor between the two.

Now, in English, when we say something is neither here nor there, it usually means it’s nondescript, inconsequential, irrelevant. But the Buddha sets it out as an ideal, to free from locations. Now, for us the idea of being free from locations is hard to grasp, because we’re so used to being located someplace. We think that having a location means that you have some value, that you have something of relevance. Think about Gertrude Stein’s comment about Oakland: “There’s no there there.” It’s a real put-down. But, the Buddha says, having no there and no here anywhere is something really worthwhile.

So for him, it must have been a challenge as he was pursuing the path to awakening: getting the mind centered, having this location, and then realizing that he had to give up that location. Each location has so much to do with our identity. It’s the kernel not only of the world of our becoming, but also our sense of ourselves in that becoming. That sounds pretty alienating. But he was able to make the leap. Then his challenge, of course, after he gained awakening, was to teach other people to want to go there and to be able to do that, too.

We look at the Canon and we find that he had two basic strategies. There’s a passage where a deva comes and talks about how amazing the Buddha was in that he found an opening in a confining place. Well, a lot of the Buddha’s teachings are aimed at putting you in a confining place where your usual avenues for looking for happiness get stymied. That’s when you’re willing to search for the opening, or to allow the opening to happen.

One main approach was to get you to really want the pleasures of the other worlds that are better than human, and then to point out that even those pleasures have their drawbacks. In other words, he wants to get you so that you don’t want to fall back to here in the human realm, but then you see there’s nothing there. Human sensuality is basically empty. But then heavenly sensuality is empty, too. When you see that, you might be willing to be open to the idea that renunciation is rest. Getting away from sensuality is good, and then going beyond that is even better.

That’s the pattern of his graduated discourse. He starts out with generosity and virtue. He talks about sensual heavens, where the rewards of generosity and virtue are at their highest. But then he talks about the drawbacks of sensuality—even the degradation, as he says, of sensuality. That’s when the mind is ready to think of renunciation as a good thing—and when you’re ready for the four noble truths. This seems to be his approach when people are still attached to sensuality.

The classic example, of course, is the Buddha’s brother, Ven. Nanda, who, after he was ordained, pined for a woman who, as he was leaving home, said, “Come back.” That’s all he could think about: the way that she gazed at him. So the Buddha takes Nanda up to heaven—the heaven of the Thirty-three, where there are 500 dove-footed nymphs. Dove-footed means that their feet were red like doves—not that they had claws like doves. For some reason, in India hands and feet painted red were considered really attractive. The nymphs were all waiting on Sakka, and the Buddha said, “Do you see these nymphs?”

“Yes.”

“And that woman who you left behind, how does she look compared to them?”

Nanda says, “She looks like a cauterized monkey with its ears and nose cut off.”

The Buddha says, “If you stay on as a monk, I promise you 500 nymphs.”

So Nanda takes the deal and comes back. Well, the word gets out. The other monks start making fun of him: “So. Ven. Nanda’s a hireling; he’s a wage earner.” And you can imagine someone who was born into the noble warrior caste being called a wage earner. It’s a real insult. He’s so embarrassed that he actually starts practicing seriously. He becomes an arahant. And at that point, the Buddha no longer has to provide him with nymphs.

What the Buddha’s done there is to make Nanda realize that the human realm is not the best place if you want sensual pleasures. But then there are drawbacks to even heavenly sensual pleasures. In his particular case, the drawback is that you feel embarrassed that you’re asking for wages in terms of 500 nymphs. So: neither here nor there. The alternative was to find someplace that was neither here nor there.

There’s a similar case with Mahānāma. When the Buddha’s leaving at the end of a rains retreat, Mahānāma is concerned somebody may be dying while the Buddha’s away, and how do you counsel someone who’s dying? The Buddha tells him to first get that person to put aside all worries about family and other responsibilities, and then to ask the person, “Are you still attached to human sensuality?” If the person says, “Yes,” you say, “Well, the sensual pleasures of the four great kings are more splendid and refined than human sensuality. Set your mind there.” So the dying person sets his mind there. Then you say, “The pleasures of the realm of the Thirty-three are more splendid and refined than those. Set your mind there.” So he sets his mind there and works his way up through the levels of heaven.

Finally, you get to the level of the Brahmas. Of course, the Brahmas are not engaging in sensuality at this point. They’re enjoying the pleasures of jhana. “So set your mind there.” He sets his mind there. Then you should say, “But even they are subject to self-identity. It would be best if you could let go of self-identity.” So: neither here nor there. Seeing the alternative to here and there as something positive.

That’s the first approach. Setting your heart on something that’s better than the human realm, and then realizing that even that has its drawbacks.

The other approach is to have people focus right on what they’re experiencing right now. This is usually in the case of someone who’s gained right concentration. You look at what you’ve got in that right concentration: the five aggregates, each of which you’ve been clinging to, and the clinging is suffering.

Think of the questionnaire that the Buddha would give about the five aggregates. Are they constant or inconstant? They’re inconstant. And it’s important that you understand that term as inconstant. It’s not just impermanent, because some impermanent things could be good. An impermanent illness would be good. But inconstancy gives the impression of being unreliable, undependable. And if they’re undependable, are they stressful or easeful? They’re stressful. And if they’re stressful and inconstant, is it worth calling them “me,” “mine”? Well, no.

So you’re focusing on the present moment and the constituents of the present moment, seeing their drawbacks. Then you reflect, as the Buddha says, that all of the aggregates, near or far, past, present, or future, have the same qualities. No matter where you could go, it would be the same sort of stuff.

Again, right here is not good. It has its drawbacks. And the same drawbacks are wherever you would go. Then the Buddha says, if you get disenchanted and dispassionate for these things, that leads to release. Again, you’re told to neither aspire here nor aspire there. Find an alternative to here and there. That alternative is good.

There’s another example with the Ven. Girimānanda, a monk who’s sick asks to see the Buddha. The Buddha sends Ven. Ānanda instead, and he tells him to teach Girimānanda ten perceptions. I can’t remember all ten right offhand, but they have to do with one, reflecting on how the aggregates are inconstant, how the sense media are not self. Then think about the drawbacks of the body; not only is it made up of those thirty-two parts that we chant about that are unclean, but they’re also subject to all kinds of illnesses. Whatever part you have in the body, there’s an illness—or there are lots of illnesses—for it.

Then you learn to think about where you might go. They’re all fabrications, too, all the same sort of thing. You get to see that any world you could go to, any fabrications, are not worth it. That way, you learn to look positively on dispassion, cessation, release.

Then he recommends breath meditation as a way of seeing how the mind fabricates these things all the time, right here, right now, learning how to gain some dispassion for them so that they cease, and then relinquishing even the fabrications of the path.

That’s another strategy, then: looking at the present moment, seeing its drawbacks, and then realizing that wherever you would go, it’s made of the same sort of stuff as you’ve got right here, right now. It’s got its drawbacks, too. So here is not good. There would not be good. Learn to see the alternative to here and there as something positive, so that you don’t stay here, and you don’t move on.

It’s interesting that the Buddha uses both of these approaches, both in everyday circumstances, when you’re just perfectly fine, and also in cases where you’re sick and possibly dying—when the issue of moving forward becomes really urgent. You can’t stay here at all now. And where are you going to go? The mind’s natural tendency, in line with that image the Buddha gives of the fire in the house, is to grab onto the wind and go and burn another house. But here’s the thing: It would be better to put out the fire. Don’t locate yourself on the spot in the wind where you’re clinging. That way, you’re not here, you’re not there.

As in that question that the deva asked the Buddha one time about how he crossed over the river, and he said, “I crossed over the river neither by staying in place nor by moving forward.” Sometimes you hear that explained as meaning, “The Buddha didn’t put too much energy into it, or too little energy into it. He just put the just right amount of energy.” But that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying, “I didn’t stay here, I didn’t go there.” When here and there are the only alternatives you have in space and time. If you find something else, you get out of space and time. But it’s not a place where you go. You’re freed from the confines of places.

That’s what this is all about: freedom, release. And release is really radical. So think of this practice as one in which we get ourselves cornered. We create a good state of mind here with concentration; we reflect on it, realize that it’s better than anything else you could do, anything else you could put together in the mind. But it’s still not good enough. Wherever you could go, there would be nothing better. So what are you going to do? When the mind is ready and ripe, it discovers that there’s an alternative to here or there, an alternative to coming or going, staying in place, moving forward. That’s how freedom is found.

So learn to look positively on the Buddha’s strategies and positively on where he’s taking you. Because as he guarantees, it’s good. Even though it’s not a place, it’s a good thing to aim for, even though it requires letting go of a lot of things you hold dear.

Think of the Buddha’s image of people who are trapped by what they hold dear: the man who has a little tiny hut, not the best sort; a pot, not the best sort; with some pumpkin seeds, not of the best sort; and a wife, and a bed, not of the best sort. But he’s afraid that if he leaves these things and goes forth, he’ll be deprived of what he has, so those not-of-the-best-sort of things become a huge obstacle.

This body you’ve got is not the best sort. The situation in the human world is not the best sort. Don’t let it be an obstacle to your freedom.