Truth with Boundaries

I was reading the story one time of a woman who’d gone through a really bad period in her mind. Then she got out through a neurotic breakthrough. In other words, the neurosis she was in simply broke. What enabled her to make it break was that whatever thought was hounding her mind, driving her crazy, she would ask herself, “What if the opposite is true?”

I was struck by this story because it reminded me of a point that Ajaan Lee made one time, saying that when you gain an insight in your meditation, you have to ask yourself, “To what extent is the opposite true?” In other words, you have to circumscribe some limits around your thoughts so that they don’t totally possess your mind.

Think about the Buddha. There were only two of his teachings that he said were categorically true and beneficial across the board. One was the principle that you should develop skillful qualities of the mind and abandon unskillful ones. The other was the four noble truths.

That’s it. Those are the only teachings that he said are categorically true and beneficial. There were lots of other things he taught. Either they fit into the two principles and so are part of the categorical teachings, like the seven factors for awakening—those are basically part of the noble eightfold path, which comes under the four noble truths—or else they’re true but useful only part of the time.

These include many of the other teachings that are widely associated with the Buddha, like the three characteristics or three perceptions, one of his greatest insights. He showed by the way he taught these things that sometimes they’re beneficial and sometimes they’re not, even though they’re true all the time.

Not every truth is beneficial for applying in every case. When you’re trying to get the mind into concentration and you’re thinking about how things are inconstant, stressful, not-self: If you apply those perceptions to the concentration itself, it’s hard to put forth the effort to really make the concentration as constant as possible. Yet you need that state of mind to be constant in order to see things clearly.

I read something very strange the other day, someone saying that you can’t really analyze a state of concentration while you’re in it, because directed thought and evaluation can’t see directed thought and evaluation. But why not? The whole point of getting the mind into concentration is that it’s a transparent state where it can observe itself very clearly. If you couldn’t observe yourself while you were in concentration, what good would it be for gaining insight into the mind? How would you even know that the first jhana had directed thought and evaluation, pleasure, rapture, and singleness of preoccupation? You know these states are there because you can observe them yourself.

To get into those states, though, requires that for the time being you put aside the three perceptions or that you apply them to other things: to anything that would get you out of concentration. But the concentration itself, you try to make as constant as you can, as pleasurable as you can, and under as much control as you can manage.

I know someone else who complained about concentration practice, saying that it requires right effort, and effort requires a strong sense of self, because you’re going to be struggling and battling. This person decided that he had seen through the Buddha’s little joke that you can’t really create a state of concentration, you just have to let it come when it’s going to come, and otherwise don’t make any effort. When you don’t make any effort, he said, then there’s no sense of self.

Well, there’s a very strong sense of self right there in making that statement. And it’s amazing how much the last factor of the noble eightfold path gets attacked so much, because it’s absolutely necessary. The Buddha himself saw it as the heart of the path. Every other factor, he said, was its requisite or its support.

And because it’s one of the categorical teachings, anything that would get in the way of getting the mind into concentration you’ve got to put it aside until the concentration is ready. Solid and steady. Then you start taking it apart—and that’s when the three perceptions get applied. So even the three perceptions have their time and place to be used. In other times and places, you’ve got to block them.

It’s good to think about this when you find yourself obsessed with a particular thought. Have you found the fifth noble truth? If it’s driving you crazy, obviously it’s not. That means it has to have some boundaries. You’ve got to figure out where the boundaries are to this truth you’ve got. The things that drive you crazy may have some truth to them, but it’s only partial.

Remember: Every perception is only partial. It’s like a sketch. Every image of the world that you have in your mind has to leave out a lot of the details—like a map. You use a map because it’s useful for certain purposes, and you want to make sure that, as far as those purposes are concerned, it’s informative and accurate. But if you have too much information in the map, or if you’re holding on to the wrong map, the map actually gets in the way.

A map is a sketch of the world. You have a map for roads, you have maps for the geological formations, you have maps for oil deposits. Depending on what you want, use the map designed for that purpose. That’s if you’ve got an accurate map. Then there are other maps, though, that are total garbage.

So, think of your own perceptions as being that way as well. Whatever you think is going to be, at best, just a sketch. You want to make sure that the sketch is accurate, and that it’s actually giving you the details you need to know for your purposes.

There’s an analysis someone once did of different recipes all for the same dish. He was pointing out that some people who write recipes are really good at figuring out where you’re going to have a problem, and they address that problem. They also figure out where you can probably figure things out on your own, so they don’t need to explain those steps. This is why some cooks are better at writing recipes than others, because they not only know what they’re doing, but they also know when other people would have problems, ask questions.

So, think of your thoughts as recipes, think of your thoughts as maps. To what extent are the recipes useful? To what extent are they not? And how far does their truth go? This is an important principle that you want to take to heart. If you have a mind that tends to go to extremes and get obsessed with one particular idea, you’re really going to have trouble when insights start arising in your concentration. Something comes up and you put the stamp of 100% truth on it, and you start riding it around in areas where it really doesn’t belong.

So it’s useful to have that question: “To what extent is this insight true, and to what extent is the opposite true?” When you don’t see both sides, you’re dealing only with half-truths, and maybe not even a half-truth. This principle is called “guarding the truth.” When you have ideas, you have to ask yourself, “Where do they come from? And how far are they true?”

You have to get a sense of their limitations. Even with things that come up as insights in the meditation and you say, “This comes directly from my experience”: Maybe you’re approaching it with a map that’s going to make you emphasize certain details and forget others. This applies to insights in your meditation—to say nothing of your thoughts as you go through the day and start getting obsessed with something. You need the tools for getting yourself out, for breaking the shell around that thought, so that you can escape from it, so that you can be outside the thought and not totally consumed by it.

So, when you’re obsessed with a certain thought and you’re convinced that it really has to be true, ask yourself, “Have you found the fifth noble truth?” The obvious answer is No. In that case, you can’t really believe it 100%. You’ve got to find out where that other percentage is, the percentage where it’s not true or not beneficial. Focus your attention there, and that helps get you out.