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Not Holding to Views - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 16, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Not Holding to Views

So I'd like to start with a little story—emphasis on story. It comes from the suttas¹ and has a teaching point which will become abundantly clear, but I'd like to build on it. This story comes from the Digha Nikaya² (the Long Discourses of the Buddha).

There was an individual named Pāyāsi³, and he wasn't a follower of the Buddha. He belonged to a different community that had different views and ideas. One particular view that he espoused and taught was that there are no consequences to actions. It doesn't matter what you do. You can do good things, and maybe something good will happen, maybe not. You can do bad things, and maybe something bad will happen, maybe not.

Maybe today that sounds a little bit silly, but I think there are parts of our lives where we think, "Oh, it doesn't matter. There will be no consequences to this small thing—thinking these thoughts filled with hatred, or not giving the extra money back when the cashier makes a mistake." Sometimes we think it just doesn't matter. But Pāyāsi in the sutta is saying nothing has any consequences.

If we think about this, 2,600 years ago, before there was science or even formal investigation, this was a real, alive question. Why are things the way they are? How did I get here? Where are we going? These were legitimate questions. So, one view was that it doesn't matter. You can see why: they might say, "Well, I told lies all day yesterday, and nothing bad happened to me," so they might think it doesn't matter.

Then there is a follower of the Buddha named Kassapa⁴, who has a different view. He asks Pāyāsi, "Why are you holding on to this view? Okay, maybe you might have it, but why are you really holding on to it?"

Pāyāsi says, "I'm not able to give it up."

Kassapa asks why, and Pāyāsi replies, "From my own birth onwards, for a long time, I have been repeating this view, making it a firm habit. This is just the way I view the world." Then Pāyāsi continues, "And King Pasenadi⁵ knows that I have these views. If I were to let go of them, people would think I was foolish." He is concerned about his reputation. He is known as somebody who holds these views, and he doesn't want to change them because of what his friends or influential people will think.

This is not so different from today, right? We want to hold on to views because we belong to a community, and that community shares those views. If we were to give them up, people would talk, and maybe we'd even get kicked out or have to leave. I'm just making up scenarios, but we can see where this is relevant to us today.

So Kassapa says, "Some people can understand things with the use of a simile. Let me offer a simile for why you might not want to hold on to this view so much."

This sutta is a collection of all kinds of similes that Kassapa gives to Pāyāsi, but I am just going to share this one.

Kassapa starts by saying, "In the distant past—which is kind of like saying 'Once upon a time'—there was a country whose population was afflicted by famine. There were two friends, one wise and one not-so-wise (we might say foolish). They said to each other, 'Let us go together as friends, leave this country, and see if we can find some wealth to bring back to support our community and family.' So they left.

"After some time, they came to a vacant lot, and there was a big pile of hemp on the ground. The wise one told the not-so-wise one, 'Let's take this. We can load this up on our backs—as much as we can carry—and bring it back. Nobody else is around; it's clearly abandoned.' It turns out it wasn't so easy to get it on their backs, but they did, and they kept walking.

"Then they came to a village, and there they saw some abandoned hemp thread. The wise one said, 'What good luck for us! Here's hemp thread, which is finer and already treated. Let's take this.' So the wise one puts down the raw hemp, figures out how to carry the hemp thread, and puts it on his back. But the foolish one says, 'I've already taken the hemp. I've bound it up firmly, and it was a hassle to carry. I'm just going to keep it.'

"They walk further on, and they come to a completely abandoned pile of hemp cloth. You know where this is going, right? The cloth is even further developed, and the wise one says, 'This is even finer. I'm going to put down the thread and pick up the cloth.' The other person says, 'No, I'm carrying this hemp. It's heavy, it was hard to get on, and I'm just going to keep carrying it.' (This is actually my addition that it was heavy—it doesn't say that in the sutta!)

"Then they walk further on and see raw cotton, which is smoother than hemp. The wise person takes off the hemp cloth and puts on the cotton. The unwise one says, 'No, I'm going to keep this hemp on my back.' Then they find cotton thread, and then cotton cloth. The wise one is taking off and putting on, constantly upgrading. Then they find copper, then silver, and finally, they come upon a pile of gold.

"The wise one says, 'Wow, there's this large amount of gold! It's a supreme and massive treasure. You should drop the hemp, and I'll drop the silver. Together we can take the gold back to our country, and we'll be able to support people with this.' But the unwise one says, 'Well, I've taken this hemp, I put it on my back, and I don't really want to let it go. I'm just going to keep carrying it.'

"So the two returned to their country, one carrying a bunch of gold, the other carrying a bunch of hemp. The person carrying the gold was received by his family with absolute delight. 'This is perfect! Thank you so much, you've made a really big difference.' The wise one was delighted that he could support them. But the unwise person showed up with his hemp, and they weren't so glad to see him. He felt sad because he wasn't able to support his family the way the person with the gold could."

Kassapa then interprets the simile for Pāyāsi: "You should give up this view that there are no consequences to actions. Let it not increase your own suffering and vexation, like the person who carried the hemp and was firmly determined not to take the gold treasure." Kassapa leaves nothing to interpretation; he is being very explicit.

But Pāyāsi says, "No, I'm not willing to give up this view because I've often taught it to others." Not only is it a habit, and not only does he have a reputation, but he's taught it to others. He's completely intertwined with it. He says, "Everyone knows me as being a follower of this view." He is holding tightly to the identity: I am the person that has this view.

Kassapa gives a whole bunch of other similes—some colorful and crazy stories—but Pāyāsi refuses to budge. Kassapa tells him, "You'll reduce your suffering if you can loosen your grip on this view." He's not saying he has to completely get rid of the view; he's saying just don't hold on to it.

At the end, Kassapa says, "Well, I don't know what to do. I've given all these similes and you're not going to change your mind." And Pāyāsi says, "Oh, actually I changed my mind way back then, but I wanted to see how many different similes you could come up with, and how much wisdom you had."

So there is a playfulness there. But what I like about this story is the idea that sometimes we hold on to things even though it makes sense to let go. It's not easy to change our views, or even to lessen our grip on them.

The Nature of Views

Let's say a little bit about what views are. One way to think about them is as private, internal ideas about our experiences. They are how we interact with the world, try to make meaning out of it, or try to make ourselves feel better in some way.

I appreciate one Buddhist scholar who talked about how views are kind of like memes. They get repeated over and over, and through repetition, they start to proliferate. In some ways, the purpose of a view is actually just to replicate itself, much like memes that go viral on the internet.

Views gather strength, and our clinging to them becomes stronger the more we adhere to them. The word "adhere" refers to both liking a view and disliking a view. The more we dislike a view, the stronger it gets in our mind as well. Getting tangled up with a view, either through liking or disliking, encourages clinging. Instead of saying, "It seems like there might not be consequences to actions because I know somebody who did terrible things and their life turned out fine," we say, "Because this happened, I know. Don't tell me otherwise. I have this view and everybody else is wrong."

When we hold on to views, we often don't recognize the subtle agitation it causes. Clinging only arises when there is agitation, and clinging gives rise to more agitation. When we cling to a view, we say, "This is true, and anything that negates this is wrong." By doing this, we are trying to make something permanent. We want to believe it is infallible. We like to make things permanent because the world isn't permanent, and that feels uncomfortable. We wish there was a place where we could land, rest, and say, "This I can count on 100% of the time." We are always looking for that, but it doesn't exist, so we make it up in our minds.

This is what humans do. It is part of maturation and development to take on views, discard the ones that don't work, and take on new ones. I am not saying we can never have views. Right now, I am pointing to the holding on to them—the insistence that "this is true and everything else is wrong."

Sometimes we hold on because there is a sense of delight in it: "I know, and you guys don't. I got it." There's a sense of righteousness, an "us versus them." There's a little bit of delight that happens there, but then we discover we have to keep propping up this idea that we're better than everyone else. It requires constant maintenance. This is subtle, but we have to constantly discard everything that might refute our view. This requires real agitation, which leads to more craving and clinging, trapping us in a loop.

Today is Martin Luther King Day, and I'm thinking about his views. One way we could consider the beautiful things he had to offer the world is through his courage to have different views. He had the courage to say, "Everybody else is thinking this way—thinking racism and violence are okay, and that love and care don't matter—but I disagree." He definitely had conviction, but he shared his views with a flavor of love and care, as opposed to, "Hey, look at me, look at what I have and what you guys don't."

The Buddha's Approach to Views

The Buddha talked about views in a slightly different way than Kassapa did. If we look at the Pali Canon⁶—the early Buddhist literature, which is massive—the very first sutta is all about views. It is the Brahmajāla Sutta⁷.

The Buddha recognizes that people want answers: How did we get here? What happens after we die? What is the nature of experience? These have to be views because we don't know what happened before we got here, and we don't know what happens after we die. Instead of saying, "Put down the hemp and pick up the gold," like Kassapa, the Buddha suggests that maybe you don't need to pick up any views. Views arise and pass away. We hold them when they are helpful, and we put them down when they are not. (Thinking about gravity is helpful most of the time—I can't think of a time when it isn't!)

In the Brahmajāla Sutta, the Buddha outlines 62 different views. They cover questions about the nature of the self or the soul. Are the soul and the universe eternal? Are they partially eternal? Is the universe finite or infinite? Do things just arise out of pure chance?

My favorite group of views belongs to the "Eel-Wrigglers"⁸. These were people who vacillated—"Maybe it's this, or maybe it's that, or I'm not sure." They knew they didn't know, but they didn't want to admit it. They were afraid to lie, or they didn't want to be attached to their views, so they were just evasive. There are also theories about the future, what happens after death, and theories about Nibbāna⁹ (Awakening).

What is interesting is that the Buddha outlines all 62 views, but he does not offer a 63rd view. He turns away from the content of the views entirely and asks, "Where do these views come from? Why do we have them?"

Of the 62 views, 20 come from meditative experiences. We might think, "My mind was quiet on retreat and it came up with this view, so it must be clear and true." We ascribe particular meaning to a view because of the conditions in which it arose. But the Buddha points out that even with views arising from meditation practices, we shouldn't cling to them.

For those of you who have been on retreats, you know that you meet with teachers regularly to describe your meditative experiences. More than once, something would happen and I'd think, "Oh my gosh, this must mean X, Y, and Z!" I'd march into the teacher's office and say, "X, Y, and Z happened!" And they'd reply, "Really? Why don't you just describe that?" [Laughter] So the Buddha is pointing out: don't cling to those views either.

He also points out that some views come from sheer reasoning. We investigate and logically conclude, "Beings must not survive after death because nobody has ever come back to tell me they have." That's a logical thing to say, but the Buddha says not to cling to those views either. Whether a view comes from religion, rational thought, or a profound meditative experience, he says: don't cling.

The Root of Views

Instead, the Buddha says to look at what causes views to arise. They arise from the experiences we have. We could use the word vedanā¹⁰ here: an experience is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. If it's pleasant, we form the view, "This is good and I want more," and craving shows up. If it's unpleasant, we think, "This is bad, I don't want it," and there's a pushing away (which is just the flip side of craving).

Our whole life consists of these experiences. We tend to ignore the neutral ones, but the Buddha says, "Why don't you examine your experience more closely?"

If we look closely, we see that experiences are not as satisfying as we think. Holding on to something because it brings delight, or vigorously pushing it away, is just getting tangled up in it. Experiences do bring happiness and joy because they fulfill our desires, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if we examine them closely, we notice they are not completely satisfactory.

If you desire chocolate ice cream and eat it, you eventually have enough. But later in life, you'll want it again. Or maybe you get a sugar buzz that makes you uncomfortable, or a brain freeze. It's not 100% satisfactory. If we notice that, we can appreciate the pleasure an experience brings without holding on, without setting off the chain of craving that leads to clinging.

Experiences arise and pass away; they don't have permanent substance. If we notice that, we can hold our experiences more lightly. We wouldn't be as attached to them, and we wouldn't form rigid views out of them. It's perfectly natural to have views, and we need them to move through the world, but can we not hold on to them tightly? Can we notice which views lead to more freedom, openness, and ease in our life, and which ones don't?

Holding Views Lightly

What is it like to hold views lightly? Imagine sitting with your palms open. What would it be like to not tell everyone around you what your views are?

Sometimes we spend time with family members who have different views. What would it be like just to pay attention to them, acknowledge them, love and care for them, and let them have their different views, instead of saying, "Actually, it should be this way"? As soon as we start sharing views in that way, it often sets up an "I know better and you should change your mind" dynamic.

Sometimes another person's view makes us feel uncomfortable because we think it's wrong, or maybe it points to something we don't like to see about ourselves. To ease that discomfort, we say, "No, actually, here's how it is," just to change the topic and shift the energy. I'm not saying you can never talk about your views, but what if we didn't have to correct them? What if we just said, "I don't know, this is my current thinking," or, "Can you tell me what led you to have this view?" That opens up a conversation where there can be intimacy and a way forward, instead of clinging to views which doesn't lead to freedom.

The Buddha talks about how humans are often defined by what we are attached to. If we think football is the answer to everything, we talk about football, wear football clothes, and use football analogies. We become known as the person who likes football.

But what if we are not attached to anything? Again, I am not saying we don't have ideas—that's not how to live one's life—but what if we aren't attached to them? Arahants and Buddhas—those who are completely awakened—aren't attached to anything, so they are not defined in the usual way. The contents of our minds usually spill out into our behavior, our words, our dress, the places we go. What would it be like to not be defined, because we are not holding on? This is the Buddha's answer to the question of what happens after an awakened person dies: we can't define them.

This is tricky, and I'm not going to pretend I understand it completely. But I like how it points out that we limit things when we say, "No, it's this way." What if we just said, "You know, I don't know"? Maybe that's okay.

If we find ourselves unable to put down a view, maybe we can recognize, "Oh yeah, this is the hemp I have on my back. And here's some hemp cloth, it's a little bit more refined, I think I'll carry this instead."

I think I'll end there and open it up to some questions and comments on this idea of holding on to views, and not holding on to views.

Q&A

Phil: Thank you, that was great. It reminds me of something I heard about Einstein. He was a pacifist during the First World War, but then he escaped Nazi aggression, came to America, and advocated going to war against the Axis. A lot of people from the press challenged him and said, "Well, you're inconsistent. I thought you were a pacifist." He said something like, "I have updated my view based on new evidence." I always thought that was wonderful flexibility.

Diana: Right! It's fascinating, especially now when social media allows us to just get views that support our own evidence, and not even come into contact with other views. Thank you, Phil. Yes, updating our views with new data. Anybody else have a comment? Oh, Nancy.

Nancy: Thanks, Diana. You were talking about people who say that they don't see consequences for some things that go bad. But visual perception of what consequences are is not always accurate, right? Aren't the consequences really internal? Evaluating them by external views and what's happening with other people isn't a very accurate way of judging.

Diana: I would agree. If we're just looking from the outside, we could say, "They seem happy even though they did all these terrible things." But we don't really know what's going on inside of them. Yeah, thank you, Nancy.

Okay, thank you all for your attention. I wish you safe travels as you go home. Maybe we can think about views—like the view of supporting one another, or being the change we want to see in the world. Those are things to hold on to, but not tightly. Hold them openly and softly. Thank you.