Unconcoctibility; Always-Other-Than-That Reality & Is That So

I put unconcoctibility as a translation for atammayatā; "Whatever you think it is, the truth is always other than that"; and "Is That So?" to Ajahn Amaro during his Niramisa Sutta teaching hosted by Mid America Buddhist Association on May 22, 2022. (Also thankful for the patience of the audience while I stammered and stuttered around in the process of sharing and question formulation with plenty of "I-making" -- even more noticeable in the full unedited version which I encourage all to watch)

Transcript

I wanted to make a comment, Maybe a question about Ata Yamata at the end here. But I really wanted to just thank you for this long talk of yours that I listened to, A podcast on the island, The book, The Island, All about the goal and how I loved how it was structured because there was readings from the entire book, But then there was also discussions and questions and answers. I found it really helpful and how I just kind of dug into that and just kind of turned over every stone and would come back later with references that came up and included those. So I'm very grateful for that too. In the lineage of Ajahn Chah, I wanted to relate really briefly kind of a teaching that I benefited of yours. Is that so question and then so I found that really helpful. So I'll, I have to skip the story, But. So Ata Yamata, I've also heard it, If I'm getting this right, Unconcockedability thought that was a very interesting way to put it too. And if I'm getting this right too, Whatever we think the truth is, The truth is always other than that. Maybe my question would just be to kind of wrap up the stuff that I said and if addressing the accuracy or expanding on those points. Thanks again. Yeah, Thank you. Yeah, Unconcockedability. I think that's Ajahn Santikaro's translation of Ata Mayathar. And he was Ajahn Buddha Dasa's translator for quite a number of years and they worked together. They sort of, They did a lot of person to person collaboration and Ajahn Buddha Dasa had quite a bit of English as well. So he would sometimes, I was there visiting Sonmulk when he was giving talks on this and he would sometimes stop Santikaro and say, No, No, No, Not that, You know, It should be like this. So unconcockedability that is I think the Ajahn Santikaro's translation. So all of those are relevant. So Ajahn Buddha Dasa would also say this is the final divorce of the mind from the conditioned realm. It's like, I ain't going to mess with you no more was Santikaro's more kind of Midwestern rendering. I ain't going to mess with you no more. And that's, It's that kind of a tone of this is that there is no more of this unconcockedability. So it's one of those terms you can't really find a perfect English word for it. But that's why I was saying how it's in a way most important to get a feel, A felt sense of what this quality is in our own practice, In our own hearts. And then let the word follow the reality as it's known rather than trying to pin down the perfect word. Somebody gave me a copy of Jean Paul Sarkar's Being and Nothingness a few weeks ago and a very substantial tome and the way that there's this effort to try and pin everything in the reality into the words. I keep getting this feeling of starting from the wrong place, Guys. I realize that can be a bit of an inflated perception, But I feel one of the great blessings of Buddhist practice is you're starting with the experience, Letting the words match the experience or evoke that as best they can, But you can't pin that down. So the passage you're quoting, The Pali is, Jena jena hi manyanti tatatang hoti anyatati. Whatever you conceive it to be, The reality is necessarily other than that. So again, Not to belittle Jean Paul Sarkar and his efforts and the other good European philosophers, But to me, That's an extraordinarily potent and useful principle. Whatever you conceive it to be, The reality is necessarily other than that, That you can't put three-dimensional tea into a drawing of a two-dimensional drawing of a teacup. It's got the reality's got too many dimensions to fit into concept and language. So that's one of the reasons why I say with a tameyata, You're letting go of time, Identity, Tradition, Causality, Language, Time, Even number. You know, Those are conditioned constructions that we give more reality and substantiality to than they really possess. So that simple phrase of whatever you conceive it to be, The truth is always other than that, It doesn't mean that you're just, You've guessed the wrong answer to the puzzle. No, It's like saying words can't do it. You can't put three-dimensional tea into the drawing of a teacup. It won't go. It's got too many dimensions. That's why. It's not that if you just had a better drawing, It would work. No, The concept hasn't got enough dimensions. So that what in that level of realisation or practice, It's letting the heart abide in that three-dimensional or more higher dimensional reality and not trying to represent the fundamental reality just in concept and word, Which is one of the reasons why the Buddha was quite happy to not try and describe the nature of ultimate reality, But spend 99% of his time pointing to the pathway to realise it for the individual rather than trying to describe the nature of the goal or the qualities of the goal. Just he put 99% of his attention on the pathway to the realisation of that. And then it's like how to make a teacup rather than how to draw the perfect teacup, How to actually make a three-dimensional teacup that can contain the tea. Thank you, Ajahn. Thank you, Josh, For the question. We have several other questions and a lot of them are focusing on the mechanics, The suggestions of types of meditation, How to sustain and move on to the next levels and function in the world. There's various different approaches. I think what I was saying at the end and also what Josh was quoting about, This practice of Ajahn Chah, Asking the questions, Is that so or so, That both in formal meditation, But also the more we develop it in formal meditation, The more that can be applied in the flow of everyday activity is to use that kind of questioning. Who is meditating? Does this moment have an owner? Is that who is here to progress or to not progress? It's not that the effort is not being made or direction is not being given, But it's flagging that I'm making and my making the hankara, Mamankara habits to flag those, To illuminate those. And as soon as that is known, It's like shining the light on those habits. It's like you're slowing the film down so you can see how the conjurer did the trick. It's like that intrinsically seeing how the eye is, That there's an eye being formed here. Oh, That's a formation. That's a presumption. Aha. So that by using that kind of reflection, Questioning who is walking, Who's asking this question, That it's shining a light on those eye making and mind making habits. And then the effect of shining that light, Because it's not just like a mantra that you're repeating just to who am I, Who am I, Who's walking, Who's walking, Who's walking, Who's thinking, Who's thinking. It's not a simple repetition. It's a genuine, The more it's a genuine question, Then the more that breaks up the habits of eye making and mind making. And then what that does is rather than disabling our life from attunement or effectiveness in the world, Like that non-attachment or non-identification, Non-fashioning, It doesn't mean we sort of suddenly freeze in the middle of the sidewalk and suddenly stopped existing. You know, I need someone to come along and start moving my limbs again. That's not the way it works at all. It's rather that when the eye making and mind making is recognized and let go of, Then the system of this life functions in a far more attuned and effective way.