Nina van Gorkom’s early Buddhist life in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.
Here someone wrote and asked her questions about this time>
Suzaki wrote What I am curious first is to know your vivid, or perhaps inspiring moment you had at the earlier years with Acharn Sujiṇ read some comment from the book ‘Buddhism in Daily Life.’ But more specifically, how was your impression from the first meeting?
Nina: I met Acharn Sujin for the first time in the Wat Mahāthaat temple where a foreign monk was teaching about the jhāna-factors (to be developed in tranquil meditation) and also helped us to read suttas. We read the “Parinibbāna sutta” and the “Kesaputta sutta” (mostly called Kalama sutta). I was impressed by the realization that you do not have to accept anything from others, but have to find out the truth for yourself. Acharn Sujin kept rather to the background in this temple. I approached her and said that I wanted to learn about meditation that you can apply in daily life. My life was very busy, being in the diplomatic service. (In Japan the teachers at the language school called me “Mrs Party”.) I felt that there must be something else in life, apart from just being engaged with parties. Acharn Sujin said, “Yes, vipassanā can be developed in daily life”, and she invited me to her house. From then on I came to her several times a week with many questions. I asked her about belief in God and how to find out the truth. She answered: “What is truth will appear”. She also helped me to see what clinging is, clinging to a belief. I had never considered this before. She said from the beginning that in the teaching of Dhamma, the person who teaches is not important; it is not the person but it is the Dhamma that matters.
This was new also for Thais; in Asian countries there is a great respect for teachers and people tend to follow what teachers say. When teachers wrote about Dhamma in olden times they would not mention the source of their quotes. Acharn Sujin greatly contributed to a change in this mentality, always encouraging to looking up the texts oneself, verifying the truth for oneself. She started interest in the translations of Commentaries and promoted this. I remember our visits to the library of Wat Bovornives and our conversations with monks. A friend made notes and gradually Commentaries in Thai were printed.
Acharn Sujin gave lectures in a temple every Sunday and quoted suttas. She asked a monk in advance about the Commentary to the relevant text. I tried to look up the suttas in my English editions.
Suzaki wrote:
“How skilfully did she bring the technical matter, Abidhamma? If I may say so into the living, daily practice? Any specific event that you can highlight?”
Nina: When I was at her house, she explained about nāma and rūpa, about kusala citta and akusala citta. She answered my questions and very soon made me work for an English radio program. The first chapters that you find in ‘Buddhism in Daily Life’ are from notes with my conversations with Acharn SujiṇEvery two weeks I had to finish a new chapter. It was a busy, but happy time. She helped me to see that all those different cittas (consciousness), cetasikas (mental factors arising with consciousness) and rūpas (physical phenomena) occur in daily life. I learnt that whatever occurs is conditioned; that good and bad inclinations are accumūlated from moment to moment and that these condition our behaviour. Everything I learnt was relevant to daily life.
An example: we visited a bhikkhu who smiled when I told him about my interest in the teachings. Acharn Sujin asked me whether I knew why he smiled. She explained that this was because of happy feeling, somanassa. This sounds very simple, but it made me realize that feeling conditions our outward appearance.
She reminded me of how conditions affect our daily life under various circumstances. We were waiting near a kuti, a bhikkhu’s dwelling, for a certain monk. He was not there and I suggested that we would find out about him. She said, “Let us sit at this stone and just wait and see what happens because of conditions”. We sat quietly for quite some time. What a good lesson! I am so grateful for all those reminders I received in the situation of my daily life. It is true: we think of people we want to meet, but in fact, there are only different experiences, such as seeing, hearing and thinking, and they are all conditioned.
I was used to taking notice only of the outward appearance of people, but now I learnt about different cittas which condition our behaviour. People may look very pleasant and peaceful, but what do we know about their cittas which change from moment to moment?”
When crossing a street she said: “Elements on elements”, and it is so true: hardness appears, and it is only an element. We think of feet and street, but let us consider what can be directly experienced. However, it took many years before all these lessons were absorbed, and I needed later on during different journeys many explanations about the difference between thinking and awareness, before I understood a little more. (Later on I come back to this).
Acharn Sujin used to go in retreat in a center but one day she realized that actually daily realities are the objects of vipassanā. From then on she did not go anymore in retreat, and this happened not so long before I met her. Since most people were not used to this approach, they had many questions about vipassanā in daily life. I found this approach the only reasonable one and did not doubt about its value. We have to know our own accumūlations, our inclinations we take for self. They appear, and thus, they can be objects of insight.
Acharn Sujin always stressed that there is no rule about how one should develop understanding and that one cannot direct what object appears at a particular moment. I find this most reasonable, because whatever is experienced by citta is conditioned.
We went to different temples, also in the province. People asked questions about vipassanā and concentratioṇAlthough I was just learning Thai, Acharn Sujin made me talk as welḷ I enjoyed simple life in the province, without any fringes. People treated me as one of them, and that is what made me happy.
People asked whether slowing down one’s movements would be helpful for the development of vipassanā. Acharn Sujin asked one person to run and to find out whether there is any difference as to what realities are appearing. The conclusion was: it is all the same. True, seeing is always seeing, no matter we run or sit. Seeing is a citta, an ultimate reality that should be known as it is, non-self. I heard a dog barking and asked whether hearing a dog is an object of insight. She explained that hearing just sound is different from thinking of a dog. I listened, but only many years later I understood the point.
People also asked: “Is this kusala (wholesome), is that akusala (unwholesome)”. Her answer was: “You can only know for yourself. Nobody else can tell you”. She also explained that it would be very easy if someone else were to tell you: “Do first this, then that, and you will make progress”. Her advice always was : “There are no rules, there is no specific order of the objects insight can be developed of”. In the whole of the Tipitaka we learn about realities that arise because of conditions and are non-self. Now, also in the practice we have to be consistent, how can we force ourselves to be aware of specific objects. She kept on warning us of subtle clinging to progress, to result. Expectations are lobha, attachment. She repeated many times: “Don’t expect anything”. We should not expect anything from ourselves nor from others. Expectations bring sorrow. I am grateful for her example in this matter, and her example of patience and equanimity. Some people heavily criticized her, but she was always patient and calmly explained about cause and effect: what cause will bring what effect. We should be clear about this. Do we want only calm or is our aim understanding?
Suzaki wrote:“You said before: ‘I became used to the different types of citta, consciousness.’ What were the few specific incidents in your early days that made you find the glimpse of dhamma?
Nina: At breakfast I listened to Acharn Sujin’s radio program and heard time and again the terms denoting the different cittas arising in sense-door processes and mind-door processes. Thai and Pāli are very close, and in this way I could learn all these terms. But becoming used to these terms does not mean experiencing all the different cittas. Acharn Sujin explained that intellectual understanding is a foundation for awareness and right understanding that can arise later oṇShe stressed the importance of foundation knowledge: knowledge of the details of cittas, of their different characteristics, of cetasikas (mental factors), such as feeling, akusala cetasikas, beautiful cetasikas and rūpas. Indeed, as we read in the suttas, listening, considering are most important conditions for the arising of satipaṭṭhāna, sati (awareness) and paññā (understanding) that directly realize characteristics of nāma and rūpa.
We begin to recognize attachment, lobha, and aversion, dosa, in our lives, and this is useful, but we should not take this for awareness. For many years I thought that thinking was awareness. We may think without words, recognize realities very quickly, but, when we are very sincere, there is still an idea of self who does so. It is not paññā of satipatthāna.
I began to know that laughing is conditioned by lobha, and this made me feel somewhat uneasy when laughing. I had an idea of wanting to suppress laughing. Lobha again! Acharn Sujin explained that we should behave very naturally, and not force ourselves not to laugh: “Just do everything that you are used to doing, but in between right understanding can be developed”. “We have to know our good moments and our worst moments in a day”, she said. I read a sutta where the Buddha spoke to the monks about women and compared a woman to a snake. I did not like that. Acharn Sujin answered that this sutta can remind us of our accumūlated defilements. If right understanding is not developed, accumūlated defilements can cause the arising of many kinds of aksuala, and then we are like a snake. In other words, we should profit from the message contained in a sutta, learning how dangerous akusala is. Moreover, by this sutta the Buddha warned the monks of the danger of getting involved with women.
Acharn Sujin helped me to see how accumūlations in past lives can lead to harm. We never know how these accumūlations can condition cittas at the present moment. We may do things we did not believe ourselves capable of.
When I listened to her lectures in the temple I became sometimes depressed when I realized how difficult the development of right understanding is. Would I ever be able to reach the goal? But I had no inclinations to look for another way that could hasten the development of right understanding. Acharn Sujin explained that clinging to progress will not help us at alḷ When we realize more that it takes aeons to develop right understanding we shall be less inclined to think in terms of progress. Before this life there were aeons of ignorance, and in this life we are fortunate to be able to listen to the teachings and begin to understand the way of development of the eightfold Path. But it has to be a long way before we reach the goaḷ We can learn to accept that this will take more than one life.
Time and again Acharn Sujin repeated what the Buddha said in the “Exhortation to the Pāt.imokkha”: “Patience is the greatest ascetism.”