May all beings be safe from harm.

Looking for Gratitude in Every Face of All Beings 

A Single World of Beings 

Turning and Working the Good Heart,
kammatthana
The True basis of your life, my life

Most of us want to know the basis of life; where we go to look for it, to live it, and to know it is very important. One of the things that can be very helpful is the Theravada teaching of kammatthana. Kammatthana is to take a look at the ground that you work. Everyone is working some ground. Everyone lives from some basis; whether they are aware of it or not, the ground is there. All of us are working something. What ground are you working?
This work, this life, is a daily work, every day work. Just as farmers cultivate the fields or tend to animals every day, the effort to cultivate the ground of our life is daily. It doesn’t come in a big plan or package, but in moments. How you work the ground of your life depends very much on your aspiration and your awareness. You can ask yourself a basic question about the basis of your life, about kammatthana. Are you working the self-centered ground of getting, having, and wanting (continued on page 13)
something for just your self, or the less self-centered ground of offering service without measure and judgment?

The self-centered ground is one of breaching the precepts. It is the ground where you find yourself harboring grudges, taking what is not given, lying, and talking about others in a way to make yourself look good. It is the way of doing harm, being stingy, and getting angry. Self-centeredness is critical, measuring, and judgmental. This ground takes on a myriad of shapes and sizes, but with one common interest: “What’s in it for me!” This ground is where the poisons of confined wanting, fixed dislike, and delusion leach through and leak out into our daily life. The self-centered ground is where the fetters of sloth and torpor, doubt and restlessness flourish. Every day we face these obstacles, and every day we decide to work the ground of self-centeredness or less self-centeredness.

It is this ground where we usually wake up to see how we work this ground and grow our own unhappiness. It’s the ground of looking out for number one. This self-centered ground is where we plant and nurture and harvest a self that wants life to go a particular way, to bring about a particular feeling, perception, form, or consciousness. It is the self that feels pressure to do or get something because it believes life should be a certain way. It is the self that lives according to ideas about life, rather than the self that knows the ground of boundless goodness. It is the self that is not able to relax or rest. It is the self that is agitated or worried; it is the self that avoids our actual situation and runs or hides, or uses something to cover up and protect the self-centered self. It is the judgmental self, the self that measures, calculates, and compares, concluding that one thing is good and another thing is bad, every day, throughout the day. It is the self that most of us are familiar with and attached to and defend. If you cultivate this ground, unhappiness is the yield.

Even so, even if you are just now waking up in this ground, it’s never too late. You may aspire to work the ground of less self-centeredness, the ground of offering what you are able to offer without measure and judgment right in the middle of the leaky mess.

Without measure and judgment we see goodness—in a relationship, at work, when you get up in the morning, when you have to tend to somebody who is sick, when you have to walk your dog or feed your children or pay the bills or wash the floor or fill the car with gasoline—goodness abounds. To see it, you turn to work it, not invent it or pretend goodness is there, but in actuality turn to it and work it. Sometimes we think we have to make up goodness, make believe everything is good. When we do this, it is our small, self-centered mind that thinks and fabricates good; it is like the monk polishing a brick to become a buddha. When we turn to the basis of our life without measure, without labels of good and bad, goodness is there, and we find that goodness. This is the working of the good heart and is the basis of our life. This is not the effort to make the self good; it is the effort to see goodness that is not owned by anyone. It is not a matter of you yourself being good or being bad; it is a matter of seeing through the tricks of the mind to fake good, look good, sound good. The basis of your life is not making the self good; the basis of your life is to work the good heart that is your true self right in the middle of your messy, stingy, angry, self-centered day.

Here is an ordinary experience of working the good heart in the middle of dissatisfaction, disappointment, and sticky expectations. There were two women, a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law, making dinner. It was the daughter-in-law’s house. They were preparing the family meal. Together they had gone to the store to buy the food and now were in the kitchen cooking together.

The mother-in-law started to look for certain things in the daughter-in-law’s kitchen. First the mother-in-law asked for an iron frying pan. The daughter-in-law told the mother-in-law she didn’t have an iron frying pan. In disbelief the mother-in-law responded doubtfully,
“No? You don’t have a frying pan!”
“No,” the daughter-in-law replied, “but I have this.” And she gave her mother-in-law something else to use. They went on making the meal. And then in a little while the mother-in-law asked,
“Do you have a metal spatula? I need a metal spatula.”
And the daughter-in-law replied again, “No, no, I don’t have one, but I have this.” Incredulous, the mother-in-law responded more harshly this time, “You don’t have a metal spatula!”
“No,” the daughter-in-law answered, handing the mother-in-law something else to use.
Her expectations and disappointment went on throughout the whole meal. And by the end of the meal, the mother-in-law was quite upset that she wasn’t getting the usual utensils of cooking that she was used to in her own home, the utensils that she wanted or that she expected or that she felt were needed. And the daughter-in-law felt criticized and corrected.

One might imagine that the mother-in-law might begin to grow a story of friction between herself and her daughter-in-law. She might be seeding the ideas of confusion and saying to her self in dismay, “How could my son marry such a stupid woman!” The daughter-in-law might grow the ideas of self-loathing, and tell herself that she “never does anything right!” She might also grow beliefs about her mother-in-law and create a fixed view of her as a meddlesome old woman who is no longer welcome in her house. She might store that story in her mind until later that night when she can demand that her husband do something about it. The growth of unhappiness is endless and takes many forms. Each side pitted against the other, holding their view as being right and the other being wrong. Each one is caught in the deception of the delusion that appears to be real and true. We, however, can see through it; we can see the generosity, the care, and the kindness of offering a meal in the middle of the cooking strife.

Despite their contention, the stormy disappointments, and the bits of disillusionment, the meal was cooked, served, and eaten. An offering was made in the middle of the self-centered judgments and stories. The good heart prepared the meal. The good heart was there all through the discord.

This plain story happens to us every day. We get involved, engaged with someone, and the self-centered self comes along and wants to dig in and get what it wants. Before long we feel edgy or elated, and we are caught in the deception of separateness and right-and-wrong; we see our self as solid and something and the other in the same light. We lug out the “ought to” and “must” and bash each other. The two women involved in this example are unable to clearly see the ground of goodness because they are involved in self-centeredness. When we are involved in a delusion, we often are unable to see clearly; we are deceived by the delusion and are unable to see through what appears. We react and grow discord and discontent between ourselves. Instead, it is essential and important for us not to bash them, to say that they need to be corrected, fixed, or taken out behind the barn to be thrashed into being a good, kind mother-in-law or a decent, patient daughter-in-law.

Working the ground of the good heart is the work of seeing clearly what our true situation is. It is not a work of imposing a view on these two women. It is not to say what they need, or what they should do, or what they ought to do in any way. The work is up to them. Their own suffering may or may not turn them; their own situation may or may not awaken them. Kammatthana is to aspire to awaken to the ground that is ever-present, the ground of goodness right there in the cloudy day of wanting more or less, of feeling good or bad, of cooking and serving a meal. The true basis of your life, my life, is to see the goodness in the middle of the ups and downs of daily life, to work that ground, and to serve others as best you can.

Peace. 

Habit is harmful when you are not aware of habit.

The enlightened mind is fearless.