It is noon on a winter day. Bhikkhu Tissa has been a guest for a mid-day meal in the home of a married couple, Leona and Ernest, and now sits with them in the family room, sipping a cup of tea. The windows of the room look out on a snowy landscape. A fire leaps and crackles in the fireplace.

LEONA: Was everything all right, Bhikkhu Tissa?

BHIKKHU TISSA: Just fine, thank you.

LEONA: Of course, you know I'm referring to the food, not the state of the universe!

BHIKKHU: Yes, I thought as much. It was delicious.

LEONA: The universe is quite another question, right?

ERNEST: I've got to apologize for my wife, venerable sir. She never stops philosophizing!

LEONA: Ernest, my dear husband, I am a woman made for grand ideas!

ERNEST: How well I know. Are you going to bombard this venerable monk with impossible questions?

LEONA (Laughing): Oh, I think he can take care of himself. Anyway, Ernest, you were the one who invited him. You must have something on that oh-so-serious mind of yours.

ERNEST: Well, I did think it might be useful to have a private little discussion about matters of substance.

LEONA: Do you hear that, Venerable? My husband talks like an office memo. Why then do I love him?

BHIKKHU (Smiling over his teacup ): Wise men refrain from trying to figure out love.

ERNEST: As you know, I've been getting interested in Buddhism over the last year, and sometimes it seems like it raises more questions than it answers!

BHIKKHU: Oh yes, that often happens at first. I think it's a good sign. If Buddhism is to have a real effect on somebody it must challenge them, make them think of a hundred problems and puzzles they never considered before. The average person all too often takes things for granted, has a careless, habitual way of looking at the world, and idly believes in unexamined concepts. But Buddhism kicks the props entirely out from under such habits and reveals many unanswered questions which have been there all along.

LEONA: Are you referring to big stuff like the meaning of life, and so on?

BHIKKHU: No, just basic laws and relationships that we need to grasp little by little until we can tackle the bigger questions. Sometimes simple intellectual curiosity can start this process. Sometimes it's a single provocative incident.

ERNEST: That's sort of what happened to me — an incident. I've been studying Buddhism for a while, maybe with a little more interest than Leona here...

LEONA: There he goes, bragging already.

EARNEST: ...and then just recently a question arose that has no end of implications. It has to do with a job offer.

LEONA: Oh, you're going into this, are you? Venerable Tissa, we've talked this over fifty times and I think he's crazy — dear, but crazy. Well, Ernest, tell our guest. Maybe he'll straighten you out.

ERNEST: My field is chemistry, Bhikkhu Tissa, and I've been in and out of academia and private industry over the years. At the moment I've got a teaching position at the college that I like pretty well, though it doesn't pay a lot. Recently I got a very attractive job offer from the research division of a local chemical company. It would mean a sizable increase in salary and a chance to do some creative work in my particular specialty. Professionally it would be a big step up for me, and, as a matter of fact, I know some of the people there and I think we'd get along fine. But I can't make up my mind to take the job. And it's all because of something you said.

BHIKKHU: What was that?

ERNEST: You were talking about the Noble Eightfold Path and you mentioned Right Livelihood. You said one should earn a living without harming others. Now, does this apply to animals?

BHIKKHU: Yes, it does.

ERNEST: I thought so. There's the problem. You see, this company has a research laboratory where they test the effects of their chemicals on animals. I wouldn't be directly connected with that department, I wouldn't do any experiments on animals, but still I'd feel uncomfortably close. And that bothers me.

BHIKKHU: What do they do to the animals there?

ERNEST: Toxicity tests, mostly. That means they poison them — dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, and other animals. They paint chemicals into the eyes of rabbits and see what concentrations will cause ulcers and blindness. They force-feed lethal compounds to groups of dogs and see how long it takes for half of them to die.

BHIKKHU: What happens to the other half?

ERNEST: They might use them again in other tests. More often they kill them all. They "sacrifice" them, to use the euphemism. Sometimes they do autopsies.

LEONA: Ernest, please, you're making me ill.

ERNEST: I got a brief look at the lab when they were giving me a tour of the company. Now, I've known about such labs all my professional life, but I've never worked in one or really paid too much attention. But after studying Buddhism a little, I found that it really upset me to see the animals in cages and the instruments and so on. The guy who was giving me the tour must have noticed because he said, "Don't worry, your office is far away, you won't hear anything." "They make noise?" I said. And he said, "Oh, not so much" and sort of shrugged. Since then I literally haven't been able to sleep. I keep imagining sitting in my office in another part of the building and hearing faint screams coming up through the ventilation ducts or something.

LEONA: This is how he's been going on, Bhikkhu Tissa. I tell him he doesn't have to have anything to do with animal experiments, so why worry about it?

ERNEST: Thinking about the suffering of animals, Bhikkhu Tissa, I find my mind wandering out in wider and wider circles, trying to make sense of a world that seems, well, pretty horrible in many respects. But to begin with, I'd just like to have your opinion about whether or not I should take this job.

BHIKKHU: I wonder if you would really be satisfied if I said, yes, you should, or no, you shouldn't. Sometimes Buddhist teaching has a specific answer to a moral question, sometimes not. In either case what is important is that the student understand the underlying principles himself so that he doesn't just rely on faith in the teacher. You began your reflections with Right Livelihood, so let's pick up there. Right Livelihood means earning a living in a harmless, honest, and inoffensive manner. The Buddha advised his disciples specifically to refrain from dealing in arms, in living beings, in meat, in intoxicants, and in poisons.

LEONA: You know, that covers a whole lot of occupations, venerable sir! I mean — making guns, bombs, all kinds of weapons. And as for living beings and meat, well, you are talking about huge industries there. And do you mean to say that dealing in all kinds of intoxicants is prohibited — beer, wine, and everything? And you could include a host of products under the name of "poisons," everything from nerve gas to bug spray. Do you really believe that everybody working in all of these industries is necessarily evil? Are they all going to suffer some terrible karma? Are they going to hell?

ERNEST: Hold on, Leona, give Bhikkhu Tissa a chance to answer.

BHIKKHU: The Buddha teaches that for our own well-being and the well-being of others we should avoid these classes of occupations. Dealing in arms means just what you think — all kinds of weapons and instruments for killing. Dealing in living beings refers to animals, of course, and it also extends into areas like slavery, or prostitution, or the buying and selling of children or adults in one way or another. "Meat" refers to the bodies of beings after they are killed. And poisons are just as you say — all kinds of toxic products designed to kill.

LEONA: Those are immense categories.

BHIKKHU: The categories are wide because the principle is wide: not to engage in occupations which cause suffering, destruction, and death. Now, you ask whether somebody who works in one of these occupations necessarily suffers misfortune as a result.

LEONA: Yes, what about the perfectly honest owner of a liquor store? Or a sporting goods dealer who sells guns to hunters?

BHIKKHU: Kamma, or karma, means volitional actions by body, speech, or mind. Kamma produces a result for the doer according to its nature as wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral. Acts of killing and harming, for instance, will sooner or later bring painful results for the doer.

LEONA: Yes, I understand that. That's the practical basis for Buddhist moral precepts. But if one doesn't actually kill or harm or steal, and so on, then it seems that one could be engaged in almost any profession.

BHIKKHU: To sell liquor or guns, assuming one does so honestly, may not in itself bring karmic misfortune. But with the factor of Right Livelihood the Buddha recognizes the truth that habitual associations strongly influence our thoughts and deeds. There may be someone, for instance, who works in a slaughterhouse, but whose job is not to kill animals but only to grade meat or operate a conveyor belt. He may not actually break the precepts or do evil, but this is nevertheless wrong livelihood because his mind is likely to be harmed by the unwholesome atmosphere. He becomes accustomed to pain and death. He regards the suffering of living beings as unimportant. And thus he sinks further into ignorance and becomes easier prey for mental defilements which will definitely cause him sorrow. The principle is the same for intoxicants or weapons. Dealing with these, a person becomes indifferent to the delusion and destruction that alcohol and drugs cause, or becomes callous about the killing or maiming of living beings by weapons.

LEONA: But these are popular goods and services. There will always be somebody to provide them.

BHIKKHU: True, Leona, but it needn't be you.

LEONA: Oh, dear, I can see what you think about Ernest's job offer!

BHIKKHU: Maybe you are guessing a little too quickly. Let's analyze the question further. Yes, to do painful experiments on animals in one's work, to wound, poison, or torment them in any way, is certainly a violation of Right Livelihood.

ERNEST: You would condemn such an occupation, then?

BHIKKHU: Yes. To inflict pain on living beings — even for the supposed advantage of other living beings — is cruel and short-sighted.

ERNEST: Ah, well!

BHIKKHU: But I would not exactly on that account advise you to reject your job offer.

ERNEST: I don't understand.

BHIKKHU: I believe you said your job would not involve experimenting on animals, and you would not be directly connected with it.

ERNEST: Strictly speaking, no.

BHIKKHU: Then strictly speaking you would not be violating the principle of Right Livelihood. According to Buddhism we are karmically responsible only for what we do intentionally and what we order others to do. Beyond that, it's up to the individual to decide. Right Livelihood is a flexible concept that can guide us regarding professions that were unknown in the Buddha's time. We have to decide how close we can come to occupations that are definitely unwholesome without becoming contaminated. Ultimately, almost every profession is somehow related to every other, so we would likely go crazy if we looked for a job that was not distantly, theoretically, harmful to somebody. Take a big company with many divisions or subsidiaries. Is somebody in one department responsible for what somebody in another department does? Is the typist in New York implicated in the killing of cattle in Texas?

ERNEST: No, that's unreasonable, in my opinion.

BHIKKHU: So, it comes down to this: you must be quite sure and satisfied in your own mind that you are not willingly doing any harmful deeds and that you are not encouraging or condoning the ill-treatment of living beings.

ERNEST: Oh, That's so hard to know...

LEONA: Well and good, Venerable Tissa. But don't we have to balance off harm and benefit? I'm not willing to concede that doing scientific experiments on animals is entirely evil. Think of the lasting benefits to humanity that come of such experiments.

ERNEST: Uh, Leona, at this lab they're presently testing oven-cleaner and hair-spray.

LEONA: Oh. Not the most vital products, I grant you.

ERNEST: And before you go on to cite penicillin or some other wonder drug, I think it's fair to note that medicines can be developed and tested without recourse to live animal subjects. We now have sophisticated techniques of computer-modeling and tissue-culture that are accurate and cause no bloodshed. The fact that animals have been used so much in the past does not prove that discoveries would have been impossible without them, only that that has been the habit, or conditioned reflex, of scientific researchers.

LEONA: Maybe, maybe. But, Bhikkhu Tissa, I want to get at the philosophical question here. If some real benefit to humanity can come about through experimenting on animals, even though they suffer, then why not use them? Shouldn't we be concerned with the greater good that will result?

BHIKKHU: I'm glad you raise the question of benefit, Leona, because this is where people often go astray when considering Right Livelihood or those troublesome five precepts. Yes, I agree that we should act for the greater good, but — and here is a question that has sent seekers into the Sangha for centuries — how do we know what the greater good is?

LEONA: It's whatever benefits the most people, I guess.

BHIKKHU: Only people? What about animals?

LEONA: Well, people are more important.

BHIKKHU: Indeed? To whom?

LEONA: To people. Okay, I know it sounds self-serving.

BHIKKHU: Leaving animals out for the moment, suppose some action helps us but harms other people. How do you evaluate it? Where is the greater good?

LEONA: I guess you just have to choose.

BHIKKHU: On what basis?

LEONA: Oh, Bhikkhu Tissa, I can see you won't be satisfied with anything less than a moral foundation — a religious foundation!

BHIKKHU: Better to say, a foundation on reality. And the question remains: How do we know the greater good?

ERNEST: Through study of the Dhamma, I would guess.

BHIKKHU: Through study and practice of the Dhamma. The Buddha teaches that we should do certain things and avoid other things, but not on his word alone or the words of our teachers or out of respect for tradition. We are told to test these teachings in our own minds and in our own practice and then put our faith in the Dhamma as we see its effects.

LEONA: Yes, I will say that is one of the attractive qualities of Buddhism.

BHIKKHU: Let me ask you, what do you think is the ultimate goal of Buddhism?

LEONA: I know that: to put an end to suffering. But we can't really call that the greater good, can we? We need something more specific.

BHIKKHU: The end of suffering, or Nibbana, is what the entire Dhamma points to. The Buddha said that just as the great ocean has only one taste, the taste of salt, so the Dhamma has only one taste, the taste of liberation. In the Buddhist view, every specific goal — to use your word — must be connected to the ultimate goal to be worthwhile. We have been discussing Right Livelihood. Now, Right Livelihood is not the ultimate goal but in a sense it recapitulates the whole. We want to escape the suffering involved with making a living — the disagreements, difficulties, guilt, anxiety, and so on. To accomplish this we first of all have to place ourselves in conditions where such unpleasantness is least likely to arise; that is, in those occupations which are peaceful, non-threatening, un-disturbing to the conscience, and compatible with high ideals. Second, we see to it that we conduct our business or perform our job in a scrupulously fair and honest manner. This frees us from the suffering inherent in trickery and cheating. It helps us get along with our co-workers and the public at large and gives us the security of a good reputation. Finally, by getting our livelihood with energy and effort in a lawful, honest, and harmless manner, we liberate ourselves from self-contempt and the disgust of base money-grubbing, so that one large area of our lives is protected from the worst danger — the danger of our own misguided action. Thus we enjoy the satisfaction of honorable work. This is purification of the mind with regard to livelihood.

ERNEST: It seems that the Buddha overlooked nothing that might contribute to happiness. But still, even if we behave in the manner you suggest, we can't be sure that making a living is going to be free of problems.

LEONA: Yes, everybody — good, evil, and average — complains about his or her job. Even in the most blameless work there's some suffering.

BHIKKHU: Very true. Right Livelihood has a beneficial ripple-effect we cannot see the end of, but certainly it will not eradicate all suffering. There are, if you remember, seven more factors of the Noble Eightfold Path to develop.

LEONA (Laughing): Ah, I might have known! This Buddhism is nothing if not methodical! There's a sort of — well, a sort of beauty about the way it fits together — like an exquisite watch.

ERNEST: Or like the molecular structure of DNA!

All three laugh.

LEONA: This business of getting through life is certainly complicated. We started with rabbits in cages and now where are we?

ERNEST: One eighth of the way to enlightenment?

LEONA: Oh you! But let's get an answer from the venerable monk. Okay, I see the need for Right Livelihood in a practical sense, but why do we need to link it with anything else? Why buy the whole deal, so to speak?

BHIKKHU: I think, Leona, that you've forgotten what you just said. You noted that even a perfectly blameless livelihood will not remove all suffering. Now, how much more suffering is there in life?

LEONA: Oh, heaps and heaps!

BHIKKHU: Are you willing to endure it? Are you ready for it?

LEONA: No, not at all, no, categorically no.

BHIKKHU: Do you think you can escape it simply by wishing to? Do you think that suffering — disease, old age, loss, grief, and so on — will just pass you by?

LEONA (Sighing): No, I don't think that.

BHIKKHU: Well, do you believe you have any power in the matter?

LEONA: Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure.

BHIKKHU: Buddhism teaches that we do have power to reduce and ultimately eliminate suffering. When somebody makes even a small effort to follow the basic precepts he reaps an immediate benefit in the form of a pacified mind. Good qualities — peace-bringing qualities — are strengthened and bad qualities are ever so slightly weakened. When somebody makes a really systematic and conscientious effort to avoid killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and taking intoxicants, he fortifies himself further. When he pursues the good by acting out of benevolence and compassion he stores up benefit for the future. Then when he tries to purify his mind as well as his deeds he is moving positively to the greater good — Nibbana, deliverance, the end of sorrow.

ERNEST: I don't doubt what you say, venerable sir, but with all due respect, we are lay people living very much in the world, with many responsibilities and burdens. How can we realistically concern ourselves with getting to Nibbana?

BHIKKHU: Nibbana isn't a place to get to. It's not even a state of mind. The Buddha called it simply the end of suffering. This is a goal that should concern everybody regardless of his or her worldly station. The Noble Eightfold Path is a transcendent way that leads out of the world to the inconceivable bliss of Nibbana, but it is also consistent with an active life in the world along the way. I mean by this that the Dhamma protects us now, in our daily problems and challenges, and later, in the kind of future our deeds will lead us to. Some people, when they hear the transcendent promise of the Dhamma, are elated. Others, like you, perhaps, are a little worried, thinking that they are not ready to ascend any spiritual summits. Really, there is no cause for worry. If we apply ourselves to solving immediate problems as the Buddha teaches, then higher goals will simply come into focus in their own time. We need only remind ourselves that there lies ahead of us a greater good which is timeless, steady, and ultimately accessible. Simple moral restraint and deeds of charity and the practice of mindfulness in the household life cannot fail to build a foundation for wisdom.

ERNEST: I have an instinct that what you say is true. That's why I'm trying to order my life at least to the extent of giving wisdom a chance to arise. But I'm not sure. Life is often mysterious, like a wandering in the dark.

BHIKKHU: You are right. Life is very mysterious. But in the Buddhist system even that mystery is a suitable theme for meditation. For instance, look out the window here. From where we sit we can't see the ground, only that blank gray sky and a few snowflakes drifting past. If we didn't know better we might think those snowflakes just appear spontaneously in our field of view and whirl out of it again into some kind of oblivion, without a reason, uncaused, absurdly appearing and disappearing.

LEONA: That would be just delusion, just ignorance.

BHIKKHU: But because we have some experience, because we have at one time or another stuck our heads out the window, we know that snow falls from the clouds overhead and it piles up in drifts on the ground beneath. We see where it comes from and where it goes. It's the same with the larger questions of life: investigation destroys ignorance. Somebody might keep moral precepts just out of fear, or tradition, or habit — and there's nothing really wrong with this, it's still a help and protection. But sooner or later most people think, "Why am I really following these rules? Where will they lead me?" If a monk or somebody tells them the purpose is to get rid of suffering, then, if they're intelligent, they want to find out for themselves how and why.

LEONA: Exactly, exactly.

BHIKKHU: The Buddha discovered and made known the path to deliverance. Now, it's a sorry old world we live in, but that path is still open, friends, it is still open.

ERNEST: Perhaps Leona and I are following it already, even without being fully aware. But I would hate to think, Bhikkhu Tissa, that all the mystery must go out of life.

BHIKKHU: Ignorance must go, but mystery in the sense I think you mean comes even more alive in the objects of our experience. Our wonder at the infinite and ineffable is an intuition of Nibbana itself. Looking here through this plain glass window on emptiness — even though we have no illusions about where those snowflakes come from and where they go, still we find it peaceful and uplifting to gaze out on those random crystals.

ERNEST: Yes, that's true. But why should that be?

Bhikkhu Tissa smiles, says nothing, gazes thoughtfully out the window.

LEONA: Perhaps because — if I might be so bold — because looking out in that dimensionless space we re reminded of our connections to infinite things. I mean, the flake that bumps against our windowpane here is connected to the clouds and the clouds to the whole atmosphere and the atmosphere to the space beyond, with its matter and energy and vast laws of generation and destruction. One can't help feeling part of a cosmic drama, so to speak.

ERNEST: Ah, what a philosopher you are, Leona!

LEONA: And what of it? I think Venerable Tissa would approve. That's what Buddhism teaches, isn't it? Investigation?

BHIKKHU: Yes, and when we investigate we see connections, and when we see connections we are motivated to act in certain ways.

ERNEST: But why act at all? Isn't passive contemplation enough?

BHIKKHU: No. The mindful observation of the world that the Buddha recommends reveals that intentional deeds have results for the doer. We are where we are — in fortune or misfortune, peace or trouble — as a result of what we have done in the past. Where we go in the future depends on what we do now.

LEONA: Are you talking about rebirth? Well, that seems to me like a rather weak motivation, since rebirth is not at all apparent to me. It may very well be true, but I mean to say that I just don't see it in front of me as a reality the same way I see other facts about mind and matter that Buddhism talks about. I've read that sutta you referred to where the Buddha says we shouldn't accept any teaching until we see for ourselves that it is true.

BHIKKHU: I see you remember the first part of the Kalama Sutta, but do you remember the second part?

LEONA: The second?

BHIKKHU: After giving specific examples of wrong reasons for believing a teaching, the Buddha goes on to lead the skeptical Kalamas into the Dhamma. He asks them whether greed, hate, and delusion are wholesome or unwholesome and whether they lead to suffering or not. The Kalamas make the obvious answer that they are unwholesome and lead to suffering. In response to further questions they agree that the absence of these defilements and the positive cultivation of morality lead to blessing and happiness in this life. If this is so, the Buddha goes on to say, then there are four consolations for whomever is devoted to virtue. First, if there is a future world and if good and bad deeds have results for the doer, then the virtuous person knows himself safe and can expect a happy situation. Second, if there is no rebirth and if deeds have no future effect, then he at least lives happily in this world, without worry. Third, if evil things happen to evildoers, then he, who does no evil, is secure and free from harm. Fourth, if no evil things happen to evildoers, then he in any event will not meet with evil fortune.

LEONA: That's well said. Even a hardened skeptic would have to admire that reasoning. And if one goes that far one would have to admit that it would be wise to pay more attention to one's behavior and even set out on a more systematic path of spiritual practice.

ERNEST: Such as the Noble Eightfold Path, Leona?

LEONA (Laughing): Why yes, now that you mention it. We keep coming back to that, don't we?

BHIKKHU (Smiling): Well, we should come back to it. But I hope you understand that this path is a path of practice and self-development and mindful investigation. It's not necessary at the outset to believe in rebirth or other difficult facets of the Dhamma. We need only bear these teachings in mind and watch as the evidence accumulates in our own experience.

LEONA: That's fair, that's certainly fair. I'd say a certain amount has accumulated already. I can see that good and bad deed have effects here in this present life, and if those effects go beyond, say to a future birth, well, I'm open-minded about the matter. Tell me this, please. These connections we were speaking of — do they exist between animals and human beings? Can human beings be reborn as animals and vice versa?

BHIKKHU: We must first note that according to Buddhism there is no self or soul that is literally born again, but rather a chain of causes or a stream of life that springs up now here, now there, according to conditions. But in ordinary, conventional language we can certainly say that a human being can be reborn as an animal or vice versa. It all depends on the individual's kamma, his or her accumulated deeds.

LEONA: Ah, here we have the core of your opposition to cruelty to animals. We are related to them. We may even become them.

BHIKKHU: In the Buddhist view all sentient life is related. The differentiations are temporary, fluctuating, and merely provisional. Countless living beings go wandering through the endless cycles of samsara, being born high or low, in this world or that, with much suffering or little suffering.

ERNEST: Hence the great Buddhist emphasis on compassion. Yes, I see. We are all part of an organic whole.

BHIKKHU: Yes, all sentient life is organic and inter-related, but you should not make the common, romantic mistake of thinking that this "whole" is good. Samsara is, to one degree or another, suffering throughout, and we beings trapped in samsara are suffering.

ERNEST: All the more reason for compassion, then!

BHIKKHU: Quite so. And here is a point of Dhamma I want to emphasize especially. One's own ultimate welfare and the welfare of other beings are perfectly harmonious. The life of moral restraint is a life of service to others, because it protects others, soothes them, and inspires them to similar effort. When we follow the path and strive to purify our minds we set incalculable reverberations going in the hearts of other beings. Never doubt that the Dhamma conduces to the greater good, even when circumstances seem to push us toward shabby expediency. The law of kamma sees to it that in the long run deeds work out according to their nature, so we should always take the wide view, always strive for detachment in our reflections, so that we can make wise choices.

ERNEST: If one lives as you suggest, being diligent in practicing Dhamma, could one be reborn in a heavenly world, a world of bliss?

BHIKKHU: Yes, that's possible.

ERNEST: Wouldn't unadulterated bliss be as good as Nibbana? Wouldn't that be the end of suffering?

BHIKKHU: No, the so-called heavenly worlds are not perfect refuges for two reasons. First, all worldly bliss is adulterated. There is suffering in even the highest realms. It is very fine and attenuated, but it exists. In the ultimate sense, pleasure itself is suffering, a dis-ease, a kind of irritation to the mind that deprives it of peace. The second reason is that even though life in those planes is said to be very pleasant and long, it is still impermanent: it is going to come to an end; it cannot be relied upon forever; hence there is anxiety and uncertainty even for beings living there.

LEONA: A flawed heaven. How gloomy!

BHIKKHU: Actually, this human world is considered an especially fortunate place to be born. The beings in higher realms are so drenched with pleasure that they have little inducement to strive for deliverance. And the animals and beings in the unhappy lower planes are too unintelligent or too miserable to make spiritual progress. This human world with its puzzling mixture of pleasure and pain often makes people think.

LEONA: Indeed it does that!

BHIKKHU: We really need not speculate about other planes of life when our own provokes us to search for liberation. And now, of course, though the world is full of misery, still we have the priceless treasure of the Dhamma, which the Buddha discovered and made known to cure suffering and free beings from the wheel of birth and death.

ERNEST: Bhikkhu Tissa, it seems the Dhamma is a very demanding teaching.

BHIKKHU: And we are demanding people, are we not? We demand pleasure and security and comfort — and we demand them to be permanent! This is impossible, of course, because the universe is not under our control. So we suffer. And then we demand an end to suffering, preferably through no exertion of our own. We want an escape from old age and illness and death, but, as the Buddha says, this cannot be got by mere wanting, and not to get what one desires, that is suffering, too.

ERNEST: True, true. We are indeed contrary creatures! I see the justice of what you say — we have to make an effort if we really want to accomplish anything. But the question I ask myself is, how much do I want to accomplish?

BHIKKHU: Nobody can answer that question but you.

ERNEST: Considering my limitations I sometimes wonder if I couldn't sort of stop half-way, as it were — just practice basic morality and try to live a modest life and keep out of trouble.

BHIKKHU: The way of Dhamma is a way that goes against the stream of the world and the world's desires. If you cease to struggle against the current, do you think you will just remain stationary?

ERNEST: Well, no, considering the nature of my mind.

LEONA: Going with the flow just won't make it, huh?

BHIKKHU: Going with the flow means succumbing to craving and clinging, which pull us down to suffering. It is said that the Dhamma protects the Dhamma-farer. This means that one who resists craving and clinging, who makes an effort against the worldly stream, becomes stronger by that very effort, just as when we exercise a muscle we strengthen it. By overcoming even small problems with mindfulness and detachment we find ourselves increasingly able — and willing — to surmount spiritual obstacles. I think that if you try to apply the Dhamma in life you will quickly notice within yourself the growth of confidence.

ERNEST: There's something in that. I do feel some confidence — just a little bit!

BHIKKHU: The Buddha said that a follower should examine his teaching in the way that a goldsmith analyzes gold — carefully inspecting, refining, testing it before concluding that it is real. So if you have undertaken to practice the Dhamma even a little, then please reflect on the result of that practice and see how you feel about it, see whether you feel cheered and inspired to go a little further.

ERNEST: Here we are — Leona and I — offering a meal to a monk and listening to him preach — something I would have thought ridiculous a year ago! I guess that says something.

LEONA: To me, Bhikkhu Tissa, the Dhamma is appealing because it seems to satisfy both the intellect and the emotions. I've never been a religious person, mainly because I couldn't believe passionately in the supernatural. On the other hand, the materialistic philosophies leave me cold, because they have no understanding of the mind and what for lack of a better word I will call the transcendental. They are earthbound and infinitely depressing. Then there is the swarm of cults and quasi-religions which are both hysterical and intellectually incoherent. Whew! It's enough to make me an absolute agnostic. Except... agnosticism is itself a blind belief! Now I've studied the Dhamma a little bit, and while I don't understand everything, I find it, well, refreshing. As I said, it fits together intellectually and it gives scope to the desire for transcendence, the impulse to become purer or wiser than we now are. Just this morning, before you came, I read a passage in one of Ernest's books that summarized the Dhamma as clear, visible, leading onward — something succinct like that.

BHIKKHU: "Well expounded is the Dhamma by the Exalted One, directly visible, immediately effective, calling one to come and see, leading onward, to be personally realized by the wise."

LEONA: That's it. As clear a statement as I've heard. Now, if it can fulfill that promise...

BHIKKHU: The truths of the Dhamma are for us to examine and confirm. We have to remove the obstructions to our understanding by practicing morality and training ourselves in the art of concentration. When the conscience is clear and the mind can hold steady on the objects of attention, then wisdom arises of its own nature. We don't create it.

ERNEST: But wisdom is not the end, is it?

BHIKKHU: No. Wisdom is the sword we use to cut off defilements, to clear a path for ourselves out of the jungle and into the open air.

ERNEST: Buddhism grants us immense freedom of action, doesn't it?

LEONA: And immense responsibility, it seems. If all planes of existence are somehow tied to suffering then probably we should use that freedom of action to get freedom... of being! Or I might say, if it is possible to escape suffering and gain enlightenment, then if we don't try, our misery would be really our own fault.

ERNEST: What a predicament. Bhikkhu Tissa, you were right when you said that Buddhism challenges us.

BHIKKHU: The problem of existence and its solution are both contained within the Four Noble Truths. The truth of the omnipresence of suffering in samsara and the truth of its arising out of craving point out our plight. The truth of the cessation of suffering and the truth of the way to accomplish that point out the escape from this plight. So you see, there is darkness and light — the darkness of pain and ignorance and confusion, and the light of understanding and deliverance. Life for the intelligent person should be a journey from dark to light.

ERNEST: But how long and how fast?

BHIKKHU: As long as it takes and as fast as you wish.

ERNEST: Well, it's a little frightening, but it's exhilarating, too. In time I might actually be able to make sense out of the universe! Already I feel a certain tension between my miserable old habits of mind and my urge to pursue the Dhamma further. It is sort of dazzling to think that I can walk down the street like anybody else but still be practicing mindfulness, or still be reflecting on impermanence, suffering, and non-self. I wonder if I shouldn't be living in a cave or a jungle!

BHIKKHU: You'd still be dealing with the same mind in a cave, Ernest. Better to investigate in your own house — I mean, this very body and mind. The world is to be found there, and liberation from the world. Arising and passing away, suffering, and the empty, flickering personality can be seen and examined within. Wisdom isn't a treasure we can prospect for in the Himalayas; it appears only when conditions are right for it, when the mind is settled, not distracted.

LEONA: When I read the words of the Buddha I get a feeling of immense wisdom, and yet he doesn't answer some questions about the origin of the universe, about what happens to an enlightened person after death, and so on. Now, I'm sure he had good reasons for not answering what might be extraneous questions, but still...

BHIKKHU: Never forget, Leona, that the Buddha was not out to build a reputation for himself, or to be a human computer spewing information, or to dazzle the ignorant with amazing secrets. He was out to cure suffering. He was a supreme genius, but he never lost sight of his practical purpose: to teach suffering and the way to the ending of suffering. He taught what was necessary. Whatever else he may have known it is useless to speculate about. Once, when the Buddha was seated in a forest with a company of monks, he took up a handful of leaves from the ground and showed them to the monks. He asked them which were more numerous, the leaves in his hand or the leaves in the entire forest. The monks reasonably noted that the leaves in his hand were very few compared to those in the entire forest. The Buddha then said that those in his hand were as the truths he had revealed to them, and those in the whole forest were as the truths he knew but had not revealed.

LEONA: And why hadn't he revealed them?

BHIKKHU: Because, the Buddha said, they were not useful, they did not lead to dispassion, to tranquility, to higher knowledge, to enlightenment. Remember, the Buddha had no need to teach at all. He had attained enlightenment, he was free, he had vanquished suffering. There was nothing further he needed to do. Yet he did act, he did exert himself. Why? Simply because of his all-embracing compassion. He taught his followers everything they needed to know about suffering and how to conquer it themselves. He held back nothing of value. Before he died he declared that as a teacher he had never had a "closed fist." He gave unstintingly of the Dhamma that pointed to liberation, entrusting it to his followers who have preserved it and honored it and offered it as the supreme refuge for a weary world, even to this very day.

ERNEST: That's an encouraging thought. If the Buddha had no personal need to teach anything to anybody yet did teach for the rest of his life, then surely he thought that the teaching would be effective, that his followers, even though they weren't Buddhas, could still attain enlightenment through their own efforts.

BHIKKHU: Yes, indeed. The Buddha is sometimes called the great physician for the ills of the world. He doesn't cure by magic or laying-on of hands or divine power. He prescribes for us the medicine of the Dhamma and instructs us in how to use it.

LEONA: But the patients have to be willing, don't they?

BHIKKHU: Oh yes. Some people complain about the emphasis on suffering in Buddhism; they prefer not to think about it. They suffer, they know they suffer, but they don't realize that suffering is a deep and terrible spiritual disease. Only when they take a close look at their situation do they fell moved to do something about it. It's like a man who smells smoke in his house. If he's intelligent he investigates and sees that his house is on fire. Rather than waiting to be burned, he looks around for an escape and makes use of it promptly — he climbs out a window and slides down the drain-pipe. What the Buddha teaches us first of all is that our house is on fire — on fire with greed, with hate, with delusion, burning with sickness, old age, death, lamentation, despair.

ERNEST: The truth of suffering, in short.

BHIKKHU: And then the Buddha points out the reasons for this suffering and what can be done about it and how there might be ease and relief for us instead of anxiety and pain. And, more than this, the Buddha shows how our lives may become calmer, wiser, and purer, and how we may in fact achieve what we hardly can imagine: enlightenment, a radiant and unassailable security.

LEONA (Sighing): It's a shame we are not living in the time of the Buddha himself.

BHIKKHU: Ah, but we are, Leona. We are! The Buddha says that whoever sees the Dhamma sees the Buddha. And the Dhamma is not only written in books, it is written in the elements of the world as well.

LEONA: What do you mean?

BHIKKHU: The three characteristics of existence — impermanence, suffering, and non-self — spring up everywhere for the benefit of the diligent meditator. Look at the flames there in the fireplace, snapping and curling and flickering in front of our eyes.

LEONA: Ah, impermanence, yes, of course.

BHIKKHU: Yes, both an instance and an emblem of the changing nature of reality.

ERNEST: Transience and change.

BHIKKHU: And more than that. Don't you see in those wavering sheets of fire and those sputtering little flames something futile and weary? They leap up, they fall back, they smolder and fail.

ERNEST: An incompleteness, a restlessness. You might call it suffering!

BHIKKHU: And within that chemical reaction we call fire, within that shifting light and heat what's really going on? Is the fire one stable thing and the log another? Does the wood stay the same while the fire just happens to it?

LEONA: No, they're both changing, there's only change. The wood is always changing to something else. You could say it's not being, it's only becoming. Therefore...

ERNEST: Therefore it's not a self! Just non-self. Well, Bhikkhu Tissa, this is something. Even my own fireplace can instruct me the Dhamma.

BHIKKHU: And why stop there? Out the window there we can see that it's snowing a little harder. There! See that swirl of wind? Look at the flakes spinning against the grayness. What do they suggest to you?

LEONA: Change. Impermanence. And the there's the sadness of it — I don't know why, it's just the wandering, the endless unease. We could call it suffering, sure. And as before, in that change, in that process, I don't see any persisting element. No self. Just like the fire.

BHIKKHU: Just like the fire. And yet the one is blazing hot and the other is icy cold. Still the same truths are manifest in both. Do you see the principle I am getting at?

LEONA: I think I do. All the world is food for contemplation.

BHIKKHU: And above all, do not neglect your own body and mind. That's where craving clings the tightest, that's where ignorance resides.

LEONA: You are assuming, of course, that I'll keep investigating the Dhamma.

BHIKKHU: I am assuming it.

LEONA (Smiling): Well, you're right, I guess. Can't quit now. I'll keep going a little further.

ERNEST: Going toward what, Leona?

LEONA: Why... Let's call it the greater good, shall we?

ERNEST: Why not?

LEONA: It seems it's possible to live deliberately, and if so, I think one ought to live for the benefit of oneself and others.

ERNEST: And others, yes. Speaking of that. Uh, Leona, talking to this venerable monk has made me sure that I don't want to — I mean, I couldn't possibly accept that job at the chemical company.

LEONA: Oh, Ernest. As for the job...

ERNEST: No, really, you have to see — I just wouldn't feel...

LEONA: Peace, husband of mine! There is no dispute.

ERNEST: Say what?

LEONA (Smiling, laying a hand on his arm ): Under no circumstances can you accept that job. You are happy where you are. You don't want to be even distantly connected to the suffering of animals. I understand that now. I respect it. Venerable Tissa is skillful, I think, in nudging us in the direction of the Dhamma.

ERNEST: But you were so in favor of the job.

LEONA (Shrugging): Ah, well. Impermanence!

ERNEST: You're a remarkable woman, Leona.

LEONA: It depends on who's doing the remarking! But enough. Let's not weary this tolerant monk any more today, all right? Look, Ernest, the snow is coming down harder. Maybe you had better drive Venerable Tissa home.

ERNEST: You don't have a "home," do you, Bhikkhu Tissa? Just a monastery.

BHIKKHU: There's no real home for any of us short of Nibbana. But yes, perhaps it's time to go.

ERNEST: Thank you for your time.

BHIKKHU: And thank you for your food.

LEONA: You are the one who's given real food, Bhikkhu Tissa.

ERNEST: We appreciate your teaching.

BHIKKHU: I'm glad you do. But the fire teaches, too. And the snow. And your own hearts.

ERNEST: Shall we go, then?

They rise. Bhikkhu Tissa, wrapped up in his robes, follows Ernest out the door into the sudden cold and light of the snowy day. Leona stands on the doorstep and watches them go down to the car. The wind gusts and the snow falls harder, blurring the landscape and the vanishing figures. At the car, Bhikkhu Tissa turns, smiles, and waves. Or does he wave? She is not sure. Maybe he has pointed at the chaos of snowflakes, or the invisible clouds, or the ghostly horizon of the rooftops. Then the car rolls away. Leona stands gazing after for a moment. The world seems huge and full of silence. Snow — dust blows from the limbs of an oak.