The question here reminds me of a lot of other questions that the Buddha would get asked in the scriptures and he wouldn't give an answer. He couldn't give an answer. Someone asked him some questions like, "Can you tell us about the beginning of time? How did it happen, and where do we all come from? What's this all about?" It says something like, he shut his eyes, thought a little bit, opened his eyes and said, "I can see back in time 70,000 aeons and I still cannot find my first birth." The Buddha couldn't figure it out. He said he couldn't give the answer. He also said he couldn't give the answer for a lot of things.
One of the biggest questions is: Who is watching? Who is in here? Who is being mindful? Who is doing this? Buddhist theory says there is nothing here, which doesn't, of course, make any sense to our human brains. So really, when we think of a lot of these other questions, like the ego, does it exist, does it not exist? Does it even have a name? We have statistics as to who we are. We all have statistics. My name is Steve, I am an American, I teach in Thailand, I am a Buddhist teacher, I am 61, etc. So I have these statistics that help make up what we call my ego-identity. That's fine, that's how we communicate relatively, we need some sort of way to communicate and function. To discuss things on the planet, to build a building, to have a school system. We need a way to communicate, so we need these statistics in a relative reality to communicate and to function. If we didn't have these statistics, it would be very hard to function.
So, the stuff is here, we understand it's all here, we are what we are, but we really don't know why. Asking the question "Why?" becomes our Dukkha. To try to purify is not a big Dukkha, it's just the work. Do you have anger? How do you let go of it? Do you have greed? How do you let go of it? Do you have questions that can't get answered? How do you let go of them? Because if we hold on to questions that can't get answered, this actually gives us more Dukkha. And that was what the Buddha was referring to, if you can't get the answer, then let's stop asking those kinds of questions. Let's get on with something we can do. So for a lot of these types of questions, we actually have to let go of them because there is no satisfactory answer.
Interesting, very, very early in our teaching, after the Satipattana Sutta talk in which Rosemary talks about the Five Aggregates, consciousness and so on, we got a note, "So what is consciousness?" I wrote back and I said that consciousness is one of the Five Aggregates and it's when the eye has contact with a sight, we have eye-consciousness, etc. I explained it very briefly as to the normal way of the Five Aggregates.
The person wasn't happy with that reply. They wrote back again and said, "No, no, no, I don't mean that consciousness, I mean the big one". I said a few little Buddhist terms and that we do not have a kind of a big one, etc., and left it at that.
They came into an interview with me and they were very, very upset. They were really upset. Their face was hard and frozen, they were angry. They come in and I asked them how they were. They said, "Well, you know, I asked you the questions about consciousness and you wrote me back about the Five Aggregates and you knew that this wasn't what I meant, right?" I said "Well". "And when I really wanted to know what's the big consciousness, you wrote me back that you don't know and that you won't tell me." I replied, "Yeah".
Then all of a sudden their face shifted, they started smiling and said, "I like that. I've been to so many teachers, all sorts of teachers. I asked them what sort of consciousness there is. They tell me this, they tell me that. And I don't understand any of it, it doesn't make any sense. But your answer, I respect that, I like that.
Interesting. So much of this practice is actually to admit, "I don't know, I am just doing the work." Hopefully by doing the work one day I become enlightened whatever that means. And maybe I know a lot of the stuff, and maybe not but that doesn't really matter how much stuff I know. It's really whether I purify my mind, whether I let go of my anger. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that really be nice? You know when the computer isn't working right and you go, "Aagh!" and you push the button and it still doesn't work. "Aeehhh!" Here it is, you get practice right here with your computer, you don't need other human beings to get angry at. Angry at your computer!
And probably everyone of you has had this experience on occasion. Now, wouldn't it be nice when the computer doesn't work right, that you could just not worry. Wouldn't that be nice? To get back and do the actual work, then we are going to find more happiness.