The Nature of Habit

(An outline of a talk given at Chithurst Forest Monastery – July 2024)

If I say to you, ‘Tell me about your habits’, what is your internal response to such a request?

What do you feel? Pride, shame, frustration, guilt, hopefulness, anxiety, bewilderment…

If I made the same request tomorrow, your response might differ.

I first came to Chithurst Forest Monastery when I was nineteen. This room used to be the main meditation hall when I lived here. I want to take you on a brief journey of imagination.

Please close or half-close your eyes.

It is a crisp, cold winter evening; the room is a perfect temperature—goldilocks warm. Monks, nuns, and lay people sit in deep meditation in this dimly lit room, with the flickering golden glow of candles and a still, holding silence. Perhaps a blanket is wrapped around you, adding to your contentment.

The air is imbued with a subtle fragrance, a blend of beeswax and hints of the burnt incense from earlier in the evening. The combined scents create a soothing aroma that calms the mind. The steady crackle of the burning wicks adds a layer of auditory comfort.

Unexpectedly, the smell of a rich, fragrant chocolate cake baking in the kitchen oven wafts into the shrine room.

What do you imagine your response would be? What is your response now?

You may now open your eyes.

The smell of the cake would be confusing for many people in the room; most of you know that food is not cooked in a Buddhist monastery kitchen at 9 p.m.

Unexpected events cause stress. According to the Buddha, stress leads to two responses: confusion and seeking a way out.

As a young novice, I remember baking bread for the next day one evening and being severely told off by a senior monk. Some errant novice or layperson baking in the evening is not out of the realm of possibility.

Once past the initial confusion, the habitual way out may take many forms.

The Buddha describes the seven latent tendencies, rooted in memory, that arise according to external and internal events.

1.     Sensual desire—One person could have thoughts of eating cake, another a wistful memory of Aunt Sally baking in her safe, cosy kitchen when you were a child.

2.     Anger—One may think angry thoughts toward whoever is baking the cake or have painful, anxious associations with baking or someone who used to bake.

3.     Conceit—One may think of how amazing one's baking skills are or have conceited thoughts of the foolish person baking at this time, ‘I would never do that!’

4.     Fixed views and opinions—One may start speculating about who the culprit is or get caught up in strong and fixed opinions about the appropriateness of baking at this time.

5.     Attachment to future existence—One may fantasise about baking a cake tomorrow or another, proliferating and calculating the cost of baking a cake.

6.     Doubt—For one person, the thinking may be: should I confront the person now or later? For another, are cakes usually baked at this time?

7.     Bewilderment—One may be bewildered whether this event is happening; perhaps they are imagining it.

The possible responses are countless, as each person has a unique history and tendency. Some people may not notice the smell at all.

The aroma may facilitate an associated response. For example, someone may feel happiness, anger, anxiety, or sadness and not directly link the emotion to the smell. Suddenly, they feel anxious and don’t know why.

The brain is housed in this dark black box called the skull, without direct access to the external world. Its only access is through electrical impulses delivered by the five external senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. These five senses are very selective and limited in what they encounter.

The brain's function is to predict. It predicts both experience and action based on the information received by the five senses. It will remember what went before, what came after, and what came before and after.

When receiving information, the sixth sense - the mind - formulates a response based on memory and craving (wanting, not-wanting and numbing).

An example of prediction is that we know to stop if we are driving and see a red light.

Life is more uncertain than this. If someone has responded to us in a certain way, we may make a prediction based on an approximation of similar relationships. This is where craving also plays its part. We may predict abandonment, criticism or sexual invitation, which might have no basis.

From the simplest to the most complex, all creatures seek pleasurable, safe, and nutritious environments and avoid unpleasant, dangerous, and barren environments.

If our predictions are distorted, we may be drawn to situations we perceive as safe, pleasurable, or nourishing but encounter the opposite. For the unenlightened, thought, speech and action are driven by habit, with craving at the root.

Habits have five elements:

·       Trigger

·       Behaviour

·       Result

·       Memory

In simple terms, the smell of the cake triggers a behaviour of thought, speech, or action. That behaviour has a result, good or bad, which feeds into memory, so the cycle continues. For most of us, the triggers, behaviours, results and memories are multi-layered and experienced as complex.

This is the Kamma-vipaka or, in English, cause and effect.

We may feel like slaves to habit. However, Buddhism's two wings—wisdom and compassion—offer a way out.

Wisdom involves paying close attention to these processes through concentration, mindfulness, and awareness. Wisdom supports us in understanding the inherent suffering caused by identifying with phenomena and not seeing the changing nature of all things.

Compassion involves generosity, kindness, empathy, and the support of others. Relieving ourselves from the tyranny of ego and the addiction to ‘me and mine’ requires extraordinary generosity and wisdom.

Losing a fixed self-identity may be perceived as the ultimate disaster. However, with clarity and insight, it is the greatest freedom.

A student said to Master Ikkyu (a famous Zen monk of the 13th Century), “Please write for me something of great wisdom.”

Ikkyu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.”

The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention. Attention.”

The student became irritable. “That doesn’t seem profound or subtle to me.”

In response, Master Ikkyu wrote, “Attention. Attention. Attention.”

In frustration, the student demanded, “What does this word ‘attention’ mean?”

Ikkyu replied, “Attention means attention.”

If people knew, as I know, the fruits of generosity, they would not enjoy their gifts without sharing them, nor would the taint of stinginess obsess the heart. Even if it were their last bit, their last morsel of food, they would not enjoy its use without sharing it if there was someone else to share it with.”

Buddha - Itivuttaka 18

Rory Singer