Ajahn
Brahmavamso
Perth, April 1999
This
article is a transcription of one of the talks given by Ajahn
Brahmavamso during a 9-day meditation retreat in North Perth, April
1999.
This morning's talk is the last of the major talks of this retreat
and so it's nice to talk about those things which really count. In
other words, it's about the practice of deep insight to find out the
way of the mind, the way of the world, and also to be able to have
such insight which can really change one's way of looking at things
and thereby change one's life. So this is that deep insight we're
looking at, which is life-changing. And that's the sort of deep
insight which the Buddha was recommending and which forms the heart
of this path.
When I talked in the last few days about the Eightfold Path, in some
parts of the suttas there's a Ten-fold Path. They add an extra two
factors on the end. Did you know that? This is the hidden two
factors of the eightfold path. We only give these secret teachings
at the end of a retreat! They're not really secret at all. The ninth
factor is right wisdom, right understanding, samma-nyana, an
understanding which is not just view, but which is a real deep
seeing. The tenth factor is the perfect release - freedom,
samma-vimutti. But it's nice to add those two factors onto the end
of the eightfold path. It's as if the eightfold path is what you're
doing and the ninth and tenth factors are what happens as a result.
By practicing the Eightfold Path you get that insight wisdom,
samma-nyana, the clear seeing into reality. Seeing things as they
truly are and not as they appear to be, or as we want them to be,
but as they truly are. A result of that is the tenth factor -
perfect freedom.
Those are two factors which need to be stressed in this eightfold
path, or tenfold path, because they show that this eightfold path is
what you do to get somewhere. And to get it through insight, through
wisdom. But when people use that word "insight" they should really
stress the word "in" - actually to see within, to see deep within,
to see the source of things. Because so much of what people take to
be "insight" is really "ex-sight", and that's why it excites you!
It's seeing outside somewhere. And that's why it sort of stimulates
the mind instead of settling it. If it really is true insight it
makes you very peaceful and calm. So there's a difference there and
again, the main reason why people don't get those deep insights is
because their mind is not calm enough, not powerful enough to see
deeply within themselves. And that's why traditionally, in Buddhism,
to gain that sort of insight we say the Five Hindrances [1] have to
be overcome first of all. That's the whole job of the Eightfold
Path, if you like, to overcome the five hindrances, and to get the
mind in that sort of state that it's clear and it's powerful, and it
can discover insight. So the insight is the result of the Eightfold
Path - and I'm talking about the big insight now.
And so to overcome those five hindrances that I've been talking
about, you've seen very clearly in the last eight or nine days that
there's something you should know about - the hindrances, their
power, and just how sneaky they are sometimes. Just when you think
that you're getting peaceful, sometimes a thought might come up, a
desire, a wanting, and that's a hindrance which stops you getting
into deep meditation. Or sometimes a little bit of ill-will towards
yourself which manifests as impatience - that's a form of ill-will.
And to see those and hindrances shows you how insidious and
difficult are these hindrances to overcome. And to gain insight, all
the teachers, all the texts, all say that without abandoning the
five hindrances there's no insight, there's no wisdom. So that
should be one's preliminary job, to overcome these five hindrances.
And the way those five hindrances are overcome is what I've been
teaching here this week, the jhanas. Traditionally, they say that
where the five hindrances are overcome is called upacara samadhi.
They call it "neighbourhood concentration", neighbourhood samadhi,
where you're just right next to jhanas but not fully in them. It's
like the entrance to this hall over here, you have to pass over the
entrance, the neighbourhood, to come into this room. And also you
have to pass over it as you go out. These are upacaras,
neighbourhoods.
One of the mistakes which people make with understanding insight
meditation, is that they think the neighbourhood as you go into
jhana is a place where you should do insight. Just stop a bit short
of jhana and try and do insight there. And that is one type of
upacara, but that is a very difficult one and very unstable, because
you're not really quite sure whether those five hindrances have been
overcome or not. You're not really sure if you're in that upacara
samadhi where insight can truly happen because those hindrances are
extremely sneaky at that stage, they can manifest just so easily.
And also if there is a state just before jhana, because of the way
of the mind it's very unstable, and you can fall back so quickly.
And that is why some people misunderstand, or fail to recognise,
that there are two upacaras - there is the one on the way in to
jhana and there is the one on the way out of jhana. In the same way
you pass over the threshold of that door on the way in, and also on
the way out. And of those two, it's that upacara samadhi after jhana
which has the qualities of being certain and long-lasting. Having
trained yourself in this way, you know what jhanas are, and you know
that state just afterwards is what the texts call the upacara
samadhi. And from your experience you will know that state lasts
much, much longer, is much more stable, than any upacara samadhi
just before you arrive. It's because when you are experiencing the
jhanas, when you're right inside them, it's as if the five
hindrances have been completely knocked out and made unconscious.
You've slugged them, and the longer you stay in that jhana, the
deeper the slug! So much so that when you come out of the jhanas,
they are still knocked out - unconscious, inactive. You've beaten
them down. And very often if you spend a long time in a jhana
they're beaten down for a long, long time. And anyone who's had a
very nice meditation, especially a jhana, will know that the state
afterwards, the happiness, the joy, lasts a long time, effortlessly,
because you're full of energy, clarity, power. And that is the state
where insight can be found, where insight is made.
You have to be careful, sometimes, of that state after jhanas,
because sometimes the experience is so powerful and so beautiful,
and sometimes the hindrances are knocked out for days. Sometimes for
days after you get a nice jhana, you have no desire for things of
the world. Even the food on your plate you can take or leave and you
don't really care. And you have no sloth or torpor - you can sit
until late in the night, get up early in the morning, you're just so
mindful, perfectly, hour after hour, day after day. There's no
ill-will that can come up: even if a mosquito comes you sort of
welcome it - "please come and take some of my blood! Out of
compassion for all the other people out there, come on take some!".
You get so much compassion because the mind is so high and full of
joy. And sometimes people think that those states are full
enlightenment.
You know, I wrote about it in that book "Seeing the Way" [2]. I had
a nice meditation one evening and after that I just wasn't tired at
all. When I lay down to sleep I was so mindful that I didn't really
need to sleep. Just laying there on my side watching the breath gave
so much happiness, was so peaceful. When I did go off to sleep, it
was only for a very short time, and I woke up afterwards and
immediately was just so mindful. Not like it was this morning - not
"oh, here we go again! What shall we do, where am I?!" - but
completely mindful in getting up and going to the hall before three
o'clock, before the bell, and sitting meditation there and just
going into nice samadhi all morning. It was great. And I thought "at
last, this is it, oh great!". And it's nice to think you're
enlightened - it's quite a nice way to start the day!
Some of you who know this story know what happened next… when I went
on alms round I was just perfectly mindful, there were no
defilements in the mind at all, it was just so clear. Until it came
to the meal time. And meals are very good if you've got any
defilements coming up, especially if it's the only meal of the day
and that's all you're going to get. And I was in a monastery in the
north-east of Thailand, a very poor monastery away from the cities
or towns, and usually we used to get the same meal every day, day
after day. It was sticky rice and what they called rotten fish
curry. And it was called rotten fish for two reasons - first of all
it was fish which was pickled, caught during the rainy season and
put in a jar and closed up and left to ferment. So it was like
"ripe" fish. And it was also rotten because that was how it tasted!
It was really awful stuff - you got sort of used to it but not
really used to it. And so you'd have this every day - rotten fish
curry with your rice, and that was all you had. But this one day it
just happened after I became "enlightened", somebody made us this
pork curry (there was no vegetarian food in those places) as well as
the rotten fish curry, and as soon as I saw this I thought "I'm
going to have something nice to eat today". And the abbot (I was
second in line), this Thai monk, he took these really big scoops of
this pork curry, huge scoops, and put it in his bowl. And I thought
that was really greedy, but it didn't matter because there was
plenty left for me. But what he did next was, after taking out two
huge scoops for himself (and he didn't take any of the rotten fish
curry - even he didn't like it!)… he said "well, it's all the same
isn't it, whatever curry it is, it's just the four elements" and
then he poured all the curries together and mixed them up. And I
thought "if you really thought that, then why didn't you mix them up
before you took yours! Now I haven't got any nice food today". And I
got really angry at this monk, really livid at him, thinking "how
can you do this, taking away my nice meal. It's not every day we get
this nice pork curry. And you're a north-easterner - I've come from
the West, I'm not used to rotten fish, you should be used to rotten
fish. Now you've mixed it all up!" And what stopped me from getting
more and more angry was the thought "hang on, I'm supposed to be
enlightened!" And that really makes you depressed, when you find out
that you're not enlightened after all. That spoiled my whole day!
But that's what happens sometimes, because for many hours the
defilements are just gone, and you're just so clear and bright and
you think "wow, this is it, this is the way it should be". Perfectly
clear and peaceful and light. But it's not, it's just samadhi
experience. So, be careful sometimes that you don't come back and
say that you're enlightened because little things like the
hindrances will, sooner or later, when they've recovered, come up
and will play with you again, take you around by the nose.
But the important thing with that upacara samadhi which is after
jhana, that is the time to really get into deep insight, because
your mind is powerful. The mind has energy, it has clarity, and the
five hindrances aren't there. This is the time when you can see what
you don't want to see, what you don't expect to see, because all
that wanting and all that expecting has been subdued. And you know
it's been subdued because you've gained that jhana. I think many of
you know how expectations and wants are the very barriers which stop
you getting those nimittas and entering samadhi. And so by training
yourself to subdue those wants and expectations, those desires, they
are knocked cold, they disappear, you enter jhana, and when you come
out again they're still not around. Because there's no wanting,
there's no expectations, you can see what's truly there rather than
what you see or what you expect to see. That's where deep insight
arises. The expectations are as much a hindrance to jhanas as they
are to insight. That's why, when insight happens (this is one of the
characteristics of it) it'll always be something which you never
expected. Quite different than what you thought it would be. That's
why it's called an insight - you're seeing something from a fresh
angle, something new, something completely different.
However, there are ways of encouraging those insights to happen,
especially after the jhanas. And the way to encourage them, in the
words of the Buddha is to get the jhanas and then standing on that
experience, develop the insights into anicca, dukkha, anatta. The
three characteristics of impermanence, suffering and not-self.
"Standing on that experience", using that experience both as your
power source and also as your data to investigate these three areas
of reality. And those three areas, again, are impermanence (it's
wider than impermanence - I'll mention more about anicca), suffering
and not-self.
The impermanence, the first thing one can really watch, is the
uncertainty of everything. Because one of the meanings of nicca, the
opposite to anicca, is something which is certain, which is regular,
something you can rely upon. So the opposite means that things which
are there will suddenly disappear, unreliable, irregular. And it's
interesting contemplating that word, anicca - unreliable, because
how often do we seek for something to rely upon in this world. Some
little place of security, something we think is always going to be
there for us to come home to, either physically or mentally. Some
sort of refuge, inside the mind or inside the world, a place of
safety or a thing of security. What anicca is doing is saying that
all of "that" is insecure, is insubstantial, is irregular, and you
cannot rely upon it. The tendency of the human being is maybe to
admit that a lot of the world is unreliable but to seek some sort of
secure place, or secure person or secure mind state, which you think
is secure and is always going to be there. That's why some people
look for partners in the world, someone you can rely upon, someone
who's always going to be there for you, a soul-mate. But all
soul-mates eventually disappear, they go, they too are unreliable,
as you find out when you marry one!
But not only that, but people also rely on places and things, the
little hide-aways, the nice little houses, the little nests. And
even those are unreliable. Eventually they will disappear as well.
But we also have the little nests inside of our minds, some little
place that we rely upon. But even that, anicca, when it gets in
there, reveals that even that is insecure. That's why anicca, when
you see it clearly, is quite frightening. It brings up the feeling
of complete insecurity. There's no place where you can stand. No
place where you can sit down. Everything is always changing. And
because of the fear which arises when one starts to look at anicca,
it means that unless you've got the powerful mind-states of jhanas
or post-jhanas, you'll never be able to pass through that fear and
see through to reality. There'll always be some part of existence
you'll think is secure, reliable, permanent. And that's why we
aren't enlightened.
Sometimes we think it's not very nice to realise insecurity, but
it's wonderful to realise the truth of insecurity for two reasons.
One, because when you know you haven't got a home (in all senses of
that word), then you can be like a bird, you can fly everywhere.
Every place is a tree where you can rest for a while. You'll never
think that you own that particular tree, that "that's mine and the
other birds should keep out". You can share. Two, it also means that
when you realise that all these things are completely changing, then
when they do change, when they do disappear, when things alter,
you're never surprised. You realise that this is actually the truth
of things, that their insecurity is actually a freedom. Security is
like being in prison, being bonded to something. So after a while,
one gets quite a sense of release with insecurity, a sense of being
able to fly and being able to go where one wishes rather than being
bound down.
And so this is what happens when we look at anicca, it gives us a
sense that all this is coming and going, that there's nothing which
is stable, no place that we can rest on. But in particular, the
anicca which is going to discover the third aspect of the three
characteristics of existence, anatta, that is the anicca which is
very difficult to apply. That's anicca which applies to the one who
sees anicca. Sometimes to see the one who's seeing is just so
difficult - it's like trying to catch an eel, it's so slithery and
slippery. As soon as you catch it it's slipped away again. Or it's
like a dog trying to catch its tail. The self trying to see the
self. And this is why seeing anicca in the doer and the seer is just
so hard to do. This is, again, one of the reasons why we can't do
this is because we don't want to do it, we don't like to do it, we'd
rather not see the insubstantiality of everything. It's just too
frightening, it's just too challenging, it's just cutting too deep.
So the only way that can actually happen is if after a good
meditation, which is just so peaceful, and we're so happy and
joyful, that that happiness and joy overcomes any fear and we can go
so deep into insight.
In the same way, and you've heard me tell you this before, the only
way you can be open to hearing things you don't want to hear, to
criticism for example, is when you're in a good mood. If you're in a
really good mood and you're really high, then I can tell you
anything which is wrong with you, even personal things, and you
don't mind. That's why I tell people who are in relationships with
husbands and wives, if there's something very difficult you have to
tell your partner, some criticism which you think they might not
really take very well, then take them out to dinner, dress up really
nicely, take them out to a really nice dinner, give them the very
best food, what they really like, and then, when they're on the last
course, when they're really nice and happy, all soft and smiley, you
can tell them anything and they'll accept it. You can give all sorts
of criticism, which is personal or otherwise, and because they're
happy and relaxed, they can listen, they don't feel challenged. But
if you tell them when they've just come home from work after a hard
day, then "that's it, I'm calling the lawyers, this is divorce!"
This is what happens because when you're feeling happy and when
you're feeling relaxed, you're more open to seeing or hearing what
you don't want to hear or see.
In the same way, when you've had a good meditation, everything's
nice and peaceful, you've got so much happiness, then you're much
more open to seeing those insights which you would normally never
allow yourself to contemplate. There's no-one here. Life is
suffering. Everything is impermanent. Those are challenging. Take
the suffering of life. This goes completely against the grain. "Life
is beautiful. Life is a bowl of cherries. Life is out there for you
to enjoy. Go out and experience. If you can't actually go there,
then get a video on it". There's so many ways to enjoy yourself in
this world - they've even got virtual reality now. Soon, you'll be
able to get virtual jhanas! Just put on this little mask, push a
button, and all these beautiful nimittas will come up and lead you
into virtual jhanas! So you don't have to sit on the floor and waste
all these nine or ten days, just do it in half an hour at a virtual
reality store. I'm sure that someone will try that one of these
days. But that's not the way it works. We'd like to have it the easy
way, but sometimes it takes a lot of giving up and letting go. But
actually to see suffering is to see something that, by its very
nature, we don't want to see.
I was talking about perceptions the other day, actually right
throughout the retreat. There was a very fascinating experiment
done, I think it was at Harvard, to examine the way the mind
perceives things, where they flashed images up on the screen. They
got a few volunteer students to sit and see what was going on, with
a notepad by their side. First of all they flashed these images up
so fast that there wasn't really time to understand them - they were
just a flash on the screen. And they asked these students to write
down what they perceived. And all they could see was, like, a flash
of light - that's all. Then they increased the exposure on the
screen, from one-hundredth of a second to, say, two-hundredths of a
second. They still only saw a flash. And they kept on increasing the
time of exposure on the screen incrementally until there was a flash
there and they could catch something, they could perceive something,
then they could write down what it was. And they kept on increasing
it until they could see it more clearly and write down what it was.
Some very interesting things happened when they kept on increasing
the exposure more and more and more. At a very early exposure
length, when they thought they understood what was there, they
continued writing the same thing, kept on seeing it in exactly the
same way. One example was when the actual photograph was a bicycle
on the stairs going up to one of the lecture halls. One of the
students perceived it as a ship. It's quite easy to do this because
it was only shown very quickly, and perception just grasps something
and they said it was a ship. The interesting thing was that as the
exposure time was increased, incrementally, he still said it was a
ship. And at times, when every person who was exposed at that
particular length would say it's a bicycle on the stairs, they would
still see it as a ship. The old perceptions had imprinted themselves
on the mind they actually saw that image according to their old
views. And it took them a really long exposure on the screen to
change their old ideas and say "it's not really a ship, it's a
bicycle on the steps going to a lecture hall".
What was interesting there was how, through the perceptions that we
have, we form these really strong views, which make us see the whole
world to conform to those views, even though they're completely
wrong. That's why it's so difficult to catch the illusions of self,
the illusions of suffering, the illusions of anicca. We need to have
that strong exposure, not just for a second but for long periods of
time, to see that we've been seeing it in the wrong way. It's not a
ship after all, it's just a bicycle on the steps. It's not a self
after all, it's just a process. Life is not such a bowl of cherries,
life is a bowl of rotten eggs!
And the other interesting thing about this experiment, is that they
found that images which were repulsive, which were abhorrent, took
people much longer exposures to see them as they really are. One of
the images they showed on the screen was of two copulating dogs. And
that took the longest of all the images for them to figure out what
it really was. The reason was because they didn't want to see that -
that was repulsive. If it had been an image of, like, a beautiful
model, they would have seen that in a few seconds. But they didn't
want to see it and therefore they didn't want to see it. And that
was really fascinating because that was reinforcing what the
Buddha's been saying for, like, twenty five centuries. That with the
hindrances operating, we only see what we want to see. We don't see
what's real. And sometimes the exposure need to be so long and right
in front of our face before we truly admit what's going on in the
world.
But with suffering, this is the problem - we don't want to see
suffering, therefore we don't see it. We live in a fantasy world,
that life is happy, that you get married and you're happy ever
after. You get the perfect relationship. I remember one lady kept on
telling me, no matter what I said to her about Buddhism, she said "I
know he's out there somewhere - the perfect man for me. It's just
that I have not met him yet. I don't know where he is, but I know
he's out there somewhere". And she was in her late forties and she
still said stupid things! People live in fantasy land most of the
time - not real at all. Or the people that think that if you get the
right medicines then you never need to die, and that aging is
something that is healable, curable, something which is not
necessary. All these ideas, the fantasies which people have, are
just not being real.
So when we start looking at the truth of dukkha, we have to be very
courageous to see that. Not just courageous, but we have to be very
sneaky as well. And again, this is why we do something like the
jhana meditations, because we feel so happy, so peaceful (like the
husband or wife who's been taken out by their partner to a beautiful
dinner), and the feeling's so rested, so at peace, that we're
actually open to seeing or hearing what we don't want to hear, what
we didn't want to see. That's how you sneak up on dukkha, and you
can finally accept it. There's one particular area of dukkha which
we don't want to see - at least we think that we're happy. That's
why when you go home from this retreat, doesn't matter how much
suffering you have on a retreat, when you go home again you say it
was really worthwhile, it was really good. Because you'd look like
such a fool if you said it was really terrible, full of suffering,
that you spent all this money on this. Even on retreats where you
have to go through a lot of physical pain, you get conned into
saying that it was a lot of pain but that you discovered something
wonderful. If you didn't say that you'd be really embarrassed that
you'd been wasting this time.
It's the same as when you go on holiday. Everyone who goes on
holiday, when they come back afterwards and their friends ask "how
was it?", they say they had a wonderful time. Even though you're
lying through your teeth. Even though you had a terrible time.
Because it makes you sound so foolish if you say you had a terrible
time going through customs, the hotel was rotten, it rained all the
time, that you had arguments with the person you went with… you'd
feel such a fool! And also it's just not done, it's not our custom.
Everyone knows that when you come back from a holiday you say you
had a really wonderful time. Everyone knows that you write a
postcard to your friends saying "having a wonderful time, wish you
were here". No-one says "having a rotten time, wish I was back
home!" So sometimes just be careful of the ways that we lie.
We don't face reality because of our social conditioning. It's the
same as if you go to a funeral. I've been giving funeral services
for a long time. Even for me, it took many years to get up the
courage to tell a joke at a funeral service. You know that I like
telling jokes. Because it's not done to tell jokes at funeral
services. You can do it at some other time, any other time, but the
one time you're not meant to tell a joke is when there's a stiff in
the coffin! It's being disrespectful, isn't it? But actually when I
did get the courage to do it, all the people said "Thank you so
much. It made us feel good and the person who died was always
telling jokes and they would have really appreciated that one." I'm
sure I could hear the coffin rattling as they were laughing!
But we have these taboos which are incredibly difficult to break.
One of those taboos is facing up to that life is suffering. That's a
taboo that people don't want to recognise. And that's why you have
to creep up on it and find that all this world is all suffering. You
know the taboo of looking at a sunset or beautiful flower and, it's
really challenging to say that all flowers, even the most beautiful
flower, is suffering. People think you're just crazy or you're
weird, or you've been a monk too long, and you should come back into
the real world! It's a taboo - flowers are beautiful, everyone knows
that. The sunset is so wonderful, the mountains, the forests…
To challenge that is very difficult to do. So this is where you do
need to have that ability to go against preconceived notions which
go so deep inside of you, you wouldn't believe just how deeply they
are embedded in you. And the most deeply embedded notion is not the
idea that "life is happiness", but that "you are". That's the
deepest notion which is the hardest one to eradicate, the anatta,
that "I am". And that view is just so tricky, so slippery, it's just
like trying to shoot a bird a million miles away through the eye
with an arrow. It's just so tricky to see this self, this "me". And
this is why the Buddha gave, not just the jhanas to give the mind
power, and to be able to see what it doesn't want to see, but he
also gave the four satipatthanas, as a way of not wasting time, to
be able to focus on the four areas where the illusion of self really
hangs out. Because there's many places where you might try to look
for the illusion of self, but the four main areas are the rupa, your
body, vedana, the feelings, citta, the mind which knows, and the
mental objects, dhamma, especially the doer, will. Those are the
four areas. And so, having heard a teaching like the satipatthana,
having practiced the Eightfold Path, when the mind is in jhanas and
it comes out afterwards see if you can remember to employ the
satipatthana, especially for one purpose and one purpose only: not
to see anicca, but to see anatta, not-self. That is the deepest,
most fundamental block which is stopping you from being enlightened,
which stops you being free.
One of the ways which I practice myself, and teach other people to
practice, is to ask yourself a question. Not "is there a self?",
that's just too philosophical. But to ask yourself: -"What do I take
to be my self? Who do I think I am? Who do I perceive I am? What is
this "me" I assume to exist?" When you ask that question, whatever
comes up as an answer, challenge it. Am I this body? I look in the
mirror each morning and smile "there I am again". Is that me, this
body? Sometimes we're very sophisticated intellectually and we think
"of course I'm not my body". On the thought level we might say that,
but when we get sick or we're dying we realise that that's just
superficial wisdom. It hasn't gone deep enough. We are still
attached to our body. We still think it's ours.
The Buddha gave a test to see if you really are attached to these
things, whether you think they're "mine". This is a story of when he
was walking with some monks in the Jeta Grove and he pointed out
some twigs and leaves on the ground and he said "Monks, what would
happen, how would you feel if some people came along and collected
all these twigs and leaves and put them into a big heap, and then
set fire to them all? And then once the fire had died down, they
took all the ashes and threw them to the four winds until they were
completely dispersed. What would your reaction be if they did that?"
And the monks said "Nothing, because these things aren't ours, they
don't belong to us. They're just sticks and leaves, that's all".
"Very good", said the Buddha, "Now monks, what would happen if the
lay people took all of you and put you in a heap and set you on
fire, until you're just ashes, and then threw those ashes to the
four winds, would you be upset? Would you be really worried?" And
according to the texts, I don't know if they really meant this but
they certainly knew the right answer, the monks replied "No, no, we
wouldn't be at all worried!" And the Buddha asked "Why is that
monks?" And they said "Because this body isn't ours, it's nothing to
do with us, it's not me or mine."
Now that's a test to see if you really see this body as a self,
whether you're willing to let it go or not. That's why, when we say,
look at the body in the four satipatthanas, don't run over that too
quickly, don't just say "I've done that one already, I know this
body isn't me or mine, it's just bones, it's just flesh, I've seen
that in the documentaries, I've seen that in the photographs." Be
careful, because you've been living with this body so closely for so
many years, there's a little sneaky attachment which has gotten in
there, and you really think that this is you. And that gets
challenged through old-age, sickness and death. And if you tremble
at sickness or pain, if you tremble at the thought of old-age or
death, you still need to do some more body contemplation.
So, when a big jhana happens, and then afterwards, say "what do I
take myself to be?" Look at this body and see those little
attachments, even though they might be stupid, they were something
that you could not see because you did not want to see it. And
eradicate, completely, the idea that the body is yours or you. It's
just nature, it just belongs to nature, you've got nothing much to
do with it.
The second thing, about vedana, the sensations, don't take them too
lightly. It's just as obvious that this isn't me. Every time you
have happiness, or pain, do you automatically think "this is my
happiness, this is me feeling it"? If you do, again you haven't seen
the truth of anatta. After jhanas, look closely at this whole play
of vedana, and you see it's just like the play of light and shadows,
cast by the trees and the leaves. Where there's light there's no
shadow, where there's shadow there's no light. As the leaves move in
the wind, as the sun goes over, what was light is now shadow and
what is shadow is now light. What is pain is now pleasure. What was
beauty is now ugliness, what was ugliness is now beauty. This is the
play of vedana, it's no more than that. Seeing that means, if you
see it fully through the power of jhanas, that you've done the
second satipatthana and you are completely detached. Detached means
that there is no-one holding on to the vedana, the pleasure or pain.
Remember, a lot of people think that attachment is all about what's
out there. The cause of attachment is not so much what's out there,
it's what's holding on inside. The claw, I call it. It's a claw
inside which keeps on going outside into the world and attaching to
particular things. No matter how many times you put things down, you
let go, and let go and let go, you'll never be able to end attaching
until you see that claw and cut it off. It's the claw which needs to
be looked at, seen, and eradicated. That's the only way to stop
attaching once and for all. And that claw is the illusion that all
these things belong to us, especially vedana. To see that this is
just the play of nature. In the same way that a person who
understands why there is light and why there is shadow under a tree
realises that it's nothing to do with them. They leave the light and
shadow alone, knowing that if they prefer one or the other then soon
it will change. If you prefer suffering or if you prefer happiness,
it doesn't matter, it'll just change and then go it'll go back
again. Up and down, coming and going, that's pleasure and pain in
life. So after the jhana, you do the second satipatthana, you
investigate this vedana, seeing it as it truly is, not as you want
it to be, realising it's completely out of your control no matter
how wise, skilful or powerful you are. The idea of getting just
pleasant vedana and avoiding the unpleasant, you see, is a complete
impossibility, it goes against nature, it cannot be done. So you
give up, you let go.
Also, one of the deeper places where a person thinks they exist (and
I've already mentioned this) is the will. And that's part of the
fourth satipatthana, the doer, the chooser. That's a very hard thing
to see. You can see its results, with all of the controlling, the
disturbing, which has been going on for the last nine days, caused
by this thing - the doer. But even so, it's so hard to give this
thing up. Even so, that you know that letting go is a way into jhana,
but you can't somehow achieve that letting go, you can't do the
letting go. And once I describe it that way it's obvious why you
can't "do" the letting go… you have to allow it to happen. The
biggest problem that people have with the jhanas is that they try
and "do" it, they try and control it, they try and will it, they try
and steer their vehicle into a jhana. You've got to have your hands
completely off the steering wheel. In fact, you've got to dismantle
the steering wheel before you get into jhanas. There's an entry fee
to jhanas, something you have to give up at the door, and that's
"you". A lot of people would like to go into jhanas but they'd like
to be there at the same time. They want to take the doer in there,
to have control. And that's why they can't get in. That's why it
takes "something" to get into a jhana. You see the beautiful jhana
in there but you want to take "you" with you. And you can't. So
after a while, you leave "you" outside and go in and have fun. Then
you realise just how "you", the doer, has been such a burden, such a
terrible companion for you, causing all kinds of pain and suffering.
That's what the Buddha called "the house-builder".
Once you've been in a jhana you'll never trust this doer so much
again. You never trust that within you which is, even now, trying to
do something, think something, say something, control something.
That doer, to see that is not you, is completely caused, arises and
passes away according to natural laws,. If you can see that then
you've got a very powerful insight. Half, fifty percent, of the
illusion of self is then completely gone, and life becomes so much
easier. You can flow with things rather than always controlling
them, because you haven't got faith in the doer any more. You can
let go.
The last place, which is hard for a person to see, is the
consciousness itself, the mind. This mind which a lot of people talk
about, which I talk about a lot, to actually see it in its purity is
very, very difficult. You see it in jhanas. What's important after
having a jhana is having known what the citta is, the mind. What the
Buddha talked so much about in the suttas, having seen that then to
apply the satipatthana. Reflect on the mind and ask yourself "is
this me?" That which knows, that which is hearing this, which feels
all the aches and pains in the body, which sees the sights around,
which sees the flowers and the sunsets, that which sees and
experiences. "Is that what I take to be me?" And look at this whole
process of consciousness, the screen on which experience is played
out. Like the television simile which I gave yesterday. A television
is a screen on which all these images from all these channels are
played out. When we're looking at the images we cannot really be
noticing the screen. When it's just images there, the screen has
disappeared. We're just focussing on the images. When the five
senses are playing around, that's all we see. We cannot see the
screen on which all these images are being played out.
In jhanas, you see the screen, and also you start to see the screen
dismantle itself. The screen which we call consciousness begins to
disappear. Higher and higher in the jhanas, more of the screen goes,
until in the last of the jhanas, nirodha - cessation, is the
cessation of the screen. Consciousness is now gone. To see the
consciousness going is a very powerful experience. According to the
suttas, anyone who experiences that state, the cessation of
consciousness through these jhanas (I don't mean the cessation of
consciousness through going to sleep at night!), when you emerge
from that state you're either a non-returner or a fully-enlightened
Arahat. There are only those two possibilities. Because having see
the cessation of consciousness itself, you will never, ever, it's
impossible, to be able to take that as a self, as a me. You've seen
that thing, the thing we were talking about yesterday, the claw
(that's a good simile which I should have mentioned yesterday… you
know the "thing" in the Addam's family, the hand, always grabbing
onto things? That's attachment. That thing is attachment),
consciousness or the doer, is not you, it cannot be. And the last
citadel of the illusion of self is broken into, seen to be empty,
and then you know that that which you took to be a self for so long
was just an empty process, that's all.
That insight into anatta is the insight which arises in a
stream-winner, entering the stream. It's the insight which sees that
you have taken something to be the self, something to be me or mine
for so many years, and you just could not see it before but now you
can. That's what insight is. And again that insight is very
beautiful and wonderful, because once you realise that there's
no-one here then the whole idea of nibbana being just a flame going
out, never scares you any more. Instead of being something
completely stupid and awful, something you're not really interested
in at all… because after all, what's the point of being enlightened
if you're not there to enjoy it? What's the point of just snuffing
out and going? There's too many things to do in the world! Too many
things to achieve, too many things to experience. But the idea of
nibbana as just snuffing out, going out, only makes sense and become
attractive, becomes the obvious thing, only when one sees the truth
of not-self. There's no-one here anyway. That which you take to be
you is just an illusion. Once you see that then that is the insight,
the powerful deep insight, upon which all the subsequent insights
which lead to the higher states of enlightenment are based. This is
what one should be doing, this is the purpose of jhanas, the purpose
of all those reflections.
To ask yourself, "What do I take to be me? Who do I think I am? What
do I perceive, think and view of myself?" in terms of the four
satipatthanas. The afterwards you become enlightened. And if you
think, those people have had happiness or jhanas or nimittas during
this retreat, if you think that's happiness, then wait until you get
into a nice, powerful, enlightenment insight. That's much more
happiness. So the best is yet to come.
So that's insight, and what's actually happening, through the
factors of the Eightfold Path you get samma-nyana, the correct deep
insights, and samma-vimutti, freedom.
[1] Five Hindrances: sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor,
restlessness, and doubt.
[2] Seeing the Way - Buddhist Reflections on the Spiritual Life.
Amaravati Publications, U.K., 1989
-ooOoo-
Source :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jhanas
http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/ebmed059.htm