Translator's note: This is one of Ajaan
Lee's few tape recorded talks, dating from October 4, 1960,
just six months before he passed away. In the talk, he
covers the eight classical forms of knowledge and skill (vijja)
that come from the practice of concentration, discussing how
they relate to the methods of science and other forms of
worldly knowledge. Three of the knowledges toward the end of
the list are barely touched on, and the end of the talk is
fairly abrupt. This may have been due to the tape's running
out, for he had quite a lot to say on these knowledges in
his other talks and writings. Still, the heart of the talk
-- the role of thinking and not-thinking in developing
concentration and liberating insight -- is discussed in
considerable detail, making this an extremely helpful guide
to the "how" of concentration and insight practice.
Vijja-carana-sampanno:
Consummate in knowledge & conduct.
I'm going to talk about knowledge -- the highest level of
knowledge, not ordinary knowledge. Ordinary knowledge is
adulterated with a lot of defilements and mental
fermentations, and so it's called hethima-vijja,
lower knowledge. Lower knowledge is something everyone has,
Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike: the various branches of
worldly knowledge that people study from textbooks so as to
run their societies and administer their nations. And then
there are the special branches of knowledge, the scientific
ways of thinking that people use to invent all sorts of
amazing contraptions for the human race -- things like
clairvoyance (television), clairaudience (telephones), and
powers of levitation (airplanes). They've gotten to the
point where these contraptions can work in place of people.
During the last war, for instance, I heard that they were
able to drop bombs on other countries without sending people
along with them. With a push of a button they could tell the
missile where to go, what to do, and when it had finished
the job to their satisfaction, they could have it come back
home. This is what's called progress in worldly knowledge --
or lokiya vijja. This kind of knowledge is
common all over the world, and falls into the two sorts that
I've mentioned: the sort that comes from studying books (sutamaya-panna),
and the sort that comes from thinking things through, or
cintamaya-panna.
This second kind of knowledge arises within the mind
itself. People with a lot of education in the theoretical
sciences work with their thinking. They think to the point
where an idea appears as a picture in the mind, like an
uggaha-nimitta (spontaneous image). When the picture
appears in the mind, they may sketch it down on paper, and
then experiment with physical objects to see if it works. If
it doesn't work, they make adjustments, creating a new idea
from their old idea -- adjusting it a bit here, expanding it
a bit there -- keeping at it until they find what works in
line with their aims.
If we think about this on a shallow level, it's really
amazing. But if we think a little bit deeper, it's not so
amazing at all. They take their starting point with
something really simple: for example, how to make a small
person large, or a large person small -- something really,
really simple. Then they take a mirror and bend it in, so
that a tall person will turn into a small person. They bend
it out, so that a small person will become tall. That's all
to begin with. Then they keep thinking along these lines
until they can take a faraway object and make it appear up
close. The people who get these things started tend to be
military strategists. They're the ones who usually get these
ideas first. Another important branch of science is
medicine. People in both these branches have to think deeper
than people in general.
For example, people in ships out at sea got it into their
heads that they'd like to see the ships approaching them
from a distance. "How can we see them? How can we get their
image to appear in our ship?" They worked on this idea until
they succeeded. First they started out really simple-minded,
just like us. Simple-minded in what way? They thought like a
mirror, that's all, nothing special. They put a mirror up
high on a mast and then had a series of mirrors pick up the
image in the first mirror and send it on down into the ship.
They didn't have to look in the first mirror. They could
look at a little tiny mirror down in the ship and see ships
approaching from far away. That's all they used in the
beginning. After a while they made a single mirror in waves.
When an image hit the top wave, the next wave picked it up
and sent it on down the waves of the mirror into the ship.
They kept thinking about this until now, no more: They have
radar, a tiny little box that doesn't use a series of
mirrors, and doesn't use a mirror in waves, but can still
pull the image of a faraway ship and make it appear in your
ship. This is how knowledge develops to a high level in the
sciences.
As for medicine, doctors these days are researching into
how they can keep people from dying. Lots of people are
doing the research, but no one has found the solution. No
matter how much research they do, people are still dying.
They haven't succeeded in making people live longer than
their ordinary span. This is another branch of knowledge
that comes from thinking, and not from textbooks.
And there's still another branch that's moving even
further out, but how far they'll get is hard to say. These
are the people who want to go and live on Mars. It must be
really nice up there. But the chances of their succeeding
are small. Why are they small? Because the people aren't
really sincere. And why aren't they sincere? Because they're
still unsure and uncertain. The idea isn't really clear in
their heads. This uncertainty is what gets in the way of
success.
So this is the second level of worldly knowledge, the
level that comes from thinking and ideas, or
cintamaya-panna.
But in the final analysis, neither of these two levels of
knowledge can take us beyond suffering and stress. They're
the type of knowledge that creates bad kamma about 70
percent of the time. Only 30 percent of the time do they
actually benefit the human race. Why only 30 percent? If
another war gets started: total disaster. The kinds of
knowledge that are really useful, that give convenience to
human transportation and communication, are few and far
between. For the most part, worldly knowledge is aimed at
massive killing, at amassing power and influence. That's why
it doesn't lead beyond suffering and stress, doesn't lead
beyond birth, aging, illness, and death.
Take, for instance, the countries at present that are
clever in building all kinds of weapons. They sell their
weapons to other countries, and sometimes those other
countries use the weapons to kill people in the countries
that built them. There are countries that can't build their
own weapons, yet they declare war on the countries who gave
them military aid. That's about as far as the results of
worldly knowledge can take you.
This is why the Buddha taught us a higher level of
knowledge: Dhamma knowledge. Dhamma knowledge arises in two
ways, through thinking and through not thinking. The first
level of thinking is called appropriate attention (yoniso
manasikara). When we hear the Dhamma, we have to use
appropriate attention to consider things before we're asked
to believe them. For instance, suppose we want to make
merit. We simply hear the word "merit" and we want some, but
usually without stopping to think about what sorts of things
are appropriate to give as donations, and what sorts of
people are appropriate to receive our meritorious offerings.
We have to consider things carefully: consider yourself,
then consider the object you want to give, and then consider
the recipient of the object, to see if all these things go
together. Even if they don't, you can still go ahead and
give the object, of course, but it's best that you know what
you're doing, that you're not acting out of delusion, not
simply acting out of desire. If you want merit and simply
act without giving appropriate attention to things, you're
lacking the kind of discernment that comes from thinking,
cintamaya-panna. You have to reflect on things on many
levels if you want your act of merit-making to lead to
purity. This is called doing good based on discernment. This
is what's meant by kusala dhamma, the quality of
skillfulness. This is a name for discernment, but usually we
don't translate that way in Thai. We usually think of
kusala as just another word for merit. Actually,
kusala can be a noun, and it can also be an adjective.
As a noun, it means the demeanor by which a person acts in
good ways, in body, speech, and mind. As an adjective, it
refers to this and that kind of act that leads to this and
that kind of purity. When we apply it to discernment, it
means kusalopaya, a skillful strategy. When we do
anything at all, we have to use our discernment to consider
things from every angle before we act, so that our actions
will give complete results. This is called having a skillful
strategy for giving rise to goodness within ourselves in
full purity.
This is why the Buddha taught us to start out by using
appropriate attention in considering things over and over,
around and around many times. Only then -- when things are
really clear in the mind -- should we act. It's the nature
of things that the more you walk back and forth on a path,
the more smooth it gets worn. When the path gets worn really
smooth, you can see the door at the far end. If you walk
back and forth many times, the grass and weeds on the path
all die. And knowledge arises: you learn which plants
growing on the side of the path can be eaten and which ones
can't. As the path gets worn more and more smooth, you gain
all sorts of benefits. One, it doesn't hurt your feet to
walk on it. Two, you learn what's growing along the side of
the path, which plants can be eaten, and what uses there are
for the plants that can't. You might be able to make them
into compost. As for the plants that can be eaten, if
there's more than enough for you to eat, you can take what's
left and sell it on the market. These are called side
benefits. In addition, when you're in a hurry, you can run
easily along the path. If you need to rest, it doesn't hurt
to sit on it. If you're sleepy, and the path is really
smooth, you can lie right down on it. If a snake or an enemy
crosses your path, you can run quickly in the other
direction. So there are all sorts of good benefits. In the
same way, when we plan to make merit or do anything
skillfully, we should think things over, back and forth,
many, many times before acting, and we'll get good results.
This is the first level of thinking, called
cintamaya-panna.
The next level goes deeper. It's called directed thought
(vitakka) and evaluation (vicara). This level
isn't said to be a part of cintamaya-panna, but it's
a similar sort of thing, only with a difference. That's why
it has to be given another name: bhavanamaya-panna,
the discernment that comes with meditation. When you
meditate, you have to think. If you don't think, you can't
meditate, because thinking forms a necessary part of
meditation. Take jhana, for instance. Use your powers
of directed thought to bring the mind to the object, and
your powers of evaluation to be discriminating in your
choice of an object. Examine the object of your meditation
until you see that it's just right for you. You can choose
slow breathing, fast breathing, short breathing, long
breathing, narrow breathing, broad breathing, hot, cool or
warm breathing; a breath that goes only as far as the nose,
a breath that goes only as far as the base of the throat, a
breath that goes all the way down to the heart. When you've
found an object that suits your taste, catch hold of it and
make the mind one, focused on a single object. Once you've
done this, evaluate your object. Direct your thoughts to
making it stand out. Don't let the mind leave the object.
Don't let the object leave the mind. Tell yourself that it's
like eating: Put the food in line with your mouth, put your
mouth in line with the food. Don't miss. If you miss, and go
sticking the food in your ear, under your chin, in your eye,
or on your forehead, you'll never get anywhere in your
eating.
So it is with your meditation. Sometimes the `one' object
of your mind takes a sudden sharp turn into the past, back
hundreds of years. Sometimes it takes off into the future,
and comes back with all sorts of things to clutter your
mind. This is like taking your food, sticking it up over
your head, and letting it fall down behind you -- the dogs
are sure to get it; or like bringing the food to your mouth
and then tossing it out in front of you. When you find this
happening, it's a sign that your mind hasn't been made snug
with its object. Your powers of directed thought aren't firm
enough. You have to bring the mind to the object and then
keep after it to make sure it stays put. Like eating: Make
sure the food is in line with the mouth and stick it right
in. This is directed thought: The food is in line with the
mouth, the mouth is in line with the food. You're sure it's
food, and you know what kind it is -- main course or
dessert, coarse or refined.
Once you know what's what, and it's in your mouth, chew
it right up. This is evaluation: examining, reviewing your
meditation. Sometimes this comes under threshold
concentration: examining a coarse object to make it more and
more refined. If you find that the breath is long, examine
long breathing. If it's short, examine short breathing. If
it's slow, examine slow breathing -- to see if the mind will
stay with that kind of breathing, to see if that kind of
breathing will stay with the mind, to see whether or not the
breath is smooth and unhindered. This is evaluation.
When the mind gives rise to directed thought and
evaluation, you have both concentration and discernment.
Directed thought and singleness of preoccupation (ekaggatarammana)
fall under the heading of concentration; evaluation, under
the heading of discernment. When you have both concentration
and discernment, the mind is still and knowledge can arise.
If there's too much evaluation, though, it can destroy your
stillness of mind. If there's too much stillness, it can
snuff out thought. You have to watch over the stillness of
your mind to make sure you have things in the right
proportions. If you don't have a sense of `just right,'
you're in for trouble. If the mind is too still, your
progress will be slow. If you think too much, it'll run away
with your concentration.
So observe things carefully. Again, it's like eating. If
you go shoveling food into your mouth, you might end up
choking to death. You have to ask yourself: Is it good for
me? Can I handle it? Are my teeth strong enough? Some people
have nothing but empty gums, and yet they want to eat sugar
cane: It's not normal. Some people, even though their teeth
are aching and falling out, still want to eat crunchy foods.
So it is with the mind: As soon as it's just a little bit
still, we want to see this, know that -- we want to take on
more than we can handle. You first have to make sure that
your concentration is solidly based, that your discernment
and concentration are properly balanced. This point is very
important. Your powers of evaluation have to be ripe, your
directed thought firm.
Say you have a water buffalo, tie it to a stake, and
pound the stake deep into the ground. If your buffalo is
strong, it just might walk or run away with the stake, and
then it's all over the place. You have to know your
buffalo's strength. If it's really strong, pound the stake
so that it's firmly in the ground and keep watch over it. In
other words, if you find that the obsessiveness of your
thinking is getting out of hand, going beyond the bounds of
mental stillness, fix the mind in place and make it extra
still -- but not so still that you lose track of things. If
the mind is too quiet, it's like being in a daze. You don't
know what's going on at all. Everything is dark, blotted
out. Or else you have good and bad spells, sinking out of
sight and then popping up again. This is concentration
without directed thought or evaluation, with no sense of
judgment: Wrong Concentration.
So you have to be observant. Use your judgment -- but
don't let the mind get carried away by its thoughts. Your
thinking is something separate. The mind stays with the
meditation object. Wherever your thoughts may go spinning,
your mind is still firmly based -- like holding onto a post
and spinning around and around. You can keep on spinning,
and yet it doesn't wear you out. But if you let go of the
post and spin around three times, you get dizzy and -- Bang!
-- fall flat on your face. So it is with the mind: If it
stays with the singleness of its preoccupation, it can keep
thinking and not get tired, not get harmed. Your thinking is
cintamaya-panna; your stillness, bhavanamaya-panna:
they're right there together. This is the strategy of
skillfulness, discernment on the level of concentration
practice. Thinking and stillness keep staying together like
this. When we practice generosity, it comes under the level
of appropriate attention; when we practice virtue, it comes
under the level of appropriate attention; and when we
practice concentration, we don't lose a beat -- it comes
under the same sort of principle, only more advanced:
directed thought and evaluation. When you have directed
thought and evaluation in charge of the mind, then the more
you think, the more solid and sure the mind gets. The more
you sit and meditate, the more you think. The mind becomes
more and more firm until all the Hindrances (nivarana)
fall away. The mind no longer goes looking for concepts. Now
it can give rise to knowledge.
The knowledge here isn't ordinary knowledge. It washes
away your old knowledge. You don't want the knowledge that
comes from ordinary thinking and reasoning: Let go of it.
You don't want the knowledge that comes from directed
thought and evaluation: Stop. Make the mind quiet. Still.
When the mind is still and unhindered, this is the essence
of all that's meritorious and skillful. When your mind is on
this level, it isn't attached to any concepts at all. All
the concepts you've known -- dealing with the world or the
Dhamma, however many or few -- are washed away. Only when
they're washed away can new knowledge arise.
This is why we're taught not to hold onto concepts -- all
the labels and names we have for things. You have to let
yourself be poor. It's when people are poor that they become
ingenious and resourceful. If you don't let yourself be
poor, you'll never gain discernment. In other words, you
don't have to be afraid of being stupid or of missing out on
things. You don't have to be afraid that you've hit a dead
end. You don't want any of the insights you've gained from
listening to others or from reading books, because they're
concepts, and therefore inconstant. You don't want any of
the insights you've gained by reasoning and thinking,
because they're concepts, and therefore not-self. Let all
these insights disappear, leaving just the mind, firmly
intent, leaning neither to the left, toward self-torment or
displeasure; nor to the right, toward sensual indulgence or
being pleased. Keep the mind still, quiet, neutral,
impassive -- set tall. And there you are: Right
Concentration.
When Right Concentration arises in the mind, it has a
shadow. When you can catch sight of the shadow appearing,
that's vipassana: insight meditation. Vipassana-nana
is the first branch of knowledge and skill in the Buddha's
teaching. The second branch is iddhividhi, the
power of mind over matter. The third is manomayiddhi,
the power of mind-made images. The fourth is
dibba-cakkhu, clairvoyance. The fifth is
dibba-sota, clairaudience. The sixth is
cetopariya-nana, the ability to read minds. The
seventh is pubbenivasanussati-nana, knowledge
of previous lifetimes. And the eighth, asavakkhaya-nana,
knowledge of the ending of mental fermentations. All eight
of these branches are forms of knowledge and skill that
arise from concentration. People without concentration can't
gain them: that's an absolute guarantee. No matter how smart
or clever they may be, they can't gain these forms of
knowledge. They have to fall under the power of ignorance.
These eight branches of knowledge come from Right
Concentration. When they arise they're not called
thoughts or ideas. They're called Right Views. What looks
wrong to you is really wrong. What looks right is really
right. If what looks right is really wrong, that's Wrong
View. If what looks wrong is really right, again -- Wrong
View. With Right View, though, right looks right and wrong
looks wrong.
To put it in terms of cause and effect, you see the four
Noble Truths. You see stress (dukkha), and it really
is stressful. You see the cause of stress arising, and that
it's really causing stress. These are Noble Truths:
absolutely, undeniably, indisputably true. You see that
stress has a cause. Once the cause arises, there has to be
stress. As for the way to the disbanding of stress, you see
that the path you're following will, without a doubt, lead
to Liberation. Whether or not you go all the way, what you
see is correct. This is Right View. And as for the
disbanding of stress, you see that there really is such a
thing. You see that as long as you're on the path, stress
does in fact fall away. When you come to realize the truth
of these things in your heart, that's vipassana-nana.
To put it even more simply: You see that all things,
inside as well as out, are undependable. The body is
undependable, aging is undependable, death is undependable.
They're slippery characters, constantly changing on you. To
see this is to see inconstancy. Don't let yourself be
pleased by inconstancy. Don't let yourself be upset. Keep
the mind neutral, on an even keel. That's what's meant by
vipassana.
Sometimes inconstancy makes us happy, sometimes it makes
us sad. Say we hear that a person we don't like is going to
be demoted, or is sick or dying. It makes us gleeful, and we
can't wait for him or her to die. His body is impermanent,
his life is uncertain -- it can change -- but we're glad.
That's a defilement. Say we hear that a son or daughter has
become wealthy, influential, and famous, and we become
happy. Again, our mind has strayed from the noble path. It's
not firmly in Right Concentration. We have to make the mind
neutral: not thrilled over things, not upset over things,
not thrilled when our plans succeed, not upset when they
don't. When we can make the mind neutral like this, that's
the neutrality of Right View. We see what's wrong, what's
right, and try to steer the mind away from the wrong and
toward the right. This is called Right Resolve, part of
vipassana-nana.
The same holds true with stress, whether it's our stress
and pain, or somebody else's. Say we hear that an enemy is
suffering. `Glad to hear it,' we think. `Hope they hurry up
and die.' The heart has tilted. Say we hear that a friend
has become wealthy, and we become happy; or a son or
daughter is ill, and we become sad. Our mind has fallen in
with suffering and stress. Why? Because we don't have any
knowledge. We're unskilled. The mind isn't centered. In
other words, it's not in Right Concentration. We have to
look after the mind. Don't let it fall in with stress.
Whatever suffers, let it suffer, but don't let the mind
suffer with it. The people in the world may be pained, but
the mind isn't pained along with them. Pain may arise in the
body, but the mind isn't pained along with it. Let the body
go ahead and suffer, but the mind doesn't suffer. Keep the
mind neutral. Don't be pleased by pleasure, either --
pleasure is a form of stress, you know. How so? It can
change. It can rise and fall. It can be high and low. It
can't last. That's stress. Pain is also stress:
double stress. When you gain this sort of insight into
stress -- when you really see stress -- vipassana
has arisen in the mind.
As for anatta, not-self: Once we've examined
things and seen them for what they really are, we don't make
claims, we don't display influence, we don't try to show
that we have the right or the power to bring things that are
not-self under our control. No matter how hard we try, we
can't prevent birth, aging, illness and death. If the body
is going to be old, let it be old. If it's going to hurt,
let it hurt. If it has to die, let it die. Don't be pleased
by death, either your own or that of others. Don't be upset
by death, your own or that of others. Keep the mind neutral.
Unruffled. Unfazed. This is sankharupekkha-nana:
letting sankharas -- all things fashioned and
fabricated -- follow their own inherent nature. The mind
like this is in vipassana.
This is the first branch of knowledge -- vipassana
-- in brief: You see that all things fashioned are
inconstant, stressful, and not-self. You can disentangle
them from your grasp. You can let go. This is where it gets
good. How so? You don't have to wear yourself out, lugging
sankharas around.
To be attached means to carry a load, and there are five
heaps (khandhas) we carry:
rupupadanakkhandho: physical phenomena are the
first load;
vedanupadanakkhandho: feelings that we're
attached to are another;
sannupadanakkhandho: the concepts and labels
that we claim are ours are a pole for carrying a load on
our shoulder;
sankharupadanakkhandho: the mental fashionings
that we hang onto and think are ours;
vinnanupadanakkhandho: our attachment to sensory
consciousness.
Go ahead: Carry them around. Hang one load from your left
leg and one from your right. Put one on your left shoulder
and one on your right. Put the last load on your head. And
now: Carry them wherever you go -- clumsy, encumbered, and
comical.
bhara have pancakkhandha
Go ahead and carry them. The five khandhas are a
heavy load,
bharaharo ca puggalo
and as individuals we burden ourselves with them.
bharadanam dukkham loke
Carry them everywhere you go, and you waste your time
suffering in the world.
The Buddha taught that whoever lacks discernment, whoever
is unskilled, whoever doesn't practice concentration leading
to liberating insight, will have to be burdened with stress,
will always be loaded down. It's pathetic. It's a shame.
They'll never get away. When they're loaded down like this,
it's really pathetic. Their legs are burdened, their
shoulders burdened -- and where are they going? Three steps
forward and two steps back. Soon they'll get discouraged,
and then after a while they'll pick themselves up and get
going again.
Now, when we see inconstancy -- that all things
fashioned, whether within us or without, are undependable;
when we see that they're stressful; when we see that they're
not our self, that they simply whirl around in and of
themselves: When we gain these insights, we can put down our
burdens, i.e., let go of our attachments. We can put down
the past -- i.e., stop dwelling in it. We can let go of the
future -- i.e., stop yearning for it. We can let go of the
present -- i.e., stop claiming it as the self. Once these
three big baskets have fallen from our shoulders, we can
walk with a light step. We can even dance. We're beautiful.
Wherever we go, people will be glad to know us. Why? Because
we're not encumbered. Whatever we do, we can do with ease.
We can walk, run, dance and sing -- all with a light heart.
We're Buddhism's beauty, a sight for sore eyes, graceful
wherever we go. No longer burdened, no longer encumbered, we
can be at our ease. This is vipassana-ñana: the first
branch of knowledge.
So. Now that we've cleared away these splinters and
thorns so that everything is level and smooth, we can relax.
And now we're ready for the knowledge that we can use as a
weapon. What's the knowledge we use as a weapon?
Iddhividhi. We can display powers in one way or another,
and give rise to miraculous things by way of the body, by
way of speech, or by way of the mind. We have powers that we
can use in doing the work of the religion. That's called
iddhividhi. But in the Canon they describe it as
different kinds of walking: walking through the water
without getting wet, walking through fire without getting
hot, staying out in the rain without getting chilled,
staying out in the wind without getting cold, resilient
enough to withstand wind, rain, and sun. If you're young,
you can make yourself old; if old, you can make yourself
young. If you're tall, you can make yourself short; if
short, you can make yourself tall. You can change your body
in all kinds of ways.
This is why the Buddha was able to teach all kinds of
people. If he was teaching old people, he'd make his body
look old. Old people talking with old people can have a good
time, because there's no distrust or suspicion. If he met up
with pretty young women, he could make himself look young.
He'd enjoy talking with them, they'd enjoy talking with him
and not get bored. This is why the Dhamma he taught appealed
to all classes of people. He could adapt his body to fit
with whatever type of society he found himself in. For
instance, if he met up with children, he'd talk about the
affairs of children, act in a childlike way. If he met up
with old people, he'd talk about the affairs of old people.
If he met up with young men and women, he'd talk about the
affairs of young men and women. They'd all enjoy listening
to what he had to say, develop a sense of faith, become
Buddhists, and even ordain. This is called iddhividhi.
Next is manomayiddhi, power in the area of the
mind. The mind acquires power. What kind of power? You can
go wherever you want. If you want to go sightseeing in hell,
you can. If you want to get away from human beings, you can
go sightseeing in hell. It's nice and relaxing. You can play
with the denizens of hell, fool around with the denizens of
hell. Any of them who have only a little bad kamma can come
up and chat with you, to send word back to their relatives.
Once you get back from touring around hell you can tell the
relatives to make merit in the dead person's name.
Or, if you want, you can travel in the world of common
animals and chat with mynah birds, owls -- any kind of bird
-- or with four-footed animals, two-footed animals. You can
go into the forests, into the wilds, and converse with the
animals there. It's a lot of fun, not like talking with
people. Talking with people is hard; talking with animals is
easy. You don't have to say a lot, simply think in the mind:
tell them stories, ask them questions, like, "Now that
you're an animal, what do you eat? Do you get enough to stay
full and content?" You find that you have a lot of
companions there, people who used to be your friends and
relatives.
Or, if you want, you can travel in the world of the
hungry shades. The world of the hungry shades is even more
fun. Hungry shades come in all different shapes and sizes --
really entertaining, the hungry shades. Some of them have
heads as big as large water jars, but their mouths are just
like the eye of a needle: that's all, no bigger than the eye
of a needle! Some of them have legs six yards long, but
hands only half a foot. They're amazing to watch, just like
a cartoon. Some of them have lower lips with no upper lips,
some of them are missing their lips altogether, with their
teeth exposed all the time. There are all kinds of hungry
shades. Some of them have big, bulging eyes, the size of
coconuts, others have fingernails as long as palm leaves.
You really ought to see them. Some of them are so fat they
can't move, others so thin that they're nothing but bones.
And sometimes the different groups get into battles, biting
each other, hitting each other. That's the hungry shades for
you. Really entertaining.
This is called manomayiddhi. When the mind is
firmly established, you can go see these things. Or you can
go to the land of the nagas, the different lands on the
human level -- sometimes, when you get tired of human
beings, you can go visit the heavens: the heaven of the Four
Great Kings, the heaven of the Guardians of the Hours, the
Thirty-three gods, all the way up there to the Brahma
worlds. The mind can go without any problem. This is called
manomayiddhi. It's a lot of fun. Your defilements are
gone, your work is done, you've got enough rice to eat and
money to spend, so you can go traveling to see the sights
and soak up the breezes. That's manomayiddhi.
Dibba-cakkhu: clairvoyance. You gain eyes on two
levels. The outer level is called the mansa-cakkhu,
the eye of the flesh, which enables you to look at human
beings in the world, devas in the world. The eye of
discernment allows you to examine the defilements of human
beings: those with coarse defilements, those with thick
defilements, those with faith in the Buddha's teachings,
those with none, those who have the potential to be taught,
those with no potential at all. You can consider them with
your internal discernment. This is called pañña-cakkhu,
the eye of discernment. In this way you have eyes on two
levels.
Most of us have eyes on only one level, the eye of the
flesh, while the inner eye doesn't arise. And how could it
arise? You don't wash the sleep out of your eyes. What are
the bits of sleep in your eyes? Sensual desire, an enormous
hunk. Ill will, another big hunk. Sloth and torpor, a hunk
the size of a hammer head. Your mind calms down and begins
to grow still, but this hunk of sleep in your eyes is so
heavy it makes you nod. This is called sloth and torpor. All
you can think about is lying down to sleep. Then there's
restlessness and anxiety, another hunk of sleep; and
uncertainty, still another. When these things get stuck in
the heart, how can it possibly be bright? It's dark on all
sides. Now, when you develop your meditation and bring the
mind to stillness, that's called getting the sleep out of
your eyes. Directed thought loosens it up, and evaluation
rinses it out. Once your eyes gets rinsed and washed clean
this way, they can see clearly. The eye of your mind becomes
the eye of discernment. This is called dibba-cakkhu.
Dibba-sota: clairaudience. There are two levels of
ears, as well. The outer ears are the ones made of skin. The
inner ear is the ear of the heart. The ear of the heart
doesn't appear for the same sort of reason: its full of
earwax. You never clean it out. You don't build up any
goodness in the area of the mind. The mind isn't in
concentration. When it's not in concentration, and hears an
attractive sound, it can't stay still. Your ears are full of
wax. You hear people gossiping or cursing each other out,
and you love to hear it. This is a humongous hunk of wax
stuck in your ear. As for the Dhamma, you're not really
interested in listening, which is why there's nothing but
earwax: earwax stuck in your mind, earwax all over
everything outside. This is why your powers of clairaudience
don't arise.
Clairaudience is really refreshing. You don't have to
waste your time listening. If you feel like listening, you
can hear anything. What the hungry shades are talking about,
what common animals are talking about, what the devas are
talking about -- how fantastic it is to be in heaven -- you
can hear it all, unless you don't want to listen. Like a
radio: If it's turned on, you can hear it loud and clear. If
it becomes a nuisance, you don't have to keep it on. If you
have this skill, you can turn it on to listen for the fun of
it; if you don't want to listen, you can turn it off in an
instant. This is called clairaudience, one of the skills of
concentration practice.
Another skill is cetopariya-nana, the ability to
read minds, to see if people are thinking good thoughts or
bad, high, low, crude, evil: you can use this insight to
know. This is called cetopariya-ñana, an important
skill.
Then there's pubbenivasanussati-nana, the ability
to remember previous lives, and asavakkhaya-nana, the
ability to clean out the mind, washing away all the
ignorance, craving, and clinging inside it. You can keep
ignorance from arising in the heart. You can keep craving
from taking charge of the heart. You can make sure that
there's no clinging or attachment. When you can let go of
your defilements -- kama-jaho, when you're not stuck
on sensual objects or sensual desires; ditthi-jaho,
when you're not stuck on views and opinions; avijja-jaho,
when you don't mistake ignorance for knowledge and can let
it go without any attachment -- when you don't latch onto
evil, when you don't latch onto your own goodness, when you
can spit out evil and goodness, without holding onto them as
your own, letting them go in line with their nature: That's
called asavakkhaya-nana, the knowledge of the ending
of the fermentations in the mind. This is the third noble
truth: the truth of cessation, achieved through the
practices that give rise to knowledge and skill.
These are the skills that arise from meditation practice.
They're uparima-vijja, higher learning in the
area of the religion. When you've got them, you can be at
your ease -- at ease if you die, at ease if you don't. You
don't have to build a rocket to go to Mars. You can live
right here in the world, and nothing will be able to harm
you. In other words, you know what things are dangerous,
what things are harmful, and so you leave them alone and
don't touch them. This way you can live in safety and peace.
The heart can stay blooming and bright like this at all
times.
This is why we should be earnest and strict with
ourselves in the practice, so that we can achieve the aims
we all want. Here I've explained the eight knowledges in
brief. If I were to go into detail, there would be lots more
to say. To boil it down:
All these forms of knowledge come from stillness. If
the mind isn't still, they don't arise. At best, if the
mind isn't still, you can gain knowledge only from
listening, reading, or thinking things over. But the
person who can stop thinking, stop pondering, and yet can
still be intelligent: That's something really amazing,
something that goes against the currents of the world.
Normally, people in the world have to study and read,
think and ponder, if they want to be intelligent. But with
the Dhamma, you have to stop thinking, stop writing, stop
memorizing, stop doing, in order to gain the highest level
of knowledge. This is something that goes against the
currents of the world, and that human beings find hard to
do.
But when you become intent in the practice that gives
rise to knowledge, you'll succeed in line with your
aspirations.
Having talked on the theme of vijja-carana-sampanno,
I'll end right here.
Taken from
Access for Insight
Revised: Wed 23 July 1997
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ftp/thai/knowledge.html