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,
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-pañña), and the sort that comes from thinking
things through, or cintamaya-pañña.
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-pañña.
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.
You 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-pañña.
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. Kusala dhamma is a name
for discernment, but we usually don't translate that way in Thai. We 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 leading 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-pañña.
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-pañña,
but it's a similar sort of thing, only with a difference. That's why it has
to be given another name: bhavanamaya-pañña, 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-pañña; your stillness, bhavanamaya-pañña:
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 being displeased; 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-ñana
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-ñana, the
ability to read minds. The seventh is pubbenivasanussati-ñana, knowledge
of previous lifetimes. And the eighth, asavakkhaya-ñana, 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, 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-ñana.
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-ñana.
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-ñana:
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;
saññupadanakkhandho: 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;
viññanupadanakkhandho: 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 centered 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-ñana, 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-ñana, the ability to remember previous
lives, and asavakkhaya-ñana, 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-ñana,
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.
Revised: Wed 16 May 2001
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/knowledge.html