The way to understand reality

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[Maeve] Ajahn, you mention darkness from time to time and that if there is an object that arises other than [that of] seeing... could you say a little bit about it...

[A. Sujin] I think that the world [in which] we live with ignorance is quite different from when pañña penetrates the true nature of reality, for example right now, it seems the world of sights and things in and around oneself, trees and colors, but actually: one moment of experiencing an object and who experiences it? The citta, which is the faculty of experiencing an object is now experiencing it, but we do not have the right understanding of citta itself as it is when there is no awareness. For example, light now, is the object of what? Of seeing itself, of the element which can experience it and that element is not rupa at all. It brings us to beginning to understand what that reality is: no shape no form no light, so it's so dark.

So, in reality when pañña is fully developed, the world is [the] opposite of the world when no pañña [is] arising and experiencing it: there must be moment of darkness because you see that bhavanga is dark, manodvara (mind door) is dark and the moment of experiencing an object through other doorways besides the eye base must be dark.

So at that moment no self, no one at all, only darkness with the quality of its experiencing an object right then, depending on whatever it is. It can be feeling, it can be hardness, it can be thinking, it can be anything, in darkness. So it's not like this world, it's different world, with one object at a time, as different elements. So, it's so natural, the citta is dark, no matter whenever it arises: no shape no form, But the faculty of experiencing is there, So, that object appears, to that citta which experiences it.

[Jonothan] So, if there's only light when there's a moment of seeing and if there's only one moment of consciousness at any given time, then it means that because the seeing moments must be just a small proportion of our... There's more darkness than light.

[A. Sujin] Yeah, I think that we cannot imagine anything when it has not happened yet, so, while we are talking now we shouldn't think about how many millions moment of seeing, so that it continues as non-stop seeing at all, that is only thinking. But the right understanding is seeing the distinction between that which experiences it and the object which one is used to take something out of it: as my friend, my home, my things: actually it's only a moment of appearing as visible object. Whenever citta sees, it sees only that, and then thinking follows, and that's why it comes the word rupa nimitta because only one kalapa or many kalapas are not enough to condition the memory of eyes, ears or people and things.

So we live in the world of ignorance. How much... One knows how much right understanding is there, to see that by getting understanding little by little it can eliminate the idea of things or something or I from realities, that is the only way.

[Jon] And what we take out of visible objects is such a huge...

[A. Sujin]...thinking. So, thinking about reality which is so dark before experiencing any object at all, like bhavanga: no object appears, so no one can experience how dark it is, but when there is a moment of experiencing an object it's time to really understand that the object appears because of the citta.

[Jon] And also because of the sense base, the eye base.

[A. Sujin] No thinking at all, no thinking. The way to understand reality is: a moment of experiencing with understanding about reality which one has learned before, about visible object, about seeing.

[Jon] So this present moment of experiencing the world through the eye door is just one moment of seeing consciousness.

[A. Sujin] We don't have to tell or say one moment, but learn to understand that what we take for people and things in reality is only the reality which can get in touch or contact the eye base and appear. If there is no eye base the reality right now cannot appear at all, just that, only that. But ignorance does not understand that at all. And it takes time to really understand visible object as just a reality.

[Jon] Just to get a glimmer of that at an intellectual level gives us a completely different perspective on things but that glimmer is here for a moment and then gone.

[A. Sujin] That's why we can understand the important part of sañña, Sañña keeps on coming with thinking and everything, except the sañña of dhamma right now. That's why we are now developing sañña of dhamma and the proof is that whether there are conditions for awareness to be aware right now. And then it proves that the sañña is firm enough to condition moments of awareness.

[Sukin] Sometimes it seems as if the habit of controlling enters upon the field of intellectual understanding too.

[A. Sujin] That is the habits, we use the [word] habits: because it's habits :)

[Jon] But I'm still a bit puzzled about sañña and you said a minute ago sañña conditioning moments...

[A. Sujin] For example, one has heard about visible object many many times, so it depends on sañña whether it conditions awareness right now, beginning to understand visible object as just visible object. We live with visible object, but we think of many things. So in reality when we think of moment when there is no object appearing yet, very dark, and then just a flash, very quick appearing of an object through one doorway at a time, no mixture, not together. So, one can see that one lives in darkness with thinking, only thinking because there can be thinking even there is no seeing, no hearing at all. Seeing moment is just like a flash, and hearing sound is like a flash.

All sense doors are like flashes, but thinking keeps everything that it has experienced as something permanent all the time, until pañña discerns its true nature. And one can see that it's not very horrible, when everything is gone completely what is left is darkness, but pañña is there. Otherwise it's I who is so very frightened because of such happening, but when it's pañña it is understanding of the experiencing itself which is dark, it has to be [like] that. So one becomes used to understand the characteristic of citta and nama better, but this has to be applied on and on and on and on and on, until the idea of self is completely eradicated. And one realizes that it's impossible without the higher pañña, or the higher vipassanañana which is clearer and can penetrate better and better because the idea of self is so very deeply rooted. Even there is nothing, only a reality, it's me, it's I, it belongs to me because it's there, nothing else.

Then, by that time we understand the miccha ditthi (wrong view), the clinging as self. even it's just a reality, no matter it's hardness or heat or cold, it's still me or my body, part of my body. It's like now that we think that we have teeth. Only in memory, it does not appear, and in reality all conditioned realities, all rupas, arise and fall away so fast. So, no teeth when there's no moment of experiencing hardness and take it for something, but actually it's just moment of experiencing an object and then gone, completely never [to] come back. So, what do we have in life? Nothing, just a moment of experiencing and then [it] goes away, all the time.

[Maeve] Khun Sujin, can sañña remember the direct experience of a reality as that?

[A. Sujin] Why not?

[Maeve] And then think about it.

[A. Sujin] Sañña arises with each citta and that's why we will hear more about anatta sañña, and anicca (not lasting) sañña. Otherwise now it [would be] only nicca (lasting) sañña and atta sañña, so sañña is different when it accompanies that degree of pañña too.

[Jon] So, just following on from Maeve question, sorry to interrupt you , that means that all the moments of experiencing with understanding plus all the moments of experiencing with wrong view are somehow accumulated in the sañña.

[A. Sujin] Sañña arises and falls away like other realities, but the complexity from moments years ago up till now: we cannot know what's in there in each moment of citta until there are conditions for its arising. So we can see how much we have accumulated, kusala or akusala.

[Maeve] Someone might hear, may have not had anything to do with Abhidhamma and then hears what you are saying and the memory... that can be a condition for the memory of those past experiences, those past direct experiences.

[A. Sujin] It's just the matter of understanding what one's heard, [it] develops on and on, understanding better and better. So, pañña is the understanding [of] reality as it is, perfectly.

When it's lokuttara (above all worlds) it is also understanding the nature of nibbana. It's not that there is something that I experience and I don't know what it is, it's not like that at all. Pañña grows and grows and becomes more detached to different objects, that is the function of pañña, opposite of lobha. That's why one can be one's own refuge by one's own understanding. When there is attachment pañña knows that it's wrong, not that... Yes...

[Sukin] At the moment of lokuttara the experience of nibbana is knowing what it is, right?

[A. Sujin] Why not? Because it must be pañña, lokuttara pañña. And that moment is called lokuttara jhana too, Different from the ordinary jhana or the arammana (object) upanijjhana this is lakkhana upanijjhana because the lakkhana (characteristic) of nibbana appears.