How much understanding of daily life as not-me now?




[A. Sujin] Maeve's question about how can one know how much development of right understanding is there, I think that we don't have to ask anyone but daily life is the questioner or the examiner whether we understand that, how much understanding of Dhamma is there because Dhamma is not in the book. No matter what word we're talking [about], like seeing right now, it's now, hearing right now, thinking right now.

So instead of thinking about how much development of understanding is there, it is the moment of whatever appears, and the accumulation of right understanding can have conditions to arise to understand, no expectation at all when. For example right now, we've learned a lot, we've read a lot, but the understanding of reality is different from the understanding from book but now from book we understand theoretically that there's no one, but how can this moment be no self or not me or no one? It depends on conditions because the point, the absolute truth is ariya sacca: nothing at all [there] to be taken for self because at this moment those who have enlightened understand the arising and falling away, not I at all.

So, the point is: how much understanding of daily life can be understood as not me at this moment of seeing, instead of thinking about: [how] many cetasikas arising... and these ones falling away and the other ones following... it's not like that, but it's the understanding of the nature, the characteristic of that which now is experiencing that which appears. So we can understand better and better, actually how [much] fool[ishness] is there, accumulated, not understanding anything naturally from today at all. So, the point is that from hearing there can be the considering of what appears and then... that is pañña which knows that understanding is not the understanding [of] the words about citta and cetasikas because they are now, but it can condition the understanding [of] "no me, no self at all".

So, no matter how much we've learned from the book, if it can bring the understanding [of] the nature of that which is appearing now, it means that it's developing, very little, very gradually because one has to be truthful, sacca-parami, to know how much understanding of the characteristics of realities as not self, right now. And no regret and we don't have to think about how little or how much, but the understanding is there when there's condition. And at that moment there should be or there would be the understanding of that as not me who begins to understand reality right then as: that which can experience is different from that which cannot experience.