Understanding that there's no understanding of whatever appears

1m

A: Sujin: It is an hindrance, wanting to understand, at the moment of wanting to understand, it hinders instantly. It works its way to hinder the understanding because of the wanting to understand, it's very subtle and quite tricky for lobha to always play, just wanting to understand is not the understanding. So at that moment many people are lured by such thinking, wanting to, and try so hard, even that moment it's accompanied by lobha, the hindrance.

Lukas: How to understand without trying...

S: How, again :)... It depends... Can you do that? If you can, please tell me how. Impossible at all. No way to think of how, otherwise the Buddha wouldn't have said after his enlightenment that he recognized lobha as the builder of samsara, the instructor of samsara. Just leave the thinking about "how?". "How?" is the self, trying so hard.

Even you name it pakatupanissayapaccaya, it's just naming it, is dana pakatupanissayapaccaya, arammanupanissayapaccaya? If you call it at that moment it's not the understanding at all, it's just remembering the word and the understanding of the explanation of that meaning, but not the reality which appears as that which is attached by arammanupanissayapaccaya as condition. At the moment of thinking about "how?", that is arammanupanissayapaccaya as well, the accumulated idea of "how?". So that is the arammanupanissayapaccaya, very deeply. So it's quite deep to really be able to understand reality as not self because there must be the understanding of a reality right now at a time, by conditions, this is the most important thing, the most difficult is by conditions, no "how?" at all.

"How?" means that you're trying to find out by your own thinking, no understanding right now, so what you think is conditioned by attachment, just wanting to. But understanding is not trying to understand or trying to have results, because it has to be understanding that there's no understanding of whatever appears. So what is needed is the words that can condition the development of understanding. For example, we talk about seeing because there is seeing, but at the moment of talking about seeing there is no understanding of seeing. There is seeing, and when we talk about seeing it's not the moment of understanding seeing, but by understanding what seeing is on and on and on, it can condition a little understanding, little by little, from moment to moment, because at those moments, when we talk about seeing, there's no thinking about other things, but as long as there is the talking about seeing and there is the idea of "how?", it's not the understanding of seeing. How deep it is to know each moment as it is. Seeing is not the moment of talking about seeing, right? And if there is the idea of trying, it hinders instantly, because the self is there, just want to try, to do, not to become detached, with understanding.

Attachment, desire, just want to go, wrongly, not to understand reality at that very moment, just want to know, not the understanding itself which develops from moments of understanding, so it's a different way, it's not the way to understand, is the way to get, but you get avijja, ignorance, and attachment, more and more. Only pañña can understand attachment as attachment, only pañña can be wise to attachment, otherwise attachment is wiser than that which does not understand. At that moment there's no understanding.

L: And attachment is not ours, but I don't believe it, because I would like it not to be mine, but it seems like it's my attachment, I'm attached.

S: So you can see that even it's not yours but you take it for yours, what is right?

Jon: The problem is we think the attachment is ours and the understanding is ours, so we want to have less attachment and more understanding.

S: That's why the Buddha taught about citta, cetasika, and rupa in details and the paccayas in details, in order to have the intellectual understanding to be condition for understanding, what one has learned, at moment when it is there, like seeing, there is seeing, and he talked a lot about seeing, to condition the understanding of seeing, not to think of other things and wanting to not understand it, but there are not enough conditions for the understanding of seeing to arise, and that's the way, the point, where the lobha can come in, immediately, immediately all the time. It's compared to the space in between the kalapas, each kalapa, lobha is there.

J: It pervades everything.

S: Right, that's why it's so very difficult to understand that as just not self, no matter lobha or attachment, or understanding. Right now realities just arise by conditions and pass away unknowingly, what is left is only the nimitta, the sign of the succession of the arising and falling away of realities.

But it can be the beginning of developing understanding, because nothing is permanent at all, a moment ago it's gone completely. Otherwise nothing would change, but since it arises and falls away, it changes all the time, from seeing to hearing, changing unknowingly, by conditions. Seeing and hearing, and thinking about what is heard as a wave, sound or something like that. The only one thing to develop is just understanding, only that, leave everything to conditions, otherwise the self tries to be condition, but it's wrong because it's unwholesome reality, attachment, and the idea of self is not right.