Understanding the truth, not like the world which appears to ignorance

1m

Nina: I found the last time the explanations of what is nama very helpful because I always find it difficult to find to understand the difference between nama and rupa and Ajahn warn us not to get lost in stories but understands what appears at this moment I cannot hear that enough what appears and in a talk long ago by Ajahn, she explained about appearing people and things do not appear we think of people or flowers but do not pay attention to what appears through the eyes and can be seen. Thinking of people and stories is not right understanding of the characteristic of the reality that appears through eyes. Now, I find this very interesting. Today Ajahn stresses more and more it has to be known as no one nothing otherwise there is not the clear comprehension of the nature which appears as non-self and this is the beginning of direct understanding of what we have studied for so long, Ajahn says, and from intellectual understanding to the moment of the direct experience of the object which is the object of awareness, little by little. And then Ajahn said that there is ignorance and attachment which covers the object. Attachment is there to the other objects which follow so rapidly as something permanent and I think it is helpful if Ajahn could elaborate a little more on this. I think maybe she means the sampaticchana and santirana citta and the bhavanga cittas are following and I like to hear a little more on that.

A. Sujin: Can sampaticchana and santirana appear now? No. So we can understand the rapidity of the arising and falling away of realities. We usually say "everything arises a falls away in split seconds" but it has to be this moment, because from understanding the processes of what experiences through different doorways, like seeing now, how fast it is, because that characteristic which is seen cannot be anything at all. Isn't cakkhu pasada so very tiny? The cakkhu pasada, isn't it so very tiny? With space in between, how small it is. So that which can impinge on it has to be very small and very tiny too. So it just cannot be the table or the flower or the chair impinging on the eye-base, but that with it, [with] the hardness and softness, which can be seen, is there, which impinged on the eye base and which conditioned the process of experiencing that which appears now. Just imagine when it's there as it is, how very very tiny it is, it cannot be taken for table or chair at all, right?

N: That is a good reminder, that it is very very tiny.

S: And when it appears, not through the eye-door process but through the mind-door, it's not the exact moment of seeing because it's not the eye-sense door but after that how rapidly it succeeds, from that moment of seeing, carried on to sampaticchana, santirana, and on and on, and bhavanga in between, and then thinking, and then experiencing. That is the truth of reality, that covers up the truth of a reality, no matter nama or rupa. Even right now at moment of touching now, there must be the reality which experiences softness or hardness, but we think it's quite big enough, but actually it's very small, [that] which touches the body sense. We have to understand how small the body sense is, so when reality appears through one doorway, it's not as we usually take it for something at all. By then it can eliminate the idea of self little by little. But not keen enough yet, as when it's developed more, to be [taruna] vipassanañana and higher vipassanañana, very naturally.

And that is the meaning of the subtlety, the profundity of what the Buddha talked about reality: all dhammas are so very subtle, very profound, very difficult to understand. But it can be understood when there is more understanding from hearing, stage by stage, until knowing or understanding directly. This is the path, the only way. Not going somewhere, or just thinking about, but reality now: it can be directly experienced. But not without understanding, when there is no hearing about the truth of it. And after that, it depends on conditions, is it enough for direct awareness and understanding of that? It begins to develop, little by little, but it's not like as when we take it for people and things at all. So very little, and what about just a moment, when we talk about - a moment, so many things now are seen, but in truth just one moment of seeing cannot be anything like we used to take it when there is seeing. Can that be object of studying, considering wisely, to understand the truth, that it's not like the world which appears to ignorance at all? Otherwise how can we understand what's meant by vipassanañana, or bhavana, or intellectual understanding and the development of understanding? Until the object appears well, just one word in Tipitaka, but it means well, not as something at all, but as it is, one doorway is very fast, very quick. What appears now? Not just one moment, not just one process: many processes, from one moment to another.

And this is the subtlety, the profundity of what the Buddha taught about realities. Is each reality as the Buddha taught, as it is? Very fast, arising and falling away. That which is seen cannot be anything that we used to take it for, like table and things. Otherwise it is not subtle, it's not profound. But even that which appears as hardness it arises and falls away, and how many kalapas? And imagine, how great pañña it is, even it is the early vipassanañana, not the higher ones yet, but it appears as it is, and it means that there are more, not just one vipassanañana, not the first or the second, more than that, before it can really appear clearer and clearer, as it is. Wearing away the clinging to the self or something there, until the anusaya is completely eradicated, never to arise again in samsara.

So, develop understanding of - no one and no thing at all - as soon as it's not as object, it's gone forever, in samsara. What is there now, seeing? Gone completely in samsara, cannot be found anywhere at all. Is it worth to cling to? Because no more, just gone. The present, after it has fallen away it's the past, and that which is future will arise as now. Present, past and future, the truth of whatever's appearing now, no matter what it is, has risen and then fallen away in split seconds. Only understanding begins to see it as - nothing in that as it is - that which is seen can be seen only, and then gone, and the seeing, no more just one moment, and then gone. Everything's gone, right now.