Sakkaya-ditthi: what appears is not as it is, what is there is not as it appears

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[A. Sujin] So, can there be clear understanding of the words without any understanding of the truth of what is there? For example, nama or citta or cetasikas, only words. What about the understanding of those words? Clear enough? Or not clear when there's no understanding of the reality which is there, appearing. The word is not forgotten but what about the truth when it's there? Like now, seeing, it's a reality, but what is that which is a reality, which arises and experiences an object now? So the understanding of the word has to go together with understanding what is there too, otherwise it's just only the word, remembered. That's why there can be anyone who just read the Tipitaka but has wrong understanding, like bhavana - meditation.

That's why no expectation at all, just hear again, consider again, have more confidence, a little more, again and again and again, and right understanding develops, so subtly that no one knows until it conditions the right understanding of that object, better than before, and so on.

Even wrong understanding, the sakkaya-ditthi is not known because now at moment of seeing a rose, who knows what is there? But understanding little by little that: it is not a rose which is seen, it's just a reality which can be seen and that has to impinge on the eye-base too, otherwise there could not be that which arises to see it.

So how long will [be before] pañña can penetrate the truth of that which has been realized by those who have attained the ariya sacca? No doubt at all after experiencing the ariya sacca because right understanding develops on and on and lets go of wrong understanding and doubt, little by little, even about the twenty sakkaya-ditthi. And at moment of understanding, no words saying "oh, that is understanding" at all.

So, understanding [that] in life what appears is not as it is until hearing about the truth and considering the truth of it, little by little, to know what is there, which is not as it appears, and that can begin to understand the difference between moment of seeing and moments of thinking and other moments [which] follow.

And it's just right now, what we are talking about, so it's not just the self trying to find out what is exactly one of the twenty sakkaya-ditthi clearly, and so on, but it's time to understand that actually ignorance is there because it cannot understand the truth and from hearing, it's beginning to understand the truth by way of understanding what is there as it is, even [if] it does not appear directly yet. So, just one way of understanding the characteristic of sakkaya-ditthi: [it] can be there, no expectation to understand all of them, but when there is understanding there cannot be any of the twenty sakkaya-ditthi, at the moment of understanding.

So now, is the rupa me, is the seeing me, hearing me? And so forth, can understand by what way there is sakkaya-ditthi, but there is no need to just find out what way it is, what is there as sakkaya-ditthi is enough to understand what sakkaya-ditthi is. Otherwise it's just like trying to understand that, it's so far away when there's no understanding even roughly, generally, about what is there now.

So, "I'm seeing now" it's one of the 20 sakkaya-ditthi, "I am seeing" is also sakkaya-ditthi, and the other way [around], "seeing is me", sakkaya-ditthi, and "seeing belongs to me", there's me and there's seeing, so seeing is mine. But is there any understanding of the truth [of that] which sees, as not self? Not [by] following the ideas of how many sakkaya-ditthi are there. It is different by itself but it's not known, that's all.

A little more understanding about sakkaya-ditthi which will condition less sakkaya-ditthi when there is the understanding of that which now sees. Until it's time [for] "seeing is not me", "I am not seeing", "seeing does not belong to me" and "seeing is not mine".