We talk about dhammas because they're now
Transcript by Chanti from 2022-7-09 discussion on Zoom, edited by Alberto.
Chanti: Ajahn Sujin can you help to explore further how - because there is only citta experiencing now - and whether such a moment is right intellectual understanding, whether it is seeing in deva realm; or seeing in a hell realm, or seeing in a human-realm - it is one citta seeing now; one world.
Ajahn Sujin: Because there is seeing, but there is no understanding of seeing as it is, right now, even right now. That's why even while it's there, what is the truth of it? What is seeing? Without the seeing which experiences the object which is seen, can that object appear?
It can be just thinking about the truth - in the beginning. And when there is more understanding, it (paññā) can understand the other reality, little by little too. For example, that which appears must be experienced: when it (the visible object) is seen, the seeing sees it. When it is sound, the hearing hears it. And this is the world: six doorways, moment of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and then thinking through mind door.
That is all, in any lives, this life, other lives... whose life? There are only six objects appearing - and object doesn’t mean only a number, but it means the reality which can be experienced. Otherwise it cannot appear at all without the experiencing which experiences it through six doorways, one at a time. And this is what we take for the whole, the life and everything.
Only six doorways, one by one. Now too, there is seeing, and then minddoor, thinking about that which is seen. There is hearing and minddoor, understanding words, and before that it experiences the sound, and the saññā marks and remembers what is there as what it means and so on. Just through six doorways... what else? From birth… (patisandhi citta)... And there are also moments when the reality arises to experience, but its object is not the object of this world because it is not the object which can be experienced through [any of] the six doorways: at the moment of birth, and bhavangas, and death-moment (cuti citta), that is all in life, no matter what life. Just learn to understand what is meant by doorway, and different ones. Like the moment of seeing: there is nothing else at all, only that which is seen and that which experiences it.
We can talk about other reality which arises - but now what is seeing? We don’t think about phassa, or vedanā… we think about the seeing, to be known as it arises. Otherwise it (citta) cannot see. Just understand the truth of what is there as it is, little by little. For example, we talk about seeing, because seeing is there now. Appearing. Even if we don’t use any word at all, there it is. That which sees. Because it's now seeing.
And at moment of hearing, who knows that at that moment, in truth, there is no seeing anymore? Learn to see the difference between each doorway. For example, when there is no seeing, what is experienced? It is not that which can be seen. Smell cannot be seen. Sound cannot be seen. Hardness cannot be seen. Only one doorway which [can] appear because there is seeing which arises to see. That’s all.
No matter when and where, in what world. Here or there: seeing sees, and what is seeing? It's not that which is seen because it arises to see; which means to know or experience the object, which it experiences, only that, in a moment, in samsara, never to arise again.
Just consider the truth little by little, to see the absolute truth that actually there is no one at all. And the understanding of this develops little by little. And when it is time for a moment (of citta) to be aware directly, with understanding, of that which we've heard a lot - about seeing, about sound, about visible object. So it is there, when the time comes, when there are right conditions for awareness to arise to know it, to understand that which has been heard about. Even [while] hardness it's there, we talk about it, it cannot be seen, but it is there and, by conditions, it is experienced.
Otherwise it is only thinking about hardness, but it's different from the moment when it appears, to the moment when there is a reality experiencing it: the body consciousness (kayaviññana). [It] depends on the body-sense (kaya pasada rūpa) too, all are conditions. Little by little, this is the way that right understanding develops. (Intellectual understanding) [it's not wrong at all] but it is not clear, because one reality only cannot be the object of understanding yet.
For example, we're talking about seeing, but now there are also other things. It seems like they are together, at once, in a moment, but in truth it is not so: this is the moment of developing understanding [of] the truth. And the understanding develops little by little, to have no doubt about the truth of it. Even if it does not appear as just only one [reality] at a time yet.
But when there is more (intellectual) understanding that hearing is not (arising at the same time as) seeing; and that they are quite apart; they cannot arise together at all. It can be the moment [for chanda] to be interested in that object, that it can be object for understanding of its truth, as it is, only one at a time. And that is the beginning of understanding one reality at a time, not all together. Because when they're all together, how can there be clear understanding of only one reality?
That's why even [just] talking about just one reality, one by one, can condition [the] moment of understanding: what is there? Seeing, [and] its object is not self. So later there can be the moment of attending to the characteristic of that which is seen or of that which is heard. Different moments, like now. Little by little, right understanding develops in its own way, no one can make it arise, no one can hurry it up to show up clearly. It all depends on right understanding, which lets go of ignorance (moha) and clinging to that which is there as something or someone, or me.
We talk about them because they're now, to understand them, little by little, different ones, one at a time.