The level of dhamma right now

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(Excerpt from the English-Viet Dhamma discussion with Ajahn Sujin Boriharnwanaket on Zoom (Wed Nov 23rd 2022). Suitable for beginners.)

0.00 - The fragile Truth
[A. Sujin] When you have wrong understanding and wrong idea and you cling to it so much that you speak against the truth, isn't that kamma? Everything needs more careful considering even this: we all have ditthi, how strong it is, or can it listen to the truth carefully and change its idea from wrong to right? Or it just keeps on having such idea, not having any careful considering at all about what is true and what isn't and just destroying the truth by just saying something against the truth, is that not kamma? Any word in the Teachings, when there is careful considering, can be known more and more, very subtle, a little more, until it can be understood clearly, no matter what subject is there to be considered. Isn't there today so much wrong understanding? And it hurts the truth by saying that this is right... the wrong is right and the right is wrong.

It has to be one's own understanding, one's own considering the words of the truth just there and consider it until it can be learned correctly, otherwise it's only following the others' idea and that is not the Buddha's intention or purpose, [which is] to help people to have their own understanding. When there is just one word and there can be more understanding, when there is more considering of the truth, by different aspects. For example, what is meant by the word "a moment"? Many many realities are there to be studied, in a moment.

2:10 - Different levels or degrees of akusala or dhamma
Not just following the words, but what about the characteristic of the reality which that word represents? For example, different degrees of akusala, is it just to know when it's there or to understand the nature of it, so [that] it can be known at what level it is. For example, is there ignorance right now, avijja? Is it enough just to know that avijja does not understand whatever is there? So what? It means that it's there now too, at moment of not understanding what is there as it is. So, what level is it? Would you like to find out its degree or level, but not the reality which itself appears as what level it is? And attachment, in a day, it's not just simply saying: it's there all the time or almost all the time, but no understanding at any moment of the characteristic of that which is there, what level.

So we are talking about different levels of akusala or dhamma, right? [Yes] So now understanding the level of reality is not from the book, but from considering carefully about it. So just one reality, there can be many moments of considering the truth of it, in many many aspects. For example the level of dhamma is there in Tipitaka, but when it's there... it has its characteristic as is said, of its level, but when it's there to be known. Otherwise all different levels of dhamma are there only in the book, but it's not like that, it's a moment when it's there to be known but what level it is.

4:30 - Levels of ignorance
For example, talking about ignorance, is it there now? What level? All depends on careful studying that it can be known by way of pariyatti or patipatti or pativedha, all degrees. It arises with attachment, but at the moment of being attached, is there any moment of understanding that as just attachment? What level? Even it has been learned from book for a long time, but when it's there, what about [the] level of understanding of it?

That's why no matter how much we learn from the book: citta is the reality which is the chief of experiencing, lobha, and such rupa, and such and such... but it's just a little level of intellectual understanding. When it's well studied, when it's carefully studied, at moment when it's there, right understanding at level of intellectual understanding can condition moments of thinking about it, not as no-one and no-thing yet. And that is so rare in a day, isn't it?

That's the way Dhamma begins to work, to understand the truth after hearing, considering what is there as long as there are conditions to think, otherwise no thought about it, what level is there at all. So, no matter about how much we understand about different degrees, different levels of the realities, but when time comes, when it's there, it depends on the skillful intellectual [understanding], strong enough or not, to condition moments of beginning to think of it or to be aware of it. No matter it's strong or weak, it begins to be object of understanding as: it is a reality. Otherwise, in a day, how can there be more confidence of the truth, little by little? At moment of experiencing it as it appears in a day.

6:57 - No understanding of the moment of not understanding seeing
For example, right now, what is there? What level of the reality right then? If there's no understanding of the reality as: it's no-one and no-thing at all, there cannot be the understanding of what level is there of a reality. So now, is there ignorance? What level?

[Tam B. - T. Tam] I think one cannot say. All levels.

[A. Sujin] But since it does not appear and no understanding of the moment of not understanding seeing at all, what level? Is it gross or is it subtle? So, it cannot be known when it isn't the object of understanding.

The same as pañña, the understanding of the truth, what level? The understanding of how much ignorance is there in life in a moment, in eons and eons, that's only intellectual understanding. That's why can anyone try to know the level of what isn't there anymore? What about when you like something so much, it's so pleasant, experiencing it, is it there? What level?.