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elcome to meditation class, I am glad to see you.Some of you come here quite early and sit and meditate. It is very encouraging to see people com-ing here to meditate. It shows that you really want to meditate, that you really like, love what you are doing.
I am only here to help you, not really here to teach you.
Only if you really want to learn you learn.
Nobody can really teach you, this is very important thing to understand.
To begin today’s meditation class I would like to begin with a question, a very simple question and the answer also is very simple. But think for a while. What is the biggest burden we are carrying? Just take a few minutes to think about it. It is very important to ask the right question and also it is very impor-tant to live the question. This idea, to live the question it is very important. Only if we live the question will we get a living answer and then we have to live the answer again. Only if we
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live the answer we will find another very deep and meaningful question. And, we live the question again. Living the question is the right way to find the answer. Do you have a question? Are you living a question? Any kind of question, but the question must come out of your life; it must come out from your heart. It must be a living question, not just a theoretical or hypothetical question; it must be something very real.
Those who have real questions and
those who live the question live their life very seriously, very meaningfully, very deeply.
After they have lived the question for a long time, their life will give them the answer.
It is your life that gives you the answer;
you cannot find real answers from books or from somebody else.
They may give you some hints only, but to see the truth of the answer you have to look into your life again.
The truth of the answer does not lie in the sentence;
it lies in your life.
The question again, what is the biggest burden you are car-rying around? Have you asked that question to yourself? If not, just ask it now, what is the biggest burden that I am carrying around? Can you guess?
Right, the biggest burden we are carrying around is ‘I’.
Do you feel that? If you can just let go of that ‘I’ you’ll feel light again. That is the biggest burden! That is why the first thing we learn in meditation is to see that there are only natural phenomena: pure mental and physical phenomena. One nomenon is mental which is very distinct from another phe-nomenon which is physical or material.
The first insight is to see that there are just phenomena, nothing permanent, no being, no entity, no ‘I’, no ego, no per-sonality, just pure phenomena. That brings tremendous relief, it unburdens the mind. This ‘I’ is the creation of the mind, it creates its own burden. The first stage of enlightenment totally eradicates this I-ness, the wrong view of I-ness, sakkæya-di¥¥hi. It does not eradicate greed, this is an important point to notice, and it does not even eradicate anger or competition like pride.
It eradicates the wrong view of ‘I’. Sometimes people say “these people are meditating but they are still very greedy.” Yes, they can still be very greedy, but that greed has no backing of ‘I’. Even though they are greedy they will not go and steal or cheat. They will get what they want properly, in a proper way. I’ll review what I have said last week and continue from there.
Næmarþpænaµ yæthævadassanaµ di¥¥hivisuddhi næma.
~Vsm 587
Næmarþpanaµ is a compound word, næma and rþpa. Næma is a process, not an entity or a being, not permanent. It is not always there. Næma is something that arises. Rþpa also is not a thing.
Rþpa actually is a quality. Please keep this in mind. Whenever we use the word rþpa we are not talking about a thing. We are talk-ing about a quality, like heat, is a quality not a thtalk-ing, cold is not a thing, it is a quality and it is a process. It is something going on and on continuously. It has continuity but it is arising and passing away, arising and passing away. That is why it is called a process.
These two processes, næma and rþpa are distinct, they are not the same. Sometimes I hear about this non duality, saying that there is no such thing as næma or rþpa, both of them are the same. That is not true. They are not the same. They are very distinct. Næma is a kind of consciousness, knowing. Rþpa is just an object with-out this quality of knowing; it doesn’t know. Næma is that quality which knows; rþpa does not know anything, it is just pure mate-rial quality. They are two different things, matemate-rial and mental.
In the meditation practice, the mind becomes very quiet and still although sometimes a few thoughts might come and go, the mind stays on the object for a long time. It begins to focus on one thing; it does not put things together. This not putting anything together is very important.
When we put things together we get a concept, we get paññatti. When we don’t put things together,
when we see something purely as it is;
then we are really seeing the quality, either næma or rþpa.
When the mind becomes so still and sees pure quality, we can see that this is just pure quality, not a being, not a man, not a woman. This is the first insight, it is very important. Unless we can get to this first insight, there is not hope of any progress. We come to see that there is this consciousness which is aware of this object. For example, this sound, when I make a sound, this sound is pure physical quality, it is a process. You can hear the ringing going on and on and then it goes away.
Before I make a sound there is no awareness of this sound.
This awareness arises because of this sound. You can see the two very clearly, very separately. And the awareness arises now. It is not already there, to be aware of. It is not waiting to hear the sound. The awareness arises when the sound arises. Before the awareness of the sound there is another awareness, which is also a condition for the next awareness to arise. But they are not the same. We think that there is some sameness all the time, some-thing that is always there. This is the way we create continuity in our mind. Thoughts create continuity and they create this idea of sameness. When we totally stop thinking and become mindful and concentrate and pay attention to whatever is hap-pening right now, we see that something is arising right now. It
was not there before. It is right now.
“Næmarþpænaµ yæthævadassanaµ di¥¥hivisuddhi næma”:
Yæthæva means truly, properly rightly, as it is. Dassanaµ means to see. To see næma and rþpa, mental and physical phenomena as they are, truly, properly, rightly is called di¥¥hivisuddhi. Di¥¥hi means view. Visuddhi means purity or purification. And here the (second) word næma means “it is called.”
When we see this Pæ¹i word Næma, we have to keep in mind that it has many meanings, a different meaning in different con-texts. In some cases, some people translate næma-rþpa as name and form, which is wrong translation. I discussed this with Ven-erable Ñæ¼avisuddhi and it took us two days. We went through many translations. Næma does not mean name. Name is a con-cept. But another meaning of næma is name. And in another case it means ‘it means’. In the beginning of the sentence, næma means mental process. In the same sentence (at the end) næma means ‘it means’.
So to translate this Pæ¹i sentence, it means di¥¥hivisuddhi (purification of view) means seeing as it is, truly, properly, rightly the process of mental and physical phenomena. So næma-rþpa doesn’t mean name and form. Name is a concept. Form and shape is also a concept. They’re not reality.
When we meditate and develop this næma-rþpa-pariccheda-ñæ¼a, it does not mean that we know the name and the form; it means that we see mental and physical process. Wrong transla-tion gives us a very wrong idea, it is very confusing sometimes.
For example we are sitting and meditating and breathing in and
out, at first we are aware of the shape of our body, the shape of our nose, sometimes we even imagine the shape of the air long, like a rope, going in and out. This ‘long’ is something you imagine. Where is the long air going in and out? No long air.
But sometimes it feels like that. Slowly and slowly we overcome all this imagination of shape and name and we come to the pure awareness of sensation, something rushing in, touching, pushing and this touching, pushing is a process, a very simple process.
Even in this simple process, we have wrong view.
To purify this wrong view, we see this simple process without mixing it with anything else.
We see that this is just pure sensation.
And after a while we see that there is this consciousness, which is aware of this sensation. The sensation can be warm, can be cold. When we breathe in, it is a little bit cool, when we breathe out, it is a little bit warm. This warm or cool, pushing, touching,… you become aware of it, we are not thinking about it and we see that there are two very distinct processes going on, and neither of them is a being, an entity, and neither of them lasts a long time. They are arising now and disappearing now.
In the beginning we don’t emphasize on arising and passing away, we emphasize on just pure process. This physical process, this materiality has no volition, it has no intention. For example the hair does not know that it is in the head and the hair does not want to go anywhere; so who wants to go? mind, consciousness.
This materiality has no volition, no intention. Seeing that con-sciousness goes to the object and it reaches the object. We want to hear, we pay attention, and this paying attention is a quality of næma, taking the object knowing the object. There is some-thing which does not know anysome-thing, which is physical process and there is another process which knows the object. The two are very different. Næma arises because of the object. Without any object there cannot be any consciousness. The conscious-ness is not already there.
For example when I touch like this, the sound does not come out of this stick, it does not come out from the bell even.
This means that the sound is not already there. Depending on how hard I hit, the quality of the sound will be different; it is not already there sitting and waiting to come out one after another.
If it is already sitting there waiting to come out, no matter how hard I hit, the same sound will come out. If I change the con-dition the result will be different. So, the sound is not in the stick, it is not in the bell, and it is not waiting there. It happens when the stick hits the bell, which means everything is new. To understand it as something new is very important. It is the same thing with seeing, when there is no awareness, when you keep your eyes shut, you do not see what is in front. The moment you open your eyes, something strikes your eyes and this awareness, this seeing consciousness arises. It arises at this moment; you can see the two different things, the object and the conscious-ness. This is called, næmarþpa-pariccheda-ñæ¼a.
In another case, for example when you want to move, first consciousness arises, the intention to move and then the hand or the leg moves. In the case of the sound, the sound precon-ditions the consciousness, because of the sound, consciousness arises. In the case of moving it is your intention which precondi-tions the movement, physical process conditioning mental proc-ess, and mental process conditioning physical process. It works both ways. When we feel hungry and we want to eat, we take the food and put it in our mouth. But who is eating really? The function of eating it is done by the body, the physical process.
The hand takes the food and puts it in the mouth. If you don’t move the hand and just sit and look at the food and tell the food to go to the mouth, it won’t go.
The mind intends and gives directions, instructions to the body; so the mind intends and the body eats.
Mind and body eating, not ‘I’ eating,
mind and body eating, but we think that I am eating.
In truth it is just mind and body process eating.
If you can understand that as a process then you have this purity of view.
When you want to drink it is the same process. When you want to walk it is the same thing. Like you are standing for a long time and you feel very tired, you legs become very stiff, you want to move, and the intention is coming, ’move, move’, it really pushes the body. You decide to move, lift your leg, move
it forward and place it, so… mind and body moving, not a being moving. That way of seeing is næma-rþpa-pariccheda-ñæ¼a.
In truth there is no being. There is a reality where we see the being as a truth, this is sammuti-sacca (mundane reality).
Don’t mix the two realities. In mundane reality there are beings, there are men, there are women. When we come to paramat-tha, when we meditate we go beyond that, and look into the qualities only. But when we meditate we don’t think about it.
The important point is to try and think before you meditate, but when you sit and meditate don’t think about næma-rþpa anymore. As you become more and more mindful, as your mind stays more and more on the process, it will appear naturally, spontaneously, and the understanding will be there very clearly:
two processes going on.
Understanding or seeing næma-rþpa process properly, rightly means seeing that “This is næma, this is a mental process”, this means that this is not a being. This is mental process. And næma means just this (process). It does not mix with physical process, no mixing and no adding. Normally we mix all things together and we have a vague idea about things. But here we come to a very clear cut seeing: this is næma, just næma and it does not mix with rþpa. Although they are interrelated they are not the same, they are two distinct processes. There is nothing more than this. Næma is just this næma. It’s not more than that, and seeing, “This is rþpa, physical”: heat, cold, movement, pressure, heaviness, anything, these are just physical process. This much is physical, not more than this. It has a limit to it. This much is
physical. It doesn’t mix with mental, although it is also related with mental process. ‘No more than that’.
‘Just seeing the inherent quality of nature’, many different qualities; just seeing the different qualities of nature. Clean the impurity of seeing the process as something, ego or ‘I’ and to remove it. So remove the impurity of the wrong view of ‘I’, or the wrong view of soul, of being of entity. Removing this wrong view of belief in a soul should be understood as di¥¥hi-visuddhi.
When a person reaches this insight, næma-rþpa-pariccheda-ñæ¼a, this state of insight is purity of view (di¥¥hivisuddhi). That comes with the first insight.
The second insight is Paccaya-pariggaha-ñæ¼a. Paccaya means cause, and pariggaha means grasping, understanding.
Ñæ¼a means understanding. This English word grasping has many meanings. One of them is to grasp something in your hand, to take it very firmly, but it also means understanding.
So, grasping the cause of the phenomena, seeing, understanding the cause of the phenomena, they are related. First we see the object as object and the consciousness as just consciousness and then slowly when this insight becomes mature, without thinking about it, the meditator starts seeing that because of this object, consciousness arises.
This object is the cause of this consciousness. The con-sciousness does not arise by itself; nobody is creating it. It is not arising just without any reason; it is arising because it has a cause to arise. Depending on the person’s intellectual deve-lopment or knowledge, different people see different aspects of
causes and some people see more, some people see less but it does not matter. The thing that does matter is that no matter what arises you see that it has a cause. For example, taking the sound again, the consciousness of the sound arises because of the sound which is quite obvious. But we may think that every-body knows that, why do we need to go and meditate? We don’t need to meditate to find that out. We know it intellectually, but it is quite different.
Intellectual understanding does not remove this strong believe in self.
We think that we hear the sound, “I hear the sound”.
But in meditation this ‘I’ disappears.
You see that this consciousness arises just now because of this sound, no ‘I’ hearing. Sometimes you come to the understanding that because of the ear, there is hearing; hearing is a conscious-ness. Sound and ear, the ear drum which is the sensitive part of the ear, is the cause of hearing. If you go on meditating for a long time, you come to understand that, “only when I pay attention, I hear the sound”; I am using the word ‘I’ in a conventional sense.
Sometimes there is a lot of noise going on around, people talking etc., but if we don’t pay attention we don’t hear.