Beautiful Flame

Seven Classes with Pemasiri Thera

Interpreter: David Young

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa
Contents
Chapter 1 Patiently Endure........................................ 1

Chapter 2 Abhiññās ................................................. 17

Chapter 3 Beautiful Flame ...................................... 25

Chapter 4 Mettā and Karunā ................................... 29

Chapter 5 Manasikāra and Samādhi ........................ 41

Chapter 6 Let it burn ............................................... 51

Chapter 7 Iron & Steel ............................................ 63

 Then Citta Hatthisariputta withdrawing from the crowd and abiding diligent to dispel,
before long, in this very life by himself realizing, attained the noble end of the holy life,
for which sons of clansmen rightfully leave the household and become homeless.

Hatthisariputtasuttaṃ, Aṅguttara Nikāya,1

Chapter 1 Patiently Endure

Pemasiri Thera: We’re going to start this class, and I want to give the reason behind all
this. I only got to know two hours ago, not that we are filming class, but why we are
filming. David arranged for the crew and all the equipment to be set up because he thinks
I am going to die soon! And since I am not going to live long, David wants to catch me
on tape, and keep it for memory sake. Well, with all that is happening, this might be my
karma-nimitta, and I will have to exit! (laughter)

There are many bombs going off these days, and death can come at any time. I was in
deeper threat when living in Colombo than I am here in Kanduboda. I used to live with
the bombs in Colombo. All things considered, yes, death can come at any time to anyone.
One of our leaders of old, Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, talked about the karma-
nimitta and other phenomena that happen before anyone’s death. Numerous people, such
as Mr. Hieragolla, spoke about their deaths before their deaths. Both my father as well as
my teacher Sumathipāla Na Himi announced their departures before their departures. My
father said he would die the following day, and he did die the following day. All these
people talked about their deaths before their deaths. They predicted they would die soon.
It’s all well and good if I die tomorrow. However, if my life goes on for another decade
or so, David won’t be happy.

David: I’ll be happy if you live for a long time.

Primoz, one of our close and dear friends, died all of a sudden without warning. He was
out for a walk with his partner Tamara, and they were talking about dying. As he finished
a story about the death of a Zen monk, he had a heart attack and also died! All of a
sudden, death got hold of him. Tamara said, “Death was fine for Primoz, to go off
without much hassle, but for me it’s a trouble to live on without Primoz.” With that little
bit, we will officially start this class.

We are making this film for free distribution.

That’s why I agreed. What are your questions?

Friends in Canada asked, “What can we do to improve our lives, as well as the world?
We believe in peace. We believe peace to be good.”

1
http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikāya /Anguttara1/1-ekanipata/001-
Cittapariyadanavaggo-e.html
 Patiently Endure

That’s a very good question. A sensible question. However, the answer might be long
because no short answer can satisfy a question like that! Of course, to get the world’s
population to act in this way, so that peace is promoted, would be wonderful.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to do so. Even to get one quarter of the world to go along with
a program of peace is enormously challenging.

The main reason behind this difficulty is that everyone is different in his or her ways of
thinking, and upbringing. Everyone has different ideas on what to do, and how to live.
All of us here, the twenty or thirty of us sitting in class today, are filled with various
notions. So, to get all of us to agree on one specific way of doing anything is really
difficult.

The Buddha promoted peace. And yet, despite understanding the differences between
people, he found it difficult to bring many around to a peaceful way of living. And not
only the Buddha, all the religious leaders who have come along up to now tried to
accomplish this one task, and they didn’t get far. Leaders, such as Christ and Mohammed,
were powerful. These two leaders, and all other religious leaders, seemed to have in large
part failed.

This is the nature of the world. Because of differences, people repeatedly get into
conflicts, and the world is always in turmoil. The world depends on war. It exists because
of conflicts and turmoil. There would be a big problem if everybody is good and kind,
and peaceful. If everything came into equilibrium, if there was a balance where
everybody thought in the same way, the world would cease to exist. The world would
cease to turn. Not revolve. Nothing malicious about what I'm saying. I am not against
peace. No. Fortunately, we can observe the nature of the world and individually try to
change the way we think. We can bring about a change in our lives, and hopefully our
meditation centre will also be peaceful!

We have seen turmoil. Each of us thought it might be possible to do something about it,
and that’s what has brought us together at this meditation centre in robes and lay form.
Look around. All these nuns and monks here today in class have not come because of
poverty. They had good lives. Good food. Good homes and jobs. Even so, they left every
bit of those comfortable lives. Left everything, and came here. Yes, likely none of us
have come to this centre because of poverty. All of us seem to be seeing some bad side to
life. In our minds, the bad effects of the world come and trouble us. Some think there is a
way out, and are searching for that way out. There are others who tend to remain in their
situations, and they live because of those situations.

What brought you to the meditation centre?

I didn't come into this line of life because I wanted nibbāna. No, that was not my
intention at first. And not even with the intention of reaching higher planes. Heavens.
Deva lokas. Brahma loka. I had a brother who used to trouble me so much, and I wanted

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to escape him! (laughter) I used to work for this brother, and toil away. Because of him, I
was running many errands, and doing lots of work. I escaped to the meditation centre.

To your friends, I want to give one answer. In this troubled world, there is not one large
solution to its endless troubles. But because the troubles of the world are there, we might
individually be able to relieve ourselves from the pressures and stresses of the world.
Alone, each one of us must come out through those troubles. It’s along with troubles, and
because of troubles, we come through. Take Venerable Moggallāna, from the Buddha's
time, as an example of a person who had enough troubles, and came through. He had lots
of troubles! Even his death was a brutal one. He was beaten to death. That is a big
trouble. To be beaten to death is not an easy affair.

The world has been bad for a very long time. Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, and he
was an exceptionally good person. The world was violent then and it is violent now.
Many leaders have been killed. JFK. Gandhi. All these people were shot dead or killed in
some way. Our own Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was shot dead.

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

Yes, Prime Minister Bhutto was killed quite recently. The list of leaders who have been
killed is lengthy. The list is endless. And the conclusion is that the world cannot be fixed.
Breaking free from troubles is an individual task. Escape is entirely personal, and the
world has to be left as it is.

Mother Teresa did a lot of excellent work.

Mother Teresa was one of the few leaders who reached a ripe old age, and died
peacefully. Here and there, we find freak exceptions. The religious teachers who have
come about in this world have always found it exceedingly difficult to make much of a
change to the world. Nevertheless, those who earnestly follow religious teachings, in
particular for us here the teachings of the Buddha, do manage to escape the world, and
attain nibbāna. Nibbāna is the highest form of peace. There are certainly many cases of
people following teachings of the Buddha and escaping the troubles of the world.

Peace comes down to fixing ourselves, making a change in our minds, and leaving the
world as it is. We are born alone, and we die alone. And the diseases we contract are
basically endured alone. It is alone we must create the minds that can withstand all these
troubles. We must stop blaming the world, or our parents, or whoever is sitting next to
us! (laughter) The student is not to blame. The teacher is not to blame. Nobody is. The
problem lies at the point where we blame somebody else for all the hardships that we
face. We always say, “Oh, the teacher. He should have been an arahat. We would have
been much better off.”

Now, if we take filming of today’s class as a nuisance, then we have already accepted
trouble. On the other hand, if we don’t hold onto it in that way, we reduce our trouble a
little. While the film crew was setting up its equipment, I told you there are things that

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need to be pushed away and things that need to be endured. And there are other things
that must be pushed away with effort. Filming class, we have to endure, and that's what
I'm doing now. Say I went against you, “David, this is all useless. Why do you have to do
any filming? You should just meditate, and all your problems will be solved.” If I took
that stance, then this class would be a scolding rather than a discussion.

Adhivāsana is the Pali language term for patience. It’s primarily adhivāsana that helps us
come out of our troubles, and get over most of them. We patiently endure. It is the
number one way.

Should some things be avoided altogether?

Yes, some should be avoided, and there are others that should be endured. Filming class
is one of those to be endured. Things to be avoided are mad dogs, and mad bulls!
(Laughter) Mad people, angry elephants, and poisonous snakes ~ these must be avoided.
Big cesspits. Garbage dumps. Those are the types of things that must be avoided. I don't
consider filming class to be one of those. Patience, as well as right-thinking, the sammā-
sankappa, are needed at almost all times.

Now, with the situation between the government of United States and the government of
Iran, the Bush administration finds defects in the Iranian way of thinking, and the
Iranians find fault with the Bush administration. There doesn't seem to be a solution to it.
Nobody has seen a clear way out. They only see faults. We have a similar situation
between our government in Sri Lanka and the LTTE.2 Our administration sees the LTTE
as having wrong ways of thinking, and the LTTE is finding faults with our government’s
administration. I don’t see a solution to this state of affairs.

Families have to make themselves better, and later they can include their village in the
improvements. It’s not easy, as many people, including our own family members, cannot
be forced to think in a better way. Take my family. When I wanted to become a monk,
one sister vehemently opposed my ordination, and really gave me trouble up to the point
where she was alive. The troubles stopped when she passed away. So, for all her life, she
wanted me to give up the monk’s life. Another member of my family thought I had lost
my mind to embark on the monk’s life. Within anyone’s family, some might support
meditation, and others oppose it.

All the religions have come about to try to fix the problem, to bring people around to
thinking in a particular way. Karuṇā. Mettā. Loving thoughts towards others. In this
regard, there are only minor differences between religions. It's good to talk about the
similarities between the religions. Only I am talking about it, it seems.

Does that cover the question?

2
Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam

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 Patiently Endure

Yes, it brings it back home, to act personally, and practise patience. My Christian
brother-in-law has done a few retreats. He asks, “The positive frame of mind created in
retreats evaporates quickly when I go home. How to sustain it?”

That's the way it is! (laughter)

Many people at our meditation centre have a Christian background. Mr. Chandra, sitting
behind you, was born into a Christian family. I also came from a Christian influenced
background. Suranga. Didier. Your upbringing was Christian.

As for why your brother-in-law’s positive frame of mind evaporates, he must find the
reasons behind that. Many people do retreats at our meditation centre, or at other centres.
They do ten-day courses, twenty-one-day courses, and the like. When they leave, as soon
as they go home, things are rather good and continue to be quite good for the first couple
days. Nevertheless, eventually, most end up arriving at the same spot as where they
started off.

I have my own experience of going home after meditating. At fifteen years of age, I was
quite interested in meditation. By sixteen, I wanted to put most of my time towards
meditating. I really wanted to meditate at the centre in the village of Kanduboda. Mother
told me, “Do anything else, but don't meditate in Kanduboda!” I wondered why mother
opposed my going to Kanduboda.

She had a good reason. In my village, I was rumored to be a nasty brat. Many villagers
held this opinion. If I was a bad person, then I was bad person. And that was all there was
to it. Everybody knew me as a bad teenager. Mother said, “If you go to the Kanduboda
centre, everything there will get upset, and we will get complaints from the centre.” She
assumed the worst. If I were to visit Kanduboda, a place outside our village, then they too
would come to know me as a bad character, and that’s why she didn’t want me to go.

The villagers had labeled me as bad, and I wanted to change that label. Changing my
reputation was my primary motivation to carry on with the meditation. Through buttering
up, coaxing, and on my best behaviour, mother relented, and with an escort allowed me
to meditate in Kanduboda over the school holidays. I meditated quite well. I changed my
character. And then, the rumor transformed. I became known as a better person. The
villagers were truly amazed how this had come about. Mother was also happy. And
content. This went on for a couple months.

All was fine and good for those two to three months, and then I went to work with my
brother on a construction project in the Village of Holāvata. It’s in the Chilaw area. I
went there to work. Not on a meditation retreat. Nonetheless, I exhibited my meditative
skills. I was doing mindful walking all the time. I was a big show to everybody. The
whole works. I meditated. I chanted. I offered flowers to the Buddha. I also expressed
critical views about other religions. After the following incident, I was not like that. I was
for all religions.

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One evening, I returned home with seven workers from the construction site. We all sat
down to the dining room table for a meal. This dining room had a big open window. Its
sill was only one foot off the ground, and the window was twelve feet wide. A big
window. One could hop over the sill if necessary. A drunk came on the scene and was
scolding all of us. He hopped over the sill, and into the room where we were eating. In
prior days, nobody acted in this way in my home because they were afraid of me. They
wouldn't have behaved like this. Not in the old days. All of this drunken man’s bad
behaviour was happening because I had become a better person.

A few minutes later, the drunken man’s brother arrives on the scene, and he is equally
drunk. This second man also hops over the sill and sits down beside me. The brother who
had arrived first orders me to drag his brother out of the house. He hollers, “Put him out!”
Both brothers are dead drunk, and rude. I am practicing my meditation. Lots of right
thoughts. Karuṇā. Sammā-sankappa. Sammā-sati. I put all those in full gear. Despite
applying myself thus, while I am observing this ruckus, and being extremely patient, the
thought is going through my mind, “Okay, you say something against my family, then
that will be a different matter.”

Anger is one of our defilements. A kilesa. My anger, with the meditation, had been
buried deep down inside of me, at the anusayas level, and I wasn’t seeing it. With this
ruckus, my anger was slowly creeping up to the surface, to the pariyuṭṭhāna level, and
was no longer hidden. And so, while seated there with these two drunken brothers, I am
thinking about the different kinds of shots I will use to beat up the more aggressive
brother. I knew karate, and had in those days the strength and ability to take on a couple
people. Now, of course, everything has changed. I am older, and it seems I don't have the
strength to do that.

At the point where one man took out a knife, all my patience ran out and I really let
loose. The end result was two broken ribs, and two smashed chairs. I recall how the anger
was pressed down, and how it all came up. I chased the man out of the house. What I had
thought to be achievements in meditation ~ jhāna, magga-phala ~ none of them had been
there. I had also yelled profanities.

All the villagers came rushing to see the hullabaloo, “Aiyo. This is the same old spoiled
brat.” The mother of these drunken brothers shouted, at the top of her voice, “This boy,
Mr. Appuhany’s youngest son, who went to Kanduboda to meditate, who achieved jhāna
and all that, has killed my son!” (laughter) Mr. Appuhany was my father. And some of
the villagers informed my teacher, Sumathipāla Na Himi, of my violent outburst, and
other similar incidents. They told him I was a bad person, and not suitable to be ordained.
After that, I was all the more determined to never behave in this way again.

This is my experience of how everything is fine when the retreat is on. It’s quite a good
story for all yogis. During the retreat, the manasikāra, attention, is given but the sati does
not build up. A certain object of meditation is contemplated by yogis in a certain way,
and some of the defilements will not come up. For example, anger and sense desire. They
won’t arise because their minds are focused differently. Yogis are in a different way

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while on retreat. But if only the manasikāra is given, then eventually anger and all the
defilements come to the surface. That’s when there's only attention given to the situation.
In addition to manasikāra, we all need to build up our sati. When we do, when sammā-
sati is there, our defilements don't come to the surface. The defilements won’t break
through when sammā-sati is also present.

Warning. This is the place where, not just yogis, all of us get deceived. For the period of
time we are there, when on retreat working with both manasikāra and sati, we are usually
thinking, “Now, I have improved. Now I am better. My defilements are gone. I am a
sotāpanna.” That’s the way we think, which is a disease because everybody falls prey to
it. That’s the nature of the human. It's wrong to imagine that we have developed, and
removed our defilements. We shouldn't try to measure ourselves and give marks. On the
contrary, we must constantly think we are filled with defilements.

As a monk in my twenties, I split my time between forests and the meditation centre in
Kanduboda. I spent a great deal of time meditating in forests. I was more disciplined and
refined than in my teenage days. Everything was well under control. My anger had
subsided. No vyāpāda. I gave myself a high position. With none of the old feelings
coming up, I concluded, “I am an anāgāmī.” I dedicated all available time to meditating.
One and a half hours flew by.

When staying at the centre in Kanduboda, I hardly spoke to anyone. I avoided many day-
to-day activities. I rarely went to the dana sala to eat. Sumathipāla Na Himi had given me
the task of taking care of some yogis, and I did that bit. I was a teacher at that time. I was
a good teacher! (Laughter) Everybody treated me well. There was a birthday celebration,
pinkamma, for Sumathipāla Na Himi and thousands had come to the meditation centre to
honour him. I didn't even want to come out of my kuti for my teacher’s birthday, as that
would have been an impediment to my practice. I would have lost my concentration.
Since I didn't want to face anyone, several people asked, “Why so different now? In the
past, you did your rounds, and visited us. And now, you don’t.”

“Those of you,” I said, “who want to do that kind of meritorious act, can do so.
Sumathipāla Na Himi taught me to meditate, and that is the highest merit one can earn.
Celebrating his birthday will not promote samādhi.” And I sat quietly, and separately. I
kept away. Other monks my age came by, “C’mon, let's go. If you go, we can join in.” In
the end, I agreed and came out for the birthday celebration.

At 8:30 pm, a boy from the village set up a stand to sell gram near the main gate to the
meditation centre. It’s traditional to sell packets of gram at night. Chick peas, mung beans
and such. One of the main supporters of the centre, an older man, told the boy to stop
selling in that location. The boy said, “I have always sold here, and I am going to
continue selling here. I’m not doing anything wrong.” An argument ensued, and I told the
man, “Leave the boy alone. Let him be. Let him sell if he wants to sell.” Nobody is
backing off. The man slapped the boy, and the stand with packets of gram toppled over.
The boy took a fork, and jabbed it into the man's face. He just missed the man’s eye. The
older man fell to the ground. The fork left a big gash, and it stuck there, hanging near the

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man’s eye. There was a big commotion. A big fight erupted. Many joined in the brawl.
The boy’s friends attacked the main supporter’s group.

Because I thought I was an anāgāmī, I just contemplated the fight without reacting. I also
noticed a big stick lying on the ground. I told them many times, “Stop this nonsense. Stop
fighting.” Over ten times, I told them. Nobody is listening. All of a sudden, I lost my
anāgāmī! (laughter) I let loose, and hammered all fighters with the stick. And I
immediately realized, “No. Wherever I was earlier, I am still there. Anāgāmī? No.” All
the same, the fight did stop. Sumathipāla Na Himi came along, “What happened?” I
confessed, and he said, “You’re the same old bad person that you used to be.” I replied,
“Yes, I’m still there.” It was at that point, I realized the difference between manasikāra
and sati, and those two acting together. We must keep away from strong attachment and
aversion.

This is the way of life. Our journeys. Our stories. For a few years, I had changed my
story, and then the defilements came yet again. Defilements can come at any time. That's
how things go. While on retreats, we suppress our defilements and for a while it seems
they are nowhere to be seen. We then think the defilements are destroyed. We measure
ourselves, and put ourselves up. And after retreats, we again overvalue ourselves because
we meditated for so many retreats and for such long periods of time. Tell your brother-in-
law his defilements might get suppressed while on a retreat, and while suppressed he
might feel fine. Afterwards, when he returns to normal working life, he must see how his
mind works.

What is your main point?

My main point is we should never assess ourselves, and in particular never overvalue
ourselves. We must be aware of how our minds are working, and should not put a value
on the workings of our minds. Evaluating has nothing to do with the training. Cannot, do
not measure yourself. In my lifetime, aside from senior teachers, I’ve seen only two
people who achieved high levels of sati. Only two. These two were many times in
difficult situations, and faced these situations as an anāgāmī would face them. Both are
dead now.

The first of these two was mistaken to be another, and was badly beaten. Black eye. One
eardrum likely split. Blood poured from his ear. Yet, there was no trace of anger in him.
No reaction, that I saw. Not a whimper. No complaints. He never said one word against
the man who attacked him. And the attacker, having realized his brutal mistake, deeply
regretted his actions, “Please, please forgive me.” This great man’s response? “Yes,
mistakes happen. Don't think too much about it. What is done is done.” He later ordained,
and in the end died of cancer. The second person with a high level of sati was a local
driver for the American Embassy, and he also later ordained. After ordination, I heard no
news of him. I believe those two men reached high levels of sati, and my belief was never
broken during their lifetimes.

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Sumathipāla Na Himi

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Though these two were the only ones whom I accept were truly there, we needn't be
disheartened, as there are many encouraging stories in the Tipiṭika from the Buddha’s
time. Read the Hatthisariputta Sutta in the Aṅguttara Nikāya. 3 The monk Hatthisariputta
interrupted talks given by senior monks. Maha Koṭṭhita told him to be quiet, and not
disturb them. His friends said, “No. No. He's up to all this. He's well-versed in these
theories. Let him talk. Don't try to stop him.” And Hatthisariputta spoke about higher
minds and different states of mind. Later on, he disrobed. When the Buddha heard of his
disrobing, the Buddha said, “He will come back to the robes.” And as
predicted, Hatthisariputta ordained again and continued his meditation up to final
arahatship.

We ought not to bother ourselves about how defilements are suppressed only to have
them surface again because that has been the story from the old days until now. The
monk Sunakkhatta,4 one of the Buddha’s personal attendants, developed the divine eye,
and failed to develop the divine ear. He had initially admired the Buddha and later found
fault with him. Devadatta, despite developing all the psychic powers, slipped and went
straight down to hell. And when students leave their robes, I never get upset. Disrobing
isn’t serious or worth worrying about because the Tipiṭika states a monk or nun who
attains, at least sotāpanna stage, won’t disrobe. Monks and nuns who disrobe must not
have reached any achievements in the sense of path and fruit.

What is meditation?

You don’t find many yogis anywhere! (Laughter)

That’s a discouraging assessment.

It’s true. Yogis are very hard to find. The Pali language term for meditation is bhāvanā. It
has two meanings ~ one meaning is to develop, and the second meaning is to suppress.
Suppression is not a bad word. We keep things at bay. Some things go up, and some
things go down. Spiritual faculties, indriya-dhammas, go up. Hindrances, nīvaraṇa, go
down. There are many people who are preparing themselves for bhāvanā. They are doing
the necessary preliminary training.

How do I start preliminary training?

In his teachings, the Buddha always used naturally occurring phenomena. I also think that
in meditation we should limit ourselves to what we experience in our daily lives. From
the time we were born until our deaths, there is life. We live. And while we live, three
naturally occurring phenomena happen and most of us are not aware of these three.

The first has been happening from the time of our births. It’s been happening from the
minute we left our mothers’ wombs, and will continue until the time of our deaths. It was
not taught to us, and yet we do it. Not taught by a god, or a devil, or by anyone. It must
3
metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikāya /Anguttara4/6-chakkanipata/006-mahavaggo-e.html
4
www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/s/sunakkhatta.htm

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be done every second of our lives. It’s the simple activity of in-breathing and out-
breathing. The natural process of breathing, and the Buddha asked us to pay attention to
it. Nobody taught us to breathe. There’s no religion behind breathing. Air is common to
all. The person who breathes doesn't have to be good or bad. There's no class or creed or
religion. There's no status. Everybody breathes. The dog and I sit together and breathe.
Naturally. It's not easy to teach the dog, but we can teach ourselves. Men and women
have the ability to learn something out of the breathing. Breathing. It’s natural and we do
it from the time we are born until the time we die.

The second is thinking. Again, thinking is a naturally occurring phenomenon and not
taught to us. Various thoughts continuously come to our minds. Our minds are full of
stuff. Nobody had to teach us to think. Thinking comes naturally. These two, the
breathing and thinking, we do all the time. Regardless of anything else we may do ~
eating, sleeping, bathing, and even while going to the toilet ~ breathing and thinking
happen during all these activities.

To learn something worthwhile out of our breathing and thinking, we must pay attention
to our breathing and thinking. Manasikāra is Pali for paying attention. Ānāpāna is Pali for
in-breathing and out-breathing. Manasikāra directs the mind at various objects. In the first
stage of preliminary training, it’s with, and only with, manasikāra that we direct our
minds to our breathing, and keep our minds focused exactly on the breath. We pay
attention to the breathing. Going in and out. Going up and down. We observe the breath.
In this way of repeatedly giving attention to the breath, we’re training our minds to stay
focused on the breathing.

In the second stage of preliminary training, during extended periods of directing our
minds to the breath with manasikāra, we also regularly observe the breath with sati. Sati
means performing an action without attachment or aversion. Sati means having no
expectations. No conflicts, or conflicting. In this second stage, manasikāra and sati work
together. We pay attention to the breath and in addition regularly observe the breath
without aversion or attachment A few minutes of sati over the course of a day of training
are substantial and significant. With this wholesome state of sati arising, we see that our
minds are running riot and going through various thoughts. Our minds are wild. These
few minutes of sati help get us to the bhāvanā level of practice. In short, when practising
well and with ānāpāna flowing smoothly, our spiritual faculties go up, and our hindrances
go down. The Buddha encouraged ānāpāna-sati.

It's interesting the Buddha talked about ānāpāna-sati, but never talked about ānāpāna-
bhāvanā. He never connected ānāpāna with the term bhāvanā. He always connected
ānāpāna with the term sati. For example, in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, it’s kāya-gatā-sati.
Body contemplation. The Buddha used these two terms sati and bhāvanā separately, and
in different contexts. Each of these two terms has its own special meaning. Sati means
performing an action without attachment or aversion. Bhāvanā means developing, the
bringing of the practice to fruition and to the achieving nibbāna. Spiritual faculties,
indriya-dhammas, go up. Hindrances, nīvaraṇa, go down.

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Yes, it is interesting that the term sati, mindfulness, is not the same as the term
bhāvanā, meditation. I had thought mindfulness was synonymous with meditation.

From the preliminary training stages of only paying attention through to sati and proper
bhāvanā, a yogi’s development is comparable to learning to ride a bicycle. So very long
ago, we were toddlers crawling around on the floor. We had to first learn how to stand up
and then walk. Our first stage was learning to stand up. Getting up off the floor, and
walking. Next, it was onto learning to ride tricycles. Yes, remember the tricycles? And
then it was the bicycles with stabilizer wheels. Before long, the stabilizer wheels were
off, and we were happily riding bicycles. If we had continued our training, we might have
found employment at the circus and performed tricks. They ride without brakes in the
circus. It’s also common to see bicycles without brakes on the roads here in Sri Lanka.
Riders use their slippers to stop! (laughter)

There was a man in my village that sold cigarettes and other odds and ends, and earned a
little extra by performing bicycle tricks. His bicycle was special. He had stripped a
normal bicycle down to bare bones, and converted it to a fixed gear bicycle. Fixed gear
means the bicycle’s rear sprocket is fixed to its rear wheel. His pedals and rear wheel
always spun together. No coasting. The front wheel of this bicycle could be twirled
around 360 degrees. He performed tricks for school children, and he did them during
school hours, which not surprisingly caught the attention of the police. They didn’t want
him disturbing the children.

The police devised a plan. Near the hospital, at the bottom of a long steep slope, they
drew a line across the road. If the man could stop his rear wheel right on that line, they
would grant him permission to show his tricks in town. If he failed, then that would be
the end of his tricks in town, and he would have to go elsewhere. He could show off his
tricks, but not in town. The man came roaring down the hill and managed to stop
precisely on the line drawn by the police. The police kept their word, and gave him
permission to perform his tricks in town. (laughter)

This is an example of someone developing his bicycle riding practice to the highest
possible level of skill. Incredible. This man stopped precisely where the police told him
to stop.

Bhavita bahulikatha means frequently. Do it frequently. Over and over. With repetitive
attention to the breath, with manasikāra, the yogi gets more and more proficient at
attending to the breath. An assortment of unfamiliar images and mental states can come
into the mind of the yogi. At a certain point, with the arising of ānāpāna-sati, the breath
may be so subtle that it is not seen, and the yogi thinks his or her breath has disappeared
or even stopped altogether. The yogi can conclude, “I have achieved jhāna. This is a high
state of concentration.” The yogi builds up a range of opinions.

The yogi’s error comes in assigning a measurement to experiences. He or she is still a

toddler. Some yogis are on tricycles. Experiences, such as the breath not being seen and
unusual images, are preliminary training kinds of signs. The breath disappearing is

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nothing more than an experience that happens to a yogi, and is not where the yogi has
achieved jhāna or come into any high state of concentration.

In discourses of the Digha Nikāya , you find accounts of the Buddha going off alone to
the forest to do ānāpāna for extended periods of time. Since the Buddha states he is
watching his breath, then his breath hasn’t stopped. Nothing of that sort. It's not that the
Buddha didn’t notice his breath. The Buddha was breathing, and he must have been
noticing his breath.

Yes, there is a truth to the breath not being seen. That is also experienced in the yogi’s
preliminary training. Normally, when anyone breathes, it’s always done with a little bit of
attachment or bit of aversion or little bit of delusion. Lobha or dosa or moha. A yogi is
training in watching his or her breath without these three ― attachment, aversion, or
delusion. When practising well, the yogi’s attachment and aversion to the breath are
reduced, and the breath is not seen. Not seeing the breath is different than the breath
ceasing to function. There is a practice where the breath ceases to function. The operation
of the lungs subsides. Even to that extent of a yogi’s practice, I don't call progress.

After Sumathipāla Na Himi’s death in 1982, I became chief monk at the old Kanduboda
meditation centre. My conceit was at a high level of intensity. I was treated like a
government minister. People followed me around. They opened doors and gave me rides.
It was during this time as chief monk that I had some back pain. Various medicines were
tried, and still no relief. I was admitted to a hospital for a brief stay. My heart was tested.
An ECG was taken. X-rays were taken. A bit of an alignment problem with the spine was
discovered.

I didn't want to visit hospitals, and I didn’t want to take medicine. I took as little medicine
as possible. To visit hospitals or take medicine was considered below me because there is
a tall tale that yogis rarely get diseases. All these lies have been built around the yogi,
such as yogis don't get sick. Even though I managed to resist the meditation centre’s
supporters from taking me again to the hospital, one of my sisters arrived who worked at
the hospital. She had an important post there, and managed to convince, to be more
precise forced, me to go to the hospital. I was always afraid of that sister, and quickly
agreed.

In the examination room, she instructed me on how exactly I should conduct myself, and
I obeyed her instructions. The medical team hooked up various machines for their tests. I
was laid out on a bed and while lying there thought, “Well, there is a theory you can stop
the breathing. This is the best time to try it out.” The first thoughts that had to be
eliminated were thoughts about my sister, and how she would scold me. I eliminated
those thoughts. Put them away. Then I brought my mind's attention to ānāpāna. The
breathing. Within about one minute of directing my attention to the breath, I stopped the
breath, and the ECG meter, all of a sudden….

Flatlined? Did your heart stop working?

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Yes, the medical team got really worried. They tapped the machine. My eyes were
open, but all vital signs had stopped. The ECG meter was drawing a blank line of
activity, and everyone was quite excited. My sister quickly realized I was up to my
pranks, and scolded me then and there, “Your nonsense hasn't stopped even in the
hospital.”

What I experienced in the hospital was not jhāna nor any high state of concentration.
Stopping the breath is simply a trick that can be learned. People train in stopping the
breath. The temperature of the body can also be modified. These are states where the
mind and body act in abnormal ways. The rūpa-kalāpas are changed. I was always full of
experimenting, and always wanting to try out new things. While trying out the Goenka
method, I learned many new tricks. My sister’s scolding put an end to this experiment in
the hospital. You cannot call that jhāna.

Is this bhāvanā?

No. I do not consider any of these tricks to be bhāvanā. Bhāvanā is quite different.
Something to be developed. And yet, if there is a little understanding of states of mind,
experimenting falls within the preliminaries to bhāvanā. We can at least recognize the
various feelings, the pains, and the sights, and the sounds, the smells, etc. At the point
where we recognize them, and stay with them without reacting ― then that is a good, a
really good, experience, which can happen for us.

Why?

Saddhā builds up while practising in this way. Saddhā means confidence in the spiritual
way. Our attention shifts to saddhā, and to its development. We reflect on the wholesome.
Contemplate the kusala. Saddhā slowly increases. And when keeping our attention to
saddhā in this manner, the effort comes along. We make the effort to practise. And at a
certain stage, there will be these moments where there’s no reacting. Attachment and
aversion are absent. That is sati. The mind is settled, and all the changes happening
within the mind and body framework are seen clearly.

As for concentration, samādhi, and the wisdom, pannā, I don’t have much. Here and there
a bit of wisdom might arise. Wisdom means understanding the three characteristics.
Tilakkhaṇa. The anicca, dukkha, and anattā. And not just knowing these terms. Wisdom
is experiential understanding of anicca, dukkha, and anattā.

From that point onwards, we’re starting to develop spiritual faculties, indriya-dhammas:

1. Confidence, saddhā
2. Effort, viriya
3. Mindfulness, sati
4. Concentration, samādhi
5. Wisdom, pannā

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As exhorted by the Buddha, through developing these faculties, we suppress our

hindrances, nīvaraṇa:

1. Sense desires, kāma-cchanda

2. Ill will, vyāpāda
3. Dullness and lethargy, thīna-middha
4. Restlessness and worry, uddhacca-kukkucca
5. Doubt, vicikicchā

The person with wisdom understands the hindrances and knows how to deal with them.
You can suppress kāma-cchanda, and reduce attachments.

We didn’t cover the third natural phenomenon that’s always happening. What is it?

First is breathing. Second, thinking. The third is the changing. Aging. These three
naturally occurring phenomena can be recognized. The changes that are happening within
the mind and body is the aging process. Over the years, so many changes have taken
place in my mind and body. I’m definitely not the same person sitting here today in
Kanduboda as I was years ago in Colombo.

Our minds and bodies are continually changing. Breath is part of the body section of the
world. It changes. The physical body changes. With each in-breath and each out-breath,
the thoughts also change. All those are in a constant state of flux. And right now, with the
heat of the film crew’s lights and the filming, our bodies and minds are changing. A
slight concern has arisen. I don't know. Maybe I’ll have a bad night. With sati, we see
those changes. Life is the changes that are happening. That's our lives. That’s living.
Together with the changes of our minds and bodies, the whole world changes.

Are you tired? It's getting late.

I’m okay. If changes don't take place, if something doesn't change, then there is no life as
such. Where there's no movement, there is nothing. It is outside the world.

We’ll end this talk with the hindrances. When considering the first hindrance kāma-
cchanda, sense desires, the Buddha specifically points to the opposite sex. The female for
the male, and the male for the female. In the first sutta of the Aṅguttara Nikāya,5 the
Buddha gives this as a definition of kāma-cchanda.

To his vision, the Buddha didn’t see anything as captivating for the male as the female,
and likewise for a female he didn’t see anything as appealing as a male. Through all five
senses, men and women are captivated. The male's mind is engulfed by the sight of the
female body, and by the sounds emanating from her. How she smells, tastes, and
especially her touch. The male's mind constantly revolves around these five. It’s the same
for the female. The Buddha didn’t see anything captivating a female’s mind as much as a
5
http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikāya /Anguttara1/1-ekanipata/001-
Cittapariyadanavaggo-e.html

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male. In five ways, that singular object totally grabs hold of her mind ― she’s seized by
the sight of his body, the sound of his voice, the smells, tastes, and his touch.

For your mind and eye, the opposite sex is a pleasurable object. A subha-nimitta. This is
the main object generating kāma-cchanda, and you direct your mind towards it in an
unwise way. With this improper attention, ayoniso-manasikāra, to women, you
develop the already arisen kāma-cchanda.

I’m not always thinking about women.

Kāma-cchanda is the direct enemy of saddhā. It destroys saddhā. If you talk against this,
then it is aversion that arises in your mind. You switch from the desires and attachment to
anger. Anxieties arise. Ill will arises, which is the second of the five hindrances ~
vyāpāda. The next hindrance that comes about is dullness and lethargy ~ thīna-middha.
You might understand thīna-middha to be drowsiness. The Buddha wasn’t talking about
drowsiness. Thīna-middha means you are letting go of wholesome kusala ways of
thinking and acting, and taking on less wholesome ways. And after that, there’s remorse.
Your mind is restless, and worried, which is the fourth hindrance ~ uddhacca-kukkucca.
Then always, there is the doubt ~ the fifth hindrance vicikicchā.

We must stop for today. Thank you.

Another day, we can explore these topics in more detail.

May you be well.

2008 Sumathipāla Na Himi Senasun Aranya

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 "Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are
reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by
legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by
agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This
contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are
unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise;
these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you
should abandon them.”

The Kalama Sutta

Chapter 2 Abhiññās
I recently read a book on the American psychic Edgar Cayce. Can you explain his
power of clairvoyance to heal the sick?

Super-normal abilities, abhiññās, have nothing to do with Buddha-Dhamma. Well before

Buddha, there were people with abhiññās. These days, we find many deformed men and
women with super abilities. There are animals with abhiññās. Stories of people and
animals with abhiññās are big news. If you consider abhiññās as great, you don’t know
Buddha-Dhamma.

People are born with these abilities. A young boy in my village, who in his day-to-day
life was a fool, could accurately predict the future. He didn’t go to school, or complete
any formal education. Yet, he would say in detail on such and such a day this and that
will happen. Nobody took him seriously. When the mentally or physically disabled speak
of such things, no one believes them. Nonetheless, this foolish young boy correctly
predicted the future. He was always right.

On Sumathipāla Na Himi’s visits to a senior monk at the Gampola Temple, he came to

know a blind man with an extremely high level of abhiññā. And though blind from birth,
this man helped around the temple. He drew water from the well for washing and
bathing. Gampola is upcountry and wells are deep. Drawing water from a deep well is
hard work.

This blind man was also a teacher. In traditional temple education, in Pirivena schooling,
the Pandita level is equivalent to a university degree. He had learned enough Dhamma to
teach one level below Pandita. He was strict, and wouldn’t tolerate students making a
mistake with a single letter in their essays. The full stop of a period had to be in the right
place.

There are enough blind people casting horoscopes. Based on time of birth, they predict
the person’s future. This man’s predictions were exceptional. To test the blind man’s
ability, a shrewd villager of the Potavil area asked the blind man to prepare a horoscope
for a newborn from his village. Instead of giving the blind man the mother’s piece of
 Abhiññās

paper with the birth time of her newborn, he gave the blind man a piece of paper with the
birth time of some puppies.

The blind man said, “It’s impossible for a human child to be born at this time. It has to be
a four-legged animal, say a puppy. It can’t be a human baby.” After two days, the villager
gave the blind man the correct time, who then said, “Yes, this is a male child, and …”
The blind man then told the villager of the newborn’s previous lives. Nobody believed
him. He also applied his super abilities of seeing to the comings and goings of visitors to
the temple. And he correctly identified people who were beyond the normal range of
sight. Those he met on the street, he greeted by name.

As a young boy, I had the ability to see what was on the other side of a wall. One day, I
told my sister something like, “The man working behind this building is tall and dark and
wearing a red checkered sarong.” After confirming this was indeed the case, my sister
said, “You liar. You must have looked first!” Back at home, I was warned, “Don’t say
anything to anyone of these experiences.” I was afraid of being severely punished and
stopped sharing out of the ordinary experiences.

And then there was the time, similarly beyond the normal range of sight, I knew an
enraged elephant was charging towards the place where I was staying. I knew it was
going down a hill and felt it would definitely end up at that place. I warned the others.
And this dangerous animal soon arrived.

It’s too bad I didn’t meet the blind man.

You wouldn’t want to meet him. He was a bad person, and might have led you away
from the five precepts. At the same time as having abhiññās, he was committing
countless immoral acts.

He set fire to a house in the Potavil district, which is a rough area full of hills. To get to
the house, he had to hike up and down several steep hills. It is difficult trekking for
sighted people. And he managed to burn the house to the ground in a way he wouldn’t get
caught. I am quite sure he is the one who set fire to that house. This is a high level of
abhiññā. Edgar Cayce’s abilities are modest when compared to this man’s abilities.

How can a man living an immoral life have powerful abilities?

I also wondered how he could keep these abhiññās. He may have been complete, had all
faculties intact, in the early stages of development in his mother’s womb. And then
sometime while still in the womb, he lost the faculty of sight.

Sumathipāla Na Himi told the blind man, “Stop doing bad. Do not commit immoral
actions.” The blind man had been using black magic. During the latter part of life, he
lived in a temple in Nugegoda. I met him at Sumathipāla Na Himi’s funeral. He was
crying. Write about this man’s life and his abilities, and you will have a bestseller!

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 Abhiññās

Many Sri Lankans value what is written in English more than what is written in Sinhala.
So, when English language books on abhiññās are published, Sri Lankans are impressed
and start talking about them. Amongst our monks, books on abhiññās are found. They are
discussing the various types of abhiññās, and arguing. I feel sorry for them. They are
acting like fools. With Buddha-Dhamma in mind, abhiññās are of no value whatsoever.

Now let’s turn to a story about a blind man who was good, and didn’t do anything
immoral. In the days of my youth, father ran a grocery shop in our village, and one of his
workers was this good blind man. He could be trusted to protect the shop’s inventory as
well as any worker with sound eyesight. He knew exactly who walked into the shop.
Could have been a child or an elderly person or whoever, he wouldn’t let them touch
anything without his permission. During the New Year’s season, when father sold sky-
rockets and crackers, this blind man knew when a child had quietly entered the shop and
was thinking to steal a few of them. He was like one of those bloodhounds searching for
drugs at airports. Though its eyesight is poor, the bloodhound has a remarkable sense of
smell.

One day while the blind man was alone, a man entered the shop and asked to borrow fifty
rupees. Our blind man knew it was the blacksmith. Fifty rupees was a considerable sum
of money in those days, equivalent to five thousand of today’s rupees. The blind man
gave the blacksmith fifty rupees, and asked, “When will you return the money?” The
blacksmith said, “What are you talking about? I didn’t borrow any money.”

When father returned, the blind man said, “The blacksmith was in the shop today and
borrowed fifty rupees. He now denies borrowing the money. I am absolutely sure it was
the blacksmith.” Father said, “Look, forget it. If he denies it, what can we do?” The blind
man said, “No. No. No. I will definitely get that money.”

A few days later the blacksmith walked again into the shop, and in front of father the
blind man said, “Didn’t you borrow fifty rupees the other day?” The blacksmith said,
“No. You didn’t give me any money.” The blind man said, “Fine. If you won’t return the
money, I will visit your smithy tomorrow night and take your anvil.” The blacksmith took
the threat seriously. He went home to his smithy, put some planks on top of the anvil, and
the following night slept there on his bed of planks.

The blind man kept his promise to visit the smithy. And in spite of the blacksmith
sleeping on top of the anvil, the blind man raised the bed of planks, probably using
coconut husks on either side of the anvil, and ever so gently removed the anvil. The
blacksmith didn’t feel any disturbance. He didn’t wake up. The blind man took the anvil
away in a gunny sack. And he then dropped the anvil into a deep hole, covered it with
more coconut husks, and planted a banana plant on top. The blacksmith awoke following
morning to a missing anvil!

The blacksmith was angry. He went to father’s shop, and demanded, “Where is my
anvil?” The blind man, feigning innocence, said, “What are you talking about? I didn’t
visit your smithy.” Then he added, “I am blind. How could a blind man take your anvil,

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and in the night too? Do what you like. Report me to the police.” The blacksmith went
home.

On the day the blacksmith returned to the shop both father and the blind man were
working. The blacksmith said to father, “Yes, I took the money and here is your fifty
rupees. Please tell your blind man to return my anvil.” The blind man said, “No. I can’t
trust you. Put the fifty rupees into his hand. Once the money in the hand of my boss, I
will tell you the location of your anvil.” Only after the blacksmith had put the fifty rupees
into father’s hand, the blind man said, “I buried your anvil over there, underneath that
banana plant.”

I wouldn’t be able to take the anvil.

This is a super-normal ability. People with sound eyesight would find it nearly impossible
to take this anvil.

The blind man’s abhiññās were due to the kamma with which he was born. If he had
sound eyesight, I don’t think he would have had abhiññās. The same is true for the boy
who generally behaved in a foolish way. If he had been a typical boy, it’s unlikely he
could have predicted the future. There are stories in the commentaries 1 of the wealthy
householders Ananda, Citta, and Sodaya. After their deaths, all three took downward
births ― Sodaya was born as a dog; Ananda and Citta were born as humans with
deformities. All three took downward births, and all three had abhiññās. Kamma is
simply there.

Dogs generally have abhiññās. Fifteen years ago, a little boy stayed for two weeks with
the owners of the home across the road from the old Kanduboda meditation centre.
During the little boy’s brief stay, the owners took in a puppy and the little boy fed and
played with it. The little boy was sent away from that home for some reason, and the
puppy stayed. That little boy is now a young man, and I met him recently at a funeral.

The young man said, “I returned to the home across the road, and the dog remembered
me! That little puppy is now an old dog. He jumped into my lap, and licked and nuzzled
me. We were so happy to see each other.”

It was fifteen years since the puppy had lived briefly with the little boy, and now as an
old dog it immediately recognized the young man. The dog showed gratitude, love and
affection for the man. It revealed joy. To recognize someone after such a long time is a
super ability. If you develop this ability, you will be better than Edgar Cayce.

Edgar Cayce could sleep on a book, and recall its contents in the morning.

Those who fully develop that abhiññā needn’t sleep on the book. I knew a man living at
the Pokunuwita Hermitage who quickly and effortlessly absorbed the contents of books
by looking at them. All the Dhamma in Rerukane Chandavimala’s books, this man
quickly absorbed.

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Until the age of twelve, I too could assimilate the contents of a book by looking at it. I
did not have to sleep on the book, nor did I need to read it. Though warned not to say
anything to anyone about these sorts of experiences, I showed this ability to siblings, and
was severely scolded, “You know what’s in this book because you studied this book.
Don’t lie about studying.” After twelve years of age, I lost the ability to absorb books by
looking at them.

The ability to easily take in what I read continued for another twenty years. Next to our
pond, there is a rock outcrop where monks during Sumathipāla Na Himi’s time got
together to study. The closest kuṭis, at that time, were near our new stupa and down by
the new office. Sitting on this rock far away from the kuṭis we didn’t disturb anyone with
our reciting of verses and chanting of gathas.

About the time of my bhikkhu ordination, we were asked to memorize the Dhammapada.
I would glance for a few minutes in the early morning at twenty-five verses and then
carry on with my daily cleaning and raking and other duties. I memorized verses quickly
and without effort. My fellow monks had a different kamma. They spent a lot of time and
effort to memorize verses.

We got together at the end of the day to recite verses. Many of the monks recited two or
three verses. I recited twenty-five. The monks who had with great effort memorized two
or three verses did not like that I had easily memorized twenty-five. They were angry and
found fault, “You don’t show that you’re studying, but you remember everything.”

Why do some people have super-normal abilities?

Due to past kamma, people are born with super-normal abilities. I remembered those
verses because of my mind, plain and simple. I had that ability because of my birth. It’s
kamma. If I had a conceit, “I have a superior ability to memorize. I don’t need to learn
from anybody.” ― what a serious disadvantage that would be.

I put my good memory to use on the Buddha’s teachings. My memory was so good I was
constantly being asked what the Buddha said about this or that. I’d be asked where to find
something in the suttas, and was able to tell them exactly where it was written. If you
were endowed with a similar good memory, you would not be sitting in class with me.
You’d be sitting in the clouds!

My good memory led to problems for my teachers. In Venerable Sīvalī’s class, I

expressed ideas at a level of understanding beyond the level of other students. Venerable
Sīvalī, wanting all students to learn, sometimes took me by the hand, and put me at the
back of the classroom. “You stay here until class is finished.” There were times he said,
“It would be better that you don’t attend today. When you’re here, other students don’t
get a chance to advance.” With fellow students suffering when I attended class I often
stayed away, and instead grasped the subject material on my own. Or I went to Venerable

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Iriyagama Punnarama, another senior monk living at Kanduboda, who taught me

separately.

I lost the ability to easily memorize at about thirty years of age. Super-normal abilities are
due to the power of kamma with which we are born. They are nothing to be proud of. Do
you remember the woman from Lebanon?

Fida. She knows many languages.

When Fida first came to Sri Lanka, she knew eight different languages. Second time, she
knew twenty. And the third time, twenty-five including Sinhala. It is not that Fida merely
speaks the language, or says a few words. She knows those twenty-five languages with
complete grammar, which is an unimaginable super ability. She teaches languages in a
French university. I asked, “How did you get this ability?” Fida said, “I don’t know. I
think it was due to kamma.” That is how she answered. She only needs to see the
alphabet of a language.

After the tsunami Fida called from France to ask me about the people she knew in Sri
Lanka. She mentioned all their names, which was difficult because even I couldn’t
remember those people! She considered ordaining as a ten-precept nun. I said, “Don’t
worry about ordaining. You continue teaching.” She persuaded her mother and elder
sister to study the Buddha-Dhamma.

What about people who remember their past lives?

The ability to remember past lives comes through either Jaathis Marana or Pubbe
Nivasanussathi.

Jaathis Marana is a common ability that people, often the deaf and blind, as well as
animals get from their births. For its first few months or years of life a child might have
memories of previous lives, and then later on lose that ability. Sodaya, the wealthy
householder I mentioned before, had Jaathis Marana in his subsequent life as a dog, as
did the wealthy householder Ananda in his following life as a human with deformities.

Pubbe Nivasanussathi is a rare ability that people get through wisdom. Arahats, and those
who develop jhānas and get into abhiññās, see their previous lives. Unlike Jaathis
Marana, once developed, this super-normal ability isn’t easily lost.

In childhood, Sri Lankan Dhamma-Ruwan remembered living in the city of

Anuradhapura during ancient times. He would point out the spot where his kuṭi was
located, which was apparently next to Venerable Buddhagosa’s kuṭi. Dhamma-Ruwan, as
a child, chanted from memory the Dhammacakkapavatana Sutta, and many other suttas.
He remembered all those suttas when he was a young child and without any support
whatsoever chanted them in the old Sinhala style.

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 Abhiññās

Venerable Sīvalī

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 Abhiññās

There are videos of Dhamma-Ruwan on YouTube.

Dhamma-Ruwan also remembered being a man called Naviya, who lived at the time of
the Buddha’s cremation in Kusinara. Dhamma-Ruwan is now an adult working as a tour
guide in Kandy, and has forgotten everything about previous lives.

Edgar Cayce had psychic powers for decades.

I’m a bit suspicious of stories about people with abhiññās. I accept children having the
ability to remember past lives and then losing that ability when they are a bit older. And I
don’t doubt that Edgar Cayce had Jaathis Marana for decades, which is a much longer
time than the children who have this ability for a few months or a few years. Edgar Cayce
was special in that way. There is some truth in these stories of children and people like
Edgar Cayce.

However, when stories about people with super-normal abilities go public in books or on
the Internet, the abilities are exaggerated and embellished. For example, if an older child,
way beyond his or her first few months or years of life, is remembering details of past
lives, I start wondering about the story. I suspect adults are coaching the child. Suspicion
is my problem, possibly an illness inside of me. Buddha told the Kalamas, “Don’t accept
anything unless you know it for yourself.” I feel like throwing away most of these stories
about people with super-normal abilities.

What do I need to take to heart from these stories?

Due to the nature of kamma committed, various types of beings ― men and women with
deformities, men and women without deformities, animals, fools, the blind, the deaf, the
mentally or physically disabled, dogs, children, etc. ― are born with a variety of
abhiññās. Take to heart that this is how the kamma acts on different beings, and take that
these super normal abilities are not great achievements. They’re not for envy nor for
conceit.

In the days of ancient Burma a layman, by the name of Abhiññā Upasaka, often helped
with the construction of large temples. Abhiññā Upasaka had the super-normal ability to
move the heavy stone blocks used in the new temples. He also had the ability to travel
from Rangoon to Mandalay in a few minutes. Once again, note that his super abilities
were due to the very powerful kamma he had committed in the past. Nowadays, we don’t
find such people.

I have spoken enough about this topic.

Theruwan Saranai. Suwapath Weava.

2013 Sumathipāla Na Himi Senasun Arana

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 Their past (kamma) is spent, their new (kamma) no more arises, their mind to
future becoming is unattached. Their germ (of rebirth-consciousness) has died,
they have no more desire for re-living. Those wise men fade out (of existence) as
the flame of this lamp (which has just faded away). This precious jewel is the
Sangha. By this (asseveration of the) truth may there be happiness.

Ratana Sutta (Piyadassi Thera translation)

Chapter 3 Beautiful Flame

What is nibbāna?

Nibbāna is the blowing out of defilements. Or if you prefer, it’s busting the dam of taṇhā.

Nibbāna is the highest goal of the Buddha’s teachings. What he taught as nibbāna differs
significantly from what many other teachers taught as nibbāna and differs substantially
from the highest goals of all other religious traditions.

The word nibbāna was in use 6,000 years before the Buddha’s enlightenment. People
comprehended nibbāna in various ways. Some understood it to be a plane of existence, or
a world, where gods and other beings live in peace for all eternity. Teachers taught
nibbāna in many different ways. In the Upanishads, you find teachings similar to the
Buddha’s discourses on nibbāna. These teachings are incomplete because they were
given by Pacceka-Buddhas who were unable to describe nibbāna as well as a fully
enlightened Buddha. There is no comprehensive description of nibbāna in the
Upanishads.

The Buddha isn’t talking about another kind of world. Nibbāna is reached through our
present lives in this world. It is not necessary to talk about nibbāna as something we hope
to attain in our future lives. In us, there are akusala along with kusala. We need to
recognize our akusala and kusala. The practice is not initially about overcoming akusala.
First, we recognize akusala. And then, only after clearly recognizing akusala, the
overcoming of the akusala occurs. Even our kusala must first be recognized. And then,
once recognized properly, the kusala is also overcome!

Both akusala and kusala have results, vipāka. The vipāka of akusala is punabbhava in a
woeful state, duggati. The vipāka of kusala is punabbhava in a happy state, sugati. And
punabbhava, this rebecoming or rebirth, is not happening in a future life ― this result is
constantly happening in our current lives. Whether it is akusala or kusala, we are creating
births in woeful and happy states now.

During those times that akusala is overcome and no longer in our mental streams,
punabbhava in the duggati is brought to an end. However, kusala continues, which means
that punabbhava in the sugati continues. So, we must also overcome kusala. If at any time
in our mental streams, we overcome both akusala and kusala, then punabbhava based on
these two streams is brought to an end, and we have a glimpse of nibbāna. If that state
 Beautiful Flame

arises in our minds, then, at that very moment, we see how nibbāna differs from the
teachings of other religions.

Religions arise in this world because of fear. Schools of philosophy arise because of
doubt. While we are free from fear and doubt, not allowing ourselves to fall to a lower
level, that state of mind searches for nibbāna. While maintaining that mental state, we
recognize the akusala of the five hindrances, nīvaraṇas, and recognize the kusala of the
five spiritual faculties, the indriya-dhammas. At any point, with energy of hindrances
destroyed and energy of spiritual faculties employed, our minds incline towards nibbāna.
Nibbāna does not belong with religion and philosophy ― it is dhamma.

Do you mean that dhamma is nature?

Yes, yes. To enter nature, dhamma, we have the Noble Eightfold Path, which, in
condensed form, is the five spiritual faculties ― saddhā, viriya, sati, samādhi, paññā.
More condensed, it’s the three trainings ― sīla, samādhi, paññā. With sīla, our
distractedness decreases. With sīla, our tranquility and concentration increases. The
tranquil and concentrated mind sees the true nature of the world. It’s possible, in this life,
to get to nibbāna. Nibbāna is not something created in our minds.

Through practical training, through gradually removing akusala and kusala from our
minds, we enter dhamma. Overcoming both akusala and kusala opens our minds to
nibbāna. At the beginning, in the same way as using one poison to neutralize another
poison, we use kusala to overcome akusala. We use spiritual faculties to subdue
hindrances, in the beginning.

The Buddha in the Ratana Sutta uses the simile of an oil lamp. Sometimes, the lamp’s
flame fades out. Where did the flame go? Did it enter the atmosphere, or did it go with
the wind? And why did the flame fade out? Did the lamp run out of oil, or did the wick
burn out? The lamp’s oil is akusala, the wick is kusala, and the flame is punabbhava.

At times the wind blows out the flame, as was the case for the ascetic Bahiya. The
Buddha only needed to tell Bahiya, “In the seeing, there is merely the seeing.” Bahiya
had a keen and subtle wisdom. When such a level of wisdom arises, attaining to nibbāna
happens fast. I am also making a lot of effort, but am not there yet! So, that’s a
description of nibbāna, in a short and easy way. Nibbāna blows out defilements.

To look for nibbāna, we develop sati. A great many teachers assume paying attention to
thoughts and actions to be sati. I also stress the importance of paying attention. For
example, I turn my attention to this eraser. I pay attention to picking it up, moving it over
here, and then setting it down. A teacher might tell the yogi to pay close attention to
washing the body, brushing the teeth, putting on clothes, combing the hair, etc. This is
taught as sati.

In my first days of training I had to hear from others that I was lacking in sati. I went for
a bath and forgot my bar of soap. I was scolded, “You have no sati.” So, next day, I made

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 Beautiful Flame

the firm determination, “I will pay attention to everything. Even the blinking of my eyes.
I will not blink without complete attention to the blinking of my eyes.” Trying hard, I was
aware of a hair on my arm moving in the wind. I was aware of subtle sensations in my
body. Still I was told, “You have no sati!”

Because we’re talking about my training all those many years ago, a heightened level of
attention arises in me. I am aware of the movements of my body. Right now, for these
few moments, it arises in me again. The yogi must train to a high level of attention at
some point in his or her practice to overcome unskillful habits acquired from family and
friends, school, and society.

I could not accept that just paying attention was sati. I trained in methods of Mahasi
Sayadaw for twelve years, and then methods of Webu Sayadaw and Goenka for about six
years. Sati was no clearer to me.

Is sati the paying attention to everything?

No! That’s not sati! Though paying attention to seemingly everything and anything is
taught as sati, paying attention is manasikāra. It’s a common mistake. I also taught
manasikāra to be the sati when I first started teaching. It took me a long time to
understand what is the sati.

Manasikāra directs the mind to objects. It does the switching between objects. Say the
mind’s object is a sound, and the mind’s next object is a sight. It’s manasikāra that directs
the mind to the sound, and it’s manasikāra that directs the mind to the sight. It switches
the mind from sound to sight.

If manasikāra is not sati, then what is the sati?

Manasikāra directs my mind to this eraser. Manasikāra is present in my picking up the

eraser and moving it.

Sati means having no abhijjā or domanassa. If I pick up the eraser and move it without
any abhijjā or domanassa coming in, then I am performing those actions with sati. In all
four satipaṭṭhānas, freedom from abhijjā and domanassa is mentioned. Sati means having
no expectations whatsoever. The good yogi recognizes abhijjā and domanassa.

I give dhamma talks with manasikāra. I want something good to come from these talks,
which is abhijjā. And annoyance arises when things don’t go as they should, which is
domanassa. If I could give a talk without abhijjā and domanassa, I would be giving it
with sati.

Actions can be a mix of manasikāra and sati. I again turn the focus of my mind towards
this eraser. Manasikāra is in operation. I want to pick it up. I then pick up the eraser with
manasikāra. I am now moving the eraser, but am doing so without abhijjā or domanassa.
Sati is briefly in operation. I’m setting the eraser down on the floor; more manasikāra.

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 Beautiful Flame

Manasikāra helps sati to arise, and to continue. When a yogi trains properly for a few
days, it all starts working in harmony. Manasikāra and sati come together as yoniso-
manasikāra. Yoniso-manasikāra overcomes those habits the yogi picked up in his or her
present life. It is taught to go beyond and abandon the āsaya-dhammas. Over a period of
time, the yogi sees certain key phenomena connected to the objects of mind. Sees the true
nature of things.

And then it is sati based on sati. Sati and sati and sati. One moment of sati after another
moment of sati. Manasikāra drops out from the mind and paññā arises. Instead of
manasikāra and sati working together as yoniso-manasikāra, it is sati and paññā working
together as sati-sampajañña. Of the fifty-two mental factors, sati and paññā are the only
factors never influenced by avijjā. All others, even kusala, are influenced by avijjā.

Once sati and paññā become automatic, are established, the yogi’s mind is protected.
Upādāna does not arise. The yogi overcomes habits coming from past lives, shatters the
tendency to punabbhava, and inclines to nibbāna!

Thank you.

Theruwan Saranai. Suwapath Weava.

2004 Sumathipāla Na Himi Senasun Arana

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 Freed from hatred and ill-will, whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, free
from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection ― this is said to be the sublime
abiding.

Karaniya Mettā Sutta

Chapter 4 Mettā and Karunā

After sitting in meditation, I’ve started sending mettā to people who bring out the worst in me,
but this isn’t working all that well. I’m still angry with them.

Consider this example. You can send mettā towards external objects of the world, “May
my fellow yogi Harry be well, happy and peaceful. May he be free from suffering." You
spread this mind around to various people, and in several directions. While you are going
along doing mettā in this way, Harry steps on your spectacles, and you scold him! This is
the way you’re training in mettā, which is not at all practical ― your mettā isn’t
advancing in a proper way. What the Buddha taught as mettā must be developed within
yourself towards yourself.

I thought directing mettā towards others was the correct way of practice.

That is where you are going off track. If anger is still simmering over the broken glasses,
you must develop mettā internally, "May I be well. May I have no angry thoughts
towards Harry." I am not saying that you have any angry thoughts towards Harry! This is
just an example. Consider this only as an example. And you carry on in this way, "In my
mind, may I be at peace with Harry." Mettā must first be developed for yourself.

Why do teachers tell yogis to direct mettā externally?

Until the yogi’s mind gets tranquilized, it is okay for him or her to cultivate mettā
towards external objects. Some yogis train in mettā towards the external for years, and
that could very well be fine. How long the yogi uses mettā as a samatha object depends
on the individual yogi. If a yogi trains externally beyond the suitable period, then mettā
as the object becomes repulsive to his or her mind, and the practice becomes difficult.

True mettā connects with nekkhama. When it doesn’t, the yogi experiences difficulties.
Mettā is more than reciting the words, “May all beings be well, happy and peaceful.”
Nekkhama is necessary.

Religions have traditionally encouraged mettā as well as karunā. People far and wide
from all religious traditions help the sick and the poor. They aid with counseling and
charity work. Hurricane Katrina with winds of 250 kilometers per hour hit New Orleans
today. A few used the disaster to steal, which is the natural way of the world. Others
 Mettā and Karunā

assisted those in serious trouble. Due to religious beliefs, masses of people around the
globe involve themselves in the work of serving others. And of course, there are
innumerable people who, without any religious convictions whatsoever, help others.
When anyone, whether religious or non-religious, helps another, the good thoughts of
mettā and karunā develop, and a tranquility arises.

Sammā-saṅkappa of the Eightfold Path is nekkhama, avihiṃsā, and avyāpāda. It’s this
nekkhama that sets the Buddha-Dhamma apart from all other religious traditions. A
person’s good thoughts of mettā and karunā while helping others may or may not have
come to the level of sammā-saṅkappa. For thoughts of mettā and karunā to be sammā-
saṅkappa, the nekkhama is necessary, and that means helping others without expecting
anything in return. Not even a thank you.

Not even a thank you! Is the practice of mettā a means to an end?

Mettā and karunā are essential in the world. With kindness and compassion, the yogi
trains externally in samatha, internally in vipassanā, and externally together with
internally in samatha-vipassanā. He or she initially trains for tranquility, and later trains
for path knowledges. As a follower of the Buddha-Dhamma, your motivation should be
to get free of saṃsāra, to break away from decay and death. About that, no other religious
traditions have spoken. Only the Buddha taught about attaining path knowledges,
overcoming avijjā completely, and breaking bonds of saṃsāra.

In the external practice, when spreading mettā and helping others, the yogi suppresses
nīvaraṇas, though doesn’t destroy them. It’s possible for doubt and envy to arise, which is
not to say the yogi shouldn’t train externally. Training externally in mettā as well as
karunā is a must. We help others to the best of our abilities. The Buddha, known as The
One of Great Compassion, devoted his whole life to helping others. He frequently walked
many kilometers to teach.

Be cautious. There are enough people, especially among monastics and yogis, who make
the mistake of focusing entirely on internal and disregard external. They are only
concerned with themselves and their own work, and don’t care what happens to others
around them. These people never develop because they are going about things all
backwards. Their internal practices haven’t come about through external practices.

The yogi who is training correctly begins with external practices of mettā and karunā, and
then moves onto internal practices of mettā and karunā. It’s the performing of these
external practices that leads the yogi into internal practices. Not the other way around.
Only after first having gone through externally does the yogi switch to going through
internally.

In the internal practice, the yogi develops mettā and karunā for himself or herself, and
goes beyond a mere suppression of nīvaraṇas. Having come to know nīvaraṇas through
vipassanā, he or she wants to stay away from a tendency towards them. While not
sammā, as nīvaraṇas can arise again later, this yogi achieves a measure of nekkhama. He

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 Mettā and Karunā

or she gradually comes around to the idea of using kindness and compassion to overcome
nīvaraṇas once and for all. The yogi aims for path knowledge.

During this time of training internally, before attaining to a path knowledge, the yogi
realizes there is some truth in these practices, and wants to share his or her understanding
with others. He or she may even start to teach or write books, but without any thought of
financial gain.

There is a back and forth between external and internal practices. The external leads to
the internal, which leads back again to the external. The yogi’s understanding of the
nature of things continues to develop through both external and internal practices. While
not yet at the level of path knowledge, the yogi’s nekkhama, mettā, and karunā are arising
to a significant degree.

After attainment to path knowledge, out of a nekkhama attained internally, the results are
seen externally ― the true mettā and karunā towards others arises. They don’t arise in
those who haven’t attained.

I’ve written a few books on your teachings.

You are giving these books away for free. That’s useless. It is better to sell them. I’m not
saying you have no mettā or karunā or nekkhama. But when books are given away for
free, many people don’t appreciate them. They’ll take your book and toss it in a corner.
Sell your books and donate the money to an old age home!

When external and internal mettā and karunā come to perfection, the yogi attains to the
first path knowledge. He or she destroys, never to arise again, the nīvaraṇa of vicikicchā.
The Eightfold Path is fulfilled. The sense of self, the envy, the avarice and miserliness are
all destroyed at first path. This yogi’s good thoughts of mettā and karunā have come to
the nekkhama level of sammā-saṅkappa.

I will try not to have any anger in my mind. Can I practise in the same way with envy?

Yes! Not only anger, you train in this way for everything akusala. Use it for your envy,
greed, hatred. You may think, "May I have no anger towards Harry.” And then without
anger, you steal his money! The results, for you and Harry, won’t be there. You and
Harry both have wrong views and greed, and fight with each other. Harry makes you
angry. And you make Harry angry.

Alright, to cancel my anger, I will send mettā to Harry.

No. It is impossible for you to straightaway send mettā to a person with whom you are
angry. That won’t work, because you don’t have enough mettā. You’ll still fight with
Harry.

Within yourself, you develop mettā by itself. Start by bringing up feelings of affection for

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 Mettā and Karunā

your mother and father, and then cultivate those feelings, those thoughts of mettā, within
yourself. Make those feelings and thoughts grow. Once mettā is well established within
yourself, you can direct it to others, “May Harry have similar thoughts of mettā. May
Harry also be free from anger.” You need to focus more on yourself, right now, before
focusing on the Harrys of this world.

I’m talking about how to act towards angry people. When you have mettā, your intention
is to help them overcome wrong views and greed. You pass along relevant teachings to
the irritable and annoyed. When you have true and pure mettā, you can associate with
anyone.

When do I direct mettā to someone who makes me angry?

Slow down. You can’t go too fast on this path. We all need to train externally and
internally for quite some time.

Let’s say your craving towards an object, your spectacles, is at one hundred percent.
Somehow, you reduce craving towards the spectacles by ninety-eight percent; only two
percent of craving remains. Then you think, “I am very happy that my craving has been
largely reduced. It would be wonderful if Harry had similar thoughts of happiness in his
mind. Harry would surely be pleased with himself if he too reduced his craving.”

This is the way to train in mettā towards others. And not to say, “May Harry be well.
May Harry be happy. May Harry be peaceful.” No. No. Not in that way.

Or your anger towards Harry is one hundred percent. All interactions with Harry are
troublesome. Through the training, you reduce anger by fifty percent. Again, you are
pleased because relations with Harry no longer bring out so much anger, and life is much
smoother for the both of you.

You know that anger, greed, and jealousy are some of life’s most unpleasant experiences.
To be well, you must somehow be without anger, greed, and jealousy. Train in mettā, and
share your knowledge with others who can develop.

I can’t give my fellow yogis what I don’t have.

Mettā is one of the four Brahma Viharas, and all four are interconnected. As one Brahma
Vihara develops, so goes the development of the other three. Where mettā arises, the
karunā, mudita and upekkha naturally also arise.

As a friend, I want what’s best for you. Though declaring you don’t have mettā, I know
mettā is to a certain extent arising in you, and that makes me happy. I see you helping
others. My happiness isn’t arising out of a pride in teaching you. I’m not taking credit in
any way for changing you for the better. I’m simply happy that you’re developing mettā,
and mettā is good for you.

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 Mettā and Karunā

There is no correlation between my mettā and your mettā. I can send thoughts of mettā to
you all day long and it won’t make any difference whatsoever to the mettā that is arising
in you. I can’t give you mettā, since it is an internal quality. It’s you, within yourself, who
is developing mettā. I can’t make you or anyone else happy!

Does the practice of mettā give psychic powers?

Super-normal abilities, abhiññās, are useless. I know they are useless. Mettā is useful in
life. Mettā isn’t developed to have abhiññās. It’s developed to attain freedom from
saṅkhāras and saṃsāra. In the Karaniya Mettā Sutta, the Buddha speaks of never taking
birth again in a human womb, which means attainment to anāgāmī.2 When you train well,
abhiññās may arise as a byproduct. Don’t place any value on them because they won’t
help you break free of saṃsāra. Even powers to heal the sick are useless. Mettā has one
and only one purpose.

Direct your efforts towards healing the sicknesses of saṃsāra ― greed, anger, envy,
revenge, and one-upmanship. The Buddha said, “Take a purgative for wrong views and
wrong thoughts. Send them down the toilet. Vomit out defilements.” He used those
words. The Buddha said, “I give medicine both for purging and vomiting.” The purging
of wrong views and wrong thoughts is the attaining to stream-entry. The vomiting of all
defilements is the attaining to arahatship.

Do I need jhāna?

I would be pleased if you attain a jhāna from mettā. Yogis with jhāna-samāpatti think in a
free and distinct way. They’re not interested in abhiññās.

Almost all yogis training in vipassanā, or in samatha, over a lengthy period of time will
experience major difficulties. This is not a sign of weakness in the yogi. Even when the
five spiritual faculties are well developed, serious difficulties can arise from causes
connected to kamma, and causes not connected to kamma.

Recognizing these key challenges, the teacher knows it’s necessary to put a stop to the
yogi’s training in the primary kāmathana. And then, considering the yogi and the nature
of the difficulties taking effect, the teacher starts the yogi on a temporary training in a
supportive practice, such as Buddha-nussati, mettā-nussati, asubha-nussati or marana-
nussati. Teachers most often get their yogis onto Buddha-nussati and mettā-nussati.

Mettā is a central practice that is recommended on a variety of occasions. When a past

kamma is exerting a nasty influence, the teacher might tell the yogi to train in mettā to
deflect this past kamma. And in those places where the yogi starts going astray, the
teacher urges the yogi to use mettā to get back on track. Then there are many types of
difficulties that arise from causes not connected to kamma. When the yogi’s mind is
gross and hard, the teacher turns the yogi towards mettā. Sometimes at the very beginning
of a yogi’s training, the teacher encourages the yogi to work with mettā to make a sense
of ease arise. According to the appropriateness of the moment, mettā is taught.

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 Mettā and Karunā

There are also times when mettā is taught as the primary kāmathana and not as a
secondary, temporary, supportive practice. For example, to the yogi who likes to attain
jhāna, the teacher may get him or her to focus entirely on mettā. The yogi stops his or her
normal vipassanā practice and takes up mettā fulltime day and night. It’s quick and easy
to make states of jhāna arise with mettā as the kāmathana. However, the mastering of
jhāna, the gaining of jhāna-samāpatti, builds up gradually. It cannot be pulled off in a
year or two. The yogi who makes jhāna arise through mettā tries, without craving or
aversion, to help others attain such states.

From ancient times to the present day, along the lineage of teachers, methods of training
in supportive practices have been passed down to us. You can find many suttas where
Venerables Sāriputta and Anuruddha talk at length about using mettā as a support. Any
yogi who follows the Buddha-Dhamma one hundred percent, or even fifty percent,
should train in mettā at some point. Mettā is a great help to vipassanā. It keeps the yogi
progressing and prevents a fall into delusion.

How am I doing?

Instead of doing what I ask, you sometimes go your own way and progress stops. You
have lots of opinions about what’s best for yourself. You are not alone. There are yogis
who only want to do the vipassanā portion of the Satipaṭṭhāna, and don’t want to do any
of the supportive practices. And there are yogis who only want to do the samatha portion.
Yogis don’t know what’s best for them. Their teachers know. When yogis do their own
practices, and not what the teacher asks them to do, again, progress won’t happen.

Any yogi who continuously trains over a lengthy period of time without supportive
practices, such as mettā, is deceiving himself or herself. Though the yogi won’t likely
notice, he or she starts going astray. His or her mind becomes gross and coarse. It’s
impossible to progress properly when training in this way.

The teachers that are popular in Sri Lanka these days tend not to place much importance
on supportive practices. They insist on doing vipassanā, only vipassanā, and nothing but
vipassanā. Go meet these teachers and their yogis. You will see there is not much success
in vipassanā or in mettā. Doing nothing but vipassanā is a new method of meditation. It’s
not Buddha-Dhamma.

I’m working on not being too angry with myself.

Yes, you must do that! While being angry with yourself, how is it possible to disperse
another person’s anger? I told you a little bit about training internally. You should be able
to recognize the situations, the conditions, where this anger towards yourself arises.
Recognize the objects that make you angry.

I know people who were born in anger. I say a few words, and they see something wrong.
If I happen to glance at them, they get upset. They’re always angry. This type of man or

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woman needs to realize, “I have been born with anger. I must do something about it.”
Otherwise, if this man or woman fails to understand and manage anger, he or she finds it
impossible to live in society. Sometimes, an intensely angry person ruins his or her own
life, and the lives of others. Angry people destroy lives.

I’m not interested in helping angry people, or in dispersing their anger.

There are yogis here at our meditation centre who are angry. Almost everyone avoids
them. Fewer still are interested in helping them. Living with angry yogis is an
opportunity. Don’t avoid them. When you carry on, it’s possible to develop mettā. Try,
and this needs patience, to help them. When enough time is taken, you see that many of
these people are blind to their own anger. You can develop karunā. Patience. It’s the
highest austerity.

Patience has never been my strong point.

If you want to be an arahat, you must be patient!

What about self-hatred?

There are two types of anger ― with and without cause. The anger towards yourself is
without cause. It serves no purpose. It’s pointless.

When I was a child, there was a park where I flew kites with other children. We were all
ten to twelve years of age. Somedays, with our kites high in the sky, we tied their strings
to a branch of a tree, and went for a swim in a nearby stream. We tossed our clothes over
a branch, and jumped in. It was a good-sized stream. We stayed in the water, not
returning to shore, for a couple of hours. We swam and swam, and played catch and other
games. We swam underwater. It was lots of fun.

There was an old man who was also often in this park. He was there to collect grass for
his cow, and sometimes we helped him gather the grass. One day, while we were
swimming, he was cutting grass as usual with his scythe and filling his gunny sack. He
was packing the grass down into the sack with his foot, and the sack ripped slightly. His
foot went into the rip. And because the grass was firmly packed down, he couldn’t get his
foot out. We stopped swimming and went over to help him.

Though we were just trying to help get his foot out of the gunny sack, and weren’t the
cause of this happening, the old man was angry at everything. After getting his foot out of
the sack, he cut, stabbed, and attacked the sack with his scythe. He sliced the sack from
end to end. We were scared by his behaviour, and moved a safe distance away. We didn’t
want to be too close to him.

The old man still needed grass for his cow, and that meant repairing the gunny sack. He
tore a strand from a coconut tree frond, and then used this strand, in the same way as

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using thread, to stitch up the sack. Merely because he lost his temper, he had to spend a
lot of time and effort to repair the sack.

He filled the gunny sack again with grass, and still angry headed for home. The old man
didn’t get far. His path to home took him along a small bund across a flooded paddy
field. At the spot where he had to hop over a water outlet, he slipped and fell into the
muddy water. The sack of grass fell high and dry on the path. The sack didn’t fall into the
water. The cow’s grass was safe and sound. All because of anger the old man slipped and
fell.

Falling into the water made him furious. Once out, he stamped and kicked the bund. He
made a mess of the whole muddy area around the outlet, and then threw the sack of grass
into the water! On that day, the cow didn’t get any grass.

I wondered, “Why should this man get so angry? None of us were laughing at him. We
were scared.” From that day forth, we avoided the old man, and never again tried to help
him with gathering grass.

Another time, this old man was on his way to the bathing well and, without paying
attention, walked straight into a betel palm tree. He picked himself up, and punched the
tree! He then marched all the way home, picked up his axe, and marched all the way back
to the tree. The old man chopped down the tree! It was the old man who had walked into
the tree. The tree didn’t walk into him, but he chopped down the tree nevertheless.
Because he was old, no one said anything.

This old man got angry at his own actions. It’s anger that serves no purpose. It’s
pointless, and arose without a cause.

How can anger arise without a cause?

A mind gets distorted in a variety of ways. Some sort of sign arose in the old man’s mind,
and he got angry with that sign. It’s a sickness of mind, a distortion, which is arising.
There are monastics and yogis living in our centre who have this sickness. They’re
always in anger without reason, and people are afraid to associate with them.

Some of your monks and yogis scare the hell out of me.

Anger and fear are closely related akusala experiences ― like pointless anger, pointless
fear arises. As much and as often as possible, see anger and fear as negative, and
necessary to overcome.

Mettā overcomes anger and fear. Start by understanding your anger. Spot anger when it
arises, and look into it, “What is this thing called anger?” Above all, examine, “How is it
arising right now? And why is it arising?” With patience, you will gradually develop the
ability to recognize the objects that make you angry. You must at the very least start
identifying places where anger arises.

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To remove it, you say, “May there be no anger arising in my mind for whatever reason or
cause.” For example, recognizing that contact with Harry is problematic, you say, “May I
have no angry thoughts towards Harry." ― that’s how you begin.

And if I don’t bother training in mettā?

You’re lost. This process of reacting in a negative way only increases.

Food was an object of anger in my early childhood. There were times mother wanted me
to eat something that I found tasteless. I’d get mad and refuse to eat it. And there were
times mother didn’t want me to eat something that I did find tasty, and again I’d get mad.
If I was sick, she might have said, “It is not good to eat pineapples.” And since I liked
pineapples, I’d be upset. As a young child, I wasn’t trying to understand anger.

Physical illness is an object of anger for some people. I’m not happy with my declining
health. Sometimes, when we try to help sick people, they get angry. My diabetes is not a
secret. When someone with no medical training offers advice about treating diabetes, my
patience is tested. And if he or she goes on and on, I run out of patience, and get angry. In
the same way anger arose with certain types of food when I was a child, anger arises
these days with certain types of advice!

For there to be mettā, there needs to be intelligence and patience. Though the advice I’m
getting is at times troublesome, and almost always puts me in a bad mood, I make time
for those who offer advice, since they say these things out of concern. They have karunā.

We are all born with physical illnesses. A doctor manages my diabetes. It’s not my
concern. She prescribes suitable medicines, and dictates my diet. I try to let her take care
of this condition. With sickness as everyone’s inheritance, do I, or does anyone, have the
right to be angry when falling sick? No. It’s because we haven’t realized the true nature
of things that anger towards sickness arises.

What about cultivating joy to cancel anger?

That’s the reason for mettā. This process of reacting in a negative way to the world, with
all its pointless anger and fear and dukkha, needs to be brought to an end, and then and
there the joy arises.

During my early teenage years, thirteen through fifteen, my elder sister’s husband and his
brother regularly held music classes for children in their home. So much music was
played there. Not only did the children enjoy learning and playing music, their parents
and many adults in the neighbourhood also took great pleasure in listening to the music.

Not everyone was thrilled. I used to visit a grandmother who lived nearby. Hearing these
young boys and girls enjoying themselves always made her very angry. I asked, “Why
don’t you beat them up?” She’d smile. That’s how I used to be with her. I’d say, “Maybe

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you should kill those kids!” We laughed. She liked me a lot. “Well,” said grandmother,
“why don’t you throw a stone or two at them?” Of course, I couldn’t do anything of the
kind, as I would be in trouble with my mother.

Everything has two sides. The grandmother felt anger. The children, parents, and other
adults all felt joy. We must approach these sorts of circumstances in a balanced way. The
grandmother said music disturbs her sīla. One of the eight precepts is the refraining from
music and entertainment, but the children didn’t know they were disturbing
grandmother’s sīla. They didn’t even know she was angry at them. And my elder sister’s
husband and his brother weren’t teaching music to annoy the grandmother.

Who needs the mettā? To whom should we direct our mettā?

The kids are alright, and not doing anything wrong. It’s the grandmother who needs to
learn about mettā.

Do you really think this grandmother wants to learn mettā? I don’t think so. It would’ve
been difficult for me to say, “These are just children playing music. Please don’t be
angry.” And she’d have run me off if I’d dared to advise, “Anger is not a good quality to
have. One day, you will die and these angry thoughts might come up at the moment of
death.” Those ideas would have been impossible for her to accept, and to put into her
mind.

You want to talk about joy. The grandmother was full of joy when the music teachers
died, and the classes were finally over!

Some people are totally immersed in an angry, dosa, type of personality. Others have an
intelligent, buddhi, personality. There are dozens of diverse personalities. Those with a
mix of angry and intelligent can be taught mettā. Yes, they lose their temper sometimes.
However, because these people are knowledgeable and have a logical method of
analyzing, they realize the passing away of the object. They immediately see the effects,
know something is wrong, and elect to overcome this anger by training in mettā. And
that’s an admirable quality of intelligent people.

Mettā is good for everyone.

Not every person who gets angry can be taught mettā. For some, like that old man who
attacked the gunny sack and this grandmother, anger is a mental condition. It’s their
personality. They’re always in dosa. To their ears, it’s poison to hear, “May he be well,
happy and peaceful. May he be free from suffering.” A few words about mettā makes
them angry. Makes things worse; more anger arises. There’s no way to teach them the
mettā of sammā-saṅkappa.

How do I live with angry people?

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It’s difficult. You must be careful when meeting an angry person to talk in a way that
doesn’t upset him or her. For example, let’s say the angry yogi we called Harry has the
flu with all its typical aches, pains, and fevers. Physical illness often aggravates anger.
You would never say, “Harry, you are really sick and weak with this flu. To get better,
you should eat properly. And you should stop with this anger, as it is preventing proper
digestion and getting better.” If you were foolish enough to suggest such things to Harry,
even though they are true, he would get even angrier.

For mettā to grow, be clever, and somehow find the tolerance within to be without anger
and without fighting. If you get angry every time you cross paths with an angry person,
that is not going to help the situation, and your development will be obstructed.

Do these yogis get angry when training in mettā?

No. They are not training. It’s good to have a few angry yogis in our community, as they
provoke our defilements. I like angry people!

That’s a gloomy scenario. Perhaps I can help.

Because of feeling sorry for others, your mettā, karunā and patience grow. Anger is a
sickness. Only when angry people experience a strong crisis or calamity, do they wake up
from this sickness somewhat. Their lives must come to the point where they can’t help
themselves and no one is there to help them. When finding themselves in a situation like
facing death, then and only then do they begin to realize a little bit.

As for helping, be cautious, because today’s society frowns on anyone helping another
one hundred percent. There’s no way people will let you train in too great a degree in
mettā and karunā. You can perform acts of kindness and compassion at fifteen to twenty
percent of what’s possible. That degree will be tolerated. If you go beyond twenty
percent, for example help at twenty-five percent of what you can do, rejection is the
norm, “You are crazy.” Acts of kindness bring suspicion, “Why are you behaving like
this?” and “You must be up to something.” People mock you, “Why so much mettā and
karunā?”

Why are people so suspicious?

The average person’s understanding of mettā and karunā is rudimentary. They’re not
thinking at the same level. If you try to apply a higher mettā and karunā, he or she simply
can’t appreciate your way of thinking, and thus perceives the help in a wrong way. Acts
of kindness and compassion are generally misunderstood.

There are yogis here who say they’re meditating. And yet, if I propose doing mettā for
Prabacheran, leader of the Tigers in the North, they would judge me harshly. It is
unbearable for them to say, “May Prabacheran be free from sickness.” Could these yogis
offer food and medicine to the leader of a terrorist group? No, they could not bear to do
so.

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Prabacheran is an occasion for mettā, since it is only in his current birth that he is fighting
and killing. In the workings of kamma-phala, there is no saying where he will end up in
his next birth. He will definitely be in a lower state. We must have a lot of karunā, to
teach him well and give him the comfort of dana. In recent times, Creon stands out as a
yogi who had true mettā and karunā. He asked me to go with him to Jaffna! Creon said to
me, “You talk big about mettā, but you don’t have enough mettā to give a large dana to
Prabacheran and his Tigers.” You knew Creon.

A fine young man. He died last year while studying at the University of Toronto.

To develop mettā and karunā, it’s absolutely necessary to understand anger. When you
put in enough effort, you’ll see that it is mainly aversion and dissatisfaction arising in
your mind. For example, you can see yourself judging Harry’s behaviour to be bad, and
that a dislike towards Harry frequently arises. You don’t want to walk down to the dana
sala with him. You wish Harry would soon leave the meditation centre, and to never
return. In these moments when the anger, aversion, or dissatisfaction is arising, you need
to look closely at your own mind and see what is lacking.

Harry is a human being who was born with greed, hatred and delusion, and you are
likewise a human who was born with greed, hatred and delusion. You can’t say, “Oh,
Harry was born with lobha, dosa, and moha, but I wasn’t born with lobha, dosa, and
moha.” It’s impossible to say that. Acting intelligently means acting with kindness and
compassion. You start to realize, “Both Harry and I were born with greed, hatred and
delusion, and we both have our weaknesses. There is no need for any repulsion to arise in
me for Harry’s weaknesses.” In this way, you become well.

And when I am overwhelmed by an angry yogi? It all seems hopeless. No escape.

Ha! There are teachers who say, “If you get angry with someone, then finish it off. Tell
the other person exactly what’s on your mind. Fight anger with anger.” Indulging in
anger is not the correct practice. As an alternative, find it within yourself to see your
anger and to realize something is amiss. Don’t look at the other person’s behaviour. Look
at your own mind. Realize, “Anger is a saṁyojana that lengthens everybody’s journey in
saṃsāra.” Think, “Anger is an akusala quality. It is not good for me and not good for
those around me.”

The Buddha spoke of destroying anger completely, and breaking the bonds of saṃsāra.
We all must work relentlessly, with the necessary wisdom, and the patience, to overcome
anger…

May you be well, happy and peaceful!

August 21st & 22nd 2007 Sumathipāla Na Himi Senasun Arana

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 Those ascetics and brahmins, Assaji, who regard concentration as the essence and identify
concentration with asceticism, failing to obtain concentration, might think, ‘Let us not fall away!’

Assaji Sutta

Chapter 5 Manasikāra and Samādhi

Today, I will talk about paying attention, the manasikāra, to dhamma. Dhamma, or
nature, is of two types ― non-sentient and sentient. Non-sentient dhamma includes trees,
rocks, mountains, cliffs, sand dunes and rivers etc. Some types of non-sentient dhamma
have life in them, and yet are not sentient. Then we speak of galaxies and worlds. There
is the solar system — it’s a natural process, all part of dhamma.

Depending on the environment in different locations, there are divergences in material

substances of nature and differences in beings. Trees, say in Sri Lanka, that grow
upcountry in Nuwara Eliya differ from trees that grow here at our lower elevation in
Kanduboda. What grows in India doesn’t grow here. Depending on environment and
material phenomena, nature changes. Depending on the location of worlds, there are also
differences. What grows in another world doesn’t grow here in our world. What grows in
other countries won’t grow here. The people of ancient times thought a god created all
this of our world. Even now, this is a view held by many.

Nature, however, arises based on causes and conditions. In dependence upon the way
causes and conditions come together, trees and mountains are formed. The other day I
watched a television program about a species of chameleon. It is white, very long and
eats only once every ten years. Slovenian yogi Tamara said this chameleon is endemic to
Slovenia, while others said the chameleon is native to other countries. This chameleon
lives in caves. Depending on the ambient air temperature, it sometimes lays eggs and
sometimes delivers live births. The difference is based on just a small variation in the
temperature of its environment. Generally, in our understanding of nature, animals that
lay eggs don’t deliver live births. But depending on temperature, this chameleon
sometimes lays eggs and sometimes delivers live births. There are causes and conditions
operating that apply to both sentient and non-sentient nature.

The Buddha talks about nature in the worlds of all living beings, and not only humans.
The laws that apply to living beings are similar to the laws that apply to trees. In humans,
depending on their native country, there are differences in skin colour, language, etc.
There are innumerable variances. We are in a warm country, and our skin colour differs
from those who live in cold countries. These are differences in concepts. Yet, man
remains man. And what does man use? It’s the things of nature, isn’t it? Food and drink
— these are things of nature. These days, man brings nature close to him. In ancient
times, man lived where nature was located. There is a difference between these days and
ancient times. Now, we bring nature into our homes. We have water taps right inside our
homes. Nature has been brought closer.
 Manasikāra and Samādhi

By paying attention to sentient nature, we discover sentient nature. To find out what is
the nature, we must train our minds properly. We use our nature to understand nature. It’s
called jhāna. Better not to talk about jhāna too much though! So, how to bring nature
close to us? There is inhalation and exhalation. We cannot live without natural inhalation
and exhalation. Then what are called foods are the great elements, aren’t they? Hardness,
liquidity, temperature, vitamins, etc. — these are the characteristics of food. Again, in the
case of food, we have brought nature close to us. Inhalation and exhalation; this is
natural. The Buddha near the Bodhi didn’t use anything new. He directed his mind at the
functioning of the natural process of breathing. That’s all natural phenomena. We must
see what is there in the way it is actually there. The Buddha started by observing
inhalation and exhalation. We are speaking about paying attention, manasikāra.

Inhalation and exhalation is part of nature. Then we also have feelings of pain and
pleasure. Feeling is based on the nature of the heat element. Dependent on harmonious or
disharmonious sense of bodily contact — heat is one of the Great Elements. When the
temperature increases in one spot, then pain increases in that spot, and it is a
disharmonious bodily contact. When the excess heat is absent, then it’s a harmonious
bodily contact. Our dislike is directed towards the nature.

In this case, has our dislike arisen towards sentient nature or towards non-sentient
nature?

You must answer that question. I don’t know.

In our example, there is sentient nature and non-sentient nature out of harmony with the
form. Then from disharmony, a new reaction occurs. A feeling. There’s a difference. It’s
a feeling now. If there is only a feeling, without directing it at nature, then that’s okay.
We must know our feeling is one thing and know nature is another thing. There is a
distinct difference. They are separate. Typically, we don’t know that our feeling is one
thing and nature another, which is why we require this attention.

Why again do we need attention?

Attention, manasikāra, is a natural phenomenon that we all possess. Say we experience

heat and a sense of burning in our bodies. These are variations in the heat element. If we
wait long enough, then we won’t feel that heat and burning, or feel anything. We use
attention to recognize the feeling of heat and recognize nature. Let the feeling of heat be
the feeling of heat. And let nature be nature. We grasp The Great Elements of nature as
me and mine. Through attention, we see that we are just The Great Elements. Through
attention, we see our grasping of the elements of nature as me and mine. We are both part
of nature and separate from nature. Thus, we must use nature to discover nature.
Understanding is one thing. Continuing to live with nature is another thing.

And why is that?

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It’s not possible otherwise. We live in the world as it is. It’s okay to know nature, that
nature is like this or like that. However, wrong views may arise. Say views about khaya-
dhamma. We can go on this path knowing nature and also end up going down a wrong
path. Why? Errors arise when either we say that nature arose without causes and
conditions or when we attribute all of nature to a creator. In this way, we fall into wrong
views. We need to take care not to let this happen. So, one view is that there are no
causes and no conditions — that things arise from nothing. For example, thinking that
human beings just arise. A human being doesn’t just arise without causes. There are these
sorts of wrong views. Spontaneous birth, opapatika, doesn’t mean a being arises without
causes. Spontaneous birth is one thing. A causeless birth is another.

By accepting causeless birth, we are falling into the view of adhicca-samupannaṃ,

fortuitous arising, meaning things arise without causes and conditions. That view is
outside the Buddha-Dhamma. Or, a second view we can fall into is the view of creation
by a creator. We don’t accept these two views. Rather, we accept that the things here in
our world have arisen through causes and conditions. A being arises when the necessary
causes and conditions combine. Heat arises when the necessary antecedent phenomena
combine. Hardness arises when the necessary material phenomena combine. It’s in this
way that there are differences.

Yes, there are these niyamas, natural orders of things. It doesn’t matter. Let nature remain
where it’s at. There’s nothing else we can do. We must learn to accept the natural orders
of things. It’s good to understand nature, as we live in it. We don’t create a self out of
nature, and we don’t desire nature to be this or that way. To understand nature, it’s useful
to understand attention.

And what is attention?

Attention, manasikāra, is the characteristic of the mind that switches the mind from one
object to another object. Now, while giving this Dhamma talk, my mind was somewhere
else. However, I had also kept attention on what I was about to tell you. You didn’t notice
which object had my attention. Did you? Those who brought today’s noon dana walked
past a moment ago. I had switched the attention in my mind towards that object. Now you
know which object had my attention. Over there, on the far side of room. I said to them,
“I’m coming. Leave it there.”

See how the mind works? You may have thought my mind’s attention was directed
towards the film crew. It wasn’t. Yes, that’s how attention, manasikāra, works. Attention
directs the mind towards one object and then directs the mind towards another object, and
then another. Attention merely switches the mind from one object to another object. We
try to note this switching of the mind, that first the mind goes here and then the mind
goes there. Nevertheless, it is impossible to note all one hundred percent of the objects
that have our attention. We can do a little.

I’m not following.

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We note that we are paying attention to some objects, and then miss noting that we are
paying attention to other objects. There is a gap. Sometimes there isn’t a gap between the
noting of objects that have our attention, and sometimes there is a gap. To the best of our
abilities, we note objects in this way. If we can note fifty percent of the objects that have
our attention, that’s very good. Attention, manasikāra, is neither good nor bad. This
switching of the mind towards an object isn’t inherently good or bad. Manasikāra merely
switches the mind to the Great Elements, and this isn’t the good or bad part. Nonetheless,
the knowing of this switching of the mind is something good.

There are two ways of noting the objects of our attention. There is the noting of objects in
a wholesome and useful way. And there is the noting in an unwholesome and useless
way, which means thinking this or that object is a bother and so on. Two different ways
of noting exist in life.

My mind cannot focus on giving a proper dhamma talk!

I’ll talk to the people who brought the dana.

Yoniso-manasikāra, the rightly-directed attention, is when we transform manasikāra

towards the wholesome. We turn our minds towards what is wholesome; that is one way.
Or we turn towards the unwholesome. We don’t have to work at turning towards the
unwholesome, now do we?

Yes, no. Not sure.

Ayoniso-manasikāra is the wrongly directed attention. Attention is used during both our
wholesome and unwholesome activities. It’s okay if we pay attention to nature, as long as
it’s not in a way that makes it unwholesome. When we pay attention in an unwholesome
way, it’s not good. Attention is necessary for us. When we let our attention function in a
way that it does instinctively, then our attention always tends towards the unwholesome
and we want to possess these objects and so on and so forth.

To shift manasikāra towards the wholesome, we note the objects of nature without being
led astray by these objects, which means developing our understanding of them. For
example, when our attention is directed towards our bodies, we understand the materiality
of our bodies. We also understand, because of this materiality of our bodies, pains and
other feelings will arise. Understanding the materiality of our bodies is one aspect of
nature. Understanding that pains and other feelings arise because of this materiality is a
second aspect of nature. So, in this wholesome way, we understand these two aspects of
nature, and are not led astray. Yoniso-manasikāra.

By developing our minds, we can move near to nature or move far away from it. We can
either decrease the gap between us and nature or increase this gap. We can also choose to
be outside of nature altogether. There are these differences. With developed minds, we
are working with nature or working against nature. Inside or outside of nature. Internal.

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External. We can have power over nature and control it. And that is what is known as
abhiññās, the psychic powers ― to have control over nature.

In the last few years, many books have been published on the nature of samādhi, jhāna,
and abhiññās. Most of these books are without a sound basis. The authors are making
unsubstantiated claims, and I cannot accept these books. If a book on samādhi, jhāna, and
abhiññās has a proper basis and its author’s claims are substantiated, then I will accept
the book. So far, I have accepted few books. Maybe I am wrong. I don’t think so! If an
author can correct my opinion about his or her book, then I will accept what he or she
claims. However, I must be convinced in debate. The author must be able to debate based
on personal and practical experience, and not on research and book knowledge.

In a life, whatever there is of samādhi, jhāna, and abhiññās should be personally

experienced. There exists no citt’ekaggatā or samatha which is not practical. If it’s only
words, only book knowledge, then it is of no use. Someone recently described what jhāna
is to many of you. He should have shown by his personal and practical experience that
this and that is the nature of jhāna, and then I would have also accepted what he said. Not
otherwise.

The Buddha never advised accepting just because someone tells us so. Simply because I
say something, you don’t have to accept it. You must also try it out. To say the ocean is
deep won’t do. Or for that matter, to say the ocean is shallow. We step into the ocean,
learn how to swim, and get into it. Or else, to say the ocean is salty. You and I must taste
the ocean. That’s the way it is. Without experience, it won’t do. We experience going
inside, bringing nature near to us. Or we experience staying outside, and move away from
nature. Inside and outside. Near and far. That’s the only way.

You mentioned citt’ekaggatā.

Citt’ekaggatā, the one-pointedness of mind, has various manifestations, and develops

through the practice of manasikāra, attention. One-pointedness of mind arises in children.
Even a young child has citt’ekaggatā. For example, when studying the alphabet in school,
a child repeatedly directs his or her attention to the letter “A”. The child’s mind remains
with the letter for a time. In other words, one-pointedness arises in connection with the
letter “A”, and he or she learns the letter. The child then repeatedly directs his or her
attention to the letter “B”, citt’ekaggatā again arises this time in connection with the letter
“B”, and he or she learns that the letter “B” is like this. The young child never needs to
study the letters “A” and “B” again. Those letters are imprinted on his or her mind, and
the child starts learning whole words. And that’s the nature of citt’ekaggatā.

I learned my ABCs quickly, and on my own. Seeing the letters once or twice was enough
to learn them, and then I’d act up in class. I didn’t want to be taught, which was a
problem for the teacher who wanted to teach me. When I correctly recited the letters of
the alphabet, my teacher didn’t like it.

A hunter has one-pointedness.

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Yes, what you say is true. A hunter does have one-pointedness of mind. A hunter has a
lot of citt’ekaggatā. Car drivers have it too. Marksmen. Thieves. They have all developed
good attention and can maintain one-pointedness, but it is not wholesome. Even if one-
pointedness becomes samatha, it’s still not wholesome. Lots of children have strong one-
pointedness, when their minds are collected for longer periods of time during their
studies. When studying, I had strong one-pointedness. I wasn’t aware of someone
walking past just beside me. I didn’t notice sounds. This was not any form of jhāna or
samādhi. My one-pointedness was simply more in my studies and less in external objects.
My mind disregarded all external objects, until my sister shouted at me! And that was a
shock. My body jerked.

Why?

One-pointedness was shattered towards that object. No talk of wholesome or

unwholesome there. Saints and sinners and everyone in between ― all have this type of
one-pointedness. Animals also have it.

Citt’ekaggatā has two sides ― wholesome and unwholesome. When considering the
wholesome side of one-pointedness, we talk big. Many people at our meditation centre
participate in pūjās, offer flowers and so on. By directing attention towards these
activities, their one-pointedness increases and sometimes they even lose track of time.
They are developing their one-pointedness of mind towards these objects and arriving at
a type of samādhi. Their minds are calmed down to a certain level. Samatha is a greater
degree of this calming down.

Why do you sometimes say samatha and other times samādhi?

From various samatha practices, people get into samādhi, and this is samatha-samādhi, as
opposed to vipassanā-samādhi. Samatha means that some level of tranquility arises in the
mind. Samādhi is short for the samatha-samādhi.

We have external nature. And what exists in this external nature are the objects for our
eyes, ears and other senses. For example, the trees, humans, artificial objects and natural
objects. Natural sounds and manmade sounds too. In samādhi, there is a reduction in our
attention towards external objects of nature ― maybe a fifty or twenty-five percent
reduction. If there is a reduction by twenty-five percent, then that’s excellent. There are
these external objects. They exist. It’s okay that we see them or hear them or smell them
or touch them. What’s most important is knowing how much craving and aversion we
have towards these external objects. Not the knowing of the objects, but knowing the
intentions towards them, our mode of relating to these objects. Are the intentions tainted
with lots of craving and aversion? Knowing our intentions in this way is essential. We
know the nature of our hindrances ― kāma-cchanda, vyāpāda, etc…

There are yogis in our community who are pleased with their samādhi, and yet others find
it difficult to associate with them. A word or two is enough, and they get angry and
worked up, saying their samādhi is destroyed.

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How can a few words disrupt a yogi’s samādhi?

Yes, that’s a strange kind of samādhi. We can joke that the Buddha must have been a
rock! His samādhi was not like that. These days, many yogis go astray in thinking
samādhi means being a rock, and nothing else. What they are attaining is more in line
with mental illness.

I lived in India for a time. The police suspected me of stealing money and put me in jail.
Their suspicions were groundless, and I was released soon afterwards. I also associated
with Jains, and that’s when I considered throwing away my robes, living like these Jains
and practising vipassanā. Life would have been easy because no one would have
disturbed me. I know Hindu practices, because of my lengthy stay in India. In Calcutta,
there was Atti Swami, the Bone Swami, whose garment was made of bones. He ate his
food from a human skull. And there was Jala Swami, the water Swami, who lived in a
pond. And another, well, you couldn’t approach him, as he would spit at you! All these
swamis were considered attainers of jhāna. So, such yogis there were in India, and here
too in Sri Lanka we have the same. Those who go to India from here, I tell them they will
meet mostly pot-heads and lunatics. However, amongst these, there are a few genuine
practitioners.

Far too many authors claim a yogi’s mind is tight and a rock in jhāna. That is not jhāna. If
you talk with the yogi who trains in this way, it’s an argument. Small incidents get blown
out of proportion. Restlessness arises. To truly find jhāna, the yogi must, as in the
Satipaṭṭhāna, go about his or her practice without craving and aversion. The attainer of
jhāna is not interested in arguing. There is a reduction in restlessness. I don’t say a yogi
must remove himself or herself from everybody to practice properly, only saying that
when training properly, the hindrances are reduced.

What’s the difference between the yogi who has jhāna, and the rest of us?

Good question! There’s a big difference. The yogi with jhāna-samāpatti is not led astray
by objects of nature. Samāpatti is a stronger state, more than only experiencing jhāna. For
example, the yogi trains in the first jhāna, and then develops the ability to remain in the
first jhāna for a long time. Similarly, with any jhāna, the yogi can enter at will and remain
for an extended duration.

Without eradication of defilements, without path, isn’t the yogi back to a normal state
of mind when not in jhāna?

In a worldly state, the jhāna is a worldly attainment. There is mind at the level of
sensuality, and mind not at the level of sensuality. Here, mind is still worldly. To enter
jhāna, the yogi moves away from sensuality, and into the neighbourhood of jhāna,
upacara-samādhi. The yogi with jhāna-samāpatti maintains his or her life mostly at the
level of upacara-samādhi. Vitakka is towards wholesome objects. Though the yogi lives
in the world, his or her mind isn’t at the sensual level. Life is lived at the level of upacara.
There is a difference. Yes, he or she is somewhat involved with sensuality, the kāma-

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vacara, but not one hundred percent involved with sensuality. This is stated in the
Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. Thoughts of the sensual plane are in the neighbourhood of jhāna.
Upacara-samādhi.

Since this mind of upacara-samādhi, either immediately before entering or immediately

after exiting jhāna, is noticeably different from the mind of a normal daily life, it is often
mistaken for jhāna. Bhavanga, where mind is in a deep sleep, is also mistaken for jhāna.
Whether bhavanga lasts for a second or two, or lasts for half a day, bhavanga has a sense
of comfort. It is this sense of comfort that yogis sometimes claim to be jhāna, and this is
where their mistake lies. I don’t give any credence to it. Whoever wants to write about
jhāna can do so as they like.

Is anyone attaining jhāna?

There are yogis who attain to jhāna, and there are those who attain to psychic powers.
Rarely is a yogi with true psychic powers to be found. An attainer of jhāna, wherever he
or she is found, is good. I of course, cannot! In my youth, I considered jhāna to be good,
and I had the potential. The body and mind could be applied towards these practices.
Now, of course, I don’t want jhāna. Path and fruit, I also don’t want. Although, I do
consider nibbāna to be good. I don’t know whether how I think is right or wrong.

And why not jhāna?

Because I cannot maintain that form of comfort. Yes, there is a comfort in jhāna.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be called a pleasurable abiding. Jhāna is difficult to maintain. All
of one’s effort is needed for it, and these days I cannot maintain such effort. I know I
cannot. Samādhi is useful. For samatha, jhāna is useful.

Jinna, please hand me the Saṃyutta Nikāya.

To Venerable Assaji, the Buddha had a few things to say about samādhi. I discussed this
sutta3 from the Saṃyutta Nikāya with a good Sri Lankan yogi, and he never again spoke
to me about jhāna, not until his death. We spoke of other things. Never about jhāna.

In his final days of life, Assaji is sick, in pain, and needs an attendant. Assaji asks his
attendant to worship the Buddha in his name and inform the Buddha about his failing
health and suffering. The attendant petitions the Buddha, out of compassion, to visit
Assaji. By his silence, the Buddha consents, and in the evening, gets up from his
samāpatti.

Assaji sees the Buddha coming and tries to get up from his sickbed. The Buddha seeing
this says, “Do not get up Assaji. I will sit on the seat which has been provided.” The
Buddha asks, “How are you bearing up? Is your sickness subsiding or getting worse?”
Assaji replies, “It is seen to be getting worse Venerable sir.” Buddha asks, “What is
bothering you Assaji? Is there anything causing you agitation?” Assaji replies, “Very
little sir. Just a little agitation.” Buddha asks, “Is it remorse caused by a defect in sīla?”

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Assaji replies, “No sir. Nothing to do with sīla.” Buddha asks, “Then what is the cause
Assaji?” Assaji replies, “Earlier when I came down with sickness, I was able to
tranquilize the breath and abide in it. Now, I am unable to do so. I cannot attain to that
samādhi anymore.”

Assaji says he cannot attain to that samādhi anymore. Then, what is there to say of us? I
have diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. And on top of all that, I
contracted the Chikun Gunya flu. So, would I be able to maintain samādhi?

The Buddha tells Assaji, “Those ascetics and Brahmins who consider samādhi as
important may accept this change. Were my teachings meant for the attaining of
samādhi? There are those who make samādhi the essence of their practice. If such people
said so after losing samādhi, it would be understandable.”

The Buddha didn’t teach his students to make samādhi, jhānas, the goal of their spiritual
practices. If samādhi is there, then well and good. If not, then let it be.

The Buddha asks, “And Assaji, what did I teach you? Is form permanent or is form
impermanent?” Assaji replies, “Impermanent.” Buddha asks, “And what did I teach about
feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness? Are these permanent or
impermanent?” Assaji replies, “Impermanent.”

Assaji then gave up aspiring to samādhi, directed his mind to the three characteristics,
and his mind reached arahatship.

How does this apply to me?

The mind doesn’t stick with the feeling. The mind doesn’t sink into feeling. There is
feeling, but you don’t get into the feeling. There is perception, but you don’t sink into the
perception. You know feeling as feeling, and know perception as perception. There is
nothing for you to be in conflict with. Whether it’s a pleasant feeling or pleasant
perception, then it’s just feeling, and just perception. At the time of death, Assaji knows
his eyes, ears, and nose will also die. He knows these are his last few thoughts, and he
knows them. Then he knows this is the last moment.

In my life, I have only seen two people who had such clear deaths. The first was my
senior brother in the Sangha, Dhammadassi. Before ordaining with my teacher, he was a
pilot. Dhammadassi, minutes before dying, said, “Pemasiri, I have something to give you.
Hold out your hand.” I held out my hand. He made a gesture, as if to give me something.
He tapped my hand and said, “One.” Tapped my hand again and said, “Two.” Then he
tapped me a third and fourth time. I asked, “What are these four?” Dhammadassi said,
“The Four Satipaṭṭhānas. That’s enough.” Then he closed his eyes and it was finished. He
said, “This will be my last thought.” And that was the end. He died.

Who was the second person?

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Sumathipāla Na Himi. When dying, my teacher said, “Pemasiri, look after this place. I
will leave you now.”

If mind is developed to this level, to die in this way, then what reason is there for me to
look for other teachers? I don’t need more teachings about jhāna and bhāvanā from
anyone else. If the oil of a lamp is pure and its wick is clean and pure, then the flame
appears beautiful. Our views should be purified. If at any time, the oil is over, the flame
will go out, even if the lamp is good. When time is over and pain is over, the flame of life
diminishes. You are not going to see nibbāna in the next life. Your jhāna and samādhi are
for this life, not the next life.

When we move away from understanding nature, there is no sense of nāma-rūpa. We talk
in terms of me and mine, and have conflicts and get angry over objects. When we
understand nature, nāma-rūpa, and know these are only things in life, there is no need for
conflicts or anger. Physical property, vehicles, children, or books cannot be carried with
us in saṃsāra. If I lose my copy of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, what would happen? What if
someone steals this book? What happens?

Nāma-rūpa has separated. Should I hope the thief breaks his arm? Isn’t that the way of
society? I learned many a good thing from Sumathipāla Na Himi. He had been using a
superior quality pen for many years and someone stole it. I asked, “What do you think of
losing your pen?” He said, “It is lost. What more is there to say?” I asked, “Don’t you
want to know who stole your pen?” He said, “Then I would have to think the pen is
mine.” I received my answer.

On another occasion, a monk stole some Buddha relics from the Kanduboda Meditation
Centre. He had worshipped the relics and then stole them. When I asked about this theft,
Sumathipāla Na Himi said, “He’s taken the relics because he wants to continue
worshipping them.” I learned from my teacher there was nothing more to think about the
theft of the relics. I learned that these teachers were excellent; their minds were firm.
They knew the distinctions in nāma-rūpa. There was no identification with me or mine.
There was no identification with any object, be it a pen or relics. They realized that these
objects are impermanent.

Last week, our centre’s vehicle was involved in an accident. I only asked if the
passengers were safe. What more was there to ask? I broke my leg when I was child. I
said to my family, “My leg is broken.” There was no need to talk about how I broke my
leg, or who broke it.

Do I need samādhi?

Yes. Samādhi is not just a topic for discussion. It is needed to suppress hindrances.

May you all be happy! Theruwan Saranai. Suwapath Weava.

2010 Sumathipāla Na Himi Senasun Arana

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 Whatever beings (non-human) are assembled here, terrestrial or celestial, come let us salute the
Buddha, the Tathagatha (the Perfect One), honored by gods and men. May there be happiness.
Whatever beings are assembled here, terrestrial or celestial, come let us salute the perfect
Dhamma, honored by gods and men. May there be happiness.
Whatever beings are assembled here, terrestrial or celestial, come let us salute the Sangha,
honored by gods and men. May there be happiness.

Ratana Sutta (Piyadassi Thera translation)

Chapter 6 Let it burn

What is amata? Deathlessness?

Your word deathlessness does not belong in the Buddha’s teachings. In a Buddhist
context, yes, there is the Pali term amata, which is synonymous with nibbāna. Amata is
not deathlessness. This term amata cannot be accurately translated into English, or
Sinhala, or any other language. I feel quite helpless to explain its meaning. The question
is fine, yet difficult to answer. You must pose your question to someone who has gone
into nibbāna. I have no idea of getting into nibbāna. And so, how can I teach amata and
nibbāna? How can I tell you? Let’s discuss this. Amata means there's no further rebirth.

Do amata and nibbāna happen at death?

That idea is not right. Amata equates to nibbāna. Nibbāna is not something you attain
after death. It occurs in a human while he or she is alive. Nibbāna is usually
mistranslated. Most texts interpret it wrongly. Until the state of nibbāna arises in us,
death keeps occurring in our lives. The state of nibbāna happens in a person who is
living. Many people do declare, “You get into the state of nibbāna after death.” This is
wrong. It is a view leading into a religion, or philosophy. How long did the Buddha live?
What was his age when he passed away?

Eighty.

What happened to the Buddha in his eighties?

He went into parinibbāna.

What's wrong with saying the Buddha died? Why do you feel the need to use the word
parinibbāna? Let's say Venerables Devadatta, or Sāriputta. What happened to them? Or
when one of our relatives dies, or someone close to us expires? Often, when people say
the Buddha attained parinibbāna, they are merely replacing the word death for the word
parinibbāna. Even with the Buddha, it's fine to use the word death because he attained
parinibbāna when he was thirty-five.

If nibbāna isn’t entered into after death, what does parinibbāna stand for?
 Let it burn

Parinibbāna means coming to an end systematically. You finish it off in a very

methodical way. All of us have thoughts arising out of anger and jealousy. When others
are talking, we tend to listen to see what they are saying. Not to appreciate what they're
talking about. We judge what is said. Watching a yogi eating breakfast, we think, “Look
at him. Even though a yogi, look at the way he's eating.” Nibbāna means these formations
have totally stopped.

To methodically eradicate these formations, we need sīla, samādhi and paññā. From
hereafter, I won’t ask you to engage in bhāvanā. I am only going to ask you to be. Just be.
Practise just be. Don't meditate! Just be. You don't even have to practise manasikāra. You
needn’t do yoniso-manasikāra. Wisdom is also not required. Let go of mindfulness. Just
be. Starting immediately, for one week ― just be. And at the end of the week, report
what you feel. Just be. Do nothing. And when I say do nothing, and just be, I don't mean
to stop working, or refraining from whatever activities of daily living you should be
doing.

To just be is the most arduous task in life. Just be ― it's so difficult. You can't be
occupying your mind with thoughts of this, that or the other. You are not thinking about
what someone else has done. Instead of forever finding objects outside of yourself, when
one day you just be, that is the most enjoyable state, and you have the potential to finish it
all off.

{Telephone rings}

It’s a real bother when relations call from home. I can't get into just be, because they tell
me things I need to think about. They asked me to arrange a pūjā, which means much of
my time will be used for that event. I get various thoughts arising, “I have to tell someone
about the pūjā.” This type of thought is not all that harmful.

When I am with you and others here at the centre, it’s difficult for me to just be. For
example, I have thoughts about one of our Czech monks, “He is walking too fast. I
wonder why he is doing that? I must scold him again.” These types of thoughts are
harmful. Or seeing a recently arrived yogi talking, I think, “He is supposed to be
meditating. Now he is talking.”

Practising just be, there comes a time when you see jealousy, hatred, wickedness, lust,
delusion, craving. As these thoughts arise, you become aware of them. And you know
their causes. It’s possible. You can see your anger, and all sorts of hindrances coming up.
Sitting in the meditation hall or wherever, just be. No need for heroic effort, to be
strenuously suppressing hindrances and trying to eradicate them. Or to be generating
concentration. Just be. This is not easy. You must learn to cope with whatever comes up
in your just be.

Ajahn Chah, Mahasi, Goenka, etc. ― many different methods of meditation are good.
However, whatever the method, you only make progress with it for ten or fifteen days or
for a maximum of one month. In most methods, the hindrances get suppressed. And when

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hindrances are suppressed, you feel good. This is all that happens. Go ahead, pursue all
the various methods of meditation. It is worthwhile to have a go at them. Then
afterwards, just be. Finally, in the end, sit down, and learn to just be.

There are stories in the Sutta Nipāta of the future Buddha living as a yogi near the River
Naranja. He is on a journey to discover what is meant by atma. You know the story. He is
sitting under the Bodhi Tree. The future Buddha knows he is on a difficult journey.
Though having left home, parted with everything, he’s still thinking of home. He is
affected by memories of his wife Yasodhara, son Rahula, and the householder life. It’s
not at all an easy time for him.

The future Buddha is making effort and trying to arouse energy. He is practising
Dhammacariya continuously. Dhammacariya means wholesome living. This wholesome
living gives him the chance to arouse energy.

He realizes, “When alone, I am living with anusayas. I’m thinking about others and being
with them. Dwelling in those thoughts, within my mind, feelings arise.” Anusayas are our
sleeping latent mental tendencies. Not nice things. The future Buddha realizes, “All my
difficulties are due to sensuality, kāma-cchanda, lust. If I let go of all I have, these
thoughts will not come into my mind, and then I can just be.” He makes more effort,
arouses more energy, and lives without those unwholesome qualities of mind.

I left home.

You think you have let go of the home life. All of us at this meditation centre believe
we’re here, and not at home. Even the future Buddha found it awfully difficult to let go of
the home life. What to say of us? We have come to try to be here in body and mind.
We're only trying to do that. For the most part, when alone, we are living with whatever
is in our minds, and the thoughts of home are what still generally fill our minds.

Once settled down a bit, the yogis here at our centre focus on the method of practice
given to them. They might be watching the rise and fall of the abdomen, or the breath, or
bodily sensations. And then because of the method, external thoughts are prevented from
coming into their minds. With outside thoughts thus suppressed, yogis feel enjoyment.
And when this experience of joy is new and intense, they with over the top respect tell
me, “I am so grateful for all you did! I am now okay. My mind is in such a good
state, and I’m really happy about that. Thank you ever so much.”

This is not what yogis should be doing. They have not recognized their anusayas ― their
unwholesome tendencies. If they were to clearly recognize their anusayas, then that
would be a scary situation.

When you’re sitting in the hall or kuti, take a notebook and write down the anusayas that
come into mind. You’re not to do anything else. Just be. This is a good exercise. Don't try
suppressing anusayas. And don't try to make them your object either. Don't sit there
working with any object of meditation. Let's say you had been focusing on the breath as

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your object of meditation. Do not note the inhalation and exhalation. Just be. And truly
see your anusayas.

Please give details.

Sitting in the hall with just be, you hear a noise, and think, “The yogi sitting beside me is
making this noise. He is making far too much noise.” Anusaya. Or an opinion comes up,
“I can hear a Czech monk talking. He should be quieter.” Again, anusayas. Then a view
arises, “The Canadian is yet again yakking with Bhante Vayama, and disturbing my
meditation.” All are unwholesome tendencies. Write these down in the notebook.

Or, only as an example, this time with conceit you’re meditating in the kuti, “I have good
samādhi. I note inhalation and exhalation very well, and observe rising and falling very
well. I am aware of sensations. I am a good meditator.”

Philip stays in the kuti beside you, and is talking with Evelyn. You think, “When will
they stop talking? It doesn't look like they're going to stop anytime soon. I must go and
tell them to stop.” At this point, with lots of attention, you know, “I feel like getting up.
I’m getting up. I am getting up. Left. Right. I'm now moving my left foot forward. The
left foot is moving slowly forward. Now, the right foot is shifting forward.” You
attentively in this way moment-by-moment get up from sitting and walk over to Philip’s
kuti. Then, with awareness, you scold, “Philip! Evelyn! Why are you talking so much?
Can't you see I’m meditating?”

And what’s wrong?

You haven't done anything. It is all empty. What you were asked to let go of has not
happened. You have only been living with external objects. After scolding these yogis,
you return to your kuti and sit down to meditate. Before observing sensations, you send
mettā to your neighbours, “Let them be well and happy. Let them be peaceful. May Philip
and Evelyn be well, happy and peaceful.” And so, forgetting the disturbance, you focus
on your sensations. You start again. See this as an example.

One of the Czech monks does enjoy talking. It would help everyone if he was quieter.

Yes, there is a Czech monk who is occasionally a little noisy. However, in the context of
anusayas, can you see what is happening here?

This example hits me a little too close for comfort.

I’m almost finished. You see the Czech monk walking by your kuti. He is walking quite
fast, and you think, “I don’t know what to do with this monk. Once again, the train of my
meditation is broken. Pemasiri Thera should stop him from behaving in this way. I will
talk to Pemasiri Thera.”

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After worshiping me ever so respectfully, you say, “Bhante, please excuse me. I need to
talk to you. Yesterday I kept quiet, but today I must tell you the Czech monk is disturbing
my meditation. Please tell him to stop walking fast and making so much noise. I hope at
least you will touch on this matter with him.” Then I say to you, “Yes. Yes. Of course,
you are right. I will tell him from hereafter he should walk slower and be quieter.”

What do I take from this story?

Can’t you somehow see how valuable it is to just be? There wasn't, in this example, even
one moment when you were able to just be. You spent the entire day thinking about how
fast our Czech monk was walking! You needn’t look into the behaviour of others. Forget
about him talking, and walking fast.

I have done retreats in the Ajahn Chah, Mahasi and Goenka traditions. The teachers
at these retreats enforced many rules of conduct.

In the big meditation centres, teachers must be stricter.

You said hindrances are only suppressed in many methods of meditation. Is to just be
such a distinct way?

This is my experience of various methods of meditation. And I practised the Mahasi

method for a dozen years, and the Goenka method for about six years. I have experience.

George is staying with us these days. Up until recently, he was staying next door in a
room in the foreigner’s block at the original Kanduboda Meditation Centre. The yogi in
the adjacent room broke a plate. George got disturbed and complained to the other yogi,
which troubled George even more. He paid me a visit, and asked what to do. I told him,
“That’s okay. Why don't you go back to the old Kanduboda Meditation Centre, collect
your belongings, and move in here? Come stay with us!” George stayed on for the
following week at the old centre. When George returned here, he had some of his
possessions. Not everything. I said, “George, this is not enough. Why don't you go back
next door and collect the rest of your belongings?” George agreed, and promised to return
as soon as possible. As you see, George is now staying with us, and has settled down his
mind. He is able to just be.

What happened to George when he first started meditating happens to all of us. It’s these
akusala ways of behaviour that we have to abandon. We must stop finding objects outside
of ourselves. We must empty our minds of so many things, and it’s only at that point
wisdom arises. For sure, it's difficult to let go. Nevertheless, somehow, we must make the
effort to let go, and when this happens it’s easy to live with others.

I was born alone. I came into this world alone. Only later did I start focusing on others
and connecting with them. At the final stage of this life, at my dying moment, I have to
do that by myself. It is between these two moments of birth and death that I am meeting
people, recognizing them, and getting into conflicts. These are the situations where

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aversion arises. And this only happen with people I know. Does anything arise with the
people you’ve never met?

No. I don't know anything about them.

There are billions of people in the world. The number of people you don’t know is far
greater than the number of people you know. Is there any form of attachment to all these
people you don't know?

Never.

It’s always with the people we know that the craving and aversion arise. Why can’t you
be with the people you know in the same way you are with these countless people you
don’t know?

I’m not sure.

Thinking about this, we might go insane! Say you live with your child in the village of
Delgoda. This daughter or son is the nearest and dearest person in the world to you. A
servant also lives in your household. You come into contact with these two more so than
with anyone else. You notice this. Then a new family moves into Delgoda. You don’t
know anything about them, except that they came from somewhere else. They’re not
originally from Delgoda. Because you can’t just be, you wonder, “Who are these
outsiders? Are they good people? Or bad? Maybe they’re connected to the LTTE.” You
get assorted worrisome thoughts about these newcomers.

Another example. A newly arrived yogi moves into the kuti next to yours. Since you
don’t know that he is only staying for one day, concern arises, “Will he become a
problem?” You speculate on whether or not this new yogi will eventually become a
disturbance. These types of thoughts come all too often into our minds, and are a
hindrance.

Parinibbāna is the culmination of systematically eradicating all akusala thoughts.

Methodically, at the age of thirty-five, the Buddha put an end to acting in unwholesome
ways. After attaining to parinibbāna, he lived with others for the following forty-five
years, though not in the sense of taking external objects as his business. He taught
Dhamma. He taught Sikkhā. Sīla. The Satipaṭṭhāna.

The Buddha’s teachings help us to continue on this journey. We need these lessons. They
explain how to live in harmony with others. Not how to break away from others. We can
easily live with other people. In that state without external objects, the mind is pure, and
it’s simple for wisdom to arise. It was to this end that the Buddha taught Dhamma.

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Venerable Pemasiri Thera

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No matter how much I try to follow the training, it doesn’t seem I’m getting there.

A thought arose in me this morning, “I feel like going to the dining hall.” Then another
thought came along, “I don’t want to go to the dining hall.” This was followed with, “I
might help Sugath.” A worker then told me the office needs 6,000 rupees to cover the
cost of buying 1000 bananas. Bananas are grown in the garden on the property of this
meditation centre, and they’re grown without pesticides. These bananas are regularly
used for dana. I asked the worker, “Why does the centre have to buy so many bananas?”
He said, “A man organizing a dana for Vesak asked the kitchen staff to acquire these
bananas. The dana is not for our centre. It’s for a different place.” I asked the worker, “Is
it possible to buy the 1000 bananas from the local market?” That’s all I asked. The
worker went off somewhere. Our conversation ended.

The same worker returned a little later. He was happy, “There’s now no need to buy
bananas from outside! We plucked about 1000 bananas from our garden, and can if
necessary pluck more than 3000 bananas.” I told the worker, “Give those 1000 bananas to
the man organizing the dana.” This transaction is complete.

In due course the organizer arrived with 1000 bananas that he purchased. There are now
too many bananas! This man brought high priced bananas. And they are tiny. Their
weight comes from the stems, and sellers in the market make excessive profits. They’re
expensive. I was then informed it was a long time ago when the man asked staff to pick
up bananas, and I am of the opinion that the centre shouldn’t be responsible for this cost.
Who then will pay for these bananas? In the end, I accepted that the centre pay out the
6,000 rupees.

This is an example of how we come into conflict with others. We could get into a really
good fight. Even you might choose to hold onto this incident, and start living with it. If
we allow the holding onto any object to happen, perhaps getting into the events
surrounding the bananas, there is no extinguishing of the flames in our minds. There will
be fire. It’s marvelous when fires are burning! I yell, “This fire should teach you a lesson.
In the future, don’t behave in this manner.” Getting involved in these situations is useless.
Who did what with the bananas is an empty object.

This afternoon, many of us watched a film about the life of the Buddha. Two people
didn’t like the film, “Look here Pemasiri. This film is inappropriate. It’s no good what
you’re doing.” Their fires were scorching. I said, “This is no more than a film and there is
nothing for you to come into conflict with. It’s a made-up story.” Since I didn’t tell them
to watch the film, they had no reason to complain. I only showed it. Had I insisted that
these two watch then it would have been understandable for them to get angry.

All these anusayas are within us, and arise without an object. It’s when an anusaya comes
up that we find the object to put the anusaya into action.

What you say is puzzling, and perhaps useful. It reminds me of the chicken and
egg causality question. Which comes first? Sense contact with the object, or the arising

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of the anusaya? It’s not clear which of these two events is the cause and which is
the effect. Does my kāma-cchanda and vyāpāda come first or second?

Anusaya means sleeping. Lying dormant. It is an unwholesome tendency at rest within

us. From time to time, one of the anusayas dozing in our minds wakes up. There are
conditions at work for the arousing of an anusaya.

Parinibbāna means there is nothing left to rouse. All the anusaya fires have been
systematically and thoroughly extinguished. The future Buddha worked hard on himself
for a long time. As declared in the Ratana Sutta, at the age of thirty-five, he totally
destroyed his fires and attained liberation. We too should get rid of these akusala
tendencies sleeping in our minds.

The Buddha in the Ratana Sutta compares quenching a lamp’s flame to attaining to
parinibbāna. You sometimes help set out coconut oil lamps around the Bodhi Tree. All
lamps for the pūjā have flames, and are burning away. And then one of them always goes
out. Even though there’s still oil in this lamp, and its wick is fine, this particular lamp
stops burning. Its flame somehow went out. A breeze may have blown it out. If there are
no obstacles, the lamps with plenty of oil and good wicks continue to burn.

The lamps are beautiful. What are the obstacles?

Similar to delighting in the fires of lamps around the Bodhi Tree, we delight in our inner
fires. Do we try to extinguish these fires within us? No. We make no attempt at all to
restrain anusayas from arising.

Back to amata, what’s the difference between parinibbāna and death? What is death?

Parinibbāna and death are entirely different. Death means we were born. It is conception
in the womb, and what was conceived dies. Therefore, the Buddha also died in this way.
But without fires, there’s no question of him being born elsewhere. Death is not an end.
Parinibbāna is the end. Is there any need for us to attain this?

I can’t say.

Every day people with wildfires burning out of control feel the need to visit me.

And what follows?

I put a little more oil in their lamps, and I pull on their wicks! I found this to be most
effective, as their fires burn all the more intensely! I endorse each and every one of their
views and protests. The next day, or whenever we meet again, they always say,
“Venerable. You are very clever!” For those who carry on in this manner, intransigent
and grumbling, fires never go out. All these objects come up because they are not
extinguishing fires. Nor are we. Our fires are all-consuming. Even though we say it’s bad

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to let these fires burn, we do nothing. It’s all there in cittānupassanā. Whatever object
arises in our minds, we must just see it. And let it be.

Do I let go, as in the Ajahn Chah tradition?

No. It’s not let go, as taught by Ajahn Chah. You recognize the object. Recognize is the
operative word here. And see what arises in your mind with proper perception. Do not
connect one object of mind with any other object. Finish it off at the point it arises. And
when patiently practising in this way, in time, you extinguish the flames. Fires need fuel.
Without fuel, they go out.

These vipassanā stories are also found in Zen. Upon hearing them, good yogis
sometimes, suddenly, gain insight into the workings of their minds. A relevant story puts
out fires.

My fires are burning.

The way we are at the moment, fires never go out. I too am adding oil to my lamp, and
making subtle adjustments to the wick. If I were ever to stop adding oil, completely rip
out the wick, then throw away the lamp ― most everyone would be angry with me. They
would leave me.

I’m still not sure about this death business.

It is a good question. Don’t worry. Let death occur. In this lifetime, when you come to
the point where there is no death, you enter into the state of parinibbāna. In this life. I
repeat. Parinibbāna is not for the next birth. It is for this life itself. You should be able to
do it in this life. Come to the point where you do not die.

Coming to parinibbāna sounds difficult.

It is difficult. You might die right now! One way or another, make the effort to attain to
parinibbāna before dying.

Instead of a lamp, say your body is a chunk of wood. This wood is here, and it’s burning,
precisely because previous fires were not extinguished.

Why is my body here?

You are going to die one day. Your body will be thrown away in much the same way as
an old piece of wood is discarded. And if you don’t put out the fires, more wood is going
to start burning somewhere. There is another place where flames will come up. However,
if you do put out the fires, when your wood is thrown away at death, there is nothing to
light up.

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Imagine a chunk of wood burning away. There are flames. Now imagine another piece of
wood leaning against the first piece. As the first piece of wood burns off and finishes, the
second piece catches fire. There’s also a third chunk of firewood. It is close to the second,
but kept a little distance away. There is a space between second and third pieces. Since
there’s no connection between second and third, the third piece doesn’t catch fire. This
gap is where the fire goes out.

When pieces of firewood are joined, they can still burn. But after a gap develops, there’s
no burning. The more connections made between pieces of wood, the greater the fire.

This is what we’re doing. We’re always connecting pieces of wood. I am looking for
firewood from morning until night! I’ve found countless pieces of firewood, connected
them into a series, and they are all burning. I don’t want anyone to come along and create
a gap in the series because I want to keep it burning. This is an example from the Buddha.

I too should keep a little distance away, and mind my own business.

It’s all right. The piece of wood that is in flames right now ― let it burn. We must let it
be. Just be with the wood that is already ablaze. Let it be on fire. But the next piece? Do
not connect it. Push it away. If you are able to do that, the wood presently on fire will
burn itself out, and be finished. And then there’s nothing more to catch fire.

This is a nice and simple example.

It’s easy for us to understand when seeing things in this way.

Smokey the Bear says, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

There’s something to what you say. I can draw on it.

Smokey is a cartoon character used in the U.S. Forest Service advertisements.

I am now using what you said for firewood. I lean it against the wood already on fire. The
moment my first pieces of wood finish their burn, this additional piece, what I have taken
up from you, starts burning. And when that finishes, I find another piece of firewood, and
keep it next to the fire. It also catches aflame.

Somebody makes a remark. What I hear of something from somewhere, I take on as yet
another chunk of firewood. It might be views from a yogi. These also make good
firewood. I rest them against other pieces of wood that are, as we speak, on fire. People
tell me stories.

How do you cope?

I generally take a short rest in my room after lunch. I close the door and lay down on my
bed for awhile. A man called out to me today while I was resting, “Venerable. Venerable

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Pemasiri Thera.” I called back, “Who are you? What do you want? Why are you calling
to me?” No answer. I said, “Open the door!” The man did not open the door. I got up, and
opened the door. Nobody was there. What to say now? Two workers were resting nearby
on the veranda, and I asked them about this man. One worker said, “We didn’t call you.
And there hasn’t been anyone to visit you in the past hour.” I really felt that somebody
had come and called to me. There were two workers. The second worker also said. “No.
Nobody was here.” Since both workers maintained that not one person had dropped by, I
accepted the situation. I had to accept.

What am I to think? I feel someone came to my door and called out my name. This was
not a dream, which is why I asked the man to open the door. No answer. I felt these
events to be real. I got up, went to the door and opened it. No one was there. And I asked
those workers about my visitor, and both insisted nobody visited. This is an occasion
where I can start a fire. What did you understand?

I don’t know what happened.

An earlier object may have come into my mind. I also cannot explain it.

Theruwan Saranai.

Recording Title ~ 110516_001

May 16th, 2011 Sumathipāla Na Himi Senasun Arana

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 It is not easy to teach the Dhamma to others, Ānanda. The Dhamma should be taught to others
only when five qualities are established within the individual teaching. Which five?
“[1] The Dhamma should be taught with the thought, 'I will speak step-by-step.'
“[2] The Dhamma should be taught with the thought, 'I will speak explaining the sequence [of
cause & effect].'
“[3] The Dhamma should be taught with the thought, 'I will speak out of compassion.'
“[4] The Dhamma should be taught with the thought, 'I will speak not for the purpose of material
reward.'
“[5] The Dhamma should be taught with the thought, 'I will speak without disparaging myself or
others.'
“It is not easy to teach the Dhamma to others, Ānanda. The Dhamma should be taught to others
only when these five qualities are established within the individual teaching.”

Udayi Sutta4

Chapter 7 Iron & Steel

What does a healthy relationship with a teacher look like?

These days in Sri Lanka and abroad, relationships between teachers and yogis are a
fashion, a world created around themselves. I have little regard for teachers and yogis of
today. And today’s teachers have a lot of māna. I never saw māna in my teachers.

A teacher should be able to teach according to what is asked of them. I don’t mean yogis
who sit an hour or two a day, but rather yogis who honestly train many hours a day,
maybe twenty hours. A yogi who trains thus comes daily to ask questions from the
teacher, and the teacher should be able to communicate with the yogi in a pleasant way
and teach what the yogi wants to know. On a daily basis.

And usually, two or three minutes is enough to get across the main points of what needs
to be taught. When the yogi comes like that, the teacher knows what is going on. The
teacher knows the yogi’s state of training. The teacher knows what happened the previous
day, what is happening that day and what is going to happen the following day. The
teacher has a good idea of all that. When the yogi sees this, he or she also gets more
confidence in the teacher.

A yogi who trains intensively is allowed to approach the teacher at any time of the day or
night. He or she comes to ask questions and discuss problems. This doesn’t necessarily
mean in a formal interview setting. Sometimes while walking about the premises or
waiting for the bath, a discussion takes place. Or while doing any other work. That’s how
the teaching is done.

Even while on a journey with a group, they might discuss the yogi’s practice. Of course,
everyone in the group would be yogis. Otherwise, the teacher won’t speak about the
yogi’s practice. Not that teacher and yogi speak for hours on the same topic. When a
 Iron & Steel

question on practice arises during casual discussion, the teacher and yogi discuss the
question in the same casual manner.

Practice is the yogi’s life. It becomes part of his or her daily activities. Practice is not
treated differently or separately from other activities. For example, each morning, you
sweep around your kuṭi. Even while sweeping, you sustain the practice of training as a
yogi.

There are no teachers who teach in this way.

You.

And there are no yogis who train twenty hours a day. Today’s yogis speak of meditation.
They hold the view that meditation is an activity distinct from all other activities of their
lives. Only after separating themselves from everything and everyone, they meditate.
These yogis cannot do the practice while doing everyday activities. After strenuous
physical work, they do not finish work and sit and get into the practice. No. Before
sitting, they must make an elaborate preparation, just for sitting. They’re not integrating
the practices into their daily activities. Today’s yogis see meditation in this disjointed
way.

Was there a conscious decision for you to be a teacher?

No. I never set out with the goal to be a teacher. It was a series of ordinary events. Days
after my bhikkhu ordination, Sumathipāla Na Himi asked me to start teaching. With the
hard cases or severe cases, he asked for help. That kind! Many of the elderly, like those
men and women here today, are strongly immersed in views. Unteachable. Anyone not
able to train well, he asked me to teach. The extremely old and frail. Those near death. Or
those with disabilities. Can’t hear. Can’t see. I took this whole lot to a faraway place in
the centre and spoke very loud to them. I shouted teachings! People in the area wondered
if there was an argument going on.

I was twenty at the time, and had to report back to Sumathipāla Na Himi. He asked, “Did
you teach these people?” Invariably, I had to say, “Yes.” Some of these people
understood teachings, but hearing was a problem. Occasionally, a yogi of seventy or
eighty years or more turned out to be inspiring, had deep understanding, and trained like
a twenty-year-old.

Please explain.

I remember one elderly man who exerted a lot of effort and gained strong concentration.
He had a positive influence on the much younger yogis. When young yogis saw this old
man training properly, the young yogis were energized. I got a clear insight. This elderly
man wasn’t strongly immersed in views or clinging to any system, and was consequently
teachable. He was easy to teach. He was exceptional though, and the opposite of my
father. With many strongly held views, my father — was impossible.

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There was also an old woman from Ambalangoda whose occupation was crushing
coconut husks. This is hard work, and in her advanced age was bent in two with the labor.
She had no formal education. Very poor. Working in the hot sun, her skin had become
black. It was with great pleasure that I taught her. Still, now more than fifty years later,
thinking of this elderly woman’s practice brings me joy. She was about seventy years of
age. She could hear alright. Whatever teachings I gave, she understood quickly, and
progressed very quickly. Her grandchildren started coming for teachings when I was in
Colombo.

You can’t reject people thinking that they are too old or too weak or too poor. Or not
educated. Many good yogis do not know the suttas or Abhidhamma. Some don’t even
know how to read or write. These are not obstructions to progress. They may have never
looked at a book on meditation. This old woman from Ambalangoda was very quick to
grasp, despite her hard life and lack of schooling.

Since I had lots of experience teaching the elderly, I saw potential and introduced her to
Sumathipāla Na Himi. He told her to come every day, and was also pleased with her
progress. She didn’t even have proper white clothes, so we provided them. Rarely do you
come across somebody like this.

What are you trying to say?

There’s a difference in knowledge and wisdom among people. Our Ambalangoda

grandmother had a good degree of wisdom. Also in the Buddha’s time, many ordinary
men and women of all ages were wise. They went about the training and progressed.

So beginning from those first days as a bhikkhu, I was teaching. It was a natural
consequence of the situation at Kanduboda. Not that I wanted to be a teacher or be
anything at all. While being with my teacher, it happened naturally.

Yogis from almost all walks of life stayed at Kanduboda Meditation Centre. Some were
extremely poor uneducated farmers. Some, university professors. Yogis from across the
social spectrum were there. While Sumathipāla Na Himi spoke with them, I listened. And
with this happening daily, I got used to Sumathipāla Na Himi’s way of teaching. It
became part of my life.

I won’t be training any twenty hours a day. How important is a teacher?

A teacher is important. When teachings work to the maximum, yogis attain path
knowledge. Many people in the Buddha's time simply heard teachings and immediately
attained path. The teachings of the Buddha are found in countless books and yogis use
books for the preliminary stages of training. To go beyond preliminaries, it is essential for
yogis to study with a good teacher.

Where are the good teachers?

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There are good teachers to be found. Many teachers have a thorough knowledge and
grammar of the suttas. By repeating what the Buddha said, they teach in a general and
clear way about what is good and what is bad. There are also teachers who understand
subtle aspects of dhamma, and go beyond repeating suttas. It’s not exactly temple
teachings. With sensitivity, they take the necessary time to assess each yogi’s unique
character and tailor teachings appropriately.

A yogi working with these two types of teachers learns in a broad and useful way a great
deal about reducing hindrances and defilements. Learns about developing spiritual
faculties. These two types of teachers are common enough and easily found. Teachers of
a third type, who recognize a yogi’s nimitta and respond to it in the best possible way, are
of course rare. These teachers know the yogi’s precise level of practice and give the most
worthwhile teachings.

You can throw stones at a tree that’s bearing fruit. The stone may strike and something
may fall, but the stone may also not strike.

Is there a training program for teachers?

I did this work for twenty-five years with Sumathipāla Na Himi. For the first three of
those, I listened to his teachings to the good yogis. I only listened to their discussions.
The yogis did not see me and I did not see them, nor did I utter a word of teachings. I
stayed completely out of sight behind a curtain or wall or other such object; this was
primarily to avoid distracting the yogis. Sitting nearby in this way, I absorbed whatever
was discussed between Sumathipāla Na Himi and his many excellent yogis. These were
not those hard cases nor were they lackadaisical. They were teachable.

After three years of listening to Sumathipāla Na Himi teaching yogis, I was allowed,
under his supervision, to impart a few basic teachings. Sumathipāla Na Himi and I
interviewed yogis together. Initially, I was hidden and only listened to discussions
between Sumathipāla Na Himi and a yogi. In this next stage, I gave basic teachings with
Sumathipāla Na Himi nearby. Soon after, once Sumathipāla Na Himi approved of my
teaching abilities, I was allowed to teach the yogi every fourth or fifth day without
supervision. Sumathipāla Na Himi had that day off.

It’s not that I only taught one yogi every fourth or fifth day. On any given day, there were
roughly one hundred yogis staying at the Kanduboda Meditation Centre. Though I taught
the same yogi once every four or five days, each day I spoke with twenty-five yogis out
of the one hundred. I taught yogis every day, and encountered each yogi every fourth or
fifth day. The yogi saw me on that fourth day rather than seeing Sumathipāla Na Himi.

After four to five years of teaching yogis every fourth or fifth day of their practices, I was
allowed to teach yogis every second day. Sumathipāla Na Himi taught the yogi one day
and I gave teachings to the same yogi the next day. Sometimes he taught for one day and
I did so for the following two days.

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Time passed. Sumathipāla Na Himi taught the yogi for his one day and I began teaching
for the next four days. Then this sharing of teachings became one day with Sumathipāla
Na Himi and ten days with me.

After awhile, it made no difference whether Sumathipāla Na Himi or I taught the yogi.
The ratio between us was threadbare. Separation blurred. When Sumathipāla Na Himi
was free, he taught the yogi. When I was free, I taught the yogi. Training has to come to
that level. Eventually, Sumathipāla Na Himi completely stopped teaching my yogis and
let me go on my own. It has to progress in this way.

Teachers who learn in this way should be able to tell you something! You can find out.
They might tell you success stories. They will likely enjoy talking about their own
teachers. Many teachers trace their lineage back to the Buddha. If teachers have only seen
a few yogis, then it’s impossible to say. And if teachers, however advanced they appear,
are holding onto activities outside the Buddha-Dhamma, say constantly appearing on TV,
then it’s difficult to have confidence in them as good teachers. Once in awhile, good
teachers may do something on TV.

It takes years to learn the subtleties of teaching. During my time with Sumathipāla Na
Himi, I was often at a loss as to why his teachings to one yogi were completely different
from his teachings to a seemingly identical second yogi. Important questions about the
training I did not ask straightaway. When Sumathipāla Na Himi was relaxed and free, I
asked him to explain contradictory teachings. I waited for the appropriate time.

I once asked, “Both yogis are experiencing pain. Why are you teaching them
differently?” Sumathipāla Na Himi said, “Correct, I told the first yogi to note painful
feelings, the vedanā, and told the second yogi to avoid noting painful feelings.” And I
asked, “Why?” Sumathipāla Na Himi said, “For this first yogi, right from her birth, due
to her character, she can grow with vedanānupassanā. Whereas, this second yogi would
probably start clinging to vedanā. For her, I didn’t recommend vedanānupassanā.”

Do you have success stories of yogis?

Though I may or may not see defilements, I do not come to conclusions about attainment
because the yogi who discovers my conclusions stops training. I may be able to lead the
yogi to the point of seeing. It’s possible to lead most yogis to that point.

I can tell you about one yogi whose practice was advanced. He ordained temporarily. For
three months, he was there as a monk. With the rains retreat approaching, he went to his
mother and asked to stay on as a monk for the following three months. The mother said,
“Yes. Okay. I'll wait another three months. Come back.” The day after obtaining
permission, he died. There are things like that. He died suddenly. Sometimes advanced
minds are also born here. Created in this world.

Are the yogis here training properly?

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I know monks, nuns and yogis who trained in samatha, vipassanā, and both samatha and
vipassanā. In kasiṇa, there are those who suppressed hindrances and went up to various
levels. They trained in a sign. In vipassanā, others went up to the peak level ― that is
saṅkhāra-upekkhā. There are also those here who trained in both together, samatha and
vipassanā, to the same level. In monks, nuns and yogis that continue to train, their
practices grow. They should all train continuously.

When monks, nuns and yogis don’t continuously train, they get stuck at some point. It
could be the yogis find problems in their lay lives. They come to a point in their practices
and stagnate. There are also monks, maybe not many monks, who have come to a peak
level, and yet I do not see their view to be either straightened out or pure. They are also
stuck. Even though their hindrances are suppressed in vipassanā up to saṅkhāra-upekkhā,
some are doing rituals and horoscopes. A monk who is engaged in those things has not
straightened out his view.

Although saṅkhāra-upekkhā is a certain level of progress, for many there is no going

beyond that level. When a teacher is doing rituals and horoscopes, I can't say for sure
whether he or she can teach properly. I cannot say anything definite about the teacher’s
abilities, to know the yogi is like this or that, and I would not recommend yogis study
with this teacher. He or she can continue to train though.

How does one know a yogi?

A teacher does not judge internal by external. Some yogis are restrained. They just look
at the ground, and don't look around. They walk silently. These external signs do not
reflect the internal. Eating slowly, and breathing slowly, from those the teacher cannot
judge. Some yogis eat fast and are advanced in terms of defilements. By the external, it’s
difficult to judge a yogi’s spiritual attainment. It takes a long time to make associations,
and know the yogi.

Since arriving at Lanka Vipassanā ten years ago, I’ve worked closely with yogis who
train properly. I never saw any defect in these good yogis, and I’m sometimes confident
they have seen various things and attained path knowledges. However, even with good
yogis, I never come to conclusions about attainments. I don't know. They may have
attained. I'm not saying they haven’t. Only saying I don't think in that way.

Why?

There are causes and conditions at work. Though a defect didn’t arise in those ten years,
when suitable causes and conditions come together, a suppressed defect may arise. So, I
cannot know for sure even about good yogis. I cannot unequivocally declare a yogi has
attained to path knowledge. Yogis who attain eventually come to realize that they are free
of this and that. When I speak in this way, do you feel depressed?

No. No. It’s a relief.

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 Iron & Steel

A yogi training in vipassanā to the peak level of saṅkhāra-upekkhā is comparable to

heating a piece of iron to the point being red hot. The colour of blood. And as long as the
yogi is experiencing saṅkhāra-upekkhā, it’s very good. The hindrances are suppressed.

Attaining to path knowledge is like making iron into steel. That piece of iron needs
certain conditions and needs to undergo a process. The elemental structure of the metal
must change. The yogi needs to clearly see tilakkhaṇa.

Adding carbon is part of the process.

If the elemental structure of the iron doesn’t change, it reverts to iron when cooled down.
Just heating a piece of iron to a high temperature does not make it steel. If the yogi
doesn’t see tilakkhaṇa, doesn’t break through and leap across the gap, then he or she
hasn’t fundamentally changed. Experiencing saṅkhāra-upekkhā is not the attaining to
path knowledge.

Teachers get fooled. There comes a time in a good vipassanā yogi’s saṅkhāra-upekkhā
practice when it appears he or she has attained to sotāpatti. Due to good sati, samādhi,
viriya or thīna-middha, the yogi experiences a state similar to having attained. His or her
teacher concludes, “Attainment has happened. This a moment of path knowledge!”

Because of close similarity in states of practice, teachers make mistakes. The state arising
from clearly seeing tilakkhaṇa is path knowledge. The state arising from sati, samādhi,
viriya or thīna-middha is not path knowledge. One state is correct and real. The other,
incorrect and incomplete. However, the yogi may well have attained.

Heating iron to an extremely high temperature doesn’t by itself result in steel. If the piece
of iron doesn't change, then it’s the same old piece of iron when it cools down. The peak
level for vipassanā is saṅkhāra-upekkhā. Some monks, nuns and yogis remain at this high
level of purity for years and years. They appear advanced. It’s a suppression of
hindrances and defilements. But if not overcome, hindrances and defilements tend to
reemerge when suitable causes and conditions come together. It’s for such reasons that I
never come to conclusions about attainments of others.

May you be well.

Theruwan Saranai. Suwapath Weava.

1998 Lanka Vipassanā International Meditation Centre

1
You can also find their stories in the Salayatana Saṃyutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya.
2
By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense
desires, is not born again into this world.
3
SN 22.88
4
Aïguttara Nikàya v. 159 Udayi Sutta about Udayin

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/anguttara/an5-159.html

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