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Then only does this characteristic become more and more clear. Or another, another, another, again and again.
Here, a very interesting explanation about the mental process—what happens in each moment. But very difficult to discuss; it needs to have a different, um,
teaching class to explain those things in detail, but not really necessary for a meditator to meditate.
These things, if you haven't experienced it, it's very difficult to understand. But when you experience it, it's quite natural. You see that, "Oh, of course it's so natural that things should happen this way."
And also, in that last moment, you observe either physical process, or rupa, or vedanā, or saññā, or saṅkhāra, or vyñāṇa. From the five khandhas, you observe only one. You cannot observe all five at the same moment, because an object can be an object only once at a time, one at a time.
One consciousness cannot observe five. One consciousness can observe only one object. And because you have to observe it repeatedly, if you are observing vedanā, you observe vedanā and a nature. Vedanā a nature, or vedanā dukkha, or vedanā anattā.
If you are observing rupa, you see rupa as a nature, or dukkha, or anattā.
So only one object, only one aspect of the three characteristics, repeatedly. You don't switch to another object or another characteristic.
These are very important points, I think. That's why, in your meditation, when you are paying attention to vedanā, it becomes more and more clear. Stay with it. Stay with it. Stay with it. Make it more and more clear, more and more clear.
If it is any kind of mental state, pay attention to that mental state again and again. Make it more and more clear. You understand all those things in general, but if you understand one thing completely, that is enough.
So at that moment, from that moment of letting go, the mind cannot observe any of the five khandhas. It cannot experience, it cannot see impermanence, unsatisfactionless, or non-self, non-ego anymore. It can only see
total quietness, cessation.
So then the person understands that nibbāna means
total cessation of phenomena.
This is very difficult to talk about. It is not something that does not exist.
Because if we say that nibbāna means nothing exists, then we can also say that nibbāna does not exist.
Nibbāna is an experience also.
So at that moment, the object also stops, and the watching also stops.
Two things stop. So a person feels like everything comes to an end.
Just stop.
How do you give an example of that?
This state is beyond words.
You cannot talk about it.
As if you are carrying a very big burden and you drop it.
And maybe you are pulling something very heavy, and then the rope snaps.
So
some Pali sentences, very short and very clear: "Yaṃ kincī samudya-dhaṁ sabbantam nirodha-dhammati." So samudya-dhammā means the nature to arise. "Yaṃ kincī"—whatever has the nature to arise. "Sabbantam"—all that is nirodha-dhammā—has the nature to
disappear.
So you see this very clearly. Anything that has a nature to arise has a nature to disappear, pass away, completely pass away.
So after that insight, the person reflects on the experience and sees that the ending of saṅkhāra is total nibbāna. It is total peace.
And after a while, comes back to meditation again. But when the person comes back to meditation,
he begins from
arising and passing away again. Not from saṅkhāra, saṅkhāropikkhā. Not from the tenth insight. He begins from the fourth insight again.
And this is also another aspect of the
breakthrough. After the breakthrough, you can see arising and passing away again, very clearly.
There are a few very important things about
what changed.
So the person has overcome sakkāya-ditti,
believing in self, which he gave doubts.
And silapta paramāta, paramāsā. This is very important.
There are many methods of meditation, and many people are meditating. And we can say that they are meditating. Meditation has many aspects. But if a person believes that just practicing samādhi can bring total freedom, that is a kind of silapta paramāsā.
And also, there were some ascetics in the time of the Buddha who believed that if you just behave like a cow, you'll be free. You will just burn out all your defilements. So practicing like an animal, and torturing the body also. If you just torture your body, then you will burn out all your defilements.
You become purer. That is a kind of wrong practice. So silapta paramāsā means wrong practice. Practicing something wrong and believing that that will lead to freedom. So once a person has breakthrough this point, he can understand that no other practice can really lead to liberation. Only that practice, which has this eighth-fold noble path, can lead to liberation, freedom, can lead to the experience of nibbāna.
No other practice can lead to that. So you can test that. Any practice which has not this eighth-fold noble path, although it can give you some sort of quietness and peacefulness of mind, it can never lead to liberation. It has its own value, like just practicing samādhi. It has its own value.
But it will not lead to liberation. It might be a stage, a stage in your practice, but not the end stage. It cannot lead to real end, real goal. So there are many other practices, and many people talk that, "Well, if you practice that, that will also lead you to nibbāna." No.
The only way that leads to nibbāna is watching your own body and mental process. And for the foundation, you keep your sīla pure. You keep your livelihood pure. Because without that sort of purity, your mind will never really build up enough courage and momentum, enough clarity. With guilt, if you live with guilt, you will never be free to observe things clearly and let go.
Guilt is a prison. It traps you where you are. Whenever you feel guilt or shame, you cannot make any progress. So keeping sīla pure, keeping your livelihood very pure, keeping your mind pure, is necessary.
Without that sort of purity, there can be no real freedom. So some people meditate, but they think that it's not really that important to keep the five precepts. They don't really try their best to keep their five precepts.
So if you don't keep your five precepts and you meditate, and if you believe that that will lead you to liberation, that is silapta paramāsā, wrong practice. Clinging to wrong practice. Believing in wrong practice.
And why? And they mistake that as real nibbāna. And when the person has reached, experienced real nibbāna, he or she can see that that is not real nibbāna.
So mistake about nibbāna is also overcome.
Only in the third stage of—how do you say that?—enlightenment can the person overcome totally from greed and anger or frustration. The first stage of enlightenment doesn't really eradicate desire or greed or anger or frustration.
Only wrong view and doubts.
Pardon me? Sattvapāna. Sattvapāna still enjoys sense pleasure, but he has very—he has his sīla very pure. He will never break his sīla. And there is no desire even to break sīla. For example, a sattvapāna enjoys good food too, but he will not do anything to break his sīla to get that food or
any other thing like that. His livelihood also is very pure. He might be still doing business, but he will never cheat.
He might get upset, he might get angry, he might get sad also sometimes. But whenever he takes time to watch that mental state again, he can see that this is just a mental state and come out of it very quickly. He will not be there trapped in that mental state.
And the second—how do I say that?—the second
enlightenment state does not totally eradicate any defilements, only weakens lobha and dosa.
Only weakens greed, anger, frustration.
But even after the third stage of enlightenment, this person still has some defilements, still clinging to a very special life, a pure
existence. Not enjoying any sense pleasure, no anger, but very pure, peaceful
happiness. Still enjoy that. And also, some sort of satisfaction, which is very close to a kind of pride. You're very satisfied by your
achievement. Achievement, yes. So to be very satisfied about your achievement also is a very subtle form of pride and
clinging
kind of desire also. So you see some very subtle forms of pride, some very subtle form of attachment. And that can be overcome only by the fourth—what? Enlightenment. Fourth enlightenment, yes. I keep forgetting the words. It's very difficult to remember the words.
That's why sometimes I have to write down everything just to pick up and look at it. So sometimes I have to read and translate.
It takes a long time to translate. Looking up the dictionary, finding the proper word.
And if this person is a judge, he becomes a sattvapāna. He has attained the first enlightenment, the first state of enlightenment. If he is a judge, he will never do anything wrong. He will never take bribe and—how do you say that?
I don't know.
Yes, he will never be corrupt. He will never do that. It's very fair, very honest.
And the robha though, just sometimes he will pass the trade places?
I don't think he will do that. He will just give him another sentence. It's good enough. Why should you kill anybody? You teach him. In some countries, it's banned totally. You are not allowed to—life sentence is not allowed anymore, which is a good thing. What's the point of killing a person? You don't teach him. You teach another person also. People are killed somewhere nobody knows.
We think that we are punishing that person. We are teaching that person. He doesn't become a better person, and nobody else becomes a better person for that. So anyway, if he is a judge, he will not
do anything dishonest.
Very long explanation. The first
enlightenment eradicates visikīca, nivarāṇa, and kāma-ścaṇḍa, vyābhāda, kokūca, which means greed, very strong greed and very strong aversion. And kokūca means regret.
It's a kind of regret. It's overcome by the third stage of enlightenment. So this is a very important thing to think about. In some other teachings,
we hear that if a person has done something wrong, and if a person thinks about his misdeed and feels very unhappy about it, "Oh, I've done something wrong. I've done something wrong," and lament and cry and beat himself or herself, "Oh, I've done something wrong. I'm so bad." In some teachings, they say that this is a good thing to do.
Regret is a good thing to do. But in the teaching of the Buddha, regret is not good. But what do you mean by that? If a person has done something wrong, then not to regret it, is that very good?
Regret, which comes with deep understanding, is good. Which means that you don't go on crying about it. You learn from it. You see that, "Yes, I've done something wrong, and I will not do it again. Finish. If I have to suffer for it, okay, I'm brave enough to suffer for it, for my misdeed, but I'm not going to cry for it anymore."
But no use just dwelling on what you have done and feel unhappy about it and not being able to do anything else. Don't waste your time. If you have done something wrong, learn from it and correct yourself and do something good. Go on. Go ahead with your work. So you see, the Buddha's teaching is to go ahead, to learn, and to grow.
You know the root meaning of the word kokūca? Although we translate that as
regret. Is there any word for regret similar to the word regret? Remorse, yes. Remorse. Thank you. Remorse regret. The root word for kokūca is ku and kata. The two words together made the word kokūca. Ku means bad, kata means done. Ku, kata.
And that doesn't really explain the meaning very clearly. But the real meaning is, if you are in remorse, that is something very ugly.
That itself is something unwholesome.
Because look deep into your mind. When you are in remorse, when you are feeling remorse, when you are feeling regret, what is your mental state? Is that peaceful?
No.
And look at it very deeply. The more you regret, you regret, the more it shows that you are clinging to it. The more it shows that you are clinging to self also, "I, I."
Very interesting, these things are. So that's why even a sattvapāna cannot really overcome kokūca.
Sakadagami, the second stage of enlightenment, cannot overcome. Only the third. Enlightenment can overcome total regret and remorse.
Right? And when shame is considered as a form of compassion? Shame, hiri-ottappa, moral shame, yes, moral dread. But you see, whenever we talk about shame and dread, we have to keep in mind that
shame about doing something wrong,
dread of doing something wrong, and which is
associated with understanding and wisdom. So you are not going to do that. Because of that, you are not going to do that. But what? You have done something wrong.
Regret. You will feel regret.
Also, when you feel ashamed, why do you feel ashamed? Is that because somebody has found that out?
If that is the reason, then this is not real moral shame. This is just protecting your self-image. This is just even bigger ego, protecting your ego, your self-image. But real moral dread and shame is
associated with wisdom. This is shameful. I will not do that. But if you have done something, you know that, "Well, this is very shameful, what I've done, but I'm not going to do that again." But you don't go on living with that shame and regret and not being able to do anything better.
So you have to overcome that shame and regret and go on doing something better. Change yourself. Correct yourself. So suppose if you go on doing shameful, it becomes a remorse regret? Yes, remorse. It becomes a remorse. Yes. So shame means before you do that, you are not going to do it. After you have done that, it's remorse.
So learn from it. Let go. And then compassion for yourself? Understanding compassion, forgiveness, because it's natural for us to make mistakes. Even Venerable Ānanda did something very terrible when he was in his—I don't have the English word again—when he was fulfilling his paramīts.
Even the potential Buddha, who became a Buddha, even he did something terrible. He seduced a woman. Venerable Ānanda, he was a goldsmith once, and a lot of rich and beautiful women came to him
to make jewelries, and he seduced a lot of them.
So that doesn't mean that it's okay to do that. But
because of greed, because of desire, because of lust, people do such things. But even from that mistake, you can learn and grow and become liberated.
Very, very detailed explanations from many texts about what happens to each stage of enlightenment. But we don't have that much time. If you are still interested in going into deep detail, I'm willing to do another course.
So ariya-sīla-kamyā saṃjīva-bhoṅ, in Burmese it is, and there's some Pali also. The person who is enlightened keeps his sīla pure and intact, no justification. I heard a lot of justifications. People say, "Oh, although he is enlightened, still because of too much temptation, he did this or that."
Justifications. No.
Five precepts is the minimum. There's no justification.
And in the time of the Buddha, there were many other religious groups. And some religious groups have believed that
although a person has attained the first stage of enlightenment, because he still has greed and anger or frustration or pride, he can be reborn in a lower realm. And Buddha says no. Although there is still some greed and aversion or pride, the mind is pure enough not to deserve such lower life.
So our life
is the result of our mind. When the mind has become pure and noble, it cannot manifest
into a lower way of life, lower form of life.
So that person can feel that, "I cannot be reborn as a
ghost or whatever, lower realm, animal."
And the first stage of enlightenment eradicates mecchaditi, husawada, no telling lies, but the rest of the verbal misdeed can still happen because the sattvapāna can still talk about
things in the newspaper.
All rubbish.
And mecchakamandō means misdeed, like killing, stealing, committing adultery. No. The sattvapāna will never do that. And meccha-ājīvo, wrong livelihood, cheating in business, or things like that.
The second stage of enlightenment doesn't eradicate any defilements, only weakens defilements. The third stage of enlightenment, meccha-saṅkappa-pisunavācā, pisunavācā means slandering, and prūta-vācā means very harsh words.
And only the fourth stage of enlightenment can eradicate sampa-palapa, talking about newspapers, news in the newspaper, and meccha-vāyāma, meccha-addhi, meccha-samādhi, meccha-vimutti, meccha-ñāṇa. So these things are very deep, and
it will take a long time to discuss.
So maybe next week I'll give some more detail about these things. Today, just the introduction.
So we end our class today here. If you have any more questions, I'm willing to answer. Next class, maybe I can finish what I want to say
in our next meeting. If not, then we can go on to another.
But if we can finish next week, that will be the last.
Next week,
if we have some time, we will do that, yes. Do you have any questions about the tree? Just the format we will discuss. Format, yes, that's also important to talk about, yes. If you know what's going to happen, then you can prepare yourself.
I'll remember that. If not next week, then the other week. So if you have any more questions, you may ask the questions now.
So even though the person has
reached
the first stage of enlightenment, he still has some defilements. Please understand that. Because many people say that, "This person, he is supposed to be enlightened, and look, he's enjoying, he's reading newspaper."
Look, he's enjoying good food or whatever.
As long as he keeps his five precepts intact, it's good enough. So do you have a question, please? Can the absence of both mind? Right. Well, some people ask, even the Buddha, the same question, exactly the same questions. People ask in a very different, slightly different way. Some people ask the Buddha, "Are there Arahants in other religious groups?"
Buddha didn't say that there are Arahants in other religious groups or they are not Arahants in the religious group. The answer of the Buddha was that anybody who practices the eightfold noble path completely
can become enlightened and become Arahant. So the criterion is the eightfold noble path. Just study the eightfold noble path and see if you leave out even one, what will happen.
It is just very natural. Just think of the eight factors of the noble path and see if you can leave even one out of it
and still
believe that without practicing that one factor, a person can become really enlightened or liberated.
In the eightfold noble path, there is vipassanā is included. Samāsati, samma-samādhi included there, yes.
Right livelihood, right view, right thinking.
With wrong view and wrong thinking, how can a person become enlightened? Without right livelihood, without right speech, without right action, without right concentration and right mindfulness, without right effort,
without sīla, samādhi, paññā, all three, nobody can really become liberated.
So at least, no matter how short the person practices and becomes enlightened, at least before that person becomes enlightened, that person must be practicing completely the eightfold noble path. Some people become enlightened very quickly, in a few hours maybe.
Nobody knows.
And your question? Do you have a question? Yes? No? You? When. Five stages of enlightenment? Even the first stage of enlightenment. But during that stage. Seven lives to go. Yes. That's the maximum, not more than seven. Yes, the maximum. But during that seven lives,
you're not exactly in meditation or?
We should
assume that or understand that
even if the sattvapāna forgets about
how do I say that? Practicing his meditation, he cannot forget it for too long. Because of the spiritual maturity? Yes. Once he will think about it and then he will practice it again.
When you talk to the sattvapāna, when? Enlightenment goes stage by stage. But it can happen in a few moments.
I mean straight to the third level? Yes, it can happen. Yes. In a few minutes or in a few hours, another state, another state. In the texts, in the books,
I have also read that some people became Arahant in one sitting.
Is it because in the past they have developed? They have developed very, yes, they have developed their spiritual qualities very highly. So once they know how to practice, they practice it and break through all four stages
in one sitting.
So there's no gap in
between. There's no gap in between. You are not thinking about it. You are not thinking about anything else. One consciousness after another is repeatedly observing very strongly, very clearly.
But not all three, that's what you're saying? One aspect only, repeatedly. Any one? Any one of the three.
So that clarity becomes even more and more stronger. At last, total let go.
Very, very strong, very powerful insights. Even before that, you can see a nicca or dukkha or another
in series without any gap in between, but weak. The insight is weaker. But in the last few insights,
watching, it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.
So at last, the mind is really ready to let go.
Realization?
Special means it's vipassanā consciousness. It's not thinking. It is really seeing the truth. So vipassanā actually means
extraordinary seeing. We means extraordinary. Vipassanā means to see.
Not the same moment. Different moments. Right, right.
We can see one aspect at a time, not all at the same time.
Yes, Tony? How do you know you're not imagining that you're seeing?
How do you know?
When you really see, you are not thinking.
There's no thinking at all.
Just like dark in the night, you are out and looking up at the sky, and suddenly there's a flash of lightning. You see that and it disappears.
At that moment, you are not imagining, but you really see it and experience it.
When it really happens,
it's very different from imagination. Once in a while in the beginning stage? In the beginning stage, once in a while. Because you cannot be mindful continuously. And even when you meditate regularly, sometimes you see, sometimes you don't see.
And different degrees also. Sometimes you see it vaguely. Sometimes it becomes more clear. Up? In the last stage, it's upekkhā, yes. So one has to know that you see. Upekkhā is there before. Right, right. Before thinking you will not see. That's right, that's right. That's why this upekkhā is necessary.
Total equanimity, total detachment, total balance. Just very clear, detached, watching, watching, watching, watching.
No thinking at all. When it becomes very close to breakthrough, no thinking at all. Things become very, very fast. In the beginning, yes, there are gaps in thinking, yes.
Beginning from the fourth insight, the mind becomes more and more calm, more and more concentrated. Only briefly in between, you might think for a while and you notice the thinking and it goes away. It's not persistent. Thinking is not persistent anymore. It comes very weakly. You can see that and it goes away and you just watch and watch and watch.
It goes on and on. In later insights also, especially
paññā-ñāṇa, bhaya-ñāṇa, adi-nava-ñāṇa, you think. You begin to think a lot. Oh, so disadvantaged. So many disadvantages. What is there to enjoy? What is there to be happy about? And if you think too much, you become unhappy. Very unhappy. There's nothing to be happy. There's no enjoyment anymore. So that is also very important, not to think.
When you feel disenchanted, when you become unhappy about the process, if you stop meditating and think about the unhappiness in your daily life, you feel like it's unbearable.
You feel very upset about many things. And from seeing disadvantages and being disenchanted or unhappy about the mental and physical process, you become unhappy about your life situations. And that becomes very depressing.
Sayadaw U Jotika was born on August 5, 1947, into a Muslim family in Myanmar. In his youth, he was sent to study at a Christian seminary, graduating with a degree in electrical engineering and conducting extensive research in science, psychology, and Western philosophy.…