ARAHATTAMAGGA (The direct route to the end of suffering)

A Compilation of Venerable Ãcariya Mahã Boowa’s Dhamma Talks About the Development of His Meditation Practice.

At present, all that is left of Buddhism are the words of the Buddha. Only his teachings—the scriptures—remain. Please be aware of this. Due to the corruption caused by the defiling nature of the kilesas, true spiritual principles are no longer practiced in present-day Buddhism. As Buddhists, we constantly allow our minds to be agitated and confused, engulfed in mental defilements that assail us from every direction. They so overpower our minds that we never rise above these contaminating influences, no matter how hard we try. The vast majority of people are not even interested enough to try: They simply close their eyes and allow the onslaught to overwhelm them.

They don’t even attempt to put up the least amount of resistance. Since they lack the mindfulness needed to pay attention to the consequences of their thoughts, all their thinking and all they do and say are instances of the kilesas giving them a beating. They surrendered to the power of these ruinous forces such a long time ago that they now lack any motivation to restrain their wayward thoughts. When mindfulness is absent, the kilesas work with impunity, day and night, in every sphere of activity. In the process, they increasingly burden and oppress the hearts and minds of people everywhere with dukkha. In the time of the Buddha, his direct disciples were true practitioners of the way of Buddhism. They renounced the world for the express purpose of transcending dukkha. Regardless of their social status, age or gender, when they ordained under the Bud​dha’s guidance, they changed their habitual ways of thinking, acting, and speaking to the way of Dhamma.

Casting the kilesas aside, the disciples ceased to follow their lead from that moment on. With earnest effort, they directed all their energy toward purifying their hearts and cleansing them of the contamination created by the kilesas. In essence, earnest effort is synonymous with a meditator’s endeavor to maintain steady and continuous mindful awareness, always striving to keep a constant watch on the mind. When mindfulness oversees all our mental and emotional activities, at all times in all postures, this is called “right effort”. Whether we’re engaged in formal meditation practice or not, if we earnestly endeavor to keep our minds firmly focused in the present moment, we constantly offset the threat posed by the kilesas. The kilesas work tirelessly to churn out thoughts of the past and the future. This distracts the mind, drawing it away from the present moment, and from the mindful awareness that maintains our effort. For this reason, meditators should not allow their minds to wander into worldly thoughts about the past or the future. Such thinking is invariably bound up with the kilesas, and thus, hinders practice. Instead of following the tendency of the kilesas to focus externally on the affairs of the world outside, meditators must focus internally and become aware of the mind’s inner world. This is essential. Largely because they are not sufficiently resolute in applying basic principles of meditation, many meditators fail to gain satisfactory results. I always teach my pupils to be very precise in their pursuit and to have a clear and specific focus in their meditation. That way they are sure to get good results.

​It is important to find a suitable object of attention to properly prepare the mind for this kind of work. I usually recommend a preparatory meditationword whose continuous mental repetition acts as an anchor that quickly grounds the meditator’s mind in a state of meditative calm and concentration. If a meditator simply focuses attention on the presence of awareness in the mind without a meditationword to anchor him, the results are bound to be hit and miss. The mind’s knowing presence is too subtle to give mindfulness a firm basis, so the mind soon strays into thinking and distraction— lured by the siren call of the kilesas. Meditation practice then becomes patchy. At certain times it seems to progress smoothly, almost effortlessly, only to become suddenly and unexpectedly difficult. It falters, and all apparent progress disappears. With its confidence shaken, the mind is left floundering.

However, if we use a meditation-word as an anchor to solidly ground our mindfulness, then the mind is sure to attain a state of meditative calm and concentration in the shortest possible time. It will also have the means to maintain that calm state with ease. I am speaking here from personal experience. When I first began to meditate, my practice lacked a solid foundation. Since I had yet to discover the right method to look after my mind, my practice was in a state of constant flux. It would make steady progress for awhile only to decline rapidly and fall back to its original untutored condition. Due to the intense effort I exerted in the beginning, my mind succeeded in attaining a calm and concentrated state of samãdhi. It felt as substantial and stable as a mountain. Still lacking a suitable method for maintaining this state, I took it easy and rested on my laurels. That was when my practice suffered a decline.

My practice began to deteriorate, but I didn’t know how to reverse the decline. So I thought long and hard, trying to find a firm basis on which I could expect to stabilize my mind. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that mindfulness had deserted me because my fundamentals were wrong: I lacked a meditation-word to act as a precise focus for my attention. I was forced to begin my practice anew. This time I first drove a stake firmly into the ground and held tightly to it no matter what happened. That stake was buddho, the recollection of the Buddha. I made the meditation-word buddho the sole object of my attention. I focused on the mental repetition of buddho to the exclusion of everything else. Buddho became my sole objective even as I made sure that mindfulness was always in control to direct the effort. All thoughts of progress or decline were put aside. I would let happen whatever was going to happen.

I was determined not to indulge in my old thought patterns: thinking about the past—when my practice was progressing nicely—and of how it collapsed; then thinking of the future, hoping that, somehow, through a strong desire to succeed, my previous sense of contentment would return on its own. All the while, I had failed to create the condition that would bring the desired results. I merely wished to see improvement, only to be disappointed when it failed to materialize. For, in truth, desire for success does not bring success; only mindful effort will. This time I resolved that, no matter what occurred, I should just let it happen. Fretting about progress and decline was a source of agitation, distracting me from the present moment and the work at hand. Only the mindful repetition of buddho could prevent fluctuations in my meditation. It was paramount that I center the mind on awareness of the immediate present. Discur sive thinking could not be allowed to disrupt concentration. To practice meditation earnestly to attain an end to all suffering, you must be totally committed to the work at each successive stage of the path. Nothing less than total commitment will succeed.

​To experience the deepest levels of samãdhi and achieve the most profound levels of wisdom, you cannot afford to be halfhearted and listless, forever wavering because you lack firm principles to guide your practice. Meditators without a firm commitment to the principles of practice can meditate their entire lives without gaining the proper results. In the initial stages of practice, you must find a stable object of meditation with which to anchor your mind. Don’t just focus casually on an ambiguous object, like awareness that is always present as the mind’s intrinsic nature. Without a specific object of attention to hold your mind, it will be almost impossible to keep your attention from wandering. This is a recipe for failure. In the end, you’ll become disappointed and give up trying. When mindfulness loses its focus, the kilesas rush in to drag your thoughts to a past long gone, or a future yet to come.

The mind becomes unstable and strays aimlessly over the mental landscape, never remaining still or contented for a moment. This is how meditators lose ground while watching their meditation practice collapse. The only antidote is a single, uncomplicated focal point of attention; such as a meditation-word or the breath. Choose one that seems most appropriate to you, and focus steadfastly on that one object to the exclusion of everything else. Total commitment is essential to the task. If you choose the breath as your focal point, make yourself fully aware of each in-breath and each out-breath. Notice the sensation created by the breath’s movement and fix your attention on the point where that feeling is most prominent; where the sensation of the breath is felt most acutely: for example, the tip of the nose. Make sure you know when the breath comes in and when it goes out, but don’t follow its course—simply focus on the spot where it passes through. If you find it helpful, combine your breathing with a silent repetition of buddho, thinking bud on the point of inhalation and dho on the point of exhalation.

Don’t allow errant thoughts to interfere with the work you are doing. This is an exercise in awareness of the present-moment; so remain alert and fully attentive. As mindfulness gradually establishes itself, the mind will stop paying attention to harmful thoughts and emotions. It will lose interest in its usual preoccupations. Undistracted, it will settle further and further into calm and stillness. At the same time, the breath—which is coarse when you first begin focusing on it— gradually becomes more and more refined. It may even reach the stage where it completely disappears from your conscious awareness. It becomes so subtle and refined that it fades and disappears. There is no breath at that time—only the mind’s essential knowing nature remains.

MY CHOICE WAS BUDDHO MEDITATION. From the moment I made my resolve, I kept my mind from straying from the repetition of buddho. From the moment I awoke in the morning until I slept at night, I forced myself to think only of buddho. At the same time, I ceased to be preoccupied with thoughts of progress and decline: If my meditation made progress, it would do so with buddho; if it declined, it would go down with buddho. In either case, buddho was my sole preoccupation. All other concerns were irrelevant. Maintaining such single-minded concentration is not an easy task. I had to literally force my mind to remain entwined with buddho each and every moment without interruption. Regardless of whether I was seated in meditation, walking meditation or simply doing my daily chores, the word buddho resonated deeply within my mind at all times. By nature and temperament, I was always extremely resolute and uncompromising. This tendency worked to my advantage. In the end, I became so earnestly committed to the task that nothing could shake my resolve; no errant thought could separate the mind from buddho. Working at this practice day after day, I always made certain that buddho resonated in close harmony with my present-moment awareness.

Soon, I began to see the results of calm and concentration arise clearly within the citta, the mind’s essential knowing nature. At that stage, I began to see the very subtle and refined nature of the citta. The longer I internalized buddho, the more subtle the citta became, until eventually the subtlety of buddho and the subtlety of the citta melded into one another and became one and the same essence of knowing. I could not separate buddho from the citta’s subtle nature. Try as I might, I could not make the word buddho appear in my mind. Through diligence and perseverance, buddho had become so closely unified with the citta that buddho itself no longer appeared within my awareness. The mind had become so calm and still, so profoundly subtle, that nothing, not even buddho, resonated there. This meditative state is analogous to the disappearance of the breath, as mentioned above. When this took place, I felt bewildered.

I had predicated my whole practice on holding steadfastly to buddho. Now that buddho was no longer apparent, where would I focus my attention? Up to this point, buddho had been my mainstay. Now it had disappeared. No matter how hard I tried to recover this focus, it was lost. I was in a quandary. All that remained then was the citta’s profoundly subtle knowing nature, a pure and simple awareness, bright and clear. There was nothing concrete within that awareness to latch on to. I realized then that nothing invades the mind’s sphere of awareness when consciousness—its knowing presence—reaches such a profound and subtle condition. I was left with only one choice: With the loss of buddho, I had to focus my attention on the essential sense of awareness and knowing that was all-present and prominent at that moment. That consciousness had not disappeared; on the contrary, it was all-pervasive. All of the mindful awareness that had concentrated on the repetition of buddho was then firmly refocused on the very subtle knowing presence of the calm and converged citta. My attention remained firmly fixed on that subtle knowing essence until eventually its prominence began to fade, allowing my normal awareness to become reestablished.

​As normal awareness returned, buddho manifested itself once more. So I immediately refocused my attention on the repetition of my meditation-word. Before long, my daily practice assumed a new rhythm: I concentrated intently on buddho until consciousness resolved into the clear, brilliant state of the mind’s essential knowing nature, remaining absorbed in that subtle knowing presence until normal awareness returned; and I then refocused with increased vigor on the repetition of buddho.

It was during this stage that I first gained a solid spiritual foundation in my meditation practice. From then on, my practice progressed steadily—never again did it fall into decline. With each passing day, my mind became increasingly calm, peaceful, and concentrated. The fluctuations, that had long plagued me, ceased to be an issue. Concerns about the state of my practice were replaced by mindfulness rooted in the present moment. The intensity of this mindful presence was incompatible with thoughts of the past or future. My center of activity was the present moment—each silent repetition of buddho as it arose and passed away. I had no interest in anything else. In the end, I was convinced that the reason for my mind’s previous state of flux was the lack of mindfulness arising from not anchoring my attention with a meditation-word.

Instead, I had just focused on a general feeling of inner awareness without a specific object, allowing my mind to stray easily as thoughts intruded. Once I understood the correct method for this initial stage of meditation, I applied myself to the task with such earnest commitment that I refused to allow mindfulness to lapse for even a single moment. Beginning in the morning, when I awoke, and continuing until night, when I fell asleep, I was consciously aware of my meditation at each and every moment of my waking hours. It was a difficult ordeal, requiring the utmost concentration and perseverance. I couldn’t afford to let down my guard and relax even for a moment. Being so intently concentrated on the internalization of buddho, I hardly noticed what went on around me. My normal daily interactions passed by in a blur, but buddho was always sharply in focus. My commitment to the meditation-word was total.

​With this firm foundation to bolster my practice, mental calm and concentration became so unshakable that they felt as solid and unyielding as a mountain. Eventually this rock-solid condition of the mind became the primary point of focus for mindfulness. As the citta steadily gained greater inner stability, resulting in a higher degree of integration, the meditation-word buddho gradually faded from awareness, leaving the calm and concentrated state of the mind’s essential knowing nature to be perceived prominently on its own. By that stage, the mind had advanced to samãdhi—an intense state of focused awareness, assuming a life of its own, independent of any meditation technique. Fully calm and unified, the knowing presence itself became the sole focus of attention, a condition of mind so prominent and powerful that nothing else can arise to dislodge it. This is known as the mind being in a state of continuous samãdhi. In other words, the citta is samãdhi—both are one and the same.

Speaking in terms of the deeper levels of meditation practice, a fundamental difference exists between a state of meditative calm and the samãdhi state. When the mind converges and drops into a calm, concentrated state to remain for a period of time before withdrawing to normal consciousness, this is known as meditative calm. The calm and concentration are temporary conditions that last while the mind remains fixed in that peaceful state. As normal consciousness returns, these extraordinary conditions gradually dissipate. However, as the meditator becomes more adept at this practice—entering into and withdrawing from a calm, unified state over and over again—the mind begins to build a solid inner foundation. When this foundation becomes unshakable in all circumstances, the mind is known to be in a state of continuous samãdhi. Then, even when the mind withdraws from meditative calm it still feels solid and compact, as though nothing can disturb its inward focus. The citta that is continuously unified in samãdhi is always even and unperturbed. It feels completely satiated. Because of the very compact and concentrated sense of inner unity, everyday thoughts and emotions no longer make an impact.

In such a state, the mind has no desire to think about anything. Completely peaceful and contented within itself, nothing is felt to be lacking.

​In such a state of continuous calm and concentration, the citta becomes very powerful. While the mind was previously hungry to experience thoughts and emotions, it now shuns them as a nuisance. Before it was so agitated that it couldn’t stop thinking and imagining even if it wanted to. Now, with samãdhi as its habitual condition, the mind feels no desire to think about anything. It views thought as an unwanted disturbance. When the mind’s essential knowing presence stands out prominently all the time, the citta is so inwardly concentrated that it tolerates no disturbance. Because of this sublime tranquility—and the tendency of samãdhi to lull the mind into this state of serene satisfaction—those whose minds have attained continuous samãdhi tend to become strongly attached to it. It remains so until one reaches the level of practice where wisdom prevails, and the results become even more satisfying.

FROM THEN ON I ACCELERATED MY EFFORTS. It was at that time that I began sitting in meditation all night long, from dusk until dawn. While sitting one night I started focusing inward as usual. Because it had already developed a good, strong foundation, the citta easily entered into samãdhi. So long as the citta rested there calmly, it remained unaware of external bodily feelings. But when I withdrew from samãdhi many hours later I began to experience them in full. Eventually, my body was so racked by severe pain that I could hardly cope. The citta was suddenly unnerved, and its good, strong foundation completely collapsed. The entire body was filled with such excruciating pain that it quivered all over. Thus began the bout of hand-to-hand combat that gave me insight into an important meditation technique. Until the unexpected appearance that night of such severe pain, I had not thought of trying to sit all night. I had never made a resolution of that kind.

I was simply practicing seated meditation as I normally did, but when the pain began to overwhelm me, I thought: “Hey, what’s going on here? I must make every effort to figure out this pain tonight.” So I made the solemn resolve that no matter what happened I would not get up from my seat until dawn of the next day. I was determined to investigate the nature of pain until I understood it clearly and distinctly. I would have to dig deep. But, if need be, I was willing to die in order to find out the truth about pain. Wisdom began to tackle this problem in earnest. Before I found myself cornered like that with no way out, I never imagined that wisdom could be so sharp and incisive. It went to work, relentlessly whirling around as it probed into the source of the pain with the determination of a warrior who never retreats or accepts defeat. This experience convinced me that in moments of real crisis wisdom arises to meet the challenge. We are not fated to be ignorant forever—when truly backed into a corner we are bound to be able to find a way to help ourselves.

It happened to me that night. When I was cornered and overwhelmed by severe pain, mindfulness and wisdom just dug into the painful feelings. The pain began as hot flashes along the backs of my hands and feet, but that was really quite mild. When it arose in full force, the entire body was ablaze with pain. All the bones, and the joints connecting them, were like fuel feeding the fire that engulfed the body. It felt as though every bone in my body was breaking apart; as though my neck would snap and my head drop to the floor. When all parts of the body hurt at once, the pain is so intense that one doesn’t know how to begin stemming the tide long enough just to breathe. This crisis left mindfulness and wisdom with no alternative but to dig down into the pain, searching for the exact spot where it felt most severe. Mindfulness and wisdom probed and investigated right where the pain was greatest, trying to isolate it so as to see it clearly.

“Where does this pain originate? Who suffers the pain?” They asked these questions of each bodily part and found that each one of them remained in keeping with its own intrinsic nature. The skin was skin, the flesh was flesh, the tendons were tendons, and so forth. They had been so from the day of birth. Pain, on the other hand, is something that comes and goes periodically; it’s not always there in the same way that flesh and skin are. Ordinarily, the pain and the body appear to be all bound up together. But are they really? Focusing inward I could see that each part of the body was a physical reality. What is real stays that way. As I searched the mass of bodily pain, I saw that one point was more severe than all the others. If pain and body are one, and all parts of the body are equally real, then why was the pain stronger in one part than in another? So I tried to separate out and isolate each aspect.

At that point in the investigation, mindfulness and wisdom were indispensable. They had to sweep through the areas that hurt and then whirl around the most intense ones, always working to separate the feeling from the body. Having observed the body, they quickly shifted their attention to the pain, then to the citta. These three: body, pain and citta, are the major principles in this investigation. Although the bodily pain was obviously very strong, I could see that the citta was calm and unafflicted. No matter how much discomfort the body suffered, the citta was not distressed or agitated. This intrigued me. Normally the kilesas join forces with pain, and this alliance causes the citta to be disturbed by the body’s suffering. This prompted wisdom to probe into the nature of the body, the nature of pain and the nature of the citta until all three were perceived clearly as separate realities, each true in its own natural sphere. I saw clearly that it was the citta that defined feeling as being painful and unpleasant. Otherwise, pain was merely a natural phenomenon that occurred.

It was not an integral part of the body, nor was it intrinsic to the citta. As soon as this principle became absolutely clear, the pain vanished in an instant. At that moment, the body was simply the body—a separate reality on its own. Pain was simply feeling, and in a flash that feeling vanished straight into the citta. As soon as the pain vanished into the citta, the citta knew that the pain had disappeared. It just vanished without a trace. In addition, the entire physical body vanished from awareness. At that moment I was not consciously aware of the body at all. Only a simple and harmonious awareness remained, alone on its own. That’s all. The citta was so exceedingly refined as to be indescribable. It simply knew—a profoundly subtle inner state of awareness pervaded. The body had completely disappeared. Although my physical form still sat in meditation, I was completely unconscious of it. The pain too had disappeared. No physical feelings were left at all. Only the citta’s essential knowing nature remained. All thinking had stopped; the mind was not forming a single thought. When thinking ceases, not the slightest movement disturbs the inner stillness.

Unwavering, the citta remains firmly fixed in its own solitude. Due to the power of mindfulness and wisdom, the hot, searing pain that afflicted my body had vanished completely. Even my body had disappeared from consciousness. The knowing presence existed alone, as though suspended in midair. It was totally empty, but at the same time vibrantly aware. Because the physical elements did not interact with it, the citta had no sense that the body existed. This knowing presence was a pure and solitary awareness that was not connected to anything whatsoever. It was awesome, majestic and truly magnificent. It was an incredibly amazing experience. The pain was completely gone. The body had disappeared. An awareness so fine and subtle that I cannot describe it was the only thing not to disappear. It simply appeared, that’s all I can say. It was a truly amazing inner state of being.

There was no movement—not even the slightest rippling—inside the citta. It remained fully ab-sorbed in stillness until enough time had elapsed, then it stirred as it began to withdraw from samãdhi. It rippled briefly and then went quiet again. This rippling happens naturally of its own accord. It cannot be intended. Any intention brings the citta right back to normal consciousness. When the citta absorbed in stillness has had enough, it begins to stir. It is aware that a ripple stirs briefly and then ceases. Some moments later it ripples briefly again, disappearing in the same instant. Gradually, the rippling becomes more and more frequent. When the citta has converged to the very base of samãdhi, it does not withdraw all at once. This was very evident to me. The citta rippled only slightly, meaning that a sankhãra formed briefly only to disappear before it could become intelligible.

Having rippled, it just vanished. Again and again it rippled and vanished, gradually increasing in frequency until my citta eventually returned to ordinary consciousness. I then became aware of my physical presence, but the pain was still gone. Initially I felt no pain at all, and only slowly did it begin to reappear. This experience reinforced the solid spiritual foundation in my heart with an unshakable certainty. I had realized a basic principle in contending with pain: pain, body and citta are all distinctly separate phenomena. But because of a single mental defilement—delusion—they all converge into one. Delusion pervades the citta like an insidious poison, contaminating our perceptions and distorting the truth. Pain is simply a natural phenomenon that occurs on its own. But when we grab hold of it as a burning discomfort, it immediately becomes hot—because our defining it in that way makes it hot. After awhile the pain returned, so I had to tackle it again— without retreating. I probed deep into the painful feelings, investigating them as I had done before. But this time I could not use the same investigative techniques that I had previously used to such good effect.

Techniques employed in the past were no lon​ger relevant to the present moment. In order to keep pace with internal events as they unfolded I needed fresh tactics, newly devised by mindfulness and wisdom and tailor-made for present circumstances. The nature of the pain was still the same, but the tactics had to be suitable to the immediate conditions. Even though I had used them successfully once before, I could not remedy the new situation by holding on to old investigative techniques. Fresh, innovative techniques were required, ones devised in the heat of battle to deal with present-moment conditions. Mindfulness and wisdom went to work anew, and before long the citta once again converged to the very base of samãdhi. During the course of that night the citta converged like this three times, but I had to engage in bouts of hand-to-hand combat each time. After the third time, dawn came, bringing to a close that decisive showdown. The citta emerged bold, exultant and utterly fearless. Fear of death ceased that night.

PAINFUL FEELINGS ARE JUST naturally occurring phenomena that constantly fluctuate between mild and severe. As long as we do not make them into a personal burden, they don’t have any special meaning for the citta. In and of itself, pain means nothing, so the citta remains unaffected. The physical body is also meaningless in and of itself, and it adds no meaning either to feelings or to oneself—unless, of course, the citta invests it with a specific meaning, gathering in the resultant suffering to burn itself. External conditions are not really responsible for our suffering, only the citta can create that. Getting up that morning, I felt indescribably bold and daring. I marveled at the amazing nature of my experience. Nothing comparable had ever happened in my meditation before. The citta had completely severed its connection with all objects of attention, converging inward with true courage.

It had converged into that majestic stillness because of my thorough, painstaking investigations. When it withdrew, it was still full of an audacious courage that knew no fear of death. I now knew the right investigative techniques, so I was certain that I’d have no fear the next time that pain appeared. It would, after all, be pain with just the same characteristics. The physical body would be the same old body. And wisdom would be the same faculty I’d used before. For this reason, I felt openly defiant, without fear of pain or death. Once wisdom had come to realize the true nature of what dies and what does not, death became something quite ordinary. Hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, bones: reduced to their original elemental form, they are simply the earth element. Since when did the earth element ever die? When they decompose and disintegrate, what do they become? All parts of the body revert to their original properties. The earth and water elements revert to their original properties, as do the wind and fire elements. Nothing is annihilated. Those elements have simply come together to form a lump in which the citta then takes up residence. The citta—the great master of delusion—comes in and animates it, and then carries the entire burden by making a self-identity out of it.

​“This is me, this belongs to me.” Reserving the whole mass for itself, the citta accumulates endless amounts of pain and suffering, burning itself with its own false assumptions. The citta itself is the real culprit, not the lump of physical elements. The body is not some hostile entity whose constant fluctuations threaten our well-being. It is a separate reality that changes naturally according to its own inherent conditions. Only when we make false assumptions about it does it become a burden we must carry. That is precisely why we suffer from bodily pain and discomfort. The physical body does not produce suffering for us; we ourselves produce it. Thus I saw clearly that no external conditions can cause us to suffer. We are the ones who misconceive things, and that misconception creates the blaze of pain that troubles our hearts. 

I understood clearly that nothing dies. The citta certainly doesn’t die; in fact, it becomes more pronounced. The more fully we investigate the four elements, breaking them down into their original properties, the more distinctly pronounced the citta appears. So where is death to be found? And what is it that dies? The four elements—earth, water, wind and fire—they don’t die. As for the citta, how can it die? It becomes more conspicuous, more aware and more insightful. This essential knowing nature never dies, so why is it so afraid of death? Because it deceives itself. For eons and eons it has fooled itself into believing in death when actually nothing ever dies. So when pain arises in the body we must realize that it is merely feeling, and nothing else. Don’t define it in personal terms and assume that it is something happening to you. Pains have afflicted your body since the day you were born.

The pain that you experienced at the moment you emerged from your mother’s womb was excruciating. Only by surviving such torment are human beings born. Pain has been there from the very beginning and it’s not about to reverse course or alter its character. Bodily pain always exhibits the same basic characteristics: having arisen, it remains briefly and then ceases. Arising, remaining briefly, ceasing—that’s all there is to it. Investigate painful feelings arising in the body so as to see them clearly for what they are. The body itself is merely a physical form, the physical reality you have known since birth. But when you believe that you are your body, and your body hurts, then you are in pain. Being equated, body, pain and the awareness that perceives them then converge into one: your painful body. Physical pain arises due to some bodily malfunction. It arises dependent on some aspect of the body, but it is not itself a physical phenomenon. Awareness of both body and feelings is dependent on the citta—the one who knows them.

But when the one who’s aware of them knows them falsely, then concern about the physical cause of the pain and its apparent intensity cause emotional pain to arise. Pain not only hurts but it indicates that there is something wrong with you—your body. Unless you can separate out these three distinct realities, physical pain will always cause emotional distress. The body is merely a physical phenomenon. We can believe whatever we like about it, but that will not alter fundamental principles of truth. Physical existence is one such fundamental truth. Four elemental properties—earth, water, wind and fire— gather together in a certain configuration to form what is called a “person”. This physical presence may be identified as a man or a woman and be given a specific name and social status, but essentially it is just the rýpa khandha—a physical heap. Lumped together, all the constituent parts form a human body, a distinct physical reality. And each separate part is an integral part of that one fundamental reality. The four elements join together in many different ways. In the human body we speak of the skin, the flesh, the tendons, the bones, and so forth.

But don’t be fooled into thinking of them as separate realities simply because they have different names. See them all as one essential reality—the physical heap. As for the heap of feelings, they exist in their own sphere. They are not part of the physical body. The body isn’t feeling either. It has no direct part in physical pain. These two khandhas— body and feeling—are more prominent than the khandhas of memory, thought and consciousness, which, because they vanish as soon as they arise, are far more difficult to see. Feelings, on the other hand, remain briefly before they vanish. This causes them to standout, making them easier to isolate during meditation. Focus directly on painful feelings when they arise and strive to understand their true nature. Confront the challenge head on. Don’t try to avoid the pain by focusing your attention elsewhere. And resist any temptation to wish for the pain to go away.

​The purpose of the investigation must be a search for true understanding. The neutralization of pain is merely a by-product of the clear understanding of the principles of truth. It cannot be taken as the primary objective. That will only create the conditions for greater emotional stress when the relief one wishes for fails to materialize. Stoic endurance in the face of intense pain will not succeed either. Nor will concentrating single-mindedly on pain to the exclusion of the body and the citta. In order to achieve the proper results, all three factors must be included in the investigation. The investigation must always be direct and purposeful.

THE LORD BUDDHA TAUGHT US to investigate with the aim of seeing all pain as simply a phenomenon that arises, remains briefly and then vanishes. Don’t become entangled in it. Don’t view the pain in personal terms, as an inseparable part of who you are, for that runs counter to pain’s true nature. It also undermines the techniques used to investigate pain, preventing wisdom from knowing the reality of feelings. Don’t create a problem for yourself where none exists. See the truth as it arises in each moment of pain, observing as it remains briefly and vanishes. That’s all there is to pain. When you have used mindfulness and wisdom to isolate the painful feeling, turn your attention to the citta and compare the feeling with the awareness that knows it to see if they really are inseparable. Turn and compare the citta and the physical body in the same manner: are they in any way identical? Focus clearly on each one and don’t allow your concentration to wander from the specific point you are investigating. Keep it firmly fixed on the one aspect.

For instance, focus your full attention on the pain and analyze it until you understand its distinguishing characteristics; then turn to look at the citta and strive to see its knowing nature distinctly. Are the two identical? Compare them. Are the feeling and the awareness that knows it one and the same thing? Is there any way to make them so? And the body, does it share similar characteristics with the citta? Is it like the feeling? Are any of these three similar enough to be lumped together? 

The body is physical matter—how can it be likened to the citta? The citta is a mental phenomenon, an awareness that knows. The physical elements that make up the body have no intrinsic awareness, they have no capacity to know. The earth, water, wind and fire elements know nothing; only the mental element—the manodhãtu—knows. This being the case, how can the citta’s essential knowing nature and the body’s physical elements possibly be equated. They are obviously separate realities. The same principle applies to pain. It has no intrinsic awareness, no capacity to know. Pain is a natural phenomenon that arises in conjunction with the body, but it is unaware of the existence of the body or of itself. Painful feelings depend on the body as their physical basis. Without the body they could not occur. But they have no physical reality of their own. Sensations that arise in conjunction with the body are interpreted in such a way that they become indistinguishable from the area of the body that is affected.

Instinctively, body and pain are equated, so the body itself seems to hurt. We must remedy this instinctive reaction by investigating both the characteristics of pain as a sense phenomenon and the purely physical characteristics of that part of the body where that pain is felt acutely. The objective is to determine clearly whether or not the physical location—say a knee joint—exhibits the distinctive characteristics associated with pain. What kind of shape and posture do they have? Feelings have no shape or posture. They occur simply as an amorphous sensation. The body does have a definite shape, color and complexion, and these are not changed by the occurrence of physical feelings. It remains just the same as it was before pain arose. The physical substance is in no way altered by pain because pain, being a separate reality, has no direct effect on it. For instance, when a knee hurts or a muscle hurts: knee and muscle are merely bone, ligament and flesh. They themselves are not pain. Although the two dwell together, they retain their own separate characteristics.

The citta knows both of these things but, because its awareness is clouded by delusion, it automatically assumes that the pain is mixed in with the bones, ligaments and muscles that compose a knee joint. By reason of that same fundamental ignorance, the citta assumes that the body in all of its aspects is an integral part of one’s very being. So the pain too becomes bound up with one’s sense of being. “My knee hurts. I am in pain. But I don’t want to suffer pain. I want the pain to go away.” This desire to get rid of pain is a kilesa that increases the level of discomfort by turning physical feeling into emotional suffering. The stronger the pain is, the stronger the desire to rid oneself of it becomes, which leads to greater emotional distress. These factors keep feeding each other.

Thus, due to our own ignorance, we load ourselves down with dukkha. In order to see pain, body and citta as separate realities we must view each from the proper perspective, a perspective that allows them to float freely instead of coalescing into one. While they are bound together as part of our self-image there is no independent viewpoint, and therefore no effective means to separate them apart. As long as we insist on regarding pain in personal terms, it will be impossible to breach this impasse. When the khandhas and the citta are merged into one, we have no room to maneuver. But when we investigate them with mindfulness and wisdom, moving back and forth between them, analyzing each and comparing their specific features, we notice definite distinctions among them and so see their true natures clearly. Each exists on its own as a separate reality. This is a universal principle. As the profound nature of this realization sinks deep into the heart, the pain begins to abate and gradually fades away. At the same time we realize the fundamental connection between the experience of pain and the “self” that grasps it.

​That connection is established from inside the citta and extends outwardly to include the pain and the body. The actual experience of pain emanates from the citta and its deep-seated attachment to self, which causes emotional pain to arise in response to physical pain. Fully aware the whole time, we follow the feeling of pain inward to its source. As we focus on it, the pain we are investigating begins to retract, gradually drawing back into the heart. Once we realize unequivocally that it is actually the attachment created by the heart that causes us to experience pain as a personal problem, the pain disappears. It may disappear completely, leaving only the essential knowing nature of the citta alone on its own. Or, the external phenomenon of pain may remain present but, because the emotional attachment has been neutralized, it is no longer experienced as painful. It is a different order of reality from the citta, and the two do not interact. Since at that moment the citta has ceased to grasp at pain, all connection has been severed.

What’s left is the essence of the citta—its knowing nature—serene and unperturbed amidst the pain of the khandhas. No matter how severe the pain may be at that time, it will be unable to affect the citta in any way. Once wisdom realizes clearly that the citta and the pain are each real, but real in their own separate ways, the two will not impact one another at all. The body is merely a lump of physical matter. The same body that was there when the pain appeared is still there when the pain ceases. Pain does not alter the nature of the body; the body does not affect the nature of pain. The citta is the nature that knows that the pain appears, remains briefly, and ceases. But the citta, the true knowing essence, does not arise and pass away like the body and the feelings do. The citta’s knowing presence is the one stable constant. This being the case, pain—no matter how great—has no impact on the citta. You can even smile while severe pain is arising—you can smile!—because the citta is separate. It constantly knows but it does not become involved with feelings so it does not suffer. This level is attained through an intensive application of mindfulness and wisdom.

It’s a stage where wisdom develops samãdhi. And because the citta has fully investigated all aspects until they are understood thoroughly, the citta reaches the full extent of samãdhi at that time. It converges with a boldness and subtlety so profound as to defy description. This amazing awareness comes from analyzing things completely and exhaustively and then withdrawing from them. Ordinarily, when the citta relies on the power of samãdhi meditation to converge into a calm, concentrated state, it becomes still and quiet. But that samãdhi state is not nearly so subtle and profound as the one attained through the power of wisdom. Once mindfulness and wisdom have engaged the kilesas in hand-to-hand combat and triumphed, the nature of the calm that’s attained will be spectacular each time.

This is the path for those who are practicing meditation so as to penetrate to the truth of the five khandhas, using painful feeling as the primary focus. This practice formed the initial basis for my fearlessness in meditation. I saw with unequivocal clarity that the essential knowing nature of the citta could never possibly be annihilated. Even if everything else were completely destroyed, the citta would remain wholly unaffected. I realized this truth with absolute clarity the moment when the citta’s knowing essence stood alone on its own, completely uninvolved with anything whatsoever. There was only that knowing presence standing out prominently, awesome in its splendor. The citta lets go of the body, feeling, memory, thought and consciousness and enters a pure stillness of its very own, with absolutely no connection to the khandhas. In that moment, the five khandhas do not function in any way at all in relation to the citta. In other words, the citta and the khandhas exist independently because they have been completely cut off from one another due to the persistent efforts of meditation.

That attainment brings a sense of wonder and amazement that no experience we’ve ever had could possibly equal. The citta stays suspended in a serene stillness for a long time before withdrawing to normal consciousness. Having withdrawn, it reconnects with the khandhas as before, but it remains absolutely convinced that the citta has just attained a state of extraordinary calm totally cut off from the five khandhas. It knows that it has experienced an extremely amazing spiritual state of being. That certainty will never be erased. Due to that unshakable conviction, which became fixed in my heart as a result of that experience and therefore could not be brought into doubt by unfounded or unreasonable assertions, I resumed my earlier samãdhi meditation in earnest—this time with an added determination and a sense of absorption stemming from the magnetic pull that this certainty has in the heart.

The citta was quick to converge into the calm and concentration of samãdhi as before. Although I could not yet release the citta completely from the infiltration of the five khandhas, I was greatly inspired to make a persistent effort to reach the higher levels of Dhamma. NO MATTER HOW DEEP OR CONTINUOUS, samãdhi is not an end in itself. Samãdhi does not bring about an end to all suffering. But samãdhi does constitute an ideal platform from which to launch an all out assault on the kilesas that cause all suffering. The profound calm and concentration generated by samãdhi form an excellent basis for the development of wisdom. The problem is that samãdhi is so peaceful and satisfying that the meditator inadvertently becomes addicted to it. This happened to me: for five years I was addicted to the tranquility of samãdhi; so much so that I came to believe that this very tranquility was the essence of Nibbãna. Only when my teacher, Ãcariya Mun, forced me to confront this misconception, was I able to move on to the practice of wisdom. Unless it supports the development of wisdom, samãdhi can sidetrack a meditator from the path to the end of all suffering.

All meditators who intensify their efforts to develop samãdhi should be aware of this pitfall. Samãdhi’s main function on the path of practice is to support and sustain the development of wisdom. It is well suited to this task because a mind that is calm and concentrated is fully satisfied, and does not seek external distractions. Thoughts about sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile sensations no longer impinge upon an awareness that is firmly fixed in samãdhi. Calm and concentration are the mind’s natural sustenance. Once it becomes satiated with its favorite nourishment, it does not wander off where it strays into idle thinking. It is now fully prepared to undertake the kind of purposeful thinking, investigation and reflection that constitute the practice of wisdom. If the mind has yet to settle down—if it still hankers after sense impressions, if it still wants to chase after thoughts and emotions—its investigations will never lead to true wisdom. They will lead only to discursive thought, guesswork and speculation—unfounded interpretations of reality based simply on what has been learned and remembered.

Instead of leading to wisdom, and the cessation of suffering, such directionless thinking becomes samudaya—the primary cause of suffering. Since its sharp, inward focus complements the investigative and contemplative work of wisdom so well, the Lord Buddha taught us to first develop samãdhi. A mind that remains undistracted by peripheral thoughts and emotions is able to focus exclusively on whatever arises in its field of awareness and to investigate such phenomena in light of the truth without the interference of guesswork or speculation. This is an important principle. The investigation proceeds smoothly, with fluency and skill. This is the nature of genuine wisdom: investigating, contemplating and understanding, but never being distracted or misled by conjecture. The practice of wisdom begins with the human body, the grossest and most visible component of our personal identity. The object is to penetrate the reality of its true nature. Is our body what we’ve always assumed it to be—an integral and desirable part of who we really are?

To test this assumption we must thoroughly investigate the body by mentally deconstructing it into its constituent parts, section by section, piece by piece. We must research the truth about the body with which we are so familiar by viewing it from different angles. Begin with the hair on the head, the hair on the body, the nails, the teeth and the skin, and move on to the flesh, blood, sinews and bones. Then dissect the inner organs, one by one, until the whole body is completely dismembered. Analyze this conglomeration of disparate parts to clearly understand its true nature. If you find it difficult to investigate your own body in this way, begin by mentally dissecting someone else’s body. Choose a body external to yourself; for instance, a body of the opposite sex.

Visualize each part, each organ of that body as best you can, and ask yourself: Which piece is truly attractive? Which part is actually seductive? Place the hair in one pile, the nails and teeth in another; do the same with the skin, the flesh, the sinews and the bones. Which pile deserves to be an object of your desire? Examine them closely and answer with total honesty. Strip off the skin and pile it in front of you. Where is the beauty in this mass of tissue, this thin veneer that covers up the meat and entrails? Do those various parts add up to a person? Once the skin is removed, what can we find to admire in the human body? Men and women—they are all the same. Not a shred of beauty can be found in the body of a human being. It is just a bag of flesh and blood and bones that manages to deceive everyone in the world into lusting after it. It is wisdom’s duty to expose that deception. Examine the skin carefully.

Skin is the great deceiver. Because it wraps up the entire human body, it’s the part we always see. But what does it wrap up? It wraps up the animal flesh, the muscles, the fluids and the fat. It wraps up the skeleton with the tendons and the sinews. It wraps up the liver, the kidneys, the stomach, the intestines, and all the internal organs. No one has ever suggested that the body’s innards are desirable things of beauty, worthy of being admired with passion and yearning. Probing deeply, without fear or hesitation, wisdom exposes the plain truth about the body. Don’t be fooled by a thin veil of scaly tissue. Peel it off and see what lies underneath. This is the practice of wisdom. In order to really see the truth of this matter for yourself, in a clear and precise way that leaves no room for doubt, you must be very persistent and very diligent.

Merely doing this meditation practice once or twice, or from time to time, will not be enough to bring conclusive results. You must approach the practice as if it’s your life’s work—as though nothing else in the world matters except the analysis you are working on at that moment. Time is not a factor; place is not a factor; ease and comfort are not factors. Regardless of how long it takes or how difficult the work proves to be, you must relentlessly stick with body contemplation until all doubt and uncertainty are eliminated. Body contemplation should occupy every breath, every thought, every movement until the mind becomes thoroughly saturated with it. Nothing short of total commitment will bring genuine and direct insight into the truth. When body contemplation is practiced with single-minded intensity, each successive body part becomes a kind of fuel feeding the fires of mindfulness and wisdom.

Mindfulness and wisdom then become a conflagration consuming the human body section by section, part by part, as they examine and investigate the truth with a burning intensity. This is what is meant by tapadhamma. Focus intently on those body parts that really capture your attention, the ones whose truth feels most obvious to you. Use them as whetstones to sharpen your wisdom. Expose them and tear them apart until their inherently disgusting and repulsive nature becomes apparent. Asubha meditation is insight into the repulsiveness of the human body. This is the body’s natural condition; by nature, it is filthy and disgusting. Essentially, the whole body is a living, stinking corpse—a breathing cesspool full of fetid waste. Only a paper thin covering of skin makes the whole mess look presentable. We are all being deceived by the outer wrapping, which conceals the fundamental repulsiveness from view.

Merely removing the skin reveals the body’s true nature. By comparison to the flesh and internal organs, the skin appears attractive. But examine it more closely. Skin is scaly, creased, and wrinkled; it exudes sweat and grease and offensive odors. We must scrub it daily just to keep it clean. How attractive is that? And the skin is firmly wedded to the underlying flesh, and thus inextricably linked to the loathsome interior. The more deeply wisdom probes, the more repulsive the body appears. From the skin on through to the bones, nothing is the least bit pleasing. PROPERLY DONE, BODY CONTEMPLATION is intense and the mental effort is unrelenting; so, eventually, the mind begins to tire. It is then appropriate to stop and take a rest. When meditators who are engaged in full-scale body contemplation take a break, they return to the samãdhi practice they have developed and maintained so assiduously. Reentering the still peace and concentration of samãdhi, they abide in total calm where no thoughts or visualizations arise to disturb the citta. The burden of thinking and probing with wisdom is temporarily set aside so that the mind can completely relax, suspended in tranquility.

Once the mind is satiated with samãdhi, it withdraws on its own, feeling reinvigorated and refreshed and ready to tackle the rigors of body contemplation again. In this way, samãdhi supports the work of wisdom, making it more adept and incisive. Upon withdrawal from samãdhi, the investigation of the body immediately begins anew. Each time you investigate with mindfulness and wisdom, the investigation should be carried out in the present moment. To be fully effective, each new investigation must be fresh and spontaneous. Don’t allow them to become carbon copies of previous ones. An immediacy, of being exclusively in the present moment, must be maintained at all times. Forget whatever you may have learned; forget what happened the last time you delved into the body’s domain—just focus your attention squarely in the present moment and investigate only from that vantage point. Ultimately, this is what it means to be mindful. Mindfulness fixes the mind in the present, allowing wisdom to focus sharply. Learned experience is stored as memory, and as such should be put aside; otherwise memory will masquerade as wisdom. This is the present imitating the past. If memory is permitted to replace the immediacy of the present moment, then genuine wisdom will not arise.

So guard against this tendency in your practice. Keep probing and analyzing the nature of the body over and over again, using as many perspectives as your wisdom can devise, until you become thoroughly skilled in every conceivable aspect of body contemplation. True expertise in this practice produces sharp, clear insights. It penetrates directly to the essence of the body’s natural existence in a way that transforms the meditator’s view of the human body. A level of mastery can be reached, such that peoples’ bodies instantly appear to break apart whenever you look at them. When wisdom attains total mastery of the practice, we see only flesh, sinews and bones where a person once stood. The whole body is revealed as a viscous, red mass of raw tissue. The skin will vanish in a flash, and wisdom will quickly penetrate the body’s inner recesses. Whether it’s a man or a woman, the skin—which is commonly considered so appealing—is simply ignored. Wisdom penetrates immediately inside where a disgusting, repulsive mess of organs and bodily fluids fills every cavity.

Wisdom is able to penetrate to the truth of the body with utmost clarity. The attractiveness of the body completely disappears. What then is there to be attached to? What is there to lust after? What in the body is worth clinging to? Where in this lump of raw flesh is the person? The kilesas have woven a web of deception concerning the body, fooling us with perceptions of human beauty and exciting us with lustful thoughts. The truth is that the object of that desire is a fake—a complete fraud. For in reality, when seen clearly with wisdom, the body by its very nature repels desire. When this delusion is exposed in the light of wisdom, the human body appears in all its gory detail as an appalling sight. Seen with absolute clarity, the mind shrinks from it instantly. The keys to success are persistence and perseverance. Always be diligent and alert when applying mindfulness and wisdom to the task. Don’t be satisfied with partial success. Each time you contemplate the body, carry that investigation through to its logical conclusion; then quickly reestablish an image of the body in your mind and begin the process all over again.

As you delve deeper and deeper into the body’s interior, the various parts will gradually begin to break up, fall apart, and disintegrate right before your eyes. Follow the process of disintegration and decay intently. Mindful of every detail, focus your wisdom on the unstable and impermanent nature of this form that the world views with such infatuation. Let your intuitive wisdom initiate the process of decay and see what happens. This is the next stage in body contemplation. Follow the natural conditions of decay as the body decomposes and returns to its original elemental state. Decay and destruction is the natural course of all organic life. Eventually, all things are reduced to their constituent elements, and those elements disperse. Let wisdom be the destroyer, imagining for the mind’s eye the process of decay and decomposition. Concentrate on the disintegration of the flesh and other soft tissue, watching as it slowly decomposes until nothing remains but disjointed bones. Then reconstruct the body again and begin the investigation once more.

​Each time that intuitive wisdom lays waste to the body, mentally restore it to its former condition and start anew. This practice is an intense form of mental training, requiring a high degree of skill and mental fortitude. The rewards reflect the power and intensity of the effort made. The more proficient wisdom is, the brighter, clearer and more powerful the mind becomes. The mind’s clarity and strength appear to have no bounds—its speed and agility are amazing. At this stage, meditators are motivated by a profound sense of urgency as they begin to realize the harm caused by attachment to the human form. The lurking danger is clearly seen. Where previously they grasped the body as something of supreme value—something to be admired and adored—they now see only a pile of rotting bone; and they are thoroughly repulsed. Through the power of wisdom, a dead, decaying body and the living, breathing body have become one and the same corpse.

Not a shred of difference exists between them. You must investigate repeatedly, training the mind until you become highly proficient at using wisdom. Avoid any form of speculation or conjecture. Don’t allow thoughts of what you should be doing or what the results might mean to encroach upon the investigation. Just concentrate on the truth of what wisdom reveals and let the truth speak for itself. Wisdom will know the correct path to follow and will understand clearly the truths that it uncovers. And when wisdom is fully convinced of the truth of any aspect of the body, it will naturally release its attachment to that aspect. No matter how intently it has pursued that investigation, the mind feels fully satisfied once the truth manifests itself with absolute certainty. When the truth of one facet of body contemplation is realized, there is nothing further to seek in that direction.

So, the mind moves on to examine another facet, and then another facet, until finally all doubts are eliminated. Striving in this way, probing deeper and deeper into the body’s inherent nature with an intense focus on the present moment, a heightened state of awareness must be maintained; and the intensity of the effort eventually takes its toll. When fatigue sets in, experienced meditators know instinctively that the time is right to rest the mind in samãdhi. So they drop all aspects of the investigation and concentrate solely on one object. Totally unburdening themselves, they enter into the cool, composed, rejuvenating peace of samãdhi. In this way, samãdhi is a separate practice altogether. No thoughts of any kind infringe upon the citta’s essential knowing nature while it rests peacefully with single-minded concentration. With the citta absorbed in total stillness, the body and the external world temporarily disappear from awareness.

Once the citta is satiated, it withdraws to normal consciousness on its own. Like a person who eats a full meal and takes a good rest, mindfulness and wisdom are refreshed and ready to return to work with renewed energy. Then, with purposeful resolve, the practice of samãdhi is put aside and the practice of wisdom is reestablished. In this way, samãdhi is an outstanding complement to wisdom.

THE BODY IS VERY IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER. Most of our desires are bound up with it. Looking around us, we can see a world that is in the grips of sexual craving and frantic in its adoration of the human form. As meditators, we must face up to the challenges posed by our own sexuality, which stems from a deep-seated craving for sensual gratification. During meditation, this defilement is the most significant obstacle to our progress. The deeper we dig into body contemplation, the more evident this becomes. No other form of kilesa drags more on the mind, nor exerts greater power over the mind than the defilement of sexual craving. Since this craving is rooted in the human body, exposing its true nature will gradually loosen the mind’s tenacious grasp on the body. Body contemplation is the best antidote for sexual attraction. Successful body practice is measured by a reduction in the mind’s sexual desires. Step by step, wisdom unmasks the reality of the body, cutting off and destroying deep-rooted attachments in the process.

This results in an increasingly free and open mental state. To fully understand their significance, meditators must experience these results for themselves. It would be counter-productive for me to try to describe them—that would only lead to fruitless speculation. These results arise exclusively within a meditator’s mind, and are unique to that person’s character and temperament. Simply focus all your attention on the practical causes and let the results of that effort arise as they will. When they do, you will know them with undeniable clarity. This is a natural principle. When body contemplation reaches the stage where reason and result become fully integrated with wisdom, one becomes completely absorbed in these investigations both day and night. It’s truly extraordinary. Wisdom moves through the body with such speed and agility, and displays such ingenuity in its contemplative techniques, that it seems to spin relentlessly in and out and around every part, every aspect of the body, delving into each nook and cranny to discover the truth. At this stage of the practice, wisdom begins to surface automatically, becoming truly habitual in manifesting itself.

​Because it’s so quick and incisive, it can catch up with even the most subtle kilesas, and disable even the most indomitable ones. Wisdom at this level is extremely daring and adventurous. It is like a mountain torrent crashing through a narrow canyon: nothing can deter its course. Wisdom bursts forth to meet every challenge to crave and to cling that is presented by the kilesas. Because its adversary is so tenacious, wisdom’s battle with sexual craving resembles a full-scale war. For this reason, only a bold and uncompromising strategy will succeed. There is only one appropriate course of action—an all out struggle; and the meditator will know this instinctively. When wisdom begins to master the body, it will constantly modify its investigative techniques so that it will not fall prey to the tricks of the kilesas. Wisdom will try to keep one step ahead of the kilesas, constantly looking for new openings and constantly adjusting its tactics: sometimes shifting emphasis, sometimes pursuing subtle variations in technique.

As greater and greater proficiency is achieved, there comes a time when all attachment to one’s own body and to that of others appears to have vanished. In truth, a lingering attachment still remains; it has only gone into hiding. It has not been totally eliminated. Take careful note of this. It may feel as though it is eliminated, but actually it is concealed from view by the power of the asubha practice. So don’t be complacent. Keep upgrading your arsenal—mindfulness, wisdom and diligence—to meet the challenge. Mentally place the whole mass of body parts in front of you and focus on it intently. This is your body. What will happen to it? By now wisdom is so swift and decisive that in no time at all it will break up and disintegrate before your eyes. Each time you spread the body out before you—whether it is your body or someone else’s—wisdom will immediately begin to break it apart and destroy it.

By now this action has become habitual. In the end, when wisdom has achieved maximum proficiency at penetrating to the core of the body’s repulsive nature, you must place the entire disgusting mess of flesh and blood and bones in front of you and ask yourself: From where does this feeling of revulsion emanate? What is the real source of this repulsiveness? Concentrate on the disgusting sight before you and see what happens. You are now closing in on the truth of the matter. At this crucial stage in asubha contemplation, you must not allow wisdom to break the body apart and destroy it. Fix the repulsive image clearly in your mind and watch closely to detect any movement in the repulsive feeling. You have evoked a feeling of revulsion for it: Where does that feeling originate? From where does it come? Who or what assumes that flesh, blood and bones are disgusting? They are as they are, existing in their own natural state. Who is it that conjures up feelings of revulsion at their sight? Fix your attention on it. Where will the repulsiveness go? Wherever it moves, be prepared to follow its direction. The decisive phase of body contemplation has been reached.

This is the point where the root-cause of sexual craving is up-rooted once and for all. As you focus exclusively on the repulsiveness evoked by the asubha contemplation, your revulsion of the image before you will slowly, gradually contract inward until it is fully absorbed by the mind. On its own, without any prompting, it will recede into the mind, returning to its source of origin. This is the decisive moment in the practice of body contemplation, the moment when a final verdict is reached about the relationship between the kilesa of sexual craving and its primary object, the physical body. When the mind’s knowing presence fully absorbs the repulsiveness, internalizing the feeling of revulsion, a profound realization suddenly occurs: The mind itself produces feelings of revulsion, the mind itself produces feelings of attraction; the mind alone creates ugliness and the mind alone creates beauty.

These qualities do not really exist in the external physical world. The mind merely projects these attributes onto the objects it perceives and then deceives itself into believing that they are beautiful or ugly, attractive or repulsive. In truth, the mind paints elaborate pictures all the time—pictures of oneself and pictures of the external world. It then falls for its own mental imagery, believing it to be real. At this point the meditator understands the truth with absolute certainty: The mind itself generates repulsion and attraction. The previous focus of the investigation—the pile of flesh and blood and bones—has no inherent repulsiveness whatsoever. Intrinsically, the human body is neither disgusting nor pleasing. Instead, it is the mind that conjures up these feelings and then projects them on the images that are in front of us. Once wisdom penetrates this deception with absolute clarity, the mind immediately relinquishes all external perceptions of beauty and ugliness, and turns inward to concentrate on the source of such notions.

The mind itself is the perpetrator and the victim of these deceptions; the deceiver and the deceived. Only the mind, and nothing else, paints pictures of beauty and ugliness. So the asubha images that the meditator has been focusing on as separate and external objects, are absorbed into the mind where they merge with the revulsion created by the mind. Both are, in fact, one and the same thing. When this realization occurs, the mind lets go of external images, lets go of external forms, and in doing so lets go of sexual attraction. Sexual attraction is rooted in perceptions of the human body. When the real basis of these perceptions is exposed, it completely undermines their validity; and the external, as we know it, collapses and our attachment to it ceases of its own accord. The defiling influence of sexual attraction—which has ridden roughshod over the mind since time immemorial, luring the mind to grasp at birth and so experience death continuously for eons— this insidious craving is now powerless. The mind has now passed beyond its influence: It is now free.

PLEASE TAKE THIS EXPLANATION AS A GUIDE, signaling the way forward, and not as a lesson to be memorized verbatim. I am always reluctant to be very specific for fear that my students will take my words literally and thus prejudge the nature of the truth that they are seeking. My words, taken as they are, will not enlighten you. Only mindful awareness, firmly anchored in the present moment, leads directly to the truth. Never presuppose the truth. Don’t speculate or theorize about meditation practice. And don’t mistakenly appropriate the knowledge you gain from reading this exposition, assuming that in doing so you understand the true nature of body and mind. Only clear and direct insight guided by mindfulness, investigated with wisdom, and pursued with diligence will penetrate that truth. At this level of practice, the body is completely internalized and the power of sexual attraction is broken. To move forward to the next step, you must use the meditation technique, that brought you to this point, as a training exercise.

The aim here is to train mindfulness and wisdom to be even quicker, sharper and more precise in dealing with the very elusive and subtle nature of mental phenomena. Place the repulsive image of the body in front of you as usual and watch as it retracts into the mind. Then place the image back in front of you and start again, observing carefully how the image merges into the mind. Do this exercise repeatedly until the mind becomes very skilled at it. Once proficiency is achieved, the image will ebb away as soon as the mind focuses on it and merge with the knowing presence inside. Upon reaching the stage where one clearly understands the basic principles underlying sexual attraction, the next step is to train the mind with this purely mental exercise. Sexual attraction is no longer a problem—it has been cut off for good. There is no way that it can reappear as before. But, although most of it has been eliminated, it has yet to be completely destroyed.

A small portion still remains: like bits of dross or patches of rust adhering to the mind. At the stage where external perceptions merge totally with the citta’s own inner image, we can say that at least fifty percent of the investigation of kãmarãga has been successfully completed. The final, most advanced stage of the path of practice has been reached. The subtle portion of sensual desire that remains must be gradually eliminated, using the training exercise mentioned above. Relentlessly refining the contemplation and the mental absorption of asubha images will increase wisdom’s skill level. As wisdom’s proficiency strengthens, a higher and higher percentage of sexual attraction is totally destroyed. As wisdom’s mastery gathers pace, so too does the speed at which the images recede into the mind.

​Eventually, as soon as one focuses on it, an image will rush into the mind, merge with it and simply vanish. With constant practice, the speed at which this occurs will rapidly increase. At the highest level of skillfulness, the image will vanish the moment it’s absorbed into the mind. This investigative technique is fundamental to progress in the final stage of the path, the stage where a vanquished kãmarãga is in full retreat. Soon every vestige of it will be destroyed.

​Once the meditator attains the final stage, once the real source of ugliness and beauty is seen with crystal clarity, kãmarãga will never rear its head again. Its hold over the mind has been broken—and this condition is irreversible. Notwithstanding that, further work is still needed to destroy all traces of sensual desire. The task is time consuming. This part of the investigation is complex and somewhat chaotic with images of the body arising and vanishing at a furious pace. The most intense effort is required to root out every last vestige of kãmarãga. But the meditator knows instinctively what to do at this stage. So, the investigation quickly develops its own natural momentum without prompting from anyone. Mindfulness and wisdom are habitual—they work in unison with extraordinary speed and agility.

By the time that these investigations reach their dénouement, no sooner does an image of the body appear than it vanishes instantly. It doesn’t matter whether these images merge into the citta or not, their appearance and disappearance is all that is known. Arising and passing images happen so quickly that perceptions of external and internal are no longer relevant. In the end, images flutter on and off, appearing and disappearing from awareness so rapidly that their forms are no longer sustainable. After each disappearance, the citta experiences a profound emptiness—emptiness of imagery, emptiness of form. An extremely refined awareness stands out within the citta. As each new image flashes on and disappears, the mind feels the resulting emptiness more profoundly.

Due to its subtle and manifest strength at this stage, the citta’s knowing nature completely dominates. Finally, images created in the mind cease to appear altogether—only emptiness remains. In this void the citta’s essential knowing nature prevails, exclusively and incomparably. With the cessation of all body-images created by the mind comes the total annihilation of kãmarãga. Contemplation of the body has reached closure.

Finally realizing that all form is intrinsically empty—empty of personality, empty of distinctive qualities such as beauty and ugliness—the meditator sees the immense harm caused by kãmarãga. This ruinous defilement spreads its noxious poison everywhere. It corrodes human relationships and agitates the whole world, distorting people’s thoughts and emotions, causing anxiety, restlessness and constant discontent. Nothing else has such a disquieting effect on people’s lives. It is the most destructive force on earth. When kãmarãga is totally eliminated, the entire world appears empty. The force that ignites fires which consume people’s hearts, and fans flames that ravage human society is vanquished and buried. The fire of sexual attraction is extinguished for good—nothing remains to torment the heart.

With kãmarãga quenched, Nibbãna appears imminent and close at hand. Kãmarãga conceals everything, blinding us to all aspects of the truth. Thus, when kãmarãga is finally destroyed, we have an unobstructed view of magga, phala, and Nibbãna—they are now well within reach. TO SUMMARIZE, THE STAGE of Anãgãmï is attained when kãmarãga’s stranglehold on the mind is broken. The Anãgãmï must then practice the same investigative techniques that led to that result, deepening, broadening and perfecting them until bodily forms no longer appear within the citta. The mind creates images and then falls for its own creations. The fully accomplished Anãgãmï knows this beyond a shadow of doubt. The human body, and everything that it’s believed to represent, are matters of the mind deceiving itself. The body is a lump of matter, a conglomeration of basic natural elements. It is not a person; it is neither pleasing nor repugnant. It simply is as it is, existing in its own natural state. The mind perpetrates the fraud that we perceive, and is then taken in by its own false perceptions.

All human organs are merely devices that the citta’s knowing nature uses for its own purposes. The knowing presence of the citta is diffused throughout the whole body. This diffusion and permeation of conscious awareness throughout the body is entirely a manifestation of the citta’s own essence. The physical elements composing the body have no consciousness: they have no intrinsic knowing qualities, no conscious presence. The knowing and the sense consciousness associated with the body are strictly matters of the citta and its manifestations. The eyes, ears, and nose are able to perceive through the awareness of the citta. These organs are merely the means by which sense consciousness occurs. They themselves have no conscious awareness. Normally we believe that our eyes are capable of seeing. But once we fully understand the body’s true nature we know that the eyeball is simply a lump of tissue.

The consciousness that flows through the eyes is what actually sees and knows visual objects. Consciousness uses the eyes as a means to access the visual sphere. Our organs of sight are no different from the eyeballs of a dead animal lying at the side of the road. The fleshy eye has no intrinsic value: on its own, it is basically inert. This is known and understood with unequivocal clarity. How then can the body be oneself? How can it belong to oneself? It’s completely unnatural. This principle is seen clearly when the flow of consciousness that diffuses and permeates the human body is drawn back into itself and converges into a deep state of samãdhi. Then the entire body exists as no more than a lump of matter—a log or a tree stump. When the citta withdraws from samãdhi, conscious awareness returns to the body, spreading out to permeate every limb, every part. Awareness and the ability to know are fundamental functions of the citta—not of the physical body.

In the normal waking consciousness of the meditator at this level of practice, the knowing presence is fully aware of itself, aware that the citta and the knowing are one and the same timeless essence; and that the physical elements know nothing. In samãdhi, the body may disappear from awareness but the awareness itself never disappears. In truth, this is an immutable principle of nature. When the kilesas infiltrate the citta, however, they grasp everything as oneself—as me or mine—thus confusing one’s true nature with the sense faculties that it animates. Such is the nature of the kilesas. Wisdom is just the opposite: It knows the body clearly for what it is and corrects this misconception. The kilesas always grasp at the body, leading one to believe that the body is a special part of oneself.

Wisdom sees the human body as just a conglomeration of common material substances, and consequently relinquishes all personal attachment to it. The brain, for instance, is a lump of matter. The brain is merely an instrument that human consciousness uses. When the citta enters into a deep state of calm and concentration, the conscious awareness that is normally diffused throughout the body simultaneously converges from all areas of the body into one central point of focus at the middle of the chest. The knowing quality manifests itself prominently at that point. It does not emanate from the brain. Although the faculties of memorization and learning arise in association with the brain, direct knowledge of the truth does not. Step by step, beginning with the initial stages of samãdhi practice, progress in meditation is experienced and understood in the heart—and only in the heart. This is where the truth lies, and the meditator who practices correctly knows this each step of the way. When it comes to understanding the true nature of all phenomena, the brain is not a factor—it is not useful at all. The citta’s serene and radiant qualities are experienced at the heart.

They emanate conspicuously from that point. All of the citta’s myriad aspects, from the grossest to the most subtle, are experienced clearly from this central spot. And when all defiling influences are finally eliminated from the citta, it is there that they all cease. 

Within the citta, saññã and sankhãra are the main agents of delusion. Beginning with the latter stages of body contemplation at the level of Anãgãmï, these mental components of personality take center stage. When the physical component of personality—the body—ceases to be a factor, the Anãgãmï’s full focus automatically shifts to the mental components: feeling, memory, thought and consciousness. Among these, the faculties of memory and thought are especially important. They arise and interact continuously to form mental images that they color with various shades of meaning. In examining them, the same basic investigative principles still apply; but instead of images of the body, the thinking process itself becomes the subject of scrutiny.

Using intense introspection, wisdom observes how thoughts and memories arise and then vanish, arise and then vanish, appearing and disappearing in an endless chain of mental activity. No sooner does a thought arise than it vanishes from awareness. Whatever its nature, the result is always the same: a thought lasts for only a brief moment and then it vanishes. The investigation zeros in exclusively on the thinking process, penetrating right to the heart of the mind’s essential knowing nature. It follows every thought, every inkling of an idea, as it arises and passes, and then focuses on the next one that surfaces. It is a time-consuming and arduous task that demands undivided attention every moment of the day and night. But by this stage, time and place have become irrelevant. This internal investigation may well continue unremittingly for weeks or months while mindfulness and wisdom wrestle with a constant flux of mental phenomena. The work is mentally very exhausting. Wisdom goes relentlessly through every aspect of mental activity.

It works non-stop day and night. At the same time that it investigates the thinking process, it also makes use of thoughts and ideas to question and probe the workings of the mind in order to gain insights into its true nature. This is thinking for the sake of magga—the path of practice. It is a tool that wisdom uses for the purpose of uncovering the truth. It is not indulging in thought merely for its own sake, which is samudaya—the cause of suffering. All the same, due to the intense nature of the investigation, the mind becomes fatigued; and it invariably turns dull and sluggish after long hours of intense effort. When this happens, it must take a break. More than at any other time, the mind needs to rest in samãdhi at regular intervals during this stage. But since the results of peace and tranquility, experienced in samãdhi, pale in comparison to the truly amazing results gained from the practice of wisdom, the meditator is often very reluctant to opt for samãdhi.

The mind is in a vibrant, heightened state of awareness; and from that perspective samãdhi seems to be a wasteful, stagnant mental state. In truth, however, samãdhi constitutes an essential and indispensable complement to the practice of wisdom. So, the mind must be coerced into samãdhi, if necessary. It must be forced to set aside current investigations and to focus exclusively on attaining a calm, peaceful, fully-converged mental state. There, it can rest until it is completely refreshed and restored before resuming the liberating work of wisdom. As soon as the mind withdraws from the inactive state of samãdhi, it will leap immediately into action. Like a horse chafing at the bit, the mind is impatient to return to its principal task—the removal and destruction of all mental defilements. But take care to see that the mind does not rush frantically along the path of wisdom without any letup. Investigating to excess is one form of samudaya that can infiltrate the citta, causing it to fall under the spell of sankhãras.

​The very faculties of thinking and analyzing that wisdom uses to investigate the mind have a momentum of their own that knows no moderation. They must occasionally be reined in so that a proper balance is maintained between inner work and inner rest. At this stage of the practice, wisdom will automatically work at full capacity. When it is appropriate to rest, focus on samãdhi with that same degree of intensity. This is the middle way of magga, phala, and Nibbãna.

The citta and its relationship to the nãma khandhas are the central focus of the investigation at this level. The citta is the essential knowing nature at the core of our being. It consists of pure and simple awareness: the citta simply knows. Awareness of good and bad, and the critical judgments that result, are merely conditions of the citta. At times, their activities may manifest as mindfulness; at other times, as wisdom. But the true citta does not exhibit any activities or manifest any conditions at all. It is simply a state of knowing. The activities that arise in the citta, such as awareness of good and bad, or happiness and suffering, or praise and blame, are all conditions of the consciousness that flow out from the citta. Since they represent activities and conditions of the citta that are, by their very nature, constantly arising and fading, this sort of conscious awareness is always unstable and always unreliable.

​Understood in this way, saññã, sankhãra and viññãõa are all conditions of the citta. These conditions create the flux of mental phenomena that we call the nãma khandhas. Through the interaction of feeling, memory, thought and consciousness, forms and images arise within the citta. The awareness that knows them is the citta. Defiling influences like kãmarãga manipulate and color the quality of that knowing. So long as the citta, under the authority of kãmarãga, believes this internal imagery to be real and substantial, desire and aversion will occur. Internalized forms are then cherished or despised according to their perceived nature—either good or bad, attractive or repulsive. The citta’s perspective is then divided between these two extremes. It is tricked into identifying with a world of duality and instability. The citta’s knowing does not arise or pass away, but it mimics the traits of those things—like the kilesas and the khandhas—that do. When wisdom finally sees through the deception, the citta no longer harbours these phenomena although they continue to arise and vanish in the sphere of the khandhas. The citta is thus empty of such phenomena.

One moment after another from the day of our birth to the present, the khandhas have risen and fallen away continuously. On their own, they have no real substance and it is impossible to find any. The citta’s interpretation of these phenomena lends them a semblance of personal reality. The citta clings to them as the essence of oneself, or as one’s own personal property. This misconception creates a self-identity that becomes a burden heavier than an entire mountain, a burden that the citta carries within itself without gaining any benefit. Dukkha is its only reward for a misconceived attachment fostered by self-delusion. When the citta has investigated these things and can see them with the clarity born of sharp, incisive wisdom, the body is understood to be a natural phenomenon that is real within the limits of its own inherent physical qualities. It is not intrinsic to oneself and so it is no longer an object of attachment.

Bodily feelings—painful, pleasant and neutral feelings that occur within the body—are clearly real, but they are only a reality within their specific domain. They too are relinquished. But wisdom is as yet incapable of seeing through the subtle feelings that arise exclusively within the citta. So psychological and emotional feelings— painful, pleasant and neutral feelings that occur only within the citta—are conditions that continue to interest the citta. Although the citta is unable to understand the truth about them now, these subtle feelings will serve as constant reminders, always prompting the citta to investigate them further.

AS A WHOLE, THE WELLSPRING of thought and imagination is called sankhãra khandha. Each thought, each inkling of an idea ripples briefly through the mind and then ceases. In and of themselves, these mental ripples have no specific meaning. They merely flash briefly into awareness and then cease without a trace. Only when saññã khandha takes them up do they become thoughts and ideas with a specific meaning and content. Saññã khandha is the mental aggregate of memory, recognition and interpretation. Saññã takes fragments of thought and interprets and expands them, making assumptions about their significance, and thus turning them into issues. Sankhãra then perpetuates these issues in the form of incessant, discursive thinking. Saññã, however, is the principal instigator. As soon as sankhãra flashes up briefly, saññã immediately grasps it and defines its existence as this or that—agitating everything.

These two are the mental faculties that cause all the trouble. Together they spin tales—of fortune and of woe—and then interpret them to be the reality of oneself. Relying on memory to identify everything that arises in awareness, saññã defines them and gives them meaning. Sankhãras arise and cease with distinct beginnings and endings, like flashes of lightning or fireflies blinking on and off. When observed closely, saññã khandha is far more subtle than sankhãra khandha. Bursting into awareness, sankhãras are the basic building blocks of thought. Saññã, on the other hand, is not experienced as flashes of thought. When the mind is perfectly still and the khandhas are very quiet, we can clearly feel the manner in which each khandha arises. Saññã will slowly spread out, permeating the citta like ink moving through blotting paper, expanding slowly until it forms a mental picture. Following saññã’s lead, the sankhãras, that are constantly arising, begin to form a picture and create a story around it that will then take on a life of its own.

Thoughts about this or that begin with saññã recognizing and interpreting the ripplings of sankhãra, molding them into a recognizable image which sankhãra then continuously elaborates. Both of these mental factors are natural phenomena. They arise spontaneously, and are distinct from the awareness that knows them. Now, when the citta has investigated the khandhas repeatedly, ceaselessly and relentlessly, it will develop an expertise. Contemplating by means of wisdom, we are able to first relinquish the physical khandha. At the beginning stage of the investigation, wisdom will see through the physical body before it sees through—and can let go of—the other khandhas. Henceforth, the citta can gradually relinquish its attachment to feeling, memory, thought and consciousness in the same manner. Put simply, the citta lets go when wisdom sees through the mental components of personality; before then, it holds on. Once wisdom has penetrated them completely, the citta can relinquish them all, recognizing that they are merely ripplings inside the citta and have no real substance. Whether good or bad, thoughts arise and cease all the same.

No matter how they appear in the mind, they are just configurations created by saññã and sankhãra and will simply vanish. There are no exceptions. No thought lasts more than an instant. Lacking duration, thoughts lack true substance and meaning; and therefore, they cannot be trusted. So, what keeps providing us with these thoughts? What keeps producing them? One moment it’s churning out one thought; the next moment, another, forever deceiving oneself. They come from sights, sounds, tastes, smells and tactile sensations; they come from feeling, memory, thought and consciousness. We take our assumptions about our perceptions for granted, perpetuating the fraud until it becomes a fire burning our hearts. The citta is contaminated by just these factors, these conventions of the mind. The purpose of the investigation is the removal of these factors. Their absence reveals the true nature of the citta. We will see that when the citta does not venture out to become involved with an object, it remains naturally calm and radiant; as in the saying: “Monks, the original citta is intrinsically bright and clear, but it becomes defiled by the commingling of kilesas that pass through.”

The original citta is the radiant citta. This statement refers to the original nature of the citta that wanders from birth to birth in the cycle of rebirth. It may be compared to the citta of a newborn infant whose mental faculties are not sufficiently developed to fully comprehend sense objects. It does not refer to the original nature of the citta that has transcended the cycle of rebirth and is absolutely pure. As we investigate the citta thoroughly, stage by stage, the defiling elements that previously roamed about will converge into a single radiant point, merging with the natural radiance inside the citta. This radiance is so majestic and mesmerizing that even exceptional mental faculties like supreme-mindfulness and supreme-wisdom will invariably fall under its spell at first. It’s a completely novel experience, never before encountered. It amazes and appears so extraordinary, so majestic and awe-inspiring, that it seems nothing could possibly compare with it at that moment. And why shouldn’t it be?

It has been an absolute monarch, ruling over the three worlds of existence for countless eons. This point of radiance has held the citta under its power and command since time immemorial. And it will continue to mesmerize as long as the citta lacks the superior mindfulness and wisdom necessary to free itself from the power it exerts, forcing the citta to experience birth on countless levels of existence resulting from actions dictated by this subtle kilesa. Ultimately, it is this refined, natural radiance of mind that causes living beings to wander ceaselessly through saÿsãra, experiencing birth and death. Once the citta clearly understands rýpa, vedanã, saññã, sankhãra and viññãõa with absolute certainty, all that remains are subtle variations of the ripplings that occur exclusively within the citta. These are a subtle form of sankhãra causing movement within the citta: a subtle form of sukha, a subtle form of dukkha, a subtle radiant splendor within the citta. That’s all they are. Supreme-mindfulness and supreme-wisdom will take these internal stirrings as the focus of the investigation, constantly observing and analyzing them.

The radiance, produced by the convergence of the various kilesas, will be a clearly-perceived point of brightness, a very refined radiance that is centered at a specific point within the citta. A refined and corresponding dullness will occasionally arise to tarnish that radiant center, which causes an equally subtle form of dukkha to emerge as well. In truth, brightness and dullness are two sides of the same coin: both are conventional realities. At this level, radiance, dullness, and dukkha are companions, appearing together. For this reason, when the citta experiences this wonderful radiance, it is always slightly wary that the experience may be marred by variations at any moment. Mindfulness and wisdom work to protect and maintain the radiance against tarnish. Regardless of its subtlety, the blemish is still a symptom of the kilesas; so meditators must not be complacent. These subtle changes in the citta’s radiance must be examined by wisdom with utmost persistence.

In order to eliminate this burden of anxiety and reach a definitive resolution to this matter, ask yourself: What exactly is this radiance? Focus your attention on it until you know. Why is it so changeable? One moment it’s luminous; the next it’s slightly tarnished. One moment there’s sukha; the next there’s dukkha. One moment there’s total satisfaction, the next moment dissatisfaction creeps in. Notice the subtle sukha that behaves with just the slightest irregularity. Then, with the slightest appearance of dukkha, in line with the refined nature of the citta at this level, it is sufficient to make us suspicious. Why does this subtle and refined state of the citta display such a variety of conditions? It is not always constant and true. Relentlessly pursue this line of inquiry. Be fearless. Don’t be afraid that the destruction of that luminosity will be the destruction of your own true essence. Just focus on that central point to see clearly that the radiance has the same characteristics—of anicca, dukkha and anattã—as all the other phenomena that you have already examined.

The only difference is that the radiance is far more subtle and refined. At this stage of the investigation, nothing should be taken for granted; nothing in the realm of conventional reality should be trusted. Bring your focus deep into the citta and let wisdom take up the challenge. All things that are counterfeit originate in the citta. This radiance is the most conspicuous among them. It is the ultimate counterfeit. Since you cherish and safeguard it more than anything else, you will hardly want to interfere with it. Within the entire physical body, nothing stands out so prominently as this brilliance. It provokes such a mesmerizing sense of inner amazement—and, consequently, such a protective feeling of attachment—that you want nothing to disturb it. There it is. Look at it: it is none other than the supreme ruler of the universe—avijjã. But you don’t recognize it. Never having seen it before, you will naturally be deceived by the radiance you encounter at this stage. Later, when mindfulness and wisdom are fully prepared, you will know the truth without any need of prompting. This is avijjã. The true avijjã is right here. It is nothing but a mesmerizing point of brilliance.

Don’t imagine avijjã to be a demon or a beast; for in truth, it is really the most alluring and endearing paragon of beauty in the whole world. True avijjã is very different from what you expect it to be. Therefore, when you encounter avijjã you fail to recognize it; and your practice gets caught there. If you have no teacher to advise you and point out a way to investigate, then you will be at an impasse for a long time before you realize its true nature and can go beyond it. When you do have a teacher to advise you on how to proceed, then you can quickly understand the basic principle and strike decisively at that center of radiance without putting any trust in it. You must conduct your investigation here as you have done with other natural phenomena. Having relinquished all attachment to the five khandhas, the citta is exceedingly refined at this stage. Although it has let go of everything else, it has yet to let go of itself. Its own intrinsic knowing nature remains permeated by avijjã’s fundamental ignorance about its own true essence, and therefore, remains attached to itself. It is here that avijjã converges into a single point of focus.

All of its external outlets having been cut off, it converges into the citta without a way to flow out. Avijjã’s outlets are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body, leading to sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations. Once mindfulness and wisdom are skilled enough to cut off these outflows for good, avijjã is left without an outlet for its expression. Its external agents have been neutralized; all that remains is a subtle incessant vibration resonating within the citta. Being deprived of an outlet for its activities, it depends solely on the citta as its base of activity. As long as wisdom is unable to thoroughly transcend it, avijjã will appear as subtle feelings of sukha, subtle feelings of dukkha, and a radiance that truly overwhelms and amazes. So the citta keeps focusing the investigation on those factors.

Every conventional reality—no matter how refined it is or how bright and majestic it seems—invariably manifests some irregular symptoms. These are sufficient to catch the citta’s attention and make it search for a solution. Both the very refined sukha and dukkha that arise exclusively within the citta, and the amazing radiance that emanates from it, have their origin in avijjã. But since we have never before encountered them, we are deluded into grasping at them when we first investigate this point. We are lulled into a sound sleep by avijjã, believing that the subtle feelings of satisfaction and shining radiance are our true essence beyond name and form. Oblivious to our mistake, we accept this majestic citta, complete with avijjã, as our one true self. But not for long. At this level, the powerful faculties of supreme-mindfulness and supreme-wisdom are not complacent. They routinely scrutinize, investigate and analyze—back and forth, continually. Eventually they will realize the truth. They will notice that the subtle feelings of sukha and dukkha display slight variations that seem out of keeping with that majestic radiance.

​Even though the dukkha that manifests itself is ever so slight, it is enough to make us suspicious. Why does the citta have these varying conditions? It’s never constant. These tiny irregularities that are observed within the radiant center of the citta manifest just enough fluctuation to attract the attention of mindfulness and wisdom.

Once they are detected, mistrust arises, alerting wisdom that they should be investigated. So the quality of the citta’s knowing then becomes the focus of the investigation. Mindfulness and wisdom concentrate on this point, trying to discover what this knowing really consists of. They have already investigated everything else, stage by stage, to the extent that all other factors have been successfully eliminated. But this knowing presence, which is so bright and so amazing: what exactly is it? As mindfulness and wisdom pin their concentration on it, the citta becomes the focal point of a full-scale investigation. It is turned into a battlefield for supreme-mindfulness and supreme-wisdom. Before long, they are able to destroy the avijjã-citta that, from avijjã’s perspective, appears so magnificent and majestic. They now totally obliterate it; so that not even the smallest trace remains within the citta. When investigated with sharp, incisive wisdom until its nature is clearly understood, this phenomenon will disintegrate and dissolve away in an entirely unexpected manner.

​That moment of awakening could be called “Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree” or “The total destruction of saÿsãra’s cemeteries”. An unimpeachable certainty arises, then. The moment when that radiant center disintegrates, something even more remarkable— something that has been concealed by avijjã—will be revealed in all its fullness. Within the citta, it feels as though a powerful tremor shakes the entire universe. This crucial moment, when the citta breaks away from all forms of conventional reality, is one of indescribable wonder and magnificence. It is precisely here—at the moment when avijjã is finally extinguished—that Arahattamagga is transformed into Arahattaphala. When the path is fully developed, the fruition of Arahantship is attained. Dhamma and citta have attained complete perfection. From that moment on, all problems cease. This is the nature of Nibbãna. When that nature which we imagine to be so awesome and amazing finally disintegrates, something that is impossible to describe arises in full measure. That nature is Absolute Purity. 

When compared to that state of purity, the avijjã that we once held in such awesome regard resembles cow dung; and the nature that was concealed by avijjã appears to be pure gold. Even a baby knows which is the more precious between cow dung and gold; so we needn’t waste time and proclaim our stupidity by making comparisons. The disintegration of avijjã marks the moment when Arahattamagga and Arahattaphala arrive together at their final destination. If we make a comparison with climbing the stairs to a house, one foot is on the last step, the other foot is on the floor of the house. We have not yet reached the house with both feet. Only when both feet are firmly on the floor of the house can we say that we have “reached the house”. The citta “reaches Dhamma” when it has both feet firmly planted in the supreme Dhamma.

It has attained the singularity of Nibbãna. From that moment of attainment, the citta is completely free. It manifests no further activities for the removal of kilesas. This is Arahattaphala: the fruition of Arahantship. It is experienced exclusively by those who are free of kilesas—those living Arahants who attain sa-upãdisesa-nibbãna. As for rýpa, vedanã, saññã, sankhãra and viññãõa, they are merely conditions, natural phenomena that spontaneously arise and cease without the ability to impact or contaminate the citta in anyway. The same applies to sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations: each has its own separate reality. Their existence no longer poses a problem as the citta is now free of the ignorance that caused it to make false assumptions about them. Now that the citta is fully aware of the truth, it knows the reality of its knowing presence as well as the reality of all natural phenomena within and without.

​With each having its own separate reality, the conflicts that used to arise between them no longer exist. All are free to go their separate ways. At this stage, the long-standing conflict between the kilesas and the citta is finally over.

When the truth is known in this way, the citta feels no anxiety or apprehension concerning the life and death of the khandhas. The citta simply perceives the activities of the khandhas—how they arise, interact and cease; and how they eventually disintegrate at death. But since the essential knowing nature of the citta never dies, fear of death is not a factor. One accepts death—when it comes—as well as life—when it continues. Both are aspects of the same truth. THIS CONCLUDES THE INVESTIGATION of the citta. Upon reaching this level, the citta is cut off forever from birth and existence, severed completely from all manifestations of avijjã and craving. The state of “avijjã paccaya sankhãra”—the state in which “fundamental ignorance conditions the arising of conditioned phenomena”—dissolves completely.

​It is replaced by avijjãya tveva asesavirãga nirodhã sankhãrã nirodho: the fading away and cessation of conditioned phenomena that ends the entire mass of suffering. When avijjã is extinguished, conditioned phenomena—which give rise to dukkha—are also extinguished. They have disappeared from the knowing nature of the citta. Conditioned phenomena, such as thoughts, which are an integral part of the khandhas, continue to function in their own sphere but they no longer cause dukkha. Uncorrupted by kilesas, they simply give form and direction to mental activity. Consciousness arises in the mind, purely and simply without producing suffering. Viññãõa paccaya nãmarýpaÿ, nãmarýpa paccaya sãîayatanaÿ, sãîayatana paccaya phasso: All sense media and the sense contact that they condition are just naturally occurring phenomena that exist according to their own intrinsic characteristics. They have no negative effect whatsoever on the citta that has successfully completed its task to the point of evamme tassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa nirodho hoti. This is the total cessation of the entire mass of dukkha.

When avijjã and all the kilesas are extinguished, they are extinguished inside the citta. The extinction of avijjã means the destruction of the cycle of repeated birth and death. Both must be extinguished within the citta, for the avijjã-citta is the essence of the world of rebirth, the essence of birth, ageing, sickness and death. Sensual craving, with avijjã acting as the prime mover, is the root cause of birth, ageing, sickness and death—and it exists only within the citta. When avijjã finally disintegrates, being severed from the citta forever, total cessation is achieved. The citta is then free, vast and supremely empty, without limits, without bounds—totally expansive.

Nothing encloses or obstructs it. All contradictions have been eliminated. When the citta knows, it knows only the truth; when it sees, it sees only the truth. This is true emptiness. Degrees of emptiness are experienced at many levels. Samãdhi meditation is one level. In deep samãdhi, the body and the thinking mind temporarily vanish from awareness. The citta appears empty, but the duration of this emptiness is limited to the time spent practicing samãdhi. At the initial level of the practice of wisdom, the citta can permanently separate itself from the physical body, but it cannot yet disengage from the mental components of personality: vedanã, saññã, sankhãra, and viññãõa. It is completely empty of physical forms, so images of the body no longer appear within the citta; but it is not empty of mental concepts. When reaching this level, wisdom is able to distinguish oneself from the physical mass that is the body, and so detach itself forever from the belief that the body is oneself. But it is still unable to separate the mental factors of feeling, memory, thought, and consciousness. By investigating further, the citta becomes detached from these mental factors as well.

Then nothing remains except an extraordinary radiance that infuses the cosmos, a luminous essence of being that seems boundless, and an amazing and profound mental void. This is the awesome power of genuine avijjã. By continuing to employ the full might of mindfulness and wisdom, avijjã is finally extinguished within the citta. When everything permeating the citta is removed, one attains genuine emptiness. The emptiness experienced at this level is a total and permanent disengagement that requires no further effort to maintain. This means true and absolute freedom for the citta. The difference between the emptiness of the avijjã-citta and the emptiness of the pure citta, free of avijjã, can be illustrated by imagining a person in an empty room. Standing in the middle of the room, admiring its emptiness, that person forgets about himself. Seeing that there is nothing around him in the room, he reflects only on the emptiness he perceives and not on the fact that he is occupying a central position in that space.

As long as someone is in the room, it is not truly empty. When he finally realizes that the room can never be truly empty until he departs, that is the moment when avijjã disintegrates and the pure citta arises. Once the citta has let go of phenomena of every sort, the citta appears supremely empty; but the one who admires the emptiness, who is awestruck by the emptiness, that one still survives. The self as reference point, which is the essence of avijjã, remains integrated into the citta’s knowing nature. This is the genuine avijjã. One’s “self” is the real impediment at that moment. As soon as it disintegrates and disappears, no more impediments remain. Everything is empty: the external world is empty, and the interior of the citta is empty. As in the case of a person in an empty room, we can only truly say that the room is empty when the person leaves the room. The citta that has gained a comprehensive understanding of all external matters, and all matters pertaining to itself, this citta is said to be totally empty. True emptiness occurs when every single trace of conventional reality has disappeared from the citta. Avijjã’s extinction is unlike that of all other things that we have investigated up to this point.

​Their ending was accompanied by a clear and definite understanding of their true nature. Uniquely, the radiance of avijjã is extinguished in an instant, like a flash of lightening. It is a moment of being that happens spontaneously: it just flips over and vanishes completely. Only then, when the radiance disappears, do we know that it was really the genuine avijjã. What remains is entirely unique. Its nature is absolutely pure. Although it has never before been experienced, there’s nothing to doubt when it appears at that moment. Anything that might cause doubt has ceased along with it. This is the end of all burdens. All allusions to oneself, to the true essence of one’s being refer specifically to this genuine avijjã. They indicate that it is still intact. All investigations are done for its sake. This self is what knows; this self is what understands. This self is radiant, light and happy. “I” and “mine”—the genuine avijjã lies here. Everything is done for its sake. Once it finally disintegrates, so too does the personal perspective.

Things are still done, but not for anyone’s sake. It resembles a pot whose bottom has dropped away: regardless of how much water is poured in, not a drop is retained. Thoughts and ideas continue to arise and cease as a natural function of the khandhas, but nothing adheres to the citta because the vessel that used to hold them—avijjã—has been destroyed. A thought arises at one instant and ceases the next. Since there is nothing to contain them and no one to lay claim to them, thoughts simply move on and vanish. The nature that knows this complete emptiness of self is fully contented within. This nature is true absolute purity, totally free of all burdens. The real nature of the citta is so well concealed by avijjã that the incredible natural wonder of the genuine citta is never seen. The pitfall of avijjã is so well disguised that meditators who reach this stage are bound to be fooled. They are completely mesmerized by what they believe to be the citta’s true wonder. They cherish it so much that they feel they must preserve and protect it at all costs. For, in essence, this is who they really are, this wonderful radiance belongs to them. 

Genuine avijjã is a focal point containing many strange and wonderful things hidden within it—things that we could never have imagined to exist. These contaminate the citta, much in the same way that a tiny piece of bait is contaminated with enough hidden poison to kill an animal. Since it is virtually impossible to find conceptual realities to which I can compare the contaminating factors, hiding within avijjã, I can give only a brief explanation. These factors include: a radiance of being so extraordinary that it seems to be the finished product; a most exceptional sense of happiness, originating from the power of the radiance permeating the citta, that seems to transcend the entire realm of conventional reality; a feeling of invulnerability so strong that it seems nothing can possibly affect it; a cherishing, protective attachment to this radiant nature as though it were pure gold.

The avijjã-citta seems to have every virtue: it is bright, it is bold, it is supremely contented and its quality of knowing seems limitless. But, despite knowing every conceivable sort of thing, this knowing nature does not know itself. This is the fundamental ignorance of genuine avijjã. As soon as this knowing nature turns back and looks into itself, avijjã disintegrates. This disintegration, in turn, reveals the truth about the citta, the truth about Dhamma. Only avijjã keeps this truth hidden from view. Meditators who are not truly adept in the area of wisdom will have difficulty finding their way out of avijjã, because avijjã in general and genuine avijjã are two very different things. The nature of avijjã in general combines all the different aspects of delusion, both external and internal, into a single mental defilement. It’s comparable to a tree, which is a combination of leaves, twigs, branches and a trunk. Genuine avijjã, on the other hand, is like a tree that is felled and stripped of all its branches. That is to say, through persistent effort, wisdom cuts away at avijjã’s “outgrowing” activities one at a time so that it gradually loses its exuberant tendencies and converges into a single spot—the citta.

At this point, avijjã no longer has the group of henchmen that it commanded when it was fully in charge. At this spot we find the genuine avijjã. The offshoots of avijjã are many and varied. All other mental defilements are merely its twigs and branches. By concentrating on the offshoots, we tend to overlook the root cause. Because of this, when we actually reach the real avijjã, we are confused and don’t recognize it. It’s like a vine that sprouts up in one place and then creeps along the ground to who knows where. It just goes creeping on and climbing up, with more and more offshoots that grow longer and more entangled. We must grab hold of the vine and keep following it back to its source until we reach the main stem. That’s where we will find the roots. When we pull out the roots, the whole plant dies. 

Author : Ajahn Maha Boowa Nanasampanno
Translated by : Ajaan Dick Silaratano