It’s not unusual for a Dhamma practitioner, who traverses the path to the cessation of dukkha, to encounter problems that arise from practice, with the only exception of a khippābhiññā, one who becomes enlightened quickly. But for you ordinary practitioners, there will be problems to solve. You›ll have to muster all of your mental resources to solve them. Your mind will be spinning like a Dhamma-cakka or wheel of Dhamma. When you’re developing paññā, this is the way it will be. In developing samādhi, you’ll have to use sati to control and subdue the citta. When there is no sati to control it, the citta will ceaselessly think and conjure up images to deceive you, although they are just shadows.
The producer of these images is inside the citta, but the shadows are projected outward to fool you to become obsessed with them. This will happen to every practitioner. If you don’t know this fact, then your citta will never calm down. You should, therefore, always watch your citta with sati; then when it begins to conjure, you’ll feel that there is something emerging. But you usually won’t know this because it only emerges when you’re not mindful. You’ only realize it after it has already conjured up these images. By then you’ll already become deluded with them. They are merely shadows. All of your conceptualising is created by saṅkhāra that keeps on conjuring up thoughts and images without end. You then become deluded and obsessed with them by creating more thoughts and images. You might think that you’re sitting meditating, but actually you’re being obsessed with your thoughts because you’re not watching your citta where your thoughts and images are created. Sati is not watching, so how can the citta find any calm.
You should always keep this in mind. This is the way it really is, it has already happened to me, so I really know it. If it hadn’t, how could I tell you? When you’re developing calm, you must focus your mindfulness at the citta where you’re agitated and restless thoughts are being generated. Sati is a mental factor that functions as a watcher. You should develop it to watch the citta where all your thoughts and mental images are created. You must not speculate or theorize, you must experience it. Just concentrate your awareness right at the citta to see what the citta is generating. If you use a mantra as your concentrating device, then you should be solely aware of your mantra whilst keeping on reciting the mantra. This kind of saṅkhāra or mental concoction is not samudaya, but magga, because it doesn’t make you restless or agitated, but it makes you calm. It’ll curb your thoughts and imaginings that make you restless and agitated. Dhamma doesn’t make you restless and agitated, but your thoughts on worldly matters will. This kind of saṅkhāra or mental concoction is samudaya. No matter how much it concocts, it’ll never stop or be contented.
It will keep on thinking and deceiving you, both day and night, without any beneficial result. If you’re seeking benefit, you should develop your sati to be firmly embedded in your mind, by concentrating your attention at your mantra if you choose it as a device to calm your mind. After you have developed some calm, you should begin investigating with paññā the thirty-two parts of the body or rūpa, or investigating the feelings or vedanā (that can be sukha, dukkha or neutral), of the heart and of the body. Keep on investigating with the methods that work for you until you become enlightened. When the citta calms down, the kilesas will all gather inside, and all cravings will temporarily disappear. This state of calm will serve as your base camp where you’ll rest, recuperate and plan your next move. Without calm you’ll always be restless, agitated and disturbed by what you see, hear or think. This is the way of feeding your heart with the poisons of dukkha, worries and anxieties.
After you’ve rested enough and emerge from this state of calm, you should then investigate with paññā the external body, either the body of a man, a woman, or an animal, and compare it with your body. They are similar in nature: they are filthy or paṭikkūla; they are repulsive or asubha; they are impermanent or aniccaṁ, and they get old, get sick and die. This is true with everybody. The citta should ceaselessly investigate with paññā. Sati, which is indispensable like household medicine, must be ever present. Sati must accompany every task, like the development of calm or samatha, and the development of insight or vipassanā. If sati is not directing your investigation then it will turn into speculation or saññā. In the beginning stages, your investigation will generally be saññā or speculation, because you haven’t yet experienced the result of your investigation. To achieve results you have to rely on sati to continually direct your investigation until you see the true nature of the object under investigation. Only then will saññā turn into paññā, and eventually become entirely paññā. Saññā will then disappear. From then on your practice will be smooth sailing. It’s rather difficult in the beginning stage of your practice, either in developing calm or paññā. But you shouldn’t let this difficulty block your path.
The reason why you can’t exert at full capacity is because of your fear of difficulty. You’re weak and lazy, and won’t make any progress. Your heart is filled with interest for mundane matters, that by now you should see as harmful. You’ve engaged with these worldly activities from your childhood days and should see the damage done to you by thinking of them now. You’re now striving to emancipate yourselves from the kilesas with your Dhamma practice. You should therefore concentrate all of your efforts into this task. Your exertion will be futile if there is no sati directing it. Sati is indispensable for both walking and sitting meditation. You must always have sati when you meditate for calm or paññā. Sati must always oversee your meditation practice. If you haven’t achieved any result yet, it’s because you have very little or no sati at all. What’s the reason for this lack of sati? It’s because you’re not putting enough effort into continually developing sati to grow to its full potential.
Similarly with developing paññā, in the beginning stages it’s an uphill struggle, because you haven’t yet seen what paññā can do. When you do, you’ll be so hooked and absorbed in your investigation that it can turn into uddhacca or restlessness, one of the higher fetters or saṁyojana, because you got carried away. Uddhacca is the citta’s obsession with its investigation. This uddhacca is not the uddhacca of the five mental hindrances that an ordinary, unenlightened person experiences, or the consequence of thinking about the affairs of the world; rather, it is the result of relentlessly investigating with paññā to reveal the ti-lakkhaṇa or the three characteristics inherent in all conditioned phenomena. Sati and paññā when fully developed will be ever present and relentless with their investigation from the very first moment that you arise from your sleep. I had never speculated that it would be like this until it actually happened to me. From the first to the last moment of my waking hours, I was never off-guard or absentminded. Listen to that! This is how sati and paññā can become, functioning automatically all the time. How then can you ever be off-guard?
For you have now attained the level of automatic sati and paññā. During the time of the Lord Buddha, this is called mahāsati and mahāpaññā. Tan Ajaan Mun always exhorted his students to develop their sati and paññā to become mahāsati and mahāpaññā. He would say: “How else can you compete with the deception of the kilesas that have accumulated in your heart for eons and countless existences? Your heart is entirely filled with these very powerful kilesas, leaving no room for the Dhamma at all. If your sati and paññā isn’t up to par how can you subdue and vanquish the kilesas? To eliminate the kilesas completely, it’s, therefore, vital to develop sati and paññā to become more powerful than the kilesas.”
Tan Ajaan Mun would always forcefully exhort his students, for he was a man of fortitude and determination, bold and courageous, nimble and efficient. He would teach in a straightforward, honest and sincere manner and was always smarter than the kilesas. Whatever kind of trick the kilesas might have up their sleeves, he would always know how to outdo them with his wit and skill. As practitioners, you must, therefore, follow his example if you’re going to take possession of your citta’s greatest and most supreme treasure. But right now, your citta is completely surrounded by the kilesas that prevent you from seeing what the real citta is. All you can see is just the kilesas. All your thoughts and perceptions are shaped by the kilesas. Not a single moment are they shaped by the Dhamma. When you’re overwhelmed by the kilesas, then all the mental phenomena will be led by the kilesas, because you haven’t yet developed any sati and paññā. To beat the kilesas, it’s therefore imperative for you to seriously and earnestly develop sati and paññā to overwhelm them. When you continually nurture your sati, it will gradually grow to its full potential.
As far as paññā is concerned, you mustn’t think that it will grow by itself, without doing any investigation, regardless of what level of samādhi you might have accomplished. There are many practitioners who believe wrongly that paññā will appear automatically following the realization of samādhi as suggested by some texts. How can this be possible? What I have clearly experienced in my practice was otherwise; how then can I be deceived by this belief? Do you know how many years I was addicted to samādhi? It got to the point where Tan Ajaan Mun had to forcefully drive me out of my samādhi addiction. I had to start traversing the path of paññā, by probing and investigating with the firm and steady support of samādhi that provides the citta with ever present contentment and satisfaction, because it was very strong and firm, the highest level of samādhi. But did paññā arise automatically from this level of samādhi? No, it never happened! I had become so skilful in establishing samādhi and stopping all my thoughts that it took me just a few minutes to do it.
After the citta had entered calm, all that remained was this knowingness that I became addicted to and thought it to be Nibbāna. I didn’t know that there were all sorts of kilesas still hidden within it, and never thought of it, because I didn’t have any paññā. But when I began to investigate with paññā, I started to see them and wanted to remove them. I would then keep on investigating until all the kilesas were eliminated. I could now see the benefits of paññā as it kept on advancing. The more results I achieved, the more I became motivated to investigate. Eventually, I would blame my samādhi addiction for preventing me from advancing in my practice. You should keep in mind that regardless of the samādhi level you might have attained, it won’t automatically generate paññā. If you don’t investigate, paññā will never appear. If paññā were to arise by itself, then it should have happened to me because I had already developed the highest level of samādhi. But paññā didn’t appear. If you develop samādhi, you’ll only get samādhi.
If you want to develop insight, you’ll have to investigate. You’ll then acquire insight or vipassanā, which means clear understanding of the inner nature of all phenomena. You mustn’t be complacent and remain idle. You should investigate as soon as you’ve withdrawn from calm. Each level of calm will support each corresponding level of paññā. This is the correct way to practice, and it will save you a lot of time. You won’t have to worry about whether you’re doing it correctly or not because you have me to guide you. All you have to do is follow my advice. Your practice will be easy, because you’ve no doubt in your mind. I’ve no doubt in my teaching because I have clearly experienced both the path and the fruit, like when I told you about sati and paññā relentlessly and ceaselessly investigating to remove the kilesas with assorted investigation methods to suit the different kinds of kilesas.
From the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, there wasn’t a single moment when I was off my guard. I kept investigating until I went to sleep. This actually happened to me! However, you shouldn’t try to duplicate it. This is not the way to practice. You should use it as a guideline. It doesn’t have to be identical, but you must more or less adhere to my instruction. What I’ve told you here is a true story of my uphill struggle in developing my sati and paññā to their full potential so they can continually investigate to eliminate the kilesas without ever being off-guard. It will be like this when sati and paññā are fully developed. You’ve got to work really hard in your quest for enlightenment and the paranormal that are hidden in your citta for them to become marvellous and wonderful. But right now it’s worthless and filthy, because it’s being completely covered with the worthless and filthy kilesas. It’s, therefore, imperative to wash them away with your diligent effort. You should apply all of your paññā resources available to you, and not solely wait for your teacher’s advice. By devising your own investigation methods, your paññā resources will never be depleted. Your teacher can only show you how to do it, but you have to adapt it to fit your practice. Then it will be your true and genuine possession. To develop your paññā resources, you have to investigate the body’s loathsome nature or asubha. You have to reveal this repulsive nature by going on a kammaṭṭhāna sightseeing trip, investigating repeatedly your body from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, and then back up and down again and again. You should also investigate the skin that wraps around the body. What is being wrapped by this skin? It’s a bunch of filth or paṭikkūla.
The skin itself is also filthy. Only the surface of the skin that’s good enough to look at. Then, there is sweat and grime that you have to constantly wash off. You’ve to continually investigate the body if you want to advance speedily in your practice, because the body is one of your major battlegrounds. Kāyagatāsati or the development of mindfulness of the body is absolutely necessary as long as the citta still clings to the body. You’ve got to keep on investigating with paññā until you clearly see the true nature of the body. When you’re establishing calm, you shouldn’t be concerned with paññā. You shouldn’t do any thinking at all, but should only be mindful of your meditation subject or theme. You mustn’t let the development of calm and paññā to get in each other’s way.
After the citta has calmed down, rested and emerged from calm, it’s time to investigate with paññā, without being concerned with samādhi. This is the correct way of practice. You should do one task at a time, like directing water to flow through just one channel, because it’ll be very efficient. If you’re concerned with paññā while doing samādhi and vice versa, then you’ll be distracted and inefficient. You won’t make any progress in your practice if you’re not earnest and resolute. When you do walking or sitting meditation to develop calm, you shouldn’t be thinking about anything else but your meditation subject. You shouldn’t think about the world. The world will not disappear. All there is to this world is just birth and death that piles on top of one another, and has always been so. The affairs of this world are about birth and death, about dissolution and separation. It’ll always be like this, so why should you have any concern? The body that you take for a walk, stand up, put to sleep, discharge excrement from, and constantly feed, is changing all the time. It was an infant. Now it has grown up. What’s this growth really about? It’s about aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ, and anattā which accompany this growth.
There aren’t any benefits from the growth of the body, but there are benefits from the growth of your sati and paññā? If your sati and paññā don’t grow, you’ll never know how to free yourselves from dukkha. You’ll cling to and die with the body. You’ll go on endlessly taking up birth, ageing, illness, death and dukkha. If you want to destroy this cycle of rebirths, you’ll have to earnestly investigate the nature of the body. If you have to endure dukkha from your practice, let it be. Nobody born into this world can experience only happiness. From birth to death you’ll experience happiness and suffering, whether you’re rich or poor, clever or foolish. This body makes no exception for anyone, because dukkha is inherent in every body. You’ve experienced dukkha before,
so you shouldn’t be discouraged by the dukkha that arises from your exertion. This kind of dukkha is for the supreme result. It’s the dukkha of an ariya or Noble One. It’s the dukkha for the elimination of the kilesas, for freedom from dukkha, and for the destruction of the cycle of rebirths. No matter how severe this dukkha might be, you’re willing to face it. All you need to have are your sati, paññā, saddhā, and viriya battling this dukkha. You mustn’t just endure dukkha without doing any investigation, for this will be of no benefit. However much dukkha appears, paññā must probe into dukkha to see dukkha as it truly is. That it’s just a phenomenon. And to see clearly that the body and the citta or knowingness are also phenomena. Saññā or supposition arises and ceases. It supposes the body to be I, and to be mine; it supposes this feeling to be sukha, and that feeling to be dukkha. These are all deceptions. When you’ve thoroughly investigated and seen it truly, the body will then be just body, vedanā just vedanā, and the citta just citta.
You will then have achieved the establishment of the four satipaṭṭhāna or four foundations of mindfulness. You can also call the four satipaṭṭhāna the four noble truths or the four ariya-sacca. Be serious and really exert yourselves. Don’t relent or become discouraged. I have great concern for all you. That’s why I have to constantly teach you. Otherwise your citta will become slack and dull. You have to arouse your citta and develop it with the Dhamma in your practice. If you’re drowsy, wash your face or find some other ways to overcome your sleepiness, like the ways the practitioners during the time of the Lord Buddha did. What’s the purpose of inscribing what they did in the scriptures, if it’s not for the purpose of teaching you?
If you sit meditating and become drowsy, then you should get up and do walking meditation instead. If you’re still sleepy, then you should follow the examples of the noble disciples or sāvakas. One of them walked into the water. After he was knee-deep in the water and still couldn’t get rid of his sleepiness, he’d go deeper. And if he was still sleepy, he would soak some grass with water and put it on his head before he could get rid of his drowsiness. He would then investigate until realizing full enlightenment. Listen to that! I think he’s already highly attained. But this sleepiness makes no exception of anyone, highly attained or not. That’s why he had to devise with his sati and paññā practical methods to free him from dukkha, and to overcome his drowsiness by walking into the water or place soaking grass on his head. He must be highly attained because he didn’t relent in his exertion.
The body, however, felt drowsy and wanted to take a rest. Now consider the case of the Venerable Sona, who exerted himself with walking meditation until his feet became blistered. Because he was so relentlessly and ceaselessly engrossed in investigating with his sati and paññā that he completely lost track of time. This wasn’t a proper way to practice being overly obsessed with his investigation. This is uddhacca or restlessness, being so preoccupied with his investigation that it made him forget to take time off to rest in samādhi. Had he alternated his investigation with resting in samādhi, this would then be the correct way to practice. Like a workman who becomes tired and hungry after a hard day’s work, he then takes a rest and feeds himself. The next day he will work some more. It’s the same with the citta. After it has investigated until it becomes exhausted, it has to rest in samādhi or calm, where all activities of the citta are halted, leaving the citta with just the knowingness and tranquillity.
After it has fully rested, the citta will be strengthened and after withdrawing from calm it’ll investigate with paññā again. Paññā is similar to a knife that has been resharpened and the workman who has regained his strength from eating and resting. It’ll now have the strength and sharpness to swiftly destroy the kilesas. The Lord Buddha said that paññā developed with the support of samādhi is very powerful. A cook who has all the cooking ingredients ready can cook up any dish he likes. But if he doesn’t cook, then these ingredients will remain ingredients. Vegetables will remain vegetables, chillies will remain chillies, and meat will remain meat. How can they become stew? Samādhi will also remain samādhi. It’ll not become paññā automatically if it’s not use to support the citta’s investigation. Samādhi can only strengthen the citta and make it powerful. After the citta has established samādhi, it will be contented and strong, and will be ready to investigate efficiently. Samādhi can’t destroy the kilesas. It can only temporarily subdue the kilesas. But samādhi is an indispensable support for the development of paññā because the citta that has become contented from samādhi can investigate efficiently and won’t turn into speculation or saññā-ārammaṇa. When you’ve eaten your food and rested, you can then work to your fullest capacity. What’s it like for you to work when you’re hungry?
You’ll be inefficient, and your temper can arise very easily. When you investigate without the support of samādhi, your investigation will go astray, will turn into speculation and won’t produce any result. Samādhi is, therefore, an indispensable support for the development of paññā. The Lord Buddha said that the paññā that has been developed with the support of samādhi is very powerful. The citta that has been developed by paññā will definitely be freed from the kilesas. It’s only paññā that can destroy all the kilesas; samādhi can’t. But it plays a very vital supporting role. Sīla, samādhi and paññā are like staircases. You need sīla to get you to samādhi, you need samādhi to get you to paññā, and you need paññā to eliminate all the kilesas. To be freed from all the kilesas is the greatest reward. It’s the consequence of your fearless exertion and your willingness to sacrifice your life for it. This is the goal that you should aspire to. All the dukkha that you experience in your practice are nourishments that nurture and develop your heart, and deliver Nibbāna to you while you’re still alive.
You have to be resolute and earnest with your practice. In developing the citta, you’ve to follow the Lord Buddha’s teaching. You’ve to be strict with yourselves. Anything that opposes the Dhamma should be considered to be the kilesas. You have to resist them until they’re all destroyed. When you’ve attained absolute perfection, there won’t be any resistance left. After you’ve purified the citta, there will be nothing to resist you. You’ll see that what had been opposing you were just the kilesas. When your citta becomes pure, there will be nothing to oppose you. You’ll have nothing to push or pull you because you’ve realized the ultimate freedom from the world. To you, the world doesn’t exist although you’re still living in the world with the body that you’re no longer attached to.
In your citta, there is just this indescribable knowingness, and only you know very well what it actually is. This knowingness is free from all attachments. Nothing can hurt, oppress or manipulate it. It exists independently and naturally. What is there to pull and push it? It’s only the kilesas that constantly push and pull. You have to eliminate them forcefully. You must not retreat. If you want to be free from dukkha, you mustn’t be deterred by the dukkha that arises from your exertion to destroy every kind of kilesa that goes against the Dhamma. You have to oppose the kilesas because the kilesas oppose the Dhamma. This is where you have to fight and face the dukkha. This is the dukkha for victory. It’s right here. You must not look elsewhere, in this place or at that time. They are only the places and the times of your exertion. But the kilesas that you want to eradicate are inside your citta. This is where you’ve got to fight. The Lord Buddha taught you to live in the forest because it’s a suitable place for your exertion. But you don’t follow his teaching and overlook the kilesas that are oppressing and hurting your citta.
This is wrong. You’ve to be serious and earnest with your practice. After the citta is freed from all the kilesas, it’ll be like floating in space, free from the earth’s gravitational pull. Floating in the space of the citta and the space of the Dhamma is living in this world free from all attachments between the body and the citta, unlike before when you’ve to shoulder the burden of your body. This attachment or upādāna can really cling and becomes a very heavy burden for taking the body as I and mine. But after you’ve investigated and truly realized the body’s true nature, you’ll let go of the body. You mustn’t contradict the Dhamma teaching because you’ll be following the kilesas. No matter how hard and difficult your practice might be, you’ve got to keep on exerting. You mustn’t retreat. Dhamma goes this way, so must you. You have to resist the kilesas. Dhamma teaches you not to have affection, so you mustn’t have affection. If you’ve any fondness, you have to remove it. You’ve got to find out its cause and eliminate it.
The same with hate. The Dhamma doesn’t teach you to hate. When the citta has reached the middle or natural way, it’ll see that both affection and hatred devour the citta like the parasitic vines that devour the tree that they grow and depend on for their nourishment. The nature of the kilesas is to consume. They will sap the citta and afflict it with a lot of dukkha. You’ve got to get rid of them all, then you’ll realize perfect bliss. Then it won’t matter whether you live or die. Death is just a conventional reality or sammati, and living is just a string of sense experiences of visible objects, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations that have existed in this world for eons. They were here long before you were born, and will still be here long after you’re gone. What can you expect out of them? There’s nothing in this world that is really fantastic. If there was anything in this world apart from the Dhamma that was wonderful, then many people would have already become fantastic and wonderful. But it’s not so, because wherever I go, I can only see mountains of dukkha. I can see this very clearly just by observing. The oppression of the kilesas is very severe.
They drag you away from the Dhamma, incite you to defy the Dhamma, and force you to follow them. If you’re weak then you’ll always follow them. Their attraction is very strong. That’s why you’ve got to build up a lot of strength and develop sati and paññā to fight them. Whenever they drag you, you must resist with all your might. It can then be said that you’re opposing them. If you always follow them, then it can’t be said that you’re fighting against them because you’re being dragged by the nose. You have to keep on opposing them. When they become weakened, the Dhamma will become stronger. When the kilesas seem to have disappeared, you’ll have to search for them with the automatic sati and paññā or mahāsati and mahāpaññā. When you find them you’ll fight and destroy them, and search for more. That’s why the citta at this stage is always busy because the kilesas of this level are so subtle they have to be searched for which is work for the citta.
When it finds the kilesas it has to fight and destroy them which is also work for the citta. The citta’s work will come to an end only when all the kilesas are totally eliminated. This is the work of the kammaṭṭhāna bhikkhu or meditating monk. You’ve got to keep on investigating until you become fully enlight - ened. Then your work will be accomplished. This is vusitaṁ brahma cariyaṁ, you’ve now accomplished your task, there’s nothing more for you to do because all of your attachments have been removed from the citta. Before this you’re attached to everything, from visual objects, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations to the citta itself. This is how powerful the kilesas are and how far they will become at - tached. After you’ve investigated and removed your attachment to all the visual objects, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations, you’re then left with your attachment to the citta. This attachment or kilesa is avijjā that coexists with the citta. You become inadvertently attached to it because you don’t know that this is avijjā. Even sati and paññā of this level can at first be outwitted. You can imagine how subtle this kilesa is! That’s why this avijjā has been anointed the ruler of the three realms of existence. You now have to investigate until it›s completely eliminated.
Then there'll be no attachment left. The citta will no longer be attached to the citta. If there is still attachment to the citta, it isn’t yet freedom. You’re not yet free from avijjā. But when avijjā has been completely destroyed, then all of your attachments will disappear. You'll then enter into the space of the citta where you’ll never become attached again. You have to destroy all the kilesas before you can enter the space of the citta which is comparable to the outer space where it’s totally devoid of any attracting force. When you do, you’ll truly understand the nature of the citta. When there’s nothing left inside the citta, then there’ll be no attachment to the citta. The kilesa that causes this at - tachment is called avijjā. It causes the citta to become attached to itself and become egoistic. After avijjā has been destroyed then the ego will disappear. There'll be nothing left to attach to. The citta will become like outer space devoid of any attracting force. It will live in this world devoid of any attachment for all living beings and the five khandhas like the body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts and sense awareness that appear and disappear as it is their nature to do. They don’t know what they are. The body doesn’t know that it’s the body. It’s the citta that calls it the body and becomes attached to it.
The same with feelings, perceptions, thoughts and sense awareness. After the citta’s delusion has been removed it’ll realize that everything is aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ and anattā and realize that it had been deluded all along. When it sees this truth, it’ll let go of them and will become empty like outer space, existing in solitude. This is the solitary exis - tence of this indescribable knowingness. Nobody can describe it cor - rectly. But the one who experiences it knows what it is and knows it’s impossible to describe it. You’ve got to practice hard. This svākkhāta or well-taught Dhamma is genuine and fresh. It’s the middle way of practice, Majjhimā Paṭipadā, that’s very suitable for the eradication of all kinds of kilesas, at all times.