The Supreme Attainments (Part 1)

Now I’m going to describe the gathering place of all things – goodness and evil, happiness and suffering – so that you’ll know exactly where they all converge. Tune in your receivers well and you’ll come to know that everything converges at the heart.

Darkness lies here. Brightness lies here. Ignorance and delusion, knowledge and wisdom all lie here in the heart. The heart is thus like a single chair on which two people are waiting to sit. If one of them sits down, the other has to stand. But if they share the chair, they each get to sit on separate parts of it. The same is true of the ignorance and wisdom dwelling in the one heart. Even when we’re ignorant or deluded, we still have some knowledge. Even when we know, there’s still some ignorance infiltrating the heart. This is why we say the heart is like a single chair on which two people are waiting to sit. One heart, but ignorance and knowledge have infiltrated different parts of it. Whichever one is stronger will get to sit there more than the other. The techniques for training the heart and developing every form of goodness and virtue are thus meant to rid the heart of the things that cloud and stain it.

When we’re taught about ignorant people or intelligent people, we hear and understand. When we’re taught about ordinary run-of- the-mill people and their thick defilements, we know and understand. When we’re taught about the Noble Ones (ariya puggala), from the first up to the highest levels, we know and understand step by step. Even though we ourselves aren’t yet able to be like them, we’re curious and want to hear about the goodness they’ve developed and the path of practice by which they developed it – how they practiced so as to attain those levels of Dhamma.

In the beginning, the Buddha and his Arahant disciples – those who practiced and came to know following in his footsteps – started out as people with defilements just like ours. They differed, though, in that they were unflagging and persistent in developing themselves so as to wash away the dark, obscuring things in their hearts. They kept at their practice steadily, without stopping or abandoning their efforts. As a result, their hearts – which were being nourished with the good fertilizer of their wise actions – gradually developed step by step until they were able to attain that highest of the supreme attainments, the fruit of Arahantship.

The term “Noble One” means a supreme person – supreme because the Dhamma he or she has attained is supreme. There are four levels: Stream-enterers, Once-returners, Non-returners, and Arahants.

The text say that those who have attained the level of stream-entry have abandoned three fetters: self-identity views, uncertainty and the fondling of precepts and practices. Self-identity views, as expressed in terms of the khandhas, take twenty forms with each of the five khandhas acting as a basis for four of the forms. For example you may see the body (your physical body) as your ‘self’, or your ‘self’ as the body, the body as existing in your ‘self’, or your ‘self’ as existing in the body. Altogether these are four. Or you may see feeling as your ‘self’, or your ‘self’ as feeling, feeling as existing in your ‘self’ or your ‘self’ as existing in feeling – another four. In the same way the khandhas of memory, thought, and consciousness each form the basis for four forms, which can be inferred from the above examples. In other words, each of the five khandhas acts as the basis for four forms of these views. Four times five is twenty forms of self-identity views.

According to the texts, Stream-enterers have abandoned these absolutely, but the practice of ‘Forest Dhamma’ differs somewhat in this point. Other than that though, there are no points of disagreement. So I’d like to insert a few of the observations of ‘Forest Dhamma’ here, in hopes that they won’t act as an obstacle to your reading. If you see that they don’t form the path to release in line with the well-taught Dhamma, please let them pass so that they won’t form a hindrance in your heart.

To summarize briefly, people who have absolutely abandoned the twenty forms of self-identity view are those who don’t see the five khandhas as their self, their self as the five khandhas, the five khandhas as existing in their self or their self as existing in the five khandhas. Now it would seem perfectly reasonable to say that people of this sort would also no longer be interested in sexual relationships, because sexual relationships are a matter of the five khandhas which are the nest of the twenty forms of self-identity view that have yet to be abandoned absolutely.

As for those who have abandoned them absolutely, the physical body no longer has any meaning as an object of sensual desire. Their feelings no longer indulge in sensual desire. Their memory no longer gives meaning to things for the sake of sensual desire. Their thought and imagination no longer create objects for the sake of sensual desire. Their consciousness no longer acknowledges things for the sake of sensual desire. In short, their five khandhas no longer function for the sake of sensual desires or for only worldly relationships whatsoever. Their five khandhas must then change their functioning to another level of work that they see is still unfinished. In other words, they are raised to the level of the five subtle fetters: passion for form, passion for formless phenomena, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance.

The ability to absolutely abandon the twenty forms of self-identity view would thus appear to fall to Non-returners, because only on their level is the heart finished with its attachments to sensual desires.

As for Stream-enterers, the way in which they know and let go of these views, as I understand it, is in line with the following analogy: Suppose there is a man travelling deep into the forest who comes across a pond of clear, clean, fresh-tasting water. The water is covered with duckweed, though, so it isn’t completely visible. He parts the duckweed and sees that the water looks clear, clean, and inviting. He scoops up a handful of water to taste it, and then he knows that the water in the pond is really fresh. With that, he drinks from the pond in earnest until he has satisfied the thirst he has felt for so long and then continues along his way.

Once he has left, the duckweed moves in to cover the water as before. As for the man, even though he has left, the memory of the water always stays in his mind. Every time he enters the forest he goes straight to the pond, parts the duckweed, and scoops up the water to drink it and bathe himself to his heart’s content whenever he wants. Even though the water is again completely covered by the duckweed when he goes away, the convictions that are firmly implanted in his heart – that the pond is full of water, that the water is clean and clear, that its taste is absolutely fresh – these convictions will never be erased.

The man in this analogy stands for the earnest meditator who uses wisdom to investigate the various parts of the body until they are fully clear. The citta at that moment lets go of the body, feelings, 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 don’t function in any way at all related to the citta. In other words the citta and the khandhas exist independently because they have been absolutely cut off from one another through the persistent effort of the meditation.

That moment is one in which there arises a sense of wonder and amazement that no experience ever, from the day of our birth or the beginning of our practice, can possibly equal. Yet now we have come to see this marvel appearing right then and there. The citta stays in that sense of stillness and ease for a period of time and then withdraws. Once it withdraws it reconnects with the khandhas as before, but it remains firmly convinced that the citta had reached a realm of radical stillness, that the five khandhas (body, feelings, memory, thought and consciousness) were completely cut off from it during that time, and that while it remained in that stillness it experienced an extremely amazing mental state. These convictions will never be erased.

Because of these firm, unshakeable convictions, which become fixed in the heart as a result of this experience and which can’t be affected by unfounded or unreasonable assertions, we become earnest in resuming our earlier meditation, this time with firm determination and a sense of absorption coming from the magnetic pull that these convictions have in the heart. The citta is then able to settle down into stillness and ease, and to rest there for periods of time as before. Even though we can’t yet release the heart absolutely from the infiltration of the khandhas, we are in no way discouraged from making a persistent effort for the higher levels of the Dhamma, step by step.

As for the qualities of Stream-enterers’ hearts, these include unshakeable conviction (acala-saddhã) in the results they have clearly seen from their practice and in the higher levels of Dhamma they have yet to know and see; and impartiality (samãnattatã), free from prejudice and pride with regard to people of any class. Stream-enterers have Dhamma in charge of their hearts. They don’t hold to anything over and above what they see as correct in line with the principle of cause and effect. They accept and immediately put into practice the principles of truth and are unwilling to resist or disobey them. No matter what nationality, class, or race individual Stream-enterers may belong to, they are open and impartial to all people in general. They aren’t disdainful even toward common animals or people who have behaved wickedly in the past, for they see that all living beings fall into the same lot of having good and bad kamma. They understand that whatever sort of kamma we have, we must accept it in line with the actions we have performed and the truth of what we have done. If anyone makes assertions that are reasonable and correct, Stream-enterers will immediately take them to heart without making an obstacle out of the speaker’s past, race, nationality, or social standing.

If what I have said here is correct, then there would be nothing about a Stream-enterer’s searching for a spouse that would be in any way inconsistent with the fact that he or she has yet to abandon absolutely the twenty forms of self-identity views that are the nest of sensual desires. The abandonment of self-identity views is no obstacle to Stream-enterers’ having families because the absolute abandonment of these views lies on an entirely different level.

(Ajahn Maha Boowa “A Life of Inner Quality”)