The Supreme Attainments (Part 3)

Non-returners have abandoned five fetters: the three we’ve already discussed, plus two more – sensual passion and mental irritation. Sensual passion deals with the realm of the physical body. According to the observations of ‘Forest Dhamma’ the twenty forms of self-identity views are the well-spring of sensual passion, so the duty of absolutely abandoning them falls to the Non-returner. This is because people who are to attain the level of Non-returning in full measure must use wisdom to examine the five khandhas thoroughly and then pass beyond them with no lingering attachments. In other words, they must be able to examine each part of the body until it appears clearly to the heart both as being filthy and as being unsatisfactory, impermanent, and not-self, to the point where they know clearly that every part of the body is filled with filthiness.

The mental image of the unattractiveness of the body that appears outside the citta will then revert exclusively into the inner circle of the citta. They will know that attractiveness, which is a matter of the citta going out to paint pictures and then lusting for them, and unattractiveness, in which the citta goes out to paint pictures and then becomes disgusted with the nature of each part of the body, both converge into one and the same citta. In other words, they don’t appear outside the citta as before. The citta fully sees the harm of the pictures it painted outside, and at the same time lets go of external attractiveness and unattractiveness as they relate to the parts of the body it has been investigating. It absolutely withdraws its attachment to the body by passing through the interval where attractiveness and unattractiveness meet, showing no more interest in either of the two. At that instant the issue of sensual passion as related to the body is resolved.

As for mental irritation, practical experience doesn’t differ from the texts or raise any issues, so we needn’t discuss it further.

The fourth level of the supreme attainments is the level of Arahantship. According to the texts, Arahants have abandoned ten fetters: the five lower fetters we have already discussed, plus five more subtle ones – attachment to form, attachment to formless phenomena, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance.

Attachment to form doesn’t refer to the form of the male or female body, or of physical objects on the blatant, external level. Instead, it refers to the mental images that appear exclusively within the citta – in other words, the images that revert from the outside back into the exclusive circle of the citta, as mentioned above. Meditators at this point have to take these images as the citta’s preoccupation or as the focal point of the citta’s attention. If you were to say that this means that the citta is attached to rupa-jhãna, you wouldn’t be wrong, because the citta on this level has to work at developing its understanding of these internal images so as to become adept in dealing with them, without being further concerned with the body at all. It has to keep at these images until it is skilled enough at creating and destroying them that they can appear and disappear in quick succession. Their appearing and disappearing, though, occurs exclusively with reference to the citta, and not with reference to external things as before when the citta was concerned with the body.

Even this appearing and disappearing of internal images, when it is subjected to the relentless scrutiny of mindfulness and wisdom, gradually changes. Day by day it becomes faster and faster until the images appear and disappear like flashes of lightening. Finally they are all gone – there are no images left in the heart at all. At the same time, you realize that these images pass away in the same way as all other natural phenomena.

From that point on the citta is absolutely empty and clear. Even though the body is still there, it seems to your awareness to be entirely empty, with no image of any sort remaining in the citta at all.

Attachment for formless phenomena means taking pleasure in subtle feelings of happiness or arupa-jhãna. The practice doesn’t have any issues to raise with this point, so we needn’t discuss it further.

Conceit – belief in assumptions of self – is divided into nine sorts. For example, your level of attainment in the practice is lower than someone else’s, and you construe it to be lower, higher, or on a par. Your level of attainment is on a par with someone else’s, and you construe it to be lower, higher, or on a par. Or your level of attainment is higher than someone else’s, and you construe it to be lower, higher, or on a par. All of these assumptions are mistakes if we speak in terms of the highest levels of Dhamma, because construings and assumptions are all matters of defilements. We have to correct this tendency until nothing at all appears as a conceit in the citta. That’s when we can say that the citta is pure, because there is no more of this subtle unruliness left in it.

Restlessness, the ninth fetter, doesn’t refer to the sort of agitation and distraction which is common to ordinary people in general. Instead, it refers to the diligence, persistence, and absorption of the Noble Ones in their work on this level as they use their sharp mindfulness and wisdom to dig away in search of the source of the cycle of death and rebirth. The problem is that they aim at finishing their work quickly, in line with their hearts’ strong hopes for the realm of release, and so don’t pay much attention to questions of moderation or balance in their work.

What this means is that they tend not to let the citta rest in the stillness and ease of concentration, because the more they use their wisdom to contemplate, the more clearly they see the way to remove defilements step by step. This makes them so absorbed in their work that they forget to rest their citta in the stillness of concentration in order to give their wisdom renewed strength. In fact, they tend to view resting the citta in concentration and resting in sleep simply as delays in their work. As a result, the citta goes overboard in the pressure and absorption of its investigation. This is another way in which the citta goes wrong, and so counts as a mental fetter.

Ignorance (avijjã). If we apply this term to living beings in general, let me translate it in a forest monk’s way as deluded knowledge, dishonest cleverness, both knowledge and ignorance mixed together so that you can’t catch hold of which is which. This is ignorance on the blatant level.

As for ignorance on the subtle level of the higher mental fetters, ‘Forest Dhamma’ regards it as meaning one thing: delusion regarding the one citta. This is because on this level the citta is able to know and let go of everything else, but still remains deluded about itself. Thus this fetter is called avijjã, that is, incomplete knowing, unclear knowing, knowing with a blind spot still obscuring the citta. But when mindfulness and wisdom which have been constantly trained to explore and investigate are sufficient to the task, only then will the citta realize that ignorance is simply the citta’s own delusion about itself.

The moment wisdom penetrates this truth, ignorance vanishes immediately, so that no form of ignorance remains lurking in the citta at all. The issues of restlessness, absorption in one’s investigation, and conceit concerning the citta are resolved in the same instant that ignorance vanishes from the heart, because there is nothing left which can act as a cause for restlessness or conceit of any sort. All of the issues in all three levels of the cosmos have nothing but ignorance – this marvellous and amazing thing – as their sole primary cause, because it is something so intrinsically fascinating and deceptive in such a thorough-going way.

Meditators, who aren’t really adept in the area of wisdom will have great difficulty in finding their way out of ignorance, because ignorance in general and ignorance in itself are two very different things. Ignorance in general is a phenomenon that combines both external and internal delusions as a single defilement – similar to a tree, which is a combination of its various parts. As for fundamental ignorance, it’s like a tree that has been felled and stripped of its branches. In other words, persistent effort cuts away at it step by step so that it gradually stops running wild through things at large and eventually converges into a single spot – the citta. This spot is the point of true ignorance, but at this stage it doesn’t have the henchmen and followers it had when it was glorying in its full power.

This true ignorance is a gathering point containing all sorts of hidden, unexpected, and amazing things, in the same way that a tiny piece of bait can be contaminated with enough hidden poison to kill an animal. Of the contaminating factors that lie hidden in ignorance, I can give you only a brief explanation since I can’t think of any conventional realities with which to compare them that would be as near as I’d like to what they actually are. Among these contaminations are a radiance of mind so outstanding as to seem to be the finished product; a sense of happiness, springing from the power of the radiance dominating the citta, so amazing and wonderful that it seems to transcend the realm of all conventional realities; a sense of power and invulnerability so strong that there seems nothing capable of reaching in to affect it; a cherishing attachment for this phenomenon as if it were pure gold.

Although we don’t realize the fact at the time, these things are the obstacles blocking our progress towards true peace. Only when we have gotten past them and have looked back in retrospect over the path we have followed will we realize where we went wrong and where we went right. That’s when we’ll know: “When we reached that point, we got turned around in our tracks or went astray … When we reached this point we were too attached to the stillness of concentration … When we reached that point we contemplated too much in the area of wisdom. We didn’t maintain a balance between our concentration and wisdom, which is why our work went slowly at these various points.” Once we have passed this point, we will be able to review and understand everything in retrospect.

At the same time, once ignorance has vanished, we’ll know what it is that gives rise to births and deaths in the future. From this point on we have no more concerns for where we have come from in the past or where the future will lead us, because in the present the citta has been severed completely from any connection of any sort with anything whatsoever.

The Dhamma in this talk has been explained partly in line with the texts and partly in line with the observations of ‘Forest Dhamma’. Wherever there are any errors, I ask the forgiveness of all my readers and listeners, for I’ve been talking in line with the understandings derived from the forest way in which I have been practicing. I’m always ready to listen to anyone who is kind enough to make reasonable comments or criticisms.

The various stages in the practice for giving rise to clear happiness and maturity within the heart – that is, training in meditation and other forms of goodness and virtue – are all mutually reinforcing. All things without exception that rate as forms of goodness are mutually reinforcing. We can make a comparison with hot peppers. Although some of them may be small or immature, if they’re mashed into a paste it’s all hot in the same way, so that no matter which part of the paste we taste, there’s no way of telling that the mature peppers are in one part or the immature ones in another. In the same way, all things that rate as forms of goodness, no matter what type of skilful action they come from, will converge into one large measure of inner quality or worth.

For this reason I ask all of you who are fully intent on the Dhamma to put it into practice by modifying your actions in line with your position in life, to conform with the guiding compass of the Dhamma’s path while you are still alive. When you come to the time that we all will have to face, your mind will have a firm basis to hold to and won’t wander off in the wrong direction. It will follow the path of the Dhamma that leads away from suffering and guides you to happiness in whichever level of being your destination will be. The happiness and prosperity you dream of with each mental moment will become your heart’s own wealth in line with its level. There’s no reason to doubt this.

In conclusion, I ask that the qualities of the Triple Gem – the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha – preserve and protect each of you so that you meet with nothing but happiness, both in body and in mind. May whatever you hope for be realized in line with your every aspiration.

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