When you’re enlightened, it means you see the truth of the body by Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

“When you’re enlightened, it means you see the truth of the body.”

Question (F):
"Is it possible for someone who is unenlightened to actually see and accept the breakdown of the body?"*

Than Ajahn:
"That’s the purpose of the practice. You practice to become enlightened. When you’re enlightened, it means you see the truth of the body. When you do not see the truth yet, you just have to keep teaching it to see the truth.

The problem is the mind doesn’t want to look at the truth. That’s why you have to force it to keep contemplating on ageing, sickness, and death all the time.

If you keep contemplating, you will eventually see it. The reason why you are not seeing it is because you don’t want to think about it. When you don’t think about it, you forget. So, what you have to do is to keep reminding yourself that the body will get sick, get old, and die and there is nothing you can do about it."

Question (F): 
"Sometimes I become afraid. I’m scared."

Than Ajahn: 
"That’s because your mind is not calm enough to handle the truth.

That’s why you have to meditate to calm your mind first. You need to have samādhi before you can go on to develop insight, go on to contemplate the truth. And you need to develop the mindfulness first. If you have strong mindfulness, then you can calm your mind. When your mind is calm, you can see the truth and you wouldn’t feel any fear. You will not be scared of the truth.

That’s why the Buddha taught samādhi before you go to paññā or wisdom. And in order to get samādhi, you need to have mindfulness. That’s where the Four Foundations of Mindfulness comes into play. The first instruction is to go sit under a tree and meditate. Focus your attention on your breath until your mind becomes calm. Once your mind becomes calm, then you can look at the truth of the body: you can investigate the nature of the body; you can investigate the nature of feelings; you can investigate the nature of your mind.

If you are not calm, you will not be able to do it because your mind will be distracted. Your mind will be pushed by the defilement to think of other things. The defilement likes you to think about things that are nice and beautiful, long-lasting, and permanent, even though they never exist. But the defilement tells the mind to go look for them instead of looking for the truth.

That’s why there is a story about ‘going after the eternal youth’.

There is no such thing, yet the defilement can deceive the mind to think that there is something like that."

Dhamma in English,

Monks and laypeople from Australia.
Feb 6, 2017

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto