The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
2 June 2024Does the bone know pain? Does the skin know pain? Who knows the pain?”
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Monk: We know that we have to sit and face the dukkha-vedanā and try to see when the body separates from the mind. It takes more than just an act of will power to do that. How do you separate the mind from the pain?
Than Ajahn: By going through the 32 parts of the body and asking yourself, where is the pain? Is it in the skin? In the hair? In the bones? Does the bone know pain? Does the skin know pain? Who knows the pain?
The mind knows pain, but the mind isn’t painful, is it? Who is the one that is experiencing the pain? Who is the one that knows the pain? The one who knows doesn’t experience the pain, it just knows that there is pain in the bone, in the skin, in the flesh, but does the flesh know anything? Does the bone know anything? Does the bone say: let us get away from this pain?
The bone is not complaining, the flesh is not complaining. It is the mind that is complaining because the mind doesn’t like to see this pain, that is all, but if you can force the mind to see this pain, why not do that? What is so bad about seeing this pain?
You have to use rational thought to convince your mind that the mind is not affected. The mind is not the one who is being hit with the pain. It is the bone, the skin, the flesh that is being hit with the pain, but they don’t complain, so why should the mind complain?
If you keep talking like this, eventually the mind will understand and will stop resisting.
When that happens the mind becomes upekkhā, it is still and not reacting. It just be aware, just know and the mind is peaceful, and while the pain is still there, it is not overbearing. This is the point. You want to teach the mind to let go of the pain. You don’t want to get rid of the pain because the pain is something you cannot get rid of.
When you get sick, you cannot get rid of the pain, but you can get rid of your resistance, your desire to get rid of the pain, or your desire to run away from the pain. So, you have to tell your mind that the mind is not the one who gets sick. The mind is not experiencing the pain.
The mind is just the one who observes the pain like a doctor who is observing the pain of a patient. The mind is like a doctor, the body is like a patient, so why is the doctor concerned about the pain of the patient? Because the doctor is delusional, he thinks he is the patient.
So, you want to separate the doctor from the patient.
You need to contemplate in real time. Before the pain appears, you are only preparing yourself. You have to contemplate while you are not in the painful state yet, but to pass the test you have to face the pain and use this contemplation to convince your mind to leave the pain alone.
Once the mind understands that it is not the one who is experiencing the pain, it is the body and the body doesn’t complain. Then why should the mind complain? When that happens the mind will stop resisting. The desire to want the pain to disappear will cease. Then the mind will become peaceful, like in appaṇā-samādhi.
This is three or four aspects of the body contemplation.
You have to contemplate the impermanence, the painful aspect of the body, the repulsive aspect of the body, the anattā aspect. Once you have done this, you have finished the body course.
Then you can go into the next stage which is the mental course because there are still defilements in your mind, other than the defilements in the body. The mind also has the attachment to the defilements in the mind, like atta, a ‘self’.
What is your ‘self’? You think that there is ‘I, me or mine and myself’. You have gotten rid of your body delusion, you know that it is not in the body, so where is it now? You said it is in the mind, but is the mind really ‘you’ or is the mind just the knower? You have to go and investigate the mind.
“Australian Monks from Sydney, Feb 19, 2015”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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