The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
16 October 2024
Question: Can asubha meditation lead to jhāna or to insight?
Than Ajahn: It can be both. It can give you samatha and it can also give you insight.
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Question: How to practise the 32 parts in order to get the most benefit possible?
Than Ajahn: You can use it for samatha or vipassanā. Samatha is to make your mind peaceful and calm. Instead of repeating ‘buddho’, you can repeat the 32 parts: hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, bones, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. You just memorise it and repeat it. If you keep reciting these 32 parts, your mind can become peaceful and calm and you will have samādhi. This is one method.
The second method is for vipassanā, to see the true nature of the body. When we see the body, we normally only see five parts of the body and they are the hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth and skin. That’s all we see and we might think that the body is only made up of these five parts, so we are deceived into looking at the body as beautiful or attractive. This causes us to desire and be attached to the body, thus creating dukkha for the mind. Because when you want a body, you have to go and acquire it and when you cannot acquire it, you will become sad. Even after you have acquired your body or spouse, you will one day lose it or him/her and you will feel sad again. If you see the body as the 32 parts then you will not become attracted to the body and you will not have any sexual desire towards that body, and this is one way of getting rid of sexual desire.
When you see the complete picture of the body, you will then see that the body is not attractive. The parts under the skin are not attractive, such as the lungs, the heart, the intestine, stomach, liver, kidneys and all the dirty stuffs that come out of the body. Once you see the body in its entirety, you can get rid of your sexual desire. This is one level.
Another level is to see that the entire body has no person in it. The entire body only consists of 32 parts; for example, the hair is not you or me, the nails, teeth, skin are not you or me; they are just the parts of the body, so in this whole body there is no you or me in it.
The whole body is just a composition of the 32 parts and it is not permanent; it is temporary, it is not lasting.
One day it has to break up and when it breaks up it will return to the four elements: the liquid parts belong to water element, the heat in the body that makes your body warmth belongs to fire element, the parts that flow belong to the air element and the part that is solid belongs to earth element.
So this body is just a composition of the four elements. There is no person in that body: no father, no mother, no brother, no sister. The father or mother is in the mind and the mind doesn’t die with the body. The mind has to go to the next life when the mind still has desire or craving and it will be reborn according to kamma that it had performed. If it did good kamma, it will go to higher realm where there is more happiness than suffering, but if it did bad kamma, it will have to go to lower realm where there is more suffering than happiness such as the realm of animals, realm of hell (creatures), so this is the contemplation of the 32 parts of the body.
Dhamma in English, Jul 14, 2016.
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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