Metta Dhamma sharing : "Thus, the threefold training — virtue, concentration, and discernment — is a group of truths that can let go of the causes of stress. Other than this, there's no way to release."

Thursday 14 October 2021

"Thus, the threefold training — virtue, concentration, and discernment — is a group of truths that can let go of the causes of stress. Other than this, there's no way to release."

How Meditators Can Achieve The Aim Of The Buddha's Teachings

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All of these things (Ten Corruptions of Insight- see note), if we aren't wise to them, can corrupt the heart. So, as meditators, we should attend to them and reflect on them until we understand them thoroughly. Only then will we be able to give rise to liberating insight, clear knowledge of the four truths:

I. Physical and mental stress, i.e., the things that burden the body or mind. Physical and mental pleasure and ease, though, are also classed as stress because they are subject to change.

II. The factors that enable these forms of stress to arise are three:

a. Kama-tanha: craving for attractive and appealing sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas; fastening onto these things, grabbing hold of them as belonging to the self.

This is one factor that enables stress to arise. (The mind flashes out.)

b. Bhava-tanha: desire for things to be this way or that at times when they can't be the way we want them; wanting things to be a certain way outside of the proper time or occasion. This is called "being hungry" — like a person who hungers for food but has no food to eat and so acts in a way that shows, "I'm a person who wants to eat." Bhava-tanha is another factor that enables stress to arise. (The mind strays.)

c. Vibhava-tanha: not wanting things to be this way or that, e.g., having been born, not wanting to die; not wanting to be deprived of the worldly things we've acquired: for example, having status and wealth and yet not wanting our status and wealth to leave us. The truth of the matter is that there's no way it can be avoided. As soon as the change comes, we thus feel stress and pain. (The mind flinches.)

Punappunam pilitatta

sansaranta bhavabhave:

"Repeated oppression, wandering on from one state of becoming to another."

Different states of becoming arise first in the mind, then giving rise to birth. Thus, people of discernment let go of these things, causing:

III. Nirodha — cessation or disbanding — to appear in the heart. In other words, the mind discovers the limits of craving and lets it go through the practice of insight meditation, letting go of all fabrications, both good and bad. To be able to let go in this way, we have to develop:

IV. Magga — the Path — so as to make it powerful. In other words, we have to give rise to pure discernment within our own minds so that we can know the truth.

Stress is a truth; its cause is a truth; its cessation and the Path are truths: To know in this way is liberating insight.

And then when we let all four truths fall away from us so that we gain release from "true," that's when we'll reach deathlessness (amata dhamma).

Truths have their drawbacks in that untrue things are mixed in with them.

Wherever real money exists, there's bound to be counterfeit. Wherever there are rich people, there are bound to be thieves waiting to rob them.

This is why release has to let go of truths before it can reach nibbana.

Meditators, then, should acquaint themselves with the enemies of concentration, so as to keep their distance from all Five of the Hindrances, the Two sorts of Uggaha Nimittas, and the Ten Corruptions of Insight.

The mind will then be able to gain release from all things defiling, dirty, and damp. What this means is that the mind doesn't hold onto anything at all.

It lets go of supposings, meanings, practice, and attainment.

Above cause and beyond effect: That's the aim of the Buddha's teachings.

Those who want to get rid of kama-tanha — desire and attraction for the six types of sensory objects — have to develop virtue that's pure all the way to the heart: This is termed heightened virtue (adhisila).

Those who are to get rid of bhava-tanha — thoughts that stray out, choosing objects to dwell on — first have to develop Right Concentration, pure and circumspect: This is termed heightened mind (adhicitta).

Those who are to get rid of vibhava-tanha — attachment to knowledge and viewpoints, attainments and states of becoming, theories and conceits — will first have to develop clear-seeing discernment, cognitive skill that's pure and fully developed: This is heightened discernment (adhipañña).

Thus, the threefold training — virtue, concentration, and discernment — is a group of truths that can let go of the causes of stress.

Other than this, there's no way to release.

~~~

From Basic Themes

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BasicThemes/Section0001.html

PDF https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/BasicThemes_181215.pdf

(Revised and rectified)

Note:

1. The Ten Corruptions of Insight:

https://www.facebook.com/AjaanLee/photos/p.1073921059335119/1073921059335119/

2. Uggaha nimittas are of two sorts:

https://www.facebook.com/AjaanLee/photos/p.1073934529333772/1073934529333772/