Teaside Discourse with Ajahn Yiu. Practice at the six sensory contacts.

Teaside Discourse with Ajahn Yiu.
Practice at the six sensory contacts.

The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind are the six sense faculties of the mind and body. Whatever experiences that we encounter in the world happen through the six sense faculties. The experiences are neither happened from external nor within. 

The so-called experiences from 'within', such as thoughts, are not really from within. They are the objects that the mind can be aware of. 

Therefore, the whole world occurs at the six sense faculties. 

If we observe from this perspective, we will realize that in order for one to understand the world, it is not necessary for one to put one’s mind outside of the six sense faculties. The ‘external’ context here is a fictional concept. 

We perceive the world as the external world as we are in contact with many people and things. 

In actual fact, this is just the visual experience that happened at the eye faculties. If we understand this point, we can try to observe the truth further via this context. 

This is what I refer to as the observation at the six sensory  contacts. All the bodily and mental experiences that we encounter in the world happen at the six sense faculties. The experiences happened here. They do not happen externally. If one understands this, one will not project one’s mind out. Luang Pu Dune had said that projecting one’s mind out is the root cause of all suffering. 

If one does not send their mind outwards, one will understand the world as it is within the six sense faculties. We will be ‘normal’ and simply see with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our nose and think with our minds. This is a normal operation. However, we should use this angle to investigate further - the six sense faculties are for receiving information. The mind faculty, besides being able to receive information, can also operate on its own. It has the ability to self-operate. That is saṅkhāra.

When the mind is aware of the experiences from these six sense faculties, it will react. 

Those responses are the small and big habits formed through the accumulated learning in our memories. Some of the habits are so deep-rooted that we call them instincts. Some habits - the higher-order habits, are newly established via experiences and learning. For example, a newly acquired skill and a new way of thinking. For those deep-rooted habits (known as instincts), they are accumulated from one’s past kamma. 

Having said that, both categories bear no difference by nature. Our ideology, ways of thinking and even our genetics bear no difference. They are all our habits and mental programming. 

The six sense faculties start to operate the moment they receive information. A specific pattern of input will render a certain specific pattern of output. When they encounter a certain type of response, they will react with a certain specific response. When someone scolds you, you will have hatred. When someone praises you, you will feel happy. This is like programming. When we put all the programming together, we have a name for it - I. ‘I’ have such personality. 'I' am such a type of person with such a way of thinking. In actual fact, these are just the small and big, old and new habits that are accumulated through our memory. 

To explain from this perspective, the personality that we name as ‘personality’, is not different from the AI program. The AI program is just a bunch of small and large programs that were assembled.