The Knower Can Change

The Knower Can Change 

Ajahn Chah: You use thinking, but you also see. You see above and beyond your thinking right there. And then you don't believe in line with that kind of thing any more. Do you understand? 

We suppose that the mind knows sensations. But when we really speak about the mind, this is something above the mind. Whatever the mind arises from, we call it the mind. The mind arises and disbands. It arises and disbands, this mind.

But this other thing isn’t the mind that arises and disbands. It’s a different experience. All the things that are that truth: They don’t arise and don’t disband. They’re just the way they are. 

They go past the issues of arising and disbanding. 

But when you call them the mind, it’s just in terms of suppositions. When you speak in terms of suppositions, you believe in your own mind—and then what happens? Where does this mind come from? 

You’ve believed in this mind for so long, and there’s no ease. Right?

In the beginning you know about inconstancy, stress, and not-self. These are issues of the mind. But that reality doesn’t have any issues. It lets go. It lets go of the things that the mind arises with and depends on, but it doesn’t arise or disband at all. The things that arise and disband depend on perceptions and fabrications. 

We think that because contemplation uses perceptions, then they must be discernment. And so we latch onto fabrications, thinking they’re discernment. But that’s not genuine discernment. 

Genuine discernment puts an end to issues. It knows, and that’s the end of issues. There are still fabrications, but you don’t follow in line with them. There are sensations, you’re aware of them, but you don’t follow in line with them. You keep knowing that they’re not the path any more.

Question: What do we do to find this point, the point of the genuine mind?

Ajahn Chah: You keep track of this mind, first. You see that it’s inconstant, not for sure. See that clearly. 

You see that there’s nothing to take hold of, and so you let go. The mind lets go of itself. 

It understands itself. It lets go of this mind. 

At that point, there’s no more need to fabricate it, but there are no more doubts about anything. 

That’s called… Whatever name you call it, it’s a matter of supposition and formulation. You make suppositions about it for people to learn about it, but that nature is just the way it is. 

It’s like the ground. What spins around is on top of the ground. But this thing is the ground. 

What doesn’t arise or disband is the ground. What arises and runs around on top, we call “the mind,” or “perception,” or “fabrication.” 

To put it in simple terms, there are no forms, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, or consciousness in the ground. In terms of supposition, form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness arise and disband. But they’re not in this. They disband.

It’s like the question that Ven. Sāriputta asked Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta. Have you ever read that? 

Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta was going out into the forest to follow the ascetic practices. His teacher had taught him about the ascetic practices. 

So Ven. Sāriputta asked him, “Puṇṇa Mantāniputta, when you go out into the forest, suppose someone asks you this question, ‘When an arahant dies, what is he?’ How would you answer?”

That’s because this had already happened.

Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta said, “I’ll answer that form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness arise and disband. That’s all.”

Ven. Sāriputta said, “That’ll do. That’ll do.”

When you understand this much, that’s the end of issues. When you understand it, you take it to contemplate so as to give rise to discernment. See clearly all the way in. 

It’s not just a matter of simply arising and disbanding, you know. That’s not the case at all. You have to look into the causes within your own mind. You’re just the same way: arising and disbanding. 

Look until there’s no pleasure or pain. Keep following in until there’s nothing: no attachment. 

That’s how you go beyond these things. 

Really see it that way; see your mind in that way. This is not just something to talk about. Get so that wherever you are, there’s nothing. Things arise and disband, arise and disband, and that’s all. 

You don’t depend on fabrications. You don’t run after fabrications. But normally, we monks fabricate in one way; lay people fabricate in crude ways. But it’s all a matter of fabrication. If we always follow in line with them, if we don’t know, they grow more and more until we don’t know up from down.

Question: But there’s still the primal mind, right?

Ajahn Chah: What?

Question: Just now when you were speaking, it sounded as if there were something aside from the five aggregates. What else is there? You spoke as if there were something. What would you call it? The primal mind? Or what?

Ajahn Chah: You don’t call it anything. Everything ends right there. There’s no more calling it “primal.” 

That ends right there. “What’s primal” ends.

Question: Would you call it the primal mind?

Ajahn Chah: You can give it that supposition if you want. When there are no suppositions, there’s no way to talk. There are no words to talk. But there’s nothing there, no issues. It’s primal; it’s old. There are no issues at all. 

But what I’m saying here is just suppositions. “Old,” “new”: These are just affairs of supposition. 

If there were no suppositions, we wouldn’t understand anything. We’d just sit here silent without understanding one another. So understand that.

~•~•~•~

Still Flowing Water: 

Eight Dhamma Talks, by Venerable Ajahn Chah, and translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html#StillFlowingWater