The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
15 June 2023
Question: What is the purpose of contemplation of the 32 parts of the body?
Than Ajahn: It’s to know about the body completely. Right now you only know the body partially, and this gives rise to your delusion—thinking that the body is good looking or attractive. If you study the whole body completely, you’ll find out that the body is not attractive at all.
So the purpose is to stop your sexual desire, that is, your attraction toward other people's body and your infatuation with your own body.
Sometimes people get infatuated with their own body. They want to keep the body looking good all the time, right? They groom the body.
They have to make the body looks good. They do weight lifting so that they have muscles and so forth. This is a form of infatuation with your own body. With other people, you've got attracted to other people's body. But once you’ve seen the complete picture of the body, then this attraction to your own body or other people’s body can be eliminated.
You should think that your body as being a bodysuit. Your skin and your flesh are like the bodysuit that you wear when you go for scuba diving. When you go for scuba diving, you have to put on a bodysuit right? Well, the body is just like that. You have a bodysuit that keeps the skeleton and all the inner organs inside. If you unzip it, you take out the skin and flesh, then what is left? It’s left with the skeleton and all the organs (like the heart, the lungs) right?
So you want to have a complete picture of the body so that you will not become delusional regarding the body.
So the main goal is to stop your sexual attraction and also your infatuation with your own body.
This is what we call asubha contemplation.
People now keep on doing cosmetic surgery.
They inject Botox to keep the body young and looking good.
The face must be beautiful, no scars, no nothing. But just look under the skin. If you peel off the skin, you’ll see what it is under your skin. Your face is just a skin mask that's covering the skull. But you never see the skull every time you look at your face right? Why not? It’s just right there, right behind your skin.
Because you never teach your mind to look at it that way. If you keep teaching it, eventually when you look at your face, you look at the skull right behind your skin.
“Dhamma in English, Nov 8, 2022.”
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Question: After I practiced asubha contemplation for several times, I felt disgusted and felt bad toward the person I live with. Does this mean that my practice is improving?
Than Ajahn: As long as you don’t hate the person you live with. You can feel negative toward the unpleasant parts of the body, but you still have to maintain a good relationship with the people you live with. Because the asubha contemplate is for your information, for you to know that the body is not pleasant. It’s for you to get rid of your sexual desire, but not for you to hate someone else at the same.
Sometimes you have to stop asubha contemplation and then use mettā instead, when you start to feel any aversion for the people whom you live with. If there is aversion, it means you’ve overdone your asubha contemplation. Then you have to come back to mettā contemplation, to have love and compassion for the people whom you live with.
“Dhamma in English, Nov 27, 2022.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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