Building The Causes For Wisdom To Arise | 22 Nov 2024

Ajahn Anan invites us to care for our minds with the tenderness of a parent watching a newborn child. Just as a baby is unaware of dangers like deep water, our untrained mind is vulnerable to the delusions of the sensory world. We must employ Mindfulness and Wisdom as guardians to protect it. When the mind clings to liking or disliking, we gently teach it the truth of impermanence: "It is not sure."

The speaker illustrates the necessity of endurance through the dialogue of King Milinda, explaining that Nibbana is Supreme Happiness, but like a King conquering a land, we must face hardships before we can reign in peace. We are also inspired by Venerable Rohana, who bore seven years of abuse with perfect patience, eventually transforming a householder's anger into faith through his silence.

Ultimately, we use generosity and morality as a vehicle to cross the flood. By realizing that our body and thoughts are "not-self," we release the burden of suffering and find true freedom.

Transcript

When we are giving our Dharma practice in homage to the Buddha,

We have dāna,

Generosity,

Have sila,

Moral conduct,

And we have knowing,

Have sati,

Mindfulness,

Constantly following and watching our mind.

The mind is that which receives the aramana,

Sense objects.

The object comes in and contacts the mind,

But when the mind with no wisdom receives that sense object,

Then it gets deluded in it,

Like a child who is just newly born.

It doesn't know what is dangerous.

It doesn't know what is safe in its life.

They can walk onto the road in front of the house,

They don't know the dangers at all,

And they could get hit by a car,

Or if they get close to a large body of water,

And they don't know they can fall into the water,

And how dangerous it could be.

Even inside the house there may be electrical lines that aren't connected properly,

And the child could touch the power point or electrical cable.

So the adults looking after the child,

The parents,

Have to keep looking after it and keeping the child safe,

Not letting the child go far from their field of view.

In just one or two minutes of lapsing in this,

It could be a problem,

The child could even lose its life.

And so our mind is the same.

It's a mind which needs someone to look after it and keep it safe.

If no one looks after it,

Then it's like a child having no one to look after and protect it.

So we need to follow and look after the mind,

Keep the mind safe.

And who comes to look after the mind?

It is the one who knows.

The one who knows is wisdom.

To follow and watch over is having mindfulness and having wisdom,

Knowing what our mind right now is like.

Is it attached to anything?

When the sense object proliferates the mind to suffer,

Then we teach our mind.

We follow what our enlightened teachers taught,

To not attach and cling.

It's not a sure thing.

It's not permanent.

Sometimes we have liking or pleasure arising.

After we have received a sense object and the mind has liking,

Then know that.

Don't let it be too excessive.

Sometimes we have disliking or displeasure.

There is a feeling that arises and the mind starts to proliferate again.

We teach it again.

It's not a sure thing.

It's not permanent.

Because liking and disliking,

It all makes the mind agitated and chaotic.

It's not peaceful.

Even when it is a sense object that we are pleased with,

We're very satisfied with it.

It's dangerous as well.

Like we may have heard,

People can have so much pleasure and they have a heart attack.

The heart pumps too much.

Or someone has disliking.

They have so much sorrow and they lose their life.

So we need to have mindfulness to look after the mind.

To not let the mind be too much into liking or too much into disliking.

Just to be at an appropriate and ordinary level.

This is called practicing to know the sense object that enters our mind in time as it happens.

This is Dhamma practice.

When we have mindfulness like this,

Then the mind has right view already of the four noble truths.

That is Dukkha,

Samudaya,

Nirodha,

Magha.

Suffering,

Its cause,

Its cessation and the path.

Having mindfulness to look after the mind,

This is like we are walking Magha,

The noble path.

And walking the noble path,

One must go through difficulties and troubles.

We have to endure and bear with many things until the mind can let go.

And then we will have happiness arise one time.

Then we keep walking the noble path of Sila,

Samadhi,

Bhanya.

Morality,

Concentration,

Wisdom.

We keep watching over the mind and the mind can let go again.

Then we will have happiness arise more and more.

But in the beginning,

We have to have difficulties and it is tough.

And about this problem,

King Malinda had asked Venerable Nagasena,

Is it true that Nibbana is the highest happiness?

Venerable Nagasena answered,

It is true.

Nibbana is the supreme happiness with no suffering mixed in it.

But King Malinda did not believe it.

How could it be possible?

Because you need to be diligent,

Have to endure,

Have to go through difficulties,

Need to train and instruct the mind,

To have mindfulness,

You have to do everything,

Have to have Sila,

Need to have generosity,

Morality and meditation.

And Venerable Nagasena answered this problem,

That this is the practice before we know and see the Dhamma,

Before attaining to the Dhamma.

We do need to go through hardships and difficulties.

It's not like there isn't.

But when you have done it,

Then you will be free from hardships and difficulties.

That is,

The mind can let go.

It finds true happiness.

You can see Dhamma,

Attain to the Dhamma.

Venerable Nagasena compared many ways to teach King Malinda.

It's like you are a great king,

But before you could become the king,

You needed to overcome many difficulties and obstacles,

Before you could conquer the country to be under your control.

Then you could enjoy the bliss of being the king.

King Malinda agreed.

Yes,

It's correct.

So he could accept that Nibbana is the supreme happiness.

And King Malinda had a lot of wisdom.

In his past life he had been a novice,

And Venerable Nagasena was his teacher in that life,

Who had ordered the novice to clean up the rubbish and cobwebs of a place.

And after doing it,

The novice made a determination to have lots of wisdom,

Like the vast ocean.

And Venerable Nagasena,

Who was in that life his teacher,

Knew the novice's mind,

And that as he was the one who made the novice clean up like that,

So he made the determination that,

May I have wisdom like the shore that can receive all the waves of the ocean.

So this was a past karma done.

And being born into this life,

King Malinda asked questions of the Venerable Arahants.

But the Arahants didn't want to bother with it.

As they loved peace,

And so they went into seclusion.

Because they weren't the ones who was connected to the King,

Who would answer him with wisdom.

It had to be Venerable Nagasena,

Who was someone who had great wisdom ever since he was born.

The Venerable Arahants had known already that Nagasena was someone with wisdom,

Who had been born,

And who would give benefit to Buddhism.

So they had one Venerable Arahant monk,

Venerable Rohana,

Who would have the duty to teach Nagasena.

This Arahant monk went to go for alms to the house of the parents of Nagasena,

Since Nagasena was newly born.

The monk went for alms every day there,

And would get verbally abused.

That he was a bald-headed ascetic.

And why do you come around here and beg for food?

Don't you know how to earn a living?

So you come here to beg.

And the father of Nagasena didn't give anything as well.

The monk was scolded like this every day.

Every day for seven years.

Who could endure it?

Scolded every day.

And the monk went for alms there every day,

Without missing a day.

And there was one day that the Brahmin probably didn't want to scold the monk anymore.

The monk could just go on to the next house,

And he wouldn't give.

But on this day,

He did not scold the monk.

And the monk,

Venerable Rohana,

Went to the next Brahmin's house.

And the Brahmin there asked,

You have gone there for a long time.

Did you get something today?

Venerable Rohana said,

I got something.

So here there was a problem.

Because the Brahmin went to his neighbor,

The parents of Nagasena,

And chatted.

Saying that,

That monk said that he went to your house and he had got something.

The Brahmin,

The father of Nagasena,

Was very angry.

The monk had lied.

Oh,

The monk lied.

I didn't give him anything.

Why did he lie?

Tomorrow,

I will really scold him.

For the past seven years,

He hadn't really scolded him properly.

Because the monk had always been still and silent.

But now the monk had said that I'd given something to him.

A monk lying is really bad.

So the next day,

The monk went for alms.

And the man didn't scold the monk straight away.

He asked first,

Yesterday,

You came to my house and I didn't give you anything at all.

But you went to my friend's house and said that you got something from me.

You are a lying monk.

Oh,

So now it was a bald-headed monk who was a liar as well.

He had got the monk on two counts.

Here the Arahant monk was calm first.

Being calm,

He said,

What I meant when I said I had got something.

Is that I had gone to your house for alms for seven years.

And you scolded me every day.

But yesterday,

You didn't say anything.

And so I had gotten something.

And the man thought about this.

Of how the monk had endured it all patiently for seven years.

And from that day,

The man's mind changed.

Here,

I didn't even give anything to you.

I just didn't scold you.

And you praised me for giving you something.

Then he invited the monk tomorrow to come and receive alms at his house.

If I gave you something,

Then how much would you praise me?

You could say he was delighted.

And after the Brahmin had gained faith.

And when it came time,

When Nagasena was older.

He already had faith and went to ordain as a novice.

He learnt all the Tripitaka.

He was very learned.

After ordaining,

He could teach an elderly woman to be a Sotapanna.

The first level of enlightenment.

But Venerable Nagasena thought he had a lot of learning.

But he was not yet an Arya.

A noble being yet.

But he could teach another to be a noble being.

And he felt weary of all the knowledge of the texts that he knew.

And so he practiced Bhavana,

Meditation.

Until he attained to becoming an Arahant.

Fully enlightened with all the special knowledges.

He had deep insight and great wisdom.

And an Arahant with all the special knowledges needs to use a high level of Samadhi and great wisdom too.

So it's not an ordinary attainment.

So we can see that we give our Dharma practice in homage and we practice meditation.

We watch the in and out breath.

We meditate with the internal repetition of Bhutto.

These are the skillful methods for us to get the mind to be peaceful.

So may you practice it.

May you develop and teach the mind to have wisdom to arise.

So we make the mind peaceful at a good level.

Through the contemplation of the four elements of the body.

Or contemplating the body as a Subha.

Being not beautiful.

They are all methods for the mind to be peaceful.

And when the mind is brought to peace then we look at the object one more time.

We train the mind and see whether Is this me?

Is this mine?

The mind proliferates the mental object or mood to arise.

So is there something that proliferates our mind?

It is not us.

Though we ourselves want to think good thoughts.

We do want to think only good thoughts.

But why sometimes is there ignorance that proliferates our mind to think bad thoughts?

It is not us.

But when we attach to it as ours that thoughts are ours then it's suffering and torture.

Why?

Because we want to be good.

We want to have good thoughts.

We want to have a good mind.

But it's not yet good.

Then it's suffering.

Having something we want and not getting it is suffering.

So don't expect it.

Have mindfulness to see and know.

Because it's not us.

We proliferate thoughts of wanting to make merit.

Then we know it.

And we do goodness.

We give dana.

Keep sila.

We meditate and practice.

But we also know it as well.

That it's not us.

But we need to rely on goodness first.

Be supported by goodness first.

It's not that we let go of it straight away.

This is us not having it.

It's us not having enough wisdom.

We use a car.

We use a boat first to get to a certain place.

We get to Wat Marb Jan Monastery.

Then we don't need to use the car anymore.

Or we sit on a boat to get to a certain island.

And when we get to the island then we don't need to use the boat anymore.

And we can put it down.

So morality,

Concentration,

Wisdom is the path to walk.

It's magha,

The supreme path to know the truth.

Which is that we take the mind to contemplate the body.

To see the body as decaying and breaking apart.

We start to know it.

And later we just establish our awareness on it.

On maybe a hair strand or the skin that falls off from our body.

And there is knowing that arises that it's not us,

Not ours.

And this can be seeing the Dhamma.

If our foundation of samadhi is full then we can attain to the Dhamma.

Like the venerable elder Sivali who shaved his hair for the first time and attained to Sotapanna.

On the second time to Sakadagami,

Anagami,

Then Arahantship he became fully enlightened.

Why?

Because he had trained before.

We build and develop our barami,

Spiritual virtues in this life.

We do it a lot.

We develop it a lot.

And with this merit in this life we can see it in this life.

We can see and attain the Dhamma.

Our mind lets go.

We have true happiness arise.

Even if you have family and work duties may you be established in having the highest respect to the Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha.

We do goodness and we practice generosity,

Morality,

Meditation.

The Dhamma protects those who practice the Dhamma.

Those who will be in positions of authority and power need to have Dhamma in their hearts.

To have the sublime virtues,

Having metta,

Goodwill,

Compassion,

Sympathetic joy and equanimity.

The mind is uplifted and full of joy.

We see people do good and we are happy.

And with our qualities of humility and respect we can be someone who gains a high status and position in our work and responsibilities.

In all the official duties we have.

May you all be determined to practice and train your mind in this life so you will meet with true happiness.

May you grow in blessings.

Reviews

For me this recording just stopped when there was ca 3 min left 🙏

This is very encouraging thank you!
Love and blessings to you Ajahn

Thx 🙏🏾 2025.