Walking The Noble Path, Contemplating The Body | 31 Jan 2025

In this Dhamma talk, Ajahn Anan offers a profound guide to walking the Noble Eightfold Path. He explains that suffering arises from craving and attachment to both material and mental phenomena. To find freedom, we must cultivate Sila (morality), Samadhi (concentration), and Panna (wisdom) as a unified practice.

Ajahn emphasizes the vital importance of contemplating the body to dismantle the delusion of "self." He teaches us to view the physical form as a "rented house" or something borrowed from the world that must eventually be returned. By mentally breaking the body down into its 32 parts or four elements—Earth, Water, Fire, and Air—we realize it is not beautiful, not permanent, and ultimately not "me."

He encourages practitioners to develop a peaceful mind through meditation, which then serves as a foundation for insight. By seeing the truth of impermanence and non-self, the mind can finally let go of clinging and find true purity.

Transcript

The Noble Eightfold Path contains all of sila, Morality, Samādhi, Concentration, And paññā, Wisdom. Right view, Samādhiti, It has us to have wisdom first. Seeing correctly, Seeing that dukkha, Suffering, Is like this, It is as such, We know it, The whole mass of suffering. Suffering, Wanting to get something and to not get it is suffering, Aging, Sickness and death is suffering, Parting from things we love, What we are pleased with is suffering, And so on. We know of the cause, The cause of suffering to arise is tanha, Craving. From karma tanha, Delight and satisfaction in rūpa and nāma, Material and mental phenomena, Craving for sensuality and wanting to have, Wanting to be. When there is sense delight already, Then we want to have, We want it to become more. Or we experience something we don't like and we don't want to have it or want it to be. These three cravings are the cause for suffering to arise. And the ending of suffering, The freedom from it, That is the dissolution, The fading away of the kilesas, The mental defilements, Which is tanha, Craving. Relinquishing tanha, Craving, It is letting go, Having no upadana, Clinging, There is no craving. Craving is the cause for clinging. When vettana, Feeling arises, Then arises craving. When craving arises, Clinging arises. If we abandon clinging, Then we can let go, And suffering doesn't arise. But to be able to let go, Then what does our mind have to do? The Buddha taught to walk in sila, Samadhi, Anya. Now, We know with wisdom already, And so we come to practice dhamma. We keep the five precepts. On the weekly lunar observance days, We keep the eight precepts. We have dhana, Generosity, We have sila. And for wisdom to be able to arise, We need to have samadhi. The mind is firmly concentrated. We have right thoughts, We don't harm anyone. We don't intend to delight in all the material and mental phenomena. Then we can enter the middle path. Sammāvāja, Right speech, Is speaking within sila dhamma. Doing actions, Earning a livelihood, Which is correct. It is within the five precepts, So this is about sila. So as for effort, Sammāvāyamo, Effort is contained within the aspect of samadhi. Right effort, Developing sati, Mindfulness, Is right recollection, And there is right concentration. These three factors are within samadhi. Sila contains three factors. Wisdom has two factors. So it has eight factors. When we sit practicing, We don't need to separate it out into each factor. It gathers together. It gathers to be within the noble eightfold path. We don't need to think, I am developing just mindfulness right now. Because if we have no wisdom, We won't be able to develop mindfulness. It has wisdom coming together along with it. For mindfulness, Right recollection, There is maranatnu sati, Recollecting death as an object of the mind. There is kayagata sati, Recollecting the body as an object of the mind. The thirty-two parts of the body is contained within the aspect of the body. The body is a subha, It is not beautiful. So this is all about the body. Watching and knowing the in and out breath is about the body. It's within the aspect of the body. We sit here and watch the in-breath and out-breath. It is within the satipatthana, Foundations of mindfulness. We don't need to separate it out. We put the terms down. We put the books down first. We don't need to be thinking, Right now we are developing the foundations of mindfulness. We just do it. We watch the breath and we are confident that this path can make us free from suffering for sure. So here we have right view already. We have wisdom. So that's why we can come to try to make the mind firmly concentrated. It's why we can try to keep sila. And we make an effort. So it's all gathered together. We just call it dhamma practice. It's both samatha, Tranquility meditation, And vipassana, Insight meditation. There's no need to separate them out. We just do it. When we practice it and the mind is well concentrated, Then the thoughts reduce. And samadhi arises. The body is light. The mind is light. Samadhi arises. There are feelings of inner fullness. And even the tears flowing. Sometimes it's a rapturous feeling. A feeling of inner fullness. This is samadhi. Samadhi arises. When we do it often, We get more skilled at it. Then we will have bliss. In the beginning, We are at this level, Having rapture and bliss. It's not yet being one-pointed and completely still, Where there are no thoughts at all. It won't be at that level. But never mind. We put thoughts of that down first. Whatever level we can do it to, We do it to there first. We do it to our utmost and according to our strength of mind. And when leaving samadhi, The mind starts to think and proliferate again. The avijja ignorance proliferates. To have sankhara, Karmic formations, To arise. Oh, We keep watching on. We teach ourselves not to attach and cling to anything. But the sense of self has arisen. When ignorance proliferates the mind, The sense of self has arisen. We contemplate into rupa and nama. The body is rupa. And we use the mind that is peaceful. On one occasion, I had asked Venerable Ajahn Chah, That when the mind is peaceful, What should we do? I wanted to contemplate the mind to be able to attain to the Dhamma. But he said, No, You can't do that. He didn't explain it much. He said to contemplate into this body. Because we are attached to this physical body as being me and mine. Don't think that it's something coarse. We just want only the refined. We want to overlook the body. Because at the time, The samadhi is good. The body is all light. It's like there's no body. We think that it's not necessary to contemplate the body. But we are deluded in ourself. We want to be someone with wisdom. Because in the suttas, It says that someone with wisdom should contemplate the mind. So we suppose that we are someone with wisdom. We don't want the body. It's something coarse. Very coarse. We want to be someone with wisdom. The Krupa Ajhans, The enlightened teachers say, It's not like that. Come to contemplate the body. This body. That we are still clinging on to. When we are peaceful, It is samadhi. But we haven't withdrawn and released from this body at all. We still have liking and pleasure. But when we sit meditation, It's being suppressed down. So the liking and pleasure has not yet arisen. So we contemplate the body. We see that it's not beautiful or attractive. And then the mind is peaceful. The body is made up of the elements. Earth element, Water element, Fire element, Air element. According to the text, Contemplating this, It is for tranquility. But we feel at ease. We are inwardly at ease and there's a feeling of inner fullness. But sometimes we doubt about contemplation. Because they say the mind needs to be one-pointed before we can see the Dhamma. Kayagata, Mindfulness of the body. Asubha, Unattractiveness of the body. The 32 parts of the body can make the mind one-pointed. Contemplating death. Buddhanussati, Dhammanussati, Sanghanussati. Mindfulness of the virtues of the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. Are meditation objects that one needs to follow on and recollect. So the Samadhi can only be till Upacara Samadhi, Neighborhood concentration. But we still do it. Because when you get to Upacara Samadhi, Then the mind will continue on to know the breath. And it can be one-pointed by itself. It continues on by itself. We don't need to doubt it. Do it first. We train in it and do it. We train and instruct the mind. We practice like this and we train the mind like this consistently. And when we come out of Samadhi, We watch the mind. Whatever the mind attaches to, We teach the mind saying, It's not permanent. It's not sure. There isn't a self. Everything is supposed and our conventions. What is this body like? It's a rented house. The mind uses this body. It is loaned to it. It's borrowed. We borrow something from someone and one day they come to call for it back from us and we have to return it to them. Our body has been borrowed from the world. It's been loaned. And we haven't signed any contract as well of when we have to give it back. On whatever good day or night that they ask for it back and we have to give it back that very day. One day we can get sick and have pain suddenly and the mind has to part from this body. Whatever time it asks for it back, We have to give it back at that time. Because it's not ours. There is no contract that I will borrow what is yours for five years or ten years, Fifty years, Seventy years, Ninety years and then I'll give it back to you. There isn't any. Sometimes one hasn't even prepared oneself for it. We want to use the thing we have borrowed before but they come to ask for it back and we don't want to go. But reluctantly we have to go. So the venerable elder says we have to give up everything. There is no one who is the chief of this world. Its chief is aging, Sickness and death. We have to give up everything. It's all not lasting. The mind is the slave of craving. So we need to train the mind to have wisdom arise. If we don't train, Then the mind has no wisdom. We follow our moods and desires. We attach and cling and suffering arises. The nature of reality is that suffering arises, Persists and ceases. But when there is the cause for suffering to arise then suffering arises again. So though the suffering does cease but it arises often. When there is a sense of self then suffering arises again. So the defilements take hold of our minds and burns our minds constantly. Anger arises again. Why do we need to get angry? Why hate, Love or detest? It's because of delusion. The mind is deluded and ignorant that it is a self and mine. And we are especially deluded with this body. We see it and see it as beautiful and attractive. We have never seen it as unattractive and unbeautiful since we were born. Having been born we don't contemplate and we are deluded. And there is nothing that is unbeautiful and attractive. There is just the beautiful and lovely. When contemplating it, It's hard to see. So we need to gradually train in it. We train in contemplation. For laity you can contemplate the body as elements. If you are to contemplate it as unbeautiful and unattractive it's probably hard to do. Because your samadhi is not yet firmly established. But if your samadhi is stable then you can contemplate it. How is it not beautiful? Just take the teeth. Don't brush them. We wake up and don't brush our teeth. We don't clean our teeth. We eat and we don't clean our teeth. Then it's not beautiful. The teeth is mixed with saliva and phlegm. With leftover food. It's full of bacteria. We contemplate this and the mind is peaceful. And when the mind is peaceful we mentally take each tooth out and see is it mine? Take the teeth out and there is no me there at all. We mentally take the arm bone out. Someone whose arm has broken off the person will be indifferent to that arm. They don't feel anything with it. If the leg bone has been cut off then the leg is normal of itself. It doesn't know anything. We take each part out and there is no self there anymore. It decays and breaks apart. It's empty. The emptiness arises. Oh, There's no self. The body arises from elements that gather together and we call it Sankara. Compounded phenomena. It breaks apart and goes back to their original elements. It is not self. This is vipassana, Insight. It's wisdom instructing the mind to have insight to arise. We do it more and more often and there is knowledge that arises that it's not us. Like the venerable elder Sivali whose hair was being shaved and the hair fell down and he knew it's all not me. He had trained for a long time. He trained in vipassana for a long time. He had just the hair fall and with the mind that was very still he knew that it was not me. It was not self. If the mind is not very still it won't see it clearly. It's all taken as a self. So we have to practice samadhi for the mind to be well concentrated. To have mindfulness to know. Knowing anicca, Dukkha, Anatta impermanence, Unsatisfactoriness and not self. And wisdom arises. We do this, Do this often. Do it a lot. And ultimately we will see into conventional reality and then it is vimutti, Ultimate reality. There's nothing. It gathers as one. It's impermanent, Unsatisfactory and not self. There is no me. There is no them. The knowing element is purified. And the knowing element is not us either. It's nature. We leave it to nature. If the knowing element is taken as ours it's the defilements again. It's me who is pure. This is defilement. But we leave it to nature. The purity is not us. There is no me or them. Then problems cease. On the lunar observance days we listen to dhamma. Those who have the chance can practice and keep the eight precepts. We come to practice fully. We practice while standing, Walking, Sitting and lying down. We meditate with the meditation object a lot. Each time we chant we get merit each time. It can be compared to selling goods. We plant trees, Plant rambutan, Durian or other fruit and it can grow fruit and we can sell it for good prices and we are happy. Or working and we get a bonus or get higher wages. If we can see that when we meditate, Chant and contemplate that we are gaining more merit every day it's the feeling of inner fullness and joy which is merit. We then will have strength to practice and we will not retreat from the practice. May you all be determined in this. May you grow in blessings.

Reviews

Every sentence is full of wisdom and truth. Thank you, Ajahn Anan 🙏

🙏🏾 2026. 💕