Post # 73 – Developing World Transcending Wisdom in the Path to Nibbana- Part 5

You need to read Post # 69 ,Post # 70, Post # 71, and Post # 72 before reading this.

This is the fifth installment of the collection for building up a supporting backdrop to engage in this meditation practice.

By examining what we feel, see, hear and experience, we subject them to an examination (experimentation) to verify what is taught about them in the Dhamma and consolidate them as an  inferential understanding and as an experiential knowledge. 

In this meditation, on being mindful of the body as a body, one's awareness is fixed on what the body, feels, knows, and experiences etc. in the present moment. With this awareness deepening and treating each experience analytically and dissecting into its constituent factors, the understanding we have of a body is really seen to be a composite of many components.  In Pali it is referred to as Rupa-skanda (heap of body composites) acting together. In a similar way contemplating on the present moment experiences of the mind as applicable to perceptions (Sanna), feelings (Vedana), volitional formations (Sankara) and consciousness (Vinnana), they also manifest as heaps of respective composites referred to in Pali as Sanna Skanda, Vedana Skanda, Sankara Skanda, Vinnana Skanda. Thus the body and mind experiences are based on these five aggregates. Further this present moment experiences do not render any other factor, establishing that there is only the five aggregates and nothing else that is undergoing such experiences.

 Further due to avidyaya (not knowing) we tend to develop some wrong views about these aggregates, such as –these aggregates are mine; they are me or I exist in them etc.  Dhamma describes these views as arising from the unwholesome roots of Thanna (craving), Manna (ego), Ditti (wrong view),  resulting in a Sakkaya Ditti, a concept of I/Me/Mine. This Sakkaya Ditti gives rise to desire, attachment and clinging, to these aggregates. The being thus manifests as five aggregates of clinging (Pancha Upadana Skanda).  

 In this process one also develops  other important virtues- nama-rupa parichage nana (knowledge of the name-form discrimination), dathu manisikara nana (knowledge of the discrimination of the composite elements of form aggregate) and the udaya-vaya nana (knowledge of arising and passing away)  

Thus one sees that the present moment living experiences (as explained in Dhamma), are arising in an aggregation of form (rupa), an aggregation of feelings (vedana), aggregation of perception (sanna), an aggregation of thoughts/mental formations (sankara) and an aggregation of consciousness (vinnana). These aggregations we saw are the bases for the arising of a being. Thus the being is seen as a composite of five groups of factors or aggregates. This process of contemplation and the resulting realization is known to be the initial Vippassana  Bhavana  practice.

This way we learn to look at present moment experience with focused attention on the experience itself, using the skills we developed during the practice of serenity meditation and dissecting these experiences into constituent parts to understand their true nature, or to see them as they really are and not the way they appear to be. This is developing Yatha Bhutha Nanaya, the wisdom of seeing the true nature of things.

One realizes that the present moment experience as described in Dhamma are constantly subject to change (viparinama). This is seen as impermanence (annitta).  Because this state of change happens due to causes and conditions and not due to a wish or will of a owner who has them in his/her control, it is seen as non-self (annatta). As this present moment experiences or living, occurs only in the five aggregates of clinging which are impermanent (annitta) and non-self (annata) and without the will or wish and without the participation  of a I or Me, it is seen to be  unsatisfactory, unreliable and un-dependable or dukka. This state of dukka also includes the felt experiences of bodily pain and suffering and mentally experienced distress referred to in the dhamma as the dukka-dukkathwaya. Further this state of unsatisfactory-ness is compounded by its inherent state of constant change -viparinama-dukkathwaya, and the changes resulting from changes in causes and conditions without the involvement of an owner- sankatha - dukkathwaya.  Therefore you develop uppekka (a neutral view) by exercising mental equipoise. Then desire, attachment and clinging to them whose true nature is impermanence, no-self and unsatisfactory-ness appears to be meaningless makes no sense and unwise. Therefore they gradually fade away.    

When one begins to realize that the five aggregates, the Rupa Skanda, Sanna Skanda, Vedana Skanda, Sankara Skanda, and Vinnana Skanda are always in a state of flux or change (annitta), a state that is non self (annata) and a state that is unsatisfactory or Dukka, which the Dhamma describes as thrilakshana or the three ‘signetars’ – the universal characteristics-  one sees their true nature. This is the most fundamental of Buddha’s teaching and has to be fully understood and realized.

 Ven .Piyadassi thero says that -"He that cultivates this investigative nature, focuses his mind on the five aggregates of clinging (Pancha Upadana Skanda),  and endeavors to realize the arising and passing away (udaya-vaya) of this  conflux of mind and matter (nāma-rūpa-santati); –“, he that cultivates this investigative nature sees that - what is impermanent and not lasting as sorrow-fraught. What is sorrow-fraught, he understands as void of a permanent and everlasting soul, self, or ego entity. It is this realization of the three characteristics or laws—transiency (anicca), sorrow (dukkha), and no-self or soullessness (anattā)—which is known to Buddhists as vipassanā-ñāṇa or penetrative insight, that entirely eradicates all the latent tendencies (anusaya)”.

You will now understand that my intention with these Postings was to place before you a ready checklist, consisting of those relevant aspects of this deep Dhamma.  This should for the moment serve as the relevant and applicable Suthamaya Panna, out of the vast range of Dhamma teachings by Buddha, for our purpose of developing world transcending wisdom.

I will in the next Posts attempt to describe a simple guided insight meditation practice to translate this Suthamaya Panna (intellectual understanding) to an inferential knowledge. This by no means is the only method you may try for this purpose. Learned monks have described many methods to gain this knowledge. The option you have is to look at as many of them as available and choose what best suits you.