A: I was thinking about, I don’t know in which note, but Ñāṇavīra talks about seeing a bird and hearing it. And then thinking along the lines of ‘it is the same thing that I’m seeing and hearing,’ and even without experiencing the thing through two different senses, even just one, like seeing a thing, a tree, a bird: it is, it exists. And I see the image of this thing, that is this thing existing behind this image which I’m seeing. And that’s basically the idea of the external, objective world, independent of my experience of it. But you realise, it’s a contradiction in terms. Because if you’re seeing it it’s experienced, and if it weren’t experienced, you couldn’t even talk about it.
N: But how do you know, then, that there isn’t a real world behind it?
A: You don’t. But you can only assume. You can’t know that there is, nether can you know that there isn’t.
N: So there might be. So then it might not be a contradiction.
A: Yeah, but you could never find that out.
N: Sure, but it’s one thing to not be able to find out, and it’s another thing is to say it’s a contradiction. Because a contradiction requires you to know that there isn’t.
A: What I mean is that it’s a contradiction thinking that you can talk about it, or think about it.
N: But we are talking about it. See, we are clarifying something. That external world, that you cannot know as independent of your experience, that you can only know on the basis of your experience, yes, there is a contradictory aspect to something. But what I’m saying is, you can’t say there isn’t that world out there, because you don’t know that, and you can’t say that there is, because you don’t know that. All you know is the result of the experience. Because see, you can start saying, no, there is the public world. Forms and objects of the senses are real as such, we all perceive them collectively, and my experience is just the sensory impingements of these forms. Now, you can say there isn’t such a world, it’s all in my mind, it’s all my experience, such a world cannot exist. But that would also be wrong now to say. So both go a bit too far. So where is the contradictory aspect in regard to those two statements? What is the contradiction? So it’s not the existence or non-existence of the world, because that cannot be known.
P: You don’t know whether there is something outside of yourself or there isn’t. The mistake in that statement is this self, this extra-temporal…
N: Yeah, so the emphasis is on your conceivings, and the mistake there is, see, I don’t know whether there is something outside or not, means I am assuming outside. I just cannot decide on the content of that outside. Yet that assumption of outside is only known on the basis of this internal experience, by me. So the notion of outside is a contradiction in terms. It’s not that the world exists, or doesn’t exist, or both exists and doesn’t exist, or neither exists nor doesn’t exist. And that’s exactly why the Buddha would not answer those questions in the Suttas. ‘Oh, is the world eternal?’ I.e. does it exist on its own, independent of our experiences as individuals, does it carry on on its own. ‘Oh, is the world then not eternal?’ And he wouldn’t answer that, because either way you assume the outside. You assume there is this space outside of your experience-as-a-whole, outside of your six sense bases which is then populated by these forms and so on, or not. So just the conceiving of outside on the basis of your statement that ‘there is the world outside’, or ‘there isn’t the world outside’, your conceiving of the outside is the problem. That’s the contradiction.
A: Yeah, so the fact that you think you can refer to it, would you not say that…
N: No no no, you can refer to it, you can think it, but you don’t necessarily have to conceive it as an outside, as first, and this second to it. You have to start seeing it as a phenomenon. So when you’re referring to the outside, you recognise that that’s within. So the point I’m trying to emphasise here is, you should not start believing that ‘I must stop thinking about outside, because every thought of outside is conceiving’. You can’t stop thinking about outside. You are the outside. You are the perversion of perception, so to speak, the ownership. But what you can do is start recognising that the phenomenon of ‘outside of this experience,’ as real as it is, whichever way it feels, whichever way it’s perceived, is within the enduring experience-as-a-whole. So instead of trying to manipulate how you refer to outside, you actually want to develop a greater context that includes even the most external sense of experience that you might have in regard to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches that, as such, is real, and as such a phenomenon it’s my experience-as-a-whole. It’s the five aggregates. So you want to broaden your context, as opposed to ‘fix’ the notion of outside.
P: When Ñāṇavīra talks about this analogy of a parasite, the parasite is real as such, in the sense of, it’s not denying that there is a parasite. It’s really seeing it as a parasite, and that means…
N: Putting it in context, putting it against the right backdrop, so to speak. And the right backdrop would be, hold on, I have the notion of outside—the world exists after me, the world will continue existing, the world existed before—but all those notions are on the basis of conceiving outside of this experience-as-a-whole, yet they are experience as a whole. I mean, when you say ‘the world will exist after my death’ that is your thought, here and now, what you are confined with, what you are experiencing, within these five aggregates. You’re still thinking your thoughts on the basis of your six-sense-based experience, and as such, that is within the enduring five aggregates.
P: But ignorance is beginningless, so you already are…
N: Yes, it’s not like you didn’t do it and then you started one morning.
P: And that’s the whole Mūlapariyāya Sutta, conceiving.
N: It is, exactly, yeah. He conceives in, apart, from, he conceives as ‘mine’, fundamentally. So all these subtle conceivings of outside, first as second, second as first, in all areas of your experience of five senses and the mind, all that kind of adds up, because it’s beginningless, and the practical result of that is ‘me and the world’. Things that are mine, and ‘I am’. Sense of ‘I am’, sense of ownership, sense of self. That’s the result of these conceivings. But again, if you read the Mūlapariyāya Sutta, somebody might assume ‘OK, so I must individually undo these little things’. That’s impossible. They’re just subtle aspects that precede your attitude of ‘mine’. So, undo the attitude of ‘mine’ in regard to the five sense bases and the thoughts, just to the extent of ‘mine’. So you’re not undoing the thoughts. There is a thought of the external world? Undo, here and now, ownership of the experience-as-a-whole in regard to the thought of the external world. That will maintain the balance of thoughts, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and in them is just thoughts, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches. That’s it. Not too much, not too little. But it all converges on that sense of ‘mine’.
So if you want to fulfill the Mūlapariyāya Sutta, you basically practise ‘not mine’ in regard to everything, top to bottom. Past, future, present, future, doesn’t matter in what direction. Whatever has arisen, whatever is real as such, as an image, as a feeling, as a perception, for as long as it endures, it won’t be mine. And then the next thing. And then the next thing. And then the next thing. And then you would have diminished all of the conceivings from the Mūlapariyāya Sutta. So what would be a necessary prerequisite for practising ‘not mine’ in regard to everything, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, thoughts while they endure? What would be the necessary prerequisite? What would you have to do in order for this practice to even become intelligible?
A: Establish virtue.
N: Yeah. And I’ll keep talking about it for as long as I like. Because it’s easy to hear this and say ‘OK, I’ll start doing this’, yet your whole physical behaviour, verbal behaviour, remains completely unpurified. Still polluted, not clear from blemishes. Those are the contradictions of ‘mine’, of outside, of lust, aversion, delusion.
P: You are conceiving the subject.
N: Exactly. So if you are perpetuating conceivings through your actions and contemplating on the level of ‘I’m being mindful and things are not mine’, that doesn’t work.
A: Yeah, basically you have to recognise that your views are perpetuated through your actions. And they are much more coarse, and could not even be recognised as views until you stop acting in those ways. And only when you stop acting in those ways can you recognise, oh, actually just by doing that, without even thinking about it, that’s the view I’m affirming.
N: Your views are the result of those actions. Absolutely. Through development of virtue and sense restraint, you are then looking at the bigger picture. And now within that, you start making effort to cultivate the attitude of ‘not mine’ in whatever’s felt, whatever’s perceived. So, again, it’s not about shaping, manipulating, or changing what is felt, or what is perceived. It’s about extending the attitude of ‘not mine’ in regard to whatever pressure’s felt, whatever perception is being perceived. So, I shall guard the attitude of ‘not mine’. That’s it. That’s my work. That’s my threshold, I don’t go past that point. That’s the gateway. And you can. That’s exactly why the Buddha did then encourage noble disciples, sotāpannas or higher, who have accomplished themselves in virtue, sense restraint. He said, OK, you should thus go around in your day-to-day existence, and whatever you experience you should regard as ‘this is not mine, this is not I am’.
And the reason why it’s in that order, ‘this is not mine, this is not I am’, is because your sense of ‘I am’, your sense of self, is the result of unquestioned ownership and taking things as ‘mine’, the attitude of ‘mine’, ‘for me’. And the attitude of ‘mine’ is the result of the attitude ‘for me’. So that’s like a subtler refinement of the same thing. So, ‘not for me, not mine, not I am’. Do I need to repeat it as a mantra? No. I need to repeat it if I forget about it, but even then, I don’t do it for the sake of repeating it, I do it for the sake of re-establishing that context of ‘not mine’, ‘not for me’. So, ‘there is this feeling present, and it’s trying to pressure me to act’. ‘Not for me’ that pressure to act. Not like, ‘oh no, the mind, feeling is impermanent, anicca, anicca’, no no no.
P: Don’t try and get rid of it.
N: It’s permanent, it’s real, it’s going to pressure me forever. That’s not the problem. The problem is that if I take it as mine at any point of that eternity, that’s when it becomes a problem. If I don’t take it as mine, then eternity is seen as impermanent, is seen as unownable. So what’s the problem? So you are free from the eternal saṃsāra. There you go.
T: So the world is presented as ‘for you’.
N: It’s all pointing at you. Pressuring you, trying to move you, feelings, things that you perceive, memories, future plans, doesn’t matter. It’s all ‘for me’, ‘for me’, ‘for me’. And you just take for granted that oh, there must be this ‘me’. There must be this guy that all these things point at. But you realise, that’s another thought that’s ‘for me’. The image of myself, the image of a guy there, the owner of this, is another thing that’s ‘for me’, which means I could actually disown him.
T: People always ask, is there that external world, or is it just the mind, or where am I in the position of this world that lasts forever, that goes through these cycles. And then when I die and I go to this realm and that realm, I travel within that, and so on, and this and that and the other.
N: The answer to all of those questions is: there is suffering, and there is freedom from it. If you have such questions after you fully resolve your liability to suffering, so after you’re an arahant, then you can come and we can talk about it. Everything else is a complete waste of time.
T: There is that Sutta where that monk disrobes, he says the Buddha’s wrong or something like that. ‘I will disrobe unless the Buddha tells me whether the world is eternal or not.’ And the Buddha says ‘well, did I ever say I’d tell you those things? No.’
N: It’s that simile of the arrow. A person gets shot by somebody, they bring a surgeon that’s right there to treat him, and save his life by pulling out the arrow, by dealing with what must be dealt with, there and then, without wasting any time. But he won’t let him do that. He won’t follow his instruction to get the arrow out until he finds out who shot him. Why he shot him. How tall was the person that shot him? What was his political affiliation? What was his religion? Why did he shoot him? What was his childhood like? What were the reasons for it? And then he dies. Bleeds out.
T: So the only reason he’s asking those questions is because he has been shot. He’s suffering. ‘I need to figure it out because I’m suffering.’
N: Those questions only arise because those questions are the habits and mental patterns you’ve developed on account of experiencing suffering and not knowing how to deal with it.
P: So coming out of suffering is a broader intention to any other intention, for example, asking that question. The broadest intention is coming out of suffering.
N: If he were to have time to reflect there, while he was dying, and bleeding out because he was shot with an arrow, he would realise, ‘wait, the only reason I’m asking all these questions is because this arrow hurts me’. And the only ways of me, in the past, dealing with any pain, is finding satisfaction through the senses, or thinking and justifications, assumptions and views. That’s the sole reason for those things that I was doing. It was just to cover up and manage suffering. So, there is a surgeon right in front of me who says that he can actually save my life, and it seems that he can. And the only thing he’s asking me is to refrain from wasting time on those questions, and actually start practising. I can have those questions, but no, I’ll put them aside, I’ll put my mind thinking those questions aside, while I’m doing what needs to be done.
P: Yeah, you don’t have to get rid of them.
N: Yeah. So when people start asking such questions, pretty much the main thing that would determine whether there can even be a conversation taking place is, do you keep the precepts? Are you celibate? Are you sense restrained? Are you guarding your sense doors? Are you moderate in eating? And then you would be able to understand the place where those views are, the roots of those questions. Even if you are mistakenly asking them, you could actually then understand why that is wrong from the point of view of practice. But if a person is not making effort, or minimal effort, or occasional effort, not purified in virtue, not guarding the sense doors, but is revolving around and emphasising these questions all the time, any answer to that is not the practice, it’s not the Dhamma, it won’t make a difference.
That’s like, often people would have the same attitude towards ‘what’s the Buddhist perspective on doing such-and-such a thing in such-and-such circumstances?’ There is no ‘Buddhist perspective’. The Buddhist perspective is suffering, and freedom from it. Which means the Buddhist perspective is uprooting of the four upādānas, uprooting of sensuality, abandoning of desire, overcoming of attachment. That’s the Buddhist perspective. ‘Oh yeah, but you know, what do I do if this happens and I say that?’ Well, if you’re not free from desire, not free from attachment, not free from ownership, whatever you do will be wrong.
P: So the Buddha wouldn’t be helping them in any way by indulging…
N: No, he might help them in a worldly way, if somebody’s not interested in practising the Dhamma and says ‘tell me what to do’. Well, keep the precepts, be a good person, don’t harm others. Do that. But see, they don’t ask the questions like that. People usually ask the questions ‘no no no, from the Dhamma point of view…’ No, there is no Dhamma point of view that tells you how to lead your household life. The Dhamma point of view tells you you have to abandon it. You have to abandon everything, uproot all of the attachments, be free from craving. That’s the Dhamma point of view.
P: There’s no compromise.
N: Yeah, so if somebody just asks you for advice on how to live a skilful lay life, sure. But don’t confuse that for the Dhamma practice, or coming from the Dhamma practice, because it doesn’t. The principle of sense restraint comes first. It applies even to these thoughts. Even applies to these mental processes of ‘who shot me, why did he shoot me’ and all of this. But see, in order to overcome the pain because of which I’m asking these questions, I need to stop emphasising these questions first.
T: It’s a scratching. You’re just scratching, scratching the mind. And then there’s the next question, and the next question.
N: Yes, it’s exactly the same. You have your physical scratches and so on, verbal ones, but yeah, this is a mental one. And then it’s ‘oh, I have to eventually stop, endure the pressure’ because there’s going to be the pressure of doubt. Why, who, what for, what did I do, how did it happen? And well, that pressure, those thoughts, have to remain and I have to endure them and not actually give in to ‘let me just answer and resolve this’. And that’s how I will get closer to uprooting the pain. Because if you have been withdrawn from it sufficiently then yes, you would be able to apply what the Buddha said. Take it as ‘not for me, not mine, not I am’. Even stuff that is: it could have not been, and it won’t be. Either way, it can’t be for me. Either way, it cannot be mine.
A: And basically, sense restraint is the necessary basis for even being able to apply that attitude. Because those things that you have to give up in order to establish basic sense restraint are the things that you’re being most pressured into taking as your own.
N: Exactly, there is a reason that those things always come with a pressure. The ownership needs maintenance. Craving. And the only reason, again, that you would go act out of pressure is because it’s painful. If you stop and think about it, wait, what is so bad in not following sensual desire? Why don’t I do it just for fun?
A: What, not follow?
N: Yeah, not follow. Why don’t I, just for fun, be celibate, not eat in the afternoon, live withdrawn from sensual pressures. Just for fun, why don’t I do it?
T: And consider everything as not for me.
N: Even, leave that for later. Just for fun, let me just not act out of those pressuring things. Why does nobody do that, just for fun? Well, because it’s very painful. It’s like, well surely that tells you it’s a problem. If something is basically forcing you, through pain, to maintain it, that’s not a good deal.
A: But it’s painful just to think about it. So you just ignore it.
N: Of course, exactly. So even thinking about it theoretically, abstractly, is painful. And then you dismiss even the possibility that you could do it. But say you do think about it. And say you do realise, yeah, it is painful, isn’t it? And why am I maintaining it? If you stop doing it, what do you have to lose? What would change? So if you’re acting out of pressuring sensuality, enduring the pressure feels like ‘this pain will last forever if I don’t scratch the itch’. But then you still don’t scratch the itch. Then the pressure starts to diminish. It has to, and you kind of know even before you start that it would, just maybe not as quickly as you would want it to. But it does start to diminish, because it requires your input, it requires fuelling, it requires maintenance. And you stop feeding it. And again, that’s why the Buddha said it is possible, even for an outsider, outside of his teaching, his dispensation, to become fully free from sensuality. Through not feeding it, overcome the pressure and see the actual ridiculous, trapping, devious nature of it, and be completely dispassionate towards it. See it as a trap. A ridiculous trap.
A: So then, dispassion is directly proportional to your seeing of the trap, of the nature of the trap.
N: I think practically, you could say dispassion is directly proportional to your ability to endure the pain of the pressure. And that would then reveal the views.