BUDDHISM 
                                      (Lectures and Essays on Buddhism)
                                                                    FIRST SERIES BY
                                                          (Venerable B. Anandamaitreya)
Reprinted and Donated by 
The Coporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation 
11th Floor, 55, Hang Chow S. Rd. Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C. 
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Printed in Taiwan 1997 June, 30000 copies 
This book is for free distribution, not to be sold

FOREWORD
I visited England for the first time during July 1973 at the request of U. Myat Saw, a Burmese gentleman and passed my Vassa lent in his Buddhist Centre at Oken Halt in his Buddhist Centre at Oken Hait in Farmoor near Oxford.  During this time, I happened to give every Saturday afternoon a talk on some Buddhist topic. After the rainy retreat was over, I returned to Shree Lanka.
Again, once more, at the request of Mr. and M rs. Jacksons of Bedford, I happened to go to England in 1979, and according to their arrangements did I give a series of talks on Buddhism to the Buddhist and non-buddhist groups in Oxford University, Cambridge University, Nottingham University, Lancaster University, Samatha-vihara at Manchester and the Buddhist monastery in Chithurst and many more places.  From that time onward, several times I visited Europe and America giving talks on Buddhism.  Thus nearly 14 years from 1979 1 travelled in England, Scotland, France, Sweden, Canada and USA at the requests of Buddhists over there giving talks and holding discussions over Buddhist subjects. Only a few of my talks have been published in periodicals like Middle way (of British Buddhist Society) and the majority remains only in manuscripts.
Mr. Ariyadasa Weeraman of Samayawardhtina Press showed a keen interest in  publishing them in book-form and the outcome is the present volume the first one of a series of volumes of this kind.  This first volume contains some of my talks and essays on meditation-methods and the like.
The reader of this booklet may find a series of talks given at Amaravati Vihara (of British Sangha Order) in Great Geddesden.  This volume contains only the talks about Citta (Consciousness) and the talks describing Cetasikas (Mental Characteristics,) Rupa (matter) and the like might he find in the succeeding volumes of this same series.
Here it will not be amiss to mention the name of the publisher, Mr. Ariyadasa Weeraman, due to whom some of my talks and writings have thus come out to satisfy the needs of those who are interested in gathering some knowledge of Buddha-dhamma. 
B. Anandamaitreya Thera.
Shree Nandarama,
Udumulle,
Balangoda,
Shree Lanka.,
05. 11. 93

                                                                   CONTENTS
	
 1	The Buddha and his teaching (a speech)	
 2	Household life (a speech)	
 3	Meditation (a speech)	
 4	Bodipakkhiya-dhamma (an essay)	
 5	The taking of Refuge (a speech)	
 6	What did the Buddha teach? (a speech)	
 7	Family Life (a speech)	
 8	Defilements of man (a speech)	
       Four factors of self progress (a speech)	
       Samatha-meditation and first Jhana	
  9	Two modes of speech (a speech)	
10	The Buddhist way to world peace (an essay)	
11	Nibbana (a speech)	
12	Development of Divine States (an essay)	
13	Abhidhamma (a series of talks)	
14	Anapana-sati (an essay)	
Index	
                                           The Buddha and His Teachings
                  (A speech delivered at the Buddhist monastery in New York, on 27. 06. 9 1)
The Buddha
Buddhism is the doctrine expounded by the Buddha.  It is not a dogma, nor a revelation made known by anysupernatural agency.  The Buddha, the expounder of this doctrine, was neither a god, nor a son of a god, nor an incarnation of a god, nor a prophet sent by such an agency.  He was a human being, a prince of the Sakyan clan of the Northernmost	part of ancient India, the son of a king called Suddhodana, who ruled over the I<ingdom of the Stkyans, situated at the foot of the Himalayan range.  The name given him by his parents was Siddhartha Gautama.  Though he was not a supernatural being, he was a prodigy, an extraordinary person, a rarest type of person.  He was brought up as any other child of a royal family and he lived amid the greatest luxuries, as his family was extremely rich and powerful.
But even from the days of his boyhood he was contemplative and mostly inquisitive, astute and shrewd.  He saw how men and animals suffered from the trials and tribulations of the world.  He was moved by wh ' at lie saw and grew up with compassion and pity for suffering mortals.  At last, when he was 29 years of age, leaving behind h.is awaiting throne and all his possessions, he went forth from home to homelessness in search of a teacher who could show him the way to freedom from all suffering.
His Discovery
He followed the instructions given him by the teachers who had claimed to have found the way to perfect release, but was not satisfied with the results.  At last, rejecting all those ways, after much struggle and experience, he discovered by himself the way, by which he attained to Full Enlightenment (Buddhahood). Thenceforth, he was recognised by his followers as 'The Buddha, the Enlightened One'.  He realised what the world or existence really is, how it is only a ceaseless flow of unsatisfactory states or suffering, how and why it continues to be so, what is the nature when it is ended and the way to put and end to this flow.  He called these four facts thefour great Truths.
After he attained to enlightenment, he spent full 45 years teaching the world his discovery, sharing his wisdom with others so that they could also tread the same path and free themselves from all suffering.  After the incessant service of 45 years, he passed away to the perfect peace of eternal bliss, Nibbana, the Summum Bonum.
Freedom in Buddhism
The Buddha's mcthod of teaching his hearers was absolutely unique and cannot be found in the teaching of any other world teacher of ancient days.  The Buddha encouraged people to think for themselves, to reason out and test for themselves, and not to be bound by any blind belief.  No dogmas find footing in his teachings.  The religion of Vedic sacrifice was the predominant cult followed by the majority of people in India at his time, and there were penalties for any infraction of the rules.  If a man of the so-called lowest caste listened to the recitation of the Vedas, his ears would be destroyed.  If any of the lowest caste uttered any passage of the Vedas, his tongue would be cut out.  If any person of the same low caste for any reason entered one of their holy centres and watched their ceremonies, his eyes would be gouged out.  All the people of other classes or castes should pay respect to and supply the needs of the Brahmins with no question whatsoever.  Such was the situation at one time in andient India, and at the time of the appearance of the Buddha, Brahmins held influence over the greater part of India.  Caste distnctions introduced by the Brahmins pervaded everywhere in the country.  Womankind had no freedom whatever and were just like the slavesi of their husbands.  The Buddha came forward and criticized the enslaving ways of the Brahmins.  He emphasized the importance of free thought and encouraged people to think and reason for themselves, without being enslaved by dogmatic beliefs.  There was no 'Just anger' just greed' 'just killing' just plundering' 'just falsehood' orthe like approved of by the Buddha. 
One day the Buddha, accompanied by a number of disciples, was journeying along the high road.  As it was getting dark, he took lodgings for the night in a rest-house reserved for the members of royal families.  In those days rulers allowed the monks, recluses and ascetics to use their rest-houses as their temporary lodgings.  A leader of a religious movement also came on his way to the same place, came to the same rest-house and took lodcings in another part, with his disciples.
Towards evening, some of the Buddha's disciples, who were walking up and down in the compound of the building, over-heard a heated discussion between the ascetic teacher and his chief disciple.  The teacher was criticising the Buddha, his teachings and his disciples in rrzny ways, while his disciple was praising them in many ways.  They were quite contrary to each other in their views.
The following morning, those bhikkhus told the Buddha about what they had heard the previous evening.  Thereupon the Buddha advised them, saying, "Brethren, when you hear others speak ill of me, my teaching or my followers, don't let it hurt your feelings, don't get angry. If you are hurt and get angry, how could you judge whether they were right or not right in their criticism?  Be impartial on such occasions and think about what they say of us.  When you see they were not correct, and if you feel it is necessary, tell them where they were wrong, but do not be hurt.  If you are hurt on that account, it will be a hindrance to your self-development. Suppose others praise me, my teachings or my disciples, don't be proud on that account either. if you be proud, how could you judge whether they were right or wrong in their praise?  Be impartial and judge.  If you see they were right, approve of that, but do not be proud.  If you were proud on that account, it would also be an obstacle to your own spiritual development".  This is the Buddha's way.
Blind Faith
On another occasion he said, "Brethren, when I speak to you, don't accept it blindly, because you love and respect me. But examine it and put it to test, as a goldsmith examines gold by cutting, heating and hammering it to know whether it is genuine gold or counterfeit.  If you see it is reasonable, only then accept and follow it." This is the Buddha's way.  This is how the Buddha encouraged everyone to think things through for himself.
In some religions you are warned and asked to believe what they teach, lest their god would consign you to hell.  There is no such punishment, even a curse imposed by the Buddha on others who would not believe him.
As regards the ritual of worship, it  has no place in the Buddha's teachings.You might ask why Buddhists place flowers etc. before the Buddha image.  What Buddhists do in that way is Just showing their gratitude to the greatest teacher for his lifelong, unselfish service done for humanity by teaching and guiding the world along the right path. it is not a ritual at all.
Whether you pay homage to the Buddha or not, it is not as important as living a wholesome life, following the path shown by him.  One day, one of the Buddha's disciples, who was deeply devoted to and adoring him, was sitting before him gazing at his saintly and most handsome form.
The Buddha new that and told him.  "What is the use of looking at this body, a mass of flesh and bones etc., go from here and look at the Dhamma (I. e. practise virtues, follow the Path)."Whether you make such homage or not, it is not so important as living a wholesome life, pure in deed, word and thought.  If you try to be pure in your life this way, you are a real follower of the Buddha.
Advice to the Kalamas
One day, the Buddha visited a townlet called Kesaputta, Then some princes of a clan named Kalama came to the Buddha and told him,"Ven.  Sir, various teachers come to our townlet from time to time and expound different teachings. One teacher says one thing and another gives quite a contradictory teaching.  This happens over and over again.  When we listen to them we get puzzled, and we cannot understand which one is correct and which one is wrong."
Thereupon, the Buddha said, "It is no wonder that a man gets puzzled when he hears teachings contradictory to each other but I tell you this: "Don't accept a thing merely because it is handed down by tradition, don't accept a thing merely because many people repeat it, don't accept a thing merely on the authority of the sage who teaches it, don't accept a thing merely because it is found in the so-called holy scriptures, don't accept a thing merely because probability Is In its favour, don't accept a thing merely because you have Imagined it, or it is inspired (by some supernormal agency). After examination, after testing it for yourself, if you find it Is reasonable and is in conformity with your well being and the well being of others as well, then accept it and follow it."
Respect for other Teachers
From the Buddhist point of view, one should never ridicule a great teacher merely because he was not a Buddhist in name. There were great teachers like Zoroaster, Confucious, Laotzu, Jesus and many others.A Buddhist should not disparage them.  If one disparages any of them, he does it from disdain, which is against the Buddha's teachings.  Thus freedom of investigation and religious tolerance are encouraged in Buddha's teachings.
This broad-minded approach is clearly seen in the account Buddha.  Upaii was a follower of of Upali's.meeting with the Jainism.  He came to the Buddha with aview to dispute on some points of the Buddha's teachings.  But at the close of the discussion, he was convinced and declared that he wanted to become a Buddha's follower and that he would stop his support of the Jain monks whom he had regarded highly for a long time.  Butthe Buddha advised, "Consider further, don't be in a hurry to follow me.  Don't stop supporting those Jain monks whom you have treated respectfully for so long."
There is another account of a certain wandering recluse who had a discussion with the Buddha concerning the differences between each other's doctrines, at which the Buddha said, --Well, my friend, though we discuss our views and practices, don't think that I am trying to convert you to my side.  I	don't want to do so.  You may go on your own way but let us see whether we both practise as we teach."
Thus there is full freedom of thought and speech in the teachings of the Buddha.  You can even be critical of the Buddha or his teachings.  But remember, this freedom is extended  to all people, so you Should not get angry when others say things with which you do not agree.  Listen to them and judge impartially whether they are right or wrong.  This is the Buddha's way.
Disease and Cure
Most of the great teachers taught their followers  to worship a god and tried to explain how the world was originated and so forth.  The Buddha, on the other hand, taught that to find answers to the problem of the origin of the world and the like, was not at all helpful in finding the answer to the question of suffering or     universal unsatisfactoriness.  Suppose a physician goes to a patient suffering from a serious illness.  What does he do there?  He would diagnose the illness, find its cause, decide whether it is curable and prescribe a suitable treatment.  Even though the patient might be interested in getting some astrono,-nical or geological questions answered, the physician would not listen to him and would not neglect his duty, because he knows how serious the patient's condition is.
The Buddha was just like the physician in this illustration. He served the world as the physician for the mind's maladies. The beings in the world suffer from so much distress because of their mental maladies.  There is greed in their mind; anger, pride, selfishness, miserliness, jealousy and many defilements of the same sort. The root cause of all these maladies is ignorance.  All beings (human and non-human) have become slaves of these mental maladies, due to which they commit all types of wrong deeds, speak wrong words and think wrong thoughts, causing pain both to themselves and to others. The Buddha directed his teachings towards the cure of all this suffering.
The Root of the Problem
Whether the universe has a beginning or does not have a beginning, the knowledge of such things has nothing to do with the cure of our sufferings.  What we have to do is to realise the nature of the mental maladies, which bring us all sorts of sufferings both mental and physical; their cause, their cure and the way thereto.  The Buddha guides us to realise these four facts.  There are specific steps that must be taken to achieve this realisation.
The first step is to build good character within you.  You have to refrain from wrong deeds, wrong speech and wrong ways of earning your living.  This is the foundation you have to lay, on which you have to erect the building of spiritual development, which consists of two kinds of development, the development I of mental calm and the development of insight.  To develop mental calm, you have to develop concentration of mind, for which there are forty methods given in the Buddhist scriptures, out of which one is to be chosen suitable to your temperament.
The last step is to examine yourself to understand what you really. are.  You have to examine your physical body, and investigate to see whether there is anything permanent or unchanging within your body.  As a result of this investigation you will see that the body is a collection of ever-changing material states and that there is nothing permanent in them.  There is instability in them as they are always arising and vanishing and thus there is no eg6-entity to be found therein.
As well as realising the exact nature of your body in this way, you have to examine the mind.  As you go on analysing and scrutinizing your mind, you will find that what you call your mind is just a stream of rising and vanishing mental states in which there is no substance and that every mental state is subject to change.  They are arising and vanishing more rapidly than the material states of your body, and there is no ego-entity there either.  When you come to their understanding of your body and mind, your ignorance as to their nature disappears before the wisdom that dawns at the moment of this full realisation of your own true nature.  When you look at the external things from the same perspective, you will see that the whole world is of the same nature as your own body and mind.  You will see clearly that there is nothing in the world that is fit to be attached to, that there is nothing to be angry with, nothing to be taken as an ego-entity.  When you achieve this understanding of life in the world, you will also see the opposite side - the unconditioned, unchanging, eternal state of perfect calm and serenity free from all suffering.
To achieve this goal it requires no worship, no ritual, no belief in any dogma.  The only thing you have to do is to know yourself perfectly.
In brief, the Buddha's way is the way to self-understanding, the way to self-purification, the way to free oneself from slavishness to the deceptive world of the senses.

                                           Household Life
                    (A talk given at Dharmavijaya Vihara, in Los Angeles, on 2nd October 1990)
Some scholars who have read very little of Buddhist literature have stated that Buddhism is a religion meant only for persons that have renounced household life.  Still others have tried to show it as a kind of pessimistic religion.  Some others due to their prejudice or poor knowledge of Buddhism, have tried from their opinionatedness to prove that Buddhism is it kind of religion hostile to worldly progress.
But the unprejudiced and broad-minded scholars have honestly and openly praised it and declared its greatness and practicability for every stage of life.  One of the great Pali scholars, the late Mrs. Rhys Davids has said in the introduction to the English translation of Sigalovada-suttanta in Digha-nikaya: 
"This Suttanta is called the Vinaya of the Houseman.  Hence ...... in one who practises what he has been taught in it, growth is to be looked for, and not decay, and truly we may Say even now of this Vinaya, I or the code of discipline, so fundamental are the human interests involved, so sane and Wide is the wisdom that envisages them, that the utterances aire as fresh and practically as binding today and here as they were then at Rajagaha.  Happy would have been the village or the clan on the banks of the Ganges, where the people were full of the kindly spirit of fellow-feeling, the noble spirit of justice which breathes through these naive and simple nyings.  Not less happy would be the village, or the family on the banks of the Thames today, of which this could be said" 
This world is like a school in which there are beings of varied mental levels.  A teacher uses toys and pictures and the like when he teaches the children of the kindergarten section.  To the boys of the middle forms are taught lesions suitable to their standard.  To the students of the highest forms are taught lessons dealing with higher subjects like higher mathematics etc.
The Lord Buddha saw the world as a school of many formsforms and gave his instructions suitable to the mental levels of his hearers.
One day a poor Brahmin came to the Lord Buddha and said "Master Gautama, I am a poor person and I am going to a distant city seeking a job with a view to earn some wealth.  Will you kindly give me some instructions in order to be successful in my job." The Lord agreed and instructed himon the way to success in his works.  So the Brahmin returned as a man of riches.
On another occasion the Lord on his tour of service to the world arrived at a village called Veludvara-gama. The villagers came to him and said "Lord, we are householders following varied jobs for maintenance of our families, and thereby we are full of responsibilities. We have no time to devote to higher religious practices. We expect from you some instructions only for two things, life in peace and to be born into a happy state after death."  The Lord saw their mental tendency and gave an instruction suiting their need.
Now let us see what the Lord has accumulation of wealth. One day the Lord addressed lay devotees, and said: "Householder, there are five merits of What are the five?
A wealthy person can live a healthy, happy and long life supplyng all his needs.  This is the first merit of the wealth.
A wealthy person can look after his parents when they are sick or old or in need of his support.  This is the second merit of the wealth.
A wealthy person can support his wife and children supplying all their needs, This is the third merit of the wealth.
A wealthy person can help his relatives, friends, servants and others.  This is the fourth merit of the wealth.
There are recluses and priestswho have given up household life and devoted their time for higher religious practices. As they depend on the support of the laity, a wealthy person could support them and become a sharer of their virtues which would conduce him to be born into a happy state after death. This is the fifth merit of the wealth."
In the Mangala  Sutta the Lord has expounded 38 beatitudes out of which, to look after parents, is an important one which has been mentioned in the Sutta in his own  words as 'Mata-pitu-upatthanam".  The next one is "Puttadarassa sangaho" which means "To look after wife and children is a beatitude."
"Natakananca sangaho" To treat relatives and friends is another beatitude."
In many a place the Lord has advised his followers of "Ubhayattha-patipada" to work for the well being both of oneself and of others.
According to some religions it is hard for a rich man to enter heaven.  But according to Buddhism it is easier for a rich man to enter heaven, if he properly spends his wealth, fulfilling his duties.  It is not wealth but miserliness and other wrong ways that obstruct the way to heaven.  So the Lord Buddha said:
"Na ve kadariya -deva - lokam vajanti" which means "Certainly the miserly cannot go to heaven (whether they are rich or poor)."
The Lord praising the wealthy who are generous has said: "Datva ca bhutva ca yathanubhavam. Anindito saggamupeti thanam"
This means "The generous rich man gives or helps others and enjoys himself, too, and is praised here and will go to heaven after death." 
Now the question is "How should one earn wealth?  What has the Lord said about it?"
In many a discourse like Ujjaya-Sutts, VyagghapajjaSutta, Sigalovada-Sutta, instructions for being successful in earning wealth, as expounded by the  Lord, have been mentioned in detail.
One day Vyagghapajja the Lord for some instruction concerning success life and hereafter. The Lord instructed him on how to be successful and happy in both the lives.
"To be successful in business and others  affairs in this life, the Lord said, 'a person should be endowed with four things' namely Utthana-sampada, arakkha-samps tata and samajivikata.  Here the first one is utthana sampada which means achievement of indefatigable effa should be energetic and active.  He should try the nature, not fearing slight cold, slight and the like.  Sometimes he may fail in obstacles, but by that much he should not lool should tryover and over again.  At last ho ful.  At every step', the Lord said, "he sh far-seeing and cautious."
The second thing a businessman should be possessed of has been expounded by the word "arakkha-sampada" which means ,the achievement of awareness': This implies to be careful in not wasting what one earn . The Lord said that there were many ways which would bring decay to one's wealth and therefore one should be careful and vigilant in keeping one's wealth.  Sometimes fire or flood and the like might consume his wealth.  Sometimes one's ill-disposed heirs would try to take away one's wealth.  If one falls into bad habits of gambling, debauchery in sex and drunkenness, before long one would be dragged down to poverty.  One should be loyal to the government, otherwise one's wealth would possibly be confiscated.  As there are so many ways to a person's degradation, he must be vigilant and very careful in not wasting his wealth.
The third thing an earner should be possessed of is Kalyana - mittata which means, to have good companions, who instruct, help and encourage him in carrying out his business.  Suppose he could not find out good companions, then he should be careful not to fall into association with persons of evil ways.  It is better to keep oneself to oneself and carry out one's business alone.
"No ce labhetha nipakam sahayam ... eko care khagga-visana-kappo" is the Lord's advice, which means  "If you could not find a good companion, go on alone like a unicorn, and never have contact with a bad companion."
A person's kind parents and relatives or teachers, monks, recluses or priests,, whosoever are wise and compassionate, who hope his success are his good friends or companions.
The fourth point is "Samajivikata" which means 'even or simple way of living' A person who continues his business should spend his money very carefully.  His expenditure should not exceed his income.  A salesman who carries his scales, when he holds up the balance is watchful and sees that by so much it has dipped down or by so much it has tilted up.  In the same way a person who follows any kind of business must be watchful so that his expenditure should not exceed his income, otherwise he would be unsuccessful in his effort.  If a person with small income imitates the ways of rich men of high income and tries to live on a grand scale, he will not be able to continue long the same way and fall into insolvency and his business will be a failure.  Therefore the lord advised every earner to live his life as simple as possible.  This does not mean that he should live meanly.  If his income is great and if he lives meanly as a stingy person, his effort in earning wealth is useless.  In his expending he should be neither too high nor two low.  This is what the Lord has meant by 'even way of living'.
In Sigalakovada-sutta (in Digha-nikaya), we see the Lord's advice to youth Sigalaka with reference to using one's income In the following stanza: "Ekena bhoge bhunjeyya, dvihi kamman payolaye" Catutthm ca nldhapeyya, apadasu bhavissati."
"Let him divide the Income into four portions.  Out of the four, one portion should be used for his daily expences. Two portions should be used for the progression of his business. One portion should be deposited carefully for the use in future in the case of  any failure or bancruptcy."
The Lord has never praised poverty. He has said "Daliddlyam dukkham loke kamabhogino" which     means  "Poverty is an ordeal for a person living a household life who enjoys pleasures".
Thus the Lord's advice to householders was to try to earn wealth and to spend it in proper way and thus to live a useful life.
Speaking about the merchant who would be successful in his business the Lord said: "A salesman should know the quality of goods he buys, he should know their price and the amount of profit he gains on the sale of those goods.  He should be skilled in the art of buying and selling.  He should be honest and trustworthy so that highly rich persons would deposit their money under his care". 
On another occasion the Lord said that a trader should be active in his businessthroughoutall the three parts of the daytime: morning, noon and afternoon and that if he be Inactive and lazy he would not be successful. 
There are some Persons, simple-living and contented with a little amount of income.  They do not want to become rich as they like to live a simple life. But if a person expects to do a great service, to help the people who are in need of his help, he should try to earn much. wealth by right means, he should be virtuous and energetic.  A real follower of the Lord, that expects to earn I wealth, will certainly be a rich man before long, if he vigilantly follows the Lord's instructions.
Once when the Lord visited the village Pataligama, he addressed his lay devotees and said that the really virtuous person was vigilant and energetic and thereby would be successful in his business and earn a great mass of wealth. (Digha N. Mahaparinibbana-sutta, Patali gam.)
At this point one might question: "Is poverty not a result of an unwholesome Karma of a previous life?"
According to Buddhism, poverty may be a result either of a past Karma or of a present Karma or of the both.  But most of such Karmas can be suppressed and overcome by wise and far-seeing steps one takes at present life.
"Atthekaccani papa-kammani payoga-sampatti-patibalhani" There are certain unwholesome karmas which can be suppressed and overcome by means of wise and strong steps taken in this life (Mahaniddesa). Most often it depends on the present situation that. a past Karma good or bad rises up and finds opportunity to give its result.  Therefore the effort that Is made at present is the pre-eminent cause of a person's progress or failure in the case of the majority of people.  Utthahatha ma pamadattha (get up, loiter not) is the Lord Buddha's frequent advice to the world.
Let us see further what the Lord Buddha has said concerning wealth and other necessities of life.
Dasa ime bhikkhave dhamma ittha  kanta manapa lokasmim.  Katame dasa? Bhoga bhikkhave ittha kanta manapa dullabha lokasmim, vanno ittho kanto manapo dullabho lokasmim, arogyam itcham kantam manapam dullabham lokasmim, silani itthani kantani manapani dullabhani lokasmim bramhacariyam ittham kantam manapam dullabham lokasmim, mittani itthani kantani manapani dullabhani lokasmim. bahusaccam ittham kantam manapam dullabham  lokasmim, panna ittha kanta manapadullabha lokasmim, dhammo ittho kanto manapo dullabho lokasmim, sagga ittha kanta manapa dullabha lokasmim

This means: "Brethren, these ten things desirable, pleasing and charming are hard to achieve in the world.  What are the ten?  Wealth, brethren, is desirable, pleasing and charming, but hard to achieve in the world.  Beauty, health, virtues, holy religious life, true friends, erudition, wisdom, genuine Dhamma, to be born in heavens - each of these things is desirable, pleasing and charming, but hard to achieve."

"Imesam bhikkhave dasannam dhammanam dasa dhamma 	paripantha.	Katame dasa? Alassam anutthanam bhoganam paripantho, amanadanam avibhusanam vannassa paripantho, asappaya-kiriya     arogyassa paripantho, papamittata silanam paripantho, indriya-asamvarao bramha-cariyassa paripantho, visam-vadanam mittanam  paripantho, asajjhaya kiriya bahusaccassap aripantho, asussusa aparipuccha pannaya paripantho, ananuyogo apaccavekkhana  dhammassa  paripantho, miccha-patipatti sagganam paripantho." 

This means: "Brethren, to these ten things desirable, pleasing and charming and hard to achieve in the world, ten things are obstacles.  What ten?  Laziness and lack of activity is the obstacle to wealth.  Lack of finery and lack of adornment are the obstacles to beauty.  Following unhygienic ways is the obstacle to health.  Association with persons of foul character is the obstacle to virtues.  Unrestraint of senses isr the obstacle to life of holy celibacy.  Deceiving is the obstacle to friends.  Lack of recitation and re-reading is the obstacle to erudition.  Not to listen and not to ask questions is the obstacle to wisdom.  Lack of practice and contemplation Is the obstacle to achievement of true.  Dhamma.  Getting on to evil way is the obstacle to birth in heavens."
A person who expects to   achieve success either in' the worldly or in the religious life should get out of and avoid these obstacles and follow the way of growth and success as follows: The Lord said:

"Dasahl bhikkhavevaddhihi vaddhamano arlya-savako ariyaya vaddhiya vaddhati saradayl ca hoti varadayl kayassa.  Katamehl dasahl?  Khetta-vatthuhi vaddhati, dhana-dhannena vaddhati, putta-darehi	vaddhati, dasa-kammakara-porisehl vaddhati, catuppadehi vaddhati, saddhaya vaddhati sliena vaddhati, sutena, vaddhati, cagena vaddhati pannaya vaddhati. 

This means:"Brethren, by increasing in ten growths the Aryan disciple (a noble. lay follower of a Buddha) grows in the Aryan growth, takes hold of the essential, takes hold of the best for his person.  What ten?  He grows In landed property, in 'wealth and granary, children and wife In servants and workmen, in four-footed beasts (ie.  cattle and sheep); he grows in faith, and virtue, in erudition and in generosity and wisdom."
From these words of the Lord Buddha, it is very clear that he has valued the laymen's growth in wealth and every aspect of family life as an aryan growth (i.e. a. life valued and praised by the Aryans, the Buddhas and their holy disciples).

                                            Meditation (on Mindfulness) 
                      (a Talk at Vedanta Centre Santa Barbara (California on July 19, 1986)
First of all I must thank Swamiji and the Vedanta nuns for inviting me to give a talk on this important occasion, The talk will be on "Meditation (on Mindfulness) ., in practice.  I will try to explain, from Buddhist point of view, mindfulness and its development.
When we think of mindfulness, first of all we must understand what unmindfulness is.  There are so many things which are on the opposite side of mindfulness: lack of attention, carelessness, absentmindedness, forgetfulness, negligence and neglect.  So,, in this way, we have to understand the harm that unmindfulness might bring to us, 'co our spiritual life as well, 'as to our daily life.  From this way we can understand, little by little, the value of mindfulness.
For example, suppose there is some dirt in a dark corner of a house.  The householder doesn't care because, at first, there is very little dirt in that d ark nook.  Every day, gradually some more debris collects there.' Even though sometimes he goes to that side of the house and sees the dirt, he thinks, 'Oh, this is very little.  Some otherday I will clear it up" But he doesn't do an 'thing about it.  He attends to other works instead.  Day by day this dirt collects.  After some months, when he sees that it is a heap of dirt, he then begins to think that it would be very difficult to remove it all at once.  "I will get somebody to remove it some day."
A year passes. What happens?  Suddenly the members of the house feel a little sick. Some strong odor comes from somewhere, but they are not so attentive to know from where it comes.  So after awhile they get sick and have to see a doctor and receive treatment.  For the time being, they get better.  But again they get sick.  They don't know why, because they simply can't find out the reason for the sickness.  However, the thorough doctor discovers the cause of all the trouble: the heap of dirt has become a cradle of mosquitoes, cockroaches, and other harmful insects.  Thus, at last they have to remove the whole amount of refuse.  However, it is very difficult because there are many layers, due to the age of the debris.  After it is removed and that part of the house is cleaned, all ill health disappears.
That is the nature of carelessness: it becomes a cause of so much harm and danger, even to the body.  Similarly, it is the case with our lives.  Just as unmindfulness, with regard to our external environment, can bring us trouble, so 'it' is unmindfulness that can create serious problems in business affairs and trade, as well as in the affairs of state.  However, unmindfulness plays still greater havoc with our inner life, if we are not cautious. The failure to achieve full knowledge of one's own nature is the worst and greatest loss, said the Lord Buddha.  In this connection, I will explain how the neglect of even a slight defect can bring great harm to oneself.
Sometimes a person may carelessly seek a fight.  For fun he pretends to be tough.  At the start it is fun and playfulness but later it becomes a habit.  In short, he turns into a quarrelsome person.  He doesn't care."These are simple things," he may think. But, due to negligence, his behaviour becomes a habit. As habits leave some impressions in the dark nook of the mind, these impressions, lying dormant, cannot be rooted out, because he is not attentive.  Instead, they grow slowly and develop into hindrances to spiritual development.  They may also develop to such an extent that they become the source of crimes and acts of aggression.
Again, sometimes one may see a beautiful person of the opposite sex, and feel some kindness.  He understands that he has a kind or loving feeling towards that person.  Of course, love, kindness, and unselfishness are virtues. And this kindness brings both people together as friends to help each other in need. Kindness is a very good thing. But, little by little, due to carelessness, this kindness, or love, may turn into lust.  At the start, it appears to be a virtue-a very good quality of his heart.  But due to unmindfulness, it turns to lust one day and impels them to live an immoral life together.
Sometimes a person may dislike a wayward person.  He other person's is not angry with him, but he doesn't like the evil ways. This dislike for wayward people or their bad deeds is good, but if he is not mindful enough, gradually he will begin to get angry.  At last there may arise within his heart some sort of hatred.  Thus he may develop into a hot-tempered person.  Dislike for bad people is good, but hatred or anger is not. One should not be angry with anybody-even for a wrong deed.  Thus, if you are fiot careful. you might be affected by anger.
Lust, hatred, jealousy, pride. and such other unwholesome states, arising in the heart, spoil one's whole being.  The original cause of all these defilements of the heart is unmindfulness, which is based on ignorance.  On the other hand, if a person tries to be attentive at every step of his life, let alone mindfulness in higher religious practices, such attentveness would undoubtedly lead to great success. if a child studies his lesson, with every word he must be mindful, otherwise some very important instructions may escape his notice.  It is then that he can understand and incorporate everything perfectly.  On one occasion the Buddha said, "Sati sabbatthika." This means, "Mindfulness is advantageous in every activity." On another occasion he said, "All successful practice could be expressed in one word; that is apparnada, which means vigilance," or "mindfulness."
Generally the Buddha advised his disciples, both monks and laymen, not to step beyond the boundary, and the boundary is mindfulness, whicil is to be developed in four ways. termed as four satipatthanas.
The four requisites necessary for every living being to maintain himself or herself are: a covering for the body, food and drink, a place to rest, and medical treatment. The Buddha advised his disciples to use these requisites mindfully. That is why Buddhist monks and nuns maintain silence when they use such requisites.  When they don their robes, they should meditate: "I don this robe not to decorate the body or enhance my beauty, but just to cover my nakedness and keep it free from the effects of heat and cold and insects." Similarly, when they eat, it is with the thought, "I take this just to remove my hunger and thirst and to keep my health in order to live a pure, religious life-never for the sake of enjoyment or to gratify my greediness, When they sit or lie down, they must muse on the purpose of sitting or lying down, thus: "I use this seat or bed to give me rest, to protect me from the effects of wind. and heat and insects.  The purpose of giving refreshment to the body is to continue my religious life successfully, and never for the sake of enjoyment." And then, when, they take some medicine, they have to be mindful of the purpose of taking medicine-that is, to remove ill health and to keep well.  So, every moment, they have to be mindful.
In every activity we have to be mindful.  Mindfulness applied to higher and higher practices will certainly give higher and higher results.  When one keeps precepts one should always be attentive that one does not break any rule.  Thus, in observing precepts and in keeping vows, one must be ever mindful not to allow one's thoughts to wander toward the objects of temptation.  It is only when one is unmindful, that a rule or vow is broken.
Keeping precepts, or building good character, is the foundation for the development of higher virtues.  And for the sake of his inner development, a person of good character must practise meditation.
There are two types of meditation practices, as taught by the Buddha. One practice leads to ecstatic trances, reducing the grossness of the mind step-by-step, inviting more and more calmness, peace, serenity, and purity to the heart and mind.  The other kind of meditation, not only brings peace of mind, but also opens the mind's eye to see perfectly the exact nature of oneself and others.  In brief,  it leads the aspirant to clear comprehension both the nature of the world and the nature of that which is beyond the world.
The first kind of meditation begins by fixing the mind on one point, which eventually leads it away from all tempting objects. There are forty objects of meditation, approved in the Buddhist system of meditation, one of which the expert meditation teacher chooses as suitable for the practitioner. For a beginner, the practice of fixing the attention on the spot where the breath  touches the nostrils is recommended as being very fruitful.  Starting with mindful attention on his breath,	the aspirant has to rise in his practice, step-by-step, passing through the eight different grades of ecstatic trances.  When lie rises, at last, to the trance of extreme fineness of mind, wherein he feels his mind is neither conscious nor unconscious, he has come to the consummation of  his  concentration development. Throughout this practice, he must be mindful and attentive to the object on which his mind is fixed.

A person who has developed his mindfulness to such a level still has not yet attained to full reedom from suffering. He has only	suppressed all mental defilements and  their consequences. 	As a result of this kind of inner development, he is said to be reborn after death into a higher and finer state of life. He may live in this blissful state for aeons of years, but would return to this gross plane of the world after the force of ecstasy (he has accumulated by means of his practice) is exhausted.

Now he has to practise the other line of meditation: the practice of vipassana.  It is very easy for a person who has developed concentration and mindfulness to turn his channel to the practice of vipassana.  Vipassana is the method of investigating the conditioned things of the world from various angles.  It is the development of introspection.
The practitioner of this system must start with something conditioned. The most important and useful object of one's search is oneself.  The aspirant must first examine and rnei)tally analyze his body.  Any part of the body, he can examine and analyze how it has been formed and of what sort of things it consists.  Applying his mindfulness at every step of this self-examination, the aspirant must analyze his; entire body.  Eventually he will realise that every part of his body is impermanent, subject to change, aging and disease and lacking abiding substance.  He will find that the entire body is just an -lspect of nature, it is impersonal and does not belong to him.  The body exists because of certain conditions and when these conditions ceases the body dies.  This is the law of' nature.
After analyzing the nature of his body, the aspirant should examine his mind-how thoughts, images and emotions arise and pass away, If he keenly examines his mind, he will find that all mental states are yet faster in their momentary change than gross material states.  The mind is impermanent, is the cause of suffering and dissatisfaction, and it is impersonal, lacking any abiding substance.  He will see that "me and mine" are only concepts created by his thinking process.
When the aspirant comes to the culmination of this practice, he will see the exact nature of the conditioned world.  At this stage, he will also see its opposite side which is the Unconditioned, Unmade, the Real, and the Eternal. This is the end of his religious practice.  At all these steps, mindfulness plays the prominent role.  Without mindfulness, no success is to be expected.

                                             Bodhipakkhiya-dhamma
                                              (37 Constituents of Enlightenment)

                                                                           (An Essay)

What we conventionally call 'mind' is not an unchanging entity -but a stream of various kinds of consciousness going forward rising and vanishing, successively.  Each and every consciousness of this mind-stream is associated with a number of mental characteristics or mental properties which are termed 'Cetasikas'  in Pali.  Some of those mentals are beautiful or wholesome, some are unwholesome (bad) or ugly and some others are neither good nor bad but neutral atii imitating the good or bad mentals they associate with.
A consciousness which arises together with unwholesome or bad qualities like anger, jealousy and the like is called unwholesome consciousness (akusala-citta); and that which arises together with kindness, compassion and the like is called wholesome consciousness (Kusala-citta).  For details of the different types of consciousness one may read pages 12-72 of -A Manual of Abhidhamma by Ven. Narada.
Among the types of wholesome consciousness (Kusalacittas), some deal with the objects (arammana) of the Sensesphere (Kama-loka) and they are called Kamavacara-cittas (consciousness as experienced in the Sense-sphere).
Some persons who are tired of sensual pleasures, with a view to get out of Sense-sphere and to be born into a subtle material sphere, develop a kind of concentration suppressing the desire for sensuality, anger and such other unwholesome states of mind and attain to a level of mental state called Jhana (Absorption). After death they will be reborn into a-subtle material realm which is called Rupaloka in Pali. 
Still some others who are tired of the life in the Rupaloka level, practise a kind of meditation suppressing the desire for entire material existence and rise upto a mental level at which they may be, able to remain as pure mental beings with /no material support at all.  But when the force of will that they have developed to exist in that state is exhausted, they will come back to a life where there is a physical support.  The afore-mentioned pure mental sphere is called Arupa-loka. in Pali.
The types of consciousness belonging to the afore-said three spheres or levels are all mundane or worldly and the existence in all those three levels are subject to change, decay and death.
Some persons who see and understand the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality (anattata) of the existence of this threefold world, expect to get out, of them and to attain supramundane peace and try to tread a path that leads to expected Goal.  The eternal Peace they expect to attain is called Nibbana in Buddhist terminology.  This state of Nibbana is achieved by means of full realization of the nature of the world and that beyond the world, in other words, by realization of Four Great Truths or Full Enlightentment (Bodhi).
The virtues a man practises with a view to achieve any kind of welfare in any of the three ' spheres of the world are called mundane good karmas (lokiya-kusala-kammas).  They do not side with the path that leads to Enlightenment.
The Path to Enlighte nment (Bodhi) consists of three grades of practices namely, Sila (building of morally good character), samadhi (control of mind) and vipassana (development of insight or looking into one's own life and the life of others, investigating them and realising what they really are).
When a person practises vipassana properly, he is always mindful and keeps his mind under control.
The meditator tries to understand the thing he calls "I". He analizes himself mentally and sees what he calls "I" is nothing but mind and body.  He examines his body thoroughly and finds at last 'it is   a collection of ever changing material states    and understands that all those material states are impermanent (anicca), and continually rising and vanishing with no rest at all, thus restless (dukkha) and lacking any unchanging substance (anatta). After perceiving the three signata of  the physical side of his life he turns towards his mind. When he keenly examines his mind he perceives mental states rise and vanish, and that every thought or consciousness ; that arises falls away momentarily together with its allied mental states (cetasikas). Thus he perceives impermanence (anicca). restlessness (dukkha) and non-ego entity (anatta) of the mental side of his life.
By inference qe sees the same nature of the lives of  other beings.
When he practises Vipassana In this way, the types of consciousness and mental characteristics that arise in the moments of his understanding are naturally siding with the realization of the nature of life. In other words, they are siding with Bodhi (realisation) and they are not inclined to the desire for existence in the world.
In a fight the soldiers who go forward to attack their enemies are counted as the heroes of the battle. Though there are with them the servants who supply food and other requisites for them the latter are not called heroes. Likewise in this spiritual fight against the ignorance and attachment to the world, only those mental characteristics (cetasikas) and consciousness in which they arise are counted as the "Constituents of Enlightenment (Bodhi-pakkhiyas).
They are all 14 mentals (Cetasikas - consciousness) in brief and in detail when counted with their subdivisions are numbered as 37 states, which are called 37 constituents of Enlightenment (Satta-timsa-Bodhi-pakkhiya-dhammas). 
14 Nama-dhammas (mentals) and their 37 subdivisions known as Bodhi-pakkhiyas (Constituents of Gnosis) are as follows: 
I.	citta (consciousness in vipassana - javana) - 
cittiddhipada (impulsive consciousness as basis of success in practice)
II.	chanda (desire to practise) - 
chandiddhipada (desire for practice as basis for success)
III.	ekaggata (one-pointedness of mind). (of 4divisions) - 
samadhirdriya (one-pointedness as controlling faculty), 
samadhi-bala (one pointedness as power to dispel mental defilements).
samadhi-sambojjhanga (one-pointedness as a factor in realising truths).
samma - samadhi (right concentration as an action of fixing mind and all its states on the object of 
                                          vipassana meditatlon).
IV.	viriya (effort of 9 subdivisions) - 
4 Sammappadhanas (effort to prevent unrisen defilements, effort to dispel already arisen defilements, effort to produce wholesome states of mind, effort to develop already arisen wholesome states), 
viriyiddhipada (effort being a basis of success in vipassana practice), 
viriyindriya (effort in controlling faculty in vipassana-practice), 
viriyabala (effort to drive away opposing unwholesome states), 
      virlya-sam-bojjhanga (effort as an encouraging factor in Realization of truths), 
      sammavayama (effort as a factor pushing forward at every step of practice or treading the path).
V.  vitakka (shifting the mind on the object of vipassana)- Sammasankappa(Right thinking)
VI.	piti (joy, zest)  piti-sambojjhanga (zest or joy as an encouraging factor of the action of realizing truths)

VII. saddha (self - confidence, confidence in the Buddha or in meditation teacher) 2 kinds - 
       saddhindriy (confidence as a controlling faculty), 
       saddhabala (confidence as a power in dispelling opposing unwholesome states)

VIII. sati (mindfulness working in 8 ways - satindriya (mindfulness as a controlling faculty), sati-bala  (mindfulness as a power that dispells opposing unwholesome states) 
sati-sambojjhanga (mindfulnessas a factor in helping the realization of truths), 
sammasati (right mindfulness as a step on the path of practice), 
four satipatthanas (mindfulness developed in four ways in discerning the physical body, feelings, different types of consciousness that rise at every step of practice, and mental formations or ideas)
IX.	virati (3 kinds of abstentions) - 
Samma-vaca (abstention from wrong speech).. 
samma-kammanta (abstention from wrong actions), 
samma-ajiva abstention from wrong livelihood).

XII. passaddhi (tranquillity) - passaddhi-sambojjhanga (tranquillity of mind as a factor of realization of
 truths).

XIII.	panna (reasoning, Insight, understanding wisdom) working In five ways. - 
samma-ditthi (right view as to the nature of mind-m'atter-flow or right view of four truths), vimamsiddhipada (investigation as a basis of success in vipassana) 
pannindriya (insight as the contolling faculty in perceiving truths, 
panna-bala (insight and reasoning faculty as power In dispelling opposing unwholesome states or akusalas)
XIV.tatramajihatthata (equanimity)  Upekkha-sambojjhinga (balance of mind and mental states as a factor of    
        mind in realization of truths-)

synopsis
1.   citta                    cittiddhipada                                    1
2.   chanda               chandiddhipada                                1
3.   ekaggata             samadhindriya,                                4
samadhi-bala, 
samadhi-sambojjhanga
sammasamadhi
4.   virlya                 4 sammappadhanas                           9
viriyiddhipada
viriyindriya
viriya-bala
virlya-sambojjhanga
sammavayama	
5    vitakka                 sammasankappa                                1
6.   piti                       piti-sambojjhanga                              1
7.   saddha                 saddhindriya                                       2
                       saddha-bala
8.   sati                       satindriya,                                          8
      sati-bala, 
sati-sambojjhanga
sammasati
four - satipatthanas
  9. virati                  samma-vaca                                        3
                                samma-kammanta
                                samma-ajiva
10. passaddhi          passaddhi-sambojjhanga                      1
11. panna                sammaditthi
viriyiddhipada
pannindriya
panna-bala,
      dhammavicaya-sambojihanga                                        5
12. tatramajjhatthata      upekkha-sambojjhanga                 1
                                                                                       37
Here is the list, of  37 factors of Gnosis (Bodhi-pakkhiya-dhammas) as given in the Texts:

Cattaro Satipatthana	            Four Ways of mindfulness                                          4
Cattaro Sammappadhana        Four kinds of Right efforts	                                     4
Cattaro lddhi-pada	            Four Bases or Supports of the success in practice       4
Panca lndriyani	            Five Mental Faculties                                                  5
Panca Balani	                        Five Mental Powers	                                                 5
Satta Bojjhanga	            Seven Factors of Enlightenment                                  7
Attha Magganga	            Eight Factors of the Path	                                     8
Satta-timsa Bodhi- Pakkhiya- Dham(37 constituents of Enlightenment (Gnosis))     37  

                                                                   Details
Cattaro Satipatthana, Kayanupassana, Vedananupassana, Cittanupassana, Dhammanupassana.
(Four ways of the development of Mindfulness: Development of mindfulness with regard to the  body, feelings, types of consciousness that arise at 	every moment, and the mental states and ideas that arise in mind at every moment).

Cattaro Sammappadhana: Uppannanam akusalanam dhammanam pahanaya vayamo, Anuppannanam akusalanam dhammanam anuppadaya vayamo, vimamsiddhipada, Anuppannanam kusalanam Dhammanam uppadaya vayamo, Uppannanam kusalanam dhammanam bhiyyobhavaya vayamo.

(Four kinds of Right Effort: Effort to reject or overcome unwholesome states of mind that have already arisen; Effort to avoid the arising of unwholesome states; Efforts to arouse the wholesome states rising in mind; Effort to develop the whole some states already arisen in mind.)
Cattaro iddhi-pada: Chandiddhipado Cittiddhipado, Vimamsiddhipada
(Four bases of success in attaining to full Realization: Excessive desire for completing the practice. as a basis; Effort for completing the practice as a basis.of success; Consciousness wholly devoted to complete the practice as a basis; Investigation (one aspect of reasoning faculty) as a basis of completing the practice).
Panca indriyani: Saddhindtiyam, Virlyindriyam, Satindriyam, Samadhindriyam, Pannindriyam.
(Five Controlling or ruling faculties among mental states which influence all other mentals at the practice and at the realization of truths as well: Controlling faculty of confidence, Controlling faculty of Effort or Energy, Controlling faculty of Mindfulness, Controlling faculty of Concentration and Controlling, faculty of Insight).
Panca Balani: Saddha-balam, Virlyabalam, Sati-balam, Samadhi - balam, Pannabalam.
(Five Mental Powers which oppose and dispell the opposing unwholesome Confidence, as a power of mind, Effort as a power of mind, Mindfulness as a power of mind, Concentration as a power of mind, and Insight (or full understanding) as a power of mind)
Satta Bojjhanga: Sati-sambojihango, Dhamma-vicaya sambojjhango, Viriya-sambojjhango, Piti-smbojjhango, Passaddhi - sambojjhango, Samadhisambojjhango-Upekkha-samb6jjhango.
(Seven Factors of Enlightenment: Mindfulness, Investigation of all states mental and physical and also those that lead to Realization, Supreme Effort, Joy at the Realization of Truths.
Tranqutllity that accompanies the Insight-knowledge, Concentration that accompanies the Insight-knowledge, The Mental Equipoise.)
Attha Magganga: Samma-diLthi, Samma-sankappo, Samma-vaca, Samma - kammantoSamma-ajivo, Samma-vayamo Sama-sati, samma-samadhi.
(Eight Factors of the Path: Right Und6rstanding, Right Thinking, Right Speech (abstention from wrong speech), Right Action (abstention from wrong actions), Right Livelihood (abstention from wrong livelihood), Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration).
Two ways of the Development of 37 constituents of Enlightenment.
The whole Buddhist Practice is divided into seven stages called "Seven Stages of Purification" (Satta - Visuddhiyo), namely Sila visuddhi (self-purification through. building perfectly good moral character), Citta-visuddhi (purification of mind through suppression of mental defilements by means of  concentration), Ditthi-visuddhi (purification of  view attained by means of  analizing bodily and mental states, Kankha-vitarana-visuddhi (self-purification attained by clearing doubts about the causes and conditions through investigation of the rising and vanishing natures of mental and physical states of one's life), Magga-Magga-nana-massana-visuddhi (purification of knowledge which discriminates between right and wrong ways at the attainment of some psychic powers which would deceive the Vipassana-meditator to wrongly think that he has attained Arahantship). Patipada-nana-dassana-visuddhi (purification of  self-knowledge through the development of nine kinds of Insights*), Nana-dassana-visuddiii (Full purification of   knowledge or attainment to Perfection of  Wisdom gradually eliminating mental defilements which occur at four stages, namely Stream-entry (Sotapatti), once-returnership (Sakadagami) Non-returnership (Anagami) and Perfection (Arahantship).

Now, according to the afore-given explanation there are Seven stages of purification, which is the whole practical Buddhism or the Path to Freedom from Suffering as shown by the Lord Buddha.  The afore-mentioned 37 constituents or factors of     Self-enlightenment (Bodhi-pakkhiya-dhammas) which arise in the thought-stream at the first six stages of Purification are called Mundane (lokiya) as the thought-stream in these practices deal with the conditioned states (i.e. mind and   matter), trying to realize their innate characteristics such as (impermanence (anicca-lakkhana), unsatisfactoriness or restiessness(dukkha-lakkhana) and non-ego-entity (anatta-lakkhana).

At the seventh stage (the last stage) of Purification, as it has opened the mind's eye to see both the sides namely conditioned states (i.e- the world) and the unconditioned (i.e- Nirvana), the Impulsive (javana) consciousness fixes itself fully for the first time on Nirvana.  Thus the thought-stream gets over or surpasses the worldly stage and rises upon the Supra-mundane level (Lokuttara or Ariya level).  On the four occasions(of stream-entry, once-returnership, non-returnership,and arahantship at last) mind (or impulsive consciousness) gradually eliminates mental defilements from mind.  The Purification of knowledge or insight that occurs in these four occasions  is called  Nanana-dassana-visuddhi (Purification of insight and vision)  and this one is on the supramundane level and the 37 constituents that arise in these four kinds of Supramundane Consciousness are called Supramundane 37 constituents of Enlightenment (Lokuttara-Bodhipakkhiya-dhamma). which arise together in each of the four SupraMundane Kusala-consciousness.  The four types of this supramundane consciousness are called Magga-cittas (Pathconsciousness).
Nin kinds of insight which form into the knowledge of the purification of the knowledge of the way are called Nava Maha-vipassana-nanas (nine great stages of the development of insight) they are as follows:
Udaya-nana insight which perceives the rise of the material and mental states every instant.

Vaya-nana insight which sees passing away  of all mental and material states immediately after they arise.

Bhanga-nana  insight  which perceives more clearly  the momentary dissolution of material states.

Bhaya-nana insight which perceives  the momentary dissolution of material and mental states -as a fear and danger

Adinava-nana -insight which sees the vanity, uselessness and wretchedness of the continuity of material and mental states which are subject to momentary rise and dissolution.

Nibbida-nana -insight which perceives and feels tired of and disgusted with the material and 	mental states so fearful.

Muncitukamyata-nana - insight which perceives and wills to get rid of material and mental states which are subject to such momentary death.

Patisankhanupassana-nana-insight which perceives impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and absence of any ego-entity to be the innate nature of all conditioned things.
Sankhartlpekkha-nana- insight which perfectly perceives the exact nature of conditioned things and thereby feels indifferent and balanced in mind.
Next to the ninth Insight (Sankharupekkha-nana) the meditator gets to the insight which sees nibbana hazily and gets over the worldly lineage (Gotrabhu-nana), which is followed by the stage of Stream-entry.  For details, see page 420 Nos. 44-48 in "A Manual of Abhidhamma" by Ven.  Narada.)

                                           Taking of Refuge in Practice
                               (A talk given at Dharmawijaya-Vihara on 24th May 1986)
People of a certain village were suffering from various kinds of chronic diseases.  Though they sought treatments from some so-called physicians they could not get perfectly cured.  Some of them got only a temporary relief.  Meanwhile they saw a stranger come into the village.  Very few of them understood from his physique that he was perfect in health. Of course, he was one of perfect health, a physician and a specialist of rare type. Some underwent his course of treatment and were perfectly cured.  They, too, learned from him his medical system and assisted him in his treating the sick.  After some years' service the teacher-physician turned over his service to his pupils and I eft the village. his pupilphysicians who had got perfectly cured had carried on the service of treating the sick very successfully for some time.
Some of their patients, while undergoing the course of their treatment, were secretly following another system which made their cases worse.  The pupil-physicians discovered the secret and promulgated a plan to keep them from failing into wrong ways.  They said to the patients at the beginning to remember that they were following the course of treatment established by their foremost physician, the specialist.  They made them repeat the formula I take refuge in the foremost physician, the specialist, his system of treatment and the example and admonition given by his pupil-physicians".  This method, for some periods of time, worked very successfully.  Meanwhi!e these patients and their physicians were named and labelled as 'The followers of the Specialist' to make themselves distinctive from those who followed other systems of treatment, who too were bearing labels after the system each followed.
On later days the majority of the followers of the Specialist, . only repeated their refuge formula but did not follow the treatment.  Only in name were they the followers of the Specialist or 'takers of the three refuges, only in name but not in practice.
To make the point still clearer I should give another illustration.  There was a village in the midst of a vast jungle.  This village was infested with harmful insects, interspersed with snakes and haunted by carnivorous animals.  Villagers happened to live their lives in much caution and horror.  One of the villagers, a very clever person, carefully surveyed throughout the whole jungle and reached its boundary, ' and going further on discovered a place, a city of perfect safety, which was beyond all kinds of dangers.  Then he returned to the jungle village, marking through the jungle and far out as far as the city of safety, the way to be trodden.  Thereupon, he went to the villagers and promulgated the glad tidings of the discovery of the city of safety and path thereto, Some followed the way marked out by him till they reached the said destination and enjoyed the bliss of security.  They too returned to the village and witnessed the genuineness of the discovery of the safety-city, and encouraged them to leave the village and to go to the city of safety.  Many went and experienced the same security as the previous ones.
There were some others who, wandering about in the jungle found out some areas near its boundary, which they conceived as safety spots.  Actually, they were less dangerous though not entirely free of dangers of the jungle.  These latter discoverers also guided the villagers, each to the spot he had conceived as safety.  Thus there were many paths through the jungle leading to different destinations, marked in different ways and made known separately after the name of their founders.
Many, as they were in a hurry to get out of this dangerous jungle habitat, chose each. a path according to his inclination and set - out on the journey.  They did so'because they were satisfied with the descriptions of those destinations as they had heard that the same or similar things they were accustomed to use at their jungle habitation were available in those new destinations as well.
But those who were more critical and possessing much more wit than the others preferred to go along the p'ath marked out by the discoverer of the safety city.  After some years of showing the path the discoverer gave his service in charge of his followers who had returned from the safety-city,	and left the village and took rest in the remote area of the safety-city, Thereafter, his followers carried on with the service turned over to them by their first guide, the discoverer of the safety-city.
A time passed.  Some travellers bound for the safety-city mistook the proper way dueto forgetfulness and fell into some other way and got lost in the jungle.  So the path-showers asked them to repeat the formula: "We are taking refuge in the path marked out by the discoverer of the safety-city", and to remember its meaning all the way as they trod. The repetition of this refuge formula helped them a great deal keeping them from falling into wrong ways.  Now after some time, those who were getting ready to go to the city of safety grew in number.  But, actually, very few of them set out.  The majority, only got ready repeating the path-goer's formula every day, turning their heads towards the path but looking back at their huts and small plantations round them, they put off their journey until another day.  Every now and then they would do the same thing.  They meanwhile criticized the trekkers of other paths saying that they were going in a wrong direction.  Let alone their departure, some of them that came forward as their teachers of the way were so degraded in their standing even to quarrel among themselves about the ownership of the huts.  But they remained there claiming "It is we who know the path; it is we who properly take refuge in the discoverer of the city of safety"
Suppose a man wants to go to a distant place.  He goes to the bus office and buys a ticket and loiters about with his friends talking of the value of the ticket, the value of the bus-service and of the skill of the bus driver and also composing songs in praise of them and singing them together with his companions.  But he does not get into the bus.  Towards evening he goes home.  He repeats the same thing every day and does not get into the bus.  For such a person neither the ticket, nor the bus or its driver can be reckoned to have been his refuge.He too cannot be reckoned as one who actually takes refuge in them.
The Lord Buddha was the One who discovered the way to full Freedom. Hence, we respect Him as our foremost teacher of the Path, the guide and the refuge. If there were no way to tread, even he couldn't do any thing for us.  If there is no goal we would be hopeless and a path or path-shower would not be possible.  So both the way and the goal are our refuge.  Those who followed after ,the foremost path-shower, the Lord Buddha, and attained Freedom, witnessed the genuineness of this path and thus became our helpers setting an example and giving out their experience.  By learning of these refuges we have to follow the way and the repeating of the refuge formula just reminds us not to get off the path.  The path and the goal are represented by the term Dhamma.  The travellers who have gone forth and entered the Stream (Sotapatti) and attained the further stages and finally the Arahantship are represented by the term Sangha.
Mere Repeating the refuge formula is just repeating the reminder. Unless we go along the path we cannot be reckoned as those who put the taking of refuge into practice.
The eight-factored Path, is the best of ways.
The four-worded truth is the best of truths.
Passionlessness is the best of states.
The One with the opened eye is the best of bipeds 
(273 Dhammapada)

Go along this way, for this bewilders Mara the temptor.
Treadingthispath, ye shall put an end to all suffering.
I have discovered and pointed out this to you,
the way leading to the removal of the arrows of passions.
You yourselves should make an effort, the Buddhas but expound the way.
(273-276. Dhammapada)
(273-277. 

                          What did the Lord Buddha teach?
                                 (A talk given at London Vihara on 26th May 1986)
The only person who could answer the question "What did the Lord Buddha teach?" was nobody else but the Buddha himself.  Let us see what his answer would be.
One day when the Lord Buddha was stayilnegavels,n atnhde Simsapa forest near Madhura, ,he picked up a few holding them up in his hand, he asked his disciples, "What, bretheren, are more numerous, either the leaves in my hand or those in this vast forest?" They said, "Lord, what you hold in your hand are but few leaves.  But a the leaves in this vast forest are uncountably more numerous".
Then the Lord Buddha rejoined, "In exactly the same way, bretheren, what I teach you ever, now as before, are but very few things out of what I know, and what I teach you are the Dukkha and the cessation of Dukkha.
Why did he want to speak only of these two? It is because only the	knowledge of these two things deals with the removal and cessation of all suffering or miseries of one s life. Here Dukkha or suffering and           unsatisfactoriness refer to the unhappy side of life and the cause of its arising and continuity.  The cessation of dukkha refers to the attainment of real peace and the way thereto.  These four facts are called the Four Great Truths, the description of which is called Buddhism in modern terminology.
The whole purpose of the Lord Buddha was to make his hearers realize these four great facts, He explained these truths in various ways suiting different levels of intelligence of his hearers.
The first of the four facts is suffering and the unsatisfactory nature of the existence which we call world.  Wherever we look we see change at every moment with its varied aspects such as birth, decay, pain, sorrow, suffering, diseases, union with the  disagreeable, disunion from the agreeable, depression, despair and death. Every living being, from the moment of his birth, goes on uninterruptedly towards death. This life in the world implies a journey towards death. His living or life means his continued or incessant journey towards death. Thus life in the world implies a journey to death, the most disagreeable event, and birth implies the start, the setting out of this pre destined journey. Thus, birth in any place where there is death or failing away from the present state is unsatisfactory, in its entirety, let alone its other aspects, decay, disease and the like.  The increase in the number of rebirths means the increase of the number of deaths and all other unsatisfactory states.

Why and how does this unsatisfactoriness continue?  Beings do not see where they are and what they are.  Because of this not seeing, because of this spiritual blindness or ignorance, they are attached to, crave for this unsatisfactory existence, mistaking its deceiving guises for happiness.  This craving or attachment is the most powerful force that drags back the beings to be reborn over and over again even when their physical frame falls lifeless.  This attachment is the real Satan that is busily working in every worldling.
The truth concerning this attachment is the second one of the four great facts.
If there is disease there is its opposite in health.  Heat has its opposite in coolness.  Darkness has its. opposite in light.  In the same way if there is unsatisfactoriness in the forms of decay, desease and so on, there must be its direct opposite state in the form. of eternal bliss or everlasting peace, which is the cessation of unsatisfactory existence.  The truth concerning this fact is the third one among the four great truths.
The attachment to this unsatisfactory existence is due to ignorance, the absence of realization of the exact nature of this existence.  If the same ignorance is rooted out, then attachment th-e upshot of ignorance finds no ground to arise in.
Just as darkness is removed by light, ignorance is removed or destroyed by wisdom, insight or the realization of what we really are.  For this purpose we have each to make a deep search for ourselves.
Nothing can be successfully done by one who has no I self control.  One must have control over one's speech and deed.  Then one should control one's mind by keeping it from straying.  Next to this, one must start one's search of oneself.
This process of practice begins at verbal and bodily control which is named as Sila or virtue or right conduct in Buddhist terminology.  Depending on Sila (verbal and bodily discipline) one has to develop mind control, which is termed Samadhi or one-pointedness of mind.  Depending on this, one must start the search of oneself, the self-investigation, which is called the Vipassana in Buddhist terminology.
This is the three-factored discipline, which is otherwise called the eight-factored path in another way of classification.
The factors of the path are: Right understanding, Right thought, Right speech, Right action, Right livelihood, Right endeavour, Right mindfulness. and Right concentration.  Out of these eight factors Right speech, Right action and Right livelihood form the factor of Sila or good conduct, in other words, moral discipline.  Right effort, Right mindfulness and Right concentration-these three together form the factor Samadhi or Concentration.  Right understanding and Right thought-these two together form the factor of Panna or Insight.  This threefactored discipline or eight-factored path is the way that leads to eternal peace by destroying the cause of the unsatisfactory existence.  This is the last one of the four great truths.
Thus the exposition of these four great Truths is what we call Buddhism, the teaching of the Lord Buddha.
One may ask why the Buddha was not interested in dealing with the questions about the origin of the universe and the like. 
Suppose there is a doctor or a physician in charge of a sick ward.  He has to attend every patient in the sick ward.  Some patients are so ignorant that they eat and drink things which make their diseases serious or incurable.  So the physician has to make them understand their situation. Accordingly, he explains to them the nature of their diseases.  He explains to them the cause of the rise and continuity of their diseases.  He explains to them that they can be cured and makes them hopeful and encourages them to take his treatment.  Then he gives the treatment.  Thus, to explain the nature of their diseases, their cause, that they can be cured and the treatment-these four facts are the only things the patients have to deal with.  So the physician deals only with these four things and doesn't listen to their questions about the things astronomical, geographical, geological and the like which have nothing to do with their diseases or their cure.
The Lord Buddha was the physician or healer of our inner diseases such as greediness, hatred, jealousy and the like which, make us suffer from all sorts of afflictions.  The cause of all these mental diseases is our own ignorance as to our present nature.  So he, as our healer, regarded it his duty and service to teach us and make us realize only the Four Great Truths, and did not interfere with other problems which have nothing to do with the freedom from our imperfect and unsatisfactory state.

                                                  Family Life
   (A talk given at Cheswick Vihara at an English Buddhist girl's wedding on 30th March 1986)
In Savatthi there was a king who spent his time mostly in merriment.  One day he asked one. of his officials to gather together the born-blind men in his country as many as he could and take them to the yard before the palace. He went about the country and after some days led a number of blind men to the palace garden.  Then the king asked him to take them to the royal elephant and make them' touch it and take them back to the king.  The official took them to the elephant and made them touch each part 'of the elephant's. body and 'took them back to the king.
The king asked them to explain to him as to what sort of a thing an elephant was.
One blind man who touched the head of the elephant said "Your majesty an elephant, is just like a pot in shape. Then the next blind man said "No, he tells a lie; I have touched it, it is just like a winnowing fan, He was the man who had touched the ears of the elephant.  Then a third man who. had touched its tusks shouted-No, no, both are liars; an elephant is just like a stick" Then another man who had touched itst.runk shouted, ,All these fellows are wrong an elephant is like a granary." The man who touched its foot -said "an elephantis like a pillar." The man who had touched its tail shouted, "All these fellows are liars, the elephant is just like a rope." Then they bagan to quarrel, among themselves, each shouting "You are all wrong and I amonly right." The king and-other people who watched their quarrel enjoyed laughing.
Just as those born blind men, some critics who have read very little of The Buddha's teachings say that it is a pessimistic religion.  Some others used to say it is a tc2.ching meant only for monks and lay men could not follow Buddha's teachings.  Another said that Buddhism teaches that the life in the world is a misery and it discourages and prevents man's progress.  All those critics are just like those born blind who explained the form and shape of the elephant.
The world, according to Buddhism, is like a school which consists of all the classes or grades from the kindergarten section to the uppermost form.  In a school the children of the kindergarten should be taught lessons suitable to their level of understanding.  The highest form of the school must be taught the subjects like higher mathematics and so forth related to the examination they are preparing for. Suitable to the standard the lesson must be taught. If a man goes there and seeing only the highest forms and listening to what they are taught and returns and say the small children should not be sent to that school the lessons it teaches are too deep for the little ones.  The one who goes there towards the kindergarten section and listens to what they are taught and say that our boys who expect to take a higher examination have. nothing to learn from it. It is clear that he is wrong.  Likewise are most writers who see one side of the Buddha's teachings and criticise it taunting that Buddhism is a teaching related to annihilation, or that it is a pessimistic teaching or that it doesn't help people live a successful household life.
It has been mentioned in many a place in Buddhist Scrip-tures the Buddha's was a Caritanukula-desana.  That means that the Buddha taught his hearers the Dhamma suitable to their temperaments.  If a man wants to be rich and nothing more the Buddha would show him the way to earn wealth by right means.  If he expects to live a married life and nothing more, the Buddha would teach him how to choose a suitable partner and live a righteous life.  Suppose the man whom he meets is one tired of life and that has given up all hopes, the Buddha teaches and encourages him to see further and makes him hopef I and teaches him to develop his spiritual life successfully.  Thus Buddhism is a system of teachings which covers or comprises all aspects of our life.
Now I deal with one aspect of Buddha's teachings that concern the household life or the married life.
One day the Lord Buddha visited a house in the city Saketa.  The head of the house was kn ' own as Nakula-pitu and his wife was 'called Nakula-matu because they had a well known son named Nakula.  Both of them were very much familiar with the Lord and they regarded the Buddha as their own son. That day they welcomed the Lord as usual and treated him e side with food and after the meal was over, they sat on on and began to tell him the intimate details of their life.  The householder said :,,Lord, ever since this Nakula-matu, my wife was brought home to me when she was a mere girl, I have been not conscious of having transgressed against her even in thought, much less in person.  Lord, we do desire to see each other not only in this very life but ' also in the life to come.  Then his wife said to the Buddha, "Lord, ever since 1, a mere girl came over here when this householder was a mere Lad, I have never transgressed against him even in thought, let alone in 'person, Lord, we want to ' see each other not only in this life but also in the life to come."
Then the I Lord Buddha said: If both wife and husband desire to see each other both in this life and in the life to come, both should be matched in four qualities: in faith, in good conduct, in generosity and in the knowledge of Dhamma. . (P 70 Gradual S 11)
One day Dhammika the lay follower questioned the Buddha how a householder should live his life and the Buddha told himthat a layman should keep five precepts, and he should live,a life of chastity in peace with his wife.  You find this account in Dhammika Sutta of Sutta Nipata.
To make the household life a happy one both husband and wife must equally fulfil their duties to each other.  When advising Sigalaka the young householder the Lord Buddha said: In five ways should a wife be ministered by her husband: by respecting her, by courteous behaviour, by faithfulness, by handing up the authority of the house over to her, and providing her with needs, dress, ornaments and the like.  Thus being ministered by the husband, the wife with love will fulfil her duties, she will treat the relations of both with hospitality, she will watch over the wealth he earns and she will do her works with -skill and hard-working.
As regards choosing a proper wife a man should be very careful and the wife too should determine to be an ideal one.  When the king Suddhodana told his son prince Siddhartha that it was the time for him to marry a suitable girl, the latter wrote down the qualities that the girl he would marry should possess.  It was a very difficult task for the king to find such a girl. But after long search he found that the princess Yasodhara was possessed of all those virtues. That is how their marriage took place.  If the wife and the husband are not virtuous anenot tender-hearted, the marriage would be an unfortunate and miserable one.  With regard to this matter there Is a description of the wives as the Lord Buddha expounded.
Anathapindika was the most devoted and most generous lay follower of the Buddha in Savatthi.  Most frequently the Buddha and his disciples were often invited to his house and entertained with meal and other requisites.  One day, at his request, the Lord Buddha paid a visit to his house.
While the Lord was sitting there he heard a noise of shouting and scolding on the backyard of the house.  The Lord asked the householder what was that shouting.  Then he went on saying: "Lord, recently a girl of a rich family was married to my son.  She is very proud and hot-tempered. She doesn't obey her husband, and doesn't listen -to our advice.  She is almost always shouting, and quarelling with the servants.  Since she came here the peace in our house has been disturbed".  Then the Lord asked him to take her over there.  He went there and told her that and she came over there, bowed down and sat on one side.  Then the Lord asked her: Is it you that have shouted over there now? Yes" -said she.  'Do you know that there are seven kinds of wives?", asked the Lord.  She said she did not know. "Then, listen to me" said the Buddha and went on expounding the seven kinds of wives.
There is a certain wife who is hard-hearted and hating her husband.  She loves other men and wastes what her husband earns.  She is called the wife the destroyer.
There is another kind of wife who tries to filch -a little out what the husband earns.  She is called thievish wife.
There is another kind of wife who is greedy, passionate lazy, careless of her duties, foul-mouthed, full of wrath and hate, tyrannical to the members of the family.  She is a tyrannical Wife.
There is still another kind of wife who is compassionate, cares for the husband as a mother to her child.  She takes care of the husband's property unwasted.  She is called motherly wife.
There is a fifth kind of wife.  She is modest, obedient to her husband.. As a younger sister reverences her elder brother, she pays respect to her husband.  Such one is called sisterly wife.
There is a sixth kind of wife.  She is very pleased -at the sight of her husband, as a friend is happy at the sight of his friend after long absence.  She is high-bred, virtuous, and is always ready to sacrifice her life to save her husband, just as a dear and loving friend.  Such is called the' friendly wife.
There is still another kind of wife.  She is calm.  Even when abused by the husband she keeps silent.  She is full of dogged patience, true-hearted, bending to husband's will.  She never shows rough face.  She loves her husband as an obedient servant loves his master.  Such is called the servant-like wife.
These are the seven kinds of wives.  Out- of these seven, the first three: the wife the destroyer, the thievish wife and the tyrannical wife - these three make the family unhappy and become miserable here and hereafter.
The other four kinds: motherly wife, sisterly wife, friendly wife and servant-like wife - these four wives make their families happy and fortunate.  Here and hereafter . they will be happy and become successful in every aspect.
After explaining these seven kinds of wives the Lord Buddha questioned her, to what kind out of these seven, do you belong?  She was convinced.  She said ,Lord, .ifter this, I will behave to my husband and this 'family as a motherly, wife, as a sisterly wife as a friendly wife and also as a servant-like wife".
This instruction of the Lord Buddha brought blessings peace and fortune to the families of his real followers.
With regard the ways of living a peaceful and successful family life Lord Buddha gave instructions on many occasions.  Now I have told you only a very little out of them.- Before I put an end to my talk I will tell 'how the Lord Buddha categorized married couples. into four classes.  One day he said:
"There are four kinds of couples living as husband and wife.  What four?  A female hobgoblin lives together with a male hobgoblin, a female hobgoblin lives together with a male angel, female angel lives together with a male hobgoblin and a female angel lives together with a male angel.
In what way does a male hobgoblin lives together with a.female hobgoblin?  In this case a husband is a slayer of life, steals, commits adultery, a liar or given to the use of liquer. Such a wicked man lives together with a wife ot the same type.  This kind of life is called the life lived together by goblin couple.
How does a male goblinlive together with a female angel?  If the husband lives an immoral life together with a kind and good-natured wife, it is called a life being lived together by a male hobgoblin with a female angel.
In what way does a male angel live together with a female hobgoblin?  The husband is good-natured and virtuous while the wife is wicked and immoral.  This is called the life lived by -a male angel along with a female hobgoblin. 
These three kinds of couples live unhappy and unsuccessful life.
If both the husband and the wife are good-natured, kind and virtuous and live their life loving each other, it is called the life of an angelic couple.
Lord Buddha advised every husband and wife to live as an angelic couple. That is the life to be lived by a real Buddhist couple.  Their family life is an ideal one which invites peace and success here and hereafter.

                                            Defilements of man
                              (A Talk given at London Vihara in Cheswick on 8th September 11 1973)
There are three stages of defilements of mind.  By defilements we mean the unwholesome states of mind such as lust, anger and so on.  We know from our experience that we feel that those defilements are not always manifest in our heart.  But there is potentiality that they may rise up within us at times.  This state of their potentiality is called the dormant stage of defilements.  Suppose a man comes to your presence and starts abusing you and calling names.  Certainly you might get shocked and angry, though you do not say or do nothing to him Though you keep silent, there might be anger risen within you.  This is the second stage, the stage of uprisen defilements.  At times, on such an occasion, you might grow so rough that you could not control your anger and you would translate it into action by scolding him or by beating him.  This is the third and worst stage of defilements at which your anger is put to action.  It is when the mental defilemefits surge up to this third stage that man would commit crimes of various sort.
The purpose of following the path pointed out by the Lord Buddha is to curb and dispel these defilements and to purge one's mind of all those unwholesome characteristics.
Let us see how we should start this-process of self-purification.  The dormant stage of defilements is not easy to handle at the start as it is very subtle.  The second stage, the stage of manifestation of passions in heart, though less subtle than the first one, is too, not easy to handle as they work only within the heart. The third stage of defilements at which one commits evil deeds is evident to everybody and so it is at this stage we should start our religious    practice.  In every walk of life we should proceed guided by proper understanding and being ever mindful. Thus we have to use our reason and understand the contemptibility and evil effects of doing wrong deeds and determine to abstain from commiting them.  By following this way, we will be able to control our mind and curb our temper so far that we may not transgress the laws of morality.
Though we, following this way, do not commit any bad deed, still defilements might rise now and then within us whenever our mind is disturbed and affected by some external objects.  By trying to abstain from wrong speech and soon we bring defilements under a certain amount of control so that their violence is checked.  But those defilements are in their second or the upsurging stage, and might possibly rise up in heart now and then. If we are not vigilent enough there is possibility that they may be violent and rise up to the stage of transgression.  So we should try to prevent those defilements even from rising in the heart. For this purpose we should investigate and find out the cause of their rise.  If we do not control our mind and allow it to stray carelessly after this or that object, it is natural that the dormant passions may find opportunity to rise up. So we have to keep our mind from running astray. For this purpose we have to develop right concentration.  We have to fix our mind on some ideal or good object which keeps it from straying. According to Buddhist scriptures there are 40 objects out of which one is to be selected suitable to one's temperament and by fixing mind on it, the concentration must be developed.
This practice being continued, all passions remain inhibited and find no opportunity to arise.  They remain only in their dormant and potential stage.  If we neglect or stop our practice of concentration, again mind might stray and passions would find opportunity to arise.  So what we have to do now is to deal with the potential stage of defilements.  The cause of the potentiality for rise of passions is our own ignorance or nescience of the exact nature of life.  So we have to use our reason, faculty of investigation at this stage. It is due to lack of understanding as to what we really are that unwholesome states arise within us. This lack of understanding is Avijja as it  is called in Pali.  Avijja means nescience, ignorance, the mist of delusion that enshrouds our mind's eye.
In this third stage of practice, at the start, we should try to examine what the so-called 'man' or living being' is. We would find we have a body and mind.  First, we have to understand our body.  From our experience we would perceive that our body is nothing but a mass of matter, which is subject to growth and decay. One day we see an infant and  after two or three years we see the little thing has grown bigger. But we do not see when and at which moment this growth has taken place.	It is always growing. When it is grown old the process of decaying begins and goes on and on. This growing and decaying happens continually though we don't see or feel it.  This means that our body is subject to momentary change.
If we mentally analyze our body we may find that it is a mass of ever changing molecules, If we go on searching further, we would come at last to the conclusion that it is but a volume of vibrations.  We see that there is nowhere in our body an unchanging entity, a substance, a self or soul to be owned as "I" or "Mine".  Thus we have come to the right understanding with regard to our body.
After realising the exact nature of our body, we should come to our mind.  If we carefully examine and analyze our mind, we would see how mind-units together with their allied mental characteristics rise and vanish and how every vanishing state is succeeded, leaving no gap, by another relevant mental state.  We have to make this search and go deeper and deeper and consequently we would come to the conclusion that what we call mind is not any substance but a process of thinkings or thoughts or mind-units momentarily appearing and disappearing and that their changing nature is faster than that of matters in the body.  We would see that there is nothing even in mind to be taken for a substance or ego-entity.  This self-examination is to be done on body and mind by turns continually till the exact nature of mind-body process becomes very clear and evident.  We have to do this till we become thoroughly convinced of its real nature.
Finally the Right understanding of ourself will come to its consummation and the witching darkness of niescience will pass away so that never after that it will be able to enshroud our mind's eye.  The function of removing nescience comes to its perfection through four stages namely, Sotapatti (Stream-entrance), Sakadagami (Once-returner's stage), Anagami (Non-Returner's stage) and Arahatta (Perfection).  In these four stages the factors of the Path, Right Understanding and so on, unitedly perform their functions for realizing the Four Great Truths, developing themselves, until they reach the consummation of their work at Arahantship (Perfection).
In   this procedure the violent stage of mental defilements is controlled by the practice of good conduct or keeping precepts (Seela).  The second one, the upsurging stage of defilements is controlled by practising right concentration (Samadhi).  The dormant stage of defilements is overcome and the cause of all defilements is eradicated by self-analyzis and self-investigation  (Development of Panna or perfect understanding).
Thus the Path of Buddhism, consisting of Seela, Samadhi and Panna, removes and destroys all mental defilements or passions by degrees and makes the Path-goer entirely pure and perfect and frees from all turmoils and sufferings.
                                                Four Kinds of persons
                                        (A digest of a talk given at London Vihara on 9. 1. 83)
In a pond there are four kinds of lotuses some standing and rising up out of the water, grown enough to open at the first touch of sun's rays, some standing up though risen out of the water yet taking one or more days to mature and open at the touch of sun's rays. A third kind of lotuses which are still buds and having reached the surface of the water and to take many more days to rise out of water and open up.  Yet there are still more lotuses that grow inside the water and thriving immersed, of which one cannot be assured whether they will grow in safety or be eaten up by watery animals like tortoises.
Thus, as the four kinds of lotuses to be seen in a pond, there are four classes of people in the world whom the Lord Buddha has named as Ugghatitannu, Vipancitannu, Neyya and Padaparama.  Out of them Ugghatitannu are 'the people with accute faculties who are able to realize truths immediately when they listen to a short exposition of a Buddha or an Arahant.  They are so quick in realization of Truth like the first disciple of the Lord Buddha the Elder Kondanna.  Such are quick-witted, the first grade of the Buddha's disciples like the fully grown lotuses which bloom up at the first touch of sun's rays.
Some persons are not capable to realize truth immediately at the first hearing of a short discourse and they require some explanation to some extent.  When they listen to a detailed exposition of Truths they would realize them and they are like lotuses which bloom up after two or three days' touch of sun's rays.  The Bhaddavaggiya-princes who listened to the Lord's detailed exposition of Truths could attain realisation and they belong to the second grade of people known as Vipancitannau.  Vipancita means little delayed or after a short description.
Those 30 princes of the country of Magadlia went on a picnic. 29 of them had married and the younger had no wife.  So they persuaded one prostitute in the town to be his mate for the time being and had gone to a park and had been amusing for some time.  Meanwhile the prostitute, finding a chance, took some of their belongings and bolted through the forest.  The princes and their wives were in search of the woi-nan and casually met the Lord sitting under a tree by the roadside. They asked him whether he saw a woman passing that way.  The Lord asked why they were in a search of a woman and they related the whole account.  Thereupon the Lord asked: "Which is better either to make a search of oneself or to make search of others?" They said "it is more important to make search of oneself" 
"Do you know how to search yourselves?" asked the Lord.  They said they did not know.  "Then sit down and I will teach you how to search yourselves".  They sat down and the Lord explained to them the nature of life in some details and at the close of His teaching, all of them realized Truths and became his disciples.
Neyya are the third class of people.  Neyya means one who is to be coached for or to be guided, to be trained for some time. There are some persons who are to be guided in their practice of virtues, in practice of both Samatha and Vipassana (development both of concentration and insight).
Padaparamas the fourth class of people are those who are not sufficiently mature in their spiritual development to realize truths in the very same life.  They have to pass some more lives till they develop themselves by means of  practising virtues.  Meanwhile if they, due to bad association and the like go along a wrong path they will have to suffer long even in millions of rounds of rebirths and thus they are in an uncertain situation.  They are like the lotus buds inside water which at any time would be a prey to water anir-rals.  The majority of people belong to this fourth class and if they understand their uncertain situation and live pure religious life with strong determination and firm aspiration they would probably be able to attain to full realization at the feet of the coming Buddha Lord Maitreya, supposing they could not attain it during the period in which the Teaching of the Lord Gautama continues to exist.

                                                            Four Factors of self-progress

                                              (A talk given at Dharmavijaya Vihara on 13 Nov. 1983)

                                                                         (Digest of the Talk)

Cattarimani bhikkhave cakkani yehi samannagata devamanussa na cirassam yeva mahattam vepullam papunanti bhogesu.  Katamani cattari?  Patirupadesa-vaso sappurisupassayo atta-sammapanidhi pubbe ca kata-punnata (Ang. 11 32)
Four things bring a person to his progress in wealth and worldly progress.  What are the four?  Life in a suitable place, association with good people, establishment of oneself on a proper way and that he has previously done good deeds.
Let us now consider each of these, four factors and try to understand how they wouldconduce us to our progress.
The first one is living in a suitable place. What is meant here by the words "suitable place?" It is said in many places in our literature that where there are the six excellences are present, at hand or within reach, such a place is suitable to live in.  The six excellences (Anutta,riyas) are the excellent sight (dassananuttariya), excellent hearing (savananuttariya) the excellent training or discipline (sikkhanuttariya), excellent gain (labhanuttarlya), excellent service (paricariyanuttariya), and excellent reminiscence (anussatanuttariya).
There are sights which would please your senses which you may regard as worth seeing.  That is why most of you are tempted to go to cinemas and the like.  But the sights which make you slave to or lust after it, or thatwhich rouse your hidden weaknesses, which create excitation within you or which disturb your heart's composure and do the like are to be avoided as they would provoke you into failing down to mental enslavement.  It is such sights which cause lust, anger, jealousy, self-conceit and the like to arise in your heart.  Those sight which bring you religious devotion, kindness, compassion, fobearance, wisdom and such other blessings into your heart are worth having as they are beneficial to you in every aspect.  If you see a sa-intil person, naturally you feel attracted to his ways, his behaviour and such a sight makes you happy and serene and healthy in mind.  Sight of such persons teach you many lessons and it may be an inspiration to you.  A place where we may have acquaintance wi - th saintly and exemplary persons is a proper place one should choose for one's living.
Whatever we hear that leads us to our inner development is the excellent hearing.  That which we hear would disturb our heart's peace is not worth hearing.  The place at which we find no good hearing is not to be lived in., The place where people are not cultured and lacking discipline should be avoided as a man living in such an environment may happen to face much disturbance to his self-progress secular or moral.
A man must have progress in his worldly affairs but at the same time he should not neglect his spiritual progress.  A place where there is no means or opportunity for a person to develop himself morally or spiritually is not a suitable one to choose for one's living.
A man must have someone to guide him spiritually whom he should associate witk and serve as his ideal.  A place where there are no such persons to be found is not a suitable one to live in.
Reminiscence of holy or saintly persons is greatly helpful to one's progress and places where such reminiscences are belittled, undervalued or misprized are to be avoided and left behind.
The second of the four factors is having good association.  The third is establishing oneself in the proper way and the fourth one is that one has previously done good deeds.

                                                         Samatha meditation and First Jhana.

                                          (A Talk given at Washington Vihara on 27th October 1990)

Cittena niyati loko (the world is led by mind) is a saying of the Lord Buddha.  The mind well controlled is the most helpful friend and if it is uncontrolled and allowed to stray, it would certainly turn the most dangerous enemy.  It is the mind well controlled and tamed that would bring us peace and happiness. (Cittam dantam sukhavaham.)
The way of taming and controlling mind is called Samathabhavana.
Mind naturally requires an object to fix itself on.  Weakness, strength, health or ill-health, happiness or sorrow - all these states depend on the objects of mind and on the way it fixes itself on them.  The Buddha has given 38 objects for the development of mind's peace and the commentators have added two more thus all coming into 40 objects of concentration.  A person cannot fix his mind on all the 40 objects and hence he has to select one of the 40 that suits his tremperament.
A man who prepares himself for a practice of this kind must first of all be of morally good character, as it is the basis or ground on which self development is founded.  Physically too he must be healthy and at the same time he must be free of all responsibilities. His aim must be for the attainment of mind's peace. He must find a suitable place for his	practice which should be secluded and free of  disturbances.
As It takes much time to give the details of all the 40 objects, I will explain now, as an illustration, the way how to develop concentration on one of the 40 objects.
Suppose the meditator choses a yellow flower, a bunch of yellow	flowers or a bed of yellow flowers and
fixes his mind on it under the proper instruction of an expert teacher. If he develops one-pointedness of his
mind depending on the said object he would be able to attain to higher stages of mind's calm called Jhanas.

The method he has to follow is this: He should sit on a comfortable seat with his backbone straight.  He should keep the flowe.r or the bunch of flowers in front of him, neither too near nor too far, at a distance, on a table or on a stool or on some such a stand, where it may be fully visible.  He should open his eyes with an even gaze and keep them open moderately.  He should consider the colour and utter its name as 'yellow, yellow' incessantly.  This kind of repetition is done to prevent the external noises from coming and disturbing his concentration.  This repetition further gives strength to his concentration.  He must always be mindful and full of awareness of what he is doing.  He should not strain his eyes, He should open his eyes, look at the object and shut them and try to remember it completely, in other words, he has to learn the object and copy or take into mind the replica of what he sees with his eyes.  He may have to go on opening and shutting his eyes perhaps a hundred times, a thousand times or more than that till he would be able to see the reflection or the replica of the object before his mind's eye.  When he is successful in seeing the replica, the counterpart of the outer object with his f&lnd, he needs not look at the flower-bunch any more.  He can go away and walk up and down or sit on a comfortable seat as he would like while remembering the object and fixing his mind on the something.  If, he would fail to remember the replica, again he should go to the former place and look at the flower bunch and get its reflection and continue his practice as before.
At last he will be able	to remember clearly the counterpart of the object. When he continues this practice he may forget everything else and eventually the defects,lust, anger and the like find no opportunity to surgeup in his mind and would be inhibited more and more. Thus his mind turns purer and purer every moment, and at last, as a consequence of his mind's purity, the said counterpart object would appear brighter, free of all blemishes that had appeared in its preceeding stages.

When the counterpart object appears perfectly bright, all his mental defects would subside and be thoroughly inhibited.  This brilliant object is called after-image (patibhaga-nimitta). It	may appear before the mind as the      full moon's disk coming out from behind a cloud. When it appears the concentration of mind becomes stronger than before.
The developed stage of mind's concentration is twofold namely Access-concentration (Upacara-samadhi) and absorption-concentration or ecstasy-concentration (Appana-samadhi).  At the Access-concentration-stage the hindrances or defects of mind are thoroughly inhibited at the moment but may be easily disturbed and shaken and also the factors of the ecstasy are not strongly manifested.  But at the stage of absorptionconcentration the mind is not easily disturbed and the factors of concentration may manifestthemselves clearly and strongly.
The defects or hindrances that are inhibited at these concentration-stages arefive namely, ill-will, sensuality, agitation of mind and worry, sloth (stiffness) and torpor and uncertainty.  These five obstructive unwholesome qualities of mind (Nivarana) are inhibited at the development of five opposite factors namely a . pplied thought, sustained thought, joy, bliss and unification of mind.  The applied thought directs the mind onto its concentration-object.  Sustained thought keeps the mind anchored in the object.  Joy refreshes the mind and bliss intensifies it while unification centres the mind together with the other four factors on the object consisting in unity.  When these are perfectly manifested in mind the Absorption (Appana) is said to have arisen.
This is called first Jhana.  Now he should, fixing the mind on the said bright object (Patibhaga-nimitta) develop concentration still deeper.
The details of this practice have been given in Visuddhimagga (Path of Purity).

                                               Two Modes of Speech

                                            (Talk given at Washington Vihara, (3th October, 1990)
In ordinary speech, we make statements such as "sunset", "sunrise" and the like.  But actually there is no such thing as *the setting or rising of the sun.  The so-called sunrise and sun-set are but phenomena brought about by the rotation of the earth on its axis.  We make such statements not to mislead our hearers but to follow and comply with the usage accepted by the people.
Suppose a teacher explains the very same phenomena to his students in his classroom.  There he may explain to them how the earth rotates on its own axis, how consequently the phenomena such as night, noon, sun-set, sunrise, etc. come to pass.  Yet the very same teacher at other times seems to use such expressions as sun-set and the like.
This makes it clear that there are two modes of speech, namely the expression according to . what really happens and that how a happening appears.  The former is called the absolute truth and the latter the conventional truth.
The fifth discourse in the third chapterof Ekaka-nipata of Anguttaragama refers to two kinds of discourses of the Lord Buddha under the names Nitattha-suttanta and Neyyattha-suttanta.  Nitattha-Suttanta means, according to the commentary, the teaching which is with the primarily inferred sense, and Neyyatthasuttanta means the teaching to which the primary sense is to be inferred.  The former one was later known as Paramattha-desana, the teaching of the truth in the ultimate sense, and the latter as Sammuti-desana, the teaching in the mode of the language or usage generally or universally accepted by the people' (the truth in general terms as accepted by a consensus of opinion of the people).  So the Lord Buddha said: ,They are expressions, terms of speech, designations in common use in the world. (Dialogues of the Buddha I p. 202)
"Man, woman, table, tree, river, mountain" and the like are the words used to express a definite idea.  They are used for convenience's sake and for conventional purposes, but the convention or conception is subject to change.  For instance, at one stage of man's growth we call him an infant, some years later when he becomes twenty years of age we call him a youth, still later a middle aged man and at last 'an old man', after the change of his physique.
Now let us try to understand what the so-called man' really is.  From the ultimate point of view, there is only a psycho-physical process, and there is no self-identical entity I. e. a thing that persists without any change.  To make it clearer, let us take a box.  What is a box?  Some pieces of timber are prepared, arranged and put together in a particular way to give a certain form or shape, and then it is called a box. Suppose the so-called         box is disjoined and its parts are put	together to give them the appearance of a bench. It will then no longer be called a box. The parts remain the same, but as the form or shape changes, the name changes too. Suppose someone referring to the bench calls it a box, regardless of the convention of people, they will then accuse him of uttering falsehood. So, if we do not follow or go against the parlance of people it would be tantamount to telling lies.
Now with reference to the shape we call it a box.  How did the shape come about and where is it born?  First, the carpenter thinks out the shape or forms the picture in his mind and then draws it on a piece of paper, which we call a plan or design, from whichor according to which he arranges and fastens the pieces of timber together and calls it a box.  The pieces of timber are not the box.  The box is the name given to the shape and if the very same pieces of timber are arranged to give the shape of a bench then it is called bench.  The box and the bench are mere names given to the shapes which are conceived in the mind of their maker.  Thus In the ultimate sense the imagined box-shape is but a concept.
Similarly, bench, chair, house, man, dog, mountain, sea, pond and all such things and beings are but concepts and hence there is no special substance that is to be called bench and so on in the ultimate sense.
Then what are they from the ultimate point of view?
First, let us examine a box and see what it consists of or what it is made of.  When we examine it deeper and deeper, we will come to conclusion that it is a combination of atoms.  From Buddhist point of view every atom is a compound of still smaller particles of matter and every smallest unit of matter consists of four Maha-hutas, the primary qualities, namely hardness or Pathavi-dhatu, cohesion or Apo-dhatu, heat or cold called Tejodhatu          and vibration orVayo-dhatu. All units of matter are dynamic, and are in a state of constant motion.
The afore-said Maha-bhutas orfundamental and primary qualities are Indivisibly bound together and there is no material thing In the universe which is devoid of these Maha-bhutas.
Thus, after all, from the ultimate stand point, a box Is a compound or combination of units of matter, a collection of ever changing material states.
Now, let us come to man. What is man according to the Ultimate truth? In the first analysis, he is a compound of mind and body - Nama and Rupa. When we analyse body and examine it deeper and deeper,we come to the understanding that it is an assemblage or combination of material parts, and that every such part is composed of a vast number of atomic units composed of primary material states, which are subject to constant motion, in other words, a mass of changing states, a mass of waves and vibrations in which there is no substance, nothing stable, nothing static in its own nature.
Next, let us come to the other constituent of the so-called man, the mind.  So far as we have studied what the man's physical body is, we see that it is a flux of waves, a stream of volumes of material states void of any static substance. It is the same with the mind too. But the states which are conventionally called mind flow far more rapidly. The nature of mind, the psychic side of man, resembles the nature of a flame to some extent. A flame is a mere continuity of flickering moments, rising and failing on what it feeds during its continual flux.  It is never the same for two consecutive moments. Even so is the nature of mind, for it is but a stream of consciousness, an unending stream of thought-moments which rise and fall successively. Hence, there is  nothing permanent in this psychic process and the only constancy about it is its incessant change.
Now we have come to the last point. From the ultimate or absolute point of view every animate thing, every man, every animal is but a stream of mental and physical states.  A man who does not see this rapidly changing nature of mind-matter process mistakes the whole or a part of this process for an identity and imagines that there la an abiding ego entity.  Every animate being, which has a mind and body, is an absolute combination of these two Interdependent streams-one physical and the other psychicaleich undergoing momentary change.  Thus what man, in the ultim ; te sense, is a psycho-physical process in which there Is not a single unchanging substance.  All inanimate things such as stones, earth, fire, water, rays, air and the like are but various kinds of flow of the aggregates of the fundamental elements or primary states.

Thus according to Buddhist philosophy, man is an interdependent flow of consciousness, mental characteristics and material states cooperatively combined. 

If anybody takes any part either of body or of mind as permanent or. as an ego-entity, or distorts mind as matter or matter as mind, or any of their constituents as an ego, a self or soul, he is regarded as one holding errroneous view.

A person who, when talking, changes or distorts the commonly accepted usage is regarded by people as a liar.

The Lord Buddha, when instructing people, used both these ways of expression, the way of commonly 
accepted expression and the way of direct expression of ultimate truth, suiting the purpose.

Now, I have so far explained to you the difference between the two kinds of truths, Sammuti sacca, the truth
according to common usage and the Paramattha-sacca, the ultimate truth.

As regards the Paramattha-sacca or the Ultimate truth, it has two divisions, the Sabhava-siddha-paramattha and ariya-sacca-paramattha. Sabhavasiddha-paramattha means the self-evident truth according to our every day experience. Ariya-sacca-paramattha means the four Noble truths. I am now going to point out the difference between these two. There are three kinds    of feelings according  to the Sabhava-paramattha, namely Sukha-vedana, dukkha-vedana and upekkha-vedana, happy or pleasant feeling, unhappy or unpleasant. Feeling and neutral feeling.  But from the highest or Ariya-sacca point of view all these feelings of the Vedanupadanakkhandha are the parts of Dukkha, suffering or unsatisfactoriness.  Thus what is regarded as happy feeling according to Sabhava-siddha-paramattha is included in Dukkha or suffering according to Ariya-sacca-paramattha.

Let us take the case of Lokiya-kusalas, the morally good karmas which are the causes of the birth in happy abodes in the world.  We know good karma belonging to sensuous realm or Kama-loka causes the rebirth in a happy abode in the same realm (Kama-sugati), Rupavacara-kusala, the developed Rupa-jhana causes the rebirth in subtle material realm called Rupa-bhava, and arupa-jhana-kusala in non material realm or arupa-bhava.  These three kinds of good karmas are kusalas or wholesome causes of happiness according to the Sabhavaparamattha.  But according ' to Ariya-sacca-paramattha, all these three realms of existence are Dukkha, Suffering or unsatisfactory states and the afore-mentioned kusalas or wholesome Karmas are the causes of those unsatisfactory states, hence they are no more wholesome from the ariya-sacca-point oi view.  The Lokiya-Kusalas either Kamavacara, Rupavacara or Arupavacara are included in Samkharas and Kammabhava which cause the continuity of samsara and are the Factors of Anuloma-paticcasamuppada.  Thus the sabhava-siddha-paramattha wanes and loses its brilliance before the Ariya-sacca-paramattha. Ariya-sacca-paramattha, the four Noble truths are the only ultimate truths,  perfect in all aspects.

                                      The Buddhist Way to Peace
                                                                        (an essay)
The world of today seems to have been plunged into hatred, malice and mutual distrust, as if it were preparing for a Third World War.  The tensions of the cold war are around us.  There is always the possibility for a world war to break out, followed by the destruction of not less than three-fourth of mankind.  The clouds of bloody revolution are lurking heavy on us and we are about to face a very critical situation.  We, who feel that we may have to face such a crisis before long, should consider whether we should passively suffer such a crisis as if we were condemned animals.
We must not be despondent, and we must be hopeful, for there is a remedy, a way we should follow to escape from the awaiting doom and destruction.
As a doctor diagnoses an ailment, we have to determine the nature of such a disaster from observation of the symptoms and then we will be able to find out the cause of such a ruin that awaits us.  When the cause is removed there is escape and peace.
Man is the noblest creature on this earth.  One should regard all other men as one's own brothers, as the members of the same human family, with no distinctions of rank or nation or country.
Man is man in whatever country he has been reborn.  Being born into a certain rank or class or country, a man should not be looked down upon by another man.

Distinctions as to rank and the like are all but conventional and from ultimate point of view men are members of the same human family.

Every man expects, hopes, and desires progress - progress in every aspect and in every direction.  If I hope for my p rogress, why should I be jealous of the progress' of another man, who, like myself, is a member of the same human family?  The Lord Buddha has advised us to regard others' lives as our own lives, to value the well-being of others as our own well-being.  But, owing to a disregard of this truth men commit all kinds of wrongs in the name of their so,-called nation, their so-called rank or their so-called country. Prompted by the belief in separateness as to nation etc, -based on the colossal ignorance as to the real nature of man's life, men try to conquer neighbouring countries and to -add them to the so-called their own domain.  Not satisfied with that much of their gains, they go on and on further to conquer the. whole earth.  Such ambitious expeditions bring untold sufferings on the conquered.  Sometimes the victorious too may happen to be killed by thier own countrymen.

When one nation sees the progress of another. nation, it feels jealous, suspicious and malicious and seeks a way to harass or destroy it, and this sometimes invites a disastrous end for both the nations.  The cause of all such disaster is ambition, jealousy and malice, based on selfishness.

We should not forget we live on a tiny speck (of the universe) called the earth and that the lands and countries
we quarrel over or fight for, are much still tinier specks of.the same earth, and we all are subject to decay            and death.  It is to conquer such a small thing that men wage wars and destroy thousands -and thousands of men, the noblest things - of the earth.

There is yet another point we should never forget.  We live in a 'World in which death succeeds birth and birth succeeds death, repeating the process in cyclic order.  In this process of recurring birth and death, life is short and death is certain, and everything it possesses is impermanent.  Being subject to such a nature, how foolish it is for man to quarrel over and fight with his neighbour for a minor thing.

We know we are mortals and we have to depart from this life some day, and that every day we go nearer and nearer to death.  Such being the case, should we not try to do some good during this life time of short duration, instead of playing havoc against one another?  If we cannot do much good, let us at least, abstain from doing evil.

On the other hand, even though our life is short, we should expect to live it usefully, as peacefully and happily as  possible. All activities are performed by beings with a view to attain self-comfort (Vyapara Sabba-utanam Sukhatthaya Vidhiyare).  Such is an ancient proverb.  But the real comfort and success should not be devoid of peace, and it should be attained only by peaceful means, eschewing all recourse, to force and violence.

Some politicians try to bring peace by forceful ways, which will surely prove a failure.  It is only by peaceful ways that all strifes and quarrels come to an end.  It is our folly if we try to settle the differences among men by means of violence.

Violence always involves hatred. Hatred makes both parties, those hating and hated unhappy. Self-love is at the root of all strikes and contentions.  Self-mastery is the most effective means to peace and happiness of mankind.

"Others may be harmful, but we shall be harmless.  Thus ou should train ourselves," said the Lord BuddaThere are some leaders    who consider that might is right.  But the world cannot be long ruled by might or force and every such ruler comes to an end in disaster.  This has proved infallible by the history of nations of the world. The Lord Buddha paved the way to. peace by his message of Loving Kindness.  He said: Enmity is never appeased by returning enmity.  It is only by amity that enmity is appeased. This is an eternal truth". (Dhammapada).

                                                                              
                                                           Nibbana

(A talk given at the Annual Conference of the British Buddhist Society held at Summer School, London                  
                                                                   on the lst September 1973.)

Nibbana is a Pali word for which the Sanskrit equivalent is Nirvana.  Both these words mean cool, peace, calm, serenity, bliss, supreme happiness, emancipation, passionlessness and the Summum Bonum.  Now I am going to set before you how Nibbana Is explained in Theravada literature.

The term Nibbana and its equivalents Nibbuti and Vimutti are used in various Suttas to express  several
experiences of mind.

According to a certain classification we find six kinds of experiences under the terms Nibbana, Nibbuti and Vimutti namely, micchaditthi Nibbana, Sammati-Nibbana, Tadanga-Nibbana, Vikkhambhana Nibbana, Samuccheda Nibbana, PatippassaddhiNibbana and Nissarana-Nibbana or Nibbana-dhatu.

In the foregoing list the first one is Micchaditthi-Nibbana. Here Micchaditthi means wrong view.  Materialists ignore religious practices and value only material things such as wealth, bodily comforts and sensual enjoyments.  According to them the real happiness lies in the enjoyments of senses and apart from this they recognize no other happiness, no other Nibbana, This view is referred to in the Brahmajala-Sutta of Dighanikaya as follows: "Whenever the soul (being), in full enjoyment and possession of the five pleasures of senses, indulges all its functions, then, the being has attained, in this visible world, to the highest Nirvana".	
(Dialogues of the Buddha I p. 49)

Next we come to Sammuti Nibbana.  In common parlance, release or relief from worries or troubles is called ease or happiness.  When we read the life of the prince Siddhartha, we come across an account of an important Incident in his lifq.  One day, when he was returning in his chariot from the royal pleasure grove, a Sakyan girl called Kisa Gotami, seeing his majestic but saintly and charming complexion, breathed forth this joyous utterance:

"Nibbuta nuna sa mata
Nibbuto nuna so pita
Nibbuta nuna sa nari
Yassayam idiso pat!"

(Happy and cool indeed is the mother, happy and cool indeed is the father, who has this or a similar one for her or his son; happy and cool indeed is the wife who has got this or a similar one for her husband).

In this utterance she used the word Nibbuta' to mean 'happy, cool or fortunate' . The literal meaning of this word is one that has attained Nibbuti or Nibbana'.  This sort of Nibbana or cool state of one's life is called Sammuti Nibbana, the happiness according to convention.

Inspired by her words, the prince began to ponder over how one would become perfectly happy and cool.  He became immersed 	in this thought and at last came to the	conclusion: "So long as there remain the 'fires of passions unquenched and uncooled in one's heart, one could not be counted as really happy and perfectly cooled.  So I must find out with no delay a way to extinguish these fires."

In this incident we see that the Sakyan girl meant a peaceful and -happy family life by the term nibbuta (happy and cooled).

Suppose a certain part of a country has been infected with. some epidemic, dysentery or plague.  The inhabitants of that area would no doubt spend an anxious time full of fear and dismay.  But if, after some weeks, they come to learn that the epidemic has ebbed down and abated and completely passed out of the country, we can imagine what an intense joy and consolation might arise in them.

If we examine their mental attitude, we could see that their minds are devoid of the fear and anxiety which had obsessed them at the time of epidemic.  Is that all?  There is a positive side as well.  Their minds are now pervaded by peace, consolation, hope and immense joy.  This is not nothingness or mere void.  This is a thing they experience.

The next higher stage of happiness is tadanga Nibbana.  Suppose you do some unselfish service to a man in a serious trouble and rescue him therefrom.  On such an occasion your mind becomes full of wholesome states such as pity, compassion and unselfishness, and at the very moment the unwholesome states as selfishness and the like have no opportunity to surge up in your mind.  Or, suppose you pay respect to a saintly person, to your parents or teacher orany virtuous person whom you regard as worthy of respect. On such occasions your mind is full of faith, love and modesty on one hand and self-conceit, haughtness and the like get no chance to appear in it on the other hand. When we do some philanthrophic service, when we esteem those who are worthy of respect, or when we ponder over the value of abstention from selfish or cruel deeds or words, on such occasions the unwholesome states of mind like selfishness, anger and conceit find no chance to rise up in the mind because the wholesome states like generosity, loving kindness and modesty have already occupied our minds.  If we perform any good deed even for five minutes, then our mind becomes happy, serene and clean. This temporary or momentary comfort or serenity and wholesomeness of mind is called Tadanga-Nibbana, the temporary peace of mind.  This state of mind is not nothingness.

There is a still higher experience deeper and stronger than this preceding one, which is called Vikkhambhana-Vimutti or Vikkhambana-Nibbhana.  Suppose a man sees the evils and futility of the pleasures of senses and intends to develop himself spiritually.  For this purpose he starts practising concentration on a selected object, for there are forty kinds of objects for such meditations, according to Buddhist scriptures.  The mind of the average man is usually not self-composed, not settled, but is drawn towards this or that object at every moment.  Being scattered and constantly disturbed, it is frequented by selfishness, ill will, conceit, fear and many other lower mental conditions, owing to which it turns weaker and weaker.  So, to develop and strengthen his mind, he must first control it so that it may not wander after this or that object.  He must isolate his mind from other objects and fix it exclusively on the chosen object only.  At the start It may seem a very hard and tiresome task.  But If he tries hard for some time, he will surely come to success.  His mind will forget the whole outer world and remain fixed on Its only object, and become self-collected.  There are eight stages of this self-collectedness of mind to be attained gradually, each successive stage being deeper than its preceding one.  These are called Jhanas in Pali terminology.

In these stages of Jhanas, the meditator feels blissful and suffused with a sense of ease and pure lucidity of mind.  Weaknesses of mind, sensuality, ill will, sloth and torpor, worry and restlessness and perplexity subside and the mind feels healthy, happy, strong, calm, serene and blissful.  The bliss experienced at these afore-said stages of Jhana is called Vikkhambhana-Nibbana or Vikkhambhana-Vimutti, the ecstatic bliss experienced as a result of the subsidence of passions.

This Vikkhambhana-Nibbana is not nothingness, but a bliss to be experienced, more subtle, more serene than the preceding ones.

But this Jhanic bliss is vulnerable.  If somehow or other, the meditator, owing to his slight' negligence, turns his mind towards external objects, it is not impossible for him to fall down from the same bliss, as he has not as yet been freed from vulnerability, Now the meditator, as he knows his weaknesses, takes further steps and begins to practise Vipassana (the development of Insight).

In this process of practice, first of all, he examines his own body very closely In terms of Its constituent parts and analyses them part by part.  He goes deeper and deeper in this process and sees at last that his physical body is a volume of waves, a- form of wave-movements, that it is dynamic, and therefore      impermanent,	with nothing in it that is substantial.  After examining his own physical body, he begins to examine his mind and its characteristics, observes how thoughts appear and vanish and discerns very clearly that the so-called mind is but a process of states, a stream of activities called thinkings, a flux of continued happenings.  Mind and all its state's, he sees, are subject to change, and all of them are impermanent and unsubstantial.  Thus he contemplates the nature of his body and mind by turns, scrutinizes and analyses them in various ways and reallses at last that, the so-called man or creature or being is a mere phenomenon.  At the moment of this realisation he perceives with his mind's eye that he himself land all other beings in the world are but mind-matter processes subject to momentary change and void of any substantiality.

He clearly discerns the unsatisfactory nature (Dukkha)of the life in the world, puts out the adherence to the wrong views (micchaditthi) and uncertainty I (vicikicqha), perceives Nibbanadhatu Intuitively (Nirodha-pativedha) and cultivates the strength of the path-factors (Magga-bhavana).  This moment at which the aforesaid four functions are fulfilled, Is called entering the holy stream (Sotapatti-Magg4).  It is immediately followed by two or three thought moments, takingnibbana-dhatu for their only object. These thought moments are called Sotapatti-phala-cittas, the fruition of the first Path-consciousness (Sotapatti-magga), in which the	gross sansaric fatigue is extinguished.

Still he continues developing insight on the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness or entitylessness of  the psycho-physical process which we call man or being, and when, his meditation develops enough the function of realising four great truths recurs in his mind. At the second time the remnants of his craving and allied unwholesome states of mind turn so thin that he is destined to be reborn here only once more and hence he is called Sakadagami (Once returner).  At this stage too, his mind is fixed on Nibbana-dhatu.  This stage is immediately followed by some two or three mind-units, which  fixing on Nibbana, remove the mental fatigue to a great extent.  This is called the stage of the second fruition (Sakadagami-phala or dutiya phala).

Once again he meditates as usual and when his meditation develops enough, the fourfold function of realisation recurs at which the craving and its allied passions are eliminated to such a degree as he becomes, destined never to be reborn within the boundary of the Sphere of Sensuality (Kamaloka) and lower Brahma realms.  If he does not fulfill his task of rooting out craving, he becomes destined to be reborn in a higher and subtle celestial sphere known as the Holy Abodes (Suddhavasa), where there are beings who have dispelled from their minds sensuality and ill-will entirely.  He who has attained to this stage is called Anagami (Never-returner).  This stage too is immediately followed by two or three mind-units, which fixed on Nibbana-dhatu, remove a great portion of the long Sansaric fatigue.  This is called the stage of the third fruition (Tatiya-phala or Anagami-phala).

Now the meditator starts once more to analyse mentally both his body and mind more profoundly, contemplates their impermanence, unsatisfactoriness or entitylessness of the whole psycho-physical ' life.  When his meditation process rises up to its culmination, he clearly perceives the phenomenal nature of the life in the world, roots out the craving for it entirely, intuits Nibbana-dhatu and fixes his mind firmly on it, thus reaching the end of the Path.  This is called the Path-stage of Arahantship.  This stage, as usual, is followed by two or three mind-units which, fixing on Nibbana-dhatu, removes the remainder of the sansaric fatigue that had been caused by the mental defilements so long.  This last stage is called arahantship or Perfection.

Now we have to look back again.  When the meditator practises Vipassana, in its preliminary stages, passions of his mind, subside temporarily and he experiences a temporary peace of mind which is called Tadanga-Nibbana.

When he develops his meditation to a higher level so that the passions get no chance to Surge up, as he was in the Jhanic ecstasy, then he is said to have attained to Vikkhambhana-Nibbana.

When he reaches the four higher stages of the Holy Path at which the Four Great Truths are realised, he is said to have attained to Samuccheda-Nibbana, as, at these stages, he eradicates some passions.

In the long journey in the Samsara, the phenomenal existence, his thought-process was afflicted and consequently fatigued by the dormant and surging  passions.  Though those passions are radically removed at the afore-mentioned four holy stages, the fatigue that had been created by those passions still remains.  So, immediately succeeding each of those four passion-dispelling mind-units (or the Path-consciousnesses), some two or three more mind-units rise up fixing themselves, tooi on the Nibbana-dhatu, and as a result the afore-mentioned mental fatigue is removed thereby.

These latter four stages are called the stages of the fruition of the Path.

The peace that pervades over the mind at these four stages is called Patippassaddhi-Nibbana, the cool of mind as experienced at the removal of mental fatigue.

Now so far we have passed over a number of stages of mental peace.  None of them can be called nothingness.  On one hand unwholesome states of mind are removed and on the other hand wholesome states and peace of mind are gained at those stages.

The persons who have attained to these eight Holy stages perceive Nibbana-dhatu, the Nibbana-Element with their mind's eye, fix their mind on it and experience the bliss arisen thereby in their mind.  The very same Nibbana-dhatu, on which the minds of those holy persons are fixed is called Sa-upadisesa-Nibbana.

With reference to the nature of an Arahant after his death, the very same Nibbana-dhatu is called Anupadisesa-Nibbana.

None of the Aforementioned states called Nibbanas or the Nibbana-dhatu cannot be regarded as nothingness or annihilation.

Now rises the question: "How could one know the existence of Nibbana-dhatu?."

According to Theravada-teachings, the existence of Nibbanadhatu may be known by three ways namely, agama-siddhi, anumeyya-siddhi, and paccakkha-siddhi.  Of these three, agamasiddhi means the knowledge of Nlbbana-dhatu through the study of the scriptures. In Itivuttaka, thus has it been said: "There exists, O Brethren, an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an uncompoundi!d.  If O Brethren, there were not this unborn, this unbecome, this unmade, this uncompounded no hope at all could be had by this born, by this become, by this made, by this compounded".

One day a king met an Arhant nun and asked her to tell him as to what would happen to an Arhant, a perfected Saint, after his death.

The Nun said: Permit me, O king, to ask you in return a question, and if it shall seem good to you, so do you reply.  What do you think, O king?  Have you among your men an accountant, a master of your treasury or any official skilled in numbers who might be able to number the sands of the Ganges, who- might- be able to tell you how many are the grains of sand in that great river?

'That have I not, Venerable lady," replied the king.

"Or have you, O king, an accountant or store-keeper or arithmetician who could measure the water of the great ocean and say how many drops of water it contains.
"That have I not" replied the king.
"Why not?" returned the nun.
"It is because the great ocean is deep, immeasurable and unfathomable."

"Even so also is the being of him who has attained to Nibbana, the being of such a one is deep, immeasurable and unfathomable," said the nun.

Then the king went to the Lord Buddha and told him what the nun had said to him.  Thereupon the Lord Buddha said: "If you, O king, had come to me first with this same question, I would have given you exactly the same reply. O king, the nun is very learned, and very wise.

Now you can understand from this sutta that the person who has attained to Perfect Nibbana-dhatu is not annihilated His nature after death, the Anupadisesa-Nibbana-dhatu is beyond words and cannot be described by positive terms, because the So-called positive terms are words limited to the conditioned and composed things.  Only the phenomenal states, of which the world is composed, can be expressed by such terms.

Thus the knowledge of the actuality of Nibbana-dhatu, gathered through the study of the scriptures is called Agamasiddhi, understanding through the study of the scriptures.

Anumeyya-siddhi is the inferential knowledge.  Everything has its opposite side.  Sickness has its opposite in health; heat has its opposite in cool; darkness has its opposite in light: and likewise Samsara the round of rebirths the phenomenal existence must have its opposite side in Nibbana-dhatu, the only Reality.

A man by meant of the knowledge he has gathered by these two ways, the scriptural knowledge and the inferential knowledge, comes to understand that there is actually a perfect peaceful state, a reality, a home for the suffering mortals.  He then follows the path leading to that state, discovered and expounded by the Lord Buddha and consequently attains to realisation of the four Great Truths, at which moment he perceives Nibbana-dhatu with his opened mind's eye, reallses it and experiences it.  This, the realisation of Nibbana-dhatu, is called Paccakkha-siddhi.

Now you should understand at last that Nibbana-Dhatu, as expounded by the Lord Buddha as the Goal of the Pathgoer, is not nothingness but a state to be realised and experienced, an actuality, the only Reality.

                                                                "Nibbana-paramam Sukhem"


                                         Development of Divine States
(An Essay)
Introduction
I have prepared this essay explaining how to develop divine states within one's heart, at the request of some friends who have devoted themselves to the practice,, of meditation (bhavana).  There are many methods of practice of Bhavana suiting different ' temperaments of beings. out of, them the development of the four divine states of loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), gladness and syjnpathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) is very important and most useful both to those who have renounced the world as well as to those who live a family life in the, world.

In Pali these states are called "Bramha Vlhara". "Bramha" means, according to Buddhist terminology the higher or sublime gods who live fa life of loving-kindness etc.  Hence they are the godly ways of life, divine states in otherwords.  They are also called -appamanna', (immeasurable mental states), because these four states of mind are to be extended towards all living being/s immeasurably, limitlessly.

The persons who practise these meditations (bhavanas) regularly as a part of their d'ally life, even though they have not yet attained to any Jhana (ecstatic state), will be able to experience the amazing results of the practice of this system.  I know from my own experience how fruitful Is the practice of even any one of these four states.

As an illustration, I'll set forth an event showing the wonderful power of extending loving-kindness even towards a single person: 

Some 67 years ago, during the time of the first world war, there was one Shri Lankan staying in Calcutta devoting himself to Buddhist propaganda.  At the same time a struggle arose in Shri Lanka between Sinhalese and Muslims.  Consequently many Sinhalese leaders of the day were arrested by the government.  Though the Buddhist propagandist staying in Calcutta had nothing to do with that struggle, as a result of false accusation and suspicion, the Police Inspector General of Shri Lanka sent a cable to the Police Inspector General of Calcutta to arrest the said Shri Lankan propagandist and send him back to Shri Lanka.  The Police Inspector General of Calcutta immediately phoned the Siri Lankan and said he had gotten a message from Shri Lanka requesting to send the Shri Lankan back home, and that he, would come to meet him the following morning.

The Shri Lankan became hesitant because it was the time when martial law had been declared all over Shri Lanka and even some of his relatives and friends had been arrested.  He thought of a way to get out of this predicament.  Suddenly it occurred to him that the only way to save himself from this danger was to extend loving kindness.  So he immediately got a photograph of the Police Inspector General of Calcutta, supplied by one of his servants.  He started his practice at about 9pm.  He placed the picture on a table in front of him, concentrated his mind on it, imagined the form of the other man and began to extend his feelings of loving-kindness towards him with the words, "Mr.  So and So, may you be happy, may you be happy." That whole night, until morning, he practised this concentration incessantly.  Early in the morning the Police Inspector General came planning to arrest the Shri Lankan.  But as soon as he saw the propagandist's face, he changed.

The Police Inspector General said, "Mr.So and so. I feel amazed at the change that has overcome me.  I came to arrest you and deport you to Shri Lanka.  But when I see you, I feel like you are my father.  I cannot send you to Shri Lanka.  Listen to me: I'll do one thing for your sake.  I'll keep you under house arrest, and I will assume responsibility for you."

So saying, he left the place and sent a cable to the Shri Lankan Police Inspector General to say that he would keep the man under house arrest and would be totally responsible for him.

This person was a friend of mine and told me the whole incident after he returned to Shri Lanka some seven years later.

If any person is not on good terms with another, and if the latter extends his loving-kindness towards the former in the afore-mentioned manner, at regular hours every day for at least a month, and with a pure heart, assuredly I can say, the other person will be friendly with him, as incredible as it may seem.

This is the amazing result of extending loving-kindness towards a single person.  If one practises this               universally with an unselfish heart, there is no question about its great results.  If all people in all countries honestly practised the development of the four divine states, according to the instructions given in this booklet, no weapons would be necessary to save mankind from the disaster of a future world war, and peace would reign over the whole earth, with the real heavenly kingdom manifested here on earth.

In this essay, I will first set forth general advice of the Lord Buddha to all disciples, then the nature of anger, as the Lord Buddha has expounded it, next the value of expelling it, fourthly the obstacles to such a practice, and finally how one, overcoming all obstacles, should develop the four divine states step by step until one attains to the consummation of the practice.

The description given here is based on the method expounded in Pali texts, commentaries, the Visuddhimagga and its translation (Path of Purification) by the late Venerable Nyanamoli Maha Thera.

Background

A person who expects to be successful in his practice of meditation (bhavana) should follow the instruction as given by the Lord Buddha, for He says:

You must train thus for yourselves:

Others may be harmful, but we should be harmiess.  
Others may be killers, but we should abstain from killink.  
Others may be thieves and robbers, but we should abstain from stealth and robbery.
Others may be unchaste, but we should be chaste.
Others may be liars, but we should be truthful.
Others may be of harsh speech, but we should abstain from harsh speech.
Others may be slanderers, but we should abstain from slandering.
Others may be of idle gossip, but we should abstain from idle gossip.
Others may be covetous, but we should be non-covetous.  
Others may be corrupt in heart, but we should be lncorrupt in heart.
Others may be of wrong views, but we should be of right views.
Others may be of wrong thought, but we should be of right thought.
Others may be of wrong speech, but wd should be of right speech.
Others may be of wrong activity, but we should be of right activity.
Others may be of wrong livelihood, but we should be of right livelihood.
Others may be of wrong endeavour, but we should be of right endeavour.
Others may be of wrong watchfulness, but we should be of, right watchfulness (right mindfulness),
Others may -be of wrong concentration, but we should be of right concentration.
Others may be of pseudo-freedom, but we should be of real freedom.
Others may be encompassed witif sloth and torpor, but we should be free of sloth and torpor.
Others may be puffed up with pride, but we should be not puffed up.
Others may be of doubting nature, but we should remove our doubts.
Others may be wrathful, but we should be free of wrath.
Others may be rancorous, but we should be free of rancour
Others may be harsh in nature, but we should be gentle.
Others may be spiteful, but we should be without spite.
Others may be jealous, but we should be free of,lealousy.
Others may be grudging, but we should be free of grudge.
Others may be treacherous, but we should be free of treachery.
Others may be dishonest, but we should be straightforward.
Others may be stubborn, but we should be docile.
Others may be proud, but we should be humble.
Others may be difficult to speak to, but we should be easy to speak to.
Others may associate with bad friends, but we should have good associations.
Others may be indolent, but we should be diligent.
Others may be lacking in self-confidence, but we should possess self-confidence.
Others may be shameless (to do bad deeds), but we should be shameful.
Others may be reckless, but we should be cautious.
Others may be illiterate, but we should be literate.
Others may be lazy, but we should be of dauntless energy.
Others may be unmindful, but we should be mindful.
Others may be poor In wisdom, but we should be rich in wisdom.
Others may be of bias, and find it difficult to give up their prejudices, but we should be free of bias and easy to welcome truth.

"I tell you further, that even the intention of  doing good is very helpful and invites good results, let alone the practice of good speech and good deeds. If there is an uneven road, I tell you, there should be an even road for treading: if there is an uneven ford, there should be an even ford."       (Majjhima Nikaya 1, pp. 443, 44)

Anger

Anger that arises in man's heart manifests itself in diverse phases as ill will, hatred, wrath, rancour, enmity, etc, To purify one's heart of these unwholesome characteristics. one should understand how harmful they are and how they stand in the way of one's spiritual progress.

Thus spoke the Lord Buddha on this matter:

  The person possessed of anger turns discoloured;
  He doesn't have a good sound sleep;
Coming upon a beneficial thing
He mistakes it for a mischance.

Then doing some harm to another
By speech and deed (and being fined),
He will have to suffer loss of his property.

Crazed by wrath does he behave in a way
That invites him ill repute;
His relatives and friends
Shun him as he is hot-tempered.

Anger fathers misfortune;
Anger maddens one's brain.
It' is the danger born within
Though the man realizes it not.

The angry one knows not what is right,
Nor does he see what really Is,
All round him is darkened for him,
Whom does the anger subjugate.

Capitivated by anger does he hurt another,
As a hard thing easily done by him.
But when his anger is gone,
Repenteth he as one burnt by fire."
(Anguttara Nikaya, iv, p. 94)

Maddened by anger he (she) kills his (her) father; 
Maddened by anger he (she) slays his (her) own mother; 
Maddened by anger he (she) kills a holy person; 
Maddened by anger slayeth he (she) any poor worldling.
                                                     (Anguttara Nikaya, iv, p. 97)

"All beings seek their own good,
None dearer to them than themselves.
Yet crazed by anger and maddened by some reason,
They kill themselves; some commit suicide with a sword.  Some swallow poison,
Still another hangs himself by a rope,
Or flings himself over a precipice or a crevice."
(Anguttara Nikaya, iv, p, 97)

"Doing destruction of life
The angry one sees no 'harm done to himself (herself), 
Due to ignorance,
By such ways"
                                                   (Anguttara Nikaya, iv, p. 98)

"The person who is angry with another wishes for him (her): "Let him (her) be ugly." Why is that?  Because the angry person doesn't like to see the other in a beautiful 
light.  Even though the other is well bathed, well dressed, the angry person sees in him (her) an ugliness.

The angry person doesn't like to see the other person lying in comfort, because he wishes the latter to lie always in discomfort.

The angry person doesn't like to see the other one in prosperity, because he always expects the latter to be in depression.

The angry person doesn't like to see the other one wealthy because he always expects to see the other in poverty.

The angry person cannot bear the other one's fame, because he always wishes the latter to be under ill repute.

The angry person doesn't like the other one to have friends and companions, because he always expects the latter to be deserted by them all.

The angry person doesn't like the other one to be destined to a happy rebirth after death, because he always wishes the latter to be in a miserable state after death."
  (Anguttara Nikaya iv, p. 94)

A person who is wrathful, who cherishes hatred for another, who is wicked and dishonest, who holds erroneous views, who is roguish- let one know a person of this type as one of the lowest grade among humans."
                                                     (Sutta Nipata, verse 116)

The person crazed by anger, subjugated by anger, with his heart captivate ' d by anger, ponders over his own disaster disaster of others, disaster of them both."
 (Anguttara Nikaya 1, p. 216)

A log, o monks, taken away from a funeral pyre, which is ablaze on both the ends and fouled in the middle with excrement, serves for timber neither in a city nor in a village.  Similar is the person who is wrathful and works neither for his own good nor for the good of others."
(Anguttara Nikaya I 1, p. 95)

Removal of Anger

He abused me, he maltreated me,
He defeated me, or he robbed me,
Harbouring such thoughts keeps hatred alive.
(Dhammapada, verse 3)

He abused me, he maltreated me,
He defeated me, he robbed me.
Releasing -such thoughts banishes hatred for all time.
(Dhammapada, verse 4)

Repay not the angry with anger,
And you'll win the battle hard to win.
He who, knowing the other in anger, 
Maintains peace mindfully,
Works for the well being of both of them, 
Well being his own, and that of others.
          (Samyutta Nikaya, 1, p. 162)

"Brethren, suppose some bandits come to you with a double@-handled saw and sever your body limb from limb, yet even on that occasion, if any one of you would hurt his feelings against them, for that reason he Is not a follower of my teaching.  Even on that occasion, you should train yourselves to guard yourselves from ill will thus: "May our hearts be not perverted, may we not utter any harsh word against them, but may we dwell kindly and compassionate, with tender heart of good will, void of anger."
      (Mallhima Nikaya 1, p. 129)

Everybody loves himself (herself).
To everybody his (her) life is dear.
Considering this fact, one should abstain
From harming another.
                                                                        (Udana p. 47)

Force of patience is the most powerful army.
(Dhammapada 399)
I visited all quarters with my mind,
And didn't see anybody dearer to him than himself.
Self Is the dearest of all things to everyone.
One who considers this fact and loves oneself
Would never harm another being.
(Udana p. 47)

Enmity Is never appeased by returning enmity.
Enmity is appeased only by amity.
This is an eternal Truth.
(Dhammapada 5)

None of the good deeds done by one for acquiring merit is worth a fraction of the value of the practice of the meditation of loving-kindness
(Itivuttaka, p. 6)

Conquer enmity with amity, 
Conquer evil with good,
Conquer stinginess with generosity, 
Conquer falsehood with truthfulness.
(Dhammapada 222)

Truly we dwell in happiness,
As we don't hate while others hate.  
Amid those who hate
Free of hate do we live.
(Dhammapada 197)

"Brethren, eleven advantages are to be expected from the freedom of heart (from ill will) through the cultivation of loving-kindness, development of good will, by constant increase of loving thoughts, by taking it for one's vehicle, by making it as if treasured, by living in conformity with it, by translating kindness into action, and by establishing oneself in loving-kindness.

What are the eleven?  He (she) sleeps in comfort, he (she) wakes in comfort, he (she) doesn't have bad dreams, he (she) becomes loved by humans, he (she) becomes dearto non-humans, gods would protect him (her), fire or poison or weapons cannot affect him (her), his (her) mind is quickly concentrated on the object (of meditation), his (her) complexion quickly turns attractive, he (she) passes away (at the moment of death) in calm.  If he (she) failt to attain Perfection in this life, he (she) will be reborn into the abode of Sublime (Brahma) gods."
                         (Anguttara Nikaya v, P. 342)

Note: (*) These advantages are completely obtained by a person who has attained to ecstatic trances (appanajhana) by the development of loving-kindness.  Even persons who have not attained to ecstatic trances obtain them partly and occasionally.

"If a monk cultivates loving-kindness even as long as a fingersnap, it is said that he lives not destitute of ihana (ecstasy), one who follows the Master's instruction, one who keeps to the advice of the Master, and it is not In vain that he accepts the food offered by the people.  So what a greatly valuable thing would it be if one would make much of it!"                                                       (Anguttara Nikaya 1, P. 11)

"Comparing others with oneself, and seeing that all seek happiness, one should extend loving-kindness to all beings as follows:

"May I be happy and free of worries;

May my friends and relatives, those who are indifferent to me, and also those who hate me - may all these be happy;

May all beings in limitless world systems be happy.

May, in the same way, all women, all men, all holy beings, all worldlings, all deities, all those in unhappy realms, in all the directions, be happy."
(Samanera-sikkha)

Discourse on Loving-kindness

"One skilled in one's own good, who seeks highest good 
Should follow the way as given below:
One should be active, upright, perfectly upright, docile, gentle and humble.

One should be contented, easily supported, 
Having few wants, simple in living.

With senses composed, discreet,
Not arrogant, void of greedy attachment 
To supporting families.

One should not do any mean deed,
A target of the reproof of the wise.
One should extend loving thoughts
To all others thus:

  May all beings be happy and safe,
  May all beings be happy-hearted,

May all beings, both weak and strong, 
With no exception whatever,
Whether long or stout,
Middling or short, minute or gross,

Seen or unseen, living afar or living near, 
Already born or seeking birth,
May all these beings be happy-hearted.

May no one deceive another
Nor scorn in any way, wherever he (she) may be,
Nor in anger or ill will,
May one not desire another's mishap."

     "Just as a mother protects her child, 
      Her only child (with so deep a love)
  Even as to risk her own life for its sake,
  Even so towards all living beings,
  May one cultivate boundless loving thought.

 "One should cultivate a heart of good will,
Towards the whole world, free of hate and enmity.  
Up above, down below, and across, unhindered.

Standing, walking, sitting or lying down,
So long as one keeps awake, Should one devote oneself
To the practice of this meditation.

The virtuous one, with no falling into error, 
Endowed with Perfect View,
Should dispel greed for pleasures.
For, never will such a one return to a mother's womb."
(Sutta Nipata, Metta'Sutta)

"There are nine bases of quarreling: quarreling is stirred up at the thought "he has done me an injury," or "he is doing me an injury", or ,he will do me an injury", or "he has done, is doing, will do an injury to one I love", or ,he has bestowed a benefit, is bestowing, will bestow a benefit on one I dislike".)
                                                                            (Dialogues of Buddha, I I 1, p.243)

Expulsion of Anger

"There are five ways whereby resentment arisen in a monk can be dispelled.  What are the five?

When resentment arises in one's heart against another, good will is to be, extended towards that person.  Thus the resentment for that person is to be dispelled.

Or compassion is to be extended towards that person; 
or sympathetic Joy is to be extended towards that person; 
or equanimity is to be extended towards that person; 
or that person is to be entirely forgotten, is not to be thought of;

or the law of kamma as one's own property is to be attributed to him, as "this gentleman his his own kamma for his property, kamma as his heritage, kamma for his producer, kamma for his relative, and kamma for his refuge, he will have to accept for his heritage whatever kamma he does here"

Thus the resentment for another is to be dispelled."
(Anguttara Nlkaya, Book V, p- 161)

Obstacles to Practice

When one practises any of these four meditations (bhavanas) there may arise obstacles that hinder further development.  Sometimes one may remember some harm done to oneself by another person.  On such occasions he should remember the Instructions given by the L&rd Buddha and other saints.  The examples they have shown from their lives are to be followed on such occasions.  Read the instructions and advice' given in the foregoing introduction.  He (she) should even advise himself (herself) thus:

"Being angry what are you doing to him?  Is this kamma rooted in your anger not conducive to your own disaster?  Your kamma is your own . property, you are the hlir of your own kamma.  Your kamma is your own parent, your own kin, and your own refuge.  Whatever you do, you yourself will be it's heir. Is this not so?  This kamma you are going to do is notconducive to your achievement of Perfect Buddhahood, Silent Buddhahood, or Arahantship, isn't that so?  It will not bring you overlordship either in the highest heaven or lower heaven or in this world of humans.  Nor any happiness will it bring. Isn't it so? But the evil kamma of yours rooted in anger will lead you after death to misery in unhappy states.  By doing this you become like a man who with a view to hit another          picks up burning ember or excrement in his hand and thus first burns himself or makes himself stink.  Is this not so?"  In this way he has to advise himself.

If he still feels displeased with the other person, he shoul[d reflect how our Lord Buddha behaved towards his enemies even in his previous births.  Let him reflect on the life of the ascetic Khantivadi.

When he was an ascetic known as Khantivadi, long ago, once he visited the city of Benares and was staying in a grove.  The king of Benares, a cruel person who had no regard for the practice of virtues, a man of materialistic views, met Khantivadi one day in the grove and asked, "What kind of doctrine do you teach, monk?"' "I teach the value of patience," said the ascetic.  The king, wanting to prove It impossible to practise patience, had him flogged with scourges of thorns but could not make the ascetic angry.  Then he had his hands and feet cut off.  Even at thisthe ascetic felt not the slightest anger.
(Jatakas 111, 39)

In another previous life. the Lord Buddha had been born as a son to an arrogant king named Pratapa.  The child was a prodigy.  One.day the king got angry with the queen who was fondling the babe and could not get up from the seat before him.  He grew rough and ordered his servant to lop off hands, feet and head of the infant.  But the child didn't get angry either with his father or with the man who cut his limbs off, but he was impartial to all, towards his father, the man who cut off his limbs, towards his lamenting mother and towards himself.
(Jatakas 111, 181)

When the meditator (aspirant) thinks thus of the Bodhisatta's (Future Buddha's) former conduct, his resentment might subside.  If he still can not dispel his anger towards the other person, now he should meditate on the teaching of the Buddha.  He has said, "Brethren, it is not easy to find a bein 'g who has not formerly been your mother ... father... your brother ... your. sister ... yourson ... your daughter in a previous life of this incalculably long cycle of lives."
                         (Samyutta Nikaya 11, 189 - 190)

Reviewing this fact, the meditator should think of another one: "This person, when he (she) was my mother in a
previous birth, carried me in her womb nearly ten months, and when I was a baby, she removed my urine, excrement, spittle, snot, all without any disgust.  She played with me on her lap, nourished me, carrying me about in her arms.  Thus she nourished me with such deep love.  When this person was my father in a previous life, he risked his life for me in pursuing the trade of merchant, or of farmer, and did business hard with a view to earning wealth for my sake.
And when, he was born as my brother, sister, son or daughter, too, he (she) treated me with loving care and gave
me every possible kind of help for my well-being.  So it is unjust for me to	harbour anger for him merely because
of some disagreeable	thing done to me in this life."

If the meditator still feels dislike for that person, he should remember the words of the Buddha with which he expounded the eleven merits of the development of lovingkindness.

But if he still feels displeased with the bther person, he should think of the other person as a collection of impurities, as, hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, etc., and should advise himself, saying "Are you angry with his hair?  Or with his nails?  Or his teeth?  Or with his flesh?. and so on. His body is a collection of elements according to the ultimate point	of view. Are you angry with these elements"? Thus he should question and advise himself.

If he still feels displeased, he should look at the person from the ultimate point of view as a collection of elements or as a collection of the five aggregates of existence (khandhas).  Then he (she) should advise himself (herself) with these words: ,Do you feel angry with the elements or with the agregate of matter, the aggregate of feelings, the aggregate of perceptions, the aggregate of mental formations, or the aggregate of consciousness?"

Reflecting this way he (she) will be able to remove his (her) anger.

If the other person is a hostile one, the meditator should treat him with generosity, and then both of them will be able to be friendly and forget all enmities.

If he still feels angry, he should try to -understand who is the real enemy in what the so-called hostile person has
done.  Suppose the so-called enemy has annoyed him (her) withhis(her) hands. So should he (she) avenge the hitting by punishing the so-called enemy's hands or any other limb of his (her) body?  The other person hit the latter under the order of his mind.  His bodily parts, as a car under a driver, worked under the mind's order.  If a car strikes a man, it Is not the car but the driver that is to be punished.  So, for hitting done to the latter, the other's mind must be responsible, not his body.  But his mind is not any "one thing", but rather a flow of states momentarily arising and vanishing.  Therefore all the mind-units of this flow are not responsible for that hitting.  It should be the only mind-unit In which anger arose and crazed it to use the body to hit the latter that is to be held responsible.  But that mindunit arose, utilized the body to hit, and vanished, and is no more living now.  Apart from this, unless the anger arose in it. It wouldn't use the body for that cruel action.  Thus it is anger that is to be responsible for the cruelty.  So it is anger that is to be punished.  Now the real enemy has been discovered, that is, anger.

If you intend to hit the other's body, again the hidden enemy, anger, might arise in him.  You are then nourishing
and supporting the enemy to arise, it is by no means the punishment to the real enemy.  Instead of killing the enemy (anger), you are nourishing it, making it rise stronger.  But, remembering the instructions of the Lord Buddha that "only by amity enmity is appeased" "Conquer anger by lovingkindness", if you extend your good will to the so-called hostile person, his anger, his enmity, will come to its cessation.  Thus the real enemy is killed, the real way of avenging has been performed.

In this way the meditator should advise himself (herself). Thus he (she) can easily extend his (her) good will towards the other.

                                                    The PRACTICE
(Brahma-vihara-bhavana)

The development of the four divine states of lovingkindness (metta). compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) is what is meant by the expression "Development of divine states"

Development of Loving-Kindness  (Metta-bhavana)

First of all, the meditator should repeat-the refuge formula:

"I take refuge in the Lord Buddha, I take refuge in the Holy Dhamma, I take_refuge in the community of the saintly disciples of the Lord Buddha." This formula should be said three times while reflecting on the meaning of the formula.

Then he should repeat precept formula, if he or she is a lay practitioner, that is, the determination to abstain from taking life, taking what is not given, engaging in wrong sexual relations, using false speech, and consuming intoxicants.

Then he should consider the evil and disadvantages of anger.  He should read the foregoing description of anger and its re;ease.  After this, he may begin his actual practice by extending love or good will towards himself.  Let him generally aspire for his own well-being as follows:

"May I be free from all enmity, may I be free from all afflictions, may I be free from all anxiety, may I live in happiness."

To practise good will in detail, one can give autosuggestion* limb - from limb throughout one's whole body, feeling that every such limb is healthy, thus:

"My head is healthy inside and outside.  It is free from all ailments".

After this practi ce for a short time, one should feel one's head fully healthy.  Then one should concentrate on
one's neck and give the suggestion ,My neck is in good health, my neck is free from ailments, may my neck be healthy".  For a short while one should practise this auto-suggestion until	one feels one's neck fully healthy.

Then one should think of both one's shoulders and hands and give the suggestion" "Both my shoulders and
hands are healthy and strong and free from all ailments".

After one feels them healthy, one should mentally come to one's breast and give auto-suggestion for a short time: "My breast inside and out-side is perfectly healthy, free from all ailments."

Next to this, one should give auto-suggestion , to the remaining parts of one's trunk: "My whole belly inside and outside Is in perfect health and freefrom all ailments."

When one feels all those parts are In perfect health, one should give auto-suggestion to one's thighs, knees, legs and feet "May my thighs, knees. legs and feet be strong and in perfect health, fr I ee of all ailments."

Then several times one should give these auto-suggestions both in regular and reverse order, from head to
toe and from toe to head.

Then one should give general auto-suggestion "may I be healthy, may I be free from enmity, may I be free from all afflictions, may I be free from anxiety, may I live in happiness."

Mere wording or mere thinking is not sufficient.  While giving these auto-suggestions one should feel what one suggests to oneself.  Next to this the meditator should think of a person of the same sex whom, he (she) honors, a living person, either his (her) parent, teacher or preceptor, and should extend his (her) good will (loving-kindness) and suggest: "'May he (she), like myself, be free of enmity, may he (she) be free of all afflictions, may he (she) be free of anxiety, may he (she) live happily."

Note:	(*) By the practice of this kind of auto-suggestion regularly every day, one may be able to cure oneself
even or many a chronic disease.

Until one feels thoroughly that on6 has suffused the other person with loving-kindness, one should extend good will towards him (her).

Next, one should think of the dearest friend and spread loving-kindness towards him (her): "May my friend, like myself, be, free from enmity, may he (she) be free from anxiety, may he (she) have a happy life."

Until the meditator feels that he (she) is wishing profusely for the welfare of the other, he (she) should go on practising the same repeatedly.

Following the friend, the meditator should think of any person neutral or common (neither friendly nor unfriendly), and should extend loving-kindness towards him (her) and wish him (her) all	well-being, as before: "May so-and-so, like myself, be free from enmity, may lie (she) be free from afflictions, may he (she) be free from anxiety, may he (she) live happily."

Lastly the meditator should think of his (her) enemy, if there is any, or anybody who dislikes him (her) and should will and wish him (her) well-being in the very same foregoing way.

When the meditator sees and feels no difference whatever between himself (herself) and others, he (she) should understand that he (she) has extended loving-kindness towards himself (herse@ and others alike, with no distinction whatsoever.

Now the meditator should understand that he (she) has come to success so far in this preliminary practice.

Then the meditator should think of all others with no distinction as to sex,- and willing and wishing their welfare, he (she) should extend good will and lovi'ng-kindness towards all of them thus: ,May all these beings, like myself, be free of enmity, may they be free of all afflictions, may they be free of all anxiety, and may they all live in happiness."

When the meditator breaks down all limitations in this way and perceives no difference between himself (herselo and others, his (her) mind becomes fixed on the same object (that all beings are in a happy mood), and he (she) will attain to the access (upacara) ecstasy.1

Now the meditator should spread this same good will (loving-kindness) towards all . humans, deities (gods and angels), animals and all other beings, all beings in all galaxies or world systems in the whole universe.  While doing this he (she) will attain to the first state of ecstasy (First Jhana).2 All mental hindrances (nivaranas), that is, sensuality, ill will, uncertainty, confusion and worry, and sloth and torpor, wi!l subside and be inhibited.  At this moment the consciousness that arises: within the meditator is accompanied by five mental factors as "applied thought, sustained thought, . rapture, ease, and one pointedness" (vitakka-vicara-piti-sukha-ekaggata-sahitam).  This is the first ecstatic state (pathama-jhana).  The meditatormay enter this ecstatic state over and over again and enjoy the bliss and peace of heart as long as he likes.

1.	A state of deep calm and concentration, but not a hypnotic trance.
2.	A state -still deeper than ,access Jhana", but- riot ecstasy in an emotional sense as we commonly think of it.

The person who has attained to ecstatic state . through the extension of loving-kindness will achieve eleveri advantages:

He falls asleep in ease.
He awakens from sleep in ease.
He doesn't have bad dreams.
He is loved by humans.
He is loved by non-humans (gods, angels, ghosts) and animals.
He is protected by deities (gods and angels).
Fire, poison, and weapons do not affect him.
His mind is easily concentrated on the object of meditation 
He has a beautiful complexion.
At the last moment of his life he will pass away calmly with no pain.
If he hasn't developed his mind further by the practice of insight (vipassana), he will be born into the realm of brahmas (higher gods.)                                                                                            (Anguttara Nikaya, V,p,342)

At the attainment of the first ecstatic state (appana jhana), the extatic consciousness will be accompanied by five factors, namely initial application of thought (vitakka, sustained application of thought (vicara), rapture (piti), zest (sukha), and one-pointedness of mind (ekaggata); while five hindrances, sloth and torpor (thina-middha), uncertainty (vicikiccha), III will (vyapada), restlessness and worry (uddhaccakukkucca) and sensuality (kamcchanda) are inhibited, and he begins to experience a peace beyond words.

Now he (she) should master this first Jhana in five ways:

He (she) should train the mind to turn it towards the Jhana at any place and at any	time. This is the first mastery.

He (she) should train the mind to enter the Jhana at any place and at any time.  This is the second mastery.

He (she) should train the mind to remain in the Jhana as long as he	(she) likes.  This is the third mastery.

He (she) should train the mind to emerge from the Jhana at any place and at any time.  This is the fourth mastery.

He (she) should train the mind to remember and examine the nature of the Jhana after emerging from it.

The person who has attained to the first jhana may spread his loving-kindness towards all beings in many ways.  He (she) may use one mode of the wordings In his (her) practice, thus: "May all be free from enmity," or "May all be free from conflict or "May all be free from anxieties," or "May all live in happiness."

FURTHER DESCRIPTIONS:

Two forms of extension of loving-kindness

The extension of lovin'g-kindness is twofold, namely, specified extension and unspecified extension.
The specified extension which is seven-fold is as follows:

May all women be free from enmity.
May all men be free from enmity.
May all holy persons be free from enmity.
May all worldly beings be free from enmity.
May all deities (gods, angels) be free from enmity.
May all humans be free from enmity.
May all. beings of lower grades be free from enmity.

Instead of the phrase "free from enmity", one may use any of the rest of three ,free from afflictions", "free from anxiety", and 'live long happily".

If one extends loving-kindness towards all living beings regardless of any specification as to women, men, etc., It is called unspecified extension.

This other method is the extension of lovln&-kindness with regards to the beings in different directions, thus:

May all beings in the eastern direction be free from enmity (affliction etc.),
May all beings in the north-eastern direction be free from enmity...
May all beings in the northern direction be free from enmity...
May all beings in the north-western direction be free from enmity...
May all beings in the western direction be free from enmity...
May all beings In the south-western direction be free from enmity...
May all beings In the southern direction be free from enmity...
May all beings in the south-eastern direction be free from enmity...
May all beings In the downward direction be free from enmity...
May all beings in the upward direction be free from enmity...

The person who has developed ecstatic absorption (appanaihana) in any of these ways will achieve eleven advantages as mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya in Book xi. (see page 23.)

                                                         SECOND AND THIRD TRANCES

After the meditator has achieved mastery over the First Ecstatic Trance in the afore-mentioned five ways, and enters and emerges from it thousands of times, he (she) will easily be able to enter the second stage of t e trance, in which the Jhana-consciousness will be accompanied by three factors, that Is, rapture, zest and one-pointedness of mind.  The second Jhana accompanied by these three factors Is also to be mastered in the five ways as described in the practice of the First Jhana.

After mastering the second Jhana in those five ways, he will easily attain to the third Jhana.  Third Jhana consciousness will be. accompanied by two factors, zest and onepointedness.-The meditator should have mastery over the third Jhana too in the said five ways.

                                      DEVELOPMENT OF COMPASSION

                                                                   (Karuna-bhavana)

The meditator who expects to practise the meditation of compassion should first consider the disadvantage and evils of cruelty and the greatness, value, advantages, and merits of the development of compassion, He may not be successful if he tries to spread compassion towards his friends or neutral ones (or those of the opposite sex at first); thus, as In the practice of loving-kindness, one should begin with people of the same sex.

Compassion is sympathy forthose who undergo suffering, sorrow, or misfortune.  It arouses a person to help the sufferers.  Therefore the object of the meditation of compassion should be a living being who is undergoing some trouble or misfortune.

In the practice of this meditation the meditator at first should spread his compassion towards any being of the same sex that suffers from some sort of trouble.  Next he should extend the same compassion towards others.

Even a man living amid luxuries will die some day.  Taking this fact for a point, the meditator should exte ' nd his compassion even towards the rich and those who live amid luxury.

As all beings that are born are subject to decay, death and various kinds of troubles, so depending on these facts
The meditator can extend his compassion towards all living beings.

The order of spreading compassion is as follows:

First, compassion is to be extended towards one who is already suffering from some misfortune.  Next, towards dear ones (friends, etc.)  Thirdly, towards the neutral persons; after them, towards enemies' and finally towards oneself.  This is the order of practice accordsng to some teachers.

According to some others, as mentioned in the commentary to the Anguttara Nikaya, first of all one should extend compassion towards the enemy, next towards the depressed, after that towards dear ones, and finidly towards oneself.

From all these descriptions it is clear that one should start this practice by extending compassion towards one who Is under some misfortune at the present moment, and then towards others who are destined to suffer from various troubles to come, generally regarding all living beings that are subject to decay, death and other sorts of troubles.  The rest is the same as what is said about the meditation of lovingkindness.

One who has developed, this meditation is able to attain to the first ecstatic trance (pathama-jhana), the second ecstatic trance (dutlya-jhana), and the third ecstatic trance (tatiya-jhana), and all the advantages mentioned in the foregoing description with reference to the development of loving-kindness apply:here equally.

                                                  DEVELOPMENT OF SYMPATHETIC JOY 
                                                                         (Mudita-bhavana)

The meditator of sympatheticjoy should practise it taking the dearest person of the same sex for the first object.  Contemplating over the past prosperity of one's dearest friend, his present prosperity, of the future prosperity awaiting him (her), the meditator should appreciate all that at first.

Next he (she) should appreciate the prosperity past, present	or future of the enemy, if he (she) has any.

If he (she) feels dislike of the enemy, he (she) should follow the instructions given in 'the meditation of loving-kindness, and remove his (her) dislike and then continue the practice.  Following the enemy he (she) should develop approval of his own prosperity.

When he (she) feels no difference and sees and approves of prosperity of all beings alike, he (she) will be able to
attain to the first, second and third Jhanas gradually, accroding to the instructions given In the description of the
development of loving-kindness.

Sympathetic joy is the direct opposite of envy and jealousy.

                                                         DEVELOPMENT OF EQUANIMITY

(Upekkha-bhavana)

The development of equanimity (upekkha) can be successfully carried out by one who has practised any one of the three previous meditations.  After entering the third ecstatic state (tatlya-jhana) by means of any of the foregoing three meditations, the meditator should extend the feeling of equanimity towards a neutral person of the same sex at first, and next he (she) should enter the first, second  and third Jhanas in order.  Then he (she) should extend equanimity towards, his dearest companion, towards the enemy, and last of all towards himself (herself).  When he (she) can see them all from the angle of equanimity, he (she) will attain to the fourth ecstatic state (catuttha-jhana), accompanied by equanimity and one-pointedness of mind.

The person who has developed this meditation is destined to achieve the same advantages as those who practise the meditation of loving-kindness.  But this Jhana is deeper than that of the three previous states.  If he (she), does not go further by turning the channel to the practice of insight (vipassana), the meditator will after death be reborn to the still higher realm. of higher gods (Brahmas).

THE MERIT OF FRIENDLINESS

(Mittanisalmsa)

The person who is not treacherous, who is honest In his friendliness, wherever he (she) may go, will be welcomed with great hospitality.  For many he(she)will be their resort.

The person who is not treacherous and keeps honest friendliness is honored wherever he (she) may go, in every 
country, every village, or city.

Thieves or robbers will not annoy a person who is not treacherous and keeps honest friendliness.  High officials of the government will not look down upon him (her).  He (she) will be victorious amid his enemies.

The person who is not treacherous and keeps honest friendliness- returns to his (her) home with a happy feeling.  In public meetings he (she) is highly respected and becomes the leader among his (her) relatives and companions.

The person who is not treacherous and keeps honest friendliness, as he (she)  Is hospitable to others, wins the
hospitality of others   in return.  Honoring others he (she) will be honored by others.  He (she) earns both name and fame.

The person who is not treacherous and keeps friendliness honestly, as he (she) is generous, will be treated by others too with generosity.  Respecting others he (she) will be respected.  He (she) will be prosperous and illustrious.

The person who is not treacherous and keeps friendliness honestly, will shine among people like a burning fire.  He .(she) appears to glow like a deity.  He (she) will never fall away from prosperity,

The person who is not treacherous and keeps friendliness honestly will be a possessor of many breeding cattle(*), and what is sown in his (her) field will grow richly.  He (she) will enjoy the crop of what is sown.

Note: (*)At the time of the Buddha possession of cattle was regarded as a mark of a rich and fortunate man.
The person who is not treacherous and keeps honest friendliness, even though he (she) should fall from a precipice or a mountain or a tree, will not suffer Injury.  He (she) will be protected by the powers of nature.

The person who is not treacherous an keeps honest friendliness - cannot be removed from his (her) place by enemies just as a deep-rooted banyan tree cannot be overthrown by a storm.
                                                                                                                    (Mugapakkha jataka, Jataka538)


                                                        Abhidhamma

(These Abhidhamma-talks were given, based on the description given in Abhidhammattha-Sangaha, Dhamma-Sangani and Vibhangappakarana).

(Weekly talks given serially at Amaravati Vihara of Great Giddesden In England from the 14th August 1985.)

Two modes of expression

In the Conventional mode of speech (or in the current gsage) we make statements such as sun rises, sun sets' and the like.  But actually there Is no such thing as sun-rise or sun-set.

Suppose a teacher explains these phenomena to his students in the class-room.  He would explain to them how theearth rotates on its own axis and how consequently the phenomena such as sunrise and sunset come to pass.  But the very same teacher, at other times uses such expressions as sunrise and sunset.  He makes such statements not to mislead his hearers but just to follow the convention.  This makes It clear that there are two modes of speech In the world, namely the Usage or expression according to how a thing appears, and that according to what really is.  The former is called the conventional truth and , the latter the scientific truth.

The fifth Sutta in chapter 3 of the Book of Ones of the Anguttara - Nikaya, refers to two kinds of discourses of the Buddha under the names --Nitattha-Suttanta and Neyyattha-Suttanta".  "Nitattha, means that which is with the primarily inferred sense and "neyyattha" means that which is with the meaning that is to be inferred.  The former one was later known as Paramattha - desana, the teaching of the truth in the ultimate sense and the latter as "Sammuti desana", the teaching of the truth in conventional terms. The truth in conventional terms is the thing accepted by a consensus of opinion.  So the Lord Buddha said: "They are expressions, terms of speech, designations in common use in the world"                                                                                      (DI p 202)

Child, man, woman, table, tree, river, mountain and the like are the words used to express a definite Idea and they are so used for the sake of convenience and for conventional purposes.

The convention or conception Is subject to change.  For Instance, at one stage of rran's growth we call him an infant, but some years later we call him a youth, when he is about 15 or a little older, and still later "middle aged" and at last ,an old man", following the changes of his body.

Let me make this point still clearer.  Let us try to understand what a box is.  Some pieces of wood are put together in a particular way to give a certain form or shape.  Then It is called a box.  Suppose the same box is taken apart and its parts are put together again to give the form of, say, a bench.  Then it is no longer a box. People call it a bench.  But the materials are the same; the shape changes the name and concept.

If we refer to a bench and call it a box people would then accuse us of lying.  If we do not conform to convention it seems the same as telling a lie.

Now let us see how the shape has come about.  First, the carpenter thought out the shape.  He formed Its picture in his mind and drew it on a piece of paper, which we call plan or design, from which or according to which he arranged and fastened the pieces of wood and then called it box.  The pieces of wood are not the box.  The box is the name for the shape or form produced by the arrangement of the pieces of timber.  The shape is what he had imagined. Thus in the ultimate sense the box is the shape or form imagined and it is only a concept.  Similarly bench, chair, house, mountain, man, god, angel and such others are concepts.  There are no bench and so on in the sense of ultimate truth.  Then what are those box and others from the ultimate point of view?  First let us examine the so called box and other things and see what they consist of what their constituents are.  A Box is made of pieces of wood.  But what are those wooden parts, what are their constituents, or what do they contain and what are they formed of?  If we examine and analyse those things more and more and deeper and deeper we would come to the conclusion that those are but combinations of molecules and that molecules too are but results of combinations of atoms. From	Buddhist point	of view, every atom is dynamic, always in a state ot qonstant motion.  And what is an atom? It is a thing made up of electricity charged particles.  Every such particle may be reduced to still more minute particles and at last we come to nothing but waves or vibrations and find no substance threin.  Every unit of those material particles or atoms or their subdivisions possesses four fundamental states, namely hardness or softness, cohesion, energy (or heat or cold) and vibration.These are called dhatu (natural states) or (bhuta-rupa) (primary materiality) in Pali.  Thus, after all, from the ultimate point of view, a box is a combination or a mass of atoms in constant motion, a collection of ever changing matter which consists of four elemental states.

Now let us come to man.  What is "Man" according to ultimate truth?  In the first analysis, he is a compound
of body and mind (nama - rupa).  When we analyse body and examine it we come to the conclusion that it is an assembly or combination of atoms consisting of elemental states and subject to constant motion, in other words, a mass of changing states, a mass of waves, a volume of vibrations, in which there is no substance, nothing stable, nothing static In its own nature.

Now let us try to understand the other constituent of man, the mind.  What we call mind is not any unchanging
substance but a process or stream of thought-morrients, of which every thought or consciousness rises and vanishes in a succession, and is more rapid than the flow of material states of the body.

Thus there is nothing permanent in this psycho-physical stream called man.

The inanimate things like stones, earth, fire, rays, water and the like are but streams of the volumes of aggregates of fundamental material states.

If one takes any part or constituent of mind or body for something permanent or distorts mind as matter or matter as mind or any one of these constituents as an ego - entity, as self or soul, he is reckoned as one holding an erroneous view.

One who talks changing or distorting the convention or consensus is taken by people for a liar.

The Lord Buddha, when speaking to people, used both these ways of expressions; the wayof conventional'expression and the way of direct expression of ultimate truths, suiting both the purpose and the temperament of the hearers.

                                                    ABHIDHAMMA 2

                                                                                       Mind

                                          (Talk given on the 16th August, 1985 at Amaravati)

Suppose a river is calmly flowing.  Suddenly a twig from a tree falls into it an(! immediately the water is disturbed; ripples rise up, spread and disappear.  After a minute or two the water is again disturbed by something falling Into it and ripples rise and vanish as before.

Just as the calm flow of the river in this illustration, from the conception of a being In its mother's womb the stream of passive consciousness flows day and ipight very calmly, this we call Bhavanga-sota (passive subliminal stream).  But when an object comes into contact with any of the sense-organs and disturbs it, the passivity of thooght-process Is arrested by the impinging of another object and thus It turns towards the same new object and begins to be active.  If the object is a visible form the action of seeing takes place (ie eye-consciousness arises) and receiving consciousness, Investigating consciousness and determining consciousness arise respectively.  If the object is fully apperceived, seven impulsive thoughts of full cognition arise and vanish successively.  Then a registering consciousness arises twice or thrice.  Aft r this the potency of this active process wanes and the usual passive process of consciousness . takes its place and continues till it is arrested by another object as it occurred before.  If the object that impinges upon the thought process is not strong enough to continue to give compulsion to the function of cognition, it gives way to the process of usual subliminal passivity.

As mentioned before every active thought-process except the last one, of a person's life' contains seven strong thoughts (or the same kind of impulsive consciousness occuring seven times)- either good or bad according to the circumstance.  Thus in the stream of consciousness which is a part of man's life (which is also called the mind in conventional speech), there arise three kinds of consciousness, namely good or wholesome ones, morally bad or unwholesome ones and amoral (or neither-good-nor bad ones).  Of them, in an active pro ' cess of thoughts,apart from the seven impulsive thoughts all others such as eye-consciousness etc, are amoral.  Somuch is enough for the time being with reference to the mental state of a man's life.

As regards the physical side of man's life, thephysical body is a mass or aggregate of matter, which too, just as a river, is an incessant flow of volumes of matter.  Its every minutest material particle or minim of dust is a collection consisting of eight inseparable states, namely the fou r elements as hardness or softness, cohesion, radiation and vibration and the allied qualities of colour, smell, taste and nutrition.  Every such minim is rising and vanishing momentarily, giving way to succeeding ones of a similar type which arise in its place.  The normal duration of every such material unit is so much as 17 thought-moments, and every such moment consisting of three instants called rising instant', 'static instant' and 'vanishing instant'.

Thus the physical body of a living being is actually a process, a flow of volumes of material states.

Man, in this way, as well as other animals is a flux. All inanimate things as stones, earth, water, fire, rays and
the like too are in a state of flux.  The whole universe. the whole conditioned  existence is a flow. Nibbana, the
unconditioned, is the only state in direct opposition to all this conditioned existence.

1.	The last thought - process which occurs at the moment nearing death comprises only five impulsive cognitions.
2. Here "static" is also a conventional usage.  Ultimately nothing is static and everything flows.

                                                  ABHIDHAMMA  3   
                                                                        Four Levels of mind

                                             (talk given on the 20th August 1985 at Amaravati)

No thought can arise without an object to depend on. Thoughts or types of consciousness, after or in direct reference to the objects they depend on are divided into four grades or levels namely, the thoughts related or belonging to the sensuous realm, the thoughts related or belonging to the  subtle corporeal realm, the thoughts      related or belonging to the incorporeal realm and the supramundane thoughts.

The sensuous realm (Kama-loka) is the level of existence both of mind and body mostly dominated by sense objects such as visible forms (rupa), sounds (sadda), odours (gandha), tastes (rasa) and tangible objects (photthabba),

Some persons, tired of sensual enjoyments. seek peace and serenity of mind, follow a system of the development
of mind's calm and attain to a certain high level of mind at which sensuality, ill will and many other unwholesome states of mind are inhibited.  Those persons, after death, will be reborn Into a plane or realm known as ,the subtle corporeal realm.

Still others who are tired of or disgusted with all materiality seek a way to	get rid of that state and develop detachmentof mind from material or corporeal existence through the practice of a kind of concentration and attain to a level of mind at which the whole attachment to materiality (or physical body, gross or subtle) is inhibited.  Such persons, after death, are reborn into a state in which there is only incorporeal existence or sole mind having no material state whatever.  This level of existence is called incorporeal realm.

Those who see the unsatisfactoriness of all the three kinds of afore mentioned levels of existence, practise Vipassana (investigation both into physical and mental existence), in other words, all conditioned existence, and attain to full realisation, gradually passing through eight stages.  The thoughts (or types of consciousness) that arise at those eight stages fix themselves on nibbana the only supramundane object.

Thus, after the afore-said four levels, the thoughts (or types of consciousness) are divided into four groups as those belonging to the sensuous realm and so on.

Thoughts of Sensuous Realm (Kamavacara - cittas)

The thoughts (or types of consciousness) belonging to sensuous sphere are divided into four classes as Akusala (unwholesome), Kusala (wholesome), Vipaka (resultant) and Kriya (functional).

Out of these four classes, first I may deal with Akusalacittas (or unwholesome thoughts.)

Unwholesome Thoughts

A thought (or consciousness) becomes unwholesome because of the unwholesome mental characteristics that arise together with such thoughts.

There are three unwholesome root-conditions, namely, lobha (greed), dosa (aversion), and moha (delusion).

Delusion (moha) is common to all unwholesome thoughts.  But greed and aversion never arise together.  The nature of lobha (greed or self - interestedness) is selfish attachment to a thing or being, whereas the nature of dosa (aversion or anger) is disliking, disapproval of or being displeased with a being or thing.  Thus, lobha being of a liking nature and dosa being of disliking nature, they two can not arise together with the same thought.

Therefore all unwholesome thoughts are classed under three groups: Those rooted in greed and delusion, those rooted in aversion and delusion, -and those rooted in intense delusion.

Here greed and aversion are the main mental characteristics that distinguish the unwholesome thoughts rooted in those two.  So they are classed under the names of those distinguished as thoughts rooted in greed and those rooted in aversion and the other kind rooted in intense delusion.

Unwholesome Thoughts rooted in greed.

1. Suppose a man believes that it is not wrong to steal something from a rich man when there is a necessity.  He goes to a rich man's garden and steals some fruits.  As those fruits are sweet and of good smell he is very glad.  As there is nobody nearby, promptly does he take them away with no hesitation at all.  The thought that arises at this moment is spontaneous accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with erroneous view, This kind of thought is termed in Pali, somanassa-sahagata ditthigata-sampayutta asankharika citta".

There "somanassa' means 'pleasant feeling', 'Sahagata' means accompanied by', ditthigata' means 'erroneous view', 'Sampayutta' means united with' or associated with. 'Asankharika' means automatic, spontaneous' or promptly arisen without any hesitation'.
2. Suppose the same man goes on a second occasion to the same garden to steal fruits.  This time, as he sees
     someone moving about the garden, he is cautious and does not enter the garden at once.  He hides himself till
     the other fellow goes away.  After the latter goes away, he enters the garden.  He gathers courage after some 
     hesitation, or instigated by another person, does he do it.  The thought that arises on such an occasion is called                    
    "sasankharikacitta'.  Here Isankhara' means 'preparation, or sharpening, or gathering courage after some 
     hesitation'.  'Sasanakharika' means -othat which is with 'Sankhara' (preparation after hesitation or 
     backwardness).

     Thus the second thought is termed ,somanassa-sahagata ditthigata sampayutta sasankharika citta" (i.e.,    
      unspontaneous thought accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with erroneous view).

3	Suppose there is a man who accepts that stealing is a wrong deed, but infatuated by extreme hunger enters another's garden and steals some fruits.  In this case he does it with no hesitation whatever.  As the fruits are sweet and well ripe lie is very glad.  The thought arises on  such an occasion is termed 'Somanassa-sahagata
ditthigata-vippayutta asankharika cieta' (spontaneous thought accompanied by pleasant feeling but              without erroneous view), 'Vippayutta' means void of.

4	On another day the same person enters the same garden, but with some hesitation. After some minutes, as he sees nobody nearby, or instigated by another person, gathers courage and takes away some fruits.  The thought that arises on        such    an    occasion    is termed in    Pali "Somanassa-sahagataditthigata  vippayutta sasankharikacitta" (i.e , unspontaneous thought accompanied by pleasant feeling but without any erroneous view).

N.	B. Asankharika-citta (spontaneous thought) is just like a thorn of a thorny plant, sharp in its own nature, and sasankharika citta is like a blunt needle but later sharpened.

5	Suppose a person with wrong view as mentioned before steals some tasteless food that belongs to another man.  He does it because he is extremely hungry.  As thefood is not tasty, the feeling that arises in his thought on that occasion is hedonic indifference (Upekkha), it is the less pleasant feeling.  The thought that arises in him on that occasion is termed in Pali: 'Upekkha-sahagata ditthigata-sampay-utta asankharika citta
(i.e., spontaneous thought accompanied by hedonic indefference and associated with erroneous belief).

6	A person sees a mass of firewood belonging to another man.  This firewood does not make him happy in feeling. But because of necessity he steals it.  He thinks it is not wrong to steal a rich man's property.  The thought. That arises within him on such an occasion is termed in Pali,Upekkha-sahagata ditthigata sampayutta sasankharika citta". (i.e., the unspontaneous thought or a thought in which the courage is gathered after some backwardness, accompanied by hedonic indifference and associated with erroneous view).

7	Another person does the same kind of stealing promptly but without any erroneous view. The thought that arises in him at that moment is "Upekkha-sahagata ditthigatavippayutta asankharika citta" (i.e., unspontaneous thought accompanied by hedonic indifference and devoid of errneous view).

8 The same person, on another occasion, steals some firewood that belongs to another person.  But he does not think that it is not wrong.  Thus the thought that arises within him at the moment is "Upekkha-sahagata dltthigatavippayutta sasankharika citta (i.e., thought unspontaneous or risen after some backwardness, accompanied by hedonic indifference but not associated with erroneous view).

1     object - arammana or alambana
2	Kamavacara citta
3	Rupavacara citta
4	arupatacara citta
5     lokuttara citta


                                                 ABHIDHAMMA 4
                                                           (Talk givenon 24th August 1985)

Thoughts rooted in eversion 

Suppose a man sees his enemy and gives him a slap on his face. The thought that rises in him is "Domanassasahagata patigha-sampayutta asankharika citta" (i.e.,spontaneous thought accompanied by unpleasant feeling and associated with roughness of. the mind).	

Another man expects to make an assault on his enemy But seeing his enemy is stronger than himself he is somewhat hesitant. But thinking over and over again of the matter, or being instigated by another man, he gathers his courage and attacks his enemy.  The thought that arises in him on that occasion is "Domanassa-sahagata patigaha-sampayutta sasankharika citta" ' (i.e,. unspontaneous or instigated thought accompanied by unpleasant feeling and associated with relentlessness).

N.B. 'Domanassa' means unpleasant feeling. 'patigha' means roughness or 'relentlessness'.

Thoughts rooted in intense delusion

Suppose a man is sceptical in his nature and doubts the law of cause and effect, or is doubtful about the existence of the great teachers like the Buddhas or about the practicability of their teachings or about the moral rectitude of the holy disciples of such great teachers, or about the continuity of the round of rebirth and the like.  Sometimes even after he finds sufficient proofs or evidence, still he doubts and he is not able to cure his skepticism.  Thus his thoughts on such occasions are accompanied by neutral or indifferent feeling or hedonic indifference.

The thought that arises in such moments is termed "Upekkha-sahagata vicikiccha-sampayutta citta (I. e., the thought or consciousness accompanied by hedonic indifference and associated with scepticism.Scepticism that arises In him is like a pendulum swinging from object to object.  The direct opposite characteristic of mind is understanding, I insight or wisdom.

Another person gets excited or confused because of a fear or some sudden happening. His thoughts fluctuate
about an object and are in reeling condition. This kind of confusion is like the shivering of hands of a patient who
suffers from shaking palsy.

A quantity of ash hit by a stone is scattered and blown away.  Similar, is the condition of mind when it is excited or confused.  It is not assertive enough to be either pleasant or unpleasant in feeling.Hence. it is accompanied by
hedonic indiffrence (Upekkha). This kind of confused thought    is   called   in   Pall "Upekkha-sahagata uddhacca-sampayutta citta" (ie., the thought accompanied by hedonic indifference and associated with confusedness).
Summary
There are eight thoughts rooted in greed                    8
                 two	                               aversion	            2
		                                      intense delusion	2
				12
All unwholesome thoughts.

FURTHER NOTES 
(Abhidhamma 4)

As has been stated in the foregoing description there are twelve kinds of unwholesome thoughts, eight rooted both in greed and delusion, two rooted in aversion and delusion and two rooted in intense delusion.  Suppose a hen is killed by a man for the purpose of preparing his food.  Is his greedy thought not associated with pleasant feeling and roughness?  No, never greed and roughness or aversion arise together in the same thought.  Then how is it that a man kills an animal for preparing his food?

First, numbers of the processes of thoughts accompanied by greed for the flesh of the animal arise within him and then incited by such thought processes, a number of thoughtprocesses of which impulsive thoughts accompanied by relentlessness or cruelty (patigha) arise.  It is with such a cruel or unkind thought that he kills the animal.  On such occasions thought-processes with greed pass succeeded by thought-processes with relentless ... impulsive thoughts.  Hundreds of such thoughts rise and pass off within a second so rapidly that an average man takes all of them as one thought accompanied by both greed and cruelty. Such are called processes of thoughts rooted in aversion and incited by the process of thoughts rooted in greed.

Suppose a man steals some money belonging to another man.  He does it not because of any greed but because he is angry with the other man.  Thus that arises on such an occasion is a thought process rooted in greed and incited by preceding thought-processes rooted in aversion (Dosappaccaya-lobha-mulaka citta).

The Results They Give

There are two kinds of results, namely the result which comes up as rebirth of a strong or compulsive thought (Patisandhi-vipaka) and the kind of result that is given after one's birth (Pavatti-vipaka).

Out of the twelve unwholesome thoughts, that accompanied by excitement or confusedness is able only to
give after-birth result.  Other eleven thoughts are able to cause both kinds of results to appear, (i. e., to cause to be
reborn as well as to cause some after-birth results to appear).

                                                    ABHIDHAMMA 5
                                                                     Cause of different feelings:
                                                   (Talkgiven on the 27th August 1985 at Amaravati)

The very firstconsciousness at birth is called Patisandhicitta or relinking consciousness.  When the thought stream does not turn towards any other object (ie other than the object of the Patisandhi-citta), naturally, the same relinking consciousness may recur even a thousand times till the thought stream is disturbed by some other object.  Such recurring consciousness which belongs to the class of relinking consciousness is termed Bhavanga-citta (the passive subliminary current of being).  If the Patisandhi-citta is accompanied by pleasant feeling, the Bhavanga is also accompanied by feeling of the same kind.  If the former one is accompanied by indifferent feeling, the bhavanga also may be accompanied by the same kind of feeling.  So sometimes, this may affect the compulsive thoughts to make them accompanied by the same feeling as the Bhavanga.  This is only one condition that may influence the compulsive thoughts.  There are some other causes for such occurrences.  If the object that impinges on the sense organ is a pleasant one, or if the person Is shallow-minded, his compulsive thoughts may be accompanied by pleasant feeling.

The causes of indifferent (ie neutral) feeling are three: Patisandhi-citta being accompanied by indifferent feeling, the object being an indifferent one, or the person being a deep thinker (who cannot be easily satisfied).

Two things make a man of erroneous views: not knowing the Dhamma properly or association with persons of erroneous views orreading books or listening to talks leading to wrong views.

There are five causes of spontaneous thought: suitable climate, suitable place, suitable requisites, suitable instruments and the like, and suitable companions.  Lack of one or more of these conditions may possibly make one's thoughts unspontaneous.

Bad deeds caused by unwholesome thoughts: stealing, robbery, adultery, telling lies, backbiting for some gain, idle gossip, taking intoxcating drugs and the like -these wrong deeds are committed with thoughts rooted in        greed (lobha).

Hurting, killing, scolding and sometimes telling lies or backbiting - these are commited with thoughts rooted in aversion (dosa-mulaka-citta).

Sometimes one may steel another's property not because he craves it but, because of anger or jealousy, to make
another suffer a heavy loss.  At the moment when he takes the things  away, there arises in him thoughts rooted in greed (lobha), but they have been conditioned by preceding thoughts rooted in aversion (dosappaccaya-
lobha-mulaka-citta).

Suppose a meat eater kills a hen. One may suppose that he does it with a thought rooted in greed (lobha-mulakacitta), but it is quite otherwise.  With a greedy thought one cannot destroy life.  At the very moment that he is killing, he has within him a cruel thought (a thought rooted in aversion), Had he greed for the animal's life, he could not destroy it.  He desires not the hen's life but her flesh.  That is why he destroys her life.  First he has greed for her flesh but at the moment of killing his thought is rooted in aversion.  So he kills the hen with a thought rooted in aversion which is incited by thoughts rooted in greed.  So hundreds of  thought processes with greedy thoughts may be followed by   hundreds of thought-processes which  contain impulsive thoughts rooted       in aversion. As they rise and pass away so fast and so rapidly, within a few seconds, they	would seem to the average man to be one simple thought, and consequently he would wrongly think that the greed for the flesh (of the hen) and unkindness or aversion might arise at the same time,


                                                  ABHIDHAMMA 6

                                                            Wholesome thoughts (Kusala-citta)

(Talk given on 29th August at Amaravati)

Suppose eight men were passing by the headquaters of a movement which does much service for the
improvement of social conditions of the people.  One of the said eight persons was moved upon seeing the board
outside the headquarters, and promptly went in and gave a donation.  He was a generous man of much knowledge.
He gave his donation very willingly and joyfully.  At that moment he had in his mind (in his thought-process) a thought or consciousness which was automatic (or spontaneous) accompanied by pleasant feeling and full of understanding

The second man of the party, urged by the first man who explained to him the value of the above movement's service, understood the importance of supporting such services and gave a donation very willingly.  At this moment he had in his mind an unspontaneous thought (prompted by another) accompanied by pleasant feeling and understanding.

The third man of the party was not so wise as the former two, but due to habits formed from the association with his generous parents who did such things very often, he too gave a donation very gladly to the movement.  In him          at that moment, it is clear, there arose a wholesome thought accompanied by pleasant feeling and also spontaneous, but without sufficient understanding of the value of the movement's service or of the value of what he does.

The fourth man, too, was dull-minded and was not used to thinking of the value of a philanthropic service                 and was passing by silently.  But, urged by the first three, he gave some money and was happy that he had followed his companions.  His thought at that moment was not spontaneous, not accompanied by reasoning faculty (knowledge),but full of pleasant feeling.

The fifth man was generous and deepthinking andwanted to give some donation to the movement, but he found that he did not have sufficient money with him at that moment.  This made him not so happy.  However, he gave the movement a very small amount of money from his pocket.  His thought at that moment was spontaneous (or automatic) and accompanied by understanding, but indifferent in feeling as he could not give as much as he would have liked to.

The sixth man had no habit of supporting such movements.  Ignoring what his companions did, he was about to pass the place.  But the others urged him to give the movement even a small donation.  The latter considered the matter carefully, saw the importance of their service and moved to give a big donation.  However, searching
in his purse, he found it was nearly empty. Hedonated the little amount of money he had, willingly.  But he was not happy that lie could not gratify his desire to give a big donation to his satisfaction.  So the thought that arose in him at that moment was one prompted by others (or unspontaneous) and accompanied by indifferent feeling,
though associated with understanding.

The seventh man promptly offered a small donation as was his habit.  But he was not so happy because he could not come in line with the first two persons.  So his thought at that moment was spontaneous (or automatic) accompanied by indifferent feeling and with no knowledge of the value of what he did or what the movement was doing.

The eighth man, having been urged by others, but with no interest, gave something to the movement.  In him at that moment there arose, an unspontaneous thought with indifferent feeling and with no understanding whatever.

Now follows the summary of all the eight kinds of wholesome consciousness:

Spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with understanding (knowledge). (somanassa-sahagata nana-sampayutta asankharika citta)

Unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with understanding (knowledge).
(somanassa-sahagata nana-sampayutta sasankharika citta)

Spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling but disassociated from understanding (knowledge).
(somanassa-sahagata nana vippayutta asankharika-citta)

Unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling but disassociated from understanding (knowledge).
(somanassa-sahagata nana-vippayutta sasankharikacitta)

Spontaneous consciousness accompanied by hedonic indifference and associated with understanding (or knowledge). (upekkha-sahagata nana sampayutta asankharika citta)

Unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by hedonic indifference and associated with understanding (knowledge). (upekkha-sahagata nana-sampayLItta sasankharika citta)

Spontaneous consciousness accompanied by hedonic indifference and disassociated from understanding (knowledge). (upekkha-sahagata nana-vippayutta asankharika citta)

Unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by hedonic indifference and disassociated from understanding (knowledge) (upekkha-sahagata nana-vippayutta sasankharika citta)

                                Resultant Consciousness (of unwholesome Karmic thoughts)

                             (Talk given on the 3rd September 1985 at Amaravati)

"Monks, I say that 'Cetana' is Karma".  Thus according to the teachings of the Buddha, Karma is 'Cetana'.  It is
Cetana that incites, motivates and rouses one to do a deed. Now what is Cetana? The Pali  word 'Cetana' has    been rendered into English by scholars in various ways, as will (or volition), as 'determinate thought' and so on.              But I see such a single word cannot give its full significance.  As I understand it, Cetana in this context is the              impulsive and forceful volition accompanied by strong motive and intention. Though Cetana is common to all thoughts it is   stronger in thoughts in which there are root conditions, either good or bad.  Bad or unwholesome root conditions are three: Lobha (greed), Dosa (aversion) and Moha (delusion).  Good or wholesome root conditions are Alobha (non-gree4y, Adosa (non-aversion) and Anioha (non-delusion).  A deed is karmically
Determined as good or bad by good or bad 'Cetana' associated with the suitable root condition.

Suppose a rich man aiming at an honour from the government spends a hundred thousand pounds and builds a hospital.  But the same person when a poor man comes to him in private asking for some help, refuses to see him and makes his servants drive him out of the gate.  People who do not know his motive, may estimate his building of the hospital from surface value and praise him, mistaking him for a very generous man.  But if we see his motive we will regard his deed as a kind of bribing done for winning an honour.

Suppose a poor man gives his small share of food to an even poorer man.  Though this act has not been published In newspapers with big headings as that richman's gift, this poor man's deed is a million times greater than the other's deed.  The poor person gave his food to the other man out of sheer pity and from an unselfish motive.

When a person does a deed good or bad and he does it from a Cetana', which incites and gives him the impulse to do it.  Though thought (consciousness) together with its Cetana vanishes In a moment (according to the inherent nature of thoughts), while vanis4ing, it deposits its force in the current of the thought-stream, in other words, the impulsive thought transforms itself into energy or force and becomes a part of the current of the thought-stream, and begins to mature.
When it becomes mature or ripe enough, It rises up in the form of the resultant thought (vipaka-citta).

The results of a karma (le karmic thought) is twofold; namely the result as a birth in a suitable plane and the result that comes up after birth.

Resultants of unwholesome karmic thoughts

There are 12 types of unwholesome thoughts as explained in lessons 3 and 4. Except the thought accompanied by confusion all the other 11 kinds of thoughts, when they mature enough, are able to give both kinds of results: patisandhi-vipaka and pavat.ti-vipaka (i.e. to be reborn and to give results after the birth.) The appearance of embryo is conditioned and influenced by such a karmic thought that has transformed itself into a forceful energy and has matured at due time.  The very same forceful mind-ehergy being so mature rises up together with the embryo simultaneously, which is called patisandhi-citta (conceiving consciousness).This conceiving    consciousness     is    the    successive one      to     the final consciousness of the Immediate previous life, of the same thought-stream. The conceiving consciousness	arises and vanishes In a moment causing a consciousness of the same type to arise successively. These recurring thoughts which are of the same type of the conceiving consciousness are called bhavanga (the life continuum).When the thought-stream has not turned towards any outer object, the. bhavanga consciousness continues to arise and vanish even a million times.  When a man or a beast has a sound (dreamless) sleep, billions of bhavanga-cittas continue to arise and vanish.

The patisandhi-citta is the patisandhi-vipaka, while bhavangas are pavatti-vipakas le after-birth results.  The same karmic consciousness or thought when mature (as mentioned in the foregoing description) arises in manifold forms as cakkhuvinnana (eye consciousness), sota-vinriana (ear consciousness), ghana-vinnana (nose consciousness), jivha-vinnana (tongue consciousness), kaya-vinnana (body consciousness), sampaticchana (recepient consciousness) santirana (investigating consciousness) and tadalambana (registering=making impression in the mind).

When a man does any deed, good or bad, there is within his mind as a dormant tendency the desire for seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, receiving and Inquiring the objects.  Consequently, every good or bad karma (i.e. the force of thought and cetana), when maturing, arises as seeing consciousness and the like, in appropriation to the occasion.  The resultant forms of unwholesome thoughts are very weak.  Therefore they don't have within themselves any root condition (hetu).  Hence they are called ahetukas, those that are without any root conditions within themselves.

The conceiving consciousness which is the resultant (or matured form) of any of the afore-said   eleven types of unwholesome consciousness is termed as "upekkha-sahagata-akusala-vipaka ahetuka-mano-vinnana (the mind consciousness devoid of root conditions, accompanied by indifferent feeling and arising as the result of an unwholeso , me consciousness or ' of an unwholesome impulsive thought).  This thought arises as the conceiving consciousness when one is reborn into an unhappy plane like the animal kingdom, the plane of the suffering ghosts and the like.  The said type of consciousness that arises in being born into an unhappy abode performs five functions on five occasions.  At the moment of conception, it arises as conceiving consciousness (patisandhi-vinnana), at other times, when thought-stream does not turn towards any external object, as bhavanga or life-continuum, as the dying consciousness (cuti-citta) at the death-moment of the same life, as the retention or registering consciousness (tadalambana-citta) at the end of seven impulsive (Javana) thoughts, and as the santirana-citta when it investigates an object after it is accepted into the thought stream.  When an external object enters the thought-stream through a sense gate, a consciousness arises in the form of receiving it, which is called sampaticchana-citta.  This one also is a resultant consciousness.  In every karmic consciousness there is as its dormant tendency the desire to receive objects.  As a consequence of this, when the force of the karmic consciousness (or javana-citta) becomes mature, the same karmic consciousness appears, the recipient consciousness also in appropriate occasions.

Thus there are 7 kinds of resultants (or resulting consciousness) of the unwholesome (akusala) karmic thoughts.  When the force of one of the first eleven unwholesome thoughts becomes mature enough to give rebirth in some unhappy plane the, main part of the force . of the same karmic thought manifests itself as the conceiving consciousness or birth consciousness and the remaining part of the same karmic force manifests itself as other resultant thoughts as cakkuvinnana etc, which rise either in a happy or unhappy plane where there are sense-organs.  The conceiving consciousness that arises in an unhappy plane is called akusalavipakahetuka mano-vinnana.  It is the very same consciousness that arises At the moment of Investigating an object.  So it is known under the name Santirana-citta (investigating consciousness) also.

Thus there are 7 kinds of akusala-vipaka-cittas (the resultant thoughts of the unwholesome):

Upekkha-sahagata-cakkhu-vinnana (eye consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling)
Upekkha-sahagata-sota-vinnana (ear consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling)
Upekkha-sahagata-ghana-vinnana (nose consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling)
Upekkha-sahagata-jivha-vinnana (toungue consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling)
Dukkha-sahagata-kaya-vinnana (body consciousness accompanied by uncomfortable feeling)

Except the body consciousness all the six kinds are accompanied by indifferent feeling, because their contact with their objects Is not strong.  But when an object touches the body its contact is strong and striking.  So when a disagreeable object touches the body the feeling that arises in the body consciousness is uncomfortable.

Resultants of the wholesome karmic consciousness

Naturally good or wholesome karmic consciousness is stronger than the unwholesome ones.
Unwholesome thoughts in their own nature impair the psycho-physical process.  But the
wholesome thoughts. quite conversely, refresh both the mental and physical sides of the life.  
So the good thoughts or wholesome karmic thoughts as they mature, manifest themselves as 
good resultant thoughts.  They are of two kinds, as those together with root conditions 
(sahetuka) and those without root conditions (ahetuka).  They are given below.

Eight resultants accompanied by root conditions:

1. The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with
      knowledge.

2.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with knowledge.

3.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and not associated with knowledge.

4.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and not associated with knowledge.

5.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling and associated with knowledge.

6.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling and associated with knowledge.

7.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and dissociated from knowledge.

8.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and dissociated from knowledge.

Eight resultants not accompanied by root conditions:
1.         Eye consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling
	2.	Ear consciousness	
	3.	Nose consciousness	
	4.	Tongue consciousness	
	5.	Body consciousness	          	comfortable
	6.	Recipient consciousness			indifferent
	7.	Investigating			indifferent feeling
	8.	Investigating			pleasant feeling

When the object is extremely beautiful or exquisitely aggreable, the investigating consciousness is accompanied by pleasant feeling.  Suppose a man sees a beautiful form.  Immediately his thought-process turns towards it, and eye consciousness depending         on this object arises.  It is the recipient consciousness that arises next.  Next to that investigating consciousness arises.  In this same way the ear consciousness and the other types of consciousness arise appropriately to the occasion.

                            Maha-Kriya-cittas (Functional Consciousness)

The Buddhas and Arahants perform good deeds like giving instructions, treating the sick and so on.  They do such deeds out of sheer compassion and expect nothing in reward.  They do them as their duties and services to the world.  On such occasions there arise within them any of the eight types of wholesome consciousness as mentioned in the foregoing lessons.  But in their case they are called Kriya-cittas or the Functional Consciousness in Buddhist psychological nomenclature.  Kriya' means mere function.  The volition in such consciousness finds no ground to mature in, as the doer has already rooted out the attachment to the world.

Suppose a man cuts a creeper off its root and thus severs Its connection to the ground.  If the rain falls meanwhile the creeper survives for a short time and produces flowers, too.  But such flowers never mature enough to produce fruits as the creeper has been disconnected from its root.  Similar is the case with the deeds done by the Buddhas and Arahants.  As the attachment to the world has b-.en rooted out, consequently they will not be reborn in the world, and their deeds find no ground to produce their results such as causing rebirth in some plane and giving after-birth results.  Their deeds are mere kriyas, mere functions.

The eight Kriya-cittas (the types of Functional Consciousness)

1.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with knowledge

2.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and associated with knowledge

3.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and not       associated     with knowledge

4.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by pleasant feeling and not associated with knowledge

5.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling and associated with knowledge

6.   The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling and associated with
      knowledge

7.	The spontaneous consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling and not associated with knowledge

8.	The unspontaneous consciousness accompanied by indifferent feeling and not associated with knowledge.

Out of these eight types of consciousness only those accompanied with knowledge arise in the thought- stream of the Buddhas relevent to the occasion.  But as regards Arahants, any one of them might arise in their mind under the circumstance. These are generally called Maha-Kriya-cittas.

          The Three Kriya-cittas with no accompanied rootconditions (ahetuka-kriya-cittas)

There are three kinds of Functional Consciousness disconnected from root-conditions.  One of the three is the consciousness that arises turning the thought-stream towards new sense-object.

Suppose a man is engaged in doing some work quietly. Meanwhile, suddenly a person comes to him.  He is disturbed by it and immediately his thought - stream turns towards the figure of the visitor.  This occurs naturally in every such case.  This turning consciousness is not accompanied by any root-condition and hence it is called the Consciousness that turns towards the sense-objects but without any hetu (ahetuka).  In Pali terminology it is called panca-dvaravaijana-citta.   Panca-dvara means the five sense-gates.  Avajjana means turning towards.

There is another similar consciousness that arises when the thought-stream turns towards some idea past, present or future.  Suppose a person reads a book and suddenly he remembers something past.  The consciousness that turns towards such a picture in mind is called Mano-dvaravajjana -citta.  Manodvara means mind-door.  This-consciousness, too, is without any accompanying Hetu (root-condition).

The Buddha when he meets or talks to a person, it is natural, a slight smile appears on his face.  Sometimes when he sees some thing peculiar or important, he makes a slight smile. It too is with a consciousness without any root-condition.  It is- called Hasituppada-citta (the consciousness which causes a slight smile).

The Buddhas and Arahants never laugh making noise or showing teeth as average persons do.  They make only a smile.  Out of the eight kriya-cittas with Hetus (or maha-kriya-cittas), four are accompanied by pleasant feeling.  According to the circumstance any of them might arise in an Arahant's mind.  But as regards the Buddhas, there might arise only one of the three cittas when they smile, namely, one of the two Maha-kriya-cittas accompanied by knowledge which are with hetus and Hasituppada which is without hetus.  Any Arahant may possibly smile        with the Hasituppada-consciousness.

As has been said before there are three ahetuka-kriyacittas(types of functional consciousness without root-conditions.)

                                                                        ABHIDHAMMA
                                        Cittas (thoughts) related tothe sensualplane (kamavacara).
Summary
Unwholesome thoughts (akusala-cittas) rooted in greed
		(lobha)	8
		in aversion (dosa)	2
		in intense delusion
		(momuha)	2
			-
	all unwholesome (akusala) thoughts		12

	resultants of the unwholesome thoughts		7
			19

	wholesome thoughts (kusala-cittas)		8
	resultants of wholesome thoughts without	roots
		(ahetuka)	8

	with roots (sahetuka)	8
	f unctional thoughts with root-conditions (sahetuka-kriya)	8
	ol          of    without root conditions (ahetuka-kiriya)	3
		-
	all types of consciousness related to sensual plane	54

	(kamavachara-cittas)


                                                  ABHIDHAMMA  8

                                                       Thoughts related to subtle material plane

                                                       Wholesome karmic thoughts

                                               (Talk given on the 10th September 1985 at Amaravati)

Suppose a person tired of sensual pleasures intends to attain peace of mind, rid of sensuality.  He thus turns himself away from sensual objects and tries to fix his mind on an object disconnected from sensual things.  He, according to the teachings of the ancient Yogis (and even recommended by the Lord Buddha), chooses an object of concentration according to the given lnstructlons.

Suppose he has so chosen the light-kasina for his object of concentration.  According to the instruction of the expert Yogis the object of concentration he so chooses must be a circle of light fallen on a wall or on some similar thing in a secluded place.  The circle of light must be one handspan and four inches in diametre and the meditator should sit down on a comfortable seat two and a half cubits away from the said device of light.  Sitting by himself he should practise concentration on the circle of light. At the start he should open his eyes with an even gaze and look at the device (but must not strain his eyes).  He. should not open his eyes too widely nor too narrowly.  He should try to see mentally the replica of the light-device.  While he concentrates he should repeat its name in any language he could understand such as "light, light, light". As his voice is the nearest sound, it prevents external sounds reaching his ear. It also further helps him turn his mind towards the object of his meditation.

After some practice,he will be able to visualize the circle of light.  He will see it before his mind's eye.  The more he fixes his mind on the visualised object the further he will be removed from all other things in the world.  As his concentration on this object becomes stronger and stronger his mindgetsfarther and farther away from sensual pleasures and it increasingly lgnorse the objects of sensuality.  Consequently the gross mental blemishes would not find an opportunity to rise up in his mind.  The mind becomes purer and purer every moment.  The purity of mind. begins to be reflected on the mental replica.  Then it begins, little by little, to appear brighter and brighter.  At last it appears as a circular mass of extremely bright light.  This, in Buddhist terminology, is called after image.

At this stage the concentration rises to the level called access-concentration.

Now he should try to enlarge and spread this light all over the whole space he could Imagine.  After some practice of fixing his mind on this after image, his concentration will be strengthened and persistent, being fixed on the object, like a nail firmly stuck in a peace of wood.  Now before long his mind rises to a level at which it will be very strongly fixed on the after image and will be accompanied by simultaneously developed five mental factors namely, initial application, sustained applications rapture, ease and one-pointedness of mind.

This stage of development of concentration is called First Jhana (the first stage of ecstatic concentration).  Out of the five constituents of this Jhana the initial application Inhibits sloth and torpor of mind, sustained application inhibits perplexity, rapture Inhibits III-wlll, ease inhibits flurry and worry and one-pointedness of mind inhibits sensuality.  The person who has attained to this Jhanic state experiences a feeling of ease and happiness, full of ecstacy and rapture never before even dreamt of by him.  Frequently he enters this Jhanic	state and wakes up from it over and over again.  Doing this he will be able to master it. Then he should try to achieve the next higher stage.  This second Jhanic consciousness consists of four constituents: sustained application, rapture, ease and one-pointedness of mind.  The third Jhana consists of rapture, ease and one-po'intedness of mind.  The fourth Jhana is accompanied by ease and one-pointedness of mind.  The fifth Jhana is accompanied by equanimity and one-
pointedness of mind.  When practising these and rising higher and higher in Jhanic level, he has to master each Jhana in five ways: mastery in recollecting, mastery in entering, mastery in steadying the duration, mastery         in waking up and mastery in reviewing the Jhana. It is said in theVisuddhi-magga: "He becomes aware of the         first Jhana where, when and for, as long as he wishes, he has no difficulty	in becoming aware, thus it is mastery in awareness.  He attains the first Jhana, where he has no difficulty in attaining.  He resolves upon the duration of.the first Jhana, where thus it is mastery in resolving upon the duration of the first Jhana, where he emerges from the first Jhana he reviews the first Jhana where, when and for as long as he wishes,. he has no difficulty in reviewing." (The Path of Purification, p. 827) Thus he has to master all the five Jhanas by these five ways of mastery.

The five kinds of Jhanic consciousness which the Yogi attains are the Karmic Wholesome (kusala) mind-units of the level related to Subtle (fine) Material Plane.

They are summarised as follows:

1.	The first Jhanic wholesome consciousness accompanied by initial application, sustained application, rapture, ease and one-pointedness.
2.	The second Jhanic wholesome consciousness accompanied by sustained application, rapture, ease and one-pointedness of mind.
3.	The third Jhanic wholesome consciousness accompanied by rapture, ease and one-pointedness of mind.
4.	The fourth  Jhanic wholesome consciousness accompanied by ease -and one-pointedness of mind.
5.	The fifth Jhanic wholesome consciousness accompanied by equanimity and one-pointedness of mind.

These are called the five Jhanic Kusala (wholesome) thoughts related to the subtle material plane.

It seems that a little more description should be given with regard to how a yogi passes from the first Jhana to the fifth one.  Suppose he attains to the first Jhana and masters it in the five ways of mastery already mentioned.  After perfectly mastering the first Jhana he becomes so famillar to the Jhana-object that whenever he likes to enter the Jhana (in other words, to fix his mind on the Jhanic object), dissociated from the Initial application he will easily attain to it.

If the yogi so likes, after the mastery over the fifth Jhana, he would be able to develop psychic powers like clairvoyance, clairaudience, levitation and the like.  However, some yogis do not like to make an effort for such powers as they hope to develop themselves still further.

Resultants of the types of Jhanic consciousness related to the subtle material plane

The person who has attained to the afore-mentioned Jhanic states will be reborn into that particular division of the subtle material plane relevant to his attainment. The rebirth-consciousness that arises In his succeeding life (in the subtle material plane) is the resultant consciousness of the particular Jhana he has attained.  Thus relevant to the five types of Jhanic wholesome (kusala) consciousness there are five types of resultant consciousness.

Suppose a person has attained to the first Jhana and has not risen further up.  After his death he
will be reborn into the appropriate division of the subtle material plane. His rebirth
consciousness will be the matured form of his Jhanic consciousness he has already attained. It 
will consist of the five factors that the first Jhanic wholesome (kusala) consciousness has 
possessed such as initial application, (vitakka) etc.But all these factors and the     consciousness 
are in a passive mood.  They are not active.  This same rebirth-consciousness recurs as the life-
continuum (Bhavanga) as long as he lives in the same life.  The same will be the final 
consciousness (Cuti-citta) at his death in the same life. When an external object impinges his 
life continuum (passive subliminal consciousness or Bhavanga), an active thought process 
arises as In a similar occasion in the sensuous plane with the exception of thought processes 
connected with smelling, tasting and physical touching.  When a person here practises yoga 
andattains to the first Jhana, naturally he suppresses . the desire for smelling, tasting and bodily 
touching.  Therefore when the same person Is reborn into the relevant subtle material plane, his 
nose, tongue and body are devoid of their sensitive parts.  Such a being may see and hear but 
neither smell nor taste or touch witb his body.  The beings of this plane and of the nonmaterial 
do not have in their thought processes the types of consciousness united with aversion and also 
any kind of registering consciousness (tadalambana-citta).

Functionals or Ineffectives of the Jhanic consciousness

Suppose a Buddha or an arahant enters upon a Jhanic ecstasy and experiences the peace of mind Which is often being do . ne by them as a way of taking rest or giving refreshment to their physical body, on such occasions they have in their thought stream the Jhana-thought corresponding to the wholesome Jhana-thoughts (Jhana-kusala) as given in the foregoing description.  As they have already rooted out the attachment to the world their . Jhana-consciousness finds no ground to mature as its result.  Thusit Is only functional.

Thus altogether there are five of them corresponding to the five types of wholesome (kusala) Jhana consciousness.

In this way there are five resultants and five functionals (ineffectives) of Jhana-types related to the subtle material plane.

Summary

Jhana Kusalas (wholesome karmic) thoughts:

lst Jhana wholesome consciousness accompanied by initial application, sustained application, rapture, ease and one-pointedness.
2nd Jhana wholesome consciousness accompanied by sustained application,, rapture, ease and one-pointedness. 3rd Jhanawholesomeconsciousnessaccompanied by rapture, ease and one-pointedness.
4th Jhana wholesome consciousness accompanied by ease and one-pointedness.
5th Jhana wholesome consciousness accompanied by equanimity and one-pointedness.

The	Resultants are five corresponding 	to these wholesome five in their factors.

The Functionals are also similar in accompanying factors.

Thus JhanaKarmic mind-units	5
	   Resultant mind-units	5
	 Functional mind-units	5
		15 All Rupavacara mind-units.


                                              ABHIDHAMMA  9

                               Conciousness related to the non-material (or pure mental) plane

                                       (Talk given on the 24th September 1985 at Amaravati)

The meditator who has mastered the fifth Jhana related to the subtle material plane, sees In many ways the frailty and disadvantages even of the subtle material existence and intends to get rid of entire materiality and to exist only is pure mind. It is the attachment to the material existence that forces a being to be caged in a material body.  So the, meditator intends to suppress the desire even for the subtle materiality.  He examines and sees the defects even of the after image, on which he has so long fixed his mind and now tries to keep his mind rid of the same.

First he spreads the after-image (the kasina-light) all over the conceptualized mental space and then wills and determines that the same light should disa'pear.  After some effort he will be able to make it,,disappear from the conceptualized mental space . and sees in its place the infiriite empty space.  But this is only a concept.  Next he turns his attention towards this infinite mental space.  He tries to fix his mind and keep it unmoved from the same visuallsed mental space, while repeating 'space, space' or 'infinite space, infinite space'.  After some practice he will be able to keep his mind fixed on the visuallsed space. The consciousness thus fixed is called --the wholesome (kusala) consciousness fixed on the infinite space". He develops mastery over this state of concentration in five ways as mentioned before.  After some time he will see it not far from the material level and hence even too gross. Then he aspires to rise higher and farther from materiality.  Thus he enter's the Jhana and thoroughly experiences it and wakes up. Now he turns his attention towards what he has already experienced and remembers the nature of his Jhanic stage he has so attached to.  Now he tries to fix his present consciousness on the remembered or conceptualised past consciousness that had fixed on the infinite space and muses this consciousness is infinite.  Although in the beginning it appears somewhat difficult to fix his present mind on the previous Jhanic consciousness it will be easier after some practice.  Aiter some time there arises within him a consciousness thoroughlyfixed on the past consciousness that had fixed on Infinite space.  This is the second wholesome Jhanic consciousness related to the non-material plane.

Now he enters this state of Jhana over and over and enjoys the peace and bliss it brings and develops mastery over it in five ways as before.  After some experiences he sees his mind is still somewhat gross.  Now he enters the Jhana and' thoroughly experiences it and wakes up, and turns his attention towards the absence at this moment of the consciousness of. the infinite space.  He conceptualises this absence as void or nothingness, Now he concentrates his mind on this nothingness. 

This is the wholesome consciousness related to the third stage of the non-material plane (akincannayatana-kusala-cittam) 

He experiences. the Jhanic peace of this stage and masters it In the afore-mentioned five ways, and then sees it -as still somewhat gross and tries to grasp the present Jlianic consciousness thoroughly.  He enters the Jhana of nothingness and rises up from it and remembers and tries to fix the present mind on the immediate past Jhanic consciousness.  He tries over and over again and at last will be successful in his endeavour.  Now he is able to fix thoroughly his mind on the third Jhanic consciousness which had nothingness for its object.  The result of this procedure is the rise in his thought-stream of a Jhanic consciousness which Is so fine and so subtle as to be called neither perceptive nor nonperceptive. It may also be called the consciousness neither conscious nor unconscious or neither thinking nor not thinking.

This is the last stage that anybody may be able to develop his mind within the world, in other words the culmination of wohdly development (loka-thupika).  This is the fourth. and final consciousness at well related to the non-material plane.

Resultants of the non material plane

The resultant thoughts related  to the non-material (or mental) plane are the matured forms of the corresponding wholesome (kusala) consciousness related to the same plane, which arises as the relinking consciousness (patisandhi-citta), life continum (bhavanga) and the dying consciousness in the very same plane (when the yogi is reborn into the same plane.  If his mind-stream turns towards some idea or something imagined or remembered, some wholesome or unwholesome mind-units related to the sensuous plane (except those united with aversion) may possibly arise in it.

A person born into this plane is not able to attain to the first holy stage, Stream-entrance (sotapatti) as he does not find means to hear the instruction of a teacher, which is most necessary for entering upon the holy path.

But one who has already entered upon the holy path (sotapanna) is able to develop his mind along the remaining six stages and is able even to attain arahantship while being in the non-material plane.

Functional consciousness related to the non-material plane

The Buddha and also arahants sometimes enter upon the Jhanas related to the non-material plane.  On such occasions the Jhanic consciousness that arises in them does not mature as its own resultant, because the ground, the attachment to the existence in the non-material plane has already been rooted out.  Therefore such Jhanic consciousness of an arahant or of the Buddha belongs neither to the category of wholesome (kusala) nor to that of resultant (vipaka), it is included in the class of functionals (kriya-citta), Thus according to the foregoing descripoon there are four types of wholesome (kusala) consciousness, four types of resultant (vipaka) consciousness and four types of functional (kriya) consciousness that are related to the non-materiel plane.


                                               ABHIDHAMMA  10

                                                Supramundane Consciousness (Lokuttara-citta)

                                  (Talks given on the 27th and 29th Septei-nber 1985 at Amaravati)

Every successful deed depends upon relevant self-control or discipline.  If a student expects to be successful in his studies, he should have relevant bodily and vocal controls as prerequisites.  Sirhilarly at the outset of a real religious practice, a devotee should have within him pure character or conduct as the basis or foundation of his practice.  This is called sila in pali.  The Lord Buddha said: "Being established in sila (morality or morally good conduct and behaviour), the ardent seeker, wise and tactful, should develop mind and insight.  It is he that Will undo this tangle". (Samyutta 1).

Thus a man who expects to get rid of all misery should follow the path of	self-purification which consists of three constituents namely, morality tor good conduct) or slia, control of mind by development of right concentration (samadhi) and development of insight (panna).

The first factor of this three-factored path is morality or the practice of right conduct.  At least a person should keep daily to five precepts and to eight precepts on sabbath days, living a life of harmlessness, honesty, chastity and simplicity.  If one expects to practise Jhanas one should necessarily live celibate life. In this case, if there is no way for him to enter the order of monks, he should observe five precepts with celibacy or eight precepts or 10 precepts.  If the meditator Is a monk he should live the life of four fold restraint (sila visuddhi). Thus while living a life of good conduct one should develop right concentration.  By this means one will be able to inhibit upsurging passions.  This is successfully done by attaining to Jhanas (citta visuddhi) . After suppressing passions in this way he should try to purify his views (ditthi).

The ordinary man not versed In the Dhamma of the Buddha, may mistake his whole life, or part of his life, either mental or physical for something substantial consistingof some unchanging entity, for the feeler, the , enjoyer or sufferer. A yogi, too, may sometimes be deluded by the jhanic bliss, and may take some jhanic constituent for an ego entity and become attached thereto.  Any and every type of attachment drags one down to the worjd which is a place of worries.  So, realisation of the exact nature of , life in the world is what is required. For getting
rid of such attachment.

At the outset of this procedure one should analyse one's mind and body.  He should investigate every constituent of body as well as of his mind.  Eventually he will find there only a flow of incessantly changing physical states and a continuity of thoughts or mind-units (nama-santati) accompanied by diverse mental coefficients.  He may see how all these rise and vanish at every moment and eventually dispel the concept of identity.  The attainment to this understanding is called the purification of views (ditthi-visuddhi).

Now he should examine and seek out the causes of the rise and fall of those mental and physical constituents.  After a long and careful search he will find how they rise and fall and also understand that none of them is a part of any sort of permanent entity.  Doubts with regard to the law of cause and effect will subside and joyful and very much refreshed.  This is called the purification of mind (kankha-vitarana-visuddhi). 

As he is influenced by joy and and body when he attains to this stage, his. blood becomes clear and cleansed and it results in a kind of aura which the body. begins to emit.  He, on this occasion. feels joyful or full of zest.  He feels very happy, serene, energetic, evenminded, very pious, mindful and keenly intelligent.  But at the same time he may feel attached to these attainments.  Some meditators mistake this stage of development for arahantship and claim to have attained the same and. would stop further practice.  At this juncture the meditator must be very careful, more attentive and exhaustively inquisitive of all aspects of the afore-said attainments.  When he examines and analyses them he would understand their illusive nature.  Consequently he releases his hold on them and begins to scrutinise all his experiences.  This knowledge of discrimination between the right way and the wrong way is called the purification of the knowledge of right and wrong ways (maggamagga-nanadassana-visuddhi).

Now the meditator examines the rise and fall of all the constituents of his psycho-physical life. The more he examines, the clearer he sees the failing Iway or breaking down of all the mental and material (physical) states of his life (Udaya-vyaya-nana).

This experience makes him clearly see the continual change and dying nature of what he has so far considered to be -himself (bhanga-nana).

When he clearly sees that at every moment all parts or constituents of his body and mind are breaking down and dying he would feel himself helpless.  He becomes full of fear (bhaya-nana).  He sees no hope or refuge, no safeguard for himself within his mind-body-continuity.  By this he' feels thoroughly tired and exhausted (adinava-riana). Still further examining this nature he feels disgusted ' with his psychophysical process (nibbida-nana).  Now he feels anxious of getting rid of this troublesome burden of mind-body-existence. (muncitu-kamyata-nana), So he begins to examine his mind and body deeper and deeper and realizes that there is no "I" to get troubled with, that there is nothing to be taken as mine, that there are only mental and material states continually rising and vanishing and that they thus rise and vanish in their- inherent and unavoidable nature.
(patisankhanupassana-nana),

When the meditator realizes that everything that rises is subject to fall away and that it is inherent in every conditioned thing, he will not be worried but be indifferent and equanimous sankharupekkha--nana).

Now lie has realised that all conditioned thi'ngs, whether internal or external are subject to the nature of rising and vanishing momentarily and consequently feels thoroughly detached from all those things.  Instantly three signata (ie. impermanance, unsatisfactoriness or restlessness and non-ego-entity) become clearer and clearer and more and more evident (patipadanana-visuddhi).  His introspection rises to its maturity.  On this occasion two or three thoughts (mind units ) fixed on one of the three signata rise and pass away followed by a consciousness (or mind-unit), which arises letting go of the conditioned things that his thought stream has been holding on to for so long.  This consciousness (or mind-unit) catches hold of a new object, that is the unconditioned element (asankh;ata-dhatu or Nirvana), which appears before his mind's eye hazily. Immediately next to it the fully matured mindunit arises seeing and focussing itself on Nirvana.  This is the first path-consciousness (pathama-magga-citta), The meditator now has entered the path to Nirvana definitely and will never turn back.  A boat that has got on to a rapid stream bound to sea will never turn upstream.  Similar is the condition of the meditator who has reached this stage.  So the path he has to tread from this moment Is called sota (rapid stream) and the setting upon this path is called apatti (setting upon or entering), and hence this stage is called sotapatti (stream-entering).  The consciousness or mind-unit that arises at this instant is called also sotapattimagga-citta.  This mind-unit, while arising, roots out the belief in the existence of an ego-entity, doubt, regard for rites and ceremonies.  It is followed by two or three mindunits fixing themselves on Nibbana and removing thereby the fatigue that had been caused by those rooted out passions.  Of these mind-units the firstone (magga-citta) is the kusala (or wholesome active) consciousness of the supramundane class (lokuttara) of mind-units, and the succeeding two or three mind-units are its resultants (lokuttara-phala-cittas).Then   the thought stream subsides into subliminal passive state (bhavanga). Then after some moments, bhavanga is arrested and mind - door - consciouness arises turning towards the immediate past experience and there arise mind-units reflecting the path consciousness, its           function (or resultant consciousness) and Nibbana, and by this he sees also what defilements of mind he has destroyed and what are yet to be rooted out.  The person that has attained to this state is called sotapanna (one who has entered the holy stream i.e. noble (holy) eight-factored path.)

If he does not attain to any higher stage of the path in the same life he will take seven rebirths before he attains to arahantship.  But if he tries sufficiently he may be able to attain to arahants[iip even before that time.  If he develops Vipassana even during the present life-time he may attain other stages of the path.

When he develops Vipassana he may attain to once-returner's stage.  When his vipassana matures enough, a consciousness arises catching hold of nibbana,l and next to it arises a consciousness (mind-uniti fixing itself on Nibbana and attenuating all remaining i-nental defilements, which is followed by two or three mind- units removing the fatigue (of those defilements that had been attenuated).  Then. the thought process subsides into passive subliminal conscious state (bhavanga) and in a very short time bhavanga is arrested and mind-door consciousness arises turping towards the immediate past experience ahd mind - units arise reflecting the once returner's path consciousness, its fruition (phalacittas) and nibbana. By these he sees what defilements of mind he has attenuated and what he has still to destroy.  The consciousnessor mind unit that arises at the moment of attaining to once-returner's stage is called dutiya-maggacitta (second path-conciousness) or Sakadagami - magga - citta (once returner's path-consciousness) and two or three mind-units that follow it are called the fruitions or resultants of the same (sakadagami-pahala-cittas).

If he is not able to achieve any higher state of self-development, only one time he may be reborn here (in the sensual plane.) 

Suppose he tries and develops his vipassana insight sufficiently, then at thd due moment a consciousness would arise catching hold of nibbanafor its object.  This is followed by a mind unit which fixes itself on Nibbana and roots out desire for sensual pleasures and ill-will.  This mind-unit is called anagami-magga-citta (non--returner's path-conscionsness).  A person who has attained to this state will never be reborn into the sensual realm. or any lower heaven.  This path-consciousness, too, is followed by two or three resultants (or fruition-mind-units) or anagami phala-cittas fixing themselves on nibbana and quenching the fatigue created by the passions that have already been rooted out Then the thought stream subsides into passive subliminal state (bhavanga). In a very short time it, is arrested and mind-door-turning consciousness arises which is folioned by mind-units which look back and see the nature	of the non-returner's path-consciousness, the passions it has destroyed and the fruition-consciousness and nibbana and also	perceiving that there are still some defilements to be rooted out. So he should practise vipassana.  If he could not complete the practice sufficiently to develop his insight, he would be reborn into a Brahma-plane called suddhavasa the abode of the holy ones and would attain to arahantship thereat.  But if he develops vipassana here sufficiently, at the moment when his practice rises to its culmination, there arises a thought process, as before on such occasions, at which there arises vodana-citta fixing itself on nibbana, which is followed by the fourth path - consciousness or the consciousness of the arahant path (arahatta-magga-citta) which roots out all remaining mental defilements together with their dormant tendencies (anusaya), at the same time fixing itself on nibbana.  This is followed by two or three of its fruitions (arahatta-phala-cittas) and the thought-process subsides into passive subliminal state.  The arahatta-phala-cittas remove all the fatigue created by those past passions.  The passive subliminal state, in a. very short time, is arrested and minddoor-consciousness will arise, which is followed by some kamavacara-kriya cittas which ref I ect the arahant path-consciousness, the passions destroyed by it, its succeeding fruition -consciousnes and nibbana.  It sees there are no more passions to be destroyed and that there is nothing more to be done or to be practised.

Thus there are eight types of supramundane (lokuttara) consciousness:

stream-winner's   path consciousness   (sotapatti-magga-citta)
		resultant	(sotapatti-phala -citta)
	once-returner's	path	(sakadagami- magga-citta)
		resultant	(sakadagami-phala-citta)
	non-returner's	path	(anagami-magga-citta)
		resultant	(anagami-phala-citta)
	arahant's path	consciousness	(arahatta-magga-citta)
	resultant	                               (arahatta-phala-citta)

Note: At the moment of attainment to stream winner's state, the stream-winner's path consciousness arises naturally, together with the five factors of first jhana.  If they do not
want to develop any other jhanas, all the remaining supramundane thoughts are accompanied by the very same first jhanic nature.

Summary
	Kamavacara cittas	54
	rupavacara	15
	aru pavacara	12
	lokuttara	8
		89	All types of consciousness

(Abhidamma - talk on mental characteristics will be given in the second volume of this Series)


                                  Anapana - Sati

MEDITATION ON BREATHING
(An Essay)

There are two kinds of meditation (bhavana) namely, the one that leads to full concentration, stillness, peace and ease of mind, and the ot her that leads to Realization or Enlightenment and thereby to perfect Freedom of mind.  Out of these two, the one that leads to full concentration consists of forty methods that lead to higher stages of concentration.  Out of these forty methods, I shall deal here with the method of concentration on one's breath.

A person who expects to achieve success in his spiritual development must, first of all, be of morally good character.  At least he must develop the five precepts (panca-sila):
       1.     He must refrain from hurting and taking life;
2.	He must refrain from possessing others' things illegally;
3.	He must refrain from sexual misconduct;
4.    He must refrain from wrong speech; The four types of wrong speech are:  falsehood,  
       slandering, harsh speech, and idle gossip.
5.	He must refrain from taking intoxicants.

In addition to keeping these five precepts, he must refrain from the wrong means of earning his livelihood.

If he expects to attain to higher states of concentration, he should have sense-control and lead a
pure, celibate life.

The person who expects to practise the meditation on breathing should find a suitable place for his practice.  It must bqfree of any inconvenience, secluded, with no disturbandes whatever.  Meditators of olden days used to spend their time mostly in forests or remote areas of groves in
an isolated shelter under a shady tree, or in an empty house, and there they practised their particular systems of bhavana.  In a society which is noisy and full of disturbances, it is impossible to carry out such practices in the daytime.But at night, after all have gone to bed, when silence reigns, it is not difficult, I believe, to practise any kind of Bhavana (meditation).         One may choose any posture that is convenient and comfortable, but at the start, it is much
better if one is able to sit with legs crosswise or to sit on . a chair with one's upper body erect, with one's vertebrae resting end to end.

The First Stage of Practice

At the start of practice, meditator should sit down in a comfortable way and make a strong resolution to carry out his practice for his spiritual develo ment.  Then he may dedicate himself to his spiritual teacher.  At this point he is ready to start his practice.

He may watch his inhalation and exhalation at the start.  By no means should lie force breath in or out. He should just be aware of his breath as it passes in and out  (while letting the breath go in and out automatically in its own way.) He has only to be watchful, mindful, and attentive to it. If he is a long-nosed person, the breath will touch the tip of his nose first, and if his nose is a short one, the breath will touch his upper lip first.  He should fix his mind and attention on the spot the breath first touches, the tip of the nose or the upper lip, as the case may be.  He should carry out this practice at least twice a day for one full hour each time.  As for meditators who have devoted their whole life to such practices, they may practise for the whole day, except when they attend to their bodies needs.

To be conscious. and mindful of, or attentive to, one's breath is the preliminary step of this practice. If the meditator has not yet fully developed concentration, his mind might wander at times towards some experience in the past or some design for the future.  In order to avoid this lapse in concentration, the meditator should follow the process of counting his breaths as described in the following paragraphs.  How it is to be done will be given below.

He should start counting either at inhalation or exhalation according to his wish.  When breath touches the tip of his nose or his upper lip, he should mentally count one.  Until the next breath touches the spot, he should mentally count one, one, one, on and on.  When the next breath touches the spot, he should count two, two, two, on and on.  He should continue counting in this way until he comes to the fifth breath.  When he counts five, he has completed the first round and he should begin the second round with counting one and go forward as in the first round, but up to the number six In this second round.  After coi-npleting the second round. he should begin the third round with counting tlic. number one again and should go forward until he comes to number seven.  Then he should begin the fourth round with counting one and go forward till he reaches the number eight.  He should then begin the fifth round with counting one and should go on till the number nine.  Leaving no gap, he sliciuld start from oie again and proceed until the counting of ten.  He should not count beyond ten.

Now taking all these five rounds as one set, he should repeat the process as given in the first set for at least one hour.  When he follows this method, he will be able to control his mind and to prevent it from wandering.

NOTE: Counting may be either slow or fast. If a meditator's attention to his breathing is weak, his counting becomes slow, and if his attention is strong, his counting becomes fast.  If he is easily disturbed and turns his thoughts toward external objects, his attention is weak.  If outer objects are not able to disturb him, it means that his attention to his breathing is strong.

The Second Stage

When the meditator has cut short the wandering of his mind and has been able to fix it strongly on the spot of his breath's first touch, it is no longer necessary for him to count his breaths.  At this stage, he has to fix his mind on, and be watchful of, his breath and be aware of  a long breath as long and a  short breath as short. In this practice, while inhaling long, he should
notice and be aware of    it: "I inhale long". While inhaling short, he should notice and be aware of it:" I am inhaling short."  While exhaling long he should notice it and while exhaling short he should notice that, too.  He must be careful not to allow any breath to pass unnoticed.  He should continue this practice at a single stretch at least one full hour.  When he continues this process, he will feel that his breaths become, little by little, more and more subtle and gentle.

The Third Stage

Now he should train himself in experiencing the wholestructure of his breath.  While fixing his attention on the spot of his breath's first touch, he should try to be aware of the beginning, middle and end of this inhalation as well as of his exhalation. When he inhales, he should mentally follow the Inhalation right from the spot his breath first touches until It reaches its end.  When he cxhales, he should follow the exhalation from the beginning until it reaches Its end at the spot of its first touch (i.e., at the tip of the nose or the upper lip, asthe case may be).

The beginning of inhalation is the first spot the breath touches (the tip of the nose or upper lip) and Its end is the navel (as perceived by the meditator).  The beginning of exhalation is at the navel, and its end is the spot of its first touch. To some meditators, only one of the three stages the beginning, the middle or the end of the inhalation or exhalation is clear and plain, and the other two are not clear.  To some, two of them are clear and the other one is not clear.  To others, all the three are clear.. Until all the three stages becomeclear, the meditator should make special effort.  In this practice, he should keep his attention on the spot his breath first touches (the tip of the nose or upper lip).

For example, if a man stands at the fulcrum of a see-saw or teeter-totter and repeatedly pushes the plank down first on one side and then on the other for the amusement of his children, even though he does not move from the fulcrum, he sees both the ends and the middle of the plank.  In this same way, the meditator should anchor his mindfulness in the spot of the breath's first touch, but he should follow the beginning, middle and end of the inhalations and exhalations.  Or suppose a man were to cut a tree trunk with a saw.  His attention would be kept on the saw's teeth where they touch the tree trunk.  He would not give attention to the teeth while they proceed to the trunk and recede from It, but they would not be unknown to him.  Similarly, the meditator, even though he does not give attention to the inhalations and exhalations as they come and go, is aware of them.  This is due to the development and expansion of his mindfulness.

The Fourth Stage

By now the meditator feels that his breath has calmed down. If he does not feel so, he should carry out the previous practice with special effort to make his course of breath subtle, gentle and calm.  After a short time, he will be successful and his breath will become calm and allayed. When he is successful in this effort, both his body and  mind will become light.  They       may become so light that his body may leap up into the air.  I know of two persons (Buddhist     monks) who, while they were practising this meditation, rose In the air until their heads touched the ceiling of the room and after a few minutes floated down to the earth.

When the meditator properly develops concentration of his mind on his breath in this manner, he will eventually perceive his own breath as a force of wind touching his nostrils or as something like cotton touching the same spot.  This is called the reflection or replica of the breath (uggaha-nimitta, the thing learned or taken into mind from the outer object, that is, his breath).

The more the meditator fixes his mind and attention on his breath in this manner, the. farther his mind goes awayfrom the impediments (nivaranas) which bar its development.
There are five impediments: sensuality (kamacchanda), ill-will (vyapada),	sluggishness and lethargy (thinamiddha), restlessness and worry (uddacca kukkucca), and uncertainty (vicikiccha). After some practice, when he comes to the fourth stage of his development, the five impediments will recede still further, his mind will become still purer, and its object the breath. will appear still brighter.  To some, it appears as a cluster of stars or as one star or one gem; to some, as a cluster of gems; to others, as a cluster of pearls, as a puff of smoke, as a stretched out cobweb, as a f 11 m of cloud, as a lotus flower, as a chariot wheel, as the sun, as the moon, or as some other bright object.  This is called the counterpart object (patibhaganimitta).  When a counterpart object has appeared, the meditator must be very careful not to let it disappear, for if it somehow disappears, it will be very difficult to make it reappear.  It will disappear due to his carelessness. if he is proud, thinking that he has become successful and allows his thoughts to run towards any tempting object, 1, e., an object which makes him lustful or angry and the like, then his mind's level which has risen to such a high point might come down to that of an ordinary, undeveloped man.  To guard and protect the counterpart object, he must avoid the following things:

1. unsuitable abodes (places where there are disturbances like frequency of visitors,  
      noisiness and the like);
2.   unsuitable resort (where there is difficulty in obtaining food and other requisites);
3.   unsuitable talk (which disturbs or discourages his practice);
4.   unsuitable association (which disturbs or          discourages his practice);
5.   unsuitable food (what isdisagreeable to his taste orwhat is harmful to his health);
  6.   unsuitable posture(a posture which Is not comfortable to him.  The teacher of meditation practice should not force his disciple to be in a posture, or to adapt himself to a posture which is not comfortable to him, because it makes his practice a failure or delays his development.);
7.	unsuitable climate (a cold or hot one which is disagreeable or harmful to his health);

As regards his further practice, he should repeatedly turn his mind towards the counterpart object.  By doing so, his mind will be strongly fixed on the object and it will not easily disappear.  Now, he should accomplish proficiency in ecstatic concentration by fulfilling the following ten conditions:

1. Keeping his body, dress and place clean;
2. Bringing about evenness of five mental faculties: 
      (a) confidence
(b) energy or effort, 
(c) mindfulness, 
(d) concentration, and
    (e)	the faculty of reasoning;
3.	Cultivating skill in protecting the counterpart object;
4.	Exerting his mind when it should be exerted;
5.	Restraining his mind when it should be restrained;
6.	Encouraging his mind when it is dejected;
7.	Controlling his mind when It Is exuberant;
8.	Avoiding persons who have not developed concentration;
9.	Associating with persons who have developed concentration;
10.	Being resolute about the development of concentration.

The meditator who energetically follows the instructions given thus far will be able to attain to the first ecstatic trance.

* Here what we mean by trance is not a sleepy or inactive mood, but a waking state of mind, fully open and fixed on the point of concentration (a state known as Jhana in Pali,) and later as Chan in Chinese, and eventually as Zen in Japanese.

But even though he has attained to it by means of fixing his mind on the counterpart object, it is better and safer for him to extend, or make greater, the counterpart object at this point In his practice.  He should now try to extend it both in length and breadth.  He should first mentally delimit it - say one inch all around, then two inches, three inches, and so forth.  Thus extending its boundary successively. he should make it appear one foot wide, two feet wide, and so on, at least extending it to the size of an umbrella.  If he likes, he may extend it until it becomes the size of his house, or the size of his town, or the size of infinite space.  Then he will perceive the counterpart object has expanded into an infinite light.But it is not necessary to expand it to that extent.  When he has expanded it to the size of an umbrella, it is quite sufficient in size for him to fix his mind firmly on it and attain to	the first	estatic trance
(the first jhana).

When he comes to this concentrated state of mind, he experiences the five constituents of the first trance: applied thought (vitakka), sustained thought (vicara), joy (pit!), ease (sukha), and one! pointedness (ekaggata).  These five factors of the first ecstatic consciousness make the mind's fixation on the object stronger and strongly suppress or inhibit the five impediments (nivaranas).  Applied thought inhibits sluggishness and lethargy; sustained thought inhibits uncertainty; joy inhibits ill-will; comfort inhibits restlessness and worry; and one--pointedness inhibits sensuality.  The meditator who has attained to this ecstatic trance, experiences a feeling of ease and happiness, full of ecstacy and a peace never before even dreamed of by him.

The meditator who has achieved the first ecstatic trance should master it in five ways, otherwise, he will not be able to rise higher in his practice. He must master it by referring to it (avajjana), by entering it (samapajhana), by steadying it (adiiitthana), by emerging from it (vutthana) and by reviewing it (paccavekkhana).

To master it by referring to it is to turn his thoughts towards the trance at any place and at any time with no 
difficulty.

To master it by entering it is to be able to enter the trance at any place and at any moment.

To master it by steadying it is to remain in the trance as long as he likes.

To master it by emerging from it is the ability to emerge from the trance at any place and at any time.

To master it by reviewing it is the ability to rememberand examine the nature of the trance, the nature of its factors and the like.

When he has achieved mastery over the first trance in these five ways, he will be successful in attaining to iihe next higher one, the second ecstatic trance (second ihana).

After the meditator has mastered the first trance, he sees applied (vitakka) and sustained thought (vicara) as gross states of mind, and he feels it would be better if he could enter the trance without them.  So he enters the first trance thousands and thousands of times and masters it in the five ways mentioned above.  Thus being more and more familiar with and closer to the counterpart object, he will finally be able to enter the trance without the applied and sustained thoughts (vitakka and vicara) and will attain to the second trance (jhana), experiencing its three constituents, joy (piti), comfort or ease (smkkha) and one-pointedness (ekaggata). He must master this second ecstatictrance, too, in the same five ways.  He then perceives joy (piti), too, as a gross state of mind. After entering the second trance incessantly, he will be able to attain to the third trance which is without joy, but is accompanied by comfort or ease (sukha) and one-pointedness(ekaggata).  He must master this trance too in the same five ways. When he reviews the third trance and sees ease (a pleasurable feeling) as a gross quality close to the sense pleasures, he tries to be rid of it, too.After mastering the third trance in the same five ways,comfort (a pleasant feeling) will turn into equanimity (an indifferent feeling). Then he will attain to the fourth trance, experiencing equanimity and one-pointedness.  This, too, he must master in the same five ways.

After this, if he wants to develop psychic powers such as levitation, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading,
thought transference, remembering past lives and the like, he may, develop them. But he must be cautious                     not to be tempted by and attached to them, for attachment to such powers will be an obstacle to his further spiritual development.
When the meditator reviews and examines the nature of the fourth	trance and its factors, he will see many
of its faults. It is still near the gross sens'ual-states. He will see that	the life after his death will be one in which
he will posses a subtle material body, a body that, even though subtle, will be subject to death and decay.  Seeing
so many defects in the fourth trance, hewill strive to attain to a state entirely rid of any materiality.

                                                    Trances Dealing With The Mental Plane

Now the meditator extends and expands the counterpart object (the light) infinitely in conceptualized space.  After he sees mentally that the light has spread everywhere in the conceptualized space, he should fix his mind therein and remain for a short time.  Then he should emerge from that state and remember what he has seen in the trance.  When he sees it clearly, he should will and determine that the same light disappear.  After some effort, he will be able to make it disappear and to see the empty conceptualized space.  This is not a reality, it is a concept.  He should fix his mind firmly on this conceptualized Infinite space, which he will be able to do after some effort.  This stage of mind's concentration is an ecstatic trance in which the mind is fixed on the infinite conceptualized space (akasanantayatana-samadhi).  It is the first trance of the Pure Mental Plane.  He must master this trance in the same five ways that he has mastered the other trances.  After some experience with this trance, he will feel this one is still near the material states of life. and he will make the effort to attain to a stni finer state of mind.  He will enter the trance and get up from it and remember all its nature, trying to handle the state of mind he had at the previous moment.  After some effort, he will be able to handle the consciousness he had in the previous ecstatic trance.

After some effort, he will be able to fix his present consciousness on that previous consciousness.  Then he will be fixing his mind on a very subtle concept.  Thus in this stage, his mind will become much finer than before.  This type of concentrated state of mind is called "the state of infinite consCiousness" (vinnanancayatana-samadhi).  This is the second trance of the Pure Mental Plane.  He must master this trance, too, in the same	five ways.  After he masters it and experiences it over and over again, he will become familiar with this experience and be unsatisfied with it, and he will, have a desire to make his mind and its object still finer.  So he will enter the trance, experience its bliss thoroughly, wake up and turn his attention towards the nature of the absence of consciousness of infinite space at the present moment.  Though in the beginning it will be somewhat difficult to., handle, after making some effort, he will be successful and be able to fix his mind on the nature of the absence of infinite space.  Then he will enter the third trance in which his mind is fixed on the nature of the absence of the consciousness of infinite space.  This is called the trance of nothingness (i.e., in which the mind is fixed on the absence of consciousness of infinite space).  He will master this trance, too, in the five ways of mastery.  After that, he will enter the,	same trance, emerge after a short time and look back and remember the nature of his mind in this third trance and	 see it as very fine.  Then he will fix his present consciousness (mind) in the previous trance (ecstatic) consciousness and experience its calmness and bliss.  At this stage he will feel this to be the highest and finest state of mind.  He will feel that it is neither conscious nor unconscious (neva-sanna-nasannal).

Some persons mistake this state for the eternal bliss of Nirvana.  Those persons who have developed concentration up to these four last successive trances (i.e., trance of infinite space, trance of infinite consciousness, trance of the absence of the previous consciousness, and trance of neither conscious nor unconscious state) will remain, after they leave their gross physical body, in a pure mental (or spiritual) state for cycles of time.

Though some meditators attain to these states, they are still In the world, because after they enjoy the bliss of the peace of those states (when the force they have accumulated by their practice is spent), they return to the human world.  If they want to go back to that same mental plane, they must carry out the practice once more- from the beginning.  Our Bodhisatta (Buddha before his enlightenment), the ascetic Siddhartha Gautama, developed concentration until he attained to the trance of neither-conscious-nor-unconscious state.  He examined it and found Its peace would last only for a limited period of time, that it was not eternal.  So he gave it up, went on his own war and discovered the path of vipassana, treading which he attained to full realization.  This latter system Is called anapana-vipassana.

                                                                    Anapana - Vipassana

Vipassana may be practised in two ways: one way depends on the ecstatic trance and the other way does not.  First, the way to practise vipassana depending on the ecstatic trance will be explained.

The meditator enters any one of the four ecstatic trances and emerges from it after a short time.  Then he reviews the nature of the trance-consciousness, its constituents and the object upon which they depend, which he valued so long and attained to with much difficulty.  He thus realizes that all those are impermanent, unsatisfactory and lacking in entity.  He goes further on examining his breath, the spot of the breath's first touch, the nature of his physical body .which supports the breath, feelings that arise when breaths touch the "spot of their first touch," consciousness that arises together with the feeling, and how they are conditioned.  When he goes on carrying out this inward search, clearer and clearer he will perceive that all those states, both  mental     and     physical, are     conditioned, phenomenal, transient, restless, unsatisfactory and insubstantial.  Thus, perceiving unsteadiness, unsatisfactoriness and egolessness of his mindbody   process, he clears himself of error, achieving purity of
views (ditthi-visuddhi) At this stage, he sees no particular thing called breath, but an ever changing flow of very
minute units of matter composed of four primary qualities: hardness or softness, cohesion, temperature, and                vibration, indivisibly united.

Now the meditator further examines how these material and mental	states arise, goes on in search of their causes and finds the	law of causal genesis (paticca-samuppada).  He understands	that the continuity of material and mental states which he has mistaken so long for "I" has been caused anci conditioned by , attachment or craving (tanha) for such an existence, and that attachment or craving has been caused and conditioned by nescience or ignorance as to t e nature of such an !existence.  He sees that the past ignorance, craving and volitional formations conditioned by the same two, have brought up the present phenomenal existence and that the same causes and conditions, if not rooted out, will build future phenomenal existence.  When he examines thus keenly, he sees clearer and in detail this law of causal - genesis and clears his uncertainty as to the nature of his own existence, and by inference that of other living beings.  He sees more clearly than before the three signatal in his whole existence (this is called kankha-vitarana-visuddhi).  Because of this knowledge and purity of heart, he feels extremely joyful, which influences his blood and causes an aura to emanate from his body.  At the same time, he feels extremely blissful, serene, very energetic, even-minded, more self-confident, more mindful and of sharper awareness.  He feels much attached to these new gains.  Some meditators mistake these new gains for attainment to arahahtship" and stop further practice.  Such ones will soon fall away even from that state and remain at the former average level.

*    Three signata: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality of things which for so long he has taken 
      for "himself."

But the wise meditator discretely examines and scrutinizes his new gains and finds out that he still has not removed his attachment to worldliness.  He clearly sees that those new gains are but obstacles to his further Progress.  He examines those new gains and perceives their transiency, unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality.  He comes to khow that the only way he has to take is to discern even more clearly the nature of his psycho-physical process.  This attainment of understanding is called "the purity achieved by discrimination between right and wrong ways" (maggamagga-nana-elassanavisuddhi).

Now he goes forward examining the material side as well as the mental side of his life and sees still more clearly the instantaneous rise and fall of the mental and material states of his life.  This clear perception is called the knowledge of the rise and fall of states." (udaya-vyaya-nana).

When he examines and analyzes more and more deeply the ephemeral nature of his mental and physical states, their constant fall and breakdowrd become dreadfully clear.  Understanding of this nature is called the knowledge of the fail. (Bhanganana).

When he sees the constant fall of the constituents of his so-called self, he sees it to be a terror.  This is called the knowledge of the nature of terror in the so-called self. (Bhaya-nana).

When he sees the terror nature of the constituents of his mind-matter process, he sees all this process as a danger.  This is called the ,knowledge of danger. (Adinava-nana).

When he watches and meditates over this dangerous nature of his psycho-physical existence, he takes a strong dislike to his mental and physical continuity.  This is called the knowledge accompanied by strong dislike (nibbida-nana)

When he meditates on the nature of his body and mind still more deeply, he feels anxious to get rid of this
troublesome burden of mind-body continuity.  This stage is called "the knowledge accompanied the desire for
freedom" (muncitukmyata-nana).

While he still meditates over the changing nature of his phenomenal existence, he perceives that there is not reason to be troubled over It, as there is no ego or 1,11, to suffer from the horrors of this existence.  He examines further and sees that the momentary rise and fall are Inherent and unavoidable characteristics of all conditioned things, ie., mental and physical states.  This knowledge is called "the knowledge of reflecting contemplation" (patisankhanupassana-nana).

Now the meditator goes on meditating over the voidness of "I" in the conditioned states, both mental and physical, and he feels neither worried nor delighted at whatever happens to the so-called body or mind, and he perceives all such things with indifference and equanimity.  This experience is called "the knowledge which sees conditioned things with indifference" (sankharupekkha-nana).

When he comes to this stage of perceiving the nature of conditioned things from his own experience, his attach-
ment to existence in the world begins to be reduced.  The three signata of  all things in the world, namely 
impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and egolessness of all mind-body processes, become clearer and clearer before his mind's eye.  Introspection rises to a higher maturity.  At this moment, two or three mind-units (thought moments) fixed on one of the three signata pass off, followed by a consciousness (mind-unit) which lets off the    conditioned things which his mind (his 'stream of mind units') had clung to up to this moment. This consciousness fixes itself on a new object, the unconditioned element, which hazily emerges. At the immediate next moment, a
consciousness arises in him fixing itself on the clearly manifested Nirvana element.  As the clear vision of Nirvana is manifested, all doubts about the path, the goal, and the path-expounder (Buddha) are instantly rooted out, together with the belief in an ego, and the regard for rituals and ceremonies is eradicated.  This consciousness is called the first path consciousness - consciousness which has entered the path to perfect sainthood (arahantship) or the consciousness which has entered the holy stream (sotapatti-maggacitta).  This consciousness is followed by two or three mindunits fixing themselves on the very same Nirvana-object.  This latter consciousness is called "the fruition-consciousness of stream entry" (sotapatti-phala-cittas).

* Nirvana (Sanskrit), Nibbana (Pali).

If the meditator cannot attain to any higher stage of the path during this lifetime, he will return to this world (i.e., will be reborn here) seven times more. But if he strives hard, he may be able to attain to the once-returner's stage (sakadagami stage), attenuating the remaining passions and achieving the vision of  Nirvana again. If he strives further, he may attain to the third holy stage, the stage of non-returner (anagami-bhumi), eradicating sensual desire and ill-will.  But even if he is not able to attain to the next higher stage in this very life, he will not be reborn here,   but will be born in a higher, heavenly plane (Brahma-loka) called Holy Abode (Suddhavasa), and will attain to perfect sainthood (arahantship) there. But if he strives hard, and is successful in eradicating all the remaining passions and getting the full vision of Nirvana, he will attain to	perfect saint-hood (arahantship) here in this life itself.  Thus he completes his holy pilgrimage.

Conclusion
One meditator, who has attained to the first or second trance: enters the trance, remains a short time experiencing it, emerges from it.  Then he contemplates and examines the joy (the prominent factor thereof), perceives its impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and egolessness, and goes on deve-loping his insight, completes his spiritual pilgrimage in the afore-mentioned way,and reaches its culmination by attaining to perfect sainthood.

Another meditator, who has attained to the third trance, enters the tranr-e, remains in it for a short time, emerges from it and contemplates its prominent factor (the ease felt therein), the nature of the trance consciousness and its object, and sees that all of them are impermanent, unsatisfactory and egoless.  The meditator, developing his insight as mentioned before -and completing the path, attains perfect sainthood (arahantship).

Still another meditator, who has attained to the fourth trance in which equanimity is the prominent factor, enters the trance, experiences' it, , emerges from it and reviews the nature of the trance, its factors and its object, and sees that they are all impermanent, unsatisfactory and egoless.  Developing vipassana (insight meditation), he completes the holy pilgrimage and attains to perfect sainthood.

Some meditators practice vipassana (inslght-development) from the beginning.  They do not try to attain to estatic trances. They start with being mindful of inhalation and exhalation. 

Then, by counting breaths as mentioned before,, they develop concentration and mindfulness.  Next, they stop counting and develop mindfulness over extension of breaths both long and short, and then contemplate. over the start, middle and end of inhalations and exhalations.  They examine the feelings, that arise at the breath's firsttouch on the tip of the nose or upper lip and see impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and egolessness of feelings.  Then they examine the consciousness (mind-unit), perception (sanna) and other mental factors (sankhara) that arise together with the feeling and see that all of them are Impermanent, and therefore not satisfactory, and insubstantial (egoless),

In this way, they develop, insight (vipassana) and pass the stages: purity of view (ditthi-visuddhi), purity by over-
coming , uncertainty (kankha-vitarana-visuddhi), purity by discriminating between right and wrong paths (maggamagga-nanadassana-visuddhi), and nine stages of insight (anupassanas) or the purity of thoughts: through the course of development of insight (patipada-nanadassana-visuddhi). When the seven factors of realization     (bojjhanga) arise, they examine and see impermenance even in them.  Thus completing the practice, they attain        to the holy stages - stream entry (sotapatti), etc. - and finally attain to arahantship.


                    SIXTEEN POINTS OF ANAPANA-SATI MEDITATION
                        (According to the Anapana-Sati Sutta in Majjhima-Nikaya)

                                                                            First Tetrad

1.	He breathes in and out with attention.

2.	He breathes in and out with attention to their length.

3.	He breathes with awarness of the beginning, middle and end of both inhalation and exhalation.

4.	While calming down his breathing, he breathes in and out.

Second Tetrad

1.	He trains himself to experience joy in the first and second ecstatic trances.

2.	He trains himself to experience ease in the first, second and third ecstatic trances, while breathing in and out.

3.	He trains himself to experience and know feelings and perceptions while inhaling and exhaling (in all four trances).

4.    He trains himself to breathe in an out while he calms down his inhalation and exhalation.
	                           
                                                                                Third Tetrad

1.   He -trains himself to perceive the	mind (in trance) while breathing in and out.

2.   He trains himself to experience joy	in the first, second and third trances while breathing in and out.

3.   He trains himself to inhale and exhale while keeping his mind fixed on the counterpart object.

4.   He trains himself to free his mind from hindrances at the access trance and the first trance, freeing his mind from applied and sustained thoughts at the second trance, freeing his mind from joy at the third trance, freeing his mind from ease (or pleasant feeling) at the fourth. trance, and freeing his mind from passions while practising vipassana until he attains to arahantship.

Fourth Tetrad

1.	He trains himself to contemplate impermanence while breathing in and breathing out (even without attaining to trances).

2.	He trains himself to perceive momentary breakdown of mental and physical states and at last to realize Nibbana, while still breathing in and out.

3.	He trains himself to see the breakdown of mental and physical states, and also of the passions, while breathing in and out.

4.	He trains himself to abandon passions by the practice of vipassana and perceiving Nibbana at the four holy stages.

(This article is based on Satipattana Sutta, Anapanasati Sutta, their Commentaries, Visuddhimagga and Anapanasati dipani by late Lady Zeyado).
            
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