Is it true that venerable Maha Boowa taught a knowingness or kind of awareness that exist independend of sense-object? It is not seen arising and ceasing?
In order to explain this we need to revisit the matter of the Original Mind.
Owning up: First of all, let me say that in a previous post, in response to another person’s post, I referred to the Original Mind (my preferred translation is Originating Mind) as being unconditioned. This was done to simplify the response to the other post but is slightly inaccurate. What I probably should have said is: the Originating Mind is not a conditioned mind. In reality, it is neither conditioned or unconditioned. As I did say, it is beyond dualistic opposites.
To understand how the disciples of Acharn Mun use this term I think it is best to apply Luang Poo Tate’s distinction of Heart and Mind. In this distinction, the Heart can be referred to as the Originating Mind. It is a still “knowingness” with no past, no future; neither conditioned or unconditioned; a singularity in the middle of opposites. It belongs to no one. It has no “self”. The Heart is the origin of a Dhammas. Lung Poo Tate used to quote the following, “Manopubbaingama dhamma, All Dhammas are preceded by the heart.” For the ease of explanation, he also used to draw a distinction between the terms Mano and Citta,. Citta is the working, mundane mind (feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness) and Mano is the purified, supramundane mind, or Heart. Having said that, even he did mix and match linguistically on occasions.
The Citta, or Nama, or mind, is an expression of the Heart. Just as a smile or a frown is an expression of the face but is not the face itself. This is an important distinction because if the defilements were the same as the Heart, then there would be no way to be free of them. Luang Poo quoted “Cittam pabhassarain iigantukehi kilesehi”. “The mind is unceasingly radiant; defilements are alien interlopers.” It is the defilement that cease when freedom from suffering is reached.
It has previously been said that Luang Poo Tate taught that the Originating Mind was the same as Jhana. As I stated in my first post, this statement is incorrect, but it is relevant in terms of the discussion of the Originating Mind. It is relevant because, in achieving Jhana, the meditator does reach a singularity, where the mind and the mind object merge into one. The Thai teachers sometimes refer to this as the mind entering the Bhavanga. As Jhana is an imperfect, mundane state this is not the way to enlightenment and the Originating Mind. Jhana has to be accompanied by Right View in order for it to be on the path to enlightenment.
More importantly, Luang Poo talked about Samma Samadhi. This is the investigation of meditation objects with an emphasis on seeing them as Impermanent, Suffering, and Non-Self. At the Appana Samadhi level, this too is a singularity but it has a different “feel” to Jhana. While Samma Samadhi leads to wisdom, it too is not the Originating Mind. The wisdom gained helps to clean the mind and free it from defilements but the severing of the defilements does not happen until Maggasamangi is achieved at each of the Ariya levels. Maggasamangi is neither Jhana, the Bhavanga or Samadhi. He said, it is a singularity but unlike Jhana and Samadhi, it is the confluence of the eight components of the Path. This is why the Stream Enterer is able to glimpse Nibbana after he has broken the first three shackles. Because the Originating Mind is above all that exists in the conventional world. If this was not so, how could the Stream Enterer experience Nibbana?
So, some readers may not agree with the details above and it is not my intention or job to convince them otherwise. I believe that this is a fairer representation of what the Thai teachers taught and this is all that I seek to do. I hope this helps.