I suppose ‘immortality’ (or maybe ‘the immortal’) is fine for amata, typically rendered as ‘deathless’.
Past participle of marati + the ‘a’ negator = not dead. Marati and mortal are PIE related, mṛ.
PED’s definition cites a commentarial gloss, “na jāyati na jīyati na mīyati ti amatan ti vuccati”.
(that not born nor age nor die is called amata)
It’s a gloss on the line from the Ratana Sutta:
“Destruction, dispassion, the deathless, the sublime, (khayaṃ virāgaṃ amataṃ paṇītaṃ)
which Sakyamuni, concentrated, attained:
there is nothing equal to that Dhamma,
This too is the sublime gem in the Dhamma,” etc…
Ven. Bodhi trans.
These 4 qualities in the stanza all refer to nibbāna.
How this is related to “Original Mind” I do not know.
Doctrine isn’t my strong point… but what comes to mind is that for the Arahat there is also non-manifest consciousness (Anidassana Vinyana). And then with the abandonment of Self-Thinking (Mannana), there is still the process/mechanism of knowing, but without ‘attachment’… Language (even to the level of Nama) becomes extremely problematic when talking about these things as even the grammar constructs a particular conceptual environment within which one must communicate, and which must be untangled first…
Looking forward to hearing from Ajahn @Brahmali and Bhante @sujato
Here is a link to an essay by Bhante Sujato, that clearly outlines that any type of consciousness (including Anidassana Vinyana) is not permanent or ‘unconditioned’.
100% conditioned. Not Self. But very easy to attach to as representing an immortal Self, all the more so because it seems constant and unchanging. It is that which does the knowing, that which powers/ underlies the constantly changing facade of Mind. In the words of Ajahn Sumedho “Awareness is constant, it doesn’t change. And my Awareness is not different from your Awareness.” That’s why some call it Original Mind aka ‘The Watcher/ The Knower’. AFAIK, it is a condition free of Lust and Aversion, only the last bit of Delusion (the final whiff of the odour of I/ my making) remains. Once that is let go of, everything dissolves into the Dhamma, Cessation occurs and there is Nibbana.
(PS: There is a whole book on the concept of Amata in the Connected Discourses and its also described in multiple other suttas. AFAIK, its very closely related to Nibbana, yet its not exactly the same - sort of like the relationship between Samadhi and Jhana. )
That may be your perception, but I have heard more than one talk by forest Ajahns - Western ones included - who directly described the Original Mind as eternal and not suffering. Combined with the arguments I present in the Original post, it is hard to see how it is not an atman and / or unconditioned in their view.
Well, my perception comes from listening to probably the very same talks as well as reading the very same texts, so go figure!!
Snp 4.12
Indeed the truth is one, there’s not another,
about this the One who Knows
does not dispute with another,
but the Samaṇas proclaim their varied “truths”
and so they speak not in the same way.
What I understand is that Ajahn Chah was explaining about cittānupassanā and the development path till final stage of insight ( ñana).
Fabrications is called Sinkhara aggregate. At the end (exhaustion) of all Sinkhara, there is Nibbana, which is unconditioned, permanent but no-self, according to Vipassana book by late Mahasi Sayadaw from Myanmar.
In whatever word you call- Original Mind or Primal Mind- it seems to me that it is a purified mind at the Asinkatta paramattha dhamma which is beyond Sinkatta paramattha dhammas (citta, rupa and cetatika).
As Ajahn Chah stated “Knower can change”, I understand “Knower” means only vijnana aggregate while sleeping and vijnana + sati (awareness) cetakina while meditating (sounds like Abidhama teaching).
Despite differences in detailed words, his explanation looks similar to the discourses on meditation and Nibbana by some venerable monks from Myanmar.
Totally agree with you. And defiantly there is some Abidhama influences. There is no doubt if somebody read all talks of Ajhan Chah that no permanent soul is ever mentioned. Quite the opposite.
I’ve also heard that the problematic, or maybe not so problematic word “eternal” is mentioned on the subject. Maybe when one speaks from an ordinary mind, a 3-dimensional being, the word eternal is ok … But if awareness or knowing could have a say, it might say; I’m infinite and dimensionless.
Do you mean that the Abhidhamma influences despite Thai Forest claims to ignore the Abhidhamma, or do you mean that there is definitely Abhidhamma influence?
When I read these passages I don’t get the idea that he is talking about a permanent essence or consciousness at all. It is the end of fabrication and construction, and end to imaginings and holding on to views, and the end of papanca.
Note it is the interviewer who coins the phrase ‘Genuine Mind’ – Ajahn Chah does not use this terminology. This conceptual overlay has sneaked in… What Ajahn Chah is talking about is an absence of fabrications and issues… It is like in the suttas - the place where no-thing finds a footing (the house with no walls or floor for a beam of sunlight to land – or trying to draw images in the sky where they can not hold an image. Sorry I can’t recall the two sutta numbers here). I think of it as a wave passing through the ocean without leaving a trace. What are you going to call/label it… the waveless ocean? Non-Manifest Consciousness? … I particularly love Ajahn Chah’s Still Flowing Water. All labels are inadequate to describe this absence/extinguishment… especially while still alive - another way of thinking about Nibbana is not just as ‘deathless’ or unconditioned but also as conceptlessness. That is so tricky – how does one use conceptual thought to illuminate a ‘state’ without conceptual proliferation (including the concept of ‘I’ or even a concept of ‘Nibbana’).
These extracts from the interview make it even clearer! It is the interviewer who keeps clinging to the concept of some kind of permanent mind/self, and Ajahn Chah keeps correcting that perception.
Excerpt from the Ajahn Chah talk linked above
“Don’t follow your thought-fabrications. When you see the activity of fabrications, that’s discernment. But if you keep on running to get inside them, it’s all just fabrication. That kind of knowing isn’t really you, so you have to discard that, too. Consciousness is just consciousness, that’s all. It’s not a being, not a person, not a self, not “us” or “them.” So you discard it, too. That’s the end of the matter. And what else would you want? Where would you go from there? You’d just be putting yourself to difficulties, you know.”
and the excerpt quoted by @Vstakan a little further on
Further down we have this
“In the beginning you know about inconstancy, stress, and not-self. These are issues of the mind. But that reality doesn’t have any issues. It lets go. It lets go of the things that the mind arises with and depends on, but it doesn’t arise or disband at all. The things that arise and disband depend on perceptions and fabrications. We think that because contemplation uses perceptions, then they must be discernment. And so we latch onto fabrications, thinking they’re discernment. But that’s not genuine discernment. Genuine discernment puts an end to issues. It knows, and that’s the end of issues. There are still fabrications, but you don’t follow in line with them. There are sensations, you’re aware of them, but you don’t follow in line with them. You keep knowing that they’re not the path any more.
Question: What do we do to find this point, the point of the genuine mind?”
“When you understand this much, that’s the end of issues. When you understand it, you take it to contemplate so as to give rise to discernment. See clearly all the way in. It’s not just a matter of simply arising and disbanding, you know. That’s not the case at all. You have to look into the causes within your own mind. You’re just the same way: arising and disbanding. Look until there’s no pleasure or pain. Keep following in until there’s nothing: no attachment. That’s how you go beyond these things. Really see it that way; see your mind in that way. This is not just something to talk about. Get so that wherever you are, there’s nothing. Things arise and disband, arise and disband, and that’s all. You don’t depend on fabrications. You don’t run after fabrications. But normally, we monks fabricate in one way; lay people fabricate in crude ways. But it’s all a matter of fabrication. If we always follow in line with them, if we don’t know, they grow more and more until we don’t know up from down.
Question: But there’s still the primal mind, right?
Ajahn Chah: What?
Question: Just now when you were speaking, it sounded as if there were something aside from the five aggregates. What else is there? You spoke as if there were something. What would you call it? The primal mind? Or what?
Ajahn Chah: You don’t call it anything. Everything ends right there. There’s no more calling it “primal.” That ends right there. “What’s primal” ends.
Question: Would you call it the primal mind?
Ajahn Chah: You can give it that supposition if you want. When there are no suppositions, there’s no way to talk. There are no words to talk. But there’s nothing there, no issues. It’s primal; it’s old. There are no issues at all. But what I’m saying here is just suppositions. “Old,” “new”: These are just affairs of supposition. If there were no suppositions, we wouldn’t understand anything. We’d just sit here silent without understanding one another. So understand that.
…
Question: The primal mind and the knower: Are they the same thing?
Ajahn Chah: Not at all. The knower can change. It’s your awareness. Everyone has a knower.
Question: But not everyone has a primal mind?
Ajahn Chah: Everyone has one. Everyone has a knower, but it hasn’t reached the end of its issues, the knower.
Question: But everyone has both?
Ajahn Chah: Yes. Everyone has both, but they haven’t explored all the way into the other one.
Question: Does the knower have a self?
Ajahn Chah:No. Does it feel like it has one? Has it felt that way from the very beginning?
…
I feel that it is very clear from this that the interviewer is the one clinging to an idea of a ‘primal mind’ that has a permanent essence and that Ajahn Chah keeps saying that gradually and ultimately it all ceases
this exerpt from MN140 is relevant
‘They have four foundations, standing on which the streams of identification don’t flow. And when the streams of identification don’t flow, they’re called a sage at peace.’ That’s what I said, but why did I say it?
These are all forms of identifying: ‘I am’, ‘I am this’, ‘I will be’, ‘I will not be’, ‘I will have form’, ‘I will be formless’, ‘I will be percipient’, ‘I will be non-percipient’, ‘I will be neither percipient nor non-percipient.’ Identification is a disease, a boil, a dart. Having gone beyond all identification, one is called a sage at peace. The sage at peace is not reborn, does not grow old, and does not die. They are not shaken, and do not yearn. For they have nothing which would cause them to be reborn. Not being reborn, how could they grow old? Not growing old, how could they die? Not dying, how could they be shaken? Not shaking, for what could they yearn?
‘They have four foundations, standing on which the streams of identification don’t flow. And when the streams of identification don’t flow, they’re called a sage at peace.’ That’s what I said, and this is why I said it. Mendicant, you should remember this brief analysis of the six elements."
As @Vstakan indicated, MN1 is clear about the role of ‘imaginings or suppositions’ (mannana) needing to be overcome. This is the point that I believe Ajahn Chah, is making.
This is clearly shown in the Bahiyasutta Ud1.10
“In that case, Bāhiya, you should train like this: ‘In the seen will be merely the seen; in the heard will be merely the heard; in the thought will be merely the thought; in the known will be merely the known.’ That’s how you should train. When you have trained in this way, you won’t be ‘by that’. When you’re not ‘by that’, you won’t be ‘in that’. When you’re not ‘in that’, you won’t be in this world or the world beyond or in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering.” https://suttacentral.net/ud1.10/en/sujato#:~:text=“In%20that%20case,end%20of%20suffering.”
In the case of Ajahn Chah – I believe that he is just using his own words/labels, to communicate what the Buddha was pointing to. This would be natural if he has seen it himself and is not just repeating dogma. His words don’t have to be interpreted as a permanent essence/self, – but there is a tendency for people to grasp onto a self, and thus interpret them in a specific way just as the interviewer did by inserting the concept of Genuine/Primal Mind into the interview, just what happens with the misunderstandings of the Buddhas teachings on Anatta.
I do, however, acknowledge that it appears that some of the Thai teachers do seem to subscribe to a concept with similarities to the Original Mind, but I don’t see that as the case here.
Added:
It is not surprising that this is hard to penetrate. This stuff is really in the Panna section of the gradual training. First one needs to have perfected Sila, then achieved Samadhi. These are necessary to get past, (or put down/still), the proliferation in the mind, to enable one to see beyond objects or the subject/object dichotomy (perceptions - the known/the knower) and to focus on the mechanisms and processes of Mind, thereby going even deeper into impermanence and unsatisfactoriness and non-self. Only at this stage of ‘weakening’ habitual conceptualisations can one see them clearly and then also abandon them as ‘only suffering arising and ceasing’. It is to be expected that one will not be able to see this clearly without having done the preliminary work – of having put the conditions into place that enable this to occur.
I know of some Western Forest teachers who are Ajahn Cha’s direct disciples and his disciples’ disciples who subscribe tovthat idea, which was why I asked in the first place I always wondered: how come that so many of them seem to talk about it?
Okay, so I found another version of this talk that was included into the Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah. Turns out that the monk conversing with the Venerable Ajahn was probably none other than Ajahn Amaro (hardly surprising, to be honest). What caught my attention when reading the What is Contemplation version was a small footnote in the beginning of the talk: ‘Some rearrangement of the sequence of conversation has been made for ease of understanding.’ In practical terms, statements like this one almost always mean something along the lines: ‘Okay, so we took this guy’s words and shuffled them around until they started fitting our agenda.’
It is hardly astonishing that this was kind of true in that case as well. Let us just compare the two versions side by side (honest warning: lots of reading ahead).
I.
THE KNOWER
Your sensations are just sensations, that’s all. But what you’ve reached doesn’t arise, doesn’t disband. It’s just the way it is. It doesn’t arise and it doesn’t die. In simple terms, as with our mind: We suppose that the mind knows sensations. But when we really speak about the mind, this is something above the mind. Whatever the mind arises from, we call it the mind. The mind arises and disbands. It arises and disbands, this mind.
But this other thing isn’t the mind that arises and disbands. It’s a different experience. All the things that are that truth: They don’t arise and don’t disband. They’re just the way they are. They go past the issues of arising and disbanding. But when you call them the mind, it’s just in terms of suppositions. When you speak in terms of suppositions, you believe in your own mind—and then what happens? Where does this mind come from? You’ve believed in this mind for so long, and there’s no ease. Right?
In the beginning you know about inconstancy, stress, and not-self. These are issues of the mind. But that reality doesn’t have any issues. It lets go. It lets go of the things that the mind arises with and depends on, but it doesn’t arise or disband at all. The things that arise and disband depend on perceptions and fabrications. We think that because contemplation uses perceptions, then they must be discernment. And so we latch onto fabrications, thinking they’re discernment. But that’s not genuine discernment. Genuine discernment puts an end to issues. It knows, and that’s the end of issues. There are still fabrications, but you don’t follow in line with them. There are sensations, you’re aware of them, but you don’t follow in line with them. You keep knowing that they’re not the path any more.
vs.
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION
We use thinking as a tool, but the knowing that arises because of its use is above and beyond the process of thinking; it leads to our not being fooled by our thinking any more. You recognize that all thinking is merely the movement of the mind, and also that knowing is not born and doesn’t die. What do you think all this movement called ‘mind’ comes out of? What we talk about as the mind - all the activity - is just the conventional mind. It’s not the real mind at all. What is real just IS, it’s not arising and it’s not passing away.
Trying to understand these things just by talking about them, though, won’t work. We need to really consider impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and impersonality ( anicca, dukkha, anatta); that is, we need to use thinking to contemplate the nature of conventional reality. What comes out of this work is wisdom - and emptiness. Even though there may still be thinking, it’s empty - you are not affected by it.
II.
THE KNOWER
It’s like the ground. What spins around is on top of the ground. But this thing is the ground. What doesn’t arise or disband is the ground. What arises and runs around on top, we call “the mind,” or “perception,” or “fabrication.” To put it in simple terms, there are no forms, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, or consciousness in the ground. In terms of supposition, form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness arise and disband. But they’re not in this. They disband.
vs.
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION
For example, sitting here downstairs on the stone floor. The floor is the base - it’s not moving or going anywhere. Upstairs, above us is what has arisen out of this. Upstairs is like everything that we see in our minds: form, feeling, memory, thinking. Really, they don’t exist in the way we presume they do. They are merely the conventional mind. As soon as they arise, they pass away again; they don’t really exist in themselves.
III.
THE KNOWER
It’s like the question that Ven. Sāriputta asked Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta. Have you ever read that? Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta was going out into the forest to follow the ascetic practices. His teacher had taught him about the ascetic practices. So Ven. Sāriputta asked him, “Puṇṇa Mantāniputta, when you go out into the forest, suppose someone asks you this question, ‘When an arahant dies, what is he?’ How would you answer?”
That’s because this had already happened.
Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta said, “I’ll answer that form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness arise and disband. That’s all.”
Ven. Sāriputta said, “That’ll do. That’ll do.”
When you understand this much, that’s the end of issues. When you understand it, you take it to contemplate so as to give rise to discernment. See clearly all the way in. It’s not just a matter of simply arising and disbanding, you know. That’s not the case at all. You have to look into the causes within your own mind. You’re just the same way: arising and disbanding. Look until there’s no pleasure or pain. Keep following in until there’s nothing: no attachment. That’s how you go beyond these things. Really see it that way; see your mind in that way. This is not just something to talk about. Get so that wherever you are, there’s nothing. Things arise and disband, arise and disband, and that’s all. You don’t depend on fabrications. You don’t run after fabrications. But normally, we monks fabricate in one way; lay people fabricate in crude ways. But it’s all a matter of fabrication. If we always follow in line with them, if we don’t know, they grow more and more until we don’t know up from down.
vs.
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION
There is a story in the scriptures about Venerable Sariputta examining a bhikkhu before allowing him to go off wandering (dhutanga vatta). He asked him how he would reply if he was questioned, ‘What happens to the Buddha after he dies?’ The bhikkhu replied, ‘When form, feeling, perception, thinking and consciousness arise, they pass away.’ Venerable Sariputta passed him on that.
Practice is not just a matter of talking about arising and passing away, though. You must see it for yourself. When you are sitting, simply see what is actually happening. Don’t follow anything. Contemplation doesn’t mean being caught up in thinking. The contemplative thinking of one on the Way is not the same as the thinking of the world. Unless you understand properly what is meant by contemplation, the more you think the more confused you will become.
The reason we make such a point of the cultivation of mindfulness is because we need to see clearly what is going on. We must understand the processes of our hearts. When such mindfulness and understanding are present, then everything is taken care of. Why do you think one who knows the Way never acts out of anger or delusion? The causes for these things to arise are simply not there. Where would they come from? Mindfulness has got everything covered.
IV.
THE KNOWER Question: Just now when you were speaking, it sounded as if there were something aside from the five aggregates. What else is there? You spoke as if there were something. What would you call it? The primal mind? Or what?
Ajahn Chah: You don’t call it anything. Everything ends right there. There’s no more calling it “primal.” That ends right there. “What’s primal” ends.
Question: Would you call it the primal mind?
Ajahn Chah: You can give it that supposition if you want. When there are no suppositions, there’s no way to talk. There are no words to talk. But there’s nothing there, no issues. It’s primal; it’s old. There are no issues at all. But what I’m saying here is just suppositions. “Old,” “new”: These are just affairs of supposition. If there were no suppositions, we wouldn’t understand anything. We’d just sit here silent without understanding one another. So understand that.
vs.
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION Q: It seems as if you are saying there is something else outside of the conventional body-mind (the five khandhas). Is there something else? What do you call it?
A: There isn’t anything and we don’t call it anything - that’s all there is to it! Be finished with all of it. Even the knowing doesn’t belong to anybody, so be finished with that, too! Consciousness is not an individual, not a being, not a self, not an other, so finish with that - finish with everything! There is nothing worth wanting! It’s all just a load of trouble. When you see clearly like this then everything is finished.
Q: Could we not call it the ‘Original Mind’?
A: You can call it that if you insist. You can call it whatever you like, for the sake of conventional reality. But you must understand this point properly. This is very important. If we didn’t make use of conventional reality we wouldn’t have any words or concepts with which to consider actual reality - Dhamma. This is very important to understand.
V.
THE KNOWER Question: The primal mind and the knower: Are they the same thing?
Ajahn Chah: Not at all. The knower can change. It’s your awareness. Everyone has a knower.
Question: But not everyone has a primal mind?
Ajahn Chah: Everyone has one. Everyone has a knower, but it hasn’t reached the end of its issues, the knower.
Question: But everyone has both?
Ajahn Chah: Yes. Everyone has both, but they haven’t explored all the way into the other one.
Question: Does the knower have a self?
Ajahn Chah: No. Does it feel like it has one? Has it felt that way from the very beginning?
Question: When people sleep soundly, is there still a knower there?
Ajahn Chah: There is. It doesn’t stop. Even in the bhavaṅga of sleep.
Question: Oh. The bhavaṅga.
Ajahn Chah: The bhavaṅga of sleep.
vs.
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION
Absent (sic!)
V.
THE KNOWER
Absent (sic!)
vs.
WHAT IS CONTEMPLATION
Simply keep putting everything down, and know that that is what you are doing. You don’t need to be always checking up on yourself, worrying about things like ‘How much samadhi’ - it will always be the right amount. Whatever arises in your practice, let it go; know it all as uncertain, impermanent. Remember that! It’s all uncertain. Be finished with all of it. This is the Way that will take you to the source - to your Original Mind.
If you’ve made it this far and have read every side-by-side comparison, you may be feeling just like me: wow! Someone - either the translators and/or editors of The Knower or translators and/or editors of What is Contemplation have really, and I mean really done their best to make Ajahn Chah fit their doctrinal agenda. There is no way that the discrepancies between the two versions can be explained as ‘mere re-arrangement for the sake of better understanding’.
Sure, the original talk must have been in Thai, and it is not always easy to translate Thai Buddhist terminology and Ajahn Chah’s idiosyncratic vocabulary into a Western language. Sure, the ubiquitous problem of most if not all translations of Buddhist terminology is that instead of translating a word to then imbibe it with meaning people take their own ideologized idea and use it as a translation (take for example all the different renderings for sankhara or Nibbana) Still, I think it is pretty obvious that this is not exactly what happened to this talk. I mean, if such text manipulation is not an outright lie it is still something coming rather close to it.
Since The Knower comes from Still, Flowing Water, a book published in 1994, and What is Contemplation, according to the website I linked above, is from 2004, and since it is the latter that is footnoted as meing ‘re-arranged’ in The Collected Teaching of Ajahn Chah, I tend to believe that it is the latter that has been manipulated to better suit Ajahn Amaro’s interpretation of the Dhamma. Another, in my opinion less probable interpretation may be that Ven. Bodhiñāṇa really meant what Ven. Amaro wrote in What is Contemplation, and the translators of The Knower spoke substandard Thai or were not that conversant in Ajahn’s vocabulary or whatever.
Again, I would like to ask Ven. @sujato and / or Ven. @brahmali as well as any other monastic from the Ajahn Chah tradition to possibly give me / us some insight on what is going on here, what’s up with Ajahn Chah’s The Knower. Is it the only talk where such changes between different translations were made? Was Ajahn Chah made more of an eternalist in Ajahn Sumedho’s vein in Amaravati-produced translations? Or was he a ‘semi-eternalist’, as someone called Thai forest ajahns on Dhammawheel? I am begging for an answer as this entire situation around the Original Mind doctrine and this Dhamma talk in particular have led to a kind of crisis of faith in me: not of faith in Buddhism, but of faith in the Thai Forest Tradition as a place where the blossoming of true arahants is still possible in our day and age. It hurts a lot. If the venerables feel like it is too delicate a topic to discuss in public, they may send me a private message. If for some reason they would not like to answer me because it is me, I would liketo ask them to change their mind out of compassion as this issue around the Original Mind and Ajahn Chah and the Amaravati lineage has led to a major spiritual turmoil in yours truly in the last couple of weeks.
I and, by extension, most other lay people rely on the Sangha’s integrity as transmitters of the Dhamma taught by advanced masters, whether they were enlightened or not, whether their teachings were orthodox or not or conformed to one’s own tastes or not, so that it would be for us, each Buddhist individually, to decide whether they consider these words authoritative and true. For example, Ajahn Maha Bua may have believed in his eternalist citta all he wanted or Ajahn Mun may have claimed to have talked to the Buddhas and arahants of the past in person - it is for us as upasakas and upasikas to decide whether to bow to their authority or to stick to the Sutta teachings. But for that to happen, these problematic doctrines and biographical episodes have first to be related in as straightforward and unbiased form as possible, which is actually the case with the two above-mentioned ajahns.
For me, such changes to the words of a respected ajahn, considered by quite many to be an arahant, are a major breach of trust, despite actually being their in plain view for at least 17 years. I feel like situations like this undermine the authority of the Ajahn Chah tradition and the Sangha in general in my eyes. Right now, I am feeling confused and lost.
Sorry for a long post, but I think it is an important and necessary addendum to what already has been written in this thread.
Maybe this can offer you some solace and confidence
This is an incident that Ajahn Brahm, who lived with Ajahn Chah, has mentioned many times in his talks. Here is a snippet from a written version…
I had a very nice meditation, a very deep meditation. When I came out afterwards I had a lot of happiness and clarity in my mind.
Of course, the first thing that came to my mind after that meditation was to see if I could assist my teacher, Ajahn Chah. So I got up and started walking towards the sauna. Half way between the Dhamma hall and the sauna, I met Ajahn Chah coming in the opposite direction with two or three Thai laymen. He had completed his sauna and he was on his way back to Wat Pa Pong. When he saw me, he obviously perceived that I’d had a very deep meditation and that my mind was clear, so it was one of those occasions when he tried, out of compassion, to enlighten me. He looked me in the eye, as Ajahn Chah could do, and said, “Brahmavamso, tam mai?” which means, “Brahmavamso, why?” I said, “I don’t know”. He laughed and said, “If anyone ever asks you that question again the right answer is, ‘Mai me arai’ (there is nothing)”. He asked me if I understood, and I said, “Yes”, and he said, “No you don’t”.
I’ll always remember his reply. As he walked off it was like a profound teaching that he had just shared with me. What he was actually saying here by his teaching, ‘Mai me arai’ was, there is nothing, just emptiness, anatta. This is a powerful teaching because in our world we always want to have something. We always want to grab on to something, and to say “there is something”. But actually, there is nothing.
Please see here for the full article, transcribed from a talk by Ajahn Brahm.
Unfortunately, I am neither on Ajahn Brahmavamso’s nor on Ajahn Chah’s level, so I am still lost and confused. If even for a simple reason that I am now not even sure whether a single talk from the 800-page strong Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah I had the merit to take from the monastery where I stayed for a couple of days last week really contains Ajahn’s words.
Suppose, a respected ajahn agrees that the discourse is faulty. Then he has to explain to you about nibbana in different terms or he refuses to describe it at all.
after 2, 3 or 4 days, you would find yourself in exact spot doubting if he knows nibbana at all, why he refuses to give you an direct answer, so on.
Your doubt is pulling a trick on you, it leads you in circle.
Best to dodge all description to nibbana if that gets your mind ranting. Go back to your mindful theme, knowing doubt as doubt, confusion as confusion, knowing stuck as stuck, see them come see them go, get really familiar with yourself, your mind, its tricks.
There is no danger to talk about nibbana with a different name once right view settles in and you have confidence about the stability of the right view. All the time we question the talks treating nibbana as something eternal, but no question that those ajahns still treat us as sentient beings. After all they can see us as empty form, phenoma, not beings at all. Then the mere actions of teaching is in conflict with non-self.
Buddha said something in ball park, ‘what i teach is a fistful of sand and what i know is like all sand in all ocean and rivers.’ Some high minds would tell a tale or two with no roots in sutta, but it doesn’t mean that is beyond what Buddha knows.
If a topic takes you far and long away from your mindful base, you should be really cautious about this indulgence, even if it is nibbana.
I always wondered: how come that so many of them seem to talk about it?