 CUTTING OFF THE STREAM * MEMORY AND IMAGINATION HELP DEVELOP INITIAL WISDOM Memory and imagination are like paper. One needs paper for a pen to write on. Wisdom needs memory and imagination for subjects to contemplate the remembrance of external things can be brought internal to oneself. For example, as one sees an old man, a sick man or a dead man, one memorizes that picture and imagines oneself in that situation. This is contemplation with wisdom. If there is no memory or no imagination, there is no base for wisdom. Those who are in an absorbed state of meditation do not use memory or imagination in that state. Therefore, they cannot contemplate, and wisdom cannot develop. Their minds are in a calm and empty state. This state is not really the eradication of defilement, craving and ignorance. It merely suppresses defilement, craving and ignorance temporarily by the power of mindfulness, an absorbed state of mind and meditative attainment. In the Lord Buddha's time, the monks went to practise in cemeteries by memorizing the various appearance of old and new corpses. There were decaying corpses filled with pus, rotting flesh and skin and becoming food for all kinds of animal. There were tendon-attached bones and bare bones. The monks recorded those scenes in their memory and afterwards projected them onto themselves. They contemplated new corpses, supposed that they had been those corpses and followed their bodies changing in the same way they had seen in the real corpses until it was clear to them that things followed the rule of the Three Characteristics. They let their minds know and see the truth of no-self, that is, the disappearance of 'self or 'existence' In doing so, those monks soon attained the state of arahant, after which memories and imaginings are not needed any more. Therefore, memory and imaginings serve well as the bridge leading to wisdom. DEVELOP WISDOM FOR THE MIND Wisdom is for each individual to develop in his mind. When there is wisdom in the mind, it lights it up and chases away darkness and blindness. The brightness of wisdom lets the mind know and see things the way they reallly are, according to the Truth. It knows and sees suffering as suffering. It becomes clear that the cause of suffering is craving. It perceives clearly that all compounded things and conditions (sarikhara) are impermanent. The body is not self. It is merely a compound of the Four Elements: earth, water, fire, and air, which disintegrate when the mind leaves the body. They cannot remain together when the mind is not there. When the mind knows and sees all of this clearly, its long attachment to the body and its belief in the body as self will change. The mind is then ready to detach itself from this belief and is said to have achieved Right View, the first phase of the Noble Eightfold Path. When the mind perceives things according to Right View, it will detach itself from all external things. Nothing in this world belongs to anyone. Everything we have is only temporary. So, when the elements disintegrate through their normal course, the mind does not suffer at all because it has insight from the fullness of wisdom. There is nothing secret in the world any more. This knowledge is deep-rooted in the mind, and is the totally bright, perfect knowledge (hanadassana). Wherever and however one lives one's life, the insight in the mind will know everything around all the time and will fix the mind in concentration and then to the oneness of mind and Dhamma easily. Phra Acariya Thoon Khippapanno  |
Memory and Imagination Help Develop Initial Wisdom
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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