81. The Practice of Kammaṭṭhāna

By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī

July 14, 1982

The training of the mind is:

1. To know the mind, to be able to catch the mind.
2. To train mindfulness to know and follow after it, guarding the mind until you see your own mind in every moment. When you have seen the mind,
3. To control and guard the mind so that it remains under your power.

The Practice of Kammaṭṭhāna

Today I will give a Dhamma talk on the practice of kammaṭṭhāna. We have come here to practice kammaṭṭhāna, but some people still do it incorrectly and are not yet skilled. They practice kammaṭṭhāna in a haphazard way, not knowing where to grasp the principle, without any standard or criterion. It's a pity that time passes by in vain. You should be able to grasp the principle. Only then will your practice proceed. If you haven't grasped the principle, you'll remain as you are. The longer you stay, the more confused and muddled you become. As people grow old, old age and decrepitude cause them to deteriorate. They can't grasp anything properly. Growing old for human beings is not like fruit. When a mango ripens and matures, it becomes sweet and delicious. But for people, the older they get, the more sour they become – inedible. Every person should look at themselves: where is the sourness? Where is the sweetness? Old people should practice in a way befitting the elderly. Young people, let them be; leave them for now. The Buddha did not take age as the criterion. It's not that being very old is called being elderly. He took virtue as the standard and criterion. An elderly person with virtue is called properly aged, beautifully aged – ripe, sweet, delicious. An elderly person without virtue is aged and sour – sour indeed. They see everything as chaotic, everything is displeasing to their ears and eyes; they scold and criticize everything. That is sourness – not knowing how to restrain and weigh things themselves, not knowing the principle for training their own mind as to what to take as the standard for practice. That's exactly where the sourness lies. No one likes sourness; everyone likes sweetness.

When entering a house, ask if they have a "three-eyed person" (i.e., one who sees the Three Characteristics).

Do they have a "three-legged person" in your house? (i.e., one who takes refuge in the Triple Gem).

When entering the forest, ask about the trees in the woods (i.e., the fragrant heartwood of red sandalwood).

The Buddha taught: "Yo ca vassasataṁ jīve, apassaṁ udayabbayaṁ" – A person who lives for a hundred years but does not see the arising and passing away of conditioned phenomena and their own body, "ekāhaṁ jīvitaṁ seyyo, passato udayabbayaṁ" – is better off than an infant born only one day old who knows the arising and passing away of conditioned phenomena and the body. The Blessed One taught like this. Therefore, you should find a principle of Dhamma for your own mind, as will be explained below.

Every person has a mind, but they do not see their own mind. This is called having no principle. Having seen your own mind, you set up mindfulness to contemplate at your own mind continuously. Whether you think good thoughts, bad thoughts, coarse or refined, you are aware of them. Then you cannot do evil. If you see your mind in this way, therefore, you should establish mindfulness – recollection – and place it on the meditation word in place of the mind itself. The mind has no form or self, so you must place a meditation word there. It could be "Buddho," "Sammā Arahaṁ," or "rising, falling." All are fine, but take only one, not many. Using "Buddho" is better. Recite "Buddho" so that it stays with the mind. The mind is the one that thinks and considers "Buddho." Catch that mental state firmly. When you have placed "Buddho" there, it will gather all thoughts and reflections together, uniting them with "Buddho" in one place. Think only "Buddho" first, see that mental state. Standing, walking, sitting, lying down, all postures – remain with only one "Buddho." The human mind is singular, not many things. What we call "many" is because it is extremely fast, and we cannot catch up with it. When you bring the mind to "Buddho," and you catch just that one "Buddho," that means you have caught the mind itself. It thinks "Buddho," considers "Buddho." Whatever it thinks, it is just that one mind. When all thoughts and reflections converge at the single point of the meditation word, that means you have caught the mind. You don't need to go looking for the mind elsewhere.

Mindfulness – recollection – and sampajañña (clear comprehension) are the ones that know themselves continuously: "Now we are following and guarding the mind." All three become one together: mindfulness (sati), clear comprehension (sampajañña), and the mind (citta). Then the mind will let go of all other objects. Standing, walking, sitting, lying down – you know yourself and follow after and guard continuously. This is called protecting the mind, guarding the mind. The mind becomes ours. Only by doing this will you see the mind. If you don't do this, you will never see the mind. Practice for how many years you like, you will definitely not see the mind. That practice is called fruitless. If you practice along this line, every person will see the mind.

Every person has a mind. Your own mind exists, but you don't see it. If you train and practice as described above, every person will see the mind. Doing that is called training the mind, doing meditation properly.

The training of the mind is:

1. To know the mind, to be able to catch the mind.
2. To train mindfulness to know and follow after it, guarding the mind until you see your own mind in every moment. When you have seen the mind,
3. To control and guard the mind so that it remains under your power. Whatever the mind thinks, considers, wanders off to, whatever it concocts or fashions – do not think, consider, concoct, or fashion along with it. Then the mind will become still and neutral right there. And when you have trained to reach the heart, you can make it think or not think as you wish. This is called controlling the mind or heart.

The method for training the mind must be like this. No matter who trains in what way, whatever teacher they follow, every Buddha – all of them – trained in this way. They didn't train otherwise. When you train the mind like this, there will be times of unification. When unification occurs, we don't have to unify it; it unifies by itself. That unification is called bhavaṅga-citta (life-continuum consciousness). It is divided into three types:

1. Bhavaṅgupāta – The mind unifies for a single moment and then withdraws. Its characteristic is similar to khaṇika-samādhi (momentary concentration). Before unification, you don't think about whether it will unify or not. Only after it has unified and withdrawn do you know. If you know that the mind is unified, that is called khaṇika-samādhi.
2. Bhavaṅgacāraṇa – The mind unifies and then has an oscillating quality internally, not sending out externally. It is like a person guarding a house, having closed all the doors, with light illuminating everything inside the house. External things are not seen. This is called bhavaṅgacāraṇa.
3. Bhavaṅgupaccheda – The mind unifies completely, still and fixed on a single object, completely cutting off external objects. Sometimes you cannot know whether you exist or not; only the heart remains as the knower.

This bhavaṅga-citta is named according to the conventions based on its manifestations. Sometimes for those who practice as described from the beginning – establishing mindfulness to control and guard just the mind, not going anywhere else – it can suddenly unify all the way to bhavaṅgupaccheda right away, without having to unify sequentially through the bhavaṅga stages. What has been explained step by step is for the sake of understanding; in reality, there is no forcing. If you get attached to the texts, you will definitely not attain bhavaṅga. Therefore, don't get attached. The explanation is just for understanding.

Now, regarding the bhavaṅga series – bhavaṅgupāta, bhavaṅgacāraṇa, and bhavaṅgupaccheda. As for the samādhi series, we have khaṇika-samādhi similar to bhavaṅgupāta, upacāra-samādhi (access concentration) similar to bhavaṅgacāraṇa, and appanā-samādhi (attainment concentration) similar to bhavaṅgupaccheda. Bhavaṅga pertains to jhāna (absorption), while samādhi pertains to concentration. That is how they differ.

Khaṇika-samādhi: Contemplating "Buddho," thinking only "Buddho." Sometimes it stays, sometimes it doesn't. The mind is not yet firm; it flickers back and forth. This is called khaṇika-samādhi.

Upacāra-samādhi: The mind becomes firmly fixed on one object, but there is a quality of moving back and forth, knowing oneself internally, but not sending out externally. What is called "sending out externally" means the mind's tendency to think, wander, concoct all kinds of things in all directions without awareness or mindfulness. "Sending out internally" – but upacāra-samādhi is not like that; it has mindfulness knowing, but it is not yet still; it still reflects, such as kāyagatāsati (mindfulness of the body) internally – reflecting internally.

Appanā-samādhi: The mind unifies completely, fixed and still, without thinking or sending out externally. The mind is utterly refined. No matter how refined the mind becomes, you are aware of it, just knowing neutrally, without thinking or reflecting. This is called appanā-samādhi. Enough for now on bhavaṅga and samādhi. The Buddha taught that whoever has no samādhi has no jhāna; whoever has no jhāna has no samādhi. If they are the same thing, why did the Blessed One teach them as two? The writer has separated them so you know how their characteristics differ.

When the mind unifies fully into appanā-samādhi, it will remain for a while, then withdraw back into upacāra-samādhi, thinking and oscillating, but within the bounds of mindfulness, with mindfulness in control. Practice like this continuously. In this Buddhist religion, the beginning of mind training is training mindfulness to know oneself, to control and guard the mind. When the mind is well trained, it will unify into appanā-samādhi. The ultimate point of mind training is only this, nothing beyond it. The practitioner must do this constantly because our sense bases (āyatana), elements (dhātu), and aggregates (khandha) exist, so there will necessarily be contacts and impacts, there will be agitation. You must train continuously. When the mind withdraws from appanā-samādhi and emerges into upacāra-samādhi, it may withdraw all the way to khaṇika-samādhi or even beyond khaṇika-samādhi. A practitioner who is not yet skilled may get lost. Appanā-samādhi is not yet the Path (magga), Fruition (phala), or Nibbāna. That is merely training the mind to become skilled, merely enabling it to touch upon purity, to touch upon the stream of calm and coolness that is appanā-samādhi. It is called the mind having touched upon the Buddhist religion with firmness, having touched upon the stream of absolute truth. Or calling that person a noble one (ariyapuggala) would not be wrong.

When you withdraw from appanā-samādhi back into upacāra-samādhi, you must contemplate something as a dwelling place for the mind. Contemplate the four elements (dhātu), the five aggregates (khandha), the twelve sense bases (āyatana) that exist within your own body. You don't need to flee from your own body. All of Buddhism, apart from the four elements, five aggregates, and sense bases, has nothing else to contemplate. All the many minor and detailed contemplations, when summarized, are contained within these four elements, five aggregates, and sense bases. Contemplate these things so that you see them according to their true nature. The four elements, five aggregates, twelve sense bases – every person has them, all complete. Our tools and instruments for performing the work to attain morality (sīla), concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā) are all complete. Contemplate them!

Contemplate the four elements so that you see them as just four elements. If you see them as a person, you don't see the true reality. Where is the "person"? We are born from the four elements themselves. We call it "a person" as a convention. Look and see: what is a person? Arms, legs, ears, eyes, nose – is that a person? Not at all. They are merely manifestations of the four elements. The more you contemplate, the more you will see the condition: one thing arises and then passes away, nothing more. No human, being, person, or self dies; it is merely a certain condition that arises and passes away.

The five aggregates are the same. This "person" is conventionally called a person, but the Buddha called them khandha. If he hadn't named them, we couldn't call them correctly. Khandha means this body of ours, divided into five aspects according to their functions: rūpa (form), vedanā (feeling – pleasure, pain, neutral), saññā (perception – remembering this and that), saṅkhāra (mental formations – concocting this and that), viññāṇa (consciousness – the initial knowing when internal and external sense bases contact each other). All five perform their functions in the same body. Collectively, they are called body and mind. The body is the coarse aspect, easily showing its functions. The mind is subtle; you must compel the body to express itself before you know what the mind wants. Here, I will call the four mental phenomena simply "mind," so that we have body and mind, to keep it short. Body and mind, from the moment of conception, work together continuously. Whatever you analyze and separate out, it all separates from this body and mind. They are extremely intimate. When it comes time to break apart and cease, they don't say goodbye to each other, as if they had never lived together before at all. This kind of friend should not be associated with.

The twelve sense bases: the six internal bases – eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind – are derived from the five aggregates, not separate from body and mind. Having six internal bases, there must be six external bases as counterparts: forms for the eye, sounds for the ear, smells for the nose, tastes for the tongue, tangible objects for the body, and mental objects (dhammārammaṇa) for the mind. All converge at this body and mind. But speaking differently: once a person is established in these two – body and mind – they can be made to function in any way. This is called spinning around in the world until they break apart and separate. But in terms of Dhamma, they can stop still right there. It depends on which direction each person takes them. Therefore, you must practice contemplating frequently, train in contemplating this body until you are skilled, seeing it as the four elements, five aggregates, sense bases – not self, not belonging to a self. Then you will be at ease. When sick, it is the four elements, five aggregates, sense bases that are sick, not "you." When uncomfortable, it is the four elements, five aggregates, sense bases that are uncomfortable. When breaking apart and dying, it is the four elements, five aggregates, sense bases that die, not "you."

This explanation of the practice principle – grasp the principle firmly. Remember it well before you start practicing according to what has been described. Only then will you get the principle. Otherwise, you'll never get the principle. Our lives are uncertain. Everyone is already this old. No one knows who will go first or later. When each will break apart and cease, we don't know. It doesn't tell us the time. Hurry up and do it while there is still time. While we are still seeing each other face to face, hearing and listening to each other, hurry and listen, hurry and practice, so that it is timely.

(Sitting meditation)

(The teacher gives preliminary instructions)

Sit in meditation. Place your right leg over your left leg, right hand over left hand. If that's not comfortable, you can sit with legs folded to one side, as you like. Any posture is fine, as you prefer.

Establish mindfulness and fix the mind. Place "Buddho" on the mind, or place the mind on "Buddho." See that "Buddho" is with the mind, and the mind is with "Buddho" – they are one and the same. Don't send it out externally, internally, in front, or behind. Set it right in front only – that is "Buddho."

Correctly fixing the mind, straightly fixing the mind means not thinking about the past or future, either externally or internally. Fix the mind on "Buddho" neutrally, right in the middle.

We do not intend to make it slow or fast. It happens by itself. When the mind is fixed exclusively on just "Buddho," it becomes itself. We don't have to fabricate it. It will unify into the heart – the knower, not thinking, not reflecting, neutral and still. Sometimes it may suddenly unify with a sound like a thunderclap, startling us. Some people's bodies vanish, as if there is no self, nothing at all, and they become afraid of death, startled and frightened. Sometimes it unifies suddenly as if falling into an abyss or off a cliff, afraid of death, jerking awake. Various experiences can occur. But don't be afraid of this or that. It's nothing; it's just a matter of concentration. Your mindfulness is insufficient; you lost mindfulness, so you become frightened and afraid of death. Hold firmly to "Buddho," and it will disappear by itself.

If the practitioner has mindfulness controlling the mind, they will not be startled. Instead, turn back to find the one who knows. The word "empty" – who is the one that is empty? The "sound like a thunderclap" or "falling into an abyss or off a cliff" – who is the one that says that? Then you will see your own mind right there. In truth, it is revealing the mind itself. Emptiness – that is the mind itself. Emptiness or brightness – everything is the mind itself. It is the seer. We go and look at what is manifesting, not at our mind. If mindfulness controls the mind, the mind will not withdraw, will not be startled or afraid. The mind will become even more refined. If the mind withdraws, it shows that your meditation still lacks a firm principle. You must establish mindfulness more firmly, make mindfulness more stable than before.

Alright, continue meditating.