Ledi Sayadaw’s note on momentariness

Abhidhamma
7

Much of the pa-auk method is actually with past objects and replaying in the mind (at least just before the real vipassana stage…–after paticcasamuppada is complete and lakkhaṇarasapaccupaṭṭhānapadaṭṭhānā stage). It is also mostly like this for the vipassana stage in Pa-Auk as well.

However, past present future are taken.
However, the three time periods are often in reference to the 3 lives periods. past present future lives.
By taking past objects (even in this life as present objects), one can see things as they are.
Just as you can control a video when playing it back, to even see how fast light moves, one can do the same with the mind.
There is also a stage when the mind takes the knowing of the mind of the knowing of the mind etc.

It is best to discuss this with a paauk teacher.
You can reference Knowing and Seeing.
You can reference Wisdom Wide and Deep by Shaila Catherine if you want to explain the Pa-Auk course.
Of course, since you read mm, you can reference Sayadawgyi’s Big Nibbāna books. But I’m not sure if that is a course book. There are course books where you can see what is taught, but they are sometimes useless if you don’t know what the instructions are. They will often just be abhidhamma charts that have no meaning to an outsider.

1 Like
8

@monkSarana Are you saying that if you see the breath inhale (arise) and exhale (pass away), or the belly rise and fall, or your footsteps rise and fall, that this is knowledge of arising and passing?

In a preview of your introduction to meditation video, I do remember you talking about momentary awareness and the rapidity of the mind that changes and “refreshes”. It compared that to the ability for use to perceive motion; the difference between a photo and video. I thought that was the best part of the video and I was impressed that you would mention that in an introduction to meditation. I also mention things like that in my abhidhamma book.

In the same way, the higher the refresh rate, the more realistic and smooth things “appear”. While the mind door is mentioned in the abhdhamma to occur hundreds or billions more times compared to the eye door, the refresh rate is still quite fast.

9

My understanding is in line with Ledi Sayadaw, who explains that we can see impermanence either at the conventional level or on the ultimate level.

“if you see the breath inhale (arise) and exhale (pass away), or the belly rise and fall, or your footsteps rise and fall, that this is knowledge of arising and passing?”

→ This would be the conventional observation of impermanence.

The ultimate level of impermanence is much deeper; it shows that every single moment of consciousness arises and then is totally destroyed to be never recovered again. Then a totally new moment arises, which is also destroyed, unrecoverable. Like this, there arise moments of consciousness, which is actually a mind-object relationship. Namatīti nāmo, because it bends (towards an object), it is called the mind. All mental moments are relationships with an object. All of those moments are related to an object, including bhavaṅga, which is related to the object of the existential sphere (such as human existence).

These moments arise billions of times per second. We can only see chunks, as I have explained in a different post, and those chunks can be narrowed down with sharper and sharper consciousness, like if we pointed a torch at a stream of water spurting from a garden hose in the dark night. We can see a certain width of the water stream based on the width of the light of our torch. If we can sharpen the light of the torch, we can see more detail and clearer. However, no torch will allow us to sharpen the light to the atomic scale. Likewise, the mind of a non-Buddha cannot see the separate moments as they arise and pass. :sun_with_face:

2 Likes
10

In regards to what Buddha can do is true for present moment but it is possible for nonBuddhas to do as past objects.

11

@bksubhuti @monkSarana @RobertK

Dear venerables, there is this opinion among some Abhidhamma scholars in this regard.

What would be your comments, if one said that

“Vipassana” is not

  • seeing the reality (by mind/vinnana)

but

  • understanding the reality (by panna-cetasika).

In other words

"Vipassana is not

  • seeing the actual speed or a slow speed of impermanence

but

  • understanding impermanence

What if he shows the following 4 out of 5 ways of seeing Udayabbaya as in patisambhidamagga as a proof?

2 Likes
12

If you check out the Commentaries, you will see that the 50 kinds of arising-passing are for Arahants. For others who don’t know them, they are 5 kinds of arising of the body (arising of the avijjā & saṅkhāra & kamma in the next life, āhāra (food) during this life, and nibbatti (simply arising) in the present moment) + 5 kinds of passing away of the body (the three as before arising in the past life and passed upon birth; passing away of āhāra during this life; and vipariṇāma (passing away in the present moment). These ten (5 arising & 5 passing) are observed in the body, feelings, perceptions, intentions, and consciousness (i.e., in all the five aggregates) → (5+5) * 5 = 50.

The Commentaries explain that the Arahants can see the arising of avijjā, taṇhā, and kamma in their previous life (as remembering their past lives) and (for our topic, more importantly) the no-more arising of their avijjā-taṇhā-kamma in the Arahants’ next life because they are Arahants, free from rebirth.

So, those who have udayabbaya ñāṇa must have already been liberated from the next birth so that they can see that their avijjā-taṇhā-kamma of their next life won’t arise anymore simply because they are clear about their Arahanthood. Here taṇhā & kamma refer to saṅkhāra, the second point of the Dependent Origination. Here I need to note that the avijjā & saṅkhāra (taṇhā & kamma) points of the Dependent Origination are understood as happening in a previous life, as conditions for rebirth (rebirth then starts by the “viññāṇa” point of the Dependent Origination).

Interestingly, the Paṭisambhidāmagga is the only Mūḷa Pāḷi text that discusses the vipassanā ñāṇas systematically. In the Commentaries, we will find the vipassanã ñāṇas discussed at length by Visuddhimagga only, where we get all 16 levels.

I wonder if Visuddhimagga is actually not just the first, but actually, the only Pāḷi text that discusses Vipassanā ñāṇas for puthujjanas (non-Enlightened persons) & sekhas (Enlightened non-Arahants). Be as it may, the 16 levels of vipassanā ñāṇa are rooted in the original Pāḷi text of Rathavinīta Sutta, so I personally like them. Note, however, that you can “jump over” some stages between 5 & 11, and some go so fast that you are not even expected to notice, such as magga and phala! Or so I have learned from the great Burmese masters. :blush:

The great sayadaw Ashin Paṇḍābhivaṃsa explains in his book “Paṭipattikkama Ṭīkā” (“The Subcommentary about (Meditation) Practice”), p. 369, that Muñcitukamyatāñāṇa, Paṭisaṅkhāñāṇa, Saṅkhārupekkhāñāṇa are different as words, but they are the same in their meaning:

“မုဉ္စိတုကမျတာဉာဏ်၊ ပဋိသင်္ခါဉာဏ်၊ သင်္ခါရုပေက္ခါဉာဏ် ဟူသော နာမည် ပညတ်တို့သည်ကား သဒ္ဒါမျှသာထူး၍ အတ္ထကား တူကြလေသည်။”

And then, on page 370, he adds that Vipassanā ñāṇas are only the way how nature is. No one can experience them one after another.

“ဤသို့ ပြဆိုအပ်ပြီးသော အဆင့်ဆင့်သော ဉာဏ်စဉ်တို့သည်ကား ပုဂ္ဂလကိစ္စနှင့် မရောမယှက်ဓမ္မကိစ္စ သက်သက်မျှသာ ဖြစ်လေသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် တစ်ခုသောဉာဏ်ဆင့်မှ သည်တစ်ခုသော ဉာဏ်အဆင့်သို့ ရောက်အောင် ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်အနေအားဖြင့် ဘယ်သူမှ မစွမ်းဆောင်နိုင်ကြချေ။”

The meditation master “Vipassanā Pāragū,” apparently a senior student of Ledi Sayadaw, wrote in his “Vipassanā Hsayar Pshit Thintan, Vipassanā Pāragū Kyam” (“The course on becoming a Vipassanā master, the book of those accomplished in Vipassanā”) on page 82 that because gotrabhū, magga, and phala ñāṇas take altogether only around 5 mind-moments they may feel indistinguishable, as a single, unified experience of mind directed toward Nibbāna.

“ဤဂေါတြဘူ, မဂ်ဖိုလ်, ဉာဏ်သုံးပါးသည်လည်း စိတ္တက္ခဏ လေးကြိမ် ငါးကြိမ်မျှသာ ကြာရသောကြောင့် ဘယ်ဉာဏ်က ဘယ်လို နေသည်ဟု ယောဂီ၏ စိတ်၌ မခွဲခြားတတ်ပေ။ သို့ရာတွင် ထိုဉာဏ် သုံးပါးမှာ လောကြီးကို အာရုံ မပြုဘဲ နိဗ္ဗာန်ကို အာရုံပြုတာချင်းကလည်းတူ၊ တစ်ဆက်တည်းကလည်း ဖြစ်ကြရ၍ သုံးပါးစလုံးကို တစ်ပေါင်းတည်း ပြု၍မူကား သိသာလှပါ၏။”

More commonly, however, students happen to stay in the phalañāṇa for a number of minutes. According to the Commentarial explanation, phala ñāṇa takes two mind-moments. Vipassanā Pāragū explains that the additional moments of phalañāṇa are javana moments.

ဤသို့ ဂေါတြဘူ, မဂ်, ဖိုလ်, ဖိုလ် ဟူသော စိတ္တက္ခဏလေးငါးချက်ဖြင့် နိဗ္ဗာန်ကို မျက်မှောက်ပြုသွားရင်း ဖိုလ်ဇောတွေ ဆက်၍ မိနစ်ပေါင်း အတော်ကြာအောင် ဆက်၍ ကျသွားသော ယောဂီများမှာမူ ပို၍ ထင်ရှားလှပါ၏။"

Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha lists only ten kinds of Vipassanā Ñāṇa (insight knowledges) :

“Sammasanañāṇaṃ udayabbayañāṇaṃ bhaṅgañāṇaṃ bhayañāṇaṃ ādīnavañāṇaṃ nibbidāñāṇaṃ muccitukamyatāñāṇaṃ paṭisaṅkhāñāṇaṃ saṅkhārupekkhāñāṇaṃ anulomañāṇañceti dasa vipassanāñāṇāni.” (Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha - 9. Kammaṭṭhānaparicchedo - Vipassanākammaṭṭhānaṃ - Visuddhibhedo - par. 46, MM Abhs 63)

4 Likes
22

Nikolai has been suspended so he cannot rejoin because he refused to answer if he was a previously suspended user. His posts have been deleted to discourage the effort of joining again which is against the Terms of Use and FAQ . Please flag suspect posts as soon as you see them. We will investigate.

23

Okasa bhante,

Let’s assume Vipassana is only about the Present.

  • The Bhaddekaratta Sutta says that the Vipassana is done in the Present moment.

  • The Aṭṭhakathā says that there are three types of Present moments. (as khana, santati and addha)

Though Khaṇa-paccuppanna (exact present moment) is considered hard or impossible to catch, Santati-paccuppanna (some seconds) and Addhā-paccuppanna (this lifetime) can be caught by the mind.

If one were to notice the Arising of the Addhā present moment (our birth), then it is clearly a contemplation about a past moment.

What do you think about it?

Vandami!

24

What do you think the Buddha would answer to your question? :thinking:

1 Like
25

Bhante, I think all the three Paccuppannas (present moments) are allowed.

Reason is the Suttas like Mahapadana and Mahanidana mention that the Bodhisatta’s Vipassana approach (just before the Buddhahood) includes the “Soka-parideva-dukkha-dukkha-domanassa-upayasa” as well. If it is only about Khana and Santati Paccuppannas, then it can not be about “Soka-parideva”.

Other reason is the Atthakatha and Visuddhimagga explains Vipassana regarding all the three Paccuppannas.

(The Paauk claims of vipassana about seeing past lives without Abhinna is a different case.)

And I would like to know what you think about the following explanation of Venerable Maggavihari.

The Paccuppanna taught in Theravada has no any relation with “Current moment (now)”.

Paccuppanna means a Dhamma in Khanattaya (Uppada-thiti-bhanga).

No matter a dhamma be present, past or future, if it is in Khanattaya for the meditator’s mind, then it is Paccuppanna.

In other words when a vipassana meditator considers any Sankhata paramattha dhamma of past, present or future with regard to Khanattaya, then it is in Paccuppanna.

26

For the time being, I will stick to the consensus of the 15 Tipitakadharas of Myanmar, who agree that we should meditate in the present moment, namely, not in the past, not in the future. And therefore, I continue rejecting Pa Auk Sayadaw and other people of “other view” (aññavāda) whose ideas are rejected by the 15 Tipitakadharas of Myanmar.

In my opinion, we need to follow our meditation teacher. All Buddha’s teachings is based on teacher-student. As soon as we go into our ideas, especially in meditation, we are making our own Buddhism, which is not right. Therefore, let’s stick to what our teachers teach and what their teachers taught them.

Pa Auk Sayadaw’s idea of three times applied to meditation was not taught to him by his teacher (and if it was, I’d like to know who was that teacher). It is his own first idea, which is not supported by the lineage of Enlightened masters of Myanmar. Therefore, I reject it on the grounds of “non-practical” (no practical reason to accept this idea, because we have no evidence of anyone’s Enlightenment that way).

Note, that Pa Auk Sayadaw several years ago, when visiting the USA, clearly stated he is not Enlightened. We need to be clear about these things, otherwise people get wrong in their meditation practice, which is not good for them and for the Sasana.

I hope that the Buddhist tradition as is will prevail, so that many more people can become Enlightened. With new ideas on how to meditate the Path to Nibbana will be closed very soon. :sun_with_face:

1 Like
27

Dear bhante,

I am very much thankful for your input (honestly) and would like to ask permission to reply according to my view for the time being.

I like this phrase and believe any Puthujjana’s view (including myself) is not guaranteed to be unwavering until Sotapanna.

I will stick to the consensus of the Commentaries over any type of Personal Opinion.

I continue rejecting any type of Personal Opinion whose ideas are rejected by the Commentary.

In my opinion, and in Commentary’s opinion, the precedence is Sutta-Suttanuloma-Acariyavada-Attanomati.

I think the Omniscient Buddha said it regarding the “Buddha-student relationship”. The Omniscient One recorrected Venerable Ananda by saying it.

I agree.

Yes, the Commentary is the teacher (after the Sutta and Suttanuloma) of any modern teacher.

I don’t tend to reject anything that is supported by the commentary, even if it is coming from controversial teachers.

The Tipitaka and Commentaries doesn’t allow any other Authority than themselves.

There’s no way of proving someone is enlightened and no evidences found to prove there is a lineage of Enlightened masters of Myanmar.

Thai Forest Tradition which is advocating a semi-eternalism also claim like that.

Anyone who don’t adhere to the Commentarial Strict Vinaya and anyone who don’t adhere to the Commentarial interpretation of meditation, can not be enlightened, according to the Commentary.

I know that and I believe the same about many other modern popular meditation masters.

Completely agree.

And Bhante,

I see most of your (and some other people’s here) views are based on the Confidence about an assumed Enlightenment or attainment of a modern Master or lineage.

Therefore their interpretation of the Tipitaka also biased towards that direction. This is a serious mistake that shortens the longevity of the Sasana, I think.

Such a position is not allowed by the Ancient Theravada.

Furthermore I don’t think such a position is sensible either.

Vandami.

(Non of these comments are written with any ill will and I like to read your posts as well.)

28

I see most of your (and some other people’s here) views are based on the Confidence about an assumed Enlightenment or attainment of a modern Master or lineage.

Therefore their interpretation of the Tipitaka also biased towards that direction. This is a serious mistake that shortens the longevity of the Sasana, I think.

Such a position is not allowed by the Ancient Theravada.

Let’s examine this your “non-allowance”. Let me know the exact citation where this is not allowed in the scriptures. As far as I understand, if students of venerable Sāriputta and venerable Moggallāna believed the same thing as you do, they would have never become their students and never become Enlightened based on their instructions.

You may like to know that the Arahanthood of Mahasi Sayadaw was approved by gods themselves. Similarly, Webu Sayadaw and Sun Lun Sayadaw were visited by deities for teaching about Dhamma, likewise Maha Bodhi Myaing Sayadaw and Mrauk Oo Sayadaw, two masters who live until today. In fact, I myself met with Mrauk Oo Sayadaw and discussed with him the visits of deities who come to hear his Dhamma Teaching. A medical doctor was present himself when deities visited Maha Bodhi Myaing Sayadaw for Dhamma teaching, I have myself read his account of this experience in the original Burmese language.

In SN 3.11, the Buddha says that a wise person should check an Arahant himself.

If I understand your suggestion correctly, you say that we should actually not check monks whether they are Arahants and we should not assume whether they are Arahanats or not. However, it seems to me that this your proposition does not seem to be in accordance with the Sattajatila Sutta. In fact, it runs very much contrary to the way lay people, monks, and even kings dealt with their teachers. There were quite a few cases in Myanmar when monks where checked for their attainments, but let me share them with you in a different post if you ask for that.

:sun_with_face:

29

Bhante, I meant the “Interpretation of the Tipitaka” is not done according to the personal confidences about monks. I didn’t mean every confidence is mistaken or monks should not be checked.

Mahapadesa sutta only allow us to accept any Thera’s opinion after checking with Dhammavinaya.

And the Commentary only allow us to accept any Thera’s opinion after checking with the Commentary.

Once even a Sotapanna Thera had not been allowed by the Sangha to interpret Tipitaka because he had not learned in the traditional way. (according to the Commentary)

I like to hear it bhante.

30

it is all in commentaries and subcommentaries. Venerable Saydawgyi does make things up and documents things well. It should be known that his books are approved by the sasana committee . If it were not correct, it would not be allowed for printing. Previous refusals for printing were merely political… the majority of changes were related to past future present being represented as past present future.

1 Like
31

But the Buddha already instructed the pañca vaggiya Bhikkhus to meditate on past present and future five upādānā khandas as Vipassanā…
Very clearly.

"tasmātiha, bhikkhave, yaṃ kiñci rūpaṃ atītānāgatapaccuppannaṃ ajjhattaṃ tasmātihavā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ dūre [yaṃ dūre vā (syā.)] santike vā, sabbaṃ rūpaṃ – netaṃ mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attāti – evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya daṭṭhabbaṃ. yā kāci vedanā atītānāgatapaccuppannā ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikā vā sukhumā vā hīnā vā paṇītā vā yā dūre santike vā, sabbā vedanā – netaṃ mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attāti – evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya daṭṭhabbaṃ. yā kāci saññā, (…)saṅkhārā (…) viññāṇa…
evaṃ passaṃ, bhikkhave, sutavā ariyasāvako rūpasmimpi nibbindati, vedanāyapi nibbindati, saññāyapi nibbindati, saṅkhāresupi nibbindati, viññāṇasmimpi nibbindati, nibbindaṃ virajjati, virāgā vimuccati, vimuttasmiṃ vimuttamiti ñāṇaṃ hoti, ‘khīṇā jāti, vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ, kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ, nāparaṃ itthattāyā’ti pajānātī"ti.

"Therefore, monks, whatever materiality, past, future, present or internal or external, or gross or subtle, or low or excellent whether it is far or near—all materiality should, by means of right wisdom, be seen, as it really is, thus: This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.

Whatever feeling … whatever perception … whatever formations … whatever consciousness past, future, present, or internal or external, or gross or subtle, or low or excellent, whether far or near—all consciousness should, by means of right wisdom, be seen as it really is, thus: This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.

Seeing in this way, monks, the instructed disciple of the ariyans is disenchanted towards materiality, disenchanted towards feeling, disenchanted towards perception disenchanted towards formations, disenchanted towards consciousness; being disenchanted he is dispassionate; through dispassion he is freed; in freedom the knowledge comes to be: ‘I am freed’ and he knows: Destroyed is birth, lived is the Brahma-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more of being.”

32

Actually Bhante, even by saying “present moment” by being precise one should say " practicing Vipassanā by taking the 5 present khandas."
But strictly speaking only the present rūpa can be taken as object of Vipassanā, the " present" of the four nāma khanda is of different nature.

It is called " santati paccupana", present
Continuity .
But any vedanā sañña saṅkhārā viññāṇa taken by Vipassanā citta has already ceased, strictly speaking it is past.
Why?
During a citta vīthi, when an object strikes at the mind door, the bhavaṅga shakes one time and cease: it is called bhavaṅga calana and bhavaṅga upacceda. Next arises manodvāraavajjana.
3 cittakkhaṇa, mind moments have already elapsed since the striking of the ārammaṇa which is here nāma.
But all nāma have only one cittakkhaṇa as life span, so the nāma dhamma who is the object has already ceased. Consequently any nāma taken as Vipassanā object is not really present, it is only a way of speaking: it should be said it is only santati paccupana, present continuity, that is an object who has passed away shortly before the arising of Vipassanā javana.

Therefore if someone says: Vipassanā takes only present object it should be said " it depends, what do you call present object" and if he answer " any khanda which has not yet passed away and ceased" then he should be said " it can not be friend, according to the citta niyāma any nāma dhamma which are objects of Vipassanā can not be present in this way".

1 Like
33

Dear @ekocare , can you please provide me with the reference to this statement? I tried to find it but so far not successful… :upside_down_face:

Therefore if someone says: Vipassanā takes only present object it should be said " it depends, what do you call present object" and if he answer " any khanda which has not yet passed away and ceased" then he should be said " it can not be friend, according to the citta niyāma any nāma dhamma which are objects of Vipassanā can not be present in this way".

Dear @Matthias-Lentrein , this we have already discussed here.

2 Likes
34

I think a good way to phrase it.

1 Like
35

I agree too.

2 Likes