Here’s another Dhamma talk from another wonderful monk, named Bhante Panditha Ambalantota Kolitha Thero.

I’ve always enjoyed listening to his dhammadesana, although it’s bit hard to understand due to his English. Nevertheless, I like his wisdom, knowledge, patient, understanding and dhammadesana. So I hope you all enjoy it too.

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Topic = How Our Mind Works

Differences between happiness and pleasure?

Pleasure
- It’s only temporary.
- You can get through enjoyment / by enjoying your senses (eyes, ear, nose, tongue and body)
- For e.g. if you are hungry, you can get some tasty food. Then you become full/pleasured after eating the good food. But at night time you will become hungry again and want to eat something else again.

Happiness
- It’s called a state of mind. It’s more permanent.
- For e.g. after open temple, listen to Dhamma, offering food to monks, you will get happiness and it will stay until your last breath.
- With it, on your last breath, you can remember all these happiness you have attained (listened to Dhamma, practicing Dhamma, the 5 sila). So on your last breath, when you remember all that, you will be happy.

In this topic, Bhante was referring to one of the Gatha (verse, hymn, scripture, or poem) that Buddha delivered ” Dunniggahassa lahuno yatthakamanipatino, cittassa damatho sadhu, cittarh dantarh sukhavaham (cf. Jataka, I, pp. 312, 400)”.

Dunniggahassa – it is very difficult to control
lahuno – Citta (mind) is always quickly changing
yatthakamanipatino – and also this citta always like to stay, very attached to the thing. Whatever place it likes, citta want to stay there.
cittassa damatho sadhu – it is better to tame this citta
cittarh dantarh sukhavaham – if someone can tame/control this citta, then that person can attain highest level of happiness

*Verse 35 – The mind is difficult to control; swiftly and lightly, it moves and lands wherever it pleases. It is good to tame the mind, for a well-tamed mind brings happiness.*
(http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/dmpada2b.htm)

This is one of Jataka during the time of Buddha.

A group of monks got instruction from Buddha to practice meditation. It is a tradition after monk received instruction from Buddha, they don’t stay in the same big temple as the Buddha or others. Because normally when they are staying at big temple, there will lots of people come offering food, asking for advice or listening to Dhamma talk, with that the monks will get distracted and can’t practice meditation. So they would normally go the forest to practice.

So this sixty monks went to Matika village to practise meditation. The village headman’s was named Matika and his mother was named Matikamata. When the mother saw these monks and noticed they are in this village to practice meditation, she prepared little huts/kuti for the monks to practice in the raining season.

After few days, the mother realized that she forgot to invite the monks to come over to her house to have some meals and also forgot to offer them some food. So she went to the kuti with other women to bring some food. She said “I’m sorry, I forgot to offer foods to Bhante”. The monk replied “It’s okay. We ate what we have here, such as the fruits from the tree”.

After seeing the monks, the mother said “before you came as a group, but now stay separately. Why?”. The monk replied “That is the way we practice meditation. We have to stay alone because we are practicing solitude”. The mother then asked some Dhamma instruction on how to practice meditation. After received these instructions, she was practicing the meditation only when she have free time. After practicing she reached the 1st level (Sotapanna). Then again she meditate and reached the 2nd level (Sakadagami) and the 3rd level (Anagami). Then she attained some kind of psychic power in which she can hear sound from far, see things from far and read people’s mind.

After she became Anagami (non-return level), she looked at the monks’ level and no body has reach any level, they still at the lowest level. She think of the reason why they are still putujana (Regular monk)?. She then realized these monks don’t have proper food, so she supply to them. After taking this food, the monks did hard meditation then all monks became Arahat.

At the end of raining season, these monks went back to Buddha’s temple and informed the Buddha about Matikamata. Another regular monk heard about the story and decided to go to the same village too. After he went there, the monk think to himself “This isn’t a suitable place to stay. There is lots of things to clean, it’s dirty”. Matikamata read the monk’s mind and sent group of young people to clean the area. The monk then like it and decided to stay in that kuti.

Later on the monk suddenly think again “I’m thirsty, I need to drink something”. Again Matikamata read the monk’s mind and sent some drinks over to the monk. Next morning, the monk think “It’s difficult to walk for pi??ap?tika?ga (The ‘practice of going for alms’). I should just stay here and tomorrow only go out for some pi??ap?tika?ga , but there’s nothing to eat here now”. Matikamata read the monk’s mind and sent some food for the monk.

Later the monk think “If I have bad thoughts then Matikamata will know about this and I should leave”. He, thus, went back to Buddha’s temple. Buddha asked why he returned so early and the monk said that lady can read his mind. Thus, Buddha said “No, you should go back” and then preached that gatha “Dunniggahassa lahuno yatthakamanipatino, cittassa damatho sadhu, cittarh dantarh sukhavaham”.
After listened to the gatha, that monk reached the 1st level.

First of all, we have to know how our mind works. We are organism in this environment and we have 5 senses. But in Buddha teaching, there are 6 senses. Eyes, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.

When we see something because of the eyes and the object (Rupa), we got Cakkhu-vinnana (eye-consciousness). When we hear something from sound, we got Sota-vinnana (ear consciousness). When we smell something from the nose and smell, we got Ghana-vinnana(nose consciousness). When we taste something from tongue and taste, we got Jivha-vinnana (tongue consciousness). When we feel something from our body, we got Kaya-vinnana (body consciousness). And last is called Mano-vinnana (mind-consciousness).

Through these 5 senses, the messages go through the brain. Then the brain become active taking these messages and interpret the messages. In Abhidhamma, it’s described that this citta is associating with 1/2 cup of blood in our heart. So you must understand with all these 5 senses, it go through brain and mixed become Mano-vinnana. Through Mano-vinnana we can interpret whether it’s pleasant or not. Sometimes we can get some fear or pleasant. If it’s pleasant, we enjoy and take it. If it’s not pleasant, we want to reject it. If there’s fear, we want to run away from there, become worry, anxiety which called cittavega (emotion).

The Buddha said “if we can control our emotion, we can get highest happiness”. This is how our mind works.

After we get cittavega, if we are angry then we tend to speak bad words. If become more angry, we want to hit/kill someone. After the emotions, there is action part. Some other emotion are greed, hatred, fear, anxiety and worry. Buddha show a method to control this citta. First we have to control the action part, that’s called SILA. That’s why from beginning we always preach and practice sila.

We can control the senses by practicing sila. Buddha said to control it with silla then followed by meditation (samadhi) to control our mind (tranquility), to get rid of the emotion. Through calmness of mind, we can see clearly of this life (Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta). If something is impermanent, we see it as impermanent. If something is suffering, we see as suffering. If something is suffering and impermanent, there is nothing to grab this thing.

You can see, after listening to Dhamma talk, that Matikamata became Anagami (3rd level) but even though those monks practiced a lot they still can’t. The thing is, we have to practice all the time in many lives, not just one life. Buddha himself had to practiced and go through so many lives. If we always train our mind in that way, when we just listen to Dhamma/Buddha’s word even just by bit, we can reach that level too.

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Q&A.
1) HOW TO KNOW WHAT LEVEL ARE WE IN?
You would need kaly?na-mitta. Kaly?na-mitta means a person/people who are showing the right path to you (noble or good friend).
You need a person who know this Buddhism and show you the correct method in meditation.

There are 4 levels, when this 4 level is described by the Buddha, it has 10 defilement to we have to remove. We are in this world because of these 10 defilements (sa?yojana).

To attained 1st level, Sotapanna, that person will have to remove:
- Sakk?ya-di??hi – don’t have idea of this is my body, atta, negative/wrong thoughts.
- Vicikicch? – no doubt about Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha and Sila.
- S?labbata-par?m?sa – no clinging/attachment to rites and rituals.

To attained 2nd level, Sakadagami (once-returner), that person has to reduced:
- K?ma-r?ga – attachment to sensual pleasure.
- Patigha – anger, worry, fear.

To attained 3rd level, Anagami (Never-returner to sensous realms), that person has to removed Kama-raga and Patigha completely.

To attained 4th level, Arahat (no rebirth after death), that person has to remove:
- Ruparaga – desire for form
- Aruparaga – desire to reborn in non-form world / attachment to reborn as Brahma
- Uddhacca – restlessness / uneasiness
- Avijja – ignorance / delusion
- M?na – conceit / pride

(*Note: Bhante has agreed to explain these 10 defilement to us on his next Dhamma Talk due to the lack of time at that time)

There are many wrong way in practicing meditation, e.g. cult, saibaba, etc. A person who reach the 1st level, s/he never practice anyone’s else teaching (wrong way). So by practicing this level, we should know Dhamma too, if you don’t at least you have a teacher/guidance that can explain and guide you.

2) WHAT MEDITATION TO CONTROL VICIKICCHA?
Any meditation. But if s/he always have hatred in her/his heart/mind, s/he should practice metta bhavana. But mostly ?n?p?na-sati (mindfulness on in-and-out-breathing) is the best way.