Abhidhamma

The Mind

Where is the mind?

How do we feel about the place of the mind?

‘Mind’ is a high advanced topic. Let us consider a person who is near death’s door. He is definitely going to be in the life-continuum at that moment. Even though he cannot talk or react, he could still hear. However, since he is in physical pain with all the tubes attached to him, he might not be able to roll over and turn around. He may feel a burning sensation physically. He cannot do anything about that. Therefore hate might occur to him. That means there are cognitive processes occurring through the body-door.

Question: The mind is not working when entered into attainment of cessation (Nirodha samapatti) or under fine material realm (asagna brahma world). Then there is no life-continuum consciousness as well. A being in fine material realm doesn’t have a death consciousness nor has attained Nibbana. When his consciousness travels to another existence, how does a rebirth consciousness occur?

Answer: There are 3 kinds of beings.

One kind is beings with both mind and body. Like us. “Constituent” is a word used to categories beings in another way. Accordingly,

1) One-constituent becoming

2) Four-constituent becoming

3) Five-constituent becoming

We fall under Five-constituent becoming. We consist with material constituent, feeling constituent, perception constituent, formation constituent and consciousness constituent.

There is another kind of beings. They have only material constituent. They are known as “One-constituent becoming”. They have a figure. However, they don’t have feelings, perceptions, formations or consciousness. Beings in fine material realm falls under this category. They have a body but no mind. There is one more kind of beings. They don’t have material constituent. They have rest of the four constituents. They are known as “Four-constituent becoming”. They are living in immaterial realms.

Like that, there are 3 kinds of beings.

Beings in the world get disappointed in a weird way. They get disappointed with different things in different ways. Some get disappointed with pain. Some get disappointed with the way they eat. Some get disappointed with the clothes and accessories. Some get disappointed with the way a one stands up, the way one looks, the voice, foods, drinks etc. If there are four people in the house, there are also four different disappointment types.

At the end, they get disappointed with their own mind. They get disappointed with feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. They think it’s all because of this mind. But they don’t get disappointed with the figure. They never consider the materiality. Even if their hand get pinched, they think that feeling is not associated with the hand. So they get disappointed with the mind and start a meditation. They meditate with intention of getting rid of the mind.

After meditating like that for a while, they get disappointed with the phenomenon of mentality. But they don’t get disappointed with the materiality. Let’s say, at that time someone like this is in the deathbed. This person has a strong jhana (meditative absorption) mind and a body because of the meditation. This person is going to die now. Because he meditated with a disappointment at the mind, this person will be reborn with a figure but without a rebirth consciousness. Over there his figure exist like a big clay lump. He stay like that for 500 eons (kappas). Though we talk about those figures like this, they exist in a very subtle way.

Even though 500 eons has been passed, the state where he stopped the mental power didn’t get destroyed in the next existence. So because of that, when he reborn in the sensual world that mind reappear. When he’s reborn like that, he could have a different and very good life if he get associated with good friends.Reason is the mind can be reborn by the power of mentality stopped before 500 eons.

There’s a danger during that 500 eons when the mind was stopped. In other worlds, Lord Buddhas could be born during that time. So they miss the opportunity to listen to Dhamma and gain merit from alms giving. Because of that, Lord Buddha called this place as “incapable plane”. This is the “non-percipient plane” Brahma world.

Some get disappointed with the figure. They think all sicknesses arise because of the figure. We get sick when we get wet or dry. We get sick even when we are standing or sitting. We get sick if someone sick is close by.

Let’s think that someone wants to get married. As the first qualification do we ask how many alms has that person offered to the Community (sanghika daana)? No, right? We usually ask do you have a photo of that person. So first and foremost, we look at the figure. People are categorised as tall, short, fat etc. according to the figure. We divide people as Chinese, Korean, European, Indian based on the figure. Because of that some people doesn’t like this figure. On the other hand, we need to do lot of things to maintain this figure. We need to feed this figure. We need to dress this figure. We need to build houses and we have to carry this figure wherever we go. Even after death, we need to embalm this figure and make caskets etc.

So some think about the reasons to get disappointed with this figure. Then they start to think about the sky. Without considering whether the sky is white, black or blue, they just keep thinking about the sky and get the perception about space. It’s called “The base consisting of boundless space”. We shouldn’t also forget the fact that this perception about the space is gained with the aid of fourth jhana. Then they consider the fact that sky is identified through the mind. Then they start to think about the mind. Some think about the sky as the size of this temple. They think the mind which identifies it as the size of the temple as well. If the sky is size of Auckland, they think the mind which identifies that is also the size of Auckland. They keep thinking like that and develop the perception about consciousness.

Then they practise to think (meditate) that there’s nothing in thinking about the sky or consciousness. They start to meditate like this thinking there’s nothing at all. The mind developed like this is called “The base consisting of nothingness”.

Even though they think there’s nothing, later they realise that they identify about that nothingness from the perception. We call the mind developed by thinking about the perception as “The base consisting of neither perception nor non- perception”. We call this situation as the end of existence. There is no place in Brahma worlds after this. This is known as the highest place in round of rebirths.

So, like these, there are four kinds of four-constituents.

Feeling, perception, formation and consciousness are common for all these four places. Because of that we call these beings as four-constituent beings. These are the beings in immaterial realm. They don’t have a figure. One can develop an unshakable, strong mind by meditating. We call that as “attaining imperturbable mind” (áneñja samápatti).

A devotee asks a question: Excuse me Bhante, why is it difficult for us to attain jhana?

Answer: Because we are leaning towards the sense desire. It’s difficult to concentrate when the mind is keep dragging you to that direction. Our mind consider the pleasure of sense desire as valuable. If we go to that sense desire direction somehow, it’s difficult for us to escape from it. We like that pleasure. That’s the nature of the world.

Question: Why couldn’t ascetic Asitha come back to this world after Bodhisatva became Fully Enlightened?

Answer: ascetic Asitha liked the pleasure in brahma world. There is no pain to feel there. There is liberation and he appreciated that. The base consisting of neither perception nor non-perception is psychologically free. He enjoyed that. All he has got are only four types of mental phenomena.

Now we have a question that why didn’t Lord Buddha go there? There must be two prerequisites in order to understand Lord Buddha’s Dhamma.

One is the sight of the Lord Buddha. That’s not present in the base consisting of neither perception nor non-perception. They don’t have eyes to see the Lord Buddha. Other one is ears are needed to listen to the Dhamma sermons. They don’t have ears also. Even if the Dhamma is preached, they don’t have the ability listen because they don’t have ears. Sense-sphere consciousnesses are needed in order to listen to Dhamma or to see the Lord Buddha. Even for the Brahmas in the Brahma world need ears to listen and eyes to see. But they only have phenomena related to mind faculty. That’s why Lord Buddha didn’t go there.

Let’s think that a monk meditate and get an attainment. We call this serene, mild object as “weighty object (garu ārammaṇaya)”. Even while standing up, he can instantly go into the concentration because of this state. Let’s assume this monk gets a heart attack after taking a rest and when going to sleep at night. So this monk passes away from the heart attack. Even though it’s a “heart” attack, it happened only to the body. At that moment, weighty object which was there while ago definitely comes to the mind. So while his body remains here, his rebirth will happen in immaterial sphere where formless fruits result. After that, his rebirth consciousness and life-continuum consciousness are formless. It will still be formless even after spending eighty four thousand eons in the immaterial sphere and die.

There are lot of differences in the rebirth consciousness and life-continuum consciousness between a human and a Brahma. Life-continuum consciousnesses occur in Brahma worlds are very powerful, mild and associated with knowledge.

There are 16 fine-material spheres

The Non-returners are born in pure abodes. Also there live noble persons who become Non-returners in human world and become Arahants in pure abodes. They can come to human world to see the Lord Buddha and listen to Dhamma. Out of these 16 immaterial realms, except from the realm of mindless beings, rest are coming to the human world to listen to the Dhamma and see the Lord Buddha.

Those who are like our relatives, friends, and monks can be born in fine-material sphere. If jhanas are attained by suspending the five hindrances and if weighty objects are recalled, even laymen can be born there.

But we could get lost if we meditate and born in an immaterial realm. We will be helpless for a while without being able to do anything in terms of attaining fruitions.

Lord Buddha’s Dhamma doesn’t advise to born there. In other religions, yogis, Hindus etc. accept that birth in immaterial realm is the “Liberation”. Lord Buddha preached that it is “temporary liberation” not the “Supreme Liberation”. So Lord Buddha preached that one should only develop these jhanas as a foundation to get rid of the sensual desires.

We don’t have a divine body. We have a human body. We know that we have a thing called mind. Mind is the energy registers an object. When we are doing the breathing meditation, which direction do we feel the in breath and out breath object? Is it on the front? Back? Left or right? Think about how you feel this. We call this feeling as the mind. Let’s close our eyes and think about the ceiling. We feel it as bottom to top. Let’s also think that our ear is itching. We are thinking from the middle to the direction where the ear is (horizontally) aren’t we? Think about the chin. We feel it as top to bottom don’t we? We feel it as this mind is in somewhere behind our nose don’t we?

This is how we actually feel where our mind is. Regardless of where the mind is, how we feel, what we grasp in the feeling and how we control the object is very useful for our meditation.

We have discussed Dhamma, question and contemplate about Dhamma. Since Lord Buddha has preached this noble Dhamma, we could inquire and understand this deep Dhamma. So by inquiring and understanding this deep Dhamma matters, I wish you all will develop the Investigation of Dhamma which is a factor of enlightenment. Also, I wish you will understand this Dhamma well and attain Nirvana which is not a resting place for just temporary and also there are no natures like consciousness or sky.