Question: When it is said that one is enlightened or awakened, what is he awakened from?

Than Ajahn: He is awakened from delusion. Delusion to think that everything belongs to him, everything makes him happy but in fact that everything that he has will make him sad and unhappy because one day everything will separate from him. If he doesn’t see this separation he will think everything he possesses will always make him happy. One day when things disappear from him, he becomes sad.



For an enlightened person he sees that everything he possesses he will have to lose it, so he decided not to become attach to anything because he does not want to be unhappy. An enlightened person sees everything is aniccā: everything rises and ceases. He sees everything is anattā: everything doesn’t belong to him. He sees if he becomes attach to it he will become sad when it leaves him. So this is what enlightenment is.

Enlightenment has four levels: Sotāpañña, Sakadāgāmī, Anāgāmī and Arahant. They have different levels of attachment. A Sotāpañña has gotten rid of his attachment to the body, to aging, sickness and death but he is still attached to the beauty of the body. He still has sexual desire so he has to let go of his sexual desire by contemplating on asubha for him to become enlightened to the true nature of the body, that the body is not pretty, the body is repulsive. The next two levels of enlightenment is to see the body as asubha, not beautiful.

The Sakadāgāmī level is the second level which let you see partial part of asubha, but you have not yet seen it completely. The third level of enlightenment will let you see completely the asubha nature of the body, which means seeing asubha at all time. Every time you see a body you see it as asubha right away, so this is an Anāgāmī level.

Once you get to the third level, then you have totally understood the true nature of the body and you have totally let go of the body and you will not come back and be reborn as a human anymore because you see the human body as asubha and as aniccā. Once you are born, the body gets old, gets sick and dies, so an Anāgāmī will not come back to take a new body, he will be reborn in the brahma level, being without a body. The brahma level is the level where the mind still has attachment to the good feelings of the brahma level, that is the good feelings arise from the peace.

In brahma level you find happiness in the state of peace of mind, but this is also aniccāṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā. You have to understand that it is temporary and you have to let go of this attachment and to see that even this happiness that you have in the level of jhāna is still impermanent and you should not attach to it because if you attach to it, that means you still have desire and this desire will bring you dukkha.

So you have to get rid of your desire even if you are in brahma level. You have to see that the happiness of the brahma level is also aniccāṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā. Once you have seen this then you become fully enlightened and you don’t have any attachment to any form of happiness. By letting go of every form of happiness, you realise a new form happiness, happiness without having anything: happiness from emptiness, Nibbāna paramaṁ suññnaṁ – this is the highest level of happiness.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto