The proper time to investigate with wisdom

“….Some people think that once their mind is calm they should immediately develop wisdom, but that is also wrong. When the mind is calm, there is no need to do anything because that is the time for the mind to rest.

It is like when we sleep: we do not make the body do anything, we just let it sleep and rest fully. Upon awakening, we can go back to work. In the same way, when the mind is resting in peace, it is not yet time to develop wisdom. It is the time for the mind to rest, stock up on happiness, and to fully regain its strength.

Once it naturally comes out of that state, it will then be the proper time to investigate with wisdom. If we do not investigate, after not too long the calm will fade away, and we will not be able to investigate because the kilesas (defilements) will start to come out and create trouble. We will be unwilling to see and accept the truth.

There won’t be anyone who wants to look at unattractive images. No one will be interested in contemplating birth, sickness, or death. This is because the kilesas arise and drag us to think about other things that are beautiful and lovely. We focus on growth and stability without looking at death and decline. Thus, we overlook the truth, thinking that our body will go on forever and forgetting that it will deteriorate, thinking that the body will remain beautiful forever and not considering the ugly aspects.

Thus, we end up being attached to the body, to sexual desire, and to the delusion that the body is us or that it belongs to us. Therefore, if we wish to progress to the highest level, we should investigate the body once we come out of samādhi. However, if we are still think about other things such as wealth, status, praise, assets, possessions, and money, we will have to first investigate those things. They too are impermanent, subject to growth as well as decline. Having wealth, we may lose it. Gaining status, we may lose it. Being praised, we may also be criticised.

With happiness, there is also suffering. Investigate so that we can let go and not be attached to wealth, status, praise, or the pleasure we get through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body. Once we can let go of all these, we can then proceed to investigate the body. Investigate its unattractiveness to extinguish sexual desire. Investigate the impermanence of our existence with its birth, aging, sickness, and death. Investigate this physical form that has no self, that consists of 32 parts, and that is composed of earth, water, wind, and fire.

This is contemplating the body, so as to give up our belief in a lasting self (sakkāya-diṭṭhi) and our desire for sex. This leads to the various levels of noble attainments, the lowest being Sotāpanna (Stream-enterer), followed by Sakadāgāmī (Once-returner) and Anāgāmī (Non-returner). We must first pass through the investigation of the body in order to let go of sakkāya-diṭṭhi and sexual desire. When we have let go of these, we attain to the level of Anāgāmī.

After this what’s left are the subtle defilements that dwell not in the body but in the mind. They are māna or ego (a sense of self) and avijjā, which is not seeing things in terms of the subtle Four Noble Truths that lie buried inside the mind. It is then the duty of the Anāgāmī to develop wisdom to see that there is no māna and no self. ‘Self’ is merely a delusion of the mind.

For in reality, there is no real self at all. The mind is not a self; it is just ‘that which knows’. Let the mind just know and don’t allow it to think of itself as myself, as me, or as mine. But we still have thoughts that involve our sense of self, so we have to use wisdom to see that it is only thinking. Really, there is no self; there is only ‘that which knows’. The duty of ‘that which knows’ is to know equanimously, to simply know…”

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto