Letting Go of the Kilesas: Stages of Awakening
Could you please explain all the stages of letting go of the kilesas? Also, can you please explain the state of mind of one who has attained to these stages of awakening, and what should the meditation object be for each of these stages? To explain all this would require a lot of time, so I will just do so briefly.
We say letting go of one portion of the kilesas is the attainment of sotāpanna, one who has entered the stream; letting go of the second portion is the attainment of sakadāgāmī, the once-returner; letting go of the third portion is the attainment of anāgāmī, the non-returner; and the letting go of the fourth, and final, portion of the kilesas is the attainment of arahant, a fully enlightened being.
Now for the second part of the question: ‘Explain the state of mind of one who has attained to these states.’ A sotāpanna is one who, to some extent, has let go of attachment to the body by clearly realizing that this body is not the mind and the mind is not the body. The kilesa of greed has been lessened to some extent by the fact that one’s actions and speech will always be within the bounds of the five precepts or, if one is a monastic, within the bounds of the eight, ten, or 227 precepts. Sotāpannas are content with what they already have. That does not mean that they have no interest in doing anything, but rather, that they will apply their mindfulness and wisdom towards any duties, work, or responsibilities that they may have by doing them to the best of their ability. The kilesa of anger is also weakened on account of its strongest properties, that of ill-will and vindictiveness, being completely let go of – never to return. For the sotāpanna, anger will manifest in the form of dissatisfaction or displeasure. This they can let go of very quickly due to there being no residue of anger’s intensity, ill-will, remaining in their heart. Within the heart, they are continually cultivating loving-kindness and forgiveness.
A sotāpanna has no fear of sickness or death, for they have contemplated death before it actually comes to them. This is similar to what Ajahn Chah used to teach when he would say to see something as being broken before it actually breaks. For example, if somebody gives you a very nice cup, you have to realize that one day, sooner or later, this cup will eventually break. You know it is a very beautiful object, but at the same time, you have the awareness that this cup will break someday. So you use this cup, you take good care of it, you clean it and so forth, but the day it breaks, you don’t have any feelings of sadness or regret because you had conceived the cup breaking before it actually broke. The mindfulness and wisdom of a sotāpanna work in just the same way: it sees the breaking apart, or death of the body before death actually occurs.
Also, a sotāpanna will not intentionally break any of the five precepts. Suppose somebody brought a chicken or a bird, put it down beside them and tried forcing them to kill it, saying ‘If you don’t kill this bird I am going to kill you.’ The sotāpanna will choose not to kill the animal but rather accept to be killed. This is one of the characteristics of a sotāpanna: the strong conviction that they will not do any unwholesome, immoral deeds, for they know the harm or danger that comes from performing unwholesome kamma. So this quality of keeping the five precepts is automatic or natural for them. The mental defilements that have been let go of do not come back. Laypeople can also attain to this level if they keep developing the path of virtue, concentration, and wisdom. Monks have exactly the same practice: developing sīla, samādhi, and pañña – virtue, concentration, and wisdom.
To achieve the second level of attainment on the noble path to awakening; that is, sakadāgāmiphala, the fruition of once-returning, the path of practice is to further develop sīla, samādhi, and paññā so as to let go of attachment to the body by another portion. To become a sotāpanna, one may use the contemplation of death, but to realize the level of sakadāgāmī, one’s contemplation and investigation have to be more refined by either contemplating the thirty-two parts of the body or using the asubha reflections on the loathsomeness or unattractiveness of the body. At this second level of path development, one’s mindfulness and wisdom need to see and understand the body more clearly so as to enable the mind to let go of a more refined degree of attachment and clinging towards one’s self. For the sakadāgāmī, greed and anger have been further weakened. For example, anger will manifest in a subtle form of dissatisfaction. It will arise infrequently and can easily be let go of. Sometimes one may not have the time to contemplate this emotion due to it quickly ceasing all by itself. At other times, mindfulness and wisdom are able to contemplate this dissatisfaction at the very moment it arises, thus letting it go, putting it down quickly. In summary, at this second level of attainment, one has let go of one more portion of greed and anger due to the lessening of one’s deluded attachment to one’s self. If one is to see or realize this for oneself, one must cultivate the path of sīla, samādhi, and paññā to its respective degree.
To realize the third level of attainment, that of an anāgāmī, a non-returner, one must further develop the path of sīla, samādhi, and paññā. At this third level of path development, anāgāmīmagga, one’s contemplation of the body becomes even more refined, requiring one to contemplate on either the asubha reflections or upon the four elements. One’s investigation probes so deeply and subtly that one’s mindfulness and wisdom will eventually penetrate right through its meditation object to enter into the emptiness of the mind. Practicing in such a way, one’s heart will begin to develop a very thorough understanding about the nature of the body. One can now begin to let go of the final portion of attachment towards one’s own body, for one clearly realizes that the body, be it one’s own or that of others, is merely an aggregate of earth, water, air, and fire coming together temporarily. These are the two themes of investigation: asubha and the four elements. The taking of them into emptiness is what we call magga, the path, or the course of practice leading to the attainment of anāgāmīphala, the fruition of non-returning. Through frequently seeing the true nature of the body in such a subtle way, one’s heart will obtain a complete understanding about one’s own body until there will be no doubts of any kind remaining within the heart as to the body’s true nature. The body of the past is known to be merely elements; likewise, the body of the future when it breaks apart and one’s present body are also known to be merely elements that conform to the laws of nature. The mind can now uproot all remaining attachment towards the body. The bodies of other people are seen to be just four elements that comply with nature. All material objects; that is, inanimate objects without consciousness, are even more readily seen to be just combinations of the four elements that bind together temporarily in conformance with nature.
The human mind is deluded into attaching to one’s own body as being or belonging to oneself, into viewing the bodies of other people as being something beautiful or attractive, and also into considering material objects as having ownership. Consequently, greed, anger, and delusion arise within one’s mind. We are therefore obliged to contemplate one’s own body so as to see its true nature of being merely the four elements that function in compliance with nature, and that the bodies of other people and all material objects are of the same exact nature. Thus all attraction and pleasure with the sensory world falls away. Greed and anger no longer exist. When the fires in one’s heart have been extinguished, only coolness will remain. There is peacefulness and coolness all through the day and night. The kilesas that have been let go of will never come back again. The mind moves down the middle, down the center, never moving to either side of attraction or aversion. The mind is not attached to anything at all in the world. Even if the world was to change into gold, or if it became a huge piece of diamond, the mind would not be moved or attracted by this, for the mind has realized the truth and knows that these things are merely the four elements. The mind is not attached to the conventions of conditioned reality. This is the state of mind of one who has attained to the level of anāgāmī.
However, an anāgāmī still has some subtle delusion remaining within the heart, in so much as they still attach to the subtle processes or modes of the mind; that is, the four mental khandas: feeling, memory, thinking, and consciousness. So the practitioner must cultivate mindfulness and wisdom to see these four khandas as being fleeting, a source of suffering or discontent, and that they are completely without any abiding essence that could be called a ‘self’. When the mind fully accepts this, it will let go of its attachment towards everything within it. Even the mental formations or the thinking processes are not the mind: that which thinks is not the mind; that which does not think is the mind. The purity of heart that has gradually increased, stage by stage, by eliminating all traces of greed, anger, and delusion from within the mind, will at this point, completely and permanently suffuse the heart of the practitioner. Letting go of this final portion of the defilements is what is called arahattaphala or the attainment of arahantship.
It is only for the first three levels of attainment that one must contemplate the body. Body contemplation is a truly amazing practice. It can give rise to many marvelous natural phenomena or conditions arising within the mind. For example, sometimes seeing the whole body as just being a pile of earth (earth element), or seeing the whole body as being a flowing stream of water (water element). These natural phenomena may arise in the mind in many, many forms. Those who have mindfulness and wisdom will be wise to the truths that these phenomena reveal.
When people start contemplating the body, some may have a natural inclination for contemplating the loathsomeness of the body. They may be able to see the people in this room as corpses in various stages of decomposition or see everybody as skeletons. Sometimes when other people are seen, they will completely break apart, separating out into pieces, only then to reconstruct themselves back into their original form – before one’s very eyes. These are just some of the natural phenomena that arise within the mind of one who is cultivating the contemplation of the loathsomeness of the body.
For one whose practice is at the level of arahattamagga, the course of practice leading to arahantship, these amazing states will not arise because their practice is to cultivate a very refined degree of mindfulness and wisdom so as to give up the subtle delusion that still remains within the mind. We could compare one who has attained the third level of anāgāmī as having filtered dirty water to make it clean whereas the arahant filters clean water to make it pure. They have made their own heart pure. This is what the Buddha called the ‘Dhamma element’ – the absolute purity of mind. The Buddha said, ‘There is no happiness greater than peace’, meaning the peace experienced within a heart freed from all greed, anger, and delusion.
Ok then, that’s probably enough for tonight.