Questions and Answers

Q: When you feel pain, you think that it is more permanent than thought. It is not permanent, but it does seem to be continuous.

A: Yes, it seems to be continuous and to last for a long time, but actually the pain arises and disappears at every moment. Because we cannot see it arising every moment, we think that it is one solid thing. But when you practice meditation and keep noticing the pain, you will get concentration, and then you will come to see that there are gaps in that pain. The same applies to sound, for example. If you note sound in your mind as it occurs, you will get concentration, and you will come to experience gaps in that sound: there is not really one continuous sound.

A person once told me about this level of concentration, which he achieved while he was meditating. Music was playing very loudly the whole night, so he could do nothing except concentrate on the sound by noting “hearing, hearing, hearing.” He then achieved concentration and experienced the music in small bits; in other words, he was able to detect gaps in what seemed to be one continuous sound. The elements of the music actually arise and disappear every moment; nothing is ever the same for even two tiny milliseconds.

Q: When I look at my own mental pain, I see a whole pattern of pain which I interpret according to psycho-logy, which I have studied. I think I have a pretty good knowledge of what it is, but is that an obstacle to seeing the nature of pain?

A: All that is needed to see the nature of pain is to dwell with awareness on it, to make mental notes of it, and when you get enough concentration, you will penetrate into the nature of pain and see that it is impermanent.

Q: Even if I were to lose a lot of weight, cut my hair, and develop all new interests, others and myself would still know me as myself. Why is that, if there is no continuity?

A: That continuity is created only in our minds. Actually, there is no continuity, but there is the relationship of cause and effect. Many people ask: ‘If there is no àtman to go to different worlds, how do Buddhists say that we have past and future lives?’ The answer is that mental and physical phenomena arise and disappear at every moment. They arise, and then disappear, and in their place, other new phenomena arise. But the new phenomena that arise are not totally different or new because they have arisen due to some cause. Kamma causes the next life, and that next life is not totally new and different; neither is it the same or identical. The cause causes the effect to arise, and that effect is not the result of just any cause, but of a specific cause: a strong relationship exists between the cause and the effect. The cause can impart some
of its similar qualities to the effect, impart in the sense of causing certain qualities to arise. In this way, we have the notion of continuity, but actually everything is newly arisen at every moment.

There is a Buddhist formula describing rebirth: neither that person nor another. This means a person is reborn in a future life, but that person is not the identical person who died here; neither is that person reborn as a totally new person.

The commentaries, such as Visuddhimagga, XVII, give some similies as examples. Suppose someone shouts into a cave. When the sound comes back, it is not the original sound, but without the original sound, there can be no echo. Or, suppose one lights a candle from another candle. It cannot be said that the flame has transferred itself to another candle. The flame in the second candle is not the same as that in the first one, but it came into being with the help of the first candle. Similarly, a seal leaves an impression on paper. The impression is not the same as the original seal, but neither is it unrelated to it.

We Buddhists do not accept permanence, but we accept a connection as cause and effect. Cause and effect go on and on, even in this lifetime, from moment to moment. This gives a person the impression of continuity, the impression of being the same person continually. Cause and effect go on and on throughout the lifespan until old age and death. But death is just a conventional term for thedisappearance of a certain psychophysical life process. But actually, we are dying and being reborn at every moment. Thoughts likewise die and come into being at every moment, as do physical properties. Thus, even when we are living as we do now, we are dying, but we do not call it dying. We call it dying only when we come to the end of one life. Immediately after the end of this life, there is the next life. Immediately after death, there is rebirth; there is no interim between death and rebirth.

Think of the midnight hour of the previous day. Only one second after that, we call it a new day, the next day. Actually time is just going on and on. One moment we call Sunday, and the next moment we call Monday. Similarly, life and death and rebirth go on continually.

Q: How does rebirth cease?

A: It ceases only when a person cuts off the root of this process. The roots are lobha (attachment), dosa (anger) and moha (ignorance). The Arahants have cut off this process altogether, so for them, no future rebirth occurs. They have no desire for the life-death process to continue.

It is like a lamp: when the oil is used up, the flame just disappears. Desire is like the oil; when desire is cut off, there is no new becoming.

Q: But why does not an Arahant disappear at the moment of enlightenment?

A: That is because the present life, by which I mean the present body and mind, is the result of past kamma. Past kamma gives rise to this present life, and it must run its course. The Arahant does not acquire new kamma, but past kamma must have its effect.


by Sayadaw U Sãlànanda
~ NO INNER CORE ~
Buddhavasa Tiloka