Letter 6 - A Letter To Elisabeth

15 December 1976

Dear Elisabeth,

Recently I received a tape from Jonothan, and I tried to copy parts of it on cassette, for you, since you are all alone in Italy. Then I found that the background noise of one part was so loud, that I could not copy it. You know why? The date was October 6, the day of the coup d’etat. On the background is not the usual sound of school children, (the place is, as you in Mom Dusedi’s school), but the sound of war. I cannot hear details, but the sound is frightening when there is no awareness. I decided then to make a transcript of parts of the tape, because it is such a vivid reminder that sound is sound, hearing is hearing, visible object is visible object, seeing is seeing, no matter where you are and in what circumstances. You once wrote to me: that you found it helpful to read letters with reminders:

. . . to read and reread about the simple realities, the plain truths of nama and rupa. Reminders of not to have fear, not to get frustrated when sati sometimes seems so difficult, reminders just to let sati arise. Also, for me it was very helpful to realize that even more in Airole, a long way from Bangkok, a long way from the very fresh and stimulating Dhamma group in Adelaide, that Dhamma is always dhamma, that sati is always sati, fear always fear. . . .

What was the Dhamma talk like on the sixth of October? Just like any other day. There was talk about mindfulness on breathing, and how difficult and subtle this subject is. How to have moments of samatha in daily life: for example, through developing metta and about the characteristic of right awareness and pañña. When the noise started to be very loud, they were talking about: when you hear something, the thinking of the meaning of what you hear is different from just hearing, ‘The seeing cannot hear and hearing cannot see. So it’s seeing which sees and hearing which hears. We take the seeing for “I see,” the hearing for “I hear.” But it is only hearing, it is only seeing.’

Q.: ‘How do you know that seeing occurs?’

S.: ‘Now it appears.’

Khun Sujin explained about softness, which can be experienced through the bodysense: One can touch the body all the time but when there is no awareness one takes softness for something all the time. But when there is awareness of softness, how can there be the idea of the softness as something, because it is only softness. It is experienced through the body-sense . . . .

I will type my transcript later on. These people were talking about realities appearing through the six doors. On the other days there is thunder and rain in the background: realities appearing through the six doors. No difference in peace time or war-time. They did not know whether there would be violence only for one day or for longer, but they were not concerned about the future. There was also laugher in between the talks, like usual. At one moment Solly referred to the noise, as an example of sound, he said, when there is sound, like this noise, the sound of cars.’

When there is no awareness we will always take something for something. When there is awareness there is impartiality or equanimity towards the object which is experienced at that moment: sound is only a kind of rupa, no thing in the sound.

Someone had asked me whether I had news about the situation in Bangkok and I answered that my friends only write to me about Dhamma. Khun Ursula had written to me: ‘Khun Nina, you know what happened here on the sixth of October.’ That was all. She then told me that she and her children and some friends were at the school of Khun Sujin, and had gone through a lecture of Khun Sujin’s which she had translated into German. Khun Sujin said in that lecture that there are many levels of practicing the Buddhist teachings and that each level is useful and can bring happiness according to its level of kusala. And satipatthâna is not really so difficult, it can be practiced any moment, any place. The fact that Buddhists are not able to practice satipatthana is due to lack of right understanding of the practice . . . .

Other parts of the tape Jonothan sent me are conversations which were held in the weeks preceding the sixth of October. When I turn back to these after having listened to the ones on October sixth, the preceding ones are even stronger reminders for awareness and the urgency to develop it now, day in, day out. I am so reminded of the sutta in Gradual Sayings, Book of the Fives, Chapter VIII, par. 8, about five fears in the way. A monk reflects that he is now young, but once ‘old age shall touch this body’ and then it will not be easy to turn to the Buddha’s word. He says: ‘I will put forth energy against that time even to attain the unattained, to master the unmastered, to realize the unrealized, and of that state possessed I will dwell comforted even when old.’ He says the same about health and sickness which may touch him later on. How true this is. When we are old and sick, it may affect us mentally. So, if we do not accumulate mindfulness now, it will be very difficult by then. The word ‘putting forth energy, striving,’ means no self who strives. The reflection about future troubles can be a condition that there is energy for awareness right then and there.

The monk then reflects about shortage of food in the future, lack of safety because of ‘peril of robbers’ and disharmony in the Sangha. He considers: ‘When that happens, not easy is it to turn to the Buddha’s word, not easy things are the forest wilderness, the outland bed and seat, to seek. Ere that state come -- unwelcome, undesired, unloved -- lo! I will put forth energy against that time even to attain the unattained, to master the unmastered, to realize the unrealized and of that state possessed I will dwell comforted event though the Order be rent . . . .

We do not think of what we can realize later on or not, but even a little more awareness, this is never lost, and it can help us in times of trouble, when everything around us is very confused, or we are in a very difficult circumstances, maybe in wartime. Now we are comfortable, but who knows the future?

I quote now at random from transcripts of conversations, held before ‘that day.’ Khun Sujin explains about ‘studying the object’ which means it is not ‘self’ studying, but pañña which is being developed through awareness. It is not theoretical studying which is meant. I find the word ‘studying’ a good reminder. Studying is something which has to be done again and again, not in one day. Studying is getting to know characteristics, because just sati without getting to know anything is not the development of satipatthana. Then there would never be detachment from the self. I quote:

One can study the object which appears with sati. Now one knows intellectually that the object which appears is only visible object. But without ‘studying’ the characteristic which appears as visible object one may always think that it is something . . . One thinks that one knows that it’s visible object . . . When Buddha said seeing is a reality and visible object is another reality, he did not mean just know this, but he meant study it when it appears, with paññâ and sati . . . You can study only when it appears . . . .
End of quote.

Study does not mean trying to concentrate on an object. Only studying what appears. We all may feel desperate at time about visible object, will we ever know this? We try and try: and doubt arises. Doesn’t it mean that we experience a table or a glass through eye-sense? Desperately we close and open our eyes. Will we ever know what seeing is? ‘But you close and open your eyes without awareness’ sounds Khun Sujin’s warning. Yes, that is true. When there is awareness at such moments other realities appear, to our surprise. We did not think of that. On the tapes, Khun Sujin also explained that we tend to pay attention to one ‘thing’ we think we see, but really there are things around that thing which are seen, Phra Dhammadharo mentioned that there is a visual field, which I find helpful. We try so much to concentrate to see this or that thing, forgetting that seeing is different. We do not try to know many different moments of seeing, but there are moments that visible object (and that is not one particular thing we try to see or to concentrate on) appears, because many moments there is seeing when you do not think about what you see. We do no always look at the contours of one particular thing, don’t we see colour next to ‘that thing,’ without paying any particular attention to this thing or that thing, but there is seeing?

It takes courage to be aware, one has to be a hero, Khun Sujin says. Never give up, I would think. Studying means again and again, not only a hundred time, that’s nothing. We tend to become desperate when we do not know yet after a few years, but what are a few years? That is not studying.

I hope people won’t ask so much about vipasssana ñanas (that is beyond my scope) but more and more about the right object of awareness, since that is most important. I would like to learn and learn more about the right object. I can never get enough of that.
Now I quote about: beginning again and again, which reminds us not to expect a result already after a few times of awareness.

Begin and begin again and again. Because it (reality) arises and falls. You have to begin again. If there is awareness of seeing, no understanding of seeing as the experiencing of visible object yet. Begin again because sati arises again. So there must be the beginning of the development of satipatthâna of each doorway, again and again, over and over again. . . .
End of quote.

Khun Sujin speaks about shunning reality. Someone thinks that he needs a special place where there is quietness in order to develop sati. He thinks that sati is limited to a certain place. But we can also apply what she says to our situation. Don’t we all shun reality at times? I thought of friends who are in Bangkok and afraid to return to their home countries. What will the situation be over there? Will there be conditions for the developing of pañña? I though of friends who have returned already. They have their days of loneliness. Would we rather have another reality instead of the present one? Is seeing different in Bangkok, different from seeing in our home country? Do we shun seeing now? Then we will not learn what seeing really is I quote now:

Oh no, not this object. Oh no, not that object. Oh no, not lobha. Oh no, not dosa. They are afraid to be aware, because they don’t think that pañña can directly experience them as reality. They underestimate the function of pañña, the characteristic of pañña. They think of something else as pañña, whereas it is not pañña at all. It can experience all realities which appear when it’s pañña. . . . Always shun. No way to have right understanding of realities which appear . . . .

To someone who wants to go to a special place: Seeing now, is not different from seeing there. So study it now. Why do we have to wait? When we wait it is more time for lobha and avijja and dosa to arise, and accumulating , so there are more conditions for lobha again, dosa again . . . .

Q. A certain place gives conditions.

S. You reject nama and rupa now. You shun, you reject nama and rupa now.

Q Reject?

S No awareness of reality now. No awareness of rupa now which is not different from rupa there. Avijja makes one think not to be aware now, but only there. . . . If there is no awareness at this moment, desire can perform its function, deceiving you, luring you, getting you away from nama and rupa at this moment. . . .

Fire on one’s head. About the urgency of awareness. This passage is even a stronger reminder for me when seeing it in the light of October 6, which took place shortly after this conversation. I quote:

In the sutta it is said one should practice like there is fire on one’s head. Fire is on one’s head already, so be aware immediately. Don’t wait, don’t go away. It’s now on one’s head. . . .

The seeing is seeing anywhere. Awareness is awareness anywhere. Concentration is concentration anywhere. Tranquillity is tranquillity anywhere. Metta here is the same as mettâ there. Karuna here is the same a karuna there. Dosa here is the same as dosa there.

Q. You can arrange living somewhere else.

S. If there are conditions. But sati has to be aware that it is not self who arranges it. . . . we can make any plan, beautiful plan, but it is only thinking. Whether it will come true depends on conditions. Not by your thinking. So thinking is pure thinking, the way it has arisen, it’s by conditions. . . . That is why we live with the present moment.

You wrote that you speak with the pastor on Dhamma without mentioning Dhamma and I thought of you when we had the nuncio for dinner. He is a person with many wholesome accumulations. We talked about true secludedness: ‘Dwelling alone, dwelling alone,’ you remember the sutta? When you still have defilements you are not truly alone. He agreed with that, that you take your defilements with you, wherever you go. I could console a young women who lost her husband. I talked about how realities arise because of their conditions. Even when we do not mention the words nama and rupa it is possible that the dhamma can help others. The may begin to have some confidence in the Buddha’s teaching, and who knows how their confidence will develop? Maybe in later lives?

Kindest regards,
Nina