Our Precious Human life!!!

It is said that human birth is very precious and rebirth as a human again in the next life is indeed rare. Therefore we must not waste our present life, each breath is a chance for us to learn and practice. Dont take it for granted, when the breath stops this life and opportunity goes with it. We might not know when we die but it is only certain it will surely happen.

Look at the percentage of humans compare to animal kingdom, insects, sea creatures, animal breed for food. How rare is human birth!!!

It is a common misunderstanding that 1) by accepting god alone will bring us to heaven 2) not doing anything bad will be enough. Being human alone is using up good karma and therefore if we dont continue to create good karma how are we suppose to reborn as human or in heaven? Blind faith alone without practice is that the answer?

One should always put effort to examine before one is to able find a answer. Dont just blindly take the beliefs of the majority. I hope that everyone who came here can spent some time to read the story below - Creating Destiny. It will be useful to anyone who wishes to change his or her fate. It is a solution to any problem, the way to success and happiness. I can guarantee that but take note reading and knowing is just the first step. The rest will be practice.

THE SUTRA ABOUT THE DEEP KINDNESS OF PARENTS AND THE DIFFICULTY OF REPAYING IT.

THE SUTRA ABOUT THE DEEP KINDNESS OF PARENTS AND THE DIFFICULTY OF REPAYING IT.

The Buddha Speaks about the Deep Kindness of Parents and the Difficulty in Repaying it.

Thus I have heard, at one time, the Buddha dwelt at Shravasti, in the Jeta Grove, in the Garden of the Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary, together with a gathering of great Bhikshus, twelve hundred fifty in all and with all of the Bodhisattvas, thirty-eight thousand in all.

At that time, the World Honoured One led the great assembly on a walk toward the south. Suddenly they came upon a pile of bones beside the road. The World Honoured One turned to face them, placed his five limbs on the ground, and bowed respectfully.

Ananda put his palms together and asked the World Honoured One, "The Tathagata is the GreatTeacher of the Triple Realm and the compassionate father of beings of the four kinds of births. He has the respect and reverence of the entire assembly. What is the reason that he now bows to a pile of dried bones?

The Buddha told Ananda, "Although all of you are my foremost disciples and
have been members of the Sangha for a long time, you still have not achieved far-reaching understanding. This pile of bones could have belonged to my ancestors from former lives. They could have been my parents in many past lives. That is the reason I now bow to them." The Buddha continued speaking to Ananda, "These bones we are looking at can be divided into two groups. One group is composed of the bones of men, which are heavy and white in color. The other group is composed of the bones of women, which are light and black in color.

Ananda said to the Buddha, "World Honoured One, when men are alive in the world, they adorn their bodies with robes, belts, shoes, hats and other fine attire, so that they clearly assume a male appearance. When women are alive, they put on cosmetics, perfumes, powders, and elegant fragrances to adorn their bodies, so that they clearly assume a female appearance. Yet, once man and women die, all that is left are their bones. How does one tell them apart? Please teach us how you are able to distinguish them.

The Buddha answered Ananda, "If when men are in the world, they enter temples, listen to explanations of Sutras and Vinaya texts, make obeisance to the Triple Gem, and recite the Buddha's names, then when they die, their bones will be heavy and white in colour. Most women in the world have little wisdom and are saturated with emotion. They give birth to and raise children, feeling that this is their duty. Each child relies on its mother's milk for life and nourishment, and that milk is a transformation of the mother's blood. Each child can drink up to one thousand two hundred gallons of its mother's milk. Because of this drain on the mother's body whereby the child takes milk for its nourishment, the mother becomes worn and haggard and so her bones turn black in colour and are light in weight.

When Ananda heard these words, he felt a pain in his heart as if he had been stabbled and wept silently. He said to the World Honoured One, "How can one repay one's mother's kindness and virtue?

The Buddha told Ananda, "Listen well, and I will explain it for you in detail. The fetus grows in its mother's womb for ten lunar months. What bitterness she goes though while it dwells there! In the first month of pregnancy, the life of the fetus is as precarious as a dewdrop on grass: how likely that it will not last from morning to evening but will evaporate by midday!

During the second lunar month, the embryo congeals like curds. In the third month it is like coagulated blood. During the fourth month of pregnancy, the fetus begins to assume a slightly human form. During the fifth month in the womb, the child's five limbs- two legs, two arms, and a head- start to take shape. In the sixth lunar month of pregnancy, the child begins to develop the essences of the six sense faculties: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. During the seventh month, the three hundred sixty bones and joints are formed, and the eighty-four thousand hair pores are also complete. In the eight lunar month of the pregnancy, the intellect and the nine apertures are formed. By the ninth month the fetus has learned to assimilate the different nutrients of the foods it eats. For example, it can assimilate the essence of peaches, pears, certain plant roots and the five kinds of grains.

Inside the mother's body, the solid internal organs used for storing hang downward, while the hollow internal organs used for processing, spiral upward. These can be likened to three mountains, which arise from the face of the earth. We can call these mountains Mount Sumeru, Karma Mountain, and Blood Mountain. These analogous mountains come together and form a single range in a pattern of upward peaks and downward valleys. So too, the coagulation of the mother's blood from her internal organs forms a single substance, which becomes the child's food.

During the tenth month of pregnancy, the body of the fetus is completed and ready to be born. If the child is extremely filial, it will emerge with palms joined together in respect and the birth will be peaceful and auspicious. The mother will remain uninjured by the birth and will not suffer pain. However, if the child is extremely rebellious in nature, to the extent that it is capable of committing the five rebellious acts*, then it will injure its mother's womb, rip apart its mother's heart and liver, or get entangled in its mother's bones. The birth will feel like the slices of a thousand knives or like ten thousand sharp swords stabbing her heart. Those are the agonies involved in the birth of a defiant and rebellious child.

To explain more clearly, there are ten types of kindnesses bestowed by the mother on the child:

The first is the kindness of providing protection and care while the child is in the womb.

The second is the kindness of bearing suffering during the birth.

The third is the kindness of forgetting all the pain once the child has been born.

The fourth is the kindness of eating the bitter herself and saving the sweet for the child.

The fifth is the kindness of moving the child to a dry place and lying in the wet herself.

The sixth is the kindness of suckling the child at her breast, nourishing and bringing up the child.

The seventh is the kindness of washing away the unclean.

The eight is the kindness of always thinking of the child when it has traveled far.

The ninth is the kindness of deep care and devotion.

The tenth is the kindness of ultimate pity and sympathy.

1. THE KINDNESS OF PROVIDING PROTECTION AND CARE WHILE THE CHILD IS IN THE WOMB

The causes and conditions from accumulated kalpas grows heavy, Until in this life the child ends up in its Mother's womb.As the months pass, the five vital organs develop;Within seven weeks the six sense organs start to grow.The mother's body becomes as heavy as a mountain;The stillness and movements of the fetus are like a kalpic wind disaster.The mother's fine clothes no longer hang properly,And so her mirror gathers dust.

2. THE KINDNESS OF BEARING SUFFERING DURING BIRTH

The pregnancy lasts for ten lunar months And culminates in difficult labour at the approach of the birth.Meanwhile, each morning the mother is seriously illAnd during each day drowsy and sluggish.Her fear and agitation are difficult to describe;Grieving and tears fill her breast.She painfully tells her familyThat she is only afraid that death will overtake her.

3. THE KINDNESS OF FORGETTING ALL THE PAIN ONCE THE CHILD HAS BEEN BORN

On the day the compassionate mothers bears the child,Her five organs all open wide,Leaving her totally exhausted in body and mind.The blood flows as from a slaughtered lamb;Yet, upon hearing that the child is healthy,She is overcome with redoubling joy,But after the joy, the grief returns,And the agony wrenches her very insides.

4. THE KINDNESS OF EATING THE BITTER HERSELF AND SAVING THE SWEET FOR THE CHILD

The kindness of both parents is profound and deep,Their care and devotion never cease.Never resting, the mother saves the sweet for the child,And without complain she swallows the bitter herself.Her love is weighty and her emotion difficult to bear;Her kindness is deep and so is her compassion.Only wanting the child to get its fill,The compassionate mother doesn't speak of her own hunger.

5. THE KINDNESS OF MOVING THE CHILD TO A DRY PLACE AND LYING IN THE WET HERSELF

The mother is willing to be wet So that the child can be dry.With her two breasts she satisfies its hunger and thirst; Covering it with her sleeve, she protects it from the wind and cold.In kindness, her head rarely rests on the pillow,And yet she does this happily,So long as the child is comfortable,The kind mother seeks no solace for herself.

6. THE KINDNESS OF SUCKLING THE CHILD AT HER BREAST, NOURISHING AND BRINGING UP THE CHILD

The kind mother is like the great earth.The stern father is like the encompassing heaven:One covers from above; the other supports from below.The kindness of parents is such thatThey know no hatred or anger toward their offspring,And are not displeased, even if the child is born crippled.After the mother carries the child in her womb and gives birth to it,The parents care for and protect it together until the end of their days.

7. THE KINDNESS OF WASHING AWAY THE UNCLEAN

Originally, she had a pretty face and a beautiful body,Her spirit was strong and vibrant.Her eyebrows were like fresh green willows,And her complexion would have put a red rose to shame. But her kindness is so deep she will forgo a beautiful face.Although washing away the filth injures her constitution,The kind mother acts solely for the sake of her sons and daughters,And willingly allows her beauty to fade.

8. THE KINDNESS OF ALWAYS THINKING OF THE CHILD WHEN IT HAS TRAVELLED FAR

The death of loved ones is difficult to endure.But separation is also painful.When the child travels afar,The mother worries in her village.From morning until night, her heart is with her child,And a thousand tears fall from her eyes.Like the monkey weeping silently in love for her child,Bit by bit her heart is broken.

9. THE KINDNESS OF DEEP CARE AND DEVOTION

How heavy is parental kindness and emotional concern!Their kindness is deep and difficult to repay. Willingly they undergo suffering on their child's behalf. If the child toils, the parents are uncomfortable.If they hear that he has traveled far,They worry that at night he will have to lie in the cold.Even a moment's pain suffered by their sons and daughters.Will cause the parents sustained distress.

10. THE KINDNESS OF ULTIMATE COMPASSION AND SYMPATHY

The kindness of parents is profound and important.Their tender concern never cease.From the moment they awake each day, their thoughts are with their children.Whether the children are near or far away, the parents think of them often.Even if a mother lives for a hundred years,She will constantly worry about her eighty year old child.Do you wish to know when such kindness and love ends?It doesn't even begin to dissipate until her life is over!

The Buddha told Ananda, "When I contemplate living beings, I see that although they are born as human beings, nonetheless, they are ignorant and dull in their thoughts and actions. They don't consider their parents' great kindness and virtue. They are disrespectful and turn their backs on kindness and what is right. They lack humaneness and are neither filial nor compliant.

For ten months while the mother is with child, she feels discomfort each time she rises, as if she were lifting a heavy burden. Like a chronic invalid, she is unable to keep her food and drink down. When the ten months have passed and the time comes for the birth, she undergoes all kinds of pain and suffering so that the child can be born. She is afraid of her own mortality, like a pig or lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Then the blood flows all over the ground. These are the sufferings she undergo.

Once the child is born, she saves what is sweet for him and swallows what is bitter herself. She carries the child and nourishes it, washing away its filth. There is no toil or difficulty that she does not willingly undertake for the sake of her child. She endures both cold and heat and never even mentions what she has gone through. She gives the dry place to her child and sleeps in the damp herself. For three years she nourishes the baby with milk, which is transformed from the blood of her own body.

Parents continually instruct and guide their children in the ways of propriety and morality as the youngsters mature into adults. They arrange marriages for them and provide them with property and wealth or devise ways to get it for them. They take this responsibility and trouble upon themselves with tremendous zeal and toil, never speaking about their care and kindness.

When a son or daughter become ill, parents are worried and afraid to the point that they may even grow ill themselves. They remain by the child's side providing constant care, and only when the child gets well are the parents happy once again. In this way, they care for and raise their children with the sustained hope that their offspring will soon grow to be mature adults.

How sad that all too often the children are unfilial in return! In speaking with relatives whom they should honour, the children display no compliance. When they ought to be polite, they have no manners. They glare at those whom they should venerate, and insult their uncles and aunts. They scold their siblings and destroy any family feeling that might have existed among them. Children like that have no respect of sense of propriety.

Children may be well taught, but if they are unfilial, they will not heed the instructions or obey the rules. Rarely will they rely upon the guidance of their parents. They are contrary and rebellious when interacting with their brothers. They come and go from home without ever reporting to their parents. Their speech and actions are very arrogant and they act on impulse without consulting others. Such children ignore the admonishments and punishments set down by their parents and pay no regard to their uncles' warnings. Yet, at the same time, they are immature and always need to be looked after and protected by their elders.

As such children grow up, they become more and more obstinate and uncontrollable. They are entirely ungrateful and totally contrary. They are defiant and hateful, rejecting both family and friends. They befriend evil people and under influence, soon adopt the same kinds of bad habits. They come to take what is false to be true.

Such children may be enticed by others to leave their families and run away to live in others towns, thus denouncing their parents and rejecting their native town. They may become businessmen or civil servants who languish in comfort and luxury. They may marry in haste, and that new bond provides yet another obstruction which prevents them from returning home for long periods of time.

Or, in going to live in other towns, these children may be incautious and find themselves plotted against or accused of doing evil. They may be unfairly locked up in prison or they may meet with illness and become enmeshed in disasters and hardships, subject to the terrible pain of poverty, starvation, and emaciation. Yet no one there will care for them. Being scorned and disliked by others, they will be abandoned on the street. In such circumstances, their lives may come to an end. No one bothers to try to save them. Their bodies swell up, rot, decay, and are exposed to the sun and blown away by the wind. The bones entirely disintegrate and scatter as these children come to their final rest in the dirt of some other town. These children will never again have a happy reunion with their relatives and kin. Nor will they ever know how their ageing parents mourn for and worry about them. The parents may grow blind from weeping or become sick from extreme grief and despair. Constantly dwelling on the memory of their children, they may pass away, but even when they become ghosts, their souls still cling to this attachment and are unable to get it go.

Others of these unfilial children may not aspire to learning, but instead become interested in strange and bizarre doctrines. Such children may be villainous, coarse and stubborn, delighting in practices that are utterly devoid of benefit. They may become involved in fights and thefts, setting themselves at odds with the town by drinking and gambling. As if debauchery were not enough, they drag their brothers into it as well, to the further distress of their parents.

If such children do live at home, they leave early in the morning and do not return until late at night. Never do they ask about the welfare of their parents or make sure that they don't suffer from heat or cold. They do not inquire after their parents' well being in the morning or the evening, nor even on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month. In fact, it never occurs to these unfilial children to ever ask whether their parents have slept comfortably or rested peacefully. Such children are simply not concerned in the least about their parents' well being. When the parents of such children grow old and their appearance becomes more and more withered and emaciated, they are made to feel ashamed to be seen in public and are subjected to abuse and oppression.

Such unfilial children may end up with a father who is a widower or a mother who is a widow. The solitary parents are left alone in empty houses, feeling like guests in their own homes. They may endure cold and hunger, but no one takes heed of their plight. They may weep incessantly from morning to night, sighing and lamenting. It is only right that children should provide for ageing parents with food and drink of delicious flavours, but irresponsible children are sure to overlook their duties. If they ever do attempt to help their parents in any way, they feel embarrassed and are afraid people will laugh at them. Yet, such offspring may lavish wealth and food on their own wives and children, disregarding the toil and weariness involved in doing so. Other unfilial offspring may be so intimidated by their wives that they go along with all of their wishes. But when appealed to by their parents and elders, they ignore them and are totally unfazed by their pleas.

It may be the case that daughters were quite filial to their parents before their own marriages, but they may become progressively rebellious after they marry. This situation may be so extreme that if their parents show even the slightest signs of displeasure, the daughters become hateful and vengeful toward them. Yet they bear their husband's scolding and beatings with sweet tempers, even though their spouses are outsiders with other surnames and family ties. The emotional bonds between such couples are deeply entangled, and yet these daughters hold their parents at a distance. They may follow their husbands and move to other towns, leaving their parents behind entirely. They do not long for them and simply cut off all communication with them. When the parents continue to hear no word from their daughters, they feel incessant anxiety. They become so fraught with sorrow that it is as if they were suspended upside down. Their every thought is of seeing their children, just as one who is thirsty longs for something to drink. Their kind thoughts for their offspring never cease.

The virtue of one's parents' kindness is boundless and limitless. If one has made the mistake of being unfilial, how difficult it is to repay that kindness!

At that time, upon hearing the Buddha speak about the depth of one's parents kindness, everyone in the Great Assembly threw themselves on the ground and began beating their breasts and striking themselves until their hair pores flowed with blood. Some fell unconscious to the ground, while others stamped their feet in grief. It was a long time before they could control themselves. With loud voices they lamented, "Such suffering! What suffering! How painful! How painful! We are all offenders. We are criminals who have never awakened, like those who travel in a dark night. We have just now understood our offenses and our very insides are torn to bits. We only hope that the World Honoured One will pity and save us. Please tell us how we can repay the deep kindness of our parents!

At the time the Tathagata used eight kinds of profoundly deep and pure sounds to speak to the assembly. "All of you should know this. I will now explain for you the various aspects of this matter.

If there were a person who carries his father on his left shoulder and his mother on his right shoulder until his bones were ground to powder by their weight as they bore through to the marrow, and if that person were to circumambulate Mount Sumeru for a hundred thousand kalpas until the blood that flowed out covered his ankles, that person would still not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

If there were a person who, during the period of a kalpa fraught with famine and starvation, sliced the flesh off his own body to feed his parents and did this as many times as there are dust motes as he passed through hundreds of thousand of kalpas, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

If there were a person who, for the sake of this parents, took a sharp knife and cut his eyes and made an offering of them to the Tathagatas, and continued to do that for hundreds of thousands of kalpas, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

If there a person who, for the sake of this father and mother, used a sharp knife to cut out his heart and liver so that the blood flowed and covered the ground and if he continued in this way to do this for hundreds of thousands of kalpas, never once complaining about the pain, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

If there were a person who, for the sake of his parents, took a hundred thousand swords and stabbed his body with them all at once such that they entered one side and came out the other, and if he continued in this way to do this for hundreds of thousands of kalpas, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

If there were a person who, for the sake of his parents, beat his bones down to the marrow and continued in this way to do this way to do this for hundreds of thousands of kalpas, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

If there were a person who, for the sake of this parents, swallowed molten iron pellets and continued in this way to do this for hundreds of thousands of kalpas, that person still would not have repaid the deep kindness of his parents.

At that time, upon hearing the Buddha speak about the kindness and virtue of parents, everyone in the Great Assembly wept silent tears and felt searing pain in their hearts. They reflected deeply, simultaneously brought forth shame and said to the Buddha, "World Honoured One, how can we repay the deep kindness of our parents?

The Buddha replied, "Disciples of the Buddha, if you wish to repay your parents' kindness, write out this Sutra on their behalf. Recite this Sutra on their behalf. Repent of transgressions and offenses on their behalf. For the sake of your parents, make offerings to the Triple Gem. For the sake of your parents, hold the precept of pure eating. For the sake of your parents, practise giving and cultivate blessings. If you are able to do these things, you are being a filial child. If you do not do these things, you are a person destined for the hells.

The Buddha told Ananda, "If a person is not filial, when his life ends and his body decays, he will fall into, the great Avici Hell. This great hell is eighty thousand yojanas in circumference and is surrounded on all four sides by iron walls. Above, it is covered over by nets, and the ground is also made of iron. A mass of fire burns fiercely, while thunder roars and bright bolts of lightning set things afire. Molten brass and iron fluids are poured over the offenders' bodies. Brass dogs and iron snakes constantly spew out fire and smoke which burns the offenders and broils their flesh and fat to a pulp.

"Oh, such suffering! Difficult to take, difficult to bear! There are poles, hooks, spears, and lances, iron halberds and iron chains, iron hammers and iron awls. Wheels of iron knives rain down from the air. The offender is chopped, hacked, or stabbed, and undergoes these cruel punishments for kalpas without respite. Then they enter the remaining hells, where their heads are capped with fiery basins, while iron wheels roll over their bodies, passing both horizontally and vertically until their guts are ripped open and their bones and flesh are squashed to a pulp. Within a single day, they experience myriad births and myriad deaths. Such sufferings are a result of committing the five rebellious acts and of being unfilial when one was alive.

At that time, upon hearing the Buddha speak about the virtue of parents' kindness, everyone in the Great Assembly wept sorrowfully and addressed the Tathagata, "On this day, how can we repay the deep kindness of our parents?

The Buddha said, "Disciples of the Buddha, if you wish to repay their kindness, then for the sake of your parents, print this Sutra. This is truly repaying their kindness. If one can print one copy, then one will get to see one Buddha. If one can print ten copies, then one will get to see ten Buddhas. If one can print one hundred copies, then one will get to see one hundred Buddhas. If one can print one thousand copies, then one will get to see one thousand Buddhas. If one can print ten thousand copies, then one will get to see ten thousand Buddhas. This is the power derived when good people print Sutras. All Buddhas will forever protect such people with their kindness and their parents can be reborn in the heavens to enjoy all kinds of happiness, leaving behind the sufferings of the hells.

At that time, Ananda and the rest of the Great Assembly the asuras, garudas, kinnaras, mahoragas, people, non-people, and others, as well as the gods, dragons, yakshas, gandarvas, wheel-turning sage kings, and all the lesser kings, felt all the hairs on their bodies stand on their ends when they heard what the Buddha had said. They wept grievously and were unable to stop themselves. Each one of them made a vow saying, "All of us, from now until the exhaustion of the bounds of the future, would rather that our bodies be pulverised into small particles of dust for a hundred thousand kalpas, than to ever go against the Tathagata's sagely teachings. We would rather that our tongues be plucked out, so that they would extend for a full yojana, and that for a hundred thousand kalpas an iron plough run over them; we would rather have a hundred thousand bladed wheel roll freely over bodies, than to ever go against the Tathagata's sagely teachings. We would rather that our bodies be ensnared in an iron net for a hundred thousand kalpas, than to ever go against the Tathagata's sagely teachings. We would rather that for a hundred thousand kalpas our bodies be chopped, hacked, mutilated, and chiseled into ten million pieces, so that our skin, flesh, joints, and bones would be completely disintegrated, than to ever go against the Tathagata's sagely teachings.

At that time, Ananda, with a dignity and a sense of peace, rose from his seat and asked the Buddha, "World Honoured One, what name shall this Sutra have when we accord with it and uphold it?

The Buddha told Ananda, "This Sutra is called THE SUTRA ABOUT THE DEEP KINDNESS OF PARENTS AND THE DIFFICULTY OF REPAYING IT. Use this name when you accord with it and uphold it.

At that time, the Great Assembly, the gods, humans, asuras, and the others, hearing what the Buddha has said, were completely delighted. They believed the Buddha's teaching, received it, and offered up their conduct in accord with it. Then they bowed respectfully to the Buddha, before withdrawing.

Planes of Existence

Planes of Existence

According to the Abhidhamma there are thirty-one planes of existence, only two of which are commonly visible to us: the animal and human planes. In order to understand the nature of the other planes of existence it is necessary to:

1) dispel the notion that there is something special in human beings that is not found in other forms of sentient life
2) dispel the delusion that there exists even a minute degree of stability or compactness in the psycho-physical complex referred to as a "being"
3) accept that a human being is a group of five aggregates each of which is evanescent and devoid of any substantiality
4) realize that in certain planes of existence one or more of the aggregates may not be manifest; and
5) realize that these planes do not exist at different physical heights, from an abysmal purgatory to a heaven in the sky, but appear in response to our kamma. Most do not appear to us because of variations in spatial dimensions, relativity of the time factor, and different levels of consciousness.

The thirty-one planes of existence go to form sa.msaara, the "perpetual wandering" through the round of birth and death we have been caught in with no conceivable beginning. These planes fall into three main spheres:

1) The sense desire sphere (kaama loka)
2) The fine material sphere (ruupa loka)
3) The immaterial or formless sphere (aruupa loka).

The sense desire sphere (kaama loka) comprises eleven planes as follows:

1) Four planes of misery:

1.1) niraya — hell
1.2) asura yoni — demons
1.3) peta yoni (ghost) — here the beings have deformed bodies and are usually consumed by hunger and thirst
1.4) tiracchaana yoni — the world of animals

Rebirth into these planes takes place on account of unwholesome kamma. Beings reborn there have no moral sense and generally cannot create good kamma. However, when the unwholesome kamma that brought them to these planes is exhausted, some stored up good kamma can bring them rebirth in some other plane. Only stream-enterers and other ariyans can be sure they will never again be born in these planes of misery.

2) The human plane — birth in this plane results from good kamma of middling quality. This is the realm of moral choice where destiny can be guided.

3) Six heavenly planes:

3.1) caatummahaaraajika — deities of the four quarters
3.2) taavati"msa — realm of the 33 devas
3.3) yaama
3.4) tusita — realm of delight
3.5) nimmaanarati — deities who enjoy their creations
3.6) paranimmita-vasa-vatti — deities controlling the creations of others

Birth into these heavenly planes takes place through wholesome kamma. These devas enjoy aesthetic pleasures, long life, beauty, and certain powers. The heavenly planes are not reserved only for good Buddhists. Anyone who has led a wholesome life can be born in them. People who believe in an "eternal heaven" may carry their belief to the deva plane and take the long life span there to be an eternal existence. Only those who have known the Dhamma will realize that, as these planes are impermanent, some day these sentient beings will fall away from them and be reborn elsewhere. The devas can help people by inclining their minds to wholesome acts, and people can help the devas by inviting them to rejoice in their meritorious deeds.

The fine material sphere (ruupa loka) consists of sixteen planes. Beings take rebirth into these planes as a result of attaining the jhaanas. They have bodies made of fine matter. The sixteen planes correspond to the attainment of the four jhaanas as follows:

1) Three as a result of attaining the first jhaana:
brahma parisajjaa — realm of Brahma's retinue
brahma purohitaa — realm of Brahma's ministers
mahaa brahmaa — realm of great Brahmaa
2) Three as a result of attaining the second jhaana:
parittaabhaa — realm of minor luster appamaanaabhaa — realm of infinite luster
aabhassaraa — realm of radiant luster
3)Three as a result of attaining the third jhaana:
paritta subhaa — realm of minor aura appamaanasubhaa — realm of infinite aura
subha ki.nhaa — realm of steady aura
4) Two as a result of attaining the fourth jhaana:vehapphalaa — realm of great reward
asaññasattaa — realm of mindless beings who have only bodies without consciousness. Rebirth into this plane results from a meditative practice aimed at the suppression of consciousness. Those who take up this practice assume release from suffering can be achieved by attaining unconsciousness. However, when the life span in this realm ends, the beings pass away and are born in other planes where consciousness returns.
5) Five as a result of attaining the fruit of non-returning (anaagaamiphala), the third level of sanctity:
avihaa brahmaa — the durable realm atappaa brahmaa — the serence realm sudassaa brahmaa — the beautiful realm
sudassii brahmaa — the clear-sighted realm
akani.t.thaa brahmaa — the highest realm

These five realms, called suddhaavaasaa or Pure Abodes, are accessible only to those who have destroyed the lower five fetters — self-view, sceptical doubt, clinging to rites and ceremonies, sense desires, and ill-will. They will destroy their remaining fetters — craving for fine material existence, craving for immaterial existence, conceit, restlessness and ignorance — during their existence in the Pure Abodes. Those who take rebirth here are called "non-returners" because they do not return from that world, but attain final nibbaana there without coming back.

The immaterial or formless sphere (aruupa loka) includes four planes into which beings are born as a result of attaining the formless meditations:
1) aakaasaanañcaayatana — sphere of infinity of space
2) viññaa.nañcaayatana — sphere of infinity of consciousness
3) aakiñcaññaayatana — sphere of nothingness
4) neva — saññaa — naasaññaayatana — sphere of neither perception or non-perception

Many may doubt the existence of these planes, but this is not surprising. Such doubt was known even in the Buddha's time. The Sa"myutta Nikaa (II, 254; SN 19.1) records that once, when the venerable Lakkhana and the venerable Mahaa Moggallaana were descending Vulture's Peak Hill, the latter smiled at a certain place. The venerable Lakkhana asked the reason for the smile but the venerable Mahaa Moggallaana told him it was not the right time to ask and suggested he repeat the question in the Buddha's presence. Later when they came to the Buddha, the venerable Lakkhana asked again. The venerable Mahaa Moggallaaana said:

"At the time I smiled I saw a skeleton going through the air. Vultures, crows and hawks followed it and plucked at it between the ribs while it uttered cries of pain. It occurred to me: 'How strange and astonishing, that a being can have such a shape, that the individuality can have such a shape!'

"The Buddha then said: "I too had seen that being but I did not speak about it because others would not have believed me. That being used to be a cattle butcher in Rajagaha."

The question may be asked how we can develop supernormal hearing and super-normal vision so as to perceive sounds and sights beyond normal range. To understand how, we must consider three factors: spatial dimensions, the relativity of time, and the levels of consciousness. Every object in our plane of existence must possess at least four dimensions. The first three are length, width, and depth. It is as if a point were to first trace a line giving length, then turn off at a level angle giving area, then turn off at a vertical angle giving volume. Each deviation from course brings not only a change of direction but also a new dimension with new attributes. But these three dimensions are not exhaustive, for no object is totally static. Even an object apparently still will reveal, at an atomic level, a turbulent mass of activity. Therefore, a fourth dimension is necessary — time. The dimension of time turns "being" into "becoming" — a passage through the phases of past, present, and future. Our sense of the passage of time does not depend on "clock time," but results from the activity of the senses and the mind. The incessant arising and passing of thoughts is sufficient to give a cue to time's movement. Even in the absence of sensory stimulation the flow of thoughts would create the sense of time and keep us geared to this plane of existence. But if thoughts could be stilled, as they are in the higher jhanaas, the sense of time would cease to exist. A different kind of awareness would replace it — a level of awareness expanded far beyond the one we are tied to under ordinary conditions. This new awareness can be called the fifth dimension. As in the case of the other four dimensions, this new one would add a new dimension, a new direction, and new attributes. For such an expanded awareness sounds and sights would be perceived, unknown and inaccessible to us locked up in our limited sense of time.[2]

The Basic Meditation

The Basic Method of Meditation

Ajahn Brahmavamso January 2003

PART 1: Sustained attention on the present moment

"The goal of this meditation is the beautiful silence, stillness and clarity of mind."

Meditation is the way to achieve letting go. In meditation one lets go of the complex world outside in order to reach the serene world inside. In all types of mysticism and in many traditions, this is known as the path to the pure and powerful mind. The experience of this pure mind, released from the world, is very wonderful and blissful.

Often with meditation there will be some hard work at the beginning, but be willing to bear that hard work knowing that it will lead you to experience some very beautiful and meaningful states. They will be well worth the effort! It is a law of nature that without effort one does not make progress. Whether one is a layperson or a monk, without effort one gets
nowhere, in meditation or in anything.

Effort alone, though, is not sufficient. The effort needs to be skilful. This means directing your energy just at the right places and sustaining it there until its task is completed. Skilful effort neither hinders nor disturbs you, instead it produces the beautiful peace of deep meditation.

In order to know where your effort should be directed, you must have a clear understanding of the goal of meditation. The goal of this meditation is the beautiful silence, stillness and clarity of mind. If you can understand that goal then the place to apply your effort, the means to achieve the goal becomes very clear.

The effort is directed to letting go, to developing a mind that inclines to abandoning. One of the many simple but profound statements of the Lord Buddha is that "a meditator whose mind inclines to abandoning, easily achieves Samadhi". Such a meditator gains these states of inner bliss almost automatically. What the Lord Buddha is saying is that the major cause for attaining deep meditation, for reaching these powerful states is the willingness to abandon, to let go and to renounce.

During meditation, we should not develop a mind which accumulates and holds on to things, but instead we develop a mind which is willing to let go of things, to let go of burdens. Outside of meditation we have to carry the burden of our many duties, like so many heavy suitcases, but within the period of meditation so much baggage is unnecessary. So, in meditation see how much baggage you can unload. Think of these things as burdens, heavy weights pressing upon you. Then you have the right attitude for letting go of these things, abandoning them freely without looking back. This effort, this attitude, this movement of mind that inclines to giving up, is what will lead you into deep meditation. Even during the beginning stages of this meditation, see if you can generate the energy of renunciation, the willingness to give things away, and little by little the letting go will occur. As you give things away in your mind you will feel much lighter, unburdened and free. In the way of meditation, this abandoning of things occurs in stages, step by step.

You may go through the initial stages quickly if you wish, but be very careful if you so do. Sometimes, when you pass through the initial steps too quickly, you find the preparatory work has not been completed. It is like trying to build a town house on a very weak and rushed foundation. The structure goes up very quickly, but it comes down very quickly as well! So you are wise to spend a lot of time on the foundations, and on the `first storeys' as well, making the groundwork well done, strong and firm. Then when you proceed to the higher storey, the bliss states of meditation, they too are stable and firm.

In the way that I teach meditation, I like to begin at the very simple stage of giving up the baggage of past and future. Sometimes you may think that this is such an easy thing to do, that it is too basic. However, if you give it your full effort, not running ahead to the higher stages of meditation until you have properly reached the first goal of sustained attention on the present moment, then you will find later on that you have established a very strong foundation on which to build the higher stages.

Abandoning the past means not even thinking about your work, your family, your commitments, your responsibilities, your history, the good or bad times you had as a child..., you abandon all past experiences by showing no interest in them at all. You become someone who has no history during the time that you meditate. You do not even think about where you are from, where you were born, who your parents were or what your upbringing was like. All of that history is renounced in meditation. In this way, everyone here on the retreat becomes equal, just a meditator. It becomes unimportant how many years you have been meditating, whether you are an old hand or a beginner. If you abandon all that history then we are all equal and free. We are freeing ourselves of some of these concerns, perceptions and thoughts that limit us and which stop us from developing the peace born of letting go. So every 'part' of your history you finally let go of, even the history of what has happened to you so far in this retreat, even the memory of what happened to you just a moment ago! In this way, you carry no burden from the past into the present. Whatever has just happened, you are no longer interested in it and you let it go. You do not allow the past to reverberate in your mind.

I describe this as developing your mind like a padded cell! When any experience, perception or thought hits the wall of the 'padded cell', it does not bounce back again. It just sinks into the padding and stops right there. Thus we do not allow the past to echo in our consciousness, certainly not the past of yesterday and all that time before, because we are developing the mind inclined to letting go, giving away and unburdening.

Some people have the view that if they take up the past for contemplation they can somehow learn from it and solve the problems of the past. However, you should understand that when you gaze at the past, you invariably look through distorted lenses. Whatever you think it was like, in truth it was not quite like that! This is why people have arguments about what actually happened, even a few moments ago. It is well known to police who investigate traffic accidents that even though the accident may have happened only half an hour ago, two different eyewitnesses, both completely honest, will give different accounts. Our memory is untrustworthy. If you consider just how unreliable memory is, then you do not put value on thinking about the past. Then you can let it go. You can bury it, just as you bury a person who has died. You place them in a coffin then bury it, or cremate it, and it is done with, finished. Do not linger on the past. Do not continue to carry the coffins of dead moments on your head! If you do, then you are weighing yourself down with heavy burdens which do not really belong to you. Let all of the past go and you have the ability to be free in the present moment.

As for the future, the anticipations, fears, plans, and expectations let all of that go too. The Lord Buddha once said about the future, "Whatever you think it will be, it will always be something different"! This future is known to the wise as uncertain, unknown and so unpredictable. It is often complete stupidity to anticipate the future, and always a great waste of your time to think of the future in meditation.

When you work with your mind, you find that the mind is so strange. It can do some wonderful and unexpected things. It is very common for meditators who are having a difficult time, who are not getting very peaceful, to sit there thinking, "Here we go again, another hour of frustration". Even though they begin thinking like that, anticipating failure, something strange happens and they get into a very peaceful meditation.

Recently I heard of one man on his first ten-day retreat. After the first day his body was hurting so much he asked to go home. The teacher said, "Stay one more day and the pain will disappear, I promise". So he stayed another day, the pain got worse so he wanted to go home again. The teacher repeated, "Just one more day, the pain will go". He stayed for a third day and the pain was even worse. For each of nine days, in the evening he would go to the teacher and, in great pain, ask to go home and the teacher would say, "Just one more day and the pain will disappear". It was completely beyond his expectations, that on the final day when he started the first sit of the morning, the pain did disappear! It did not come back. He could sit for long periods with no pain at all! He was amazed at how wonderful is this mind and how it can produce such unexpected results. So, you don't know about the future. It can be so strange, even weird, completely beyond whatever you expect. Experiences like this give you the wisdom and courage to abandon all thoughts about the future and all expectation as well.

When you're meditating and thinking, "How many more minutes are there to go? How much longer have I to endure all of this?", then that is just wandering off into the future again. The pain could just disappear in a moment. The next moment might be the free one. You just cannot anticipate what is going to happen.

When on retreat, after you have been meditating for many sessions, you may sometimes think that none of those meditations have been any good. In the next meditation session you sit down and everything becomes so peaceful and easy. You think "Wow! Now I can meditate!", but the next meditation is again awful. What's going on here?

The first meditation teacher I had told me something that then sounded quite strange. He said that there is no such thing as a bad meditation! He was right. All those meditations which you call bad, frustrating and not meeting your expectations, all those meditations are where you do the hard work for your `pay cheque'...

It is like a person who goes to work all day Monday and gets no money at the end of the day. "What am I doing this for?", he thinks. He works all day Tuesday and still gets nothing. Another bad day. All day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and still nothing to show for all the hard work. That's four bad days in a row. Then along comes Friday, he does exactly the same work as before and at the end of the day the boss gives him a pay cheque. "Wow! Why can't every day be a pay day?!"

Why can't every meditation be `pay day'? Now, do you understand the simile? It is in the difficult meditations that you build up your credit, where you build up the causes for success. While working for peace in the hard meditations, you build up your strength, the momentum for peace. Then when there's enough credit of good qualities, the mind goes into a good meditation and it feels like `pay-day'. It is in the bad meditations that you do most of the work.

At a recent retreat that I gave in Sydney, during interview time, a lady told me that she had been angry with me all day, but for two different reasons. In her early meditations she was having a difficult time and was angry with me for not ringing the bell to end the meditation early enough. In the later meditations she got into a beautiful peaceful state and was angry with me for ringing the bell too soon. The sessions were all the same length, exactly one hour. You just can't win as a teacher, ringing the bell!

This is what happens when you go anticipating the future, thinking, "How many more minutes until the bell goes?" That is where you torture yourself, where you pick up a heavy burden that is none of your business. So be very careful not to pick up the heavy suitcase of "How many more minutes are there to go?" or "What should I do next?" If that is what you are thinking, then you are not paying attention to what is happening now. You are not doing the meditation. You have lost the plot and are asking for trouble.

In this stage of the meditation keep your attention right in the present moment, to the point where you don't even know what day it is or what time it is -- morning? afternoon? -- don't know! All you know is what moment it is -- right now! In this way you arrive at this beautiful monastic time scale where you are just meditating in the moment, not aware of how many minutes have gone or how many remain, not even remembering what day it is.

Once, as a young monk in Thailand, I had actually forgotten what year it was! It is marvellous living in that realm that is timeless, a realm so much more free than the time driven world we usually have to live in. In the timeless realm, you experience this moment, just as all wise beings have been experiencing this same moment for thousands of years. It has always been just like this, no different. You have come into the reality of now.

The reality of now is magnificent and awesome. When you have abandoned all past and all future, it is as if you have come alive. You are here, you are mindful. This is the first stage of the meditation, just this mindfulness sustained only in the present. Reaching here, you have done a great deal. You have let go of the first burden, which stops deep meditation. So put forth a lot of effort to reach this first stage until it is strong, firm and well established. Next we will refine the present moment awareness into the second stage of meditation -- silent awareness of the present moment.

PART 2: Silent awareness of the present moment

"Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking."

In Part 1, I outlined the goal of this meditation, which is the beautiful silence, stillness and clarity of mind, pregnant with the most profound of insights. Then I pointed out the underlying theme which runs like an unbroken thread throughout all meditation, that is the letting go of material and mental burdens. Lastly, in part one, I described at length the practice which leads to what I call the first stage of this meditation, and that first stage is attained when the meditator comfortably abides in the present moment for long, unbroken periods of time. I made the point that "The reality of now is magnificent and awesome. Reaching here you have done a great deal. You have let go of the first burden which stops deep meditation." But having achieved so much, one should go further into the even more beautiful and truthful silence of the mind.

It is helpful, here, to clarify the difference between silent awareness of the present moment and thinking about it. The simile of watching a tennis match on T.V. is informative. When watching such a match, you may notice that, in fact, there are two matches occurring simultaneously -- there is the match that you see on the screen, and there is the match that you hear described by the commentator. Indeed, if an Australian is playing a New Zealander, then the commentary from the Australian or New Zealand presenter is likely to be much different from what actually occurred! Commentary is often biased. In this simile, watching the screen with no commentary stands for silent awareness in meditation, paying attention to the commentary stands for thinking about it. You should realize that you are much closer to Truth when you observe without commentary, when you experience just the silent awareness of the present moment.

Sometimes it is through the inner commentary that we think we know the world. Actually, that inner speech does not know the world at all! It is the inner speech that weaves the delusions that cause suffering. It is the inner speech that causes us to be angry with those we make our enemies, and to have dangerous attachments to those we make our loved ones. Inner speech causes all of life's problems. It constructs fear and guilt. It creates anxiety and depression. It builds these illusions as surely as the skilful commentator on T.V. can manipulate an audience to create anger or tears. So if you seek for Truth, you should value silent awareness, considering it more important, when meditating, than any thought whatsoever.

It is the high value that one gives to one's thoughts that is the major obstacle to silent awareness. Carefully removing the importance one gives to one's thinking and realizing the value and truthfulness of silent awareness, is the insight that makes this second stage -- silent awareness of the present moment -- possible.

One of the beautiful ways of overcoming the inner commentary is to develop such refined present moment awareness, that you are watching every moment so closely that you simply do not have the time to comment about what has just happened. A thought is often an opinion on what has just happened, e.g. "That was good", "That was gross", "What was that?" All of these comments are about an experience that has just passed by. When you are noting, making a comment about an experience that has just passed, then you are not paying attention to the experience that has just arrived. You are dealing with old visitors and neglecting the new visitors coming now!

You may imagine your mind to be a host at a party, meeting the guests as they come in the door. If one guest comes in and you meet them and start talking to them about this that or the other, then you are not doing your duty of paying attention to the next guest that comes in the door. Since a guest comes in the door every moment, all you can do is to greet one and then immediately go on to greet the next one. You cannot afford to engage in even the shortest conversation with any guest, since this would mean you would miss the one coming in next. In meditation, all experiences come through the door of our senses into the mind one by one in succession. If you greet one experience with mindfulness and then get into conversation with your guest, then you will miss the next experience following right behind.

When you are perfectly in the moment with every experience, with every guest that comes in your mind, then you just do not have the space for inner speech. You cannot chatter to yourself because you are completely taken up with mindfully greeting everything just as it arrives in your mind. This is refined present moment awareness to the level that it becomes silent awareness of the present in every moment.

You discover, on developing that degree of inner silence, that this is like giving up another great burden. It is as if you have been carrying a big heavy rucksack on your back for forty or fifty years continuously, and during that time you have wearily trudged through many, many miles. Now you have had the courage and found the wisdom to take that rucksack off and put it on the ground for a while. One feels so immensely relieved, so light, and so free, because one is now not burdened with that heavy rucksack of inner chatter.

Another useful method of developing silent awareness is to recognize the space between thoughts, between periods of inner chatter. Please attend closely with sharp mindfulness when one thought ends and before another thought begins -- There! That is silent awareness! It may be only momentary at first, but as you recognize that fleeting silence you become accustomed to it, and as you become accustomed to it then the silence lasts longer. You begin to enjoy the silence, once you have found it at last, and that is why it grows. But remember silence is shy. If silence hears you talking about her, she vanishes immediately!

It would be marvellous for each one of us if we could abandon the inner speech and abide in silent awareness of the present moment long enough to realize how delightful it is. Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking. When you realize how much more enjoyable and valuable it is to be silent within, then silence becomes more attractive and important to you. The Inner Silence becomes what the mind inclines towards. The mind seeks out silence constantly, to the point where it only thinks if it really has to, only if there is some point to it. Since, at this stage, you have realized that most of our thinking is really pointless anyway, that it gets you nowhere, only giving you many headaches, you gladly and easily spend much time in inner quiet.

The second stage of this meditation, then, is `silent awareness of the present moment'. You may spend the majority of your time just developing these two stages because if you can get this far then you have gone a long way indeed in your meditation. In that silent awareness of `Just Now' you will experience much peace, joy and consequent wisdom.

If you want to go further, then instead of being silently aware of whatever comes into the mind, you choose silent present moment awareness of just ONE THING. That ONE THING can be the experience of breathing, the idea of loving kindness (Metta), a coloured circle visualised in the mind (Kasina) or several other, less common, focal points for awareness. Here we will describe the silent present moment awareness of the breath, the third stage of the meditation.

Choosing to fix one's attention on one thing is letting go of diversity and moving to its opposite, unity. As the mind begins to unify, sustaining attention on just one thing, the experience of peace, bliss and power increases significantly. You discover here that the diversity of consciousness, attending to six different senses -- like having six telephones on one's desk ringing at the same time -- is such a burden. Letting go of this diversity -- only permitting one telephone, a private line at that, on one's desk -- is such a relief it generates bliss. The understanding that diversity is a burden is crucial to being able to settle on the breath.

If you have developed silent awareness of the present moment carefully for long periods of time, then you will find it quite easy to turn that awareness on to the breath and follow that breath from moment to moment without interruption. This is because the two major obstacles to breath meditation have already been subdued. The first of these two obstacles is the mind's tendency to go off into the past or future, and the second obstacle is the inner speech. This is why I teach the two preliminary stages of present moment awareness and silent awareness of the present moment as a solid preparation for deeper meditation on the breath.

It often happens that meditators start breath meditation when their mind is still jumping around between past and future, and when awareness is being drowned by the inner commentary. With no preparation they find breath meditation so difficult, even impossible, and give up in frustration. They give up because they did not start at the right place. They did not perform the preparatory work before taking up the breath as a focus of their attention. However, if your mind has been well prepared by completing these first two stages then you will find when you turn to the breath, you can sustain your attention on it with ease. If you find it difficult to keep attention on your breath then this is a sign that you rushed the first two stages. Go back to the preliminary exercises! Careful patience is the fastest way.

When you focus on the breath, you focus on the experience of the breath happening now. You experience `that which tells you what the breath is doing', whether it is going in or out or in between. Some teachers say to watch the breath at the tip of the nose, some say to watch it at the abdomen and some say to move it here and then move it there. I have found through experience that it does not matter where you watch the breath. In fact it is best not to locate the breath anywhere! If you locate the breath at the tip of your nose then it becomes nose awareness, not breath awareness, and if you locate it at your abdomen then it becomes abdomen awareness. Just ask yourself the question right now, "Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?" How do you know? There! That experience which tells you what the breath is doing, that is what you focus on in breath meditation. Let go of concern about where this experience is located; just focus on the experience itself.

A common problem at this stage is the tendency to control the breathing, and this makes the breathing uncomfortable. To overcome this problem, imagine that you are just a passenger in a car looking through the window at your breath. You are not the driver, nor a `back seat driver', so stop giving orders, let go and enjoy the ride. Let the breath do the breathing while you simply watch without interfering.

When you know the breath going in and the breath going out, for say one hundred breaths in a row, not missing one, then you have achieved what I call the third stage of this meditation, `sustained attention on the breath'. This again is more peaceful and joyful than the previous stage. To go deeper, you now aim for full sustained attention on the breath.

This fourth stage, or `full sustained attention on the breath', occurs when one's attention expands to take in every single moment of the breath. You know the in-breath at the very first moment, when the first sensation of in-breathing arises. Then you observe those sensations develop gradually through the whole course of one in-breath, not missing even a moment of the in-breath. When that in-breath finishes, you know that moment, you see in your mind that last movement of the in-breath. You then see the next moment as a pause between breaths, and then many more pauses until the out-breath begins. You see the first moment of the out-breath and each subsequent sensation as the out-breath evolves, until the out-breath disappears when its function is complete. All this is done in silence and just in the present moment.

You experience every part of each in-breath and out-breath, continuously for many hundred breaths in a row. This is why this stage is called `FULL sustained attention on the breath'. You cannot reach this stage through force, through holding or gripping. You can only attain this degree of stillness by letting go of everything in the entire universe, except for this momentary experience of breath happening silently now. `You' don't reach this stage; the mind reaches this stage. The mind does the work itself. The mind recognizes this stage to be a very peaceful and pleasant abiding, just being alone with the breath. This is where the `doer', the major part of one's ego, starts to disappear.

You will find that progress happens effortlessly at this stage of the meditation. You just have to get out of the way, let go, and watch it all happen. The mind will automatically incline, if you only let it, towards this very simple, peaceful and delicious unity of being alone with one thing, just being with the breath in each and every moment. This is the unity of mind, the unity in the moment, the unity in stillness.

The fourth stage is what I call the `springboard' of meditation, because from here one can dive into the blissful states. When you simply maintain this unity of consciousness, by not interfering, the breath will begin to disappear. The breath appears to fade away as the mind focuses instead on what is at the centre of the experience of breath, which is the awesome peace, freedom and bliss.

At this stage I use the term `the beautiful breath'. Here the mind recognizes that this peaceful breath is extraordinarily beautiful. You are aware of this beautiful breath continuously, moment after moment, with no break in the chain of experience. You are aware only of the beautiful breath, without effort, and for a very long time.

Now you let the breath disappear and all that is left is `the beautiful'. Disembodied beauty becomes the sole object of the mind. The mind is now the mind as its own object. You are now not aware at all of breath, body, thought sound or the world outside. All that you are aware of is beauty, peace, bliss, light or whatever your perception will later call it.

You are experiencing only beauty, with nothing being beautiful, continuously, effortlessly. You have long ago let go of chatter, let go of descriptions and assessments. Here, the mind is so still that you can not say anything.You are just experiencing the first flowering of bliss in the mind. That bliss will develop, grow, become very firm and strong. Thus you enter into those states of meditation called Jhana. But that is for Part 3 of this booklet!

PART 3: Full sustained attention on the beautiful breath

"Do absolutely nothing and see how smooth and beautiful and timeless the breath can appear."

Parts 1 and 2 describe the first four stages (as they are called here) of meditation. These are:

Sustained attention on the present moment

Silent awareness of the present moment

Silent present moment awareness of the breath and

Full sustained attention on the breath

Each of these stages needs to be well developed before going in to the next stage. When one rushes through these `stages of letting go' then the higher stages will be unreachable. It is like constructing a tall building with inadequate foundations. The first storey is built quickly and so is the second and third storey. When the fourth storey is added, though, the structure begins to wobble a bit. Then when they try to add a fifth storey it all comes tumbling down. So please take a lot of time on these four initial stages, making them all firm and stable, before proceeding on to the fifth stage. You should be able to maintain the fourth stage, `full sustained attention on the breath', aware of every moment of the breath without a single break, for two or three hundred breaths in succession with ease. I am not saying to count the breaths during this stage, but I am giving an indication of the sort of time interval that one should remain with stage four before proceeding further. In meditation, patience is the fastest way!

The fifth stage is called full sustained attention on the beautiful breath. Often, this stage flows on naturally, seamlessly, from the previous stage. As one's full attention rests easily and continuously on the experience of breath, with nothing interrupting the even flow of awareness, the breath calms down. It changes from a coarse, ordinary breath, to a very smooth and peaceful `beautiful breath'. The mind recognizes this beautiful breath and delights in it. The mind experiences a deepening of contentment. It is happy just to be there watching this beautiful breath. The mind does not need to be forced. It stays with the beautiful breath by itself. `You' don't do anything. If you try and do something at this stage, you disturb the whole process, the beauty is lost and, like landing on a snake's head in the game of snakes and ladders, you go back many squares. The `doer' has to disappear from this stage of the meditation on, with just the `knower' passively observing.

A helpful trick to achieve this stage is to break the inner silence just once and gently think to yourself "calm". That's all. At this stage of the meditation, the mind is usually so sensitive that just a little nudge like this causes the mind to follow the instruction obediently. The breath calms down and the beautiful breath emerges.

When you are passively observing just the beautiful breath in the moment, the perceptions of `in' (breath) or `out' (breath), or beginning or middle or end of a breath, should all be allowed to disappear. All that is known is this experience of the beautiful breath happening now. The mind is not concerned with what part of the breath cycle this is in, nor on what part of the body this is occurring. Here we are simplifying the object of meditation, the experience of breath in the moment, stripping away all unnecessary details, moving beyond the duality of `in' and `out', and just being aware of a beautiful breath which appears smooth and continuous, hardly changing at all.

Do absolutely nothing and see how smooth and beautiful and timeless the breath can appear. See how calm you can allow it to be. Take time to savour the sweetness of the beautiful breath, ever calmer, ever sweeter.

Now the breath will disappear, not when `you' want it to, but when there is enough calm, leaving only `the beautiful'. A simile from English literature might help. In Lewis Carroll's `Alice in Wonderland', Alice and the Red Queen saw a vision of a smiling Cheshire cat appear in the sky. As they watched, first the cat's tail disappeared, then its paws followed by the rest of its legs. Soon the Cheshire cat's torso completely vanished leaving only the cat's head, still with a smile. Then the head started to fade into nothing, from the ears and whiskers inwards, and soon the smiling cat's head had completely disappeared - except for the smile which still remained in the sky! This was a smile without any lips to do the smiling, but a visible smile nevertheless. This is an accurate analogy for the process of letting go happening at this point in meditation. The cat with a smile on her face stands for the beautiful breath. The cat disappearing represents the breath disappearing and the disembodied smile still visible in the sky stands for the pure mental object `beauty' clearly visible in the mind.

This pure mental object is called a nimitta. `Nimitta' means `a sign', here a mental sign. This is a real object in the landscape of the mind (citta) and when it appears for the first time it is extremely strange. One simply has not experienced anything like it before. Nevertheless, the mental activity called `perception' searches through its memory bank of life experiences for something even a little bit similar in order to supply a description to the mind. For most meditators, this `disembodied beauty', this mental joy, is perceived as a beautiful light. It is not a light. The eyes are closed and the sight consciousness has long been turned off. It is the mind consciousness freed for the first time from the world of the five senses. It is like the full moon, here standing for the radiant mind, coming out from behind the clouds, here standing for the world of the five senses. It is the mind manifesting, it is not a light, but for most it appears like a light, it is perceived as a light, because this imperfect description is the best that perception can offer.

For other meditators, perception chooses to describe this first appearance of mind in terms of physical sensation, such as intense tranquility or ecstasy. Again, the body consciousness (that which experiences pleasure and pain, heat and cold and so on) has long since closed down and this is not a physical feeling. It is just `perceived' as similar to pleasure. Some see a white light, some a gold star, some a blue pearl... the important fact to know is that they are all describing the same phenomena. They all experience the same pure mental object and these different details are added by their different perceptions.

You can recognize a nimitta by the following 6 features:

It appears only after the fifth stage of the meditation, after the meditator has been with the beautiful breath for a long time;

It appears when the breath disappears;

It only comes when the external five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are completely absent;

It manifests only in the silent mind, when descriptive thoughts (inner speech) are totally absent;

It is strange but powerfully attractive; and

It is a beautifully simple object.

I mention these features so that you may distinguish real nimittas from imaginary ones.

The sixth stage, then, is called experiencing the beautiful nimitta. It is achieved when one lets go of the body, thought, and the five senses (including the awareness of the breath) so completely that only the beautiful nimitta remains.

Sometimes when the nimitta first arises it may appear `dull'. In this case, one should immediately go back to the previous stage of the meditation, continuous silent awareness of the beautiful breath. One has moved to the nimitta too soon. Sometimes the nimitta is bright but unstable, flashing on and off like a lighthouse beacon and then disappearing. This too shows that you have left the beautiful breath too early. One must be able to sustain one's attention on the beautiful breath with ease for a long, long time before the mind is capable of maintaining clear attention on the far more subtle nimitta. So train the mind on the beautiful breath, train it patiently and diligently, then when it is time to go on to the nimitta, it is bright, stable and easy to sustain.

The main reason why the nimitta can appear dull is that the depth of contentment is too shallow. You are still `wanting' something. Usually, you are wanting the bright nimitta or you are wanting Jhana. Remember, and this is important, Jhanas are states of letting go, incredibly deep states of contentment. So give away the hungry mind, develop contentment on the beautiful breath and the nimitta and Jhana will happen by themselves.

Put another way, the reason why the nimitta is unstable is because the `doer' just will not stop interfering. The `doer' is the controller, the back seat driver, always getting involved where it does not belong and messing everything up. This meditation is a natural process of coming to rest and it requires `you' to get out of the way completely. Deep meditation only occurs when you really let go, and this means REALLY LET GO to the point that the process becomes inaccessible to the `doer'.

A skilful means to achieve such profound letting go is to deliberately offer the gift of confidence to the nimitta. Interrupt the silence just for a moment, so so gently, and whisper as it were inside your mind that you give complete trust to the nimitta, so that the `doer' can relinquish all control and just disappear. The mind, represented here by the nimitta before you, will then take over the process as you watch it all happen.

You do not need to do anything here because the intense beauty of the nimitta is more than capable of holding the attention without your assistance. Be careful, here, not to go assessing. Questions such as `What is this?', `Is this Jhana?', `What should I do next?', and so on are all the work of `the doer' trying to get involved again. This is disturbing the process. You may assess everything once the journey is over. A good scientist only assesses the experiment at the end, when all the data are in. So now, do not assess or try to work it all out. There is no need to pay attention to the edge of the nimitta `Is it round or oval?', `Is the edge clear or fuzzy?'. This is all unnecessary and just leads to more diversity, more duality of `inside' and `outside', and more disturbance.

Let the mind incline where it wants, which is usually to the centre of the nimitta. The centre is where the most beautiful part lies, where the light is most brilliant and pure. Let go and just enjoy the ride as the attention gets drawn into the centre and falls right inside, or as the light expands all around enveloping you totally. This is, in fact, one and the same experience perceived from different perspectives. Let the mind merge in the bliss. Let the seventh stage of this path of meditation, First Jhana, occur.

There are two common obstacles at the door into Jhana: exhilaration and fear. Exhilaration is becoming excited. If, at this point, the mind thinks, "Wow, this is it!" then the Jhana is most unlikely to happen. This `Wow' response needs to be subdued in favour of absolute passivity. You can leave all the `Wows' until after emerging from the Jhana, where they properly belong. The more likely obstacle, though, is fear. Fear arises at the recognition of the sheer power and bliss of the Jhana, or else at the recognition that to go fully inside the Jhana, something must be left behind - You! The `doer' is silent before entering Jhana but it is still there. Inside Jhana, the `doer' is completely gone. The `knower' is still functioning, you are fully aware, but all the controls are now beyond reach. You cannot even form a single thought, let alone make a decision. The will is frozen, and this can appear scary to the beginner. Never before in your whole life have you ever experienced being so stripped of all control yet so fully awake. The fear is the fear of surrendering something so essentially personal as the will to do.

This fear can be overcome through confidence in the Buddha's Teachings together with the enticing bliss just ahead that one can see as the reward. The Lord Buddha often said that this bliss of Jhana "should not be feared but should be followed, developed and practised often"(Latukikopama Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya). So before fear arises, offer your full confidence to that bliss and maintain faith in the Lord Buddha's Teachings and the example of the Noble Disciples. Trust the Dhamma and let the Jhana warmly embrace you for an effortless, body-less and ego-less, blissful experience that will be the most profound of your life. Have the courage to fully relinquish control for a while and experience all this for yourself.

If it is a Jhana it will last a long time. It does not deserve to be called Jhana if it lasts only a few minutes. Usually, the higher Jhanas persist for many hours. Once inside, there is no choice. You will emerge from the Jhana only when the mind is ready to come out, when the `fuel' of relinquishment that was built up before is all used up. These are such still and satisfying states of consciousness that their very nature is to persist for a very long time. Another feature of Jhana is that it occurs only after the nimitta is discerned as described above. Furthermore, you should know that while in any Jhana it is impossible to experience the body (e.g. physical pain), hear a sound from outside or produce any thought, not even `good' thoughts. There is just a clear singleness of perception, an experience of non-dualistic bliss which continues unchanging for a very long time. This is not a trance, but a state of heightened awareness. This is said so that you may know for yourself whether what you take to be a Jhana is real or imaginary.

There is much more to meditation, but here only the basic method has been described using seven stages culminating with the First Jhana. Much more could be said about the `Five Hindrances' and how they are overcome, about the meaning of mindfulness and how it is used, about the Four Satipatthana and the Four Roads to Success (Iddhipada) and the Five Controlling Faculties (Indriya) and, of course, about the higher Jhanas. All these concern this practice of meditation but must be left for another occasion.

For those who are misled to conceive of all this as `just Samatha practice' without regard to Insight (Vipassana), please know that this is neither Vipassan* nor Samatha. It is called `Bhavana', the method taught by the Lord Buddha and repeated in the Forest Tradition of NE Thailand of which my teacher, Ven. Ajahn Chah, was a part. Ajahn Chah often said that Samatha and Vipassana cannot be separated, nor can the pair be developed apart from Right View, Right Thought, Right Moral Conduct and so forth. Indeed, to make progress on the above seven stages, the meditator needs an understanding and acceptance of the Lord Buddha's Teachings and one's precepts must be pure. Insight will be needed to achieve each of these stages, that is insight into the meaning of `letting go'. The further one develops these stages, the more profound will be the insight, and if you reach as far as Jhana then it will change your whole understanding. As it were, Insight dances around Jhana and Jhana dances around Insight. This is the Path to Nibbana, the Lord Buddha said, "for one who indulges in Jhana, four results are to be expected: Stream-Winner, Once-Returner, Non-Returner or Arahant"(P*s*dika Sutta, Digha Nikaya).~oOo~

Wrong View

Wrong View

THE BUDDHA once told a story about a young man who was a trader and had a beautiful wife and baby son. Sadly, his wife fell ill and died, and the man poured all his love into his little child, who became the sole source of his happiness and joy.

Once while he went away on business, bandits raided his village, burned it to the ground and captured his five-year-old son. When he returned and saw the devastation, he was beside himself with grief. He found the charred corpse of a small child, and in his desperation, he took it for the body of his son. He tore at his hair and beat his chest, and wept uncontrollably.

At last, he arranged a cremation ceremony, collected up the ashes, and put them in a very precious silk pouch. Whether he was working, sleeping or eating, he always carried that bag of ashes with him, and often he would sit alone and weep, for hours on end.

One day his son escaped from the bandits, and found his way home. It was midnight when he arrived at his father’s new house and knocked on the door. The man lay in bed, sobbing, the bag of ashes by his side. “Who is it?” he asked. The child answered, “It’s me, daddy, it’s your son. Open the door.” In his anguish and confusion, all that the father could  think of was that some malicious  boy was playing a cruel trick on him. “Go away,” he shouted, “leave me alone.” Then he started to cry once more. Again and again, the boy knocked, but the father refused to let him in. Finally, he slowly turned and walked away. The father and son never saw one another ever again.

When he came to the end of his story, the Buddha said, “Sometime, somewhere you take something to be the truth. But if you cling to it too strongly, then even when the truth comes in person and knocks on your door, you will not open it.”

Having the right view is extremely important. How can one even plan to live correctly when one has the wrong view. Its is like walking for many many years in a wrong direction, how can one get to the right place.

There are ten kinds of False Views:
1.      No virtue in generosity.
2.      No such virtue in liberal alms-giving.
3.      No virtue in offering to guests.
4.      There are no such things as Kamma and Vipaka (The Law of Cause and effect).
5.      There is such thing as this world on present existence.
6.      There are no past lives (existence) or future lives.
7.      There is no mother.
8.      There is no father.
9.      There is nothing dies or reborn.
10.  There are no righteous holy people in this world such as Buddha and Arahants.

Jhana

Jhana

Jhana is a meditative state of profound stillness and concentration in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed in the chosen object of attention. It is the cornerstone in the development of Right Concentration.

The definition (with similes)

[FIRST JHANA]

"There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters and remains in the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal."Just as if a skilled bathman or bathman's apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again and again with water, so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated within and without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk permeates, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal...

[SECOND JHANA]

"Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure."Just like a lake with spring-water welling up from within, having no inflow from east, west, north, or south, and with the skies periodically supplying abundant showers, so that the cool fount of water welling up from within the lake would permeate and pervade, suffuse and fill it with cool waters, there being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool waters; even so, the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure...

[THIRD JHANA]

"And furthermore, with the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, 'Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.' He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with pleasure divested of rapture."Just as in a blue-, white-, or red-lotus pond, there may be some of the blue, white, or red lotuses which, born and growing in the water, stay immersed in the water and flourish without standing up out of the water, so that they are permeated and pervaded, suffused and filled with cool water from their roots to their tips, and nothing of those blue, white, or red lotuses would be unpervaded with cool water; even so, the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with pleasure divested of rapture...

[FOURTH JHANA]

"And furthermore, with the abandoning of pleasure and stress — as with the earlier disappearance of elation and distress — he enters and remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither-pleasure-nor-pain. He sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness."Just as if a man were sitting wrapped from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; even so, the monk sits, permeating his body with a pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness."— AN 5.28

Mastery of jhana is a mark of wisdom

"I declare a person endowed with four qualities to be one of great discernment, a great man. Which four?"There is the case, brahman, where he practices for the welfare & happiness of many people and has established many people in the noble method, i.e., the rightness of what is admirable, the rightness of what is skillful."He thinks any thought he wants to think, and doesn't think any thought he doesn't want to think. He wills any resolve he wants to will, and doesn't will any resolve he doesn't want to will. He has attained mastery of the mind with regard to the pathways of thought."He attains — whenever he wants, without strain, without difficulty — the four jhanas that are heightened mental states, pleasant abidings in the here-&-now."With the ending of mental fermentations — he remains in the fermentation-free awareness-release & discernment-release, having directly known & realized them for himself right in the here-&-now."...I declare a person endowed with these four qualities to be one of great discernment, a great man."— AN 4.35

Jhana and insight, hand-in-hand

There's no jhana for one with no discernment, no discernment for one with no jhana. But one with both jhana & discernment: he's on the verge of Unbinding. — Dhp 372

Scoring Sheet on Merits and Demerits as taught to Liao-Fan by Zen Master Yun Gu

Scoring Sheet on Merits and Demerits as taught to Liao-Fan by Zen Master Yun Gu

100 MERITS

Save one life; save a woman's chastity; prevent the drowning of a child by the parents; help continue the family lineage.

50 MERITS

Prevent one abortion; resist temptations (sexual misconduct); provide for one homeless person; bury the remain of a homeless person; prevent one person from becoming homeless; prevent one person from committing a serious crime; clear one person of an injustice; give a speech that benefits many.

30 MERITS

Donate cemetery land for a family without land; convert another to the virtuous way; facilitate a marriage; facilitate another in taking the religious vows; take in an orphan; help another accomplish a virtuous act.

10 MERITS

Recommend a virtuous persons; remove a source of trouble for another; cure a serious illness with one remedy; speak with virtue; treat servants properly; save the life of an animal that serves man; refrain from using power and wealth for one's own self-interest; publish or edit the teachings of Buddha.

5 MERITS

Prevent one litigation; communicate over a lifesaving method; edit a book on lifesaving methods; cure one minor illness with a remedy; urge another to stop the spreading of ill words about others; make offering to one saintly person; pray for others; make a vow not to kill; save the life of an animal that does not serve man.

3 MERITS

Endure a mistreatment without ill-will; take slander without reaction; accept words that are not to one's liking; urge silkworm growers, fishermen, hunters and butchers to change to another profession; bury an animal that died on its own.

1 MERITS

Praise another's merit; hide another's demerit; peacefully resolve an argument; stop another from making a mistake; feed one who is hungry; provide one night's lodging for a homeless person; help another in the cold; offer one medication; give one article on helping others; chant one chapter of sutra (Buddha's teachings); do one hundred prostration for repentance; chant Buddha's name for one thousand times; speak on the truth to ten people; organize projects that help ten people; offer one meal to a monk; provide for one monk; do not turn away a beggar; provide relief for tired animals and people; comfort others when they are worried; for meat eaters to be vegetarians for one day; do not eat meat from the animal one has seen, heard it being killed or killed specifically for oneself; bury a bird that has died on its own; release one life; save a minute life (bugs, etc.); help departed spirits to move on; give money and clothing to people; forgive a debt; return a lost article; do not take improper wealth; help others pay debt; offer land; encourage others to donate to charity; do not take goods stored for others; build grain storage facilities, bridges, roads, clear rivers, dig wells; build and repair temples and statues of enlightened beings; make offerings of incense, lamp oil, tea; give away a coffin; save papers with thousand words (spiritual writings).

100 DEMERITS

Cause one death; violate a woman's chastity; praise another for drowning his or her child; stop the family lineage.

50 DEMERITS

Induce one abortion; break up one marriage; abandon another's remains; cause another to be homeless; cause another to commit a serious crime; teach another to do great evil; make a speech that harms many people; steal another's wife or daughter.

30 DEMERITS

Create slander to dishonor another; reveal private secrets of another; encourage another to sue; break another's religious vow; go against an elder; offend father or older brother; cause the separation of family; in times of famine to save grains without sharing.

10 DEMERITS

Dishonor a virtuous person; recommend an evil person; flatten another's grave (graves in China are built as mounds); mistreat an orphan or widow; take in an unchaste woman; keep a murder weapon in the household; speak harshly towards parents, teachers and wise people; prepare poison; punish a criminal improperly; destroy writings on the truth; have evil thoughts while reciting the sutras; teach false knowledge; talk non-virtuously; kill an animal that can serve man.

5 DEMERITS

Sneer and slander spiritual teachings; not clear an injustice when given an opportunity to do so; turn away a sick person seeking help; block a road or bridge; write lewd articles; write a lewd song; speak harshly with others; kill one animal that cannot serve man.

3 DEMERITS

Get angry over words not to one's liking; scold one who does not deserve it; break up relations through double talk; cheat an ignorant person; destroy another's success; rejoice in another's worry; rejoice in another's loss of wealth and name; wish a rich person to be poor; blame heaven and others for one's own misfortune; be greedy in making money.

1 DEMERITS

Cover another's merits; urge another to fight; generate thought to harm another; help another to do evil; not stop another from stealing small items; not comfort another in fright or worry; not care about the hardship or human or animal; steal one small needle or grass; throw away papers with words (referring to spiritual writings); waste food; break a promise; cause another to be drunk; not help another who is hungry or cold; miss one word in reciting sutra; turn away a monk begging for food; turn away a beggar; recite sutras or go to the temples while eating foods with the five pungent spices (garlic, onion, etc., which give one bad breath) or drinking alcohol; eat the meat of an animal that works for man; kill a minute life form (bugs, etc.); spill a bird's nest and break the eggs; misuse funds; be in debt; damage temples and statues, etc; use false weights; sell a butcher's knife, fish nets, etc; use one's position to take bribes and other's money; keep lost articles; take goods while safekeeping them for others.

Secret of karma - Beneficent and Maleficent Forces

Secret of karma - Beneficent and Maleficent Forces (Forces that aid or hindered karma)

In working with kamma, there are 2 forces that counteract or support this self-operational law. The beneficent and maleficent forces are either aided or hindered by these following:

(1) Birth (Gati)
(2) Time and Conditions(Kala)
(3) Personality and Appearance (Upadhi)
(4) Effort (Payoga)

Birth (Gati)

If one is born in a fortunate birth such noble family or in state of happiness, negative kammic fruition could be kept at bay. This is called Gati Sampatti- favourable birth. However, if one born in unfortunate birth, such unhappy family or notorious family, negative kammic fruition could be put into action. This is called Gati Vipatti.-unfavourable birth.

Time and Conditions(Kala)

If a person is at bad a timing or condition, such an out break of war, famine or earth quake or any other calamities, all without exception will be compelled to the same fate of sufferings. Here the unfavourable conditions open up possibilities of evil kamma to operate. The favourable conditions will prevent the operation of evil kamma. For example, if the fortunate one has stored adequate foods, the negative kamma is kept to bay, such as stealing or robbing for foods. Likewise those who have no food allow the negative kamma to put into action, as they will steal of rob to sustain life.

 Personality and Appearance (Upadhi)

If one borned with a good look and pleasant personality, even to a poor family, he would allow good kammic fruition to take place. He would easily be accepted by people and become a popular figure eventually become an important and useful person. However, if one born with physical deformity even to royal family. The fruition of bad kamma will take place. He could be the heir, but he might not able to get the throne or to enjoy his good kamma in the royal family.

Effort (Payoga)

Personal effort is required to both worldly and spiritual progress. Without seeking medical helps for a disease, one would not able to gain back good health. With those who leave their life to God’s will, without the right effort but prayers, might be praying for the early arrival of his casket. It is important made effort to getting thing done than relying on prayers, hope or faith on certain deities or God. Thing can only be done until effort is put in. Such when there is a drought, instead of praying to God for rain, we can search for water such as digging wells to find water source.