Guest : May I speak? When I get sick, in my sleep, the mind is still awake. I can see the mind struggling.
Luangta : Here is very important – being sick and seeing the mind struggles in your sleep. What is it like? And why it is struggling? Please explain a bit more.
Guest : The mind wants to get relieved.
Laungta : Want to get relieved. To get out of sickness...huh?
Guest : Yes.
Laungta : Here is a very critical point.
Guest : Then, consciousness arises, becomes aware of it and continues just like this. Feel like staying up awake all night.
Luangta : This is the golden opportunity—the moment when one sees that the mind is struggling as one is sick and dying.
If we misunderstand that this struggling mind—the one that wants to escape from the suffering body—is ourselves, or let ourselves be the one who is struggling, then ‘we’ will immediately become that mind with a desire to relieve ourselves from sickness.
When we are about to die, the fire elements are breaking apart. The mind that can’t find the breath would then strive very hard to get out of the suffering body. Once this struggling mind gets thrown out of the body, the death messenger will immediately come collect it.
In fact, there should not be “me” or “myself” going out! You just have to see that this struggling mind is not yours.
See it as Sankhara (the conditions – the self-creation). That’s why it is the golden opportunity. If not in time of sickness, we would hardly see this struggling mind.
But once we become ill, there suddenly appears the mind that strives to be relieved or to get away from the suffering that we are experiencing. This struggling mind is the one that would get out of the physical body.
And that is because of “Avijja” or not knowing (ignorance).
“Pajjaya Sankhara Sankhara Pajjaya Vinnanung”
(Avijja causes Sankhara which then causes Vijnana or consciousness)
This mind struggling to leave the body is a self-formation as a translucent body.
If one really sees this striving mind as a fabrication created by the self (sankhara), not taking it as me-myself— this struggling mind will suddenly disappear after one is dead. There would be no me-myself leaving this body.
There would only be “knowing”; knowing that the struggling mind is not ours and there is no such thing as ‘self’, there is nothing at all.
When we are well, we often neglect and spend all day indulging in thoughts. Only when we are deadly sick as if we are going to die that we would have this golden opportunity.
Only then we would clearly see that there is a struggling mind which tries to escape from Vedana (feelings), from the state or condition that we find very suffering.
Sometimes it appears as if someone is calling, and this struggling mind would suddenly respond and follow them because it wants to get out of the suffering body so badly.
Sometimes it appears as if someone is waving at you – inviting you to come after them. If you follow then that’s it. You’re dead, but only physically dead. There still exists the ‘self’ which that the death messenger can come take away.
Sometimes a dying person sees the image of a forest, beautiful flowers, or the plain field. Seeing this makes the mind want to get out of the body. But once escaped, that’s it. You’re dead! Die and move on to the next realm. There is still the self-deluded mind (self-consciousness) floating out of the body like a ghost.
So, we have to be aware of the mind that tries to get out to somewhere. Once we are aware of it, then there is nothing but just knowing (awareness).
Do not be that struggling mind. Be the one that knows it. Know that this struggling mind is not ours. And such knowing or awareness is not ours too.
Then, what is left is just a pure “knowing” element.
The knowing that has no owner.
The knowing that does not move, attempt to do, or strive for anything,
No happiness or sadness in there.
Just ‘knowing’ and that’s all.
Seeing this struggling mind is very important.
When the mind is getting thrown out [of the body], it is like an amoeba getting squeezed out (budding) of another one.
The five aggregates are like an amoeba with a knot. One knot can create another –giving birth to another me-myself.
If one is not aware of such creation and become that newly born amoeba (the struggling mind, the new me-myself); one is surely dead. Right after you become the mind that leaves the body behind, you are truly dead.
But if one knows just in time and become aware of that newly born amoeba. Then one won’t die, and the mind would come back to one’s self.
Why come back? So that we could realize that this struggling mind is not ours. And that we should not hold onto it as our self.
That thing struggling to get out is not us; it is Sankhara – it is an illusion. Once we do not hold onto it, the true mind or ‘Jai’ then becomes free from everything.
As such, when we die, that struggling mind would disappear entirely.
What’s left is only ‘knowing’ or ‘Jai’ which is nothingness.
Luangta Narongsak Kheenalayo
Original Source: Audio Transcript No.
190215B-5 Free the Beholders – Cutting its Tail
Translated from Thai Audio Transcript
: https://bit.ly/2SfMfMD
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