Apprehend Reality

By Achan Sopako Bodhi

Everything has its own reality. The reality of the objects we see, for example, is just color. Whether the thing seen is called a cup or a clock, it is really only color. There are actually no cups or clocks, because these things are all conventional truth. The reality of seeing is just a matter of colors that come into contact with the eye's lens. The reality of hearing is sounds that come into contact with the ear. So the words like "pretty" or "not pretty," or "good sounds," "bad sounds," "praise," or "blame" cause us to fall away from the present moment. We just label these things. But it is not the truth of the present moment [these labels do not correspond to the actual, real phenomena appearing in the immediate present], not the reality. If we continue thinking like this, in terms of labels, all we know is what is produced by imagination, and we cannot perceive the arise and fall of the reality. In other words, the practice is not vipassana, but just our own ignorance. Defilements will not be removed, but will have the opportunity to keep on growing.

So the state of reality of everything is contact: through the eyes it is colors, through the ears it is sounds, through the nose it is smell. The words we attribute to a smell, for example, like a "good" or "bad" smell, are only assumptions. Tastes are the reality for the sense of tasting. Hot, cold, soft, and hard are the reality for the sense of touching. The reality of the mind is to condition those sensations.

If we understand this, then insight practice is not difficult. Insight meditation is not to close your eyes and experience mental images of light or whatever. Meditation will be easy if we practice as the Buddha taught. We will focus attention on reality and then let go.

For example, if you see a cup or a glass, don't think that the cup is attractive; this thought comes from the mind's conditioning after the seeing. Seeing is just seeing the contact between the color and the eye. Whenever you see an object during meditation, either repeating the mental note, "seeing," or not using the mental note, is acceptable. As for the sound, which is the contact of the sound waves and the ear, it is just sound, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Know that we "just hear," that is all. If we can know this, the cycle of birth and death will not be lengthened, because nothing will generate defilements, since we have only sounds and hearing.

[Note: Achan is speaking primarily of formal meditation and certain times in daily life. "Just seeing" and "just hearing" cannot be practiced twenty-four hours a day, since we must at times conceptualize in order to fulfill our everyday duties.]