The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

The release we are talking about is termed "vimutti" in the Pali language. It means release. Release from what? Release giving freedom from the fabrications and conventions of the mind.

You might say that you think freedom from convention means freedom to do anything you wish. This is the mind of a criminal.

The nice sort of release (vimutti) comes much later in human development than simple things like the perfection of morality. Therefore an awakened human being would never manipulate others by lying, killing, stealing and so on to gain for themselves.

There are persons in the world who have vimutti in different levels. Such persons are not common in the world these days but they do exist.

Who showed the Way to get the nice sort of release?

And what does "nice" mean anyway?

For Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), in the Just So Stories (1902) in "How the Whale Got His Throat" the small astute fish said: "Nice . . . nice but nubbly".

Where does this get us? What is "nubbly"?, you ask.

The Oxford Dictionary defines "nubbly" as "having numerous small protuberances; knobby, or lumpy".

So, whenever we start thinking along an incorrect path that does not lead to vimutti, some distraction appears and we get caught up in a new or old tangle.

Distractions may reach us as an art form when we become close to minds like James Joyce, who employed stream of consciousness as a writing technique.

We know we can never find the nice vimutti as we resonate with words such as these by Joyce:

"Welcome O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race".

This mandala or array type used by James Joyce dips and weaves into and out of awareness but he cannot show the way to liberate minds by this proficiency with words.

Over the last 2,500 years since Lord Buddha demonstrate the way out of trouble, many persons in different countries have left well written records of what happened when their minds became untangled from hate, greed and ignorance.

Although it is clear they experience fields of knowledge similar to those explored by James Joyce, they saw such fields were below the state of mind awareness Buddha Dhamma practitioners term "vimutti" in Pali.

Joyce's writings cannot give freedom of entanglement with the world.

As greatest praise, we might say that time spend reading Joyce rather than some shoddy class of literature can improve the flexibility of students' minds.

However, the unprepared mind, as Joyce suggested in his character Stephen, may say: "I fear those big words . . . which make me unhappy".

When successful persons describe the bliss of awakening, other less-practiced persons see their words as an eye-opener because they did not expect the terms used by the awakened person to be practical.

How would we react if an awakened person who understood our disorientation were to say: "I saw the whole world as a mass of sorrow, pain and suffering". Having seen that without doubt, the awakened person then said: "So, because of this knowledge, I found the mind that will not play with the world. By using that mind, I turned away from such play and I was able to find peace".

How would we react if an awakened person who understood our disorientation were to say something as simple as: "You should study time management at TAFE" or "You should be kind to mother"?

Our first meeting with such words of advice may not seem as heroic as studying to grasp Joyce's writing, yet putting such mild things into action leads to the tools we need to understand that merit is needed to untangle the tangle.

In 1818, John Keats wrote to J.H. Reynolds and stated: "We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author".

If we are clouded, we might become upset and react if we are told that an awakened person whom we met had not disclosed any reliable information to us, or worst still, would not talk to us.

Persons with high levels of vimutti are polished persons who have perfection of energy so they know when to speak and when not to speak.

It is well known that Buddha would not answer 14 types of questions.

Such a scenario exists because awakened persons may tend to avoid harm by answering and creating disputes.

It is unwise to besmirch wholesome beings simply on the grounds that they do not answer your questions.

The wholesome being is one who has arrived at the needed perfection of "being proficient enough to untangle the tangle".

It is usual for this to be done in stages, step by step, over several lifetimes of practice.

Where the foundations of these processes have been done over many lives, the so-called "sudden enlightenment" may come to the minds of a person at a very fast rate enabling him or her to recall and review all insights that were so painfully practices in early times.

For others, details of such matters may appear after 30 years going through the same processes over and over, year in, year out, until the processes are clear and vimutti occurs at some level.

For others, nothing much appears for them in this life.

Persons who talk about this vimutti or that vimutti should note that the talk is not the mental event.

For example, we may like to look at the heavens and puzzle about the stars.

But persons are likely to talk about "seeing stars" from the shock of the punch in the nose. Are such things of any substance?

This type of stars is not pleasant to behold under such an experience.

Buddha Dhamma Teachers caution persons who want to talk about what they experience.

Persons in the shock of sudden pain may experience some intense feeling of being alive.

If they describe the feeling in terms which sound like rapture, it may sound to listeners that they had some sort of "awakening", but it is just pain.

Vimutti is a Pali term that is used to mean release, deliverance, or emancipation; freedom from the fabrications and conventions of the mid. Authentic vimutti is not painful (dukkha), it is pleasant (sukkha).

Vimutti, such as saddha (confidence), cheto and panna (wisdom), underpins all Buddhist practice.

Your basic nature, whether you know it or do not know it, is to be interested in the Practice of saddha-vimutti.

Accordingly, this opens the way to the possibility of empowering your Buddha confidence.

Our Buddhist generosity (in Pali: dana) taxonomy has agreed benchmarks on the basis of becoming beneficial to self and others ­ and is both efficient and effective.

A series of vimutti (freedom) workings leads to our set of dana ethics.

Let us call this dana set of ethics "Buddha Dharma Ethnography".

A Caution:
When you talk about dana avoid motivation that leads toward slander.

It is enough to say that the term ethnography within a vimutti set expedites intra-Buddhist discussion of the subtle differences between realised Buddha Dhamma dana practice and the ethnography of dana of other religions.

It is not suggested here that we debate differences on this term.

Differences should be used in public inter-religious dialogue because we and others want to promote charity.

How can we check for ourselves?

As practitioners, by silent bhavana (meditation), we check THE IMPRESSION THAT A SKILL IS THE CAPACITY TO COMBINE KNOWLEDGE AND ABILITY IN ORDER TO DO A TASK.

By more silent bhavana, check the ethnographic starting points of some other religions that practice dana and find for yourself which religions use only one or the other or neither of these things.

We choose to define four stages of dana:

l. To crave to have the complete skill (lack of attainment of Dana)
2. To have the complete skill without craving it, (perfection access of Dana)
3. To abide in the complete skill, (perfection fruit of Dana); and
4. To have the skill ultimately completed. (perfection of Wisdom Dana)

It is common for Buddha Dhamma Centres to practice dana.

The person practicing dana may be of low, medium or high merit because he or she has practiced good things in the past.

Understanding of dana occurs at three levels:

1. "Book knowledge level, sutamaya panna" ­ like a vast plain
2. "Original thought level, cintamaya panna" - like a majestic plateau
3. "Mind/meditation level, bhavanamaya panna" - like a towering mountain range

A person wandering on the vast plain knows: "I am on the vast plain".

A person wandering on the majestic plateau knows: "I am on the majestic plateau".

A person on the towering mountains knows: "I am on the towering mountains".

However, at the next level of perfection consider that these three types of persons have some defilement (kilesa) regardless of whether they are high or low in merit.

Consider this as moon and clouds.

The moon is a simile for the awakened mind.

A person looking from the vast plain sees the moon at night through the clouds.

A person looking from the majestic plateau sees the moon at night through the clouds.

A person looking from the towering mountain sees the moon at night through the clouds.

Were any of these persons to obtain even one level of dana parami (perfection of a wisdom set in regard to dana) the cloud would vanish.

The bhavana instruction: TO BEGIN, YOU SPECIFY (OR ASSERT) THAT SOMETHING ELSE CALLED PANNA IS A SKILL YOU NEED.

The vimutti release occurs when it is known, without doubt, that to complete Buddha Dharma Ethnography there must be KNOWLEDGE, ABILITY and PANNA in an array or matrix set.

Some Analysis Using Buddhist Logic or Panna-vimutti

Using deductive thinking about our past bhavana experiences, at least three approaches can be found.

The instruction is, if a Student's knowledge of formal logic is weak, he or she should try direct insight by bhavana (or meditation).

RECOLLECTION OF THE GOOD THINGS

Weakness can be overcome by recollection of the Triple Gem or good actions known to have been done by oneself or others.

Our Members are making themselves conducive to helping themselves and others practice; while, at the same time, ensuring our Centre's policies enable Members to gain merit by the practice of lending a helping hand.

It is reasonable to say that vimutti (or freedom) underpins all Buddha Dharma practice such as saddha, cheto and panna, that is, confidence and wisdom.

The first things must be practiced first.

Start with the MEDITATION SYSTEM: Anapanasati (mindfulness with breathing) according to the Buddha's Anapanasati Sutta.

Please visit our Centre to learn how this is done.

A Monk skilled in this method will be in residence at our Centre for the next few months. You may sit with him in our Hall of Assembly on prearranged days.

New students first gain some theoretical background and learn the purpose of Dhamma practice, then learn the preparations for, and the16 lessons (objects of investigation) which make up mindfulness with breathing.

Walking meditation is also done using mindfulness with breathing; if one has difficulty doing this, one can observe sensations in their feet or legs.

One practices the first lessons (the body foundation of mindfulness) to calm one's breathing and body and to stabilise the mind.

Then one refines both the calmness of the mind and one's understanding of how it works by working with more lessons (the feeling foundation of mindfulness) and finally, the mind foundation of mindfulness.

At any time that the mind is sufficiently calm and stable, while practicing with right understanding and motivation, insight can take place, even during the first lessons.

Please visit our Centre for such instruction.

Other lessons, on the Dhamma foundation of mindfulness, further develop and perfect insight into right knowledge ("vijja") and liberation ("vimutti")>

The goal of this practice is to realise the voidness-emptiness of the five "skandhas", which are body, feeling memory, thought, and sense awareness, and that there is nothing worth attaching to as "I" or "mine".

To aid the development of right understanding ("sammaditthi"), the Buddha's teachings on "anatta" (not-self) and "paticcasamuppada" (dependent origination) are examined in detail and depth.

The study and investigation of these principles are considered essential at our Centre.

Buddhas teach the same methods.

Each of the Buddhas who has gained Awakening and taught the Dhamma to the world has had to reflect, to the full extent of his intelligence and ability, on the myriad ways of teaching the Dhamma to the world, so that the world could see it as a marvel, inasmuch as the Dhamma cannot be put in shop windows or in public places.

This is because the true Dhamma lies in the heart, and reveals only in words and deeds, which does not excite a gratifying sense of absorption in the same way as touching the Dhamma directly with the heart.

Since there is no way to display the Dhamma directly, the Buddhas display it indirectly through teaching.

They point out the causes ­ the Dhamma of conduct and practices leading to the Dhamma of results at this or that point or this or that level; and at the same time they proclaim the results ­ the excellence, the marvels of the stages and levels of the Dhamma which can be touched with the heart, all the way to the highest marvel, vimutti, the mental release called nibbana within the heart.

Every Buddha has to devise strategies in teaching the Dhamma so as to bring that marvel out to the world by using various modes of speech and conduct ­ for example, describing the Dhamma and showing the conduct of the Dhamma as being like this and that ­ but the actual Dhamma cannot be shown.

It is something that is known exclusively in the heart, in the way in which each Buddha and each arahant possess this marvel.

None of the Buddhas, none of the arahants who possess this marvel are in any way deficient in this regard.

The marvel lies in their hearts ­ simply that they can't take the marvel that appears there and display it in the full measure of its wonder.

Thus they devise strategies for displaying it in their actions, which are simply attributes of the Dhamma, not the actual Dhamma itself.

For instance, the doctrine they teach in the texts is simply an attribute of the Dhamma.

Please visit our Centre for instruction.

Their act of teaching is also just an attribute of the Dhamma.

The actual Dhamma is when a meditator or a person who listens to teachings about the Dhamma follows the Dhamma in practice and touches it stage by stage within his or her own heart.

This is called beginning to make contact with the actual Dhamma, step by step.

However much contact is made, it gives a sense of gratification felt exclusively within the heart of the person who has gained that contact through his or her own practice.

Please visit our Centre to learn the right way.

Thank you for your attention.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes and Leanne Eames.

Disclaimer:

As we, the Chan Academy Australia, Chan Academy being a registered business name of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., do not control the actions of our service providers from time to time, make no warranty as to the continuous operation of our website(s). Also, we make no assertion as to the veracity of any of the information included in any of the links with our websites, or another source accessed through our website(s).

Accordingly, we accept no liability to any user or subsequent third party, either expressed or implied, whether or not caused by error or omission on either our part, or a member, employee or other person associated with the Chan Academy Australia (Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.)

This Radio Script is for Free Distribution. It contains Buddha Dhamma material and is provided for the purpose of research and study.

Permission is given to make printouts of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. Please keep it in a clean place.

"The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts".

For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us.

Disclaimer

© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.