..續本文上一頁ntal defilements are unwholesome states. Wholesome states and unwholesome states cannot exist together. They do not coexist. So the defilements that are said to be eradicated at the moment of enlightenment are not of the past, not of the future and not of the present. Then what defilements are eradicated

　　Actually, strictly speaking, those that are eradicated are not called defilements, or kilesas in Pāli. They are called latencies or anusayas in Pāli, which means the potential to arise. What the enlightenment consciousness eradicates is that potential. That means when something is always with us we say we have that thing. Take, for example, smoking. Suppose you smoke but right now you do not. If I ask you, "Do you smoke

　　 " you would say, "Yes, I do." Because you smoked in the past and you will smoke in the future and you have not given up smoking. So although you are not smoking at the very moment, you say, "Yes, I smoke."

　　In the same way, now right at this moment, I hope I have no mental defilements in my mind and you have no mental defilements in your mind. But after the talk you go out and you step on something sharp or someone pushes you and you get angry and thus the mental defilement comes when there are the conditions for them. So we say we have mental defilements. I have mental defilements, you have mental defilements, but not right at this moment. So, that "liability to arise" is what is eradicated by enlightenment.

　　The mental defilements that are said to be eradicated at the moment of enlightenment are actually nothing but that ability or liability to come up. When they come up they are already there. In the same way here, overcoming covetousness and grief means avoiding or preventing them from arising in our minds. How

　　 By the practice of mindfulness. We make effort, we apply mindfulness and we have concentration and we see things clearly. When we see things clearly there is no chance for these mental defilements to come into the mind. In this way, Vipassanā or mindfulness practice removes mental defilement.

　　This removal or overcoming is just momentary, just by substitution. Next moment they may come back. It is of a very short duration. It is called abandonment by substitution. That means you abandon the unwholesome mental states by substituting them with the wholesome mental states. When there is wholesome mental state there cannot be any unwholesome mental state. You put wholesome mental states in the place and so unwholesome mental states do not get a chance to arise. That is called abandonment by substitution. That will last for only a moment. The next moment they may come back.

　　At the moment of Vipassanā the covetousness and grief are removed in that way. You get out of Vipassanā and you meet some conditions for them to arise, and they will arise.

　　There is another kind of abandonment called "temporary abandonment." Abandonment by pushing away. When you push something away it may stay there for sometime, it may not come back quickly, like plants in the water. If you push them away they may stay away for some time, but then very slowly they may come back. That kind of removing or abandonment is called "temporary abandonment or removing", or removal by pushing away. That is achieved by jhānas. When a person gets jhānas, or experiences jhānas, he/she is able to push these mental defilements away for some time. They may not come to his/her mind for the whole day or maybe a week or a month, but in this case too they can come back.

　　The third removal is called total removal. The Pāli word is "samuccheda = cutting off", i.e., removal by cutting off. It is like you cut the root of a tree and it never grows back. So the total removal or removal once and for all is called removal by cutting off and that is achieved at…

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