..續本文上一頁 the moment of enlightenment. The mental defilement eradicated at the moment of enlightenment never comes back to that person.

　　An Arahant has eradicated all mental defilements. He has no attachment, no anger, no pride, no jealousy and other unwholesome mental states. Even though they are provoked Arahants will not get angry. Even though they may see a very, very attractive and beautiful object, they will not feel any attachment or desire for that object. Those are the persons who have eradicated mental defilements by totally cutting them off.

　　These are the three kinds of removing, and here we can understand the two kinds of removing. I have already explained the first removing. There can also be the second kind of removing here. That is, if you have practiced meditation well and you are able to avoid covetousness and grief with regard to the objects you observe, you will find that you are able to avoid covetousness and grief even with regard to those objects that you do not observe. Here "do not observe" means do not treat with mindfulness.

　　Naturally, the objects we come across can cause covetousness and grief in our minds. If we do not practice mindfulness on the object, then we will have attachment or ill will towards that object. That happens to most people. If you are good at Vipassanā practice and you have this experience of avoiding covetousness and grief with regard to objects that are observed, you will find that you are able to prevent them from arising even with regard to those that are not observed. That is what is called temporary removal by Vipassanā.

　　Vipassanā can achieve only these two kinds of removal

　　momentary removal and temporary removal. But Vipassanā cannot achieve the third one, the total removal; that will be done by enlightenment or Path Consciousness.

　　When Buddha said "overcoming covetousness and grief in the world", he meant that the monk was able to avoid covetousness and grief from arising with regard to that object which he is observing.

　　Here "covetousness" means all kinds of attachment, greed, lust, and other similar mental states and "grief" means not just grief but anger, hatred, depression, sorrow; all are included in grief. There are three roots of unwholesomeness and they are attachment, anger and ignorance. Among these three, two are mentioned here. Covetousness is actually the first one which is "lobha" or attachment and the second one is "dosa". So, by covetousness we mean all shades of lobha and by grief we mean all shades of dosa. Moha (ignorance) is not included here because moha is very difficult to prevent and eradicate. So, in this sentence we must understand that a monk practices body contemplation making effort, applying mindfulness, getting concentration and clearly comprehending and at the same time he is able to avoid covetousness and grief from arising. It is the same with regard to feelings, to consciousness and to dhamma objects. (The Commentary says that the statement

　　overcoming covetousness and grief

　　 refers to the overcoming of all the five mental hindrances, because when covetousness and grief that are the strongest of the five hindrances are mentioned, we must understand that the other hindrances are also mentioned.)

　　You know the four foundations of mindfulness, four kinds of setting up of mindfulness. There are four because there are four kinds of objects.

　　The first one is body. Sometimes body does not mean the whole physical body, but a group of some material properties. Breathing is also called the body. Different parts of the body are also called the body. By the word "body" we must understand anything that is associated with the body.

　　The second is feelings. Feeling is a mental state. Now we have pain here, physical pain and we experience that physical pain …

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