..续本文上一页 path of attaining liberation from craving in reality. This is the beneficial teaching of Vipassana. This is the knowledge that leads to release from all suffering.

　　An example: a certain person who joined a Vipassana retreat was afraid of the sound of the barking of dogs. He was an educated young man. At the intellectual level he understood quite well that his was a secure lodging. He was sleeping in a closed room. A dog was barking somewhere in the neighbourhood. It could not even come near him. Then why should he be afraid

　　 Yet, this understanding is only intellectual. The fact is that he would be afraid as soon as he heard the sound of a dog barking. Who could convince him at the level of reality and how

　　 Fortunately, he joined a Vipassana course. He started experiencing the sensations encountered during the course. By practice he learnt to remain equanimous towards bodily sensations. His fear of a dog”s barking automatically disappeared. The fear was contained in the bodily sensations. Once he learnt to be equanimous towards those sensations, his fear disappeared.

　　Several people who come to learn Vipassana have addictions such as addiction to alcohol, heroin, gambling, sexual misconduct etc. Because of their attachment, they are unable to come out of their addictions even if they wish to. Actually, the addiction is not to any substance but to the bodily sensation that comes from the use of that substance. Because they do not know the real cause of their suffering, they remain a slave to their addictions and commit wrong actions, thereby producing suffering for themselves, now and in the future.

　　If one commits wrong actions of body and speech, a storm of defilements will arise in the mind and make him agitated. In order to get release from this, the Buddha discovered the technique of Vipassana. To clarify it, he discovered and explained certain laws of nature.

　　The first one, mentioned above, is that as soon as any of the sense organs come in contact with their respective objects, some sensation manifests itself in the body. Another fact is that we react with craving or aversion towards this very sensation. It is only by discovering this previously unknown truth that the inner eye, the eye of knowledge, the eye of wisdom arose in him and he attained knowledge, attained enlightenment; the light manifested itself. The Bodhisatta became a sammāsambuddha.

　　Two thousand and six hundred years ago, without the aid of modern scientific devices, solely by means of his mental power, this super-scientist of the spiritual world realized the truth that there is no solidity in our apparently gross body and in the entire material world. This solidity is only the apparent truth, the manifest truth. It appears to be so. The ultimate truth is that everything in the material world is made up of innumerable tiny little sub-atomic particles, which are so minute that they cannot be seen with the naked eye. He termed them kalāpa. Even this kalāpa is not permanent, not solid. Every moment it undergoes combustion-oscillation.

　　Sabbo pajjalito loko, sabbo loko pakampito.

　　(Saṃyuttanikāyo, 1.168, Upacālāsuttaṃ)

　　They keep arising and passing away in the wavelets of these oscillations—uppādavayadhammino.

　　Arising and passing away, this impermanence is their true nature, their dhamma. The mind and mental concomitants also have the same impermanent nature.

　　Within the time that it takes to blink, they arise and pass away many trillions of times. This creates an illusion that they are constant and permanent.

　　Sensations are produced in the body even because of this rapid activity of arising and passing away in the body and mind.

　　Another truth of nature manifests itself—

　　Vedanāsamosaraṇā sabbe dhammā.

　　The mental concomitants (cetasi…

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