Eight Types of Knowledge
by
Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
Translated from the Thai by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma
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Translator”s note: This is one of Ajaan Lee”s few tape recorded talks, dating from October 4, 1960, just six months before he passed away. In the talk, he covers the eight classical forms of knowledge and skill (vijja) that come from the practice of concentration, discussing how they relate to the methods of science and other forms of worldly knowledge. Three of the knowledges toward the end of the list are barely touched on, and the end of the talk is fairly abrupt. This may have been due to the tape”s running out, for he had quite a lot to say on these knowledges in his other talks and writings. Still, the heart of the talk -- the role of thinking and not-thinking in developing concentration and liberating insight -- is discussed in considerable detail, making this an extremely helpful guide to the "how" of concentration and insight practice.
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Vijja-carana-sampanno:
Consummate in knowledge & conduct.
I”m going to talk about knowledge -- the highest level of knowledge, not ordinary knowledge. Ordinary knowledge is adulterated with a lot of defilements and mental fermentations, and so it”s called hethima-vijja, lower knowledge. Lower knowledge is something everyone has, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike: the various branches of worldly knowledge that people study from textbooks so as to run their societies and administer their nations. And then there are the special branches of knowledge, the scientific ways of thinking that people use to invent all sorts of amazing contraptions for the human race -- things like clairvoyance (television), clairaudience (telephones), and powers of levitation (airplanes). They”ve gotten to the point where these contraptions can work in place of people. During the last war, for instance, I heard that they were able to drop bombs on other countries without sending people along with them. With a push of a button they could tell the missile where to go, what to do, and when it had finished the job to their satisfaction, they could have it come back home. This is what”s called progress in worldly knowledge -- or lokiya vijja. This kind of knowledge is common all over the world, and falls into the two sorts that I”ve mentioned: the sort that comes from studying books (sutamaya-panna), and the sort that comes from thinking things through, or cintamaya-panna.
This second kind of knowledge arises within the mind itself. People with a lot of education in the theoretical sciences work with their thinking. They think to the point where an idea appears as a picture in the mind, like an uggaha-nimitta (spontaneous image). When the picture appears in the mind, they may sketch it down on paper, and then experiment with physical objects to see if it works. If it doesn”t work, they make adjustments, creating a new idea from their old idea -- adjusting it a bit here, expanding it a bit there -- keeping at it until they find what works in line with their aims.
If we think about this on a shallow level, it”s really amazing. But if we think a little bit deeper, it”s not so amazing at all. They take their starting point with something really simple: for example, how to make a small person large, or a large person small -- something really, really simple. Then they take a mirror and bend it in, so that a tall person will turn into a small person. They bend it out, so that a small person will become tall. That”s all to begin with. Then they keep thinking along these lines until they can take a faraway ob…
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