Body Moving Towards Death

revised on 2019-06-14

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Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw; 4th March 1960

Don't mess up "the I" and "me" with the feeling. Vedanā is feeling. I and me is wrong view. They are different. Feeling is arising here and passing away also here. It's arising there and passing away there. The patient has to follow in this way. Contemplate the impermanence of the feeling arising. Even the whole body is in pain, contemplate impermanence, where it has the most severe pain. Feeling is a mental state of feeling. Wrong view is also a mental state (i.e., a saṅkhāra khandha). They can't mix together. Example, feeling appears in the body. I and me appear in the heart. They are different. Feeling is impermanent. Knowing that it is not I and me is insight knowledge. In this way you have to contemplate until all the feelings cease. Then all feelings end, so the whole khandhas disappear. At this place the ending of khandhas appears (i.e., Nibbāna). Every feeling arises can be followed by contemplation of impermanence and taints (āsavas) diminish.

Ven. Phagguna died after became an anāgāmin (non-returner). After he passed away, Ānanda found out that his whole body was no defect and looked like as normal. So he informed the Buddha about it. Before he was practicing and tortured by the sickness because seeing the body as a composite thing. He was messed up the feeling with I and me. The Buddha taught the monks 6-ways of dying, three for ordinary people and three for trainees (sekha). (1) By listening to the Buddha's instruction on feeling separated from the sense of "I" could realize the fruit of sotāpanna to anāgāmin (as above to Phagguna). (2) By listening to the instruction of a Buddhist monk. (3) Without the Buddha and any monk at the time of near death should contemplate one's own dhamma and die with the knowledge of insight. The Buddha did not exist anymore. Also not easy to get a monk near death and don't know the time of death. People can die anytime. The best way is contemplation of one's own dhamma.

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revised on 2019-06-14; cited from https://oba.org.tw/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4031&p=35600#p35600 (posted on 2018-12-15)

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• Content of Part 3 on "Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw"

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• Content of "Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw"

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• Content of Publications of Ven. Uttamo

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