For the Cessation of Existence

revised on 2024-07-30

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Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw; 6th August 1961

Whatever merits you are doing, don’t do it for a good existence. This is because you don’t know about the truth. After death, and birth arises, what goodness is there? From dukkha, it connects to dukkha only. I am emphatically urging you to practise for the cessation of existence. Transmigration of existence (existence connects existence) is sassata-diṭṭhi. Taking it as good is not knowing dukkha sacca. Where is the goodness in that? Transmigration in existences is the greatest fault.

[Note: The above paragraph is very good for thorough contemplation. Very few Buddhist monks teach the essence of Buddhism. Ledi Sayadawgyi and Mogok Sayadaw are very good examples. Even though we do not have the chance to know Ledi Sayadaw's Dhamma talks, we still have the chances to read and study his Dhamma Dīpanīs and Dhamma poems. Sayadawgyi was a great Dhamma poet. He wrote some of these in his life, quite well known to Burmese Buddhists. The poems are profound and deep, but no one has translated them yet.]

Only the arahant can abandon sukha saññā and sukha citta (this is related to the 12 inversions). Only a once-returner and a nonreturner can abandon subha saññā. Do you know how broad the inversions are? If you don’t abandon the inversion of view with knowledge (ñāta pariññā), practicing will not help you attain Dhamma. You won’t even get the saccanulomika ñāṇa, and Nibbāna will be far away. The person is only one, but with 12 kinds of craziness, they become unbalanced. He is going into craziness one by one. Patacara was a diṭṭhummattaka – lunatic with view. In saṁsāra, beings are in shame, and disadvantage is created by diṭṭhi. Insight means observing one’s own death. The smell of a flower and the nose coming into contact is phassa; at that moment, one is alive with phassa. Phassa conditions vedanā. With the cessation of phassa, vedanā arises; at that moment, one is alive with vedanā. Does vedanā arise by itself? Phassa gives it the chance to arise. If you discern the vanishing phenomenon, you are free from the sassata-view (permanent). With the discernment of the causes which lead to results, you are free from the uccheda-view.

If you know this and die unexpectedly, you will not fall into apāyas in the next life because you will have become a cūḷa-sotāpanna. People think that because of good kamma they are alive. In reality, they are alive with the arising mind. (It’s more true that the result of kamma is not yet expired; therefore, the mental process is still going on.)

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revised on 2024-07-30

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• Content of Part 16 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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According to the translator— Ven. Uttamo's words, this is strictly for free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma—Dhamma Dāna. You may re-format, reprint, translate, and redistribute this work in any medium.