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Pay homage to the Well-gone,
the Formost teacher, the Sakyan Sage,
The Rightly-Awakened One;
and to the nine transcendent Dhammas¹;
And to the Noble Sangha.

I will now give a brief exposition
of the Dhamma khandhas²,
as far as I understand them.

Once there was a man who loved himself
and feared distress. He wanted happiness
beyond the reach of danger,
so he wandered endlessly.
Wherever people said that happiness was found,
he longed to go,
but wandering took a long, long time.
He was the sort of man who loved himself
and really dreaded death. He truly wanted
release from aging and mortality.
Then one day he came to know the truth,
abandoning the cause of suffering and
compounding things. He found a cave of wonders,
of endless happiness, i.e., the body.

As he gazed throughout the cave of wonders,
his suffering was destroyed, his fears appeased.
He gazed and gazed around the mountainside,
experiencing unbounding peace.

He feared if he were to go and tell his friends,
they’d say he’d gone insane. He’d better stay
alone, engaged in peace, abondoning
his thoughts of contact, than to roam around,
a sycophant, both criticized and flattered,
exasperated and annoyed.

But then there was another man afraid
of death, his heart all withered and discouraged.
He came to me and spoke frankly
in a pitiful way. He said,
“You’ve made an effort at your meditation
for a long time now.
Have you seen it yet,
the true Dhamma of your dreams?”
(Eh! How is it he knows my mind?)
He asked to stay with me, so I agreed.
“I’ll take you to a massive mountain
with a cave of wonders
free from suffering and stress;
mindfulness immersed in the body.
You can view it at your leisure to
cool your heart and end your troubles.
This is the path of the Noble Lineage.
It’s up to you to go or not.
I’m not deceiving you or compelling you,
just telling you the truth for what it is.”
And then I challenged him with riddles.
First:

“What runs?”

“What runs quickly is viññana³,
movements walking in a row,
one after another.
Not doubting that saññas⁴ are right,
the heart gets caught up in the running
back and forth.
Saññas grab hold of things outside
and pull them in to fool the mind,
making it think in confusion and go out
searching, wandering astray.
They fool it with various dhammas,
like a mirage.”

“What gains total release from the five khandhas?”

“The heart, of course, and the heart alone.
It doesn’t grasp or get entangled.
No more poison of possessiveness,
no more delusion,
it stands alone.
No saññas can fool it into following along
behind them.”

“When they say there’s death, what dies?”

“Sankharas die, destroying their effects.”

“What connects mind into the cycle?”

“The tricks of sañña make it spin.
The mind goes wrong because it
trusts its saññas,
attached to its likes,
leaving this plane of being,
going to that, wandering till it’s dizzy,
forgetting itself,
completely obscure to itself.
No matter how hard it tries to
find the Dhamma,
it can’t catch a glimpse.”

“What ferrets out the Dhamma?”

“The heart ferrets it out,
trying to find out how saññas say ‘good’
and grasp a ‘bad’
and force it to fasten on loving and hating.

“To eat once and never look for more?”

“The end of wanting, to look, to know,
to hope for knowing more;
the end of entanglements.
The mind sits on its dais,
discarding its attachments.

“A four sided pool, brimming full?”

“The end of desire, abandoning doubt,
clean, without a mote, and danger free.
Saññas settle out, sankharas do not disturb it.
The heart is thus brimming,
with nothing lacking.

“There is, there isn’t. There isn’t, yet there is?”

“Here I’m totally stymied
and cannot figure it out.
Please explain what it means.”

“There is a birth of various causes and effects,
but they are not beings,
they all pass away.
This is clear,
the meaning of the first point;
There is, there isn’t.
The second point, there isn’t, yet there is:
This refers to the deep Dhamma,
the end of all three levels of existence,
where there are no sankharas,
and yet there is still the stable Dhamma.
This is the Singular Dhamma, truly solitary.
The Dhamma is one and unchanging,
excelling all being, extremely still.
The object of the unmoving heart,
still and at respite, quiet and clear.
No longer intoxicated,
no longer feverish,
its desires all uprooted, its uncertainties shed,
its entanglement with the khandhas
all ended and appeased,
the gears of the three levels of the
cosmos all broken
overweening desire thrown away,
its loves brought to an end,
with no more possessiveness,
as troubles cured
as the heart had aspired.”

“Please explain the mind’s path
in yet another way,
and the cause of suffering in the mind
that obscures the Dhamma.”

“The cause is enormous,
but to put it briefly,
it’s the love
that puts a squeeze on the heart,
making it concerned for the khandhas.
If the Dhamma is with the heart
throughout time,
that’s the end of attachment,
with no more cause for suffering;
Remember this, it’s the path of the mind.

“You won’t have to wonder,
spinning around till you’re dizzy.
The mind, when the Dhamma’s not
always with it, gets attached to its likes,
concerned for the khandhas,
sunk in the cause of suffering.

“So in brief, there’s suffering
and there’s the Dhamma
always with the mind.
Contemplate this until you see the truth,
and the mind will be completely cool.
However great the pleasure or pain,
they’ll cause you no fear.
No longer drunk with the causes of suffering,
the mind’s well gone.
Knowing just this much is enough
to sooth your fevers,
and to rest your search a path to release.
The mind knowing the Dhamma forgets
the mind attached to dust.

The heart knowing the Dhamma of
ultimate ease
sees for sure that the khandhas
are always stressful.
The Dhamma stays as the Dhamma,
the khandhas stay as khandhas, that’s all.

“And as for the phrase,
‘cool, at ease, and freed from fever,’
this refers to the mind that’s rescued itself
from the addictive error
[of correcting other things.]

“The sankhara aggregate offers no pleasure
and truly is painful.
For it has to age, grow ill, and die every day.
When the mind knows the unexcelled Dhamma,
it extracts itself from its defiling error
that aggravated disease.
This error is a fierce fault of the mind.
But when it clearly sees the Dhamma,
it removes its error,
and there’s no more poison in the heart.
When the mind sees the Dhamma,
abundantly good
and released from error,
meeting the Dhamma, it sheds all things
that would make it restless.
It’s mindful, in and of itself,
and unentangled.
Its love for the khandhas comes to an end,
its likes are cured,
its worries cease,
all dust is gone.
Even if the mind thinks in line with its nature,
we don’t try to stop it.
And when we don’t stop it,
It stops running wild.
This frees us from turmoil.

“Know that evil comes from resisting the truth.”

“Evil comes from not knowing.
If we can close the door on stupidity,
there’s ultimate ease.
All evil grows silent, perfectly still.
All the khandhas are suffering,
with no pleasure at all.

“Before I was stupid and in the dark,
as if I were in a cave.
In my desire to see the Dhamma,
I tried to grab hold of the heart to still it.
I grabbed hold of mental labels,
thinking they were the heart,
until it became a habit.
Doing this, i was long enthralled
with watching them.
Wrong mental labels obscured the mind
and I was deluded into playing around
with the khandhas –
Poor me!

“Quiet and still, the mind
has no lamenting thoughts:
something worth admiring day after day.
Even if one were to gain
heavenly treasures by the millions,
they’d be no match for the true knowing
that abandons all sankharas.
The crucial thing; the ending of desire.
Labels stay in their own sphere, and don’t intrude.
The mind, unenthralled with anything,
stops its struggling.
Like taking a mirror to look at your reflection:
Don’t get attached to the saññas,
which are like the image.
Don’t get intoxicated with the issues
of sankharas.”

“When the heart moves, you can catch sight
of the unadulterated heart.
You know for sure that the movement
is in yourself
because it changes.
Inconstancy is a feature of the heart itself,
no need to criticize anyone else.
You know the different sorts of khandhas
in the moving of the mind.”

“Before, I used to think that the saññas were
the heart,
labeling ‘outer’, and ‘inner’
which was why I was fooled.
Now the heart’s in charge, with no concerns,
no hopes of relying on any one sañña at all.
Whatever arises or passes away
there’s no need to be possessive of the saññas
or to try to prevent them.”

“Like climbing to the top of a truly tall
mountain and looking at the lowlands below,
seeing every living being.”

“Way up high, looking back
you see all your affairs
from the very beginning,
forming a path, like stairs.“

“Does the rise and fall of the river
accord with the truth?”

“You can’t remedy the changing of sankharas.
Fashioned by kamma⁵,
they’re out to spite no one.
If you grasp hold of them
to push them this way and that,
the mind has to become defiled and wrong.
Don’t think of resisting the natural way of all things.
Let good and evil follow their own affairs.
We simply free ourselves.
Unentangled in sankharas:
That’s what’s peaceful and cool.
When you know the truth,
you have to let go of sankharas
as soon as you see their changing.
When you wary of them,
you let them go easily,
with no need to be forced.
The Dhamma is cooling.
The mind will stop
being subjected to things.”

“The five duties complete?”

“khandhas divide the issues of fashioning
into five realms,
each filled with duties and affairs,
with no room for any other,
because their hands are full –
no room even for fortune, status,
praise, pleasure,
loss of fortune, loss of status, criticism, pain.
They let each of these follow its own nature,
in line with its truth.
The mind’s not entangled
with any of these eight,
because physical khandhas keep creating
aging and illness without pause.
The mental khandhas never rest.
They work like motors
because they must take on the kamma
of what they have done:
Good things make them enthralled and happy,
bad things agitate and darken the heart,
making it think without stop,
as if it were aflame.
The mind is defiled and dull.
Its loves and hates
are things it has thought up on its own,
so who else can it blame?

“Do you want to escape aging and death?
It’s beyond the range of possibility,
as when we want the mind to stop
wandering around and thinking,
when we want it to stay at one
and hope to depend on its stillness.
The mind is something that changes,
totally uncertain.
Saññas stay in place only from time to time.
Once we grow wise to the nature
of all five khandhas,
the mind will be clear and clean,
free from stain, with no more issues.
If you can know in this way,
it’s superlative,
because you see the truth,
withdraw, and gain release.
That’s the end of the path.
You don’t resist the natural way
of the truth of things.
Poverty and wealth, good and bad,
in line with events both within and without,
all have to pass and vanish.
You can’t grasp hold of anything
at which the mind takes aim.”

“Now when the mind’s inconstant on its own
–aquiver, quick – and you catch sight of it,
that’s when you find the ultimate in ease.
Small things obscure our knowledge of the large.
The khandhas totally obscure the Dhamma,
and that’s where we go wrong.
We waste our time,
in watching khandhas,
so that we don’t see
the Dhamma that,
though greeter than the khandhas,
seems like dust.

“Exalting myself endlessly...
I went around passing judgement on others
but accomplishing nothing.
Looking at the faults of others,
embitters the heart,
as if we were to set ourselves on fire,
becoming sooty & burned.
Whoever’s right or wrong, good or bad,
that’s their business.
Ours is to make sure
the heart looks after itself.
Don’t let unskillful attitudes
buzz around it & land.
Make it consummate
in merit & skill ---
the result will be peace.

Seeing others as bad and oneself as good
is a stain of the heart,
for one latches onto the khandha
that holds to that judgement.
If you latch onto the khandhas
theyll burn you for sure,
for aging, defilement, & death will joint in the fray:
full of anger & love, Obvious faults,
worries, sorrows & fears,
while the five forms of sensuality
bring in their multifarious troops.
We gain no release from suffering & danger
because we hold to the five khandhas as ours.
Once you see your error, don’t delay.
Keep constant watch on the inconstancy of sankharas.
When the mind gets used to this,
you’re sure to see the Singular Dhamma,
solitary in the mind.
Inconstancy‚ refers to the heart
as it moves from its labels.
When you see this, watch it
again & again,
right at the moving.
When all external objects have faded away,
the Dhamma will appear.

" When you see that Dhamma, you recover
from mental unrest.
The mind then won’t be attached to dualities.
Just this much truth can end the game.
Knowing not-knowing:
That’s the method for the heart.

Once we see through inconstancy,
the mind source stops creating issues.
All that remains is the primal mind,
rue and unchanging.
Knowing the mind source
brings release from all worry and error.
If you go out to the mind-ends,
you’re immediately wrong.

Darkness comes from the mind
possessive of what’s good.
This possessiveness is thought up
by the mind-ends.
The in-source is already good
when the Dhamma appears, erasing doubt.
When you see the superlative Dhamma,
surpassing the world,
all your old confused searchings
are uprooted and let go.
The only suffering left is the need to eat and sleep
in line with events.
The heart stays, tamed,
near the mind-source;
thinking, yet not dwelling on its thoughts.

The nature of the mind is that it has to think,
but when it senses the mind-source
it’s released from its sorrows,
secluded from disturbances, and still.
The nature of sankharas
when they appear
is to vanish.
They all decay; none remain.

" Beware of the mind
when you focus on making it refined,
for you’ll tend to force it
to get stuck on the stillness.
Get the heart to look again & again
at its inconstancy, until it’s a habit.
When you reach Oh!‚
it will come on its own:
awareness of the heart’s song,
like a mirage.
The Buddha says the corruptions of insight
disguise themselves as true
when actually they’re not.
The awareness of mental phenomena
that comes on its own,
is direct vision,
not like hearing & understanding
on the level of questioning.
The analysis of phenomena,
mental & physical,
is also not vision that comes on its own:
so look.

" The awareness that comes on its own
is not the thought-song.
Knowing the mind-source
& mind-moments,
the source-mind is released from sorrow.
The mind -source’s certain
automatic knowledge of sankharas
--- the affairs of change ---
is not a matter of parading out
to see or know a thing.
It’s also not a knowledge based
on labeling in pairs.
The mind knows itself
from the motion of the song.
The mind’s knowledge of the motion
is simply adjacent mind-moments.
In fact, they can’t be divided :
They’re all one & the same.
When the mind is two, that’s called
sañña entangling things.
Inconstancy is itself,
so why focus on anyone else?

"When the heart sees its own decayings,
it’s released from darkness.
It loses its taste for them
and abandons its doubts.
It stops searching for thing within & without.
Its attachments all fall away.
It leaves its loves & hates,
whatever weights it down.
It can end its desires,
its sorrows all vanish ---
together with the weighty cares
that made it moan ---
as if a shower of rain were to refresh the heart.
The cool heart is realized by the heart itself.
The heart is cool for it has no need
to wander around, looking at people.
Knowing the mind-source in the present,
It’s unshakable & unconcerned
with any good & evils,
for they must pass away,
with all other impediments.

Perfectly still, the mind-source
neither thinks nor interprets.
It says only with its own affairs:
no expectations,
no need to be entangled or troubled,
no need to keep up its guard.
Sitting or lying down, one thinks
at the sour-mind : Released‚"

" Your explanation of the path
is penetrating,
so encompassing & clear.
Just one more thing:
Please explain in detail the mind
unreleased from the cause of suffering."

" The cause of suffering is attachment & love,
extremely enthralled,
creating new states of being
without wearying.
On the lower level, the stains
are the five strands of sensuality;
on the higher level,
attachment to jhana⁶.
In terms of how these things
act in the mind:
It’s all an affair of being enthralled with
sankharas,
enthralled with all that has happened
for a long, long time-
seeing them as good,
nourishing the heart on error,
making it branch out
in restlessness, distraction.
Smitten by error , with no sense of shame,
enthralled with admiring
Whatever it fancies ---
enthralled with admiring
whatever it fancies ---
enthralled to the point where it forgets itself
and loses its sense of danger;
enthralled with viewing the faults of others,
upset by their evil,
not seeing its own faults as anything at all.
No matter how great the faults of others,
they can’t make us fall into hell.
While our own faults can take us
to the severest hell straightaway,
even if they aren’t very defiling at all
So keep watch on your faults
until it comes naturally.
Avoid those faults
and you’re sure to see
happiness free
from danger & fear.
When you see your faults clearly
cut them right away.
Don’t dawdle or delay
or you’ll never be rid of them.

“Wanting what’s good, without stop;
that’s the cause of suffering.
It’s a great fault: the strong fear of bad.
‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are poisons to the mind,
like foods that enflame a high fever.
The Dhamma isn’t clear
because of our basic desire for good.
Desire for good, when its great,
drags the mind into turbulent thought
until the mind gets inflated with evil,
and all its defilements proliferate.
The greater the error, the more they flourish,
taking one further and further away
from the genuine Dhamma.”

"This way of explaining
the cause of suffering
chastens my heart.
[At first] the meaning
was tattered & tangled,
but when you explained the path
my heart didn’t move:
at respite, still, & at peace,
reaching an end at last."
"This is called the attainment
of liberation from the khandhas,
a Dhamma that remains in place,
with no coming or going,
a genuine nature --- the only one ---
with nothing to make it stray or spin."

With that, the tale is ended. Right or wrong,
please ponder with discernment till you know.

Composed by Phra Bhridatta (Mun),
Wat Srapathum, Bangkok.

Glossary

Dhamma: In general, this word has several levels of meaning: the way things are in and of themselves, the Buddha’s teachings about the way things are , the practice of those teachings in training the mind, and the attainment of Deathlessness as the goal of the practice. In the ballad, Dhamma‚ usually has the final meaning. The nine transcendent Dhammas are the paths and fruitions of each of the four stages of Awakening --- stream entry, once-returning, non-returning, and arantship --- plus nibbana (nirvana). [Gop Back]

Jhana: Concentration; meditative absorption in a physical or a mental notion.  [Go Back]

Kamma: Intentional acts that lead to renewed states of becoming and birth.  [Go Back]

Khandha: Mental formations‚ i.e. emotions, thoughts, mental impulses, the act of volition. Also it can refer to all conditioned, compounded phenomena.  [Go Back]

Sañña: Perceptions‚ the awareness of an object‚ distinctive marks; also may refer to idea‚ or to wrong notion. Occasionally the word refers to consciousness in its entirety.  [Go Back]

Viññana: Consciousness‚ the bare cognition and discrimination of an object. It is generally linked to feeling, perceptions and mental formations, these three, however, perform more specific functions. In profound states of concentration viññana can operate independently of any the other perceptual and cognitive functions. [Go Back]