Question:  What should one do in order to live according to the Buddhist teachings?

  Answer:  One should develop right understanding of teachings by reading, considering and discussion.  One should apply the teachings in one's life as best as one can.

  Q.:  When one develops understandings is one not preoccupied only with one's own mental progress and is this not a selfish attitude?

  A.:  No, one develops more understanding of the world in and around oneself.  the self is not a reality.  As understanding develops there will be less concern about he self.  We have accumulated such an amount of ignorance and this conditions many kinds of defilements.  When ignorance is eliminated there will be less unwholesomeness and this is beneficial for oneself and for the people around oneself.

  Q.:  I do not feel that I have a great deal of ignorance.  I know how to do my work, how to drive a car or how to cook.

  A.:  We have ignorance of realities such as seeing, visible object, hearing, sound, all the realities which can be experienced through five senses and through the mind-door. They appear only one at a time through one of the six doorways, they appear only for one moment and then they disappear.  We are deluded about these fleeting realities and we take them for the world or the self.  We mix up all the six doorways and we join the different realities together instead of realizing realities as they are, as only fleeting elements which appear one at at time.  We think that realities can stay on.  We have ignorance and wrong view.  Would you like to understand that there is no self?  Nothing belongs to you in reality.

  Q.:  Is it not the self which performs deeds, which decides to do this or that?  Is it not the self which makes the effort the achieve the goal?

  A.:  Intention is mental reality, it arises when there are the appropriate conditions.  However, there is nobody who possesses intention.  It is the same with effort, it is a mental reality which arises because of conditions.  There is nobody who can make an effort, who possesses effort.  When one develops the eightfold Path there is right effort, this is a fact of the eightfold Path.  The right understanding of the Path conditions the arising of right effort, there is nobody who can make it arise.

  Q.:  Do you apply yourself to meditation?

  A.:  We have to be very careful about what we mean by meditation.  I avoid using the word meditation because different people have different ideas about it.  Our goal should be the development of right understanding of realities which appear now.  We can begin to notice and consider one reality at a time and then there is no need to name it or to think about it.  Understanding can be developed in any situation, one does not have to change one's life or do anything special.  Right understanding can develop naturally, at this very moment, one does not have to sit in a quiet place.  Thus, this is different from what people generally mean by meditation.  The development of right understanding or insight, vipassana, is a kind of mental development which can be done no matter where you are.

  Q.:  Don't you need a quiet place in order to concentrate?

  A.:  Not at all, because the purpose of the Buddha's teaching is to understand the realities which arise naturally, in daily life.  We have to develop understanding of realities such as seeing, visible object, hearing or sound.  Sound is a reality, no matter where you are, no matter it is quiet or there is a lot of noise.  If we are in a noisy place and we have aversion towards that noise, aversion can be realized as just a conditioned reality, not "my aversion."  If we know that understanding can be develop in whatever situation we are there are conditions for its development.

  Q.:  You are talking about sound.  It is so unusual to have sound as meditation subject.  How can you develop understanding of it without retiring to a quiet place and considering it?  How do you begin?

  A.:  Do you have to try now in order to see, to hear or to touch?  These are realities which naturally arise in you life, when there are conditions for their arising you cannot help seeing, hearing or touching.  When there is intellectual understanding of realities there are conditions for direct awareness and direct understanding of them as they appear one at a time.  However, we cannot fix the time for their arising, it may be now or later on.  There is nobody who can force the arising of right understanding, it is conditioned by many factors.

  Q.:  It is difficult to have right understanding of realities when one is a beginner.

  A.:  There must be the intellectual understanding of the mental phenomena and physical phenomena which are the object of understanding and one should know how to develop understanding.  One has to know that it should be developed naturally in one's daily life.  Many people just want to sit and concentrate on breathing, but they have to consider themselves whether this is the way to know the realities of one's daily life.  Is this the way to know seeing, hearing and all the other realities, and to know the clinging which arises on account of the experience of the sense objects?  Defilements cannot be eradicated if one does not realize them as they arise in one's daily life.  Right understanding of realities can be accumulated little by little if one develops it naturally, without trying to make particular realities arise, without trying to control realities.   They arise already because of their own conditions.  Also understanding can only arise when there are the right conditions, one cannot control it.

  Q.:  Understanding is accumulated very gradually but is there not some result in the beginning, so that one is encouraged to continue to develop understanding?  When one is a beginner one wants to see at least some result of one's practice.

  A.:  The result cannot be noticed immediately, it cannot be measured, but as understanding develops there will be more confidence.  There will be more understanding of why you feel bad or why you feel happy.  You will face unpleasant situations with more understanding and you will be more tolerant towards other people, you will have more understanding about their way of behaviour.  You will come to appreciate more and more the value of right understanding.

  Q.:  You spoke about seeing and hearing.  It seems rather dull to have more understanding about them.

  A.:  If you just read about different realities it seems dull, but you should remember that they are phenomena of your daily life.  When you realize when they appear and develop understanding of them it is not boring bu interesting.

  Q.:  I think that it is more interesting and beneficial to know about one's attachment, aversion and pleasant and unpleasant experiences in life.  We should come to know our defilements, but why should we know seeing, hearing, hardness or softness?  Is that really necessary?

  A.:  It is only by understanding all these different realities that there can be detachment from the idea of self which conditions may defilements.  We should come to understand that there is nobody who sees, nobody who hears, that there are only different conditioned realities.  Thus there will be the elimination of the idea of self.

  Q.:  When I am seeing I am absorbed in what I see, but I don't think of a self which sees.  When I am hearing I am absorbed in what I hear, in words which are spoken, but I do not have an idea that a self is hearing.  I don't understand why and idea of self must be eradicated while one is seeing or hearing.

  A.:  We cannot say that there is an idea of self every time there is seeing or hearing.  However, the idea of self is deeply accumulated.  When it does not appear there is still the latent tendency of wrong view.  This is like a virus which is latent in the body but which can become active at any time.  Wrong view can condition many other defilements.  It can only be eradicated when enlightenment has been attained. Wrong view must be eradicated first before attachment to sense objects can be eradicated.  It is important to develop understanding of realities such as seeing or hearing, because all realities of our daily life should be know as impermanent and not self.  We will learn that what we take for my mind are only different moments of consciousness and mental factors, mental realities, and wheat we take for my body are only physical realities.  As understanding develops we will leant that after seeing or hearing here are most the time defilements arising.  We like to see and we like visible object, we like to hear and we like sound, we are attached to all sense objects.  Such moments often pass unnoticed, but through the development of right understanding we acquire a more refined knowledge of our different moments of consciousness.

  Q.:  I find it difficult to separate seeing from thinking about what we see.  Seeing and thinking of people and things seem to occur together and thus it seems that we see people and things like a car or house.

  A.:  It is important to have right understanding about seeing: it sees only what appears through the eyes, nothing else.  When you pay attention to shape and form and you perceive people and things there is remembrance of concepts, there is thinking, not seeing.  But seeing conditions thinking of concepts, if there were no seeing there could not be thinking of them.  We should realize when we are living in the world of concepts and when in the world of realities.  There will be less delusion if we learn to distinguish seeing from thinking.

  Q.:  Would it not be better not to think, in order to know realities?

  A.:  No.  We should understand thinking as thinking, seeing as seeing, feeling as feeling, they are different realities.  The experience of heat is different from knowing where the heat appears.

  Q.:  Do you believe that you will be a better person when you understand all these things?

  A.:  If there is more direct understanding of realities there will be less clinging to the idea of self.  We will think less of ourselves as a good person or a bad person.  There are wholesome realities and unwholesome realities which arise because of conditions.  It is beneficial when there is less attachment to the idea of self who sees, who hears, who is good or bad.

  Q.:  When you believe that there is no self who can do anything does this not lead to fatalism?

  A.:  When understanding develops you see more and more the value of knowing things as they are.  You gain more confidence in the teachings and this conditions a sense of urgency to continue to develop understanding of all realities.  There will be less inclination to laziness or to fatalism.

  Q.:  Realities may not appear as they are in this life.  Thus one's confidence must be quite strong in order to continue to develop understanding.  One must be convinced that one is no the right Path.

  A.:  We don't have to wait for realities to appear as they are, there can still be confidence.  There is confidence with each wholesome moment of consciousness, for example when we help someone else or when we study their teachings and consider them.  We can verify that confidence is a wholesome reality.  We should not expect to know realities as they are immediately, but we can have confidence while we develop different kinds of wholesomeness together with right understanding.  We can verify that absolute realities are not concepts.

        Realities such as seeing, feeling or attachment each have their own characteristic and their own function.  Their characteristics cannot be changed, they are true for everybody.  Seeing is always seeing for everyone, we do not have to name it or label it in order to experience it.  hen we have more understanding of what realities are we will be less deluded by concepts of people or self.  We still cling to realities and concepts, but we know that right understanding will lead to a lessening of clinging.

  Q.:  Even when one knows that realities do not last, that they arise and then fall away, one will still cling.  One will be waiting for the next reality to appear, it is still nice to have it.

  A.:  Through awareness and right understanding you can see the value of being free from enslavement to objects appearing through the six doorways, even if it is only freedom for a moment.

  Q.:  In the Suttas we read about monks who were falling away form the teachings, who were backsliding.  When is one backsliding?

  A.:  When one is not interested anymore in developing understanding.

  Q.:  I think that this happens when people become discouraged, when they think that the development of right understanding is too difficult and when they do not see any results.  Is that not so?

  A.:  Even if it is difficult to develop understanding there are so many moments that you can start again.  You can start again at every moment, no matter whether you work or you don't work, no matter whether you are in a hurry or a leisure, it is the same.  You always have an opportunity to start again.  You may regret your lack of understanding, your forgetfulness, but what about this moment now?

  Q.:  When you work you have no more problems and then you are distracted, is that not so?

  A.:  There is no difference between your working situation and your free time.  We have problems when we work and when we don't work, we still have to make decisions.  Our problems are caused by attachment, aversion and ignorance and these arise no matter where we are.  Only when we develop right understanding of this moment, no matter in which situation we are, there will be less defilements and thus less problems.

  Q.:  I cannot help regretting the lack of awareness.  I have desire for the arising of awareness.  Can I tell myself not to have desire?

  A.:  When you understand that desire counteracts progress there will be conditions to stop wishing for results.  Only intellectual understanding of the teachings, acquired by reading, considering and discussing can condition the arising of direct understanding, now or later on.  There will be more patience when we remember that awareness and understanding do not belong to a self which could make them arise.  Then we can have courage to begin again and again to find out more about the reality appearing at this moment.