From:  "A T" <axtran@h...>
              Date:  Mon Nov 6, 2000 7:55pm

(…)  I understand that this is the way we explain the world according to nama and rupa.  (…)  However, it's still difficult for me to see that the tree in front of my house does not exist.

The tree has its own life.  It was a seed when I planted a few years ago.  Afterwards, I could see that it gradually grows into a big tree.  And it is a big tree right there, right now.
 

We are born with the six senses, and no matter what we experience, think about, learn and remember come from these and no other ways at all.  Can you think of any other way we can learn or experience from the most obvious objects to the most metaphysical of theories?  Even your tree, Alex, how do you experience it?  Through the eyes when you look at it or when your eyes are open and 'it' comes into contact with the eye sense, etc.  Through the ears when you hear related sounds such as the leaves dancing or the branches swaying, through the other senses respectively, and most importantly through the mind door with all of the memories through all the senses combined: you touched its seed and planted it and saw it grow, it is your tree, related to your possessions, to your 'self'.  In that sense it is as illusory as thinking anything really belongs to you, they only belong to you when you think about it, when they appear to you for that fleeting instant through any of the senses.  And in that sense it belongs to all who experience it in any way.  So in fact for the shortest time that it is the aramana, of any senses including and especially the mind, it belongs to that citta.  And there are always new citta arising, not always with the tree as aramana, in fact all the bhavanga citta still has some object from our past life as aramana, it just never appears to any of our six senses now.

Have you ever cried or laughed or felt angry in empathy with characters in a movie or on TV?  Didn't they feel like 'real' people to you then though?  In an extreme case, my mother, who is an avid TV watcher these days, told me that one of the better character actresses in a 'soap' recounted that she had gone shopping and one of the stall keepers refused to sell her things because they can't disassociate her with the very bad girl she played on screen!  These extreme cases aside, there is not much difference in the sight we see on screen and the sight we see in other daily life experiences: we associate and connote so much with what is merely visible objects, sounds, smells, taste, touch and thoughts and memories!  They are always changing, and we are always being anywhere from elated to deflated by them at all times, instead of learning from them: they are different realities, sight and color, light, shapes, whatever, and sounds, hardness/softness, or tension or motion as you type or move the mouse, and myriad other experiences appearing to be studied at all times.

While sight is appearing, or sound, or whatever reality, where is the tree then?  or the self?  When does the self appear if you do not think about it?  All that you know or learn about can only appear through the six dvara, but with right understanding one would begin to know them as such: paramatthadhamma that could be experienced through the respective dvara and the all knowing mano-dvara.  This knowledge, as it grows more habitual and constant, accumulate the understanding of higher levels until finally the knowledge of selflessness is so great that it becomes strong enough to eliminate uncertainty, and progress to eliminate akusala level by level until in the end there is no more self or any kind of impurity regarding the self, and the knowledge of anatta is perfect and complete.