When we say we're listening to, practicing, and studying Dhamma, we need to align our understanding with the Dhamma present in our own aggregates. The "existing Dhamma" refers to the Five Aggregates that arise when sense objects meet sense doors.
Speaking technically about sense objects and doors - in common terms, when there's eye-sensitivity and visible objects, doesn't visual consciousness arise? Can it arise if there's no eye-sensitivity? Even if there's a visible object but no sensitivity, it won't work.
Visual consciousness arises only when four factors are present:
- Eye-sensitivity
- Visible object
- Light
- Attention
Isn't this worth examining?
Before these two physical elements (eye and form) meet, can you point to where that visual consciousness exists? When the two physical elements meet, doesn't it suddenly appear?
Does this arising visual consciousness have limbs or body parts? If it has no physical form, can it be a person or being? Isn't it taught as just visual consciousness (cakkhuviññāṇa in Pali)?
Can seeing occur with consciousness alone? Doesn't it include associated feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), and volition (cetanā)? Is it a person or deity that experiences the sight, or is it feeling? Is it a self that perceives, or is it perception? Is it a being that motivates the experiencing and perceiving, or is it volition?
When feeling, perception, and volition combine, we have the four mental aggregates. Only when these four are complete does seeing consciousness occur. Are these four mental aggregates a person, deity, or brahma?
Is the eye-sensitivity a person, deity, or brahma? Is the visible object a person, deity, or brahma? When we analyze the aggregates, don't we find material form (rūpakkhandha)? Combined with the four mental aggregates, don't we have the Five Aggregates?
Are they people, or Five Aggregates? Deities, or Five Aggregates? Brahmas, or Five Aggregates? We need to understand them correctly as Five Aggregates. We used to think of them as beings, but now we see them as just Five Aggregates. Isn't this worth examining?
When this is truly understood, doesn't identity-view (sakkāya-diṭṭhi) fall away? When identity-view falls away, isn't one a Stream-enterer (sotāpanna)? How profound is this happiness! True happiness comes only with Stream-entry.
Isn't it worth examining how profound this happiness is? Could all the gold, silver, gems, rice, and wealth in all of Burma be exchanged for the wisdom of one path and fruition moment?
Can all the wealth in the country prevent aging? Prevent sickness? Prevent death? There's no escape from aging, sickness, and death, is there? Can one be certain of avoiding lower realms? No, one cannot be certain.
But doesn't the wisdom of path and fruition completely free one from lower realms? If one continues practicing, doesn't a Stream-enterer become a Once-returner (sakadāgāmī), a Once-returner become a Non-returner (anāgāmī), and a Non-returner complete the task of arahantship? We must strive to reach this stage. These are the essential points. Isn't this worth examining?