The Simile of the Wax Figure and understanding ultimate reality prevents unwholesome mental states.

 "The Simile of the Wax Figure

Take a pure white block of wax, about one viss (1.6 kg).
Place it on the table.
What do people see?
#They_see_a_wax_block

Then let it soften in the sun.
Shape it into an elephant
With beautiful tusks, a royal white elephant.
Now what do people see?
They see an elephant.

If you squeeze and knead it,
#Do_you_find_elephant_or_wax?
You find wax.
Are people seeing wax or elephant?
#They_see_wax_as_elephant
#It's_just_a_shaped_form

What truly exists - elephant or wax?
#Seeing_the_non-existent_as_existent

Then reshape it into a horse.
Knead it again -
#What_truly_exists_horse_or_wax?
People see the horse,
But nobody sees the existing wax.

#This_is_how_consciousness_sees

In truth, is it wax or just visible form (rūpa)?
#Looking_however_you_want_there's_only_visible_form

Don't we wrongly perceive it as:
- Male/female
- Devas/brahmas
- Sons/daughters?
#This_is_wrong_perception

Consider this carefully..."

This simile illustrates how we misconceive reality through wrong perception and conceptualization.

"🌺The Simile of Son/Daughter🌺

When holding what you think is your daughter
And kissing her - do you find a daughter or just a smell?
When holding what you think is your son
And kissing him - do you find a son or just a smell?

#Through_conceptual_thinking:
'My daughter was born!'
'My son was born!'
#This_is_mind-consciousness
#Just_thinking_and_imagining

But when nose contacts:
Daughter or smell?
Son or smell?
Only smell is found - this is nose-consciousness
Isn't there nāma (consciousness)?
Isn't there rūpa (smell)?
#These_are_the_two_realities

Searching for son or daughter:
Can you find them?
#If_not_found_do_they_exist?
What's actually found - son/daughter or nāma-rūpa?
#When_truth_is_known_delusion_disappears

#Looking_with_parent's_eyes_sees_sons_and_daughters
#This_is_conceptual_mind-consciousness

Consider this carefully..."

This simile illustrates how we superimpose concepts of "son" and "daughter" over the ultimate reality of just nāma-rūpa (mind-matter).

🌺The Ear-Door🌺

Who knows nāma-rūpa? Not a person, but magga-sacca.
Which path? (Samādhi path, Venerable Sir)
#One_who_has_samādhi

When someone speaks harshly, insultingly:
#Mindfulness_when_hearing is taught
With mindfulness, what's found?
Just nāma-rūpa:
- Hearing consciousness (nāma)
- Sound (rūpa)
#Only_these_two_are_found

Without learning (sutavā):
When called "thief!" - anger arises
Is anger wholesome or unwholesome?
Does it bring happiness or suffering?
#The_Buddha_taught_not_to_accept_suffering

#Due_to_lack_of_learning_anger_arises
Where does it arise?
#It_arises_taking_things_personally

When investigating:
#Is_there_a_thief_or_just_sound?
When hearing "sound" - does anger arise?
When hearing "thief" - anger arises

Need to distinguish conventional/ultimate truth:
- Hearing consciousness (nāma)
- Sound (rūpa)
#Two_realities

As Mogok Sayadaw taught:
"Ear hears Dhamma, wisdom turns to khandhas"

#When_turned_to_khandhas:
- No "thief" found
- No "dog" found
#This_is_ñāta_pariññā

#To_prevent_rāga_dosa_moha
We must analyze khandhas

What appears: beings
What's found: five aggregates

When this is clearly known,
āsavas of wrong view and ignorance cease.
When suffering truth is known,
āsavas of sensuality and becoming cease..."

"Path Truth is Known by Mind

Is it a self or Path Truth that knows nāma-rūpa?

#Path_Truth_is_known_by_mind

Which path? (Samādhi path)

#It's_just_mind - consider this

Two types of mental knowing:

1. Conceptual thinking of beings (led by wrong view)

2. Mindful knowing (led by sati)

Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration

All come down to "Sati"

See how:

- Form changes and breaks up

- Mind knows and ceases

Do we see nāma-rūpa or impermanence?

Is impermanence happiness or suffering?

Is suffering controllable? Following beings' wishes?

This is #anatta

When seeing:

- Impermanence - no more nāma-rūpa

- Suffering - no more nāma-rūpa

- Non-self - no more nāma-rūpa

This is #Investigation_Knowledge

When seeing nāma-rūpa:

- No devas or brahmas

- No Venerable Ānanda

- No 31 planes

#This_is_voidness_of_nāma-rūpa

In samādhi:

#No_more_concepts_and_signs

Only characteristics appear clearly

With strong concentration:

Seeing three characteristics

Leading to #Knowledge_of_Things_as_They_Really_Are

Then #Knowledge_of_Disenchantment arises

Behavior changes, becoming more refined"

"Third stage:
Still seeing arising-passing (dukkha sacca)
Search the entire body
Not even a needle-point of happiness found
#When_vipassana_matures_path_knowledge_arises

Perfect sīla test:
When deeply insulted:
- No thought of revenge
- No mental kamma
- No verbal kamma
- No physical kamma
#This_is_complete_sīla

With all 8 path factors:
- No more aggregates seen
- No more arising-passing
#This_is_lokuttara
#Direct_realization_of_nibbana

Stream-entry eliminates:
- Wrong view (diṭṭhi)
- Doubt (vicikicchā)
But not yet:
- Sensual desire (kāmarāga)
- Ill-will (byāpāda)
#The_root_is_caught

Three full understandings:
1. Of the known (ñāta pariññā)
2. By investigation (tīraṇa pariññā)
3. By abandoning (pahāna pariññā)

All past unwholesome kamma
Becomes ineffective (ahosi-kamma)

In daily life:
#Must_perfect_sīla_factors
Look with #Two_eyes:
- Conventional truth
- Ultimate truth"

The Discourse on the Characteristic of Non-Self (Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta)

The Blessed One said to the group of five monks: “Monks, form (rūpa) is not self (anattā). If form were self, then it would not lead to affliction, and one could say of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus.’ But because form is not self, it leads to affliction, and one cannot command: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus.’ Similarly, monks, feeling (vedanā) is not self. If feeling were self, it would not lead to affliction, and one could say: ‘Let my feeling be thus; let my feeling not be thus.’ But because feeling is not self, it leads to affliction, and one cannot command it. Perception (saññā) too is not self. If perception were self, it would not lead to affliction, and one could say: ‘Let my perception be thus; let my perception not be thus.’ But because perception is not self, it leads to affliction, and one cannot command it. Mental formations (saṅkhārā) are not self. If they were self, they would not lead to affliction, and one could say: ‘Let my mental formations be thus; let them not be thus.’ But because they are not self, they lead to affliction, and one cannot command them. Consciousness (viññāṇa) is not self. If consciousness were self, it would not lead to affliction, and one could say: ‘Let my consciousness be thus; let it not be thus.’ But because consciousness is not self, it leads to affliction, and one cannot command it.” Then the Blessed One asked: “What do you think, monks? Is form permanent or impermanent?” “It is impermanent, Lord,” they replied. “Is what is impermanent, suffering or happiness?” “It is suffering, Lord.” “Is it fitting to regard that which is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change as: ‘This is mine; this I am; this is my self’?” “No, Lord.” “Is feeling permanent or impermanent?” “Impermanent, Lord.” “Is what is impermanent, suffering or happiness?” “Suffering, Lord.” “Is it fitting to regard that which is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change as: ‘This is mine; this I am; this is my self’?” “No, Lord.” “And the same applies to perception, mental formations, and consciousness—is each of these permanent or impermanent?” “Impermanent, Lord.” “Is what is impermanent, suffering or happiness?” “Suffering, Lord.” “Is it fitting to regard what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change as: ‘This is mine; this I am; this is my self’?” “No, Lord.” “Therefore, monks, all material form—past, future, or present; internal or external; gross or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near—should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine; this I am not; this is not my self.’ All feeling, all perception, all mental formations, and all consciousness—past, future, or present; internal or external; gross or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near—should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine; this I am not; this is not my self.’ When one sees thus, monks, the noble disciple becomes disenchanted with form, with feeling, with perception, with mental formations, and with consciousness. Being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, his mind is liberated. When it is liberated, there comes the knowledge: ‘It is liberated.’ He understands: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming back to any state of being.’” The Blessed One spoke this discourse. The group of five monks was glad, and they rejoiced in the Blessed One’s words. While this discourse was being given, the minds of the five monks were freed from the taints through non-clinging. Thus there were six arahants in the world. The sermon to the group of five monks was complete.

Is there any description in the scriptures about the physical appearance of the relics of arahants?

🙏 Venerable Sir ❗ Is there any description in the scriptures about the physical appearance of the relics of arahants? ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ The scriptures only describe the size and color of the Buddha’s relics. There is no mention of the relics of arahants in those texts. However, there is a statement made by the respected Mahasi Sayadaw regarding the relics of arahants. To support better understanding, here is a clear explanation: “What we call arahant relics are actually just bones. In Myanmar, many people commonly assume that relics—like those of the Buddha—are always small round bead-like objects. But in reality, that is not the case. The Buddha’s relics became bead-like due to his spiritual power (adhiṭṭhāna). In contrast, the relics of arahants are in their natural form—as ordinary bones. How do we know this? Because monks traveled specifically by plane to Kālakaṭṭhā (Kalakatta) in India, to receive and carry the relics of Venerable Sāriputta and Venerable Mahā Moggallāna. During that trip, they clearly saw their relics inside the relic chamber, and they were in natural bone form. The color was an ash-white hue. The shape resembled finger bones. The ends (joints) were large, and the middle was narrow. If even the relics of Venerables Sāriputta and Mahā Moggallāna remain as natural bones, then certainly the relics of other arahants should also be in natural bone form, without any doubt. So, when a revered Sayadaw in Myanmar passes away and after cremation there are small stone-like bead relics, we should be cautious and not blindly believe without examination.” 👑 #Scriptural Reference: Compilation of Teachings and Advice by the Sayadaws of Min Nan (Mawgyun) Sao Dhammasami

"သဗ္ဗလောက-ဗျသန-ယုဒ္ဓ-ပီဠိတသတ္တာနံ မေတ္တာ-ကရုဏာ-ပဏိဓာန"

"သဗ္ဗေ သတ္တာ ဒုက္ခပ္ပတ္တာ - ပကတိဗျသနေန စ ယုဒ္ဓကိလေသေန စ ပီဠိတာ - အဝေရာ ဟောန္တု၊ သုခိတာ ဟောန္တု၊ အဘယာ ဟောန္တု၊ ခေမီ ဟောန္တု.

တေသံ သဗ္ဗဒုက္ခ ဝူပသမေန္တု၊ သဗ္ဗသန္တာပ ဝိဂစ္ဆန္တု၊ သဗ္ဗဘယာ မုဉ္စန္တု၊ သဗ္ဗရောဂါ ဝိနဿန္တု.

လဒ္ဓလာဘသမ္ပတ္တိတော မာ ဝိဂစ္ဆန္တု၊ ကလျာဏမိတ္တာ လဘိတွာ၊ သီဃံ ဒုက္ခသမုဒ္ဒါ ဥတ္တရန္တု."

 ဘိက္ခု ဓမ္မသမိ (ဣန္ဒသောမ သိရိဒန္တမဟာပါလက)