April 30, 2023 at 9:52 am
#44548
Keymaster
I am not sure what you mean by “citta level.”
But the situation DanielSt described is a bit different from what I described.
1. In his case, the person is looking for metal that can make him money and be used for things that would give him sensual pleasures. So, he is suffering physically (looking for metal) and mentally (how come I have not found much of it yet?)
- But that suffering is masked by his “expected pleasures” or “assāda” that is only mind-made.
- He describes it a bit differently. That is another “cooling down” aspect once he found some metal. Nothing wrong with it, either. There are multiple ways to look at the same situation from different angles.
2. In the examples I pointed out, the person is already stressed due to the “physical and mental imbalance.” Physical imbalance because the body does not have enough water; mental imbalance because he is stressed about whether he can find water before he dies.
- Both imbalances go away when he drinks water.
- These “imbalances” are the situations away from “balance.” The Pali words are “sama” for balance and “visama” for imbalance.
- The relief comes when one moves away from “visama” and gets to “sama.” There, the “assāda” is due to that relief.
3. This can be used to understand the meaning of “samādhi.“
- “Samādhi” comes from “sama” + “adhi” where “adhi” means “dominance.”
- When one is in “samādhi” one is away from extremes and is “in equilibrium.” One does not need to do anything to seek comfort or to move away from suffering.
- A Brahma does not need water to quench thirst because he does not have a physical body that REQUIRES food and water. Thus, Brahma is “in equilibrium” regarding food and water (at least until the end of that Brahma existence.)
- Another example: When the ambient temperature is close to the body temperature, there is no need to heat or air-condition a room. The body is in equilibrium!