Reply To: Useful Essays from DRARISWORLD and Other Websites

#46473
Lal
Keymaster

You refer to the following portion of that post about the patikūla manasikara bhavana. By the way, I just revised that post a bit.

  • A good example of the wrong way to meditate is what many people are doing with the patikūla manasikara bhavana. Many translate “patikūla” as “pilikul” in Sinhala, which means “to be rejected because it is repulsive”. They meditate on contemplating the repulsiveness of the body (sweat, urine, and feces generated by the body) and also the fact that once one chews on even the most delicious food, it becomes “vomit.”
  • But the Buddha did not advise that. Just as we should not desire extreme sense pleasures, we also should not be repulsed by the things that we mentioned in the above paragraph. They both generate taṇhā, in the first instant by attachment (craving) and in the second by aversion (paṭigha). The neutral mindset (upekkha) comes from understanding the true nature of things.

You wrote: “However, I think it could be a tool for a person who is close to the Anagami stage, right??”

  • An Anagami doesn’t need to contemplate rotting bodies to see the “anicca, dukkha, anatta nature.” 
  • As I mentioned in my first comment, an Anagami has overcome attachments to sensual pleasures.

I don’t think it is helpful for anyone to contemplate rotting bodies. 

  • A key point to remember is that one must see the dangers of attaching to mundane PLEASURES. Anyone can see that death is inevitable and rotting bodies are unpleasant. Furthermore, generating “patigha” or “domanassa” is not conducive to contemplation. One must cultivate Bhavana (meditate) with a “cooled mind,” not an “agitated mind.”
  • But it is not easy to overcome the mindset to “enjoy sensual pleasures while living.” The point is to see the dangers of THAT mindset, i.e., the more one attaches to such “mundane temporary pleasures,” one moves away from Nibbana with the “pure mind,” which is free of any suffering. See “Anicca Nature- Chasing Worldly Pleasures Is Pointless.”
  • This is why the Buddha said his teachings have never been known to the world. Humans do not see anything other than sensory pleasures that allow them to overcome suffering/depression. That is why people get hooked on drugs. But they have to keep increasing the dose to get the needed relief, and then end up killed by those drugs. See the video below (highly disturbing! Don’t watch if you are about to start meditating.)