A First Look at Abhidhamma (5):
The Role of the Three Worlds in Ending Suffering



So far, we have mentioned that there are two worlds, the rupa (physical) and the nama (mental) world.  By the previous chapter, we realize that the nama world can be subdivided into the brain portion and the mind portion.  From now on, we shall call the mind portion of the mental world, citta.  This gives us a total of three worlds: rupa, brain and citta.

How does these three worlds relate to our experience of suffering?  Where is our suffering, what causes it, can it be ended and how can we end it?  This chapter elaborates on the role of the three worlds in generating and ending our suffering.  It will motivate us towards the right effort in ending suffering.


The Three Worlds: Where Is My Suffering?

When I am angry, I suffer.  When I crave, I go into a process of seeking, possessing and loss.  In each part of the process, I suffer.  When I am ignorant and with wrong views, I put in wrong effort and receive undesirable results.  In each part of the process, I also suffer.  Due to my habitual energies, I keep repeating these three classes of actions, and thus my suffering never ends.  How can I stop them?  What can help me end my suffering?

Suffering is an experience.  It is felt.  Hence we know it does not occur in the rupa world.  It has to occur within the nama (mental) world.  Furthermore suffering is universal and without language.  Hence we know it does not occur in the brain world.  It has to occur within the citta.  This is indeed the case, it is our citta which experiences suffering.

Suffering is difficult to end because it resides in the most uncontrollable and most subtle of the three worlds.  We can control the rupa world to a small extend.  For example if we do not desire a particular place, we can move to another place.  We can also change the conditions in the particular place to some extend.  The brain world is controllable to some extend as well.  For example we can psyched ourselves to overcome difficulty.  We can think of pleasant things to temporarily escape reality.  We can also switch to a different set of beliefs that help us cope better with life.  The citta world, which is the world that experiences suffering, is unfortunately uncontrollable.  It works only via the Law of Cause and Effect.  It is conditioned by the rupa and the brain worlds, it cannot be directly controlled.


Ending Suffering through the Rupa World?

How can we end suffering unconditionally?  Can we end suffering by only confronting the rupa world?

Phenomena in the rupa world are very influential indeed in conditioning certain citta to arise, and thus bring us suffering or non-suffering experiences.  For example, many believe that if they are rich, they will be happy.  How does this come about?  When one is rich, one can buy (possess) many desirable objects.  One’s citta experiences such objects and is conditioned to be non-suffering or happy.  When one is rich, one can also change one’s surrounding.  One’s citta experiences a more favorable surrounding and is conditioned to be non-suffering or happy.  Thus in this way, material wealth and possessions bring non-suffering and happiness through conditioning the arising of non-suffering and happy citta.

However, such non-suffering and happiness are conditional and impermanent.  Citta arises and falls quickly.  Hence the pleasant experience is gone very quickly.  In order for the pleasant experience to arise again and again, the materialism has to be repeated forever.  Even worse, citta has a habitual nature.  Very soon the same conditions would not induce the same intensity of feelings.  Thus it will take greater materialism to achieve the same level of non-suffering or happiness feeling.  The rupa world is finite, while the citta world is infinitely insatiable.  Thus at some point, the rupa world could not catch up with the citta world.  Then suffering would prevail.  Furthermore even if one can be contended, all objects in the rupa world are impermanent due to the Law of Cause and Effect.  Thus when the object falls, the non-suffering and happiness feeling can no longer be maintained.  What follows is loss and suffering.  Therefore in this way, the rupa world helps, but is not the ultimate way towards the unconditional end of suffering.  The same argument goes for those who pursue fame and power.  What they at best achieve, are conditions for non-suffering and happiness.  Whether such conditions can indeed effect non-suffering and happiness, is a different matter.  Regardless, the non-suffering is not unconditional.


Ending Suffering through the Brain World?

Therefore suffering cannot be ended by only confronting the rupa world.  Can suffering be ended by only confronting the brain world?

The brain world, or the conceptual world, is also very influential in conditioning certain citta to arise and thus bring us suffering or non-suffering experiences.  For example, many believe that knowledge and beliefs bring happiness.  How does this come about?  When one has great knowledge and beliefs, one’s mental world can detach from reality when necessary in the following ways.  When one meets with loss, one brainwashes oneself that there is no loss.  When one meets with craving, one brainwashes oneself that the object of craving is unworthy in comparison to some greater treasures.  When one meets with anger, one brainwashes oneself to think of happy things.  One can also simply switch to ‘living’ in an alternative world, for example the world of Science, Mathematics, Philosophy, Astronomy, or Art.  One can switch to a career world in which one’s feelings are completely tied to the success, failure and survival of one’s company and career.  In this modern day of computer games, one can also switch to ‘living’ in a virtual world of computer games such as Diablo or Warcraft, etc.

These are indeed very powerful methods to overcome suffering in the short term.  For example, when one is trapped in the duality of depression, it is helpful to change one’s focus, in order to lift one off from the duality.  As mentioned in the previous chapter about infatuation, dwelling in the duality traps one’s citta.  When one does not have enough strength to let go, ‘distractions’ can be useful.  Also, the above ‘brainwashing’ methods are useful in fighting craving and anger as well.  However one should know the limits of such methods.

Such methods have two important drawbacks.  First it is short termed.  As in the rupa world case, citta is habitual in nature.  Thus one would need heavier and heavier doses of brainwashing to elude suffering.  This can lead to fanaticism.  Second it actually messes with the brain.  Beliefs are attachments.  Thus the more one uses a particular set of beliefs, the more one becomes attached to it.  This either leads also to fanaticism, or if one is not careful, to insanity when one’s belief system becomes inconsistent.  Therefore it is dangerous if used uncontrollably.


Ending Suffering through the Citta World?

Therefore we cannot end suffering unconditionally by only confronting the rupa or the brain world.  Can we end suffering by only confronting the citta world?

Confronting the citta world is indeed the ultimate way to end suffering. The citta contains seeds, while the rupa and the brain provide the conditions.  When seeds meet with conditions, there is experience.  There are many kinds of experience.  There are good experience, bad experience, neutral experience and enlightenment experience.  Through countless rounds of rebirth, we accumulated a dominant collection of bad seeds, hence majority of our experience is bad experience or suffering.  Majority of our citta is bad citta too, which motivates bad action and plants further bad seeds.  Hence suffering extends itself infinitely.

To end suffering unconditionally, that is to prevent suffering from arising regardless of the rupa and the brain conditions, one need to end all of one’s bad seeds within one’s citta.  However citta is uncontrollable.  Hence how can we confront it?

The answer lies in the Noble Eightfold Path, which is to use all the three worlds.  By practicing right speech, right action and right livelihood, we produce favorable rupa conditions around us, so that suffering arise in lesser doses.  This is not enough.  We need to practice right effort, right mindfulness and right meditation to observe and confront our citta.  Right meditation, together with right thought and right wisdom, helps to maintain a healthy mental world.  This further calms our body and mind, so that we can confront our citta better.  By breathing in and breathing out mindfully, we learn to frustrate our bad seeds and habitual energies.  This is the cleansing process that clears our citta of bad seeds.  Finally when all our bad seeds are cleared, we end our suffering.


Is Ending Suffering Your Pursue?  What Matters in the Long Run?

After knowing these three worlds, it is time to ask what one really likes to pursue.  If one’s goal is not to end suffering, but to achieve material success, and not mind the ups and downs in the process, then one’s focus really lies in the rupa world.  Similarly if one’s goal is to achieve perfect knowledge or have some other spiritual focus, and not mind the sufferings in the process, then one’s focus really lies in the brain world.  These two are legitimate and honorable objectives, as long as one who adopts them, honors the code of law in one’s society.

However if one believes in rebirth or wants to end suffering, then one’s focus would have to be on one’s citta world.  Through rebirths, all rupa phenomena become meaningless in the long run.  Even the brain world becomes unimportant in the long run, because beliefs and concepts only last one one’s lifetime.  What is left, is the citta that goes through countless lives, experiencing phenomena.  It been through and experiences so much suffering, and is shaped (conditioned) by so much suffering, that by now, it is completely distorted and ignorant.  Every time it reincarnates it grasps on to its body and a concept of self.  It delights in the belief of permanence and absoluteness of things.  Thus it craves.  When it is not satisfied, it angers.  Such attachment, aversion and ignorance bring more experiences of suffering and increase its ignorance.  In each life we suffer, and do things that make our future lives suffer as well.

Hence one who is committed to ending suffering, focuses on the purification of one’s citta.  One’s action in the rupa world is for this purpose.  Thus one is not attached to the rupa world, for example with its gains and losses.  One becomes more contended, lead a moral life, fulfill one’s social responsibilities and bring joy to others.  Similarly one’s thought in the brain world is for this purpose also.  Thus one is not attached to concepts and beliefs, for example with the craving for exotic knowledge and theories.  One becomes more open minded, empathizes with others and practices deep listening.  Finally one spends one’s precious (human) life to nurture one’s citta - to be mindful of it, to guard it and to calm it.  The rest of this series will elaborate on this.


Mindfulness Meditation

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in; breathing out, I know I am breathing out.  In this way, the body is pacified.  Breathing in, I am mindful of my brain thoughts.  Breathing out, I let go of my brain thoughts.  In this way, the brain thoughts are pacified.  Whenever one is mindful, one’s body is calm, and there are no brain thoughts, one is finally deep listening to one’s citta.

The citta is soundless and formless.  It is just ‘there’.  It has always been there through countless rebirths, always within us.  It experiences every moment.  When there is anger, it experiences anger.  When there is craving, it experiences craving.  Feelings are always with us - sometimes subtle, sometimes strong, and sometimes neutral.  It takes tremendous mindfulness to notice our subtle feelings, for instance a slight momentary happiness or sadness.  When you notice it in its most subtle way, you would know that it is not from the brain.  It is of a different dimension than that of the brain.  In its dimension, it has its own source of energy.  Sometimes the energy is as calm as the undisturbed water surface.  Sometimes the energy is so chaotic that it can consume one’s entire mental world. 

Our brains and forms could be different, but we all have citta.  Citta is the universal being.  That is how we are all different but yet the same.  That is how we all have the Buddha nature in us.  When we do something nice to others, a citta experiences it.  When we do something not nice to others, a citta also experiences it.  When I see you, I see a fellow citta as worthy as mine.  My citta effects my present form, your citta effects your present form.  Your present conditions effect the present face of your citta, my present conditions effect the present face of my citta.  Faces are arbitrary, just as conditions are arbitrary.  In this way, I generate loving kindness, compassion, equanimity and rejoice to your citta, and wish you well and happy.

        “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” - Heart of the Parjnaparamita Sutra (The Heart Sutra).


--By Lee Hon Sing.  Last modified: January 5, 2004.  All ignorance is mine. 

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