Ch. 28 - Cutting to the Point
I am is Imagining
[This transmission was given towards the end of a five month Vipassanā retreat and it elucidates the essence of the teaching of no-self.]
I am is Imagining
For one who is not awake fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, even ninety percent of their suffering is imagination. The rest is kamma. For one who is awake one hundred percent of suffering is kamma and that is borne patiently with forbearance and equanimity and no new suffering is produced.
Once upon a time the Gods had defeated the Asuras in battle. They bound the Asura chief Vepacitti with a five-fold celestial bond and brought him in to the presence of Sakka, King of the Gods. Whenever the thought occurred to Vepacitti, “The Gods are righteous and the Asuras unrighteous, now I shall enter the city of the Gods here itself,” his bonds loosened and he could enjoy the five kinds of celestial sense pleasures. If he thought, “The Asuras are righteous and the Gods unrighteous, now I shall enter the city of the Asuras here itself,” the celestial sense pleasures disappeared and he found himself bound again by the five-fold bond.
Referring to this subtle celestial bondage wherein becoming bound or unbound depends on the very thoughts of the victim, the Buddha declares:
“O monks, see how subtle the bondage of Vepacitti is. But the bondage of Mara, the evil one, is even subtler. One who imagines is bound by the evil one, one who does not imagine is freed from the evil one.
I am, is imagining. I am this, is imagining. I shall be, is an imagining. I shall not be, is an imagining. I shall possess material form, is an imagining. I shall be formless, is an imagining. I shall be conscious, is an imagining. I shall be unconscious, is an imagining. I shall be neither conscious nor unconscious, is an imagining. This imagining, monks, is a disease, a boil, a dart. Therefore monks, you should train yourselves thus: Let us abide with our minds free from imaginings. That is how you should train yourselves, monks. I am is an agitation. I am is a palpitation, I am is a conceptual proliferation, I am is a conceit.”
It is this imagining – that ‘I am’ – which produces this mass of suffering and robs you of the experience you are in. Even if that experience is unpleasant, it is the fruiting of kamma, and forbearing with equanimity is to purify it. Even if it is pleasant, it need not be clung to. It can be appreciated for what it is without becoming the cause of bondage. This is how one abides free from suffering. Free from ‘I am’, free from this is me. Let it all go. In the feeling there is only the felt, in the seeing only the seen. There is no me, but the one I create as an imaginary idea. All friction is clinging to self. Go beyond. Go utterly beyond.
