Sabbe Dhammā Anattā
อุบาสิกา กี นานายน (ท่าน ก. เขาสวนหลวง)
One night I was sitting in meditation outside in the open air–my back straight as an arrow–firmly determined to make the mind quiet, but even after a long time it wouldn’t settle down. So I thought, “I’ve been working at this for many days now, and yet my mind won’t settle down at all. It’s time to stop being so determined and to simply be aware of the mind.”
I started to take my hands and feet out of the meditation posture, but at the moment I had unfolded one leg but had yet to unfold the other, I could see that my mind was like a pendulum swinging more and more slowly, more and more slowly—until it stopped.
Then there arose an awareness that was sustained by itself. Slowly I put my legs and hands back into position. At the same time, the mind was in a state of awareness absolutely and solidly still, seeing clearly into the elementary phenomena of existence as they arose and disbanded, changing in line with their nature—and also seeing a separate condition inside, with no arising, disbanding, or changing, a condition beyond birth and death: something very difficult to put clearly into words because it was a realization of the elementary phenomena of nature, completely internal and individual.
After a while I slowly got up and lay down to rest. This state of mind remained there as a stillness that sustained itself deep down inside. Eventually the mind came out of this state and gradually returned to normal.
From this I was able to observe how practice consisting of nothing but fierce desire simply upsets the mind and keeps it from being still. But when one’s awareness of the mind is just right, an inner awareness will arise naturally of its own accord.
Because of this clear inner awareness, I was able to continue knowing the facts of what’s true and false, right and wrong from that point on, and it enabled me to know that the moment when the mind let go of everything was a clear awareness of the elementary phenomena of nature because it was an awareness that knew within and saw within of its own accord—not something you can know or see by wanting.
For this reason the Buddha’s teaching, “Sabbe dhammā anattā—All phenomena are not-self,” tells us not to latch onto any of the phenomena of nature, whether conditioned or unconditioned. From that point on I was able to understand things and let go of attachments step by step.
This reflection by Upāsikā Kee Nanayon is from the Thai Forest Ajaans book An Unentangled Knowing: The Teachings of a Thai Buddhist Lay Woman, pages 43-44, translated from the Thai by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
