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Mrs. Tuna : What about dreaming? Do you believe in dreams?
Khun Sujin : Everyone dreams. So, the soul is dreaming. The body cannot dream.
Mrs. Tuna : I believe in dreams. I saw in my dreams events which took
place later on.
Khun Sujin : What you consider as "I" or "self" which knows is the
soul which knows. There are body and mind, or, one could also say,
body and soul. The soul dreams, the soul sleeps, the soul likes,
dislikes, feels pleasant or unpleasant. So, I under¬stand what you
mean by soul. It is different from the body. The body cannot see, but
the soul is seeing. The body cannot think, but the soul is thinking.
How many souls do you have?
Mrs. Tuna : Only one of course.
Khun Sujin : I think that seeing is different from hearing. Seeing and
hearing occur at different moments and experience dif¬ferent objects.
Mrs. Tuna : All this is deep in meaning, difficult to understand. It
is beyond my thinking.
Khun Sujin : It is beneficial to talk about what we can experience
right now because we can understand that. When we talk about what we
cannot experience directly we are in darkness. When we understand the
characteristics and functions of the realities which can be directly
experienced there is light. I would like to understand more and more
the realities of my life.
Most people take seeing for "my seeing", they take it for self. Or
they take hearing for self, they take the body for "my body". All
realities fall away very rapidly, they cannot stay. Each particle of
the body falls away immediately, other¬wise one could not notice any
change in the body.
Mrs. Tuna : In order to be happy in one's life I find it essential to
be a good Moslem. One should say one's prayers, read the Koran and
observe the Ramadan, the fasting. The rich should give money to the
poor every year.
Khun Sujin : So long as there is ignorance about one's life one cannot
be completely happy. Ignorance is the opposite of wisdom or
understanding. Wisdom is to be considered better than any kind of
property, it is the most beneficial in life. I think that wisdom can
develop.
Mrs. Tuna : I agree with you.
Khun Sujin : Wisdom can have a deep understanding of this very moment.
It can understand how phenomena are conditioned, it can understand
whether phenomena are permanent or impermanent, whether they belong to
a self or not. Each reality which occurs goes away very quickly, it
cannot come back anymore. There is just a moment of hearing and then
it is completely gone, you cannot find the hearing anywhere after it
is gone. Each reality, such as seeing, feeling or touching, is only
very momentary. If we cling to any moment there is ignorance, one does
not know the impermanence of realities which have arisen and fallen
away already. During the time we are talking many different realities
have arisen and fallen away already. Each reality arises because of
its appropriate conditions, nobody can make any reality arise at will.
Eyesense is a condition for seeing, without eyesense there cannot be
seeing. Earsense is a condition for hearing, without earsense there
cannot be hearing. When we understand that the realities of our life
are conditioned we can cope with our problems wisely.
When there are the right conditions a particular reality will arise.
For example, when you like heat and you experience it there are
conditions for pleasant feeling. If you cannot have the heat you like
or the flavour you like there are no conditions for pleasant feeling.
One is attached to all objects one can experience through the senses,
one keeps on thinking of them. One is attached to seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting and touching. I think that there are many different
kinds of consciousness. We can use the word consciousness instead of
soul. The word soul can give rise to misunderstandings, it is not
precise enough. If we use the word soul it implies something
permanent. Consciousness experiences one object at a time and it is
not permanent, it changes all the time. Seeing is a type of
consciousness, it is a reality which has its own characteristic. It is
not the body, it is not tangible object, it is not materiality. It is
an element which experiences visible object. Seeing is seeing for
everyone, it does not belong to any race or nationality. Also animals
see. Seeing is the same, no matter how you call it. Thus it is
ab¬solute truth for everyone, it is an absolute reality. We do not
have to use any names for realities, they have their own function,
their own characteristic which can be directly experienced. Seeing
sees visible object, no matter it is your seeing or my seeing. Seeing
cannot touch visible object, it can only see it. Can you touch visible
object? Do you see me? You can only see visible object. After seeing
there is thinking of different shapes and forms and there is memory of
different things and people. A person cannot be seen, there can only
be thinking about a person. Thinking is another type of reality,
arising at another moment. We can gradually develop more understanding
of realities and thus there will be more light in our life.
Mrs. Tuna : There are different types of people in the world. Some are
of a good nature, such as my mother. She is an excellent woman who has
loving care for everybody and tries to do the best for all people she
meets. Whereas some people do not want to help anybody, they always
think of themselves. It seems that different people have different
characters from birth. How do you explain that?
Khun Sujin : People are different, they do not have wholesome moments
all the time. There are wholesome realities and unwholesome realities.
Kindness and compassion are wholesome, cruelty, hatred and jealousy
are unwholesome. There are for everybody conditions for wholesome
moments as well as for unwholesome moments. The arising of
wholesomeness or unwholesomeness depends on what has been accumulated.
Some people have accumulated a great deal of wholesomeness. For them
the environment or situation can condition more wholesomeness than for
others who have not accumulated so much wholesomeness. People who are
in the same situation react differently, they have different thoughts.
In order to be a good person you have to develop wholesomeness, you
have to train yourself. Just as when you like to be skillful in
cooking you have to train yourself, so that one day you will be a good
cook.
Mrs. Tuna : Sometimes one meets people who do not want to be good,
they don't care about this.
Khun Sujin : You could help them to understand the benefit of being
wholesome, so that they will be nice to others. Then they will also
have more happy moments instead of unhappy moments. I think that
people like pleasant results but that they do not know the right
causes which lead to such results. If you tell them that good and bad
results come from the appropriate causes they will have more
understanding. This understanding will be a condition for them to
accumulate wholesomeness which is the cause for pleasant results. If
you are friendly to others they will be friendly to you. If you do not
like other people they will not like you.
Religion is only a term which stands for what one believes in. But if
we don't label anything we can understand realities as they are. We
can understand realities which are true for everybody, no matter what
religion he professes, no matter what nationality he is. Seeing is
true for everybody, it is just a moment of experiencing visible
object. When there is hearing there is no seeing anymore. Hearing is
just a moment of experiencing sound, it does not know anything about
visible object. When there are conditions for hearing we cannot help
hearing. Seeing, hearing and the other realities are beyond control,
they arise because of conditions and then they fall away, they are
completely gone. Nobody can make them arise and nobody can make them
stay on after they have arisen. Thus life goes on from moment to
moment, until death. Life is only one moment of experiencing an object
and then it is gone, forever.
(END)