For a bhikkhu who strives to realize extinguishment in this very life itself, an environment with freedom is essential. One single meaning cannot be given to ‘freedom’. The meaning of ‘freedom’ defers depending on mundane and supermundane wants. One might view university education, the teaching appointment, the civil servant job, or politics, as freedom. None of this is wrong. They are views specific to each person. But that is certainly not the freedom spoken of in the path of practice for supermundane enlightenment.

The things stated below would be relevant not for bhikkhus in their teens or the prime of their youth who are being trained in this sāsana but for real go-getters who, having seen with a broad understanding of life that the worldly riches are a suffering, having seen that with all this what accumulates is nothing but suffering, and having ‘escaped’ from household bonds in the strictest sense of the term, strive in the paṭipadā―the path of practice―to realize extinguishment in this very life itself. The sāsana abounds with such righteous men and that’s a fact. If you fancy taking that same path, the path is open for you, too. The supermundane Lord Buddha has taught you the correct path.

For the freedom to become meaningful, you must think thus: ‘I ordained as a bhikkhu not to give dhamma-discourses to others, not to chant paritta-discourses[i] for others, not to administer monasteries and forest hermitages, not to be the next in line to the elder who’s the abbot, not to cultivate the perceptions that would yield a rebirth as a deva or brahma, but to complete the path to emancipation in this very life itself’. You must have the strength to think thus. ‘Freedom’, as per the word of the Buddha, is being able to think like this. ‘Freedom’, as per the evil forces of Māra, is thinking contrary to this.

As a son of the Lord Buddha, first you must think that your extinguishment lies not with the Buddha nor with the elder who’s the abbot nor in the book of paritta-discourses nor in the Pāli Canon but solely within yourself. Extinguishment is not found in any of the above things. Erudition, role models and the path are indeed found in the above things, no question about it. If you turn your attention to books and scriptures for learning the Dhamma, what happens next is erudition and learnedness becomes too much, and as a result, you’ll start giving dhamma-discourses and holding dhamma-discussions, or else being confined to the shrine or the bodhi-compound you’ll be conducting sermons of worship in a sweet voice. Lay benefactors are very fond of these things. The credit, the fame, and the gain the bhikkhu, too, gets would be greater. What develops in both parties are worldly (mundane) defilements. Those things result in comforts in the journey of saŋsāra―the round of rebirths. In the end the bhikkhu who ordained after leaving everything behind has become a puppet who appeases lay benefactors.

Here you need to be skilful to give up, to let go of, everything. You should, however, associate with a noble-friend (kalyāna-mitta) who is more skilful than you and has developed the path. Until you come to a strong position, don’t let go of that. Imagine and visualize that the Buddha is always before you, the venerable Sāriputta and the venerable Moggallāna are before you, giving you advice. In this journey, you won’t need any more protection than this. Everyone will tell you to accumulate.

Accumulate what?

Erudition, stanzas, paritta-chanting, suttas, Abhidhamma,[ii] dhamma-talks… Let go of all this. Be unencumbered (unburdened). Try to free yourself from every burden.

Extinguishment is an all-out operation.[iii] For this all-out operation, all you need is the three robes, the alms-bowl and the secluded forest kuṭī. If you are confident that you have become perfect in sīla and samādhi, if you have no doubts about your sīla, then you are a suitable candidate to choose a secluded kuṭī in the forest. If you are not confident about your sīla, then you shouldn’t be in a hurry to go into solitude in the forest. You not being strong enough, would be falling prey to Māra. In the forest, in the rock cave-kuṭī, nonhuman forces would make such a person into a slave, or a physically or mentally ill person. Don’t be disheartened! A kalyāna-mitta who has developed the path can strengthen you with a few short meditation instructions. Here sīla is not a matter of whether you are a novice-monk, or whether you have had your higher ordination, or whether you are a pupil of such-and-such an elder; instead, it is simply the confidence you have in yourself that you are virtuous. Have faith in the supermundane Dhamma and in yourself. When really necessary, take necessary instructions from a kalyāna-mitta, a teacher.

For one’s safety, to use only at moments absolutely necessary, knowing the meanings of the three stanzas for paying homage to the triple-gem (ti-ratana), the Metta Sutta and the Khandha Paritta is more than sufficient. Let go of everything else! To the extent of letting go, you can make the development of the path to enlightenment that much easier. Only if you were skilful to let go of everything else would you be ready for the operation of enlightenment.

However, by now if you have in your possession items such as a compact mirror for looking at your face, a hot-water flask, or a blanket to cover yourself from the cold…, it shows that you are not ready yet. For what lies in all these things is the volition of ‘comfort of my body’. Let go of everything! Until then, you are not ready. To someone unable to give up the compact mirror, telling to give up the body is a joke. You definitely can! Visualize again and again the image of the Buddha. Invite Lord Buddha into your heart. Behold that you always remain under his wing, in his protective care. Early morning when you are on the alms round, visualize the Blessed One walking ahead of you. Imagine the venerable arahats Sāriputta, Moggallāna and Ānanda, and live with those venerables in your imagination. Hold discussions with those venerables in your heart. Take your cue from the conduct and behaviours of those venerables, adding them to your life. Behold mentally the striving effort those venerables made for realizing the path to emancipation. Visualize the effort made by the great arahat venerable Cakkhupāla.

Making use of the above tactics, train your mind for the operation of emancipation. Breaking free from the evil bonds of Māra one by one, giving up what ought to be given up, you get ready. But don’t behave as an arahat before the world! Because then you’d be in Māra’s pocket. If you try to behave like that before the world, the path to emancipation is bound to get aborted. Then you could journey not towards extinguishment but towards the mental asylum. Firmly bear in mind that, if you were skilful, meditation would lead you to the path to enlightenment; if unskilful, meditation would lead you to insanity. We have come upon countless helpless enthusiastic revered-characters such as this. Not getting direction from a teacher who has meaningfully cultivated the path will be the cause for this disaster. The conceit (māna) that exists in you, the obsession with the fruits of the path (magga phala), the rush for reaching the target, the greater reception received from the revered-laity: all of these will become a wired booby trap for you.

Let go of the desire for things such as merit–demerit, kusala–akusala, or desirable–undesirable destinations for rebirth. See the impermanence of these things. Prepare yourself for the operation of enlightenment. At this point, the only things that should be there in your kuṭī are the three robes, the alms-bowl, and the minimum requisites necessary for personal hygiene. Have a look at your kuṭī again. Even if there is a paracetamol pill, that too, you must remove. Because, you will have kept it to heal the body, whereas now you are getting ready for the operation of giving up the body. Don’t try to relieve the painful feeling. Try to see the impermanence of feeling; try to see its [true] nature; try to see that feeling is not something that belongs to oneself. If you feel a painful feeling in your body, then, at dawn, consume two sips of one’s own urine. Leaving out that part of urine at the beginning and at the end, use the middle part of the urine. Don’t take more than two sips. For that will intensify the acidity of the body and the resulting bodily burning. This medicine will minimize the bodily painful feeling. Contemplate upon the fact that these two sips of own urine are nothing but the water you consumed the night before. Attack Māra in the subtlest of ways. Simply be a part of nature. Rather than seeing nature and yourself as two different things, be skilful to regard them as one and the same. Compare the huge tree before you with your body. Behold that both of them are nothing but the diversity of elements (dhātu).

Again, reflect that you are still a bhikkhu who is merely getting ready to cultivate the path. Be at leisure as much as possible. Seeing as impermanent, discard those thoughts that arise telling you ‘I must meditate this many number of hours a day’ or ‘I must meditate staying up all night’. Resolve to always reflect thus: “All I wish for, all I strive for, is to merely breathe my last breath at the moment of death without any attachment, bond, or resentment.” Whatever you do, do not think about the magga phala, namely, stream-enterer (sotāpanna), once-returner (sakadāgāmī), non-returner (anāgāmī), and fully enlightened one (arahat). Reflect that those are phenomena that are [simply] defilements. Let go of the longing for the magga phala. Think that, with covetous greed for the magga phala if you tried to become an anāgāmī, you would ruin this precious life of yours. Think leisurely. If you are sleepy, do sleep. Be simple and at ease. Remain free. Do not give the slightest indication to anyone that you are in a practice of this nature. Seeing as impermanent every single form (rūpa) that comes into contact (phassa) with the six sense-faculties, refrain from resenting the mind, the body, and the environment.

Always reflect that what you are thus fighting against is the evil force of Māra. Whenever you feel like it, deceive Māra; make him scared; make him frightened. Earlier you were told to mentally live with the venerable arahats. Those are things done to deceive Māra. Now you must frighten Māra. See that those venerable arahats, too, are impermanent. Mentally see those venerable arahats attaining the final-passing-away (parinibbāna). See the reliquary monuments built depositing the sacred bone relics of those venerables. Mentally behold that those monuments, too, would dissolve and disintegrate.

Now, again deceive Māra. Visualizing the great reliquary monuments Ruwanmäli Mahā Sääya, Kiri Vehera Mahā Sääya, Sri Mahā Bodhi tree, and the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha, utter words of rejoicing as ‘sādhu… sādhu’. Now, again frighten Māra. Behold the above sacred and venerated objects, too, getting disintegrated and dissolved owing to weather-related causes, climatic reasons, or troubles related to hostile forces of war. Seeing the impermanence of all these things, little by little pile your authority, your dominion, on Māra.

By mentally seeing the impermanence of every single thing in the world system, make Māra tremble, make him frightened. Now your only duty should be this. Bit by bit, hurt Māra, the evil one, who exerted dominion over you deceiving you since an incalculable number of eons and confining you to the fourfold-hell or to heavenly and human realms.[iv]

Just as how in a boxing match, slowly, little by little, flinging punches at the opponent, conceding punches from him tactically, one would tire the opponent making him grow weary and knock him out with a final few merciless blows, so too you must deceive Māra tactically. Behold as impermanent every single form (rūpa) sensed by your faculties. Do not evade the forms seen. Do not purposely go in search of forms either. Don’t be overzealous. Nor be slow-moving. Operate being within your own nature. “Now which magga phala am I at? How much longer will it take? Will I be able to achieve it?”―the moment such minds of Māra arise, defeat them seeing them as impermanent. Do not resent. The instant you see a form, behold it as impermanent. If an attachment to that form arises in you again and again, try to see through that form penetrating it with insight. If you do so, your results will expedite. Suppose that said form is the form of a beautiful woman. Behold her dwelling in her mother’s womb. Having started as a tadpole-like embryo, the infinite pain endured for nine months inside the balloonesque uterus; how she was born into the world, wailing shrill cries of agony; the infant days of lying in urine and excrement… behold thus.

See that form in terms of being in its childhood, youth, middle-age and old-age. Behold as a skeleton the beautiful form you saw. Behold how intestines, bowels, sinews and flesh hang from that skeleton. Stripping naked his or her form mentally, penetrating the skin, flesh and sinews, behold the heap of impurities stuffed into the sack known as the skin.

Behold with the faculty of wisdom that the beauty lay not in that beautiful man or woman but in one’s own impermanent mind filled with ignorance―avijjā.

Reflect that the phenomena of the ‘five aggregates that are the objects of clinging’ (pañca upādānakkhandha), the ‘seven factors of enlightenment’ (bojjhṅga), the ‘dependent-origination’ (paṭicca-samuppāda), and the ‘fourfold establishing of mindfulness’ (satipaṭṭhāna), are not things learnt by heart like parrots but rather phenomena that grow within you, unawares, through the insightful understanding you gain when wisdom heightens by seeing the impermanence of form (rūpa).

You are still at a trainee level. The contest, the match, still hasn’t begun. You are still warming up your body to face the match. The stronger you warm-up, the more the vigour will be for the contest. This is a battle, a contest, against Māra who extends his dominion throughout the entire world system. If you emerge victorious from the contest, you’ll be a person who crosses over to the far shore of the world, who transcends the world. You have thus entered upon a contest which the supremely self-enlightened Buddhas, the venerable pacceka-buddhas, and the venerable arahat bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs have all contested and emerged victorious. From this contest, even children such as Rāhula, Sopāka and Nigrodha have emerged victorious; as did women such as Paṭācārā and Isidāsī. If the training is successful, then victory is a certainty.

Be simple. Be unburdened. Remain free, at liberty! Feel free to bathe when required. If the robe you wear is sweaty, wash it. Keep the compound of the kuṭī clean and tidy. Don’t try to befriend uncleanliness claiming that you are seeing the ‘impermanence’ of things. If you associate with uncleanliness claiming that you are seeing the impermanence, what you are seeing is a melancholy impermanence. It’s an evil force. You had best defeat it. Be moderate. In order to perceive the loathsomeness―impurity (asubha), in relativity, beauty and cleanliness must be present. You ought to be strong not to become attached to that beauty, not to make that beauty ‘mine’. All the beautiful forms (rūpa) in this world must be subjects of meditation for you. You should be able to behold even the most beautiful actress in Bollywood as a female monkey or a skeleton. You get that opportunity only because she was beautiful. In a world devoid of beauty, you can’t develop perceptions of loathsomeness. Something would turn ugly only if beauty existed―if beauty was the antecedent. Why? Because ‘ugliness’ comes into being through ‘beauty’ becoming impermanent. These are natural phenomena of the world.

With striving energy (viriya) when you are earnestly engaging in the paṭipadā in this manner, Lord Buddha will descend upon your heart.[v] For your heart is now a true abode of the Buddha. The Buddha will instruct you. The next steps will dawn on you in the form of perceptions (saññā). When this happens, you will rise with energy (viriya) like a mighty bull-elephant. Do you know why? ―for you will realize empirically that the Buddha is right beside you. You will realize that the Buddha is giving you meditation instructions. Here you will realize that Lord Buddha and ‘wisdom’ (paññā) are not two different things but one and the same. Practise the path to emancipation! Witness the Buddha!

In this confidence lies the door to victory. Open that door with your own effort. If you manage to open the door, you will become extinguished in the world. Then, the moment you close your eyes you can perceive the entire world as extinct―ceased (nirodha). In this journey, there comes a point where you’d have to perceive the Buddha, too, as a skeleton. But until you are strong enough, don’t be in a hurry to do so. For now, you need his guidance. Until such time, be skilful to mentally usher Lord Buddha as your protector. When the time is ripe, you will certainly have to let go of the tanhā for your teacher par excellence, the Buddha, as well. For you will realize with insight-knowledge that in the Buddha, too, there is no ‘being’ or ‘person’.[vi]

[i] The Pāli term ‘paritta’ means protection, safety. Paritta-discourses are selected discourses of the Buddha that are chanted for protection by laity and clergy alike. ‘Paritta chanting’ refers to such chanting.

[ii] Abhidhamma refers to the exegesis setting out in meticulous detail the science and analysis of the principles in the Dhamma, including the phenomena of mind and matter. It is laid down in the third part of the Pāli Canon.

[iii] The venerable Author appears to be alluding to a military-like operation, implying that extinguishment―the attaining of enlightenment―is an all-out operation using and involving every possible effort and done in a very determined way. It is an all-out continuous ‘striving’ for a single purpose, enlightenment. Also, just so in a final military-operation it would have to be a continuous operation until the goal is achieved and the enemy forces are fully extinct, so too in this operation one cannot take a break or rest on one’s laurels mid-operation; or else, the evil forces of kilesa-māra would ambush and soon overpower him again.

[iv] ‘Fourfold-hell’ are the four lower realms beneath the human realm ―namely, peta-ghost realm (see Note 14), animal realm, asura realm (see Note 30) and niraya (see Note 22). A ‘stream-enterer’ is guaranteed to not be reborn in the fourfold-hell in his remaining rebirths (see sotāpanna). For heavenly realms, see deva.

[v] Here, “Lord Buddha will descend upon your heart” is meant metaphorically to denote ‘wisdom’.

[vi] See anatta.