Friend, I assert and proclaim such a teaching that one does not quarrel with anyone in the world with its gods, its Màras, and its Brahmàs, in this generation with its recluses and brahmins, its princes and its people. – The Buddha The Honeyball Sutta

Pemasiri Thera: Now, let’s get going on contact and feeling, phassa and vedanà. These two links in the process of dependent origination must be spoken about in the same breath, as the Buddha states, “Dependent upon mentality-materiality, contact arises, nàma-råpa-paccayà phasso; and then dependent on contact, feeling arises, phassa-paccayà vedanà.” I’m including the six sense bases with mentality-materiality.

Contact, phassa, is different from touch, phoññhabba. Touch just means there is some form of link with the four primary elements. Contact, on the other hand, means a sense impression is made upon the mind. The term samphassa is used in compounds, such as cakkhu-samphassa eye-contact. Though these two terms, touch and contact, are often used as synonyms, they are two separate terms.

David: Does phoññhabba apply to the mind?

Our bodies are often touched without contact, without a sense impression made upon the mind. When the barber cuts your hair, there is no contact. When a blind woman wears a beautiful bangle, the beauty is not something she can see and know because there is no eye-contact. Does the wrist know it has a bangle on it? Does the bangle know it is on the wrist? Of course, both do not know and there is no contact, no phassa. The woman knows she is wearing the bangle on her wrist because of the material sense of touch that is present. In that case, there is both touch and contact. A person who has the power of sight can look at the bangle and tell her about it. That form of contact is also possible. Contact means that feelings arise. Your hair is touched by the barber, but feelings don’t arise; and feelings don’t arise because your hair has no pasàda-råpa. Our hair is similar to the building there is no sensitive, subtle form of the four primary elements present. As a result, feelings don’t arise. There is no contact.

Very often, I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about.

I know.

Which makes me wonder why you teach me things I don’t understand.

I could tell you about simple matters that you would easily understand, but I’d get bored.

Yes, probably me too!

All your material sense doors eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body have their own mode of responding to sense stimuli. When these responses also take place in your mind, there is contact. Sense doors are similar to strands in a spider’s cobweb. When one of the strands starts shaking, the spider knows it has caught an insect. And note, phassa often occurs without phoññhabba. When I consider going to the city of Kurunegala, my mind connects with ideas and images of Kurunegala. This is not phoññhabba; this is only phassa. The person called “I” makes contact.

Can the term touch apply to both my body and my eyes?

Almost always, the term phoññhabba is used when talking about the body and the term phassa is used when talking about your eyes, as well when talking about your ears, nose, and tongue. When someone bumps into you, the pasàda-råpa of your body responds and senses the bump. The pasàda-råpa of your body is sensitive, but it isn’t as sensitive as the pasàda-råpa of your other sense doors. Your body’s pasàda-råpa is relatively gross. When the gross pasàda-råpa responds to sense stimuli, the term phoññhabba is used because the gross pasàda-råpa is making a link with the four primary elements. Phassa, on the other hand, is used when the finer, more sensitive, pasàda-råpa responds to sense stimuli, and there is no direct link with the four primary elements. When you see a visible object, the more sensitive pasàda-råpa of your eyes responds and there is contact in your mind. Sight occurs. This is phassa, only phassa. Though sight of the object may cause you some grief or joy, the sight is neutral for your material eyes your eyes don’t make a link with the four primary elements. But when the bright light of the sun glares in your eyes, the relatively gross pasàda-råpa responds. Glaring sunlight is not neutral. It hurts. Your eyes physically feel the glare, which means there is a link with the gross pasàda-råpa, and phoññhabba occurs. So, in this case, we can say that the experience of touch, the term phoññhabba, applies to the eyes.

FIVE TYPES OF FEELING

In the Honey ball Sutta, the Buddha states, “Through the means of the sense door and sense object, a sense door-consciousness can arise. The coming together of sense door, sense object, and sense door-consciousness is contact, phassa. Dependent on contact, feeling arises.” There are five types of feelings:

1. Pleasant body feeling, kàyikà sukhà-vedanà
2. Painful body feeling, kàyikà dukkhà-vedanà
3. Pleasant mental feeling, cetasikà sukhà-vedanà
4. Painful mental feeling, cetasikà dukkhà-vedanà
5. Neutral feelings of equanimity, upekkhà-vedanà

There are both pleasant and painful body and mental feelings. The term body includes our five material sense doors eyes, ears, nose, tongue, as well as the body. Resting between the pleasant and the painful lies equanimity. It is neutral. Neither a pleasant nor a painful body or mental feeling, equanimity is a well-balanced mind free of clinging and aversion. The term feeling is a mental factor, not something external. You have a few mosquito bites on your arm and they are itchy. But, contrary to what many teachers state, itchiness is not a feeling. It is just changes in materiality, changes in non-mental forms called råpa. The difference between feeling and just changes in råpa is subtle, but it’s important to know the difference. Now, because the bites are itchy, you are scratching them which give rise to pleasant and painful feelings, and then there is some liking and disliking. It always feels good to scratch an itch.

When feelings are pleasant and we’re comfortable, our experience is suitable, sabhàga. When feelings are painful and we’re uncomfortable, however, our experience is unsuitable, visabhàga. You find sitting on a cushion to be suitable; while you find sitting right on the concrete floor to be unsuitable. At the beginning of each session of sitting meditation, the contact between the råpa-kalàpas of your bottom and the råpa-kalàpas of the cushion is pleasant. Like water and water, your bottom and the cushion do not clash. They are similar.

What are råpa-kalàpas?

They are unit bundles of minute particles, atomic level, which come from the four primary elements. The bundles can be animate, as in your body; or the bundles can be inanimate, as in the cushion. After sitting on the cushion for an hour, your bottom gets sore because there is a clash between your bottom and the cushion. No longer like water and water, more like oil and water, your bottom and the cushion are not similar. The four primary elements of your bottom are out of balance with the cushion. The fire element has increased; the skins temperature has gone up. The water element has also probably increased, and you’ve started to sweat. In an attempt to balance the four primary elements, your body increases the blood flow to your bottom. But when the balance of the four primary elements changes, feelings also change. Whatever comfortable state the four primary elements were in when you began your sit, that state no longer exists and painful feelings arise. You feel uncomfortable and want to adjust your sitting position. The comfortable has become the uncomfortable; sabhàga has turned to visabhàga. What had originally suited our minds no longer suits our minds. This is the nature of contact and feeling.

Do I look at my craving?

The balance of the four primary elements changes. This realization is enough for your vipassanà practice. People who are bedridden get bedsores because they remain in the same position for weeks. They never roll over or make any adjustments to the position of their bodies. For them, only painful feelings are present. This does not happen to us because just as soon as pleasant feelings fade and painful feelings start arising, we change our position. If we try to experience too much pleasant contact, the contact becomes painful. When you look at a beautiful woman, pleasant feelings arise in your mind. If you stare at the same woman for an hour, your feelings change from the pleasant to the painful. But before that happens, you think, “I’ve looked at her long enough.” We cannot experience the same object for a long time. At some point, the original pleasantness we experience with the object changes to unpleasantness.
The mind must alternate between the pleasant and the painful, sukha and dukkha. A person can only rationally exist in this sense-sphere plane, in this world where we live, when the contact with objects keeps changing from the pleasant to the painful. Even meditators who are practicing properly alternate between the pleasant and the painful. If people remain in one state, without switching back and forth, they become mentally ill. You must have seen mentally ill men living on the streets of Colombo, men who never bathe, are very dirty, and are always in some sort of pain. For them, it is quite all right and normal to live in painful conditions. At the opposite extreme, if people constantly experience the pleasant beautiful house, food, clothes, etc.possibly the condition for Princess Diana, they too become mentally ill.

PURE ENJOYMENT

Only pleasant and painful feelings drive people towards extreme behavior and mental illness; whereas neutral feelings of equanimity, upekkhà-vedanà, never unbalance people.

Thieves steal cars with craving, taõhà, and experience a form of happiness or a certain amount of joy from stealing cars. Otherwise, they wouldn’t steal cars! While racing away, a thief’s contact with the stolen car is pleasant; he feels happy because he’s got the car. There’s pleasant contact with the object. Pleasant feeling. But when the thief realizes that the owners of the car are chasing him and he is just about to get caught, his contact with the car changes from the pleasant to the painful. The thief knows the owners of the car are mad at him for stealing it and he knows that they want to beat him up. So, not surprisingly, the thief’s contact with the object, the car, is getting quite painful. He starts to regret his actions when the owners of the car finally catch up to him. Joy has changed to pain. The irate owners then hand the thief over to the police and the police take him to court where the judge sentences him to a jail term. Later, while languishing in jail, the thief is indifferent towards the car. The situation is out of his control.

I used to be a heavy drinker.

Well, over a night of heavy drinking, getting really drunk, you experienced both pleasant and painful contact with alcohol. By morning, you found yourself in a neutral state of indifference towards alcohol, possibly with a hangover and you had no reason to continue drinking. These days, you are meditating instead of drinking. If you ever settle your mind down into the state of Samadhi, you will see that feeling is coreless.

By coreless, do you mean anattà?

Coreless is fine. Since the same pleasant feeling that you’re clinging to will eventually turn into a painful feeling, we say that feeling is coreless and without foundation. When you are settled in Samadhi, you will clearly see that feeling has this characteristic of anicca and as a result you won’t cling to pleasant feelings. I’m not talking about anattà. When there is sati, mentality and materiality are differentiated and everything is seen as a continuous flow of dependent origination, an unbroken chain of causes and effects.

And when I can manage some sati, I’ll be in peace then?

Equanimity may arise out of ignorance, delusion, or wisdom. When I ask you a question about a subject that you know very little, for instance, the nature of jhàna consciousness, you are simply incapable of answering me. As a result of ignorance, your mind leans towards equanimity. You simply have no other choice than indifference. Equanimity can also arise when a person realizes they are terminally ill, as he or she gives up hope. Equanimity also arises when certain drugs are taken. And it arises when a meditator suppresses his or her defilements through the practice of samatha. Even this type of result, this equanimity that arises out of a meditator’s samatha practice, arises out of the meditator’s ignorance and delusion. In contrast, equanimity arises for a wise person because he or she realizes that the same conditions in life leading to the arising of pleasure, the assàda, also lead to the arising of pain. Pain is the drawback, the àdãnava, the dangers, of pleasurable conditions. Understanding that pain is connected with pleasure, a wise person moves towards equanimity regarding all objects. An arahat fully realizes the true nature of life’s assàdas and its àdãnavas, and abides in equanimity. You can read about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of feeling in the The Seven Cases Sutta and also in the If There Were No Sutta.

_Okay, you’re saying that if I’m ever to find peace of mind, I have to get it through my head that there is always pain and danger connected to sense pleasure. _

The bodhisatta Siddhàrtha Gautama fully understood the nature of enjoyment, and understood how enjoyment is tied to misery and danger. Studying with âlàra Kàlàma, he attained to the sphere of nothingness, an extremely refined and peaceful object for his mind. With no applied thoughts or even anything to think about, the sphere of nothingness is such a high attainment that âlàra Kàlàma thought it to be the highest possible attainment. âlàra Kàlàma measured it to be a state of pure enjoyment with no misery or drawbacks. Siddhartha, however, saw misery and drawbacks in the sphere of nothingness it too is conditioned, which means it is subject to decay and death, and therefore suffering. Siddhartha continued his search.

NO CONCERNS

As I said right at the beginning of this section, contact and feeling phassa and vedanà must be discussed together. They cannot be separated, which is why the Buddha said, “Dependent on contact, feeling arises.” To develop our minds, to attain liberation, we must understand the nature of vedanà. When we live out our lives in the kàma-loka, this sense-sphere plane, we have to look at the nature of vedanà in the kàma-loka. We must look at events happening around us, which means looking at kàma, looking at sensuality.

A meditator who suppresses cravings for sensuality leaves the kàma-loka behind and enters into the råpa-loka, the fine-material realm. He or she attains the first jhàna. When the meditator has full control of the first jhàna and enters it at will, it is called first jhàna-samàpatti. The mind of the meditator is fully settled down in the state of samàdhi, in jhàna. He or she doesn’t think about the sensual world, no sensual concerns whatsoever; this consciousness is not of an ordinary nature. The meditator only thinks about the fine-material world, a world completely apart from sensuality and apart from the harming of beings that arises on account of chasing sensual pleasures. In the jhàna, the meditator only makes contact with extremely refined forms of derived materiality, refined forms called upàdàya-råpa, which is a more pleasant form of contact than the contact found in the kàma-loka. A good meditator directs mind towards the refined upàdàya-råpa and avoids directing mind towards the gross forms of derived materiality of the four primary elements. In due course, the meditator perceives lightness in the body, softness, also perceives changes in the body and the arising of sensations. Since the meditator avoids making any direct link with the four primary elements, he or she only experiences mental contact and doesn’t experience any touch. Are you following? There is phassa for the meditator, but no phoññhabba. It’s only mind that perceives the changes in the body, that’s at the upàdàya-råpa level.

A good meditator can choose to look at the arising of materiality produced by kamma or to look at the arising of materiality produced by mind. A man or woman who has full attainment has trained the mind in the sign of the jhàna the nimitta. A nimitta is a totality sign that appears internally, in the mind. It is upàdàya-råpa. While in jhàna, the meditator chooses contact with the nimitta and avoids contact with the gross materiality of the four primary elements.

_I don’t suppose the meditator is making any mental contact with that materiality of his bottom that hurts from sitting for hours on a cushion! Can the meditator contact subtle materiality, the pasàda-råpa, while in our sense-sphere plane? _

No. This is only at the time of being in jhàna. Depending on the situation, the meditator can choose to have phassa with the extremely refined upàdàya-råpa. He or she directs the mind towards pleasant objects of contact and avoids directing the mind towards any painful objects of contact. The meditator has no phassa with the four primary elements, whether they be gross or the subtle pasàda-råpa. Selecting only pleasant phassa, no painful feelings arise, attaining both mental and material serenity. The fine-material realm of the jhàna is totally removed from the sensuality of the sense-sphere realm. It is incompatible with sensual ways. When the meditator experiences the fine-material realm, he or she is fully immersed in the fine-material realm. Once the meditator is removed from jhàna, is experiencing the sense-sphere realm, he or she is fully immersed in that plane of the sense-sphere realm. It is back to sensuality again.

_Do we always have phassa? _

Worldly, lokiya, means that there is phassa, contact. All mental phenomena, except magga-phala of the lokuttara, have phassa. In the lokuttara, there is only vedanà and no phassa.

CONFLICTS AT HOME

You once had a glimpse of jhàna, just a quick look. While living here at our meditation centre, you engaged in relatively intensive periods of walking and sitting, and gained a degree of serenity, maybe some insight. You never truly experienced jhàna and you definitely never became proficient at entering jhàna. You only experienced a pleasant feeling that you created in your mind.

It’s peaceful at the centre. Yet I still get into conflicts at home.

You are not alone. Many people, even those who consider themselves good meditators, have conflicts at home. Conflicts come out of views. If the experiences at the meditation centre are pleasant, meditators often want the same pleasant experiences at home. This is not possible. For example, at the same time a man wants to do sitting meditation and wants silence in his home, his wife chats with her friends or his son watches TV. The man is disturbed and scolds them, “Be quiet!” or “Why don’t you meditate?” or “You must meditate.” or “You shouldn’t watch TV it’s no good for you.”

“Daddy,” says his son, “you’re going crazy. I think meditation is bad for you.” Wife and son do not understand why the man wants to meditate and are concerned about him.

A meditation centre is geared to walking slowly, sitting for hours, and silence. No one takes any special notice of these practices. It is, however, impossible to engage in these types of practices outside a meditation centre and attempting to do so only leads to conflicts. Conflicts arise when meditators just get a glimpse of what lies beyond the sense-sphere realm and do not fully penetrate the jhànas. Measuring and finding faults in others is a huge impediment to progress. Some bhikkhus measure other bhikkhus, “When I go on alms round, you should go on alms round.” and “Since I sit in meditation for four hours, you too should sit and meditate for four hours.” Hopeless, how can anyone approve of such behavior? They haven’t found any serenity even after seeing objects for what they really are. And you? Because you attained some concentration in your practice here at our centre, you expect your fellow meditators to also attain the same concentration. Much of your fellow meditators behaviour irritates you, including their unsolicited and unwanted advice, which means you have yet to understand the nature of being human. You don’t know your own mind and don’t know how to live in this sense-sphere plane.

But when I look around this meditation centre, I don’t see anyone applying your teachings.

A person’s character is subtle. By observing external signs, by looking at people, you can’t measure a person’s mental state; you can’t tell their spiritual attainment. Some meditators look very restrained. They are silent, always directing their gaze towards the ground, never looking around, and are always walking carefully. They may eat and breathe slowly. These signs are meaningless. Another meditator may eat fast and may even talk a lot, but is more advanced in terms of suppressing hindrances and overcoming defilements. Try to have some compassion for your fellow residents, as many of them are in the middle years of their lives and things are complicated with family responsibilities there are husbands, wives, children, jobs, financial concerns, and so on and so forth. In spite of that, these lay people who left their work at home for a month or two and are dedicating themselves to the practice at our meditation centre can go quickly on this path. And when they return home, if there is understanding between family members, then things will continue to progress smoothly and quickly. The father may meditate and the others co-operate by not making noise. Similarly, when the mother takes her turn to meditate, she gets the same support, and then the practice is balanced. Read the Nakulapità Sutta in the Saüyutta Nikàya.

Some people, because of their experiences in meditation, do not lead a balanced life in the society. And of course, because of their unbalanced nature, others are discouraged from meditating. We must not confuse the society with the things we do at a meditation centre. When I first started meditating at Kanduboda, my parents advised me, “Do not tell stories about meditation to anyone.” So, when I was at home, I did what the other teenagers were doing, like flying kites and biking.

Are teenagers good meditators?

Teenagers do very well at meditation centres. And their parents aren’t anxious because they know their children are in a safe place. When I was a teenager, my parents gave me permission to meditate on one condition, “Don’t behave in a way that brings shame to our family.” By bringing any shame, they meant stealing, or lying, or being deceitful. I knew if I protected myself from those things then I was on the right track and could do anything else! I was free and it was easy for me to meditate. The practice can go very well for young people.

SENSUALITY AND PASSION

Kàma is different from ràga. The term kàma means sensuality. It means that, through our sense doors, we take in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and body touch. Ràga on the other hand translates as passion, or is sometimes translated as simply appreciation and enjoyment. The two terms are often connected, as in kàma-ràga, but kàma only applies to the sense doors. We don’t use the term kàma when talking about the råpa-jjhànas and the aråpa-jjhànas. There are three types of ràga:

1. Sensual passion, kàma-ràga
2. Fine-material passion, råpa-ràga
3. Immaterial passion, aråpa-ràga

Sensual passion, kàma-ràga, also known as enjoyment of sensuality, is what we experience when we have pleasing contact with objects of our sense-sphere plane. A familiar occurrence, enjoying sensuality is normal, nothing extraordinary. We all have our personal preferences some things we like and some things we don’t. When I take overseas guests on a car trip to Kandy, I do my best to be a good host. I start by making sure they have comfortable seats because, like you and I, they prefer comfortable seats to uncomfortable ones. They appreciate that form of body touch. This is the enjoyment of sensuality, kàma-ràga. During the trip, I point out waterfalls, panoramic views, birds, and elephants. My guests always tell me the sights are beautiful and the wildlife is fascinating. They are expressing their appreciation, ràga. At a rest house, we drink tea, eat cake, and smell the fresh mountain air. Again, my guests express their appreciation and enjoyment. In Kandy, we take pleasure in hearing a bhikkhu recite a gàthà. Comfortable seats, beautiful sights, tasty tea and cake, the smell of fresh air, and the sounds of a gàthà enjoyment of sensuality was taken by my guests through all of their sense doors. Of course, enjoyment arose for them. Why wouldn’t they like pleasing objects of contact? It’s completely natural for everyone to enjoy sensual pleasure. Kàma-ràga. It arises in everyone.

Does an arahat experience ràga?

We can’t use the term ràga in reference to arahats, or anàgàmãs. Adherence to or an acceptance of social conventions is closer to their experience with sense objects. He or she accepts that sitting in a comfortable chair is pleasant. They may accept that abiding in the råpa-jjhànas and the aråpa-jjhànas is pleasant. The Buddha accepted pleasant surroundings. On two occasions, the Buddha’s body was radiant upon enlightenment and upon final passing away. Though an acceptance of sensual pleasure still arises for arahats, sensual pleasure doesn’t disturb their equanimity, as it does for those of lesser levels of knowledge.

Parents often bring their children to our meditation centre. Five to ten-year-old boys and girls casually sit on the floor and even sit on me. I talk with them, give them sweets, pat their backs, sometimes hold their hands as we walk around the centre, and if they are small enough I carry them over rough ground. I enjoy the company of young boys and girls. I also enjoy the company of teenage boys and girls, and what I feel towards the teenagers is the same as what I feel towards the five to ten-year-olds appreciation and enjoyment. It’s my kàma-ràga.

“You should not be teaching teenage girls,” said one man. “It’s okay to teach the five to ten-year-olds and the adults, but it is wrong to teach teenage girls.” There is nothing wrong in teaching teenage girls the dhamma nothing whatsoever.

A few people might take what you’re saying in the wrong way.

TWO DIFFERENT CONDITIONS

Whatever we have developed for ourselves is ours and ours alone. It is internal. While living in a meditation centre, we conduct ourselves in ways that are suitable for a meditation centre. While living a worldly working life, we conduct ourselves in ways that are suitable for the normal way of being in the worldly working life.

What’s suitable?

Being suitable means involving ourselves in wholesome and beneficial activities that are common to everyone. We are born in this sense-sphere plane; we have to live in this sense-sphere plane. This does not mean living at a low level in the sense-sphere plane full of envy, jealousy, and lust. No. We practise kindness, compassion, and generosity. We meditate to develop wisdom and live in harmony with people. Avoid conflicts. And to avoid conflicts, we interact with others in ways that others understand, not in ways that only we understand. When in a worldly situation, we speak and act in worldly ways. We don’t impose our views about the nature of contact and feeling upon people who aren’t considering contact and feeling. No. And a meditator who has attained jhàna isn’t talking about the nature of jhàna consciousness with people who have no interest in jhàna. Contact and feeling in jhàna is one thing; contact and feeling in the kàma-loka is something else.

What are my chances of attaining jhana?

If you understand the beneficial and the harmful of the kàma-loka, you can easily attain the solitude and peace of the jhàna. And then when back in the kàma-loka, you would have some objectivity on the nature of the kàma-loka. Far better than the person who had never attained jhàna, entered the råpa-loka, you would have the opportunity to clearly see the kàma-loka’s pleasures and pains, its assàdas and its àdãnavas, as the jhàna is a complete contrast to our disturbing kàma-loka. Some strong meditators know what I am talking about and thus know how to live in harmony with others.

If the Buddha gave us one thousand units of teachings on the nature of contact and feelingÞone thousand being an arbitrary number a sotàpanna might understand one hundred of the one thousand units, and the average person probably only understands twenty-five of the one thousand. The average person doesn’t know the difference between the beneficial and the harmful; he or she won’t be attaining jhàna. A sotàpanna always interacts with the average person at a level that is equal to or below the average person’s level of understanding, maybe interacting at a level of twenty-three or twenty-four units. If a sotàpanna interacted with the average person at a level greater than the average person’s level of understanding, say helped at a level of twenty-six, the average person would be confused and would definitely misunderstand. He simply wouldn’t be able to relate. Even though twenty-six units is just a bit beyond the average persons twenty-five units of understanding, the average person would consider the sotàpanna to be acting with greed, acting out of anger, or acting in a way that is a sign of mental illness. So, conflicts would occur between the sotàpanna and the average person. Yes, interactions between people are always problematic. If I can help someone, I help them as much as I can. But very often my help has resulted in a great deal of confusion and serious conflicts; they thought I expected something or I was leading them somewhere.

_At home, I want the same serenity I have here at the centre. _

You can’t have the same serenity at your home, as contact and feeling depend upon the conditions in which they arise. The conditions in which you live must be considered. When you go to a meditation centre and practice relatively intensively for fifteen days to a month, conditions are meditative, a little less worldly than at home. Thus, dependent upon the less worldly meditative contacts, meditative feelings arise. And when there are meditative contacts and feelings, meditative råpa-kalàpas come to be. Your mentality and materiality, your mind and body, are affected by existing conditions. Your mental formations at a meditation centre are of a slightly less worldly nature than your mental formations at home.

When you leave the meditation centre and return home, conditions are completely worldly and you encounter sensual objects, which means sensual forms of contact and feelings arise. For this reason, dependent upon worldly contacts and feelings, worldly råpa-kalàpas arise in your mind and body. It always takes some time for the råpa-kalàpas of your mind and body to transform from their calm meditative state to their, relatively speaking, disturbed worldly state. Until that transformation takes place, you simply have to wait. It can take a number of days before you can easily form words, have normal thoughts, and are completely readjusted to the worldly life. Possibly, it’s in this readjustment period between meditative and worldly conditions, you find yourself getting into conflicts by imposing views, measuring and giving marks, and criticizing. You might think, “I’m very restrained and serene, but others aren’t at all restrained or serene.”

Be aware that the conditions in a meditation centre and the conditions at home are both worldly. The meditation centre is only slightly less worldly than the home life. Kàma-loka, råpa-loka, and aråpa-loka are all worldly, lokiya. For conditions to be anything other than worldly, a meditator must attain the path and fruit of the supramundane, the lokuttara. Must attain to sotàpatti.

People who are always in meditative conditions such as a meditation centre experience meditative types of contacts and feelings each and every day of their lives. Because they are not switching back and forth between the two different conditions meditative and worldly transformation of the råpa-kalàpas never occurs and there are no conflicts between the two different conditions. Of course, even these sincere meditators might occasionally be in a five-star hotel, attending a wedding for a relative. The Buddha attended weddings. As long as these meditators don’t fully immerse themselves in the ways of the world, they can help people who are fully immersed in the world.

Are these people sotàpannas?

No. Not necessarily, as it’s feasible they were bodhisattas in one of their previous births and instead of attaining magga-phala, they help others, once in a while.

Why help others only once in a while?

Only once in a while, a person comes along and asks the right questions.