Introduction
A young Brahmin disciple told the Buddha that his teacher taught him not to see forms with the eye or hear sounds with the ear. Upon hearing this story, the Buddha remarked that if such a form of meditation were considered skillful, then blindness and deafness would be virtues and not flaws. After these words, Ananda asked the Blessed One to explain what kind of attitude toward the senses is skillful, and the Buddha explained the type of reflection that leads to serene observation of the activity of the senses, as well as the types of freedom of mind that arise from such serenity.
Serene meditation on the six types of perceptions
When perceiving phenomena, beings experience pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings, and the changing nature of pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Untrained beings experience confusion and dismay from this. However, a well-trained disciple understands this: "Attachment to the pleasant, aversion to the unpleasant, confusion regarding the changing—all these qualities are crudely molded, clumsily composed, conditioned by the chain of suffering. But dispassionate awareness of the six types of perception is sublime and brings peace." Through this way of reflecting, consciousness of the six types of perception is easily liberated:
Just as a seeing person opens and closes his eyes, so too the attachment, aversion and confusion that have arisen towards visual perceptions cease in the mind of the trained disciple and, in their place, serene awareness of forms is established.
The same is the path of correct reflection on the perceptions of hearing. Trained disciples free themselves from attachment, aversion, and confusion regarding sound with the same ease with which a person snaps their fingers, and become established in serene awareness of sounds.
By reflecting on the perceptions of smell in this way, trained disciples are freed from attachment, aversion, and confusion easily and unhindered, as if these obscurations were drops of water flowing down a slightly tilted lotus leaf.
Trained disciples get rid of attraction, aversion and confusion regarding taste perceptions as easily as a person who has saliva accumulated on the tip of his tongue spits it out.
In relation to bodily perceptions, liberation occurs as if a strong person were bending and straightening his arm.
Finally, in relation to the perceptions of ideas, liberation is like dropping a few drops of water on a hot frying pan: it would quickly evaporate and disappear.
Thus, attraction, aversion and confusion in relation to the activity of the senses quickly disappear in one who is aware of their gross cohesion, their clumsy composition, their emergence in a chain of interdependent sufferings.
After all these six types of liberation of consciousness, the mind abides peacefully in the consciousness of perceptions.
Freedom in relation to perceptions
The wise, observing perceptions with equanimity, are free in five respects. They can, at will:
1) recognize the unattractive in the attractive
2) recognize attractiveness in the unattractive
3) recognize attractiveness in the unattractive and attractive
4) recognize unattractiveness in the unattractive and attractive
5) abandon craving, aversion and confusion, and abide in serene awareness and mindfulness
Conclusion
Having given his instructions, the Buddha reminded his disciples that by explaining the Dhamma, he was compassionately fulfilling his duty as a teacher. The disciples, in turn, must overcome carelessness and diligently train themselves in understanding the Dhamma through contemplation.
