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The Lost Father An article by Sayadaw U Ottamasara Edited by Florian Dobson
If we consider nibbana to be something, it is the only something. There can be nothing else except for nibbana because only nibbana exists eternally. If you want to understand something, you must clear your mind of obscurations, - you must purify 'your mind' to be mind only and stop grasping to the mind as 'mine'. The quality of mind and the quality of matter are quite opposite. Mind only - or pure mind - is very powerful, its quality of wisdom is unlimited. Mind can know everything, but matter is ignorance, it has no wisdom . That’s why when mind combines with the body of a man it becomes impure and its original power is lost. Man's body is only like the earth it is very heavy and weighs down the mind. So, if we accept ourselves as a man, as 'I', our mind is imprisoned in the body and everything we know is only an illusion, not the real something which is nibbana. Mind has become very attached to the life of a man, mind [even] thinks 'these are my hands, these are my legs, I am a man and this is my body'. Mind and body are like man and woman, they depend on each other. Man cannot live without woman, woman cannot live without man. So also, a man's body cannot live without the mind, and because of its attachments, mind cannot live without the body. But Man is the creation of mind, so mind has become a slave to its own creation of ‘a man '. Only when mind can detach from its creation, and can stay as mind only, it will become pure and regain its original power. With this power, mind can understand the only real ‘something’ which is nibbana. To understand the Truth, we must stop the mind from continuously connecting with the body. In other words, the mind must detach from the body and leave behind the field of mind and matter. We must divorce the mind and matter couple and stay with mind only. This is meditation - freeing the mind from matter. A free mind can understand everything, it understands how to combine with matter in order to create everything, and solve all problems. Humans are mistaken, because they depend on matter [material things], they depend on things like money, beauty, and on one another; but they never depend on the very powerful mind – the father mind. [In reality], man, woman, and animals are the product of the combination of mind and matter. Mind and matter are like husband and wife and the infinite living beings are like their children. But men and women think 'he is my father', 'she is my mother'. They don’t understand that in reality, the true parents are mind and matter. By accepting ourselves as 'a man', 'a woman' we are accepting ourselves as only the creation and not the creator. Humans use only their human abilities, so they can't understand the infinite creative quality of mind without matter - mind only, which is the very powerful father… the lost father. Zee: the god father Sayadaw: yes… [laughing] By meditation I discovered the lost father and learned to depend on mind only. Mind is the origin - it is very powerful, it is really the only thing to depend on. People are in trouble because what they depend on is unreliable. The rich depend on their money, the president depends on his power, people depend on others, but nobody depends on mind which is eternal. In meditation I depend only on mind, not 'my mind', only pure, empty mind. Mind is very powerful, that’s why if you want to understand the real something, if you want to know the truth of everything, you must stop depending on yourself as a man and learn to depend on mind only.