Wrong views can be a useful tool

Wrong views can be a useful tool – Asubha Bhavana and seeing things as Anatta can be useful  to reduce clinging but must also ultimately be let go of if we are to attain Enlightenment

The Buddha is said to have stated that the viewpoint of Atta and conditioned thought (sangkhara), although being wrong view, is still useful as a tool for realisation whilst still on the path which leads to Enlightenment, having not yet been released from Samsara. What he meant by this was that although they are wrong thoughts, they can be used as catalysts to attain realisation of truths which release us from some of the cruder forms of wrong view. There are refined and crude thoughts, both being wrong view, but we can step up from a negative and inauspicious or less beneficial way of seeing things to attain a more refined or auspicious way of seeing things which brings us closer to the attainment of right view, if perhaps till not reaching that point.

The process of Enlightenment happens in stages not in a lightning flash. Full Enlightenment of course is a split second change – but the steps which led to the hair breadth that lies between 99 percent attained and 100 percent attained is a long and gradual process of steps and stages/phases. But when the final cord is cut, it happens in a flash

I shall use the topics of Asubha Bhavana practise and that of the concepts of Atta and Anatta to demonstrate this point;

The tudong masters as well as Vipassana practitioners would sit in cemeteries in the woods and contemplate corpses in 9 different states of decomposition, in order to see that ones own body is in principle no different.
A swollen corpse, a discolored, a bluish, corpse, a festering corpse, a fissured corpse, a partially eaten corpse, a dismembered corpse, or a corpse that has been hacked and into pieces, a corpse that is still bleeding, a worm-eaten corpse, and a skeleton.

This practise, was performed  in order to stop clinging to one’s body, to stop being under the influence of attraction when we see the beauty in the outer skin – to see that even a beautiful or handsome person (according to our personal conditioning of what beauty is) , is no more than a bag of body parts and fluids. To see that in the end we are all going to be corpses.

In addition, the contemplation of these 9 states of corpse will trigger certain advances in realisations, and sometimes even psychic powers. We shall overcome fear by confronting all the panic and paranoias which will occur whilst sitting alone in the dark forest with those corpses. To see that a corpse is only dead matter. To see impermanence and let go of all clinging to impermanent matters. All of these things are tools of the practise of Asubha bhavana. One should not forget however, that to learn to see the beautiful as unattractive is also a conditioned opinion just as much as to see something unattractive as beautiful. In the end both perspectives must be let go of

Links .40 kammathana Practises
Asubha Bhavana is also conditoned thought – a way of using wrong view to destroy wrong view.

To see a handsome or beautiful person as a bag of blood, faeces and guts will reduce our attraction and subsequent desire towards that person or object of interest. This is called Asubha Bhavana.
Many practitioners ,especially monks maintain that all things are not beautiful, rather disgusting.
This is wrong view, because in just the same sense that such an object is not attractive, or desirable, neither is it dirty and undesriable/disgusting.

The goal of asubha bhavana is to reduce and eliminate desire and clinging.
Desire and clinging is one of the vedhanas (feelings) we swim around in , drowned in them and under their influence. This is seen as dhukka (suffering) in Buddhism.
In the same sense, the disgust which arises from the practise of Asubha Bhavana is also a vedhana (feeling) in which we become drowned in and under the influence of.
In order to attain Arahantship and liberation from Dhukka, we must also release ourself from the view that things are undesirable, as well as the notion that something is desirable.

Both viewpoints are  forms of clinging

Both may be considered wrong views

This is what we call Avicca (Awichaa in Thai).

It is the same as the Buddhist notion that all things are Anatta (Non Self/ Not mine)

Atta is the notion of a permanent inherent self/soul which transmigrates (john in this life is always john in every life – preposterous!)

Asubha Bhavana – using wrong view as a tool to destroy wrong views – letting go of sangkhara

Anatta is the notion that John in this life is perhaps Sally in the next, and that the two are different people, but that the pure mind which carries no individual trademarks manages to transmigrate (Anatta does not mean that we cease to exist – reincarnation would not be part of the Buddhist philosophy if this was thought to be true, and the Buddha could not have remembered previous lives if so).

It is quite simple to realise the gist and true goal of the practise if you realise these points/truths.

The thing we have to do is not to see things as anatta and asubha (non self and undesirable)
Rather to use the viewpoints of Anatta to destroy out deeply rooted clinging to the notion of a self
and to use the viewpoint of Asubha, to eliminate our clinging to the notion of things beinig desirable and thus eliminate clinging to those objects of desire.

Once we have attained this, then we have to apply the real part of the practise, which is the real goal;

We have to let go (stop clinging) to any notions – be they that of self or non self, beauty or ugliness, desirable or undesirable.

And just let go. Ajarn Cha maintained this as the core of his teaching – letting go!

Avicca is the cause of Sangkhara (wrong view is the cause of conditioned thoughts and assumed concepts) – these are the first two in the chain of interdependent origination, which leads us to be trapped in the endless cycle of rebirth into Samsara. Arahantship and Enlightenment (Wichaa/Vicca) is simply having let go of all clinging to any notions or presuppositions. This will result in the letting go of desire and the causes and effects which follow. This means that we must not even cling to beliefs, even if  they  are true.

The Buddha is reputed to have been asked once;

“So Lord, does the Arahant maintain the notion of Atta (permanent self) as that which is true?

No said the Buddha – the Arahant does not cling to such a notion.

“So then my Lord, then the Arahant must maintain the belief in the notion that all things are Anatta, is this so?”

No, said the Buddha – the Arahant does not cling to that, or any notion”

The point is that it is clinging which is the obstacle which prevents us from Arahantship.
Whether the concepts of Anatta or Atta are true or not, will not change regardless of which of those beliefe we cling to. The use of the viewpoint of Anatta is useful to destroy the clingiing to the self. But to then cling to the notion that all thigs are non self is once again the process of clinging to assumptions, which prevents us froom awakening the light which arises when all forms of clinging inclinations have disappeared from our mind.

Its as simple as that. (well in theory anyway)

More Links for expanded study on this matter.
Kilesas – What is attachment and desire

Letting go (a short musing)

The Four Sathipatanas (audio teaching by Ajarn Maha Bua in English)

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