Someone asked: please explain Luang Pu's teaching on kama-tanha (sensual craving), bhava-tanha (craving for being), and vibhava-tanha (craving for non-being), which are causes of rebirth.

The Meaning of the Three Cravings

Kama-tanha is wanting to get something; bhava-tanha is wanting something to come into being or continue being. Once something has come to be and appears, not wanting it to change into something else — wanting it to stay as it is — is vibhava-tanha. For example, wanting a child we don't yet have is kama-tanha; once we have the child as wished, that is bhava-tanha arising; not wanting that child to ever change is vibhava-tanha. These three cravings are causes of rebirth, and must be extinguished through morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and knowledge-and-vision of liberation, stripped away layer by layer until reaching the arahant stage where they cease entirely — that cessation is nirodha.

Dependent Origination and How Craving Arises

After his awakening, the Buddha contemplated Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppada) for 49 days. This teaching describes a process where each link arises dependent on the one before it, in sequence: ignorance, formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, aging, death, sorrow, and lamentation. When the unwholesome side seizes control because ignorance clouds the mind, formations shape it through mental factors, consciousness carries it toward rebirth, passing through the six sense bases — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind — contacting forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch, giving rise to feeling — liking or disliking. Once liking or disliking toward form, sound, smell, taste, or touch grows strong enough, craving arises — wanting to keep experiencing that state, which is bhava-tanha, or wanting to be free of it, which is vibhava-tanha.

Once the amount of craving is enough to force a decision, clinging (upadana) arises — grasping firmly, "it must be this way," with no turning back, because a new inner being has now appeared: birth has occurred in that very moment. A cloud of dark unwholesome particles spreads rapidly around the person, invisible to the human eye and visible only through the Dhamma Eye. Once a "becoming" arises, a body arises with it; the unwholesome inner being takes over management, forcing us to do things we would never otherwise dare, because control has already changed hands. Every one of its activities proceeds through wrong concentration, continuously drawing in unwholesome energy along with karmic consequence until the deed is complete. When aging appears, when death appears, the resulting suffering, grief, and lamentation are all part of the accomplished pattern of that unwholesome sphere, stored within the sphere of dhamma, awaiting its moment to bear fruit on the timeline of a future life.

How to Extinguish Craving Through Morality, Concentration, Wisdom, Liberation, and Knowledge-and-Vision of Liberation

The sphere of dhamma consists of elements (earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements), dhamma itself (the "software" — the spheres of morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and knowledge-and-vision of liberation), and energy (the spheres of merit and sin). Extinguishing craving requires morality, concentration, and wisdom as the wholesome "software." Morality keeps us from speaking or acting wrongly; concentration draws pure energy to purify defilement within each dimension; wisdom is the tool for resolving the underlying problem, ignorance. Once morality, concentration, and wisdom form a sufficient base, the sphere of liberation can function to free us, and the sphere of knowledge-and-vision of liberation leads us toward something even better. Liberation must be stripped away layer by layer, up to the arahant stage, because each subtler dimension still carries its own residual defilement. We must see the danger and harm of it before we can genuinely wish to be free. These Four Noble Truths — suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path — can only be seen through the Dhamma Eye; without it, they cannot be seen at all.

How Can Teachers Help Us Reach Liberation When We Don't Have the Knowledge Ourselves?

Someone asked: since we don't have the Dhammakaya knowledge ourselves, how can we reach liberation? Must we rely on our teachers?

We must study the Threefold Training: the training in morality, in concentration, and in wisdom. Without studying all three, the sphere of liberation cannot function. Training in morality is the foundation that leads to training in concentration; training in concentration in turn develops into training in wisdom. We must begin by studying to understand, then practice repeatedly until it becomes familiar. Those with inner wisdom will overlay and guide us, deepening our understanding progressively until we see the danger and harm of unliberated states clearly enough — only then does the sphere of liberation act to free us. It isn't that we free ourselves by our own effort; it is an automatic mechanism of nature. We need only study and practice until we reach that point, just as one progresses through school grade by grade, relying on teachers to guide us the whole way.