พระอาจารย์อธิบายลำดับของปัญญาสามขั้น คือ สุตมยปัญญา จินตามยปัญญา และภาวนามยปัญญา ชี้ให้เห็นความแตกต่างระหว่างสมถะ (เจโตวิมุตติ) กับวิปัสสนา (ปัญญาวิมุตติ) และอธิบายว่าภาวนามยปัญญาคือความรู้ที่ลึกซึ้งซึ่งไม่มีอยู่แล้วในโลก ต้องอาศัยการเข้าถึงธรรมกายภายในและการจดจ่อใคร่ครวญอย่างต่อเนื่องPra Ajarn traces the three stages of wisdom — wisdom from listening, wisdom from reflection, and wisdom born of meditation — distinguishing calm concentration (samatha / ceto-vimutti) from insight (panna-vimutti), and explains that bhavanamaya panna is knowledge that doesn't already exist anywhere in the world, arising only through inner attainment of the Dhamma body and sustained, focused contemplation.
Someone asked: how does wisdom born of meditation (namaya panna) actually arise?
It Must Be Built on Listening and Reflection First
Without first learning to listen (suta) and coming to understand through reflection (cinta), a higher wisdom cannot arise. Everything requires a foundation and must develop step by step — just as without a foundation, one cannot solve a difficult mathematical problem.
The Difference Between Calm Concentration and Liberating Wisdom
Pra Ajarn gave an example: there was once an Indian ascetic who sat in continuous meditation in the forest for six years. People came to pay their respects and asked him to teach the , but he had nothing to teach — because what he had was simply deep inner stillness and peace. That is : , , one-pointedness, equanimity — refined, subtle, pure states of feeling. This is ceto-vimutti, liberation through the emotions and states of mind — different from bhavanamaya panna, which belongs to panna-vimutti, liberation through deep and detailed . To attain -knowledge (-nana), one needs inner light, , insight-vision, and true knowledge (vijja) — a great deal of groundwork is required. This differs from ceto-vimutti, where someone with attainment can guide and shape another's mind toward stillness without needing to explain the underlying foundation. But for liberating wisdom, the one who knows must genuinely explain the foundation for real understanding to occur. And at the level of insight-knowledge, light must first arise before the inner world can be seen as clearly as the outer world. From there, one must reach the inner Dhamma body to use its Dhamma Eye, refining oneself further to reach the source of ever subtler knowledge.
Wisdom from Listening: Knowledge Gained Through Memory
Suya panna is knowledge gained by listening and remembering. It's like sending a child to school, then asking afterward what the teacher taught that day — if the child can't remember, no benefit comes of it. Studying the Dhamma works the same way: we must first remember it before we can use it. Remembering depends on the sphere of awareness, or (), being established. Once it's established, it draws in merit to purify the layers of that obscure knowing, allowing us to know and remember, and store that knowledge in the "sphere of memory," where merit then preserves it.
Wisdom from Reflection: Knowledge Turned Into True Understanding
Once information exists through sutamaya panna, cintamaya panna refines it further through careful reflection and contemplation, purifying it until it becomes clean and clear. Merit purifies the obscuring layers, bringing about genuine understanding — because information from sutamaya panna alone is still just memorized data, not understanding. Only through cintamaya panna does that data become true understanding. Once the obscuring layers are cleared, the "knower" who holds that particular knowledge or field, hidden within, appears and explains it so it is genuinely understood.
Bhavanamaya Panna: Knowledge That Doesn't Yet Exist in the World
Bhavanamaya panna is different — it is knowledge that doesn't already exist anywhere in the world, knowledge that no knower has held before. It is deeper than all worldly fields of learning. Scientists who discover something new use a worldly form of the same focus — dwelling continuously on a single question, whether waking or sleeping, thinking of nothing else. While they remain absorbed in that one question, merit flows in and purifies the obscuring defilements, bringing about knowledge of what the process is and what it means. Pra Ajarn gave the example of a discovery in Japan: a microorganism capable of converting ordinary sugar into a form that causes no disease when eaten — safe even for people with diabetes, and beneficial to health. This microorganism became so valuable that Japan's own domestic supply wasn't even enough to export. This is an example of knowledge arising through bhavanamaya panna — because knowing which one, out of millions of species of bacteria, has such a property, and where to find it, is entirely a matter of the inner "knower," not something that can be searched out by any other means.