About This Teaching
Asked by a chief privy counsellor whether the mind of an anagami, a non-returner, is pure, Ajahn Chah answers that it is partly pure. Sensual desire is gone, but something remains. He uses the image of alms bowls in nine sizes, from large-large down to small-small: however small, it is still a bowl. Stream-enterers, once-returners and non-returners have each given up defilements only to their level; if they could see what remains, they would be arahants.
He urges alertness in training the heart, admitting he has felt temptations himself that would have strayed from the path, a kind of swagger rooted in views and pride. He recalls a man who arrived to ordain, laid down his robes and at once paced walking meditation before the hall as if to be enlightened by sundown, an example of blind faith.
Mental proliferation, he warns, disguises itself as wisdom and seems clever, but when suffering arises it is of no use.