Each fleeting and ephemeral moment of time continues successively and expands into days, months and years. However, when one’s mind roots itself into the here-and-now, one can experience the simple beauty of freedom amidst the ever-whirling world which rolls endlessly into the infinity of space.

Within the realm of my inner experience, past and future are mere phenomena of successive rising and falling flows of conditional formations. They are states which rise up and finish in themselves just right there in every present moment. Thus, they are without any substance.

With the power of mindfulness and clear comprehension, you will be able to feel and dwell in this freedom. This experience will be the same no matter Who you are or where you are in this infinite universe…..

- Phra Ajahn Piyadhassi Bhikkhu

Vimuttidhamma is the true freedom, which does not change according to any causes or factors, transcending all kinds of conditioned phenomena. On the path to liberation (the noble eightfold path), vimuttidhamma is the final goal for all beings.

Regarding the noble eightfold path, there are three levels of learning and practice. Firstly, the sila level or the level of adjusting one’s own physical and verbal conducts to support and be conducive to the training of one’s mind. Second is the level of concentration or mind training according to the principle of the four foundation of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna practice). Practitioners will be able to experience the rising and falling states within the framework of their own body and mind. In Pali, body (rūpa) and mind (nāma) are mere aggregates of compounded things. Such rising and falling continuum appears from gross to subtler levels, namely from the worldly to the form and formless realms.

Chakra is a knowledge at the level of absorption concentration (appanāsamādhi) which covers both the form and formless realms. Knowledge of chakra existed prior to the emergence of Buddhism. Before enlightenment, the Buddha achieved all the eight levels of absorption concentration from two masters, the yogies Alāra Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta. However, the knowledge of high level of concentration or chakra was not sufficient for reaching vimuttidhamma. The Buddha, therefore had to leave the two masters in order to seek, by himself, the higher and subtler kind of knowledge.

With tremendous effort and long-accumulated spiritual intuitive faculty which heightened to its peak, the Buddha was able to discover the higher kind of knowledge, or the third level of practice, namely insight or vipassanā. Only when absorption concentration is accompanied by insight, the ordinary kind of concentration will escalate and change itself into the noble right concentration. When both kinds of power, insight (vipassanābala)and concentration (samādhibala), develop up to the level of completion of factors of enlightenment (bojjhaṅga), the mind will be free from the cycle of rebirth. Before being able to reach the highest form of knowledge (vimuttiñāṇadassana), practitioners will experience an excellent kind of chakra, namely dhammachakra. Dhammachakra is a special state when ones experience only the rising and falling of aggregates without accompaniment of ignorance, craving and clinging force (which are the causes of suffering). The perception at this level is called kiriyacitta* which functions independently of both wholesome and unwholesome factors. When dhammachakra cycles and escalates its speed, up to one point, the cycling stops, and there emerges the last and the highest kind of knowledge, vimuttiñāṇadassana which will become clear only to those who can attain it.

Vimuttidhamma was translated from Thai to English by a group of practitioners, namely, Krisda Dhiradityakul, Apinya Feungfusakul with the help of Matt Meyers, Steve Rhodes, Rudy Stoert, Arthur McKeown and Zarina Parpia. Those who financially supported the publication are Thai meditator group in Boston,Yaowalak Phenglee, Phorn Phivilay, Dalom Phivilay, Pawaranan Wisitweradilok, Nattakini Jiramanthip, Pipaspon Udompolpunit, Thomas Mathsanghane, Jenjira Jenny Mathsanghane, Nupan Chalanukroa, Ubonwan Singphanomchai. The layout design was done by Thaiis Co. I would like to express my thanks and convey the blessing to all these people.

Vimuttidhamma will be a guiding friend for those who seek and practice Dhamma and will lead them to the knowledge about chakra and the higher knowledge of the excellent dhammachakra. On the noble path, may the cycling of dhammachakra reveal itself transparently to everybody who devotedly and persistently keeps on training the mind.

Piyadhassi Bhikkhu
Visaka Puja, 2011
Wat Tam Doi Tone, Chiang Mai