The Distinction Between Genuine and False Dispassion Toward the World

Disenchantment with worldly phenomena can be divided into disenchantment at the level of surface consciousness and disenchantment at the deeper level of the manas. Surface-level disenchantment is merely the mind consciousness finding the world boring and meaningless, but it is only talk—talking is one thing, doing is another; it never gets serious. However greedy one was, one remains just as greedy, and nothing changes. This is false disenchantment. But when a genuine sense of disenchantment arises in the mind, it manifests directly in one's actions: one no longer devises many ways to avoid worldly people and affairs, preferring fewer matters over more, and no longer craves the world. This is the disenchantment arising from the manas at a deep level—a mind connected with liberation. Reaching this level of action is not easy; it is wholesome roots cultivated over many lifetimes. Those of shallow learning absolutely cannot have such mental conduct.

How can one attain disenchantment at the deep level of the manas? First one needs to cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi), and within that concentration engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) on the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) as suffering, empty, impermanent, and non-self. After an initial realization of impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and non-self, one still cannot give rise to disenchantment with the world; one must continue to deepen one's contemplative practice until the first dhyāna is attained and the afflictions of craving are severed. Only then does disenchantment with the world arise—one no longer wishes to keep drifting through birth and death in the world, wasting one's time—and the mind of liberation and the mind of renunciation emerge. Therefore, the mind of renunciation and the mind of disenchantment are inseparable from deep-level meditative concentration and wisdom. Without cultivating meditative concentration, there is only verbal disenchantment while in reality one is extremely attached, not weary of it at all—saying one thing while meaning another, with mind and mouth inconsistent.