Day-6 QA - Online 10-day Retreat (Nov-17) with Delson Armstrong

Delson, I wanted to ask if you can explain continued existence in your own words. It was also like a Sutta text we were reading today. Yeah. You're talking about consciousness and rebirth, right? Yeah, yeah. On the micro level, which is in regards to one lifetime, you have continual arising and passing away of individual consciousnesses, and these are brought forward or activated by formations. These formations, until you become fully enlightened, are conditioned by existence and fettered by craving, ignorance and conceit.

So the consciousness that will arise will then become established through mentality and materiality. And that mentality and materiality means essentially the mentality, which is the faculties of contact, of stimulation, of the sense receptors and the outside world, the faculty of feeling, which is the actual sensory experience, the faculty of perception, and that process which is recognizing what is being experienced by way of the senses, the faculty of intention, which is where one makes a choice in every given moment, and the faculty of attention, through which mindfulness is exercised and applied. So that makes up the five faculties of mentality. And within that is also materiality, which is essentially the elements that make up this body. So this body contains within itself the physical sense receptors, the six sense bases, which are the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind, when there is contact

with the outside world, with the six senses, with the five physical senses, and in the mind where thoughts arise. From that there is consciousness of that contact, which is the awareness of seeing that contact, the cognition of that experience itself that arises, and there is the awareness of the external reality. That comes through the process of sensory experience, which is the feeling, the sensations, and along with that is tied perception, and the consciousness, the cognition of that. This is consciousness, which is tied to each different iota, each different quanta of sensory experience. At the point of feeling, at that point, the mind will either see that there is craving and let go of it, or will latch onto it and identify with it, which will create craving or condition craving, which will condition clinging, which is then creating these ideas about a sense of self in relation to what one likes or what one doesn't like.

And then this becomes being, which is bhava, the accumulated tendencies. So clinging is the accumulation of tendencies. And then bhava, which is being, is the self, that self which is now a bundle of karma, a bundle of different tendencies, from which there is a reaction. And that reaction is the birth of action, the birth of reaction, which causes suffering because one takes it personal, and that sense of self is now suffering.

This is the micro level of understanding how consciousness arises through this process of dependent origination. When there's continued existence, that's to say that that same consciousness dissipates with the sensory experience, but will then be conditioned by the choices that you make in the present moment, of that choice. Those formations will activate that type of consciousness, which will then continue the cycle, so on and so forth.

In the process, on the macro level, where there is the dissolution of the body, at that point, there will be formations that arise. And those formations arise due to mental activity, due to mental contact. And that can create, in the way of, for example, where they might see their life flash before their eyes, or they might have regrets, or they might have attachments that they don't want to let go of. And these come in the way of formations.

And it is that wanting to hold on to something, or regretting, or any kind of reaction or response to that, which is the craving. And that craving doesn't just mean attaching, but also aversion. That craving latches on to that formation, and through intention drives forward the consciousness that will then link up with a new mentality materiality at the point of conception, in a new rebirth, in the case of a human rebirth.

So that particular consciousness, when it is conceived, when it latches onto or is established in that new mentality materiality, dissipates with that experience, and a new consciousness arises. Formations now being built up and being active and being collected, and so on and so forth, through the process of the being, which is the actual fetus growing in the womb. And so formations continue. And within that womb, that fetus experiences billions and billions of consciousnesses throughout those nine months, even trillions, say. And at that point, at the point of physical birth, a new consciousness arises. To that point at that birth, and then the whole process continues for that life in the same way as I discussed on the micro level. This is how continued existence arises, because of karma, because karma is created due to intention. So long as there is a personalization of intention, that will drive forward new karma to arise, based on craving, based on reacting with a sense of self, identifying with what is happening.

And that will drive forward the consciousness into a continued existence. That will dissipate in the next present moment, but there will be a new choice, whether to let go or continue craving. And that is what continues this cycle of existence. Seeds, then, actually are... they're not in consciousness. Consciousness only drives forward the formations. You can see the formations in two senses of that word: the active sense, which drives forward the consciousness, which activates the consciousness; and in the passive sense, they are the receptors of our choices, which then create new kamma. Those formations are the carriers of the karma, which is the effect of those choices, which then drives forward a new consciousness that drives forward that karmic seed.

So in that sutta you might have read about intention, he actually says that consciousness, so karma is the field, consciousness is the seed, and craving is the moisture. So consciousness is the seed insofar as it drives forward the seed, but then if there's craving, it will give nutriment, it will provide food or energy to that seed, which will then grow through that field of karma, which will create new karma.

Thank you. In today's video, the very end was about wanting to be free of suffering, bringing on an intention to. The word intention was mentioned in context with that statement. So, the desire, wish, intention to be free of suffering, how do I bring that into proper alignment with what you've spoken about? Yeah, so that is what is known as chanda, which is what I call cultivated intention. It's an intention that is informed by wisdom, which is right view, the establishing of right view, insofar as one understands that there is suffering, and now there is an intention to cease that suffering. There's an intention to stop that suffering.

So understanding that there is suffering, and the present choices that are being made continue to cause suffering, through that wisdom there is the cultivated intention to now make an end of suffering. Referencing my own experience, you know, my screen plea for a while has been, I want to be free from suffering from this streaming mind. And so, yeah, I own that. It's a desire and a goal and a thrust, and it's loaded with all kinds of stuff: frustration and self-judgment and all that.

So there's some work to do to get that properly all lined up. What I'll say about that is, there is that pure intention to stop suffering. You understood that certain choices cause one to continue to experience suffering, but then there is the intention to go away from that suffering. So once you have that intention, it's important not to attach the craving to it, which is to say that now that there is an intention to go away from it, you build up your ability to understand that letting go is the cessation of suffering. Letting go is what causes, so to speak, that relief. And that letting go is established through the utilization of the Eightfold Path.

So when you see the frustrations in that intention that arise, what you can do is actually let go of that frustration, and know that this intention that drives you forward to get out of suffering can still be cultivated through the process of continually letting go of the unwholesome states attached to that intention. Speaking of letting go, last month I was doing a retreat, and two persons here, hello to both of you, that were also attended. What was a wonderful, relaxing thing about the letting go was I was experiencing actually melting and dissolving the body, which was a very pleasant and affirmative thing. But now in this retreat, I don't have the same degree of sensitivity sensation in the body.

And a friend came over the other day, a very good friend, a 30-year meditator, and we sat together. And afterwards I said, I think your presence really helped me, because the letting go seemed to be more efficient, I'll call it. And she reported, yeah, yeah, it was good. It seems, could you comment on that? Yeah. The more you start to let go, the more you see the benefit of letting go. And the mind actually takes relief in that and actually sees that there is a benefit in letting go. And because of that, you start to tend your inclinations towards letting go. And the more you start to cultivate choices where you start to see the fruit of letting go, the more you want to do it.

So then you are able to essentially automate that process the more you do it. The more you see the benefit of something, the more you do it. And the mind will continue to incline towards that. And the more you let go, the more relief you feel. As you said, now you start to feel less of those sensations of letting go. And it is a fruit of that practice of letting go that causes you to see that, yes, there is benefit in cultivating wholesome states. There is benefit in understanding the choices that you're making in the present moment, which allows you to continue to develop mindfulness.

And the more you do that, the more automatic it becomes. It's a matter of seeing how your unwholesome states arose, for example, or how the pain and suffering arose, due to essentially reacting from an unwholesome state. Eventually that became the mindset and the perception, the filtration system through which you saw the world, and it was an automatic reflex to react negatively to situations. So now what you're doing is purposefully and intentionally stopping that wheel and reversing it, so that now you're looking at: yes, if I start to make wholesome choices and start to let go, I am exercising right intention, and therefore I am applying right effort in doing that by the process of right mindfulness. And so the more you do this, the more you see that the reactions you had previously, which might have been unwholesome, are starting to become more wholesome. So you are essentially weakening the sankhara, the formations that caused the choices, or at the very least conditioned the choices that you would make, which then re-strengthen those same formations, which cause you to make unwholesome states of mind.

So it's a matter of seeing how you're weakening the formations that make you choose things that are rooted in unwholesome states, and also seeing how your choice of strengthening certain formations. And so those formations, as they strengthen, will start to become the dominant formations that continue to condition choices, causing you to create choices that are more wholesome. Whereas, because the formations that were rooted in that unwholesome action or unwholesome contact are being weakened through non-use, eventually they will fade away. Thank you.

Is there benefit in meditating with others in contrast to solo? It seems that people somehow have better experiences when they meditate with others, and there's something to be said about that in terms of everybody meditating with a compassionate mind, or everybody meditating with a loving and kind mind. That actually deepens that practice for everybody else, because there is this field of metta, and as the field of metta keeps growing, it can be experienced in the mind and body. Having said that, there are also benefits to having a practice in seclusion, in the sense that you are able to see for yourself how that metta responds, or how you respond to that metta, and how it continues to grow, and so on and so forth. So there's benefits in both. But essentially, that seclusion as well that I talked about can also be mental seclusion. So you can still be in a state of aloneness while you're with other people, which is to say that the mind experiences noble silence and noble seclusion.

while still in activity or while still in the presence of other people, and it's still tending towards a state of clarity and a state of tending towards nirvana. Hello. I have a few questions, if that's all right. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you, everyone, for your practice. I would just like to know why taking refuge is not considered a rite and ritual.

Taking refuge is not considered a rite and ritual. I believe it might be a rite and ritual. I would have to ask Vandeananda about this. So knowing that rites and rituals won't take us to Nibbana, why are we doing them? And I'm not... I have a few kind of hot topic questions, maybe. I'm not against it, much like it, yeah. In fact, but I'm just curious. Yeah, but I would like to invite Bhante Ananda, if he would, to comment on this. So when it's understood properly, it's not a right image. I'm not sure what the organization for this ritual is for the virtues and the refuges.

But personally, I do not recommend taking refuges to anybody who's not drawn to it. In fact, I try to make it a point that these things are there if you want to take them, to make your own practice stronger, which is basically reinforcing chanda, wholesome desire. And the thing is that it needs to be properly explained and properly understood. So what are these things that you're taking refuge in? The Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, and they have particular qualities in particular aspects. And we do not take really refuge in the Buddha himself. We take refuge in the qualities, and the qualities of the Dhamma and the Sangha. So the Buddha was known to... So Bhagawan is one who has transcended this plane, or there's many ways of translating this word, but I'll stay there.

And Araha is worthy, a worthy person. And that's what the true meaning of arahat is, a fully awakened person. Sammasambuddho is someone who has come upon Bodhi awakening by his own effort, by his own understanding. We have the Buddha. He didn't. So the awakening of a Buddha is that much different. Whereas he, as per tradition, the tradition says, a Buddha needs to, in a far distant lifetime, take a bodhisattva vow to become a Buddha. To do that, that needs to be done in front of another Buddha, which only this needs to, someone needs to have pretty good karma.

And one needs to have the faculties of an arahant and relinquish that, take the bodhisattva in front of a Buddha to become a Buddha. The Buddha will tell you if you will. And that's how you are set for a long journey of many, many eons of contraction and expansion of the universe, of many millions of lifetimes, cultivating paramis, good qualities of the mind that include generosity, loving kindness, patience, all these things, and to a very high degree.

And then to have the faculties to become a Buddha at some point, to have mental faculties sharp enough that you can be born as a human being, to awaken on your own. That's a Sammasambuddha. And the difference between a solitary Buddha and a Sammasambuddha is that a solitary Buddha awakens to Bodhi on his own, but doesn't know enough of the Dhamma to teach others. A Sammasambuddha is someone who knows, has comprehended the whole thing. And so he's looked everywhere for a long time, so he knows a lot of things.

And this culminates into him being able to teach, and that is Gautama. Gautama was a Sammasambuddha, knowledge and righteous conduct, which basically means he practiced what he taught. There was no separation. He had perfect Charana and he had perfect Vijja. Charana is conduct, Vijja is knowledge. Sugato, a blissful one or a welfare one who's auspicious, his coming is auspicious because he knows all these things that are really wonderful.

The proof is we're still talking about it, and his teaching 2,600 years after, and it's still in good enough shape that we can practice and have some pretty good benefits. And Sugato Loka, we do. Loka, we do. Nowhere over the world he knew the 31 planes of existence, and he had declared them, and he broke them down. There's a lot of speculations, but he came and made it clear what are the lower worlds, the human plane, the Deva planes, the Brahma planes.

These are possible to see by direct experience, but not very many people do. So that tends to be a little bit controversial. putting too much emphasis on that is not so relevant anyways but um it is part of the three knowledges which he awoke to and that is fairly important to understand the law of karma by all this he is a unsurpassed teacher of devas and humans because he was also teaching the devas mainly um mainly here though in the human world but the most important one is the dhamma and the dhamma is it's uh it's intelligible because the the buddha was very skilled and he was very clever he was very wise and when we read the suttas in fact we start seeing that there's not a whole lot we can there's not a a lot of cracks in his teachings when we start really understanding what he's talking about it's hard to

dismantle truth. It's just truth. So he's saying facts. The more we can see that and practice in accordance with that, we start to realize this. So this was in fact in the discourse today, and that was a wonderful implement to one of the suttas, where it was described as sanditthiko, is visible here and now. There's no promise. Oh, if you do this in 10 years, you'll get nibbana or something. No, nibbana is here and now also. Nibbana simply means blowing out, extinguishing the fire of greed, hate, and delusion, the three fires.

And every time a hindrance arises, it's either one of these three. And every time you let it go, you blow it out. And so it's here and now visible. And akaliko is not delayed in time, immediate. So it ties up with sanditthiko. But it is also very tangible here and now, immediate. And there is anger arising, tension, you let it go, you let go of the anger, happiness, relief arises immediately. And so this is the Dhamma. Start to practice in this way, we start realizing, well, this is pretty good, I like this. I can use some loving kindness and compassion and generosity in my life, and abstaining from all unwholesome actions, which brings about more wholesome karma into our lives and happiness and

opanayiko is leading upwards. The Buddha's disciples, or anybody that was practicing his teaching, were known. They didn't go down, they went up, because their minds were getting lighter. So they were bound for either the human world again or beyond, the celestial planes, the deva planes. If you don't see that, if you don't want to believe in that, that's totally fine. You can just... This is directly experienceable by the wise.

Now, this is what we're all doing here, using discernment, wisdom, discerning wholesome and unwholesome states and telling them apart, abandoning the unwholesome ones, cultivating the wholesome ones. And like this, we become these discerning people. But there is no Dhamma without discernment. So that's what it means. So it has to be experienced by yourself. I cannot awaken you. You have to practice.

And so when you take the refuges, maybe I'm not going to do the Sangha. But when you take refuges in these, that's what you take refuge into. And this is not blind belief. This is just fact. But the thing is that in some sections of the teaching, it has become a bit more of a blind ritual. And that is true. Understand the practice properly, and usually that also needs to be tied up with direct experience and understanding the Dhamma, and then you will taste the Dhamma, and then you will understand it makes sense to take refuge. Usually people feel compelled to do it, and that's when it's appropriate to do it. In fact, taking refuges was not an actual practice in the suttas. It was something that people did when they were really impressed after a discourse. So that's how I think it should be, but I think I'll stop here.

Thank you. Thank you, Bhante. That was really good for me. I had a couple more. I was wondering this, for either you, Delson, or Bhante Ananda, anyone who cares to answer or feels qualified to: if you think this is the only way, this is the path. Because I talked to someone else today, a practitioner of the mind illuminated.

And he seemed to be practicing, and he had talked about how he had arrived at the 10th level on this elephant path, and he was speaking about it as if he had no doubt that this is the path. And I know when certain attainments are made, you don't have any sense of doubt. Is it possible that there are multiple ways of gaining certain attainments?

And once you've gained an attainment, regardless of the way, that you lose the doubt? So I can't really comment on The Mind Illuminated. I'm not familiar with it, or as you were talking about, the elephant path. But I would look at it in this way, that if it is rooted in the Eightfold Path, if it is coming from the Eightfold Path, because that is, if you look at the Four Noble Truths, the path towards the cessation of suffering. So in that regard, I consider the original Eightfold Path to be the path to understand and to cultivate and to develop towards ceasing suffering, of suffering, the third noble truth.

So again, as I said, I can't comment on The Mind Illuminated or those different systems. But if they are rooted in the Eightfold Path with an understanding of how to cultivate the Eightfold Path, the thing about the Dhamma is it's not just one way that one can become a Sotapanna, or one way in the sense of it needs to happen through cessation of perception and feeling.

But more so, if the practice and the different meditation techniques that are found in the suttas, which are all basically about the cessation of craving, which is then the cessation of suffering, which in that case is rooted in the Eightfold Path. Fruit of these different practices: there are people who, upon just listening to the Dhamma and with deep reflection, letting go of their fetters and understanding with the eye of wisdom that whatever arises is subject to cessation, experience stream entry. So if it nurtures a practice of letting go and relinquishing craving, and also utilizes the other factors of the Eightfold Path, that's really the backbone of any practice throughout the suttas. So whatever meditation object you have, as long as it is utilizing that, then I would consider that to be the right way.

I'd just like to make a comment about The Mind Illuminated. When it first came out, I read through it and then I read through David Johnson's book, The Path of Nirvana. And I chose, I didn't go down the route of The Mind Illuminated. It was based on teachings from 500 or 600 years ago. It's already established. However, and I don't want to cast aspersions on the author of the book, John Yates, Kildasa, but he's been under investigation for multiple different things for breaking precepts, so I'll just leave it at that. So obviously he has an eliminated craving, the very author of the book, let's put it that way.

I have a question. How important is the experience of Nibbana to understand? Keeping it side by side, is understanding more important or the experience itself? Because last night in the Dhamma talk, the live talk, there was a conversation about experience with nirvana and the understanding. So people do experience maybe something of that sort even outside of the Buddhist teachings, right? Even if they could be following other things, and you said they could also experience, but if the understanding is not right, then there is no point to it, right? So my question is, what if they understand it wrongly and still the consciousness will still continue, right, without wrong understanding, even after the experience?

Is it so? Let me break down what you were just saying. What I was referring to in that particular talk was about cessation of perception and feeling, that it does not presuppose Nibbana, meaning the cessation of perception and feeling is one thing and Nibbana is another thing. Nibbana is cessation to the extent that it is the third noble truth, the cessation of suffering and the cessation of craving. So the insight that arises from that is what provides a person to enter the stream. So these two go together. The experience of cessation of perception and feeling is not necessary for Nibbana to occur. Nibbana is the unconditioned. There's no way to get to the unconditioned through conditioned or to conditioned states of mind, because even the cessation of perception and feeling is a conditioned state, so to speak.

So Nibbana is an experience in so far as it is the process of letting go, that that relief is experience, that release is experience. And so Nibbana is both the process of having let go, as well as the experience of this relief after having let go. This is how I understand it. And so long as you see a change in your own mind where there are the destruction of certain fetters, that is what matters more. It's more about whether one has experienced Nibbana through insight or whether one has experienced Nibbana through the jhana practice, or through both serenity and vipassana, or serenity and insight. These two go hand in hand as it is. But you have to not equate the experience of serenity as Nibbana.

You have to understand Nibbana as the total cessation of craving. As Bhanteananda mentioned previously, it's the blowing out. It's the quenching. And it's the blowing out of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. So if you see that at that point, there is no craving there. At that point, there is no ill will there. And at that point, there's no personalization, no identification there. You have experienced Nibbana. And that then will produce in that mind the destruction of the fetters.

So for that, you need to review in your own mind and in the experience after how your mind responds and reacts to situations, questions, and that will then let you know where you are at in your practice. Thank you. Thank you so much, Delson. If there are no more questions, let's wait for another 30 seconds and see if anybody else has questions. If not, then we can start sharing merit. This seems to be my night for questions. Thank you for the invitation. Beside me I have the images of two masters, and we can see all about us statues, figures of divine

representing divine entities. Many little Buddhas all around. These are forms. And I've been questioning that. But my question has been answered, and I'm asking you, is this my answering correctly? That if these are approaches, in the same way as spoken tonight by Bhante as just a reference or contact for the qualities, that seems to make it more okay with me.

In the Buddha for the purposes of understanding why one takes refuge in the Buddha and likewise the Dhamma. I just want to add to that, the other way of looking at it is also when you take refuge in the Dhamma, you are at the same time recollecting what the Dhamma is in terms of understanding the practice. So it's not just a, as Bhante said, a blind ritual in the sense of just taking refuge for the sake of taking refuge, but it is also a process of teaching. When you take refuge in the Dhamma, you're actually reviewing in your mind what you have learned of the Dhamma. That is, I would say, the fruit of taking refuge, or the understanding behind taking that refuge. So in my mind it would say that Buddha statues or iconography or whatever might be the case, if they help you in the process of understanding, you're taking refuge.

I see nothing wrong with that. So I would like to request Bhante if he could share merit, please. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear struck fearlessly. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty powers share this merit of happiness. Virus, may they long protect the food dispensation. Thank you, Delson. Thank you.