Day 3 July Retreat MN 134 -A Fine Night - The Concept of Self

Today, we will speak on really what is the essence of the teachings of the Buddha. Oftentimes, you will hear in spiritual circles about being in the now, being in the present moment. And even the Buddha gives some clarity on this. What does it actually mean to be in the now? What does it mean to be in the present moment? Because when you are in the present moment, you have mindfulness. It is easy for you to see when the mind gets triggered.

This retreat and practice in the Dhamma is never about chasing experiences. We're not here to experience bliss and all of these wondrous things that you've heard of when it comes to meditation. Those are the side benefits of the practice. If you are going to be mistaking the coal for the diamonds, then that's on you. The jhanas are stepping stones.

Don't worry about where you are, what you're experiencing, where you need to be, what you need to experience. Wisdom, liberating insight, and nibbana. That's what this is about. But the more we become expectant and anticipatory of you are able to be mindful all the time, you would attain arahatship. And if there is still some clinging, still some identification with the Dhamma, you would be an anagami. Good enough. You should remember that. So what does that mean? It means to be present. Be aware. It's to see how experiences arise in the form of emotions and feeling and triggers, and when you let go of those, what it feels like when your mind becomes stable and attentive and free of any identification.

If you are a meditation junkie, if you are a jhana junkie, this talk will help you come out of that addiction. So this Sutta is called Majjhima Nikaya 134. It's called the Loma Sakangiya Bhadekarata Sutta. That means Loma Sakangiya and a single excellent night. was living at Savati in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's Park. So Savati, or Shravasti, is up in North India, and Anathapindika's Park. This is a place you can still go to. It's a beautiful place. It's actually one of my favorite spots of having visited all of the sites of the Buddha, because they have maintained it as close as they could to the original park. You go there, there's still the lake where the monastics would bathe.

And there's still the foundations of the huts for Sariputta and Moggallana and the Buddha. And you can sit and meditate there. It's beautiful. And also there is the Ananda Bodhi tree, which is taken from a sapling from the original Bodhi tree and planted over there. And just across from that park is the Mahabodhi Society. And there they have some relics of the Buddha.

So you can go and meditate in the presence of those relics. Kapalavatu or Kapalavastu is the hometown of the Buddha. I do not remember the summary and exposition of one who has had a single excellent night. But friend, do you remember the summary and exposition of one who has had a single excellent night? Bhikkhu, do you remember the stanza of one who has had a single excellent night? So what are they talking about? This one single excellent night. You see, this is Majjhima Nikaya 134.

And there are variations on this one single excellent night, starting from Majjhima Nikaya 130. So 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134. These are all variations and interpretations of that particular exposition. And the exposition is based on a stanza that was spoken. So we'll get into this. In what way do you remember the stanza of one who has had a single excellent night? Bhikkhu, once the Blessed One was living among the gods of the heaven of the 33.

These are the original Vedic gods that are led by Indra. There are 33 gods. 330 million gods. That's a third of the population of India. It's way too many gods. The original was 33 koti. Koti was translated as koroa, which means 10 million. Koti is types of gods, categories, or we can say designations. So when you go in that particular realm, it's ruled by the kingship of Indra and there are 33 ministers.

And so this is the 33 categories, not 330 million. On the red marble stone at the root of the Parichataka tree, there the Blessed One once recited this summary and exposition of one who has had a single excellent night to the gods of the heaven of the 33. Now listen to the stanza. Let not a person revive the past or on the future build his hopes.

Young deity, who thereupon vanished at once. Then, when the night was over, the Venerable Loma Sakangiya set his resting place in order, and taking his bowl and outer robe, set out to wander by stages to Savati. It's a long ways off from a couple of us to Savati. He at length arrived at Savati and went to the Blessed One in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's Park. After paying homage to him, he sat down at one side, told the Blessed One all that had occurred and said, It would be good, Venerable Sir, if the Blessed One would teach me the summary and exposition of one who has had a single excellent night. Bhikkhu, do you know that young deity?

No, Venerable Sir. Bhikkhu, that young deity is Chandana. Attention, engages it with all his mind, hears it with eager ears. So Bhikkhu, listen and attend closely to what I shall say. Yes, Venerable Sir. The Venerable Loma Sakangiya replied to the Blessed One. The Blessed One said this. So now I have to go to 131. So he repeats, he says, Let not a person revive the past or on the future build his hopes. For the past has been left behind and the future has not been reached. Instead, with insight, let him see each presently arisen state. Let him know that and be sure of it, invincibly, unshakably. Today the effort must be made.

What do we mean by these five aggregates? When we say form aggregate, the form aggregate is made up of the earth element, the water element, the fire element, and the air element. Or the four states of matter. Solid, liquid, gaseous, and plasma. And it's not just our bodies. Look, the flowers are already dying. Form is impermanent. Let us not dwell in the past form of the flowers. Right? When we dwell in the past, what happens? Oh, I was so and so. Oh, what wondrous things was it back then? The nostalgia at one end. Or how terrible things were in the past. The trauma on the other end. This is our life. This is how we live our life.

Our life is nothing more than a projection of our mental states. The objective world around us is the world as it actually is. But the world that we live in is the world filtered by our traumas and by our nostalgia of the past, by our expectations and anticipations of the future, and by our identification with the present. You look in the mirror and you say, look how beautiful I am now or how beautiful I was in the past. I've got some gray hairs growing. I've got wrinkles coming up. What's going on? Or feeling. When we say feeling, feeling comes from the word vedana, know, to experience. The experience in the past was such and such.

Why can't it remain? Why can't it be like it was before? Why didn't my mother love me? Why didn't my father love me? That's a big one. We psychoanalyze everything. We blame our parents for our. But the reality is, we also have control over what happens now. We can choose to be the victim. We can choose to be the judge. We can choose to be beholden to the past. All kinds of experiences. You see, this comes from identity. Again, the root of everything is identity.

Identification with the past. Identification with the future. Identification with the present. Such and such was my form in the past. Such and such were the experiences that I had in the past. Perceptions. We said perceptions are those in which we label things, that this is a book, knowing that this is a table, knowing that this is the color black, knowing that these are flowers, knowing that this is water, knowing that there's water in this cup. Those are all the labeling, the labeling that happens in the mind, the conceptualizing that happens in the mind.

So this process of perceptions of the past can include our opinions about it as well. It can include our views about things as well. And then formations, what we call sankhara in Pali, samskaras in Sanskrit. These are the synaptic connections in the brain that are the fundamental basis for the arising of certain habitual patterns that we have.

So the choices we make in the present moment are primarily conditioned by choices we've made in the past if we don't have mindfulness. But with mindfulness, with attention rooted in the present moment, we are aware of the choices that come up based on triggers, based on patterns, associations. And we are able to see that and let that go.

So that we're no longer in the cycle of reactivity, but rather responsive to the situation at hand. We have the ability to respond with wisdom. Response is cookie cutter. It will depend on the situation and the context and the relevance. But we have wisdom. When we take a pause and see what's going on, we have wisdom. Neurologically, what is going on there is, instead of functioning from the limbic system, which is all about emotion, this emotion tells me how I'm supposed to be feeling about this thing, based on triggers, based on trauma, based on nostalgia, based on whatever.

Those are the sankharas. Those are the formations. But if I give a pause, I can reflect, I can recognize, here comes the cascading of reactions. Choose to let go of that. So neurologically what's happening is I'm giving time for my prefrontal cortex to function. I'm able to function at a higher level and realize this is not the way or this is not the most prudent or effective manner of speaking or behaving or thinking.

And so I choose, with my executive functions of the prefrontal cortex, to be rooted in that wisdom, to de-escalate the situation at hand, if it's in conflict. To remain silent, if I need to remain silent. Because oftentimes we want to say our peace, and we think, once I say my peace, I will be recognized. Right? I will be validated. I will be seen. I will be heard.

Where does that come from? I. Identity. Who is this I? What is this I? It's so feeble and fickle, this I. We give so much importance to it. We may come into the retreat thinking, I will achieve something. Who will achieve it? What is that I? I must get something out of this retreat. For who? What will happen once that happens? One thing. Now I need to achieve the next thing. And then I need to achieve the next thing. And then I need to achieve the next thing.

It never ends. That is samsara. That is craving. That is becoming. So if I continue to contemplate based on my experiences that this is what's happening now, but on last retreat, or last time, I was experiencing this, or yesterday I was experiencing this, why am I not experiencing this again? Well, that again comes from the comparing mind, what we call conceit.

This conceit is the sense of self, the sense of identity, which says, I was better then, not good now. Or has the pride, look at me now, I was much better than I was yesterday. Guess what? Tomorrow you won't be. There's no assurance of that. We're always living comparing the past or anticipating the future. But it's always now.

It's always happening here. Every thought of the future, every thought of the past is happening here. So why are you wasting your now? And why are you controlling? Why are you trying to control your now? What do I mean by that? Why are you trying to control your now? Because the now is seen as not good enough.

There was a saying that Bhante would always give to people to help them temper their expectations and their experiences. Don't make it a big deal. It's wonderful to be excited about new experiences. It's wonderful to be excited about, hey, look at this, this is wonderful. Yeah, that's really cool and I'm experiencing this bliss or my mind is very calm and collected.

Beautiful. It's nice. It's good to recognize it. It's good to establish it. It's good to acknowledge it because it helps you to know where you are. But now I want to experience that all the time. And it is very difficult, nearly impossible, to recreate the same conditions that led to that. And therein is the important factor here, to bring in those conditions. In other words, what you have experienced, is conditioned.

But bliss is conditioned. Jhanas are conditioned. That's the coal. Nibbana is the unconditioned. That's the diamond. And the only way to experience Nibbana is to let go. Not to create. When we judge ourselves, when we become critical of ourselves, when we have expectations of how the day will be, all of that stems from the conditioned idea that I must be something, that I must be this, I must be that. There's a wonderful psychiatrist named Albert Ellis, who was the founder of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.

He's sort of the forefather of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And he said, there are three levels of expectations that once we let go of, we can actually experience some freedom. Expectations of ourselves. I must be a certain way. I should be this way. I shouldn't do that. I mustn't do that. The second is expectations of the people around us, our loved ones.

Our teachers need to be a certain way. Our father, our mother, our siblings, partners, our friends, our colleagues. All of these people need to be a certain way in order for me to be happy. And the third level is expectations of the world around us. And that's what happens when we watch the news. When we watch the news, the world isn't what we expect it to be.

And so if we let go of that and do what? What do we do? We let go of that and focus on what? We focus on our own liberation. We focus on working through our behavioral patterning. Working through the times that are most crucial, which is when the triggers come up and learning how to let them go.

And possibly even more important than that is when we fail to see that, to not beat ourselves up. Jhanas are, as I say, the jhanas are signposts. They will just let us know where we are. But making a big deal out of it is counterproductive for the real deal, which is once you enter into the unconditioned.

When will I experience cessation? Will I experience that space where my mind completely switches off? When will I attain to this path or this fruition? You know, talking about Nibbana, it's like Fight Club. Talking about cessation and attainments and all of these things. It's a double-edged sword because it gives you enough motivation to get there, to let you know that there is a space for us to go, to achieve, to experience.

But our minds are such that we now make that a new goal, a worldly achievement. That once I have that, now I have a new I to stand upon, a new identity to stand upon. Nibbana. I achieved cessation. I achieved stream entry. So, the process of dis-identifying or de-identifying with every experience, it's as simple as just observing things as they are.

The observer is temporary. There is just experience going on. There's a beautiful sutta which I quote often. The Bahiya Sutta. In the seeing, there's only the seen. In the hearing, there's only the heard. In the sensing, there's only the sensed. In the cognizing, there's only the cognized. When, as he's addressing to this person, you are not in that, then you are not by that. When you are not by that, then you are not in between there or here or between the two. You are not here or there or between the two.

In other words, when the experience arises, when that sense of I comes up, and claims ownership, that this is what I am experiencing, that this experience is mine, therein begins the trouble, therein begins the suffering. But if I disengage and allow feeling to be as it is, allow experience to be as it is, there's nothing else to do. But as soon as I am caught in the experience as an I, being the experiencer, then I am defined by the experience.

And now that I takes hold of form, of feeling, of perception, of formations, of awareness. And when that happens, then now I am in the flood in the river of dependent origination. I am both here and there. I am in the craving. I'm in the clinging. I'm in the becoming. And I act out of ignorance where the triggers become me.

And I no longer respond. I react, which creates a further strengthening of the I. All I have to do is disengage. I'm taking this too seriously when I'm meditating. There's an I that's there that wants to achieve, that wants that certificate of enlightenment, that wants that recognition. There's the me that's there that wants to say to people, hey, I went on this retreat and I experience this jhana and that jhana and I had this cessation and I had this experience and I had that and these wonderful things.

Or very simply put, there's the me that just wants to control, you know, that maybe things are a bit too much and I don't want that. I'm not ready for that. I know it's easier said than done, but if you can disengage and just allow the meditation to be like a movie. You see, when you're in the movie theater and you watch a very compelling movie, how you become so engrossed in the characters.

You become the protagonist. You fall in love with the protagonist's love interest. You hate the protagonist's rival. You cry when the protagonist's friend dies. Why? Because the mind is always comparing. This is the beauty of screenwriting. I've been a screenwriter before, so I know this. In order for you to be engrossed in the movie, you need to make the protagonist as empathetic as possible.

So usually what they'll do is, in the first two minutes of the movie, they will show the protagonist having some level of fault. So now you can identify. Yeah, I know that. I recognize that. Or they go and save the cat. There's a great book called Save the Cat on screenwriting. So it shows, oh, the protagonist is a good guy or a good girl.

I can identify with that. Or they have a very sad backstory, right? And then you can relate to it. Yeah, I remember. That's something like that happened to me. So that is the world of movies. But that is what the world is. It's a big movie that we get ourselves engrossed in, and the meditation is yet another movie within the movie. We get so engrossed and we're like, ah, yeah, I'm in jhana one now, I'm in J4 now, and I'm in this now.

But it's all just part of the plot. Because at the end of the day, or at the end of the movie, what happens? You see the credits, the magic goes away, and now you have to go to the bathroom. You're no longer with the movie. Are you able to watch the movie in such a way that you can see the movie but not get caught up in it?

If you're a screenwriter, yes. So if you're able to observe things as an impersonal process, you can have all kinds of bookish knowledge, read all kinds of suttas, but now you must apply it. Now you must see the mechanics. Ah, this is an impersonal process. It's a movie. I know what's going to happen next. Or I can see what could happen next.

I have a behind-the-scenes knowledge of the movie. So I'm no longer enamored and caught up by the magic. Yeah, you want to say something? Drama in the movie, then how do you look at it? You cannot completely say, "Prenunciate and take over it and go somewhere." You are part of the game. You are playing the play. Yes, but that's interesting, right? Because when you are the actor, you can be in that role, but you know it's just a role. Yeah, that's correct. Not attached to the role. Exactly.

Exactly. It's the same with meditation. It's a game that you're playing. This is what I mean by having fun with it. Treating it like a game. You don't get caught up in some kind of achievement of something. You play the game for fun. The moment you get caught up in the game, what happens? You're on your Xbox or your PS3, PS5 now. And it's like, no, no, I've got to get this game. I've got to, you know, I've got to get through this level or whatever.

Right? Because you're so engrossed in the game. You become part of the character. But when you know it's just a game, it becomes easier. It's like, okay, well, I lost this time. It's okay. I'll try again. Treat it like a game. And how, because, does one build up hope upon the future? One nurtures delight there thinking, may I have such material form in the future?

One nurtures delight there thinking, may I have such feeling in the future? May I have such perception in the future? In the future. That is how one builds up hope upon the future. And how bhikkhus does one not build up hope upon the future? One does not nurture delight there thinking, may I have such material form in the future.

Is this experience that we had reproducible? Can we create it again? Why? Is it not conditioned? Anything that is conditioned is impermanent. Being impermanent, even if it's one of the highest bliss, the most deep equanimity, it will change. It is subject to change. Has suffering built into it. Therefore, it is not me, not mine, not myself. Disengage the I from there.

This jhana, this bliss, this equanimity, this spaciousness, this experience of loving kindness, this experience of quiet mind, whatever it is, it's all just experience. It's conditioned. Our path is to let go and uncover all the conditions until what remains is the unconditioned. And that unconditioned is not known by the analytical mind, by the thinking mind, by the filtering mind.

That unconditioned is understood from the luminous mind, because it shares a similar nature to it. It is a mind that is undirected. A mind that is signless. A mind that is empty of me, mine or myself. Without object. Without objective, without intention, without direction, without identification. Because as soon as you have a direction, and as soon as you have an intention of going in that direction, there is a me there.

There is something to get to, and there is a me that has to get there. Are ultimately impermanent. All intentions are ultimately impermanent. Lead to some level of happiness which ultimately fades away. All intentions. It's one thing to incline the mind towards Nibbana. In other words, you come on retreat. Your idea is, I want to experience Nibbana. All well and good.

But getting caught up, right? Getting caught up in the objective in such a way that it prevents you from getting there. It's counterproductive. The desire to get there is one thing, but the craving around it by saying, I need to get there, and worrying about when will I get there prevents you from doing the thing that will get you there, which is to let go.

That is how one is vanquished in regard to presently arisen states. To simplify this, what it just means is that the states that arise, in the mind that states that arise in all experience are clung to as me, mine, or myself. That's how one is vanquished by presently arisen states. So it's not just about being in the present moment.

It's about letting the present moment flow as the present moment. So in other words, what we're doing here in the practice. The meditation is the formal practice, but the real practice is what you do throughout your day. How you engage with the world throughout your day. If your mind is rooted in self, rooted in the idea that this is me, mine or myself, then you are caught up in those states.

But with wisdom, you're able to see that this is just an impersonal process. Then, it will pass without your reactivity. And your mind will be free. Your mind will be like the lotus in the mud. In the world, but not of it. There's nothing mystical about this process. We may describe it in so many different ways. We may call it transcendent and super mundane and so on.

But it is as simple as just allowing things to be as they are, without any reaction. Non-reactivity. That is the essence. Non-reactivity. Because reaction is rooted in the I. Wisdom, true wisdom, gives rise to an intuitive response. And so when we talk about thoughts, being engrossed in the thinking mind. It is the mind that is engrossed in time, engrossed in the present or the past or the future.

But the intuitive mind, the luminous mind, is outside of time. That's why an insight that comes up comes out of nowhere. Whether that sticks or not is dependent upon whether you identify with the insight or not. You make it a big deal. You make it just another thought. Instead of letting the insight be rooted deeply in the mind until it becomes a part of your nature.

From where you act, from where you speak, from where you think and intend. That's the wisdom. And how bhikkhus is one invincible in regard to presently arisen states? Here bhikkhus, a well-taught noble disciple who has regard for noble ones and is skilled and disciplined in their dhamma, who has regard for true men and is skilled and disciplined in their dhamma, does not regard material form as self, or self as possessed of material form, or material form as in self, or self as in material form. He does not regard feeling as self, or perception as self, formations as self, or consciousness as self, as possessed of self, or self as possessed of them, or of them in self, or self as in them.

That is how one is invincible in regard to presently arisen states. And so he repeats this stanza. Now, with this understanding, listen to the stanza. What is the insight here that allows you to see the presently arisen states as they are? What is the insight here? The insight is the nature of dependent origination that allows you to see this as an impersonal process.

It is he, the peaceful sage, has said, single excellent night. So it was with reference to this that it was said. Let me go back. That is what the Blessed One said. The Venerable Loma Sakangiya was satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words. So, memory is basically what we call perception. When we talk about perception, perception is the thing that labels. You know, when we know that this is the color black, or this is the table, or this is the teacup, it's because we've learned it, and it's in our memory.

It's not about the memory itself, it's the emotionalizing of the memory. Past or we anticipate of the future is because we have a fear of the future, we have a hope for the future. That is emotionalizing the future. And the memory is strong or sticks to the mind because we emotionalize it. It's the emotion. But it doesn't mean that we become like robots where we don't have emotions or we don't engage with life. It means that we see emotions as a way through which the mind perceives the world.

Because what can happen is, depending upon your mood, you may actually go back to a traumatic experience and it won't affect you if you are in a good mood. You think about the people who do these therapies of MDMA-assisted therapies, and they are led back to those traumatic situations. But they relate to it differently. So it's not just the emotional aspect of the memory itself or the anticipation of what happens in the future. It's how I relate to it based on where I am in the present.

And generally, over a period of time, I make a certain association, the PTSD is. That's what the trauma is. So if I can learn to disengage from that, if I can learn to see the emotional triggers and not let them affect me by seeing them as an impersonal process, then those memories just remain memories. Nothing more. When we talk about consciousness here, we are really talking about the six consciousnesses. So when we say, my consciousness was such and such in the past, or may I have such and such a consciousness in the future, it basically just means that may I be aware of what I was aware of in the past. May I be aware of what I want to be aware of in the future.

So one example is, give the example of the three points of contact. So right now, you all are paying attention to me, right? And I told you, if you look at the flowers, now all the awareness that's there is dependent upon seeing the flower. And let's say I disappeared, and you think, where did Delson go? I want to see him again, right? That's looking in the past. I want to have that experience again. So experience is feeling, perception, and consciousness. Formations are the foundational principles of conditioning that allow for that to happen, namely mental formations.

When you are in a very, very deep state, you start to see the bubbling up of experiences, or mental experiences, in this case thoughts, as they come up, and you may see them fragmentary thoughts, but they haven't come into full-blown thoughts. So a thought, what is a thought? A thought is an object of the mind. When I become aware of the object of the mind, so now I have mind, I have the mental object, and I have mind consciousness.

The thing that helped me to see that and experience that was mental formations. So is it possible to see, I guess ignorance simply is not being a criminal? That's it. Ignorance for practical purposes is a lack of mindfulness. This is beautiful what you just said because that's what the mind does, right? When it's experiencing anything subconsciously, now that subconscious is the formations, it's relating to the world from that perspective that I am a victim or I have this trauma or I have this or I have that. And so in that moment, I'm experiencing it from that because the formations are rooted there. start to change, recondition. That's the essence of the Dhamma. It should be in the present moment to notice what triggers come up and recondition them so that the new formations that are strengthened are no longer tainted by craving or identification.

Then those formations are said to be pure. Pure meaning they're purified of any kind of greed, hatred, or delusion. There's no ignorance. So what happens is whatever karma must be experienced when the right causes and conditions come up, those formations are the fire that help to bring that karma into full fruition, into boiling point for us to experience. It depends on your effort.

Effort is more important than what karma you bring in. Try it. You see, that's the thing, right? Not everybody has. It's very difficult to have that level of clarity, that level of discipline, that level of consistency. You guys don't even practice off retreat. What's the point of practicing on retreat? We have eight days left, so... How does Buddhism define consciousness for practice purposes? Consciousness is dependently arisen. So when we talk about consciousness, we're talking about an awareness of an experience.

So when we talk about consciousness, we're talking about sense-based consciousnesses, the consciousness of the eye, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. It does not comment on the idea of a substrate consciousness, except to say that it's a misguided, pernicious view to think that it's the same consciousness that takes lifetime to lifetime to lifetime. What it's saying is consciousness is always dependently arisen. So even the consciousness that goes from lifetime lifetime isn't the same consciousness.

It comes about dependent upon what reactions there are at the moment of death. And there is a specific consciousness known as patisandhi vinnana, which means the rebirth linking consciousness that becomes the delivery man for all the karma to be embedded in the next life and then fades away. And then new consciousnesses arise and pass away all the time.

I think that's enough for today. Let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearless be. 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 power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.