Day 2 Hindrances, BUDDHA PĀDA INSTITUTE, Kalimpong, India Metta Retreat- w/Delson Armstrong

Can everyone hear me? We're good? Good. So, today we are going to talk about hindrances. Today is what Bhante would call the first day blues or the second day blues, because it's the time when you're going to be met with a lot of different kinds of distractions, maybe a lot of sloth and torpor, maybe a lot of restlessness, whatever it might be.

There are five basic hindrances that we'll talk about, and then there are subsets of those. There can be up to 16 in some lists, 12 in other lists, but it's the five basic precepts that we'll talk about. So what are the five basic hindrances? The five basic hindrances are sensual craving, aversion, restlessness, doubt, and sloth and torpor.

So yesterday I mentioned a little bit about these hindrances. What I said was you have to treat your hindrances like friends. You have to treat them like teachers, because the hindrances shed light on your sources of attachment or aversion, the success in your meditation. If you continue to fight with the hindrance, if you continue to try to suppress and push down the hindrance, that will only cause you more pain and suffering.

There's a way in which one practices that you do suppress the hindrances. You do your best to become one-pointed in your concentration, do everything you can to stay with the object while pushing down any distractions. And for a while in the meditation it seems like everything is going well. The mind is very quiet and it's starting to experience jhanas, starting to experience joy, it's starting to experience calmness, it's starting to experience more clarity. Everything is very quiet and, you know, just very not relaxed, but blissful.

And that might last for a few hours. You might notice that after you come out of that sit, your mind becomes very quiet, very blissful, and you feel euphoric even. But then that wanes and fades away. And when you're met with some kind of event or situation or person or have aversion towards, then all of those hindrances come up again.

Right? The analogy here is you take a beach ball, or you take any ball, and you submerge it underwater. You submerge it underwater. Now, when you let go, what happens? The ball bounces right back up. It's the same thing when you suppress hindrances. It seems like there's a temporary liberation from them. But what's the point if all you have to do is the same thing over and over again, suppressing the hindrances?

So that's why the Buddha realized that there is another way to do this. During his journey through his meditative experiences before he became a Buddha, when he was a Bodhisattva, at that time he came across two teachers. One was Alara Kalama and the other was Udhaka Ramaputta. Alara Kalama showed him all the way to nothingness. This is a state of meditation that we will discuss in a few days, but it is understood as the seventh jhana.

It is the arupa state, the formless state of nothingness, to experience this state. And then Alara Kalama said, you have learned everything I have to teach. Why don't you stay here and become a teacher? I will pass on the lineage to you. And the Bodhisattva was not interested in that because he realized if this is the case, then this is very temporary. This isn't actually leading to the complete irreversible cessation of suffering, being in nothingness.

So then later on he met with Uddhaka Ramaputta, and Uddhaka Ramaputta said that I do know of a method which leads to what is known as neither perception nor non-perception. I myself don't know it, that's what Uddhaka said, but I can tell you what my father taught me and you can try it out for yourself. And so the Bodhisattva went through that process and experienced neither perception nor non-perception.

But having done so, he realized there is still more to be done, because it's only the temporary liberation, temporary suppression of craving, of aversion, and so on. And later on, after that, he went into ascetic practices, another way. And so he remembered a time in his childhood where he was at the harvest festival with his father, and he sat under the rose apple tree. And while he was sitting there as a child, he remembered that his mind was uplifted, very clear, very relaxed, very joyful, naturally happy, not with any kind of suppression or trying so hard. And so he uses intuition and he said, maybe this is the way that will take me to the end of suffering. And so the rest of the events that followed were that he went through the first four jhanas. By doing this, there's a sutta called Samadhi Sutta, and in there he says that what I realized is that it is not through the forceful suppression of hindrances that leads to the cessation of suffering, tranquilizing formations, tranquilizing sankharas.

What does that mean, tranquilizing formations? It means to use right effort. The four R's that we talked about yesterday. It means to recognize any time the mind gets distracted. And remember what it means to be distracted. Any time the mind gets caught up in that distraction, any time the attention is no longer on your object, or the Six Directions or whatever it might be.

And anytime that happens and you recognize it, what do you do next? You let go. You relax. You tranquilize the bodily formations. It means you relax the entire body. Notice any tightness and tension and relax. You tranquilize the mental formations. What does that mean? You let go of that particular craving, that particular hindrance, that particular distraction. And there is this clarity to be found in the mind when you let go of it, when you drop that.

And after you relax, what do you do? Now you have to generate a wholesome state of mind. How do you do that? By smiling, bringing up your smile. If you're not smiling, you bring it up. If you are smiling, stay with that, your object, whether that is loving kindness or radiating to the six directions or quiet mind or whatever it might be.

So let's delve a little deeper into these different hindrances that we've just touched upon. So the first hindrance is sensual craving. What does it mean, sensual craving? There are actually three categories of craving, three types of craving: sensual craving, craving for existence, and craving for non-existence. Right now, let's just touch on sensual craving. Sensual craving is anything related to the five physical sense spaces. So you're sitting down for meditation and with your eyes closed.

With your eyes closed, obviously, there is no sensory input happening in the eyes. Maybe you hear the sound of a bird. Now your mind goes there. Your attention goes to the sound of the bird. And it starts to go into this loop of thinking about what kind of bird is it. And then thinking about a memory of when you heard that bird before. And then connecting that to something else. And before you know it, you are in a barrage and storm of different kinds of thoughts, unrelated to loving kindness, to your object in meditation.

This is sensual craving. Getting distracted by what's happening in the outside world, outside your mind. Maybe you feel a fly on your arm, right? And you get distracted by that, and you think about that fly, and the fly goes away, but you're still with that memory of that. And from there, you're thinking about something else. You're thinking about something else, and you're going through what's known as mental proliferation or conceptual proliferation. One thought leads to the other, and that thought leads to another, and so on and so forth. This is samsara. This is what samsara is. All of samsara is made up of your thoughts, concepts you have about yourself and about the world around you.

And so one kind of mental conceptual proliferation that happens is through sensory craving, sensual craving. Now, how does sensual craving arise? What is the origin of sensual craving? What are the factors for sensual craving? In the short term, it's essentially because the mind or the body or the ear or whatever it is makes contact with a sensory object.

And as a result of that, you experience that. Now, when you experience that, your mind goes to it and says, I like it or I don't like it. That's craving. And so that is the beginning of the mental proliferation. But there is a long-term factor, let's say, for sensual craving. And that is related to the third precept. If you remember the five basic precepts that you take in the morning, you take more than that. But what is the third precept? Generally, it's said that the third precept is, I will abstain from any kind of sexual activity or any kind of sexual misconduct.

But related to that is sensual misconduct. What does that mean, sensual misconduct? In the pursuit of sensory pleasures, you break the other precepts. You identify with one of the five physical sense bases and you say, I want more of that. And the more you act on that, the more your intentions are rooted in that, craving. So this practice, as I've said yesterday, it's not just about sitting.

You have to be able to use the four R's, the four right efforts, whenever you notice any of these hindrances arising. Whether you're eating your food, taking a shower, going for a walk, writing, sending an email, driving, whatever it might be. Notice what is going on in your mind. This is what is known as sati sampajanna. What is sati?

Here, this is the Pali word for the Sanskrit smriti. Smriti means memory, to recall, to remember. And in this context, that is what mindfulness is. Mindfulness is remembering to observe how the mind's attention moves from one object to the other. In other words, you are aware of your mental movements. As soon as there is any lack of awareness, as soon as there is a slip in your attention, then distractions can come in.

Then distractions can seep in, and now your mind starts to go in that direction. What is sampajanna? Sampajanna essentially means clear comprehension. That is the way I like to translate it. What are you comprehending? You are comprehending everything you are doing in that moment. If you are walking, you are walking. You know you are walking. If you are eating, you know you are eating. If you are tasting, you know you are tasting.

If you are thinking, you know you're thinking. Now, some of you have done vipassana, and that's part of the noting practice, right? Walking, walking, thinking, thinking, and all that. That's just one aspect. When you are able to do that, and then bring in the relaxed step, then you're starting to establish right effort. Because the recognize step is part of that noting. You don't necessarily need to note in that way in your mind, verbally, thinking, thinking, speaking, speaking, whatever it is. You don't need to do that. As long as there is the bare awareness of what is going on, and you are aware of your mind's attention and where it is moving, then you are practicing sati sampajanna.

Then you are practicing mindfulness and clear comprehension. That is how this is the equipment for samadhi. About in a few days, what is samadhi? Samadhi means the mind is unified and collected on its object of meditation, the unification of mind. So when we talk about sensual desire, the long-term factor for that is anytime the mind indulges in sensual pleasures or pursues sensual pleasures with the intention of owning them, with the intention of holding on to them. And in that desire, in that obsession to hold on to them, the mind makes a decision to break the other precepts. That is sensual misconduct, which can lead to the hindrance of sensual desire.

What about aversion? Aversion or hatred or ill will. In this practice, what we are doing is we are cultivating the factors of the Eightfold Path. I'll be talking about that later on. But just understand that when we talk about the factors of the Eightfold Path, we're also talking about right intention. So when we talk about right intention, it is threefold.

Letting go. That's called nekkhamma. Renouncing. Letting go of sensual craving. The cultivation of ill will and non-cruelty. That starts through the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion. So how do you let go of ill will? You're doing it already. You are cultivating loving kindness, and by doing that you are letting go bit by bit of any kind of ill will. But how does ill will manifest? Because there are degrees of ill will. There are degrees of aversion. There is the ill will that is the resentment towards someone. There's an ill will that is the, I don't like this person. I don't like this situation.

I don't like being here, whatever it might be. Or there is the ill will that arises in the form of an aversion. Something bites you while you're meditating and your mind goes there and you get angry at that. You get upset by it. It's a painful experience. It's a painful sensation that your mind says, I don't like it.

And so if your reaction to it is, I don't like it, why is that the case? Because you've been habituated to react in that way. You've been habituated to respond to situations in that way. So this practice of right effort is a process of reconditioning. Reconditioning from the unwholesome to the wholesome, loving kindness. So what's the first precept?

I will abstain from killing and harming living beings. So what does that mean? I will let go of ill will. But anytime you get upset in your mind towards someone, anytime you get angry towards someone, even if you haven't done anything physically, even if you haven't said anything to that person, the fact that there is a resentment there, the fact that there is some mental unwholesome state there, that in itself starts to bring up the hindrance of ill will in the long term. So you will notice as we go through these talks that this practice, and the Dhamma, the Buddha Dhamma, is really this very nested, interconnected process.

So you're not just taking the precepts because it's a ritual or it's a ceremony. You're taking the precepts because it actually purifies the mind. It actually cultivates a wholesome mindset. So every time you have ill will, understand it was because at some point, mentally, verbally, physically, the first precept was broken. Now, there's no sense in trying to figure out what exactly was it that I did that caused this arising of ill will.

The only thing you can do now is deal with what's happening in the present moment. What's the point of trying to figure out what happened 10 years ago that led to this karmic stream that led to this particular situation? Said this, he has said, there are those who preach karma in such a way that everything that has happened is a result of karma, and therefore I have to blame everything on that. But what's the point of doing that if you can't deal with the situation in the present moment? And how do you deal with the situation in the present moment? Right effort: recognizing there is ill will, recognizing the mind is getting irritated, recognizing the mind is getting distracted, relaxing any tightness and tension, coming back to your smile, and then returning back to your object.

So the goal here is not to go deep in your practice to the point that you shut out the entire world. That's suppression. The goal here is to be able to have enough open awareness that both insights arise and hindrances arise. You have to be okay with hindrances arising. If you have an open awareness, you'll be able to catch your mind going off guard and seeing the hindrance coming up, and then being able to deal with that hindrance in that moment.

And you have to do that not only in the sitting practice and not only in the walking practice, but throughout the day. Will become, the deeper your sits will become. The more you're able to do this in the sits, the sharper your mindfulness is, the sharper your attention is in daily living. So that's ill will, aversion. Then we have what's known as restlessness and remorse.

What is restlessness? Restlessness can be understood as worry and regret. Worry. How does worry arise? Whenever you think about the future and you get caught up in whether this will happen or whether that will happen. Will I succeed? How much money will I make this year? Will I land that job? Will I land that promotion? All of these things, they manifest as restlessness and anxiety and worry.

What about remorse and regret? Thinking about the past. Oh, I shouldn't have said that to that person. I shouldn't have done that. If I only did this, then I wouldn't be in this situation. Right? So at the very, very subtle level, restlessness is also just the deep movements of the mind. Because restlessness is not just a hindrance, but it's also a fetter that's present in most beings.

Restlessness is gone completely when somebody becomes fully awakened. And so the way that it's been described, restlessness has been described like water. When you look at the ocean and you see the waves, the constant movement that's going on, that's restlessness. The constant stream of thoughts that are coming up, arising and passing away. If the mind starts to incline towards that, starts to get caught up in that, then that's also restlessness.

So far we've been connecting each of these hindrances with one of the precepts. They are interrelated with the precepts. So what is restlessness interrelated with? Taking what is not given. Right? What does it mean, taking what is not given? Usually we say that means not to steal, not to take something that is not given. But that means also not to borrow something without informing another person. Not to borrow something and saying, I'm going to bring it back. You haven't asked that person, or that person hasn't actually willfully given that to you.

Now, that can mean a whole host of things. When we talk about taking what is not given, it can mean possessions. It can mean physical possessions. It can mean seeking attention, craving for attention, stealing the limelight from someone, right? Garnering favor from people, taking more time than is required from someone, and so on and so forth. These are the different kinds of taking what is not given.

And that mindset is a very agitated mindset. And it results in an agitated mindset. Now, when we talk about these precepts, there are layers to them. At the forefront, in the beginning, when you start to follow these precepts, it's very basic. But as you start to get deeper into the practice, you become more mindful of the things that you're doing in your life, right? You start to think, does it make sense for me to really say what I want to say at this point? Or is it okay for me to stay quiet? Does it make sense for me to try to barge in, you know, and try to make my point when somebody else is talking?

Does it make sense for me to try to steal the limelight? These very subtle movements of the mind that are rooted in this restlessness cause the mind to seek out things that is not its own. So it can be possessions, it can be attention, it can be time, it can be money, it can be whatever it is.

But that gives rise to an agitated mind, a restless mind. Then we have something called sloth and torpor. So sloth and torpor is essentially a mind that has lack of attention. That's one aspect. And the other is a mind that starts to become dull and fall asleep. Maybe that happened today in the morning meditation. It's okay. It happens. It's fine.

But how do you deal with that sloth and torpor? There are different ways of dealing with sloth and torpor. First, let's understand what is the connection between sloth and torpor and another precept. That precept is refraining from, or abstaining from, indulging in intoxicants. The basic one of that is alcohol. Anything that dulls the mind. So that could be any kind of intoxicant.

But as you start to follow the precepts, you notice that the mind also might have a tendency to overindulge in certain kinds of things. We have so many different streaming platforms here in India. More so, I think, than in the U.S., all vying for attention, right? And what do we do? Oh, the latest show is out this weekend. I'm going to spend all weekend binging this first season of the show.

And you do that, and how do you feel at the end of it? You feel like a zombie. You feel dull. Your mind is just tired. It doesn't want to do anything. So the overindulgence in anything, the overuse of anything, is also part of that precept. Abstaining from that. Moderation in what it is that you do, whether it's reading or watching television or answering emails or listening to audiobooks, any kind of consumption.

There's the Pali word ahara, right? That means food. But it doesn't just mean gross food, which is food that is taken in by the body and digested. The senses. Pay attention to what it is that you're watching. Pay attention to what it is that you're listening to. Pay attention to everything in terms of your sixth sense basis. Pay attention to the thoughts that are reflected upon what it is that you're experiencing.

So overindulgence in anything can result in sloth and torpor. Now there are some practical approaches to dealing with sloth and torpor. First and foremost, it's to make sure that you have enough rest, enough sleep. Now, there might be changes to your schedule now that you're here on this retreat. And your body and your mind might take a couple of days to adjust. And that's okay.

But make sure that you're getting enough rest. I might be the only teacher who says, I want you to take as many naps as possible on this retreat. I'm not talking about like three-hour siestas. This happened to me once. While I was in the U.S., I was giving a retreat there, and there was this young man who was dealing with sloth and torpor, and I said, you should start taking some naps and dealing with that. So he said, I'm feeling really great now. I'm just no more sloth and torpor. I'm like, great. What have you been doing? Oh, I've been taking naps.

How long have your naps been? Oh, three, four hours. Are you meditating? So when we talk about naps, we're talking about really short naps, like 15 or 20 minutes. Anything beyond 20 minutes, the mind starts to get groggy because it starts to get into the different sleep cycles and it can create a disruption. So take some naps. That's one thing. The second thing is make sure that you're meditating in light. That's one of the reasons why I like this hall. Now you can't really notice, but there's always a lot of light that seeps into this hall. So it's really good. So make sure that you have enough light wherever it is that you're meditating.

Now, I talked about sloth and torpor in the form of lack of attention. What can happen is you think that you're feeling the feeling of loving kindness. You think that you're staying with the feeling of loving kindness, with attention, and for a moment your mind goes somewhere else, and then you come back to the loving kindness, and if then for another moment your mind goes somewhere else, and so there's these gaps in your attention, micro gaps in your attention. You might not notice yourself, but amongst the people around here, if somebody was walking around, especially during the morning meditations, and people are sitting, you'll notice that their heads start to bob like that, right? And that means that the mind is starting to experience sloth and torpor. So when we have that inattention or gaps in attention, what that means is there's not enough interest.

There's not enough actual focus on your object. Too much focus and that will create a barrage of restless activity in the mind. Too little focus and sloth and torpor starts to seep in. Here, it's like the aperture of a camera. You have to be able to have just enough so that you can see the whole picture.

You focus too much, you're pinpointing only one aspect of the picture, not able to see what is arising in the form of insights or hindrances. Not enough focus and the picture is not clear at all. It's fuzzy. Because of that, the mind loses interest and then there's gaps in the attention. So how do you bring up this attention more? Well, one way could be to pinpoint your focus a little bit. But another way is to do the walking meditation, but backwards.

Walk backwards. Because when you walk backwards, what happens? You are paying more attention to the steps that you're taking. You could walk forward in the forward direction without any attention at all. Your feet somehow know where they're going. But when you walk backwards, you're more careful. You're more attentive to what's going on. So do that. Do that for 15, 20 minutes, and then come back to your sit and see how you feel. You'll notice that the mind becomes more collected.

And then finally, we have what's known as doubt. Now, doubt has a lot of different connotations. Here, doubt can mean doubt in yourself. I don't know if I can actually do this practice. I don't know if I'm actually feeling the loving kindness. I don't know if I'm actually using the right effort in the right way, and so on.

So doubt is connected to the precept of telling the truth: abstain from using false speech. Because the moment you start to use false speech, what happens? It's an intention to deceive. Even a small little white lie to try to bring yourself up, prop yourself up in front of others, even that is... there's an intention to deceive. And the more somebody does this, the more there's doubt in others. I wonder if they're telling the truth. I wonder if they're being honest with me. And then there's self-doubt. Doubt in your own efforts. Doubt in your own achievements.

Doubt in your own practice. That's one kind of doubt. Another kind of doubt is, well, there should be a healthy amount of skepticism. Even the Buddha has talked about this. He said, come and see for yourself and try out this practice. Believe in, there's nothing you need to have faith in. There's nothing that we're asking you to do blindly. Just come and see for yourself, and experiment, and notice if this process works for you. So doubt is different from skepticism. This kind of doubt is more related to comparing your practice with others, or comparing your practice with previous practices that you've done. You who have done other practices, just let go of that for the next seven or eight days and start with that beginner's mindset. That will help you immensely. You have no idea how much that will help you. I can speak from my own experience. I started this practice in 2016. Prior to that, I had all kinds of, I had done Kriya Yoga, I had done Vedanta practice, self-inquiry, all kinds of stuff.

And I could have done Vajrayana, I had done Dzogchen, Mahamudra, all of this. And I could have used all of that and I could have compared it to the practice that I was doing in TWIM. And that would have really resulted in very, very slow progress. Because there's always that mind that wants to compare, right? That practice, it was this way. I wonder if I adapted it in this way, because in that practice we were doing this. Maybe if I use that for this practice, it might be better. Trust me, it will not be better. If you just do this practice the way it's been shown to you, the way it's been usually applied, which is just noticing when your mind gets distracted, to the smile, returning back to the object, if you just do that, you will make progress. You will notice the different experiences of loving kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity coming up. You will start to notice that the mind gets deeper. You will start to notice that the mind establishes into the jhanas.

So that's one kind of doubt, trying to always compare and contrast. I've had students like that, from the beginning of my teaching career. And the only thing you can do is just request them to let go of that. That's all you can do. And to the extent that the student can do that, to the extent that the practitioner can do that, is the extent of their success.

And then there's another kind of doubt, which is confusion. And unwholesome. Not knowing what kind of mental state the mind is in. Now, this could be brought on by sloth and torpor, where there's a lack of attention. That's one aspect. As it's known in Pali, improper attention, or lack of proper attention to the object. And so that can result in where the mind is confused about what state it's in. Am I actually feeling loving kindness? Am I feeling the first jhana? What am I experiencing, right? Not knowing the difference between what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, or what is beneficial and what is afflicted. How do you know the difference between the two? That which is beneficial, that which is wholesome, is that which causes rest and relaxation.

That creates an open space in the mind and the heart. That which neither causes harm to self or to others, that is what is wholesome. And so what is the unwholesome? That which is constricting. That which causes tightness and tension in the body and the mind, that which is harmful to oneself and to others. So if you notice there's tightness and tension in mind and body while you're meditating, chances are you're trying too hard, or there's some kind of blockage, there's some kind of hindrance there, some kind of unwholesome state there.

So how do you deal with it? Relax. We smile and return. That's it. And you have to have the patience to do this. You have to have the patience to say, okay, not every sit is going to be the same. Some sits are going to be better than others. Some are going to be worse off. But no sit is terrible.

Even if you've had to use right effort 100 times over 2 or 3 minutes, sharper mindfulness that is still making consistent effort towards letting go and experiencing a wholesome state of mind. There are two main things that people who do this practice have to deal with, or are generally dealing with. One is trying too hard. Whatever effort you think that you need to make, do that by half, and then make adjustments accordingly.

There's a tendency to go gung-ho on this practice in the beginning. Like, if I just sit for this long and do as best as I can, with this very iron-will kind of approach. Sure, you might experience bliss and stuff, but chances are you're suppressing the hindrances and it's not letting you experience wisdom. Because this practice is twofold, remember. It's Samatha and Vipassana.

So what is the Samatha aspect of this? The Samatha aspect of this is to have the open awareness. So when we talk about TWIM, right? T-W-I-M. The tranquil aspect is Samatha. But the other aspect is wisdom and insight. That is Vipassana. And Vipassana is only possible in this practice when your mind is open enough to notice what's going on.

And so what you are doing is essentially the awareness of awareness. Metacognition. Meta as opposed to metta. Metta here meaning the cognition of cognition. So in other words, aware of what you're being aware of. That's mindfulness. Noticing what kind of movements are happening in the mind, and then letting go any time there is an unwholesome state. So trying too hard is the first one. The second one is beating yourself up.

In other words, this is non-acceptance of the present moment, non-acceptance of yourself. I see this more in the West than here in the East, but it's starting to happen here too, as we have a more globalized society where people have this tendency to create this standard that if I only reach this standard, I will be good enough.

And in doing so, the mind wants to seek the approval of others. The mind wants to become better than others. And then the most extreme form of that is self-denial, self-hatred, self-loathing. I'm not good enough. I'm not doing this practice correctly. The more you have that, and the more you're not able to just accept things as they actually are. Okay, there is sensual desire in my mind right now. What do I do about it? How do I let it go?

That's it. That's all you have to do. Why do you have to beat yourself up and say, why did I have this sensual desire? Why did I get angry about this? About the fact that I got angry. That doesn't make any sense. Okay, I got angry. So what? No big deal. I'm going to let it go. Oh, I got distracted over here. I was thinking about this. Oh, okay. Well, relax. Come back.

When you do this, when you have that attitude, when you have that intention, when you have that approach of this is only sensual desire, it's only aversion, rather than, oh, that's this monster of craving, right, it's this giant of restlessness. No, it's only restlessness. If you change your perspective in that way, then you don't think, you don't take things personally, you don't beat yourself up. If you're doing that more and more, then I'll have to give you another practice, which we'll talk about in our interviews.

So these are the five hindrances that you will deal with, right, at one point or the other. Sensual desire, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt. And for each of these different hindrances or their subsets, it's the same approach over and over again. As long as you have mindfulness, as long as you have patience, as long as you have compassion for yourself, when you're doing this process and noticing and letting go, then you will make progress, not before.

Any questions? Yeah. Why don't you move the release step? Because in recognizing and going to the relaxed step, you are releasing. It's a little redundant. Relax and release. See, what does it mean to release? When you recognize that you're distracted, the release is taking your attention away from the distraction and coming to the relaxed step. So by relaxing, you are essentially releasing as well. Well, we don't know that, right?

It could be because of a past life, it could be because of past choices, it could be because of whatever it is. But like I said, what's the point of trying to figure that out? The only thing you can deal with now is the present moment and the current situation. Maybe. Maybe not. Huh? What we're dealing with now is the present. But can we really say everything is karma?

Can we say for a fact, with true vision and knowledge, that everything is karma? Or are we saying it because we've read it? You know, the Buddha has talked about, there's a sutta called the Mulya Sivaka Sutta. And in that, the Buddha says that there are those who say that everything that arises is due to karma. But then he also says karma is just one aspect.

There are other factors, too. Karma in terms of the choices we've made in the past. But there's other factors like the environment or the climate. We have no control over that. The socioeconomic situation. We have no control over that. The health that we have, we have no real control over what happens. I mean, look at me. I'm dealing with this cough, right? Is it because I did something? Is it because something happened? I can't tell you. I mean, what's the point in trying to figure out how did this cold arise? Why am I coughing now? The only thing I can deal with is what do I do with this cough? How do I deal with it in this moment?

Balances in the body are other factors not associated with karma necessarily. Accidents. Accidents can happen, right? You're going down the road and you bump into someone. You didn't intend to bump into them and they didn't intend to bump into you, but it happened. So accidents is another aspect of it. So trying to figure out the cause and condition is one thing to the extent of seeing the causes and conditions in relation to dependent origination, that this experience that I'm having now is a result of some kind of contact that has occurred in the past.

But then trying to figure out it's because of this specific situation, it doesn't help. The only thing you can do now is, okay, I met with this difficult situation. What do I do about it? How do I perceive it? How do I deal with it? Do I identify with it? Have aversion towards it? Do I take it personally? Do I cling to it? What do I do with it? Or do I see it for what it actually is?

That this process, this experience, this feeling arose due to certain causes and conditions. Dependent upon those causes and conditions. Maybe I don't know those exact causes and conditions. But knowing for a fact whatever arose is dependent upon causes and conditions, then I know that whatever is being experienced right now is actually impermanent. And if it is impermanent, then trying to hold on to it will only lead to more suffering, will only lead to more dukkha, because I am taking it personally.

But if I understand that it is impermanent, then I will not hold on to it, and I will just let it go, using right effort. That is how you deal with any situation bringing up craving, which is bringing up clinging, which is bringing up any kind of aversion, any of the hindrances. So right effort is the key to letting go of karma, old karma, new karma. We'll talk about that more as we talk about dependent origination. Yeah, when you explain, yeah, when you experience sloth and torpor, what happens is

For a moment, you think you are with your object in meditation. And then some kind of small thought slips into your awareness. And for a moment, your mind goes there. And then that gap of going to that thought starts to become larger and larger and larger. And before you know it, you're no longer in your object and you're kind of in a dull mindset. Yeah. Yeah. Notice that and then bring a little bit more focus on your object.

Yeah. So here in this case we're using Brahma Viharas. We're using loving kindness, right? Or we're doing the radiating to the six directions. That's the general object that we'll be using. Later on, as you progress, you'll be using the quiet mind. The quiet mind. That'll happen naturally. You don't get to choose your object in the beginning. The only object you use is loving kindness.

And as you transition through the practice, when you have interviews with me, I will tell you, okay, this is what you're experiencing now. Now you change your object. What are the ways to focus on the optical vision? How to generate the feeling? May I be free of suffering, or you use a gratitude practice, or you use a wholesome image, a wholesome memory, right, and that brings up a smile on your face, that starts to bring up that warmth in your heart, and then your awareness rests in that feeling. That happens for the first 10 minutes, and then you bring up a spiritual friend and you stay with that spiritual friend.

So if you're starting out you only stay in the heart. That's all you do. You just stay in the heart. If you're starting out, why should we still keep trying to develop different ways and basically develop factors with different objects of meditation? That's what I'm saying. You don't keep changing. It happens on its own. So, metta changes to karuna. Loving kindness changes to compassion.

Compassion changes to joy. Joy changes to equanimity. And then the equanimity changes to quiet mind. It depends on what kind of breath practice you're doing, because when we talk about Nanapanasati there's so many variations. There's the breath practice where you focus over here, there's a breath practice where you focus over here. There's a breath practice where you focus on just the movement of air up and down.

But with loving kindness, what we found with Brahma Viharas is that it feels good. The breath practice is boring, frankly. It's very boring. So with Brahma Viharas, you're actually feeling some kind of spice, interesting. It's got its own vitality to it. How you started it and then stay with it and then it goes back. Yes, yeah, you choose only one, only one person. Yeah, so today, when I was trying to bring up a feeling, forgiveness came on as more interesting. So the forgiveness practice is actually a supplementary practice, right? So when I talked about when someone doesn't feel like they can accept themselves, someone feels resentment towards things, then the forgiveness practice is used.

And I will prescribe to people forgiveness practice, but that's only dependent upon the interviews. I wouldn't start off with forgiveness right on day one. It just depends on where you are, what's going on. And I'll only be able to know that with the interviews. If you've done forgiveness practice before, have you done it before? Yeah, you don't want to do that. Just let that go. There is a way that we do forgiveness practice here. And some people feel like forgiveness is a punishment. It's like, if I give you forgiveness, it's like, oh no, I did something wrong.

Don't think of it that way. It's actually really, really helpful. Bhante Vimalaramsi did it for two years. He was inspired by the Ho'oponopono practice, and he developed this forgiveness practice when he was reading a book called Who Dies by Stephen Levine. He tried this for two years, and it worked wonders for him. So there's, I think, up there in the interview room, there are the books there. And I'll give you those books if you feel like you want to do forgiveness practice. Can we get distracted without having tightness in mind and body? Yes, of course.

Yes. So that's the thing. Tightness and tension can be physical, where you feel constricted. But it can also be mental. Not necessarily a physical feeling of tightness in intention, but a mind that is constricted, a mind that feels that's not open enough, let's say, that doesn't have enough space, spaciousness to it. That could also be a feeling of tightness in intention. Yes. Yes, that's what you have to do. Because you always need to start with some kind of balancing effort. And I'll talk about that tomorrow when I talk about the Enlightenment Factors. It's very important to have some amount of energy in the beginning of the practice so that your mind becomes more stable, because the energy leads to further unification and collectedness of mind.

If your mind just jumps directly into quietness or quiet mind, there's a tendency for that quiet mind to feel like it's quiet mind, but actually it's very surface level and it's more of a dull mind than anything else. So when we talk about the feeling of loving kindness in the heart, it's all the same thing. Mind is everything from your head to your toe and even beyond. Mind is samsara. Samsara is mind.

So it doesn't matter. Right now when you talk about staying with the feeling of loving kindness in your heart, it's a way of speaking. Right? The experience, the psychosomatic feeling and experience is what's important. Because that's the only way your mind can remain collected on something. The more you try to stay in your head, the more speculative you will become. The more analytical.

And too much analysis, paralysis. Right, you won't go beyond that, so start with the heart. It will graduate to the mind whenever it does. Yeah, yeah. It can happen. You can have multiple hindrances at the same time, or what seems to be the same time. What happens is the mind goes back and forth between sloth and torpor and hindrances, but it's so fast that it feels like they're happening simultaneously.

So what do you do with that? How do you deal with that? Because you have sloth and torpor on one end, and then you have restlessness on the other end, right? And you have to balance the mind in some way. So there are these books here, which is A Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation by Bhante Vimalaramsi. This is generally for beginners, but whoever wants to take a copy can take a copy. So it's right here. You can take it after this talk. 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. you