Talk 7 -Bhava (Being) Q&A- Dependent Origination with Delson Armstrong-4K

Who wants to start? Any questions? Briefly, can you just explain the difference between the Asavas, Ruse and the Pallaments? Because I got... there were three Asavas, the Ruse, the re-hatured delusion, and the Pallaments were... In consciousness. In consciousness. Also no, no. So the roots are, the taints are just before dependent origination starts. The roots are in the formations, that's why they're called fettered formations, abhisankhara, and upakilesas, which are the defilements, are in consciousness. - So this is sort of like, what? So when we talk about roots and defilements, these are sort of like the effect in these links? - Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You think about dependent origination like a river, and underneath are all of these rapids, vortexes and whirlpools.

And these undercurrents are these things that we talked about in terms of the roots, the asavas, the roots, the defilements, the underlying tendencies, and so on. You said that when somebody presents something to you as an idea, you need to look at it through the four noble truths. Yeah. Could you give us an example? Well, for example, somebody says you don't need jhana practice to experience nibbana. But if you look at the four noble truths, the fourth noble truth has the eightfold path, which means the eighth part of that is right concentration, and the Buddha has described right concentration as being or going through the four jhanas. So if somebody says something like that, then you need to see does that make sense.

Yeah. In speaking of the Eightfold Path, we often talk about right view. Obviously, when an argument comes about, because we all think we have the right view, so the question would be, when is our view correct and when is someone else's view correct? Because half the world has their own view and opinions about stuff. And I think sometimes I'm debating, is my view right and someone else's view is not? Yeah. So, right view is made up of mundane and super mundane. Mundane has to do with things like understanding action and consequence. So, karma, and understanding that there's a possibility of accessing worlds that are here and in the beyond, which means it can mean either worlds that are realms beyond or within our own internal mind.

That is to say, experiencing meditative states. That there is mother and father, which means that we owe it to our parents gratitude and service, because they are able to bring us into this existence where we could actually experience the potential of nibbana. And then there's also that there are beings spontaneously reborn, and so on and so forth. So these are all components of mundane right view. In Majjhima Nikaya 117, in the grade 40, it talks about right view as being the view that is straight, that is inclined towards nibbana, that there is a view where you have the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. So if there's right view in regards to the basic, the most fundamental, I would say, if you want to just look at that, is that all of our actions, our intended actions, have consequences.

If you have wholesome states of mind, you will have wholesome consequences. If you have unwholesome states of mind, you will have unwholesome consequences. That's the basic right view. But there are other components to that. So, like I said, the components are: there is mother and father; that there is meaning in giving; that there is meaning in being generous; there is meaning in sharing; there's meaning in reaping the benefits of the merit that we have. The other one is that there are those Brahmins and ascetics who have gone forth and understood the Dhamma and are teaching it rightly.

That's also part of right view, that's the mundane right view. So these are the different factors. So I have a question. Yeah. Antidotes, and you had the antidotes to antidotes, right? Yeah. Antidotes to vada, certain kinds of vada, and so you had a whole list of conditions, but also you gave us the antidotes to that, and there was quite a long list, and so we were reviewing that list. And while I thought it made perfect sense, I can't remember. Is there a kind of a formula for figuring out what the antidote for jealousy would be? Is there like a root to figure out what the root is, and then what the consequential antidote would be?

Yeah, I think just being very practical about it. Like you used the example of jealousy. Jealousy means that we feel insecure and we feel like that person is better than us, so we need to be better than that person. So that's intertwined with competitiveness. The antidote for that is basically rejoicing in their success. So that's the mudita. There's no formula as such, but it's just a matter of contemplating and understanding the different connections. And, yeah, it's just in the mind. Like, boom, came up. So it would be a matter of actually acquainting ourselves with our bhava and figuring it out. Using intuition. Using intuition and asking ourselves, what is the antidote for this?

Sometimes you can see that the antidote is sort of like the exact polar opposite of whatever that bhava is. For example, ill will, hatred, love and kindness, anger and cruelty, compassion, resentment, forgiveness, stinginess, generosity, just seeing what would be the exact opposite of that. So that's another way of doing it. Did you have a question? You mentioned something? She asked about the right view and you didn't go into the super mundane view, which I think would answer your question specifically. Super mundane is basically understanding the four noble truths. So perfecting the understanding of the four noble truths. That is to say, you fully understand all the components of dukkha in the sense that they are not worth holding on to.

You fully let go of all the factors that lead to it. That includes ignorance, craving, and conceit. You fully realize nibbana and attain nirodha to the point that there is no more mental suffering. And you do all of that cultivating and perfecting the path until it becomes the automatic practice that you do without even having to think about it, becoming a spontaneously driven action or speech or whatever, using the path.

I thought you were going to say something else. Can I try and tell you if you agree with this? So, the question was about how to know if your view is correct or the other person's view is correct, and my answer for this, and I think it's the broadest view for super mundane view, is none of them are either true or false. The point is being able to see everything from both perspectives without holding on to either. If you're fighting for a perspective, you're attached to something. If you can't see the person that you're speaking with, their perspective, you're probably also attached to something. So actually taking the view and seeing if you have resistance is a way to tease out attachments that you have.

And so in the grand scheme of things, the super mundane view is there's no view that is correct. Anything that you think is ultimately correct is pointing at an attachment that you have. So I would clarify what you said by understanding it in this way: you go from where you have to utilize some kind of view, which would be the mundane right view, and the understanding of the four noble truths, so that you can let go and weed out any views that cause suffering.

In this case we call them wrong views, but then after you have achieved the super mundane right view, what happens is it's basically the raft, which means you're not attached to right view, but right view informs you automatically of what's going on, right? The thing that I was worried about, the thing that I was worried about, is that we would stay with a sense of there being some final correct view. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's basically letting go of the attachment to Dhamma, letting go of attachment to right view and allowing it to be there but not making it a view to hold on to. So, no standpoints that you hold on to. Before we go round two, you've had a question.

Let's see if we can pin it up. I wanted to respond to that. I can wait. I think you asked this question yesterday. I wondered if you could just explain how citta, mano, and the mind, mentality, and consciousness are here. Because you've got consciousness in various parts of the earth, and they also have slightly different qualities. Yes, yes. So citta is sometimes also translated as consciousness, but citta I look at as mindset. In the same way you would have a mood, which is made up of similar kinds of emotions. For example, that person is in a happy mood. So how is it? Because they have a collection of similar happy thoughts. Likewise, citta is the mindset, and so if your mindset is a certain way, if you have a wholesome mindset, it's made up of a collection of wholesome thoughts.

Mano is the mentality, that's the actual mind itself, which is made up of the components, those five components: contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention. And vinnana is consciousness in terms of the bare cognition of whatever is arising. But that also includes I consciousness, your consciousness, and so on and so forth, the sense-based consciousnesses which manifest themselves at contact. Could you give an example of how to recognize it? Can you see it, like in the day, on a day-to-day basis, where it's quite subtle? The reason for the question is, so you described between the levels of conceit, and the conceit is actually the roots of the last set of fetters. Yeah. And at the same time there can be something like effective action, like this is the right action to do given circumstances. Yeah, which then is nonetheless in conceit. Yeah. So my question is how to recognize, on a day-to-day basis, when am I acting out of conceit, or when does the action originate just from the context, and it's the right action to do regardless of my person?

- Well, that's the key. So if there's any attachment to the action itself, that is to say, if there is a suggestion to do a certain action and you do it, or amongst the workplace context, for example, and people are asking for different suggestions. There's conceit there only if you are attached to that suggestion being accepted. Thinking that that is the only way, or that is the right way, that's the correct way. So you allow whatever situations, causes, and conditions come up. But if you see it and according to the context the mind comes up with some kind of a solution, you put it out there. But that's all you do. You're not responsible for whether that outcome is, or the solution is actually driven forward, or whether there's an outcome from that solution.

How much of the theory of dependent origination is required for the practice? Because there are some suttas, or at least I think I've heard of stories where the Buddha was able to give teachings to their children, and they have become our hands, so I'm trying to understand how deep does one need to be in the dependent origination practice to deepen our practice in reality, or is it just can one make progress without understanding all of this theory?

This is all just a very large expansion of dependent origination, since this is a dependent origination symposium, so it's just to give you as much detail as possible. Even there, I haven't given you all the details. This is an express train to dependent origination. I would need a whole month, actually, to break down each of the links. So it's not necessary for you to know every single detail. It's not like you need to memorize that, but these are all just things that are there. What's important to understand is dependent origination at the most basic

level: when this arises, that arises; when this ceases, that ceases. That's it. Once you understand that, then you are able to apply that in every situation. If something has arisen in terms of jealousy or anger, you can go back and say, what was the origin of this? And you let go of the origin and that ceases. That's one way of doing it. And then, of course, understanding the antidotes, understanding what are the ways to let go, using the 6R's, and so on. So the understanding of dependent origination will happen gradually and naturally. It's not like you have to study this and take a test, you know, although there will be a test at the end.

Let's see. It's not needed to be like, I have to know every component of each link and so on. As long as you start to understand causality and conditionality, that's what's important. And that's why I think it's important. So my question is, how much of this bhava is from this lifetime of conditioning, versus how much is already baked in from the previous lives? Because the inflammations and all of those things, in my mind, I'm thinking there must be underlying tendencies, for example, in Majjhima Nikaya 64, where I think it's the Maha Malunkya Putta Sutta, where the Buddha tells Malunkyaputta that, you know, even an infant carries forward underlying tendencies.

An infant doesn't know what is right and wrong within itself necessarily, but there's underlying tendencies. It looks at something and it wants to grab it and see what that's all about, and then eventually it starts to create these kinds of associations and conditioning. Now we could say that that happened only in that life, but what the Buddha is saying is that there's a possibility that those underlying tendencies arose due to causes and conditions in a previous life. So as to whether it's from this life or the previous life, that shouldn't really matter. What matters is what you do with it. Now, sir, you're up round. I just wanted to go back to Ting's question. I wanted to offer something that's a different perspective, which is, I did use sutta, where the Buddha encouraged folks to go out and debate every once in a while, just to kind of keep their skills sharp and make sure that they understood the Dhamma.

So I think that's, if you're debating, someone's not going to get it right. And I'm also reminded, and this is my interpretation at least, of the water snake simile sutta, I think it's Maginite Khaitan too, where the person is making a wrong thing about the Dhamma, that central pleasures are okay, it's acceptable, and the Buddha's like, when have you heard me say that, you foolish man? And I never said that. It just kind of reads him right. Um, and the monks try to persuade him out of that view, and he's unpersuadable. So I guess to me I see that, and I'm like, yeah, some folks could get it wrong, and you're told that we're from the wrong end, you get bit. Yeah, and so

That's just a different, in my mind, a sutta-based, yeah, people can get the Dhamma wrong. Yeah, knock yourself out, but you got it wrong. Yes, you could be wrong. I agree with you. I mean, I have to look at that sutta. I don't remember it. I have a very simple question. Yeah. I missed the definition of samudaya. Samudaya.

Yes. Because you mentioned that. Oh, yeah. In all the ways. Yes. Yeah. So samudaya means the origin of. Origin. Yeah. Or the arising of. So samudaya is the origin of suffering. Yeah. So when you have the prescription, how to get out of these defilements. Yeah. So you recognize that it's dukkha. Yeah. And then you release attention through this and that. And samudaya, again, say-- Is the origin. You let go of the cause of that. Yeah. Oh, you let go of the cause of it. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. So if I'm looking at it, they're all different forms of sankharas. In a sense, a different way to describe a sankhara they are. So the one way to look at it is sankharas are potentials.

And the links of tanha, so craving, clinging, and becoming, are manifestations of those potentials. But the sankharas themselves, if you think about it, they are feeding, they're being fed back. So it's like when you have craving, it feeds back to the next arising of a sankhara, which is fettered in either greed, hatred or delusion, or non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion. And then the sankharas themselves also have groups. Yeah, so the root there would be greed, hatred or delusion, but if you root those out, if you are proved greed, hatred and delusion, then they call it non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion. In other words

Yeah, right, it would, because once you notice it and you don't act on it, because there's a lack of fuel to it, it will dissipate and eventually it will go away. You guys are really going in order. We talk a lot about not adding to someone else's suffering. Yeah. And my question would be, this happens a lot in a relationship, and I see that my parents, one of my mother thinks my dad adds to her suffering, and he doesn't think so. And I see that a lot of, you know, patients all the time. So the question would be, is that, yes, first, who is right? So that is a view. And if you don't think you add it to someone else's suffering, but obviously they think that you are, so what do you do?

You're like, well, I'm not adding it to it, but you're, you know, so there's a lot of that conflict going on in a lot of people's relationships. That's why I'm single. You're dodging the bullets. Well, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, because in relationships there's always going to be different kinds of opinions and views and ideas and things like that, but maybe one way of developing a relationship is to understand why you guys got together in the first place. What were the common core values that brought you together? And understand, are those values somehow changing? And how are they changing? And what's going on there? So that's a very fundamental way of looking at it.

But you know, there's a lot of mundane things you don't agree upon, or you don't necessarily think is right. But you could always talk in a way that is in a helpful way you know in a way that's loving and kind and see if there's uh there's no there's a way for the two of you to get together and see not who's right and who's wrong but does it make sense practically and is it allowing you to be more at peace or not that's one way of looking at But I will default to all the couples here however you want to. I have a story that Vanti used to tell about an experience when he was in Asia and he was teaching people.

People, and there was a woman that came to him that was saying that her husband won't speak to her, and maybe you've heard that story too. I remember. And so he and she wanted to go through the spiritual life, so he instructed her to develop her loving kindness and to keep radiating loving kindness towards him, and it changed him. So it wasn't like there was an argument or who's right and who's wrong. It was just her persistence of radiating loving kindness that changed the situation. Yeah, well, there you go. And I would add to that, Monte also joked, he said, if you're a man, the woman is always right. But that would be interesting, right? Both of you might think that you're right, and both of you send each other loving kindness, and then you just forget about what the argument was about. I'm going to take it to a different subject. Yeah, talking about the antidote, how do you think about the boredom? Is it yeah, boredom is rooted in actually

Delusion, and boredom arises because there's a lack of energy and a lack of interest in whatever it is that you're doing. And really what's going on is that from that delusion there arises conceit, and that conceit, remember, gives rise to restlessness. Boredom can arise as restlessness, or give rise to restlessness, or it can give rise to sloth and torpor. So you have to look at the quality of the boredom. Is it causing the mind to slip into restlessness? In which case, then you have tranquility there. And if it's starting to take you to sloth and torpor, in that case you bring up joy and energy. This is a the various teachers, there's a certain way that they express causes and conditions, and to be able to let go of that. So that's dependent

origination, and so it's kind of two parts. I don't know much about it, but they don't seem to be able to articulate it in a way that makes too much sense to me. But also, as far as I'm concerned, I don't know of a non-dual state that can happen without unification of mind. In other words, a genre. And so can you comment on either or both of those?

Yeah. I would say it depends on the strain of non-dual teaching. Because there's different components. There's different teachers and things like that. Non-dual, what? Non-dual, just non-dualism, basically non-duality. Yeah, yeah. Non-dual can mean a host of things, but really it basically comes from the Sanskrit word which means there is no separation between what's going on here and what's going on out there. It's consciousness that is all it, and there's variations in interpretations of that. You have the Vishishta Advaita, you have Advaita, you have advaita advaita, you have all kinds of different

variations. But in any case, when they talk about it, and it depends on the tradition, some people do talk about there is a first cause which is the origin of all things, and so that is the consciousness that is Brahman, for example. That's one strain of non-dual thought. Another is to relax into the awareness and just stay there and then allow things to just self-liberate. That's another strain. And actually what we were doing in that guided meditation is taking you there, but it's taking you there through certain insight practices by continuously letting go, because the signless state is the analogy I use. The signless state is that it's a flashlight that doesn't land on anything, that ray of light that just continues on but doesn't land on any object. But you come to that by starting to see the tightness and tension in all objects and just keep letting go.

So that's why I would say that the jhana practice that's going on here is less of a constructive process of bringing up an intention and building on that, and more of bringing up an intention and then letting go, bringing up an intention of loving kindness as an object, for example, but also letting go of hindrances and letting go of any kinds of tightness and tension that are present. And as you do that, as a result of which, joy arises. In other words, you're not bringing up joy. Joy is arising from the joy of release, the joy of relief from some kind of tightness and tension. And that joy continues on as the mind gets more and more collected.

And then from there, you start to let go of even deeper subtleties until you experience even more refined states like equanimity and quiet mind and so on. So that is a deconstruction process. There are, it appears, methodologies of constructing jhanas that do not deconstruct but construct in a particular way to result in a mental state and a jhana. So could you explain that and contrast and compare it a little bit? Okay. So a constructive jhana would mean that you actually take joy as an object. You actually bring up joy and you sustain it with your attention. And then you bring up contentment for the third jhana and let go of the joy.

And then you bring up equanimity and so on. So in other words, you're building it up by bringing up the factors, rather than the factors of jhanas coming up naturally in the case of the deconstructive process. Well, it's more addictive to be, let's say, in the constructive jhana because it feels so good. The mind becomes very attached to those factors, and if those factors are not present there's a certain level of dukkha. Now, it's not to say that if somebody is in deconstructive jhana they won't have an attachment to that jhana. They could. But the difference is that with the constructive jhana it's possible that it's not in tandem with vipassana. So what we're saying is the jhana is samatha, and then the understanding of what is going on is the vipassana. So samatha and vipassana have to come together in order for nirodha to

happen. And in that case, it could just be a process of focus and concentration. And at that point, the mind just slips into a state that is like nirodha, where there is a blackout. But if there's no discernment there, which is what I was talking about yesterday, if there's no insight and discernment there, that's born from right view, and everything else in relation to the Dhamma, then whatever comes up after that won't be a nibbanic process. Is that why Bhante Vimalaramsi talks about how in the hindrances of your teachers to show you where your attachments are? Yeah, of course, yeah. And then with a constructive jhana you're not actually observing what's coming up.

So the mind doesn't have the agility with the pure samatha. Right. Right. That does with because they're equally yoked. It's equally yoked. Serenity and insight are yoked. That's right. So more of a back row. So the process of rebirth, when the last consciousness of this life impacts the next rebirth, the first consciousness, the next rising consciousness in the new birth, right? So how does old karma get carried along and is able to impact that next birth? Okay, I'm trying to clarify your question here. You're saying what happens between one life to the next, or? Well, right. There is no self, and there is impermanence, and it's just individualizing the consciousness. So, I understand that. I understand how it links to the next birth, the consciousness.

Yet old karma seems to migrate along with every birth, right? How does that process work? So old karma in terms of from previous lives going forward into the next life. Yeah. So you think about it in this way. It's like a hard drive. So you have the data in there, and certain data is present and certain data gets corrupted. And the corruption of that data, in this analogy, means that that karma is no longer active. And the causes and conditions for that karma to actually arise won't arise. And so it won't be carried forward.

However, there can be some karma that is so intense, that is to say, it's so deeply embedded in that life stream process, that is the life consciousness, so to speak, which I'll talk about when we talk about consciousness, that is carried forward regardless as a karmic thread because of the intensity of that karma. However, that doesn't mean that it will come to fruition in the next life. The causes and conditions still have to be apparent in order for that karma to arise. So the hard drive analogy would mean that the transfer system from one hard drive to the next hard drive is happening, and there is an intention of which files should be moved.

And that intention is what allows you to know what files are being moved. It's not like you carry forward all the files. Some files might be corrupted, so they might not continue on. But some files are extremely important based on the intensity of the intention, so they will be carried forward. Yeah, I just want to follow up with that transfer of karma. Are there causes and conditions when, when you say that they, DA meets the other, or sperm meets the other? Is the causes and conditions random or not? They're not, they're not random. They appear to be random, but they're not random. So it's, it's like this amazing, wonderful, basically perfect system of matching the karmic streams with the genetic material that's best available for the manifestation of that karma. It's a sorting device, you know?

Right, and when you say there's corrupt files, just explain that a little bit. Corrupt files means, like, inactive... Transferred. Yeah, because they're inactivated karma. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Or deactivated karma, I should say. Yeah. Oh, Mark has a... Oh, N and then Mark here. Okay. So that perfect matching thing, could that be like... Like, you know, people might go around and around and leave us together.

For example, us. We might have a lot in common, though you don't remember. But is there that matching thing involved in that? That's a very good question. So, this is where you have something known as, and I'll be talking about it in karma and consciousness. We're kind of moving ahead of ourselves. But it's called Atabhava Pratilabha, which means it's the movement of different intentions coming together to create a project, for example. And sometimes the project succeeds and sometimes the project fails. And usually what happens is if the project fails, some people give up and just are no longer in that stream of intention. And some people just take it so personally that their formations keep continuing, not necessarily with the same people but the same set of formations that are manifested in a different person in order for that project to continue. Mark, I had two things I want to ask you. One was the thought of the Buddhist that gets in the car accident and he goes up to the other

driver and says, "We can't continue meeting this way." The other thing I was curious about is there's always a difficulty when we get into some of these really quiet states, and that is to know where we are in terms of the depth of our concentration. Concentration seems to be something where it's almost like being underwater, and you can be 30 feet and you may not know the difference unless you look at a gauge. You don't have relative gauges to make that kind of assessment. I know that sometimes it may be other senses that we can know about, and that may be used, like something we're hearing, like a clock or something along that line.

And if I can hear that, I know I'm not too deep. If I'm too deep, I don't hear it. But I would be curious to hear any comments in email on that. Yeah, I would preface that by saying that some people, for example, when they get to quiet mind, they feel like they're not deep enough. But you also have to think about the mind getting used to that depth, to that effect, so that it's not like it feels like it's not that deep, but it is actually really deep, for example. But in order to gauge how deep you're going, it's a matter of what formations are present. If verbal formations are still present, then that means it's not deep enough.

If the verbal formations are gone and bodily formations are there, then you're not deep enough. But if verbal and bodily formations are gone and there's only mental formations, then you're getting pretty deep. That is to say, your verbal formations cease at the second jhana. Your bodily formations, related to contact with immediate, continuous contact with the body, cease at the fourth jhana. And so what you're remaining with is mental formations. And now you have to figure out how deep you are in terms of the arupa jhanas. That can be calibrated through understanding what is the experience of the background. Is it infinite space, or are there flickering consciousnesses? Or is it just nothingness, or is the mind going really deep where it feels like it's awake and asleep at the same time?

Those are the different gauges that you could use. All right, thank you. So I have a question about the previous topic that you talked about, and the session where you're trying to use deconstruction. I'm wondering, when you do this deconstruction, I mean internal and external, it kind of breaks down because you still know me. The whole thing that me and me observing this is not just it. I wonder if this can happen in waking movements or outside? Absolutely, absolutely. It can happen. I mean, if the mind is just walking around and it just keeps letting go continuously, sees the emptiness of self, it comes to a spacious place, and then that mind just becomes empty completely, and it's in the signless. Yeah, that's what it means. In the seeing there's only the seen, in the hearing there's only the heard. Whatever's happening is happening. There's no projection about how to do things or what to do. It's just all happening.

Yeah, question is to follow on from that. We were just talking about, I can't remember the city of it. There's a big repetition about, I often reside in voidness. Yes, is the voidness the signless state or is that something else? There is a way in which these words are the same, in that whole thing. So voidness can mean emptiness, but also signless. Voidness can mean emptiness in terms of realizing the emptiness of self. Signless means that no object is worth holding on to, but they all take you to the same place.

Emptiness, undirected, signless. They're all just looking at it from a different angle. Let me try to narrow it down. So when I read that, I'm curious, is it the Buddha's abiding for the day and he just goes into kind of a blackout space? It's not cessation, not nirodha, but neither is in the waking state. And when he's in that state, he's not out walking around. So this is the state of the arahant's mind, which is completely signless all the time. That's why I was saying in the hearing there's only the heard, and so on. That's just the state of the mind of the arahant. He often resides in that, and there's a special state where you're taking Nibbana as an object, as it were. Nibbana cannot be an object, but the mind is... See, we're really going ahead of ourselves, guys.

I'm going to be talking about all of this in the next couple of days They're aware but without a sense of selfless. Just wait two days. All of that will be answered. You had a question? There's that sutta. I can't let go. There's that sutta that Buddha describes that he resides in the signless And then he says, and something about the six senses just to maintain life. Yeah. And I was curious about that. Yeah, so what he's referring to, and again, I'll be talking about it more in two days, but, yeah, but what's going on there is he's referring it to in two levels. the signless as a state that you go into, that then eventually becomes the waking functioning state of the arahat, which is to say it's signless because there are no signs of the

taints. It's empty because it's empty of any kind of sense of self, and it's undirected because there is no more craving there towards anything so here what he's talking about is i often reside in voidness he talks he calls it the supreme voidness which means the mind of the arah where that there it is empty and signless and undirected in the sense that there are no more taints present that's what he's referring to to maintain only as much, the sixth sense basis only as much as to maintain life. Yes. That is, you can call it cessation, but it's a special state where everything just collapses and the mind is experiencing Nibbana. But the sixth sense bases are present in the sense that they are being dependent upon the life faculty, the heat and life faculty.

So that only is present. So we could interpret that as cessation as well, where those sense bases are there, but they're non-functional, but they're still connected to the life faculty and the heat and vitality. My thought was, he's using the six sense basis to maintain his physical life, eating and bathing and like that, but that's not what you said. Right, but it can be, because I'm saying that if the functioning mind of the arahant is such that there's no projections of taints, no projections of anything else that continues the process of existence, then all that's happening is the functions of the senses are happening. Going back to that same thing, in the hearing there's only the heard. So to that extent there's intention, but there's no craving in that intention. It is whatever arises according to the... I want to go back to the constructed and deconstructed jhanas, maybe to gain some clarity.

So I totally understand deconstructed jhanas, because that's been my experience. I started TWIM, never experienced jhanas until I came here. You know, it happened, I had no idea what was happening, so it was relaxing. But then, recently, I hear people say, "Practice getting into jhanas, getting into the first, getting into the second, or staying a certain amount of time." And I've toyed with that. But now that I hear about constructed jhanas, I feel like maybe that's what I was doing when I thought that I was getting into the first jhana or getting into the second one. I was focusing on the factors to put myself there.

Right, so if that's not the right approach, how would be what would be the deconstructed way of going in and up, you know, in and out of the poor jhanas, is up and down and all that, when you're not, if you're just letting it happen and letting it appear? Right? Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm a little confused. Maybe it's a combination of those. It's your intention, you're refining your intention to be able to go jhana hopping intentionally, going jhana hopping. It's like muscle memory, but here it's jhana memory, because otherwise, if you're trying to create that, then it's only when you're pushing, trying too hard, and bringing up the factors instead of just having the intention and then allowing it to come.

It's just allowing it to happen. Thank you. Yeah. Quack, quack, quack. I mean, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to ask this, but I would assume, as historically our hots, because of the state that they're in, they have a high level of intuition. Yeah. And like, I remember Bhante telling stories about this one individual, and I don't know what level they're at. Apparently they were able to materialize and dematerialize. And you know, some people are able to create fire from their hands and stuff like that. What is that?

Magic tricks. You don't need to be an arahant to produce fire out of your hands. You don't need to be an arahant to materialize and dematerialize. You could do that even if you have no attainment. For the arahant, what it means to be an arahant is that the three taints are destroyed. That's it. No more becoming, no more craving, no more ignorance. That's basically it. And yes, that's right. An arahant's mind is basically working on intuition, and how is intuition born? How do you develop intuition when the mind is quiet? Intuition arises, which is why, for the mind of the arahant, it is signless, it is empty, it is undirected, and therefore intuition is working 24/7. So in order for you to develop your intuition, ask a question in the mind, let it go. But you have to do it first by quieting the mind. Come to the quiet mind, let's say ask the question and let it go, and you'll get the answer. What is intuition?

Intuition is basically where all the synchronistic causes and conditions come to be in order for your answer to arise. We have it on tape, right? No, I'm just joking. It is where all of the synchronistic causes and conditions come to be in order for the answer to arise. In our group earlier we said that we all have feelings, it's just a matter of observing it instead of being attached to it. So with an arahant, would they not have all the feelings, all these abandoned roots that we went through earlier? Like, they wouldn't have anger, they wouldn't have resentment, or would it still have these things, it's just that they're not being attached to it? No, they wouldn't have it at all, because that's the whole point of being an arahant. You've uprooted all of those roots, and now there's non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion, which means the formations are purified. I didn't say that.

Of course they have feelings, but they have positive feelings. They have loving kindness. They have joy. They have happiness. They have clarity. They have enthusiasm. They have the ability to play and have fun. Because I know one time you mentioned it as an R. I have to eat a lot, and he was really fat. Oh, was he?

Well, but that was only because from his past life he was an elephant. Yeah, oh, that's right. And there was the arahant who used to be a monkey, and he would like to just, you know, jump around from place to place. Yeah. Can you speak closer to the microphone? Closer. Closer. Yeah, it can be. So, Mahakassapa, when he, you know, got out from the Miura Sabahati, the belief is, you know, everybody offers something, that's the best, you know, time to offer. So Sakka and his wife came down and pretended like they were people. Right away, Mahakassapa didn't realize. I'm trying to clarify the question now. So you're saying that Sakka and his wife came down.

And Sakka keeps doing that, by the way. I don't know what his problem is, but he keeps doing that anyway. So they tried to offer to Mahakassapa, and Mahakassapa said, well, you know, and then he looked at it and realized this is Sakka. So he scolded. Yeah. So, yeah. Which means that there has to be an implementation of psychic faculties. There has to be an inclining of the mind to see that it's not like the psychic faculties are open 24/7. It's not like the mind is omniscient, so that's the psychic faculties that are able to see it. Yeah, but attention of the mind will always be very fully mindful.

Not like us, like in your head. I have just a couple of them. If this is wandering, irrelevant, never mind. We talked about constructed jhanas as opposed to deconstructing, which twin is. And so, as it pertains to Baba, a constructed jhana, then, using the way of eating factors. It's fun to do, but do those jhanas yield? If they don't yield insight, then they wouldn't yield particularly strong personality development. In other words, the attachment to those eventual tendencies, unless they're deconditioned through right effort and they're dissolved, would remain intact. And therefore those habitual tendencies would continue to prevail in my mind and just kind of evolve in some ways, but they wouldn't decondition like they do in Pumajara.

They could suppress it, but not decondition. Say it again. They could suppress it, but they won't decondition it. Right, so the bhava is suppressed, and it doesn't lead to this, so it doesn't dissolve, and so that's not the personality, but the development isn't there, so anger is in decondition, jealousy is in decondition, all of those there are in decondition. That's right. So pretty much the same question. While we were doing our groups, it occurred to me that without the antidote, we're just reloading the bhava. Yeah. You need the antidote.

My question. I guess I was just looking for some clarification, and repeated on introducing the antidote as a practice. So, in the-- I'm referencing that, for example, she didn't use an introduction in the workshop earlier. So the contact is obviously not-- we think that it's just something that you're describing can happen even in the States. The feeling, maybe you could talk a little bit about the arising of the feeling and the relationship between that and this fundamental attachment to self or not. But then I wanted you to talk a little bit more about implementation, specifically when the craving starts and we are exactly in, just a little bit more detail, about the implementation of the 6R's and the antidote as that cycle goes along.

Okay, so contact here comes from the word phassa in Pali, or sparsha in Sanskrit, and it literally means to touch. Contact here is not the actual seeing. Contact is when the initial light bounces off of an object and hits the eye. Let's take the eye, for example. The process of seeing is the feeling, is the experience of seeing. So the arahant will also have that. How does feeling condition craving? How does feeling give rise to craving? It's when there is an underlying tendency towards craving.

If it's a pleasant feeling and the mind says looks at that and doesn't want that pleasant feeling to stop there is an underlying tendency towards craving and it holds on to it and there's tightness and tension that is full-blown craving if it's a painful feeling if it's an unpleasant feeling the mind says i don't like that and it tries to push it away when it has that intention the underlying tendency towards aversion

Now, the 6R's are to be utilized to let go of the tightness and tension, which is a manifestation of the tanha, or the craving. It can be a manifestation of clinging, or it can be a manifestation of becoming. Craving is essentially the mind that holds on and says I don't want this to stop, or I want this to stop, please go away, or holding on and saying this is me. The clinging is that which rationalizes why it likes it, or why it doesn't like it, or why it identifies with it. So it would say I like chocolate cake because chocolate cake is the best. Right? Because the chocolate cake. I didn't say chocolate ice cream, I said chocolate cake, because chocolate cake is the best. So that's the rationale, that's the clinging that's there, the associations. Tomorrow we will discuss clinging in further detail.

But then the bhava that arises is this personality that's developed around that: I'm a connoisseur of chocolate cake, I know what I'm talking about when I talk about chocolate cake, and things like that, or therefore I am somebody who enjoys chocolate cake. Now, everything from craving to clinging to becoming can all be released, can all be recognized, released, relaxed, let go of, and then replaced with the antidote of whatever it might be. It's only when you have an action dependent upon that bhava, dependent upon that being, a habitual tendency, where you cannot recall it back. Now, to clarify this further, when you have a mental experience of an intention to act, that's already been sent out.

But before it manifests as verbal action or physical action, you can recall that. You can let go of the mental action and say, I'm going to stop it right there and then. But you can't call back what you just said. You can't call back what you just did in terms of a physical action. So the six R's are only at play when you recognize craving in the form of tightness and tension, when you recognize clinging in the form of making associations and rationalizing why it is that you're craving this, and when you start to create the sense of self and an attachment to self in the form of this is who I am at bhava.

When you can recognize those and let go of that, that's all possible, but you cannot 6R in action. Just a clarification question, just going back to what Kun asked earlier about the conceit. You know, when is there no conceit? I thought that for all of us who are no Arahams, in the formations, that some kind of conceits are already kind of baked in with tains as soon as the formations come up. Because the I factor, the tains are already in that formation because of the ignorance. Because we're all ignorance the formations are orientated hence there is a conceit already baked in it so as so my point is that we're not free from conceit unless ones become art and the only way to do that is to recognize conceit as an active process in the mind and let that go so that it doesn't feed back to further conceit in the formations, so what's going on there is you're cutting off the fuel supply every time you let go of conceit so that the next arising of formations have weaker conceit in them until they go away completely.

You said, so if you had the feeling, let's assume that a regular Joe doesn't know anything about the 6R's, has a feeling of some sort of desire, but they know that the desire isn't a good thing, the end result will not be good, but even though he had the thought, was thinking about it a little bit, but decided he was not going to act on it? Yes. Then that would deter their bhava or their karma as it relates to that recurring? Only to a certain extent. Only to a certain extent, because there's no wisdom there to uproot it. You prevent it from happening, which is great, but by actually acknowledging it, by using right effort and the 6R's, you're actually also uprooting it. In the case of the regular Joe, in the right effort, he realizes that that is not a worthy action. Yeah. Would that be the same thing? No, because you need to relax. The relax step of tranquilizing formations is essential here.

Yeah, you got a question? Otherwise it's just a moral choice. It's a moral choice. That's right. We talked a lot about how it's okay to enjoy everything in life as long as you're not attached to it. Now, I've seen a lot of patients who feel that attachment is a way of being connected. So what would be your advice to people who feel that an attachment gives them a sense of connection, a sense that I belong, I'm a part of something, versus they feel like not attached means that I have no feeling and I'm, you know, not a part of something? So attachment here would mean that there's a fear of losing that relationship, a fear of losing that person in their life.

That's the attachment. But if you can stay connected with that person, there's a difference. Connected and attached. Connected means you are vibing with them. You are enjoying life with them. You're having fun with them, and you're able to live life fully with them. That's all wonderful. Or again, just spending time with them is not attachment. Wanting to spend time with them is not attachment either. The fear of losing them is the attachment that they have to let go of. What's the antidote to attachment?

Non-attachment. Yeah. It's wisdom, actually. It's the cultivated wisdom of understanding how things are ultimately impermanent. Things are ultimately going to decline, and that's okay. That's fine. You can still enjoy those things. You can still have those things. You can still utilize those things. You can still have connections with people. You can still be in relationships with people. You can do all of that. But if there's a fear of loss, then that basically means that you have to let go of that by understanding that one day everyone or everything is going to go away. And you come to a level where you have equanimity about it and disenchantment about it, so that doesn't affect your mind in the process of enjoying those things and enjoying the time with those people.

Sort of like having strawberry ice cream. Oh, you had to bring it up, huh? I get the last scoop of strawberry ice cream, and somebody else loves strawberry ice cream, but at a certain point, one realizes that there's only so much strawberry ice cream. That's right. And that's wisdom. That's wisdom. But it's interesting. I'm just going to put this as a side note because I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so I'm just going to do it. Master Yoda is talking to Anakin about this, and Anakin has a dream about his wife dying in childbirth, so he asks him what he should do, and Master Yoda says, attachment is the shadow of greed. Well, he says it in his own Yoda way, so I'll just try to translate it into proper English.

And then he says, so then he asks, what should I do then? He says, let go of everything that you fear to lose. Yeah. Jordan, I'm going to use you as an example. You don't mind, but correct me, correct my understanding of how the mix work. I want to use an example that we did in the worksheet. So I see Jordi grab the last scoop of strawberry ice cream, and this painful eye feeling arises, and then cringing arises, and I'm just, and my habitual tendencies would be to go over there and shake him. Yeah. And my justification would be, everyone knows that I'm the one who loves strawberry ice cream, conceit, right? Yeah. Everyone here knows I love strawberry ice cream, everyone should defer to me, blah blah blah. That would be all the clinging, right? The justification for why go over and snatch that. Yeah. Jordan's hands. Which would lead to the action, which would be bad action, and then feed back into my formations and keep me rooted in this craving for strawberry ice cream and mistreating people who get in the way of strange things.

The conceit is there all the time. Yes, yes, of course. Conceit is the root of all of that stuff that's going on, because you're taking it personally, you're identifying with it. Yeah, the bhava is basically the set of, or series of, options that are available to you because of the options that you have selected in a previous action, and then you automatically incline to that rather than seeing that and letting go of that and allowing a spontaneous action that is rooted in wisdom that can arise. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's right, that's right. And spontaneous would be someday. Yes, and genuinely mean it. Yes, good for you. Yes, someday, so that's not going to happen. When you hear me say that, you'll know. I don't know what has to be done, put down the strawberry cone.

And this will be known as the strawberry ice cream discourse. So the gradual training begins. That strawberry ice cream. Goes strawberry ice cream. And ends at chocolate ice cream. Ice cream, and then youth, wealth, health, pleasure, and that's the training. It starts with just the daily things that we identify and connect with to use the six. Yes, yes, yes. So for example, you gave the example of the fat Arahat would like to eat. It was because of previous conditions that were present, but that doesn't mean that there was craving. It was just that that was how the formations arose, and that's what that was used to. Likewise with the monkey arhat, we kept jumping around.

It was because of previous causes and conditions that just created that. Preferences are essentially just what the body is used to. It prefers coffee in the morning, so it's coffee. Now craving would mean that if the coffee is not available, all hell will break loose. But if there's no craving, there's no coffee, no problem. So the preference is something that the body is just used to. Like my system is used to Indian food, but since Indian food isn't available in the U.S.

I have to make do with it, right? So whatever the preference would be is whatever the preference is, and no big deal about that. But the craving would mean there's craving when it's not available. How do you act or how do you respond? I want to ask, with what we covered today with the followers and into this, when you come into a life from your past karma, are there ones... I mean, I look at myself and I look through that list. Anger, conceivable. There's certain ones that stand out that I can see patterns in my life. Um, are those... would it be fair to say that those are carryovers? Not necessarily. They can be, but not necessarily, because a child can be conditioned by how its parent behaves, and then see that that might be the right way of doing things. Like, lashing out is one way that could also be the case.

Yeah, so we have to, a reference, yes. One more question, actually, two more questions. One is preference. I think that's the word that I was looking for. Is it water? Because, like, I know, Buddha is the only one, in that I had to look up for that word. Yeah. And another question that I have is, in the Buddha's context, feeling is only three things, right? Like, is it good or bad or good or not? Yeah, it's pleasant, unpleasant, yeah, neutral. And so the rest, we call it feeling in Western context. For example, anger or fear. These all are mindset, isn't it? Like, is it chitta? When you talk about things like anger and resentment and all of that, these are defilements of the chitta or defilements of the consciousness.

Yeah. So these are like, yeah, like, is the mind felt faculties? Mind felt? Mind faculties? Mind faculties, oh. Is it? No, not faculties. No. They're affecting how the mind is experiencing reality and reacting to reality. They're like infections of the mind, basically. So. You're talking about, yes, yes, exactly. Hindrances, for example, is part of Dhamma anupassana. Enlightenment factors are part of Dhamma anupassana, and so on. Yes. Yeah, and I'll have to look up that word. You'll have to just tell me later on. I have to see what that's all about, yeah.

I just want to clarify what Kim was asking. So I've read students as well. There are three kinds of feelings: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. But these other more complex emotions, like fear, anger, jealousy, they're saying they are developments of the mind and they affect how mind experiences reality. So where, I guess, would they fit in consciousness? In consciousness, yeah. And so, oh, I see. So I'm prone to anger, um, that's already in my consciousness, my six sense bases, contact, and then, contact or something like contact, so when I start having angry thoughts, and then I have painful feelings. It's not that the feeling there is angry. It's that these thoughts were already infected with anger from way back in my consciousness.

So that by the time they get to contact, I have these thoughts. We call them angry thoughts, but really they're painful because they're causing pain, and the craving and everything continues. But these complex emotions, anger, jealousy, et cetera, you're saying they're in consciousness. Yes. They're not emotions. They're just defilements of the mind. We call them emotions because we feel them. And they are felt. They're felt as a painful feeling. Absolutely. But the seeds of that arise in consciousness. Is that all? Are all sixth sense base, seeing, hearing, smell, taste, and touching, and mind, are those all feeling? Are the sense bases feeling? No, no. The sixth sense bases are just the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

Those are the sixth sense bases. The feeling is the function of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking. So it's the activity that's arising from them. That's right. Okay. Or the activity that's arising from them. That's actually how we're going to frame the question. Okay, let's share some merit. May suffering once 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.