Kalimgpong 2023 Buddha Pāda Day 5 Ayatanas

Today we're going to talk about the ayatanas. So remember yesterday I said we have really only four jhanas, the first, second, third and fourth jhana. And then from the base of the fourth jhana you experience what could be jhanas five, six, seven and eight, or the arupa states. The arupa jhanas, or what they really are, are the ayatanas. So when you are in the fourth jhana, at that point, as I mentioned, the loving kindness energy starts to be more expansive and it starts to move towards the head, and you're able to stay with the feeling for much longer. Your mind is well established and you experience very few, if at all, any hindrances.

Here the level of bodily contact starts to diminish. So it's understood that by the second jhana the verbal sankharas, the verbal formations, cease, and by the fourth jhana the bodily sankharas, the bodily formations, cease. And what that means is, usually, traditionally, it's meant that it's the cessation of the in-breath and out-breath. But as I was saying yesterday, what it really means is that the breathing diminishes. It becomes less apparent. And what else diminishes is the contact with the body. So you might hear sounds, but they will be very distant. You might feel the ant crawling on your skin, but it's just very, very light contact.

And so at this point I will change your meditation, and I will give you what is known as the breaking down of the barriers. And after that I'll give you another practice, which is what you will continue to do for the rest of the retreat. That's called radiating in the six directions. So in radiating in the six directions, you start from radiating loving kindness.

Eventually, the feeling of loving kindness, when it's sent out, starts to become more diffuse. It's not as energized or energetic as when you are sending loving kindness to yourself or to a spiritual friend. Instead, what happens is you start to feel what is known as the base of infinite space. This is the fifth jhana, so to speak. So in the base of infinite space, you are less tied to the body and you are more in your mentality, in a mental sphere of existence.

This is why it's understood as arupa. There's no rupa here, there's no form, it's all nama, it's all mind at this point. And so what you're experiencing is a great degree of spaciousness, a great degree of expansiveness. It feels like the edges between your so-called body and the outside reality, let's say, are no longer there. There's no distinction. It's just one expanse of space.

And while you are sending metta out, while you are pervading each of the six directions with metta, and in all directions at the same time, the metta changes to karuna, to compassion. So what is the difference between metta and karuna, the difference between loving kindness and compassion? It's often misunderstood that compassion means that we take on the suffering of other beings, and we feel their suffering, and therefore we too are suffering with them.

But compassion is a little bit more uplifted than that. First of all, in taking on another being's suffering, what happens is you're no longer objective. By taking on and connecting with another being's suffering, you can't really help them. You have to be free of suffering before you can actually help someone else come out of suffering. So compassion is the recognition of another being suffering. And that's why compassion is the antidote to cruelty.

What is cruelty? Cruelty, in the context of Buddhism, is knowing yourself to be suffering and knowing the other person or being to be suffering, and knowing that, and recognizing the suffering, you add to the other individual's suffering. So what is a very simple example of this? Somebody shouts at you in anger. They're very furious with you and they start shouting all kinds of expletives at you.

Right? They're suffering. It's obvious they're suffering. Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. If somebody is upset, that means that they're suffering. Now, you can take that personally and you can identify with that and you say, how dare they say that to me, and start to defend yourself. And then in defending yourself, you lash back at them with the same kinds of expletives, and you try to harm them with your speech.

Now, what are you doing? You're adding to their suffering. They're suffering already. So compassion is recognizing that this person is suffering, this being is suffering. I will not add to their suffering. I will help them out of their suffering the best way I can. But that does not mean that you be a crutch. That doesn't mean you do the work for them. That doesn't mean you have to walk the path for them.

Whenever the Buddha says, out of compassion, I have done what I can as a teacher, what is he saying? He's not saying I have walked the path for you. I have found the path. I've walked it for myself, experienced the end of suffering, and now I'm showing you that this is the path. The choice is yours. Now he can help you, facilitate you, you know, walking the path. He can give you all the information that you might need, but what use is it if the individual themselves doesn't take the action?

So compassion is more than just crying out for another being, more than just being in their suffering. It's about being stabilized in your own loving kindness, being stabilized in your own freedom from suffering as best as you can be, and then being a guiding light to the individual who is suffering. So what does the compassion feel like in the meditation? Loving kindness has a certain kind of energy, a certain kind of vibrancy to it. It's almost like joy. It's uplifting and it feels good and it's fun to experience. Compassion is a little bit more diffuse. It's calmer in terms of the vibration. So when you're sending out loving kindness and it starts to change, it's like it takes a downshift, and it feels like it's much calmer.

That is compassion. When you notice the shift in the feeling, don't worry about it. Go with it. Go with the flow and see what's going on, and allow the mind to continue to radiate that compassion. So tied to this infinite space is karuna, is compassion. Now you're doing this for some time, maybe 20, 30, 40 minutes, whatever it is. And what you will notice is that there is no end to this space that you are sending out. This is infinite space, boundless space. It just keeps going and going and going. There is no end to it.

But at a certain point, what happens is your mind starts to transition from what is known as the base of infinite space to the base of infinite consciousness. So the base of infinite consciousness, what does that mean? Generally, it can mean that the consciousness is flooding the entire space of what one is experiencing. That's one way of looking at it. But really, what happens is the borders of your radiating start to disintegrate.

And you start to experience what's known as the arising and passing away of consciousnesses, individual arising and passing away of consciousnesses. So that can come in the form of where you're radiating for some time, and then in your mind's eye, when you look into the space, there might be some kind of pixelation that goes on in your mind. What you might see is circles of light, rings of light in your mental field of vision. You might start to see flickering, as if you're blinking very fast internally.

You might hear flickering. You might hear snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, like that, in your ears. You might feel like spiders are crawling up your skin. You might feel electricity around your tongue. You might smell phantom smells. You might start to notice a lot of a flurry of thoughts, and it's like they're non-stop, you can't stop them. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. And so what you're seeing is the arising and passing away of sensory-based consciousnesses, right? When I snap my fingers, that is the arising and passing away of millions of individual iotas of your consciousness.

So when I snap my fingers, it seems like one fluid experience. It's just a snap. But in reality, it is vibrations in the air that your ear picks up. And every vibration that it picks up is one arising of ear consciousness, dependent upon the contact between the vibration in the air and your ear base. So how is it that you're experiencing this in infinite consciousness? What you are seeing for yourself, in essence, is contact.

You are starting to see contact, contact, contact, contact, contact, contact, contact, contact. It just keeps going. And tied to this, and it might not be as dramatic, it might not be as in your face, it might even just skip through it, and that's okay. But tied to it will be what is known as mudita, empathetic joy. So how does empathetic joy feel like?

Empathetic joy has a certain kind of joyful feeling. The piti, that is the joy that we talk about in the first and second jhana, is more vibratory. There's a sense of energy, there's a sense of excitement that's there. But the mudita is more well balanced. There's a sense of upliftment, but it's just very diffused. So, in a sense, there's another downshift that happens, and that is the empathetic joy. Now, mudita, or empathetic joy, is the antidote to envy and jealousy.

Whenever the mind feels insecure, first and foremost, if the mind feels insecure, then that means that there's not enough loving kindness for yourself. But if the mind does feel insecure and it feels jealous of somebody else's experiences, somebody else's successes, then empathetic joy is the antidote to use. Because empathetic joy means I am happy for the other person's happiness. Loving kindness is wishing for their happiness. Compassion is helping them out of their suffering by not getting caught up in their own suffering. And empathetic joy is seeing that happiness, seeing that they've come out of it, and being happy for that. So every time you get jealous, what do you do? You use the four R's: recognize the jealousy coming up, relax it, smile if you can, and then bring up empathetic joy. Make an effort, make a consistent effort, saying that I really am happy for this person. Fake it till you make it. It's okay.

So tied to this infinite consciousness is empathetic joy. Now, while you're experiencing this arising and passing away of infinite consciousness, what you're going to see is, in reality, what you're noticing is the three characteristics, the three lakkhanas, that you're noticing in the arising and passing away of multitudes of infinite consciousnesses: that this is all impermanent. The fact that it arises and passes away shows the impermanence of nature, of existence.

And after a while, it becomes tiresome, it becomes boring. Like the flurry of thoughts that you see, it's like, when will this end? Will it ever stop? Right? That is dukkha. That is suffering. That is seeing for yourself that this is all dukkha. Then finally you realize there's no controller here. I can't do anything about this. I can't change it. I can't fix it. I can't stop it. It just keeps going and going and going.

So what's going on there? Now you are seeing for yourself the impersonal nature of reality. You are seeing anatta. You're seeing the not-self aspect of reality, the emptiness of reality. Now, as you start to see this, what happens is you might notice gaps in the arising and passing away of different consciousnesses. And those gaps can start to become wider and larger. And by the way, it's not like you can't experience infinite consciousness while you're walking. You absolutely can. If your mind experiences mudita and is very, very still, very, very mindful in that experience of infinite consciousness, it can actually start to see the frames of reality. So while you're walking, and let's say you see a bird flying in the sky, it might seem smooth at first, but eventually, because your mindfulness is so sharp, you start to notice the individual frames of infinite consciousness, and the bird moves like this, as if it's under some kind of strobe light.

Or if you're hearing the dog bark, right now it sounds like a dog barking, but if you're in infinite consciousness the dog bark will be like every other syllable. It'll slow down, right? It won't sound like that. So you can experience that even in just walking, if you're in it. Don't get freaked out, you'll be fine, don't worry about it. You're not on some kind of acid trip, or we haven't snuck any mushrooms into your food or anything like that, so don't worry. It'll subside, but you'll start to notice for yourself that this is the process, right? That I'm not in control here. There is another thing going on, which is a series of causes and conditions that are creating this experience for you. So once this happens in the meditation, while you're sitting down, let's say you're in this infinite consciousness and you start to experience this joy, after a while all of that starts to dissipate, and then what's left is this blankness

This nothingness, this no-thing-ness, because what happens is you start to experience great degrees of equanimity. Now the mind goes from feeling empathetic joy to where the joy starts to diminish, and all that's left is equanimity. And at this point the equanimity is so deep that people are thinking, I can't feel anything, I feel numb, like if there's nothing going on. So what should I take as the feeling? Take that as the feeling: the numbness, the calmness, the tranquility. And tied to this tranquility, the no-thingness. What you'll notice is the mind no longer becomes externalized. It's become so within itself that it's just noticing a blank space. That blank space could be just dark space, it could be white space, it could be blue space, it could be whatever it is, doesn't matter. But what you're noticing is there's absolutely nothing going on there. Now, the equanimity is so subtle that when you send it out, right when you notice the equanimity, all you have to do is have the intention of sending it out.

So the analogy that I like to use here is you take a pebble and you drop it onto the surface of a very still lake, clear lake. And as the pebble drops, what happens? It starts to create little ripples, little waves. The same way, you're just intending equanimity. You're feeling the equanimity and the equanimity starts to just ripple out. It doesn't matter how far it's rippling out. It's just rippling out.

And eventually that too fades away. So what do you do? Do it again. Send another intention of equanimity and it starts rippling out. Right? And it starts doing the same thing. It starts fading away. You do it again. You keep doing it again and again and again until it feels like it doesn't want to do anything. It feels like the mind just wants to rest in itself.

So now you're transitioning from the base of nothingness to what is known as the base of neither perception nor non-perception. And there are levels to this experience of neither perception nor non-perception. What happens in neither perception or non-perception is the equanimity starts to fade away, and what you're left with is just this awareness of mind. It's not quiet mind because there might be little ripples here and there. But it's just mind. Just deep, clear mindfulness that's there. And at that point, my instruction to you will be, do nothing.

Easier said than done, because the mind always wants to do something. And don't try to do nothing either. Just don't do anything. The mind will think, oh, maybe I should relax a little bit more, or maybe I should look out for this, maybe I should balance enlightenment factors, maybe I should do this, or no, that. That's basically the boredom in your mind trying to say I have to do something, because at this point your mind has been so stimulated by all kinds of experiences that when it's losing that stimulation it's like, what's going on? It's been so addicted it needs its next fix. But now you have to let go of that. Boredom is another word for craving, it's another manifestation of tanha. So let go of that and just stay. Don't try to rest, don't try to look for stuff, just let it be. And as you continue to be there without doing anything at all, you then sink into what is neither perception nor non-perception. So what does that mean? Neither perception nor non-perception. Perception.

what is perception here you know perception is recognizing what you've experienced before so perception is rooted in memory what you've learned before what you've experienced before and you recall that again you recognize that again you recognize it right but in neither perception or non-perception what happens is all kinds of random thoughts come up as if they're distant memories or patterns or shapes or lights or different kinds of it's like you're in some kind of fever dream you know something is going on but you have no context no frame of reference no idea of what exactly it is that you're seeing that's why it's non-perception either perception or non-perception because you're aware of something but you just can't make sense of what you're seeing what you're experiencing

so what is it that you're experiencing you're starting to experience what i call proto-thoughts so proto-thoughts are essentially sankharas formations it's you can imagine them as little bubbles underneath a pool right and as the bubble starts to bubble up it turns into a fully formed thought at the surface of the pool but now you're here and all you have to do is just relax don't have to smile don't have to let go just relax anytime your mind starts to go in a direction of trying to figure out what exactly it is that you're seeing you know what happens now you're perceiving which means you're outside now of neither perception or non-perception the moment you can perceive and recognize something it means you are no longer in neither perception or non-perception so let go of the need to make sense of what it is that you're seeing.

Just let it pass. You're like in the eye of the storm. You're in the eye of the hurricane. Everything around you, around your mind, just continues in a flurry. But if you remain in the center, you will remain unaffected. Eventually, your mind sinks beyond neither perception or non-perception and goes into quiet mind proper. This is the the luminous mind. Here, the mind is very quiet.

Absolutely nothing going on. Little vibrations here. Tiny inklings of the beginnings of proto-thoughts are coming up. And when you notice that, what do you do? Just relax. Just let go. Just relax. Come back. What are you coming back to? Doing nothing. Resting also is doing something. Yeah, being aware is also doing something. You see? The thing is not to do anything. Like, just relax and just allow.

Allow things to be as they are. That's also kind of doing something. The reason why I'm emphasizing not doing anything is because as soon as you try to do something, when you try to be aware of something, when you try to rest on something, there's a sense of I there. You have to let the sense of I diminish now, as best as you can.

And so it's just this mind, this quiet mind that's there. And you stay there and you just relax. Anytime something comes up, relax. Anytime your attention starts to go in that direction, relax. Now, there can be times where the mind does get caught up. And it's just lots of stuff. And the mind just feels affected by it, which means there's not enough disenchantment.

So how do you bring about that disenchantment again? You cycle back to nothingness. This is very important to understand. If your mind starts to get distracted by neither perception nor non-perception, then you cycle back to radiating equanimity. You notice that even relaxing is not helping, right? Because you're trying to relax rather than relaxing. Then you go back to radiating equanimity. And you do that until the mind stops again. And you keep radiating until it doesn't want to radiate anymore. And you go back. And so you go through mind. You might go through neither perception nor non-perception. Or you might even just skip that and just go into quiet mind. Eventually, that quiet mind turns into what's known as still mind.

So still mind means that there is absolutely no vibration at all. None whatsoever. And we're talking about a good 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 minutes of absolutely nothing going on in the mind. And the mind being okay with it. In fact, the mind feeling relief that nothing is going on there. And it can go on for even an hour. It can go on for two hours. What relief is that? Not having to have all that chatter.

Eventually, that mind, which is the still mind, has a certain border of tension. Now, I'm telling you all of these things because you might experience them, you might not. But I'm telling you all of the territory that you can find in this eighth jhana. Now, there's this tension that's there around the mind. What do you do with it? Just relax. Let it go. You stop even taking the mind as the object.

And you come into what is known as animitta samadhi. Animitta. No nimittas, no signs, no objects. Objectless awareness. Signless collectedness of mind. And the analogy here is the mind or the attention of the mind is like a flashlight that you shine up into the sky, and imagine that that beam of light extends out into the sky, out into space, with nothing in its way. Just imagine there's no meteorites, there's no asteroids, there's absolutely nothing. It's just going out into space without landing on anything. This is the signless collectedness of mind, where the mind or the attention of the mind is just observing. It's just aware, pure awareness, but not of anything in particular, not landing and taking anything as an object.

It's a very translucent awareness. And sometimes you might experience that by seeing what's known as the doorway to the signless, which is some kind of smoke screen or pixelation, or some kind of static, like when you see on the television screen that static that's there. You might start to see that, and if you do see that, then all you have to do is just relax into it, and you go beyond it, and there's absolutely nothing there, just pure awareness. This is the signless collectedness of mind. Eventually, using that analogy of the flashlight, what happens? The light keeps going, doesn't land on anything, and eventually the batteries of that flashlight run out. Those batteries are the sankharas. All sankharas run out, even the sense of I am. Now also, when you're in the signless collectedness of mind, there's no relaxing to be done in the very seeing of some kind of movement. It relaxes.

In that sense they are self-liberating. You don't have to do anything with them. They just come and then you see them, they go, and you just come back. The moment you try to engage with it, the moment you try to relax it, what happens? You have taken something as an object, and you've come out of that objectless awareness.

So all you have to do is just be there. Like I said, eventually the batteries run out and when you least expect it when there's the right amount of disenchantment and dispassion because here at this point the dispassion is that mind that is insulated by everything, insulated from everything not affected one way or the other by anything and when there is nothing to hold on to the mind drops it goes into cessation and before i talk about cessation i also want to point out something else there might be times when you're in neither perception or non-perception where your head does bop feels like you know i'm going into something and my head just goes down like this and i'm not in sloth and torpor because my mind feels very clear and when i come out of it there's a bright radiance that's there and there's a freshness there that is known as winking out it's a micro cessation that you're experiencing because the mind is not able to make any kind of reference to what's going on and it just blips out for a moment and if that's happening don't worry about it.

Don't get excited by it. The moment you get excited by it, now you're enchanted, right? So you no longer have disenchantment. If you notice that you get caught up and say, oh, this is cool, this is new, and new stuff that's happening, guess what? Go back to radiating equanimity again. Cycle through the equanimity again and then come back. You have to be unimpressed with the stuff that's happening at this point. I've seen it, been there, done that, I don't care anymore. It's fine. That's the level of attitude you need when you're here, because the moment you start to be like, oh, that's very interesting, then that means you have not enough equanimity. So cycle back to the equanimity, radiate it until it goes away, and then you are again back in mind, go back into quiet mind, still mind, signless awareness. So now what happens when your mind lets go of all sankharas, all formations? So in the second jhana what ceased were verbal formations. In the fourth jhana what ceased are physical formations, bodily formations. Now before you get into cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, all mental formations cease.

And when they cease the mind just drops, but you don't know the mind dropped because there's no awareness there. Your mind just went totally unconscious for a moment. Now, in that sphere of the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, there's still heat, there's still vitality. So you haven't died, so don't worry about it. Because I know a lot of people are like, what if something happens? What if I don't come back?

So far I've had a good track record. Nobody has died on my retreats. Let's keep it that way, please. You just go away for a moment. That's it. Your mind just slips out for a moment. And when you come back, before you come back, what happens is the mind makes contact with the unconditioned. It has let go of all conditions.

And it touches what's known as the Nibbana Dhatu, the Nibbana element. And when it touches it, this is what's known as the contact that is signless. The contact that is empty. The contact that is undirected. As a result of making contact with the Nibbana element, the mind comes back up and there is a feeling of relief, a burst of joy that can come up the first time.

And that burst of joy is the feeling. So in the context of dependent origination, what happened was you made contact with that which is unconditioned, and then by that contact, it conditioned this feeling of feeling joy and relief. But guess what happened? You were like, what was that? That's amazing. And now your mind identifies with it and craves more for that. So there's more work to be done. But if a person experiences for the first time this cessation in making contact with Nibbana, then there's a high chance that they have experienced what's known as the first level of awakening, which is stream entry, sotapanna. What does it mean to be a sotapanna? A stream enterer is somebody who has let go of any kind of doubt in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

Total conviction now, because they've walked the path, and they're like, this is the way to experience the ultimate happiness, which is Nibbana. They've let go of the belief in a personal self. That doesn't mean they stop identifying with things. That will continue until you let go of conceit. But what they've seen for themselves is there is no underlying self here. There is no underlying atma, there's no underlying soul over here. It's all arising due to causes and conditions. They see for themselves that when the mind came back up, it went away somewhere, which means the self wasn't there, and it came back up, which means the self is created. The sense of self is produced through causes and conditions. So they let go on an intellectual level, which is informed by experience, any views or beliefs in personal self.

The third thing they let go of is clinging to any kinds of rites and rituals with the idea that they will take you to Nibbana. So when we talk about clinging to rites and rituals, it doesn't mean that you stop chanting. If you like chanting, you can continue chanting. It doesn't mean you have to stop lighting an oil lamp. If you like doing that, you can do that. That's fine. What it means is you realize that all of these are just externalities, and they uplift the mind. But the real work to be done for Nibbana is actually going into your mind. So for a stream enterer, they let go of that. Does that mean they let go of anger?

Does that mean they let go of irritation? Does that mean they let go of craving? No, not at all. They will still have craving. They will still have irritation and ill will. But it will be more reflective. When they do get angry, instead of being resentful towards someone, they'll be like, does it really make sense for me to be so angry about this? I'm going to just let it go. Or when they do have cravings for something, it's like, do I really need to buy that bag? Right? Do I really need to buy that on Amazon right now? Maybe I don't. You're more practical.

So you let go when you realize for yourself. Then later on, there are other stages that happen. There's something called the sakadagami, which is the once-returner. There's something called the anagami, which is the non-returner. And then there's the arahant, who is the fully liberated one. So for a sakadagami, a once-returner, it basically means that they've diminished any kind of craving. They've diminished sensual craving, generally. And they've diminished aversion.

So they might still get irritated, but they'll start to have such good mindfulness that they can see the seeds of that irritation coming up. They can let it go before it becomes full-blown anger, and if it does turn into full-blown anger, they immediately recognize that and let that go. Likewise with sensual craving. With the anagami, there's not even one seed left of any kind of anger or any kind of sensual craving, but there's more work to be done because they still have to let go of five higher fetters. They have to let go of conceit, restlessness, craving for rupa states, craving for arupa states, and ignorance.

And this restlessness is essentially just the default mode network, which means the continuous daydreaming that happens. That's the restlessness that it's referring to. For one who is an arahant, that's not there at all. Absolutely no default mode network going on. No going into the past, no going into the future, not letting your mind derail into some kind of fanciful ideas. It's right here all the time. And if it wants your direct mind to the past, it can. But it doesn't have any loss of control over the mind. So that restlessness is dependent upon conceit. What is conceit?

Conceit, or mana. Mana means that sense of self that the mind still identifies with. It's the sense of self that the mind looks at the world with. How does this affect me? Does it affect me in a good way or in a bad way? It identifies with any of the five aggregates. It says, this is me, this is mine, this is myself. And it reacts from that standpoint.

That goes away completely, which means there the mind will no longer identify with anything. It will let go of all identification. No duality between this inside and the outside world. It's all the same. No comparisons of this is better than me, or this is worse than me, or I'm better than this, or I'm worse than this, or even I'm equal to this.

There are different kinds of conceit in relation to our physical sense basis, in relation to fame and name and riches, in terms of failures and not getting things that you wanted, and things like that. So all of that goes away. And that means no more craving for being in a certain jhana or being in a certain ayatana. Whether you're in it or you aren't in it, it doesn't matter. Your mind is free all the time.

And eventually your mind lets go of all ignorance as well, which means now it fully understands what the Four Noble Truths are, that there is suffering. It understands suffering. It's fully abandoned all the causes and conditions for that suffering to arise, namely craving, and it's experienced and realized for itself in all ways the total cessation of suffering by perfecting the path leading to the cessation of suffering, which is the Eightfold Path.

Now, in the case of one who experiences for the first time this process, they will see what's known as dependent origination, and they will see it in certain ways. Everyone will see it in a different way, but they'll say, what was that? I saw something there. And some people do say, what was that? So the mental formation arises and they see dependent origination, and then they think, wow, that was something. And as you get deeper and closer to these different levels of awakening, and as you start to reach these different levels of awakening, dependent origination becomes more and more apparent to you in everyday life.

And eventually you understand dependent origination in all ways, in all dimensions, in all spheres of existence. So sometimes what can happen is you have this experience, this deep cessation experience, and you don't see dependent origination, but you're walking and then all of a sudden it hits you and you start to understand dependent origination. Or you're looking at something or you're experiencing something and you realize, oh, this is the contact, this is the feeling, this is the perception, oh, this is where the craving arises. You see it for yourself. You start to pinpoint, this is what's happening. So these are the different ways that the understanding of dependent origination can manifest, but that is the goal for you guys in this practice, whether it's on this retreat or whether it's your whole life. If you're taking up this practice, the whole point is not to experience jhanas.

The whole point is not to have to go through these states. You can experience nirvana from the first jhana onwards. It doesn't have to be this linear sort of way. As long as you understand how things are working and you keep letting go, when the causes and conditions are right, your mind will drop into cessation, you will touch the nirvana element, and you will experience for yourself the truth of existence.

Any questions? sitting like we're radiating equanimity i felt experience of breath then i i could not able to come out of that what to do in that situation don't do anything so what you're noticing is when you get into this state the mind becomes very deep so it can also feel like your breathing is becoming heavier but actually you're just noticing your breath and that's it you can notice that some people feel like they're having palpitations but that's not what's going on you're just so mindful that you're able to feel the heartbeat that's it and tied to that sometimes they can arise fear like the mind just doesn't want to go like it's holding on to something and the fear is a manifestation of the sense of self wanting to stay there so all you do there is just relax don't do anything don't try to come out of anything just allow things to be as they are the more you do that then you're really doing what is supposed to be the practice which is observing and letting go just observing and letting go that's it thank

Sir, can we say that all the fetters are in some way an expression of failure to understand? That's a good question. That's an interesting question. Why would you say that? Why would you think that way? For example, the lower fetters, yeah, when you take something personally, for example where it is a sensual experience, or let's say whether it is belief in rites and rituals, yeah, it means you assume that something is going to help you or is in your interest, and that fades away when you perceive anatta, and as you go higher. Yeah, that's a good point that you bring up, because if you think about the gatekeeper of what prevents feeling from going into craving, it's really mindfulness.

Being able to understand the quality of the feeling, which is that this feeling is impersonal. So yeah, failure to understand the impersonal nature of things can lead to further craving, clinging, becoming. That's ignorance, that's one level of ignorance, one level of avijja. Taking things personally leads to, or is stemming from, the lack of mindfulness, and the lack of mindfulness is essentially avijja. So two questions: jhana factors and factors of enlightenment, are those the same, or are they interchangeably used, or is there a difference in both?

They can be interchangeably used, because for example you have piti in the first and second jhana, and you have piti as an enlightenment factor as well. Joy. You have upekkha, and you have upekkha as an enlightenment factor as well. So they are present in any of the jhanas as well, maybe joy is not so much there in the third, fourth and so on. Second question: you talked about in the eighth jhana you see disconnected things, which can be memories, or certain sorts of experiences which you don't really know from this life. Is it possible, if those kinds of things arise, and you can actually observe even the pixelated, or the refined, say, sensory aspect of those memories or things, where does it categorize?

Does it categorize in infinite consciousness or neither perception or non-perception? So when you see certain kinds of distant memories or things like that, that's usually in the category of neither perception or non-perception. When things start to pixelate, that's generally understood as being part of infinite consciousness but i wouldn't say all the time that that could be infinite consciousness it could just be an experience that you're having as a result of being in the perception of our perception so uh the best way is to stay equanimous and just exactly everything i told you guys in terms of the jhanas let go at this stage of neither perception or non-perception you are saying that uh you will see various types of things or you will uh experience that and you are saying relaxing it but just observing at that time we have to do six hours or just just relax not six hours in that will bring more tightness

Oh, the relaxing is just to be attentive and observe the things. Yeah, and that's the other thing. Don't even observe anything in particular, just be there. Be there. Yeah. When we are radiating upekkha, do we have to keep smiling, or sometimes... We don't have to. So we don't have to pay attention to there also. That's what I'm saying. Once you get into the 7th and 8th jhana, smiling really takes you away from the practice. And also there was another question when you said regarding anagami, regarding rupa raga, means craving for form. Can you explain that? What is craving for? Craving for rupa jhanas and craving for arupa jhanas. Okay, for jhanas, not that form?

Okay, thank you. Because the arupa states are the brahma lokas, which are corresponding to the jhanas. Same with the arupa. Okay. Thank you. I have a question in the back. Okay. Whenever our mind is distracted, whenever you're in, that means you're in avijja. Avijja. Okay. So is that a cause of different cycles, and like a dependent origination, or we are creating a new life or new karmas? And whenever we are cutting it off and relaxing ourselves, so we are deleting our karmas? So when you get distracted, what that is is essentially a hindrance, so you're dealing with the effect of things that you've done in the past. And every time you recognize that you got distracted and you let go of it, bit by bit you're letting go of, yeah, let's say, the karmic energy of that experience.

When we talk about karma, which we'll talk about more in the next couple of days, tomorrow and the day after, karma is something that's very misunderstood. Karma is like, oh, I did something 3000 lifetimes ago and now I'm experiencing it, and all of this nonsense. Really, karma is two things. Karma is intention and action, and in essence karma is activities of the mind. So it is action and consequence, but the way to understand it is everything that you're experiencing up until this point is a result of some series of causes and conditions. Now, your karma might be that you're experiencing this in this present moment.

Now, that's old karma, nothing you can do about it, you're just experiencing it. The key there is not to add to that karma by creating new karma with the ingredients of identifying, craving, clinging, and becoming, and then creating new karma. The key there is to notice anytime the mind clings to something with the sense of I and says that I want more of this, or I don't like this, or I'm identifying with this, and letting go of that in that moment. When you let go, you have let go the potentials for the renewal of that karma, and any action that you create is no longer karma.

It's kiriya. It's spontaneous action rooted in the Eightfold Path, rooted in right intention of letting go. And so any speech, any action that takes place will be rooted in right speech, will be rooted in right action. And any such action or speech that's rooted in the Eightfold Path will never produce new karma. This is how the Buddha has explained it. The cessation of karma is letting go, but the way leading to the cessation of the karma is using the Eightfold Path, and the Eightfold Path is abbreviated in right effort, or put it in another way, right effort is the key to applying the Eightfold Path. So every time you do that, you let go of the potential for renewal of new karma, and at the same time the old karma might diminish or might go away completely. It might diminish, it might come back again, but the next time it comes back again it'll be lesser in its energy, and then you just keep doing the same thing until it goes away. What's a great example of this when you're meditating and you're dealing with a hindrance?

What is that hindrance? Old karma. So the moment you recognize it and you let it go, you're letting go of the potential of the further renewal of that hindrance. That's why if that hindrance does come back again, it's weaker. But the moment you try to engage with it, the moment you try to push it away, the moment you try to change it, you're only adding more energy to it. And so it just keeps growing, growing, and growing. But the moment you relax and let go and stop identifying with it, then it diminishes. And every time it arises, it further diminishes, further diminishes, until it's no longer there. Guruji, as a result of your practice on your journey to Nibbana, as a result of the practice of meditation on the journey towards Nibbana, it is said that the memories of the past are awakened. So at which stage in the journey do people get the memories of their past existences, if at all they get?

Sometimes they don't. Yeah. But if at all they get, then at which stage do they get it? It can happen anytime when you least expect it. At any point. Thank you. Hindu mythology is replete with stories of sages who do the opposite of loving kindness, that is, giving curses and hexes and what not. Is it only mythological or is it possible, and is loving kindness a protection from that? It is possible for someone to do that. And loving kindness is absolutely a shield. When you have loving kindness energy around you, it protects you from a lot of things. The Buddha has talked about 11 benefits, and one of them is that it shields you from fires and poisons and things like that.

I wouldn't try it, try to go into a burning building or drinking some poison or stabbing yourself or something like that. I wouldn't try it. But the other way I look at it is, when you're talking about poison, fire, and stabbing knives, it probably just means the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion, the poison of greed, hatred, and delusion, the weapons of greed, hatred, and delusion. But yes, if you have loving kindness around you, and you've cultivated it for a long period of time, you will notice that the people who are negative around you might not want to interact with you, for example. They might see you and they might turn the other way, because they just don't want to interact with you.

You might notice that maybe you had to go at a certain time to a certain place and you weren't able to go there, and there was an accident that happened. So it prevents you from those kinds of things. So including things like hexes and black magic and stuff like that as well. All the way in the back.

Maybe I missed, but it's regarding base of nothingness when we are in quiet mind, when for some time there are no thoughts at all. So when there are no thoughts at all, but actually in the stream thoughts are there, then what is this gap space where there are no... there's two things you're talking about. So nothingness is just that, yeah, that screen of nothing going on. But you're radiating equanimity. When you stop radiating equanimity, then you are just in mind, and then from that mind it goes into quiet mind. In that quiet mind, what happens is there can be little sankharas that come up, and so the gaps that you're experiencing between that and the blankness is just mind. It's just awareness.

and nothing else means there is a because when we say there are no thoughts miss it is void of thought means there is nothing going on happening means there's nothing going on except the knowledge that there's no thoughts the perception that there's no thoughts okay thank you over there can you explain what are the types of conceits that you mentioned that'll take a long time there's 42 different kinds of conceits I will find the sheet and I'll get it printed out so people can take a look at it how do not take life seriously how to not take life seriously just chill

Really try to chill. Something happens again, that's the problem. You're trying to chill, you're not chilling. Life is so simple, really. We complicate life in such a way that we're like, if only... If only this happened, I would be happy, right? Things must be a certain way, I have to be a certain way. There was a great psychiatrist named Albert Ellis. He came up with a therapy called rational emotive therapy, and he called it musturbation, because it says, I must do things. I have to do certain things. So we create concepts in our mind, and we say, life has to go a certain way.

And when those don't meet our concepts, don't meet our expectations, that's where suffering arises. But if you allow life to unfold, if you allow things to be as they are, yes, you can have a sense of directionality. Yes, you can have intentions and goals. But the key is not to be tied to those goals. Don't make the goals the source of happiness. Be happy and the goals are adding to your happiness. So how do you be happy? You be happy by cultivating that inner happiness. That inner happiness is independent of any kind of externalities. That is your true nature. I keep saying your true nature is being happy all the time.

So what does it mean to just chill? It means to relax, to tranquilize, to let go. If there is one thing you had to do in life to be happy, it is to keep letting go. It's to keep letting go. There's a nice comic strip, I've seen it somewhere on Facebook, a really cool meme. And it's this guy sitting on a park bench. And he's saying, you know, I want to be happy. I want happiness. So you see the thought bubble: I want happiness. And you see a cartoon monk or the Buddha walking past him. And he stops and he looks back and he sees it. And so he takes a thought bubble and then he wipes away the I.

The I is ego, right? The identification with things. The want is expectations, desires, craving. What do you have left? Happiness. So letting go of expectations and letting go of taking things personally, you will be happy. And you'll be happy for no reason. That's the best kind of happiness. Again, coming to some life patterns. There are some patterns, like we don't observe time. There are the same cycles of events in your life happening.

So at that moment also, we have to let go of the thing. We have to just be aware of what to do at that moment. Yeah, let go of trying to have an outcome to a situation. Allow it to be there. So I'll talk more about that when we talk about Bhava tomorrow. Thank you. Last question here. So you have learned to chill and that's great, you are actually enjoying life, but what to do when your family members, like the first family members, I'm not talking about distant relatives or the people you immediately work with, because they still haven't learned to chill, and there is a limit? Like you can keep sending loving kindness and you can keep trying to be nice, but how do you deal in situations where there is a friction, extreme friction, or there is an expectation arising from their part which is

not rooted in, which you cannot fulfill, because it is not something that you agree with or it does not agree with the Eightfold Path? I don't know if you've ever seen this, but there's this quote: if you think you're enlightened, spend a week with your family. Right? So a family is a very interesting bond. Our relationships with our parents, our siblings, our immediate people, or even friends in our close circle of friends. Adhering to the Eightfold Path is one thing, but setting a standard for everybody else comes from conceit.

So if we ourselves are following the Eightfold Path and we're taking care of our own thing, then that's the level of effort that you need to do. What other people are doing is not our responsibility. We can guide them and we can say, have you looked into this? Have you tried this? If you see that they're breaking a precept, be like, try to see, make them understand the consequence of what that means. And if they have the level of awareness to take what you're saying and make changes, then that's on them. And if they don't, then that's also on them. So to the level of effort that you do, it's just making suggestions when you can. But we should have no expectations from our family at all. And it's okay if you are not fulfilling any expectations that they have, and it seems to them that you are hurting them. You can just, you also have to let go of the feeling that arises in yourself, because that's all you can do. It's not your responsibility to make everyone happy.

Thank you. Like this, that's right, just guiding. That's it. All right, let's share some merits. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck be fearless beings. 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.