Nov 29 2020 - MN 11 - The Shorter Discourse on the Lion's Roar - Cessation of Clinging and Being

I am going to start reading from Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of Majjhima Nikaya 11, Culasihanada Sutta. And this is the Shorter Discourse on the Lion's Roar. Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Savatthi in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's park. There he addressed the bhikkhus thus: "Bhikkhus." "Venerable Sir," they replied. The Blessed One said this: "Bhikkhus, only here is there a recluse, only here a second recluse, only here a third recluse, only here a fourth recluse.

The doctrines of others are devoid of recluses. That is how you should rightly roar your lion's roar. It is possible, bhikkhus, that wanderers of other sects might ask, "But on the strength of what argument, or with the support of what authority, do the Venerable One say thus?" Wanderers of other sects who ask thus may be answered in this way.

We have confidence in the teacher. We have confidence in the Dhamma. We have fulfilled the precepts, and our companions in the Dhamma are dear and agreeable to us, whether they are laymen or those gone forth. These are the four things declared to us by the Blessed One, who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened. On seeing these in ourselves, we say thus. It is possible, bhikkhus, that wanderers of other sects might say thus: Friends, we too have confidence in the teacher; that is our teacher. We too have confidence in the Dhamma; that is our Dhamma. We too have fulfilled the precepts; those are our precepts. And our companions in the Dhamma are dear and agreeable to us too, whether they are laymen or those gone forth. What is the distinction here, friends? What is the variance? What is the difference between you and us? Wanderers of other sects who ask thus may be answered in this way. How then, friends, is the goal one or many? Answering rightly, the wanderers of other sects would answer: Friends, the goal is one, not many.

Answering rightly, they would answer, friends, that goal is for one who does not favor and oppose, not for one who favors and opposes. But friends, is that goal for one who delights in and enjoys proliferation, or for one who does not delight in and enjoy proliferation? Answering rightly, they would answer, friends, that goal is for one who does not delight in and enjoy proliferation, not for one who delights in and enjoys proliferation. Because there are these two views: the view of being and the view of non-being. Any recluses or brahmins who rely on the view of being, adopt the view of being, and accept the view of being are opposed to the view of non-being. Any recluses or brahmins who rely on the view of non-being, adopt the view of non-being, and accept the view of non-being are opposed to the view of being. Any recluses or brahmins who do not understand as they actually are the origin, the disappearance, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of these two views are affected by lust

affected by hate, affected by delusion, affected by craving, affected by clinging, without vision, given to favoring and opposing, and they delight in and enjoy proliferation. They are not freed from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. They are not freed from suffering, I say. Any recluses or brahmins who understand as they actually are the origin, the disappearance, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of these two views are without lust, without hate, without delusion, without craving, without clinging, with vision, not given to favoring and opposing, and they do not delight in and enjoy proliferation. They are freed from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair.

They are born and produced from craving. Craving has what as its source? Craving has feeling as its source. Feeling has what as its source? Feeling has contact as its source. Contact has what as its source? Contact has the six-fold base as its source. The six-fold base has what as its source? The six-fold base has Mentality-Materiality as its source. Mentality-Materiality has what as its source? Mentality-Materiality has consciousness as its source.

Consciousness has what as its source? Consciousness has formations as its source. Formations have what as their source? Formations have ignorance as their source, ignorance as their origin. They are born and produced from ignorance, because when ignorance is abandoned and true knowledge has arisen in the bhikkhu, then with the fading away of ignorance and the arising of true knowledge, he no longer clings to sensual pleasures, no longer clings to views, no longer clings to rules and observances, no longer clings to a doctrine of self.

When he does not cling, he is not agitated. When he is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbana. He understands: birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being. This is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words. So, from the sutta, I want to discuss three different aspects: upadana, or clinging; anusaya, or latent tendencies; and bhava, or being. So I've made some notes, and I will read from them and start to expand on them, so as we understand there are four kinds of clinging.

This is clinging to sensual experiences, clinging to views, clinging to rites and rituals, and clinging to self-doctrines or self-theories. Bhava is the collection of tendencies that create a sense of being. So, clinging in the active sense is the accumulation of these anusaya, or these tendencies, which are affected and produced and strengthened and created by these four kinds of clinging.

They are the accumulation of these sorts of tendencies that I'm going to talk about. And the bhava, or the being, is the being that is the accumulation of these tendencies. So clinging is the active sense of accumulating, and then through that clinging with those tendencies the bhava is the accumulated tendencies, the collection of accumulated tendencies. There are seven main tendencies. These are the tendency towards sensual desire, the tendency towards aversion, the tendency towards views, the tendency towards doubt, the tendency towards conceit, the tendency towards being, and the tendency towards ignorance.

So we'll take each kind of clinging individually. There is the clinging to sensual experiences, and they arise because of attaching preferences, favorites, and views about the experiences that one has. This causes the growth of underlying tendencies, which are accumulated in a sense of being, which is bhava. And so these tendencies which are accumulated are the tendencies of craving and aversion. So before we get into the clinging of sensual experiences, or clinging to sensual experiences, let's understand the link before that, which is craving. Whenever we have sensory experiences through each or more of the sixfold base, the five physical senses and the mind, there is just the pure sensation and the pure sensory experience, along with the perception of it. But as soon as a being starts to crave for what one has experienced in the way of the senses, meaning they attach to it and identify with it with a sense of self, wanting more of it, or they have aversion towards it, that link of craving, that attachment or aversion, then influences and gives rise to clinging. On a practical level, if you think about it, it's like this.

Say you listen to a piece of music, whatever that music might be. That sound of the music is sensory experience. It is feeling, pure and simple, and the perception of it is the recognition of certain notes and certain sounds and beats and rhythms and so on. But as soon as you hear it, you identify with it and you attach a sense of self to it, and you say that I like that music. And then what happens? You take that sensory experience of that music, identifying with it, and now you create this idea that I like it, and now this has become my favorite kind of music or my favorite song, and you have preferences towards that music.

In the same way, when you taste some food. When you were growing up there was a certain type of food that the taste receptors were accustomed to, and as you grew up you started to create this idea that this is the kind of food from your culture growing up, and so it has become part of your experience, and you cling to it, creating a story around it, creating with it a sense of being around it, accumulating the tendency towards desire for it. On the flip side of that, let's say you smell an odor, a foul-smelling odor or something like that.

And you immediately have aversion towards it, instead of understanding that this odor is just that, a feeling, a sensory input, and you are just purely experiencing it. But as soon as you have aversion towards it, and if it goes into clinging, you immediately create a story in your mind that you hate this kind of foul-smelling odor. And so any time that you might smell it again, because of that strong hatred for it, because of that strong aversion for it, you will create a sense of being that dislikes it and wants to stay away from it, and creates all sorts of associations

and stories around it. So this can be applied to any of the six sense bases. This can be applied to certain associations one has, negative or positive, that create certain tendencies towards those sensory experiences, whether it is craving in terms of sensual craving, or aversion towards that sensory experience. And so when you start to act in this manner, not only does it create that craving link, but it immediately creates the clinging link, in which you root to it a sense of self, a sense of being that is attached and accumulated through these tendencies. So then we go into clinging to views. Clinging to views is identifying with views that one grew up with without fully understanding them, without fully analyzing or reflecting on them, without fully questioning them. And so one builds opinions through experiences growing up with friends or family or other elders, and these views can create certain opinions and strong belief systems that can create violence in the mind, and indeed cause one to harm in defense of these views.

Such views can be political views, religious views, even things like, this is my favorite sports team and all other sports teams are terrible, and so on and so forth. There are all kinds of views that beings accumulate and then create a sense of being around. Traditionally speaking, within the context of the suttas, the wrong views that are discussed are the clinging to wrong views associated with nihilism or annihilationism, and eternalism.

And so what this means is that it basically presupposes a sense of self, whether one clings to the view of being, or the eternal soul, or the eternal self, or to nihilism and annihilationism, which is to say that at the end of one's life the soul no longer exists. It presupposes the idea of a self. So inherent in both views is the wrong self doctrine, the wrong sense of self, and theories around it. And so the Buddha never talked about existence or non-existence, being or non-being, in those terms. All he talked about was suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering. So that middle way is between the idea of a self that is everlasting and a self that is temporary and is extinguished, which presupposes a self in that regard, an independent self, rather than a self that is dependent upon causes and conditions.

Rather than subscribing to these views, the Buddha went to the middle path, which is dependent origination: understanding how things come into being from various causes and conditions and factors. And so, just like the clinging to sensual pleasures activates, accumulates, creates and strengthens the tendencies toward craving and aversion, the clinging to views causes the growth of underlying tendencies of views, or tendencies towards views, and tendencies towards doubt in the path of the Dhamma.

The third is clinging to rites and rituals, which is to say one follows rites and rituals blindly without understanding their significance. On a broader level, clinging to rites and rituals is believing that they will lead to some sort of salvation, to nibbana. The way that this clinging is destroyed is through that glimpse of Nibbana, in the case of a sotapanna, in which case this sort of clinging will never arise.

Just as an aside, there was an interesting question asked by an individual at one of the Q&As from the November 17th retreat, and they asked about the right of taking refuge in the Three Jewels, taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, and taking of the precepts. And so the question was, well, is that not an attachment to rites and rituals, essentially?

And Bhante Ananda gave a wonderful answer to that, in talking about how taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha is essentially recollecting the qualities of the Buddha, recollecting the qualities of the Dhamma, and recollecting the qualities of the Sangha. And so appreciating and having gratitude for the teacher, the first teacher, that is the Buddha, who discovered or rediscovered the path of the Dhamma, and then obviously having gratitude for the Dhamma, but and then of course having the understanding of why there is an importance to keep a Sangha.

The answer he provides is quite wonderful, so I can't really do justice to it. But essentially, having the recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha increases faith in the Dhamma, in the Buddha and the Sangha, and this leads to joy, and then this leads to different factors that ultimately lead to nibbana. But it is not the clinging to these refuges. It's the understanding of the significance of taking this refuge, and thereby understanding that even taking refuge is not something that needs to be done blindly, but should be done by understanding first the significance of it.

Then finally, there is the clinging to the self-doctrines, the self-views, or the self-theories. I've written them down here, and essentially there are 20 self-views in relation to the five aggregates. The first five are in relation to the belief that there is a self that is identical with form, feeling, perception, formations, or consciousness. So the belief that any of these five aggregates are identical to the self are the first five self-doctrines.

The second set of five is that any of these five aggregates are contained in some sense of self. So that makes up the second set of five. The third set of five is that any of these five aggregates are independent of a self, or that the self is independent of the five aggregates. And then the final set of five, the fourth set of five, is the belief that any of these aggregates are the owner, are owned by the self, or that the self rather owns any of these five aggregates.

And so when one has this sort of clinging to self-doctrines, the tendencies of conceit, being, and ignorance grow and accumulate in the link of bhava, even after this clinging is destroyed, or even after the clinging, all four sorts of clinging, are destroyed. I'll give you more explanation on that. So the note I made here is: when one becomes a sotapanna, one stops clinging to views and rites and rituals, and any sort of self-doctrine.

Through non-clinging to these, there is non-activation of the tendencies towards doubt and views. Through non-activation, these tendencies wither away. In this way the fetters of self-view or self-doctrines, doubt, and attachment to rites and rituals are destroyed. And when one becomes a sakadagami, one lessens the sensory craving and thus the clinging to those sensory experiences. This weakens the tendencies towards craving and aversion.

And then when one becomes an anagami, one destroys the link of craving completely, or of sensual craving, which means that the clinging to sensory experiences is destroyed, and by extension the tendencies towards craving and aversion as well. And so in this way the fetters of sensual craving and aversion, or sensual craving and ill will, are destroyed, along with the defilement or the taint or the projection of sensual craving.

Now we have the links of craving and clinging, dependent origination, completely gone, but there is still the link of being, the link of bhava. In this link are the tendencies towards conceit, towards being, and ignorance, which still remain. They are weak, but they are still there. Conceit and being are there as remnants of false self-views, self-doctrines, meaning one's experiences throughout countless rebirths, deeply rooted into the formations. The fetters of conceit and being, through the clinging of these self-views, mean there is still some work to be done in this case. So I'm going to talk a little bit about another sutta, and I'm going to read from it. This is called the Kemaka Sutta, which is in the Samyutta Nikaya 22.89. Briefly put, this particular sutta is about Kemaka, who is at this point an anagami, and he is quite sick and alone, and so he lives by himself, away from the rest of the monks.

The monks send another monk to ask him about the five aggregates and being, and so on, and eventually the monk keeps going back and forth, back and forth. And finally Kemaka says, enough, let me go myself and meet with the other monks so I can give them clarity on what I want to tell them. And so he goes through each of the five aggregates and so on and so forth. I've taken a snippet from that to give some clarity on this. In that he says, friends, even though a noble disciple has abandoned the five lower fetters, that is, they have become an anagami, still in relation to the five aggregates subject to clinging there lingers in him a residual conceit of 'I am', a desire of 'I am', an underlying tendency of 'I am' that has not yet been uprooted.

Some time later, he dwells contemplating the rise and fall in the five aggregates subject to clinging: such is form, such its origin, such its passing away, and so on for feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. As he dwells thus contemplating the rise and fall in the five aggregates subject to clinging, the residual conceit 'I am', the desire 'I am', and the underlying tendency towards 'I am', that has not yet been uprooted, this comes to be uprooted.

And so Kemaka keeps talking about this using different kinds of analogies. And in the end, all the defilements are destroyed in those who are listening, along with the defilements in Kemaka's own mind when he himself understands what he's saying. And so this could be understood in this way: that the complete understanding of dependent origination is what completely destroys even the residues of a sense of 'I am'. Because one sees everything has arisen based on causes, conditions, and factors, one will not equate any of the five aggregates as 'I am', will not attach a sense of I, me, or mine to them, or a sense of conceit towards them. And so that means that the complete understanding of dependent origination in this way results in arahatship.

And so, when arahatship is attained, and once one has destroyed the fetter of conceit by completely eradicating and understanding how dependent origination arises, and through that eradicating the fetter of conceit, the fetters of restlessness and craving for existence and the craving for non-existence, and through non-activation the tendencies towards conceit and being, following that, once one has understood the sense of 'I am' being a residual tendency, it is one that needs to be let go of with wisdom and understanding.

And when it does, that conceit is destroyed. The fetter of conceit is destroyed. The taint of being is destroyed. And the tendencies towards conceit and being are destroyed. So I'm going to take one more snippet so you have more clarity on what this means: the cessation of bhava, the cessation of being, the destruction of the link of being, in which there is no more becoming.

In this sutta, Sariputta talks about nibbana as also being the cessation of being. This little snippet is from the Anguttara Nikaya 10.7, part of the section on benefits, and the sutta is named after Sariputta. "Then the Venerable Ananda approached the Venerable Sariputta and exchanged greetings with him. When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and said to the Venerable Sariputta, 'Friend Sariputta, could a bhikkhu obtain such a state of collectedness that he would not be percipient of earth in relation to earth, of water in relation to water, of fire in relation to fire, of air in relation to air, of the base of the infinity of space in relation to the base of the infinity of space, of the base of the infinity of consciousness

Or a percipient of cessation in every moment, percipient of the third noble truth of cessation, of suffering in every moment, along with the understanding of the absence of craving, clinging, tendencies, fetters, and defilements in the mind. This experience can be called a mind perceiving conscious cessation, understanding the third noble truth in every moment. So how does this relate to our practical life, to one's practice? In daily life one has to understand and see with mindfulness. One has to use mindfulness to rest one's awareness

in the body, in sensations, in the mind, and the mental contents within that mind. In this, one is able to see if there is any craving or aversion arising that is tied to any of these resting places of awareness. That means that if you have sensory experiences through one or more of the six sense bases, you have to be sure through mindfulness that there is no sense of craving or aversion attached to it. If for whatever reason the mindfulness slips, which is to say that you are not paying wise attention, or you're not being fully perceptive of that moment of arising of sensual experience, and that craving gives way to clinging, you can still have mindfulness and know and recognize when the mind immediately creates stories around that sensual experience, or creates stories around the views, or creates stories around a sense of self according to those views or related to those views and sensory experiences. So, for example, when you do taste food, or when you listen to music, or when you're watching a movie, or when you see certain colors

does the mind immediately grab onto them, or does it immediately have aversion towards them? First and foremost, if you see this, you can let go of it using the four right efforts, to understand that craving has arisen, let go of it, and come back to a more wholesome state of mind. But at that point, if that is not what happens, and the mind starts to create ideas and tendencies wrapped around those experiences and views, and that accumulates into bhava or being, you can still be aware of this, recognize it, let go of it, and not tie any clinging or views or accumulated tendencies to a sense of being. Now, this also relates to the practice of right effort. If there is any sort of craving or aversion, one understands that there are hindrances arising

and so one uses right effort, lets go of the hindrances, and replaces them with wholesome states that are the seven factors of enlightenment, the seven awakening factors, and that they bring. This brings to fruition those factors according to the situation at hand. That means if you see that there is sloth and torpor in the mind, whether you are meditating or in daily life, and this leads to craving and hindrances, you can let go of that, and you can come back to the mind and generate joy, enthusiasm, and investigation.

And on the flip side, if you see that there's restlessness and a lot of mental and conceptual proliferation arising in the way of craving and clinging, you can immediately relax, recognizing this, releasing your attention from it, relaxing it, bringing tranquility and equanimity, and then becoming more collected in your mind by using mindfulness. So mindfulness must always be present in order to combat the arising of craving, clinging, and being. This takes us into jhana. Here one has to understand not to cling to any of the factors of the jhanas, any sort of sensations that arise, because these then create certain formations and then strengthen those formations. That can create the possibility of being or existence into one of the jhanic realms, into one of the form realms or the formless realms, the arupa jhanas for example. But if you do not cling, by not identifying with any of these factors of the jhanas and understanding them to be also created through causes and conditions, you wear away the potential for being and conceit. So there is the possibility of birth in these jhanic realms also eradicated.

So what needs to be seen is the inherent three characteristics within each of the jhanas, which is that there is inherent impermanence in the jhanas, even the state of cessation of perception and feeling. And so this can be something that is not worth holding on to and should not be considered as a sense of self. When you see this, you completely let go, and the mind doesn't abide in or depend on any construct or any sort of concept. And so this is another way to understand nibbana.

And finally, I'll go into the tendency towards ignorance. So the defilement and the fetter and the tendency towards ignorance is destroyed only once one has established the elevated right view, that is, the complete cementing of the four noble truths within the mind. And what does that mean exactly? In this case, when one becomes an arahant, one sees that the first noble truth of suffering has been completely understood, wherein one understands the process of dependent origination. Then one understands that the second noble truth of craving has been abandoned, wherein one abandons the link of craving, thereby abandoning the links of clinging, being, birth, suffering and ignorance.

Finally, and then the third noble truth of cessation of suffering has been realized and experienced, wherein one experiences nibbana, having seen the three marks of existence in all conditioned reality as well as the not self aspect in the mana itself, and so that mind inclines towards peace, towards that relief, by not taking it personal. Finally, the fourth noble truth of the Eightfold Path to extinguish that suffering has been fully developed, wherein one utilizes the path to rid the mind of the fetters, inclinations, and the defilements. Hi, Delson. Hello.

I'll probably take this time to ask a particular question. This is not on the sutta itself. I just wanted to have your feedback. This is my personal experience, as such. I just wanted to have your confirmation or some sort of your agreement or disagreement. Is it the case that when you are practicing in the higher arupa levels, your practice of right effort or the 6R's has to be more gentle?

Otherwise, there might be some sort of, you might experience some sort of uneasiness during or after meditation. What should be your attitude to release those kinds of very subtle tension and tightness? And how, you know, this is a quite a delicate state. Is that correct? Yeah, as you get into the higher states of perception, or levels of perception, it is these states of perception that become more and more refined, so the mind also becomes more and more refined. Number one, you start losing sense of the outside world. Your senses, the form, your contact with the form is basically abandoned as you get higher into levels of perception. So the mind is quite subtle at this point in time. So there are certain things you can do that are less, that are not as strong as you would have done, let's say, in the lower jhanas, where you were in contact with form. So you have, for example, the sensory experiences that arise, and then you see it, and you let go of it, and then you use the four right efforts to come back to your object of meditation.

But in relation to certain things with relation to the four right efforts, you're always doing them, but it could be that as you get higher in, for example, the perception, the base of neither perception or non-perception, that the mind is so subtle that the subtle formations that arise don't require that much effort to be let go of. Instead, it's just a matter of intending the letting go or just allowing mind to automatically let go. To that point, you don't really have to even come back to the smile and so on and so forth because your mind has become so refined that it doesn't attach to the more coarse,

to the more gross levels of attachment. It doesn't really attach, as I said, to form, and so it doesn't really attach to ill will. It doesn't attach to sensual craving. There will be primarily restlessness and sloth and torpor here, and so this is where you start playing around with the seven factors of awakening. Doubt will not be present here either, because you're at such a high level of perception that there, the doubt comes only when you start the practice really, because you have doubts of whether which jhana you might be in or whether you are in jhana or not, and so on. But this is eradicated for that point in the higher levels of perception. So what is more existent, or what is more prevalent, is the restlessness and sloth and torpor. So that's really where you have to make the effort: to balance the mind between these two and make sure that the mind is in a balanced and calm state, rather than giving way to restlessness, or rather than giving way to sloth and torpor.

And so that is, as I just said, the balancing of the factors. But the way it's done is with gentle pushes, let's say, gentle intentions of the different factors of awakening, if you see that the mind needs to be balanced. It doesn't need to be verbalized, of course, because that's quite coarse. It just needs to be intended with a slight intention, and very tiny drops of implementing these factors will have quite a high degree of effect because the mind is so subtle at this point.

Thank you. Hi, Delson. Hi, sorry. First time attending your class. Thank you very much for organizing this. I have a question about self. You mentioned quite a few sets of self, first sets. Where can I find more information about that? This I took from one of the suttas. I'll have to go back and check, but what I can do is we could probably email you that sutta, or I can mention it in the description on the YouTube video later on when it's uploaded. Oh, okay. Okay, that's great. Okay, let me have the sutta number so I can make reference to that. I have a good read. Sure, thank you.

Hi, Delson. Hi, hello. I have one question regarding in suttas there is mention of the term cetana in Pali. What does this cetana mean? And where does it come in any one of the links of dependent origination? How is it related? Can you just explain that? Yeah. So, cetana is intention. It's the faculty of intention. So the faculty of intention is within mentality and materiality, particularly within mentality, so if you go back to seeing what are the factors of that mentality, it is contact, feeling, perception, intention and attention, and it is through this cetana, through this intention, that the formations are driven forward through consciousness, through the intention of creating an action, whether it is in mind, body or speech.

So it is kind of mentality, meant so, in the link of mentality and materiality, yes, intention starts? Yes, that's right, but you have to look at it in a way where it's very fast. So when the formation arises, it activates the consciousness, and that consciousness drives forward the intention through that mentality materiality, and so that then creates the will for that action, whether, again, as I said, whether it is physical action or whether it's thought or whether it's speech. Another question regarding the same thing. Sometimes, in the mentality part, instead of saying intention and attention, sometimes it's being said like consciousness. Okay, is it like the four parts or five parts in mentality? It's five parts in mentality. So you have to look at it from what Sariputta actually once said, which is that consciousness becomes established in mentality materiality, or that mentality materiality is dependent upon consciousness, and once consciousness is established in that, the consciousness is then dependent upon the mentality materiality. There's an interdependence between consciousness, or what I would say is cognition, and mentality and materiality.

So, mentality and materiality is basically, to simplify it, the mind itself or the factors within mind, and the body, which is made up of the four states of matter or the four elements. So consciousness is also considered to be an element in some suttas, but within the mentality itself, there is no sense of consciousness there. There is the faculty for consciousness through which, through the attention. So the faculty of attention is through which the consciousness can be established and experienced, and so on and so forth, but the idea that the consciousness is one of the factors of mentality, that would be in relation to cognition or recognition, which is perception, but consciousness is experienced through the sixth sense basis, which is within that, and mentality, materiality.

- Thank you, Delson. Thank you very much. Okay, let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear struck, fearless be. May the grieving shadow grieve, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisitions 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.