Delson Armstrong talks on The Discourse about Meghiya

So I'm going to do things a little differently this time around. I'm going to read and then interweave my explanation with the reading. So I won't read all the way through. I'll start reading sections of it and then give you my explanation and then continue. Of nines, and this is called the Meghiya Sutta. There is another version of the Sutta, which is in the Udana, but they're nearly identical.

The one that's in the Udana, Bhikkhu Bodhi hasn't really translated it. So the one I'm using is from the Anguttara Nikaya. It's identical, except in the Udana version, there is a four or five line stanza, or words, a group of poems, basically, by the Buddha. That's not going to be here, but it's identical. So I'll start reading. Thus have I heard, on one occasion, the Blessed One was dwelling at Chalika on Mount Chalika. Now, on that occasion, the Venerable Meghiya was the Blessed One's attendant.

Then the Venerable Meghiya approached the Blessed One, paid homage to him, stood to one side and said to him, Bhante, I would like to enter Jantugama for alms. You may do so, Meghiya, at your convenience. Then in the morning, the Venerable Meghiya dressed, took his bowl and robe, and entered Jantugama for alms. When he had walked for alms in Jantugama, after his meal, on returning from his alms round, he went to the bank of the Kimikala River.

As he was walking and wandering around for exercise along the bank of the Kimikala River, the Venerable Meghiya saw a lovely and delightful mango grove. It occurred to him, this mango grove is truly lovely and delightful, suitable for the striving of a clansman intent on striving. If the Blessed One... So already, the way I see this, Meghiya is starting to go down the wrong path, because he's talking about the mango grove being lovely and delightful.

That's not the reason you go somewhere to meditate. You want something that is secluded, that's quiet, that doesn't interact with any of your senses. The first jhana is about the seclusion from the sensual pleasures. Then the Venerable Meghiya approached the Blessed One, paid homage to him, sat down to one side and said, this morning, Bhante, I dressed, took my bowl and robe, and entered Jantugama for alms.

I thought, this mangrove grove is truly lovely and delightful, striving of a clansman intent on striving. If the blessed one permits me, I will go back to that mangrove to strive. So if the okay as we are so if the blessed one would permit me, I will go back to that mangrove to strive. As we are alone Megiya, wait until another bhikkhu comes along.

And while he was meditating, because of his overzealousness, because of his eagerness to meditate, his mind was already active. And while he was in the mango grove, obviously, the sight of the mango grove, while he was sitting with his eyes closed, was in his mind, the smell of the mangoes and so on and so forth, his sensual craving there. And then what did he do? He tried to resist all of that. He tried to suppress it. By suppressing it, he had aversion towards these thoughts, and then there were aversive thoughts. When these aversive thoughts came about, instead of letting them go, it started to create thoughts of harmfulness in him, meaning he started thinking about how terrible this place is and so on and so forth. If you think about your own meditation, when you have been frustrated, it's because of certain thoughts that keep occupying the mind.

And the more you try to root out the thought with force, instead of acknowledging it, saying it's there, letting it go during the 6R's process, the more you hold on to it, and it will start to create more thoughts of aversion in your mind. And eventually, you'll get frustrated. And some people I've seen become so frustrated, whatever it might be, that there can be thoughts of harmfulness in them.

Finding people of like-minded mindsets, finding people just like this sitting group, finding people who are all wanting to learn about the Dhamma, who are wanting to learn about the 6R's, who want to meditate together. This is a very important aspect of the practice. Again, a bhikkhu is virtuous. He dwells restrained by the Patimokha. So in the case of a monk, they have 227 precepts, I believe, to follow at the very least.

Here, while we are in the lay life, we only have to, at a minimum, do five precepts. And these five precepts are basically all about conditioning the mind for meditation, creating in the mind opportunities for awakening to happen. The five precepts are essential because they help you to create the foundation to start to prevent any of the five hindrances.

I've spoken about this before, where the five precepts and the five hindrances are inversely connected. So if you follow the five precepts, you will start to create a mind that will be void of the five hindrances that are inversely related to those five precepts. The more you do this, the more you're able to create for yourself better opportunities in your, not only practice, but your daily life, where you can see the effects and the fruits of the practice through how you act, through how you behave, through how you speak, and through how you think.

When liberation of mind has not matured, this is the third thing that leads to its maturation. So you really have to pay attention to the kind of speech that you have. This is more in concordance with right speech, rather than dealing with idle chatter, rather than dealing with gossip, rather than dealing with talks about politics and the news and what's going on around the world. If we want to be able to develop in the meditation practice, we should talk about the meditation practice. We should talk about the Dhamma. We should talk about the factors of the meditation practice, about the jhanas, about the Eightfold Path, about dependent origination, and so on and so forth.

But it's important to also distinguish what is talk for the benefit of practice and what is talk for mere spiritual entertainment. Instead of being philosophical and just having debates about this is right or this is wrong, come into agreement with the things that you can agree on in terms of the practice. You'll be able to learn from other people, exchange ideas on how to do the practice and how to meditate, and so on. So you also have to have the right intention when you have such talks.

Again, a bhikkhu has aroused energy for abandoning unwholesome qualities and acquiring wholesome qualities. He is strong, firm in exertion, not casting off the duty of cultivating wholesome qualities. When liberation of mind has not matured, this is the fourth thing that leads to its maturation. So he's talking about right effort here. He's talking about giving up the unwholesome qualities of mind and bringing up the wholesome qualities of mind.

And the way this is done is through the 6R's practice. The unwholesome qualities of mind are essentially the five hindrances, during your practice or during your daily living. And what you are bringing up, in the way of wholesome qualities of mind, are the seven factors of enlightenment. So if you find in your meditation practice that the mind is being disturbed by a hindrance, the moment you recognize it, you see that the hindrance is present. During the first right effort, where you are preventing that hindrance from further distracting you, now you have stopped the flow of that hindrance in its track.

When you release your attention from that hindrance and come back to the mindfulness of the mind and the body, and then relax any tension that has arisen because of that craving, because of that hindrance, you are releasing and relaxing, which is abandoning the unwholesome states, abandoning the hindrances. When you come back to your smile or pay attention to the smile, and then bring up, using the smile as an anchor, the loving-kindness or the compassion or any of the brahmaviharas, you are doing the third right effort, which is to bring up a wholesome state of mind, and then you maintain that with your attention on the loving-kindness.

So long as your attention is resting with that loving-kindness, you are practicing the right effort of maintaining that wholesome state. And whenever you do the six R's process, you are actually activating the different enlightenment factors. So when you recognize that you are distracted, you are practicing mindfulness. You are alert and aware that there is craving or some hindrance present in the mind.

When you release and relax, you are activating the enthusiasm, the effort to let go of, and then tranquilizing the bodily formations. So you are practicing enthusiasm or effort, the enlightenment factor of effort and energy. When you bring up the smile, and when you relax, you bring up tranquility. But when you bring up the smile, you bring up joy.

Whenever you have a tranquil mind, the natural state of that mind graduates towards joy, and vice versa. When there is joy present in the mind, it will start to tranquilize. And if there is some disturbance in the mind and you tranquilize it, its natural evolution is towards joy. Interdependency between joy and tranquility. And then when you continue to maintain your awareness with loving-kindness, when you generate loving-kindness and you stay with it, you are practicing the enlightenment factor of collectedness.

And then finally, if you notice again that the mind is distracted, rather than being disturbed by it, you just use and repeat the six R's process again. If you do it in that manner, you are cultivating equanimity, because you are being unruffled by the hindrance. Rather than reacting to it in the way that is personalizing it and identifying with it, you just acknowledge that it's there, remain undisturbed by it, and then use the six R's process again.

Again, a bhikkhu is wise. He possesses the wisdom that discerns arising and passing away, which is noble and penetrative and leads to the complete destruction of suffering. When liberation of mind has not matured, this is the fifth thing that leads to its maturation. So now at a certain point, as you're progressing through the practice, whether it's through the first four jhanas or through the four arupa states, the mind starts to respond to different factors of the jhanas. You start to see how certain factors are present in a certain jhana and certain factors are not present while they're in that jhana. You start to penetrate the mind and are able to see, especially in infinite consciousness, the arising and passing away of infinite consciousness.

You start to see the three marks of reality. You start to see the impermanence of existence. Everything that is conditioned is impermanent. You start to see that nothing is really worth holding on to. And you start to see the impersonality of all existence, including Nibbana. And as you start to progress on your path and then have a cessation event or have a deep point of reflection where you start to see the links of dependent origination, then you are cultivating wisdom. Wisdom.

When a bhikkhu has good friends, good companions, good comrades, it can be expected of him that he will be wise. And now the Buddha is going to be talking about the different meditative practices depending upon the person's inclinations. So in general, the brahmaviharas are intended for people who have, let's say, an aversive mindset, one where there is ill will, one where there is anxiety, where there is restlessness, where there is depression, where there is basically a generally aversive personality.

And in today's modern world, it would seem that everywhere that one is, there is something that can be considered to be unwholesome. And so the mind tends to be aversive towards that. But it's important not to react with aversion, but to react with wisdom, to react with loving-kindness, with compassion, with equanimity and empathetic joy. So here he talks about different kinds of meditation practices for Megiya in particular.

Because Megiya, as you have seen, has sensual craving, thoughts of sensual craving. He has thoughts of ill will and he has thoughts of harming. And so the first thing the Buddha talks about is that the perception of unattractiveness should be developed to abandon lust. So this is in relation to the body itself, with the sixth sense basis and the feeling that arises from the sixth sense basis, one should see the different elements of the body for what they are.

And one should also, I would, it doesn't say here, but I would expand on that by saying that there is the corpse meditation, where one sees that this body is nothing but a bundle of bones and skin and muscles and sinews and so on. And then one imagines how the body deteriorates when there is no vitality left in that body.

And so eventually the body is nothing more than a collection of skeletons, a collection of bones. And then finally that too just dissipates into dust. So by developing these kinds of practices, one detaches from the body, detaches identification with the body, and thereby reduces sensual craving. Loving-kindness should be developed to abandon ill will. So loving-kindness is just the beginning. You have compassion as well. So loving-kindness generally is an antidote for ill will, and compassion is an antidote for cruelty or harmful thoughts, thoughts of harming.

And loving-kindness is this benevolence that one has towards oneself and towards the world. Loving-kindness is being a friend to the world and to yourself, no matter who it is, having a friendly attitude. Compassion is more about understanding that people are suffering, that other beings are suffering, and being there for them as a support system, but not so much to the extent that you take away their opportunity to come out of that suffering.

So loving-kindness and compassion go hand in hand when it comes to eradicating ill will and harmful thoughts. Mindfulness of breathing should be developed to cut off thoughts. So this is generally for someone who is very speculative, who has different kinds of doubts about the practice or doubts in general, and who does not have an analytical mind but more of a speculative mind, which is to say that there are a lot of different restless thoughts that arise in such a mindset.

And so in such a mindset, there are always thoughts about: am I doing this correctly? Is this how it's supposed to be? Thoughts about something they did a long time ago, thoughts about the future, thoughts about the present, comparing oneself and one's present situation with another person's present situation, and so forth. All of these thoughts are obviously distractions, and the mindfulness of breathing is really using the breath as a reminder, using the breath in a way that allows you to be here in the present moment. You can still use the six R's process to come back to using the breath as your meditative object, and that starts to dissipate the thoughts, because you don't have your attention fueling those thoughts anymore.

Your attention is what fuels, whether it's the unwholesome or the wholesome states of mind. It's your attention that you need to really understand more than anything else. When you see this, then you will realize that if there are, as I've mentioned before, background thoughts while you're meditating on your object, then you don't need to worry about those background thoughts, because those background thoughts will dissipate on their own, because there is no attention being given to them. But as soon as your attention is swerving from your object of meditation and it goes to those thoughts, then you know that you need to use the six R's process to come back to your object of meditation.

And then finally he says, The perception of impermanence should be developed to eradicate the conceit I am. When one perceives impermanence, the perception of non-self is stabilized. One who perceives non-self eradicates the conceit I am, which is nibbana in this very life. So impermanence and not self is what he's talking about here. And this happens, as I said, in infinite consciousness.

But as a practice, one can use impermanence as an exercise: the ability to see impermanence in every moment, how every moment arises and passes away dependent upon previous moments, dependent on previous causes and conditions. There is no self, or no sense of self that is permanent, in any of those passing moments. It arises and passes away, and the conditions for that sense of self also change. So there's no such way of seeing an unchanging, permanent self. The self is always in flux. The sense of self is always in flux.

So when you start to see this, how then can one take seriously the sixth sense basis when they see that the sixth sense basis are conditioned by this mind and this body mentality materiality which is always changing which will one day when the vitality is gone will also be gone so to consider the sixth sense basis to consider the five aggregates to be self would be in delusion would be ignorance so it's important to really cultivate this understanding of impermanence and not self because that is what chips away at the conceit.

Conceit really is this very deep-rooted identification with the mind and the body, this deep-rooted identification with the sixth sense basis, which in turn translates to identification with the sensations that arise and the perceptions that are dependent upon those sensations. So every time you do the six R's process and you stop taking things so seriously, even stop taking the meditation practice so seriously. Because the whole point, the whole lesson one should take from here, is that Megiya was so overzealous that he wanted to meditate, that he forced his mind to meditate, that he took things personally, that he took things seriously, and that it actually was counterintuitive. But the moment you start to relax and let go, and start to just let the mind be what it's doing and observe what's happening, then take an object, which would be one of the brahmaviharas for you or whatever it might be.

And then just let the mind do what it's doing. Stay with your object. See that the mind is distracted. Use right effort. Use a six R process to come back. Every time you do this, you start taking things less personally. And every time you start taking things less personally, you are chipping away at that sense of self. You're chipping away at that conceit. And eventually those formations that are rooted or that are conditioned by conceit, that are fettered by conceit, will drop away with this continuous practice.

And when you do that, you're strengthening the formations that are pure. And when I say pure, they're void of any sense of self. They're void of conceit. Things less seriously. You start taking things less personally. And you don't have to have an opinion about everything. You don't have to have an idea of a sense of self and relate it to something. You can just relax in the moment, allow things to be as they are, and understand everything to be a series of causes and conditions. At that point, then, you have no viewpoint. You have no standpoint. There's nothing that you're trying to protect in the way of a sense of self. There's nothing you're trying to defend or trying to make look good in front of other people.

So that conceit is eradicated by doing this. And you just relax in your own mind where it's just resting in itself. You're just allowing the mind to do its thing, allowing reality to unfold as it's unfolding, and thereby allowing the mind not to produce new karma that can create further suffering. Because the moment you start to identify with the mind and the body, the moment you start to identify with the sixth sense basis, with the sensations that arise conditioned by the sixth sense basis, you have generated the link of craving.

Once you have done that, then you start creating stories in your mind, which are all of these different tendencies that you're starting to accumulate, aspect. When you have that and you further do this, you start to create habit patterns, which are then the accumulated tendencies that are pava, that are being. And of course, from there, if you act from rebirth of action, you are going to cause yourself suffering. But if you instead see that the sensation that arose, whether it was good, bad, or neutral, as dependent upon the sensory receptors. In other words, you are experiencing the sensations because you are experiencing it through these six senses.

While you're experiencing it through these six senses, where in that do you need to identify with that sensation? It's just arising because the sense receptors are there. So you have the six sense bases, which then have contact. They are stimulated. For example, the eye is stimulated by photons, the ear is stimulated by sound waves, the nose by odor molecules, the tongue by flavor molecules, and then the body by the different wind and temperatures and so on and so forth, and the mind of course with thoughts as reflections on those sensations.

All those things that are arising arise whether you see them or not, whether you experience them or not. In other words, you are experiencing them because of the sixth sense basis. Had you not had any of those sixth sense basis, there would be no contact. If there is no contact, there is no feeling. If there is no feeling, there is no craving. In other words, even if you experience everything through your sixth sense basis at the point of feeling, there doesn't need to be identification, first and foremost, with the sixth sense basis. sense basis and thirdly with the feeling and by extension the perception that is interwoven with that feeling if you disidentify with it and see it as just dependent upon circumstances. Where, for the example of the eye, you see that the light is hitting the eye, nowhere in there is there something personal. It's just that the light hits the eye.

And so it's just an impersonal series of causes and conditions. But the moment you see the light, whatever it might be, and you start to attract towards it, you have already identified with it. Or you say, I don't like what I'm seeing, you have started to become aversive towards it. And so that is what causes the craving. So in your meditation practice, when you are meditating, you will come across sensual craving, you will come across ill will and aversion. You will come across doubt. You will come across restlessness. You will come across the different thoughts related to the sixth sense basis, the different thoughts related to what's happening right now, what's happening before, what's happening after this, and so on and so forth.

So what you have to do is recognize that those thoughts are there. thoughts, you start to separate between the sense of self and the thought itself. The moment you can see something, then you realize that that is not you. Anything that you can experience means that there is a subject and an object. So the moment that sense of subject identifies with that object, that's where this whole mass of suffering arises. But if you just leave alone the object, leave it be, don't do anything with it, and let go of the identifying with it using the six R process, coming back to your object in meditation, then you have prevented craving and by extension you have prevented suffering. So I will stop there and I will take questions.

Hi, Delson. Thank you for the talk. I have a question for you. Yes. Between all the six senses, one of my major hurdles is the thoughts and mind objects. I work in engineering and basically I do a lot of problem solving. And after normal work or during the holidays, of course, they come up and I have hard time to push them aside or try to recognize and release and come back to object of meditation sometimes, especially if the day is hard. Any suggestion or ideas for this hyperactive mind or basically

to start the meditation or doing more metta before I get to my object of meditation and how to deal with this type of mind, the problem solving mind? Don't do anything. Don't do anything when you sit down. All you have to do is just come back to the awareness of the full foundations of mindfulness, because the moment you try to make any effort to try to calm down the thoughts, because you're giving your attention to those active thoughts, they're going to start to come up more and more and more. But the moment you see them, acknowledge them and just let them go, and just treat them as only thoughts rather than thoughts that need to be eradicated, thoughts that need to be, let's say, let go of.

If you recall in the Sutta also, Meghiya had a need to meditate. This idea of needing to do something, this idea of having to do something. Let go of that sort of perspective and then come back to just the mind and the body. If you want, take a few breaths and just relax. And the moment you do that, you can start to just generate the feeling of loving kindness in your heart through however you might be doing it. And then stay with it. to your work or whatever it might be won't be as prevalent as they were before, right? Yeah, I mean, I totally connect with this urgency or the need to basically do something, go back to email, respondents. Funny enough, some of my good ideas come through meditation, I mean, because mine opens up and suddenly you see the problem that you never seen, so the mind gets fascinated and they start

basically going down that route and try to solve a problem. Always try to bring it back. And now it's time to see, so just see. But yeah. All right, thank you. - Could you talk a bit about the connection between right effort or the six R's and the four foundations of mindfulness, in the sense that the four foundations of mindfulness have a very heavy emphasis on the arising and passing away of basically everything in one's experience.

But in TWIM the object of meditation is one of the Brahmaviharas. Keeps the Brahmaviharas as an object, but aside from that, watches how all these states are impersonal and arise and pass away. Is that the way to observe it? Yeah. So when it comes to number one, the four foundations of mindfulness, if you go back to the four foundations of mindfulness, the Buddha talks about the arising and passing away of the four foundations of mindfulness, related to the thoughts related to those and so on. But I would also say, and it's also in the Sutta, which is in the Satipatthana Sutta, where the Buddha says, for, and I'm paraphrasing here, but basically he's saying for the sake of seeing that there is no craving present.

So every time you use the six R process, you are coming back to the mindfulness of the mind, seeing that there is a hindrance when you recognize you are mindful that there is a hindrance in the mind. And so when you let go of that and you see that there is tension present in the body and in the mind, you are exercising the foundation of mindfulness of the body. When you relax that craving that's present in the body and in the mind, you let go of that craving. Likewise, if you see that this craving arose because of some sound from far off, or because you start to sense some kind of bad odor, or there's an ant on your skin, you have the mindfulness of the senses.

You have the sensory awareness, and if there's craving rooted with that awareness of the sensation, then you let go of that by using the 6R process. So every time you are actually recognizing, you are fundamentally using mindfulness, and that mindfulness is related to whatever is happening with the body, if there is tension in the body, whatever is happening with the mind, if there are hindrances in the mind or the mental contents of that mind, in other words the hindrances themselves, or if there is present one or more of the enlightenment factors.

And then finally, with the sensations. So when you start to recognize that there is craving, meaning there's identification with any of these four foundations, then you have to use the six R process and let go of that tension and that craving associated with any of those foundations of mindfulness. So you're automatically exercising mindfulness to that extent, whenever you see that craving has arisen.

Hi, Delson. How are you? May I ask you to talk more about using the breath as an object of meditation to calm down the thoughts, because this was a brief sentence mentioned in the sutta, and can you also tell us how it relates to the jhana practice that we are doing in TWIM? Yeah, so I would refer you to the Anapanasati Sutta, because over there the Buddha is talking about using the breath as a means of staying in the present. Whatever your meditation object is, it will be in relation to coming back to the present, awareness of mind and body. So if you're using loving kindness, if you're using brahmaviharas, you're using it as an anchor for coming back to the present moment, coming back to the flow of the present moment, in the same way you're doing it with the breath. The breath is very neutral, meaning when it comes to the brahmaviharas, there is this emotional state of loving kindness, emotional state of compassion, and so on and so forth.

Some inclinations, some mindsets, who might be overly emotional, the brahmaviharas might not always be suitable for them. But the breath as a reminder, because it is neutral, it's just there, it's just a natural part of the breathing of the body. The difference is, one should not control the breath. One should not try to do something with the breath. Just watch how the breath is arising and passing away, allowing it to see the as long breath, the short breath as short breath, and so on.

And then using that as a way to cultivate the enlightenment factors. So if you go back to the Anapanasati Sutta, it talks about how one starts to see that the mind becomes tranquilized, that the body is tranquilized, how there is mindfulness of the body through mindfulness of the breath, how through this mindfulness, is investigation, the factor of investigation, how through this process of investigation there is energy, enthusiasm, and through that there is joy, and then tranquility, and then collectedness, and finally equanimity.

So the breath can be used in that way to cultivate the enlightenment factors, and whenever there are the enlightenment factors present, the mind is in jhana. - Hi Delson, thank you for the talk, it's very useful to me. So, expanding a bit on the topic of the breath meditation, I've been doing the metta meditation for quite a while, and certainly on retreat it can be quite strong. And depending on my current state of mind, I can fall into it easily sometimes and not so easily others. And hearing that line in the sutta and your description of it as the breath kind of helping with speculative thought, that's something I fall into quite often when I'm struggling with the metta.

Am I doing this right and all that, and thinking about the future and whatever. And sometimes I'll use a few breaths just to relax. Sometimes I'll use it as that kind of neutral place, as just the object sort of becomes the breath, as a reminder to relax, as I've read in some of Bhante's writings on the usage of the object of the breath. And I guess my question is, I've heard a lot that it's not good to sort of complicate the practice and change things up and tweak it. But sometimes just going to the breath seems really useful, and then I jump back to metta once things are a little more collected.

Is this reasonable, or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I would say if you're going to start with one object in meditation, start with that. So if you're going to start with the breath, then continue on with using the breath. But it really depends upon how you're using the breath. You don't want to, as I mentioned, and it's very much an emphasis on this, which is don't try to control the breath. Don't try to do anything with the breath. Just watch it as it flows naturally.

When you start to get into that rhythm of that natural breathing pattern, your mind becomes collected around that. So already you're starting to activate the collectedness of mind factor. And if that helps, continue doing that for the duration of your practice. Don't switch back to the metta. Conversely, if you are starting with metta, then just continue on with the metta. If there are doubts arising, consider those doubts to be hindrances, use the 6R's process, come back to the metta, and then continue on. I would never recommend switching between meditation objects in one sitting. If you want to do metta for one sitting, you could do metta for one sitting. If you want to do breath meditation for one sitting, you could do it for one sitting.

But don't switch it up in the same sitting. OK. Thank you very much. Hi, Nelson. I have the same question. Thank you first. But yeah, I do have the same question about like being a matter and and breath as it's not for myself, like because I was not practicing breath a lot, a lot and long time. So it's not hard for me to now concentrate, but I just have shared matter and the six hour with another friend that she is more have a longer period of like a breathing exercise and um and she uh was like uh very like uh happy to hear to hear about my experience and she wants to um to try the the the six hour in the switch of the uh the meta feeling and uh she just lately uh told me that it was it was a bit hard for her to switch from breathing to um to loving kindness start but she still wants to try so um but as since since i heard about like about the personality traits she has a lot of like for my personal observation she's more towards like adult

personality that she's questioning whether this is sad or right or the practice is right or wrong should i still like be uh telling her that she should try it on matter for a while before she stop on breathing or she can do on different practices uh settings to with two different objects what is more recommendable i don't want to confuse her because it is like at her very start and she has find herself more uh peaceful and tranquil while she's doing her breathing and yet the matter she is uh kind of like uh i understand it's the sixth hour which is the more of the the mechanism which is important so i'm now in this in the middle of like not sure whether i should still give her the direction of the matter.

Thank you. If I understood correctly, you said that she had done breath practice, but it was more of a controlled breath practice. Is that right? Yeah, she find the breath practice more like peaceful and she has been very used to it. So when she has to redirect herself to another object, it becomes maybe I'm not sure, but as she told me at the beginning, it's a struggle. So it seems like maybe it's not right, right? If there is a starting struggle. So I would say one thing. If somebody has come into the practice used to breathing practices, it's better that they stay away from it for some time, breathing, because they have learned certain things in relation to the breath.

learn certain ways of dealing with the breath. And so it can be challenging to try to unlearn those things because if one is used to controlling the breath, like for example, in yoga practice, we have something known as pranayama, where you are consciously controlling the intake of the breath and the exhalation of the breath and how long to hold the breath and so on and so forth. of practice it can be difficult for them to actually just watch the breath as it is flowing naturally without having any control over it so i would actually recommend that she stay away from the breath for some time even though she does have let's say a lot of doubts about the practice you know there are doubts about the practice at the initial stages with whatever one might be doing whether it's not a practice whether it's even breathing practice whether it is practice on impermanence or whatever it might be, there's always going to be some kind of doubt that might arise in the beginning.

So I would recommend that she stay with the metta practice for a few months and really watch over a period of a few weeks how the mind is adapting to the metta practice and consider those thoughts of doubt hindrances that she can just six r as soon as she has thought that am i doing this correctly if she can recognize that that's a doubt she can use the six r's and then come back to so personally for myself uh in this life i've only went with relation to the dhamma done jhana practice in relation to the brahma vihadas so i can't say that i can talk about breath practice

first hand in terms of what its effects are. I have done pranayam before and so on and so forth, but I would say that she should stick with mental practice first. Thank you. this is regarding the daily activities kind of practice because i feel like loving kindness on let's say even just to go out for a walk some days comes very easy that's fine but some days are like not so much in that type of scenario like it's not a quiet mind but i kind of like observe the mind what's going on what's in their mind

You know, like, do I, am I having, you know, lust or aversions or, you know, anything, you know, so that I found it, it's required a little less energy to pay attention to the mind rather than that loving kindness feeling yourself, which is great. Loving kindness, when it comes up, it's really, really a good feeling. but um i just want you to comment uh a little bit on that one please so so if i'm understanding correctly what you're doing is essentially paying attention to the four foundations of mindfulness yes yes so the four foundations of mindfulness in and of themselves are a great practice so you can just do it without any meditation object meditation object in this case is just your and passing away through the mind, through the body, through the senses and through the mental contents of the mind.

If you remember in the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha says that these four foundations of mindfulness practice can lead you all the way to nirvana, can lead you all the way to awakening, full awakening. So the way I see it, and it's very simple to just understand mindfulness in this way, number one, you are understanding where your attention is in every given moment. Is your mind still on the loving kindness? In this case, if you're using loving kindness as the object, for example, that mental object is a mental content of mind, so that would be the foundation of mental objects. But if you're not using an object, you would be using the four foundations of mindfulness to the extent of seeing whether there's craving present or not.

If there is no craving present, then there's nothing further to be done. If there is craving present, then you use the six Rs and come back to seeing the body as body, the mind as mind, the senses as senses and the mental contents as mental contents. Which means that if you see that there is, for example, doubt arising in the mind, you see that as a hindrance, you use the six Rs to let go of that, release the tension in the body that might have been stored because of that hindrance, and then continue with your practice of watching the full foundations of mindfulness.

Thank you. Hi, Delson. Hello. I have a question. Could you please say a little bit about the second bojjhanga, like what it is, how to bring it up, how to apply it? What is the second bojjhanga? Investigation. Investigation. Investigation is essentially you start to play around with the enlightenment factors, primarily when you're doing the jhana practice towards the seventh and eighth jhana. When you get to the eighth jhana, you are dealing with really minute aspects of the enlightenment factors. So what I mean by that is the basic hindrances that you will be dealing with when you are at the seventh or eighth jhana are restlessness, the main hindrances that one has to eradicate.

So when you are in the eighth jhana and you start to see that the mind tapers off into sloth and torpor, you use the investigative factor to be able to see that the mind is in sloth and torpor, and you're using your investigation of principles to then see what is required in the mind at this point. So anytime you see that there's restlessness, then you see, you're again using your investigation skills, but not so much when you are in sloth and torpor. You might use it to the extent that you understand what is needed in this moment for the mind to come back to a balanced state. So if you start to see, you can just essentially ask the mind what is required right now.

And the intuitive aspect of the mind will actually tell you we need more joy, or you need more relaxation, you need more tranquility, or you need more collectedness, whatever it might be. This is the way you can use the investigative factor. Thank you very much. Hi, Delson. Hello. I have a question about... Sometimes I find when the restlessness is so strong that, when I recognize that I'm caught in a hindrance, I'll release and maybe start to relax.

And before I even get to the re-smile and my object, I'm back in another hindrance, and this cycle just happens over and over again, of not actually getting through the full six Rs cycle. Is there anything you can recommend to do when I recognize that that's happening? - So how much time are you spending with each of the six Rs? - In those cases, not that much. - Okay. The reason I ask is because I want to know if when you recognize distracted, as soon as you recognize, are you spending time on releasing it and then releasing your attention and then spending time on relaxing? I mean, is there more time being spent in that process than there should be?

Is there more time than there should be? Maybe. How would I know? Well, for one, as soon as you recognize that you're stopping that hindrance from further continuing. The whole point of the release step is to take your awareness away from that hindrance and bring it back to the mind and body. So it happens just like that. And then as soon as you see that you're with your mind and body, you recognize the tension and relax the tension. That too happens in a snap. As soon as you relax, you bring up the smile, you bring up the love and kindness.

This and then you continue. So in essence, when you do the entire six Rs process it should last no longer than five seconds. You gotta just let it roll, right? It's just like a wave. If you spend too much time trying to relax, release your attention and then come back to relaxing and all of that, there is the opportunity for another hindrance to arise. So at that point, spending too much time would be counter-intuitive to what you're trying to do here, which is essentially

stopping the hindrance in its tracks, then taking your attention away from it and coming back to mind and body, and then relaxing the mind and body, coming back to the smile, and then coming back to the loving kindness. When you do all of that, you don't spend more than a second on each part of that step. And of course, I'm not sure if you're doing this, but this should just be said as a blanket statement, which is you don't want to verbalize many parts of the step saying that, okay, now I recognized, now I release, now I relax, now I re-smile, now I relax, you know, all of that other stuff. You just do it.

So as soon as you recognize, you recognize it. Like you've seen that the mind is distracted. In that seeing of the mind being distracted, that is recognition. In taking your attention on, putting your attention back to mind and body, that is releasing the attention. It's just letting go. It's just, you know, relaxing the mind and body, relaxing the tension. It's not like, okay, now I relax. It's just, you relax. It's like that tight fist and you just let go of that tight fist. And then coming back to the smile, it's just a matter of bringing your awareness back to the smile and then coming back to the loving kindness. So that's the reason I'm asking, is if you're spending too much time possibly on each of the steps, in which case it's not as effective as just rolling through it, coming back.

And then if there's a hindrance that comes right after you return to your object, you do the process again. Eventually what's going to happen is if you continue doing the process in this way, which is fairly quick, the hindrance will start to lose momentum. So when the hindrance starts to lose momentum, it will start to just no longer have a hold on the mind and will just go away and dissipate. Thank you. Yeah, I think for me, probably the most clear thing out of what you said was just the release step being like bringing attention back to mind and body. I think I've been kind of unclear on what the release step is. Yeah, so that was very helpful.

Thank you. Delson, if you may allow me. I have on the same regard a... Hi, can you hear me, Delson, Delson? Yes, I can hear you. Helen, I think we, you cut off, we couldn't hear you anymore. Helen, yes, I'm here, but I cannot get myself back. Sorry, just give me a minute. Sorry I interrupt everybody. Yeah, I can. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. The same regard, I have this experience because I'm very new to the six Rs, right? But I've been doing it in the last couple of weeks, or more like before my retreat with Kim, it was occasionally only for two months, and now I'm back to about a month basically regularly with the six Rs. But my experience is that at the beginning I was trying to be very smooth, rolling off quickly, which was naturally how I do it.

But lately, because of the blockage that I experienced, I allowed the six Rs steps to be more slow, to give each hour a little bit more time. And with this experience, I see contractions and dilations of my mind, of the nerves. So is this a correct thing, or is this not, like, that it will give me more time of other distractions around? But I find that in the last couple of days, when I'm doing it with a little bit more time with each hour, I'm able to see myself better going back to the object, instead of just rolling it.

Share a bit more on the timing, that, yeah, but I really see my tension and my dilation and my contractions there. Thank you. So let me ask you, just to understand, how long are you spending with each step, really? I think it's not long, but it is maybe a second each hour, instead of before, when it was just very quickly I go to the smile already, from release to relax. The recognized part, I did not pay a lot of attention at the beginning, but now I do pay a little bit more attention on the recognize first, because it is what I lately recognize, that it is the... the recognizing is the first, in on that, you know, there, right? So we have to remind, remember to know that

Notice that. So I gave a little bit more attention to the very first hour, and then the third hour I give a little bit more time before the smile, which before was very natural, I wanted myself to go back to the smile. So in this process I feel the nerves contract, dilate, contract, dilate. When you say you feel, for example, the nerves contracting daily, is that happening during the process of relaxing? Sorry, I cannot hear you very well now. Let me see. When you say that the nerves are contracting and relaxing, contracting and dilating, are you referring to it happening during the relax step, or is it through the whole process of the six Rs?

Through the whole process to the very end of the return to the object, I see the dilation, the dilation of my nerves. Obviously, I don't see anything wrong with spending, let's say, even up to two seconds, especially on the relaxed step. In fact, in one of my communications with someone, I did mention that prior to doing a retreat or prior to doing the six R process,

it would be good to actually get attuned to what that relaxation feeling is, what the relaxed step really feels like, because this is one which I have come across in my process of teaching, where people actually just glaze over the relaxed step. So I see nothing inherently wrong with trying to spend maybe two seconds with just relaxing and feeling the tension dissipate from the mind and the body. When it comes to the recognized step, as I said, it's not really like I have to recognize this. The thing is, as soon as you see that the hindrance is there, as soon as you see that the mind is distracted, you have already performed, so to speak, the recognized step. There's nothing further to recognize there, except that now one comes back to relaxing. So another way of putting it would be, you recognize that the tension is there, or you recognize that the hindrance is there.

And so in the process of taking your attention away from the craving or the hindrance and bringing your awareness back to relaxing the mind and body, you are actually doing two things. As soon as you recognized that there was this craving, there was this hindrance, and you put your intention or your attention into relaxing the mind and body, you have actually released your awareness from that craving or that hindrance.

And by just putting your attention on the relaxing, not only have you put your attention back on the mind and body, but also on the relaxing of the mind and body. So what I'm trying to put across here is this. When you recognize that there is a hindrance, you just see that, oh, I got distracted. As soon as you see that I got distracted, that's recognized.

Now if you put your awareness on relaxing the mind and body, you are through that process releasing your attention from that hindrance and putting it back onto the mind and body through the process of relaxing the mind and body. I think I got you on the first point. Yeah, thank you very much here, Delson. Yeah, I think I was also now emphasizing a little bit more on the recognizing part now. I was trying very much to have the distraction located and noticed, because I lost that for a couple of sittings, that I was totally not able to track it until very late. So I was putting effort on the first aisle now, which, yeah.

Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. Hi, Delson. So this is Phan. Thank you for your talk, and also I share the question of other people on the relaxing step. So my problem is that it came from my previous practice in Vipassana. I have the pulsation sensation, just like meditation. So I know that maybe I didn't take it easy, but now I have trouble to feel the relaxing.

So any suggestion if I cannot feel, how can I do this step? Yeah, so basically you want to know how it feels to relax, right? How it feels to relax in the body. A couple of weeks ago, maybe a little while ago, this is the reason why I use that analogy. relaxed in his own way and it might have been a couple of weeks ago or in one of his videos that I had seen, and it's a great analogy, which is you just make a fist, and you know how it feels when you have that tension in the fist, but you also know how it feels as soon as you let go of the tension in the fist. As soon as you stop making the fist, there's no more tension there. So in the same way, it's like when you go to bed and you start to feel that relaxed feeling when you go to bed before you actually go to sleep. That's really the relaxed feeling that you want to tune into. And I will also say to that extent that sometimes you might not even feel the relax

of relaxing of the tension sometimes people don't even sometimes people say that they don't even feel tension in the mind and body. But just in the process of relaxing, what are you doing while you're relaxing? You are tranquilizing the bodily formations. So the intention to relax is the intention to tranquilize the bodily formations. So even if you don't feel it, the intention of that happening will have an effect on the body. And this is really translated when you start to get into the fourth jhana the third and fourth jhana because you'll know when you're in the third and fourth jhana when the body starts to feel lighter or you have very little sensation of the body this is happening because you're starting to deactivate the parietal lobe that has that it's related to the senses and related to feeling the body and you start to feel perhaps even a floaty feeling you start to feel like the body starting to expand.

This will happen in the third and the fourth jhana. It will happen because you are relaxing the mind and the body. Even if you don't feel the relaxing of the mind and body, the intention of that alone will translate into your meditation quickening towards the third and fourth jhana. So it's like making minute investments, and then you start to see the return on an investment in the third and fourth jhana of that. Okay, so if I, I cannot physically feel it, if I see the thought is gone, it's okay? Yes. Okay, can I just say, I using smile and, so smile longer until the thought is gone, and then I go back to, yeah, go ahead, I go back to meditation object.

No, I will say that you want to spend one moment where you are seeing that the thought is gone. You have put your awareness back on the mind and body. You need to have the intention of relaxing. Even if you don't feel the relaxed step, you need to have the intention of relaxing, which means you spend one moment there with the intention of relaxing and then come back to the smile and then come back to the loving kindness.

Your meditation object. Okay, usually when I recognize the distraction, I start to smile. It's okay that I do both at the same time? No, you want to wait. You want to take a couple of pauses before you go come back to the smile. So if you see, oh, I got distracted, okay, okay, I saw that distraction was there, I'm letting go of the distraction and I'm relaxing my mind and body, and then coming back to this one. You want to put a little bit of a separation point between the two, because you really want to hone in on that intention of relaxing, because every time you're relaxing you are practicing right intention. This is why I'm emphasizing intention of letting go, because that is the first part of right intention, which is the intention of letting go, and secondly the intention of non-ill will and non-cruel, which is the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion.

So it's important for that intention of letting go to be there before you come back to the smile. So can I verbalize the intention? No, you don't need to verbalize. No, I don't want to verbalize it. Just come back to the awareness of the body and just have the intention of relaxing. You don't want to verbalize and say relax, but just have the thought of relaxing. You don't have to have a verbal thought of it. It's like, it's like visualizing relaxation rather than verbalizing it, visualizing the body relaxing, visualizing the body easing up, and then come back to it. Okay, thanks.

So if I may, I have one more question. In between the 7th and 8th jhana, you know, sometimes it's in the 8th jhana. Obviously, you can't really stay too long in there, and then you are out of it. And every time I think, for me, I'm out of it, meaning like going either back to seventh, but I'm kind of like looking for, do I have that equanimity? If not, then lately I just, that's fine, it's not the mind, it's not the quiet mind. But again going back to these satipatthana, you know, um, according to the satipatthana sutta, like, you know, mindfulness of mind, is that okay? So in between the seventh and eighth jhana, so when it comes to the eighth jhana, you're coming into quiet mind? Yes, there's really a lot of, there are the different factors present, but the mind is so refined that it's not really attending to the different factors or not really completely aware of it. It's not in the vicinity of the mind's awareness, and it's just this very

you know, dreamlike state in which there's a lot of different things that are coming and going, but if one just has the intention of just letting go of those different formations, we will continue to remain in the eighth jhana. So to the extent that you see the formations that are arising, you are practicing the mindfulness of mind and mental contents, to see that the state of mind at this point is here. But the moment you see it, remember, come out of non-perception, because now you're perceiving it. Yes, now you're seeing it, but if you relax, let go, and just let the mind rest back into the eighth jhana, then

the whole point is at that point to elongate the time of the mind being in the eighth jhana. So it might take some time before you don't have anything that's present in the mind at all, right? And it's just quiet mind for maybe a few minutes, and then you see there's a formation arising, then the mind gets diverted to that, you relax it, and then come back. So then you come back to the jhana, and it might take another few minutes, and so on, and then you continue to elongate that cycle until, for you know, an hour there's nothing in the mind, right? Because, like, it's, I feel like sometimes it's so quiet. Oh, okay, it's too quiet now. Am I in sloth and torpor? That's how I know I'm out.

I'm out. You're out of it, yeah. I'm out of it, yeah. Yeah. That's how I always fell off. This goes back to the investigative factor, which you're dealing with. You want to allow the sloth and torpor to be there to inform you that you're in sloth and torpor, instead of looking for it. So you're prematurely using your investigative factor to see if you're in something or not, and that gets you out of the A channel. Allow it to come to you, and then you can let go of it, instead of prematurely looking for it and then trying to let go of something that's not even there, maybe. Yes, yeah, thank you. Just to clarify my understanding about what you're saying about the relaxed step.

So let's say you hold the intention to relax. It's been a second or two and you haven't felt any relaxation. Is it correct that you just kind of move on instead of waiting for that feeling? Is that correct? So it depends. If you notice that there is visible tension that you can notice that's there, and you intend to relax that, and you feel the relaxation of that, then you have successfully done the relaxed step. If you don't feel any tension there, you still do the relaxed step, because the relaxed step is all about the intention. As I mentioned just a few minutes before, it is to cultivate the right intention of letting go.

Now, there might be times where you do have the tension and you relax, and the tension doesn't go away. At that point, you just let it go and continue with it. Then, when the next hindrance arises, you relax it. Because if you spend too much time trying to relax that tension, which might still be present, then you're going to start to create more hindrances in the mind. If you put too much attention on the tension, if you have too much attention on that craving, it will actually be further aggravated. So if you just have the intention of relaxing it, that's more important than trying to physically relax it, and then it doesn't relax. And then you're in this sort of loop of trying to do something, and then further creating for yourself more activity, restlessness and creating.

All right. Thank you, Delson. Thank you for staying up late for us. Yes. Delson, one more question on my side. When you basically go to do meditation, and let's say your previous sitting was seven or eight, in the next sitting, if the mind is busy, do you need to start from the first jhana going up, or do you basically go to quiet mind and the mind automatically goes back to the last jhana? Or does it matter if, in the next sitting, you sit in the same jhana or not? My general suggestion is that wherever you left off, you continue from there. So if you

got all the way to the seventh jhana in your next sitting. So in the seventh jhana, for example, is nothingness. So at that point, you would be, for example, radiating equanimity. So instead of coming back, instead of starting from where, let's say, compassion, and starting with the fifth jhana, I would suggest you start with radiating equanimity and continue from there. Yes. In the beginning, depending upon the mind, its inclination, what time it is, and other factors, it might take time for the mind to settle into the radiating of equanimity, for example. But despite that, you start from where you left off. Okay, so no matter how busy the mind is, the mind will go back to the previous state? Yes, that's my recommendation. Thank you so much.

Any more questions? Should we share merits? Let me share. 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, 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.