Day 3: Awakening Factors

Yesterday we spoke about the hindrances and what kind of hindrances can be present in the mind and the variations that could arise. Today we will discuss the factors for awakening, the Awakening Factors. They're also known as the Enlightenment Factors. And there are seven Enlightenment Factors. They are Mindfulness, Investigation of States, Energy, Joy, Tranquility, Collectedness and Equanimity. The way I've looked at jhanas in terms of how they arise, or the way cessation happens in the mind, the letting go of all causes and conditions, is through the presence of these seven awakening factors and their balancing, so that they are all in tandem together, balanced, and they give rise, or I should say, they lead to, cessation.

The jhanas themselves, especially the first jhana, and then it continues on from there. The first jhana arises due to the cessation of all hindrances. When the mind is free from any kind of hindrance and there is the presence of wholesome states of mind. Specifically, these wholesome states of mind are the awakening factors. So, jhana in that sense can be defined as the absence of hindrance and the presence of awakening factors, because they are there in some degree or another in each of these different jhanas. So let's explore what the enlightenment factors are and how they come about. The first enlightenment factor is mindfulness, sati. We've already touched upon mindfulness a little bit when we said that mindfulness is remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. This is the way Bhante Vimalaramsi has phrased it, and I think it's a wonderful phrasing, because it lets you know that you require two things.

You need presence of mind to be able to know what is going on and that the mind has moved around. Otherwise, without presence of mind or lack of comprehension, lack of understanding, lack of what's known in Pali as sampajanya, you cannot have mindfulness. So these work together. There are a couple of suttas. There is the sutta that is the four foundations of mindfulness, that's in the Majjhima Nikaya. And there is the Mahasatipatthana, the greater discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness, which is in the Digha Nikaya. And here, mindfulness is categorized into what are known as patthanas, or in Sanskrit it is prasthanas, which are foundations or centers or locations or points of mindfulness.

And the way that they have been categorized, or I should say the way they have been listed, is from gross to subtle. In other words, from coarser aspects of experience to even subtler aspects. Generally, some people, when they read that, would think that it means that we have to go through the mindfulness of these foundations in some form of an order, from gross to subtle, from coarse to subtle. Not the case.

The Buddha is just giving definitions of mindfulness in relation to these four points, as a way of understanding. In reality, when you are doing the meditation you are already exercising the four foundations of mindfulness, and I'll explain to you how that is when we discuss these four foundations. So the first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body. And the Buddha has given different kinds of meditation practices and exercises for understanding the mindfulness of the body. One of the ways he's talked about it is looking at the body as made up of the four great elements. So you take the body and you see it in terms of different states of matter. Here is the earth element of the body, that is the solidity of the body. And then here is the water element of the body, that is the liquid aspect: the blood and urine, sweat, tears and so on, and so

Forth. Here is the air element of the body, the different movement in the body through the circulation of air and in the digestion. Here is the fire element of the body, which is the heat and temperature of the body. The fire of the body is also the digestive fire. So what it's letting you do is come back into the awareness of the body, the body being an anchor for you to be mindful. Another exercise the Buddha might give, or has given in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, is the mindfulness of breathing, because the breath is related to the body. And this is a whole other practice that people will do, which is called anapanasati.

So anapana means, ana is actually apana, which is exhalation, prana, which is inhalation. So the inhalation and exhalation of the breath. That's the sati, the mindfulness of breathing. So here the Buddha would say in the sutta that on the in-breath, he tranquilizes bodily formations. On the out-breath, he tranquilizes bodily formations. In breathing in long, he breathes in long. He knows he breathes in long. In breathing out long, he knows he's breathing out long. In breathing in short, he knows he's breathing in short. In breathing out short, he knows he's breathing out short. In other words, he's not talking about controlling the breath. He's not talking about watching a spot under the nose or above the lip and concentrating on it.

He's not talking about inhaling for a certain amount of time and exhaling for a certain amount of time. Nowhere does he talk about breath control. He's just saying you're observing the breath, and in observing the breath you are relaxing on the in-breath and relaxing on the out-breath. Now, I'm not telling you all of these things for you to try them out. All I'm doing is giving you an understanding of how he's talking about it in relation to the body. So it doesn't mean that you mix practices or you mix objects of meditation. With metta you're going to do breathing with metta, you're going to look at the body and all that? No. It's just for your information, to understand what mindfulness is. And so then he talks about the recollections of the different stages of decay of the body. And this is for somebody who has some kind of anxiety about death. And this is a practice that is not really given to lay people. Let's say this might be for monastics, and not just monastics. We're talking about hardcore monastics, who do

know forest meditation, those who are secluded deep in the forest, kind of thing. So this practice, it says in the suttas, you go to a charnel ground. Anybody here have been to a charnel ground? I have. Yeah, you have, in Varanasi. If you go to Varanasi and you travel down the river, there are at least two or three different places where you will see these chimneys, because they're burning bodies constantly. And the bodies are fresh. They bring in the body and you can see the body in different stages of decay. So here somebody will go to a charnel ground and they will see the different stages of decay of the body. This is what a monk would do, and then he would go into meditation and imagine the different stages, and then realize for himself that this is the nature of my body too. And so he lets go of any attachment and identification with the body. It starts to alleviate, or is supposed to alleviate, the anxiety about death, because it's just a body, nothing

else. You know, dying is actually the easy part. It's all the stuff around it that makes it seem like it's difficult. So this allows the mind to kind of let go of attachments to the body. Another kind of contemplation that he would do is look at the different parts of the body: here are the eyes, here are the hair of the head, here is the hair of the body, here is the skin, here are the nails, the mesentery, the digestive system, the liver, the kidneys, every aspect of the body. It's like you turn the body inside out. And the reason you do that is because this is given, and this was given by the Buddha, to his teenage son, who was a monastic.

There's a sutta in which Rahula, which is the name of the Buddha's son, goes to Sariputta, one of the chief disciples of the Buddha, and he asks him, what should be my object of meditation? And Sariputta says, develop the recollection of the breath, mindfulness of breathing. And then he goes to the Buddha and he asks the Buddha, what should be my meditation object? And the Buddha says, do the mindfulness of the body. Look at the different elements of the body. Look at the body from inside out. Why? Because Rahula was a teenager. And we all know what it is like to be a teenager. Very much attached to beauty. Very much attached to our looks.

He was said to be somebody who was a handsome man, a handsome young man. And so he was proud of that. Or he had hormones. Teenage hormones. So what do you do? You look at the body and you look at it from inside out. And you realize, oh, this isn't beautiful at all. This is quite ugly. And you stop identifying with the body.

So these are the different kinds of meditation objects in relation to mindfulness of the body. And then there is a refrain that the Buddha gives in every one of these foundations of mindfulness. He says he looks at the arising and passing away of the body in relation to the body, which means he sees the impermanent nature of them. And going even deeper, he understands the dependent origination aspect of them. He sees that the body is dependently arisen through causes and conditions, and in seeing that he lets go of any kind of craving or aversion or identification with the body. Then he talks about mindfulness of feeling. Mindfulness of feeling is essentially mindfulness of all kinds of experience. There is said to be a hundred and eight different types of feeling. Primarily there are three categories of feeling: pleasant feeling or experience, unpleasant experience, and neither pleasant nor unpleasant, or neutral experience. Then there is worldly pleasant experience, worldly painful experience, worldly neutral experience.

There is otherworldly pleasant experience, otherworldly painful experience, and otherworldly neutral experience. So, what is an example of a worldly? When we talk about worldly, what are we saying when we say worldly? The Buddha has said that the world is defined by this fathom-long body. In other words, through essentially the five physical sense bases, actually the six sense bases, we experience the world. It's the mind that interprets the world around us. That's why, when you do the reflections and when you take the precepts and refuges and you do the Dhammapada verses, what does it say there? Mind is chief, mind is the forerunner of all states. It's because even though you experience things through the eyes and the ears and the nose and the tongue and the body, which are all part of the physicality, they're just receivers of different kinds of signal that are then interpreted and they create an experience, and this happens through the process of mind. So when we talk about the experience of worldly pleasant feeling, we're talking about things related to sensual experience, so anything that is pleasant in terms of pleasant

Sights, pleasant fragrances, pleasant sounds, pleasant tastes, pleasant tangibles: these are all pleasant worldly feelings. Likewise with painful worldly feelings. So a painful worldly feeling would be something that is painful to the body, painful to the eyes, something that is maybe ugly in the mind, something that seems odorous to the nose, something that is disturbing to the ears, something that doesn't taste so good, and so on. Maybe it's too hot, maybe it's too cold. Things keep changing all the time; that is the nature of all experience. In my room, my shower, it's like I have to fine-tune: too hot or too cold. So it's like, okay, pleasant feeling, unpleasant feeling, pleasant feeling, unpleasant feeling. So that's also mindfulness. So the unpleasant worldly feeling has to do with the body, and then the neutral is related to lack of mindfulness and indifference, so that is ignorance.

A worldly neutral feeling means you are not paying attention to any experience because it doesn't have any kind of tonality to it. It's just neutral, so you don't really pay too much attention to it, but that's a worldly neutral feeling, a worldly neutral experience. Indifference or ignorance to it: there's a difference there. Indifference here means that you have apathy towards it, you don't take any interest in it, or there's a certain level of aversiveness, aversion to it. Ignorance means that you are not aware of the impermanent nature of the experience, the dependent, impermanent nature of the experience. So that's ignorance, the lack of mindfulness of these things, the lack of attention to these things. Then when we talk about otherworldly, this is also known as super-mundane.

So when we talk about right view, the Buddha had talked about right view as mundane and super-mundane. And in the mundane right view, he talks about certain things, including that there is this world and the other. A good way to look at that is that this world is related to the physicality of the world, in terms of the sense bases. The way to look at otherworldly or super-mundane is in the mind.

It has to do with elements of the mind, in terms of specifically jhana, when you can get into states that are elevated, like jhana, when you can start to experience loving kindness, when you can start to experience equanimity, and so on. These are all otherworldly states. These are all the other world. There's this world and the other. So what is an example of an otherworldly pleasant feeling? Loving kindness, compassion, experience of joy, equanimity, calmness. Any element of the jhana is an otherworldly pleasant feeling. What is an otherworldly painful feeling? All of you have experienced that: hindrances. When a hindrance arises, it's painful to the mind. Some kind of craving arises, restlessness arises, and your mind is now attending towards that; it's no longer on the pleasant experience.

And very specifically, a neutral, otherworldly feeling would be the experience of equanimity. It could be defined as pleasant, yes, because it is free of any kind of restlessness and so on, but really it is neutral because it doesn't have much of a quality to it. So that is equanimity. So the mindfulness of feeling is in relation to feeling: the seeing, the arising and passing away of it, not trying to investigate into the arising or analyzing it, just seeing that it has arisen, it's present, and that it's passed away if it does pass away. So this is mindfulness of feeling. Without any craving, without any aversion, without any identification in relation to that experience or that feeling.

Then there is what is known as mindfulness of chitta. Chitta can be understood as mind or consciousness, or what I like to use is the word mindset. A mindset is similar to a mood. A mood is a collection of similar kinds of emotions. If somebody says they are in an uplifted mood, it's because they have happy thoughts. They have a happy collection of experiences in terms of emotions. If somebody says that they are in a not-so-good mood, it's because they have a collection of emotions that are not so good. Same thing with the mindset. Mindset is a collection of similar kinds of thoughts that create that mindset. So when the Buddha talks about mindfulness, mindfulness of minds, mindset or mind states, he's talking about different kinds of things.

So he says he knows how the mind is. The mind is uplifted, or the mind is contracted, or the mind is expanded, or the mind is surpassed, or the mind is unsurpassed. The mind is liberated, or the mind is unliberated. So, for example, when he says the mind is uplifted, what does that mean? That the mind is starting to experience uplifted states like loving kindness and so on. When the mind is constricted or contracted, what does that mean? That the mind is experiencing dullness of mind, sloth and torpor. When the mind is expanded, what is he talking about? That the mind is starting to experience spaciousness, starting to experience relief from the hindrances. When he says that the mind is liberated or unliberated, surpassed or unsurpassed.

So when he says the mind is surpassed, it means that the mind goes beyond just the body and into the states of the formless. We'll talk about that in the coming days, but that's really infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception or non-perception, and so on. When the mind is unsurpassed, it remains with the body, the first four jhanas. When the mind is liberated, it can mean the mind is liberated in terms of it has experienced cessation and experienced one of the four stages of awakening, or that it is liberated because it is liberated from the hindrances in that moment, and it is experiencing temporary liberation in the form of jhanas. And likewise, with mindfulness of body and mindfulness of feeling, when he says mindfulness of mind, he's saying that he sees it in relation to the arising and passing away of these states.

And he remains without any craving, aversion, or identification to them. Finally, there is mindfulness of dhammas, that is, mindfulness of phenomena. And different categories of phenomena are mentioned in this sutta: mindfulness of the four noble truths, mindfulness of the awakening factors, mindfulness of the five aggregates, mindfulness of the five hindrances. So these are states of mind, or these are experiences or phenomena that are happening at the level of mind. When we talk about the mindfulness of the four noble truths, you will see how that arises when you do the meditation. When he talks about the mindfulness of the seven awakening factors, you will see how that happens when I give the rest of this talk.

You will see how it all comes together. When he talks about mindfulness of the five aggregates, that is in relation to the four foundations of mindfulness: the body, feeling, perception, intention or formations, and consciousness. When he talks about mindfulness of the five hindrances, every time you recognize a hindrance, what are you doing? You're mindful of that hindrance, and you let it go, and you come back to a wholesome state of mind. So these are the four foundations of mindfulness in terms of mindfulness of phenomena. The same thing: he sees the arising and passing away of them, and in relation to them there is no craving, no aversion, and no identification with them. So this is all part of mindfulness. But seeing it as observing how mind's attention moves from one object to the other denotes you're doing any or all of this in the meditation. How is that? So when you sit down for the meditation and you do the body scan, what are you doing? Mindfulness of the body: you are noticing any tightness or tension in the body, and you're relaxing and tranquilizing bodily

formations. When you generate the metta and you feel the metta, what are you doing? You are mindful of an otherworldly pleasant experience. When you notice that the mind is experiencing joy, or experiencing heat in the hands, or experiencing prickling in the skin, or experiencing lightness of the body, or whatever it might be, what are you noticing? You're noticing sensation, you're noticing experiencing, experience, and you're noticing mindfulness, or you're mindful of mind states. You're noticing if mind is uplifted or not. You're noticing if mind is experiencing unsurpassed states or surpassed states. You're noticing if mind is liberated from hindrances or not. When you notice that the mind is going towards a hindrance, what are you doing? Mindfulness of phenomena. So it's not something you have to do in an order: body, then feeling, then mind, then mind states. It's happening all together in an integrated way when you do this practice, and it all starts with right effort, the 6R's, because the equipment for samadhi, for right collectedness, is first and foremost right effort in the form of the 6R's, and right mindfulness. These two give rise to proper or right

Collectedness. So every time you recognize a state of mind in terms of a hindrance, what are you doing? You are bringing up your mindfulness again. If you let the mind do what it wants and you're not aware of what's going on, you don't have presence of mind, then you don't have some panjanya. When you don't have some panjanya, then you don't have mindfulness. But as soon as you recognize, then the mind comes back into view. You'll notice this for yourself: you're having a flurry of different thoughts. As soon as you look at the thought, what happens? It goes away. As soon as you look at that flurry of mind states, they stop, they go away. The momentum stops right there and then. And so this is the application of the first awakening factor of

mindfulness. This mindfulness then leads to investigation of states. This comes from the word dhamma vichaya, investigation of states. Now, the word investigation here might denote that we have to analyze and we have to go deep into and see. No, investigation essentially just means knowing what state of mind is present and what state of mind is not present. So the doubt that you might experience, am I experiencing the jhana, am I experiencing loving kindness, am I doing this right, is this going on? All of these things are confusion about what states of mind are present. As soon as you understand, okay, there actually is an experience of joy, then you have dhamma vichaya, then you have investigation, or understanding. That's the word I would use: understanding of states. So the mindfulness gives rise to knowing what state of mind is present, just as perception is tied to feeling. What does that mean? When we talk about feeling as an experience, it is just the bare sensation or experience that's going on through any of the sense bases, but the perception is the recognition, the understanding of what it is that you are

Experiencing the seeing of the color red is the sensation, the feeling, the experience. But knowing the red to be red is the perception, which is rooted in memory. In the same way, mindfulness is the awareness that mind has gone from one state to another, and investigation is the knowledge of what kind of state that is. In other words, mind is distracted. Knowing that the mind has moved is mindfulness. Understanding that the mind is distracted, and here is now present a hindrance, I am no longer with loving kindness, is investigation. So it doesn't go beyond that. It doesn't need to go beyond that, because if it goes beyond that then you're going to look into, oh, how did this arise, why did this arise, and you're going to go into a whole state of analysis paralysis. That's not where you want to go. Just knowing that the state of mind is present. And so this is the antidote for doubt. Doubt is defined as confusion about what states of mind are present. How do you know what is a wholesome state of mind, and how do you know what is an unwholesome state of

Mind. A wholesome state of mind is without any tightness or tension. An unwholesome state of mind is constricting. It creates a process of craving and aversion and identification. A wholesome state of mind is more expansive. It's without any kind of coarse craving in it, any kind of aversion in it. There might still be identification there, but it's free of any kind of tightness and tension. So these are states that are either beneficial to the mind, which relieve you from craving, which is wholesome, or there are states which bind the mind, constrict the mind, and create tension in the mind.

And these are unbeneficial or unwholesome states. So if you know that the mind is feeling expansive, the mind is bright, the mind is alert, then you're in a wholesome state of mind. If you notice tightness and tension, that's different from just a pain that's there in the head. Just let that pain be, it's okay. But if there's aversion and constriction around that painful experience, then you just let that go. This is how you use investigation. But every time you recognize that there is an unwholesome state of mind, you're doing two things already. You're bringing up mindfulness, you're remembering to observe how your mind's attention moved, and then you're also bringing in investigation. You're bringing in the understanding of states, because you're aware mind is now in an unwholesome state. That then leads to energy, a balanced energy. Viriya. Viriya literally means strength or power. Because of that, some people think it means you have to make a big effort. No, it's a process of balancing the energy, and usually that means

relaxing. So every time you relax, you release your tension from that hindrance, come back to mind and body, and you relax, you are balancing the energy automatically. That leads to joy and tranquility. Now, joy and tranquility are interconnected, interdependent. When the mind and body feel tranquil, it gives space for some kind of uplifted feeling of joy to come up, even if it's small. When the mind is joyful, the body is light and tranquil and comfortable. So that's why, when you relax in that moment, if you just look at it, you feel an expansion in your mind, you feel a spaciousness in your mind, and then naturally you smile, which brings up the joy factor.

This joy, so this joy will lead to tranquility, or this tranquility will lead to joy, one way or the other. Then that leads to collectedness. How does that collectedness arise? When you return back to your object of meditation. So what is this collectedness that we talk about? Samadhi. That's the name, that's the word, samadhi. Sama here means balanced, even, steady. Dhi means mind. It's a steady mind. It's mental composure. A mind that is collected. A related term to this is what's known as ekagata, and this has been traditionally translated as one-pointedness, and that denotes that one has to be absolutely focused on something. But if you look at the entire word, it's actually a compound word. Ekagata is actually chitta's ekagata, which means unification of mind. The mind is unified, the mind is magnetized, the mind is collected around the object of meditation.

It doesn't penetrate or become the object of meditation. It is fully aware of it and collected around it. It's like the object of meditation is a planet, right? And your attention is the satellite that orbits the planet. So the gravitational field of the object collects your attention around itself. If you give too much, if you push too much, what happens? The satellite gets too close to the Earth's gravitational field. And what does it do? It crashes. If you don't have enough attention, if your attention is too loose, and now what happens? The satellite starts to go out of orbit. So what do you have to do? You need to send someone to bring it back.

How do you do that? Six R's. Bring your attention back into orbit. So this is collectedness. It's not about trying to penetrate and become one with loving kindness, or become one with the radiating of whatever is going on. It's about being aware and having your attention unified, magnetized. It's just around it, just noticing it, and this naturally gives rise to equanimity. What is equanimity? Equanimity is being able to see things as they actually are without being affected one way or the other. In other words, if it's a pleasant experience, the mind doesn't say, oh, this is a pleasant experience, I want more of it. Or if it's an unpleasant experience, the mind doesn't say, oh, this is unpleasant, and tries to push it away.

It's just, oh, this is pleasant. This is unpleasant. I know what to do. Just let go. Let go of identifying with this. So when you 6R in that way, when you use right effort in that way, when you 4R in that way, whatever you want to do, you have equanimity ingrained into it. It is implied when you do it. If you don't try to fight with the hindrance, you don't try to bargain with the hindrance, you don't try to push away the hindrance. If you just notice, oh, here's a hindrance. What do you have there? You have mindfulness, you have investigation. When you let go of it, you have the balanced energy, you have relaxation, you have tranquility, you come back, you have collectedness.

You're doing all of that in an equanimous manner. So this collectedness naturally leads to equanimity. And this equanimity is just being able to see things as they actually are, without getting affected one way or the other. So when you think about the way equanimity functions, or the way it works, we'll talk about it more when we talk about the Brahmaviharas. But equanimity is, you think about a parent, especially the parent of their firstborn child, and their only child at that point in time. Let's say they're so invested in the growth of that child. They're very careful, they secure the house, they make sure that there's nothing around that can harm the child. Everything is childproof and so on. But by the time you have the second child and the third child, you're a little looser with all of that. But by the time you're a grandparent, the parent who's so invested in the child, but the grandparent, the grandparent could be taking the grandchild to the park, and they could leave them there.

They still have one eye, right? Their attention is still there, but they're talking with their friend. And if the child gets hurt, okay, no big deal, the child got hurt, they go and tend to the child. But for the parent it breaks their heart. For the grandparent, I've seen this before, it's okay. That's the same attitude of equanimity. I've seen it before, it's fine, no big deal. So remaining unaffected. Now, all of this happens not through intentionalizing. All of it, in a way that's like, I have to bring it up, I have to create it, I have to manufacture it. No, it happens automatically, in an organic way. The mindfulness leads to investigation or understanding, which leads to a balance in energy, which leads into joy and tranquility, which leads to collectedness, which leads to equanimity, and then that equanimity further strengthens the mindfulness. So there is a linear kind of dependency, but then there's also a circular dependency.

So every time you use right effort, you are balancing the awakening factors, and every time you balance the awakening factors, your mind gets back into the territory of jhana. You don't have to do anything else. You don't have to contrive the state. You just have to observe what's going on, allow the causes and conditions to do the work. It's like you're watching a movie. You sit back and you relax, you put in the right causes and conditions, and everything else will take care of itself. So if there's two things you need to do, just observe and let go. Observe what's going on and let go of the unwholesome, and come back to the wholesome. So observe in 6R. Observe in 6R. Any questions? Thank you.

So there can be times when you kind of get stuck in the unwholesome, and the unwholesome produces more unwholesome. And yeah, what do you do? I guess it's mindfulness to get out. That's right, just in the moment seeing that there's an unwholesome state. It stops the momentum, but you need equanimity, which is okay. It's unwholesome if your reaction or reactivity to the unwholesome is why did that unwholesome state arise, or you have aversion to it. It only further fuels it. And the other thing is not to necessarily look into the unwholesome and try to investigate how it happened. Rather, because all that does is start to fuel the unwholesome further. Your attention fuels it. So the mindfulness is important for you to stop the momentum, and then your ability to let go of it and come back. It might happen again. The unwholesome might immediately follow again, and that's okay, but the more you're able to see and let go, see and let go, the unwholesome starts to become less and less

Powerful. That's the nature of the hindrance. The hindrance is fed by the undue attention to it, in the form of trying to do something with it. But the moment you let go of it, it starts to weaken. So once it starts to weaken and you come back, it becomes less and less apparent, and eventually it does disappear. But the key is where do you put your attention? Do you put your attention further into the unwholesome, or do you put your attention in letting it go and returning back? That's the key. I have done various meditations, and I guess a lot of people know these meditations as well, which exist. Who says the metta meditation, maybe it's a doubt question, is for me.

I'm not doubting the practice, but I've heard this many times, like the Buddha knew exactly what person he had in front of him and he gave him a certain kind of meditation to do. There is something like up to 40 different subjects or objects of meditation, and the Buddha would kind of prescribe them as either a full-on object of meditation or as remedies, let's say, for a kind of mindset. For example, if somebody was of a speculative mindset, always thinking about this or that, he would recommend anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing, because it was just very standard. It wasn't interesting, so the mind started to center around it, started to collect itself around it.

If somebody had a more aversive mindset, then he would obviously recommend metta practice. Or if somebody had a lustful mindset, somebody was attached to the body, he would give them contemplation of the body, and so on and so forth. So here, when we're talking about the brahmaviharas, we have to understand that metta is just one part of it, and so the metta naturally leads to compassion. The loving kindness naturally leads to compassion, which naturally leads to empathetic joy, which naturally leads to equanimity. So it's not just a metta practice, although that is how we start initially. It's actually an evolution through these positive beneficial mental states.

which arguably i would say is what the world needs more of right so that is why it would be recommended that we do more brahma vihara practice however it's not like one is better than the other it's all dependent upon mindset just like any good acid trip it's all about set and setting what is the set what is the mindset and what is going on right but meta is pretty much universal i mean it's universally seen as something that can be felt

Because conjoined to the metta there can be piti or joy, conjoined to the metta there can be sukha or comfort of body, conjoined to the metta there can be tranquility, conjoined to the metta there can be equanimity, and so on and so forth. So this is why it is mentioned in this practice that you start off with metta. Some people can start off with compassion, some people can start off with equanimity, and that's fine. The other thing to see is that there's always people who will say, oh, this is the one that takes you all the way to nibbana, and it says that the metta doesn't lead you to nibbana, and this and that, and all that. Let me tell you right here, right now: no object leads you to nibbana. Nibbana is unconditioned. It will happen when all causes and conditions are let go.

Of now, yes, in the relative sense you could say that yes, some things are easier for the mind to let go, right? Some things are easier for the mind to use to let go, and so it's a quicker path in that sense, relatively speaking. Or that, in one sutta like the metta sutta or the metta sahagata sutta, it says this will take you here, this will take you here, and so on. But ultimately this is helping you refine the mind in such a way that you ultimately let go of all conditions. Every object that we take, whether it's anapanasati, whether it's recollection of the body, whether it's metta, whether it's karuna, whether it's equanimity, whether it's quiet mind, all of that is just a process of engaging that aspect of your mind, the thinking mind that feels like it needs to do

something, because that's the nature of the mind. It's capricious, it's always wanting to do something or another. But once you engage the mind like a little child, you say, hey, go do this, and you engage with it, what happens? It tires out, it's ready for a nap. The same way with any object you would use, the mind starts to become accustomed to it. Now it's letting go of that, it gets quieter, goes into the signless, let go, and experiences cessation. So ultimately you might want to see what might be better for you, what might be working for your state of mind, but I would say metta is in that sense harmless, and everybody can use metta for sure. So, a question about the relaxing step. Something I noticed is when there's a lot of tension, then relaxing doesn't get rid of all the tension at once, right?

But then I noticed that sometimes there's this mindset of just trying too hard to relax, and then it's the opposite of relaxing. So how do I deal with this in the best way? Where is the balance point? So I think what is required first and foremost is equanimity. So here is a painful tension. How does the mind feel about that tension?

First, you let go of any aversion to it, if you notice it. And then you allow the mind to relax and soften it. Now, it might happen in varying degrees. It might happen in steps. You might relax a little bit of that tension, but the tension arises again. So the first thing to understand is you don't want to use the relaxed step as a preventative

one, or, as Bhante would say, as a stick to try to relax before you need to relax. In other words, what happens is you create the tension that you need to relax in wanting to relax. But if you just see the tension, understand the tension is there, have no aversion to it, then you just intend to say, okay, I'm letting you go. You will notice that it starts to melt away, and it might not melt away fully, and that's okay. You come back to your object, and because your attention has not been given to it, the tension starts to

dissolve, and again it might arise again. So you go back and you see it, or your mind goes back to it and you see it. You have equanimity. You say, okay, this is tension, I'm letting you go, I'm letting go any aversion to it, and I'm letting you go, and you come back, and the tension will bit by bit start to subside. I remember I also talked about some kinds of energy or pressure in the head that can happen. Other people have talked about this too, and if that's there then that's there, that's okay, because it could be some kind of energetic release that's going on. So if you just let go of the aversion to it, that is more important than anything else.

Yes? Okay. Go ahead. You talked about various stages of the mind, and sometimes you don't really know what state of mind you're in, so you don't know whether it's joy or, you know, tranquility or whatever. And then even if you are, then all of a sudden you kind of go back to square one. So is it like, is it meant to happen, go back to ground zero and start again, or is it supposed to last for so long? So first and foremost

Nothing is supposed to last for a certain period of time. It's all dependent upon what causes and conditions are there. And it's not like you start from square one. Doesn't mean you start from ground zero. All it means is your mind's attention goes back to it, and it starts to come up again, and it just stays there. So it will start to level up to wherever it was, and as your attention continues to become more refined and more stable, then that joy might actually start to change into further tranquility, or it might change into equanimity. So oftentimes what will happen is people will say, oh, I had joy but it faded away. But then I ask them what was there in its place. Oh, the mind was calm, the mind was okay. It's a good space to be. It's a better space to be in than joy. Like I said the other day, joy is overrated. The mind keeps looking for joy because it's dopamine hungry, that's all.

But more long lasting than that is tranquility and equanimity. So if you notice that, okay, there's joy, what does joy feel like? It doesn't need to be very vibrant. It doesn't need to be like this exhilarating experience, even if it's a small uplifted feeling that is a factor of joy. Sometimes people don't even have an emotive quality to the joy. Sometimes they have a more physical quality, in the form of heat in the body, in the form of elation in the body, something like that going on. You might feel goosebumps or something like that. And then when you talk about relaxation or tranquility, there is a spacious quality to it that you experience. There's a certain level of, a sigh of relief

that relief that you feel. It's like I spoke about this a little earlier in the UK retreat. It's like if you've ever experienced a hot tub and you get into the hot tub and you're just, it's that relief that you experience. Or, more mundane than that, it's like you have your food ready, everything is ready to go. You have your food, you have your water or your drink or whatever, and you sit down to eat, and you have the perfect show already ready to watch on Netflix, instead of trying to figure out the best show that you have to watch, right? Everything is all ready and you can just relax and enjoy it.

That's the relief that you would feel. So you can see the experience in the mind maybe a little closer, and it might not be as big as that, but there's a sense of the mind expanding a little bit more. That's the way to look at it. Now, when you come out of those states because your mind gets distracted and you use the right effort to let go and you come back, it's not like you start over again. Your mind will sort of gradually, or even quickly, come back to that state. So that's why I say you're radiating in the six directions, and you're radiating in the first direction, in the second direction, in the third direction.

If you notice your mind gets distracted, it doesn't mean you need to go back to radiating in the first direction. You just go back to wherever it is you left off, and it will continue from there. So you're always making progress, even if it doesn't feel like it, because the way you know you're making progress is how your mind reacts in daily life. Are you more relaxed? Are you willing to let go of things more? Are you seeing things as they are? Are you not taking things personally? The more you do this, the more you are making progress.

Yeah. So you said in the first jhana there is a liberation, absence from all hindrances. So that's otherwise the way when I know I attain it, kind of. And my question is, is it in your experience in all states of living, not only in the meditation, but in the whole life, at the different aspects of life? It can happen. Is it kind of a plateau? Plateau, in a sense? A mark where everything changes, you know?

The experience of the cessation of hindrances gives rise to the first jhana. Now, that can be experienced in meditation or it can be experienced as a living reality for somebody who has a certain level of clarity. So for example, when you're walking around you can be in jhana. This is what's known in the suttas as celestial

walking. When you reach a certain state of mind or certain state of awakening, you are in that sense always in jhana, because you've let go of any kind of craving. You've let go of any kind of aversion. You've let go of any kind of restlessness. You've let go of any sloth and torpor. You've let go of doubt. So if you let go, for example, of any kind of sensual craving and aversion, and you've let go of any kind of doubt, then you are an anagami. So for the anagami, the lived experience of an anagami is somebody who doesn't have those states of mind present. And if you let go of the other two, then you're an arahant. You no longer have any kind of restlessness or any kind of sloth and torpor. So it's not like you reach a plateau in the sense, like, oh, nothing comes beyond that. But it becomes a lived reality where you don't have to constantly think about letting go. It goes away completely.

Yes, I have a question according to the connection between kindness and physiologic things, because kindness is connected with relaxing the eyes and having eye contact, smiling and relaxing the muscles. If I go out like this in the world out there, I make myself a victim to everybody who wants to abuse me. So if I say stop in a friendly way, a lot of people will not accept it.

So caring for my respect, I have to fight or flight, and in both cases I have to cut eye contact, stop smiling and tense up. So how will I survive out there as a loving kindness blonde woman? Thank you for that advice. Yeah, loving kindness doesn't mean that you become a doormat. It doesn't mean that you let people walk all over

you. Loving kindness is first and foremost to yourself. So if somebody is not being loving and kind to you, you don't need to accept that, but you have to be loving and kind to yourself. That can just mean being a friend to yourself, you know, being okay with the things as they are in your own mind. But there are situations that you will get yourself into where there is conflict, or there can be conflict, and there you use certain sensible things like we'll talk about in the Eightfold Path: right speech and right behavior. Right speech and right behavior is not about some aspect of morality or anything like that. It's about using speech that doesn't escalate situations and using action and behavior that doesn't escalate situations. Rather, it's about letting go of trying to fix the solution or trying to bring up some kind of identification with the process. It's more about resolving it instead of escalating it. And sometimes it's required that you have to be

stern. You have to be able to resolve conflict in a way that says, hey, I'm setting my boundaries. You setting your boundaries is not in a state of conflict. You setting your boundaries is being loving and kind to yourself, in that sense. So it's not like you always have to be that way, in the sense of always, you know, not looking at people or being stern at them. Rather, you can have an open nature, open enough to be welcoming and friendly.

And if somebody is not being friendly to you, that doesn't mean that you have to reciprocate by being unfriendly to them. But you can stop doing whatever it is you're doing and go away. There was a story that Bhante gave. I'm not sure who was involved in it, but maybe Venerable Bhasa might remember the story. It was, I think, Sharon Salzberg who was in, like, a rickshaw or something, an auto rickshaw somewhere in India or somewhere, and she was kind of upset because somebody was trying to grab her. I don't know if it was Sharon Salzberg or somebody else. Anyway, she said this to her teacher, that this is what happened, and she was trying to love, radiate loving kindness to them, and nothing happened, and it was really bad. And she had an umbrella in her hand, so the teacher said, why didn't you use the umbrella with loving unkindness?

So I think the story goes somewhere, something like that. Anyway, so the idea is you have to be discerning about these things. You can't be always, you know, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. You have to have some level of discernment. This person might, you have to, your intuition, you might not feel good about this person, so don't engage with them. But at the same time, don't have to be in conflict with them, because it might just make matters worse. The best is to kind of just try to de-escalate and leave.

Yeah. You said before, Nibbana is unconditioned, and when cessation happens, or when all cessation happens, what does this mean for a practitioner? Like, for example, does it mean that Nibbana just happens and you don't know when and why? Or does it mean, yeah, somebody can practice for a long time and suddenly it happens? Like, what does it mean? Yeah. Nibbana has different kinds of words for it. One of them is the unconditioned. I like to use the word unconditioned because it denotes the cessation of all conditions for it to happen. And what I always say to people is, Nibbana happens when you least expect it. And when the mind has let go of all conditions that are hindrances and attachment to all states of mind.

And it is mentioned in the suttas as well, that Nibbana can happen from the first jhana onwards. It's not like you need to go through all of the jhanas and experience cessation. It can happen from the first jhana onwards. It's the conjoining of Samatha and Vipassana, which means Samatha is the mind that is collected, the mind that is having Samadhi. And Vipassana is the mind that is able to see what it's doing or what is happening. So in other words, using wisdom. So TWIM is essentially that. Tranquil, which is the Samatha. Wisdom insight, which is knowing how the mind moves, is the Vipassana. So Samatha Vipassana, through that, then the mind experiences cessation and can experience Nibbana or touches Nibbana. So does that mean you need a long time of practice to do that well? It depends on your definition of long.

But it can happen in as little as seven days, or in as little as three days, or in as little as two days. It just depends upon how much you continue to let go in your mind. That's all. Yeah. Sorry, more questions. Like in terms of cessation, like my friend was talking about, if you attain that kind of stage, does the person ever, while they're eating, think about something else? Yes, of course. Oh, okay. Of course. That's good. I was just asking, if somebody has come into a state of cessation or Nibbana, that person can slightly get distracted, like if they are eating they can think of something else. Does that happen? Yes, it can happen. Because you experience cessation for a brief moment, and you touch Nibbana for a brief moment.

What does Nibbana actually mean? It's the cessation of all fires of greed, hatred and delusion. And that might happen just for a moment. And that can happen where if somebody experiences that, then they have a certain level of awakening, and then they have another level of awakening. And then when they are fully awakened, then when they're eating, they're just eating. Until that happens, you can get distracted and that's okay. So it's not like the one time you experience Nibbana, it's like the end-all, be-all. It can happen that it will take time. It might mean successive dips into Nibbana before that becomes a full embodied experience of someone like an arahant. Until that happens, then, yeah, while you're eating, you might be thinking about your dog or whatever it is, yeah.

Anyone else? Oh, after him. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, it's fine. You mentioned mundane and super mundane Dhamma. Yeah. And what I heard from monastics: one, the super mundane is for the noble ones, which is basically if you are ready for it; and this, the mundane Dhamma, is like the religion of Buddhism for the masses, so to say. Or at least in my understanding. Would you say that is correct, or could you say something to that, maybe? So it depends on the context and the usage of that word, because when you talk about the Noble Eightfold Path, there is the mundane path and the super mundane path. The mundane path is for everyone who is walking the path and on the way to becoming a noble one. When they do become a noble one, then they experience the super mundane aspect of the path, like super mundane right view, super mundane right intention, and so on. Then when we talk about mundane and super mundane in terms of experience, it could be everything that you're doing through the five physical sense bases as mundane. And then when you're experiencing jhana and these

elevated states of mind as super mundane, then there's also what is known as mundane Nibbana and super mundane Nibbana. So that mundane Nibbana is: you experience every time you let go, in that moment your mind makes contact with Nibbana just for a split moment, and you experience that spaciousness of mind. That's the mundane kind of Nibbana. The super mundane kind of Nibbana can be the state of mind that you experience when you let go of all conditions and you dip into the Nibbana element. And another kind of super mundane Nibbana is the mind that is free from all greed, hatred and delusion.

So that's the fully awakened person, that's the way you can understand it. Thank you. Regarding what you said about contemplating reality, as the Buddha gave us a practice with the corpses, would you say I did something similar, not with corpses, long before I stumbled upon Buddhism and all this? So basically my practice was contemplating reality, and I did it by myself without any knowledge. And after that, I thought, okay, everything is wrong because it's mind-made. I stumbled upon the saying, okay, the mind tricks you and so on. This is not reality and so on. But since I know your teaching and the suttas and the Buddha's teaching, I think there is maybe something to what I contemplated.

And I was wondering, if contemplating in nature, about nature and reality, is this something that brings me closer to the path of the Buddha? Yes, of course. I'll tell you, Bhante Vimalaramsi, for example, one thing he would do is look into the nature of emptiness, shunyata, which is the emptiness of self in relation to all experience. So the question would be in his mind, who is the one who is walking? Who is the one who is eating? Who is the one who is thinking this? And then as the mind contemplates this, it starts to get into emptiness. It starts to see anatta. Yes, to a certain extent, contemplation can help, but it shouldn't go into the territory of mental proliferation, which means analysis and trying to figure out things.

Just contemplate and let the mind do its job, let the intuition work in seeing it for itself. This maybe leads to my next question, because what you just said, contemplating on the emptiness of things. For maybe a year I tried this Atma Vichara practice, self-inquiry, and I didn't have a teacher at the time, and there was a lot of confusion, and it brought me to a different worldview after that.

It was amazing, but on the other hand there was a lot of misunderstanding, which then led to suffering. And since I heard you say in a talk that you also did that practice, could you maybe say something about that? Regarding these two paths, they are called, I think, the direct path and the progressive path. So that's regarding, sorry, regarding TWIM, maybe. So all I will say about that is self-inquiry will only get you so far, because it will let you have a taste of the experience of the emptiness of reality, for example, but for it to become a lived reality, it requires consistent effort into plunging into that, and that can be through the process of meditation and through the process of touching those states through consistent practice. When you say direct and indirect, or direct and progressive path, I'm not sure what you mean by that. I think what is meant is, like, for example, having a meditation practice, and the other way is just realizing the self. See, the thing is, that's still happening in the realm of thought, and thought is always conditioned.

So it will help you at a certain level to kind of get a taste, as I said, a preview of it. But for you to make it an actual experience, or maybe because Nibbana is not an experience, or not an experience, but for you to actually have the consolidation and the verification of that experience by touching reality for yourself, you'll require a process of deepening the mind towards cessation so one is more surface level let's say because it's in the realm of thought and the other is looking at it in progressive stages until all thought ceases completely and then you see for yourself the nature of thought

So one is using conditions to come to that, but it's not something that is, uh, that is permanent, let's say, and the other is letting go of all conditions and coming to something that's more permanent, something that is more stable. Thank you for your time. One last quick question: you mentioned cause and condition will do the thing. Would you say that in a normal life, in like normal Western society, is it even possible in a stressful life to have this kind of conditions if you're not really forcing yourself also to restrain from sensuality and stuff like that? Next to impossible. Not impossible, just one degree removed from impossible. Okay. The reason is because there's, it was even difficult during the time of the Buddha, but much easier during the time of the Buddha, for one, because there was a Buddha, let's say, and second, that the Dhamma was much clearer then, because you had the Buddha to expound on it and you had more awakened people to elaborate and elucidate it, but the other is there

was less impact on the senses here when we have this globalized society where everybody's kind of, you know, on their smartphone or tablet, or there's so much media out there. Nothing wrong with the media. It's just that there's so much impact going on in the sense bases that the attention is going in all kinds of directions, so it's much more difficult for the mind to collect the attention towards an object and start to experience meditation. And, bluntly speaking, we live in a society that is motivated by the satisfaction of desires, essentially. We're motivated by money, we're motivated by goals that are related to the satisfaction of our sensual desires.

Everything we see around us is for that, every comfort that we have, and so on and so forth. Again, nothing wrong with being comfortable and so on. But if you're motivated by that, then what happens is that the mind automatically identifies with that as being the end game. But if you're able to start to engage in a different reality where you're seeing the other world, where there's a greater pleasure, a higher pleasure than just sensual pleasure, that is more prominent in a place where you can be secluded, like in the forest or in a cave or here, for the most part. Okay, thank you.

I have a very practical question, or maybe a stupid question. I want to know how important it is that during a retreat the sitting period becomes longer every day. Is it a goal, or will it happen if it happens? It happens, it will happen naturally, but it will also happen, or what can happen is at the interviews I may recommend that you sit for a little longer, maybe 15 minutes longer, or try to sit, if you're sitting for two hours, try to sit for two and a half hours, so you build your sitting muscles as well as your meditation muscles every day, bit by bit, bit by bit. And the reason is because as you sit longer, other experiences will start to happen for you. The mind will have more time to get deeper and start to let go on deeper levels, and that requires that time for it to get there.

So it will happen gradually, but in steps that you have to intend towards. Anyone else? Okay? May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.