Oct 18 2020 - MN147 - The Shorter Discourse of Advice to Rahula - The Process of Un-Being

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. I will start reading Majjhima Nikaya 147, the Shorter Discourse of Advice to Rahula. The particular translation that I am using is Bhikkhu Bodhi's. Thus have I heard, on one occasion the Blessed One was living at Savati in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's Park. Then, while the Blessed One was alone in meditation, a thought arose in his mind thus: The states that ripen in deliverance have ripened in Rahula.

Suppose I were to lead him on further to the destruction of the taints. Then, when it was morning, the Blessed One dressed, and taking his bowl and outer robe, went into Savati for alms. When he had walked for alms in Savati and had returned from his alms round, after his meal, he addressed the Venerable Rahula thus: Take your sitting cloth with you, Rahula. Let us go to the blind man's grove to pass the day.

Yes, Venerable Sir, the Venerable Rahula replied, and taking his sitting cloth with him, he followed close behind the Blessed One. Now, on that occasion, many thousands of deities followed the Blessed One, thinking: today the Blessed One will lead the Venerable Rahula further to the destruction of the taints. Then the Blessed One went into the blind man's grove and sat down at the root of a certain tree on a seat made ready.

he becomes disenchanted with the ear he becomes disenchanted with the nose he becomes disenchanted with the tongue he becomes disenchanted with the body he becomes disenchanted with the mind disenchanted with the mind objects disenchanted with mind consciousness disenchanted with mind contact and disenchanted with anything comprised within the feeling perception formations and consciousness that arise with mind contact as condition. Being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, his mind is liberated. When it is liberated, there comes the knowledge it is liberated. He understands birth is destroyed. The holy life has been lived. what had to be done has been done there is no more becoming to any there is no more coming to any state of being this is what the blessed one said the venerable rahula was satisfied and delighted in the blessed one's words now while this discourse was being spoken through not clinging the venerable rahula's mind was liberated from the taints and in those many thousands of deities.

There arose the spotless immaculate vision of the Dhamma: All that is subject to arising is subject to cessation. So, obviously, what I read was an abbreviated form of the sutra, but what one needs to understand is that the Buddha is taking into account each of these six sense bases: the eye, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the skin and the mind. And as he takes each of these six sense bases, he's also taking into account the external elements of those bases. In other words, the eye and the visual forms, the ear and the auditory signals, the nose and the odors and fragrances

the tongue and the tastes, the skin and the sense of touch or tangibles, the mind and mental objects, in this case thoughts. So from each of these he then further divides them up into the five aggregates that are connected with each of these six sense bases. So he's taking into account the contact which arises from each of the six sense bases, the feeling, the perception, the formations and the consciousness, and as he does this he then inquires with Rahula, Are these arising and passing away of these five aggregates in relation to contact with each and any of the six sense bases

impermanent or permanent? And Rahula, with wisdom and understanding which he has gained through collectedness, is able to understand that it is impermanent and therefore suffering and therefore not worth holding on to and therefore not considered to be a sense of self or personal sense of self. Now, going back a little bit, if you look at this particular sutra you can consider it to be the last part of a trilogy of suttas related to Rahula. The very first sutra in the Majjhima Nikaya is related in relation to Rahula, and the Buddha's advice to him is in relation to false speech

and by broader context in relation to keeping one's precepts. He explains to Rahula the importance of keeping such precepts and therefore developing and cultivating morality and ethics, or sila. Once you do this, the mind then gradually and naturally inclines towards a state of clarity, towards a state of balance, and it is with this mind that there is a foundation for samadhi, for collectedness. And therefore in the second part of this so-called trilogy, as I put it, and there Rahula is advised by First Sariputta to develop the samadhi of anapanasati, to understand the breath, to use the breath as a vehicle for meditation, to be able to cultivate that collectedness in one's mind.

And then Rahula goes to the Buddha to inquire about how to develop the breath meditation. However, before the Buddha talks about the breath meditation, about seeing the breath, breathing in and tranquilizing the formations and so on and such, the Buddha first prescribes to Rahula the foulness of the body meditation because there was in Rahula an attachment to the body.

There was in Rahula a sense of self that he attached to the elements of the body. But when the Buddha first prescribed to Rahula the foulness of the body, to look at the body and divide it up into different elements, such as the four great elements, and then going even further down into the coarse elements or coarse aspects of the body, from the skin, from the head to the toe, to the organs of the body, to the nerves of the body, and so on and so forth. In doing this, Rahula starts to detach from that delusion of attaching a sense of self to the body.

And once he understands that there is no permanent self in the body, he starts to become more collected in his mind and therefore builds a further foundation to develop that samadhi. And it's only then that he learns the breath meditation, or the tranquilizing of formations using the breath as the object or vehicle of meditation. In this third part, the Buddha, deciphering Rahula's mind, understands that Rahula has reached a certain point in his meditation practice.

Primarily, he has at the very least reached infinite consciousness. And this can be said because the Buddha thus then inquires into the nature of the sixth sense bases, internal and external, and the five aggregates that are connected with it. And this wisdom, this insight, only arises when you reach the level, at the very least, of infinite consciousness.

And this is because at the level of infinite consciousness, in the realm of infinite consciousness, the mind has already developed such that it has gone through each of the four form jhanas, through the first, second, third and fourth jhana, and now entered upon the fifth jhana, or the realm of infinite space. And then, as it does this, it starts to expand the awareness of space. Eventually, as that expansion of awareness of space continues, at a certain point there is a different kind of experience that arises. Now this depends upon the formations in a person's mind that are either large in numbers or are strengthened in their ability to come forward through intention and then be experienced through one of the sixth sense bases. This means that if the formations related to the eye and eye contact are stronger, one will start to experience infinite consciousnesses of the eye, or in other words will start to experience something like flickers in one's field of vision or see a ring of light in the periphery of one's vision within the meditation, which starts to arise and then dissipate.

Or in the case of one whose formations related to ear contact is stronger, they will experience certain flickers, auditory flickers. They might hear different kinds of beats and flickering sounds, and when this happens they are experiencing the arising and passing away of each ear consciousness and sound consciousness. Sometimes it may happen that a being may experience it through the other senses. They may experience it through certain odors and fragrances that suddenly arise, they may experience it through certain tastes that might arise on the tongue, or certain jolts of electricity, or different sensations on the skin, or they might just start to see that their thoughts that might have been there in the background are starting to recede even further, and there is a spaciousness between one thought and the other. In any of these experiences, what is happening is that the being is seeing into the nature of consciousness itself.

that is rooted in sensory experiences, and when one sees this, one is face to face with the three factors, or the three symptoms of reality, the three marks of existence, the three characteristics. First and foremost, one sees that each of the flickering, each of the arising and passing away of these separate consciousnesses, is one iota of consciousness.

There cannot be an eternal consciousness in that sense. And since it's arising and passing away, consciousness is therefore impermanent in any of these sixth sense spaces and experiences. Then one experiences the understanding and seeing that it gets tiresome to continue to see this arising and passing away. This is on the micro level of the mind, but this can also be expanded and translated on the macro level of rebirth, in the case of kamma and formations that take those kamma into a different mentality materiality at the passing away of one body or mentality materiality

and the birth of another, and you see that this is the nature of samsara itself: that there is a constant and continuous arising and passing away, a continuous flux. And therefore you cannot consider it to be a permanent consciousness, a permanent sense of self, and it is dependent upon various factors, causes, and conditions, and therefore it is not an independent sense of self. And because it gets tiresome, eventually one sees that there is only suffering in taking what is impermanent as permanent, in taking what is not self as self, in taking what is suffering as long-lasting happiness.

Now, going back to the sutta: once Rahula has understood this at the level of the fifth and then sixth jhana, he then comes to a point where his mind is ripe to destroy the taints, or the defilements, or the projections. And these projections are the projection of sensual craving, it's the projection of being, the craving for existence, and the projection of or of ignorance, of not knowing the four noble truths or understanding them. So finally the Buddha translates this into the five aggregates and the clinging aspect of the five aggregates. Let's understand what these five aggregates are, really.

Up until this point, up into this moment, everything that has led to this moment, in terms of where you are, so to speak, within the body, where you are, so to speak, within your sensations or feelings, and how you perceive objects and things and situations, and the formations that are rooted in and arisen from those perceptions, and the consciousnesses that arise and pass away rooted in those experiences, are all built up.

They are built up through the flow of the links of dependent origination. So in every second, in every moment, you have a countless number of the links of dependent origination arising and passing away. But as the arising and passing away occurs, what is being built up is, in some sense, a repository of certain experiences, and those experiences are then translated into the clinging aspect of the five aggregates.

And then what happens is all the memories, all of the experiences, whether good or bad, all of the inclinations, all of the desires, all of the associations, are nothing but accumulated tendencies. That is happening through the accumulation of tendencies. In other words, as one starts to crave whatever is being experienced, as one starts to attach a personalized sense of self to the experience that is occurring, whether it is the mind that says, I want it, or I don't want it, and wants none of it and therefore suffers, and then attaches and clings to a sense of self through the link of clinging, which is then the accumulation of certain tendencies, which then becomes the accumulated tendencies, which is the being or the becoming, or the bhava in Pali. And this being and becoming that occur in that link are the accumulated tendencies that then further solidify into the clinging aspect and the identification aspect of each of the five aggregates. And therefore that's why it is said

that, in essence, in short, when the first noble truth is explained and expanded, in the very end it is said, in short, the five clinging aggregates are suffering. That is because the accumulation of these tendencies, of these associations, of these concepts, of these ideas, of these thoughts, and of these reactions and responses, are what then solidify into what we then, in some sense, inherit through the clinging and through the craving, which then becomes the clinging aspect of the five aggregates.

So this body of ours, which is the form aggregate, is continuously changing on the microscopic level, on the subatomic level. There is always change occurring in our cellular structure. The body goes through different processes that are related to aging, that are related to sickness, that are related to recovery, that are related to stresses, that are related to different causes and conditions outside of itself.

And this is the natural part of existence, the fact that the form itself is impermanent. But what happens is that the clinging aspect is what makes us crave for more, or crave for less, or attach a sense of self to this form, to this body. Likewise, the sensations that we experience continue to evolve and change and transform and go through different processes of change.

We experience certain things one way in one moment, and then we can experience that same thing in another way in a different moment. And this is because of the way we perceive things. This is exemplified by the fact that certain memories that we have of certain individuals in our lives: if we are rooted in perceptions that are unwholesome, we start to think in negative patterns that are associated with that individual.

But as soon as we start to cultivate wholesome qualities of mind, our perception shifts, and then we experience and feel different things about that person, and it could also be about the situation, about the place, and about the sensations that are arising. And that, of course, leads into perception itself, which arises from memory and learning. Perception is the recognition aspect of the mind, and this is continuously changing. As information evolves, as the mind's knowledge and information grows, so do the perceptions change, based on the relevant information.

For example, a very simple example. When the mind perceives a certain color, let's say as a child, you see the color blue, but you don't know what color it is or what to call it. You can see and cognize that color, but it is only upon learning that that color is called blue that you then have that stored in memory for later, from which the perception aspect of the five aggregates is then able to recognize that, yes, this is the color blue, which is rooted in the memory, which happens further down the line, deeper down in the mind, through formations.

Formations are conditioned by ignorance in the case of a mind in which the links of dependent origination continue to flow without wisdom. But whether one is experiencing full wisdom or not, in both cases, formations also are triggered by contact of one of the sixth sense bases. Taking the example of recognizing the color blue: when we first learn that that is the color blue, that then creates a formation, a mental formation, that then activates the perception or recognition aspect, that, yes, that is the color blue.

And then the consciousness, as we earlier discussed, is rooted through the mentality materiality and the sixth sense basis, and is experienced through feeling. It's conjoined with feeling and perception, and it's the cognition aspect, which is tied to one or more of the sensory experiences. This kind of consciousness is not eternal. In fact, it is known as vinnana in Pali, which means the dividing knowledge, the discriminative knowledge, which means such a consciousness is always divided up between the experiences of the senses, and which then therefore cognizes the different experiences, and through that one is able to perceive, one is able to understand what is arising and what is occurring.

But each sensory experience, each quanta or iota of sensory experience, is equal to one quanta or iota of a sensory consciousness. There is the idea of the consciousness that is not established in the mentality and materiality. It is the consciousness that is void of conceptualization and void of mental proliferation. However, such a consciousness is not eternal either.

It arises when one sees through, with wisdom, the links of dependent origination and understands the three characteristics, and therefore completely lets go of all concepts of name and form, all concepts related to name and form. And then such a consciousness is the cognizing, in some sense, of having entered into Nibbana, or having entered out of, let's say, Nirodha, and experiencing that awakening. That is the consciousness that is unrooted from the mentality and materiality.

It is the pure awareness or pure consciousness of the arising of the links of dependent origination without any involvement, without any sense of self, without any personalizing, void of any craving. But as soon as that is experienced, it then dissipates like any other kind of consciousness. It is not eternal. This is very important to understand, to root out any misconceptions and misguidances the mind might have about a permanent, pure, overarching, all-encompassing consciousness that is a soul. That is not what it is. It is a consciousness that is unrooted from mentality materiality. And it is the awareness of the arising of links of dependent origination without any involvement, which leads into the contact with the Nibbana element, which leads into a contact that is pure and void of any personalization, of any craving.

So what we need to understand and see here is that everything that arises is to be taken as impermanent. Because by the very nature of it arising through causes and conditions, by the very nature of it occurring, it will pass away, because as soon as you take away those causes and conditions, it will fall apart, whatever it might be. And this is what the five aggregates are.

They are built up through the flow of the links of dependent origination. They are built up through craving, and that clinging aspect is the desire and lust or aversion that gets rooted in the experience, from, or arising out of, or related to in any way, any or each or all of the five aggregates. So Nibbana, in that sense, is the deconditioning of this. It's the detachment of having attached a sense of self. It's the uninvolvement of whatever is arising, and tending the mind, inclining the mind towards the cessation aspect of reality.

Because that is the third noble truth. The cessation of craving is the cessation of suffering. This is experienced through the nirodha samapatti, through the cessation of perception and feeling. But it is also experienced in every moment if one reflects and understands, through the experience of the fifth jhana, and therefore lets go and doesn't grasp, and enters into nothingness, and then further understands that the perception of that nothingness in the meditation is another factor, is another obstruction that needs to be let go of, in looking at it through wisdom; that such a perception of nothingness in the realm of nothingness in the seventh jhana

is rooted in an idea and concept of nothingness that emerges from the mind and is fabricated through the formations of the mind. When you see this, you start to lose disinterest in that nothingness. You start to become disenchanted with that level of nothingness. And then you are dispassionate. And then you start to see through this nothingness. And the mind sinks even deeper into neither perception nor non-perception.

And in such a level of meditation, in such a level of understanding, there is the disenchantment with perception itself. There is the disenchantment with all formations that are arising. One is aware of what is happening, but it is like a lucid deep sleep, as has always been explained in many different ways. It's therefore neither perception nor non-perception.

It's the loosening of the attachment to perception. And in this process, there will be very subtle formations that will start to arise. But once again, you have to continue to stay with your vehicle of meditation, which in the eighth jhana becomes the tranquil mind. But the way to do it is to not identify with that tranquil mind, not to attach a personal sense of self to that tranquil mind, and to understand that that tranquil mind actually emerged from a series of causes and conditions through the preceding jhanas, as one was able to get deeper and deeper, and therefore then to relax the mind to such a level that very subtle formations arise, few and far in between.

So it's important to disidentify and detach the sense of self from that tranquil mind. Let go of any concepts that might arise from that tranquil mind. And by letting go, and letting go of the subtlest formations, you come to an even deeper stillness, which in some suttas is known as the signless samadhi, the signless collectedness, where not paying attention to any formations, not paying attention to any fabrications that can lead to conditioned states.

One is in a state where there are no formations that are attended to with the mind. It's a deeper level of stillness that occurs at the border point of the eighth jhana and the cessation of perception and feeling. And this signless collectedness also needs to be let go of. It's the very subtlest formations that are related to it that need to be let go of, because that too is produced by consciousness, that too is produced by formations, when you see through it with wisdom in the meditation and let go of that, and continue to let go of any expectations of Nibbana, until at a certain point that stillness drops even further. And since there are no more causes and conditions for feeling, perception and consciousness to arise in that state, there is the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness.

And then there is a blank, and you know there was a blank only when you emerge out of it. And when you emerge out of it, there is the seeing of the links of dependent origination, and by detaching from the personalizing of those links, you are experiencing the nibbana element at the level of contact. But it will take time to root out, because then there is a certain level of personalizing with the relief that might arise, and by doing that there is a craving for wanting to experience it yet again.

That is why the projections, or the defilements, or the taints, are still present until you come to the point of arahatship, where you see that even identifying with the relief that arises from that nibbana experience needs to be let go of, or is not even attended to, and is disidentified with. By doing that, you then destroy the taint of sensual craving, because there's no more craving attached to it, and there's no more grasping attached to it. Because you disidentify with it, you also destroy the defilement of the taint of being; there is no more becoming there. It is the destruction of becoming. It's the destruction of the accumulation of tendencies through craving.

And therefore there is also the knowledge and the right vision, the effective vision, the right view that emerges, which is the knowledge of the four noble truths. You have understood them, you have cultivated them, you have developed them, and you have realized them, and therefore you destroy ignorance. Once you destroy ignorance, right view or effective vision is what replaces ignorance in the links of dependent origination.

And in such a being of a released mind, what is then arising is just pure old kamma that was produced prior to full awakening, and it is this kamma then that activates, through the level of contact, the formations, which then activate a consciousness which establishes itself through mentality-materiality, and which is then experienced to the sixth sense basis. That is the feeling or sensation aspect of the links of dependent origination, as well as the five aggregates. But the difference here is, as soon as it is felt, it is let go of. It is not even attached to for it to be let go of, because one has seen through with wisdom that anything that arises is impermanent, and anything that is impermanent

is suffering. And anything that is impermanent and suffering cannot be considered to be me, mine or myself, or I, or to be considered to be a sense of personal, permanent, unchanging, independent self. And therefore, at that level of feeling, with such a wise perception, craving is impossible to arise. It's impossible for craving to arise. And therefore, whatever kamma is arising through that process is then terminated at the level of feeling. This is how it is understood through the deep levels of meditation and insight into the three characteristics of reality, the three characteristics or marks of existence. And when it is understood in this way, at the level of feeling, at the level of the sixth sense basis, in conjunction with the five aggregates, the clinging aspect is destroyed. One no longer grasps onto anything, and by not grasping, as the Buddha says, the mind is liberated, and there is the knowledge of that liberation, and the knowledge of the destruction of the taints, and one has therefore attained final liberation.

Any questions? Yes, can you hear me? Yes. You mentioned the signless samadhi, but the Buddha didn't mention that very often, did he? No, not very often, no. This usually arises when you start to let go of any kinds of formations that arise in the eighth jhana, and it's primarily able to be accessed when you have one experience of nibbana. In other words, you start to develop the mind to where you have had a cessation experience, and you're able to better recognize that state that lies between the eighth jhana and the cessation of perception and feeling. Okay, thank you very much.

i have one question yes um it's uh uh regarding you know like when we listen to the dharma talk and uh reading the sutra we kind of like trying to understand this nothing is really permanent all the you know um in in consciousness level like is everything is appearing disappearing right and but how would we really know this is not the perceptions that are fooling us or this is the right wisdom that arrived to it you know like some of the dharma um because of through the meditations

Yes, I can reconcile it, but at one point I wanted to know what I'm knowing right now is through my wisdom, not because of reading or listening to Dhamma talks. So the thing about it is, when it comes to perception, anything that arises can be wisdom or wrong view through perception. In other words, when you have this knowledge, this first-hand experience of impermanence, it arises through perception. So if you perceive it, there's no way you cannot perceive it. So there's nothing wrong with, say, reconciling perception in that regard. What you have to see also is that the perception of that impermanence is also impermanent.

The perception of that suffering is also suffering, and the perception of that not self is also not self. So you're using, in that case, the Buddha's metaphor of the raft to get to the other shore. You're using the five aggregates. You're using these processes to get to the point that you let go of them. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So coming to the other part of that also is that, yes, we read about these things, and it kind of creates an idea in our mind, the concept of impermanence and the concept of emptiness and the concept of not self, and so on and so forth

but the real experience happens only in deeper levels of reflection, which can happen through the jhana practice, through the meditation practice. But if you have even just a deeper layer of mind while just sitting down and reflecting on the Dhamma, with perception that is rooted in right view or that is essentially open to the Dhamma, this is why you have, in cases of sotapannas, who upon listening to the Dhamma with wise perception, with wise reflection, are able to let go and see, in the arising of the next arising of the links of dependent origination, how this is an impermanent and impersonal process.

And therefore they let go of that sense of self, and they understand, and then of course the first three fetters for them are destroyed. So it always happens when you let go of concepts, and these concepts are let go of when you come to deeper levels of jhanas. So that's important to also understand: when you're in the deeper levels of meditation and you're experiencing these things, yes, in the beginning it will be like, oh wow, look at that, oh wow, look at this, and then you start to attach a sense of self to it. But then you have to pull back. You don't want to push, and you don't want to expect the same things again through that practice, through that experience. You have to just allow the mind to unfold and unravel. It's like a waiting game; you just continue to wait for that mind to unravel, and in the seeing of it you will understand. So it's not a matter of projecting what you have read onto the experience; it's allowing the experience to verify what you have read. Okay. Okay, thank you.

Delson? Yes. When Buddha is continuously talking about how to uproot yourself from the world and cut out the connections with even the five senses, six senses, how does a lay person continue to live in the world when you're constantly trying to uproot yourself? That's the thing. You look at it from the perspective of the four levels of awakening. If someone has understood the three symptoms of reality, or the three characteristics of existence, of this impermanence, of this suffering and of this not self, they start to detach very slowly, bit by bit, any sense of personal self to it. That's only the first level. That's only the first layer. And then the other aspect is that there will still be craving, there will still be aversion, there will still be the higher fetters of taking something personal, of restlessness, of sloth and torpor, and ignorance, and so on. So it's at the level of sakadagami, where you start to, it's the second level, where you start to deteriorate any sense of craving. It's very much minimized.

It's very minimal. And then you come to the third level, which is the anagami, where you completely destroy the sense of craving and the sense of aversion. So lust and ill will, or the craving for wanting more or for avoiding something because it affects sense of self, is destroyed. So then in that case, at the level of an anagami, the first five fetters are completely destroyed. And what's remaining to do now is to uproot the last five fetters, which is the conceit, which is the restlessness, which is the ignorance, and so on.

So at the level of the anagami, this is the work that's left to be done. And then they attain arahatship. When you attain arahatship, you let go of all concepts of being a lay person or being a monk or being anything. You destroy that idea of being itself. And by destroying that sense of being, it doesn't mean that such a person, in that regard, is non-functional. There is still kamma to be played out. The only difference now is that there is no more identification with that kamma, which would have arisen because of causes and conditions prior to full awakening. So what's left to do is to experience that kamma without personalizing it, and that's done through skillful means. In the case of an arahant, that's done through wisdom. So in that case, the functioning of an arahant in day-to-day living is essentially based on external factors, which are essentially kamma. There is no personalized intention

behind an action of an arahant, of a fully like or of a fully enlightened being. They are essentially functioning based out of one of the four brahmaviharas, because they have cultivated to a point where it becomes their nature, and because they've cultivated the eightfold path and especially understood and cultivated right speech, right action and right livelihood, that is rooted in right intention, that are all ultimately rooted in the perfected right view of the four noble truths. That way of functioning through the eightfold path becomes their automatic way of life, their automatic mode of functioning. So it's like having reconditioned and purified the mind and then installed this new software of the eightfold path, which is through the continuous exercising of the eightfold path before full awakening. And then that just becomes the, you know, the benchmark of action for an arahant, for an enlightened being. So if you link this to the concept of karma, then everything is right. So there's no karma that gets created for an enlightened being. There will be no more karma created after awakening, because they have seen through everything, good, bad, indifferent, neutral

as being not self, as being empty of any permanent substance, substantial self. So anything that arises is completely not attended to as something that is affecting that being. It's just arising and passing away, and therefore it's just terminated at the level of having experienced it. Because in the level of someone who is not fully realized, they will still have some sense of self attached to it, and they will still continue to create some new kamma because of that, and therefore suffering. But when you are fully awakened, you understand this kamma also to be not self, impersonal, and therefore you won't produce any new kamma, because there's no intentions that are rooted in a personal sense of self, that are rooted in conceit or ignorance. Yes, I have a question about the state you described, the intermediate state between the signless concentration, you say that just before cessation just happens, and the way I understand is, as you progress in your attainment, then you can actually slow down and sustain that state to be experienced, that on your will, as for, is that how you develop your kind of ability, and

go in this situation and come back by your kind of pre-determination? And that is a very kind of delicate state, and would it, would it, would you have some sort of, you will not be approached, and you wouldn't have some sort of control, or I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's in the same way that you would develop your determinations for jhanas, or, and then finally develop your determination for cessation of perception and feeling. This intermediary state of the signless concentration, or signless collectedness, is a result of having let go of all things that are considered to be impermanent and no longer attending to them, so it can be accessed through determination practice.

It's a matter of letting go of those formations that create your sense of reality and that sense of permanence to reality. So you are seeing through the permanence and understanding that there is nothing permanent. It is in fact all impermanent. And when you come to that level, you start to drop all formations. You start to abandon all movement within the mind. But there is still a perception aspect. There's still an awareness or consciousness aspect that is still experiencing that signless state, that is still experiencing that signless

samadhi that's why when you see this and let go of even the perception of that beyond neither perception or non-perception and understand that even this is uh fabricated through the formations through one's intentions you let go of that and then you go into cessation of perception and feeling as well so it is something that can be predetermined through development of the determinations uh one more question yes uh you mentioned about uh consciousness uh that and that is not linked to the name and form yeah as you said that it is still information and there is a if i understand there is another awareness which you call You mentioned that you can stay in Conscious Secession after Emerging Conscious Secession.

So this intermediate state of unestablished consciousness is an intermediate state before entering the conscious cessation. So I mean, would you be able to, the stability before that kind of steps, also? Yeah, so you're referring to conscious cessation, which is the understanding and experience of the third noble truth. So it's basically where the five aggregates are void of any clinging, and therefore the feeling that arises and the perception that arises is pure. And when I say pure, that means it's basically void of craving. So this conscious cessation that you're talking about is essentially the attending of the mind, or the mind attending to the cessation aspect of reality.

Right now, for beings who are not fully awakened, they tend to have their mind basically contemplating or attended to words the arising aspect of reality and the aspect of reality between arising and cessation. But the conscious cessation is arisen, or is experienced, through understanding that the feeling that arises is not self. The feeling that arises therefore will not produce any craving. So it's basically the conscious cessation is a mind that is void of any craving. So it's a state in the fully awakened being, which is their constant state of being, in that regard, so to speak. There is no being in that sense, but it's their state of mind where there is no even concepts of craving, there is no idea of a sense of self, and therefore the mind

doesn't abide in anything. It's a mind that never abides in any kind of concepts. There can be conceptualization for the purposes of being here in reality, but in that process of seeing, the fully awakened being sees through those concepts. So they are using those concepts to function within reality, but they are able to see through them. So you can be walking, you can be doing your work. Exactly. So when you're doing your work, I mean, we'll take the example of meditation itself. For an awakened being there is no sense of meditation with a sense of self. It's just pure meditation. It's meditation without a meditator and meditation without an object. There was just pure meditation happening. So when that happens, that meditation is always at the level of the third noble truth, which is cessation. So there is a cessation of perception and feeling that arises or happens at the point of letting go of all formations, but that letting go of all formations itself is an action that is rooted in some kind of an intention.

But in the case of conscious cessation, while one sees what one is seeing with the eyes, or experiences the rest of the senses, cognizing with consciousness, perceiving with perception, and experiencing reality, there is no sense of an experiencer happening. It's just pure experience that is going on. And I guess there is no fear arising in ourselves. There is no sense of danger. Or I mean, there is some sort of awareness in terms of

you need to function your body. Yeah, you need to keep the life going. Yeah, so that sort of senses will still be there. Yeah, yeah. And those are rooted in the biological senses of the body, in the sense that there is hunger arising, and so one satisfies the body's hunger but doesn't identify with that hunger. There is thirst arising, so one quenches the thirst, but there's no sense of attachment of self to that thirst or the quenching of that thirst. So everything that's arising is just a natural aspect of the body, let's say for example, but there's nobody there to really be satisfied with, or to be satisfied for. It's just a pure experience that's going on. This is this set of controlled perception

It is only available to the anagami level. I mean, those who are still practising and who have experienced cessation, they cannot sustain this. Which state is that you're talking about? Yeah, I'm talking about the conscious cessation. It only becomes once you have developed the determination to stay in the cessation and to emerge from that as you will. There is still the fetter of being for the anagami, so because of that the development of conscious cessation only occurs when there is no being there. So it is something that is basically experienced and is sort of only experienced by the arahat because they have rooted out the fetters of being, so there's no one there to experience it. But in the case of an anagami there is still conceit, there's still this level of, this very subtle level of sense of self, this level of I, which then therefore limits their ability to be able to be in that conscious cessation, because as soon as you attach a sense of self to it

you are no longer in that state, so to speak. You are no longer attending to the cessation aspect, because the sense of I is the birth of I. There has to be a birth of I, a birth of being, for that experience to be there in the case of an anagami. But for an arahat there is no being, there is no birth, it's just the experience that's going on. There is the understanding of that experience through pure consciousness or pure cognition and pure perception. But in the case of an anagami, if they were to experience it, the moment they have the idea that I am experiencing this, they have lost it. So it's only sustainable and approachable and completely understood at the level of arahatship. Thank you.

Any advice for those who are trying to get there? What are the tips, or sort of your advice? What are the abilities they need to start from home? Where do you see, what are the kind of weaknesses, or sort of, what are the things that should be cultivated for those who do this? Take out the I from the equation of the practice.

So when you are doing jhana practice, approach it from the idea that there is only jhana going on, there is only the meditation going on. Don't attach any sense of, I am going to practise now, or I am in this jhana, or I am experiencing these factors of jhana. Come to it from a detached, in that sense, detached sense of observation, like you're watching something unfold through a microscope.

So when you're watching something unfold through a microscope or a telescope or any kind of apparatus, like a scientist in that regard, there's no sense of self attached to it. You're just observing it for the pure purpose of observation, without any expectations. The expectations are rooted in the sense of I, rooted in the craving to replicate that experience that was felt before.

As soon as you root out that sense of I, me, or mine, it will help develop the ability to cut out that sense of I. It will basically help you to weaken the fetter of conceit and, you know, finally destroy the defilement of being. So in your meditation practice, in your daily living, just see the experience as it is without attaching any personalised I to it. Just watch it, and that's it. And even in that watching, don't have a sense of I of watching it or observing it. I would probably say this is the hardest question. Um, I I see some kind of

sense of fear, or, yeah, we are kind of so accustomed to our ability to experience and to experience some unknown, maybe some sort of fear. How can we overcome that, or shall we just call it let live, mind do whatever it likes with our experiences? It's kind of give it to mind to deal with that, overcome fear, to overcome fear. I want to add to what he's asking. Say if you go through a lot of trauma, manipulation, exploitation, how does such a person disassociate from all those things and

go back to equanimity and meditation and all those things. So coming back to what was the starting point of the session, does such a person get tainted or the one who is causing all these negative things get tainted? Does the person experiencing the trauma get tainted or the person causing all these things get tainted? If you have to disassociate yourself from the taints, how do the taints actually form? You're asking the question from a sense of self.

So to say that... Yes, but you took... So if you're going to say that one or the other is tainted, you're still asking from a sense of self. You cannot say that this is tainted or that is tainted. As soon as you do that you're projecting a sense of being to one or two of those things. But there are things which the Buddha was trying to remove, right? Excuse me, but there are things which the Buddha was trying to remove from Rahula. So how do these stains actually, for you're talking about, okay, you're talking about in relation to the defilements, the taints of sensual craving and of being and of ignorance. These are built up over experiences

over different moments of choices. So in the case of sensual craving there is a pendulum, you know, like a pendulum, the way it swings to and fro. There's that kind of activity that happens whenever one chooses to identify with sensual craving and to identify with the feeling, and this feeds and strengthens the taint of sensual craving. Likewise, that sensual craving, the taint of sensual craving, further fuels the sense of craving in a next given moment. In the same way, at the level of being, if you identify and cling to a sense of self, accumulate tendencies and then identify with those accumulated tendencies, that are that sense of being, you're going to strengthen those taints

that taint of being and not knowing and understanding and applying the four noble truths, which means that as soon as you have seen craving arisen you do not let go of it, you are further deepening the taint for ignorance to arise. In one of the suttas there is a sutta in which Sariputta talks about what is the origin of ignorance, and he says the origin of ignorance are the taints, the defilements. And then he asks, what are the origin of the defilements or the taints? And he says the ignorance is so, the ultimate root or the cause of these taints are rooted in not knowing and understanding the four noble truths, which means you identify with suffering, you don't understand suffering, you don't understand that the cause of suffering is craving, and therefore identify with that craving. You don't understand that the cessation of craving is cessation of suffering, and therefore you identify with holding on to things rather than letting them go

and you build up more a sense of self, more of ignorance, more of desire for sensual cravings and sensual experiences and pleasures, and then finally you don't follow or understand the Eightfold Path, which is the way to that cessation. So in the case of one who has the defilements, the work to be done is to develop the understanding of the four noble truths by walking the Eightfold Path. In one who has destroyed the defilements, as I said earlier, the difference is that the Eightfold Path becomes the automatic mode of functioning for such a being. Can I get a few more minutes of your time? You were explaining a little bit about how we can overcome that sort of fear.

I mean, that sort of fears occur when you're trying to go into the cessation. You are losing yourself. Or you are losing your consciousness. And that sort of fears keep coming back. How can we address that? That's the deep root of conceit, that deep root of being that is basically disallowing you to accept cessation to occur. It's causing that fear because that false sense of self knows that it's no longer going to be experienced and is trying to hold on to through the conceit of the mind. It's trying to hold on to with that fear. So you have to let go of it by understanding it in this way.

You have to let go of that fear by letting go of that conceit, letting go of that sense of being, which is when that happens, you just sink into cessation. And when I say you sink into cessation, I'm using it as a way of understanding. Really, it's just a set of or a series of conditions that lead to the unfolding, that lead to the unbinding of being, that lead to the process of unbecoming, of unbeing and of unforming the unconditioned or the unconditioning that then takes you to that cessation experience.

There is no more question. We're coming up to almost an hour and a half. Shall we just wrap up with Merit? May the suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck be fearless. 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 Dhamma, Dhamma, Dhamma, Dhamma, Dhamma, Dhamma, Dhamma.