DO Series - Introduction and General Q&A Session

All right. So I think we should go ahead and get started. And John, if you would like to share your screen, or I'm going to pin you so we can see you here. John, please. John Monroe from Japan. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to see if this works. I'm really happy to be here. So I just thought I'd celebrate a little bit. Many of you know me already. I'm John. I live in Tokyo, where it's now eight minutes after midnight tomorrow, and I can happily report that the future is bright, although it's actually dark out, but there's a full moon, so that's helping. I'm wearing several hats, but here I'm at here as a dozen student and also a business manager. We're really delighted to introduce Delson's new website through this series of talks, which are sort of to celebrate that.

It's at delsonarmstrong.com, and it's a new platform for Delson's own teaching activities. Over the course of these seven talks, I'll be introducing some of the features of this new platform, which is still developing, but it's up and running and fully functional. So I'm just going to take a look at the website itself. So this is Delson Armstrong, Reboot Your Mind. There's a whole bunch of features here. Today I'd like to talk about a new offering of paid AMA sessions. So this is Ask Me Anything, and you find that under Ask Delson. When you go there, you can sign up for one of these sessions. There'll be a session with a maximum of 30 people, and people send in their questions, and everybody will get their questions answered, at least your first question, and then it'll cycle back through.

And you can see that this sign-up goes by time zone. So you can look at your own time zone. I have mine set to Tokyo, but if I set it to Eastern time, you can see that it's at 1 o'clock on Saturday, August 17th. And so you would go into here and sign up for those. So that's just the first of a whole bunch of features. There are seven talks that are coming, and so I'll give a little spiel at the beginning of each of those. And that's it for today. So I'll hand it over to David and Delson now. Thanks so much. So today we're going to have the first talk from Delson.

We just went through a bunch of talks on the Eightfold Path, which turned out really great. We found out a lot of new things about the folds of the path with Delson, and we just kind of brainstormed a week and a half ago or so that maybe we should do some talks about his books that he's written. So far he's written books on dependent origination. There are four links that he's written, which is we're starting with suffering and then going back to becoming, or bhava, habitual tendencies, and then back to clinging. And, or I'm sorry, birth was in there, and habitual tendencies and clinging. And he's currently almost done with the new book on craving.

So this will all start the next session, but today he's just going to talk a little bit about this, and then we'll open it up to some questions. This is kind of an ad hoc session. We won't have a meeting next week. We'll start the whole series with Dukkha, our favorite subject, a week after next. And so where are you, Delson? I'll give it to Delson now. Okay. Can everybody hear me? Hear me, David? Yep. Okay, good. So I just wanted to spend a few minutes talking about how this series came about. Some of you may know that in May of 2023, I did what was known as the Dependent Origination Symposium.

Those were a few days discussing the books I had already written. As David said, I'm currently working on craving, and I'm very close to finishing it. I'm talking like inches, you know, very, very close. Maybe sometime later during this series, I'll be happy to announce that it's done, but I'm not going to pick it yet. There's still a few more things to talk about. So how did this series actually start? What was the brain inception of it? When I was in Cambodia, just during the pandemic, post-August, I was doing retreats, online retreats, giving talks every week. And then the idea came about. I was talking with Kuhn, who's the founder of the Vata Foundation in Europe, and was discussing this with me.

I remember talking to him about an idea of what if he created a retreat around dependent origination, because that is really the crux of the Dhamma, right? Of everything. When Sariputta in the discourse on the elephant's footprint talks about it, he says in there that the Buddha has said that one who sees Dhamma sees dependent origination, and one who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma. So what that means is, if you are able to understand, recognize, experience and apply the Eightfold Path towards recognizing and letting go of the links that are rooted in craving, rooted in greed, hatred and delusion, then you experience the Dhamma. You know what the Dhamma is.

Dependent origination, when we talk about seeing the links of dependent origination, what does it actually mean? One understanding is that it happens when you come out of cessation, and you see the links as a result of making contact with the nirvana element. And then from there, the links arise. But what is it that changes the personality? Is it the seeing of the links themselves, or is it the realization from what you see in the links? It's really the realization, the experience. It might not be there immediately. But upon reflection, upon looking back, you see for yourself that there is no independent, separate, permanent personal self. So let go of the belief in a personal self.

You let go of the idea that there is what's considered a soul or an eternal consciousness, and things like that. Of cessation, and then seeing how cognition arises, seeing how the process of perception arises through the links of dependent origination, you realize that, yes, at every moment there is a rising and passing away of what could be considered many different selves. And so there is no one single or permanent self. It is just an impersonal process of arising and passing away of the links. Hence, the crux of the Dhamma. This is so important to understand. When I spoke with Kuhn and others about this and said we should create some kind of a retreat program around it, we decided that what if we first wrote a book?

So I set out. I think it was sometime in summer of 2021, June of 2021, when I was in Cambodia at the time. In the midst of doing retreats and talks every week and so on, I was also writing this new inspiration to write this book. What I did was I just started off in the reverse order. The idea wasn't just to talk about the 12 links of dependent origination. It was also to understand how they're conditioned by preceding links. So we start from Dukkha and we end up in avija, or ignorance.

But not only that, I also wanted to talk about the transcendental links of dependent origination. So in total, we're talking about 23 links. I've been sending it since then, these, what I consider to be chapters. And I say that is because when I first started this out, working on Dukkha and then on birth and then on bhava and clinging, they were meant to be chapters of one singular book. The thing is, there is so much information with regards to the links, there's so much information with regards to how processes within each link work, each chapter became its own book. It became its own booklet, actually, so it made sense, in David's mind, and I agreed with him, to release them as booklets.

And so what you see out there in terms of the books are the raw material. Yes, there is some editing done, but if you guys do find any editing errors, please let David know or send a message to him or whatever it is. So we continue to refine these books. I didn't want to just write about them from an academic standpoint, definitely not. It's more of an experiential standpoint, which is rooted in the suttas. So if you've read the books, if you've read any of the books, you will see that there's a lot of sutta references. Those sutta references help to highlight what I'm pointing out to you when it comes to each of the, let's say, facets or aspects of the links.

I was sending this out to David. They came out in kind of a rush. A rush in the sense that it was inspired. So I was just writing. I remember sitting down and just writing, writing, writing, and then there would be 3,000 words, and then another bout of another 3,000 words, and so on. So I'd be sending emails to David like, here is now birth, here is now becoming.

And I think in birth, for example, I'm not sure if we have the entire unedited version. There are some portions that are kind of either refined, revised or taken out. But at some point I want to compile everything into one single volume, and that's really the links of dependent origination. The second volume is intended to be how to follow the path. It's sort of like the path to nirvana, because you're talking about the jhanas, but it's really from a more eagle each of the transcendental things of dependent origination, starting with faith. Also interspersed with that is the 37 factors of enlightenment. So basically the entire path, the entire matrix of the Dhamma, is going to be in there, at least that's the intention right now as I see it. Once I'm done with craving, what I'll be working on are what we consider to be the potentials and feeling. When we say potentials, we're talking about ignorance, formations, consciousness, the nama-rupa or mentality, materiality, six sense bases and contact.

These aren't directly visible to the mind, but they're seen in reflective awareness and they're understood by their effects on our experiences, which are basically vedana. Perhaps there will be one book per link, or perhaps there might be one book with two links or three links, or maybe one book with all the other six links or whatever it is. So we'll just see how it works out. Regardless, once that's done, then the intention is to compile all of them after some really great professional editing.

So if there's any one of you here who is a professional editor or knows a professional editor, please direct them to David or to John to have a conversation about that, because my real intention is to make it into one big volume. The second volume, which will be coming at some point, will be the entire path. It's almost like I want to call it the path and the fruition. The path being understanding the links in the reverse order, and then the fruition, which is the realization of nibbana, the realization of cessation, nibbana, and coming to full awakening. And so the idea now is to finish this and then finish with, as I said, the six links.

And then we had the symposium in May, which was a great, great experience for everybody, because there was a lot that was explored from the books, but also from wonderful sessions of Q&A, and discussions and breakout sessions and things like that. So I'm sure whoever's attended had a good time and had a lot of wonderful sorts of insights that came about. So at some point, I would love to do more symposiums, but we'll just see how it works out and what the interest level is on that. And the symposiums, of course, can be found on YouTube and so on. Basically, it, I just wanted to give you guys a history of how these books came about, what was the idea behind them, and what's the intention behind them.

Another thing I want to say is this. When you read the books, the language, I tend to write when I'm talking about dependent origination in a very technical way, because I really want you to get into understanding each aspect. But it's not important for you to memorize, it's not important for you to learn by rote, and it's not important for you to know each and every aspect of the links. What's really the fundamental idea is to see that the links of dependent origination, like the five aggregates, like the six sense spaces, like the six of six, are all models of understanding. And models, they are the raft taking you to the other shore.

They allow you to come to the realization of the empty self, to the impersonal nature of all experience, and therefore be able to live in nibbanic peace all the time, because you understand and you see everything through that impersonal lens. Don't take things personally, and therefore your mindfulness is sharp. And not only is your mindfulness sharp, but also your ability to discern whenever the mindfulness starts to drift away. That is done through the process of right effort through the 6R's. And so you will also see in each of the books, it's almost like a refrain. You'll see it contextualized in the form of the Four Noble Truths, and then utilizing right effort or the 6R's to come to an understanding of the link, letting go of the craving that's rooted in the link, and then experiencing, you know, the mundane nibbana, the nirodha, then bringing up a wholesome object.

And come back to a more wholesome state of mind, whether that's in meditation or just remaining in that piece of mundane nibbana, and then repeating whenever necessary. So at the core of this, it's not meant to be used as a reference guide, although it can be. It's more to see how you can utilize the practice. So it's theory and practice together. And I always want to emphasize that. You don't need to know every facet of it. As long as you can see with understanding through the process of right effort and right mindfulness, you will begin to teach yourself. You are your own teacher. Your mind will show you the way as long as you continue to keep the precepts, as long as you continue to follow the Eightfold Path, and as long as you continue to bring that awareness of insight and wisdom into everyday life.

So with that, I'm going to either give it off to David, or we can open up for questions. Yeah, I think that we can go ahead and take some questions. If there are any questions, you can raise your hand. There you go. You've got the floor. Unmute. There you go. So, one question: mindfulness, wisdom, and validity. Can you repeat the question again, please? Yeah, so that sense of agency that we're talking about is twofold. One is at the level of conceit, where we think that we are in control of every experience. The second part of that is that there is a choice present in every given moment. If it were not so, then we would just be in this very fatalistic view, and this is one of the six heretical views according to the Buddha, or according to the suttas, which is fatalism. Niyati in Pali means destiny.

And the idea is like, nowadays, you keep hearing, especially now that we have AI and all this, this misunderstanding that all of this is simulation, we're in the matrix and all that. I've talked about that too, but I've talked about it as an analogy, a metaphor. But if you were to say that objective reality is just a simulation, what's the difference between that and saying that everything is predetermined? Because if you say that, you've let go of any sense of right or wrong, because if you do anything, it doesn't have an effect, or it was already predetermined. But actually, you do see for yourself that at the end of the day, at a very practical, relative model, everything that you do has a consequence.

Every intention that is produced has a consequence. Yes. Intention is conditioned. When we talk about being conditioned, what we're saying is it's conditioned from previous choices that were made in the same or similar moments. So if we are presented with a series of different choices, the mind almost automatically tends towards a particular choice, through tendencies. But there is, as Venerable Matananda once said, the free won't. Let's say there's no free will, but there is a free won't: the ability to say, no, I choose not to do that, and I'm inclining my mind towards the wholesome. I'm choosing not to be unwholesome. I'm choosing not to be wholesome. Now, that choice also is conditioned by you experiencing or learning about the Dhamma, or learning about it at the very basic level.

Eventually what happens is you start to recondition the mind. So what the Dhamma is, what this practice is, is a process of deconditioning the mind from wrong view, deconditioning the mind from wrong intention, deconditioning the mind from wrong action and so on, and reconditioning it with the tool, path towards the right likelihood and so on. And eventually, from that process of reconditioning, we go through it like a three-step approach. The first step is to understand what is wholesome and unwholesome. Realizing what is wholesome and unwholesome is the Dhamma as well. It is part of right view. If you go back to Majjhima Nikaya 9, Sammaditthi Sutta, which I know is a very close sutta to your heart.

The very first part of that talks about knowing the difference between wholesome and unwholesome. That is part of right view. You go from there, then exercising the ability to go from the unwholesome to the wholesome. That's the second part. Finally, you let go of the attachment to being in the wholesome. It doesn't mean you let go and go back to the unwholesome. You go from wrong view to right view, and then from right view to letting go of the attachment to right view. When that happens for the one who is fully awakened, their whole process is conditioned automatically by the Eightfold Path. So mindfulness being conditioned by continuous effort, right? The entire Eightfold Path is conditioned. It's conditioned by one. It's conditioned by right view, and that right view is by faith and so on and so forth.

So the only element that is unconditioned is nibbana. It's the uncreated, unformed, unconditioned, right? The absolute, the island, the refuge. It is the Dhamma itself. That is what we are all striving for. And what's interesting is, as the Buddha says, if there were not to be this uncreated, unformed, unconditioned, then I would not speak of it as a dimension, as an experience, so to speak, as a process that the mind goes through. So we are not escaping conditionality in the sense of, okay, we need to get to the unconditioned and that's all.

Yes, we will experience the unconditioned, but we're still living in the world of the relative, and are still part of it. So even for the awakened mind, they are subject to different kinds of conditions. Does that mean they've lost agency, or they have agency? We can't say, because the awakened mind understands itself, or understands what it sees, as just an impersonal process. And so the Dhamma is a perspective. It's a shift in perspective, it's a shift in personality, and it's a shift from suffering to happiness at the end of the day. Okay, we have a lot of questions in the chat, so we're going to start with one from Josh. You know, really easy stuff here. How is awareness or being perceived? Any practices and/or instructions for investigating consciousness, specifically vinnana, the six sense consciousnesses, mana, and/or citta?

Okay, good question. How is awareness or being perceived? First of all, that question in itself assumes that awareness is being. Hang on, Delson. So it's not a being. Like, how is awareness being perceived in the moment? Not a being, but so we can just leave that word out. How is awareness... okay, sorry about that. And citta is, of course, one of the three different words for consciousness, right, in the canon, so understood. Okay, so how is awareness perceived right now, right here? Awareness is tied to every experience that is there. If you go back to Majjhima Nikaya 43, it says where there's feeling, there's perception, where there's consciousness, or vinnana. So if you were to just come back here right now, in the present moment, so to speak, that in itself is the awareness of an experience. I've always talked about this, where when you're experiencing whatever it is, whatever vedana it is, whether it's pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, whether it's internal or external, the awareness of it is always there.

So when you are experiencing, or you are perceiving the experience as neutral or pleasant or whatever it is, you are experiencing the vedana. In that experience is the awareness. That's the utility of the mind. That is the utility of consciousness, is to be aware. Secondly, when we talk about attention, is the spotlight, like awareness is the light. So we have different kinds of understanding of consciousness. There is the sixth sense base consciousness, which is dependent upon the arising of the sixth sense base, making contact with the sixth sense base object, whatever the respective object is. These two bring about a corresponding consciousness. That is the awareness that is regulated by attention. Attention to that is where the awareness flows, and that attention is directed by intention. So this is happening at the level of nama-rupa. Intention or volition is what's guiding the attention, which is in some sense regulating the awareness into a particular focus or particular spotlight. So now, if I tell you to listen to my voice, all your attention is on my voice, and therefore your consciousness is being attended to, or is attending, the sound of my voice.

If I tell you to attend to the sound of David's voice, the awareness that was dependent upon the ear consciousness making contact with my voice, the sound of my voice disappears. And because of the attention going to the sound of David's voice, there's a new consciousness that arises dependent upon the contact between your ears and the sound of David's voice. So it is dependent upon intention and attention. The perception of awareness is just done through mindfulness, coming back into the moment and seeing what is arising and passing away. That's the function of awareness, and that's how awareness is perceived. Mano and citta. Vinnana is the awareness, is the consciousness. Mano is the faculty of mind, right?

We could say it's similar to the brain, but it's really the entire nervous system that picks up everything that's going on. And citta is the mindset. The way I look at citta, this is my understanding of citta: kinds of patterns of thought, similar kinds of patterns of emotions, similar kinds of patterns of ideas that turn into a mindset. And that's the way I see citta. Is that clear? Does that answer your question? It is. So is there tips or techniques to how to investigate these? You know, like you mentioned it out, you mentioned the definitions, but you have practices. And then also for formless beings, they still have vedana, right? So this is how you're saying that this is known, because vedana is there in every phenomena, right?

So, of course, formless beings don't have the form part, so the dependent origination would work a little bit differently with them, right? But that's beyond the scope of this. I was just wondering if there are any ways, because you talked about the intention and attention, attention on the intention. Yeah. Any ways to investigate this further, like a process through vedana, or however? I think the easiest way is to investigate vedana. And when I say investigate, it doesn't mean to look very closely or to analyze and so on. It's just the utility or utilization of mindfulness upon the experience itself. And as a result of which, through the practice of meditation conjoined with mindfulness and so on, you start to see how every experience, every iota of experience, which unfolds naturally.

It's not something you can pinpoint with a microscope and look at. It unfolds naturally. And as a result of which, you start to see the arising and passing away. And for those of you who might have seen this or understand this, you'll see that it happens specifically and particularly in the sixth genre infinite consciousness, where you actually do see the arising and passing away of eye consciousness, ear consciousness, mind consciousness, and so on. And those are experienced as different types of contact. So the closest you can go beyond feeling or behind feeling is the contact, the immediate contact that happens. And so, Bhante would always say, when you snap your fingers, that's 100,000 arising and passing away.

of your consciousness. But you can't perceive it directly. It's only done through the process of meditation. And I don't want to hog this, so I can go back after, but I was wondering about the Abhidhamma and how, like, discerning, according to some yogis, discerning ultimate mentality, ultimate materiality, just ultimate materiality, are these kalapas, so-called kalapas? And within these kalapas, the four elements and then other factors, and then some other ones that are always there, some that are not always there but sometimes present. How much do you think this needs to be at the level to discern these type of things? And that's not even mentioning ultimate mentality. What level do you feel these need to be known and experienced in order to have full, we're talking about levels of Sama Sambuddha, or if we just want to go on our hot path, or what are your feelings about how these align with, like, the suttas?

Yeah, I'll just give a very short answer about this, and then that might help bring some clarity to this. With regards to the Abhidhamma, the way I see the Abhidhamma is it's like a PhD thesis. It's a collection of PhD theses by arahants, right? And so they have discerned reality to these very, very fine points of consciousness and the arising and passing away. And as you say, on ultimate mentality and the microsecond and so on and so forth. So these are the findings of arahants who've experienced this. To what extent is it important to study?

The Abhidhamma, I will leave that to you, but when's the last time you read the thesis of some quantum physicist? Yeah, that's why I'm not really interested on a theoretical level, but an experiential level, like seeing and knowing this for ourselves. To get to that level, yeah, you can only see that the level of awareness of an arahant. That's the simple answer. Okay, let's move on. Thank you so much for this, Delson, and sorry for hogging so much time. Oh yeah, we have lots of questions in the chat, so we're going to move along. So the next one is, in one of your talks, you mentioned about taking a Bodhisatta vow.

You mentioned that in some traditions, an arahant could make this choice of becoming a Sama Sambuddha. Could you please elaborate on this? As per our knowledge, somebody who has become an arahant is barred from taking rebirth by laws of nature. Secondly, the Sama Sambuddha gets all the four phalas in this very last rebirth only. I don't recall saying that. Yeah, I don't think you would have said that. If you can find the video or if you can find the particular reference, then I can answer to it. But as far as my memory is concerned, I don't think I said that. Yeah, yeah. So the Buddha was an arahant. There's no more rebirth. There's no more becoming a Buddha.

That's a Mahayana idea. Okay, and the next, can you please define not-self and speak about it? How do we contemplate it during our meditation? Wow, easy question. Yeah, not-self, anatta. Anatta means no permanent, inherent essence. What that means is, at the time of the Buddha, and specifically in the majority of Indic philosophy, that is to say philosophies belonging to India at the time of the Buddha, before Buddha, and even after, there's this idea of the soul, the Atman, the Atta, right? And that Atman is said to be perfect. That Atman is said to be permanent, first and foremost. It's said to be independent, so unconditioned, permanent. It's said to be a source of joy.

And it's said to be self-conscious, self-existing, let's say. So Sat Chit Ananda. Sat means it's self-existent. Chit means that it's conscious, it's aware, and so on. Ananda means it's blissful. It's inherently blissful. So what the Buddha said was, I'm not going to say whether there is a self or there is not a self. Let's take those parameters and start to look at all of the modes of experience, from our sixth sense base to the five, gets to even though it's the androgenation. And you will see that everything is conditioned in our everyday, day-to-day experience. Being conditioned, it rises and passes away. Therefore, it's impermanent. Being impermanent, if it's pleasant, it can turn unpleasant.

That is Dukkha. If it is unpleasant, by its very nature, that Dukkha as well. And therefore, it cannot be as a self. It's considered not sinful. That's the idea. How do we contemplate it during our meditation? Check out the five aggregates meditation. That's there. I guess it's somewhere. You have the five aggregates meditation. You go through the jhanas and then you experience the the five aggregates and you start to look at the five values and you actually understand through experience the impermanent nature the nature and then see it impersonal that's the way to do it one of the ways to do it a really beautiful way to do it is have somebody read or read yourself the six sets of six i mean that's a very powerful suit that that's how you get to the understanding of next question okay uh from nomi Within the territory between the link of feeling and full-blown craving, there seems to be a moment where the underlying tendencies of greed, hatred, and delusion start to manifest and can be six art.

Is this the earliest point where craving can be discerned? Are there any other landmarks or advice for dealing with this phase of DO? Yeah, this is a very good question, because I'm actually just talking about this in my craving book, which is, you know, everybody asks, how does the feeling go to create? So you think about dependent origination like a river. And at the surface of the river, you see all of these different ripples and things like that. And the asavas, that is the taints, are like the glacier from where the river starts. And you have all of these different vortices and whirlpools, and those are the different links. On the surface, that's what's going on, but there's an undercurrent that's going on, and this undercurrent is the movement of not only the asavas but also the roots of greed, hatred, and delusion, which are happening at the level of formations, the 16 defilements, which are happening at the level of consciousness, and then the underlying tendencies. Depending on what sutta that you read, there's seven or eight, let's say.

Underlying tendencies are underlying the feeling. So when you have an experience that is seen as pleasant, it's pleasant. But when you want it to continue being pleasant, when you want to own it, when you want to grasp at it, that's the first sign of craving. That's the first initial movement of craving, where the mind or the body tenses up towards it. And that's the underlying tendency towards sensual craving, towards craving. If it's unpleasant, you want to push it away. You say, oh, I don't like this. That first reaction happens at the level of the underlying tendency towards aversion. The other ones, the underlying tendency towards doubt, towards views, towards ignorance, towards conceit, towards desire for existence, and, you know, towards... I think I mentioned all of them.

In any case, all of these can underlie any quality of feeling. That is to say, it could be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. And they happen to come upon whenever the mind takes something personally through the process of ignorance and conceit. So that first initial grasping, that first initial wanting to push over, or that first initial clutching of this is me, this is mine, this is myself, that tension that arises is the undercurrent of the underlying tendency towards craving, aversion, and so on. When the mind is unable to discern that, through the lack of mindfulness, which is ignorance, through wrong or improper attention, which is to take something personally, then it goes into full-blown craving or aversion, which is the next link following feeling, the link of craving. So the earliest point that you can see the underlying tendency is the point that underlies the feeling.

Yeah, I noticed that if there's any tension in the body, if I just maintain my awareness on the body as I'm doing my thing, and there's any tension, just noticing that contact, the feeling dissipates, that taking it personally, it seems to dissolve pretty quick. Is that enough? That is enough. That is enough. If it dissolves and you find relief, that is enough. Remain in the relief. Thank you. Naomi, do you want to ask your second question here, or do you want me to ask it? Oh, I can read it, yeah. Can you speak a little bit about the themeless awareness release and practically how one enters into it? Not attending to any theme seems to imply maintaining a 360-degree field of awareness.

Hang on. My question keeps zooming around. And if I maintain a 360-degree field of awareness, it almost feels like I'm kind of seeing through the back of my head. It's weird. And if I don't allow attention to collapse around a specific object, I can kind of hang out there, talking about that. The instructions in SN417 are really sparse. So it's just been a fun little experiment I've been running. Yeah. So if I understand correctly, you're talking about the animitta samadhi. I don't know if you know the original Pali, but it's the signless awareness or the objectless awareness. And it usually happens more often than not around the region of the ayatana where you're neither perception nor non-perception. The objectless awareness, or the signless release of mind, is where the mind lets go of any external objects. It's kind of like the mind rests into itself, it folds into itself. So that's kind of the beginning of it, which is the quiet mind. But then even the quiet mind becomes a bit too much, a bit too coarse, passages of the quiet mind.

And then, you know, there's a barrier that's felt like it's removed. And it's like an awareness that continues. And I always use this analogy. And I want to say it's an analogy, right? Because there were some students who thought that this was the practice itself, which is to make your awareness like a flashlight. That's not what I'm saying. I'm using it as a metaphor. The awareness is like the light of a flashlight. And you point it up to the sky. And let's say the light continues upward into the sky without landing on the specific object, a meteorite or an asteroid or planet or whatever. And it just keeps going. That's the awareness. There's the awareness that keeps going, but doesn't land on anything.

And so it doesn't take anything as an object. It just remains as it is. In terms of where it is in the mind or the body or the head, don't worry about that. Because if you do that, then you're taking something as an object. be like pure awareness, although that word is very misleading, because then it goes into the territory of, okay, everything is just pure awareness. No, it's just that the awareness is there, and it continues to be there without sticking or grasping on any specific object. And eventually, and this is why you don't start to do it right away, you need some level of collectedness around an object, and then eventually the object just drops away and you get into quiet mind, and

the quiet mind drops away and then naturally you are in a silent state. Yeah, the only reason I brought up the awareness, the field of awareness being weird, was it seems as though if I hang out in equanimity long enough during a walking meditation, everything gets super quiet. The urge to focus in on any one thing drops, and everything goes super wide, and it feels subjectively like the self-sense drops out, and it's almost like I am on autopilot and everything is just happening. Well, you know what's interesting about this is it's also what people can liken to an emptiness experience, where they have the realization of emptiness and everything seems to be on autopilot, where we're very much aware of everything as it's happening when you're moving around, when you're washing the dishes, when you're driving, when you're doing whatever. And so we have three kinds of

contact, and we have the three kinds of release. Let's say the signless release or the themeless awareness as you mentioned, the undirected awareness, and the emptiness. These are all actually three gates. When you have an understanding of impermanence and you see the rising and passing away of experience, then your mind immediately is disenchanted with anything, and it just doesn't want to hold on to anything. When you therefore see that this process of trying to hold on to something makes it tiresome, that's the dukkha part, you don't incline the mind anywhere. So that's what's called the uninclined or the undirected. And then when you have that realization that this experience is impersonal, then you let go of all kind of trying or controlling, and therefore you have this emptiness awareness.

They're like three angles of the same thing. They're looking at the same thing. They're just like three gates that you experience, and they have a different quality depending upon how you enter into it. But it's all pointing to the same thing. Thank you. Okay, next question. I think we're going to skip this. This has to do with your Jati book on gods and denizens of hell, but I think we'll leave that for the next session. One is from Harry's iPhone; evidently it's become self-aware and is asking questions now. How to define wholesome skillfulness, kusala? What are kusala states? Okay, very practically speaking. Very practically speaking. So a wholesome state is anything that is beneficial for you and for others. An unwholesome state is any state that is unbeneficial for you and unbeneficial for others. How do you experience that?

When you have constricted states of mind, when you have tense states of mind, that's unwholesome. When you have more relaxed states of mind, when you have more expansive states of mind, that's wholesome. That's good. So when you're not there, everything's good. When you're there, not so good. Ryan says, in early Buddhism, only six consciousnesses are delineated. So what is, one, that consciousness which appears as Nibbana is indicated in... Ryan, do you want to ask this question? Why don't you get on and ask this question? This is complicated. Yeah, I'm here. Yeah, okay. Hey, Ryan. Okay, I'll just read what I... Hey, Nelson. What's up? In early Buddhism, only six consciousnesses are delineated. So my question is, number one, what is that consciousness which appears as the Nibbana dhatu, as indicated in the Anguttara Nikaya 10.6, which you've talked about before?

And two, what is the consciousness that appears as the links of dependent origination in post-cessation? Because generally, sankhara, the general view is that it's not a consciousness. It's prior to consciousness. But what are your thoughts on this experientially, necessarily in accord with what the general view in the suttas is? Okay. So we talk about the sixth sense-based consciousness, which are dependent upon the contact between the sixth sense bases and their respective objects. There is another kind of consciousness that the Buddha talks about, which I call the non-manifestative consciousness. It is known as anidassanam vinnanam, or I also call it the non-reflective consciousness. The sixth sense-based consciousnesses that arise are dependent upon something.

The non-reflective consciousness is basically the consciousness that immediately appears from contact with the nibbana element. And the nibbana element being unconditioned, that consciousness too is conditioned by that unconditioned. In that moment, there is the contact with that which is empty, which is signless, and which is undirected, which I was just referring to before. This specific sutta is very interesting, right? Because it says there, it depends on which one you're going to, because there's 10.6 and I think 10.7, but both are kind of pointing to the same thing. And in those two suttas, in the first one, Ananda asks the Buddha, is there this awareness or state of perception wherein one is not percipient of, and then he goes through percipient of earth, the four elements, space, infinite space, and so on and so forth, but is still percipient.

The Buddha says, yes, he is percipient of this, that this is the stilling of all formations, the disenchantment, the dispassion, that is Nibbana. In the second part of that, Ananda then goes to Sariputta and asks him the same question. And Sariputta says, yes, there is a way in which one is not percipient of all of these other things, which means it is not dependent upon the sixth sense base.

But there is still an awareness or percipient or perception that's there. And it is namely this, the experience of cessation of existence is Nibbana. That is to say, the inclination of the cessation of all experience as and when it comes about is inclining towards Nibbana. And so then Sariputta clarifies and he says, just as you were to put twigs into the fire and then there is a spark that arises, that fire, in the same way there is the contact with the nibbana element and a corresponding consciousness that one was in nibbana that arises, and that is the anidassana vinnana, the non-reflective, non-manifestative consciousness. So what is it that experiences that the arising of the links of dependent origination? It is that it is a nibbana consciousness, and there's the awareness dependent upon contact with the nibbana that sees it. And it's able to see it reflectively and reflexively, where it can see it in retrospect, the arising.

And then there is the condition, conditions that arise post that, from where the mind starts to attach in and has certain fetters that arise and so on. So what would you call that nibbanic consciousness that appears as the links of dependent origination, that manifests for the practitioner? Is it just called nibbanic consciousness, or is there a specific one? I'm calling it, no, it's specifically the anidassana in which there's a particular sutta which I'm referring to, where anidassana vinnana comes from. It's the Kevaddha Sutta, and in there you have Kevaddha going to the brahma lokas and everywhere, asking the brahma where does earth, water, fire, air and so on

end. And then he says, I don't know the answer, go to the Buddha. He goes to the Buddha, and the Buddha says the question is wrong. The question should be asked: in what does earth, air, water, fire find no footing? And it is that, with non-reflective consciousness. So I'm calling it the non-reflective because it's the translation that I'm using from anidassana, and that's what it said in the sutta's sense. So it's the vinnana anidassana that makes contact with the dot two. Yes, yes, that's right, that's correct. Thank you, Delson. Thank you. Oh, it's a result of the nibbana, I should say. Right, right. It's emerging as a result of making contact with nibbana. That's right, that's right, that's right, because it's post cessation, so that makes sense. Okay, okay. One more question from the chat, and then we'll go back to our hands up over here. Bill Wood: is perception one of the ways in which the mind solidifies views?

For instance, I hear a sound and then the mind races to understand what the sound is, where it came from, etc. Whereas when in the hearing there is only the heard, is perception short-circuited? So feeling and perception are tied, right? They're interwoven. Feeling is the actual experience of something, than that. Perception is that which qualifies what that experience is. This is the color red. This is, you know, the color blue. This is the sound of the ocean waves. This is whatever it is. Views, when we talk about ditthi, views, perspective, those can arise not as a result of perception. And it's basically that part of the mind that is rooted in conceit and says, this is what I hold on as me, mine, or myself.

I make assumptions. I proliferate ideas about this particular experience. And therefore, those are the opinions and judgments and the views. And the underlying tendency towards views is what underlies that feeling. So when we talk about in the seen, there is only the seen, in the hearing, there's only the heard, and so on. What it's referring to is, in essence, when you talk about the Bahiya, that's coming from the Bahiya Sutta. In essence, with the Bahiya Sutta, the individual named Bahiya, he had been a monk prior to that particular life over many different times. But when he was in that particular lifetime where he met the Buddha, he was known as Bahiya of the bark cloth.

And in essence, this is pointing out to him understanding Upanishadic knowledge, which is the Vedantic knowledge, which is the idea which says that I am the hearer behind the heard. I am the seer behind the seen. I am, essentially, I'm the experiencer behind the experience. So the Buddha caught that. He was able to see that in Bahiya's mind. And so he just needed that one adjustment, which is to say, let go of that particular view that there's some kind of an experiencer that you are attaching to, or the mind is attaching to, and see it for what it actually is. Is what I always say: all experience, fully immersed in the experience, fully immersed in the vedana without projecting the sense of I.

That itself is the end of suffering. In the experience, there is only the experience, but the mind has a tendency, that's the underlying tendency towards conceit and views, to make opinions about it based on a sense of self. And so the idea here is not to short-circuit perception. The idea is to just rest and relax into the experience. That's all you have to do. You can't escape perception except through the process of cessation: perception, feeling, and consciousness. You don't have to escape perception. You just have to see perception for what it is. Just another impersonal process. That is to relax into the experience without adding anything to it. That's it.

And over to Brian. Go ahead and unmute. Hi, Delson. Oh, having studied Vedanta, I'd like to kind of clear up this idea of the personal self and what they're talking about, the eternal self. So in your book, you said that mind is conscious. And there seems to be a disagreement about that with Vedanta, because they say that mind is inert, and awareness is the sentient part. So mind, which is thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, is known by awareness. So the basic thing they're saying is that awareness knows mind, because awareness is the knowing principle. And mind does not know awareness. That's one thing. And then David wrote, yourself is coming into and out of existence.

So we have to find out what is meant by you. Yourself is coming into and out of existence. Out of existence and you don't exist, what would know that you come into existence? There's nothing to know that you're coming into existence, right? I think. And then one other thing is that if you're in cessation of consciousness and someone wakes you up or shakes you or makes a loud noise, would you know that? And if you know that, and you wake up, what that means is that awareness was there all the time, and there actually was no cessation of consciousness. So those are kind of my points. So to simply answer your third question, when you are in cessation, perception, feeling, and consciousness, if you even shake, slap, pinch, do anything to the person in cessation, they will not respond.

They are like a dead person. So that also kind of clarifies the understanding of consciousness, which is consciousness is dependent upon contact. So when we talk about vinnana and mentality, materiality, or nama-rupa, it is a vortex. The interdependency is there between mind and body and consciousness, and consciousness and mind and body. In this mind and body complex, you need awareness, but in order for awareness to be rooted so that it doesn't just dissipate because it is not permanent, it needs some kind of an anchor. That's the mind and body, or just mind in the case of the formless realms. They are interdependent, just as you have reeds or leaves that are like kind of like this, they are upon each other. So in the same way, consciousness and mind and body, or mentality and materiality, are interdependent. They're interwoven together.

So this idea of an eternal consciousness is a perspective, it's a view. The idea that consciousness is dependent or interdependent is also another view. Neither of which is going to take you to what is really the goal. And what is the goal? Just to be happy. To be free of suffering, number one. Secondly, when, and I'm speaking for David, but he can clarify this since he's the one who wrote it. Please do. Yeah. When you talk about yourself arising and passing away, is that what I heard correctly when you said that in the second question? Well, yeah, yeah. What he wrote was, yourself is coming into and out of existence. Yeah.

That what you are is just a process of arising and passing away. Yes. But what knows the passing away? What knows that? He says you are just a process of moments arising and passing away, but there's something that knows those moments passing away. So you can't be those. You have to be that which is knowing it. reflective consciousness that seizes dependent upon the passing away. In other words, there is the arising and passing away of consciousness, and there's consciousness dependent upon that. So there is also, as I was referring to with Ryan's question, that what he was calling the nibbanic consciousness, I'm calling as the vinnana, which is the non-reflective awareness. Now, if you were to call that self, by all means, you can call it self.

But the Buddha didn't want to go into that. Well, all he was saying is let go of all things that you consider to be self and come to that understanding of the emptiness of self. That is the not-self nature of all things that are conditioned. Self, no self, self, not self. It's a conundrum for the mind. The impersonal nature of things allows the mind to let go of taking things personally, allows the mind to let go of touching onto things as me, mine, or myself. That sense of self can be considered as the ahamkara. If you want to use Vedantic language, it's the ahamkara. It's the ego. It's the process of mind that says, this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

That's the conceit. That's what's being let go of. And what is remaining in its place is nibbana. Itself. Yeah, there you go. Nibbana is a synonym for nibbana. Consciousness? No, but anidassana vinnana, which means the non-reflective awareness, not consciousness itself. Is that permanent? Is that eternal? It's not eternal, it's permanent. There's a distinction there. It's permanent in the sense that once you come to the experience, it's unshakable, it's irreversible. Can we say that it's the substratum of everything? No, but what we can say is that when you let go of all conditioned states, what is remaining is the unconditioned element. So from that perspective, it can be said, oh, it's always there.

And it's like you're just unraveling and uncovering. That's why the Buddha says, luminous is the mind. Amongst luminous is the mind, but due to adventitious defilements, the mind is obscured. What does he mean by adventitious defilements? He's saying defilements that are not the nature of mind. It's not the true nature of mind. The true nature of mind is to be conscious. Absolutely. The true nature of mind is to be aware and understand and perceive and feel and so on. And so that aspect of mind is luminous. It's mindful all the time, and that is a quality of a mind that has touched jhana. Okay, thank you, Brian. And I'm just saying 'you' in a kind of generic sense. I know you had it. We have to talk about, oh, your reflective consciousness. Heard about what's on, what's at the movies today? I'm going to take my feeling and body consciousness.

I have a question. Can I ask a question? No, we've got a couple of other questions before you. I have some chat questions here, and then I'll come to you. These are at 10.37 a.m. today. In what way is the mental sense different from the other five senses? Is it just one more sense, or is it categorically different from the other five senses? Mind is chief. Mind is the forerunner of all states, and therefore the five physical sense bases are all experienced at the level of mind. There is nothing but mind. Mind is all samsara. Mind is what you experience to be the world. It is a projection of mind, and therefore what you are experiencing from the five physical sense bases are facilitated through what are known as mano sankharas, that is, mental formations, because it is really only mind that feels and perceives through the instruments of the five senses. Okay. Ruben says sounds like cheetah could be translated as attitude. Depends on what your definition of attitude is, but possibly.

Andy says, to what extent do you envisage, well, see neuroscience and genetics becoming an integral part of understanding dependent origination? I'm currently studying neuroscience relating to meditation and healing, and what happens at the subtle levels in the brain and body. So, like I was saying earlier, dependent origination is like a model, right? It's a way of understanding how the mind works. Neuroscience has its own models in understanding how the mind works. And it can't be said that they are different from each other. Maybe they are in some ways, in terms of language and usage of definitions and understanding, but they are similar in that they're all models of understanding.

Understanding how consciousness arises, how the mind works, and how it perceives reality or creates its perception of reality. So it's up to you. You want to study neuroscience and it helps you understand it, great. But if it complicates things, try to simplify things. Always try to get to the simplest understanding of an experience, right down to the bare bones of how this process works. When you talk about genetics, I've talked about this before: with the mind and body, mentality-materiality also includes your genetics. So when we talk about the macro level of consciousness entering into the new nama-rupa, the way I see it is that the subtle energy of consciousness is a transport vehicle for all of the kamma and all of the different formations, transferring it into the new mentality-materiality. It's essentially like it fits

perfectly, because it's taking into account even the genetic material of the mother and the father, through which the expression of the kamma that arises can actually be experienced. So these are different ways of experiencing that. One of the really wonderful books that I read almost every year is a book called Behave by Robert Sapolsky, and I'm saying this because you're talking about neuroscience. If you read his book, and I'll warn you, it's a very dry book, you might think my book on dependent origination is terrible. Read his book and check out how academic and dry it can be. But if you go through it, you have my utmost respect. It is a book that really is describing dependent origination.

It's just describing it in a very different way. He's talking about what happens a few seconds before an event, what happens a few minutes before an event, an hour before an event, a week, a year, even to epigenetics and evolutionary psychology and so on. So if you're interested in that kind of stuff, check out that book. But just don't complicate things for yourself. Okay. A question from Christophe. Piti versus sukha versus mudita. Can you please talk about similarities and differences, and is it important at all to know the difference, versus simply experiencing them without naming them? Yeah. So, just like the Abhidhamma, the suttas also have... It's okay if you don't know them, it's fine.

But really, if you really want to understand the similarities and differences, Piti is the experience that you have as... an experience of excited joy that arises. It's a joy that's like the fireworks you saw before. It's a wonderful, blissful state. It can be. For some people, it's a little bit more subdued. I mean, it doesn't, you know, because the thing about these experiences are they're very subjective. My experience of bliss might be different from your experience of bliss, but it's basically this excited sense of joy that you experience. Sukkah is related to the body. It's the comfort. in the body when you're sitting for long periods of time so essentially it's how the body feels like you're you're embodied in a state of complete relaxation that is sukha mudita is a quality of mind that is empathetic joy appreciative joy it's a it's a like good for them generally good for them you know it's a quality which you express as i'm so happy for them but they all pertain to a similarity, which are their kind of, let's say, levels of degrees of joy, or their thematically joyful.

Here, I have a meditation question. When 6R-ing, I often feel that what's being 6R'd at each step in the process is being judged or watched by another mind, as if to make sure it's happening properly. Is it okay to happen that way? So in 6R-ing, is it wrong practice? Could you please explain? So when you 6R, there's a mind that experiences. Okay, so there's the intention of 6R-ing, which are the steps you're taking. It's the mental intention to let go. Then there's a perception tied to it that sees this experience of letting go. That's all it is. But they're all stemming from mentality. So you're totally fine. Adita, you have your hand up, so please go ahead.

I had two questions. One was about sakkaya ditthi. When does sakkaya ditthi dissipate and disappear? At what stage of your meditation? And what is nibbana? Is it pure awareness, just remaining aware without any defilements or anything coming up? Okay. So, first, sakkaya ditthi, which is the belief in a personal self, goes away at stream entry. That's the understanding. So that goes away when you experience nibbana for the first time, or you experience a great degree of release, and then your mind switches and understands, oh, there is no personal, permanent self here. It's all an impersonal process. That's the removal of sakkaya ditthi, which is the intellectual understanding of letting go of the impersonal nature.

The conceit, the mana, that's still present is that underlying sort of grasping at it as me, mine, or myself. Nibbana is not pure awareness. Nibbana is twofold, so to speak. Nibbana is super-mundane and mundane. Super-mundane means that it is outside of the field of our experience, which happens when you come out of cessation and you touch the nibbana element. Mundane happens whenever you let go and experience the cessation of that tension, whenever you experience the cessation of that particular defilement or hindrance. In that moment you are in what I call the sky mind. It's the mind that is just free and open and clear, a cloudless clear blue sky, and that's the spaciousness of mundane nibbana. Nibbana can also be referred to as the absence and destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion, which is the natural mindset of somebody who is fully awake.

So you mean to say that in the six hours when you practise, relax, you know, complete letting go and relax your mind, and then you come back to the object of meditation after smiling, that means you have experienced a small factor of mundane nibbana? Relax. In that moment after you relax, your mind experiences nibbana. Okay. Thank you. Question from Ruben. Is the model of consciousness described in the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali valid, or has it been falsified or made redundant by the insights of the arahants? Makara, three gunas, prakriti, purusha, siddhis, and so on. This can be an entire talk, but I will try to simplify as best as I can.

Okay. What is yoga? So, Patanjali is talking about yoga philosophy. What does yoga actually mean? Does anybody know? I mean, what is it generally seen as? It's seen as union. So everybody thinks that yoga means the unification, or the union of consciousness to super consciousness, or the union of the Atman to Brahman, or however you want to put it. Actually, yoga is referring to the problem. The problem is that the mind is already unified. It's already made in union.

That is the purusha, which is the consciousness, which is the movable nature of mind, right? So purusha is that consciousness, as the Yoga Sutras talks about it. It is the consciousness that is said to be pervasive, all-pervasive, everywhere. It's like the Wi-Fi signals that are everywhere, and prakriti is like the router that receives that, right? And so, about consciousness and mentality-materiality, his concepts such as ahampara, that is, the I-making, the mind making, is very similar to conceit. In fact, it is actually that the conceit. The three gunas, when we talk about the three gunas, it's not actually specified in the Yoga Sutras. The gunas are actually in the Bhagavad Gita. But in any case, when he talks about prakriti and purusha, he's referring to disuniting

separating the purusha so that it is free from the identification with prakriti. So it's a different model of consciousness. There is some overlap, but their goal is to separate and then become that immutable consciousness, which is known as purusha, and experience kaivalya. In the case of the Buddha Dhamma, it's basically letting go, no longer identifying with any experience, so that the mind touches the nibbana element. So you be the judge based on that. Okay, clarify his question. I see him raising his finger. Oh, okay. Is there a clarification here that is wanting to be done? Gotta be unmuted. Yeah, let's see. Okay, let's move along to this very important question from Tommy. Oh, one, oh, you're back. Okay. I was asking, like, so does the model of potentially contradict the model...

Of arts, that forms of depends origination, the concert that are actually contradictions on a ground level. Realities. Or are they basically describing the same thing in different words? What do you mean by ground reality? By Vyasi, I mean the actual dynamics of how things work, of how the mind works. Okay, yeah. So Patanjali, he's referring to, so it's really interesting. If you go back to reading the Yoga Sutras, there are a lot of different things that he says that are very similar. In other words, he talks about the kleshas, and they're very similar to the five hindrances. They're just a little bit different.

in terms of how he's describing them. He talks about nirodha. He talks about the cessation of all mental activity: yoga chitta nirodha. Right. So in that sense, it's referring to the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. I would say that in terms of the ground reality, it's very difficult to pinpoint whether they're talking about the same thing. Because they could be pointing to the same thing, but from a different angle. But you also have to understand, when we talk about cessation, it's not something that is just found in one particular tradition. They have their own interpretations of what cessation is. It's what's going on when you get into cessation and what comes out, that is the realization that arises.

So the realizations, or the perspectives that arise based on those realizations, will be different or look at it differently, right? Because they're culturally conditioned and personally conditioned, and different people. Okay, thank you for your answer. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, the most important question. David, yes, let us get down to the important stuff. Just let us know what everyone really wants to know, and that is, where do we get nirvana? Chocolate ice cream. Delson: Come on. You have to tune into my level of consciousness to discover that particular ice cream, guys. Come on. But we can only do that by actually eating that ice cream. So it's a catch-22. Catch-22. You need to come to the non-reflective understanding of what ice cream really is.

Ice cream is only ice cream. In the ice cream, there is only the ice cream. That's right. In the freezer, there is only the frozen. All right, we're moving on. Let's see. But I found this in a grocery store in Crete. That's right. You are in Crete. Now you've found me out. No, you're nowhere at all. You're out in cyberspace. This is a good question. A friend has suggested, from Billwood, that psychedelics are a more insightful, direct path than Buddhism. Thoughts? Wow. Which psychedelics are those? I'd like to know. Undefined. I'm seeing what psychedelics he's talking about, like mushrooms or MDMA. Maybe MDMA. Okay. I think for a lot of people, when they come into any kind of spiritual practice, a gateway into it is actually psychedelics. I've seen, or I've met with, people who come into the Dhamma practice or yoga practice or any other spiritual practice through a very, what seems like, a very life-changing experience, because they see into what they see as the nature of reality, and they come to wonderful insights as a result of that psychedelic experience.

But I would also say that for some, or for the majority, it's not sustainable, because the insights come, but there's no way to integrate them, or it's very difficult to integrate them into everyday applicability. So it's a great gateway into Buddhism. Not that I'm saying that everybody should be doing psychedelics. I'm just saying that there have been people who've done it and then come to Buddhism, or the Dhamma, or any other spiritual practice that allows them to navigate what they've experienced, and then allows them to not only recreate it in a very controlled setting, so to speak, but also integrate and sustain those insights for a lifelong period.

Okay. Thank you. Is it possible for someone to attain sotapanna, sakadagami, anagami or arahant without realizing they have reached that level of enlightenment? Additionally, are there any noticeable differences in personality or behavior when someone attains these stages of enlightenment? Possible. Uh, there are certain references where Ananda is talking to somebody, and they're talking about, oh, is it possible to experience so and so, and this and that? And Ananda says yes, it is. Keep in mind Ananda himself is a stream enterer. And then this person just walks away, and Ananda then talks to someone else, and he tells him that person doesn't realize that they're an arahant, but they are, because of how they're describing their experience.

At the same time, there are certain levels of clarity that arise. And so, for the majority of the times, people will say, okay, it seems like I've experienced this. Now, I would say let's not worry too much about the levels of attainment. But I would say, how much more open, how much more forgiving, how much more loving, how much more accepting, how much more fun you're having? To what degree has your sense of humour gotten better? To what degree are you more loving towards people? To what degree are you more patient, right?

So the reason I'm saying this is because there is a tendency for that part of the mind, which is the majority of people, to be like, I wonder where I am, and how do I distinguish? Well, the Buddha has given the 10th letter model, but you know, as you've actually lived it for yourself, for your entire life, basically. Behaviour. Well, if I tell you that, you guess what's going to happen? People are going to project themselves into that behaviour. I'll say an arahant only wears red caps. What's going to happen? Everybody wants to wear a red cap. I'll say an arahant is somebody who is patient and loving and kind. Everybody's going to try to be that. So let's let go of that and just be naturally loving and kind, naturally patient. That arises as a result of the practice.

All right, we can only take a few more questions. We've got to feed some monks, but there's just a few more. Let's see. Is a cessation event necessary for stream entry, or can we attain right view and drop this idea of self through other means? Okay, so the very first sermon the Buddha gives is on the Eightfold Path and on the Noble Truths. In that, somebody experiences stream entry. There are other situations where people are listening to the Dhamma, and because their mind is so collected, and because their mind is so right to experience it, they drop and experience the event. Is it necessary? No. But a collected mind and the ability to discern, and I would argue, but that's just my personal assumption on this, a great degree of perfection of the paramis is required in order for the mind to be that collected, to be able to drop right away. I guess a follow-up is, once achieved stream entry, can the person experience anger? Yes, of course they can. They can be really pissed off at some point or another.

But they can see it and recover from it, instead of getting angry at somebody for a long period of time. They're like, oh, why am I holding on to this anger? And they drop it and they relax into it. Yes, they can still be angry. Yes, they can break the minor precepts and things like that. They might normally tell a lie, but as soon as they do, they're like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. Yes, they could probably cheat somebody or steal, but then, eventually, I mean, immediately, they're like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. So yes, it's possible for a sotapanna to get angry. Okay. From your experience, do you think an understanding of DO should be a more important aspect of the general movement in mindfulness therapies? Like I've said before, like any of the models, like the five aggregates, the six sense bases, dependent origination, the six sets of six, they're great for people to let go of, you know, taking things personally.

I don't think they need to be studied academically unless you want to do a big thesis on it or something. But if you can see what the essence of dependent origination is, which is that everything is interdependent and interconnected, then it starts to drop away a lot of the notions of things being personal and things being permanent. So I would think that they are great tools, great models that you can implement if it makes sense practically to do so. Okay. Is perception in five aggregates similar to recognition? If so, could you please explain how feeling happens before perception for something? has not been that has not be that is not being recognized okay all right so first of all let's understand what the five aggregates are five aggregates are form feeling perception formations and consciousness that is not to say that they are talking about one leading to the other form doesn't lead to feeling feeling doesn't lead to perception perception doesn't lead to formations formations lead to consciousness although they can what the buddha is showing is the subtler and suffer levels this is the Same thing with the four foundations of mindfulness.

He talks about, you know, the more solid levels of form or the body. And then he gets subtler and subtler and he talks about citta and, you know, dhamma phenomena and so on. Perception is interwoven with feeling. As soon as you experience something, there is a perception to it. Perception is the recognition, the recognizing based on and rooted in memory of what was learned, about that experience. So it's not, it's, yes, you could say perception immediately follows feeling, but it doesn't mean that it's, it's something that you should see as like, okay, when there's feeling now, there's going to be perception. It's interwoven. It happens like, it's like a core arising that happens. Okay. And this is going to be the last question.

It's a good one from Christophe. How do we develop compassion for those family and friends who are not supportive and discouraging of our meditation path? Block them. Block them, yeah. Defriend them. None of them can do that to our family. Look, the thing is, people will always have opinions. Friends and family will always have something to say about the things that we do, good, bad, or indifferent. title to it, and they might try to stop us to do this and stop us to do that, but can they actually stop us from being compassionate towards them? Can they actually stop us from thinking compassionate thoughts towards them? The more we develop compassion, the more we develop loving kindness, the more we develop it internally, the more it manifests in our day-to-day activities, the more it manifests in our day-to-day actions and intentions and so on.

Let me just go back to that question because I want to address one part of it. How do we develop compassion for those family and friends who are not supportive of discouraging around it? Well, that's the thing. There have been times, for example, Sariputta. When Sariputta would take a retinue of monks to see his mother and get alms, she would berate him, as rightly she would. As the mother of Sariputta, she has every right to do so. And she would be like, What are you doing here? Why are you with these monks? This, that, and all the best. And what does Sariputta do? Just stay silent. Okay, that's just my mom.

That's just the way she is. It's okay. It's all right. Eventually, what happened? She was visited by the devas, who then visited Sariputta, and she realized, wow, Sariputta knows something that these devas don't, and they're going to see them. Perhaps for you, or whoever is doing that, they might realize it for themselves that this person has changed. In the way that they behave, in the way they respond, in the way they react to situations, there is something about them. Maybe they'll see it right away, and maybe it'll take time for them. But we aren't to judge or we aren't to change how that happens. We can only continue to develop ourselves. Okay.

Thank you very much, and thank you very much. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired, the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nadas of mighty power share the same lives. May they long protect the people. Thank you.