MN 10 Part 2 Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta-Feeling -Majjhima Series w/Delson Armstrong

We left off last week with contemplation of the body. Now we will explore contemplation of feeling, and how does a bhikkhu abide contemplating feelings as feeling? First we have to define what we mean by feeling. What is feeling? The word feeling comes from the Pali vedana. So it's interesting when you say vedana, that comes from the root ved, which means to know, to be aware of. Very similar to consciousness and perception.

And vedana, as I would define it, is any experience: internal, external, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. It is just experience that arises due to contact with one or more of the sense bases, whether it's the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, or the mind. So when we say vedana, when we say feeling, we're saying any kind of experience that arises in every given moment.

So, for example, we may have an experience of listening to this talk. By listening to this talk, what's happening is the sound vibration makes contact with the ear. And with those two conjoined, there arises ear consciousness. And from that ear consciousness, with that ear and sound, there is the feeling, the experience of listening. But concurrent to that, while you're listening, you're also contemplating, reflecting, thinking about, making connections, connecting the dots with regards to what is being said. And so that also is thinking, as feeling, as an experience. So feeling is a verb. It's an action, it's an act. It is something that happens out of your control, so to speak. What do we mean by that?

Many times when we are thinking, we're not in control of our thoughts. Many times when we are just sitting and the birds are singing, and we're listening to it, because of our intention to pay attention to it, we now listen. So when we're seeing, listening, smelling, touching, thinking, these are all verbs, right? Seeing, listening, feeling. It's the process of experience that happens in the present moment. So here, when feeling a pleasant feeling, he understands: I feel a pleasant feeling.

When feeling a painful feeling, he understands, "I feel a painful feeling." When feeling a neither painful nor pleasant feeling, he understands, "I feel a neither painful nor pleasant feeling." When feeling a worldly pleasant feeling, he understands, "I feel a worldly pleasant feeling." When feeling an unworldly pleasant feeling, he understands: I feel an unworldly pleasant feeling. When feeling a worldly painful feeling, he understands: I feel a worldly painful feeling.

When feeling an unworldly painful feeling, he understands: I feel an unworldly painful feeling. When feeling a worldly neither painful nor pleasant feeling, he understands, I feel a worldly neither painful nor pleasant feeling. When feeling an unworldly neither painful nor pleasant feeling, he understands, I feel an unworldly neither painful nor pleasant feeling. So let's break this down. What are we talking about here?

So when you feel a pleasant feeling, what is a pleasant feeling? First of all, the knowing that that feeling is pleasant, the knowing that that feeling brings pleasure, is perception. Tied to feeling is perception. So you can think of it in this way: an experience arises due to contact with an object, and it has a certain kind of quality to it. Paglia, as we may say.

And that is the pleasant and unpleasant. But whatever is pleasant or unpleasant is, in a sense, projected by the mind through conceptual understanding that it is pleasant or unpleasant. We may say that there are some feelings that are objectively pleasant, and we may say that there are feelings that are objectively unpleasant. But I would say that in our personal, individual human experiences, they are subjective, mostly.

So one person's pain may be another person's pleasure. One person's pleasure may be another person's pain. Regardless of what it might be, the projection of that being pleasant, the placing and naming of it as a quality of feeling being pleasant or unpleasant or neutral, it has no real effect on me. It's just an experience, let's say. Perception happens as a result of contact. Perception happens concurrent to feeling.

Perception is that which labels the mind as pleasant or unpleasant. So when there is a pleasant feeling, some kind of experience that is pleasant, we know that it's pleasant. So the awareness, the ability to recognize here in this moment, that it is a pleasant moment of experience, that is the mindfulness. That is the sati. That is the bare awareness that indeed, right now, when you're contemplating, this is how you contemplate.

Pointing out, noting if you will: here is a pleasant feeling. But don't get stuck and caught up in noting all the time, because that's not anything. That's just repetition, that's just being a parrot, a mental parrot. Just the bare recognition that this is a pleasant feeling is enough. Likewise with painful feeling, likewise with neutral feeling. And so then he goes into a more detailed sort of explanation of this. He says, when one feels a worldly pleasant feeling, what do we mean by worldly? The world is essentially anything measured by, in essence, yeah, the five physical sense spaces, for the most part.

So when you experience something that is pleasing to the eyes or not pleasing to the eyes, pleasing to the ears or not pleasing to the ears, pleasing to the nose or not pleasing to the nose, pleasing to the body, the skin, or internally, or not pleasing, you know, like a stomach ache or something like that. When you experience any of these five sense spaces, pleasing to the tongue, that's what I keep forgetting, pleasing to the tongue, something that tastes wonderful, or something that doesn't appeal to our palate, that all incorporates or is encompassed in worldly pleasant or unpleasant feeling.

What is a neutral worldly feeling? A neutral worldly feeling in this case would be something that you're just experiencing, but you have no valence towards it. You don't have any kind of, like, okay, this is what it is. Like, for example, I'm sitting here. It's neither painful nor pleasant. It's just neutral. I am watching the birds or looking at the trees.

If I give some level of interest to it, it becomes pleasing. If I'm just watching without any kind of valence to it, then it's just neutral. It's a neutral feeling. Now, when we talk about unworldly, what do we mean by unworldly? Unworldly here can mean something that is otherworldly, because the Buddha always talks about this world and the other, and the other world is the world of beyond the physical senses, primarily in the mind. So when you experience an unworldly pleasant feeling, what is that?

That is a mental or emotional feeling such as joy, contentment, bliss, happiness, tranquility. These kinds of unworldly pleasant feelings. You could say even loving-kindness or compassion or joy. These are all unworldly, super-mundane, transcendent of the physical sense spaces. What can we say are unworldly painful feelings? Anger, despair, agitation, irritation, frustration, sadness. This is all happening in the mind and in the heart, so to speak.

These are otherworldly, these are super mundane, beyond the physical sense basis. Yes, we may have a psychosomatic experience. Like, for example, with regards to fear, we may feel it in the pit of our stomach. Or when we experience falling in love, we may experience butterflies in the stomach. Or we may experience a warm feeling in the heart when we have loving-kindness. This is psychosomatic. But essentially, it's a mental experience. It's an unworldly or otherworldly or transcendent or super mundane, right? So in the case of painful feelings, these are feelings that cause us displeasure. We don't want it. We don't want to be angry, we don't want to be sad, we don't want to feel embarrassed, we don't want to feel fear. These are the unpleasant experiences.

And when we talk about neutral, right, neither painful nor pleasant, unworldly feeling, what are we referring to here? Here we're referring to states like equanimity. Specifically equanimity, because if you think about equanimity, especially in the fourth jhana, with the disappearance of painful and pleasant experiences, he abides in the fourth jhana. The fourth jhana is primarily defined by purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. So equanimity is definitely one.

But any kind of feeling which doesn't have any valence to it, and you're just contemplating it, like you could be thinking about something that was aggravating in the past, but it no longer has that emotionality to it. You may be thinking of something that was joyful in the past, but you no longer have any kind of emotional connection to it. That can also be a neutral kind of feeling. And so one can contemplate and say: in this moment I am experiencing joy. In this moment I'm experiencing fear. In this moment I'm experiencing equanimity. In this moment, there is a pleasant sensation of the birds singing in the air.

In this moment, there is the pleasantness of tasting cool, crisp water during a hot summer day. In this moment, there is irritation because of the lawnmower running while I'm trying to meditate. In this moment, whatever it is, right? So in this moment, I'm experiencing this. Taking note of that, that's more than enough to be able to have the anchor of feeling and sensation and experience to let you know what's happening.

I choose to let go of any agitation, aversion, sensual craving, doubt, whatever it might be. So feelings as feelings internally, what do we mean by that? Generally speaking, feelings internally is any of the feelings that we subjectively experience. We experience through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and mentally. Externally are feelings that are happening to others. Why are we contemplating that? We're starting to see the impersonal nature of all feeling, internally or externally, or both internally and externally. You see the arising and passing away of feeling, dependent upon contact. Now you're starting to see dependent origination. This is the beauty of this Sutta. This is the beauty of the Satipatthana, right?

The foundations of mindfulness. This is why the Buddha says that this is the direct path. This is the express path to Nibbana. Because when you do this over a period of time, everything comes to you. Your mind becomes naturally collected. Your mind starts to see with insight the nature of things as conditioned, dependently arisen, the nature of things as, because they are dependently arisen, they are impermanent, they are unstable. And because we see that they are unstable, we let go of them, because even if they are pleasant, when they go away, it's unpleasant, it's suffering.

And so we start to see that this is not me, not mine, not myself. This experience is just experience. Here is the crux of the entire path. Here is the crux, the breaking point, the make-it-or-break-it point. If you have mindfulness in between, or just at feeling before craving arises, mindfulness becomes the gatekeeper. And when mindfulness is the gatekeeper, no craving, no clinging, no becoming, nothing can arise.

Because as soon as it tries to arise, your mind already has yoniso manasikara, attention rooted in reality, proper attention, that is aware of this experience is just experience. It's not mine, it's not me, it's not myself. It is just experience. And when I see it just as that, then why do I need to hold on to it?

Why do I need to do anything with it? I contemplate it just as feeling, and I let it go if there's any kind of identification with it. And when I do this, what happens is my mind remains pristine. My mind remains unagitated. My mind remains unaffected. My mind remains independent, not clinging to anything in the world. Now we move on to contemplation of the mind.

And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu abide contemplating mind as mind? When you say mind here, we're talking about mindset. I like to use that word because it's a set of different mental, you can say mental objects, mental states, and so on. So specifically, I would say mental states. Here, one understands mind affected by lust as mind affected by lust, and mind unaffected by lust as mind unaffected by lust. He understands mind affected by hate as mind affected by hate, and mind unaffected by hate as mind unaffected by hate. He understands mind affected by delusion as mind affected by delusion, and mind unaffected by delusion as mind unaffected by delusion. He understands. Okay, let's stop there for a moment. So what does that mean?

So we have experience as feeling. Now, how the mind responds and reacts to that feeling or experience is how it is affected. If there are lustful craving tendencies, then the mind is liable to experience or be affected by lust and craving. If the mind sees that there is an unpleasant feeling, there can arise aversion to that unpleasant feeling.

If the feeling, whatever the kind of feeling it is, if the mind sees it as me, mine, or myself, or misperceives the feeling or experience as permanent, as a source of eternal happiness, or as eternal happiness itself, or as me, mine, or myself, then there is delusion. So the moment you catch your mind affected by something, what is that?

The moment you catch it, the moment you notice it, what is it? What is that process called? It is to recognize. That is the very first step that we do in right effort. The Recognize step is the first step in the 6R's. To recognize, oh, my mind is affected by this feeling. Or my mind is affected by the hatred or the lust for this feeling. Or the mind is identifying with this feeling.

Or the mind is free of it. As soon as we've let go, we're aware the mind is free of it. So this is how you contemplate. This is how you are mindful, and this is the beauty of the practice, as we do it according to the Buddha Dhamma: everything that we do is, in one way or another, applying all the different requisites of the 37 requisites for enlightenment, including mindfulness, any of the four foundations of mindfulness.

When we are feeling loving kindness, what are we feeling? We're feeling a mental experience. We're feeling the somatic experience of warmth in the body. That's happening in the body, and that's a feeling. When we're experiencing the mind free of a hindrance, free of any hatred, lust, or delusion, or when we do experience a hindrance, we're again experiencing mindfulness. So we're not having to be mindful to be collected. It's happening all together. These are different pieces of the puzzle that come together as one solid practice that flows in the direction of awakening.

He understands contracted mind as contracted mind, and distracted mind as distracted mind. He understands exalted mind as exalted mind, and unexalted mind as unexalted mind. He understands surpassed mind as surpassed mind, and unsurpassed mind as unsurpassed mind. He understands concentrated or collected mind as collected mind, and uncollected mind as uncollected mind. He understands liberated mind as liberated mind, and unliberated mind as unliberated mind.

So what is a contracted mind, and what is a distracted mind? What is an exalted mind, and what is an unexalted mind? What is a surpassed mind, and what is an unsurpassed mind? I think collected mind and uncollected, liberated and unliberated, are pretty self-explanatory. So what does it mean to have a contracted mind? What does it mean to be contracted?

For practical purposes, it means there's tightness and tension. He understands that there is tightness and tension in the mind. That tightness and tension can be a result of trying too hard, over-meditating, or can be resulting from some level of craving. Trying too hard is a kind of craving. I want to get there, I'm obsessed by it. I want to get to Nibbana and I'm obsessed by it.

And so the mind is contracted. The mind is not experiencing lightness. The mind is not experiencing expansion, because everything that is wholesome, everything that is liberating to the mind, qualitatively feels like expansion. There is an ease in the mind. He understands distracted mind as distracted mind. What do we mean by distracted? Distracted here is a mind that has a hindrance, right? A mind that's not on its object. Plainly put, a mind that is no longer focused on its particular object, that's distracted. Exalted: what do we mean by exalted here? He is in the state of exaltation. He is in jhana. He's in the transcendent state.

Unexalted, no jhana present yet. Surpassed and unsurpassed: he has surpassed the forms, the form states, and he is in the formless realms. Unsurpassed, he is not yet in the formless realms. Collected, his mind has good samadhi. His mind is composed. His mind is collected, his mind is tranquil and at ease. Uncollected, his attention is dispersed. My mind is going in this place, in that place, so I'm aware of that. That is an aspect of mindfulness. My mind is thinking about many different things. My mind is in a state of rumination. I'm aware of that. That is good. Don't judge the rumination. Don't judge the fact that your mind is all over the place. That is the nature, that is the Dhamma of the moment, that is the truth of the moment,

that is the reality of the situation. Accept it for what it is. Fighting with it will only create more craving, more agitation, more aversion. And what's going on there? You're identifying with the experience as me, mine, or myself. I need something, I need to do something about it. Just be aware. Okay, the mind is ruminating. Okay, the mind is thinking too much.

That's the Recognize step. Gently, that's the operative word: gently release the mind. Let it go. Soften. Relax. And when you do that, you're less concerned about whether thoughts are there or not, and your mind is more content with what is present, which is the presence of mindfulness and the gradual but eventual collection of the mind, collecting of the mind.

Liberated mind and unliberated mind. Now we can see this in a few different contexts. Liberated is the mind in stream entry. Has the mind attained stream entry, or any of the four stages? If it has, it's liberated to that extent. If it hasn't, it hasn't been liberated to that extent. But another way of looking at it is the mind is liberated in this moment from any hindrances. Ah, there is the relief, no more hindrances, mind feels liberated. Whenever you do the Relax step, the mind experiences that peacefulness, that tranquility,

that sky-like nature of a cloudless blue sky, Nibbana. And in that moment, the mind is liberated from any rumination, liberated from any hindrance, liberated from any identification. When you are in that space, in the seeing there's only the seen, in the hearing there's only the heard, in the sensing there's only the sensed, in the cognizing there's only the cognized, right? In the, in the, um, yeah, I think that's all there is. In all that space there is only that process. The mind is liberated from any kind of thinking about this or that,

proliferating, any kind of thoughts about this or that, and so it's liberated in that moment. This is why we say the jhanas themselves are temporary liberations. Of course, when our mind is free, or not free, of these hindrances, in that moment it is unliberated. In this way, he abides contemplating mind as mind internally, or he abides contemplating mind as mind externally. For he abides contemplating mind as mind both internally and externally.

So here we're talking about mind, just not my mind or the mind that is here, but of the nature of all minds: that they are conditioned, that such minds can experience these different states. So my mind is no different than the minds of others, and their minds are no different from my mind. So when I experience something, others also can experience it. That doesn't mean that I'm affecting that. I'm just saying that mind, in regards to what we call mind, it's all one thing.

It's an element in and of itself, as the consciousness element. Whether we say it's mine, internally, could be the entire brain and the nervous system, or something else altogether, depending on the context. Mano, chitta and vinnana. Mano being the physical component. Chitta being that awareness, that mindset. And vinnana being that consciousness. And this is present everywhere. So we're looking at the impersonal nature of mind. This mind doesn't belong to me, and that mind doesn't belong to that person. It's just mind. It arises and passes away. It is impermanent.

Contemplation of mind objects, or Dhamma, phenomena. So we talk about the five hindrances. And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu abide contemplating mind objects as mind objects? Here, a bhikkhu abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the five hindrances. And how does one abide contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the five hindrances?

Here, there being sensual desire in him, he understands there is sensual desire in me. Now look at the absurdity of this practice of noting. What is the point of noting if all you're going to do is, oh, there is craving, craving, craving, craving, doubting, doubting, doubting, doubting. What is the point of that? Oh, ill will, ill will, ill will. It's absurd.

Noting is the first step. Not repeating it like a mental parrot. I got to keep noting and noting and noting and noting. What are you going to get? You're going to get a mind that's mush. Nothing more. You're going to get a mind that is self-hypnotized into bullying itself to be mindful. Nothing more than that. The first step is noting there is sensual desire in me, and what do you do with that sensual desire? You release it, you relax it, you bring up a wholesome object through the smile, you bring your mind back to its object when it's meditating, or back to the present moment where nothing is going on necessarily in the mind.

So there is sensual desire in me, or there is no sensual desire in me. Great, and there's nothing there in terms of sensual desire in my mind. Wonderful, I can just keep going. Right there is ill will, or sloth and torpor, or restlessness, or doubt, or there is no ill will, there is no sloth and torpor, there is no restlessness, there is no doubt. But what do we mean by these five hindrances? We know these five things. It's sensual desire: I want to, I'm obsessed by owning and keeping and holding on to this particular experience.

Sensual experience specifically, or that there's ill will: I have aversion to what's happening and I want to push it away, or restlessness and remorse. Restlessness is anxiety about the future. Restlessness is overthinking. Restlessness is agitation of the mind. Remorse is remorse of the past. Oh, if only I had done this. If only I had done that. If only they did not say this to me. If only, if only, if only. That's remorse.

Or guilt, this shame and guilt about the past that just is crumbling and crippling to the mind, that's remorse. It's good to be remorseful for things that we've done in the past in the sense of: I aim not to do it again. I feel remorseful about it. I regret it. But now I move on and I choose not to do it again. That's the best way to do it. This is what the Buddha does in the suttas.

Somebody makes a mistake, or somebody has ill will, or somebody has whatever it is, and they intentionally do something, but that says okay, no problem, move on, it's all good. You've decided not to do it again, keep to that, that's it. There's no absolution or absolving of your sins, no ceremony, nothing like that. Just: I've done it, I feel sorry about it, I understand the consequences, and I choose not to do it again. That's it. This desire to, oh, if only I had done this, or if only I had not done that, this nostalgia of the past, if things were great in the past, if things were great like this in the present as they were in the past, that's also a kind of remorse. What do we mean by doubt? Doubt really is doubt in terms of confusion of what is present in the mind, whether it's wholesome or unwholesome. I'm not sure exactly where my mind is in regards to that.

Or sloth and torpor, where the mind becomes heavy and dull and sleepy. It's like there's a thick fog in the mind. And so when he says this, he says he understands in the case of doubt: how there comes to be the arising of unarisen doubt, and how there comes to be the abandoning of arisen doubt, and how there comes to be the future non-arising of abandoned doubt. So important. Now, look at that with regards to sensual desire, ill will, restlessness, and sloth and torpor. He's talking about the four right efforts right here. He's talking about the 6R's right here. It's not just noting, noting, noting. It's about: he understands there has come to be the arising of an unarisen hindrance.

So you see the fact that these hindrances are also dependently arisen. They arise and pass away, so they are impermanent. And you notice, oh, there is a hindrance here, so your mindfulness has returned. You're not clinging to anything. You're not trying to push away the hindrance. You're not trying to control the hindrance. You're just aware: here is a hindrance, and you gently let it go. So now we talk about the five aggregates again, because one abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the five aggregates affected by clinging. This is known as the... there's the five aggregates, that is the pancha khandha, and there is the pancha upadana khandha, that is the five aggregates affected by clinging. In other words, clinging can arise from any of these five aggregates, but the five aggregates are not neither separate nor are the separate from or are the clinging. You have to understand that the clinging can arise through them or from them, but they're also not clinging themselves. When you've let go of clinging altogether, there are just these five aggregates, plain and simple.

That continue to persist as fuel for karma that has to arise due to certain causes and conditions, and when that has been expended then that is the end, extinguishing of those five aggregates. So how does one abide contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the five aggregates affected by clinging? Here one understands: such is material form, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is perception, such its origin, such its disappearance; such are the formations, such are their origin, such their disappearance; such is consciousness, such its origin, such its disappearance. This understanding of form and its origin, the arising of form and its disappearance, the arising of feeling and its disappearance, the arising of perception and its disappearance, the arising of formations and their disappearance, the arising of consciousness and its disappearance, this is the ability to see the impermanent nature, the conditionally dependent nature of the five aggregates. You see this same statement in Samyutta Nikaya 12.23.

You see the same statement in Samyutta Nikaya 12.23, which is the Upanisa Sutta about the transcendental links of dependent origination. Where do you see it? You see it at the very end, not in the end of the sutta but at the very end of that sequence when we start in the reverse order, so to speak. So what do we say there? There is the liberation of the mind, there is the knowledge of the liberation of the mind. What is that dependent upon? He says in that sutta it is dependent upon when the mind understands such is form, such its origin, such its disappearance.

Such is feeling, such its origin, such its disappearance, and so on. This is why the five aggregates meditation has been offered to you guys, because it is a path to liberation. It was the second discourse of the Buddha, chronologically speaking. There must be some reason for that. It is through the contemplation of those five aggregates that those bhikkhus that listened to it became arahants. So what is form? Material form can be form that is internal or external, this form or any form anywhere. What is its origin? Well, in terms of the mind and body, or body itself, it's made up of food, it's made up of nutrients, it's made up of the earth, it's made up of the fire element, the earth element, the water element, and so on, the states of matter. How does it disappear? It disappears when these things come apart. So what are we seeing here? We're seeing that form is conditionally dependent, form is impermanent, therefore it is not me, not mine, not myself. Such as feeling and perception and formations, these three, their origins arise how? Through contact, when there is contact with the sense base

And its object, and then there is a corresponding awareness or consciousness dependent upon that contact, then there arises the feeling, the experience of that particular, whatever sense-based experience it is, and tied to it the perception and the formations that allow us to feel and perceive, and the formations that allow us to intend through verbal formations to decide what we want to do with it, and the physical formations, or whether we want to move around or whatever it is. It happens through contact. The decision point that arises in the form of intention, that is the formation that is arising dependent upon contact. And how do they disappear? When contact ceases, no more contact, no more attention given to that, no more feeling of that, no more perception of that, no more formations arising dependent upon that, such as consciousness, such its origin, such its disappearance. What is consciousness? It's the attention, the awareness dependent upon. In other words, its origin is intention, which is tied to formations, and its disappearance is when we let go of all intention. When we let go of all formations, then is the cessation of consciousness.

So when you see this, you not only understand it intellectually, but you see it for yourself. Your mind is in a space of total and pure non-identification, and in that is the liberation of the mind. And so he says, in this way he abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects internally, externally, and both internally and externally, and he abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. So when you're abiding and contemplating, it's just not these aggregates, but it's all aggregates everywhere. They all are of the same nature: to arise and pass away, to be impermanent, and not to be mine, me, mine, or myself. So this is how one abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the five aggregates affected by clinging.

Again, one abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the six internal and external sense bases. And how does one abide contemplating the mind objects as mind objects in terms of the six internal and external bases? What is the internal and the external? He will explain. He says, he understands, or yeah, he understands the eye, so that's the internal. He understands forms, that's the external. And he understands the fetter that arises dependent upon both. That's that consciousness that is tainted, that is stained by identification of me, mine, or myself.

And he also understands how there comes to be the arising of the unarisen fetter, of whatever that might be, craving, clinging, and so on. And how there comes to be the abandoning of the arisen fetter, and how there comes to be the future non-arising of the abandoned fetter. He understands the ear. He understands sounds. He understands the nose. He understands odors. This is the internal and the external. He understands the tongue. He understands flavors. He understands the body. He understands tangibles. He understands the mind. That's the internal.

And the mental object, loving-kindness, the hindrance, whatever it is, as the external, and he understands the fetter that arises dependent on both. It's only when there's contact between these two that there is an attention that can arise, giving rise to consciousness. And if that consciousness is fettered by formations that are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, then there can arise craving or hatred or aversion or identification. And so he understands when an underlying tendency arises dependent on that, and he understands how there comes to be the arising of that. He understands it has arisen, and he understands when you let go of that. You notice, now here's craving arising dependent upon what I'm seeing, right? Depending on the contact between the eyes and its object. Likewise with the other sense bases. I'm seeing that and I'm choosing to let that go.

So he understands when there is the abandoning of that. And then he understands how there comes to be no more further arising in the future of that particular fetter, whether it's craving, hatred, greed, hatred, delusion, whatever it is. So here again, we're talking about right effort. In this way, he abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects internally, externally, and both internally and externally.

Interesting. So when there is mindfulness in me, I am aware there is mindfulness. When there is no mindfulness, the irony is I become aware that there was no mindfulness, and now I have regained my mindfulness. So whenever we talk about the right efforts, the four right efforts or the six R's, what we're doing, effectively speaking, is we are letting go of the hindrances and we're generating the enlightenment factors. Every time we recognize that there is no longer a hindrance present, or there is a hindrance and we let go of that, or we recognize there is now mindfulness, we have the mindfulness factor, right, and we have the investigation of states factor. So I'll explain that when I read this, but basically, when we are doing the process of the six R's, when we're doing the four right efforts, we're generating the wholesome states in the form of these enlightenment factors. And through the development, how does the development happen? Through practice, through cultivation, through meditation.

the process of going through the jhanas they're in lie in those jhanas the enlightened factors circling back and forth back and forth back and forth until in the fourth jhana you have my purity of mindfulness due to equanimity because the equanimity then continues to purify that mindfulness and your mind becomes that much more tranquil that much more serene that much more aware that much more alert that much more collected there being the investigation of states enlightenment factor in him there being the energy enlightenment factor in him there being the joy enlightenment factor in him there being the tranquility enlightenment factor in him there being the collectedness enlightenment factor in him there being the equanimity enlightenment factor in him he understands there is this enlightenment factor in me or he or there being no none of these enlightenment factors in him he understands there is none of these enlightenment factors in him he also understands how there comes to be the arising of that unarisen enlightenment factor and how that particular in line enlightenment factor comes to fulfillment by development

How does it come to fulfillment by development, these enlightenment factors? Because in the process of the six R's are contained the enlightenment factors. When we recognize that there is whatever there is in the mind, we now have two enlightenment factors: we have the mindfulness enlightenment factor, and we have the investigation of states enlightenment factor, because now we are aware what is present and what is not present. When we relax, there is the tranquility enlightenment factor. When we re-smile, there is the joy enlightenment factor. When we return to our object, there is the collectedness enlightenment factor.

And when we're doing all of this, we're balancing the energy enlightenment factor, right? So what we are releasing and relaxing, we're not just tranquilizing, but we're balancing the energy in the mind. And when we're doing this process in that way, the equanimity factor becomes developed. So every time we do the six R's, every time we do right effort, it is the crux of the Eightfold Path. It is what holds everything else together. That is, it is through this process that we can generate mindfulness, that we can generate the different states of the mind, that we can generate the jhanas, that we can experience the enlightenment factors, that we can experience all of the other requisites of the 37 requisites.

They are used as tools. They are used as logs that make up the raft to take you to the other shore. They in themselves are also impermanent. This is important to understand. Otherwise, the mind gets caught up and obsesses over, oh, I don't have this enlightenment factor. So you identify with this. You make it me, mine, or myself.

Again, because one abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the Four Noble Truths. And how does one abide contemplating mind objects as mind objects in terms of the Four Noble Truths? Here he understands as it actually is: this is suffering. He understands as it actually is: this is the origin of suffering. He understands as it actually is: this is the cessation of suffering. He understands as it actually is: this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.

So, what do we mean by this? Again, every time we use right effort, we are exercising the ability to use the Four Noble Truths. Here is a hindrance, that is the suffering. The undue attention, the identification, the desire to push it away, the desire for it to continue, that is the origin of that hindrance, which is the suffering.

How does one cease that hindrance? By letting it go. How does one let it go? Utilizing the path, which is the Eightfold Path, which is encapsulated in right effort. What is right effort? The six R's. So every time you do this, you are actually exercising, as it actually is, understanding as it actually is, the Four Noble Truths. You understand suffering arising, you abandon the origin of suffering, you experience the cessation of that suffering, and you cultivate the way that leads to the cessation of that suffering.

They arise and pass away. There comes a point when the Four Noble Truths are present, when we have the awareness of them, and they go away when we don't have the presence of mind to see them, using the six R's, or they arise and pass away and we're aware of that, right? We see them as conditionally dependent. We see the Four Noble Truths as impersonal. There comes a point where the Four Noble Truths are never known, because it's an age in which there is no Buddha present to rediscover that. And there comes a time, an eon, in which it is present. The Buddha is there to contemplate the Four Noble Truths.

And to teach it, and that is possible to be aware of. So when you are aware, "Ah, I'm noticing this hindrance, that is the suffering," when you're aware, "Ah, here is the letting go of that," that is the cessation of suffering, the abandoning and cessation of suffering. Right? And here I'm contemplating and using the 6 R's in this way.

So it's not like you have to take everything apart and say, oh, this is suffering. This is suffering. This is suffering. This is the origin of suffering. This is for, that is for intellectuals. That is for people who think that they know what they're doing. That is for people who think that they're meditating, but all they're doing is just repetitively basically repeating a mantra in their mind that's it they're not actually seeing for themselves how this affects it and it's just through that repetition of that mantra of their mind that their mind becomes so-called calm and collected but really what's happening is you're just suppressing everything else and you have this unconsciousness that happens to be mistaken for cessation the real cessation happens when you have samatha and vipassana when you have clarity

Because if anyone should develop these four foundations of mindfulness in such a way for seven years, one of two fruits could be expected from him: either final knowledge here and now, that's full awakening, or if there's a trace of clinging left, non-return. Where is the trace of clinging? Clinging to the Dhamma. I have to speak about the Dhamma, I have to evangelize about the Dhamma, or even if that's not happening, I make Dhamma my precious. You know, nobody can say anything against the Dhamma because my mind will be alerted to that. There's clinging, there's identification with that, there's still the holding on to the raft while you're on the other shore. That's the trace of clinging. Let alone seven years, because one should develop these four foundations of mindfulness in such a way for six years, for five years, for four years, for three, for two, for one

one of two fruits could be expected for him: final knowledge here and now, or if there's still clinging, non-return. Let alone one year. If one should develop these four foundations of mindfulness in such a way as we have been discussing in the last two sessions for seven months, for six months, for five months, for four months, for three, for two, for one, for half a month, one of two fruits could be expected for him: either final knowledge here and now, or if there's a trace of clinging left, non-return. Let alone half a month, because if anyone should develop these four foundations of mindfulness in such a way for seven days, one of two fruits could be expected for him: either final knowledge here and now, or if there's a trace of clinging left, non-return. That's a very interesting proposition. To what extent can we remain mindful in the way that we have talked about for seven days in a row without any lapse?

So the idea here is to continue to develop this practice in such a way that you are mindful, if not all the time, most of the time. And when you're mindful most of the time in the way that we have discussed, you are free of suffering for those periods of time. So it was with reference to this that it was said, because this is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, the realization of nibbana, namely the four foundations of mindfulness. That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Buddha's words.