Day-1 QA - Online 10-day Retreat (Nov-17) with Delson Armstrong

So what should we do to have a good sitting? Follow your precepts, number one. So that means make sure that you take the precepts. And if you feel like you can take the refuges in the Buddha, in the Dhamma, in the Sangha, and then continue to maintain the precepts, because that's very important. That's going to give you a good foundation for your mind when you then get into the sitting practice. And you will find that there are lesser hindrances that might show up.

Sometimes it will show up because of various activities that you're doing and the mind is trying to settle down. So you may find that there are thoughts related to perhaps work, or related to the activities you're doing throughout the day, or just the mind doing its thing, which is reviewing what happened throughout the day, while you continue to 6R's, while you continue to stay with your object of meditation.

So as I said, first and foremost, keep your precepts, take your precepts, maintain them. And before you sit, secondly, have no expectations. Come at the meditation practice with a sense of wonder, meaning let's see what it brings up today. Let's see what mind brings up today, and then continue to 6R's it without any expectations of what might happen.

Thank you. I have a question. Yes. To a retreat before, in person, in Missouri for example, do we just continue on where we were when we ended the retreat, or do we start over with the loving guidance toward a spiritual friend, like start from the beginning, or do we continue on? This is a very good question. I'm glad you brought it up, because my suggestion will always be to start from where you last left off in any retreat that you did. So for example, for people who are still continuing with sending it to a spiritual friend, they continue to do so. If you have gone into being able to radiate it in all six directions,

whether it's metta, compassion, joy, or equanimity. If in your previous experience you last left off at radiating equanimity, start from there if your mind feels comfortable doing so. If at last you were able to stay in quiet mind, start from there. But if the mind says that it wants to start from, say, compassion, kindness, allow that to happen, and then allow that to gradually go into quiet mind or equanimity or whatever it might be. And then in your next sit, start from there. So always start from where you last left off.

But without expectation. Yes. Let it come. Exactly. Thank you. - Another question. - Yes. - This might've been in the printed materials, but how much, I think I read, devote four hours per day during this retreat? Refresh my memory, how much of that time should be spent meditating? As much as possible. So what I mean by that is, if watching the video or reading the material gets in the way of your sitting practice or your walking practice, then I would say give more attention to your walking or sitting practice, because it's more important to learn from your own experiences first and foremost. The videos and the written material are there as a foundation for you, are there as a way of understanding more in-depth aspects of the practice, as well as some of the theoretical aspects of the practice, and of course related to the suttas and theories related to what is described with mindfulness, and so on and so forth.

So that should help you in so far as allowing yourself to understand deeper aspects of the Dhamma. But always spend more time towards your own practice first and foremost. - Plus, we keep it going all the time anyways. - Right, exactly. - Thank you. Hi, Lizzy. Can I ask this thing? Yes. I cannot stop thinking why I'm doing the meditation.

So I go back to Sik A. Sometimes, I cannot say that, the Sik A. How do I go back to the meditation? Yeah. Initially, while you're practicing, there will always be some sort of restlessness in the mind. So if during the practice, even after keeping your precepts, as I mentioned earlier, there might be some activity in the mind in which it might review what's happened throughout the day. It might have other ideas and different things that might pop up. If you just allow it to be there without your involvement, and say, this is what's there right now in the present moment, as soon as you recognize it, what happens is, first and foremost, you are stopping it from continuing to think, which means

that if you're still continually thinking about something, then you haven't gone back to the 6R's process. But the Recognize part of that process, the first R of the 6R's, stops the mind from further proliferating, from further creating more thoughts. The thoughts that you are dealing with now, then you release your attention from those thoughts. You relax the mind and body away from the thoughts that have already arisen, and you release your attention from that. That's basically abandoning those thoughts, and putting your attention now on the mind and body, which is where you then relax the mind and the body, and then you come back to the re-smile.

Once you come back to the re-smile, that helps you to come back to your feeling, which would be one of the brahmaviharas, or quiet mind, let's say. And from there, you continue returning and then repeating the practice of the 6R's. So it's important to know from this context why we're doing the 6R's. You will see it in the written material and you'll see it in the video, but I'll give you a brief outline of what it's all about. It's intertwined with the four right efforts, the right effort that's there in the Eightfold Path, when you see that there are thoughts arising.

As soon as you've seen them, meaning recognize them, you are using mindfulness. You now know that your attention has swayed away from your object. Your attention is no longer aware of the object and has become distracted by thoughts. By doing that, the Recognize step, you are doing the first right effort, which is you're preventing any further thoughts from starting to continue to distract your mind, preventing that from happening.

The risen thoughts that have already occurred, you release your attention away from them. By doing that, you are experiencing or implementing the second right effort, which is you're abandoning your attention. You're abandoning your attention from those thoughts. You're abandoning, releasing those thoughts, your attention from those thoughts. In the third right effort, you're bringing up something wholesome, and that's done. So first you're releasing, and then relaxing the mind and body. So you're really relaxing the craving in the second right effort. So let me just go back. In the first right effort, you're recognizing, preventing any thoughts from arising.

In the second right effort, you are releasing your attention and relaxing the mind and body. So you're abandoning the risen thoughts that have already been there. And then in the third right effort, you bring up the re-smile, which helps you to bring up that wholesome quality of mind, which will be one of the brahmaviharas. So by doing that, you're doing the third right effort, which is bringing up that wholesome quality. And then by maintaining it, by returning to your object and staying with it, you're maintaining the awareness of that loving kindness or compassion or whatever it might be. So in this way, you are fulfilling right effort and the four aspects of right effort within the Eightfold Path.

So when you see that the mind is starting to become distracted by all of these thoughts, first and foremost, don't try to control them. Don't try to manipulate them. Don't try to push them down. Don't try to suppress them. Just let them be there. It's like watching traffic go by, or if you're watching the blue sky, you're just watching the clouds go by. There's no involvement. It's just a natural process of the mind. What you then do is use the 6R's process to come back to the mind. The more you do that, the more you do that, you will be able to continue to let go quicker and much easier. And those distractions will have weakened.

So they may arise again, arise in such a way that they distract you fully, and eventually they'll just go away and they won't distract you any further. So you just have to continue to practice and maintain that practice of the 6R's. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I actually do have a question. My question is about the refuges.

I am not too familiar with them. But there is, of course, the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Are the refuges taken in reference to a particular Sangha, or is it more of the concept of a Sangha, so to speak? It's the concept of the Sangha. It's not a particular Sangha, but the entire Sangha at large. Everyone who has become or taken refuge in the Buddha, essentially.

Right. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. One thing, one precept we pledge to observe on a so-called residential retreat, is noble silence. We can't observe that on a virtual retreat, but do you advise to refrain from unnecessary speech? I always advise people to refrain from unnecessary speech, regardless of whether you're on retreat or not on retreat. It saves you a lot of grief. Yes.

Good advice. I should follow. But since you brought up the precepts, you are welcome to follow just the five precepts or eight precepts. That is up to you. In that process, if you want to still follow the five precepts, you're still advised to maintain some form of silence, because that translates really into the noble silence of the mind. That's really where the noble silence takes root, where the mind is able to let go of verbal formations much more easily.

And by doing that, you're able to tranquilize the mental feeling and perceptions as well, much more easily. Right thought. Yes. I have a question, actually, about the precepts as well. Yeah. To refrain from abusive speech, is that something done with the mind as well, or is that referring just to the physical act of talking? It's also in the mind, which means that, for example, abusive speech would also, let's say, create in the mind restlessness.

It would create some sense of ill will if it's directed towards something or someone. So it all starts in the mind. It all starts in the process of thought within the mind. So it's best if you also refrain from abusive speech within the mind as well. - I have a stupid question. - No questions are stupid. - Is today day zero or day one? - Today, yeah. - I'm in North America.

That is a very good question, actually. It really depends on you. If you want to take this as day zero, you can, because obviously you guys are, I think it's night for you, the previous night. It's actually midnight, yes. Right. Just barely once today, no. Right, exactly. So my suggestion is take it at your own pace. So if you feel like this is day one for you, it can be day one. And that also brings up the question that if today is the Q&A for day one for this time, then for that evening you want to try to review the material for day one, so that means your evening of the 18th, or just before, you want to be able to review day two. Thank you. I heard your previous talks on Sundays.

So once you mentioned that we should start the meditation with observing the body, so how do we do it? Then what is the purpose of it? Yeah, it's a matter of establishing the four foundations of mindfulness, so you're not just aware of where your body is in the present moment. You are also aware of what sensations are arising in the way of sensory experiences, and what the mind is doing, and what the mental contents are, thoughts, reflections, things like that. Once you're aware of where your mind is, where your body is, you can start the practice, because you are able to know where you are at the beginning when you start. So if you know that the mind, for example, is restless, you know now that you need to start to bring in some tranquility. You need to start to relax and let go, and shift your mind towards tranquility.

If you see that the mind is tired or sluggish, you know that you want to bring in more energy, bring in more attention in the mind. Likewise, if the body is tired, you might want to take some rest before starting the meditation, because sometimes a tired mind will translate into a restless mind. And also, some people like to do a body scan

just to kind of ground themselves. And I see nothing wrong with that, if you want to. If that helps you to be able to stay present and stay aware with your object of meditation, by all means, do that. I have a comment. Yes. This is a failing meditation, and somehow the terminology returned to your object of meditation somehow doesn't, it confuses me. Yeah. Object, it's not even a feeling, it's this, it's an experience really. Yeah, it's the awareness of the experience. One of the translations that can be used is a vehicle of meditation, that's one that Bhante Vimalaramsi likes to use, for example, and that might give it, yeah, that might give a good clarity in terms of this is a flowing sort of experience of that metta or whatever the radiating of the brahmaviharas are. So that helps. It's a point. Okay. If it doesn't help, I mean, whatever works for you really, it's about the awareness. It's very helpful. Yeah, yeah, okay. So really, the terminology could be just return to your meditation.

Let go of the distraction and return to meditating. Yes, you could use that. That's right. The thing about object of meditation also is, for some people it can also get into their minds the idea that this is one point. So this is something of a revision that I might need to do in the text later on. But as I said, if it helps you, say, getting back to the meditation or the awareness of the experience or vehicle of meditation, what works for you, that you should do?

Very good. Thank you. Delson, I'm just wondering, you can do different postures with this too, as well? Yes, you can do it while you're walking, while you're standing, while you're sitting, while you're lying down. My only caveat about lying down is, if you are going to lie down and do it, you want to bring a little more attention to your meditation. You want to bring a little more attention to the awareness of the feeling, because there's a tendency, if let's say the body might be tired, or just a general tendency while lying down, for the mind to feel sluggish and tired and sleepy, and then you might start to drift off into sleep. So to counterbalance that, you want to bring a little more attention.

Given that you can do it lying down, what about the time of day? I suppose if you went later on in the day, say late afternoon and night time, you'd have more of a tendency to fall asleep, wouldn't you? Maybe mid-morning or something like that, or it'd be a bit better to do it lying down? What works for you? So, if the body feels like it can still maintain, or the mind as well can maintain awareness of the body and the feeling, and then of course just remain with the feeling as you get into the arupa jhanas and so on, while it's mid-morning or in the morning compared to in the evening or late afternoon, then do that. But it'll be an experiment, and see what seems to be most beneficial for you.

to sleep sometimes. My, I try to keep it going through the whole day, and I just got so energized and I can't sleep, and that's a problem for me. Yeah, you can start to just do the relaxed process of the six Rs sometimes, that will help. We're just continually relaxing, relaxing, relaxing, so eventually what happens is the energy of that thought process starts to be let go of. It starts to weaken and dissipate. I know some people like to just really do the meditation just before going to bed, or even while they're in bed before going to sleep, and that might help for some people, but generally it's more about keeping, bringing in the factor of tranquility in terms of the seven enlightenment factors.

So if you just allow the mind to rest in the relaxed step of the six Rs, that might help you. Thank you. So Kun, do you have the sharing merit slide on? There we go. Sorry, yes, thank you. So I'm bringing up the slides, so I suggest we share merit together. May suffering once be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. May our grieving shed our grief, and may our beings find relief. May our beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. And may they all protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.