Day 5 2022 July#2 Retreat SN 33 7-25-22 - The 44 Knowledges

Here we go. The Sutta I'm going to be reading from today is Samyutta Nikaya, number 33, and it's called The Cases of Knowledge. At Savatthi, Bhikkhus, I will teach you 44 cases of knowledge. Listen to that and attend closely. I will speak. Yes, Venerable Sir, those Bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this, Bhikkhus, what are the 44 cases of knowledge?

These bhikkhus are the 44 cases of knowledge. So what we're talking about are the links of dependent origination, from aging and death and that whole mass of suffering, and then all the way out into formations and ignorance. We'll see how that happens. But what we're saying is it's the 11 links. That's formations, consciousness, name and form or mentality, materiality, six sense bases, contact, feelings, craving, clinging, habitual tendencies, birth, and that whole mass of suffering. That multiplied by the Four Noble Truths.

That's the 44 cases of knowledge. So we're going to see how the Four Noble Truths are basically a way of understanding suffering, because when we see the links of dependent origination, the arising of the links of dependent origination, is the suffering. And so now we see the origin of suffering. And then the cessation of those links is the cessation of suffering.

And so we'll see that. And of course, the way leading to their cessation is the Noble Eightfold Path. So when I'm reading this, when it says just this Noble Eightfold Path as the fourth Noble Truth, understand when we say that, we're really saying the six R's. In the Eightfold Path, what we said is in order to apply the Eightfold Path, in order for us to understand and cultivate the Eightfold Path, we use right effort. We go from wrong view to right view, wrong intention to right intention, wrong speech to right speech, wrong action to right action, wrong livelihood to right livelihood, wrong mindfulness to right mindfulness, wrong concentration to right concentration. Right effort.

And yesterday we explored how right effort is really the six R's. So we're using the six R's to understand what link is present in the mind and then letting it go. So now we're going to explore how that is the case. And, bhikkhus, what is aging and death? In the various orders of beings, their growing old, brokenness of teeth, grayness of hair, wrinkling of skin, decline of vitality, degeneration of the faculties.

This is called aging. The passing away of the various beings from the various orders of beings, their perishing, breakup, disappearance, mortality, death, completion of time, the breakup of the aggregates, the laying down of the corpse. This is called death. Thus, this aging and this death are called aging and death. Can you 6R aging and death? No. You cannot.

Aging is a natural process of this body. Death is a natural part of this existence. Whatever arises, ceases. Now, this statement, whatever arises, is subject to cessation. That is the understanding one has, the experiential understanding one has, when one actually sees dependent origination for the first time. And because of that, there is stream entry. One enters the stream.

One enters the Dhamma. The eye of the Dhamma is opened. And so this arising and passing away, the understanding of whatever arises, is subject to cessation, happens on multiple levels. Everything that is conditioned, everything that is dependently arisen, is impermanent. away its condition, you take away the source of its arising, and it ceases because it's dependent upon it. This is what we mean by dependently arisen phenomena.

With the arising of this, there is the arising of that. With the cessation of this, there is a cessation of that. Understanding this, then we see that everything that you experience is subject to change, subject to arising and passing away. If it's impermanent, then it is liable to cause suffering one way or the other. And therefore it's not worth holding on to. And therefore it should not be seen as this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

Once you have this understanding of dependent origination, personally, you see everything as just dependently arisen phenomena. It's no big deal. Once you start seeing everything in an impersonal manner, that is the beginning of wisdom. And that is the way to end your suffering, for the cessation of suffering. So now aging and death. When we talk about aging and death, we talk about aging as being a natural part of life. We talk about death as being a natural part of life. We cannot change how our body changes.

We cannot stop or delay the aging process. At least not yet. We'll see how science catches up to that. But even then, what we have to understand is the mentality related to that process of aging. There is an inherent fear amongst beings, of aging. Let's just take the human race. There's so many products out there, so many supplements, so many different kinds of packages that allow you to delay the aging process, that allow you to make yourself look younger. When you look into the mirror and you start to see that first strand of gray hair, you think, oh no, I'm done for. This is the end.

So what do you do? You buy some kind of hair color and you start to color up that strand. Human beings do so many different things to delay the aging process, to deny the aging process, let alone the dying process itself. And when we talk about death, death is the end of life. Death is the cessation of life. process, certain elements in the body start to dissipate in a certain kind of order.

We have the air element going away. We have the fire element going away. We have the water element ceasing. We have the earth element ceasing. And then the senses, the sixth sense bases, start to dissipate during the dying process. The first to go is the sense of smell. Then the sense of taste. Then the sense of sight. Then the sense of touch, then the sense of hearing, and then finally the mind itself.

And as this happens, you have to see what's going on in your mind. It's this dying process that's very, very crucial to what's going to happen next. Because the thoughts that arise in the dying process, if the mind grabs onto them, there might be a life review process and the mind goes through all the wonderful things it's done and there's craving for it. Or there's guilt and regret and remorse because one hasn't led a completely wholesome life.

And there's aversion towards that. And because of that craving, because of that aversion, because of that clinging to identity, it gives rise to a new set of formations, new sankharas. And those sankharas then give rise to new consciousness, which then departs this life and enters a new life. This is known as the gandhabba, the rebirth-linking consciousness. Now, of course, this is a leap of logic for many, but the understanding here is one who has seen it understands it in this way. parts and then arises in a new life.

Consciousness continues to arise and pass away in one life itself. In one second itself, consciousness arises and passes away. You see that for yourself when you go into infinite consciousness. Seeing that, you realize the impermanence of consciousness. And therefore, you don't take consciousness to be self. So when we talk about rebirth, not reincarnation. Reincarnation presupposes the idea that there is a permanent self, a permanent soul that goes from life to life and experiences that karma. Rebirth says that the choices in one present moment lead to the existence of the next moment.

But the connection between this moment and the next moment, or this life and the next life, that karma, the sankharas are the carriers of that karma that then lead into the next life. But those sankharas are also impermanent because they are subject to change. They change all the time, dependent upon your choices, dependent upon your intentions. So when we talk about death, the dying process, there is a fear there. There is a hesitation there.

Whether there is a hesitation for one's own death, or the death of our loved ones. We think about that and we say, oh, I don't want to think about that. We think death is a terrible thing. Yes, death is part of suffering. Death is part of dukkha. But you're not going to get anywhere by not facing it.

Death is everywhere. And part of that process of dying is also grief. In some of the suttas, when we talk about this twelfth link of aging and death, it includes sorrow, grief, sorrow, lamentation, pain, despair, this whole mass of suffering. And that includes all kinds of things. That includes anxiety and restlessness about the future. How am I going to do in the future? That includes grief about the past or remorse about the past. That includes pain, bodily pain.

And that includes despair, depression, sadness. All of these things are part of existence. But they are not inescapable insofar as understanding suffering and the cessation of suffering are concerned. In other words, once you come to that understanding, once you come to that wisdom, that here is suffering and there is a way leading out of the suffering, using right effort, using the six R's, then you are reconditioning your mind from being in a suffering mindset to being in a free mindset, liberated from that suffering. Liberation just basically means that the mind is no longer bothered by pain, no longer bothered by grief, no longer bothered by any elements of suffering.

So the liberated mind willingly accepts the death of this body. Because that's the time, it's the expiry date of this body. But what happens for the liberated mind is that's it, that's the end. That's why Nibbana is also known as the deathless. Because there's no more coming to being in that mind, to be in terms of a rebirth of new consciousness that's rooted in craving, rooted in becoming, rooted in conceit.

And because there's no birth, there is no death. Now there's another way of understanding this, which I'll get to very soon. But Nibbana is known as the deathless because you have no longer the fear of death, the fear of aging. With the arising of birth, there is the arising of aging and death and this whole mass of suffering.

With the cessation of birth, there is the cessation of aging and death and this whole mass of suffering. This noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of birth, cessation of aging and death, and the whole mass of suffering. So in other words, when you are born, you are born with an expiry date. Birth, any being that is born into existence, any kind of existence, is bound to die, is bound to pass away.

This is the macro level of understanding birth, with the arising of a being, arising of existence. The cessation of that birth is a cessation of aging and death and the whole mass of suffering. But there is another way of understanding birth on the micro level, and we'll get to that. And what, bhikkhus, is birth? The birth of the various beings into the various orders of beings, into the womb, production, the manifestation of the aggregates, the obtaining of the senses.

This is called birth. So this is the macro level of birth. This happens when the Gandhava goes from one death and goes into the new life. The descent of that Gandhava, that consciousness, is a kind of birth. Coming into being as a human after nine or ten months in the womb is another kind of birth. And there are different kinds of birth. There are different kinds of generation.

There is the generation by the womb, which is what most mammals experience. There's a generation by eggs, which is what most reptiles and birds and other kinds of creatures experience. Birth by moisture. This is understood as birth from moisture in terms of different kinds. When you look at the sewage and things like that, certain kinds of insects are born there.

And spontaneous generation. So spontaneous generation has to do with the Devas, has to do with the Brahma Lokas, and so on and so forth. But for the purposes of practicality, of understanding birth here, with birth there is another way of understanding it: birth of action, birth of karma, birth of karma leads to a whole mass of suffering. So when we were talking yesterday about dependent origination, a little bit about it, we're talking about it in the context of karma, old karma and new karma. Here that birth is the birth of new action.

The birth of new karma. That is the reactivity that you have, which then gives rise to a certain kind of action. The mental intention or thought. The verbal action or speech. The physical action or some kind of a deed, a physical deed. So you cannot 6R or use the 6R's to let go of aging and death, birth. Once you do the action, you cannot call it back.

Once you say the word, you can't call it back. Once you think the thought, you cannot call it back. So if you look at dependent origination like a stream that goes down into a river, and then there is the waterfall, the bend of that waterfall is becoming. And when you go down that waterfall, you cannot recall it back. You can't try to get back up the waterfall. It's going to go down into suffering.

So the birth of action is basically that action that you just produced. That's the new karma. With the arising of habitual tendencies, there is the arising of birth. There is cessation of birth. This noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of birth. So when we talk about the Eightfold Path, we're talking about the 6R's. So you can 6R the arising of that action once you understand what the habitual tendencies are there in the mind.

In other words, you can use the 6R's to recognize what habitual patterns are there. What kind of habitual tendencies are there in the mind? And you can let go of them before they turn into a birth of action, which then causes this whole mass of suffering. So it says, there are these three kinds of existence: sense-sphere existence, form-sphere existence, and formless-sphere existence. This is called existence.

Now when we talk about it in this framework, what we're saying is there is the macro level, where you go from one existence to another existence. You go from one sphere to another sphere. So when we talk about sense-sphere existence, that's known as the Kamadatu. The Kamadatu is everything from the lowest hell realm all the way up to the sixth sensual heaven.

So all of that constitutes the sense realm, all of the different sense realms. That constitutes sense-sphere existence. On the micro level, the way to understand this is the psychological states related to those realms. You could have hell on earth in your mind, or you could have heaven on earth in your mind. It depends upon the qualities of mind that are present.

If your mind is filled with envy and jealousy, if your mind is filled with stinginess and hoarding things, with all kinds of unwholesome ways of behaving, that could lead to a hungry ghost realm in terms of your mindset. People who are greedy, people who are envious, people who are always plotting, people who are always gossiping about this person or that person or this thing or that thing, they have a certain kind of mentality. They have a certain kind of mindset, a certain kind of psychology, that's associated with a certain kind of realm.

People who have anger, violent tendencies, people who want to inflict pain on others, people who are suffering, people who have certain kinds of hatred about certain kinds of beings, are living a very hellish life that can lead to hellish actions, can lead to violent actions, to suffering. Or on the flip side, there are people who are generous, people who are wholesome, people who keep the precepts, people who want the good for other beings, who have loving kindness in their mind, who develop the paramis. Right? They develop forgiveness, they develop compassion, they develop generosity, they develop gratitude, they develop all of these wholesome qualities of mind. And they have a Deva-like mindset.

People who keep the precepts are always going to be uplifted, are always going to be calm and collected. Maybe not in the beginning, because you're starting to develop that ability to keep the precepts. But over time, as you keep the precepts, as you become generous, as you become more forgiving, as you become more compassionate, as you become more open-minded about things, not closed off to things.

Your mind becomes collected. Your mind becomes calm. Your mind becomes free of those different habitual tendencies that result in birth, in terms of the psychological states, in lower realms. But it leads to higher realms of existence. So this is another way of understanding that particular existence. Now, when you develop jhana over a long period of time, different kinds of jhanas, those jhanas are associated with certain kinds of form existences, and those are the brahma lokas. So the entry point into the brahma lokas is to continuously develop jhanas. As you continue to develop jhanas, they will get you to a certain kind of brahma loka.

Likewise, with the formless realm, infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception or non-perception. Those are associated with those realms, the formless realms. We also talk about it in the context of habitual tendencies. Habitual tendencies are basically a library of certain kinds of reactions that you have to situations. When you are met with certain kinds of situations, your mind almost automatically inclines to a certain kind of choice in how to deal with that situation or how to deal with that kind of person.

These habitual tendencies then give rise to a certain kind of action, which results in the same kind of suffering. When we talk about rebirth, another way of understanding rebirth, it's the same definition as for insanity: doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So you find yourself in similar kinds of situations with similar kinds of people, with similar kinds of behavioural patterns, because you haven't learned from it. We're all here in this existence because we haven't learned our lessons. So it's time we learned our lesson, right? It's time we learned our lesson of letting go, not taking things personally, wisdom, having loving kindness, having compassion, having patience, having forgiveness. Once we start to develop this, then we start to let go, and as we start to let go, those same habitual patterns don't come to be. Eventually you stop meeting the same kind of people, you stop getting yourself into similar kinds of situations. A certain kind of habitual pattern, a habitual tendency, arises in the form of: this is how I want to react, from this sense of self.

That's where the sense of self is strongest. The sense of a personal self is strongest: that I am this person, and therefore I will act this way. If you recognize it, that, you know, how come they said this to me, and then you want to respond in a similar manner, you can release your attention from that. You can relax the craving, the aversion.

You can uplift the mind and break that cycle of karma. This is how you cease karma, using the 6R's. The Eightfold Path, the Noble Eightfold Path, is the way leading to the cessation of karma, specifically new karma. What is new karma? Craving, clinging, becoming, or habitual tendencies, birth of reactions, and that whole mass of suffering. All of that is new karma, adds to that repository of karma. But if you can recognize when you are becoming something, when you recognize that you are holding on to a sense of self and want to react in a certain way, or when you can recognize you're clinging to something, or you're craving for something, and you can let that go using the 6R's, those links don't arise.

This is what is meant by dependently arisen phenomena. Once you understand this, then you realize what it means when he says, with the arising of this, there is the arising of that. With the cessation of this, there is the cessation of that. Ceasing bhava, ceasing habitual tendency, ceases the birth of new action, and therefore ceases any kind of further suffering.

With the arising of clinging, there is the arising of habitual tendencies. With the cessation of clinging, there is the cessation of habitual tendencies. This noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of habitual tendencies. Whose is clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging. Clinging to sensual pleasures. Clinging to views. Clinging to rules and rituals. Clinging to a doctrine of self. This is called clinging.

Clinging comes from the word upadana. Upadana really is the fueling process. So it's that process that adds to the craving. The clinging is where your mind grasps fully. It's that part of the process where the mind rationalizes why it likes something or why it doesn't like something, or why it thinks it is that it's that process which associates, makes associations with experiences, and creates an identity around those experiences. It's that part of the process that creates favorites. It says, this is my favorite drink, or this is my favorite food, or this is my favorite color, or whatever it might be. So when we talk about clinging to sensual pleasures, there's a few ways of understanding that.

What are sensual pleasures? Sensual pleasures are anything through the five physical senses. Through the eyes, through the ears, through the nose, through the tongue, and through the body. So when you have an experience, you see that experience, you have that experience. You see, for example, some kind of food. Let's say it's cheesecake, and you eat that cheesecake.

So that's the sensation, that's the taste. And you say, wow, that's really great. I really like this cheesecake. You say, can I have another one? And so now you have craving for that cheesecake. And now you make associations about that cheesecake. That's the clinging. Now you'll only have that particular brand of cheesecake. Or if your mother used to make cheesecake, you associate certain kinds of feelings with that cheesecake.

This is another kind of clinging to sensual pleasures. Now, I don't know how it is now in supermarkets, but I've talked about this before. When you go into the supermarket, you go to the cereal aisle, and what you'll see is all of the lower shelves have all of the colorful cereal, all of the sugary ones. Why? Because that's how tall kids are. Right? Kids can see it right there and they want it. And now they associate. They say, oh, I really like this.

Now they're starting to create associations. Now they're starting to create favorites. I like this particular type of music. Or I like this particular type of perfume. Or I like this particular blanket. You make associations. This is the kind of clinging to sensual pleasures. The flip side of that, you can have associations that are unwholesome or negative. If you have unpleasant feelings, you can associate certain things with that. This is where trauma happens. You have certain kinds of trauma that arise, and you have certain kinds of emotions tied to that trauma.

Certain kinds of sensual experiences related to that trauma can trigger that same traumatic experience again. So this is a type of clinging. Clinging to views. So when we talk about clinging to views, what we're talking about is clinging to wrong views. When you go to Digha Nikaya number one, the Brahma Jala Sutta, it talks about 62 different types of wrong views related to the self, related to how the world came to be, related to all kinds of things related to that. The wrong views that we talk about are views that are not associated with the Dhamma. Now, during the Buddha's time, according to the suttas, there were six other ascetics, six other schools of thought.

And these schools of thought were associated with certain kinds of views. There was the view of eternalism. There was the view of materialism. There was the view of annihilationism. There was the view of asceticism. There was the view of skeptics. I don't know, or I do know, or I don't know if it's really this way or that way. The eel wrigglers, as they call them. There is the view of the fatalists. All of these different views are not in concordance with the Dhamma.

And the reason is because they completely violate the of karma one way or the other. When we talk about the view of eternalism, it presupposes the idea that there is a self that is eternal, all-pervading. But it never really points out to what that self is. There's an idea of that self. But in the context of the Dhamma, in the context of Buddhism, everything is very much empirical, related to this experience, to the subjective experience.

At the time of ancient India, there was this idea of a self that had to do with that self that was the source of happiness, all-pervading happiness, permanent and so on. But if we understand our aggregates, the five aggregates, we see that there is no self there. You can't pinpoint a sense of self related to those five aggregates. And I'll get to that shortly, to self-view. The view of materialism presupposes the idea that it's just all material. That's it. There's nothing else beyond that. There's only this world. There's only this existence. But if we understand karma, we understand karma gives rise to multiple existences.

Not only from one life to the next, but in one life itself. Think about your own lives. How many different kinds of personalities have you taken on? Five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. You were a different person back then. But you're not the same person as you were five minutes ago. You are not the same person as you were three minutes ago.

You're not the same person as you were one second ago. It's always changing. And so, this understanding, on a larger level, that there is something beyond just the material experience. The materialism, or the materialistic view, is, let's just enjoy through these five physical senses. But through the Dhamma we understand there is another pleasure that is to be experienced in oneself. We talked about it yesterday. That is the experience of jhana.

It is a super mundane kind of pleasure. just this material realm. Then we talk about fatalism. I won't go through all of them, but we'll talk about fatalism. Fatalism presupposes the idea that anything you do is already predetermined. The analogy that that school of thought uses is that it's like a ball of string or a ball of yarn. You just unravel it, and it's just unraveling. You have no control over that. But again, from the context of karma, understand that there is a choice given to us in every moment.

That choice, of course, is conditioned by previous intentions and previous circumstances and different kinds of scenarios that we've had in the past and whatever inclinations we've had in the past. But we have free won't, right? We have the ability to say, no, I do not choose to be unwholesome. I'm letting go of that. I'm choosing something that is wholesome.

So fatalism is another school of thought. That's another clinging to wrong view. There is the wrong view of asceticism, that self-mortification leads to purification of the mind, body, and the soul. And the reason why I say it that way is because at that time, and it still continues to this day, there is a school of thought known as Jainism, which says that there is a soul that incarnates from one place to the next, one existence to the next, and it picks up its karmic effects in the form of karmic dust, karmic particles. And the way to cleanse the soul is through purification.

Through purification, through certain rites, through certain ascetic practices, and so on. Now the Buddha said, alright, fine, you say that that might be the case. How do you know how much of that karmic dust is left? How do you know how much has been let go of? There's no real answer to that. The understanding of karma is that whatever you do now will have an effect in the future. So if you want to have a different effect, decide how you're going to choose to be in this present moment.

That's the only way you can cease old karma. See, at feeling, links, but at the level of feeling, just between feeling and craving, there is that point, that junction, where you can choose to crave. You can choose to identify. You can choose to have aversion towards something. Or you can choose to see that feeling for what it actually is. Not me, not mine, not myself.

And by doing so, your mind doesn't get agitated. It doesn't try to go for this or that. It just is equanimous. And so that karma, that old karma that comes in the form of that feeling, dissipates. There's no new energy given to it to cause it to become new karma to be experienced at a future period of time. Yes, you might experience that karma again, but it's not going to be as intense as it was the first time around. It's the same way with the hindrances.

Hindrances are old karma. You notice that it's present. What do you choose to do with it? Let's say you have pain in the body while you're sitting. Now that could be meditation pain. What do you choose to do with it? Do you choose to have aversion towards it? Do you choose to try to change your body posture? Do you try to do something or another? Or do you just stay with it and see, okay, here is pain. Here is the aversion to that pain. Here is this resistance to that pain.

And then you recognize it, relax that aversion, relax the tightness and tension, uplift the mind, come back to that object of meditation. So what you are doing is you're using the 6R's to let go of your reactivity to that feeling, not the feeling itself. A hindrance is a feeling. A hindrance is an experience. So you are choosing to see it for what it is and not fight with it. to that repository of those hindrances.

You let go of it, and now when it comes back again, it'll dissipate. It'll come back again, and it'll dissipate. And then finally, it will fade away. It won't come up again in your mind. So, when we also talk about clinging to views, this also means clinging to opinions. We have certain opinions about things, right? We have certain kinds of ideas that this is how things should be. These kinds of views can be political views. They can be I'm a Knicks fan, or I love the Jets, or I love the Giants. Anyone else who's not a Giants fan is a loser. That kind of clinging to views. This is my favorite sports team.

Everybody else is my enemy. So that kind of clinging to views. They can be clinging to the Dhamma itself. Becoming a Dhamma defender. This is my Dhamma. Your Dhamma is wrong. My Dhamma is right. Somebody criticizes you for doing a practice. You get offended by it. And now you try to defend it. And maybe in that process you have a lashing out. You cling to that particular kind of view. And now somebody challenges that view. Because now you identify. You have a sense of person. You have a sense of self with that view. Somebody challenges that. Then that leads to becoming. Now you become some kind of person who has a habitual reaction to how you deal with somebody challenging your view.

And then you have the birth of that new action. That leads to that suffering. So let go of any clinging to any kind of views. How do you recognize any kind of clinging? Whether it's clinging to sensual or clinging to views, just recognize, oh, here is the mind trying to defend this, that, or the other. Here is the mind creating an association about this, that, or the other. The tightness and the tension that comes up in the form of grasping, in the form of wanting it to be that way.

Notice that. Recognize that. Release your tension from that. Relax. When you relax, your mind experiences mundane nirodhana. For that split moment, the mind experiences cessation of suffering. You're deconditioning your mind from having to grasp onto that view. You're deconditioning your mind from having to grasp onto that sensual pleasure in the form of craving or aversion or whatever it might be.

And then you're reconditioning it by uplifting the mind, bringing up something wholesome, a mind that doesn't hold on to things. Having equanimity. Just being in a quiet mind. Non-reactive, non-craving mind. Clinging to rites and rituals. So this clinging to rites and rituals is the idea that you're clinging to certain kinds of rites and rituals with the perspective that they will lead you to Nibbana. Clinging to rites and rituals is clinging to the idea of doing certain kinds of rituals, whether it's praying to certain deities, whether it's carrying a four-leaf clover, or whatever it might be. This idea that if I do this, it's going to lead to something beneficial. That completely violates the understanding of karma, because karma is action and consequence.

this, therefore this happens. The arising of this karma gives rise to this effect, cause and effect, causality. When you try to go to a deity and say, I want this and I'll do this and I'll light so many kinds of candles and this, that, or the other, and if you do this for me, I'll do that for you, bargaining with deities for whatever it is that you want, that's completely in violation of karma. It's your own efforts.

your own choices, your own intention that leads you to a certain kind of karma. If you want certain kind of results, make the effort to have those kinds of results. Can you pray to a deity and say, help me lose 10 pounds, and immediately you lose 10 pounds? It's your effort, eating right, exercising, whatever it might be that you have to do, those 10 pounds. That's the karma. So here the clinging to rites and rituals also can mean clinging to a certain kind of idea of how things ought to be in terms of a routine.

You become so rooted to a certain kind of routine. It has to be like I have to have my morning coffee at 6:15. Any minute later than that and all hell will break loose. And I have to get to the gym at this time. And I have to take a shower at this time. And I have to do this at this time. I have to do that at this time. That clinging to a schedule, clinging to a routine, creates this idea of, okay, there's a sense of self associated with it. I'm not talking about habits. Habits are fine in terms of if they are wholesome habits that allow you to experience greater happiness and so on and so forth.

clinging to them with the idea that if I don't do it this way, something wrong is going to happen. Fine, you get late. You get five minutes late or you miss your cup of coffee at that particular time. Fine, no big deal. So notice, recognize how your mind is when some obstacle comes in the way of your routine.

Learn to be flexible. Learn to just see things as they are in the moment. of that. When you notice that the mind gets aggravated when you don't have that cup of coffee or it gets aggravated when you don't have your toast in the morning or whatever it might be. It could be anything. That aggravation, recognize that. That frustration, recognize it. Release your attention from that. Relax.

Keep the mind open. Uplift the mind. Come back to the smile. And then bring up equanimity and things will be much better. Think about it, right? You come out, you get out of bed, you see that you're five minutes late. You're supposed to wake up at six o'clock or something. You're five minutes late. You wake up and then your mind says, oh, I was late and now it's no longer thinking about this or that or the other. It's getting distracted by that. You stub your toe and then you go into the bathroom and you forget to turn on the hot water or whatever it might be. And then the whole day just gets messed up just because of one little thing that you cling to.

this way, and now you have lack of mindfulness, and that leads to lack of attention. That lack of attention leads to further clinging, further craving, further becoming, further suffering. And that could be immediately effective. Or, you could say, okay, fine, I got up five minutes late. Just let go of that. And continue on with your day. Cultivate equanimity, and continue on with your day. doctrine of self.

So this is clinging to self-view. That's one of the first fetters, which is the sakkaya ditthi in Pali, the view of a personal self. Now, there's different ways of understanding that view of personal self. There are these 20 views of self. They are the five aggregates multiplied by four different ways of looking at self. say, my body is self, form is self, or the self is in form, or the body is in form, or the self is separate from the body.

Likewise with feeling, likewise with perception, likewise with formations, likewise with consciousness. Now, sakkaya ditthi is one thing, and conceit is another. When you let go of sakkaya ditthi at stream entry, you let go of an intellectual understanding, an intellectual belief in a personal self. Because you have seen it for your own mind that these things arise because of causes and conditions.

But there can still be conceit. That's destroyed at full awakening. That conceit is still identifying with processes. Taking something to be as me, mine, or myself. But the intellectual understanding, that is let go of. So in the case of these different kinds of clinging, the clinging to a doctrine of self, that goes away when you have stream entry. The clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that they will take you to Nibbana, that goes away with stream entry. The clinging to views, that also goes away with stream entry. But you still have some clinging to the Dhamma, that goes away at arahatship. The clinging to sensual pleasures, that goes away when you become an Anagami, because you no longer have sensual cravings.

So that won't lead to any kind of sensual clinging. With the arising of craving, there is the arising of clinging. With the cessation of craving, there is the cessation of clinging. This noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of clinging. So that means using the 6R's. So now you recognize that the mind is craving for something.

You recognize it. You release your attention from it. You relax. You re-smile. You come back to a wholesome object. You come back to a wholesome mind. Now you have cut off any more craving. Therefore you have cut off any clinging. You have cut off any kind of becoming. You have cut off any kind of birth of action. And you have cut off any kind of suffering.

And what, bhikkhus, is craving? There are these six classes of craving. Craving for forms, craving for sounds, craving for odours, craving for tastes, craving for tactile objects, craving for mental phenomena. This is called craving. So this is really related to sensual craving. There are two types of craving. There's sensual craving, there's craving for existence, and there's craving for non-existence.

And in that, there is craving, and there is aversion, and there is identification. When we talk about craving, we're talking about the mind that says, I like it, and I want more of it. And we talk about aversion, we're saying the mind that says, I don't like it, and I want no more of it. It pushes it away. But identification, it's the mind that says, I am that. The intrinsic sense of, this is me, this is mine, this is myself. That's related to the conceit, the mana, that goes away completely at arahatship.

So the craving for sensual pleasures can be as simple as that craving for cheesecake. You see that cheesecake again, you say, I really want that cheesecake. Or it could be aversion towards some kind of sound in the distance or sound around you. You get irritated by certain sounds, maybe while you're meditating. Certain sounds disturb your meditation and now you have aversion for it, aversion towards it. Recognize the irritation that arises from that. Release it. Relax the mind and body. Re-smile. Come back to your object of meditation.

This is how you deal with that craving or that aversion. And likewise with any of the five physicals, and even the mental sphere. When you talk about craving for existence, so when you say, I want that particular person or I want that particular thing, that's a kind of sensual craving. Or I don't want it, that's a kind of aversion to a sensual experience. Or I am clinging to the idea that that is me, this is mine, this is myself. That's the identification.

Craving for existence, when you catch yourself saying, I want to be, so and so. And your mind gets obsessed over that. Around that. I have to be this. It has to be that way. That's the craving for existence. I have to be in infinite space. I have to get to Nibbana before this retreat gets over. That's the craving for existence.

I want cessation to happen. That's another kind of craving for existence, non-existence. I don't want to be here at this retreat. Or I don't want to be part of this family. Or I don't want to be part of this group. I don't want to be. That statement, I don't want to be, is associated with craving for non-existence.

So pay attention to the thoughts in your mind. Pay attention to the kinds of words that arise in your mind. What kind of craving is present? What kind of clinging is present? What kind of becoming is present? And so on and so forth. And what, bhikkhus, is feeling? There are these six classes of feeling. Feeling born of eye contact, feeling born of ear contact, feeling born of nose contact, feeling born of tongue contact, feeling born of body contact, feeling born of mind contact. This is called feeling.

So there can be three types of feelings. Talked about 108 different types of feeling, but the way to understand it at the very basic level is there's pleasant feeling, there's unpleasant feeling, and there's neutral feeling. Pleasant feeling is you see something beautiful, you hear something beautiful, you smell something lovely, you taste something flavorful and delicious, you touch something that's soft and caressing to the skin, you have good thoughts, you have loving kindness, you have compassion, you have forgiveness. All of these are wonderful, pleasant experiences.

Unpleasant experiences. Painful experiences. You stub your toe. There's a bad smell in the air. There's all kinds of sounds that are going on that are disturbing your meditation. You bite into something that tastes awful, tastes bitter. And to you, that is unpleasant. Or while you're walking around, there's a chilly wind that's going on and you feel cold and that's unpleasant to you.

And neutral feeling. That's a feeling that is basically neither painful nor pleasant. So in other words, that could be just being in very lukewarm water. Being in water that's the same temperature as the body. You don't really feel one way or the other. Or you have equanimity, that's a neutral feeling. Indifference, that's another kind of neutral feeling. You want to have more equanimity and none of that indifference.

Now, the painful feeling or the pleasant feeling or the neutral feeling, in and of themselves, there's nothing wrong with them. Where the trouble begins is the underlying tendencies related to those feelings. Of the two arrows, the two darts, he said there is the physical feeling, the experience, or even in the mind, and then there is the reaction to that, which is the second dart, the mental reaction.

Now today, while I was in the kitchen, I was making something for myself, and I was taking off the lid, and it was really hot, and I burned my skin. Now that was a painful feeling. Now, was there any mental reaction to that? No, it was just a painful feeling. There was not even an ouch from my mouth. It was just, oh, there's a painful feeling.

No reaction. So your mind, your mental reaction to things, that causes the suffering. And from there, there's the underlying tendencies. Underlying tendency towards cravings. Underlying tendency towards aversion. Underlying tendency towards ignorance. Underlying tendency towards views. Underlying tendencies towards doubts. Underlying tendencies towards becoming. Underlying tendency towards conceit. So when you have a feeling, very simply put, if you take that feeling to be personal, if you take it personally, then you're going to say, this feeling is me, myself. You want to hold on to that feeling if it's pleasant, or you want to push away that feeling if it's unpleasant, or you want to hold your ground with that experience if it's neutral, and you just identify with that experience. And that gives rise to full-blown craving or aversion or identification. Then down that chain, that gives rise to some kind of clinging, some kind of habitual tendency, some kind of birth of reactivity, which then leads to that whole mass of suffering.

So how should you see feeling? How should you experience vedana? How should you experience any kind of experience? See things as they actually are. That means having yoniso manasikara. Yoniso manasikara, the way I translate it, is attention rooted in reality. Because the attention is there: complete mindfulness, clear comprehension, full awareness of this experience that you're having. No projections of how it should be, just seeing things as they are.

Understanding it to be dependently arisen, therefore impermanent, therefore liable to cause suffering, therefore not to be seen as me, mine, or myself. Why is that? The sense of self, I was talking about this a little earlier, but in ancient India there was this idea of a sense of self that was all pervasive, that was imperishable, that was the source of joy and happiness. And the Buddha said, okay, fine, you say that there is some kind of a self there. But take all of the composites of your experience.

Those composites are basically your aggregates. The body, feeling, experience, perception, which is the recognition of that experience, the recognition, the labeling, the noting, the understanding of what it is that you're experiencing. Take the formations, your intentions, your decisions, your choices, your inclinations. Take the awareness, the consciousness, the vinnana. Take all of that, and using the sense of self that you're talking about as a touchstone, the composites of your experience, of existence.

And now, see if that matches up with that sense of self. What you see is that the body is dependently arisen. You see all experience is dependently arisen. You see all perceptions are tied to that experience, so it is also dependently arisen. You see all inclinations as dependently arisen. You see all awareness arising and passing away, dependently arisen.

Seeing that, you understand that it arises and passes away. All these things arise and pass away. Therefore, anything that arises and passes away is subject to cessation, subject to suffering one way or the other. So it cannot be considered to be me, mine, or myself. This is the understanding of anatta, not self. So how does that translate practically? How do you apply it practically?

Whatever experience you're having, experience it fully. Experience it with full awareness. Understand this experience to be there. But don't add that sense of I to it. It is just an experience. Words really matter, especially in your mind. The way you phrase things. Yesterday we talked about that. We said if you extol someone, you praise someone, you criticize someone, you're personalizing that process.

But if you say that this is what is present, then you're just saying, what is the truth? What is the fact? What is the reality? You're not taking it personally. You're not making it personal. So this experience is just an experience. The very refined version of that is to really see, and you don't have to do this, but I'm just saying it can get to that extent where you realize, oh, all of this, everything you're seeing right now is just light bouncing off of different kinds of objects. Light and shadow for the eyes.

Whatever you're hearing is just different sound waves, vibrations in the atmosphere that then is received by your ear. Whatever you're smelling are just molecules. Whatever you're tasting are just molecules. Whatever you're feeling is just input from the nervous system of pressure and temperature and whatever tangible objects there are. Your mind, whatever you're thinking, that's all just electrical activity through the nervous system and in the brain.

So why are you taking all of that personally? Because you have been accustomed to the idea that there is a sense of self experiencing all of this. But it's all just different molecules and vibrations and all of these things. Just because something sounds good, you say I like that kind of music, or just because there are certain kinds of molecules that you prefer, you say I like this kind of cuisine, or just because there are certain levels of temperature and warmth or coolness that you experience, you say I really like this kind of blanket, or I like it to be this kind of temperature, or just because there's certain kind of electrical activity in the mind, you say, oh, I don't like these thoughts.

Now, when it comes to thoughts, are thoughts you? Are thoughts yours? Thoughts arise because of contact, as we'll see. They arise because you see something, now the mind thinks about it, and now there's thoughts. And there's this whole stream of thoughts that happen. The trouble is, now there's an I, there's a superimposition of a me over there, and it says, those are my thoughts. And now you get caught up in that traffic of thoughts instead of looking at the clouds passing in the sky, instead of just watching the traffic. The mind, especially when, instead of watching traffic, will say, I want to get in the middle of that traffic and I want to own this particular part of the traffic. That's absurd. The same way, when you have a stream of thoughts, there's just a stream of formations.

If you let go of your attachment of an I to those thoughts and just let them go, let them pass by. When you get to that quiet mind, there's thoughts arising. Don't do anything. If your mind gets distracted by them and now looks at them, then you relax and you come back to quiet mind. Otherwise, just let them be. They will go away because you don't give them attention.

The reason why you have thoughts is because there's an idea that you have to be a certain way or you have to do a certain thing. You have certain concepts that it has to be this way or it has to be that way. You have certain kinds of projections. But if you let go of all of that, there's not going to be a single thought in your mind.

Maybe just that one thought that says, I don't have any thoughts in my mind. But if you're fully in a thoughtless state, a state of no thought, you won't even have that thought. That's the mind without craving. No greed, no hatred, no delusion. Just the mind resting in itself. With the arising of contact, there is the arising of feeling.

With the cessation of contact, there is the cessation of feeling. This noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of feeling. And what, bhikkhus, is contact? There are these six classes of contact. Eye contact, ear contact, nose contact, tongue contact, body contact, mind contact. This is called contact. So contact comes from the word sparsha in Sanskrit or phassa in Pali. And that just basically means to touch. It's the initial touching between the light hitting the light and the retina of the eyes, the vibrations and the ear, the molecules and the olfactory bulb in the nose, the molecules and the taste buds on the tongue, and then whatever receptors there are on the skin to feel that, the contact between the two, the contact between the internal and the external.

and their objects. When they make contact, that is the contact, the initial contact, which then gives rise to the experience. So now here's a question. You talked about being able to use the six R's to let go of any kind of habitual tendency. Let go of any kind of clinging. Let go of any kind of craving, of any kind of underlying tendency that arises from feeling.

But you cannot deal with that feeling in and of itself. You cannot use the six R's to say, I'm not going to see that green tree anymore. Unless you close your eyes. Right? But what are you six R'ing? What are you using the six R's for? You're using the six R's to recognize any kind of identification, taking anything personally in the form of craving, in the form of grasping.

And you're letting that go. So that contact is automatic. That contact is just right there and then. Now contact does completely cease when you have the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. Because there is no feeling. There is no perception. There's no contact that will give rise to that feeling and to that perception. So everything we're discussing now, up till feeling, is all old karma. There's nothing you can do about it. You can just experience it.

There's nothing you can do about the contact that arises in terms of not experiencing it. Sure, like I said, you can close your eyes, you can cover your ears, you can do all kinds of things. But just on this practical level, when you have ignorance, formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, sixth sense basis, contact, feeling, all of this constitutes as old karma.

Karma that you inherit because of choices you made in the past. Now, you can choose to add to that by craving and clinging and so on. Or, you can realize them as being impersonal, not taking them personally, and use the six R's if there's any kind of agitation related to them. They just dissipate. They're just experienced. They're just seen as impersonal processes.

With the arising of the sixth sense basis, there is the arising of contact. With the cessation of contact, there is a cessation of the sixth sense basis. This noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of contact. Now what we're talking about is we're letting go of layers of contact. We're letting go in terms of different kinds of contact we have with the physical senses in the first jhana. Then we let go of certain kind of contact related to the joy that you experience. The vitakka and vichara in the first jhana cease in the second jhana. The joy, the contact with the joy ceases, and therefore the feeling of that joy ceases. third jhana.

The contact with the sukha in terms of the happiness and comfort, that ceases in the fourth jhana. The contact with equanimity, the contact with the body, that ceases when you have infinite space. The contact with infinite space ceases when you have infinite consciousness. Contact of infinite consciousness ceases when you have the base of nothingness. Contact with the base of nothingness ceases when you have neither perception nor non-perception.

The contact of that base ceases when you have complete cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. So this is when you're talking about the cessation of that, we're talking about it from that level. So jhanas are levels of wisdom, levels of understanding, and they are levels of cessation. and perception until there is absolute zero in cessation. And what, bhikkhus, are the sixth sense bases? The eye base, the ear base, the nose base, the tongue base, the body base, the mind base. These are called the sixth sense bases.

So they are known as the salayatanas. basis. Salah means sada or six. And there's actually 12, sometimes it talks about in the suttas, because there's the internal and the external. There's the eye and the form. There is the ear and the sound. There's the nose and the smell. There's the taste, the tongue and the taste. There's the body and touch. And there's mind and mind objects or thoughts.

There's not much to say here except these are just the receptors through which you have experiences, right? If you did not have, if you didn't have the sixth sense bases, but the external bases were there, you wouldn't have the arising of those particular consciousnesses. We'll get to consciousness in a second. But what we're saying is that contact really is made up of three components, right? It's the sixth sense bases, The external base of those sixth sense bases, the joining of those two bring up the eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, the nose consciousness, the tongue consciousness, the body consciousness or the mind consciousness. These three constitute that particular contact.

So if for whatever reason your senses were impaired, the receptivity of those senses was impaired, then there would not be any contact. If someone was blind, there would still be the form, there would still be the color. But because there is no receptivity to that, there doesn't arise eye consciousness, which with the joining of those three brings about eye contact.

You might be deaf. So there might still be sounds and vibrations in the air, but because they're not being picked up, there won't be any ear consciousness dependent upon and those three will not constitute as your contact. And likewise for the other sense bases. So if the sense bases are impaired, you're not going to be able to have contact and therefore no feeling.

That in itself is a kind of dukkha, if you think about it. That in itself is a kind of mass of suffering. Now, here's another understanding of suffering. When we talk about suffering, we talk about it in the form of grief and despair, and pain and all of these things. What are those things actually? They're an experience, right? You experience grief. You experience despair. You experience pain. So what does that mean? They're unpleasant feelings.

So when you're experiencing dukkha, what do you do there? Do you take it personally? Or do you understand that, oh, here is present, this feeling, and you let go of it. So then you don't add further to that mass of suffering. With the arising of mentality-materiality, there is the arising of the sixth sense bases. With the cessation of mentality-materiality, there is the cessation of the sixth sense bases. leading to the cessation of the sixth sense basis. So when we talk about that, again, we're not talking about impairing the senses.

When you get into cessation, cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, there is a question in some of the suttas, especially in Majjhima Nikaya 43, and also in the Kamabhu Sutta, where the question arises, who was in cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, and someone who's dead. They say someone who is dead, their senses are broken, their sense faculties are impaired.

But in someone who has cessation, their sense faculties are clear. Their sense faculties, meaning the sense bases, are non-functional. But they're clear, meaning there's no input happening through the sixth sense bases. There's no traffic jam going on of sensory data. That's why it's said to be shining and clear. There's no traffic there. But in the case of someone who's dead, in the case of the body, those sixth sense bases have ceased completely. They have become broken and impaired.

So the Noble Eightfold Path leads to the cessation of suffering, leads to the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, through the sixth sense basis. And what, bhikkhus, is mentality: feeling, perception, intention, or inclination, contact and attention. This is called mentality. The four great elements and the form derived from the four great elements. This is called materiality. Mentality and this materiality are together called mentality-materiality.

So when we talk about mentality, that's really another word for nama, which is another word for mind or mano. So mind is known by its components. Mind is known by its different faculties. Now notice here it says feeling and contact as being part of mind. But we also have the process of contact and feeling happening in dependent origination.

So what is the difference between the two? In the case of the links of contact and feeling, they are processes. They are something that happen. In the case of contact and feeling in mentality, they are faculties. In other words, they are the wiring system, the electricity that feeling and contact run through. So mentality is just allowing you to experience the contact, the feeling, the perception, the intention, the attention. And then the form. The form is basically just this body made up of the four great elements. What are the four great elements? Earth, water, fire, and air. These are basically the solid state of matter, the liquid state of matter, the gaseous state of matter, the plasma state of matter.

That has to do with temperature and heat. That's the fire element. So that's just the body. But it is through the body that you have the mentality. And it is through mentality that you know you have a body. And it is through mentality that you're able to then experience the sixth sense basis. That you have the sixth sense bases, that is the receptors, the eyes, the ears, and so on, they are part of the body.

They're the receiving part of the body that allows you to experience whatever it is that you're experiencing. So that is mentality, materiality. That is mind and body, or name and form. That's it. So in other words, they are the five aggregates, actually. Because form, that's the form aggregate, allows you to have feeling. That's the feeling aggregate. Allows you to have perception. That's the perception aggregate. Has inclination or cetana. That's the formations aggregate. And allows you to have attention.

The scope, the light of your attention moves around the consciousness. In other words, if you are seeing a green tree, there is the consciousness of you seeing that green tree. As soon as you close your eyes, attention is not there, therefore there is no consciousness flowing that way. If you incline your mind to one sound, like the air conditioning, now your consciousness is flowing there, your attention is there. But now you bring it back to my voice, now your consciousness is flowing to my voice. So your attention directs wherever your consciousness flows.

With the arising of consciousness, there is the arising of mentality materiality. With the cessation of consciousness, there is the cessation of mentality materiality. This Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of mentality materiality. Now, on the macro level, consciousness is dependent upon mentality materiality. Materiality is dependent upon consciousness. Now, in the case of the macro level, from one birth to the next, when the Gandhava, the rebirth-linking consciousness, descends into the new nama-rupa, into the new mentality of materiality, then there is said to be life. There is said to be existence.

But if the mentality of materiality were impaired, then that consciousness could not descend. Now, if that consciousness were not present, then that mentality and materiality could not function. So there is an interdependency between mentality and materiality and consciousness. And what, bhikkhus, is consciousness? There are these six classes of consciousness. Eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, mind consciousness. This is called consciousness. So when we talk about consciousness, it comes from the word vinnana. Vinnana means knowledge.

V means to divide. So it's the awareness divided amongst the experience of the sixth sense basis. Now, on the micro level, on the day-to-day level, on the experiential level, what you're experiencing right now, you're experiencing the arising and passing away of individual consciousnesses related to the eye, related to the ear, to the nose and the body and the tongue and so on and so forth.

Now consciousness, in order for it to be experienced, you need, like I said, that mentality, that wiring mechanism that lets the electricity flow. So you need the mentality materiality for you to know what kind of consciousness is present. But you also need the consciousness in order for you to be able to experience the mentality materiality. Now, the Buddha says that with the cessation of consciousness, there is a cessation of mentality materiality. That's obviously true. When the consciousness is cut off, there is no more life in that body and in that mind on the macro level. When you have the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, there is mentality materiality, but those faculties are non-functional, or non-functioning, I should say.

They're present, but they're not able to be functioning, because there's no consciousness present there. With the arising of formations, there is the arising of consciousness. With the cessation of formations, there is the cessation of consciousness. This Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of consciousness. And what bhikkhus are formations? There are these three kinds of formations.

Bodily formation, verbal formation, and mental formation. These are called formations. So formations come from the word sankhara, or samskara in Sanskrit. And what that really means, sankhara, is to build something, to cook up something, to prepare something. So when you are in quiet mind, when you're in neither perception or non-perception, what you're dealing with there are formations. They are your proto-thoughts. They are the percolations of thoughts before they become fully formed thoughts. As soon as your mind goes to them, then now you're out of neither perception nor non-perception.

Why? and perceive. Bodily formations allow you to feel in terms of, or rather allow you to breathe and allow you to make contact with the body. Allow you to walk, allow you to do all kinds of movement with the body. Verbal formations allow you to speak and express yourself. You have an experience, there's thinking and examining thought and then you perceive what it is and you express yourself. That is facilitated by verbal formations. Another way of understanding formations are as synapses in the brain.

So there are certain formations that are rooted in craving, in conceit, in ignorance. The more you have craving, the more you hold on to something, the more you're attached to something, the more you have a reactivity of aversion, the more you have lack of mindfulness, it feeds back and strengthens those formations that are rooted in craving, rooted in conceit, rooted in ignorance.

But the more you six are, that craving, the more you let go of that aversion, the more you become mindful and attentive, it weakens those formations, purifies those formations, and strengthens those formations rooted in the wholesome. The unwholesome is the greed, hatred, and delusion. The wholesome is the non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion. So at the roots there, these formations are rooted in that. Your practice here is to use the Eightfold Path to cease those formations that are rooted in craving, conceit, and ignorance.

To purify them by choosing the wholesome and to let go of identifying with that wholesome as well. That's why in the mind of the arahant, in the mind of one who is fully awakened, the formations that do arise are not triggered by or influenced by or conditioned by ignorance. Instead, now there is only right view, wisdom. And those formations are pure.

Those formations are just simply carriers of old karma. Then that gives rise to a pure consciousness, which allows you to experience contact, feeling, and perception. But because there's no craving in the formations, because there's no conceit in those formations, because there's no ignorance in those formations, the links of craving, clinging, becoming, the birth of new karma, and the whole mass of suffering is not present in the mind of the arahant.

This is what we mean by ceasing those formations. Those particular formations. So this whole process that you're doing with the six Rs is recognizing what links are present, what formations are fettered where. How do you know the quality of your formations? Pay attention to the quality of your inclinations and your choices. If your choices are rooted in the wholesome, then the formations that have arisen are wholesome. If your choices are rooted in the unwholesome, then your formations are fettered and hindered by cravings and ignorance. But the way to cease those formations is through the six Rs is through letting go of the craving, letting go of the aversion, letting go of the ignorance, letting go of the conceit and identification. Then the more you do that, the more those formations dissipate, they grind away, and then they are unfettered, they are unhindered, and they are just pure carriers of old karma.

When you are in the meditation, those proto-thoughts that arise, like I said, don't let your attention go to them and fuel them. Just let them be. Stay with the mind. The rest in the mind. Eventually they will dissipate. And when they completely cease, the last formation to cease before cessation is the formation rooted in conceit. Because that sense of I, the clinging that has to be this way, that sense of self goes away. When all formations cease, when all formations are tranquilized, then there is nibbana. Then there is a cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, which allows the mind to be in a state of being unconditioned.

So the way to cease formations is through the six Rs. Get bothered by anything that's happening. The quiet mind for the first time is not altogether too quiet. It's just mind. Eventually it does get quiet and it gets quieter and quieter and quieter until there's nothing left and then there's no fuel for the attention and it completely ceases.

And by the way, these formations also cease in a certain order as you get through the practice. This is why he's saying that the Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of formations. In the case of when you're in the first jhana, you're ceasing the hindrances. When you're in the second jhana, you're ceasing vitaka and vichara, the thinking and examining thought. Therefore, you've let go of the verbalizations.

So the verbal formations cease over here. When you're in the fourth jhana, parent. And so now the bodily formations cease. Now traditionally that talks about inhalation and exhalation. But really what we're talking about is the contact with the body. Anything related to the body starts to cease. Because now here you are in the mind when you're in infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness in either perception or non-perception.

And then mental formations finally cease when there is the complete cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. With the arising of ignorance, there is the arising of formations. With the cessation of ignorance, there is the cessation of formations. This Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of formations. And what, bhikkhus, is ignorance? Not knowing suffering, not knowing the origin of suffering, not knowing the cessation of suffering, not knowing the way leading to the cessation of suffering. This is called ignorance.

There are levels of ignorance. There is obviously that level of ignorance where a person has not had any contact with the Dhamma altogether. So they're not even aware that there are these Four Noble Truths. But then there is another level of ignorance where you are introduced to the Dhamma, you understand that there are these Four Noble Truths, but the mind, being used to craving, being used to clinging, being used to conceit, being used to ignorance, being used to being non-attentive to things, chooses to ignore the Four Noble Truths in that moment.

How are you able to become aware of the Four Noble Truths? You six are. Recognize there's a hindrance, you are seeing the First Noble Truth of suffering right there and then. When you release your attention from that, you are letting go, abandoning the source of that suffering, which is the attention fueling it. When you relax, you experience mundane nibbana, Nirodha.

And then when you cultivate a wholesome state with your smile, and you come back to your object, you're cultivating the Eightfold Path, the Magga, the Fourth Noble Truth. So, every time you 6R, you're grinding away at that ignorance. You're becoming more and more mindful. Lack of mindfulness equals ignorance. Lack of attention equals ignorance. Every time you have lack of mindfulness, you're adding to that ignorance. Therefore, that conditions the formations, which become further fettered by that ignorance, further conditioned by cravings, and clinging and conceit and so on, which then give rise to a consciousness that's impure.

We'll get into that also because there are certain kinds of upakilesas that taint the consciousness. And that gives rise to craving in the mentality materiality, in the contact. And then the underlying tendencies are strengthened and they come to the forefront when there is an experience. And then if somebody clutches on to that, there can be craving and then there can be clinging and becoming, birth of action, and that whole mass of suffering.

Thus, bhikkhus, with ignorance as condition, formations come to be. With formations as condition, everybody, say it, consciousness comes to be. With consciousness as condition, mentality, materiality comes to be. With mentality, materiality as condition, Sixth Sense Base comes to be. The Sixth Sense Base as condition, contact comes to be. With contact as condition, feeling comes to be. With feeling as condition, with craving as condition, clinging comes to be. With clinging as condition, with habitual tendencies as condition, comes to be. With birth as condition.

This whole mass of suffering. Right? So this is dependent origination. This shows you how suffering arises. That's the second noble truth. The cause of the suffering. Now the cessation of those links is the cessation of suffering. That's the third noble truth. With the cessation of ignorance, there is the cessation of? With the cessation of formations, there is a cessation of? With the cessation of consciousness, there is?

With the cessation of mentality, materiality, there is a cessation of? With the cessation of the six-fold base, there is a cessation of? Contact. Of craving. There is a cessation of clinging. With the cessation of habitual tendencies, there is a cessation of birth. There is a cessation of... This whole mass of suffering. So, such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering, and such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.

There endeth the lesson. I'll give you guys a second to recover and recuperate, and then you can ask questions. We'll just give it up right now. Yes, yes. So what we're saying is the consciousness that's being experienced is flowing through mentality materiality and then it comes to be through contact. So it's all the same vinnana. Yeah, right.

We talk about dependent origination as being linear, but really there's a lot of feedback loops that are happening. With the contact of this, there comes back formations that arise that give rise to a certain kind of feeling and perception. So there's a lot of feedback loops, but just for practical understanding, how to deal with it is to cease the links that are present, that cause suffering. If you notice the craving or the clinging or the becoming, you can cease it. If you notice the underlying tendencies, you can cease it using the six of them. Right. So we have the consciousness, which then gives rise to the five aggregates. That's the last aggregate.

Just in the way that it's ordered. But the reason is because you think about it from the perspective of, or the processes in the links of dependent origination, the mentality materiality in of itself is the five aggregates. Because the form is the form aggregate. Rise to the feeling aggregate and the perception aggregate through intention, through chetana, or the inclination. The formation aggregates, or the formations, pass through, and so that's the formation aggregate, and then the light of attention, whatever you put your light on there, the consciousness flows. The abhisankhars can be any of those formations, but they, they Abhisankaras mean that they are fettered formations, formations that are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion.

But yes, they are experienced as feeling and perception, which are rooted in that craving. So mostly the mental formations will have those. That's why you stop cessation after that. Right. When you have cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, your mind is unconditioned. Without any kind of craving when it comes back out. For that split moment, your mind is like the mind of an arahant. But what happens is, when you experience the feeling, so there's the contact with the Nibbana element. That contact is said to be signless, undirected, empty of any kind of sense of self.

Based on that, there is a feeling of joy and relief. And there is a mind that says, I am experiencing that joy and relief. Once that happens, then the next arising of formations are no longer pure. And so now there is still craving present, or there's still aversion present, or there's still some kind of conceit present. It's eye consciousness. Sometimes people will experience flickering in the ears, like, you know, vibrations like that.

Or sometimes they'll experience even phantom smells or phantom tastes. They might experience tingling around their face. Most of the time, I consciousness. But I think majority of people probably will experience I consciousness. So actually what you're seeing in infinite consciousness is actually the arising and passing away of content internally. Because it's the content which is, it's culminated by the internal sense space and the consciousness related to that internal sense space.

It's constituted by that. It could be the ear, it could be the body. It could be the nose. It could be the mind also. Yeah, I know. There's some people who say they've seen 12 links or 24 links or whatever it might be. But the way to understand it is you have just seen how the first formations arise. Now, again, the seeing of those formations arising is just your interpretation of that. Some people see dashes. Some people see lights. Some people see bursts of stars or something or another. And some people have very, very unique experiences. They see like tree branches branching off in different directions. Some people see mirrors.

Some people see frames and they're just like infinite frames all across. So they're not always seeing all 12. They might be seeing more than that or less than that. Yes, that's right. That's right. So it's the reflection of that. Allows you to see the eye of wisdom which reflects that. It allows you to have the wisdom that, oh, dependently arisen, which means not me, not mine, not myself.

And you let go of any kind of attachment to it. Through non-clinging to it, the mind becomes liberated. So the wisdom that arises is the wisdom that, why are you taking this personally? Let go of that. In every moment it's going on. So dependent origination allows you to understand rebirth not only on the macro level from one life to life but it also allows you to see rebirth happening in every moment. Every moment. Like I'm saying, you're not the same person you were just one moment ago. It's always changing.

Even your sixth sense bases are always changing. They're either getting better or they're getting worse. They're not always the same. You have to think about it from intention. Always start with intention. Even mental action. Mental action means you are taking that line of thought and actually pursuing it. There's an intention to continue to think about it in a certain way. Some crazy thought comes up.

Like, I wonder what happens if I push that person off the cliff. Right? But that's not your thought. Now, you take that line of questioning and you inch your way towards that person. Now you're getting towards... And you start planning. Like, okay, what's the way to do it. But then let's say you plan it but then you don't actually do it. But there's still that mental impression. It's very subtle but still it cultivates ill will or it cultivates whatever that might be.

You are doing yourself a favor by 6R. Please everyone do yourselves a favor and 6R. All right. Let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free. May the grieving shed all grief. And may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, Devas and Nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May the Lord protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.