Day 4 Understanding Formations & How to Attain Cessation -Excellent!

Today I'm going to be reading from Samyutta Nikaya 41.6. This is called Kamabhu Sutta. And it's an interesting sutta because it really takes you deep very fast into the nature of cessation. What is cessation? How does one reach it? And what happens when one comes out of it? On one occasion, the Venerable Kamabhu was dwelling at Machikasanda in the wild mango grove.

Then Chitta, the householder, approached the Venerable Kamabhu, paid homage to him, sat down to one side, and said to him, Venerable Sir, how many kinds of formations are there? Here we have a monk, Venerable Kamabhu, who's visiting a householder named Chitta. Now, Chitta was known to be an anagami, at least this is what the tradition says.

So he was able to get into Nirodha Samapatti at will. In other words, when we say Nirodha, it means cessation. Samapatti is the accomplishment, the achievement, the ability to enter into these states. So you have a monastic coming to the householder and asking some interesting questions. So the first question he asks is, how many kinds of formations are there?

So he's asking about sankharas or samskaras. So what are sankharas? Sankharas are essentially the building blocks of intention and thoughts. When you get into that very deep stage of neither perception nor non-perception, your mind starts to notice certain flickers, starts to notice certain kinds of patterns coming up, starts to notice some kind of disconnected thoughts or the wisps of thoughts. And these are the beginning of thoughts, what I call proto-thoughts.

And these are what are known as formations, primarily mental formations. So here, Chitta says, there are householder three kinds of formations. Bodily formation, verbal formation, and mental formation. Good Venerable Sir, Chitta the householder said. Then having delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Kamabhu's statement, he asked him a further question. But, Venerable Sir, what is the bodily formation? What is the verbal formation? What is the mental formation?

In-breathing and out-breathing, householder, are the bodily formation. Thought and examination are the verbal formation. Perception and feeling are the mental formation. Good Venerable Sir, Chitta the householder said. Then he asked him a further question. But Venerable Sir, why are in-breathing and out-breathing the bodily formation? Why are thought and examination the verbal formation? And why are perception and feeling the mental formation?

Householder, in-breathing and out-breathing are bodily. These things are dependent upon the body. That is why in-breathing and out-breathing are the bodily formation. So when we say bodily formations, kaya-sankharas, as they're known in Pali, basically when we inhale and exhale, when we are breathing, that is a function of the body. But any process that's happening in the body, including the heart rate, the blood pressure. Even walking around, sitting down, standing up, all kinds of movement happening through the body, within the body, and from the body. These are all regulated and done through the bodily formation.

First one thinks and examines, then afterwards one breaks into speech. That is why thought and examination are the verbal formation. So thought and examination come from the words vitakka and vicara in Pali. Vitakka is placing your mind on a thought. And vicara is keeping the mind steady on that particular thought. This is what you do in meditation in the beginning. You bring up an object and you rest your mind on it and you let it continue. But what he says here, first one thinks and examines, then afterwards one breaks into speech. In other words, he's saying, before we speak, we gather our thoughts of what we want to say.

So when I say, hey, look at that apple tree, I first have to look at the apple tree. So the apple tree makes, my eye makes contact with the apple tree, right? So my eyes receive the light bouncing off from that apple tree. So that is the mental formation, as we'll see. And then there is this perception, this is an apple tree, right? And now I've already thought about it. And so now I'm saying, hey, look at that apple tree. I break out into speech.

Those are verbal formations. The thoughts that you experience in the background are not from verbal formations. They are from mental formations. Every intentional thought is from verbal formations. Every thought that comes up as a background thought is from mental formations. Let me repeat that. When you are thinking about something, when you are making a choice, when you are intentionalizing, those are coming from verbal formations.

When you are meditating and there are thoughts coming in the background, even though your mind is very deep, those are mental formations because you have no control over them. You have not intended for those thoughts to come up. Those thoughts have just come up. When you judge the thoughts, when you say, why am I thinking this? That is your verbal formation. And you've brought your mind out of that deep state.

When you think about the thought, when you reflect on the thought, when you contemplate that thought, that is the verbal formation. When you are just observing and perceiving, that's the process of mental formations. Perception and feeling are mental. These things are dependent upon the mind. That is why perception and feeling are the mental formation. In other words, when we recognize something as this is a table, this is a book, these are flowers, this is a cup, that's the process of perception.

And seeing that, you are seeing this is a table, your eyes are making contact with the table, light bounces off of them, and now you are feeling, you are experiencing, you are seeing. Likewise, when you see the flowers, likewise, when you see the book, likewise, when you see the clock. Likewise, when you see the cup, there is an experience of seeing.

But are the eyes seeing or just receiving information? The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body are all receivers. The mind is that which sees. It makes sense of what it is seeing. The mind is that which is hearing, actually. Even though there's contact with the ear, the sound is interpreted as voice or music by the mind.

When you smell a fragrance, those odor molecules make contact with the olfactory bulb in the nose. But the mind interprets what kind of fragrance that is. When you eat a spicy curry, you place it on your tongue. The tongue makes contact with the flavor molecules, but your mind interprets it as spicy. When you feel the air around you, the air makes contact with the body.

The body has all of these nerve endings that receive that information, but the mind says it feels cold or it feels hot. What is the thing that you read every morning from the Dhammapada? Mind is the forerunner of all states. Mind is chief. So even though you are hearing my voice, even though you are seeing me, even though all of these things are happening around you, they are still mental in nature because they all find their footing in the mind to be experienced, to be felt, to be perceived. That's why they're known as mental formations.

Saying, good venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable Sir, how does the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling come about? So now he's asking, how does Nirodha Samapatti happen? What happens in Nirodha? How does it happen? See, the cessation of perception and feeling, it means that all experience stops. All perceiving, or perception of this is that or this is that, stops.

That means all awareness stops. There is a continuity that happens when we're observing and experiencing the world. When you are listening to my voice, there's a continuity to that sound. But in reality, there are 100,000 arisings and passings away of sound formations, or sound contact, I should say, happening. Or ear consciousness happening. But the mind takes that and creates a fluid experience.

Important: you cannot volitionally enter into cessation, because there is no one who is entering. The collapse of the identity itself is cessation. You cannot say that I, as this so and so, will enter into cessation. Then the question arises, what happens when the mind that has developed enough to be able to go into cessation does so? How is it doing that, because it is deconstructing the world? When that mind goes into cessation, it deconstructs form, feeling, perception, choices and awareness. A lot of people come to me and say, I want to do the determinations, and then I send them the link to the determinations, and they say never mind.

Because they don't have the discipline, they don't have the consistency, they don't have the patience. You must have mastery over jhanas in order for you to be able to volitionally enter into cessation. And obviously when you're doing that, it's not like, oh, I will enter into cessation or I am entering into cessation. There's no I involved in this.

May the mind go no higher than the first jhana for so and so time. And you will learn how to do that to the minute, then to the second, and then come in and out of that jhana whenever you please. Then you go on to the second, same thing. Third, same thing. Fourth, same thing. All the way up to the eighth.

And then finally cessation. But you learn also how to jump between jhanas. All of that sounds wonderful. All of that sounds really interesting stuff. That sounds like very interesting stuff. But is it necessary for you to awaken? No. These are side quests. Just to give you bragging rights. That's all. The reality is, in order for the mind to experience cessation, it must let go.

Let go completely, but it must not make such an effort that it is "I am letting go." You let go of the I by letting go of any kind of sense that if I don't let go, I won't experience this. It's very nuanced, very subtle, but when you get to those states, you will see that when you let go, this is what is experienced.

What's going on, actually? If you take the long road from the first jhana to cessation, what's going on is, in the first jhana, what are you doing? You bring up an object, and you stay with that object. So you have intentionalized that object with, may I be happy, may I be well, may I be filled with love and kindness, whatever it might be.

In the second jhana, you let go of that intentionalizing because the mind flows fluidly. There's self-confidence. The mind can stay without us trying to constantly create that experience. So the verbal formations cease, meaning the intentional thoughts cease. They may still be thoughts in the background, wisps, but those are mental formations. Then by the time you are in the fourth jhana, the bodily formations cease.

Now, some people have this idea that you stop breathing in the fourth jhana. No, that's not what happens. Your breath becomes very subtle. Your breath becomes almost indiscernible. It's so soft and so gentle that you require less breathing, that it becomes very, very soft. So it's like you don't even notice the breath. And when you're in the fourth jhana, you are more in the mind, so to speak. In other words, the bodily contact starts to diminish.

You start losing awareness of the body. You become more in tune with what's happening in the mental space. And the mental formations cease when you enter into cessation, because when you're in neither perception nor non-perception, the only things that are there are mental formations. So when you have those wisps of thoughts, when you're noticing some kind of patterns going on, or you notice or you perceive there's nothing going on at all, there's just quiet space, that too is a perception.

That too is a mental formation. So, in that space, eventually the mind runs out of fuel. By paying attention to anything at all, it lets go of all attention to anything. It remains content, is not in the waiting room of Nibbana, doesn't have any slight expectation, is content with what's going on. And when you least expect it, this is so important to understand, this is why I always say, when you least expect it, which means zero expectations, the mind drops.

And there is a break in consciousness. The film that's there, or should have been there, is missing. There's missing footage. You don't know what happened there until you come out of it. And it happens for however long it happens. Some people may experience the sensation of sinking, or the sensation of entering into a portal or wormhole, or enter into some kind of luminescent space.

Many ways of this happening. Sometimes people will experience their heart thumping, or they may notice their breath. They may notice some sense of resistance that might come in the form of the self gripping, not wanting to leave. So you may feel panicked. But that's all okay. It's just the sense of self noticing that it's going to die.

And it will hold on for dear life. So what do you do? You relax. You soften, you tranquilize. When that doesn't work and the mind is like in alert mode, you take a step back and you radiate equanimity in different directions until the mind becomes quiet again, and you rest. And you may need to do this again and again and again, only when this panic sets in.

Or when this disturbance comes up, where it's too dense for you to just let go of. And as you do this, and as you relax, the mind starts to calm down. That sense of self starts to dissipate, starts to become more translucent again. And eventually it disappears, and the mind drops. Now, the thing is, when you feel that sinking sensation, sometimes the mind says, oh, here it comes, right? So what happens there is expectation, anticipation. So you drop that as well. See, when you recognize that that's happening, and now there's, like, I wanted to go faster,

right? I'm leaning into it. No, you can't do that either, because that space is signless. It's undirected. It's empty. Signless meaning it's not an object at all. Undirected means there's no intention in there at all, and empty means that there is no self present in there. So it is a tractor beam. You can't do anything about it. It will take you when it needs to take you.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Householder. Oh, I already said this. Saying, good venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable sir, what is the difference between one who is dead and gone and one who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling? Householder, in the case of one who is dead and gone, the bodily formation has ceased and subsided.

The verbal formation has ceased and subsided. The mental formation has ceased and subsided. All well and good. They have stopped. His vitality is extinguished. His physical heat has been dissipated, and his faculties are fully broken up. In the case of a dead person, their formations have ceased, but so have their vitality and heat. Vitality, what does that mean? Vitality.

It comes from the word jivat-indriya, the sense of life. It's the sense of life, it's the life force that has dissipated completely. And the heat, the ushna, as they call it, or the usha, I think. In any case, that heat is the metabolism of the body, the cellular metabolism of the body, the temperature. When you go and see somebody who's dead, when my father passed away, he was warm before, when he was alive, and literally 10, 20 minutes later his body was cool to the touch, because the blood had stopped flowing, the heart had stopped.

So there was no longer any heat. The faculties are broken up. The connection with the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body has been broken up. The signal no longer works. The brain has stopped. In the case of one who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, the bodily formation has ceased and subsided. The verbal formation has ceased and subsided. The mental formation has ceased and subsided. But his vitality is not extinguished. His physical heat has not been dissipated, and his faculties are serene.

This is interesting. The vitality is not extinguished. It means whatever is functioning in the body to keep it going, maybe at a bare minimum, but it's functioning. Perhaps the experience is that the brainstem continues to function for respiration, for heart rate, for blood pressure, for all the vital signs. And metabolism continues to go on, but maybe at a very slow pace.

Now, after a while, if you've been in cessation for a while, it's very difficult to detect the heart rate. Your heart rate might go down to one beat every other minute. Very difficult to detect. So, a person may think that this person who is in cessation is dead. And so, if you find yourself in that situation, put a sign saying, I'm alive, everything is fine, don't disturb me.

Do not disturb. So, the faculties are serene and clear. What does that mean? You see, when we are functioning in everyday life, our faculties are functioning, but there's all of this sensory data that the mind picks up through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the body. All of this traffic that's going on. But when you are in cessation, it's like the pandemic. No one outside, lockdown, no traffic.

But they're not broken up. There's still signals going on in the brain, in the mind. It's just that nothing is being picked up, that's all. This is the difference between one who is dead and gone and a bhikkhu who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling. Saying, good venerable sir, he then asked him a further question.

So the idea is the mind will enter into cessation for 5 minutes and 52 seconds. So there has already been an intention. That intention is installed in the mind. It knows there's a time that's kept somewhere deep in the brain. This is what fascinates scientists who study this. Like, how does that actually happen? Where is that intention present?

The bodily formation, the verbal formation, or the mental formation? Householder, when one is emerging from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, first the mental formations arise. And after that, the bodily formation. And after that, the verbal formation. So what happened here? Entering into cessation, first the verbal ceases, then the bodily, then the mental. The reverse happens, where it activates upon emerging from cessation.

Why? Because when you experience cessation, when the contact arises, we'll get into what that means. But when that contact arises, there is a feeling that comes up dependent upon that contact, a sensation, an experience. So mental formations arise to know something happened. And sometimes people will see circles of light, some will see disks, some will see something or another. And those are the mental formations coming into place.

And then there may be a rush of joy, piti, throughout the body. That could be the bodily formations. And then there is, what was that? Wow. Oh, wow. That's what Bhante wanted to call this practice. The oh, wow practice. That's the verbal formations. Look at that. What just happened? That's what came to me. That's what I said. What just happened?

So that's what happens when you come out of cessation. Saying, good venerable sir, he then asked me further question. Venerable sir, when a bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, how many kinds of contact touch him? Householder, when a bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, three kinds of contact touch him. Emptiness contact, signless contact, and undirected contact. This is what I was talking about earlier. When your mind goes into cessation, that field, that space, is not an object.

There's no object there. When there is no object, it is said to be signless, animita, objectless. There's no intention present there. When one has no intention there, that is said to be undirected. And there's no self being held on to. Therefore, it's emptiness. It's empty of self. This is what's referred to as the three gates of liberation. When you truly see and realize for yourself impermanence, then you let go of all objects. But because holding on to any object, that object being conditioned is impermanent.

So you let go of that. When you realize suffering, that every choice invariably will lead to suffering, because even if this is creating happiness in this moment, by virtue of the fact that it leaves you, there is suffering. And the emptiness, you realize there's no controller here. It's all happening due to impersonal causes and conditions. There is a realization of anatta, emptiness of sunyata. So these three gates are one and the same. We'll talk more about that later, not now, not today, but at some point. But they're one and the same. There are three different doors to the same room, pointing to the same room, leading to the same room.

And when you get into that space of quiet mind and you let go of everything, your mind experiences disenchantment and dispassion, then the mind becomes objectless. The mind becomes undirected. You don't hold on to anything. You don't direct the mind to go anywhere. And the mind is free of any sense of self, it drops. That's why I was saying one way of doing this is deconstructing the mind. That's what's happening in jhanas.

It's a long process of deconstruction of your experience. One shorthand form is to go through the five aggregates to see the arising and passing away of forms, of feeling, of perception, of intention, of awareness, and disengaging from that, detaching from that. And when that happens, the mind drops. That is the cessation. Householder, nobody said this, saying, good venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable sir, when a Bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, towards what does his mind slant, slope, and incline?

Householder, when one has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, his mind slants, slopes, and inclines towards seclusion. When you come out, you may experience brightness of color and a hyper vividity of the world around you. Flowers seem to be brighter. The greens of the grass and the trees seem to be more green. Maybe other senses are sharper.

But your mind is in seclusion. Your mind is silent. Your mind feels like you're just floating. There's not a care in the world, not a thought about the future, not a thought about the past, not even a thought about the present. Mind is just there. Imagine the deepest level of tranquility and serenity and go a thousand times deeper than that.

That's the seclusion. Good Venerable Sir, Chitta the householder said, and having delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Kamabhu's statement, he asked him a further question. Venerable Sir, how many things are helpful for the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, right? We all want to know this. How do we get into cessation? What do we need in order to get into cessation?

Indeed, householder, you are asking last what should have been asked first, but still I will answer you. For the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, two things are helpful, serenity and insight, samatha and vipassana. Tranquility and Wisdom and Insight. Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation. TWIM. It's not that you need to just be in Samatha, because there the mind gets suspended.

But that is not the true attainment of cessation of perception and feeling. It is not that you just need insight or vipassana. You need both, yoked together. Samatha or serenity can lead to vipassana and they can come together. Or vipassana can lead to samatha and they can come together. Or both can be yoked together. When you are meditating, you are developing Samatha and Vipassana when you're doing it in this way.

Whenever you 6R, you are developing insight. When you are in jhana, when your mind is with its object, you are developing Samatha. When you are letting go, you are developing those further. You are teaching yourself the insights whenever you let go. Now, don't let the analytical mind think, okay, so how much samatha do I need and how much vipassana do I need? Don't go there. It's not necessary. Your progress will only go further when you let go of the analytical mind and trust in the intuitive mind.

Trust in the luminous mind. Trust in letting go. May suffering once be suffering free and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation.