MN 3 'Heirs in the Teaching" Sunday Sutta Series with Delson Armstrong

There we go. Hello, everyone. I think I'm going to get started now, so I don't have to waste any time. Unless David has anything he wants to say, announcements or whatever. Let's see. How do I do this? Everybody can see the screen? So here we go. This is Majjhima Nikaya number three. The Dhamma Dayada Sutta.

The teacher's disciples live as his heirs in material things, not as heirs in Dhamma. And I will be reproached thus: The teacher's disciples live as his heirs in material things, not as his heirs in Dhamma. If you are my heirs in Dhamma, not my heirs in material things, you will not be reproached. The teacher's disciples live as his heirs in Dhamma, not as his heirs in material things.

Right now, it's very sort of on the surface how the Buddha explains it, but it's also important in terms of the life of a monk, the life of a bhikkhu and bhikkhuni. And the Buddha is saying, when he talks about heirs in the Dhamma, it's really heirs in the teaching, in following the teaching, in cultivating the practice, in perfecting the practice, and experiencing for oneself Nibbana. So you may be aware or remember or recall in Majjhima Nikaya 111, that's the Anupada Sutta, where the Buddha is describing one by one as they occurred Sariputta's journey through the jhanas. Towards the end he says, if it were rightly said that Sariputta was an heir of mine and not an heir in material things but an heir in the Dhamma, it would be rightly said of Sariputta. Why? Because he's the one who experienced, as per that sutta, the training and the practice and the cultivation of that training and practice, to go through each of the jhanas

and experience for himself ultimately the cessation of perception and feeling, and come to the experience of Nibbana, which is through the destruction of the taints. So that's how we are heirs in the Dhamma. Heirs in material things. We'll see that there's a different way of understanding this compared to how it's mentioned here. Now, because the Buddha says, now, because suppose that I had eaten, refused more food, had my fill, finished, I had enough, had what I needed, and some alms food was left over to be thrown away, then two bhikkhus arrived hungry and weak, and I told them, 'Bhikkhus, I have eaten, had what I needed, but there is this alms food of mine left over to be thrown away.'

'Eat if you like. If you do not eat, then I shall throw it away where there is no greenery, or drop it into water where there is no life.' Then one bhikkhu thought, 'The Blessed One has eaten, had what he needed, but there is this alms food of the Blessed One left over to be thrown away. If you do not eat it, the Blessed One will throw it away. But this has been said by the Blessed One: Bhikkhus, be my heirs in Dhamma, not my heirs in material things. Now this alms food is one of the material

Why is that? Because this will for a long conduce to his fewness of wishes, contentment, effacement, easy support, and arousal of energy. So this is an interesting example that the Buddha gives, and it's not the first time he gives this example. It is the first time in sequence that he gives this example in the Majjhima Nikaya. But he gives this example at least one other time in the Majjhima Nikaya. And it's not like he's reproaching or reprimanding the second bhikkhu here. What he is saying is that in the case of the first bhikkhu, he decides not to eat the alms food, and the second bhikkhu does, and he's not at fault for doing that. But the Buddha says that the first bhikkhu is one, or it conduces him to be one, of few wishes, right?

So, somebody who lives a simple life doesn't need a lot to sustain themselves and is content. So, contentment is important. Effacement. What do we mean by effacement? The destruction of, in some sense, identity, but destruction of conceit. Easy support and arousal of energy. So, easy support, meaning people who see that this person doesn't require a lot, it's easy to support them.

And it's easy to give this person whatever they need. And arousal of energy: so he's not weighed down by extra alms food and he's able to meditate with a clear mind. For all those who have been on retreat at Dhammasukha, you very well know that when you eat a heavy meal, especially at lunch, and you go to the meditation hall, you will hear a couple of people snoring. So this is why you take some rest, because it's bound to happen, but it's not a big deal. But in any case, here the Buddha is saying arousal of energy: be light on the digestion, be light on the stomach, and therefore one is able to focus more on the practice. And so he says, therefore, because, be my heirs in Dhamma, not my heirs in material things. Out of compassion for you, I have thought, how shall my disciples be my heirs in Dhamma, not my heirs in material things? That's what the Blessed One said. Having said this, the Sublime One rose from his seat and went into his dwelling. Soon after he had left, the Venerable Sariputta addressed the bhikkhus thus: "Friends, bhikkhus, friend."

"Friend," they replied. The Venerable Sariputta said this: "Friends, in what way do disciples of the teacher who live secluded not train in seclusion, and in what way do disciples of the teacher who live secluded train in seclusion? Indeed, friend, we would come from far away to learn from the Venerable Sariputta the meaning of this statement. It would be good if the Venerable Sariputta would explain the meaning of this statement."

Having heard it from him, the bhikkhus will remember it. Then, friends, listen and attend closely to what I shall say. "Yes, friend," the bhikkhus replied. The Venerable Sariputta said thus, or said this: "Friends, in what way do disciples of the teacher who lives secluded not train in seclusion? Here, disciples of the teacher who lives secluded do not train in seclusion.

They do not abandon what the teacher tells them to abandon. They are luxurious and careless, leaders in backsliding, neglectful of seclusion. This is so important to understand. I was having a conversation with one of my students here in India about this. He was asking, what does it mean to be in solitude, what does it mean to be in seclusion? And he mentioned that when he would incline to seclusion even in social settings, he felt wonderful. You can be alone even in social settings. But he also said that sometimes his friends or people there think that he's just feeling lonely or whatever it is. But it doesn't matter what people think. At the end of the day it's whatever works for you and is conducive for your happiness. And seclusion, what do you hear every time you see somebody experiencing after the cessation of perception and feeling? What do they experience?

Where does their mind incline? Their mind inclines towards seclusion. Their mind inclines towards solitude. We need solitude. We need seclusion in order for us to have proper practice and study and reflection and contemplation. I am just at the tail end of a retreat that I'm doing online for people in India, and it's about a three or four day retreat, very short retreat, so it's an introductory retreat. Some of the people, I think, didn't realize what it means to be on retreat, because while I was giving or taking their interviews, they said, 'Oh, I'm getting ready for work right now.' Or, 'Yeah, I need to go and run some errands.' Or, 'You know, I'm just doing this part-time job,' and so on.

So I kicked them out. I told them, come for a retreat when you're ready. Because a retreat is important for our own benefit, and will be important or will be beneficial for us when we take it, you know, quote-unquote seriously. If we don't have seclusion, if we can't give ourselves enough time for a mind to settle, you'll see for yourself when you're on a physical retreat that the first couple of days of retreat the mind is hither and thither. It's either having sloth and torpor, or it's having a lot of restlessness, or whatever it might be. You need at least a couple of days to let the mind relax and adjust to this form of seclusion and solitude.

If you don't have that, then why do any kind of a retreat? Why do any kind of seclusion? So you have to be selfish with your meditation. You have to be protective of your time for meditation. If you want to truly, let's say, progress on the path, if you truly want to experience the benefits of what the Buddha is offering in terms of the practice, then you need to invest the right amount of time, the right time, the right amount of energy, and you need the right kind of set and setting. You need the right mindset. You need the right setting for you to be able to spend the time required for the mind to settle and experience these deep states. So one who does not live in seclusion and does not train in seclusion

and one who does not abandon what the teacher tells them to abandon. What do you abandon? Well, at the very outset you abandon greed, hatred and delusion. You abandon ill will. You abandon cruelty. You abandon this sense of "I need this and I need that." And when you abandon that, you have what's known as right intention. You have non-ill will. You have non-cruelty. You have nekkhamma, or renunciation, one of contentment in the mind. And it says they are luxurious and careless, leaders in backsliding, neglectful of seclusion. As bhikkhus who are basically supposed to lead very simple lives, sometimes they are given huge chariots that are driven in. Sometimes they just have to walk barefoot. In the modern day, sometimes they ride in a Rolls-Royce or a Mercedes, or sometimes they're walking. It doesn't matter. We're not to judge. But obviously the Buddha is saying be of few needs, and I think we can take something from this for ourselves as well. Can we learn to enjoy the things that we have

without having to feel like they are not enough? Even in the lay life, whether it's the lay life or monastic life, it's important to have gratitude. I talked about this last time as well. Gratitude is, if you can start the day with gratitude and if you can end the day with gratitude, then that's wonderful. Gratitude rewires your brain for contentment, and for loving-kindness, and for compassion, for joy and for equanimity. It rewires your brain to be more positive-minded, right? So we're not talking about toxic positivity. We're talking about true positivity, where the mind is able to see things in a more positive and forgiving way. It's like the example where somebody wants to travel to a city and the Buddha says, well, what if they do this to you? Well, at least they didn't do that. Well, what if they do this? Well, at least they didn't do that. Well, at least this happened or at least that didn't happen. So you have that kind of mindset when there's setbacks and situations that are causing you, or testing your patience

Gratitude allows you to be like, okay, it's not that bad. At least this isn't happening. So that mindset is so important, is very important. Otherwise you'll just be frustrated all the time, and you're not going to be able to live a life of seclusion, mentally speaking, and you won't be able to lead a life in which you can experience the fruits of the practice. And that's where you become careless, negligent. What does it mean to be careless? Lack of mindfulness, steeped in ignorance, rooted in ignorance, leaders in backsliding. There's a tendency for the mind to go back to its old ways if one is not careful, if one is not continuously training. This doesn't mean it has to be hard, doesn't mean it has to be difficult and straining. It just means that we are aware that we need to keep practicing. We need every difficulty, every situation, every good situation, every time, every moment is an opportunity to practice and see how a mind reacts to different situations, how our mind is able to

if not experience loving-kindness, at least not experience hatred. Our mind, how our minds are able to, if not experience equanimity, at least not experience irritation. How, if our minds are at least not able to experience, if not being able to experience contentment, at least experience some level of gratitude. So it's important to be mindful all the time. I mean, it's easier said than done. I know. This is why it's a practice. Let go of the idea that, one day, I'll have to stop practicing. No, no. Practice, practice, keep practicing, keep practicing. There's no such thing as

the idea that this is the end. You will have to keep practicing. Even when Sariputta was asked, what is your practice now? He didn't say, I've stopped practicing. He said, I practice the four foundations of mindfulness, continue to observe the here and now, and how a mind's reactions and responses create situations for itself. Or our mind's responses allow one to let go of old karma and experience the cessation of that karma in that moment. Neglectful of seclusion. We talked about this. We need seclusion. In this, the elder bhikkhus are to be blamed for three reasons. As disciples of the teacher who lives secluded, they do not train in seclusion. They are to be blamed for this first reason.

They are to be commended for this first reason. They abandon what the teacher tells them to abandon. What is it that they have to abandon? We'll see a little bit later what it is, but ultimately it's greed, hatred and delusion. They are to be commended for the second reason. They're not luxurious and careless. They are keen to avoid backsliding and are leaders in seclusion. So they have very little wants. They live simply and they're careful. They're mindful. They have attention rooted in reality, or what's known as careful attention, yoniso manasikara. They're keen to avoid backsliding. They continuously train to make sure to see where their mind is at all times. And leaders in seclusion, they don't just follow the idea that we have to be in seclusion.

They make an example of themselves, or they become an example of how to be seeking out seclusion. They are to be commended for this third reason. The new bhikkhus are to be commended for these three reasons. It is in this way that disciples of the teacher who lives secluded train in seclusion. Now, let's get into this. Friends, the evil herein is greed and hatred.

There is a middle way for the abandoning of greed and hatred, or hate-giving vision. What is this vision? Giving vision, giving the right perspective, giving samadhi, the right view, giving knowledge, samanyana, the right knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge. What is direct knowledge? The emptiness of the five aggregates, to enlightenment, to nibbana. And what is that middle way? It is just this noble eightfold path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right collectedness. This is the middle way, giving vision, giving knowledge which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana. And then he says, the evil herein is anger and resentment

contempt and insolence, envy and avarice, deceit and fraud, obstinacy and rivalry, conceit and arrogance, vanity and negligence. There is a middle way for the abandoning of these things. What are these things that he's talking about? He's talking about what's known as the cittupakilesas. What is that? So the kilesas are in the formations, which are greed, hatred and delusion. Greed, which is lobha; hatred, which is dosa; and delusion, which is moha. The formations are rooted in this. From there they give rise, or can give rise, to one or more of these 16 upakilesas.

We'll talk more about the upakilesas when we talk about it in Majjhima Nikaya 7, which I think is the simile of the cloth. But these upakilesas start to color our consciousness in the dependent origination chain. And because it colors the consciousness, it will influence the way in which the mind and the body receives the raw data, interprets and perceives that, which can lead to the inclination towards one or more of the underlying tendencies, the seven underlying tendencies that can underlie an experience, a feeling, which can then potentially give rise to craving, and which can then give rise to clinging,

becoming, birth of self, or birth of action, and therefore suffering. So these upakilesas, they are let go of, they are abandoned through the path, the Eightfold Path, the Middle Way, which is known as the Eightfold Path. Why is it called the Middle Way? Because the Buddha said that there is one way which is ignoble, that is the path of indulgence, where one just seeks out comfort in the form of sensual pleasures.

But what that does is it causes dullness in the mind, ultimately. And there is the ignoble path of extreme asceticism, which causes pain. The whole point is to let go of pain. And so the middle path is a path that allows us to experience life here and now as it is. And so this middle path is the Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness.

Right view is the right perspective on life, the world, and existence. If you don't have that correct, if you don't have that in alignment, then none of the rest of the factors of the path will arise. The reason why we want to orient our mind towards right view is because it is psychologically sound. It gives us a certain level of mental and emotional clarity.

It gives us a certain form of security and stability in the mind. When we have right view, realizing that there is action and consequence, that there is meaning, this is not nihilistic. It's not like there is no meaning in what we do. There is a certain kind of meaning. That when we are kind, ultimately that comes back to us. When we are mean, ultimately that comes back to us.

This is karma. Let's just put aside rebirth and all the other things. Yes, there are situations where we are kind and people don't return that kindness. But if we are truly kind, we do it without expectation, and therefore our mind doesn't experience agitation when someone doesn't return the kindness. There used to be a friend of mine in school when I was in an international school in India.

And he would always do something nice for the people around him. And he would do something nice for me as well. And I would express my gratitude. And I'd be, oh, this is a wonderful person, I would think, and this is nice, and so on. But every so often, actually most of the times, he would be like, well, I did this for you, so you should do this for me now.

And I felt strange about that. Like his kindness was not, his kindness was conditional in that sense, or his kindness was with expectation. So we should be in a space where we're not expecting anything out of it. We're just doing it for the sake of because it feels good to us. extra brownie points that it feels good to other people but we're not here truly we're not here to live for other people if you have subscribed to Buddhism if you have subscribed to the way the Buddha is teaching as per the suttas here then truly you will be only living for yourself for your inner happiness

Everything around us, our relationships, the people in our lives, our jobs, our careers, our identity, our image, our reputation, our whatever it is, our money, bank balance, home, car, all of these different aspects of the material life and the lay life, and even the monastic life to an extent, it's all temporary. It's always changing. It's all conditional, all conditioned. But if we have a certain level of inner happiness, where we are happy just for the sake of being happy, nothing or no one can take that away from us.

So be kind just for the sake of being kind. Right, that's part of the right view and right intention, understanding there's action and consequence. So if I'm not a good person in terms of how I treat others, that will come back to me at some point, either in the form of them doing something, or if I have a conscience, if I'm not a sociopath or a psychopath, if I don't have any kind of challenges psychologically, and I have a sound conscience that allows me to say, hey, that wasn't nice, and I might feel agitated about it, therein is my karma. Feeling bad about it is my karma.

When I do something nice, when I feel good about something because I did something nice, therein is my karma. Therein is my reward. Our mind states are the immediate reflection of the karma of our actions. And then, of course, there are other aspects in terms of metaphysics that we can be open-minded about with regards to the world here and thereafter, or the world of the senses, and the jhanas, and that there are mother and father, and therefore this is this body, and so on and so forth, and that there are people who know this practice and who can teach it for the welfare of others, and so on. The right intention, right?

That is basically having contentment. No ill will and no cruelty. Right speech. Think before you speak. Whatever I'm about to say, is it the right time to say it? Is it timely? Do I know it to be true, or can I preface it with, this is what I've heard, so I can't guarantee if it's true or not.

Is it honest? What is the intention behind what I want to say? Do I just want to fill the gap because I'm uncomfortable with the silence, or do I want to show off to people with my knowledge and wisdom, or whatever it is? What's the intention? Is it necessary, what I have to say? Is it beneficial for me and the other person? And can I say it with a level of kindness?

Think before you speak. Right action, keeping the rest of the precepts. Right livelihood. Do I have a career or job that is not harming myself and harming others? Right effort. Am I applying the 6R's? Right mindfulness. Am I observing how my mind's attention moves from one place to the other? Or, to simplify, is my mind present in the here and now? And right collectedness. Is my mind collected around an object, thereby creating the factors for the jhanas to arise? Is my mind secluded enough from the outside world?

And is my mind free of the hindrances so that I can experience joy and sukha and all of these other wonderful things? And so he says, this is the middle way, giving vision, giving knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana. That is what the venerable Sariputta said. The bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Venerable Sariputta's words.

Does anybody have comments, questions, anything they would like to share? There is one question here. Are formations always made up of greed, hatred, and delusion, or are there other types of formations? No, not all formations are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion. There are formations that arise as a result of previous iterations of greed, hatred, and delusion. So when one is fully awakened, you've already set the arrow out, and the formations become the activators of certain kinds of mental and physical karma.

There can be formations that are rooted in the Eightfold Path, which means that they are rooted in wisdom. They are rooted in the destruction of ignorance. They are rooted in understanding. So there can be other types of formations. And of course, categorically speaking, there are the mental formations, which allow us to feel and perceive. There are the physical formations, which allow the body to function, move, breathe, and so on. And there are the verbal formations, which allow us to express the thoughts that are there, or to think and reflect and contemplate on something.

Yes, Anne. Anger. I don't like it, experiencing it, but it doesn't seem one has choices all the time about how certain things impact. I work with it in trying to tease out what's mine, what's not mine, how it's other people's karma that they may behave that way. I don't have to bite the bait and react.

But it's easier said than done. And one of the things, all the political stuff, the thing I don't like is all the hate that arises. I don't like hating. I hate hating. And it's just not like falling off a log to work with. It takes. I pay attention to it because I don't want to cultivate it, but it just arrived. It's a frequent visitor. So I wonder if you have any comment on dealing with that. Well, let's explore that. I mean, not only with yourself, but just in a general way: where does that anger actually arise from? What are the usual causes for anger to arise?

Oh, I want the world to be better than it is. Expectations. Simply put, yes. Anger can arise because I have a certain goal in mind, or I have a certain destination I want to go to, or I have a certain thing that I want, and something or someone obstructs my path to it, and I get irritated by that. And I don't like that person anymore because they're in between what it is that I want. That's one reason. That could be one reason.

But then there are other ways in understanding anger, let's say, especially in the lay life, as allowing us to know where somebody may be stepping or overstepping their bounds. And can we express that anger in a healthy way? Can we be kind with that particular kind of anger? And say, hey, with all due respect, step off. one more thing on this is that um i wonder if one can be without anger and still not tolerate injustice or you know foul play yeah i can recognize it for what it is but i don't have to feel i don't have to have be filled with the anger and the hatred i just recognize it yes and um

let it move through. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We don't have to feel bad about it either, or tolerate it, if someone absolutely... There's another question there. There's urgency, or when I wake up in the morning there's urgency for sitting in meditation. How can I relax that urgency for sitting meditation? I would say, don't. If there's an urgency to sit, then sit. That's a wonderful thing to have. A lot of people have to have a cup of coffee and then go do this and go do that and delay the practice, and be like, I'll do this and I'll do that and then I'll go and sit. But if you have this urgency to sit, that's wonderful. This is what's known as samvega, right? It's the spiritual urgency that, hey, I should be sitting right now.

Take advantage of it. Do it. Anybody else? Yes, Stuart. Yeah, I'll ask this question. So in the reading, the Buddha was reprimanding the bhikkhu who would take the food that was left over after the Buddha had satisfied his need for food. So there was this food left over. That bhikkhu was hungry and needed sustenance. And yet he would be reprimanded versus the one that went without.

So how is that the middle way? If, yeah, you tell me, man, I don't understand that at all. I don't understand that because I would think, yeah, well, I know I would think that the idea was, hey, let's, he's so, the Buddha so thoughtful. I mean, it's amazing that 2,000 years ago, putting human edible food in water where there is life is disrupting that ecosystem. Like he knew that.

Like, that's amazing. But so, I mean, there's, that's another just observation, but I would think that I get the point about being an heir in the Dhamma and not in material items. I just don't know that I would have, I don't know, I'm not the Buddha, so. Yeah, to me also, I mean, quite frankly, to me, it's a little kind of off character. Why would he do that? If the guy's hungry, the guy's hungry and he's going to eat, it's fine. But maybe it's just trying to make an example of being fuel of wishes, because that's what he wants to say. It's conducive towards, okay, I'm not going to eat now, and it's not going to be like you're starving yourself. Yeah, it might be good, a little bit of fasting, that's good for the body.

Yeah, I'm just wondering how, if that's applicable to my life. It's like, I don't think it is for us, people, definitely not. It's like, maybe I should be hungry tonight and go to bed without my dinner. I'm contemplating, I myself, I'm contemplating going on a three-day fast. I heard good things about it. So for us lay people, it's always nice, we have the luxury. If you have the luxury of fasting, that's a different thing, compared to 2,500 years ago where food was such a luxury. Yeah, so I don't know how applicable it is for us who are in complicated lay lives. Maybe it's a cultural thing, and maybe it's something to do with the way the bhikkhus live their lives. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think the stimulus that was available to them is a little bit different than the stimulus that's available to us today, and yeah, there's just so many differences. Yeah, thank you for that explanation, Nicole and Jack.

hey how are you doing dawson um so and i was just listening to what you were saying and i was just wondering is normal To, for like very, very old habits, like you see, like, you know, you see a lot of what's going on, you're pretty aware, but like a lot of, or not a lot, a few old habits you might not have seen in 15, 20 years to come up kind of like anger, like a certain type anger i haven't had in like you know 15 20 years um and i mean you you notice it but then it kind of goes away after a few days um can that be like a release like you know um

I was just curious if that's normal in a certain place it might be. This is where we should take into account this understanding of thoughts, that there are active thoughts and there are passive thoughts. The passive thoughts are thoughts of anger, thoughts of happiness, thoughts of whatever, not in our control, thoughts that are just coming. I didn't intend that thought to be there of anger. I didn't intend that thought of joy to be there. It just arose due to previous iterations of that particular emotion, due to reliving that memory or whatever it is that comes. The brain, the mind, does all kinds of interesting things, and we just become subject to that. There's something about the, let's say, active sense of thinking, which is where we have the verbal formations, where we think and reflect and examine and contemplate based on what is arising in the thought stream.

And if we decide to act on that and be like, hey, you know what, this anger was justified and I'm going to continue to be angry about it, and I'm going to do something, and I'm going to feel bad, and I'm going to, all these other things that we decide to do, what we decide to do with that particular thought matters more than what passive thought arises. So if it comes and goes, no big deal.

Okay. All right, thank you. Yeah, it says, are you hungry? Are you really hungry after six days of session? Definitely, definitely. But it doesn't happen immediately. As your system gets suggested to realizing that you actually have a body, other bodily functions become more, you become more aware of the bodily functions, and you definitely get hungry. So first thing you want to do is eat. Yeah, definitely. Louisa.

Or is that? Yeah, Louisa. Are you there? Okay. Well, David. Hey, Nelson. Just backtracking into the point Stuart brought up about taking food and not taking food, how it actually applies for lay people. I find a way that it does, that people take as very normal, is snacking at night. We don't have the cutoff of stopping eating at noon. But if you've had supper, do you need the chips or the whatever little treat it is at night? And I think it's a good practice for us for noticing that craving, to be able to see, hey, this useless desire has arisen in my mind. And it's really just for stimulation, agitation, gratification.

But is it necessary for you to sustain and live forever? You know, totally not at all. So even being mindful of those late-night cravings, I find, is a good practice for lay people. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a very good point. Thank you. Yes, Louisa? Can you see and hear me now? Yes, I can. Okay, I tried to do that, and I've done it. No problem.

I was seeing the 12 Links of Dependent Origination this morning, and I was kind of feeling like the first six are somewhat unconscious. And then, well, of course the meaning of that word is fraught as well. But are they sort of things that arise, even contact? Like when you do the five aggregate meditation, or when you say, in the hearing there's only the heard, and then most of the time we're not aware that we are seeing, that we are hearing, that contact. So even contact isn't really that conscious. And then the next six, starting with feeling, seem to be more conscious. Or is that, would you say that's true? Or now that I'm saying it, I'm not sure, but I thought I'd ask. No, that's a good question. So let me explain. We've got ignorance, formations, consciousness

six, sorry, mentality, materiality, six sense bases, contact. So these are the first six. These happen, and then there's also feeling, actually part of that, which is not that it's unconscious, but let's say that it is arising without our control, or without our feeling contact, right? Okay, yeah. So contact is the immediate moment in which light touches the eyes, vibration hits the ears, and so on and so forth. And then the feeling is the seeing, the hearing, the touching, tasting, smelling, whatever it is, thinking. So that process is feeling, and the perception tied to it is, oh, I'm seeing Louisa right now on the screen. I'm hearing the AC hum. I'm smelling nothing right now. There's nothing in the room that I can smell. I'm feeling the pressure of my back on the chair, so I'm aware of that. You're talking about the feeling, perception coming after contact? That's right. Okay, sorry, I just wanted that. That's right. So all of these are happening, let's say

for lack of a better word, automatically, without our control. They're just happening. But then how we decide to take that experience, that leads to your craving and so on. So yeah, so it's, yeah, really craving is sort of the crux of everything. I mean, I think you've said that before. It's kind of like when you realize you're craving, you know, that's when you try and kind of relax, I guess, and the craving only arises when we're not aware of what we're feeling, or we take for granted the feeling as being us, me, mine. Yeah, and that gives rise to the underlying tendencies, right, which bridge into the craving.

Yeah, okay. I had more questions about origination, but for a different talk, I guess. Okay, okay, yeah, no problem. Anyone else has anything they would like to ask or say? Okay, so I will try to see you guys next week. Then, to share merit in your own time, I will see you all and take care, and yeah, be happy. Thank you, Delson. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, thanks, Delson. Thank you. See everybody.