Day-5 QA - Online 10-day Retreat (Nov-17) with Delson Armstrong

Okay, I have a question to the five aggregates from the last where it says that one should not attach yourself to either of these, and I was wondering if there are like specific practices where one can do that, or is that just wisdom arising after like practicing meditation? Yeah. The way to do it is not to analyze it and to intellectually understand it, which is, okay, you see that each of the five aggregates is impermanent, not worth holding on to, and thus not self, and so on. That's not the way to approach it. It's more about applying mindfulness in the moment and seeing when any of these five aggregates arise, how they arise and how they pass away.

Is there any personal involvement in their arising and passing away? Or is there any attachment to it in their arising and passing away? And you'll also see it in the meditation itself. So the factors of the jhanas are such that you have contact with the five aggregates. You have contact, you have feeling, you have form when you have the first four jhanas. You have contact with the form, with feeling, with perception, with consciousness, and with formations.

So you are actually dealing with the five aggregates in some ways or another when you are dealing with hindrances and when you are understanding how formations arise as you get higher into the jhanas. So this is the way to see how they arise and pass away, not looking for it or not expecting it, but rather just seeing in the moment how they come to be and how they don't come to be and so on.

So intellectually understanding it will help provide a good foundation when you read it in the suttas, but the experience of it happens through actual application of mindfulness and understanding it through the jhanic process. Yeah, so I'll give an example where you notice how the mind and the body are reacting in certain situations. And you can just take a pause and just watch what's happening.

What is happening to the body or form in that moment? Where is the consciousness in that moment? Where are the sensory experiences in that moment? Is the perception arising in that moment? And watch whether there is an arising and passing away, which should inform you of their impermanence in that moment, as well as the fact that they are arising without any involvement of a personal self in it. It's just caused by conditions. This is caused by formations, which are conditioned by contact with the external reality, and so there's no self involved in there. And so if it is impermanent and if it's not self, it's not worth holding on to. So this comes through practice. This comes through continuous mindfulness. Thank you.

Wasn't there a few suttas where the Buddha would recommend some types of meditation that were directed to seeing the impermanence of each of these aggregates? Yeah, there are. Rising and falling. Yeah. Yes, I'm done. Yeah, there is, for example, seeing the repulsion of the body, which is to say taking up the different parts of the body and seeing how they are just aggregates of the body in that sense, and they are impersonal, and they're not caused by a self, and that they are subject to change and subject to cessation.

So understanding that one does not regard the body as self or as permanent. There is another type of meditation similar to that practice in which one actually can go to, if they want, the charnel grounds and see the corpses as they rot, and see that even this body will also one day decay. It's quite a powerful practice because it's reality. It's real as it gets. And you see how the body goes through so many changes.

And it's just a corpse. It's a walking corpse. It's a standing corpse. It's a breathing corpse. That's all it is. So it allows you to see that there is the nature of impermanence in this body, for example. And then, of course, the four foundations of mindfulness help you in regard to seeing how sensory experiences arise and pass away. And dependent upon them are sensory perceptions, and dependent upon that sensory consciousness, and then dependent upon that sensory formations, and so on. And if anything is dependent upon another, as soon as you take apart what it is dependent upon, that too will fall apart. That too will be impermanent and impersonal.

Thank you. I have a question about, well, I sometimes get the sense that the suttas go one or two different directions with describing how to take distance from, let's say, sense objects, for example, and that I sometimes get the idea that the sense is to physically remove yourself and distance yourself, and another time it is to be around, to be perfectly capable of being around sense objects, but there is no strong reaction to it. So are these... is one weighing more happily than another, or did the Buddha really describe both, or, I'm not quite sure. What do you think of that?

The way it should be seen is that there is nothing inherently good or bad about the sense object itself, meaning the sense object itself is impersonal. It's right there. Let's take the example of watching something or listening to something. That something itself is totally impersonal. It has no inherent good or bad qualities to it. But how the sensory experience arises in terms of how it is taken is what needs to be addressed. So if you're listening to something that is pleasant, for example, does the mind immediately magnetize towards it and identify with that, and then create that craving, which then clings to it with a sense of self, which then creates this accumulated tendency around it.

And so now that piece of music that you might be listening to is now becoming your favorite piece of music. This is an accumulated tendency of being. Likewise, in the case of something that is a loud noise or something that is disturbing to the mind, disturbing to the auditory nerves, when that arises, is it disturbing because of the perception that it is disturbing you based on how the mind averts from it, has aversion towards it, and then likewise creates and clings to it with the idea that I don't like this, and therefore stores information within the memory that as a cumulative tendency, this is something that I don't like. And so identifying with it and attaching craving to it in the form of aversion.

So sense objects are inherently impersonal. There's nothing good or bad about them, right or wrong about them. It's how you take it that determines whether you cause the mind craving through your reaction to it, or you understand what is arising. Though it may be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, the mind will not attach to it a sense of self and identify with it, and we'll just let it go, understanding it as an impersonal process in this particular moment. The moment you do that, you consciously do that with right mindfulness, right intention, and right effort, you don't cause any craving and you don't cause any clinging, and you don't cause any being, thus you don't cause a birth of reaction that can cause you suffering and so on. You just let it be there right then and there, and then that's the end of it. I see. Thank you. Listen, I have a practical question. Yeah, there are times during the day where

there isn't much to do, say we are at the bus stop or we are waiting for something to happen. In those times, do you recommend that we do mini meditation, or just plain awareness of what's happening around? Because if you do your meditation, you may lose sense of time, so you don't want to do that. So there's this conflict between what to do during these times. Yeah, so let's say, for example, you said there's nothing to do but you're just waiting in line or standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus. You can still always, always, no matter what you're doing, establish the four foundations of mindfulness. You can always be mindful of where your thoughts are and how you are reacting to waiting for the bus. Is the mind at peace, or is the mind constricted

is the mind agitated, or is it happy, and so on and so forth. That's really the basic that one should implement in terms of whatever one is doing, whether, as I said, waiting at the bus stop or in line. And you can also, if it feels conducive in that moment, bring up loving kindness or bring up one of the brahmaviharas and just have, as you call it, a mini meditation. The idea that you might lose track of time while you're doing that, I would suggest not to allow the mind to become absorbed by it. So in other words, you might just have your eyes open, being aware of the surroundings, and still be able to cultivate and radiate one of the brahmaviharas, or carry that awareness of the quiet mind with you. And so this is also applying mindfulness in that regard, to the extent that you are staying with one object, as it were.

But at the very basic, I would say, always apply the four foundations of mindfulness. I have a question. Yes. What about consuming a lot of coffee? Does it affect vegetation like someone like me? Not now, but seven to eight cups of coffee or almost more than food, it's only coffee. So is it any good in the long run, or one should also like foods like pickle and very spicy foods? What is your recommendation? Well, if you talk about coffee, coffee generally creates energy in the mind. Any kind of caffeinated drink, specifically coffee or tea, but more so coffee, energizes the mind and the body. So it has the tendency to create, if not attended to, restlessness.

By no means would I recommend anyone drinking seven to eight cups of coffee at all. I think that's overdoing it. But if you need a cup of coffee in the morning, and that helps you to start the day and be energized, that's fine. But what I find even more energizing, and gives a lot of clarity, is radiating compassion in the morning. That's a great way to start the day, because from the neuroscientific perspective, that generates a lot of gamma brainwaves, and that creates a mind that is in flow, as they call it, a mind that is attending towards what is happening in the moment, and that actually transforms the mind for the rest of the day.

So I would recommend doing that. In terms of spicy foods, and sweet foods, and so on and so forth, I don't think it's a problem in regards to whether the body and the mind is used to it. At the same time, whatever the food might be, it's important not to attach craving towards it. Just have whatever food is available, and don't relish in it, because the more you relish it the more it's going to cause you to crave it, and the more it's going to cause clinging towards it, and so on. So treat all these things as impersonal, and use the full foundations of mindfulness again to see what works in terms of how many cups of coffee is overdoing it for your own mind and body, or how much food is overdoing it, and so on and so forth. So everything in moderation, essentially.

And moderation is definitely relative. One amount might work for one person and another amount might work for a different person. So apply the mindfulness to understand where your limits lie in terms of the mind and body, and where your limits of moderation lie in terms of the mind and body. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hi, Jesse. Can I ask a question? Yes, go ahead. If I do the forgiveness with you soon, is this a powerful and wonderful belief in the mind, or is it hard? Is it two ways or only mind? Yeah, the forgiveness practice is quite a powerful practice.

And based on the experiences of people, it's really a cleansing of the heart. But that's also rooted in the mind, if you look at it. Everything is mind. Everything starts with mind. Even this body is mind, if you actually attend towards it. But in terms of the effect of forgiveness practice, it definitely regulates emotion. It allows the being to detox, if you will, from unwholesome emotions and states of mind that the mind has become quite used to, and so holding on to them. So it's more about a way of letting go and understanding that the mind no longer needs to hold on to this. The mind doesn't need to hold on to anything. But the forgiveness practice is about really letting go of the very deep-rooted emotional tendencies that cause suffering and cause grief in the mind.

So in terms of the practice of the heart, it's a way of understanding and experiencing that release. But everything starts from mind. Thank you. I have a question about the behavior of a person. Let's say a person behaves, or is perhaps not that wholesome in his acts or speech, and such, but does have a high level of meditation. Is Nibbana something that is harder or impossible, or is it different for such a person? So within the context of the Dharma, it's all about conduct first. It's all about virtue, or ethics, or morality, however you want to see it. It's all about creating a mind that is integral to the practice.

So maintaining the integrity of the mind starts with developing first and foremost wholesome skills and habits of the mind, which are rooted in the Eightfold Path. So that means right intention, or right thought, right speech, right action, and right livelihood, or right living. That essentially means cultivating a mind that does not intentionally harm other beings in mind, body or speech. That means a mind that does not tend towards attaching a sense of self towards craving, and then creating misconduct because of that attachment to that craving.

That means a mind that is honest and truthful first and foremost to itself and to others. That means a mind that does not deal with divisive behavior, that does not deal with actions that can cause an uproar, and so on and so forth. And that means a mind that does not indulge in certain intoxicants or certain food and drink, or overindulge in these things that can cause disturbances in the mind. And that means a mind that does not steal, that does not take what is not given. This is the foundation of the practice. This is really, first and foremost, before you even start meditation, if you want to attain Nibbana, so to speak. You have to start with virtue. You have to start with having a very strong foundation of keeping the precepts.

After that, samadhi comes, which is the practice of meditation. Only after that is the mind wholesome enough and clear enough to understand itself, so to speak, and to be able to root out any of the hindrances that arise because of such situations in the past where the precepts were not kept, for example. So with such a mind, there are cases where people might be very adept in meditation but they won't keep their precepts. That adept in meditation is a very strong, concentrated, fully absorbed kind of meditation, and that does not really deal with the hindrances or uprooting the unwholesome states of mind. It's just enjoying, so to speak, the bliss of meditation that arises, that might last for an hour or two. But then what happens is there's no real change in terms of the transformation of the mind, and so the same craving will arise, the same hindrances will arise, and the same identification will arise. So the way to Nibbana always starts with virtue. One of the suttas, Saka speaks with the Buddha, and he gets clarification.

Your sound is coming in and out. See if you can adjust it. Yeah, I can hear you. Just keep talking. Let me see if I can get the question. Yeah, while Saka asks a lot of questions regarding why things happen, and the advice that Yes is thinking, a lot of the questions and answers, and even the devas visit the Buddha for the session. Just curious, how was it, just listening to the Buddha and his answers, that Saka just becomes a sotapanna, and all the 80,000 devas simultaneously become sotapannas, like that? So my mind is just curious, wondering, is it because of their purity of mind? Unlike people like me, who are humans, what is the deal behind that? Yeah, so as I was saying, virtue is the beginning and the starting point of getting towards Nibbana, and understanding, and insight, or pragya, which is wisdom and discernment. When it comes to beings like, let's say, Saka, or the devas,

they come into that position, or they come into that being, because of certain things they did in a previous life, and that is the fruition of their wholesome actions. The purity of the mind is really based on understanding first and foremost why, once you keep the precepts, and then follow the precepts. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, you can become a sotapanna just on merely listening to the Dhamma. You can become a sakadagami, you can become an anagami, or an arahant, just upon listening to the Dhamma. And when they hear the Dhamma being spoken, their mind is so deeply reflective on what is being said that, while it is being said, it starts to apply what is being said, and so doubt is removed, the attachment to rites and rituals is removed, and the understanding that there is no inherent, permanent, abiding self is also removed. So this can happen in a split moment upon listening to the Dhamma, and one can

enter the stream and experience stream entry, whether one is a human or a deva. But it starts with having the foundation of a deeply reflective mind, which will only come about because of maintaining a virtuous mind and maintaining the precepts. That's very true. Thank you. Thank you. You mentioned about reflective top. Is that the investigation in the seven factors of mindfulness of enlightenment? Yes, that's a part of it. That's investigating into the Dhamma and understanding. For example, in the meditation itself, the investigation of Dhamma is more about understanding where mind is at currently, and what is required if it is out of balance, to bring it back into balance in the meditation. But in a general perspective, it is the investigation of Dhamma, which is to say that you are understanding phenomena as it arises and passes away, without attaching anything to it or taking anything away from it, and just seeing the reality as it is, and then allowing the insights to arise naturally from what is being observed. Delson, I'd be curious to know what do you think about

going beyond the fourth level of meditation, the fourth jhana, into endless spaciousness. In the suttas it describes that there is no more patigasanya, there is no more perception of contact with the body. We're losing contact with body and senses, which is part of that description, and then going into endless consciousness. I've heard it said through some teachings and some teachers, who say specifically to some meditators, that even in the endless spaciousness they don't have a body, they don't feel anything of their body or their senses. But then they will say that in endless consciousness they'll have

consciousness at any of the sense doors, flickering. Yeah, how does that work? That's a very good question. Plenty. Again, it all starts with mind. So there's always going to be mental contact that will still arise in endless space or spaciousness, and in the case of infinite consciousness, or endless consciousnesses, that arise and pass away, the sixth sense bases are still active, but they're not registering anything from the external reality.

So whatever might be experiencing, being experienced in infinite consciousness, is primarily, first and foremost, a mental phenomenon. So the flickering, in the case of, let's say, seeing a ring of light, or seeing shimmering or flickering in the visual field, or hearing flickering in the case of the auditory nerves, or even feeling certain sensations on the skin.

All of these arise from the sixth sense bases, which are indeed rooted in the materiality of mentality and materiality. But it's more about not having the external reality register in the mind once one goes beyond the fourth rupa jhana. That is to say, at that point there's no contact with form, there's no contact with the body, but there will still be sensory experiences coming from mental phenomena. So it's more of a mental phenomenon of seeing, and understanding the arising and passing away of sensory consciousnesses. This is how I understand it.

Could we say perhaps that consciousness is at that point quite sharp, or sharper, we could say? And for a moment it slips to one sense door and gets grosser for a while and experiences whatever very subtle arising and passing away happens at that door. But that is perhaps not completely that base that is slipping out of it for a very short period of time.

Question mark. Yeah, I'm just... that's okay, I'm contemplating it. What you just said, first of all, we should also see why is it that certain people experience the flickering in the visual perception or hear the flickering in their auditory senses or whatever it might be. We have to look at it from the context of dependent origination. So you have the formation that is quite strong, let's say, and is rooted in one of the senses, of the six sense spaces, meaning the contact with it creates more formations that will create a certain concentration, and I mean that in the sense of the strength of the formation rooted in one of the six senses. So for example, if somebody is specifically visually oriented, using more of their physical eye and using it for certain reasons, maybe they are in a profession where it's required more, or maybe someone's a musician and they are more attuned towards their ears, that builds up the formations and the strength of the formations rooted to that particular sense space.

So in the case of one who enters into endless consciousness, when they perceive the endless consciousness in one of these six sense spaces, it can be that it is because they have strength in certain formations, which will then activate the consciousness, which then becomes established in the mentality and materiality. And what is in the mentality, materiality is also the faculties for feeling, which is essentially the sixth sense basis. So from that perspective, the formations that arise activate that particular consciousness which is rooted to that sixth sense base, one of the sixth sense bases, but it is still having a sense of feeling within the context of mentality, because the faculty for feeling is within the context of mentality, not the materiality. Materiality is just these four great elements, or states of matter, so to speak. So even there, the feeling that might arise, while it might be because of contact in terms of the physical senses, it still occurs within the context of the mind through the faculty of feeling. So in that regard, if you're looking at infinite consciousness or endless consciousness

there is some kind of contact occurring but it is internal contact with the sixth sense space, not internal contacts, external contact. We just need to let it go anyways, right? Yes. Thank you, Nelson. Dear Sangho, good morning. Delson, you mentioned yesterday about trying to tend towards not verbalizing the loving kindness, either in the generation or in the spiritual friend, but I think I've got in a tangle with regard to verbalizations for even the observation. So in observing, I know that I'm verbalizing in the observation and I'm getting into a sort of a tangle with that, so I'm wondering if you could help with that, please. Okay, so you're saying you're verbalizing the observation itself. In what way are you doing that? So it's not been observing, for example, the loving kindness. It's generating words in my head about the nature of the loving kindness. So it's the idea that I'm attempting non-attachment to whatever is manifesting in the loving kindness, and in doing that I'm verbalizing, and then I'm thinking, no, no, I shouldn't be verbalizing, and so it creates confusion. Yeah.

So just to get a little more clarity on this, so you're saying the verbalization occurs after you generate the loving kindness and then there are verbal thoughts around that loving kindness, because then that would seem to me that the verbalizations aren't quote-unquote self-generated or intentional. They just arise as a consequence of feeling. I think I'm intentional in a way. I think probably too craving, too attached effort not to get lost in the loving-kindness or the bliss of it or the joy of it. It's like, no, no, keep observing.

Yeah, so it sounds like the mind is trying to create this balancing act, and in doing so it's creating activity which will then create this verbalization and other thoughts around it. So what I will say is, when you do experience the factors of the jhana like joy and happiness, piti and sukha, allow it to be there, and allow it just to drift on by. If it's being experienced, let it be there. You can have your awareness on it, but you just know that your center of attention, if you will, your center of awareness

is the loving kindness that's allowing you to stay in a collected manner, because if you allow the mind to continue to be with the piti and sukha, it will not any longer be collected, to the point that it will drift away and it will get carried away by the joy, and then that will create verbalizations and distractions around that joy or that piti and sukha. So what I would suggest is start with the intention, whether you want to verbalize or imagine the generation of the loving kindness, whatever it might be, to generate the loving kindness and just stay with that, and then allow the joy and the piti and sukha, in this case that is coming up, to be there as well, but all you're doing is allowing it to be there so long as it's not distracting you, and you're just allowing yourself to be aware, openly aware of what's arising.

and then you continue to allow this loving kindness as an anchor point to stay present, to stay collected, so that you don't get carried away or distracted by the joy and the bliss. And I was aware also that, having done Vipassana, that I was drifting to use of the breath as an anchor point, and I know you mentioned that yesterday, but I've actually forgotten exactly what it was you said with regard to either a TM type mantra or a Vipassana attention on breath. It's okay to use that or it did? I can't quite remember.

Yeah, that was in the context of a question where it was being asked, what are the types of different concentration practices that are done outside of, let's say, open awareness practices, using right effort, using right mindfulness? So for example, TM, as you mentioned, is using a mantra as the anchor point, but because it's just focusing on the mantra, it creates the mind absorption, the mental absorption around that mantra. Or in the case of the breath, it has the mind become absorbed in the breath. But in the case of this practice, since you are having the correct mindfulness to be aware of what is arising, whether it is a hindrance or an insight, a thought or an image or whatever it might be, you're using right effort to be able to see if the mind becomes distracted and no longer collected

rather than absorbed. There's a difference between being absorbed and collected, and really what that means is the absorbed is where the mind is completely identified with its object of meditation, whereas in the collected state of mind the awareness is unified but it's around it. It's like centralized around the object with an openness, so it's not directly penetrating the object in meditation and becoming one with it, but it is unified in the sense that it's surrounding the object. So when it has that openness of surrounding the object, there's a tension there rooted in reality, which means it's aware of when hindrances are coming, and when it's aware of hindrances coming it can use right effort to understand it's there and let it go, and then come back to the meditation practice. Thank you. So if there are no more questions, I would like to request Bhante Ananda to please share some merit.

So the proper way to do this is to, in fact, put loving kindness in your heart and to allow it to be fully open to all living beings and to feel this sincere wish for all living beings. May suffering ones 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 powers share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Thank you, Delson.