14 Dec 2021 Online Retreat. Dhamma talk with Delson Armstrong.

Good to see all of you again. Looks like a few more people are smiling today. Hopefully by the end of the retreat everybody will remember to smile. So today we're going to be talking about hindrances and how to deal with hindrances. Today is the first day, or it will be the first day, let's say, of the retreat in terms of your practice, and you might go through what's known as the first day blues. That's what Bhante Vimalaramsi calls it. You might find some level of struggle, possibly related to restlessness or sloth and torpor, or any of the other distractions or disturbances.

So today we're going to explore through one of the suttas how to deal with it. The sutta I've chosen today is Majjhima Nikaya 19, Vedavitakka Sutta, The Two Kinds of Thought. I'm going to read through the sutta, and I'm going to give my explanation as we read along. Blessed I heard, on one occasion the Blessed One was living at Savatthi in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's park. There he addressed the bhikkhus thus: "Bhikkhus." "Venerable sir," they replied. The Blessed One said this: "Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened bodhisatta, it occurred to me: suppose that I divide my thoughts into two classes. Then I set on one side thoughts of sensual desire, thoughts of ill will, and thoughts of cruelty.

And I set on the other side thoughts of renunciation, thoughts of non-ill will, and thoughts of non-cruelty." So here the Buddha is talking about thoughts, vitakka, but the way to understand this, when he talks about the two types of thoughts, the two classes of thoughts, is that he's really talking about intention. So there is right intention and there is wrong intention. Right intention is the second factor of the eightfold path, and right intention includes what is known as nekkhamma, which is renunciation, non-ill will or loving kindness, and non-cruelty.

Or compassion. So the opposite of these is what constitutes wrong intention, and those thoughts are thoughts of sensual desire, thoughts of craving, thoughts of aversion and ill will, thoughts of harm and cruelty. But what you should also understand for the purposes of your practice is to see that this could also include the other hindrances, like restlessness or agitation, and sloth and torpor, or doubt. So he continues: "As I abided thus, diligent, ardent, and resolute," meaning he abided thus diligent, ardent, and resolute, in that he had mindfulness.

We're going to explore mindfulness more, but just so you understand what mindfulness is in the context of the practice and the way we understand it: mindfulness is remembering to observe how the mind's attention moves from one object to another. The reason we say this is because mindfulness comes from the word sati, and that's the Pali version of the Sanskrit word smriti, s-m-r-i-t-i. Smriti means to recollect or to remember, or memory. But we say we are remembering to observe how the mind's attention moves. So when he abides diligent, ardent, and resolute, he is observing where his attention is going and how it's moving. So he says, "A thought of sensual desire arose in me." A thought of sensual desire would be anything. Let's say you hear a pleasant sound while you're meditating. Maybe one of your neighbors is playing some really beautiful song. Now your mind starts to gravitate towards that sound, and you're no longer on your object of meditation, and you start to proliferate in your mind different memories, or have nostalgic thoughts, or just daydream.

When you do this you are no longer mindful. You're no longer observing where your attention is going, and because of this the meditation is not successful. So a thought of sensual desire is anything, in terms of this, the five physical sense spaces which lead the mind astray or away from the object of meditation. In this case the object is metta, loving kindness. So if you smell a strong smell coming in suddenly, if you hear some kind of sound, if you feel an insect landing on your arm, or if you're meditating outside and you feel the breeze touching your skin, and so on, you might notice it, and that's okay.

That noticing itself is not your mind being distracted. So long as it's with its object in meditation you're still mindful, mindful of where the attention is. Maybe the attention goes towards that particular object or that particular sense experience. When you notice that it does so, you use the 6R's. Whenever you recognize that the mind is no longer on its object of meditation, you have brought forward mindfulness, you have regained mindfulness, because now you are paying attention and remembering to observe how the mind's attention moves. Then you release, by coming back to the mind and body as an anchor for the present. You relax the mind and body, relax the tension that's manifested from craving or as craving, and then you

smile. Come back to the smile, come back to the anchor of the smile, and then return to the feeling of loving kindness, and then repeat whenever necessary. So when you see that the mind becomes distracted, what the Buddha said is this: it leads to my own affliction, to others' affliction, and to the affliction of both. It obstructs wisdom, causes difficulties, and leads away from nibbana. How does it lead to your own affliction? When you become distracted by sense experience, when you become distracted while meditating, it can lead into other thoughts, and those thoughts can create

pain or suffering in the mind. If one thought can lead to another, that ultimately might lead to a terrible memory or something like it. Or when you're walking down the street and you're not paying attention to your object, not paying attention to where you're walking, and you get distracted by sensual experiences, and thus being desirous of those sensual experiences, you might not notice where you're walking, and you might bump into something. You might cross the street when you're not supposed to cross the street. Or you might become so much in a daydream that you're not paying attention to what somebody is saying, because you're so attracted by the object that you might misinterpret what the other person is saying, and therefore lead to their affliction and behave in a way that might cause them harm mentally, emotionally, or even physically, and to the affliction of both.

"When I considered thus, 'This leads to my own affliction,' it subsided in me. When I considered, 'This leads to others' affliction,' it subsided in me. When I considered, 'This leads to the affliction of both,' it subsided in me. When I considered, 'This obstructs wisdom, causes difficulties, and leads away from nibbana,' it subsided in me. Whenever a thought of sensual desire arose in me, I abandoned it, removed it, and did away with it." So when he says, "When I considered that this leads to my own affliction," or "I considered this leads to others' afflictions," or that it leads to both, the affliction of both, or you consider that it obstructs wisdom and causes difficulties, what are you doing there? You are recognizing that the mind is distracted. By recognizing that the mind has become distracted, you see that it obstructs you from continuing to meditate. You see that it obstructs you from the path to nibbana. So you recognize, and when you recognize, you stop the flow of the thoughts that cause those hindrances. You stop the flow of hindrances from continuing to arise.

And then you abandon it, remove it, and do away with it, which means you release your attention away from that hindrance and put it to the mind and body, and you relax it, and thus you abandon it, you remove it, and do away with it. Once you're relaxed you re-smile, you come back to your object of meditation. You are now back in samadhi. As I abided thus, diligent, ardent, and resolute, a thought of ill will arose in me, a thought of cruelty arose in me. So a thought of ill will or a thought of cruelty has to do with aversion.

So aversion is anything that you find is painful, and then you identify with it. So while you're meditating you might hear some kind of sound, maybe it's the fire alarm that came up, that started off suddenly, or you hear a car honking outside, or you smell a bad smell, or something like that. The immediate reaction to that, where it's a painful experience, an unpleasant experience, would be aversion. That aversion causes further thoughts: I don't like this, and I don't like it because of so and so, and now you're proliferating in your mind and you're no longer on your object of meditation. So when you see, as the Buddha says, "I understood thus that these thoughts have arisen in me, and they lead to my own affliction, to others' affliction, the affliction of both, they obstruct wisdom, cause difficulties, and lead away from nibbana," and you consider thus, it subsides.

In other words, just like when we were doing it with sensual desire, with sensual craving, when you notice in your meditation, in your sitting meditation, that there is aversion arising, and you notice it, you stop it and its tracks from continuing. Then you continue to remove it, you continue to abandon it, remove it, and do away with it, using the 6R's process. Now it's important to understand you don't do anything beyond that, whether you have aversion, whether you have sensual craving, whether you have restlessness,

whether you have sloth and torpor, or you have doubt. You recognize it, but you don't explore beyond it. So when it says "I consider it thus," all it's saying is he understands that it leads to his own affliction, it leads to others' affliction, and it leads to the affliction of both. Aversion, for example, can lead to your own affliction, obviously, because you have painful thoughts in the mind, and that causes a painful experience, which continues to create aversion, which continues to create flinging being, and therefore causes the mind to be disturbed and act in a way that causes further pain and suffering. That can be lashed out on others, and so it can be the cause of affliction to others. So when you recognize that you have aversion, whether you're sitting, or whether you're discussing something with someone, or you're walking and doing your meditation while walking,

when you recognize it, allow that aversion to be there without your interference with it. Don't do anything with it. Don't note it, don't explore it, don't try to analyze it, don't rationalize it. Just see it for what it is: that it is aversion, and in that moment aversion has arisen, and therefore that is the reality of the situation. Now, because you continue to feel your attention on that aversion, it'll continue to grow. But once you recognize it, recognize that your attention has been on the aversion, you bring it back to the mind and body, and then relax the tension, relax the aversion that is associated with that tension, smile, bring up the loving kindness, you come back to it, repeat when necessary. You are practicing in accordance with the eightfold path, because you are using right effort, not to suppress the aversion, not to contextual intellectualize or investigate what that aversion is all about, but rather to actually do away with it in a way that doesn't lead to further affliction in your mind, or in others' minds, or in both.

So when you notice it and you do away with it using the 6R's, it might come up again as another thought, but this time it will be weaker, it won't be as strong. And you do another cycle. If you see that your mind gets distracted by the aversion again, and you come back using the 6R's, it eventually will completely fade away without creating any kind of disturbance in the mind. Now let's explore as well the other three we talk about: restlessness, sloth and torpor, and we'll talk about doubt. Restlessness has different flavors. There's anxiety and worry. There's mental agitation, or there's just too much energy in the mind.

So when you have it in meditation, you see that there is a lot of activity, just a lot of different bustling thoughts here and there, coming and going, without even you recognizing what those thoughts are, but there's an energy to them, there's a force to them. That is the restlessness. You see that as soon as you see it, you start to slow it down. But if you allow your mind to become agitated with that restlessness, you go and sway with wherever the thoughts are taking you, and you're only going to add more to that restlessness. So what you have to do is back off from your object, because if you're trying too hard, if you're focusing too hard, if you're making too much of an effort, your mind becomes super concentrated, starts to suppress and then release all of this energy in the mind, and that can then lead to other hindrances. But if you notice this, you'll also see that it is accompanied by a subtle tension in the mind, a subtle tension in the body.

So all you have to do is recognize that there is restlessness here, release your attention away from it, relax, re-smile, and return to your object. When you return to your object, just be around it. You don't have to rip it. You don't have to grasp it. You don't have to hold on to it. Just rest in it. Allow your mind to just gently float and rest into the object. By doing so, the restlessness, or that restless energy, no longer manifests in the mind. It might come up again, but you do the same thing, and then you'll have a balance. You'll know that if you stay to this extent with the object of meditation,

there is a balance in energy. The opposite of this is sloth and torpor, and sloth and torpor has to do with the mind not being attentive enough on its object of meditation. So what happens is you're meditating and you start to have this flow, and then suddenly there's a dip. The attention you continue, and there's another dip, and then you continue, and then there's another dip. These dips basically indicate that your mind is no longer interested in its object. So what you do is you recognize. First, you notice that the mind is no longer on its object, that it's starting to get dull, that it's starting to get froggy, that it's starting to get less interested. So you recognize it, take your attention away from it, releasing it, relaxing any tension

be smiling, and then returning. And when you return, you bring a little bit more interest in the object. That's just a matter of putting in a little bit more effort into the practice. So really what we're looking at are two sides of a coin: restlessness and sloth and torpor. With restlessness, maintain a distance with the object of meditation, be gentle with it. With sloth and torpor, bring a little bit more focus, bring a little bit more joyful interest, bring a little bit more energy when you return back to your object. And you have to fine-tune it. You'll see that there's a balance that comes about, and in that balance there is just collectedness, and you'll get the hang of it. Now, doubt can manifest in different ways. It can manifest in the form of different thoughts: am I doing this practice correctly? I don't know if this practice is for me. What did I get myself into? All kinds of different thoughts.

And if you notice that sometimes it will cause restlessness, sometimes it will cause disinterest in the object of meditation, and thus cause sloth and torpor. So that can make you go in either direction. But when you recognize it, and you recognize your mind is no longer on its object, you release your attention from it, you relax it, you smile, you continue to observe your object and meditate. Because whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind. If he frequently thinks and ponders upon thoughts of sensual desire,

That has to do with understanding and seeing, and making it a certain effort to see that these thoughts that arise, good, bad, or indifferent, are impersonal. These thoughts are not me, mine, or myself. They arose because of causes and conditions, and they cease when those causes and conditions cease. So when you do this practice, don't take it so seriously. Don't take it with an intensity that causes your mind to become attached to the outcome of this meditation practice. Allow the mind to understand and see that here is love and kindness, and it's resting on loving kindness. It has no attachment to the loving-kindness. It is just observing the experience of loving-kindness, relaxing into it, and 6R-ing whenever necessary.

But it doesn't take that loving-kindness to be me or mine or myself. It just sees it as an impersonal object. Yes, it feels good to you. Yes, it feels wonderful. It feels warm, and it feels sometimes energizing. It feels good, it feels very wholesome. That's okay, but the point here is not to make that the goal. The point here is to understand how your mind works through this process of meditation, so that you can let go of thoughts rooted in any kind of personalizing, rooted in taking things personally, rooted in ill will, rooted in cruelty, rooted in any kind of conceit or ignorance. Every time you use the 6R process you are sharpening your mindfulness and returning back to right thought, or right intention, because you're using right effort to go from the wrong thoughts, which are the hindrances, back to right thought, and ultimately come to sharpening your mindfulness, and therefore coming to samadhi, coming to a collected mind.

Which then experiences jhana. Now, because you're using loving kindness as an object, it's quite easy for you to be able to cultivate the second factor of right intention, which is non-ill will, which is loving kindness, and to an extent non-cruelty, because you have no thoughts of harm. You have no thoughts of ill will towards anyone. You have no thoughts of wanting to wish harm on other people or beings. Eventually that is going to fade into compassion, but you will see that on your own. Ultimately, every time you cultivate loving kindness you're already cultivating the right intention of non-ill will, and to that extent, of non-cruelty.

So the Buddha continues: just as in the last month of the rainy season, in the autumn, when the crops thicken, a cowherd would guard his cows by constantly tapping and poking them on this side and that with a stick to check and curb them. Why is that? Because he sees that he could be flogged, imprisoned, fined or blamed if he let them stray into the crops. So too, I saw in unwholesome states, that is to say the hindrances, danger, degradation and defilement, and in the wholesome states, that is to say in your object of meditation, the blessing of renunciation, aspect of cleansing. What does that mean? You're purifying your mind. Every time you see a hindrance, you recognize it and use the 6R's. You're cultivating a mind that is sharper in terms of mindfulness, but you're also purifying the unwholesome states of that mind. So in doing so, you are replacing those unwholesome states with wholesome states of mind.

Strain in the mind and the body cause tightness and tension, so that it becomes restless, and therefore it starts to create a flow of energy that becomes too much for the body and for the mind to handle, and therefore it's no longer collecting. So once your mind is observing the experience of loving kindness, once it rests on the feeling of loving kindness, that's all you have to do. Basically, all you have to do is observe. 6R's, so observation just means watching, knowing that the feeling of loving kindness is there, knowing that the spiritual friend is experiencing that loving kindness when you send it out to them. But anything beyond that, where you make much more of an effort, goes in the territory of excessive thinking and pondering, therefore

creates restlessness and further distractions. When you notice that, again you steady the mind internally, you quiet it and bring it to singleness. That means you recognize that you're trying too hard, let go of the attention to that, relax the mind and body, come back to the re-smile, return back to your object, just observing it, letting it rest on the object without making so much of an effort, and then being collected around it. So the Buddha repeats it for the other two. He says: as I abided thus, diligent, ardent and resolute, a thought of non-ill will arose in me, a thought of cruelty, non-cruelty arose in me, and I understood thus: this thought of non-ill will, or loving kindness, and non-cruelty, or compassion, has arisen in me. This does not lead to my own affliction, or to others' affliction, or to the affliction of both. It aids wisdom, does not cause difficulties

And that manifests in the meditation in a way where the mind becomes quite interested in the object, because it's not expecting for things to happen. And so when hindrances do come, it sees it for what it is, and it relaxes, it releases its attention from it, relaxes, it comes back to the re-smile and comes back to loving kindness, and then repeats whenever necessary. And then what you'll see is, as you continue to stay with your spiritual friend, as you continue to stay with the loving kindness in your sitting practice, and then in your walking practice, it manifests not only into thoughts of loving kindness around you but into speech and actions rooted in loving kindness. You'll start to notice that your responses to situations are no longer necessarily rigid or irritated or resistant to an experience. It's more open and fluid, and in flow, and accepting of whatever is going on when you do this

Then you know that your meditation is going well when you have benevolence and happiness and wishes of happiness towards others quite naturally. Then you know that the meditation is going in the right direction, and the way the meditation is going in the right direction is that you have an open awareness of the loving kindness, not that you become focused around it, not that you try to suppress the hindrances so that you are with loving kindness. Rather, you are open and resting, just as in the last month of the hot season, when all the crops have been brought inside the villages, a cow herd would guard his cows while staying at the root of a tree or out in the open, since he needs only to be mindful that the cows are there. So too there was need for me only to be mindful that those states were there. So in other words, once you are with your loving kindness, you only need to be aware, mindful, which is to observe that there is that loving kindness present. When you observe in this way, you are exercising mindfulness

And so when you are seeing and observing how your mind's attention is resting on loving kindness, you'll be even sharper in being able to recognize when it swerves away. And so the quality of sharpening that mindfulness, or the knowing that the mindfulness is becoming sharper, is understood by how quickly you're able to recognize that the mind is starting to swerve, and then bring it back with the six hours tireless energy was aroused in me, and unremitting mindfulness was established. In other words, there was just this flow of that mind resting on the object, and there was this sharp mindfulness, so that there was collectedness. My body was tranquil and untroubled, my mind concentrated and unified

Now it's going to go into some other territory. Let's see here, gotta find this sutta. There we go. Perilous energy was aroused in me and unremitting mindfulness was established. My body was tranquil and untroubled, untroubled, my mind concentrated and unified or collected, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states. I entered upon and abided in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. So we're going to get into the jhanas in a day or two, but just listen to what he's talking about, because now he's talking about his journey from now having understood and recognized the hindrances and returning to a more mindful

state, whereby his mind is now collected, and now it is entering into the territory of jhana. But just listen, we will explore, as I said, tomorrow, more in depth, with distilling of applied and sustained thought. I entered upon and abided in the second jhana, which has confidence and singleness of mind without applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of collectedness. With the fading away as well of rapture, I abided in equanimity and mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body. I entered upon and abided in the third jhana, on account of which noble ones announce he has a pleasant abiding, who has equanimity and is mindful. With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, I entered upon and abided in the fourth jhana, which has neither pain nor pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. When my collected mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives

I recollected my manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births, three births, four births, five births, ten births, twenty births, thirty births, forty births, fifty births, a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand births, many eons of world contraction, many eons of world expansion, many eons of world contraction and expansion. There I was, so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such as my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life term, and passing away from there, I reappeared elsewhere, and there too I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life term, and passing away from there I reappeared here. Thus with their aspects and particulars I recollected my manifold past lives. This was the first true knowledge attained by me in the first watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent and resolute, one who is mindful. So going through the process of the first four jhanas, now he's going into threefold knowledge

This is the first knowledge, where one experiences many different past lives, and through that process, as insight into how rebirth arises through the conditioning of dependent origination, which we'll explore soon. When my collected mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings, with a divine eye which is purified and surpasses the human. I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate. I understood how beings passed on according to their actions. Thus these worthy beings who are ill conducted in body, speech and mind, revilers of noble ones, wrong in their views, giving effect to wrong views in their actions, on the dissolution of the body after death have reappeared in a state of deprivation, in a bad destination

in perdition, even in hell. But these worthy beings who are well conducted in body, speech and mind, not revilers of noble ones, right in their views, giving effect to right view in their actions, on the dissolution of the body after death have reappeared in a good destination, even in the heavenly world. Thus with the divine eye which is purified and surpasses the human, I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, and I understood how beings pass on according to their actions. So this is, this was the second true knowledge attained by me in the middle watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent and resolute

So this second knowledge is the knowledge of karma. It's a deepening of the understanding of the pendurination, and seeing how certain actions, certain thoughts, actions, deeds and words create certain kinds of choices, which lead to certain destinations, both on the micro level as well as the macro level. So it is a deep understanding of karma. When my collected mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. The taints are basically threefold. There is the taint of sensual craving, there is the taint of the desire for being, and there is the taint of ignorance. We'll explore this further, but essentially they are the starting point in the process of how dependent origination arises in one cycle, and they continue to be influenced by certain choices, and they continue to either be strengthened or weakened, depending upon how the mind is inclined. If the mind continues to be inclined towards sensual craving, towards wanting to be something, even in the meditation, trying hard,

is a form of wanting to do something, wanting to be a good meditator, and in the form of ignorance, which is to say not seeing the impersonal nature of this whole process, and therefore not seeing the four noble truths. Anytime this happens, this continues to strengthen those taints. But every time the mind inclines towards the wholesome, every time it lets go, every time it uses the six R's and comes back to a connected mind, it is letting go of attachment to sensual craving, it is letting go of the attachment towards being, and is letting go towards having, lack of mindfulness, which is ignorance. So every time you do the 6R's, you are whittling away, branding away, bit by bit, at the taints, at the defilements. And so he says, 'I directly knew as it actually is,' and this happens when you destroy them all together. He understood, 'This is suffering.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'This is the origin of suffering.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'This is the cessation of suffering.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'This is the way leading'

to the cessation of suffering.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'These are the taints.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'This is the origin of the taints.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'This is the cessation of the taints.' I directly knew as it actually is. 'This is the way leading to the cessation of the taints.' So this is another understanding of the six R's. Whenever you do the 6R's, you're coming to a better understanding and clarity of what are the four noble truths, because when you recognize a hindrance, you are recognizing, right there in that form of hindrance, suffering. When you release your attention from it and relax, you're abandoning the tightness associated with the craving towards that hindrance, and therefore you experience in that moment, when you relax, a mundane form of nibbana, which is the cessation of that hindrance. And then you re-smile and you come back to your object, which is you now have a wholesome intention, and you come back with mindfulness, and you have collectedness, using right effort, and therefore you are fulfilling the way leading to the cessation of that hindrance.

Whenever you repeat, you're using the 6R's to do so. So the 6R's are also understood as the way leading to the cessation of suffering, because it also fulfills the understanding of the eightfold path, or the application of the eightfold path. 'When I knew and saw thus, my mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, from the taint of ignorance. When it was liberated, there came the knowledge: it is liberated. I directly knew: birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.' This was the third true knowledge attained by me in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose. Darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent and resolute. Let me come back to the original sutra. Suppose because that in a wooded range there was a great low-lying marsh

near which a large herd of deer lived. Then a man appeared, desiring their ruin, harm and bondage, and he closed off the safe and good path to be traveled joyfully, and he opened up a false path, and he put out a decoy and set up a dummy, so that the large herd of deer might later come upon calamity, disaster and loss. But another man came, desiring their good welfare and protection, and he reopened the safe and good path that led to their happiness, and he closed off the false path, and he removed the decoy and destroyed the dummy, so that the large herd of deer might later come to growth, increase and fulfillment. Because I have given this simile in order to convey a meaning

this is the meaning. The great low-lying marsh is a term for sensual pleasures. A large herd of deer is a term for beings. That man, desiring their ruin, harm and bondage, is a term for Mara, the evil one. The false path is a term for the wrong eightfold path, that is wrong view, wrong intention, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness and wrong collectedness. We'll go into the wrong path and the right path, that is to say the wrong eightfold path and the noble right eightfold path, in a separate discussion. The decoy is a term for delight and lust. The dummy is a term for ignorance. The man desiring their good welfare and protection

is a term for the Tathagata, accomplished and fully enlightened. The safe and good path to be traveled joyfully is a term for the noble eightfold path, that is right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right collectedness. So, because the safe and good path to be traveled joyfully has been reopened by me, the wrong path has been closed off, the decoy removed, the dummy destroyed, what should be done for his disciples out of compassion by a teacher who seeks their welfare and has compassion for them, that I have done for you. Bhikkhus, there are these roots of trees, these empty huts. Meditate, Bhikkhus. Do not delay, or else you will regret it later. This is our instruction to you.' That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words. So does anybody have any questions?

My mind inclines to doing anapanasati, which I had been doing many years in between. So, how to come back to loving-kindness? So, when you were doing anapanasati, you were doing it based on Bhante Vimalaramsi's method? Yes, awareness now. Yeah, since a few months. Before that, I was observing at the base of the nose. Okay. So you have to find the interest in the metta practice. The metta instructions are very simple, which is you have your visualization of something that is wholesome, something that was a wholesome memory or an object or an idea that makes you feel happy, quite naturally brings a smile to your face.

And then you allow that feeling to be experienced at the centre of your heart. Experience it as this warm glow. So you just have to be aware of that feeling, and you have to take a little bit more joyful interest in that, a little more attention towards that, and try that and see how that works. Delson, I am happy to see you.

Happy to see you too. I am happy to be here. I have a question about the object of the meditation. We say it is metta. Is it on the sentence, or is it the sentence and the person to whom this sentence is directed? Yeah, so in the first 10 minutes, you have, yeah. Okay, so in the first 10 minutes, you want to verbalize maybe one or two times, if it helps to bring up that feeling, or you want to visualize something that makes you feel happy and naturally brings a smile to your face. So in the first 10 minutes you experience the metta for yourself. So it's not verbalizing continuously for 10 minutes. Just verbalizing the first couple of times will help bring up that feeling, the quality of feeling.

Yeah, that feeling. So, yeah. So you stay with the feeling for the first 10 minutes in your heart. And then after that you direct it to a spiritual friend. Now, some people like to imagine the spiritual friend in front of them, and that they're smiling and that they're receiving the loving-kindness, or some people just like to keep the spiritual friend in their heart and continue to just experience the loving-kindness, that warmth, that glow in the heart, with their spiritual friend in the middle of that.

So that it is a feeling meditation. Is also new to me, a feeling meditation, because I only learned that the feeling is just this pleasant or unpleasant or neutral feeling, but now it is almost the same as the metta, isn't it? The metta experience. It is a feeling, it is a physical feeling, mental, emotional and physical feeling. And there, to stay with that, that's the new thing, I think, for me. But don't push it. Just rest your awareness in it. Once you know that it's there, yeah, just knowing that it's there is more than enough. Thank you.

Welcome. Anyone else? You work only with one spiritual friend. Yeah, not just a series of people for the time being. Um, in the beginning you only work with one spiritual friend, and then when at a certain point some things will happen, and that we can talk about in the interviews, and then when we have an indication of where you are in the practice, then you will continue on to further spiritual friends. But for now you only stay with the one. Who is the one spiritual friend? The one who is easy?

Yeah. Okay. Can you say something about the difference between observing and becoming or merging with the object, like what to look out for? Because I think I have a tendency to more merge. Yeah, when you see that the mind starts to merge with the object, one thing you'll notice is there's going to be a ring of tightness in the head, so there will be some kind of force, a force of suppression, going on in the head. And you'll also start to notice, actually, there might be more peripheral restless activity going on as you're starting to merge with the object in meditation.

But if you're observing, there is this distance between, let's say, the mind and its object. When the mind becomes the object, then there is no longer any viewing of it. There's no longer any observing of it. It has completely merged with it. But when you see that there is an observing going on, then there is this open field of awareness around the object. So that open field of awareness is very relaxed, very spacious, and allows you to be sharper in your mindfulness, to recognize if not only hindrances arise but insights might arise as well. They might come in different ways, in terms of thoughts and feelings and ideas and things like that. But obviously, if you see that the mind inclines towards them and gets swayed by them, it's much easier for you to see that and then come back to your object and just rest in the object.

And the last thing I'll say about that is, you merge with the object because there will be too much effort going on. There's a pushing going on where the mind really wants to try very hard to succeed in the meditation. But if you pull back a little bit and just rest and relax, you're going to make a lot more progress. Any other questions?

So rest in the object is different from merge? Merge is in English coming together, just going in. Rest in the object, yeah. Merge in the object. There's a certain space between the mind and the object. Yeah, I understand. But I never called it rest in the object. Hang in there. Yeah. Any last questions? I have a quick question. Some meditations, I cannot produce any feeling. And then I don't have an object. What can I do in that case?

So, meaning in some sits, you're not able to produce the feeling of loving kindness? Yes, in some sittings, yes. All right. Well, I need a little more information. You, what are you doing in terms of your practice? How do you start off? So I follow the sections. I try to start off sending metta towards myself, yeah, and then later on towards a spiritual friend. The thing is, I think sometimes I just cannot produce a feeling, and I don't even understand why, because in some sittings I'm very successful, and some it's just impossible. So when you start off, though, you're verbalizing or are you visualizing, how do you start off? I usually don't verbalize. I just try to find a wholesome feeling.

And I usually don't verbalize it. I don't think it works very well with me. I just try to produce a feeling. I make an effort. I feel some tension here, and once I got the feeling, I tried to relax. Yeah. How often are you smiling in a day? How many times a day do you smile during the day? Not often, no. Usually during the meetings only. You need to smile as much as you can throughout the day, even if you don't feel like it. I would venture to say that when the sits are good, are probably the times where you were pretty relaxed and in a more joyful mood, because you were smiling at some point or another.

Whereas, opposed to when you did not have more successful sits, mine wasn't as inclined to smiling, but that would just be my guess about it. But we'll talk more about this in our personal interview, because there might be other things that we can discuss. All right, thank you. Anything else? Anyone else? So I can't say, here are these trees, the roots of these trees, here are these empty huts, but here are your meditation cushions, here are your meditation spaces. So meditate, lest you regret.

Let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shadow 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. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Thank you very much, Delson. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you. See you tomorrow. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you.