Day 5 May Retreat SN 12.2 (2) Pt.2 Analysis of Dependent Origination with Delson Armstrong

We're going to be reading from Samyutta Nikaya 12.2. This is called The Analysis of Dependent Origination. At Savatthi, Bhikkhus, I will teach you dependent origination and I will analyze it for you. Listen to that and attend closely. I will speak. Yes, Venerable Sir, those Bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this: And what Bhikkhus is dependent origination?

The aging of the various beings in the various orders of beings. Their growing old, brokenness of teeth, grayness of hair, wrinkling of skin, decline of vitality, degeneration of the faculties. This is called aging. In dependent origination, the last link is really jara marana. Jara means to grow old. Marana means death. So when we talk about aging, it's a decline of vitality in the body. It's a decline of vitality in the sixth sense basis.

So a decline of vitality in the Sixth Sense basis would mean that your eyes are growing weaker. Maybe your ears are becoming less sensitive to sound. You can't necessarily have the same physical energy as you did before. Physical system. And it happens to everyone. In terms of the superficial aging, that might be prevented or that might be covered up with a wig or with Botox and things like that. But beyond that, there's not much you can do in terms of delaying aging, where they're seeing how you could lengthen your telomeres.

Telomeres are those ends of your DNA that let you know how long the cells can replicate for. And with every replication of a cell, there is a shearing of the telomeres, meaning the telomeres aren't exactly the same as they were before. They're not perfect copies. That translates to aging, that translates to a decline in the bodily functions in one way or the other.

So even if you are able to figure out how to delay aging, there is still the aging of the mind, the aging of the brain. That's another aspect of it. So the aging of the body is one thing and the decline of the mind is another thing. That's a natural process too. That can happen. For some beings, for some people, they experience the decline of their mental faculties.

And that's just a natural process of the aging factor. So, you can't 6R aging away. Wish you could, right? Just use the 6Rs and, oh, I see a gray hair here. I'm going to 6R that away. Replace it with black hair. But what you can 6R are the identification with the body. The fear of aging.

The fear of death. The fear that something is going to happen to you. The identification with the body causes craving and aversion to arise. You see yourself in the mirror. You see a few wrinkles. What comes up in the form of thoughts? Does it come up as, oh, this is just a natural process. This is happening to the body. Or does it come up as, oh, no, I'm growing old? That, oh no, I'm growing old, is aversion. It's the inability to accept reality as it actually is.

You can 6R that. You can let go of the identification process of that. The passing away of the various beings from the various orders of beings, their perishing, breakup, disappearance, mortality, death, completion of time, and the breakup of the aggregates, the laying down of the carcass. This is called death. So death, that is Marana from Pali.

Death is a natural part of life. That is a natural process of life. Whatever arises, ceases. When you are born, you are born with an expiry date. Was born with some kind of an expiry date for this body. And so the dissolution of the body is death. Just like you can't 6R aging away, you can't 6R death away. Death is just, it will happen whenever it will happen.

And the dissolution of the body, the dissolution of the five aggregates, the dissolution of the sense faculties, this is the dying process. This is death. We know in terms of medical science and in terms of the medical definition of death, it's understood that it is the cessation of the heartbeat, it's a cessation of brain activity, it's a cessation of respiration.

There can be another way of looking at this process, this dying process, that might be helpful and beneficial if you look at it in this way, which is when the body is dead. That is to say, there's no more respiration going on. There's no more brain activity going on. There's no more heartbeat going on. Nothing's going on.

The sense faculties are still aware. The sense faculties are still functioning to a point. And the four elements are still present. That is to say, as the body unwinds, as the body is dissolving, the dissolution of the aggregates is happening. When it comes to the four elements, the first element to go away or diminish is the air element. The second element is heat or temperature, or the fire element.

The third is the water element and the fourth is finally the earth element. In terms of the sense faculties, how they unwind, after somebody is dead, there is still some activity going on. In the diminishing of the body, there are still present some sense faculties going on, dependent upon the contact that happens. What that means is, the first thing to go away is the sense of smell. The second thing to go away is the sense of taste.

The third thing to go away is the sight. The fourth thing to go away is the sense of touch. The fifth thing to go away is the sense of hearing. And the sixth is the mind itself. Which means when a person is dead, technically dead, medically dead, you can still uplift their mind by speaking good things to that person. Even though they're not breathing, even though they're not alive, guide them towards a better existence, towards a better rebirth. So that means that once the hearing goes away, then finally what fades away is the mind itself, consciousness.

That's why then at that point, whatever consciousness arises, if it does arise, dependent upon craving or aversion or identification, that will then give rise to a new rebirth, give rise to existence in which that consciousness will descend into a new nama-rupa, into a new mentality, materiality. And what bhikkhus is birth, the birth of the various beings into the various orders of beings, their being born, descent into the womb, production, the manifestation of the aggregates, the obtaining of the sense bases. This is called birth. They understand what's going on. The formations that are there present in that fetus that arise are present. So there is some kind of experience going on in the womb.

And then when they are born, they come with some level of understanding what's going on in terms of the sixth sense basis. It starts to come up. One of the first things that the infant recognizes is smell. The smell of the mother, the smell of this person seems to be very nice to me. So I'm going to recognize that as a pleasant smell, a pleasant experience.

Eventually, they start to develop the touch. They develop the taste, of course. They develop the hearing. They develop the sight. So when an infant first sees things around them, when they're using their eyes, of what they're seeing as such of birth, because birth is happening in every moment. The birth of the sense faculties is actually happening in every moment, right? Dependent upon your choices, how you choose to use the sense bases, how you choose to consume things through the sense bases. That determines how this next arising of the sense base happens. The next arising of that sense base then is the birth of that sense base, even if it's declining. the understanding of birth of action.

So this is at the level of day-to-day in terms of your present existence. The birth of action and the birth of reactions. Same thing, really. The birth of new karma. You cannot 6R away the action itself, the birth of action itself. The way to look at dependent origination is like a river. Each aspect of dependent origination is a whirlpool. And there are interconnections going on in between these. And we'll explore this.

But as you go down the river, there comes a point where there's a bend. And that's the bend of the waterfall. The bend is the becoming. But then when you reach the waterfall, that's the birth of action. Which means you cannot, once the birth of action happens, you cannot recall it. You cannot recall what you just said to someone. You can't take it back. You can't recall the bodily action that you produced. You can't take it back. You can't take back the thought that you thought, the thinking process that just happened. So that's the birth of mental action, verbal action, bodily action.

So you can't 6R that. It's once you reach becoming and then go into actually the birth of action, you can't go back up the waterfall. And what bhikkhus is existence or becoming or habitual tendencies? There are these three kinds of existence: sense sphere existence, form sphere existence, and formless sphere existence. This is called existence. So this process of bhava, this process of becoming, is dependent on previous choices that you make. There are two suttas that talk about bhava, the bhavasutta. They're both called the bhavasutta, the first bhavasutta and the second bhavasutta. And Ananda asked the Buddha, what is existence? What is this process of becoming?

And so the Buddha says, if there was no karma to produce an existence, in a sense sphere realm, or in a form sphere realm, or in a formless sphere realm? Would there be birth there? Would there be becoming there? There would not be, because there's no intention there. When there are intentions, that is to say formations, rooted in certain kinds of action, that is to say previous choices you've made, then give rise to certain sankhara, give rise to certain formations. Craving in there, or if there's conceit in there, or if there's ignorance in there, it can give rise to further karma.

That karma then can determine or give rise to a specific kind of existence. To simplify that, what that means is, if your choices are rooted in certain kinds of actions that are unwholesome, for example, rooted in anger, rooted in fear, rooted in guilt, rooted in hatred, rooted in craving, rooted in greed, it can give rise to an existence in the sense sphere realms, which is matching that kind of formations or those sets of formations. In other words, if you have a psychology in your mindset of being always greedy, always looking for things, or being jealous or envious of people,

then it could give rise to a hungry ghost kind of psychology, which means that you could go into a hungry ghost existence. If you are someone who delights in the suffering of others, who delights in harming others, who somehow delights in being hateful, being angry, being upset, being violent, that can give rise to an existence that is hellish in nature, torturous in nature, and so on and so forth. If you are somebody who, if the mindset is something that's very animalistic, always wanting to fall asleep, always looking for a couple of things, do I have my comforts? Do I have a good place to sleep? Do I have enough food? Then you can become like Sukkah, the cat.

Right? You become animalistic in nature. So that can give rise to some kind of an animal existence and so on. On the other hand, if you're generous, if you keep the precepts, and if you're helpful, if you have compassion, if you help other people, you spread the generosity that you receive, then you can have a mindset that is of a Deva, who is always generous, someone who is always uplifted, somebody who's always looking out for the best in others. And that can give rise to a Deva-like psychology. So in other words, you can have heaven on earth when you have that kind of psychology, when you're always generous, when you're always keeping the precepts, when you see the best in people, when you're forgiving, when you're compassionate, when you're helpful, and so on.

You're on the way. Then you start to develop the formations that are rooted in the experience of that first jhana, or the second jhana, or the third jhana, or the fourth jhana. And that can give rise to a mindset that's always in the first jhana, always in the second jhana, always in the third jhana, always in the fourth jhana. And that can give rise to an existence in any of these brahma lokas. Likewise with the arupa jhanas, right? If you are in infinite space, if you are in infinite consciousness, if you are in nothingness, if you are in neither perception nor non-perception, if you continue to develop mastery over those, and then you have attachment to those, that can give rise to craving for that jhana, right?

Craving for that existence. And that can give rise to a psychology rooted in those particular formless realms. And that can give rise to becoming into that particular kind of existence. Now that's on the macro level that we're talking about, coming in terms of habitual tendencies on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment level. When we talk about habitual tendencies, you can call them also habitual emotional reactions. That is to say, it's a library or it's a repository of certain ways that you react to certain situations.

So when you see your mother, right, dependent on all the different experiences you've had of her, this idea about her. And so you react or you respond accordingly as she acts with you. Or a friend. Let's say you haven't seen a high school friend for a long time, since the last time you saw them was when you graduated. So the only memory you have of them is based on what you remember when they were in high school.

So there's all of these ideas you have about them. You don't realize that, let's say, 15, 20 years have gone by, that they have changed, that they have grown, that they have turned into a different person. But when you see them, you expect them to act a certain way. You expect them to be a certain way. These are your habitual tendencies to react to them accordingly.

And then there's that cognitive dissonance. You realize, oh wait, this person is no longer the same person that I thought they were in high school. And then there's new habitual tendencies that arise. Emotional reactions are those kinds of things you would say, do or think based on how you perceive those things, right? So if you had an association that on Friday, it's good to wear the color of red because that's when everything works out perfectly, right? So you create these associations,

And now when something happens on Friday, you say, I'm going to react wonderfully on Friday because you already created this idea that Friday is a good day and I've got to wear red on a Friday, right? So this is another kind of habitual tendency. How you react, how you respond, the birth of action is dependent upon the library of expectations and ideas and associations that you fill up at the link of becoming.

It's also where the sense of self, the sense of identity, is fully formed, dependent upon the clinging, dependent upon the creating, and so on and so forth. So the sense of self, the attabhava, as it's called, the attabhava patilabha, which means the becoming of a self, is in this process of bhava, in this process of becoming, where you say I am such and such a person, so I expect such and such treatment, right? And so you will act a certain way depending upon that. As soon as that is no longer there, how do you respond? How do you react? You can react with aversion and anger and be upset or whatever the case might be. So that is dependent upon the process of becoming, the process of habitual tendencies, so that there are a few things: emotional reactions to situations that you've always encountered before, the associations you've made, and then the identity that you create for yourself, dependent upon those choices and experiences.

And what bhikkhus is clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging: clinging to sensual values, clinging to views, clinging to rules and vows, clinging to a doctrine of self. This is called clinging. So clinging to sensual pleasures. Clinging to sensual pleasures. So let's first figure out what does clinging mean. We'll get to craving, but we understand craving is that mindset that says, I want this, or I don't want this, or I am this, or the identification of something.

Clinging is digging your heels deeper in, right? It's the, I like this, I want this because of so-and-so-and-so, because I deserve it, and because of this, and because of that, and because the because. Anytime you catch yourself in your mind saying, I like this, well, I like it because, when you catch yourself saying because, know that that's a process of clinging.

Clinging is also a process of association. When you go to the supermarket, right? I don't know how it is now because I don't really go to the supermarket too often. I went to Walmart for the first time the other day. You know, I went two times. But I didn't really notice much. But if you did notice, when you go to the supermarket, you'll see that on the lower shelves, like when you go to the cereal aisle, right? Shelves, all of the colorful cereals there. Why is that?

For kids. The kids look at that and they associate those colors with that cereal. Oh, I really like that. I really want that. When you look at advertising, how does advertising work? Whether it's written advertising or visual advertising, it appeals to the senses. It's all about appealing to the senses. Making associations. I look at a BMW advertisement and I see this wonderful guy with a woman next to him and it's like, yeah, I want that BMW because I want to be that kind of person. That association process is clinging.

So the rationalizing of why you like something is clinging and the association of that process is also clinging: this particular ice cream, or I want this particular food because, you know, I remember having it at this time and I really felt good about it, or whatever it might be. Or what about your favorite kind of music? The favorite kind of music you grew up with is amazing. The music that the younger generation listens to is crap.

Right? Huh? That's obvious. Yeah, that's obvious, exactly. But think about it. It's because of that time period that you grew up listening to that music, right? When you were a teenager or whatever it was. When you grew up, you listened to a certain kind of song and that's when you had your first kiss or this or that, and you associate that music, that you associate those genres, with those sensual experiences.

That's the clinging aspect, right? And then rationalizing later, why you like that music is also the clinging aspect. What about clinging to views? So we're talking about specifically clinging to wrong views. There are these 62 types of wrong views, and we're not going to go through any of them. But there are certain kinds of views, wrong views, associated with the wrong path,

associated with the path that does not lead to Nibbana, the path that leads to further suffering. So in the Buddha's time, you had all of these different ascetics who practiced all of these different kinds of practices, and they were all dependent upon certain kinds of views. So you had a group of people who were Materialists, this is one kind of view, who are like nihilists, in the sense that there is only this body, there are only these sixth sense spaces. So enjoy yourself, right? Enjoy life to the fullest. This sense of materialism was tied with the idea that the self was just the body. And once the body goes, so does the self.

But we understand that to be wrong view, because we understand that there's something beyond the body, which is the mind itself. So when you have the experience of jhana, you experience a greater pleasure than sensual pleasure. And you see that it can't just be these five physical sense bases, the five physical senses, that are the self. That's wrong view.

Then there is the view that says that everything is eternal. Now this particular view says that there is some kind of self that is eternal, or some kinds of elements that are eternal, but that completely violates the doctrine of the Buddha. When we understand for ourselves the impermanent nature of all things that are conditioned, we see the arising and passing away of sensations as and when they come. So how could they be eternal? We understand that there was a sense of self here which was one way, and a sense of self here which was a different way. When you grow up in your life, how many different millions and trillions of selves have you developed in the form of a personality or a sense of identity?

So the idea that the self is eternal is a wrong view, is a wrong type of view. Then there is another type of view that talks about fatalism, that everything is predetermined. It's like a ball of string that you unfurl, that you unravel. Everything is determined. There's nothing to do. Your suffering is waited out for you. Even your cessation of suffering and the attainments that you get also are already predetermined for you. If that was the case, then why make any effort at all? You just wait.

Just wait and it'll happen to you. But we understand through the understanding of karma that that can't be. Karma means choice. Karma means intention. Every given moment, every given present moment, is an opportunity to go one way or the other. So you cannot say everything is purely deterministic. Things are dependent on previous causes and conditions, which were dependent on previous choices.

So there is a choice in every moment to either incline to the wholesome or incline to the unwholesome. Incline towards the Noble Eightfold Path or incline to that which causes further suffering. So the idea of fatalism is a wrong kind of view. That's another kind of attachment to a view. Then there is the view that says that the mind and the body are purified and you get to Nibbana through the process of purifying the mind and body.

And specifically, this is a view that was held by the Jain community. [...] different suttas as a person who subscribed to the Jain idea. So this idea of Jainism is that there is a soul that is eternal and that it picks up karmic particles all throughout different lifetimes. And the reason why it does that is because it has karma, because it creates certain kinds of action. But that doesn't matter whether it's intentional action or non-intentional action. Even if you stepped on a bug by accident, you're going to have to suffer the consequences of that as well. So the idea is that in order to purify the soul, you have to purify the karmic particles, the karmic dust that you accumulate.

And you do that through a process of purifying the body through ascetic practices. The Buddha already tried this, almost starving himself to death and doing this and that and whatnot, right? So this view has the idea that when you do this, you're burning away your karma. You're burning away at the karmic particles. But the Buddha actually had a question to these ideas. He said, how do you know how much karma you've burned? What is the effect of that? How do you see for yourself that you've burned so much karma and so much karma is still left, right? Is there some kind of bank balance of karma that you can access and understand?

So this idea, this view, says that in order for us to experience salvation, in order for us to experience Nibbana, you have to purify the body through ascetic practices. The Buddha, having already done that, realized that this is not the way. Neither is being too luxurious nor being ascetic the way. There is a middle path. There is a way which is the Eightfold Path, in which you need to have the requisites in order to sustain the body so that you can meditate properly. You need enough nutrition, you need enough food, you need enough clothing, you need enough shelter, and so on, so that you can continue on with your practice.

And so the idea there was that the karma is burned out just by doing these purification processes. But the Buddha says, and Ananda, representing the Buddha in one sutta, that the way that karma is dissipated is at the level of feeling. When you develop the precepts, when you keep the precepts, your mind becomes purified. Right? Your bodily actions become purified. Your speech becomes purified. This is a process of purification.

And so when you develop mind, when you develop through bhavana, mental development, through accessing samadhi, through having the process of going through the jhanas, gaining insight, then you're able to see in that moment, as feeling arises, what it actually is, which is that this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself. Seeing it in this way, you don't add to further karma. Instead, that karma dissipates. We talked about this a little yesterday, which is when you have a hindrance, that's old karma, that's a feeling. But if you 6R it, if you use right effort, if you let go of it. That's the way you know that karma is dissipating. That every time you respond to a situation in wisdom, rooted in the Eightfold Path, you're not producing any new karma.

But rather that the old karma that arises starts to cease, starts to diminish, starts to dissipate. So how many views was that? Is anyone keeping count? Four views? Materialism, one was eternalism, one was fatalism, one was purifying the body. There is another view, which is known as the eel-wrigglers, those people who are skeptics, who say, well, I don't subscribe to one view or the other.

But they do it out of the fear of having to explain their viewpoint, right, to come to a certain kind of conclusion. So they neither deny nor confirm that there was a Buddha. They neither deny nor confirm that there is a path to Nibbana. They neither confirm or deny that there was or there is a self or not a self. So they're like, you know, we don't know, we're not sure, you know, it could be this, it could be that. These are the skeptics that are on the fence.

So this kind of view obviously is not a view to hold, because it can cause a lot of confusion, it can cause a lot of restlessness, it can cause a lot of doubt. So that's five views. I'm missing one view. Let's see. I think it could be nihilism. Let's see here. I would think so, but there might be a little distinction. Let's see here.

Materialism can lead to nihilism, but I think it's slightly different. Oh yeah, this is the view of a guy named... let's see. Well, I'll just go through it briefly. There's one that is from Purana Kassapa, who says that. So this is the idea that nothing matters. So there's one, materialism. And the idea is, whatever I do has no effect. There's no such thing as karma. No effect of karma after death. Yeah. That's the other wrong view. But obviously we know for ourselves, the choices we make have a certain kind of effect. Good, bad, or indifferent.

Wholesome, unwholesome. That always has some kind of effect. Then there is clinging to the different types of wrong view, but there's also a clinging to right view. Clinging to the Dhamma itself. Clinging to the Dhamma like a raft. Once you have the raft and you'll reach the other shore, you carry the raft with you onward.

So that is the clinging to the Dhamma. Being prideful, being proud that I'm a Buddhist, or I'm a twin practitioner, or whatever it might be. The clinging to the Dhamma itself. That's a clinging to views. So when does the clinging to sensual pleasures go away for someone? When they become an anagami. They no longer have any craving for sensual experiences, so they won't have clinging to sensual experiences.

What about the clinging to wrong views? Stream entry, sotapanna. It's like when you graduate out of college, you just leave all your textbooks behind. All of those textbooks, you carry with you, right? Because you paid a lot of money. You cling to them. Clinging to rules and vows. So this clinging to rules and vows, or rites and rituals, there's a few ways to understand it. Number one, the clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that they will lead you to Nibbana, right? So there's nothing wrong with if you enjoy lighting a candle or whatever it might be that you do, right? Just to make you feel good, just to keep you uplifted. That's one thing. But if you're going to do that with the idea of praying to a particular deity, like, please give me this much money, or please do this for me, or please do that for me, all of those things are clinging to rites and rituals as well.

So even the idea of luck, right? For example, I said, when you're on, it's a Friday, so it's my lucky day today. I'm wearing red, so that's my lucky color. Something good is going to happen because of that, right? The associations you make from that. That idea of luck is in direct violation of the Buddha's doctrine of karma, right? [...] the interest of your merits.

You've done good deeds in the past. You've done good merit and you have had merit in the past. And because of that, because you were generous, you become wealthy. Because you were compassionate, other people are compassionate towards you. So it's not just out of nowhere asking for a lot of money that you get a lot of money. You become generous and you start to develop a process in which you get more money. You get more abundance, or whatever it might be. But the idea that you have to carry a four-leaf clover or you have to do this particular ceremony in order to get this or in order to get that or whatever it might be, that's all clinging to rites and rituals.

That's a misunderstanding of, or misguided understanding of, what karma is. So that clinging to rites and rituals goes away when you become a stream-enterer, when you become a sotapanna, because now you realize there's no other way to Nibbana but following the Eightfold Path, following the way that the Buddha has laid it out for you. You can't beseech some kind of Deva, you can't beseech some kind of Brahma, oh, please give me Nibbana. You can't do that, right? You have to make the effort.

And then clinging to a doctrine of self is clinging to an idea of some kind of self, the belief in a personal self. There are these 20 self-views. What 20? So there's the five aggregates. We have form, we have feeling, we have perception, we have formations, and we have consciousness. Multiplied by four different kinds of self-view are the 20 different kinds of self-view. So that is, the five aggregates are self, the self is in the five aggregates, the five aggregates are in the self, or that the self is separate from the five aggregates.

So any of these five aggregates. So the idea that form is self, or self is in form, or form is in self, or self is apart from form. Likewise with the other aggregates. So the five aggregates multiply by the four wrong self-views equals the 20 doctrines of self. So when you become a sotapanna, if somebody becomes a sotapanna, they let go of the belief in a personal self because they see that these five aggregates are dependently arisen. They'll still have conceit. They'll still identify with these five aggregates in one way or another. But on an intellectual level, on an experiential level, just because they understand

that there is just an arising and passing away of causes and conditions, they won't ascribe a sense of self to anything that is conditioned. And ultimately also to anything that is unconditioned. That is to say Nibbana. Nibbana also is anatta. Nibbana is not a self. So, just to repeat, and what, bhikkhus, is clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging: clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, clinging to rites and rituals, and clinging to a doctrine of self. This is called clinging.

And what, bhikkhus, is craving? There are these six classes of craving. Craving for forms, craving for sounds, craving for odors, craving for tastes, craving for tactile objects, and craving for mental phenomena. This is called craving. What the Buddha is talking about here is specifically sensual craving. There's different kinds of craving also. There's sensual craving, there's craving for existence, craving for non-existence.

So we talk about craving for sounds, craving for forms, craving for odors, craving for taste, craving for tactile object, craving for mental phenomena. That's sensual craving. But there is also aversion there. Oftentimes they just talk about craving, but craving also means aversion and also means identification, identifying with something. So the craving there is the I like it mind, I want it mindset. The aversion there is, I don't like this, I push this away. And then the neutral, the feeling that arises gives rise to, I am this. That's another kind of craving, the identification with the process.

So craving is understood as tightness and tension. It manifests as tightness and tension in experience: this emotional reactivity, this tightness, this tightening of the mind, tightening intention in the body. There is craving whenever that is present. So how do you let go of that craving? Six R's. Right effort. How do you let go of becoming? Six R's. How do you let go of clinging?

Six R's. How does that happen? In the case of habitual tendencies, you notice, oh, here's a thought arising where I'm about to react. And you can stop yourself from reacting and let that go. 6R that. Then you 6R that whole momentum so that there is no birth of reaction that causes further suffering. What about clinging? You notice that there arises this association or this process of rationalizing why you like something. Digging your heels deep into something. When you notice, oh, there's a further tightening, a further tensing up, and you 6R that, then you let go of that entire momentum that could cause further suffering. When you notice that there is this tightness and tension which says, I want that, or I don't want that, or I am that, and you recognize it, and you release it, you relax the tension, you smile, you come back, and you let go completely of that whole momentum that causes suffering.

What about craving for existence? What is craving for existence? What is craving for non-existence? Craving for existence is I want to be in this jhana. I want to get into the fourth jhana. There's a difference here. The inclination of the mind towards Nibbana is chanda. That's good enough. That's actually really good. Inclined towards Nibbana, towards the cessation of suffering. But obsessing over it, saying, all right, any minute now, you know. That's the craving.

That's the craving for existence. Craving for non-existence. So another kind of craving for existence would be, I want to be a millionaire. Or I want to be the best meditator at this retreat. Or I want to be this. I want to be. When you say, I want to be. Or you have that thought, I want to be. That's craving for existence.

I don't want to be. That's a craving for non-existence. I'm in this situation. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this situation. That's the craving for non-existence. We'll come to it soon. Just keep a note of it. So another way of looking at why we relieve tension, tightness and tension, is to understand the mechanics of how this process works.

So I'll use the mundane example of chocolate cake. So here you see chocolate cake. That's the contact. There's a contact. The chocolate cake meets the eye. And then arising from there is the eye consciousness. And so now there is a seeing of the chocolate cake. Now I see that chocolate cake. And I say, that looks great. That's a pleasant feeling. That's a pleasant experience.

There arises this underlying tendency to crave, and I have this tightness and tension. Now, when I eat the chocolate cake, I feel satisfied. I feel relief. I feel relaxed. But what if there was a way for you to feel relief and relaxed without having to indulge in that craving? Recognize the craving, you can let go of it with the 6R's by using right effort, by using and utilizing the 6R's, experiencing the relaxation, experiencing the relief right there and then, and not having to indulge in that craving. What does that do?

That deconditions that mindset that says, I have to crave and indulge in my craving in order to experience relief, and reconditions the mind to realize that I can be happy and content without anything. This is called feeling. Pleasant, unpleasant, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Then he took that, so now that's 18. Then he multiplied that by 3. That is the past, present, and future.

So now you have 54. Then you multiply that by 2. The mundane and the supramundane. That is to say, here and in the mental experience. Or rather, you could say it from a different perspective, the worlding, how the worlding feels it and experiences it, or how one who is a noble one experiences it. So now in feeling, there are certain underlying tendencies that arise. There are seven underlying tendencies. There's the underlying tendency to crave. So when a pleasant experience arises, when a pleasant feeling arises, it's pleasant to you, it's pleasant to the mind. It's just a pleasant experience.

If you look at that beyond what it actually is, which is that it is actually impermanent, therefore holding on to it would not make sense, and therefore it should not be considered as me, mine, or myself. If that is not there, that is to say, if you are not mindful of that feeling, if you're not mindful with attention rooted in reality, that is yoniso manasikara, if you don't have that, underlying tendency to crave for that pleasant experience.

And so when the underlying tendency is there, there is full-blown craving. I want that. So I saw the chocolate cake. It's a pleasant experience of seeing chocolate cake. And I could leave it right there and then say, okay, that's just chocolate cake. That's great. Or I could look at it and say, oh, I wonder how I feel. I wonder what that would taste like, you know, to me. That feeling, that experience, that underlying tendency to crave, and then I want that. I look for it. I grasp at it. Then there's the underlying tendency to aversion. There's an unpleasant feeling, right? You were listening to all of this construction noise in the morning. That could be a distraction to the mind.

It was an unpleasant feeling. What happened in the mind? Did it arise? What arose? Did it arise in the sense of, here is this distracting sound, and now I don't So, the underlying tendency to aversion arises, and then there's full-blown aversion. Then there's the underlying tendency towards ignorance. So, what is ignorance? We talked about that yesterday. Ignorance is not knowing the Four Noble Truths. Being aware of the Four Noble Truths of that feeling, not understanding that this feeling is dependently arisen. Therefore, if I crave or if I take it personal, it can cause suffering.

So, if I just see it as it actually is, then there won't be further suffering. That's the underlying tendency to ignorance, which does not do that, which does not see it as being dependently arisen. The conceit, the identification with that feeling. The doubt. This feeling gives rise to doubt. In what way? It gives rise to doubt about what is wholesome or unwholesome. It gives rise to doubt about what is right view and wrong view. It gives rise to doubt about the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, one way or the other.

Then the underlying tendency towards bhava, towards becoming. You have an experience and you say, I want to become that. You see somebody else being wealthy, I want to be wealthy as well. You see somebody being a great meditator, I want to be a great meditator too. Again, that's a wholesome inclination. That's chanda. But then obsessing your mind over, okay, I really want to be that. Now there's a competitiveness. There in the first jhana, I'm going to get to the second jhana. There in the third jhana, I'm going to get to the fourth jhana, you know, and so on and so forth. So that comparing attitude, right, that's rooted in the conceit and rooted in the bhava, in the desire to become.

So just very simply put, when there's a pleasant feeling, when there's an unpleasant feeling, when there's a neutral feeling, how do you take that feeling? Do you take it to be me, mine, or myself? Do you take it personally? Anytime you take a feeling personally, there can arise further craving, identification, or aversion. So can you 6R feeling away?

No. You're experiencing pain in the body. Can you 6R the pain away? But you can 6R the underlying tendencies. You can 6R the aversion that arises. You can 6R the underlying tendency towards craving from arising. You can 6R the ignorance by seeing this as being impermanent, by seeing this as liable to cause suffering if I take it personally, and that it is not me, mine, or myself.

So you can 6R the underlying tendencies that come from the experience that arise when there is the experience. But you cannot 6R the experience away. If you could 6R the experience away, you would have cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. Because then you completely 6R everything. You 6R this entire existence away. It's not possible. Because it's all dependently arisen based on causes and conditions. There's contact happening.

And therefore, it is just impersonal contact. But if you take it personally, you can have craving, then you can have aversion. So what are you 6R-ing away? You're 6R-ing your initial reaction to that experience if it's rooted in craving, if it's rooted in aversion, if it's rooted in identification. So when you're sitting for a long time and there's pain, you can't 6R the pain, but you can 6R your reaction to the pain. You can 6R and soften the tightness and tension around that pain and let that go.

And what, bhikkhus, is contact? There are these six classes of contact: eye contact, ear contact, nose contact, tongue contact, body contact, mind contact. This is called contact. So contact, it comes from the word phassa, phassa in the Pali language, which comes from the word sparsh in Sanskrit. And that means the initial touching of something. So that point of touching, that is to say, the light, the photons hit the retina, and there is contact there. There is the meeting of these two, which gives rise to eye consciousness.

And these three constitute eye contact. When sound waves, vibrations in the air hit the ear, the ear picks it up. That picking up is contact. There is the meeting of the ear with the sound, and then dependent on that there arises ear consciousness. These three constitute ear contact. Likewise with nose contact, tongue contact, body contact, mind contact. So contact is the initial joining of these three. And then that gives rise to an experience, gives rise to the feeling. To the vedana now.

So you can't 6R contact away. It just arises. It just happens, dependent on previous causes and conditions. So the only thing you can really 6R are the underlying tendencies, the craving, the clinging, and the becoming, the habitual tendencies. And what, bhikkhus, are the six sense bases? The eye base, the ear base, the nose base, the tongue base, the body base, the mind base. These are called the six sense bases.

So that is just basically the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. So these are the ayatanas, as it's known in Pali. It's the base for each of these six senses. It's the internal sense base and the external sense base, so sometimes they'll say there are 12 of these sense bases, and what they're talking about when they say internal, they're really talking about the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. When they talk about external sense bases, they're talking about the object of contact, that is to say, for the eye its form, for the ear its sound, for the nose its smell, for the tongue its taste, for the body tactile feeling, experience.

And for the mind, it's thought. It's a mind object, whatever that might be. Now, everything from formations, well, you can take into account ignorance too, but formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, contact, six sense base, contact, and feeling. All of that is a cascading of old karma. So the Buddha talked about karma in two ways. There's old karma, which is what you inherit as a result of previous intentions and choices.

All of that is basically to be felt and experienced as vedana, as an experience. New karma is craving, clinging, becoming, and birth of reaction. it personally and react in a way that causes craving and clinging and so adds to the repository of that karma to be experienced as old karma at a future point. Or you have the ability to see it for what it is, let go of any identification with it, and let the experience happen and dissipate.

So there's no clutching to it to add further fuel to it. That's why, again, using the example of the hindrance, the hindrance is old karma. Do you crave for it? Do you have aversion against it? Do you have identification with it? Or do you just see it for what it is and 6R it? So if you 6R that, if you let go of your reaction to it, then that hindrance will weaken. And when it arises again, it will be weaker. So old karma arises and passes away, your choices. Your choice to take it personally, which will arise with further strengthening of that karma, or it will arise and pass away weaker in every arising and passing away until it dissipates completely.

That's why the Buddha says that the cessation of karma is one thing, and the way leading to the cessation of karma is the Eightfold Path. And the heart, the core of the Eightfold Path, is right effort. That is the 6R's. So the four right efforts, right? Letting go of unarisen unwholesome states, letting go of arisen wholesome states, generating wholesome states, and then maintaining those wholesome states. The 6R's do that completely.

So when you 6R, you're utilizing the Eightfold Path and ceasing the possibility of new karma from arising. That's why, for the arahant, they don't produce any new karma. All of their actions are rooted in the Eightfold Path, which means they don't have a repercussion towards their actions as an arahant. But there is a cascading of old karma that happens dependent upon choices prior to full awakening that they deal with.

This was the case with Angulimala, Moggallana. And so they still had to deal with their previous choices that led to certain kinds of experiences. But they no longer took them to be personal because their actions, their speech, their thoughts were rooted in the Eightfold Path. That means that for the mind of an arahant, it's always automatically functioning from the Fourth Noble Truth of the Eightfold Path. That's why they never produce new karma. They only experience old karma, which then dissipates.

And what, bhikkhus, is name and form? Feeling, perception, intention, contact, attention. This is called name. The four great elements and the form derived from the four great elements. Thus, this name and this form are together called name and form. That's mentality, materiality. Nama, rupa. Nama is another word for mind. It's another way of understanding what mind is. You cannot actually directly know mind except by its own processes of contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention. So nama-rupa is really the five aggregates. Rupa is the form. Rupa is made up of the four states of matter. We talked about that yesterday. And then mind, mentality, is made up of the process of contact. You can know mind by the process of contact, by the process of feeling, by the process of perception, by the process of intention, and the process of attention.

So when we talk about intention, that is chetana. Intention, chetana, is bending or inclining the mind. The mind inclines towards wholesome or unwholesome. And that chetana gives rise to certain kinds of formations. If the chetana inclines towards the unwholesome, there will be formations, sankhara, rooted in the unwholesome. If the chetana inclines, the intention inclines towards that which is wholesome, then the formations that arise will be rooted in the wholesome.

And attention is how consciousness flows, in what direction consciousness flows. If you are paying attention to loving-kindness, consciousness is aware of loving-kindness. If you pay attention to the tree, there is the awareness of the tree. So this is how the five aggregates flow through nama-rupa. So there's feeling. There's perception. Feeling, as we understand, is vedana, right? It's the experience to be felt. Perception is that which recognizes the experience, that which notes and labels the experience.

So, and then, as I said, intention is inclining the mind towards something, and attention is where consciousness flows. And what, bhikkhus, is consciousness? There are these six classes of consciousness: eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness. This is called consciousness. So consciousness comes from the Pali word vinnana. Jnana means knowledge and vi means to divide. So that is to say the bare awareness that's divided amongst these six sense spaces.

So there is the eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, the nose consciousness, the tongue consciousness, the body consciousness, and mind consciousness. Consciousness is also cognizing something, the cognizing, the bare awareness of something, knowing something is there, knowing something is present. So yesterday I said feeling, perception, and consciousness. These three run around each other because when there is feeling, there is perception, and there is consciousness, the awareness of that feeling, the knowing of that feeling.

I also talked about contact, which is: there's contact between the eye and the form, and dependent upon that there is eye consciousness. It's that same consciousness that flows through nama-rupa. So the way to look at it is this. You have consciousness, which gives rise to the mentality materiality. But within mentality materiality, there is the sixth sense basis. If you didn't have a mind and if you didn't have a body, what's the use of the sixth sense basis? Dependent upon that contact, feeling arises. So that contact, it's not like there's just this and there's just this and there's just this. It's like a momentum, right? So the sixth sense bases are housed or encased in mentality materiality.

So when consciousness gives rise to mentality materiality, it's also arising dependent upon contact. Now this is where things are going to get very interesting. I talked about contact as the key, because it gives rise to feeling, gives rise to perception, gives rise to intention, gives rise to different formations, gives rise to karma. So contact gives rise to a lot of different things. When there's contact, basically it feeds back energy to the formations that arise. And if those formations are rooted in craving, it gives rise to a vinnana, a mindset that can be rooted in craving, which then colors the way that contact is experienced, which then, when that experience is there, there can be the underlying tendency towards craving that can arise and give rise to further craving.

So consciousness is not just the consciousness in terms of the awareness of what's happening, but what is the color of that consciousness? Is it tainted? Is it stained by craving? Is it stained by conceit? views, or is it clear? Is it unestablished? The anidassanam vinnanam, as it's called. That is the non-reflective consciousness. This is where, as I said, things are getting a little interesting, because what we're talking about here is that mind that does not reflect anything.

The mind of the arahant is anidassanam vinnanam. That is the non-reflective consciousness. The analogy that I use is when you think about a mirror, imagine that this is a mirror and here is an object. When the object and the mirror meet, there is a reflection. And so the purpose of the mirror is fulfilled through that. But take away the object and is the mirror still a mirror?

Because the mirror functions dependent upon the fact that it reflects something. And that reflection is dependent upon identification, so the mind or the consciousness is this mirror, but it no longer reflects, it's non-reflective, doesn't create an image, doesn't create projections of what this is supposed to be, because the formations that give rise to it are no longer rooted in craving, conceit, wrong views, or ignorance.

The formations that arise are dependent upon wisdom, dependent upon right view. Consciousness won't establish into craving, which can give rise to further clinging, becoming, and further karma. And what, bhikkhus, are formations? There are these three kinds of formations. The bodily formation, the verbal formation, and the mental formation. These are called formations. Formations come from the word sankhara. Sankhara is that which creates, that which constructs, that which conditions.

So sankharas are threefold. There are different kinds of sankharas beyond this. There is the ayu sankhara, for example, which determines how long this body has to live. That's like the telomeres and other kinds of sankharas beyond that. But these three are in the scope of dependent origination. Action, a bodily deed. So I'm here now reaching for this glass of water. The formations, there was an intention, an inclination towards going for that glass of water that then gave rise to bodily formations that allowed the experience of movement of my arm to clutch at the glass of water.

Verbal formations are that which allow you to think about something and speak, express yourself. So now when you're in a conversation with someone, you're listening to what they're saying. That gives rise to what you want to respond to them, right? And that response is facilitated by the process of verbal formations. And the speech is facilitated by verbal formations.

Mental formations give rise to feeling and perception. So that means anything you feel and perceive is dependent upon how those mental formations arise. Now, if these formations are rooted in the akusala mula or the kusala mula. Akusala and kusala. Akusala means unwholesome. Kusala means wholesome. Mula means root. What is the root? What are the three roots? Greed, hatred, delusion.

Greed gives rise to the craving mind. Hatred gives rise to the aversive mind. Delusion gives rise to further ignorance, taking it personally. So if the formations are rooted in these, it will give rise to a consciousness stained by these, which can give rise to 16 different kinds of ways of looking at things. Through a jealous mindset, through an angry mindset, through a stingy mindset, through a hateful mindset, whatever it might be. Nama-rupa experiences contact and feeling. Nama-rupa also encasing the sixth sense basis. But if the formations are wiped clean of the craving, wiped clean of the conceit, wiped clean of the ignorance, then they are no longer dependent upon or conditioned by ignorance.

They are now dependent upon and arising dependent upon right view, upon wisdom. That means that they will only see things as they really are. Which means the consciousness that arises is the non-reflective consciousness. Therefore, every experience that is seen is seen for what it actually is. Not a reflection of it. Not something that is projected onto it. It is actually seen as being independently arisen. Therefore, impermanent. Therefore, not to be taken as me, mine, or myself.

So how do you cultivate the formations rooted in wisdom? And how do you decondition those formations rooted in craving? 6R's. Every time you notice craving arising, you 6R it, and what is in its place? Something that's wholesome. So you have deconditioned the craving, and you have reconditioned the mind to be more mindful, to be more alert, to be more attentive, to be more rooted in wisdom.

And what, bhikkhus, is ignorance? Not knowing suffering, not knowing the origin of suffering, not knowing the cessation of suffering, not knowing the way leading to the cessation of suffering. This is called ignorance. There's different ways of understanding ignorance. It can be the ignorance of not knowing the Four Noble Truths because you were never introduced to them. Even knew that there were these Four Noble Truths.

Then there is the ignorance of having known or having read about or having listened to a talk about the Four Noble Truths. Now you've been introduced to them. But there's still ignorance there because you're not applying the Four Noble Truths. You don't understand as it actually is, that here is suffering. You don't understand as it actually is, here is the cause of suffering. You don't understand that as it actually is, here is the cessation of suffering, and you don't understand as it actually is, here is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. So how do you let go of ignorance? 6R's every time you're mindful of what's going on. Then you don't have any of those misperceptions of reality. You don't take what is able to cause suffering as a source of happiness.

You don't take what is impersonal as personal. Every time you see it for what it actually is, you are seeing the Four Noble Truths. Because you're seeing there is a potential for suffering to arise if I crave for that. Therefore, I'm letting that go using the Eightfold Path, using right effort. Now, this ignorance, the not knowing of this, is also determined or dependent upon the asavas.

So the asavas are the three taints that we talk about. The taint of sensual craving, the taint of the desire to become, and the taint of ignorance itself. What gives rise to those taints? Ignorance. That means that just as there is an interdependency between nama-rupa, mentality, materiality, and consciousness, there's an interdependency between ignorance and the three taints, the three asavas. So the taint of sensual desire, the taint of sensual craving, is dependent upon every time whether you act from that sensual craving or not. You take that experience and you say, I want more of it. So you're adding more to that taint of sensual craving.

Every time you have a desire to become something, that's the taint of bhava. Anytime that you don't see things as they actually are and get caught up in them and take them personally, you're adding to that taint of ignorance. So ignorance is basically what? Ignorance is the lack of mindfulness, which is the not observing how your mind's attention moves from one thing to the other.

When you observe how your mind's attention moves from one thing to the other, you are becoming more wise. You're seeing for yourself how this process works. You're seeing, oh, there arose this, and you let go of that. And so now you're whittling away at ignorance, whittling away at the taint of ignorance. And every time you let go of the desire to have something or to be something, you're whittling away at the taint of sensual desire and the taint for the desire for becoming. Thus, bhikkhus, with ignorance as condition, formations come to be. With formations as condition, consciousness comes to be. With consciousness as condition, mentality-materiality comes to be. With mentality-materiality as condition, sixth sense bases come to be.

With the cessation of formations, the cessation of consciousness. With the cessation of consciousness, mentality and materiality cease. With the cessation of mentality and materiality, six-sense basis. The sixth sense basis, contact. With the cessation of contact, feeling. With the cessation of feeling, craving. With the cessation of craving, with the cessation of clinging, with the cessation of habitual tendencies, birth. With the cessation of birth, yada yada yada. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering. There ended the lesson. Thank you. Thank you.