Day 6 Transcendental Origination

Tomorrow we'll go over what's the beginning of two parts regarding dependent origination. But today we'll go over what we would call transcendental dependent origination. Dependent origination. So what do we mean by dependent origination? It's basically, with the arising of this, there is the arising of that. With the passing away of this, there is the passing away of that.

So basically, conditionality and causality. So when we talk about transcendental dependent origination, we're talking about the factors, the causes and conditions that allow one to experience the liberation of the mind, liberation of the mind or freedom of mind. So we'll go in reverse order, because that's how you really understand this process. The Buddha had talked about going in the forward order and the reverse order, and the forward and the reverse order.

So the reverse order starts off with the end of the path, which is the knowledge of the destruction of the taints. What are the taints? The taints come from the translation of asavas. So I like to call them viruses. They're viruses of the mind. They are what are at the very center point of the wheel of samsara. We have greed, hatred, and delusion, but then there are these asavas, these viruses. And those two are also three of those.

So what are these three taints? There is Avijasava, Bhavasava, and Kamasava, or Kamatanasava, however you want to put it. So Avijasava is the virus that is propelling ignorance to arise. What is ignorance? Ignorance is the lack of mindfulness, the lack of awareness, the lack of seeing the four noble truths in every moment. And kamasava is the taint of sensual craving.

It's what propels that motion of craving to arise. And then we have bhavasava. That is the thing that propels the craving for certain existences, craving for certain outcomes. So when you're sitting in meditation, that expectation of what is next. What will happen next? What will happen next? That is the craving for existence, that is what you're dealing with, and it pops up in your meditation, but it pops up in many different forms in our lives, where I want to achieve a certain status, I want to achieve a certain position in the pecking order, in the hierarchy of life. I want to be a certain kind of person, right? I want to have this much money, I want to have these many cars. Like all of these different desires, in terms of or cravings in terms of existence, in reality. So these are the three taints, and for one to be fully awakened, these three

are destroyed. Ignorance is destroyed, which means that the mind is always aware of the four noble truths. Kamasava is destroyed, which means in this case the desire or the craving for a specific sensual experience is no longer present. And bhavasava, that craving for a certain outcome, a certain status, a certain jhana, a certain mental state, whatever it might be, is also gone. So that step is there, the knowledge of the destruction of the taints. In other words, the mind has reviewed and seen, ah, these taints are still present, there is still more work to be done.

And then at some point, when the mind is fully liberated, there is the review: these taints are no longer present. There is a certitude that they no longer exist in the mind. Now, the Buddha talks about this in terms of how one comes to this experience by seeing such is form, such is its arising, such is its passing away. Such is feeling, such is its arising, such is its passing away. Such is perception, such is its arising, such is its passing away. Such are formations, such are their arising, and such are their passing away. Such is consciousness, such is its arising, such is its passing away.

The five aggregates: understanding, form, feeling, perception, intention or formations, and awareness. So the mind understands what these five aggregates are. The mind understands how they arise, and the mind understands that they pass away. By seeing this, you are actually seeing dependent origination. You are seeing for yourself conditionality and causality. There is a sutta in Digha Nikaya, if I'm not mistaken, it is Digha Nikaya 15, which is the Mahapadana Sutta, in which the Vipassi Buddha goes through the different links of dependent origination.

And he sees for himself the links. And then he comes to the realization of the five aggregates as being conditioned, therefore impermanent, therefore liable to cause suffering, therefore not me, not mine, not myself. And his mind is liberated. So when you have this understanding, not just on an intellectual level, but you are able to see it for yourself, you are able to experience this for yourself, then the mind drops all craving. It drops all identification.

It comes to the realization of the knowledge of the destruction of the taints. And when this happens, this is what is known as vimutti. Vimutti or vimukti. Here, there is the prefix vi. You will hear it in different contexts: vinyana, viraga, and vimuthi. In the context of vimuthi, vi means the ultimate, it is the final. Vimukti, mukti comes from the word muchyate in Sanskrit. That muchyate means to drop, to be free of bondage. And the analogy that is given here, it's just as when the fruit is ripe, it drops, it becomes free.

That is mukti, that is vimukti, the final emancipation of the mind. This is what happens when you experience cessation at such a deep level that you touch upon the Nibbana element. And by touching upon the Nibbana element, when your mind comes back online, there is this relief and joy and clarity. There is contact with that which is the signless, the undirected and the empty.

The Nibbana Dhatu itself is not an object that the ordinary thinking mind can take upon itself. It is the nature of the luminous mind. It is the signless collectiveness of mind flipped around. What do I mean by this? The objectless, how do we realize the objectlessness of something? We realize that all objects are ultimately impermanent because they are conditioned.

So the mind drops all trying, drops all objects. Undirected, we realize that every intention we have always has some kind of suffering implemented in it or imbibed in it, or suffering resulting from it. Even the intention to be happy is conditioned. And we may be happy for a while, but when those conditions fall apart, the happiness which is conditioned upon that also falls apart. So all intentions fall apart, and so the mind becomes undirected and empty. The mind realizes that there is no controller here.

That it is all happening due to a series of impersonal causes and conditions. And so one realizes the emptiness of a permanent abiding self. So this is the quality of contact with the Nibbana dhatu, with the Nibbana element, as a result of which the mind drops certain fetters, or drops all the fetters altogether and experiences full freedom.

Now, this vimutti is dependent upon that which is called viraga. Now, here the prefix of v is the lack of something, the lack of passion, non-reactivity. That is what this passion is. The other day I gave you the image from the movie Little Buddha, where he is meditating and Mara's armies launch a thousand arrows at him, and the arrows turn into lotuses because of his non-reactivity.

He remains non-reactive. There is another beautiful image in there after that, in which he sees his reflection in a puddle of water. And he reaches out into the reflection, and he pulls out his reflection. And he says to that reflection, I have seen you, Mara. I have seen you, householder, or housebuilder. You can no longer build on this.

So he has seen through the ego structure, that is liberation. So the dispassion, his mind experiences liberation. And many times in the suttas you will see this phrase, and his mind was freed through not clinging. That is what this passion is. Qualitatively, in the meditation, this passion is an experience of a Teflon mind, a non-stick mind. Things come up in the mind, but it doesn't stick.

they just slide without anything being held upon it. Now, this passion happens as a result of something known as Nibidha, which is translated as disenchantment. Here comes the infamous chocolate cake analogy. those who know me know that I love chocolate cake and if one day I find out that Rose is making chocolate cake for lunch as dessert that day or the day before my mind will be set upon that chocolate cake it will think about chocolate cake I will be in the interviews pretending to listen to your reports with chocolate cake in my mind.

And then at lunchtime the next day, I come and I see Rose has the chocolate cake. And she says, I made a special cake for you. And I say, wow, that's great. So she cuts up a piece of chocolate cake, and I have it, and I love it, and I enjoy it. It's amazing, scrumptious. It's moist. It has the right amount of frosting and everything.

And she says, have another piece. And my craving gets the better of me and says, yes, I will have another piece. So I take another piece. I feel the sugar rush, but it's okay. I eat the second piece of chocolate cake. She says, you know, you might as well have a third piece. So I say, okay, half enthusiastically, and I eat that third piece. And she says, you know, there's only one more piece left.

Might as well have that. And that's when I say, you have gone too far. That's enough. I am revolted by chocolate cake at this point. I am disenchanted by chocolate cake. This is what happens in meditation. You get tired of seeing the same distractions, seeing the same amount of movement. Ah, okay, now I just make, I do this strategy, I'll just do this balancing, and I'll just do that, and I'll just do this. Just leads to nowhere.

At some point, the mind will be disenchanted, like, I give up. I'm done. I don't care if Nibbana is there or not. That is the disenchantment. You let go completely of all expectations. This disenchantment is dependent upon something known as yatha bhuta nana dassanam. It's a big mouthful. It means the knowledge and vision of things as they are.

When we say of things as they are, we're specifically talking about the understanding of the three characteristics. We're understanding and seeing for ourselves, ah, this is impermanent, right? This happens when? You see it in insight consciousness, primarily. You see the arising and passing away of consciousnesses. Or you intuit in your mind, yes, this is a result of causes and conditions.

When those causes and conditions are gone, then I experience impermanence. I see for myself things fall apart. And when they fall apart, when they are unstable and they fall apart, then I realize suffering. I see for myself suffering. There is dukkha in this. And I realize I'm not in control of this process. And I see the emptiness of a personal, permanent, abiding self.

So the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are is the realization of the three characteristics. And that only happens when you are aware and see the links of dependent origination. Another qualitative experience of knowledge and vision of things as they actually are is the realization and experience of equanimity. When your mind is fully equanimous, it does not get pulled in one direction or the other. It remains steady.

It remains balanced. It remains fine with everything. This knowledge and vision of things as they actually are is dependent upon samadhi, collectedness. So the reason we go into meditation practice isn't for the side benefits of having more peace and clarity and better health or whatever it might be. It's for the purpose of seeing with wisdom. And wisdom here, in a specifically Buddhist context, is the realization of the three characteristics and the links of dependent origination. It is the realization of the four noble truths.

Samadhi allows for that to happen. Remember, samadhi means a balanced mind. That is the practice of meditation. Going through the jhanas. The jhanas are just the signposts. And by the way, you can experience cessation from any jhana. So for you to try to push to another jhana and to another jhana and to another jhana, it doesn't make sense.

If you are remaining in that jhana and you are free of taking that jhana personally, and you remain totally, like, everything is just balanced, your mind will hit cessation. The first time I had my cessation experience was in nothingness. It was not in neither perception nor non-perception. I was radiating equanimity for a while, and I was in nothingness.

And then the radiating just stopped, and everything stopped. And it was like there was a gap in my mind, and I said, what was that? And later on, when I reported it in my retreat, it was confirmed that this is an experience of cessation. So it can happen in any of the jhanas. Obviously, when we talk about the jhanas there is a linear formation all the way up to cessation, but if you go into the suttas it says if you realize the jhana as impermanent, as dukkha, as suffering, and as not me, not mine, not myself, then that mind just completely drops, and it enters into cessation.

Of course, easier said than done, but the point is, it can happen. So this samadhi is dependent on something known as passaddhi, which is tranquility. Tranquility leads to samadhi. You see where we're going with this? What's going on now? We have knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, which is what? Equanimity, the seventh awakening factor. That is dependent on what?

Samadhi, the sixth awakening factor. That is dependent upon what? Tranquility. Actually, before tranquility, or after tranquility and before samadhi, there is something known as sukha. Sukha is ease. When the body is at ease, the mind is tranquil. When the mind is tranquil, the body is at ease. And when those both are in balance, that is to say you have both tranquility and comfort and ease, then samadhi comes naturally.

So this sukha is dependent upon tranquility. That tranquility is the other enlightenment factor. It's the fifth enlightenment factor. So what do we have now? We have the knowledge of the destruction of the taints, we have liberation, we have dispassion, we have disenchantment, we have knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, we have samadhi, we have sukha, and we have tranquility.

So this tranquility comes from what? From joy, from piti. That joy arises from letting go, from relief. And that is what's known as pamojja, gladness in the Dhamma. So now we are going through these enlightenment factors. They are embedded in the path. They are embedded in the practice. I love using this map because it can be applied in so many different ways. It is the sure and direct path to liberation, according to the Buddha.

Because it starts with mindfulness, and we'll get into how that happens. So what do we mean by relief, or pamojja, the gladness in the Dhamma? This happens when you have something known as virtue, slash, faith. You all were told about a retreat. You all were maybe looking for a retreat. You all were sort of searching online, you found my name or somebody else's name associated with this place, and you said, let me try this. You did so out of faith. You see, when we talk about faith here, we're not talking about a religious faith. We're not talking about a faith in the Buddha as our Lord and Savior. No.

We're talking about a faith that is the willingness to try something, the willingness to spend your time, energy, and money to come here and practice. That is faith. That faith eventually becomes experiential confidence when you realize for yourself that this practice works in so many different ways. You realize this for yourself through experience, and now it is confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.

Right? So faith or virtue, what do we mean by virtue? Virtue is the five precepts. A lot of people feel like, when I'm on retreat, I will keep the precepts, and then when I get off retreat I don't have to keep the precepts, and they find a lot of disturbance because of that. So once you keep the precepts, the five basic precepts, those are the precepts you will take on your last day, on your last morning, on Sunday, and those precepts are non-negotiable. Those precepts are for lifelong, should you choose them to be that way. They will help you to experience relief, because when you go back today, I did a talk in the morning for the online Zoom group on Tuesdays

regarding the reflection or recollection on generosity. We talked about generosity. Generosity is what? Generosity can be as simple as sharing your smile with someone, being humorous and making them laugh, bringing joy into their world, sharing your resources, providing alms for monastics, all kinds of ways in which you can be generous. That generosity also is aligned with sila, or the precepts, with ethics.

Now think about it this way. When you come into meditation and you recollect the times that you were generous, how does that feel? It feels uplifting. When you recollect the times when you were ethical, when no one was watching, but you kept the precepts, you feel uplifted. Your mind is softened. Your heart feels expanded. You feel joy come up. That is the pamojja. And from that pamojja, you take that, and that becomes loving-kindness, that becomes your object.

Looking back into seeing the times when you were faithfully ethical and generous is a beautiful way to begin your practice. It is a beautiful refuge for your practice. So virtue and faith lead to gladness. Gladness leads to joy. Joy leads to tranquility. Tranquility leads to comfort and ease of the body. Comfort and ease of the body leads to collectedness. Disenchantness leads to knowledge and vision of things as they actually are.

The knowledge and vision of things as they actually are leads to disenchantment. Disenchantment leads to dispassion. Dispassion leads to freedom. Freedom leads to the knowledge of freedom. Let's do it in reverse order. The knowledge of freedom is dependent upon freedom. Freedom is dependent upon dispassion. Dispassion is dependent upon disenchantment. Disenchantment is dependent upon knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, in parentheses, equanimity.

This is dependent upon samadhi or collectedness. That is dependent upon comfort and ease in the body. There's no way that you focus on any kind of pain. It's relief. It's relaxation. This sukha, this comfort and ease, are dependent upon tranquility, the process of tranquilizing the mind and the body. This tranquility is dependent upon joy, the piti that you feel in having relief or release from any kind of regret or remorse for breaking a precept.

The relief that you get from being generous. Ah, yes, I can fall back on that, my virtue and my generosity. That is the virtue, and that is the faith. A bonus link. What is faith and virtue? What are they dependent upon? How do they come about, how do they arise? Any ideas? Suffering. Suffering leads to faith. Why would you want to practice unless you have experienced some level of suffering?

You see, the Buddha has said that suffering leads to two paths. Further confusion. This is the path of sex, drugs and rock and roll, or a search for a way out of that suffering. Maybe a Google search, a Google search, right? You search on YouTube, you look at Bhante V's, Bhante Vimalaramsi's videos, you look up whatever it is, and then your search begins. Who is it who knows a word or two about the end of suffering? That's how the Buddha puts it. Right? And the search begins, and so from that search you have the faith and the virtue.

And implied in that is the practice of mindfulness and discernment, the practice of letting go. That is the energy, which then leads to the joy and the tranquility and the comfort and ease, the samadhi, the knowledge and vision of things as they are, the disenchantment, the dispassion, and the freedom of the heart and the mind, and the knowledge of that freedom.

I understand that I make it sound so easy, that you just have to do these things. But indeed, it is not easy. It's just that you have to have that level of dedication. May suffering ones be suffering free, and fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.