June 9 -Day 5...Tanha to Dukkha-Paticca Samupada-Delson Armstrong

Today we'll talk a little bit about Paticca Samuppada, which is the Pali for dependent origination. Dependent origination is the Dhamma. It's the reality of existence. It's the mechanics through which karma arises and passes away. It is the understanding of how we create our own suffering. And it's a vast topic. There's many different ways of understanding it, and there are many interpretations of it as well.

But we will try to simplify it so that it is easily applicable to our daily lives. Before we get into it, let's understand how the Buddha saw into dependent origination, because it's a very... even if you look at the traditional story of him as the Bodhisattva, in which he was a nobleman, he was a prince of this republic known as Kapila Vastu, and his father was the leader of the republic.

And the story goes that there was a sage who looked into his horoscope and saw that there were two possibilities for this infant when he was born. One is that he would be what is known as a Chakravarthin, which is a wheel-turning monarch. Now, wheel-turning monarch is the direct translation of Chakravarthin. What it means is an emperor, somebody who would unite the world, unite the kingdoms into one empire, and it would be a benevolent emperor.

Or he would be a great sage, a Buddha. Now his father, Suddhodana, was very protective of his son. an emperor, become an emperor. And so he did everything in his power to make sure that the Bodhisatta, Gautama Siddhartha, did not experience any pain or suffering as best as possible. He turned him into a bubble boy. You guys remember that movie, The Bubble Boy?

That's what he became. He was basically kept away from any signs of suffering. Now imagine what that would do to your psyche. If you were completely away from any kind of suffering, everything was available to you at your whim. All people who were showing signs of aging, sickness, death, pain, despair, anxiety, grief, sorrow, all of them were taken, as the story goes, and put into another part of the kingdom, let's say, of Kapila Vastu, and were not allowed to interact with the prince, Siddhartha Gautama.

And so, here he was, living a life of nearly perfect everything, and has a child. And as the story goes, one day he wants to go out and see his kingdom. And Channa, his chariot driver, takes him around the city. And then he is exposed to three or four things. First he sees, as the story goes, a sick man, a man who is coughing, who is sick, who is ill, and he asks Channa, what is this kind of person? And Channa says, this is a person who is sick, who is ill, who has disease.

What does that mean, disease? It means that his body is in pain, he is suffering. A man with gray hair, a man who is, you know, with a cane walking very slowly. And he says, what sort of person is this? And Channa tells him, this is a person who has experienced aging. What is that? What is aging?

He says, this is something that everybody will go through. And he says, even me? And Channa says, yes, even you. And then he shows him another sight. He goes and, it doesn't show him, but across their trip, they see these pallbearers. They're carrying a corpse wrapped in linen. And he says, what's going on there? What happened to that man on the cot? He is no longer alive.

They're dead. What does that mean? It means that you will no longer exist in this body. Your body will break up and you will no longer exist as you are. So that will happen to me as well. Yes, that will happen to you. And of course, imagine such a person whose psyche has never been exposed to any kind of suffering, what that mind goes through.

I could be sick. I could be going through this process of aging. I could be dying. Is there no way out of this? Can I escape death? And on their way back, they see the fourth sight, an ascetic, a sage, in simple robes, sitting under a tree with a smile on his face, his face beaming. He's completely content and at peace.

What sort of man is that? He asks. And Channa tells him, that is an ascetic. He has gone forth into the homeless life. He has left home in search of truth, in search of a way out of suffering. Oh, you can do that. Yes. There are others who are on that journey. So he goes back to the kingdom. He goes back to his palace, one of his many palaces. And he reflects and he contemplates on this.

And he makes a decision that he wants to leave and search for truth. Search for a way out of suffering. And the traditional story goes that he escapes the kingdom and he leaves in the dead of night and so on and so forth. But when you read the suttas, it says that he discusses it with his parents and his wife. And over a period of time of going back and forth, they finally relent and they say, okay, go. But when you find the truth, come back and show it to us.

And so after much crying, among his relatives and his family, his wife, leaving behind his newborn son and so on. He leaves and he enters into what is known as the sramana life, the wanderer, the wandering life, the nomadic life. And he goes and he learns about jhanas. about the plane of nothingness and the plane of neither perception or non-perception from his two different teachers.

But he realizes that this is not enough. There has to be a way out. This isn't showing me a way out of suffering. There needs to be a way out of suffering. I can't suffer like this. And so he goes through and is inspired to become an ascetic. And as we've been discussing the last few days, diminishes his life to the point of death.

And he replenishes his body with food and sits comfortably under the Bodhi tree and goes through the process of meditation. What does he do? He recalls a happy moment in his life, where in his childhood, during the harvest festival, when his father was out meeting with the farmers, the rose apple tree. And sitting under the rose apple tree, he felt this wave of bliss in himself, a wave of contentment.

And he considers to himself, perhaps this might be the way to come out of suffering. Perhaps this is the first step. And he engages in that feeling and he starts to experience the first jhana, himself that there is an escape beyond, he goes into the second jhana, he goes into the third jhana, he goes into the fourth jhana, and then from the fourth jhana he uses that as a base to look into his past lives, and he realizes that he's had many different lives in the past, as the story goes, many different lives in which he has to cultivate many different paramis, cultivate equanimity, cultivate loving kindness, compassion, patience, truth, and so on and so forth.

And he sees the suffering that he has experienced and endured in those lives. And that's why there's a wonderful passage in the Dhammapada, which I'll get to. In realizing that this is an endless cycle of suffering that he's been going through over many, many, many, many, many different lifetimes, his mind then directs to the arising and passing away of other beings. He sees other realms where other beings are coming and going according to their karma.

And then as he does this, he has a deep insight into the nature of karma. But through seeing his different lives, his different memories, seeing the arising and passing away of beings, he understands, or he begins to understand, this process of karma and how beings cause their own suffering and are enchained by craving. And then finally his mind turns towards the destruction of the taints.

What are the taints? They're the asavas. They are mental viruses. Viruses of the mind that entrench us into samsara. The first is kamasava, the virus of sensual craving, the desire to obtain and keep holding on to things when they are good or wholesome or pleasant or however you want to put it. And the second is bhavasava, the desire to control an outcome towards a specific kind of existence.

And then the third is avijjasava, the ignorance, avijja, which is the misapprehension of reality, taking things to be as they are not, or misperceiving that which is impermanent as permanent, that which is suffering as happiness, that which is not self as self. And this is due to a practical lack of mindfulness. And when those asavas are destroyed, the ten fetters are destroyed, and when those ten fetters are destroyed, he comes to the realization, as a Sammasambuddha, a fully self-awakened Buddha, of the Four Noble Truths.

And what are the Four Noble Truths? There is suffering. And he understands that suffering needs to be understood. I must first acknowledge the fact that I am suffering in order for myself to move forward. The fact that I am indeed in a space, in a field, in a dimension, in a world, in an existence where suffering is. And I understand all of the different types of suffering that are there.

And then he realizes the second noble truth is tanha, thirst, craving, obsession, not desire. Desire is something else. And in doing so, he realizes that this must be abandoned, because this is the cause of my suffering. And upon abandoning that, he comes to the realization of the third noble truth, dukkha nirodha, nibbana. And he discovers, rediscovers, the path to Nibbana, which is the Eightfold Path, the Path to Nibbana. I think that's a book. So he rediscovers the Eightfold Path.

And over a period of time, while he discovers this, he's also contemplating into the nature of reality. And under the Bodhi tree, he uses his intuition and comes to the realization of, well, I understand that tanha, craving, is the cause and condition for suffering, but how exactly does this happen? Dependent on what does the suffering arise? And that begins the process. He uses what is known as yoniso manasikara. Yoniso means womb, the source. Manasikara means to pay attention to.

What is the source of this? What is the source of this? What is the source of this? How did this arise? And so, in many of the suttas on dependent origination, you will see the first thing he looks at is something called jara-marana. And now we begin our process of dependent origination, starting with the end, which is suffering.

Yesterday we saw how the knowledge of liberation is dependent upon liberation. Liberation is dependent upon this passion. This passion is dependent upon this enchantment. Seeing things as they are is dependent upon Samadhi. Samadhi is dependent upon Sukha. Sukha, or comfort, is dependent upon tranquility. Tranquility is dependent upon joy. And then we see that joy is dependent upon Pamojja, which is the gladness in the Dhamma, the relief you get from letting go of the hindrances.

And then we see that that is dependent upon faith, the experiential confidence, the willingness to go and see how exactly is the Dhamma immediately effective. And then we ended yesterday by saying that faith is dependent upon suffering. And so now that's where we begin. What is suffering? Jara marana is part of suffering. Jara is sickness. Marana is death.

So Jara is sickness, old age and death. Or actually it's old age and death. Sickness is something else, but we'll get into that. So this is actually a component of the overarching Dukkha. What is Dukkha? Dukkha. Du means something that is off. Something that is bad. Ka is a wheel. It's actually, literally, dukkha means a wheel that is off-center.

It's a metaphor I like to use is it's when you're going shopping at Walmart or wherever and you take a cart and invariably you have a cart where three wheels are working perfectly. There's always that one wheel. It's a little off-center. That's the Dukkha. Things aren't exactly as we want them. And so there are three categories of Dukkha. There is the original Dukkha, diet Dukkha, and Dukkha without sugar.

Sorry, I had to do that. I just had to do that. There is what is known as dukkha dukkha. So that dukkha dukkha is the usual line of dukkha in terms of the bodily pains. It's the pains in the body, the depression that we go through, the anxieties, the old age, the sickness, the death, all that process is part of dukkha dukkha. Of change, the suffering of change, meaning things continue to be fluctuating.

What I want doesn't necessarily happen the way I expect it to be. So the things I want don't happen and the things I don't want happen. We get delayed for a flight. We miss out on an appointment. We, something happens unexpectedly. We get an unexpected bill. We go over budget in our spending somehow. All of these things are part of viparinama dukkha. And then there's something called sankhara dukkha. This is a very, very intrinsic dukkha that arises in the five aggregates due to identifying with the five aggregates.

Because these aggregates themselves are dukkha. These aggregates themselves are impermanent, and therefore are liable to cause suffering, and therefore not me, not mine, not myself. So when we talk about dukkha dukkha, we're talking about things that we have all generally experienced at some point or the other. Sickness. We all experience sickness. We all experience a point where we have all of these different conditions that come up in the body due to different causes and conditions.

And what can we do about it? We have medicines. We have health care. We have all kinds of ways of dealing with it. Yet we still have to deal with it. It's part of life. It's part of existence. Old age. Old age happens, scientifically speaking. As we age, it happens because the end caps of our chromosomes, known as telomeres, start to shorten.

This is the way of our human existence. This happens. And we have very smart people in the world trying to figure out how can we reverse that process. Interesting little tidbit. I had found this out many years ago. I'm trying to figure out what the research paper is from. But it said, of all things, it said, loving kindness helps in reversing the telomere decay, specifically in women.

Go figure. But we're not there yet where we can actually reverse biological aging. We still have to go through it, and that also results in all kinds of inflammation. Things in the body don't work correctly or efficiently as they used to, and so we go through that process. Our senses start to become weaker. We need more, we need glasses when we're reading. We may not be able to drive when it's nighttime. All of these things happen. We start losing our hearing. For some people, they start losing memory.

They go through personality changes because of that. They become more irritable and so on because of changes in neurochemistry and the nervous system. That's all part of aging. It happens. We all have to do it. And I say this very sincerely and with the best of intentions. When I am teaching you meditation, I am teaching you how to die.

Because this practice is a practice of learning how to let go. So that hopefully, when you are ready to face death, you face death in a very peaceful, unconfused, uplifted, free of craving manner. That's what the Buddha discovered. He realized that death is so painful, not because the death itself is painful, not because the dying process is painful.

Dying is easy. It really is. It's a matter of one, two, three, done. The stuff leading up to it, the sickness or the accident or whatever it is that leads to it, is the painful part. But as we die, if we understand this process through the process of rebirth, now you can take this with a grain of salt. You don't have to believe my words. You don't have to believe the words of the Buddha. One day perhaps you will understand and see for yourself that the possibility of rebirth exists from one lifetime to the other.

But as it is understood, the cause of rebirth is because the thoughts that are present in those last moments of death lead to the next existence. Therefore, if a person has been unwholesome their whole life, broken precepts, cheated people, committed all kinds of harm against oneself and others over a period of time, their mind will be like that. Their mind will incline towards that. And so when you are dying, when a person is dying, they will experience that kind of process of life review.

And I say this from some level of experience because I've had a few near-death experiences myself. I've seen, I've gone through that process. So subjectively speaking, this is what has happened. You go through a life review process and you see the things that went wrong, you see the things that went right. And if more things have gone wrong, you'll have more regret and remorse. If more things have gone right, if you have attachment, you'll say, I want more of that. Let's do round two. The process of craving and attachment, aversion and dislike, fuels the next rebirth. That's why death is so bad, because death is not the end. It's not the ultimate, as per the understanding of right view in Buddhism. So dying is easy, but what follows next is a whole restart into a new life.

So, and then along with that is the mental grief, the mental depression, the anxiety, the despair, the sorrow, and all of that. It's suffering. It's painful. It's something we all go through at some point. Things don't go our way, and we feel sad about it. We have the best of intentions and the best of expectations of the world.

But things happen. And because of that, we feel terrible. We feel bad. We feel that pain. We have grief over those who've passed on. We don't want the people in our lives to go. We have all of this emotional turmoil. And that's part of the dukkha dukkha. So, all of this dukkha that the Bodhisattva saw through, he said, what is the cause of it? What is the cause and condition for this?

You can only experience dukkha in a world in which you exist. And therefore, how do you exist into a world? You're born into it. Through his insight, he said, jati, birth, is the cause and condition for dukkha, for jara marana, or rebirth. What do we mean by that, rebirth or birth or jati? You know, the word jati in India has become so bastardized into a very, very different meaning.

It's known as caste, C-A-S-T-E. So when you go to India, I remember the first time I went to India after I was in the U.S. I lived in the U.S. from the ages of 5 to 13, and we went back to India. And I tried making friends, and sometimes they would ask me, what is your caste? What does that mean, what is my caste? What are you talking about?

Oh, what is your religion? What do you worship? So what does it matter what I worship? Even nowadays when you go and fill out a form, they give you these options. What is your religion? What is your caste? Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, but never atheist or other. You have to choose one of these five.

And so that's what it's become. The word jati has become that. What is your jati? What is your typology? What is your caste? Or what kind of person are you? Are you a Brahmin? Are you a Kshatriya? Are you a Vaishya? Are you a Shudra? In other words, are you a pure person, according to what they say in terms of being a Brahmin? Are you a Kshatriya? Do you belong to the warrior clans?

Are you a Vaishya? Are you a business person? Or are you a Shudra? Shudra is seen as somebody who is in service, but really it's a person who people look down upon. A person who does all the jobs that nobody else will do, like cleaning the toilets, and being a janitor, and burning the dead. All very necessary parts of life.

But in reality, jati actually means the type of birth that you go into. What do we mean by that? We are born as humans, but there are different types of existence. There's a human existence. There is an animal existence. Within the animal realm, there's a mammalian existence, a reptilian existence, an avian existence. And then if you go into the more esoteric aspects, there's the existence in the hell realms, there's the existence in the heavenly realms, there's the existence in the brahma lokas, and all of these different things. The realm of humans: manusha yoni. You're born through the womb of humans.

And so what does that mean, that process of birth? The process of birth means we come into existence with certain faculties, like the sixth sense bases, the limbs of our bodies, the organs of our bodies, the aggregates, and so on. So the coming together of all of these things is the process of jati. And when we have a body, we will suffer.

And if you don't have a body, you will still suffer. According to planes of existence and cosmology, even when you get to the mental realms, because you have a mind, you will suffer. You'll have some level of suffering. So, that's one understanding of birth. Reality of existence. We have come to be born, and when we are born, we are going to die.

The matrix has that statement, every beginning has an end. Well, they take that from Buddhism. When you are born, you will die. With every arising, there is a passing away. Traumatic, you know, because you are in this space that is in the womb, where you're warm, you're well nourished, you don't have anything to worry about, and then nine months later you're cast out into this world to experience all kinds of weird things and weird faces and shapes, and now you're trying to make sense of who this person is and there's another person there, and so on and so forth.

So this is the macro level of understanding of birth. There's another way of understanding birth, which is the birth of karma, the birth of action. Karma means action. And there are many different kinds of karma. But simply put, there is new karma and there is old karma. New karma is the active karma that we produce through our intentions rooted in personalizing and identifying with situations.

And that happens at this link of birth. Because when we have that, we propagate that karma. And by propagating that karma, we propagate the suffering dependent upon that karma. Because that karma is a cause and condition for the arising of that possibility of suffering. Old karma are things that we have inherited: this body as it is, the sense bases, the town that we live in, the people in our lives, our friends, our relationships, our family, our education, whatever it is, all of that is old karma, and it manifests as an experience to be had through one or more of the sixth sense bases, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind.

But this old karma, you can't do anything about it. You must experience it. How you choose to react to it or respond to it refreshing of that karma. Whether there is a further arising of that karma in a future moment. And that future moment is the arising of that new karma known as jati, the birth of karma, birth of action.

And that can lead to suffering. So then the Buddha says, seeing this, that the cause and condition for jara marana, which is part of dukkha, suffering, that the cause and condition of this is birth. What is the cause and condition for birth? And through his intuition, through the process of yoniso manasikara, this looking into the origin of things, he realizes bhava, becoming, is the cause and condition for birth.

What do we mean by bhava? Bhava is translated as existence, translated as being, as becoming, as habitual tendencies. So now there's the macro level, which are the types of existences that one can be in. One can be in the sensual realm existence, like the manussaloka, like the human existence. Or one can be in the form realms, which is a jhanic field up there in the brahma lokas, so to speak. Or one can be in the formless realms, and that's a formless existence.

But how does that tie back to us? How can we really believe that? How do we actually know that these other existences are out there, unless we've seen it for ourselves? Well, if you think about it, humans may be humans only on the outside. But their psychology, their mental state, might not necessarily reflect that of being human in nature.

Why? Because if we take into account the existence of hell beings and hungry ghosts and animals and devas and brahmas and so on, humans have a tendency to adapt their psyche or psychological states to these different levels of existence. When a person is violent and angry and they can't see beyond their anger, they're fuming, they can't see beyond reason, they are like hellish beings inflicting pain on themselves and on others through their intentions, their thoughts, their actions and their words.

When a person is jealous and envious, greedy, looking for things, obsessing over things, they're like hungry ghosts. The people on the Forbes lists? Definitely. How can I be number one? I need more and more and more. A hundred billion dollars is just not enough. And then people who are living just for the sense bases, just for sex, money, and power.

That's very animalistic. It's a dog-eat-dog world. There was a dog-eat-dog world out there, some people say. The more I consume, the happier I feel. That's a very animalistic kind of viewpoint. And then on the flip side of that, humans can be very generous. They can be very, very grateful for things. They can be compassionate. They can be empathetic.

They can save lives. They can sacrifice their own lives. All of these wonderful qualities that can come up in the human condition are not just what makes us human, but also, if we are to understand the way the realms work, can also manifest as a deva-like psychology because we're generous, we help people, we offer all kinds of resources to those who are downtrodden, and so on and so forth.

And then when we go into jhanas and we meditate, realms. And as we get into infinite space, infinite consciousness and so on, we start corresponding with those formless realms. But it doesn't mean just because you experienced the first jhana one time, now you're like a brahma loka being. No, you need to do it over and over and over. This happens over a period of time. Bhava is developed over a period of time.

So this is one way of understanding it. Another way is the habitual tendencies. How do I act? In what way do I act or react or respond to a situation? If somebody is being difficult with me, if I have experienced that difficult situation or difficult person before in the past, I have behaved a certain way. And therefore, I have created in my mind a library of certain reactions to deal with that person or that situation, and generally speaking that library of habitual tendencies is almost automatic and I'm reactive to the experience. These are habitual reactions which cause me to act a certain way, propagating that karma further, leading to my own suffering and of course the suffering of the other being. This is bhava, but it can be changed, they can be reconditioned.

You can have unwholesome bhava and you can have wholesome bhava. As you continue to meditate, as you continue to be more generous, as you continue to keep the precepts, as you continue to help others, as you continue to develop compassion in your words, thoughts, and deeds, your bhava changes. And you're met with the same kinds of situations, which is the karma, the old karma.

But before reacting, you take a pause and you do the 6R's. And you allow wisdom to arise. And so you're reconditioning the bhava from being somebody who's angry and upset and reactive to somebody who is compassionate, wise, reflective, and responsive. And thereby, when our bhava changes, so too does the birth of karma. That karma that was to exist or arise won't come about, because the habitual reactions are not acted upon.

This bhava is dependent upon what is known as clinging or upadana in Pali. And there are many ways of thinking about clinging. Clinging has many different associations. In fact, one of the words for clinging can be association, and I'll explain how. The process of clinging is fourfold. There's clinging to sensual pleasures. There is clinging to self-view. There's clinging to rites and rituals. And there's clinging to views.

Clinging is that process by which we rationalize why it is that we crave something, or why it is we hate something, or why it is that we identify with something. It's the process of associations. I had given this example once when I was in Mumbai earlier this year. This time around, I haven't talked about chocolate cake, I generally do in many of my talks, and hence we have chocolate cake. But I had once talked about in this Mumbai retreat in February this year, I have this distinct sensual memory when I was a little kid during Christmas time going to the Macy's store on 34th Street in New York City.

And I think it was the third floor where there was this bakery. And in this bakery was this just amazing fragrance and smell of white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. And somebody remembered that. And lo and behold, they actually sent someone to the Macy's store, to that place, to find those white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. So I have to talk about other things.

But that's the thing, right? We have certain memories of our childhood that we associate with comfort. So we prefer certain kinds of foods, we prefer certain kinds of meals, we prefer certain kinds of places to live in, and so on and so forth, because we've associated that with things that we like. And we push away things that we don't like, and we say, oh, this isn't good, because it's associated with some kind of a horrible memory. And so trauma is one of those things, right? memories with certain kinds of experiences.

Like take the case of my mother. When her mother passed away, people would try to comfort her by touching her on the shoulder. And even when she's in a happy mood, if somebody touches her on the shoulder, there's this subconscious link to that. And she feels deflated a little bit. And it's because of that association. These are practical examples of how clinging works or can work.

So the triggers that we have, how come he said it this way? The way he said it reminded me of how my father told me this. The way she looked at me is exactly how my sister looked at me when she did so and so. All of these associations are part of clinging. So that's clinging to sensual pleasures. Another example I'll give you is advertising.

Advertising works on a very deep level because they use certain colors, certain words, certain kinds of images with their brand, with those kinds of experiences, and so that creates clinging in us. We only choose a certain kind of brand. The other day we went to CVS and we went to the pharmacy area and you have DayQuil and NyQuil and then you have the generic brand. They are the same ingredients and yet someone may choose DayQuil or NyQuil over the generic brand because they've associated that with somehow being more effective.

So this is another example of how clinging can arise. These associations can be very, very strong. But when we notice them and we see them as they arise and we recognize them, we can let go of our attachments to them. We can release, relax, and allow wisdom to arise. Am I going after this because I'm clinging to it? Or what's going on exactly in the mind?

So we don't make a choice that is conditioned by our patterns of thoughts and associations. Clinging to rites and rituals. What is a rite and ritual? Is anything that we do that we believe will lead to our cessation of suffering? There are many ways to look at this, but generally, people have certain kinds of superstitions about things. And the superstitions are many in number because they're culturally based.

In the U.S. or in the Western world, we have the four-leaf clover. And we have our lucky socks, and we have lucky number seven, and we have all of these ideas. In the East, like in India, we have the idea that if I do a specific kind of ritual, then I will experience a certain kind of result because of that ritual.

Now, I'm not condemning that. I'm just saying that leave it in its place. If you want to do those things, that's fine. Mistaking of those things as leading to Nibbana is what the Buddha is referring to as clinging to rites and rituals. So notice, what is your intention behind why you do these rituals? Is it for some material gain? Completely fine. We live in a lay world. You can do all kinds of rites and rituals. As long as you're not causing yourself harm or causing another being harm. What is a ritual that can cause yourself harm or cause another being harm? Animal sacrifice.

This used to happen during the time of the Buddha. Human sacrifice used to happen, we know, in the Mayan civilization and so on, in the Aztec civilization. But ultimately, we realize we keep things where they are in their place. We understand these things are needed for whatever it is, but they don't lead to Nibbana. So we let go of that.

Clinging to self-view is the identification with the aggregates. As self, as the aggregates in self, as the self in the aggregates, or as self independent of the aggregates. So that's why there are 20 different kinds of self-view, and you multiply that by each aggregate. So the 5 multiplied by the 4 is the 20 self-views. Clinging to these self-views. Now the clinging to self-view and the clinging to rites and rituals go away when one enters the stream because you understand that rites and rituals will not take you to Nibbana and you understand

Oh, this is actually an impersonal process. Yes, you'll still have conceit. Yes, you'll take things personally. But that'll all be destroyed when you become fully awakened. Until then. But you don't have this continuous idea of some kind of an independent self that you attach your identity to. And then there's the cling to views. This is a big one, especially in the US.

Political views, religious views. I'm a fan of this sports team, and anybody who's not a fan of this sports team, I'm going to never talk to them or interact with them. But more seriously, clinging to views really is clinging to views that are ineffective for our practice. So during the time of the Buddha, generally six different views and they ranged from asceticism to materialism to nihilism to uncertainty of whether it's this or that to eternalism and many other different kinds of sub views from there, and this clinging to views basically meant I identify with all of these views, which might be in direct contradiction with right view.

And right view is that there is meaning in giving. There is meaning in what is offered. There is meaning in what is sacrifice. There is meaning in the actions that we take through our intentions, which cause consequences. And so some of these views, like nihilism and materialism, did away with that. Another part of right view is there is this world and the other: heaven and hell. Or it could mean there is this world and there is the mental realm of experiencing elevated states like the jhanas. But a materialist view would be it's only this body and we should just find pleasure in consuming for the sake of the senses.

That's in direct contradiction with right view. So this clinging, why does this clinging lead to bhava? How does this clinging lead to bhava? We talked about these four different kinds of clinging, but how do they lead to bhava? Because when we have these kinds of clinging, they become characteristics of a personality that we create in our mind that manifests as bhava in the form of these library of habitual reactions from which we act and results in the birth of new karma, which potentially leads to suffering.

Should I say that again? I think they want me to say it again as well. Maybe they don't agree with me. Basically what I'm saying is, this process of clinging creates in our mind favorites, preferences, ideas of what we like and what we don't like, and why we like what we like, and why we don't like what we don't like.

And those create a certain kind of personality. And we cling to that personality. We cling to the idea of that personality in which is embedded different kinds of reactions. I'm this kind of person, so how can they behave like this with me? That's the bhava. So the preferences, I wouldn't even say preferences, rooted ideas of who I am dependent upon what I seem to like and what I don't like results in a library of different reactions that are present depending upon different reactions.

Another way of looking at bhava is that we may move halfway across the world and somehow we find ourselves in similar situations with similar kinds of circle of friends and similar kind of. Why? Because of our internal state of bhava. It follows us. It is intrinsic to our personality. How we choose to react to different situations that are dependent upon past reactions.

And these are informed by choices, selections, preferences, and ideas of what I am, what I don't like and what I do like and why I like them and why I don't like them. If I can notice that clinging, in the form of as soon as I see someone and the way they're reacting to me, I can notice the beginning of that in the form of clinging, and say, hey hey hey, I'm starting to get triggered here. I'm starting to act from this space where there's trauma.

I can recognize that. I can give voice to it in my mind and acknowledge it by recognizing it. But I also realize that by acting from it is only going to cause me more suffering. So what do I do? I recondition my mind. I recondition my response. I give a pause so that this part of my brain, the prefrontal cortex, has enough time for me to make a better decision.

Rather than be immediately reactive, I can respond with wisdom and compassion and say, no, I'm not going to act in the same way as I used to before. And I see those changes. And as I see those changes, it starts to reinforce. And the clinging becomes less and less apparent, less and less clingy. And the bhava becomes reconditioned, suffering and the similar kinds of situations dissipate.

This clinging is dependent on what is known as craving or tanha. Tanha is an interesting word. Imagine you've been walking around for a long time in a place that's very hot, and you've been going, maybe you're in Disney World, right? And you're walking around, and you're going on this ride and you're going on that ride, and you're enjoying the time, but it is humid as hell, so hot, and you're sweating, but you haven't had anything to drink, not a drink of water. How do you feel?

I just need some water right now. That's tanha, which comes from the word thirst. I'm obsessed. I might be going on that ride. I might be standing even on the fast lane. What is it called? The fast track. And, instead of waiting an hour, I'm waiting for 20 minutes. And I can go on that ride. But in the back of my mind, I'm obsessed. When am I going to get a drink? When am I going to get some water?

That's the craving. That's the obsession. And this craving manifests in many different ways. Which is the craving of sensual experiences. I see something and I say, I like that. That's not craving. It's just saying that, oh, this is very enjoyable. This is a pleasant experience. But when that thing goes away, they try holding on to it. It can't go away. It needs to still be here in order for me to feel happy.

That's craving. When somebody says something mean or mean-spirited towards me, that's an unpleasant feeling. But I look at that. And from that sense of personality, I say, hey, that's not who I am. How can they say that? I don't like this person now. That's aversion. Or I'm in a situation which I don't want to be in, and I feel uncomfortable with it, and I'm trying to push it away.

When you're waiting in line to check in at the airport, at the hotel, right? Or you're waiting in line to get on a ride on Disney World. That waiting is craving. That waiting in meditation is craving. The anticipation that it's going to be my turn soon, it's going to be my turn soon, it's going to be my turn soon.

That's craving. Just think about how that feels. The nervous system is on edge. That's craving. And so that manifests or can manifest as tightness and tension. There are other types of craving. There is the craving for existence, which is known as bhava tanha. And this kind of craving is essentially a craving for a certain kind of outcome.

It's different from a wholesome desire, which is known as chanda. You sit down for meditation and you want to experience a jhana, or you want to experience nibbana. That's a wholesome desire. But now I want to control how that happens. I have a craving for how that outcome should be. That's craving for existence. It has to be this way.

I have certain goals that I want to achieve, and I become so obsessed by those goals that I forget everything else. And in the pursuit of achieving those goals, I may break precepts, right? That's a different kind of craving. That's a craving for a certain kind of existence. When you see in your mind and it says, I want to be this, that can be the beginning of craving for becoming, craving for existence. Non-existence.

Craving for non-existence can be, you're in a difficult situation and you don't like where you are. You don't want to be in this situation and you push it out. You do whatever you can to push it out. That's craving for non-existence. The ultimate craving for non-existence is the desire to end one's life. And why do people do that? Why do people have that idea?

Because it becomes overwhelming. Things become overwhelming. It might seem more pleasant to just end it all right now because there's so many things going on in one's life. There is, you lose your job, you are in debt, your family doesn't like you, people are saying things about you, things are overwhelming in your mind. You have extreme amounts of anxiety, extreme amounts of depression, just everywhere from all directions.

Things are just not going your way. And not just that they're not going your way, they feel terrible. So why would one want to be in such an existence? That's the line of thinking that someone has when they have that craving for non-existence. So we should also understand this, that when people have craving, whether it's craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, or craving for non-existence, when we can see it in the other person, how should we respond to them?

Can we not hold space for them? Can we not be compassionate towards them? Can we not be empathetic towards them? Can we set aside our ideas of who this person is? Can we set aside our judgments and realize this person is at harm? This person is feeling hurt. This person is in pain. I know what that feels like.

Can I show some compassion to them? What is the point of us practicing compassionate meditation if we can't show it to those who are suffering in this way? So this craving, or these types of craving, are dependent upon feeling. But we will continue that tomorrow. We'll stop here because that's quite a lot of information already. Let's share some merit.

May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. Devas and Nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.