MN 121 17 April 2022

So today we are going to be talking about voidness, also known as emptiness, also known as sunyata in Pali or shunyata in Sanskrit. Ways of understanding voidness. And we're going to start with Majjhima Nikaya 121, the shorter discourse on voidness. On one occasion, the Blessed One was living at Savatthi in the eastern park in the palace of Migara's mother.

Then, when it was evening, the Venerable Ananda rose from meditation, went to the Blessed One, and after paying homage to him, he sat down at one side and said to the Blessed One, Venerable Sir, on one occasion, the Blessed One was living in the Sakyan country, where there is a town of the Sakyans named Nagaraka. Venerable Sir, I heard and learned this from the Blessed One's own lips. Now, Ananda, I often abide in voidness.

Did I hear that correctly, Venerable Sir? Did I learn that correctly? Attend to that correctly? Remember that correctly? Certainly, Ananda. You heard that correctly. Learned that correctly. Attended to that correctly. Remember that correctly. As formerly, Ananda, so now too I often abide in voidness. Ananda, just as this palace of Migara's mother is void of elephants, cattle, horses, and mares, void of gold and silver, void of the assembly of men and women, and there is present only this non-voidness, namely the singleness dependent on the Sangha. So what is he talking about here?

Absence of everything except the group of monks. Yes, exactly. What was the answer? What this is he's talking about is the absence of all of the things he listed except for the group of monks that are there. In other words, in the palace it's empty of gold and silver, empty of the assembly of men and women, empty of horses, cattle and so on. But what is remaining is the group of monks, the Sangha. So too, a bhikkhu not attending to the perception of village, not attending to the perception of people, attends to the singleness dependent on the perception of forest. That makes sense. There's no villages or people in the forest, generally speaking. So a monk goes into the forest and he is aware of the forest, but no people, no towns, no villages there.

Thus, Ananda, this is his genuine, undistorted, pure descent into voidness. Again, Ananda, a bhikkhu not attending to the perception of people, not attending to the perception of forest, attends to the signals dependent on the perception of earth. His mind enters into that perception of earth and acquires confidence, steadiness, and resolution. Just as a bull's hide becomes free from folds when fully stretched with a hundred pegs, so too a bhikkhu, not attending to any of the ridges and hollows of his earth, to the rivers and ravines, the tracks of stumps and thorns, the mountains and uneven places, attends to the signal as dependent on the perception of earth.

That is to say, solidity is just the earth element. And so there is a practice in which one looks at kasinas. They take the earth energy or element, the fire element, the air element, the water element, or they take colors. And what they do is then they have their mind fixed on that particular point and then it expands, singularly focused on that. But actually, the word kasina, the Pali kasina comes from the Sanskrit kritsna, which means whole or expansive or expanded. So the mind is not actually one-pointed, it's actually expansive.

Thus, Ananda, this too is his genuine, undistorted, pure descent into voidness. Again, Ananda, a bhikkhu, not attending to the perception of forest. So now he's expanded that experience of earth. Or if you're using loving kindness, you're expanding that experience of loving kindness. You're radiating it outward. And you're experiencing infinite space. He understands thus, whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the perception of forest, those are not present here. Whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the perception of earth, those are not present here. There is present only this amount of disturbance, namely the singleness dependent on the perception of the base of infinite space. the perception of forest.

If you're in infinite space, are you perceiving form any longer? So it is void of form. Infinite space is empty of the perception of form that you experience while you're in the first four jhanas. A bhikkhu, not attending to the perception of earth, not attending to the perception of the base of infinite space, attends to the singleness dependent on the perception of the base of infinite consciousness.

No. Again, Ananda, A bhikkhu not attending to the perception of the base of infinite consciousness, not attending to the base, sorry, not attending to the perception of the base of nothingness, attends to the singleness dependent on the perception of the base of neither perception nor non-perception. Try saying that five times. Perception of the base of neither perception nor non-perception. His mind enters into that perception of the base of neither perception. or non-perception, and acquires confidence, steadiness, and resolution. He understands thus, whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the perception of the base of infinite consciousness, those are not present here. Whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the perception of the base of nothingness, those are not present here.

And you look at that quiet mind and you relax that. And this is also known as the still mind in some cases. But this mind doesn't land on any object anymore. It is just looking. Not looking anywhere. Some people experience this as just this freeze frame. Like everything stops and it's just utter stillness. But the mind isn't looking at anything. It's not collected around anything. It's just looking. Some people see an orangish hue or a greenish hue or something like that.

And in this state, the way I use an analogy for it is you have the flashlight, let's say. And you point it up into the sky, out into space. And consider there's no planet, no star, no asteroid, nothing there blocking its way, and the light just continues onward. This is your attention. Your attention is just continuing onward but not looking at anything in particular, because the moment you look at something there is an object there. The moment you land on something there's an object there. So you might have stumbled into this at some point. You might have seen this and said, oh, the mind is looking for something, the mind is looking for some object. But no object is there. Or there might be something going on, something comes up, and when something comes up the tendency is for the mind to see that and then let it go. But here, the formation of conceit is where it's the disturbance of the mind. So you are just looking but not looking anywhere.

When we talked about the contact with the demana element, we talked about it as void or empty of self. We talked about it as signless, and we talked about it as undirected. So what we were saying is we see the impermanence of all objects. There's no point to having any objects in the subtle state anymore. And so that is signless. We see that there is suffering in taking on an object now.

And so that is known as an undirected mind. anywhere. It just looks. You're looking without looking for anything. Just looking straight ahead. Not zooming into anything. Not looking at this or that. Just looking. And we talk about it as being void or empty. Empty of self. The moment something comes up, if you catch it, now your conceit comes into the picture. And now you want to do something about it. The moment you see it, don't bother about it. Just keep looking. Keep looking. And so when the flashlight keeps pointing up into space, imagine before it points up into space, that attention goes through eight different cellophane papers, all differently colored, each of them being a jhana.

And you let go of the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth is just this clear plastic cellophane paper. And it looks like you're seeing through something as well, because that too is conditioned, but it's still looking. Mind is still looking until finally the battery runs out, the fuel for attention runs out, and the flashlight goes off, and you have cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. So when you recognize the state, don't do anything. Don't do anything at all. Just observe without any inclination. Object comes up.

Let it be. Keep watching. Keep looking. Vibration comes up, automatically mind releases it. And you just keep looking. Singleness dependent on the signless collectedness of mind. His mind enters into that, sorry, into that signless collectedness of mind and acquires confidence, steadiness and resolution. Listen carefully. He understands thus: this signless collectedness of mind is conditioned and volitionally produced, but whatever is conditioned and volitionally produced impermanent, subject to cessation.

So even though there's no object, there's this field of awareness, if you will, just this observing going on, and that's still volitionally produced. That's still conditioned, conditioned by your formations, mental formations. When you understand that that too is conditioned and you just let go, don't do anything. Just see it as impermanent and impersonal and subject to cessation. When he knows and sees thus, his mind is liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of becoming, from the taint of ignorance. And so one enters cessation, and then one comes out, one experiences dependent origination, experiences contact with the nibbana element, and at some point, if you don't hold on

He understands thus, "Birth is destroyed. The holy life has been lived. What had to be done has been done. There is no more coming to any state of being." He understands thus, "Whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the taint of sensual desire, those are not present here. Whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the taint of being, those are not present here. Whatever disturbances there might be dependent on the taint of ignorance, those are not present here. There is present only this amount of disturbance, namely that connected with the six bases that are dependent on this body and conditioned by life." He understands this field of perception is void or empty of the taint of sensual desire.

No ignorance, so mind will always just be aware of what is arising and passing away. Mind is empty, completely clear, clean, Christine, Ananda, whatever recluses and Brahmins in the past entered upon and abided in pure, supreme, unsurpassed voidness, all entered upon and abided in the same pure, supreme, unsurpassed voidness. Whatever recluses and Brahmins in the future will enter upon and abide in pure, supreme, unsurpassed voidness. Therefore, Ananda, you should train thus. The Blessed One said. The Venerable Ananda was satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words. Now you have one understanding of what it means when you say voidness or emptiness. What is the first jhana empty of? Hindrances. What is the second jhana empty of?

What is the third jhana MTO? PP. PP. What is the fourth jhana MTO? Pleasure and pain. There you go. Now you know. Moving on. Is this a good time for questions? A couple of questions and then we'll see. Quick question. Practical question. So you said, when we get to that space or place where quiet mind is, even quiet mind is too coarse, the mind will just keep looking. I'm going to take that to mean I'm just keep observing.

If something comes up, just keep looking past it. Don't look at it. So are we supposed to release and relax? Mind at this point will automatically release, relax it now, you're engaging conceit that wants to let it go. Conceit because I'm... I see it, and so I want to let it go. I still see it. I would still see it, I suppose, right? Yes. Conceit is very minimal here. So just observe past it. Keep observing. That's it. When you get to the state, don't do anything.

I'm sorry, Jerry, I can hear. Will you state the emptiness of the four jhanas again? Yeah. The emptiness of the first jhana is hindrances. The emptiness of the second jhana is vitaka and vichara, thinking and examining thought. The emptiness of the third jhana is the piti, the joy. And the emptiness of the fourth jhana is empty of the sukha as well.

Pain and pleasure, joy and grief, it's just equanimous. Yeah. So this is the first time I think I got through this transmission and Roger usually just skipped over it. He wasn't sure how to do it without a single focused process. Right, so the question is, from a TWIM perspective, what are the benefits and/or disadvantages of doing a kasina practice? Is that right? First of all, the way kasina has been traditionally taught is that. For example, you can look at the fire element, you look at a candle flame, and you're looking at that, and you close your eyes and you focus on that.

But the idea is not to focus on it. The idea is to let it expand. So if you see the color blue in your field of vision, let it just pervade everything, and then you get to an experience of infinite space. Then you take that as the object. Then you take the expansion as the object. But it's much more tangible, let's say, to use the brahmavihara, because you're feeling something.

Whereas in the field of vision, in your field of awareness, things can change, things can come and go. I don't think this is timely. I'm going to pull it back. Applying things very minutiae, and this could be a long time. I think let's hear it. Using the animitta and using that as an object of meditation and absorbing into it, there's a different experience than using the TWIM process of releasing the objects, and the experience of the base of infinite space is different, because with using a nimitta, that space has a center. It has an eye as a center. But in the TWIM process, there is no eye. It's space without a center.

Right. So, because I've done both. Yeah. Different experience, and yeah. Yeah, so it's still a form of concentration. Kasina practice. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, because there's still an eye there, so kasina practice, there's still an eye looking at the kasina and then you're expanding it. Yes. Even when that object is dropped, I mean, a physical kasina is dropped, and then there's a nimitta, and then that nimitta is then developed into a full-blown sign, a primary sign. Right, so that becomes the object. And then that develops the jhanas, and then at a certain point there's the jhana of infinite space. But that jhana seemed to have an I in it.

That I am there. So there was a lot of identification with that. And even though I could stay in that a long time, I was there. And it was wonderful. But the jhana, there is, it's just space. There is no I there. It's like the same but completely different. So in other words, if you're doing proper jhana practice, you're doing it without identifying with the experience of the jhana. You're just observing what's happening.

And the mind is just staying on the object, radiating compassion. Did I get that correct? All right. Let's move on to the next one. So this is one understanding of emptiness. Pretty standard, simple understanding. Is empty of this and so on. The next one is quite short. This is very short. This is the understanding of emptiness. This is the Samyutta Nikaya 35.85.

Then the Venerable Ananda approached the Blessed One and said to him, Venerable Sir, it is said, Empty is the world. Empty is the world. In what way, Venerable Sir, is it said, Empty is the world? It is, Ananda, because it is empty of self and what belongs to self that it is said, Empty is the world. And what is empty of self? And what belongs to self?

The body is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Tangibles are empty of self and of what belongs to self. Body consciousness is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Body contact is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Empty of self and of what belongs to self. Thoughts are empty of self and of what belong to self.

Mind consciousness is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Mind contact is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Whatever feeling arises with eye contact, with ear contact, with nose contact, with body contact, with mind contact as condition, whether pleasant or painful or neither painful nor pleasant, that too is empty of self and of what belongs to self. It is, Ananda, because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, empty is the world. So this is the second understanding of emptiness.

Empty of self. Empty of the conceit or idea that this is me, this is mine, or this is myself. Your sixth sense basis arise because of impersonal causes and conditions. Dependent upon that, there is consciousness with contact, body consciousness, mind consciousness. That which is aware of the experience is empty of self. When there is contact between the six sense spaces internally and externally, the eye and form, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and the flavors, the body and tangibles, the mind and thoughts or other objects like the jhanic factors, like loving-kindness, like compassion, like joy, like equanimity, like the quiet mind, like the signless state.

All of these are empty of self, and any experience dependent upon them that arises along with the perception of what they are, are also empty of self and of what belongs to a self. When you see this as it actually is, there is no craving, there is no conceit, there are no views, there is no ignorance, and therefore there is no suffering.

Questions? Why didn't I learn this earlier? Yeah. I've been asked to speak loudly. Can anybody hear me? Don't worry, I'll try to repeat the question. So the question is, when the Buddha was still a bodhisattva, did he enter into the jhanas and cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, or what was his practice to get into buddhahood? Actually, as the story goes in a few suttas, it was not entering into the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth jhanas or cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness.

He went through the first four jhanas and then inclined his mind to the threefold knowledge. That is to say, he saw the past lives. So he went from one life to the next to the next in previous order, and he saw how dependent origination ran through that. He understood, here I was, here I was in this life or in that life, or this life, and that there was a new life here. And then this arose and this arose and this arose and this arose and this arose. Then his mind inclined to the arising and passing away of beings. So he saw all of the different realms and he saw, oh, beings arise dependent upon their karma.

So whatever karma is there, that is their destination, whether it's in the same life or in the next life. Then finally, when he saw that, he understood fully the process of rebirth, of dependent origination running through the process of rebirth, karma as the mechanics of samsara, and how dependent origination runs this whole process of samsara. When he understood that, he understood the third knowledge, which is the destruction of the taints. He understood as it actually is: my mind is now empty of the taint of sensual desire, of the taint of becoming. My mind is empty now of the taint of ignorance.

Birth is destroyed. What had to be done has been done. There is no more coming to new being. And then he became the Buddha. But after that, he contemplated dependent origination for quite some time. In the forward order, in the reverse order, in the forward and reverse order, in the reverse order and forward order, in the reverse and forward order, and so on and so forth until he saw all of it clearly. And then he also had the attainment, because he already understood the attainments of infinite space and infinite consciousness. He had learned it from his experience with jhanas, because he was learning how to get into nothingness from one of his previous jhana teachers.

And then he was learning it from another jhana teacher who said, I don't know the way to neither perception or non-perception, kind of give you the details and you can see for yourself. But he thought, even he said, even these genres are conditioned, but the jhanas he went into were not the same genres he experienced when he sat under the rose apple tree. There he saw, oh, I'm in that memory of sitting under the rose apple tree as a little kid. I was feeling, you know, very happy, very elated, my mind was relaxed. And so later he went through each of the jhanas, went through each of the arupa jhanas into the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, came out, went back through each of the jhanas in reverse order.

So forward and reverse order and back and forth again. And before he died, before he attained pare nirvana, he did the same thing. He went through the first jhana, then he went through the second jhana. He came out of the first jhana, went through the second jhana. went to the third jhana. Came out of the third jhana, went into the fourth jhana. Came out of the fourth jhana, went into infinite space. Came out of infinite space, went into infinite consciousness. Came out of infinite consciousness and went into nothingness. Came out of nothingness and went into neither perception or non-perception.

Came out of neither perception or non-perception and went into the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. And then that's when the monks thought, oh no, the Buddha is gone. And then, Anuruddha saw and he said, no, Buddha is in the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. He still has heat, he still has vitality. And then the Buddha came out of the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness and went back down in the reverse order. And he came back up, went into the first, came out of the first, went into the second, came out of the second, went into the third, came out of the third, went into the fourth, came out of the fourth, to nirvana and that was it to show the monks that he could still do it that this is the way this was one of the ways to practice he did a lot of things before he died or before he went to pray nirvana to show that this is the way to live the teachings that he was still living the teachings

And then finally, his last words were, all sankharas are impermanent, and make the right effort to let go of it. Is it a good idea to go look for those past life experiences of both junk? If you're interested in doing something like that, come see me on the last day of the retreat and we can talk about it, not on this retreat, but yes, it can be useful. When Buddha was still a bodhisattva, and for many lifetimes, right, so did he plan to become a Buddha at some point, or did he just wonder and just randomly become a Buddha one last lifetime? Was there like a plan? Neither. He was developing, or as the Bodhisattva developing the paramitas, and each lifetime was an opportunity to develop it to its perfection. And when all of them were perfected and everything was in the right order, he had one last lifetime as the Bodhisattva, as Siddhattha Gotama. And then he went through that process of understanding that mortification is not the way.

First he went through the process, because he lived a palatial lifestyle, that overindulgence is not the way. And then he understood that self-mortification is not the way, because he went through so many different ascetic practices. And then he remembered when he sat under the rose apple tree and experienced jhana, and then went through that whole process. The causes and conditions came up as an opportunity to exercise them. What's the use of it? So when somebody asks about that, why do you still go into jhana? Or somebody asks, why do you still go into jhana? He says for two things: because it's a pleasant abiding, and to inspire future generations. That's it.

So let's say the world is empty of self and what belongs to self: our sixth sense basis, empty of self. And they're the basis of all our experiences. So all our experiences are empty of self. It just seems like the idea of personal experience, if you will, just kind of falls out of the picture, because the end of suffering is basically not taking anything that happens to you personally, because nothing that can possibly happen to you is personal. If something happens, if I see something beautiful, it wasn't up to me. My eyes pass the receiver. In came the form. Up comes a pleasant experience. If I don't take it personal, it doesn't matter.

If I see something hideous, same thing, right? Information hits the eye. Unpleasant experience comes up. I just don't take that feeling personally. But then someone says something to me, good or bad, I don't take it personally either, so I don't take anything or anyone personally. It almost feels isolating. I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to say. It just seems, if there's absolutely nothing personal, then how, how am I to live? How am I to interact with others when nothing they say technically has anything to do with me anymore, and nothing I say to them has anything to do with them either.

So you're saying it would seem isolating? It feels like isolating, and how am I supposed to relate to folks, right? Establish friendships, partnerships, work colleagues. All of this would be completely impersonal. Yeah. But who would feel the isolation? Me! The big "I" right here would feel very nice. It's just a flow of personal processes, but you're not saying, "Oh, this is personal." It's an experience.

As an exercise, you can understand, "Oh, this is not me. This is not my." and not myself, and eventually it just becomes a complete experience in whatever is happening. Sure, you can still use the words I, me, myself, or mine, but it's just a matter of transaction, transacting with the world. But because you're not taking anything personal, you're not offended by anything. Imagine that.

How much peace is there in that? You don't even say that that's your feelings. You don't even have that. But what you do have is compassion. Compassion with the wisdom of the emptiness of self allows you to just be there, whatever is required. There's no impediment of personalizing something. So even when a decision is made, it's not made out of feel, oh, will it affect me in this way, or will it benefit me in this way? The decision is made as what is proper for that situation, truly present, mediating that experience. If you have a complete experience of the present moment, of any given present moment, without any eye or anything, it's just a fluidity, just a fluid question/comment on this.

There's a way that, in personal, the word is used differently than what we would mean in the West in terms of not taking things personally. In personality, it's more about not coalescing yourself from the knot of perception around the specific thing that you would otherwise call self. That lets go. But if you do something and someone says, "Hey, good job!" you can still smile. You can still feel good. So you can still relate to things, right? You're not a mindless robot, you're not a zombie, right? Or you see the ice cream fall on the ground, you can even be sad for a second. Don't bring up the ice cream.

You're still a human, you still have human emotions, you have human needs, social connections, you walk around the world and you engage as a human. suffering-causing mental activity of grasping and clinging and making yourself out of objects. That's where the flow comes in, but the flow is still you as a human. And what many, I'm going to say awakened masters, whatever, say, it in fact feels not isolating at all, but on the contrary, it feels like you're now intimate with everything to a degree that you never thought possible, because the main activity of the self is to say, "not that, not that, not that, not that, not this," and finally everything, right? That's a good way of looking at it experientially. So in other words, having a self is more isolating than not having yourself. Now you can relate to people without your self conditioning coming in. Really understand. You were describing earlier the torchlight that's going to the night sky, there's no object to land on, it's just awareness, there's no object.

And then you said the battery runs out and then it just dies. See nirvana. Yeah, so my question is, is nirvana an object to be seen, or is it just turned off, there's nothing? Or when you recollect the experience of nirvana, is it that you remember anything at all? Is it indescribable, or if there's nothing that you remember? So when you experience cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, your mind comes up and is unconditioned in that specific moment that experiences this nirvana, because it is completely unconditioned. Then there is contact with that which is unconditioned, meaning mind makes contact with it in that moment, and there is then the relief, the joy that comes up because of that. So what you can see is the experience after having made contact with nirvana. So you actually experience nirvana but don't experience it, because the experience itself is unconditioned. So for you to try to explain it with unconditioned words is like that, you know, that wonderful analogy of the finger pointing to the moon, but when you see the moon

You just know, you have this joy, you have this relief. So the mind equates the Nibbana with the joy, with the relief. But that joy and that relief that comes is a result of having made contact with Nibbana. So you know that you made contact with Nibbana, not because you see Nibbana, but because you have understood that you have let go, the cessation of suffering, quenching.

No more fuel. Nothing is going on. The unconditioned. So many words for Nibbana, but they all just point out different aspects of the experience after having touched it. But the unconditioned is such that even the word "the unconditioned" provides a concept in your mind of what that would mean. But it's non-conceptual. It's nippapanca. No mental proliferation. There's Nibbana with remainder and Nibbana without remainder and all of these other ways of understanding it. Nibbana is equated to the experience of full awakening. Nibbana is understood as Nibbana with remainder, which is with the five aggregates. And so how the mind of the arahant experiences the world, it is quenched.

It's relief. Imagine being in a state where you're just relieved all the time. Nothing to do, nothing to be, nowhere to go. That's the mind. And then Nibbana without the remainder is praying about it. This might be interesting. Doug Craft likens it to this metaphor that the jhanas essentially deprive the fuel of the flame of the mind.

And what happens at either perception or non-perception, there's this flickering. It's like just about to go out and light, and it comes up again. You see the flame. Just before it goes out, it flickers, and then it goes out. And then that happens. Whatever happens, happens. up again, but it sees how it lights itself up. Yeah. And that's remarkable. Yes. That's where the understanding of dependent origination happens. So just for anybody who wasn't able to hear that, what he was saying is correct me if I'm wrong if I understood incorrectly, is that at neither perception or non-perception, so jhanas, going through the jhanas is basically reducing the flame of the mind.

And then when you get to neither perception or non-perception, the flame quivers. It's just about to go out. And then Nibbana is where it's fully gone. And then, when it lights up again, when you light it up, it sees itself light up. So that experience after cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, you see how this process of cognition arises. world or how rather the mind recreates the world from formations to consciousness to Nama Rupa to six sense bases to contact feeling and perception and so then wisdom is established now you know for yourself how I don't know how you would know for yourself but you know for yourself that there is no self It can be let go in every single moment when you start to see oh the mind is starting to see this as me, my, or myself, we can succeed.

And just see it as, oh, it's just a feeling. This is just contact, this is just feeling, this is just perception. But what makes it go away differently? Meaning, what makes it go away forever? When you attain final awakening, when you attain arahantship. So when you experience Nibbana and when you see the links of dependent origination, you come through a process of understanding, and then what happens is after the mind, so when the mind makes contact with the Nibbana element, it creates or it activates. Okay, here's one thing before we continue. I've been asking a few people, how do formations mechanically arise?

Those who know it don't answer. How do formations, sankharas, mechanically arise? What sparks them? What's the trigger? Ignorance conditions for a mind that still has work to be done. But what actually triggers its awakening, its arising? How did those arise? Well, what triggered them? Okay, let's go one step further. Conscious of something. Contact. But how does consciousness arise?

It's dependent on mentality and materiality, but what activates the consciousness? Contact. Right? But then in the line of dependent origination, what activates consciousness? What comes before consciousness? Formation. Formations. Contact is the key. Contact gives rise to feeling, to perception, to intention, to consciousness, and to formations. Could you say that again, please? Contact, the process of contact, gives rise to feeling, to perception, to intention, to consciousness, and to formations.

Those are five feedback loops. Five feedback loops, at least. From contact. From contact that we know of so far. The contact is with formations, right? Right. So the contact. Contact makes formations. Condition the contact. The contact triggers it and conditions the experience. So, I'll explain it, because actually we're going to go through formations, how they arise. We have three kinds of formations: bodily formations, mental formations, and verbal formations.

So before you speak, your mind makes contact with whatever you've just heard. Your ears make contact with whatever you've heard. And then the formations arise, the verbal formations arise, to provide you the ability to say what you want to say. When the eye makes contact with form, there's eye consciousness, but that is triggered by a mental formation that helps you to feel and perceive what is being seen.

But at the same time, that formation, if laced, if tinged, with craving, conceit, or ignorance, and or ignorance, will condition how it is felt, how it is experienced. conceit mine automatically takes it to be I want this when there's craving or mine takes it to be whatever it is in terms of this is affecting me no contact gives rise to five things It gives rise to feeling and perception. In that order, yeah. Well, yeah, so the order I gave you is not a sequential order. Okay. Yeah, it's just separate. Meaning it could happen in a different way? So, if you want to be sequential about it, contact gives rise to formations. Okay. Formations give rise to consciousness.

Consciousness gives rise to intention. And then contact also gives rise to feeling and perception. Those two are separate. Feeling and perception and intention and all of them are separate. I just want to use the example to understand this. I hate to use strawberry ice cream. Here we go again. It's the best example. It's the best. Basically, the contact is where my eyes see something, and then formation is my karma with maybe I know what strawberry ice cream is, or maybe I'm a pretty historical person. I don't know what it is. So either one of these two formations. Let me just break that up for you. So you see the strawberry ice cream.

Let's say you've seen it before. So the recognition that that strawberry ice cream is the perception, seeing of it is the feeling. The contact triggers the formations for you to be able to see through mental formations, which is feeling and perception, and then also triggers, oh, I want some of the strawberry ice cream. That's the intention. How is the intention different from the clinging, the I want that ice cream? The intention is it's inclining towards that, but the I want it is a trigger of, or it's an energy that tightness intention of I want it or I don't want it is also an intention.

That's before the clinging. Right. My eyes make contact with the ice cream. That triggers the memory that this is strawberry ice cream. That memory happens through the process of formations arising and letting me know that what I am seeing is ice cream, strawberry ice cream. And it's also triggering the awareness that I am aware that I am seeing strawberry ice cream. Perception is labeling.

I said recognizing that this is ice cream is perception. Seeing the ice cream is feeling. Knowing that I'm seeing the ice cream is consciousness. The bare awareness of something. The bare cognition. The simple cognition of something is consciousness. So seeing the pixels is consciousness. So the formation really affects the steps after the consciousness, not the consciousness itself? Just like that.

I see the strawberry ice cream. So ice cream makes contact with eyes. That's contact. There is a formation, which is the mental formation, which allows you to feel and perceive. That allows me to feel and perceive that this is ice cream. Tied to the feeling and perception there's consciousness. The awareness that I am seeing ice cream. So it's a bit of a reverse order. You already saw it, and then you are aware of it, not the other way around.

As soon as the eye makes contact with the ice cream, there's already a formation that arises and then allows me to see it. Preparation. It prepares me to see the pixelations. So when the contact is made, then I see it because the formations allow that process to happen. It's a feedback loop. That's the mental formations of feeling and perception and allow it to see it and perceive it. Consciousness, nama-rupa, or mentality materiality. Sixth sense basis, contact, feeling.

Here is contact. I see the ice cream. Contact then triggers a specific formation, that's the mental formation, which then conditions the consciousness of how I see the ice cream, which then triggers the activity of feeling and perception. Yes. Because the consciousness is laced with craving, or consciousness is laced with conceit, so it will look at it as, oh, this icing could be for me. It's just providing how you see it, in terms of it says what you just described is how the artists, which is I'm just seeing in the scene. There's only the scene. There's only eye consciousness arising, but when it's taken personal, it's taken personal as a potential of how that consciousness is laced, is painted, is stained, as a tainted window, or stained window, of how it sees it.

That is done through the process of formations. I see it. So it's like the neurons in the eye when it hits, or the retina is a neuron. When the photons hit the retina, the neuron is already tainted with formation, and they perceive the ice cream differently based on the formation. You see or I see. But I project that, oh, I like that ice cream. I want that ice cream. If there's craving, if there's identification in the consciousness.

You should have a poster or something that explains this. Okay, I'll take two last questions and we'll move on. Go ahead. So what you just said, if I understood you correctly, with the formation and the attachment of craving before consciousness, could that explain why you can't unsee words? That's been bothering me for a long time. Why can't I just stop the words? Oh, wow. Once someone is aware of formations, a person doesn't know yet if it's a sound or if it's a visual number. That's right.

So when you're seeing the arising and passing away of consciousness in meditation, for example, what you're seeing is the blanks in consciousness, which is where the formations arise and give rise to consciousness. Formations arise and give rise to consciousness. You're seeing that loop continue without it going beyond nama-rupa or the sixth sense basis. This is a mechanical process. Yeah, that's all it is. And it can't be changed. It can't be modified. It can't be adjusted. It can't be slowed down or sped up. It's just how it is. It is. Be taken personally or not, that's our, that is. That's what influences that whole relationship. So it's like we're two-year-olds, right? If a two-year-old walked in here right now, he would see, or she would see, those books and say, mine.

And just grab the books. I walk into this room, I see the books, I don't think mine automatically. I just see the books, but I don't think they're mine. The two-year-old would say mine, but I'm a two-year-old in other ways in life, because I might walk into other rooms or see other people or the bings and strawberry ice cream, right, and say mine, mine, or me, or you know, my group, my nationality, my country, my school, whatever, and my teacher. And so I have to grow up that two-year-old self inside of me, basically. Yes, train it. Yes. Wait, but then again, you could have a book and say my book without that clinging.

So the mine and the me, I just use as transactional words. I'm going to move on now. Going once, going twice, and so, which is the emptiness of something. Then you understand the second kind of emptiness, which is the emptiness of self in all processes. Now we're going to go into a different kind of understanding of emptiness. Let's see if I got this right. This is a short one, but listen and then closely, because there's a lot of stuff here.

This is Samyutta Nikaya 41.7 Godata Sutta. On one occasion, the Venerable Godata was dwelling at Machi Khasanda in the wild mango grove. Then Chitta the householder, who was an anagami, approached the Venerable Godata, paid homage to him, and sat down on one side. The Venerable Godata then said to him, as he was sitting to one side, household, the measureless liberation of mind, the liberation of mind by nothingness, the liberation of mind by emptiness, and the signless liberation of mind. Are these things different in meaning and also different in phrasing? Or are they one in meaning and different only in phrasing? Liberation of mind, liberation of mind by nothingness, liberation of mind by emptiness, and the signless liberation of mind.

When they say liberation of mind, there's a twofold meaning here. Just as jhanas are temporary liberations, here they're talking about that in the form of a temporary liberation, and also a, I wouldn't say permanent, but unshakable, irreversible liberation. And so, Chitta. Now, it's interesting. Chitta is talking to a monk, and the monk is asking him questions. So, Chitta was known to be someone who actually even had a chance to teach some of the monastics. So, the Buddha would actually send them to him to talk about the finer points of meditation, about cessation, and so on.

There is a method, Venerable Sir, by which these things are different in meaning and also different in phrasing. And there is a method by which they are one in meaning and different only in phrasing. And what, Venerable Sir, is the method by which these things are different in meaning and also different in phrasing? Here, a bhikkhu dwells pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness.

Likewise, the second quarter, the third quarter, and the fourth quarter. Thus, above, below, across, and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he dwells pervading the entire world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, vast, exalted, measureless, without hostility, without ill-will. Does that sound familiar? Oh, yeah. With the mind imbued with compassion, with the mind imbued with altruistic joy, with the mind imbued with equanimity, likewise the second quarter, the third quarter, and the fourth quarter. Thus, above, below, across, and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he dwells pervading the entire world with the mind imbued with altruistic joy, sorry, with compassion or altruistic joy or equanimity, exalted, measureless, without hostility, without ill will. This is called the measureless liberation of mind.

When you're radiating the Brahmaviharas, there's no limit to where you're radiating. You're radiating in all directions, in boundless space. It's measureless. There's no limit there. This is one way of understanding it. So that's the seventh jhana. That's it. The liberation of mind in this context is the seventh jhana. But remember what I said is temporary liberation, for a while liberated from any of the hindrances while you're in jhana. And what, Venerable Sir, is the liberation of mind by emptiness.

Here, a bhikkhu gone to the forest or to the foot of a tree or to an empty hut. The empty hut doesn't have to do anything with emptiness. Reflects thus: Empty is this of self, or of what belongs to self. This is called the liberation of mind by emptiness. So when you see, when you go into your meditation, you can actually go and see, where is the self here? Is the self in my eyes? Where is the self in the experience? Is the self in the mind? And you start to see, oh, there's no self here. This is not self. This is not self. This is not self. So this liberation by emptiness is the experience of anatta.

When you see the arising and passing away of consciousnesses, you see that it's impermanent, and therefore it becomes tiresome, and therefore you see that there's no controller here. It's empty of a self. That gets you to the nothingness. So in a sense, the emptiness liberation of mind, or the process of the emptiness liberation of mind, gets you to nothingness. Sometime back when he was first starting out, he would sit and think about this: is this self, or is that self? Or is this body self, or are these thoughts self, are these ideas self? And then he would get into that experience of Anaka. And what, venerable sir, is the signless liberation of mind here and now? Listen carefully.

Here, with non-attention to all signs, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the signless collectedness of mind. This is called the signless liberation of mind. Non-attention to all signs. Whenever they say signs, in your mind, replace that word with object. Non-attention to any object. Not even quiet mind. This is that still mind. This is that mind that's just looking. This is a temporary, conditioned, volitionally produced experience of the signless collectedness of mind.

Hatred is a maker of measurement. Illusion is a maker of measurement. In other words, when there is craving, when there is greed, there is a measuring of how much can I take of this? Or how much can I push away? Or how much of this is mine? It's measuring. Measuring also means to compare. That's the conceit also. Mana. I am better than you. You are better than me. I meditate longer than you do. You meditate better than I do. Why is he having that attainment and she has that attainment? I'm not getting anywhere.

So what are they talking about? The arahant. The arahant. Empty of lust, empty of hatred, empty of delusion. And therefore, that mind of the arahant is experiencing at all times the measureless liberation of mind. Unshakeable because it won't reverse, and measureless because it no longer compares. Based on the basis of greed, hatred, or delusion. Then he says, lust, venerable sir, is a something.

Hatred is a maker of signs. Delusion is a maker of signs. When you have craving for something... When you have craving, there is the I who craves and there is an object of that craving. There's a sign, there's an object of that craving. When you have hatred, there's an I who doesn't like that. I don't like that object. Whether it's a person, whether it's a situation, whether it's a thing, whether it's a feeling, that's an object of your awareness. Delusion is where it says, I am that. There's a subject that identifies with that object, with that sign. Liberation of mind is declared the chief among them. Now that unshakable liberation of mind is empty of lust, empty of hatred, empty of delusion, so that emptiness is also understood in terms of the liberation of mind by emptiness, meaning no longer any greed, hatred, or delusion in that mind. Empty of us. That is the unshakable liberation of mind. So we have one more sutta.

But before I go on, it's a short one. Any questions? Yes. I remember reading this sutta a long time ago, when I came across it when I knew less. And when I read it at the time, I remember thinking, liberation of mind to the measureless, nothing, emptiness, signless. You know, they're either through these jhanas, right, like temporarily, and it can also take you all the way to full arahatship. I understand that one can reach cessation and, like, full liberation from even the first jhana or second jhana. Like, is there a reason why they're not listed here, or why they focused only on these as a liberation of mind and not the other jhanas? There's other suttas which talk about the eight jhanas. Temporary liberations of mind, only temporary. The jhanas are temporary. No, I mean, but can they lead you to the ultimate?

Like, if I'm in the first jhana, can that ultimately lead me to cessation and then... Yes. Like Nibbana. Yes, you can experience Nibbana from the first jhana onwards. Silence is a good sign. It means they've understood everything. Empty of questions. Empty of questions. So it's the, there is no papanca of the mind, there is no proliferation of mind anymore. And that, it's not that it's in the mind, it's just no longer, I mean, yes, it's not in the mind in the moment, but it won't go into the mind, because these sankharas have been sort of emptied of that potential, emptied of the potential to crave, to identify, and to have eight minutes. And so the sankharas are still dispensing formations, but they're without any of those fetters, right? And so any consciousness that arises won't be established in craving or clinging, and no proliferation. Those root causes don't happen, but everything else happens normally, but without them.

What's called syllogistic reasoning. In other words, to smoke is coming from a house, so you can see signs, and then you have to make this influence in the inferential cognizer, so you infer. So what they do is they use a system of integration, where they, for example, look at the body. Where is the body? And you go through the parts, you go to the conclusion that there is no body, you cannot find it. And they do that for themselves as well. And I wonder, why has this come about? It seems to me that there are these two systems of realising emptiness. One is through logical arguments, logical reasoning, and the other is through direct observation.

I think these two systems can be... Well, I think the logical reasoning occurs as a result of observing. So, actually observing: is there a self here? Where is myself? What is going on? Is there self in this experience right now? And then just seeing that and realizing, oh, there is myself. Direct experience, I think, is always going to be more impactful. This is what I think they do it, because sometimes a belief can be so strong and so unconscious, they only wait for, like, a more immediate and skillful way to shake it off, and that is through logical reasoning and deconstruction, and then it leads to the direct experience, which the Mahayanas also prioritize and put above the mental gymnastics. So that makes sense, in the form of also reading the suttas about emptiness, so you kind of get a sense, oh okay, they're pointing out to this, but then using that as, like, yesterday everybody was listening to the six sets of six.

and then you saw you were listening to it, but then later on your mind not only listened to it but observed it as it was being. So the sutta helps with that aspect of understanding, but then the direct observation solidifies it. The final sutta for tonight is going to be about cessation, and how do you get into cessation.

This is Samyutta Nikaya 41.6. It's called the Kamabhu Sutta. So now Citta is just going through this process, because he already knows the answers to these questions. How this monk understands it. Kamabu. There are, householder, three kinds of formations. The bodily formation, the verbal formation, and the mental formation. Good, venerable sir, Citta the householder said, that having delighted and rejoiced in the venerable Kamabu's statement, he asked him a further question.

But, venerable sir, what is the bodily formation? What is the verbal formation? What is the mental formation? In-breathing and out-breathing, householder, are the bodily formation. Now, this doesn't include just in-breathing and out-breathing, but it includes perception of form, perception of the body, feeling of the body, engaging with the body. are the verbal formation. Perception and feeling are the mental formation.

Good, venerable sir, Citta the householder said. Then he asked him a further question. But, venerable sir, why are in-breathing and out-breathing the bodily formation? Why are thought and examination the verbal formation? Why are perception and feeling the mental formation? In-breathing and out-breathing are bodily. These things are dependent upon the body. Anything that is dependent on the body constitutes bodily formation.

That is why in-breathing and out-breathing, and any other bodily processes, are the bodily formation. First, one thinks and examines. Then, afterwards, one breaks into speech. First, you have contact with whatever is being said, or you see something, your mind looks at it, thinks about it, and then the thoughts that arise are translated into speech, or whatever it is that you want to say. That is why thought and examination are the verbal formation.

Perception and feeling are mental. These things are dependent upon the mind. When you see something, when eye makes contact with form, there is feeling and perception of that. Where is that process happening? In the mind. In the mind, mentality. And so that's why it's mental formations. That is why perception and feeling are the mental formation. Saying good, venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable sir, how does the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling come about?

Householder, when a bhikkhu is attaining the cessation of perception and feeling, it does not occur to him, I will attain the cessation of perception and feeling. It's just getting started. Figure it out without any high-tech equipment. Thank you for packing all this. Chaya, would you not say that in the eighth jhana, because there's no perception, there's also no flashlight?

It's flickering, the flashlight. Just like that metaphor for the candle flame. Because there's still some awareness there going on, even though you're not really perceiving what's going on. Awareness, but not so much attention. Yeah. But awareness is still dependent upon some kind of attention. Eventually, then, when you get into the signless... Is this? Yes. Awareness depends on attention? Yes. It's through attention that awareness flows. When you incline your attention somewhere, that's where the awareness flows, sort of in the last place that attention directed it to. Yes.

And then it doesn't change because there's no perception and then there's no attention. And then it switches off. Yeah, I'm just trying to... So in either perception or non-perception, the reason they call neither perception or non-perception is because you don't really... So another way to understand perception is to say recognize. Yeah. So you don't really recognize some of the things you're seeing. There's patterns, there's pictures, there's stuff going on, but you don't really... aren't able to recognize what's going on. Subtle perception. There's still some attention. That attention is collected on what we call the bio-mind. It just gives stability and eventually that melts away. In the signless state the attention is given nowhere.

seeing in the backdrops too. And you said something about quiet mind and still mind? Yeah. Because the still mind is mentioned in Pat the Nirvana by David Johnson. He talks about quiet mind and he goes down into still mind. Same thing, just to confirm. No, still mind. Well, he might see it as two things. We'll have to ask him how he sees it. But the way I see it is it's a signless. Signless state. That state I was talking about where there's no... It's a border point between the eighth and the... Oh, so you're saying eighth, there's some flickering, and then when it dies down, there's like the complete, still mind. Right, and then there's still awareness, and then that awareness goes away, and then there's the situation.

Interesting. So how is that not like an 8.5 channel or something? In another series of suttas, I can't find it now, I'll see if I can find it later, but there it talks about how Moggallana is training to go through each of the jhanas and then he'll hear Buddha's words in his mind, because the Buddha is going through where he's going through, and he says, Moggallana, you have more work to go. There's more to do. Don't stay in the first jhana and in the second jhana and the third and the fourth. Finally, Moggallana is the eighth, and he says, Moggallana, go beyond that, and he stays in the signless. He says, Moggallana, this too is conditioned.

Leave that and he finally attains association of perception of consciousness. Is that the only mention of this? There are a few mentions. There's in the 121 that we talked about, and the other one that we just read, which was 41.7, and a few others. And then there's one mention of it in, I think, two mentions of it in 43 and 44, Majjhima Nikaya 43 and 44, signless liberation.

Majjhima Nikaya 43 and 44. What makes you think it's not more emphasized? It seems like a very crucial... Oh, by the way, since you mentioned, is everyone here? I don't think it's time yet. Okay, let's wait. This, I think people will find really interesting. Can I ask you a question, then you can talk about it when Grant comes back.

So there's always the question about, Anagami is not fully liberated. Do they experience Nibbana every time they go, they have a nirodha experience and if not, why? Every time there's an erotic experience, is it accompanied by nirvana and what's the difference? Yeah, excuse me, to build on that question, it seems like the neurotic experience always is associated with nirvana for the first two attainments but not the last. Is the impression I'm getting... I'm so glad they voted that bell down for 5 a.m. call. It's so bad. It's been hard not to make personal. 5 a.m. in the road, would he hear that? No, let me ask my question if that's okay, because I don't... I think it's kind of my new show. Yeah. Can you go from cessation down to a different genre or is it always

linear order? When you come out of cessation, mind is not in jhana. Just mind is chilled. Okay. And then is determination, is it a form? Determination is where the mind says this mind will go into this jhana or this mind will go into the cessation for a particular duration of time and then come out when that duration of time is over. Just curious how that's still there even though you experience cessation. Even the scientists are trying to figure that one out. The idea is there's probably some kind of... see, we talked about the three formations that are there, but there's also the ayu-sankhara, the metabolism of the body, and so there must be something going on there that allows the mind to know in terms of the time, some kind of timing factor.

So all of these are controlled by ayu-sankhara. I'm trying to understand how does one explain that state? It's a state of unconsciousness. So that's it. It seems like it's the same kind of state because there's no consciousness there. But it's a state where, again, nothing is going on. And then you come out and you feel groggy. There was no prior development of mind to get into that state. You need prior development of mind to go into that state. cessation, whereas with anesthesia we just need anesthesia. Yeah, just this is very basic. Why that... what is the purpose or advantage of being in cessation if absolutely nothing is happening, like you see with the jhanas, right? You are like

when you go from the rupas to the arupas, you stop paying attention to coarse perceptions and stuff like that, and I guess that's beneficial in some way, or you gain more awareness, et cetera, et cetera, right? Because your mind powers increase, if you will. But politicization, whether you're there for five minutes or 20 hours, what is the person getting out of that? What do they get out of cessation to begin with, and why say not just five minutes or why 20? What do you get out of more cessation when there's nothing there? Why stay in it even longer?

Okay. This answers your question too. When you get into cessation, you experience nirvana. You come out of cessation, the mind inclines, makes contact with the nirvana element and experiences nirvana. So if an anagami, when they go into cessation, come out of it, they still experience nirvana. The difference between the two is the anagami says, "Oh, that Nibbana is mine.

That experience is mine. I like that. That feels good to me." And why you would want to stay in cessation for 24 hours rather than one hour? Bragging rights. Is there a practical reason of being more rested? More nirvana? Twice the nirvana. Twice the cessation, double the nirvana. I hope it's exponential after all that work. mental development, mental skill than being able to be in that. Why would you want to be in, let's say you could be in one jhana for up to seven days. You could be in the first jhana for up to seven days.

That would be nice. But the experience of cessation is total relief. So it's just a matter of skill. It's just a matter of being able to do it. That's really it. You still experience Nibbana. Nibbana is the same. No matter you do it for an hour or you do it for 10 hours. Just the body is completely still for those 10 hours. Completely, utterly still. If scientists were to detect any, have motion detectors and things, absolute stillness. Nothing going on. There would still be some minor respiration, because but it's very faint. Is there a correlation between the stage of awakening and the ability to go into cessation at will? I'm sorry, say that again. Is there a correlation between the stage of awakening, like

with the ability to go into cessation at will. So the anagami and arahant can do it. So by kind of definition, when someone reaches the anagami state, they will be able to get to the cessation at will. Right. That's right. That's the idea. Not just... Not just stumble into it. But actually determine beforehand how to get into it. Probably go to surgery without anesthesia. Yeah, that's true. There you go. That's the use. There you go. Maybe 10 hours in surgery, just go into cessation of perception. So you said that learning how to go into cessation is a skill to be developed? Yes. Okay, so taking that, that is part of... in the same way we learn the 6R's and we can become more and more effective at doing that.

Over days, over weeks, over years. So is it that same sort of application of skill building used to develop cessation once one becomes an anagami that we're using to develop the 6R's for all development in meditation, all progression? Is it this, are we applying the same... is it the same right effort? Yes, because you're relaxing and releasing, relaxing formations to get into cessation, so you just get better at it faster. You say that rather than getting better at it, it's a reflection of how already convergent or in samadhi the mind is, which is a reflection, or a direct and directly in proportion to how much karma you've already extinguished in a sense, right? How much tension already evacuated from the system? Yeah. So that's why it'll be easier for the anagami, because there's no more craving and there's no more aversion there, so there's no impediment to go.

It's much easier to glide through into cessation. Now, how do you develop that ability to go into cessation? For all of you Anagamis out there, here's how it is. First, you have to know how to get into the first jhana at will. Get into the first jhana and be able to sit there for 20 minutes in that first jhana, or 10 minutes, whatever.

Remember what I was telling you about determining when to go to sleep, this is how it helps you. You determine at this time, mine will be in cessation. At this time, mine will be out of cessation. You do a random number of 12 minutes, 7 minutes, 5 minutes and 30 seconds. To get a stopwatch is even better.

Then you come in and out of the first jhana in micro units. So 5 seconds in the first jhana, 10 seconds in the first jhana, and so on. Once you're able to develop that, move on to the same exercise for the second jhana and the third and the fourth and the fifth and sixth and all the way up to the eighth. Then finally you go up to cessation. How do you do the same thing? I'll be in cessation for a minute or two minutes, two minutes 30 seconds, two minutes 50 seconds. And I'll be in cessation for 10 seconds. I'll be in cessation for three seconds. I'll be in cessation for four and a half seconds. That's how you do it. Build your ability to stay even longer periods of time.

Don't go beyond seven days. Please. Because the life will be extinguished from there. Then you'll be dead. The vitality starts to diminish and the body is not able to continue and then. So when you describe sounds similar to what I heard from how to develop psychic power in the Pollock tradition, they said you do like first and third, fifth, seventh, second, fourth, sixth, eighth, you open up random order in very quick succession, back and forth, and very quickly, and then you develop it. Do you know how to do that? So, I just want to say, in the Dhammatat, we don't pose personal questions to Acharya.

I'll just step in there. But what you mentioned, I forgot to mention about that part. From one jhana to the other. So you go from first jhana to third, third to fifth, seventh to eighth, eighth to sixth, sixth to fourth, second to fifth. You can just dance around from jhana to jhana to jhana, like that.

Once you develop that skill, then you're able to actually start developing cessation. Ability to go into cessation. - And to her point, then those people can develop-- So the way to develop psychic faculties, very simply put, is to the process of getting into the fourth jhana. And then you do certain things to develop the divine eye, the divine ear, the ability to do certain kinds of telekinesis and things like that.

But those are the five powers that you experience, which is divine eye, no divine ear, divine eye, material moving things around and manipulation of materials and things like that, and then there's seeing into one's past lives, seeing into the arising and passing away of beings. So that's threefold knowledge, and then finally destruction of things. So everyone can try and develop the five psychic developments, but the sixth is exclusive to the arahant, which is the destruction of the taints, no longer having the taints in the mind. Can the psychic powers just naturally unfold without trying to develop? They can, because of previous development in a past life.

You might have certain faculties, so you're more prone to be a feeling type, someone who's more intuitive, is more empathetic, someone who has more of an emotional side, is able to pick up on people's thoughts, so reading people's minds, or being able to look into other... like listen far away, clairaudience, clairvoyance, remote viewing, things like that. It might be very easy to develop those kinds of faculties for a person who has that kind of mindset to begin with, but it's not exclusive to that. We can still welcome if you needed to or if you wanted to. So I wanted to, since we don't have that person, they can see it on the recording. So we talked about the seven different types of people, right?

Do you guys remember that? One liberated both ways, one liberated by wisdom, one who is a body witness, one who is liberated by faith, one obtained to view, one who is a Dhamma follower, and one who is a faithful. There's an eighth person, which is mentioned only once, obscurely, in one sutta. And the commentaries just gloss over this person. You can't make heads and tails out of what this person is. And this is known as, in Pali, the animitta vihari. The animitta vihari. One who dwells in the sign of this. So anyone who's a stream enterer all the way up to anagami. Well, even actually, you can say an arahant, who has the ability to get into the signless state of mind, can be considered an animitta vihari.

What does that mean? Being able to access the signless collectiveness of arahant. What does that translate to the word? Animitta vihari, one who resides in the signless. So this question has been asked a lot in the suttas. What happens to a Tathagata? What happens to an arahant after they die? With the four quad trades, which is: does he exist, does he not exist, does he exist or not exist, does he both not, does he neither exist nor not exist? And in all cases the understanding is the answer. The standard answer to it is: is form permanent or impermanent, is feeling impermanent or impermanent? So in other words, that day I asked you the question, right? The definition of a being from the word "satta" is one who has identification with the five aggregates.

When you no longer have identification with the five aggregates, are you still a being or a non-being? You have the karma of a being, but when it runs out, you ain't being anymore. Going back to the practice of cessation, you talked about getting to first jhana at will, same day, 20 minutes and practicing, all up and down. So I'm assuming one does that later on after a few attainments, like before you get to your first attainment, just trying to get into cessation to begin with, like most folks stumble into it, right? Because we don't know as anagamis or arahants. I'm imagining there's a skill or understanding that perhaps should be developed in another perception or non-perception or in quiet mind or in the scientist state, that that's like the practice ground to get into?

When there's no craving or aversion, it's much easier to do it. That's basically it. There's no impediment of... it's easier for the mind to be collected as an oncoming rather than having the craving and aversion to deal with. So before we're there, we just have to keep sitting until we stumble into cessation. Or it could be like one of the arahants who just basically extinguished them. It could be one of the arahants who just extinguished themselves, set them then set themselves on fire, they increase the fire element, they turn into fire, and then there was nothing left of them. So...

I'll get into this and you can decide whether you want to keep it or not. Called conscious cessation. This is where the mind of the arahant experiences cessation as the third noble truth. Complete cessation of suffering. Most minds will incline to the arising of experience and then hold on to that. But the arahant is always where it's the cessation of an experience.

So the mind of the arahant experiences cessation, not cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, but cessation as the third noble truth. So if you want to understand how the mind of an arahant works, tune into what it feels like when you've relaxed craving, that spaciousness of the mind, where it's like a clear blue sky. Nothing going on. Mundane nibbana. So when we talk about nibbana with remainder, nibbana without remainder, nibbana with remainder is just the arahant with the five aggregates. So the natural state of the mind for an arahant, as we said, is empty of lust, empty of hatred, empty of delusion.

And the contact is signless. It doesn't land on any object. Consciousness is unestablished. There's no greed. There's no inclination. There's no delusion of saying that this is me, mine, or myself. In that sense, the mind of the arahant has experiencing, or has been experiencing, nibbana in every moment. Not the nibbana that we talk about in terms of the nibbana dhatu, the nibbana element which we experience in the post-cessation experience. Free of craving, utterly free of suffering. That's nirodha from that example, from that experience of the third noble truth. You're embodying the third noble truth, complete cessation of suffering.

And I'm going to use an analogy of how the mind of the arahant sort of sees things. It's a very subtle analogy. So let's see if it makes sense to you guys. Here is a mirror. And here is something. Right? What is the function of a mirror? To reflect something. Take away that something, what is the mirror doing? Nothing. So this mirror is consciousness. It reflects a something when something arises.

But if the mind ceases, there's nothing going on. It's non-reflective consciousness, non-reflective awareness. That's why we talk about the measureless liberation of mind as the arahant. The emptiness liberation of mind. The nothingness liberation of mind. The signless liberation of mind. Not landing on any object. Unestablished consciousness. This is conscious cessation. So I'm not an arahant. I'm sure that's a clear term. So in my case, I would imagine the mirror is reflecting a tainted consciousness. It's reflecting a consciousness that's been tainted with craving, if you will, and I-am-ness and self-identity and self-view. What I project into the world that was being reflected is this nonsense, basically, that this path will help us untangle and just kind of get rid of, to have that kind of clear reflection. That doesn't matter anything. In the meantime we're just reflecting a bunch of this garbage. I guess it just comes out of the mind, right? Like all this craving and identification and aversion and delusion, that's all that's constantly being... that we're constantly, I'm constantly projecting or reflecting.

My consciousness is reflecting that all the time. Is that it? Yeah, here I'm saying the mirror doesn't matter. Just for the purpose of understanding experience, not about the... we already know the consciousness is untainted. So we can use the word that the mirror is unpolished or polished, that's it. But all we're saying is, here's the mirror and here's the thing that's reflected. Take that away. It's non-reflective. It doesn't reflect back. It's just seeing everything as it is.

But we're always putting stuff up. You had a question. Does it have an image of oneself? Self-image or the conceit of self? No. Wait, wait, wait, there has to be in the brain the specific centers creating an image of the body for the purpose of you being able to move it around or to see what exists in the environment, and in the same way there's also a mirroring in those centers of other people, so you're not grasping them as separate selves and so on. But for sure there's an image. Yeah. I figured that you were talking about image in terms of, do you see self in the other person? I was actually, well, what he was saying... oh, I see. I will still see, you will still see someone as they are, but you won't project onto them an identity. One wouldn't see you; you would see that person in terms of how they are in that moment, but there won't be all this projection, all of this cascading of, oh, he's like that, he's always like that. All the aggregates still work the way they did before.

There's just no false lens that you're looking for. - Exactly. - Somebody else had a question. - So is the arahant seeing androids? - Meaning just robots all around? No. Okay. No. The arahant doesn't personalize whatever it's seeing. So whatever they're seeing, they would know that here is Jordan. They would know that. They would know here's this person, here's this person. So there's still the feeling and perception.

But now it's no longer like Jordan, and therefore Jordan is always like this, and therefore I'm going to act like this based on that. No story. No story. You have a question? Oh. Here. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so in the mirror analogy, when we die, is the mirror still functioning? Is that a yes? No, I'm just saying that's a question that's always asked. What happens there if the consciousness is unestablished? Does it continue or not continue?

There's no fuel for further reaper. It's the best we could put it. There's two questions. Are there any cliff notes to these sutras? They're so intimidating, seeing the volume of them. So are there any cliff notes that you can read them faster, for lay people who don't have time? Maybe we should work on that. Yeah, along with the other dozen things. So maybe I should say that after the retreat, and once we edit all of the tapes, these will all be put on a private YouTube channel where everybody here will have access to every talk in the sequence that it was given. And there are some other things that you will have as sort of tools.

going to end your engagement with the teachings will continue and there will be a number of opportunities to be able to do that, and that will be given to you in an email after you get home. And it's, as we're speaking, it's being put together, so there will be a lot of follow-through with this. It just doesn't end on Wednesday. Yes. Yes.

Yes, it is. Then you just live the Nikayas, right? With right practice, right effort. You just learn through experience. This is a version of how to let go. What does it feel like? You're experiencing the full noble truth, since understanding: oh, this is what suffering is. This is how it comes to be. Oh, this is how you cease it, and this is how it is experienced. So if you can do that, you just continue doing that. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, until there's no more left. Six are until there's nothing left.

Do you have a sense of what level of Jesus was? Next question. He was nailed on a cross and still loved everyone, so I think that leaves no room for interpretation. There's no more arahant than this. That's a rabbit hole. I wonder, the term resurrection, today is called... What's the difference between a Dhamma follower and a faith follower? They were all sotapannas, correct? So a Dhamma follower and a faith follower both stream enter with the path. But a faith follower has the faith faculty more strong, stronger in their mind.

Faculty stronger in their mind, that's really the key difference. So if I really, really believed in the Triple Gem, then that would make me a sotapanna? Is that the idea? Like, the person would know? Or no, it's just that there are five faculties, right? There's the faculty of wisdom, there's the faculty of mindfulness, the faculty of energy, the faculty of concentration, and the faculty of faith, obviously, and the faculty of wisdom. So one who has more wisdom, or develops through insight into this process, is a Dhamma follower, and one who just upon hearing realizes, oh, this is the Dhamma, is a faith follower. Are you going to have the opportunity to go through the transcendental dependent origination?

Day after tomorrow, last day. Last day. I'm saving the best for the last. That's why I kept the last one off. They just become an arahant, they become the first arahant of the Buddha. They go through the process of the threefold knowledge, and then, at least as we understand Siddhartha Gautama as the Buddha, went through the threefold knowledge and then experienced arahantship right there. I'm sure they can. I can't say for sure, but I'm sure they can.

But you know, the thing about psychic powers is, like, this is what Bhante Vimalaramsi would say: you have your own thoughts to deal with. Why would you want to listen to me? I can teach you how to fly, but it's much easier to buy a ticket. That's good. I consider thinking, and I think it's an okay question.

So, if everything in this universe is a process, because there are no things, is Nirvana a process? Yes. Yes. That's the thing: you call it a process, and now you bring it into the realm of the conditioned. It's just something that happens. It isn't happening, it's a process. It's like a wave and a particle. Somebody else raise hands somewhere, or no? How is it?

Okay, going once. The identity part of, because everything about language is tied to, like, I, a subject and an object, right? So I am doing this, you are doing this. Our language inherently has that, everything focused around an object or an identity, and then we think in those terms. So that kind of makes the feeling that I have, of identity. I think there might be some languages, maybe, I might be mistaken about this, where there's no concept of time, for example, or maybe they also don't use pronouns.

Yeah. Yeah. I know of a tribe called Kero and Haru, and they only have the pronoun we. Ah, that's interesting. It'll be interesting to see how they experience reality. But I think, as an exercise of just letting go of the need to personalize things, you can say, oh, here is a feeling, kind of create distance, instead of saying, I am feeling this. But at the end of the path, you can still use words like I, me, mine, myself, as a transactional word. That reminds me of the question, which is about non-duality in Dhamma. From a lot of this practice, there's always a mind that is aware of an object, and it's inherently dual. But then Buddha also said, you know, to see there's only a seeing, to hear is only a heard. So that seems like a non-dual experience. So how does this all... we're going to unpack that tomorrow, actually.

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