Day 8 Dependent Origination Pt 2 Going deep...

Yesterday, we talked about the first part of dependent origination, starting with suffering. And what we said was suffering is dependent upon the birth of beings at one level or the birth of action at another level. It is dependent upon what we would call becoming or habitual tendencies, and this is dependent on clinging, and clinging is dependent upon craving. So craving, clinging, becoming, birth and suffering, these all are what we can say is new karma. So the Buddha has talked about it as old karma and new karma, or karma and vipaka, the ingredients to bring up new karma.

And then suffering later on becomes the vipaka, the old karma. Now prior to this, in this craving, there is feeling. So there's craving that is dependent upon feeling, I should say. What is feeling? Feeling doesn't mean just feelings in terms of your emotions. It comes from the word Vedana. Vedana is like to know something. So all experience, the umbrella of all kinds of experience.

Physical experiences, sensual experiences, mental experiences, emotional experiences. Right now you are listening to me. Experience. Whenever you are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, or thinking, you see how it's a verb. It's an experience. It's a process that's happening. So the question is, how does feeling turn to craving? How do we go from feeling to craving? It is the underlying tendencies.

Yesterday, a question was asked about newborns. How do they experience this? Well, they have what are known as underlying tendencies. There are seven of these underlying tendencies. The underlying tendency towards views. The underlying tendency towards doubt. And the underlying tendency towards ignorance. These are the seven underlying tendencies. When a pleasant experience comes up, for example, chocolate cake. The taste of chocolate cake.

I eat that chocolate cake and I taste it. Mind immediately likes that and says, I want another bite, and I won't feel satisfied until I have another bite. And I identify with that process. This programming, this process, this experience is underlined by the intention of craving, the tendency towards craving. Craving is where I express, on a conscious level, I like this, I want more of this. When I am met with an unpleasant or painful experience, like the sting of a wasp, my first thought is, dude, what did I do to you? It's totally unprovoked.

But in that moment, what happened? There was an extremely painful experience on the skin. And then when my mind makes that bee or that wasp an enemy, it's like, how could he do that? See, I'm taking it personally. I'm making him something. I'm adding a self to that wasp. And I don't like the pain. See, the first arrow, the first dart, is the immediate pain.

But now taking it personally and making the wasp the enemy, that's the second arrow. So in that process, there's the underlying tendency towards aversion. So what happens? Now I have full-blown aversion. Subconsciously in my mind, I'm upset, I'm irritated, I'm frustrated, I'm angry. I don't like wasps anymore. Right? And then what happens? Clinging arises. Now the association, if I go down that path, will another wasp come in? That's the association, that's the clinging.

So that's the underlying tendency towards aversion. When I'm met with a neutral feeling, neither painful nor pleasant, and if my mind has a lack of mindfulness there, then ignorance arises. Because if a feeling is neither painful nor pleasant, and it's actually neutral, then in reality, I would have full equanimity towards that experience. If I had mindfulness there, if I had attention there, if I had awareness there.

But due to lack of awareness, lack of mindfulness, there's the underlying tendency towards ignorance. But that can also happen with the pleasant feeling and the painful feeling. I get ahead of myself with the chocolate cake. I'm not mindful of how much chocolate cake I'm eating. I take personally the wasp. That's also ignorance. So what we're saying is the underlying tendency towards craving always underlies a pleasant experience.

The underlying tendency towards aversion always underlies a painful experience. The rest of the underlying tendencies can underlie pleasant, painful, or neutral. In this case, the underlying tendency towards ignorance, which is basically, for all practical purposes, a lack of mindfulness of what is arising in this moment. Because then that muddled mindfulness brings my mind and says, oh, this is me or this is mine.

And then craving, clinging and so on come up. Then there's something known as the underlying tendency to becoming. We talked about becoming as its own link, right? As the habitual tendencies where there is a series of choices and I unconsciously go towards that particular choice, almost automatically go towards that particular choice due to lack of mindfulness. Well, what is the underlying tendency towards becoming in that experience?

I experience jhana. I experienced the first jhana, the second jhana, the third jhana. It's a pleasant feeling. But now, I want more of it. I want to become more of it. Becoming here, we're denoting the craving for existence. The craving for the continuation of a specific state of mind or state of existence. The converse of that is, I don't like this painful experience. social group. I don't like being part of this family. I don't like being part of whatever it is.

And now I have this desire to be free of that. I don't want that. The strongest kind of ideation of that is suicide. Suicidal ideation. When do suicidal thoughts arise? They commonly arise because the mind is identified with the experience that is so overwhelmingly powerful and is so crowded with so many different experiences that there is this projected idea that if I cut this life off, I will feel relief.

There is great amount of identity there. So now we've gone through the underlying tendency towards craving, towards aversion, towards ignorance, towards becoming, towards conceit. What do we mean by conceit? This is the usual translation from the Pali word mana, M-A-N-A, mana. Compare. To measure against. So, I have a chocolate cake. I have a piece of chocolate cake.

But I look across the table and I see David has a bigger piece. Why? Yeah, she should have known better. Did I do something wrong? What happened? Why does he get the bigger piece? That's the underlying tendency towards conceit. So this can happen in craving. This can happen in aversion. This can happen in identification. So pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

When we talk about conceit, there are many different ways of understanding conceit. The way we measure things of our so-called selves with other things. There is a conceit about our bodies, the conceit about our senses, the conceit about our accomplishments, the conceit about our knowledge, the conceit about how much we've studied, the conceit about how much money we have, the conceit about all our possessions, the conceit of where we are in our meditation. Think about it. Sometimes somebody will be talking about their practice and you think, how are they getting all the way there? Why am I only here?

Or there's a certain pride, right? So conceit is all about pride from the sense of I am greater than or I am lesser than. Deflation of the ego, or deflation of the ego, or even the conceit of "I'm equal to." Because when you even have the sense of "I'm equal to," that connotes the idea that there is a separate self from the rest of everything else.

So the comparing mind is the underlying tendency towards conceit when that experience arises. This experience is great, but I've had something better. Or this experience is okay, but there was something worse that happened. And then that creates more identification. And then that can lead towards further craving or further aversion, or further taking things personally. The tightening of the mind around an experience, and then the clinging and so on.

Then we have the underlying tendency towards doubts. What do we mean by doubts here? It is the lack of discernment about what it is that I'm experiencing. Is this wholesome or unwholesome? Is this skillful or not skillful? The underlying tendency towards doubt is how do I skillfully experience this? In other words, I'm not aware of my mindset in relation to the experience.

Whether it's unskillful or skillful. The underlying tendency towards views, what is that? Views, in this case, are opinions. I have an experience, I'm going through an experience, and my mind will look at that and have an opinion about it. Or I'll have already a preconceived idea of what that experience should be or ought to be. What is that actually? That's expectations.

I project an idea onto the experience. And then from there, ignorance arises and so on and so forth, of taking this personally, of not seeing the Four Noble Truths of this moment. And then the craving comes up. There is that Sutta again, the Majjhima Sutta. And that is the training that the Buddha gives. In the seeing, there's only the seen.

In the hearing, there's only the heard. In the sensing, there's only the sensed. In the cognizing, there's only the cognized. Seeing, hearing, every kind of feeling, thinking, cognizing, these are all under the link of feeling, of Vedana. In that, there's only that experience going on. To project the idea of an experience that is separate from the experience, that is suffering.

That is the cause of suffering. That's another way of saying that's the cause of suffering. So I've given this statement before in other talks, where you experience everything fully without the sense of I, me, mine, or myself in that experience. Allow the experience to unfold as it arises, as it unfolds. But notice when that tiny eye comes up and just soften it.

That's all. Soften it and you come back to that expansive field of beautiful mindfulness where there is just the experience. And if anything needs to be done about it, intuition arises based on following the Eightfold Path, so that if something needs to be said, it is said in accordance with whatever is required for that moment. Or stay silent. If something needs to be done, then it is done in accordance to what is required for that situation. That's it.

No wasted effort, no production of new karma. So everything from feeling before it is what we call old karma, the vipaka. We are experiencing now old karma. How we choose to relate to it, how we choose to react to it or to respond to it will determine whether the new ingredients come up to produce and proliferate new karma, to perpetuate that karma.

So what is feeling dependent upon? Feeling is dependent upon something known as contact. Contact is translated from the Pali phassa, which is translated from the Sanskrit sparsha, which means to touch. The initial impact of sensory data with its corresponding sensitivity. space. Contact is made up of three things. The sense base, the sense object, and the underlying sense consciousness.

So for example, right now all of you are looking at me. So what is happening? There is light bouncing off my body and making contact with your eyes. So now you are seeing, but you are aware of this process. You are aware of seeing. It's automatic. It's the underlying eye consciousness. E-Y-E, eye consciousness. For example, when you're listening to my voice, you're paying attention to the sound of my voice. So what that means is that the vibration from my voice making impact on your ears, and there is an underlying ear consciousness that arises dependent upon the tooth. This mechanism is dependent upon the movement of your attention, which is dependent upon the movement of your intention.

So for example, you all are looking at me, and there is an eye consciousness that arises dependent upon that corresponding eye consciousness. The moment I ask you to now look at the statue of the Buddha, your attention has moved, which means the eye consciousness that was dependent upon the contact between your eyes and my form disappears. And there is now an eye consciousness that arises dependent upon between your eyes and the statue of the Buddha.

So consciousness, when we talk about sense-based consciousnesses, arise and pass away dependent upon the movement of attention. And attention is moved by intention. This is what is happening in meditation. Say you intend to pay attention to the feeling of loving kindness, perhaps it is a bodily experience of sensation of warmth in the chest or a feeling of being uplifted in the mind. You're staying there for some time. This is the flow of your attention. This is samadhi. After a while, something comes up and that seems to be more interesting for your mind.

So your mind's attention wavers from the loving kindness to the distraction. The underlying consciousness dependent upon you or your mind and the feeling of loving kindness disappears. Consciousness dependent upon the mind paying attention to the hindrance. So with your intention, the right intention to let go, to renounce, to release and relax, to generate something also and bring it back. Recondition dependent origination in your mind.

And it's not just in meditation. It's for your entire life. Every single moment of your life. Everything you make contact with that you pay attention to brings it to consciousness, brings it to, now I am aware of this. And there is an experience based on that. How you choose to relate to that experience will determine whether craving, clinging, and becoming arise or the feeling dissipates.

You see. When you have a hindrance and you do anything but let it go, you push it down, you play with it by pushing it this way, negotiating with it, whatever it is, it's all giving it undue energy and undue attention. But the moment I release my attention from that, the hindrance disappears. What is the hindrance in this moment? It is the truth of the moment. It is an experience. It is vedana. It is feeling. And because I take that, that's the old karma I'm working with. And when I push it, I pull it, I do all kinds of stuff to it, there's craving in there. There's an underlying tendency towards

Conceit. Oh, I should be better. The underlying tendency towards views. Why is this hindrance here? The underlying tendency towards aversion. I don't like this. The underlying tendency towards becoming. I don't want any more of this. The underlying tendency towards ignorance. Not being able to see that the mind is taking it personally. And so what happens? Craving or aversion.

Clinging. Becoming. And so you suffer. But the moment I just drop it, I let it go. I release and relax. I let go of that entire dominoes, that entire cascading of effects. And right there and then, I am free. My mind becomes like the expansive, cloudless sky. So this is contact. The meaning of the sense base, the sense base object, and its underlying consciousness, sense-based consciousness.

This contact is dependent upon what? Naturally, the six sense bases. You need the six sense bases that are functional. Obviously, if somebody is blind, light can be hitting their eyes, but if there's no way of perceiving that, then they're not going to be able to see. process of seeing going on. If somebody is deaf and they're not able to pick up the vibration, they won't be able to hear. They won't be able to feel that experience.

So you need functional six sense bases. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. These are your interface with the matrix. This is what makes up your world. Your world. We can try to get to a level of objectivity, but it will always be filtered through this six sense base. The bat, right, has a different set of senses. The sonar lives the world through that.

The snake lives through understanding the vibration that's happening in the ground. Duke, the dog, lives through his nose. It has a certain sense base that is stronger. And they live through that. Their world is filtered through that. You think about somebody who has a very visual mind. They pick out different colors. They're able to pick out different colors. You might say, I can't see the difference between this blue and that blue. And he or she will tell you, well, it's actually this shade of blue and it's that shade of blue. That's due to the mental formations that have been built up because of their acuity, because of their skills.

When you're listening to a symphony, now this is where we talk about the play of attention. When you're listening to a symphony, depending upon what you pay attention to, you can either pinpoint, the symphony continues on, it just plays on, but you pinpoint while it's playing, the violins, just the violins, everything else goes into the background. That's your attention going just in the violins, or just to the flute, or just to the cello. And then if you want, you can expand your attention to be able to pick up the entire orchestra.

That's the power of your senses. Dependent upon what? Dependent upon mentality and materiality. Materiality is the four, what we could say, the states of matter or the four great elements. So that is earth, water, air and fire. Or solid, solidity, liquid, gaseous and plasma, heat, temperature. These different combinations make up the material world in terms of this body, this table, these symbols, everything that you see, everything that you're experiencing, the chair that you're sitting in, and so on.

In different ratios of these different elements, states of matter. Mentality is made up of five things. Contact, feeling, perception, intention, attention. These are actually synonymous with the five aggregates. Form or materiality. Contact allows you to feel, to experience. Contact allows you to perceive, to label what it is that you're experiencing based on what you've learned. Contact allows you to intend.

I see something and I want it and I walk over to it. So my physical formations come up and my intention comes up. And then I do whatever it is that I do. Attention is consciousness. The movement of attention is the movement or the arising and passing away of consciousness. Mentality, materiality is the body. It's the nervous system.

It's the different components in the brain that allow us to feel and perceive, allow us to intend and to pay attention. It's also things like whatever's happening in terms of an imbalance. You did something now and it had an effect later, or something that you completely unintended as well. It just arose due to certain causes and conditions that led to a spike in certain hormones, led to a dip in certain neurochemicals.

This is all encompassed in mentality materiality, which then signifies or determines how your senses pick up something. Thereby, how that makes contact in their mind, or therefore, how you experience it. This is what I'm saying. This old karma is stuff that you just pick up. Like you're not, you have no control over it. It's just a consequence of previous action or just something that's coming up. Due to genetics, due to the environment, due to behavioral conditioning, due to certain intentions, due to how you pay attention, what you feed your body, what you feed the mind, all of this.

How loudly you listen to your music so that finally you go deaf. Right? Eventually you go deaf and you're not able to pick up the same levels of frequencies as you did before. So many vipakas, many different factors of old karma coming up. And all you can do is accept it. That is what is the meaning behind what we're talking about in that recollection.

I am an heir to my karma. Karma is my relative. Karma is my resort. I can only be here and now understanding what is going on. The moment I try to change it because I don't accept it, right? The moment I resist it, the moment I do anything with it, identified with that experience. But if I can notice that and change the model by letting it go. Remember that R. Buckminster Fuller quote: you never change the existing reality by fighting it.

Instead, you put a new model in its place so that the old one becomes obsolete. This is the path of the Dhamma. That's what you're doing. You're no longer resisting, identifying, fighting. You're letting go of the old model. You're generating something else that is wholesome, that is more pleasing. So the mind goes towards that. And the old model of doing whatever it is you were doing, you forget about it. It no longer crosses your mind after a period of time.

So long as you continue doing this reconditioning process. Now what is this mentality, materiality dependent upon? Consciousness. This is an interesting one. Because there is an interdependency between mentality, materiality, and consciousness. And this is referring to the understanding of the macro level of rebirth. There is a Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 38. And in that, I think it's called the Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving. So he talks about the birth of a new being, right? What happens is he denotes it as the gandhabba. So this is the rebirth-linking consciousness that comes up. So what is going on here is when we die, most karmically dense moments in our life.

If we have been wholesome, if we have been skillful, if we have let go, then our minds will go there. If we've been like that most of the time, but if we've been stingy and greedy and hateful and spiteful and jealous and seeing everything from a separate sense of self, then our mind will go there. In other words, you do experience somewhat of a life review in your death.

Now, when it is something pleasant, when you notice that you've been skillful and wholesome, your mind will gravitate towards that. And that inclination brings up certain formations. Now, when you talk about formations here, carriers of karma. They are propelling forward karma from the previous life and giving rise to a rebirth-linking consciousness. This consciousness is the transference device to go from one life to the next. And that's what's known as the Gandaba in this Sutta. And what the Buddha says is, If the Gandaba is present and there is the father, his seed, and the mother, she is ready to take that, then the three of those come together and a new being comes into conception.

And once that new consciousness descends, it departs because it installs all the karma that is required. It installs all the different potential karmas that may arise into that genetic material. And then the baby is formed. And in the womb, certain karma arises. Certain genes come up. Certain genes deactivate. Certain formations come up, certain synapses. When a baby is born, it is born with a lot of synapses. And as we go through life, those synapses are pruned, which means the formations start to be reconditioned. Some are let go and some are strengthened.

And so the idea is you can have mentality, materiality, but in order for it to function, it needs consciousness. And in order for consciousness to continue flowing, it needs a vessel like mentality and materiality. That's why they are interdependent. And as we talked about on the macro level from one birth to the next, the intention that arises, the remorseful intention or the gladdening intention, whatever it is that arises based on the life review process, those intentions bring up certain formations.

Those are known as karmic formations, volitional formations. Abhi-sankara, as these are called in Pali. Abhi-sankara means strong formations. And only when they arise does the But as we are listening right now, in this moment, there are numerous formations coming up and going away. Right now, for some of you, you're listening to new information. Those data packets of information are being installed in mental formations, as you feel and perceive.

And the installation of those formations give rise to a certain kind of consciousness in the mind, which then, when you're out and about in the world and you make contact with the world, that consciousness becomes the filtration through which you see things, how you perceive things, how you experience things. in your mind, and you have formations that are conditioned by the Dhamma, strong enough in your practice, eventually you will see everything from that particular lens.

When the consciousness is stained, like a stained glass window, with a certain kind of color, then when the experience arises, that will be the color through which you will see and experience things. So when you let go of the formations that are no longer helpful or beneficial for your practice, namely craving, ignorance, ego, or conceit, of those things that come up, then in the next arising, you see what you have to understand is, in every moment, there's millions of arising and passing away of dependent origination right here, right now.

But the moment I let go of the tension, the moment I let go of the identity, the moment I let go of the craving, the next arising of the formation will have less of that identification. less of that ignorance, less of that craving. Therefore, the consciousness that arises will be less stained, will become clearer, and it will be easier for me to be mindful of the feeling that arises, the experience that arises, so that no more craving clinging can arise.

And this process happens over a period of time. It requires practice. This is why it is the gradual training. These formations are dependent upon what? Ignorance. Namely, which formations? The Abhisankharas. When we say Abhisankharas, they are the fettered formations. The formations that are fettered by craving, or fettered by greed, hatred, and delusion, that are entrenched in that, that are enchained by that.

Due to previous iterations in my life, due to previous moments in my life, where I acted upon greed, acted upon hate, or acted out of delusion, further strengthening those particular tendencies, those particular formations, Due to ignorance, ignorance of what? Ignorance of the Four Noble Truths in this moment. How do I let go of that ignorance? Ignorance, as I said, for all practical purposes, is a lack of mindfulness of the Four Noble Truths in this very moment.

Right now I'm experiencing something, let's say. And it's something that is aversive. Something that's unpleasant. And I notice that aversion coming up. The fact that I notice that is mindfulness. And then I let go with the right effort. The right intention and the right effort. And when I let go, what happens? That entire cascade of craving, clinging and becoming goes away.

And the experience dissipates whenever it dissipates. No longer adding further fuel in the next momentary iteration of formations to arise. Because those formations are not conditioned by that particular iteration of ignorance in that particular moment. This ignorance is dependent upon what? The three things. Avijjasava. Kamasava and Bhavasava. Avijjasava is the taint of ignorance itself. Whenever I have lack of mindfulness in any given moment, then it feeds back to that taint. The taint here is the beginning of the stream that then turns into the river. seed that through the fuel, through the watering, the moisture of craving and ignorance germinates into a root. It takes root as a fetter in the formations as greed, hatred, or delusion.

So that is one seed. The second seed is Kamasava. Taking things personally where I want this, I want to possess this. Because it's pleasing to my senses. Pleasing to my eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, whatever it is. And when I have that inclination, that is because of the energy of that seed. And the more I act upon that inclination, the further I strengthen that particular seed. Bhavasava. The desire to control the outcome of my actions in a certain way.

For example, when I'm meditating, I want to be in a particular jhana and I become obsessed with it. Or, I want to have a certain status in life. I want to be seen a certain way. All of these are bhava. state or a specific existence, the obsession around that. I have to be very careful because desire is one thing and craving is another. Really, when you say craving, it's the obsession.

Desire is something else completely. The desire for Nibbana is a wholesome desire, is it not? The desire for being free is a wholesome desire, is it not? So that is known as Chanda. But the craving is different. So, what are the takes dependent upon? Ignorance. Because if I have lack of mindfulness in this particular moment, they feed back, right? They feed back energy in the next iteration to those seeds. Samsara is this complex machine of many different gears and cogs in the machine. At the very center point are these three taints.

And then they give rise to the ignorance, which then conditions, oils up the other wheels of the formations. greed, hatred, and delusion roots give rise to a certain kind of consciousness that is stained by an extension of one of those three. That consciousness can be mired or rooted or stained by hatred, by anger, by jealousy, by stinginess, by obsession, by pride.

by vanity, by competitiveness, by stubbornness, by many different things. And that's the world that you view, that is conditioned, that is filtered through that layer of consciousness. one moment, right here, right now. The taints lead to ignorance. Ignorance conditions formations. Formations condition consciousness. Consciousness conditions mentality, materiality. Mentality, materiality conditions the sixth sense basis. The sixth sense basis condition contact.

Contact conditions feeling. When the feeling is taken personally and identified with, it gives rise to craving. If one does not recognize that craving and let it go, it gives rise to clinging. If one is unable to let go of that clinging, it gives rise to becoming. When one is unable to recognize that becoming and let it go, it can give rise to the birth of action.

And that birth of action leads to a consequence. And that consequence can be suffering, rooted in suffering. Now, going back to formation. One thing I didn't mention are the three types of formations. I talked about abhisankaras, those strong formations rooted in the fetters, rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion. But there are three categories of formations. There are the physical formations, there are the mental, and there are the verbal.

Physical formations allow us to inhale and exhale, all kinds of things with movement. So when I am in the fourth jhana, that ceases. That means my breath becomes much softer. I lose contact with the body. Verbal formations are not just about speech. They're also about active thinking. So for example, in the first jhana, I bring up an object. kindness. I'm utilizing my verbal formations to bring something up and to sustain my attention there. As soon as that becomes autopilot, that verbal formation ceases. It goes away.

But in general terms, a verbal formation comes up when I have contact with someone, contact with something, and I see and perceive something or I feel something and I want to express it in speech. I think about what it is that I'm experiencing. That's the formations coming up. And then I express that in speech. This is painful. This is pleasant. That's a red apple. That's a green apple. Whatever it is, I express it in speech. I express it in my mind as an active thought.

Mental formations. Here is the important thing to understand. Mental formations don't have to do anything with active thinking, intentional thinking. Mental formations are called mental because all feeling and perception, ultimately all the five sense bases, find their root in the mind. The mind is chief, the forerunner of all states. Therefore, they are mental. Everything that I'm picking up from the eyes, as form and color, everything I'm picking up as sound, everything I'm picking up as odors, as vibration and pressure for the body internally and externally, as tastes on the tongue, as passive thoughts that come in the mind, they are all induced or they are all functional due to the process. So if any of these formations, specifically the volitional formations that happen in the process of verbalizing, are influenced or conditioned by ignorance, then how I see the world will condition that.

There is a fourth category which is not as mentioned in the suttas, but they are called, they're longevity formations in some ways. They are called not kaya sankharas, but something else. The name eludes me, but in any case, they're a certain kind of sankhara. And these, so that's the word in Pali, sankhara. These have to do with the heat and temperature of the body that is the metabolism, the cellular metabolism, the functions that are happening without my conscious awareness.

These are happening because of how the body has been built up, how the body is influenced by environment, the telomeres in the DNA and so on and so forth. So they're not bodily formations that allow us to just walk and breathe and so on. There's another kind of formations. So just to wrap up and recap what we're talking about here is the process of dependent origination with the arising of this there is the arising of that. With the ceasing of this, there is a ceasing of that. So if I notice in this moment something coming up in the form of craving, if I let go of that, not only is that gone, but everything else that was dependent upon it, that entire cascade disappears.

That's the power of letting go. Observing, that's mindfulness, and letting go, that's right effort. If you just do these two. And what makes it easier is keeping your precepts, having right speech, right action, and right livelihood. that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of habits. May these in heaven and space and earth, name us the nomads of mighty power, share the spirit of ours, and may they long in the technical of this decision.