Day-8 QA - Online 10-day Retreat (Nov-3) with Delson Armstrong

I want to go first. The question is related to dependent originations. I want to correct my understanding. to arise. So I feel like somehow I feel like Buddha just given these concepts and names to different changes happening. And for example, the consciousness which is occurring is just like slowly this formation is changing into another some bigger formation which we call it as consciousness. What I mean to say is that there is no discrete, like after this point this is called feeling, this is called consciousness, after this once is called feeling or something like that. Uh, can you give your comment about whether it is discrete or it is continuous? - It is a flow and the flow is quite fast.

So in relation to formations, there will be perhaps a selection of formations which will then activate a certain consciousness depending on contact. And then that will continue to flow through mentality, materiality, be experienced at the sixth sense basis and the external reality and then the feeling, so this whole process happens in microseconds. So which means that when you have the contact and the formations arise activating the consciousness, so that it comes through mentality, materiality and experiences the feeling or the sensory experiences, it happens in a few microseconds or less. So in that process it's not slow. There's no in-between there. There is an in-between in relation to, say, feeling and craving, because at the level of feeling, you have cognition or consciousness and perception.

So there's the consciousness or the cognition of the sensation or the sensory experience that's arising. And then you have the perception of what that sensory experience is. can cause mental proliferation, which can cause then craving and so on. Or you have wise perception and understand it to be through attention and you understand it to be impermanent, not worth holding on to and impersonal. So at the level of sensory experience, you just let go of it and there's no craving arising. So there is a, you could say, sub-links between feeling and craving. It is very important in everyday life to be able to understand how you're taking the sensory experiences that are arising.

With regards to the preceding links, with the links before feeling and contact and so on, those are always going to be the same in terms of they are all old kamma. So this is the delineation I want to explain to you. Contact or formations up until the sixth sense basis, really. There's old kamma, which is the kamma that arises based on previous choices.

It is really at the level of feeling what you decide, which will either create new kamma, which takes that kamma as personal and then further creates suffering. So it's always going to be the same in terms of its progression, in terms of its flow. It will be different in terms of its nature of being in flux, which means the mentality, materiality, for example, which is your mind and body, depending on a choice that you make. For example, you'll probably have already read it in the book, which is that if you start to strain your eyes, your eyes grow weaker and then you might need to get glasses or get whatever to, or it might become tiring to rest.

So that's new kamma, which is that you're straining your eyes. The old kamma is the effect of that eye or how that eye is being experienced. So that is different, but it's still within the context, within the confines, if you will, of that same flow from formations, which activate a certain consciousness, which then are rooted in mentality, materiality, or the factors of mentality, materiality, and then experiences the contact, feeling, and perception.

But it's after perception, after contact, feeling, and perception, how you take that sensory experience, how you take the thoughts that arise, that determine whether you let go of that old kamma right there and then, or you take it personal and then cause further craving, clinging, being, and so on, and suffering. Just want to clarify one thing you mentioned: that subset of, for example, you said that subset of formations causes consciousness to arise.

Like a selection, a selection of formations. So meaning, for example, there's contact with something in the external reality, something that activates formations rooted in mental formations. So you know, feeling and perception, the feeling and perception are the thoughts or the reflections of what is being seen, the perception of what is being seen, and even the case of verbal formations, where what you are seeing you want to now express verbally, so those formations will arise as well. So they will... You see, the thing is, it's not a linear thing where it's a singular formation or it's a singular consciousness.

It's multiple consciousnesses arising, because this reality that you're experiencing through the senses is a multi-sensory experience, which means there's multiple sensory consciousnesses arising at the same time. It's just a matter of, for example, in infinite consciousness, you might see only the visual consciousness if you are, if you are more attuned towards your visual sense, or you might hear flickering in the ears if you're more prone towards the auditory sense.

But in reality, at this point in time, right now, in just this moment, there's so many different kinds of consciousnesses related to your consciousness, because you're listening to me, the visual consciousness because you're watching me, the mental consciousness because you're thinking and reflecting on what's being said. And so the formations that are arising to give rise to those consciousnesses are also multiple in nature.

Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Tulsa. Hi, Andrew. Andrew, if you can... Yeah. Maybe build on that you've already told me in the past, but if I'm losing interest in my object of meditation, because I've sat a lot today and my actual level of being able to stay with the object has been almost non-reliant for the most part, I wonder if you could give me some advice on that, please. So just to make sure I understand correctly, you're saying that you want to know how to generate interest in your object in meditation.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, thank you. Okay. So, generating interest in your object in meditation is first and foremost bringing in a little more attention to your object. If you're starting to lose interest in your object, what's going to happen is the mind is going to start to sway towards either sloth and torpor and restlessness. So first and foremost, you want to make sure that you bring a little bit more attention.

And by doing so, you're also bringing a little bit more energy and you're bringing a little bit more interest naturally. But the other thing you want to bring in is little bits of joy. So you want to bring a little bit of enjoyment in that process. So by doing that, you're going to continue to maintain interest in your object. Okay, thank you very much. That makes a lot of sense, actually. Thank you. You know how they say they use mindfulness meditation to cure or to treat as a secondary treatment addiction. Is there anything like addiction to meditation or over meditation? Say, for example, using meditation to replace sleep, for example.

Using meditation to replace sleep. Yeah, instead of sleeping, meditating, because you get that calmness, that feeling of ananda. Yeah. Number one, I would not initially recommend anyone to replace their sleep with meditation from the beginning. But what will happen is as you start to enjoy your meditation, you start to get higher levels of energy and you get even deeper levels of calm and rest. So you notice that you need less sleep naturally.

The mind needs less sleep because it's first of all getting deeper amounts of sleep. So it's the quality of sleep that is important too. And that's because there's less concerns, there's less worries, there's less anxiety. There's less restlessness and all the other things that you deal with during the meditation process. So you're able to sleep quicker, sleep faster and deeper, and that's why you don't require as much sleep.

Now, if you want to replace your sleep altogether, I wouldn't recommend it. The body still, for the time being, requires some amount of rest. What will happen, though, is when you get into higher stages like the eighth level of meditation in neither perception or non-perception, on a neuroscientific level, what is happening is you are starting to create more delta brainwaves. Actually, first you're bringing in more alpha and then you're bringing in more theta, which is associated with the dream-like state.

that dreamlike quality to the uh eighth level to know the perception and perception and then as you get deeper you got you get into delta which is associated with deep sleep so this is the reason why it would be beneficial to uh meditate much deeper because it allows you to have less amount of sleep but while you're having less amount of sleep you're having much deeper quality of sleep now in terms of addiction i would consider any kind of attachment to the meditation process initially in the beginning to be wholesome in that it generates interest it generates enjoyment and so you start to progress faster but what happens is you start to notice that the meditation itself and this is much later on especially when you get into uh different levels of awakening which is that you start to notice that even these jhana states, these states of meditation, are created by formations.

So there's a deeper level of what these meditative states are like. And so one starts to detach the interest in them. One starts to see that even these states, because they are created by formations, are not the ultimate. They're not the unconditioned. They're not nibbana. to it. But in the initial stages, it's quite natural to be, let's say, addicted to the meditation. I'm paraphrasing here, but from what I understand, there is somewhere in the suttas where Ananda talks to the Buddha about a different sect who says that all day long, all that the Buddhist monks do is meditate and they seem addicted to their practice, they seem addicted to their joy.

And Buddha says, that's good. You should be addicted to the joy of jhana. You should be addicted to the pleasures that you experience in jhana, because it's not creating any harm. It's not creating any kind of karma, any kind of imbalancing karma. Because the moment you start to take pleasure in the senses, you start to lose your mindfulness and you start to crave. Is craving for jhana. That's the fetters of craving for existence and craving for non-existence and so on. But in the initial stages, it's quite important to have that interest in the jhanas because that's going to help you progress.

And then it'll be quite natural for you to see through the jhanas. You don't need to do it now. You just need to allow your mind to continue to really soak in the factors of the jhana, really enjoy it. And then as you progress, naturally there will be an inclination towards understanding that even the jhanas are fabricated, even the jhanas are created by formations, and you'll lose any attachment to them. Thank you.

I would be interested in your opinion. How does this connection between mind and body work in a sense of healing? For example, I don't know how to explain, because I realized it. I wonder if when you get more sensitive to your body, when you get more aware, and actually when you get detached, you feel your body more and you sense some things going on that maybe you didn't sense before. And sometimes it feels like there are processes that are kind of... I don't know the expression... that have started to form that were not forming before. In a sense, let's say, if your body starts healing better. If there is an experience with this... I wonder, not that I know of firsthand, but I have heard that meditation helps in terms of healing, especially, obviously, mental trauma, healing mental addiction, as we just talked about, healing a lot of different things associated in the mental realm.

On the physical level, even on the mental level, these are all karmic factors, of all of these mental addictions, letting go of all of these traumas that need to be healed. And the healing process really is the understanding and letting go process. So on the mental level, there's a forgiveness aspect of it. But on the physical level, that is something you would have to look at for yourself. But this is a very good point that just was brought up. Even the Buddha couldn't heal his back pains, and staying mindful.

So the idea that you can heal yourself faster and things like that, as I said, on the mental level, you can heal traumas by letting go of them. You can heal mental afflictions by letting go of them. But there are certain things on the physical level that might just have to go through, you just have to go through them. But what's important to see is there's a sutta about that, actually, the physical and the mental.

There's the physical pain that's there, and then there's the mental reaction to that pain that causes further anguish, that causes further suffering. But for the arahant, while there might be physical discomfort, the dart, the arrow, or the dart it's called, while there is physical affliction in the body, for the arahant there's no mental reaction to that. It's just let go of. So to know and understand is how does one take the painful feeling, how does one see the painful feeling and make sure that one doesn't attach to it, because if you have to go through it in terms of your old karma, let's say in terms of the effects of that old karma, the only thing you can do is allow it to be worn down, allow it to be experienced without. But actually, as I understand, even when you relax your body with meditation and that it's tranquil, you reduce the stress and everything.

This is very important for healing. This is probably... Yeah, there must be some causal link, perhaps, when it comes to relaxing the body. For example, you have... stress hormones, cortisol, and things like that. So yes, indeed, with relaxing the body, relaxing the mind, it releases certain neurotransmitters and certain chemicals that would reduce stress, would reduce the stress hormone cortisol. So I would give you that. Yeah, because actually I read about some people that through kind of meditation, I guess, reconstructed their back injury, even when they were paralysed, how to say, when they couldn't feel the body and so on. Yeah. But it's probably more exceptions. Well, I'll tell you, drawing parallels with the Buddha, for example, when he had back pain, like you just saw, he couldn't really heal them.

But what he could do is get into jhana states, and he could get into certain states related to the arahant, find relief from that back pain by not feeling it, meaning just finding relief. Like, for example, when you get into the fourth jhana, you start to lose sensation with the body. And so there might be pain there, but you start to lose any kind of sensation of that pain in the body. So there are certain suttas or traditions which say that the Buddha would be doing that whenever he had back pain.

And he was also obviously not resistant to the idea of using conventional medicines, or using medicines in general, to heal pain as well. It has to be a holistic approach, basically. Somebody else said, friend Visaka, the underlying tendency to lust does not have to be abandoned in regard to all pleasant feeling. Okay, so that was just in regard to what I was talking about, where you can take pleasure in the pleasant feeling of jhana.

Anyway, so going back to your question, I would say that, yes, relaxing would start to reduce the stress hormone. But in terms of reconstructing back surgeries and things like that, that is quite interesting. I've not heard of this meditation doing something like that, but that is quite interesting. Okay, thank you. Can I ask a question? Yeah. So I've been just thinking about this feedback that you gave me about relationships helping you see your attachments. And so I was thinking about my kids and just kind of asking myself, okay, what am I holding on to in my daughter, for instance? Just an illusion? And then I also, I guess that's one question: is my concept of her just a concept, and is there the attachment, maybe of greed, or the, or I guess the hindrance of greed there, of wanting to have more time with her or things like that? I guess I'm just trying to unravel this attachment.

So I, yeah. Go ahead. No, I think that's my question. So I want to turn that over its head, because what I'm referring to when I say relationships help you reveal your attachments. What I mean by that is not just your relationships with your friends and your family, because you have to see that even in the mundane right view, it says that there is mother and father and there are duties to mother and father. And on a broader level, that's really about maintaining good relationships with not just your mother and father, but with people who brought you up, people who are in your family and so on and so forth. So when I refer to attachments, what I'm referring to more is how do the people in your family, when they do certain things, bring out a reaction in you?

So in essence, if there is something that one of your family members does that creates irritation in you, that creates frustration in you, and so on, those are the attachments you should be looking at. So I'm always talking about, in that reference, to the standpoint from the mental side in your own mind, to unwholesome qualities of mind that arise because of things that family members do or because of things that certain friends do.

Okay, I see. Yeah. Makes sense. What about the idea of it being an illusion? What is an illusion? In what reference? My idea, let's say, of my daughter. Well, there are certain images you have brought up about your daughter based on your experiences with her. And this actually goes broader to our interactions with everyone, our interactions with people. It's a matter of understanding how our concepts of those people are in our mind. Because based on our experiences with them in the past, we start to build up an image of a sense of self around them. And so that always is like a filtration process, that whenever we see them, we have this idea that this is how they're going to react and this is how they are and so on and so forth.

I'll give you a very plain example. Think about when you met someone after a long time, after graduating high school, and they were both in your class or you were friends in high school. Say you meet them 10 years after graduation, and it's the first time you've met them after 10 years. You still have some kind of a notion of what kind of person they are. And then you have a cognitive dissonance, because you realize, wait, that person has changed. They're no longer the same person.

So in the same way, and it's a little more difficult with family members because you're always dealing with them, it starts to get built up that this is the person that is always like this, always behaves, and so on, rather than allowing your mind to just be clear and allowing your mind to just be attentive and see what is happening without projecting onto it any judgments based out of those concepts and ideas. Yeah, that makes sense, to see without the dust in our eyes. Exactly, exactly. That's exactly it. Somebody says you might share genetics with family, but it was just some being that entered this mentality-materiality of, quote-unquote, your baby, for instance.

Being traveling in samsara, just like we all are, it might even have been your worst enemy in a past life. Like the Buddha says, everybody you meet in your path, you have met before in some regard or another. They could have been your mother, they could have been your father, they could have been your enemy, they could have killed in a past life. It could be anything. But what's important now, after understanding that and understanding that everyone we meet has a karmic connection with us, how then do we separate the idea of what that person is in the present life so that it doesn't produce further karmic backlash?

Also animals. Yeah, that's a good point. Thank you. - Nelson, I want to go for another question. - Of course. - Okay, maybe this, I'll ask the question. The question is, you were saying about psychic powers, right? Like one can go to, one can able to see his past lives, or one can read others' minds. My question is, how can one confirm that, how can one verify that whatever he is seeing in past life is true, or whatever he is reading in other people's minds is true? Yeah, is it just intuition or... Yeah. So in terms of past lives, when you are seeing past lives, what you are doing is actually starting to understand, on a broader scale, dependent origination.

The reason why you go into past lives is to understand how the formations arose because of certain karmic connections. And then you can draw on those formations to see if they are still present in this life, through whatever actions have been done in past lives. So you might understand and verify based on what you see in those past lives and how the links of dependent origination continue on through each life, and so on and so forth, and how they carry forward karma through the formations up until this lifetime, and what certain formations are still there that you need to let go of. That's really the usage or the utility of understanding past lives.

And then when it comes to, let's say, reading another's mind, it's very much like being empathetic. It's really understanding where they're coming from, but on a much deeper level. And so it happens, while it could happen in silence, but it might most probably happen while you're having a conversation with that person. And you get a sense of that person's mindset and then are able to communicate in a way that will help you to ease their mind if it's uneasy, or clarify situations if you can see that there are doubts in their mind, and so on. So again, that's the usage of that. You wouldn't use these things just for fun. [Pause in recording.] Okay, I'll wait for 30 more seconds. And then after that, we can share that. All right, everybody can come unmute and let's share it together, please. This merit that we have. Thank you.