"Gates of Liberation" Sunday Sutta Series with Delson Armstrong

Since I'm going to be off to retreat next week, and it's going to be about the Gates of Liberation, people have been asking, what does that mean? What are the Gates of Liberation? Is that something you made up? Is that something from Mahayana? What is it? I want to back it up. Everything I talk about is, or can be, backed up by a sutta. So it's called Samyutta Nikaya 43.4. And here, in the Bhikkhu Bodhi version, it's called Emptiness Concentration, or Emptiness Meditation, let's say. And it's very short. As you can see, it's very short. So it will be a quick discussion on this.

And the Buddha says, "And what is the path leading to the unconditioned? The emptiness meditation, the signless meditation, and the undirected meditation. This is the path leading to the unconditioned." So what do we mean by the unconditioned? We're referring here to Nibbana or the Nibbana dhatu. I can just stop sharing, because that's basically the sutta, and I can start explaining. So these three kinds of meditation, or gates, allow us to experience the unconditioned, the Nibbana dhatu. They are a realization that arises from the realization of the three characteristics.

So when you think about the three characteristics, and you see the three characteristics in terms of the experience of them, you actually regard all objects as impermanent, leading to suffering, or empty. You can access one or more of these gates. And as I've said before, these three gates or doors are three doors leading to the same room, as the Buddha says, to the unconditioned.

The unconditioned, that's an interesting word. The word unconditioned comes from the word asankhata, or asankhata, and asankhata is actually derived from the word sankhara. We generally translate sankhara as formations, but I think another way of translating formations, or sankhara, is mental impressions. And you see this in other traditions when they talk about samskaras, which is the Sanskrit for the Pali sankhara. And what we're saying is the unconditioned is that space in which no mental impressions give rise to any kind of perception or feeling. That unconditioned space has no predictive modeling. You know, there's a scientist named Ruben Laconen, who was one of the lead researchers in Amsterdam, who did this study of cessation, and what does cessation look like? And I think he also worked in partnership with the Harvard study about cessation.

So in the one in Amsterdam, they used EEG, and the one in Harvard, they actually used MRI, fMRI. And I think I've given David a copy of the research paper, so he may want to link it on the website or on the YouTube. It's very scientific and academic, so I don't know anything about what it says, but it might be something of interest for some of you. But what Ruben was talking about is something called predictive modeling.

In terms of sutta language, that's really referring to perception and feeling, and primarily perception, because we talk about perception being rooted in the memory of our experiences. So as our memories continue to change over time, as we continue to pick up new experiences, our perceptions of reality continue to change. So what we see as reality is not reality.

It is our perception of reality. There is no objective reality that we can say is definitively objective. We are only seeing it from our sense bases, from our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, and any level of perception that arises is dependent upon those particular sense bases. So how do we access, then, a space where we don't have any predictive modeling? Because the idea of predictive modeling is: I know, or my brain knows, what it's seeing based on previous experiences, and it really shuffles everything in our mind to predict that this is what's going to happen. But in the unconditioned space, that's not the case.

And you see this in the case of Majjami Nikaya I. That's one of the more challenging suttas to talk about or to read itself. And that is the root of all things. It's called the root of all things, or Mula Pariya Sutta. And in there, the Buddha talks about somebody who is awakened. perception of somebody seeing earth uh in earth water in water fire and fire and so on but what it's talking about is this conceiving idea this conceptual framework this conceptual proliferation whereas somebody who's awakened um just sees earth as earth not earth as in earth not in relation to a self not in relation to a duality between me and the world there is just a flow of experience

without an experiencer, without the sense of a center point in which there is me that is experiencing this. And that is as close to the unconditioned as you can get. So, the contact, now I'm going to refer to another couple of suttas. There is the Kamabhu Sutta. I think there's the Godatta Sutta. Majjhima Nikaya 43, the Culavedalla, the smaller questions and answers, or it could be the greater questions and answers, either one. But it's the dialogue between Sariputta and Mahakotthita.

And there, that's where he talks about, when one makes contact with the Nibbana dhatu, what is it that one is experiencing? As one comes out, what is it that one is experiencing? And he says that there are three types of contact that come about. Those contacts are the signless contact, the undirected contact, and the void or emptiness contact.

Now, we can actually reverse engineer this, and in fact, this is what the sutta is pointing out, to the one that I'm talking about today: reverse engineering that process. The key lies in the perception or understanding of the three characteristics. But those are dependent upon the perception and understanding of causality and conditionality. So there are, in general, these six or seven levels of perception.

The first level of perception, that most people don't talk about, is actually causality and conditionality, which starts the whole process: origination. With the arising of this, there is the arising of that. With the passing away of this, there is the passing away of that. When one sees this, then one experiences and realizes impermanence. And the translation of impermanence is not a good translation, because you go back to the original Pali, anicca, and the Sanskrit, which is anitya. It actually means unstable.

It's a level of instability. Reality, as we know it, as we see it, as we experience it through the sense bases, is unstable, is unreliable. We obviously are not experiencing a level of psychosis where things are changing all the time. But we are in this consensus reality where we all agree that this is the color red, this is sweetness. And it's just by recognition and perception and feeling that we have these experiences. But that process of seeing it as impermanent, or unstable, or seeing the instability of that, is dependent upon seeing that everything we're experiencing is arising due to these interdependencies.

If I close my eyes, I can't see any of you right now. And that is because there's no contact between my eyes and the screen. So it is dependent on my eyes making contact with the screen, and the corresponding eye consciousness, for me to be aware of what it is that I am seeing. And that is the attention directed towards the screen, which is dependent upon my intention to pay attention, to watch and see the screen before me.

This dependency creates the experience of seeing. Contact, eye contact, dependent upon my eyes, the eye consciousness, and the color and form that is making contact, or being made contact with, gives rise to the experience of seeing. This, then, I realize that things are always changing. And sometimes, when you are in that space of infinite consciousness, whether in meditation, or in a formal sitting meditation, or when you're walking around, you start to see the flickering in the eyes, or you start to hear the fluttering in the sounds, and things like that. Now you're starting to see that, actually, yes, reality is unstable. The notion of what we see as reality is unstable.

And so when we do this, we start to see the suffering of this. The immediate suffering is that, whoa, this is crazy. What's going on? This is really destabilizing. It's uncomfortable. But then the greater suffering, or the suffering that we're referring to here, is the realization that this is actually tiresome. No matter what I try to do, it's going to be like this, and I can't do anything about it. And that gives the realization of the emptiness of self. I think I'm in control. I think that my perception of reality is dependent upon how I control it.

But really, I am beholden. The sense of I is beholden to whatever is going on with the sense bases. There's nothing we can actually be in control of. This gives the realization or understanding of anatta, not self. So in this case, what we're saying here is the realization of anicca, which is dependent upon the realization of dependent origination, gives rise to the recognition of suffering.

The perception of this suffering gives rise to the fact that I'm not in control here. This is not me, not myself, which then gives rise, if done in a way that is in that order and in a way where the mind is letting go, to equanimity. The perception of equanimity, which is the synonym for yathabhuta nanadassanam, the knowledge and vision of things as they are, or as close to as they are.

This gives rise to the perception of disenchantment, which gives rise to the perception of dispassion, which gives rise to the perception of cessation. So the equanimity gives rise to disenchantment with things, with people, with relationships, with engagement with the outside world or the inner world, in terms of our minds and what they're experiencing in meditation.

And now we start to disengage. We pull back. We become free of any kind of ruffling that might come and go. And this results in, or is a realization of, dispassion, completely dropping all notions, all concepts, all conditions. This is actually the path that's abbreviated in this particular sutta. This understanding of cessation is that we are free, in that moment, of conditioned reality, and our minds have the capacity to make contact with the Nibbana dhatu. So, coming back to the three characteristics and their connection with the three gates or the three doors.

The experience of seeing impermanence results in, and this happens specifically, I would say, for more advanced practitioners. Because you don't want to destabilize your meditation by saying, okay, if everything is impermanent, why meditate? No, no, no, no. This is the wrong idea. You need the foundation of something to collect the mind first. And this is where metta comes in. This is where karuna comes in. This is where joy comes in. This is where equanimity comes in. Something that allows the mind to be stabilized into. Because once you have that stability, then you can see. Factors of awakening, collectedness leads to equanimity. This is why collectedness leads to yathabhuta nanadassanam. So in the case of the seven factors of awakening, leading to equanimity, in the case of the transcendental links, leading to knowledge and vision of things as they actually are.

So you need good collectedness. Once you have that, then you get deeper. You have the samatha, and now you're getting the engagement of the vipassana. By the realization that all objects within conditioned reality are ultimately dependent upon causes and conditions. Being dependent on causes and conditions, therefore, I let go of all objects and I get into what's known as the objectless collectedness of mind.

The animitta samadhi. The signlessness of mind. The signless collectedness of mind. I'm here, there's nothing for me to do in this space. My mind is not looking outward, is not looking inward, is not staying in between the two. All notions, all objects, all concepts collapse, and there is, for lack of a better term, pure awareness. And we don't mean pure awareness in terms of the universal consciousness. There is just pure awareness that, like a light, continues to go into space without landing on anything, thereby there being no object for it to land upon, thereby there being no signs for it to land upon. This is in the signless collectedness.

Now, the second door, the realization that every intention that we bring about, not even just in meditation, intention to sit down and be in metta. I have an intention to be in quiet mind. I have an intention to be in infinite space. I have an intention to watch my breath, whatever it is, but also in life. I have an intention to go to California from now until Tuesday. I have all these steps to take to get to California, and I'm not trying to make Jordan nervous here, but anything can happen. Right? We might have to make a crash landing somewhere. And I might end up in Nova Scotia. And I'm going to have to find out a way to get all the way to California.

Anything can happen. My intentions are one thing. But the externalities, the causes and conditions that are concurrent with that intention, might actually be stopping that intention from flowing. Being dependent upon the mind, being dependent upon the nama-rupa and consciousness, when that attention goes away, that intention might go as well. When that consciousness departs, that intention departs likewise. With anything in relation to the meditation, I make an intention to do something, I'm met with some kind of resistance. I want to be in the first jhana. I want to be in the third jhana. I want to be in infinite space.

But then I'm met with hindrances, through no fault of my own necessarily, through no doing of my own. And therefore we see that all intentions ultimately lead to some level of dissatisfaction. Because even if it's a happy goal that I'm going after, even though it's a wholesome goal that I'm going after, even though the destination will be wonderful.

Still dependent upon causes and conditions. One day, the person or people in my life will be gone. One day, the relationships that I have will be gone. One day, the house that I live in, I won't live in any longer. One day, this body that I have right now will continue to age to the point that it's no longer the same body.

So everything changes. And my intentions also lead to decay. When I realize that, I drop all intentions. And this is what we mean by undirectedness. I let go of the desire to control the outcome of the meditation and, on a larger scale, my life. Not out of some nihilistic sort of notion, not out of some kind of apathetic, like nothing matters, but more of I see that I'm trying too hard. Again, this is for very advanced practitioners.

When you get to that space, it's like, now I don't need to do so much. A lot of you have been on a retreat with me. What is the one thing I say to all of you as one of my final instructions? Don't do anything. Undirected meditation. This is the undirected collectedness. Letting go. And so the realization of every intention ultimately leading to dissatisfaction helps me let go of the desire to control how the meditation should go. And this ultimately takes me to the same space and experience as pure awareness.

These are the signless collectedness of mind. Finally, when we talk about the third door, that is the emptiness of mind, the emptiness meditation, that's shunyata, voidness. That is from a direct realization of anatta, the realization of not-self. Likewise with my feeling or experiences, perceptions, intentions, or formations, and awareness or consciousness. So that's one type of practice that you can do that leads you to the experience of emptiness. Now, when we do Majjhima Nikaya 148, the six sets of six, it's all laid out there: the realization of each of the sense bases, the contact of each of the sense bases. The consciousness is dependent upon each of the sense bases.

The feeling dependent upon each of the sense bases. And the craving itself is seen as impermanent. Seen as liable to cause suffering. Is seen as not me, not my, not myself. And therefore, what does it say in that sutta? He becomes disenchanted with the eye. Disenchanted with the ear. The nose, disenchanted with the tongue, disenchanted with the body, disenchanted by the mind. Being this enchanted, he becomes dispassioned through this passion and non-clinging. He is liberated. His mind ceases. So these are the three gates that we're talking about that lead to the unconditioned, and the whole sort of expiration of the retreat will be. If this is something that you want to do even in your own life, you can, outside of retreat, but the retreat setting is just for those who want to really focus on this topic and explore it further. Is actually what I call nirvanizing life, bringing the unconditioned experience into everyday life.

And this is what's known as tathata, right? We talk about the Tathagata. What is the Tathagata? The Tathagata is a name for the Buddha. And it means the thus gone one. Or the one who has returned from. Returned from what? That. What is that? That is the unconditioned. The refuge. Nibbana. The one that is beyond. And so that usually is translated as thusness, tathata. But it is actually thatness.

The quality of that unconditioned element, bringing it into everyday life, should be a worthy goal for all of us. So that once we start to become more relaxed into everyday life, into the moments of everyday life, every moment remains in some sense detached from conditions. Even though they arise and pass away, that way, the dustness, as they say, the suchness, as they say, is that possibility of bringing Nibbana in everyday life. When we do this, this is what is truly the third noble truth, the cessation of suffering.

Otherwise, why then would the Buddha say, if there was not that space, that unconditioned, uncreated, unformed, outside of the death and birth sequence, the deathless? I would not refer to that. But he's not talking about some space we continue to access through our meditation. He's talking about the true nature of reality beyond the dependent version, which is independent. And the only thing that is independent is unconditioned, and the only thing that is unconditioned is an abamantatu. And imagine, in the sense of seeing for yourself, thinking about that as a motivating factor, but not making it into a concept.

The ability to function from the Nibbana Dhatu, the ability to function from the Nibbana Dhatu, is the awakening of intuition and working directly with the intuitive mind. So this is how we can do this, right? This is why I say it's for more advanced practitioners. And I only say that because most people who start off in the meditation, this is all deep water stuff. It's like, okay, what are you talking about? But once you start to experience these states, then you're starting to realize, okay, now I can refine my practice. And this is how I refine it.

We're not talking about some kind of underlying consciousness that is the substrate of reality, and that is the Nibbana Dhatu, which is accessible here and now through the process of letting go, detachment, and non-clinging. I will stop there. Any questions? Yes, Quilleen. I've done some really long retreats, like three months or so. I did a three-month retreat, Utasiania style, where what you're doing with the mind at the beginning of practice is whatever is obvious. You're just following whatever is obvious. And that ain't easy because you want to direct it.

And so there's a point. It's not like a point, or at least it wasn't for me. It just happened. It's just happening naturally, and when that's happening, something interesting happens with the senses. I never had this all the time or anything, but the senses, like you hear with your eye, or a sound hits your cheek, it's like, and I suppose you could imply, you could say that eventually you just grok all the senses are on, and you're knowing, which is not the same as in this state. I'm not thinking, okay, I'm seeing, okay. But so, and then at some point, I don't have the skill to say, okay, now I'm in a signless state or something, but it does seem as if they all merge.

You're just in this state. I've just been with a two-year-old who asks why a lot. Why do I come back from that? Where are you? Oh, there you are. Yeah, why? And I don't do anything to come back. I probably do, but it's lunch, the bell rings, it's time to eat. So now I'm paying attention to my food. Yeah.

This is a good question, actually, a very good question, because what you're referring to, when you talk about it, makes me think back to one of my favorite suttas, which is the Bahiya Sutta, because of the instruction he gives there, right? In the seeing, there's only the seeing, in the hearing, there's only the heard, and so on. That's the, let's say, flow of sense experiences. There's no sort of, okay, now I'm hearing, now I'm seeing, now I'm tasting. field in some sense. And that's a practice. That's a practice, and then that becomes an experience.

But I think ultimately it's not something that we can shift into permanently. I think it's something that we can continue to access over and over and over. And it happens when the thinking mind, to be very simplistic, left brain mind, which is analytical and kind of like, okay, now I got to do this, now I got to do this, shuts off or takes a pause. And there is more of a right brain kind of mind, which is in the flow of things. And I think the meditation allows us to access that more and more. And sometimes anything that we're doing gets us into that flow. So when we snap out of it and there's something going on, like the lunch or some thought, our sort of best mode of action would be to pay attention to that.

And I think it's more about surrendering. And I haven't said this much, but I was talking about a lot of this in the retreat in Austria, and I'm planning to do that now next week, is that it's a process of surrendering our analytical thinking processes in the mind to the space where there's just experience. So it's the cessation of the analytical perception, which is the conceptual proliferation that I was referring to, and letting that kind of fade, letting that melt into kind of momentary awareness as things continue.

But coming back to what you asked, which is why is it that I'm not able to be there all the time? I think it's because there's always this sort of sometimes left brain, sometimes right brain kind of maneuvering that's happening. And sometimes we need to be in the left brain more. We need to be able to do our taxes or speak to somebody or whatever it is.

Does that mean that we've lost that experience? No. It just means that that can be our home base in which we can relax back into. So I'm misunderstanding, understanding or misdefining fully enlightened as being in that state all the time, where really it's being able to appropriately respond all the time or more than I do, shall we say? Yeah, yeah. At least this is how you know, because you, I, one, always seems to have an idea of what this definition means before you've had it, but, and it's usually incorrect, and this is what I'm just offering to you guys. Yeah, that's brilliant. It's not, doesn't get by me that we cannot listen to this talk again, and I want to. All right, thank you, Delson, very much. Brian, Brian, are you there?

Oh, you're on mute. Now can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Oh, okay. I was talking about disenchantment and dispassion. It doesn't mean we can't enjoy things. It seems like it means that you just stop seeking them because it's not really the ultimate thing. Is that how it works? Natural process that arises from seeing that as I continue to try to control something, I'm going to be met with resistance, and then therefore I just stop this process of trying to control everything, and I become disenchanted from looking for a certain outcome, and I disengage my mind from that, and I become dispassionate. Like you said, it doesn't mean that we cannot enjoy things. It doesn't mean that we are not able to enjoy things. It just means that I let go of my desire to control. Well, we do control a car. I mean, we're talking about something else here when I say control. We're talking about our ability to

let go of what we think the meditation should be, of what we think an outcome should be. Oh okay, yeah. And then the other one was, when you mentioned you don't land on anything, so let's say we're meditating and thoughts are arising but they come and go, so that's not landing on them, right? You're not landing on them if you're watching them come and go. Uh, yes and no. Yes, although you're landing on them for a moment. Yeah. Yeah. But what I'm referring to is a space in which the mind is, for practical purposes, completely in flow. So yes, in one sense, one layer of that is just seeing the arising and passing away of thoughts.

But a more refined layer is where there's just awareness that's flowing with all sense experiences. Because what happens is there is a reflexiveness of the mind, which is always trying to conceive what is it that's going on, and that's what takes us out from that flow to see what's going on. Yeah, you're not interested in what's going on anymore, right? Uh, David, thank you again for the wonderful exposition of that sutta, Delson. Um, like Quilly said, definitely worth listening to again. Two questions. One is, I find my first sitting of the day in the morning, right when I wake up. My mind just wants to sit there. It doesn't want to bring up metta.

It doesn't want to do it. It just, like you said, almost that sit-in awareness. It's quiet. It's very still, like just EQ. To my mind, that's what I feel like I should be doing. Your advice? I think when we do this, we have to be very attentive to what's going on, because sometimes we don't want to do anything and our mind says, I just want to rest and sit. And there is a distinction, because sometimes the mind can go into sloth and torpor. But having said that, I think the caveat here is if you are someone who has an everyday practice,

A consistent practice, a daily practice. And you're able to listen to your mind and say, today it wants to do that. Today it wants to just sit. And in that sitting, there's just an ease of relaxing and being in, as you say, equanimity. Great. And see if any adjustments need to be made. And if there aren't, just be in that awareness.

Okay, excellent. Yeah, I find it'll want to stay there prior to getting up. When I'm going into the world is when I'll bring up metta, because I know I'm gonna have to start interacting with people and that kind of thing, and that's sort of more appropriate. So thank you. Second one is, I found very beneficial throughout my life the body scanning practice that Goenka popularized, because I'm very, it brings up, I'm able to see the flow, the anicca, very easily, and from that I find the disenchantment arise from that, because you just see the changing, changing, whether it's waves, particles, and just the, it becomes so tiresome. The part of it.

In terms of, I guess, how it relates with TWIM, because I find in the TWIM community we're very much, this is the one way, that uh, John, yada yada... How do you find the marriage of those two types of practices? I think it's a shift in technique more than anything else, and those who really know me know that I'm not dogmatic about one way or the other. But I see a marriage in the sense that the TWIM methodology is about having a more relaxed perspective on the experience.

And this might be something that can be beneficial, even for Vipassana, pure Vipassana, even for, you know, Goenka or Mahasi style Vipassana. Because actually, when we talk about the six R's, which is another strategy that we use, we're already using Vipassana because we're recognizing what's happening in the moment. And then we're just allowing ourselves to relax. So what you're doing by kind of watching, using the body scan, the sensations is just a strategy and a gateway into the experience of, as you said, anicca, dukkha, and anatta. But we want to go beyond that into that space of equanimity of all formations.

So that space where the mind is completely unmoving and remains quiet. And so relaxing is actually a great marriage for that, because relaxing kind of helps accelerate that process. What happens is there can be a tendency for us to become very focused on these sensations or very focused on the moment itself. And that's getting into, again, simplistic terms, more left brain trying versus right brain seeing and observing and relaxing.

Yeah, no, thank you for that. Because to me, I do see that relaxing step in there, because with the scanning, eventually, in my experience, and usually on longer retreats using that technique, it comes to that still, quiet mind, where it's almost like just a different way to get there. And just a side note, I was watching an interview with Bikulana Layo this past week. At the end of the interview, his advice to yogis was relax, smile. And I'm like, man, dude's co-opting that stuff. And I've heard that a couple other teachers use that. So I just wanted to give props to Bhante V for the work he did. Okay, thank you, Delson. Thank you. Inez.

Thank you for the Dhamma talk. So my question regards the Nibbanic element, the Nibbana Datu. So is the Nibbana Datu some sort of ground awareness? And by awareness, I don't mean by this dualistic awareness based on subject and object, but some sort of space or awareness for lack of better terminology that has the quality of knowing. Yeah, this is a good question. My experience and realizations, so take it with a grain of salt, is that itself does not have the quality of knowing, but it gives the nature of knowing to everything else. So to basically talk about it would be that it is a substrate of all reality. into, but it is from where all creation, all consciousness sort of arises in this iteration of existence, in this iteration of this particular universe or however we want to put it.

What I would call that is para-conscious, or para-consciousness. In other words, it's beyond the notions of dualistic consciousness, but in itself it does not have the nature of knowing. It just provides the illumination of knowing. So then, if I may ask, if it does not have the quality of knowing, how can any experience be known? Because that's the purpose, right? The knowing happens as a result of making contact with it. In other words, if you go back into the reflexive awareness of, "I made contact with it and I saw it," then that is consciousness in very dualistic terms that arises. But if we say that that substrate is knowing itself, what is that dependent upon? Yes. Can the knowing happen by itself, knowing but of nothing whatsoever, just the pure signless collectiveness of life, the knowing without any knowledge, knowing without any thing to know about? Yes. And that is still not nibbana, right? This is like the gate into it. Yes. Okay. So one relaxes and doesn't do anything. Yes. Thank you. Hi.

Hi, Delson, David, Kirsten. Hello, everyone. Savvy here. I have a, it might be a fairly plain question, but as a person who is very involved in lay life, a business owner, a daughter, a dog mom, all of the roles and the hats that I typically wear. I take precepts every morning. I meditate for an hour to two hours a day. And I'm very aware of when these concepts arise in my daily living, but I still find myself kind of going back into autopilot a lot of the time, where I'm not being super present or aware of what I'm doing or how I'm speaking. I was wanting to know if you had any advice on that, or if this was just like mindfulness, like remembering to come back? Yeah, this is interesting, because we have a friend of TWIM, her name is Yi Shui, and she actually came up with a video about different techniques of mindfulness.

And she talked about something known as the reverse Pomodoro technique. In other words, when we are working too much, when we're getting so caught up in things, we're kind of not aware of our surroundings and whatever is going on. So we have a timer that lets us know, hey, take a break from what you're doing in this moment.

And where's your mind? What's happening in your body, becoming more embodied in that moment? So maybe creating timers, reminders in that sense, will help us kind of jumpstart that process. But it is, as you say, your second point, a developing of mindfulness, of returning back to the present moment and asking yourself, how do I feel in this moment? What's going on with my body? What's going on with my thoughts and mind? Okay, great. Yeah, because I can usually recognize when the autopilot is happening, but if I'm busy or really concentrating on something, I'm like, I don't have time to pause. Yeah, but that makes... So if I am recognizing, even if I'm in conversation with someone or doing something, I can internally take a step back.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. It's so nice to see you. You too. Oh, another question. The questions never cease. Everything else ceases, but never the questions. David. A 16-minute, 40-second time, or 1,000 seconds. And when that goes off, I just click and touch it. But it's just for one breath, or longer if I have the time. But just to always have that reminder all day, every day: come back, come back, come back. Because as lay people, it's so easy to get drawn off into the world and you forget about everything.

Yeah, so great tip, Nelson. That's great, David. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to see if there's any questions in the... There's quite a few comments. Would learning to go backwards through the jhanas be helpful for stabilizing the mind overall? Can you give some practice on how to do that? For some people, the mind appears to want to move only forwards.

Yeah, the backwards-forwards thing will happen later on, when you're more stabilized in the jhanas. So as you say, for most people, or for some people, the mind appears to want to move only forward through the jhanas. And in general, we want to do that. But stabilizing the mind overall is a practice of not just jhana practice, but also mindfulness practice. So we can have great stabilized minds in the meditation, but what do we do outside of that? And that's the process of mindfulness. Practical tips on how to do this. There is, if you are interested, and it just depends on your inclination, because it requires some degree of investment of your time, energy and inclination, a practice of being able to do what's called jhana jumping.

And that's a page on Namasuka, which is called Determinations, I think. You can try that if you want. Expound on the word signless, please. Signless comes from the word animita, which means no signs, or also objectless. Conditioned reality, including metta, including the jhanas, are all dependent, and therefore they are unstable. So we let go of all objects and all signs in that sense. Isn't some kind of fruition attainment needed in order to experience Moka Newsy, what was already mentioned, in everyday life? Maybe, maybe, but I can't tell you for sure. As in reference to everyday nirvana, whatever we want to, this again, maybe, but I think generally it's a good practice overall, and ultimately we will see for ourselves where it takes us. And I think us would suit out, yeah, that's Samyutta Nikaya 43.4. And then where do we find the talks, David? I think you've been... yeah, you've already said that. Yeah, okay, yeah, good. I think we're good to go.

You can share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. 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. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.