Bonhays Day 9 Noble Eight-fold Path Last Day of Retreat

So we made it, we lasted nine days, very good. So what I want to talk about today is the Eightfold Path, because that is really the practice that you will be doing off of retreat. That is the practice that you've been doing throughout this retreat, whether you know it or not. So what are the different factors of the Eightfold Path? One is right view, and there's right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration or right collectedness.

So what is right view? Right view essentially means how you perceive the world, your world perspective. So in order for you to know what right view is, the Sutta says, is that you need to be able to understand what wrong view is in the context of Buddhism. What is wrong view? Wrong view is that there is no meaning in giving. There is no meaning in offering. There is no meaning in sacrifice. There is no meaning in what is provided. That the world is meaningless. That there is no birth, no death, that there is no karma, that there is no mother and father, that there is no teachers who know the Dhamma and can provide it.

What that really essentially means is that it's saying that this world is meaningless. And psychologically, it can create a lot of disharmony in the system. The right view, the mundane right view, says that there is meaning in what is offered, in what is given, and what is sacrificed. In other words, there is meaning in offering generosity, whether it's through our actions, through our resources, through as little as giving a smile to someone. That can be also generosity. Conveying our loving-kindness to someone. That can be our generosity. That there is connection there. Something is happening. And because of that connection, there is an exchange of energy. There's an exchange of ideas.

There's an exchange of karma. That there is meaning in action and consequence. Wholesome karma leads to wholesome consequences. Unwholesome karma leads to unwholesome consequences. So that what we think, what we say, how we act, has a bearing on our future destination, so to speak. What we do now has a direct effect on what we experience later. This is the very basic understanding of karma. It's also the understanding that all of our intentions can manifest in some kind of an experience. If we have unwholesome intentions, then they ricochet off and come back to us in unwholesome consequences. If we have wholesome intentions, then they echo back as wholesome consequences. That there is mother and father. What does that mean?

It means that we have thanks, we have gratitude to our parents. Even if they were terrible parents, we have gratitude that they were able to bring us into this existence for us to experience, or for the potential to experience Nibbana, for us to experience full awakening. So that's what it means when we say that there is mother and father, that there are teachers in this existence that know the Dhamma, that can explain the Dhamma, that can teach the Dhamma. So there is a level of acknowledgement about that. And another aspect is that there is this world and the other. When we say that there is this world and the other, oftentimes what that means for most people is that there is this existence in the human life and that there are other realms out there, that there are other beings and other existences.

That's one level of understanding. Another way of understanding it, that there is this world, which is the five physical sense bases, and there is the other world that can be experienced through the mind in the form of jhana. That is another world. There is this world and the other. So when we see this, when we see that there is a potential for this world to arise, and there's a potential for another world to arise, then what we're saying is that it is possible to experience supermundane states of awareness, supermundane states like jhanas. Now, that's the mundane understanding of right view. Once you get this view straight, everything else comes into being. That right view then gives rise to right intention.

What is right intention? There are three aspects to right intention: renunciation, non-ill will, and non-cruelty. Renunciation doesn't mean that we go out into the forest and become secluded, although we can do that if we want. In fact, we have the sangha, bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, who are the monastics, the monks and the nuns, who forego this world, go forth from the life of a layperson, take on the robes, and continue to meditate in the forest or in the temple or monastery. That's completely fine, but that's one level of renunciation. Oftentimes people will come to me and ask, "Should I become a monk? Do you think it's right for me to become a monk?" And I say that choice is yours, whether you want to be a monk or not.

But just make sure that you don't let go of one identity to take up another identity as a monk. Right? So renunciation goes deeper than just the physical renunciation. Renunciation is renunciation of taking things personally, letting go of me, mine, or myself, taking the self out of the picture, right? So in every experience that you have, what does that mean? Experience everything fully without adding the I to it, without adding me or myself to it. And so that's the beginning of right intention. The second part of right intention is non-ill will. This is cultivated through the practice of loving-kindness. When we generate loving-kindness to ourselves and then when we generate loving-kindness towards others, that starts to grind away at any kind of aversion in the form of irritation, annoyance, frustration, anger, whatever it might be.

And so the perfection of loving-kindness is the complete cessation of, and no more arising of, ill-will. That's what the Buddha said. If you have perfected loving-kindness, then not even an iota of ill will will arise. If it still does, you have work to do. You still have to radiate loving-kindness. You still have to cultivate loving-kindness. What is non-cruelty? So when we say cruelty, it's avihimsa, the intention to harm or to cause harm. And what that means is we are unable to recognize the suffering of others, or if we do recognize suffering in them, we add to their suffering. A very mundane example of this is when you get into an argument, right, and because you don't have any renunciation, let's say, you take it personally what they've said, you're not able to see what they're saying, and you're not able to see that when they get angry, when they speak out of anger, they're speaking actually out of hurt.

That they are suffering. We are blind to that. And in being blind to that, we retaliate. We respond in kind. Right? If they abuse us, we abuse them back. If they shout at us, we shout louder. Right? We try to suppress them, subdue them, because there's the ego involved, the I, me, myself involved in that. How could they say that to me? Don't they know who I am? How could they act this way against me? All of these kinds of rationalizations come up, and then we retaliate, and in retaliating we're adding to their suffering. But if we are able to have compassion, and so the perfection of compassion means that there is total recognition of suffering in all beings.

And therefore, no desire to add to that suffering, but rather to alleviate that suffering. So if somebody gets angry at us, somebody abuses us, somebody shouts at us, what do we do? We recognize that that person is hurt, that that person is suffering. Once we come from that angle of compassion, we let go of our retaliation. We let go of the reactivity in our mind and we respond with wisdom to de-escalate the situation, to calm the other person down, to alleviate their suffering. So that they don't act in a way that causes themselves unwholesome karma either.

So the perfection of compassion is non-cruelty. So this is how you cultivate right intention. Let go of taking things personally, cultivate loving-kindness, and cultivate compassion. The natural fruit of that is, of course, empathetic joy, right, because when we recognize the suffering in others and we wish the alleviation of suffering of all beings everywhere, eventually we recognize that there are some beings who have transcended suffering. There are beings who are experiencing the Dhamma. There are beings who are experiencing jhanas. There are beings who are keeping the precepts. There are beings who have wholesome joy in them, and we recognize that and we connect with that, and we empathize with that joy, and so we experience empathetic joy.

Equanimity arises to give clarity to renunciation, because when we see things as they actually are, we don't take them personally, and we see that this is impermanent, that this is liable to cause suffering, and therefore not me, not mine, or not myself. Then we experience peace of mind. Then we experience equanimity. So it goes hand in hand: the letting go of self in all things gives rise to equanimity, and cultivating equanimity allows us to see things as they actually are, having what is known as yoniso manasikara. Yoniso means the womb, the source, the energy, right, the origin of energy.

And manasikara means attention, paying attention to the source of something. In other words, where is this arising from? And very specifically, what it's talking about is directing the mind towards understanding through the template of dependent origination. On the night of his enlightenment, when the Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi tree, he was contemplating just this. He was using what's known as yoniso manasikara. He would say, in his mind, there is this suffering, there is this aging, there is this death. All kinds of suffering arise in this world. What is the cause? What is the origin from which the suffering arises? And there he was using intuition. This is very important to understand, because this is a practical application of intuition.

If you have choices to make in your life, or if there are answers that you are looking for, you can go through the process of intuition by simply tuning into it. And how do you tune into it? The womb of intuition is the quiet mind. When you tap into the pabhassara citta, the luminous mind, when you tap into the quiet mind, your intuition naturally arises. And then you ask the intuition the question, and you let it go. And you don't reflect on it, you don't analyze it, you don't think about it, you don't try to find a solution to the problem or an answer to the question. You let it go. You leave it to intuition, and you go about your day.

All of a sudden, it will hit you, a eureka moment. This is the answer. This is the solution. Your intuition comes back and delivers the exact information that you need. It might not be the information that you're looking for, but it will be the information appropriate for the situation. So if you have a meditation problem, sure you can email me, that's fine, but how many emails can I answer in a day? Best to ask your intuition when you go into quiet mind and you ask the intuition, what is the reason for this issue in my meditation? What is happening? What am I not looking at? And you let go, go about your day, don't think about it at all, and all of a sudden it'll hit you. Oh, this is what I have to do. Maybe I have to forgive this, or maybe I have to look at this and let that go, whatever it might be. And when you try it, you will see it works

perfectly, so when you are able to cultivate right intention, your intuition will arise because the mind becomes quiet, because you are letting go of the personal self. You are cultivating loving kindness. You're cultivating compassion. You're cultivating empathetic joy. You're cultivating equanimity, which leads to the quiet mind, and through which intuition arises. The one, the being who is fully awakened, they always operate from intuition, always. They never have to think about this, that, or the other, just intuitively responding to every situation.

Now, this right intention gives rise to right speech. Right speech means to refrain from false speech, harsh speech, abusive speech, restless speech, gossip, all kinds of speech, divisive speech that causes harm to oneself and harm to others. So I've basically introduced an acronym that helps you understand this right speech. Remember when people say you should think before you speak, not many people do that, but when we say think before you speak, THINK. So T stands for timeliness. Is it the right time to say what it is that you want to say? Is it the appropriate time? H is for honesty. Is it true what you are going to say? Do you know it to be true or not to be true?

I is intention. What is the intention behind what it is that you want to say? Is it a wholesome intention, or is it an unwholesome intention to manipulate and to divide? N is for necessity. Is it beneficial? Is it necessary for the other person to know what it is that you want to tell them? Or is it not beneficial?

And K is for kindness. Can you say it with loving kindness? Can you have an intention of kindness with whatever it is that you want to say? Now, sometimes I'll get the question, well, what if we have to be stern with people? What if we have to scold our kids? Or what if we have to, we're in the office and we need to reprimand someone? Sure, you can do all of that, but can you do it from a place of kindness? So think before you speak. So every time you want to say something, you can use these filters and notice if it makes sense to say what you want to say. Otherwise, you'll notice most of the time it's not necessary to speak.

And you save so much energy. So right intention gives rise to right speech and right action. Right action is essentially keeping the precepts, abstaining from causing harm to yourself and to other beings, abstaining from any kind of stealing or taking what is not given, and abstaining from any kind of sexual or sensual misconduct.

Now, the abstaining from intoxicants is not in there, but it is implicit in the idea of right mindfulness. If you abstain from intoxicants, your mind will be alert, your mind will be sharp, your mind will be clear. So that is part of right mindfulness. And then we talk about right livelihood. Right livelihood, or right lifestyle, or another way of looking at it, is the right kind of life choices that you make. Very specifically for monastics, right livelihood is everything that is not wrong livelihood. So in the case of monastics, there's all kinds of wrong livelihood. Anything that distracts them from the pursuit of experiencing nibbana is considered wrong livelihood for monastics. But for lay people, it is specifically related to not causing harm to yourself or to others, so not dealing in practices and not dealing in any kind of trade or business or career that causes harm or deals in the harm of yourself or in others.

So that includes not dealing and trading in weapons, not dealing and trading in intoxicants, not dealing and trading in poisons, not dealing and trading in, well, they say the killing of animals for the process of getting meat. So in other words, slaughtering. So weapons, poisons, alcohol and intoxicants, killing. So that could also include animal sacrifice. And finally, human trafficking. Not dealing in any kind of slavery or owning or trading in people. This is the abstention from that. The refraining from that is right livelihood. Then this right livelihood, so all of these three, right speech, right action, and right livelihood, constitute the bedrock of your life. It creates a foundation for you to have a mind that is unagitated, a mind that is free of any kind of regret or guilt.

If it does arise, then you can use forgiveness practice for that. But once you have that, which means when you get off a retreat, doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want if you want to continue in the practice. A lot of times people think, "Oh yeah, I'll keep the eight precepts while I'm on retreat," and then that's it. Just every time I'm on retreat, I keep the precepts. When I get off a retreat, I go and do the same thing I usually do. But the five basic precepts are non-negotiable for this practice, because you will see it for yourself. Try it out for yourself. You will see that when you keep the precepts, there is a certain level of clarity in the mind.

It's very subtle. There's also, it's understood, not only in the Buddhist tradition but in ancient Indian tradition, a power in keeping the precepts. In the perfection of keeping precepts, you attain certain kinds of siddhi or faculties, psychic faculties. When you do not harm other beings, when you do not kill other beings, your mind naturally has loving-kindness, and people want to be around you. There's a certain level of magnetism that you have. People don't have any kind of doubts about you. You don't appear sus to them, right? So keeping that precept, you create a bubble of loving-kindness. You don't get yourself into situations that cause you harm. Your intuition comes up and says, maybe I shouldn't go down that road, let's take another road. So this can

happen when you abstain from taking what is not given. More will be added on to you, because your mind is so content that you live in abundance, for lack of a better word. You live in a place where it doesn't matter what you receive and what somebody takes from you. Everything is always taken care of for you. All your needs are taken care of for you. The more you do this, you will realize that you can actually live on very little, because you have such great contentment. When you abstain from sensual or sexual misconduct, your mind doesn't become grabbing at things. Again, there's a level of contentment. There's a level of mental peace that naturally arises.

You can sit in the busiest train in Mumbai, right, where all kinds of sounds and smells and sights and whatever happens, but your mind remains centred. It doesn't go here or there. So the stillness of mind, the clarity of mind that you get when you have this kind of cultivation of this precept, is actually otherworldly. You remain unagitated by things. When you are able to keep the precept of not telling lies, not using false speech, you get what's known as Vak Siddhi. The understanding of this is whatever it is that you say will happen. Because you have maintained a level of integrity in your mind and in your speech, everything is in alignment, so that whatever you say will happen.

Right? You intend to say, you manifest through your words, in essence. You say whatever it is that you say and it happens. All of a sudden it just happens. Now, when you refrain from intoxicants, your mind again has a level of sharpness, a level of clarity that is otherworldly. This is actually helping you with having better clarity of physical senses. You can see more clearly than others. You can hear more sharply than others. Your senses are just enlivened naturally.

So it's not just about the morals of it. There are other things related to keeping these precepts which relate to the meditation practice and which relate to how you live your life, how you manifest things and how you create peace of mind in your life. So keeping these precepts, you are then ready for, from sila, you're ready for samadhi. And the equipment for samadhi is right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness. So what is right effort? It's what you've been doing all this time, I hope you have. It's the four R's or the six R's, whatever you want to call them. It's the ability to recognize a hindrance, a distraction, whether it's in meditation or in your daily life, and being able to let that go and replace it with wholesome states of mind and keep those going.

So right effort is the key to everything. It's the key to the Eightfold Path. It's the core of the Eightfold Path. It is the heart of the Eightfold Path. Because it is through right effort that you're able to recognize what wrong view is. You're able to let that go and replace it with right view. You're able to recognize when you have wrong intention, where you take things personally, you have aversion, you have the desire to cause suffering, and you let that go and you replace it with right intention. You recognize when there's the intention to say something outside of the scope of think before you speak, and you let that go and replace it with right speech. You recognize anytime the mind wants to break a precept, and you let that go and you replace it with keeping the precepts. So right effort is the heart. The more you do this, the greater samadhi you cultivate, the greater collectedness you cultivate in the mind. Right mindfulness, what is right

Mindfulness. So the definition that Bhante Vimalaramsi has always given is that mindfulness is remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one thing to the other. There is a sutta, or a couple of suttas, called the four foundations of mindfulness, the satipatthana, the four foundations of mindfulness. And there are four foundations. There is body, there is feeling, there is mind, and there are mind phenomena. So cultivation of mindfulness of the body, cultivation of mindfulness of feeling, cultivation of mindfulness of mind, and cultivation of mindfulness of mind phenomena. What does that mean, actually, when you are practicing? All four are happening in tandem. Every time you recognize something happening in the body, there's pain in the body, you're recognizing the body. Or when there's pleasure in the body, you're recognizing pleasure in the body. Every time you recognize an aversive state, you're recognizing a feeling that arises in the form of that painful bodily or mental feeling. Or if it's something that's craving, you're recognizing the pleasant feeling in the body or in the mind. When we talk about mind, we're talking about mental states.

Recognizing what kind of state your mind is in. Are the five hindrances present? Is the mind constricted? Is the mind expanded? Is the mind in jhana? Is the mind in the formless? Is the mind liberated? Or is there work to be done? So recognizing these states of mind is the mindfulness of mind. And then finally, the phenomena. Are the enlightened factors present or are the hindrances present? Is one aware of the impersonal nature of the five aggregates or is one taking it personally, right? Or is there an understanding of the Four Noble Truths, or is there a misunderstanding, or rather an ignoring, of the Four Noble Truths? So just by looking at how mind's attention moves, you're able to see what is going on. So part of this mindfulness is sati, that's the mindfulness remembering to observe, and sampajanna. Sampajanna means wherever you are, there you are, right? Whether you're walking, you know you're walking. When you're sitting, you know you're sitting. When you're eating, you know you're eating. When you're standing, you know you're standing. When you're lying down, you know you're lying down.

So this is just clear comprehension of things that are happening related to the body, related to the mind, related to feeling, related to phenomena. Once you have that, in essence, once you have presence of mind, then you have the ability to recognize or understand if mind's attention is moving from one thing to the other. Then we have right collectedness. Once you have presence of mind, once your mindfulness is sharp and clear, then the other enlightened factors come into being. Right, you have investigation of states, understanding what state is present and what state is not present, having a balance of energy, having joy arise, having tranquility, and then the mind becomes collected. The attention starts to become non-dispersed and collected around an object with your intention, and then you remain with that as best as you can. You don't force yourself into it. You just remain there, allow the mind to rest in it.

So this is part of samadhi. This gives rise to what's known as panna, wisdom, prajna in Sanskrit, wisdom or insight. And what is constituted in insight? Right view and right intention. In other words, there is this cyclical activity going on. This is what I mean when I say, when you cultivate a good meditation practice, then you have better clarity of mind to be able to recognize when unwholesome states arise in your daily life. The more you do that, the more it translates to deeper meditations in the future. So it's always a cycle. It's wheels within wheels within Buddhism. So then the right view that becomes established is the supermundane right view.

The supermundane right view is known as the Four Noble Truths. So that is complete understanding of suffering. That is the complete abandoning of the causes and conditions for that suffering. The complete and total realization of the cessation of suffering. And the total perfection of the Eightfold Path, leading you to the cessation of suffering. Once you do that, you have perfected the Eightfold Path. Bit by bit, right view is established in the mind. And eventually, for the arahant, it becomes fully immersed in the mind. Now, ignorance is replaced by right view. And wisdom, the intuition, is what functions in how to deal with every situation. But guess what? For the arahant, they unlock two more factors.

So while you are on the path, cultivating the path, you have the Eightfold Path. For the arahant, there is a Tenfold Path. Once you have perfected the Eightfold Path, it gives rise to two more factors. That is sammanana and sammavimutti. Sammanana means right knowledge. And sammavimutti means right liberation. So what is right knowledge? The full, total, complete understanding of dependent origination. You can see dependent origination in every dimension, in every time zone, in every space, one way or the other. Forwards, backwards, sideways, upside down, inverted, whatever it is. Your mind has experienced the matrix. It sees all those green zeros and ones, the coding, and it understands completely. This is right knowledge. The full letting go and understanding of the self.

And as a result of which, the mind experiences sammavimutti, right liberation. What is right liberation? It means two things. One, now you have left the game. You have exited the matrix. Now when you go back to play the game, you're doing it for fun. It's no longer like, I have to get the high score. You've done all that. Now when you get back into the matrix, you're having fun with the matrix. You're like Neo. You fly around, you do this, you do that. It doesn't matter. You dodge bullets, you freeze bullets, whatever it is. What that means is you can go into any state of mind you want, at will, because each of the jhanas are also levels of liberation.

Each of the jhanas are known as temporary liberations. You can go into any jhana at any point. Jhana per second, as I was talking about. Or you can go into nirodha whenever you want. Or you can directly touch nibbana whenever you want and experience that fruition attainment, experiencing the effects of having touched nibbana. Anytime you want, the mind becomes that malleable. And this is possible for anyone who follows this path, who keeps the precepts, who has a consistent practice and cultivates wisdom through that practice, in meditation and in daily life. So bit by bit, it will open up to you. Bit by bit, you will start to see the magic of this practice. When you go back to your lives, now you have the set of tools to deal with it, right?

If the mind is agitated, you know you can bring up equanimity. If there is conflict around you, you know you can cultivate loving kindness and radiate loving kindness to other beings. If you see somebody suffering, or if you're thinking of someone, you can send them compassion. You will see oftentimes that when you send compassion to a specific being, they will call you or they will think about you. And they'll say, "Hey, I was just going to call you."

Or, when you see people happy, you can celebrate and you can truly experience their happiness. There's a great power and magic in that. It's a wonderful thing. So it's not about just having higher states of consciousness and all of these other things. It's about the application of what you have learned on retreat, being able to use those tools to recognize suffering, recognize craving and let it go, and replace it with wholesome states of mind, and cultivate them for yourself and for the world at large. Because the more you do it, the more the world takes notice of it. The people around you start to take notice of it. And they start to come into your field of loving kindness, into your field of equanimity.

They might get angry at you and they might come storming at you, and you just send some loving kindness to them. And all of a sudden they say, I forgot what I was going to say, you know. So this is what Bhante would say: when you take care of the Dhamma, the Dhamma takes care of you. Any questions? It's a question on practice, really. I wonder if you could say a little bit about the other TWIM practice that we haven't looked at, the mindfulness of the breath, and just how that works within TWIM. I can only tell you so much because I myself haven't practiced it. But as far as I understand, it's about not controlling the breath, allowing the breath to be the way it is.

So basically, going back to the Anapanasati Sutta, it says that breathing in long, he knows he's breathing in long. Breathing in short, he knows he's breathing in short. So it's mindfulness of the breath, that's it. Just keeping the breath as the object of attention. But on every in-breath and every out-breath, you relax. That's, as far as I understand, how TWIM practice is done. Thank you. There was one piece in your book that you wrote that as the mind becomes purer and purer, then the mind can go into conscious cessation by contacting the nibbana element. What did you mean by that? Conscious cessation. Yeah. That's what I talk about when I say phala samapatti, the fruition experience, meaning you can touch nibbana whenever you want, which means everything else ceases and all there is remaining is nibbana.

- So there's an element of cessation in that? - Yeah, because all other conditions cease, and there's just nibbana there. - Okay, thank you. - Delson, I just want to say, I might film a few seconds. I've asked the group, just from the back. Thank you, it's very helpful what you said about right view, because I did Landmark Forum in my early twenties, therapy. And they say life is meaningless and purposeless, and then some Advaita teachers say the same. And it's very confusing when they say there's no meaning and no purpose. You don't have to worry about ethics because it doesn't matter. Yeah, I just want to appreciate the clarity of your talk and thank you.

Thanks for the talk. The question is, I think in the quiet mind or something like you were saying, or thoughts, insights can arise. What does that mean? Like understandings? The reason I'm asking is I have seen a couple of meditation reports in the group that I followed, but it's a different practice, with a persona based on Anapanasati. So these people go through this signlessness samadhi, and they see different phenomena, like pictures and energies and things like that. Is it the same?

What I said was, the intuition arises, not insights. Intuition is the mind that is able to surpass or bypass all of the thinking aspect of the mind, and it might arise as an insight, which is like all of a sudden it comes out of nowhere. But when I say quiet mind, I'm not talking about just being in meditation and being quietly. I mean letting go of all connection to world and self, and coming to this place where the mind is absolutely quiet and still, and then from there asking the question and letting the intuition arise, whenever it arises. Thank you. So you mean you talked about the fruition of the path, which is the attainment of the arahant.

And then you mentioned, as in the Matrix, you can choose to come back and be a master of the Matrix. So would somebody like that, would the arahant, would they ever choose to come back for the sake of other beings? So when I talk about that, what I'm saying is that you come back in the sense that you continue to live within the six sense bases. So when you become an arahant, or when you have any kind of experience of awakening, you would die for a moment. You are completely dead to the world. And then when you come back, that's what I mean. When you come back, that means you come back to the world of the six sense bases.

You no longer are enchanted by what you see. You're no longer tricked by the sense bases and the manifestations of all of that. It's just that now you completely understand the Matrix, but you can still engage with it through the six sense bases. That's what I mean by that. So when the dissolution of the body of the arahant would act, because there's something in me that's a bit confused, because when I read books like Paramahansa Yogananda's book and other books, and Babaji, they talk about the end of the karma for these beings. But then these beings have a role in the evolution of humanity or in some other world, helping other beings with their consciousness, with what they've attained.

When I sense into the arahantship, it's almost like they just go somewhere and never come back into embodiment, or there's an extinction there, that seems to me a bit meaningless. Because why would you spend all that time waking up from the Matrix and then just never use it, never come back, in a sense? Yeah, I understand what you're saying. And to that, I would say that's why then you have the bodhisattva path. Bodhisattva path is about, I will become a Buddha. And on the path, I will continue to cultivate and to perfect all kinds of what they call paramis, right? The loving kindness, the compassion, the forgiveness, the patience, generosity, truthfulness, and so on and so forth.

Like they perfect that until they become a Buddha. And there then, in terms of becoming a Buddha, Sammasambuddha, self-awakened, realised one, then you have the full capacity to teach. Not all arahants will teach. That's the other thing. Some arahants can just, you know, you never know. They might just be gardeners, just doing whatever they're doing. They're not necessarily teaching. But when you speak to them, the way they speak and the way they explain how the world works, we will know that they're in... just the way that they experience and speak from that experience. But there's no more. Once the arahant is there, what they realise is not that there is a self to be extinguished, but that there never was a self that had to be extinguished. So could the universe or the cosmic sense play a role through that? That's the intuition, that connection to, you know... yeah. You know, some people call it the Akashic record. Some people call it getting or downloading information, or whatever it is. That's intuition, the connection to something larger than just self. Yeah, yeah, right. And when that happens

then it's no longer a being speaking. Actually, when an arahant speaks or functions, it's like, you know, dividing by zero. It's a mathematical error. So the end of birth and death for an arahant could mean an embodiment in the future for some immortal. No, no, no, no, no. So how would you reconcile... so once an arahant becomes an arahant, they're not interested in helping others? So how about the people like the immortal beings that come back and help other people, the different levels of attainment? They can be just different levels of understanding. It just depends on the tradition that you're talking about. Since you brought up Paramahansa Yogananda, who I understand through Kriya Yoga practice, his whole idea, for example, even Lahiri Baba, who was the founder of Kriya Yoga, said that he would come back at a later point, 500 years from now.

So what that means is not necessarily that they have perfected the knowledge. It's just that they elevate to a higher plane, and whatever they come back from, they bring that knowledge down. Same with the concept of Mahavatar Babaji, or any other being that's there. So, for example, now Sri Yukteswar, who's the teacher of Paramahansa Yogananda, there's a chapter in the Autobiography of a Yogi where he visits Yogananda after he dies. He talks about these places that he goes to. What he's describing is, in essence, one of the devalokas, one of the planes of existence

and that he's meant to master all of that, but then he goes back there to hell. So you could say he's a perfected being going back there to hell. Well, what does perfection mean? That's the thing I think trying to work out. Is somebody fully perfect or fully awakened, and all of that? It's quite a rabbit hole, you know? Yeah, because different traditions have different models of what awakening means. And that's where it gets confusion. That's right. That's from you. Thank you. Connected to that question, even in the Buddha suttas, it says one can, if they are not fully united, come down even from Brahma to down there. So when it comes to ascended masters, does that mean... I have read these suttas, the Buddha was pointing out something, like saying, okay, previously they came from the Brahma loka.

Even the ascended masters, they will try and help, but they will come and help people and things like that. But still, there's a possibility they can go through again the human world and all the suffering and all these things. So what is the question? The question is, that's a possibility, isn't it, for even the ascended masters to go through like… But why do you assume the ascended masters are in the Brahma loka? I just don't know where they are.

So here's what happens, you know, the mixing up of different traditions happens here. When you were talking about the Buddha suttas, let's talk about that. When you're talking about the ascended masters, let's talk about that. Let's not try to bring them together. What the Buddha said was that until you enter the stream, or until you become fully awakened, you're bound to keep coming back, right? So there is a concept in Buddhism known as the anagami. Anagami means one who never returns back to the realm of the sense bases. Anagami is somebody who experiences jhanas and then enters the brahma lokas and never returns back to any lower realm than the brahma lokas.

How does that happen? There are a couple of suttas that talk about this, where the Buddha says that if somebody is a stream-enterer or a sakadagami, they constantly practise jhanas. If their mind perfects the attainment of that jhana, cultivates that jhana, and then at the moment of death their mind will incline towards the loka associated with that jhana, there they are now an anagami. Why is that? Think about it this way. When you are a stream-enterer, you have let go of three fetters, right? You have let go of any kind of belief in a separate permanent self. You have let go of any kind of doubt in the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and you have let go of any kind of clinging to rites and rituals.

What does an anagami mean? They have let go of five fetters. They have let go of those three fetters plus sensual craving and aversion. But in the case of the stream-enterer and the once-returner, they have not let go of that. However, whenever they are in jhana, in that moment of their mind, they have let go of any kind of sensual desire and they have let go of any kind of aversion, because being in jhana means you've eradicated the five hindrances. As a result of which, there is no sensual desire or aversion available in the mind as fuel for rebirth in a realm associated with sensual pleasures. That's why that mind will always be in a brahma loka, and from there, they won't return.

And from there, they have the potential to become fully awakened. That's the way to understand it. However, if one is not a stream-enterer or a sakadagami and goes into a jhana and then attains a brahma loka, there is potential for them to come back into a lower realm or to return back to the human realm. Okay, understood, thank you. So, one more, about the fruition, like you were talking, Narahan, but what about like a stream-enterer, how once they get the cessation experience, how do they go to this paTisambhida or something? They don't. It's only accessible for the RR. Alright, thank you.

Last chance, lest you regret it. Going on. I just want to thank you for these wonderful talks and all your time and attention and energy and coming at all here. It's been such a blessing. Thank you so very, very much. Thank you, thank you. I want to thank each and every one of you for attending and deciding to follow my suggestions. You guys have done all the effort and all the hard work, so thank you, thank you. Thank you very much.