Upanisa sutta Transcendental DO with Delson Armstrong July 20,2023

A few days ago we discussed dependent origination, which we understand as the causes and conditions for how suffering arises. But that's just one part of the game. In order to complete the game you need to know how to get to liberation from suffering. That's why we will be discussing what is commonly known as the transcendental links of dependent origination. These are the links that take you to liberation of the mind. And what does it start with? Here, according to this chart that we have, there are 11 links. But before we get to the first link here, which is faith, we have to understand what faith is dependent upon. Faith actually is dependent upon suffering.

You won't come to a path, or any path, that looks for a way out of suffering unless you've had enough of suffering. If you haven't had enough suffering, and you haven't had enough disenchantment about that suffering, you will not find a way out. The Buddha explained that there are two ways that suffering leads to: one is further confusion, which means when you have an experience of suffering, what do you do? You try to numb it with sex, drugs, and alcohol.

You try to numb that suffering by using sensual pleasures. And what that does is that leads to further suffering. And so you're just in this continuous cycle of suffering and numbing that pain of suffering. Or there is another way out, in which the Buddha says that one has the question: is there a way out of suffering? And is there someone who knows a word or two, as it's mentioned in the suttas, about the way out of this suffering? And so the quest begins.

The search out of suffering begins. The algorithm that takes you to Dhammasukha begins. You search for meditation, or you search for Brahma Vihara. You search for something because you heard about this place, or you heard about Bhante Vimalaramsi, or you heard about TWIM, or you heard about Buddhism, or somebody told you about it. And you say, maybe this is an interesting thing I should check out. And so you do.

And so that is the beginning of faith, because you are willing to see for yourself and try it out and see if this process actually works. Now, when we talk about faith, when we talk about saddha or shraddha, we're talking about the willingness and openness to try something and be able to see it through to the end. That's the first level of faith. But in tandem to that faith, which is not mentioned here but it is mentioned in other suttas, like in Anguttara Nikaya 10.1 to 10.5, they talk about the 10 links that take you out of suffering and lead to liberation. And that first link, in tandem with faith, is virtue.

What is the virtue? Having virtuous thoughts, virtuous speech and virtuous actions. In other words, you start off with right view, which is starting with that faith of saying, okay, let me see what this is all about, and then understanding what is wholesome and unwholesome, and then making the effort to take you from the unwholesome to the wholesome. And you start taking the precepts, that is virtuous behavior, which leads to right intention, to let go of clinging to the I, me, myself, to let go of ill will and cruelty by practicing the brahmaviharas. And then you have right speech and right action, and those are upholding the five basic precepts. While you're on retreat you have eight, but when you get off a retreat you make a commitment to keep those precepts all the time, because then you start to see for yourself how this process works. You start to see that when you keep the precepts your mind starts to become clearer.

And when your mind starts to get clearer, you experience the next link, which is gladness, pamojja. So when we talk about gladness, what does that mean? It says here, now you have found the Dhamma and find it is working, and it makes you happy to study and meditate. You experience your first relief from the hindrances. You start to see how when you keep the precepts, when you take the refuges, keep the precepts, that your mind starts to become freer and freer of hindrances. And so that relief of no more hindrances in the mind, and that commitment to keep the precepts, gladdens the mind. It brings a certain level of upliftment to the mind. So from that willingness to try this practice, you then cultivate the effort to keep the practice going, first and foremost through the precepts, and then through meditating.

So when you sit down to meditate, you may have to deal with more hindrances. They might be more coarse than they are, than they were before, and you might have things that you need to let go of. You might not right away feel that gladness. You may not right away feel that joy. So what do you do?

Sometimes I will prescribe forgiveness as a means of letting go of coarser hindrances that are just lodged in the mind and in the heart. And so you do that and you experience even greater amounts of relief. Not everybody has to do it. Some people don't need it, and so they experience some feeling of joy right away. And so the joy that they feel in tandem to keeping the mind free of hindrances is the first jhana, so that link of joy, the joy that arises from finding the path, is a quality of the first jhana, the first and second jhana. So what does that joy feel like? Everybody knows what joy feels like, right? The joy that you feel from sensual pleasures is just a certain level of excitement in the mind and in the body.

But now you are experiencing a different kind of joy that is not tied to the five physical senses. Now you are experiencing a level of joy that is cultivated from and through and in the mind. Such joy, being independent of the physical senses, is repeatable. Such joy is always accessible. That in itself is a wonderful thing. The fact that you don't need things around you. You don't need... It's not the objects that make you happy.

The happiness arises because it is the nature of your mind when it is free of hindrances. These hindrances are like coverings. They cover up the luminosity of the mind, they cover up the clarity of the mind. And because the hindrances are continuously there all throughout your life, beings believe that this is just the nature of their mind, that the nature of their mind is helter-skelter, that the nature of their mind is always being a bully or an enemy or a frenemy. Sometimes it's a friend and sometimes it's an enemy.

Sometimes it likes you, sometimes it doesn't like you. Sometimes you like it and sometimes you don't like it. And people go around throughout their lives feeling this way, but the only reason is because there are all of these different coverings, different kinds of dust, in the form of the hindrances and defilements of the mind. And so when you first experience this freedom from hindrances and letting go, using right effort, using the 6R's, you start to feel a certain level of joy. Sometimes it can be a great amount of joy that people will start to have tears rolling down their cheeks, because it's so good, it feels amazing, and there's much relief in that. And subsequently, as your mind starts to get used to that joy, it might not feel as great as it was the first time, but it still feels good, and there's a certain level of comfort in knowing that that joy is always accessible every time you let go of hindrances. So when you experience that joy in the first and the second jhana, eventually that joy passes away, because that joy ultimately is impermanent.

All experience that is there in the mind is conditioned, and being conditioned it is subject to change, is subject to passing away. So that joy gives rise to, or makes way for, tranquility. So that experience of tranquility that you feel is in the third jhana. This is the tranquility that arises as a result of meditation and following the precepts and being generous. What does it mean to be generous? It means to be generous with your time, generous with your resources, generous with your smile, generous with your efforts, generous with your teachings. If you're a teacher, that in itself brings such a level of clarity and peace to the mind that you experience tranquility. So you started off with suffering, and then that led to faith, to see how this process works, the openness and willingness to try this out, then making the proper effort to do so. You start to experience gladness, that you feel uplifted by this, and then when your mind experiences relief from the five hindrances you experience the joy of the first jhana, and that gives rise then to tranquility, where the mind feels very much at ease, very balanced.

Very content. And then tied to that contentment you experience the happiness, the sukha. And this is a signature of the third jhana, the tranquility and the sukha, the happiness. What is that happiness? It is a relaxed, content, comfortable feeling in the body and in the mind. Your body becomes stable, stops moving around from place to place. It feels very still, very balanced. And so that's why in the third jhana you experience a lightness to the body, or you experience a certain level of depth and steadiness in the body regardless of what you feel. These are sure signs that the mind is experiencing sukha. And then from that sukha you get into collectedness, samadhi. At this point you have experienced the first, second, third, and now starting to experience the fourth jhana. So in the fourth jhana you have purity of mindfulness due to equanimity, absolute pristine clarity of awareness.

And so this collectedness allows you to see things as they actually are. That's the next step: the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are. So from the fourth jhana your mind is able to just notice things as they are. What does that mean? It means now you have developed equanimity, and so by this point you have also experienced or developed all of the enlightenment factors, the factors of awakening. What are the factors of awakening? Mindfulness, investigation of states, energy, joy, tranquility, collectedness and equanimity.

Mindfulness: you become more mindful, you start to become more present to things in your mind, and you have greater clarity of the things that you're doing from moment to moment. When you take the commitment, or make the commitment, to come on retreat, you naturally become more aware of things as they are right now. You have developed a certain level of mindfulness. That mindfulness then leads to investigation of states. What is the investigation of states? It essentially means that your mind experiences right view, because then you start to notice what is wholesome and unwholesome. That is the most basic right view, and that is dependent upon this faith.

Because you have that right view, you don't have any doubts, and then from there you make the right effort to let go, let go of the unwholesome states of mind, because in order for you to let go of unwholesome states of mind you need to know what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, dependent upon the investigation of states. So from that energy there is gladness, the relief from the hindrances. Then from that energy arises piti, the joy of the first jhana, and from that joy there is tranquility.

So that tranquility is relaxing tightness and tension in the mind and body. From that tranquility there is collectedness. So there you experience collectedness, samadhi, in the fourth jhana, the culmination of samadhi, of collectedness. Then from there you experience equanimity, and that equanimity is yathabhuta nana, the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, which means that quality of your mind that is able to perceive: now mind is experiencing infinite space, now mind is experiencing infinite consciousness, now mind is in nothingness, now mind is in quiet mind, now mind is experiencing still mind, now mind is experiencing the arising and passing away of formations.

All of this is equanimity. Because what is equanimity? When we talk about equanimity, it is the ability to see things as they actually are without getting affected one way or the other. If it's a joyful feeling, your mind doesn't gravitate to it just because it's joyful. If it's an unpleasant feeling, your mind doesn't push it away just because it's unpleasant.

And if it's a neutral feeling, your mind doesn't ignore it and have indifference to it just because it's neutral. Your mind has total balance and equanimity. So at this point, you're experiencing equanimity at the level of nothingness. And then that transitions into, after radiating equanimity for some time, it leads to the mind getting quieter and settling in on itself. Once the mind settles in on itself, then it goes through a process of sinking into neither perception nor non-perception, or neither recognition nor non-recognition, that hazy, dream-like space where you notice certain formations coming up and unable to make sense of it, that alert but hypnagogic state that's there. And as your mind starts to develop stronger amounts of equanimity, it sinks even lower, and now it comes to quiet mind.

There's some vibrations there. It's like at that point that quiet mind is in the eye of the hurricane, right? It's there and there's stuff around it in the periphery: thoughts come up, images come up, different kinds of formations come up, but the mind, having that equanimity, does not go in those directions, doesn't deviate from its home base of mind itself, of that presence of mind, of that awareness of awareness. But if it does start to go in a certain direction, what do you do at that point? All you have to do is relax, and then return.

Relax any formation that comes up and come back to quiet mind. From that quiet mind, then you experience what's known as still mind. In that still mind there are no vibrations at all, and that meditator who's in still mind can be in that stillness for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, three hours, where absolutely nothing is going on, not a single movement of mind. But before that can happen, there's a tendency for the mind to want to do something, right? Nothing is going on. Maybe I should bring up a little bit of joy. Maybe I need to bring up more equanimity. Maybe I should do that. No, at that point, when you are in quiet mind, when the mind settles in on itself, there's absolutely nothing to do.

Only when the mind deviates do you relax and you come back. You notice patterns in the mind, you notice distant memories, you notice shapes, you notice faces, you notice all kinds of vibrations in the mind, and the mind, because of lack of stimulation, wants to engage with those things, wants to observe what's going on over there. That's just fooling itself. The mind is fooling itself. There's a wonderful movie called Little Buddha, and there's a scene in there where the Bodhisatta is sitting under the Bodhi tree and he's in deep meditation, and

at this point the armies of Mara come charging at him, right? And these are all of the formations, the shapes, the patterns, the pictures, the memories, the faces. They're all being launched at him, a hundred thousand arrows all being shot at him at once, and what does he do? He does nothing. He just sits there. And in the movie you see this sort of force field around him, and that's just this equanimity that he has. Whatever arrow starts to go past that force field towards him, what happens? Each arrow turns into a flower that gently floats down. The same way, when you don't engage with these formations, all of those things just dissipate.

And there's a sense of relief, a sense of release from all of that, and you don't have to do anything. Not only is your body as still as him, but so is your mind, absolutely still, absolutely non-reactive, non-judgmental, uninclined. And because the attention is not being given to any of those arrows in the periphery, they turn into flowers of release and relief and joy and happiness, and they last for maybe a few microseconds. And at this point, as you're in there, your mind starts to drop even deeper. Some people feel like they're getting into this space where the mind feels like it's falling asleep, like your head even nods, but it's not the same as sloth and torpor. In sloth and torpor your mind feels dull and heavy and groggy, like there's molasses in your head.

But this is what you experience, where the head bobs a little bit and the mind just zones into something and comes out. There's a wonderful luster to the mind, there's a radiance and luminosity to the mind, a lightness to the mind, a little bit of relief that's there. So if this happens, don't worry. Let the mind keep going deeper. Just observe, don't do anything, just be there, and don't do anything. Just allow things to happen. Don't try to make things happen. Allow them to happen on their own. The allowing of this to happen is equanimity.

And then at a certain point, if it hasn't already happened, the mind experiences what's known as disenchantment. So what does that mean? Disenchantment. First of all, enchantment, what does that mean? Enchantment means you get pulled into the directions of those formations. Your mind wants to observe and analyze and investigate and engage with those pictures, patterns, shapes, memories, faces, whatever it might be. And if you notice the mind doing this, what do you do in that moment? Relax and return. But at a certain point your mind still remains enchanted. That means you haven't gotten enough equanimity, because the next step from knowledge and vision of things as they are, which is really equanimity, is the disenchantment. Here it says one has had enough of the constant arising and passing away of phenomenon, and that becomes laborious and just too much to bear anymore.

That's what I mean. You haven't suffered enough. Your mind hasn't suffered enough, because if it did suffer enough it would say, okay, this is enough. It's the same thing over and over again, all of these formations that are coming up. It's just going to happen whether I want it or not, so I'm going to just let it be and not pay attention to that anymore. Let it just be in the periphery, and as that happens it starts to become less and less active. But if you notice that the mind starts to go back to it, starts to get pulled in that direction, what do you do? This is why I have told you: you cycle back to equanimity, go back to radiating equanimity again for a little while, because you have not developed enough equanimity, enough knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, for the disenchantment to arise as a fruit of that equanimity. So then when you send out that equanimity after a little while your mind becomes quiet again, and you go through that same process, but maybe this time around you do have that disenchantment, and you are tired

of the same old stuff coming up, and if you aren't, and your mind still engages, what do you do? Go back to equanimity. You can't bring up the equanimity. What do you bring up instead? What is that equanimity dependent upon? Collectedness. That means you don't have enough collectedness. How do you develop that collectedness? Bring up some other brahmavihara again. Bring up some loving kindness, bring up some joy, bring up some compassion, and let it transition into equanimity. If that's not happening, what do you do? You don't have enough stability in the mind, you don't have enough comfort in the mind, there's too much pain and aches going on, either mentally or physically. What does that mean? You don't have enough relaxation, you don't have enough tranquility. So this process that you're seeing is a map for you to see how to deal with whatever is going on. You don't have enough equanimity, bring up more collectedness, develop more brahmaviharas. There's not enough collectedness because there's not enough stability in the mind. How do you have stability? Bring in more relaxation. There's not enough relaxation or tranquility, that means your mind is

having a lot of hindrances. How do you let go of those hindrances? Six are everything works in this way: one thing leads to the other. If there is something missing you go back to the preceding link and see if it's there, or if it's not there, or there's not enough of that, develop it fully until it spills over into the next link naturally, and then develop that fully until it spills over to the next link naturally, and so on. So let's say now you have developed enough equanimity where you're radiating equanimity in all directions and it feels wonderful, and the mind is utterly quiet, and it bypasses all neither perception and non-perception, goes into quietness and stillness, and now your mind has disenchantment. It doesn't care what's going on, and then at that point the mind then goes into this passion. So what is this passion here? Say phenomena keep rolling on, but you understand there's nothing to do or to be done except to just let go and observe. You start to get into this passion. The mind becomes like Teflon.

Whatever comes up just passes through the mind or is deflected on its own, and at this point you get into what's known as the signless collectedness of mind, objectless awareness of mind. At this point doing anything is too tense, and so in just the seeing of something come up, it rests. Don't have to do anything, it happens automatically. Trying to do anything else, trying to relax, trying to let go, disengages you from that quietness, and now you come back into dealing with formations, dealing with activity, and now you have to go back to equanimity again. If not equanimity, go back to joy. If not joy, go back to compassion. If not compassion, go back to loving kindness. If not radiating loving kindness, go back to bringing up loving kindness to yourself, because it's through that you have gladness, you have joy, you have tranquility, and you have happiness. So then when you have this, this passion, eventually the mind becoming so still just drops.

And it can happen for a split second. It's different from those moments where your mind just flickers out for a moment and you find yourself catching yourself going up like this again. Those are called, or what I call, micro cessations. Your mind is inching closer and closer towards letting go at deeper and deeper levels, and the moment you notice that you're anticipating something happening, in the moment you notice that you want something to happen, that means now you have to develop a disenchantment again. How do you develop that disenchantment? Radiate equanimity. When you radiate equanimity, your disenchantment arises as the fruition of that equanimity that goes into this passion, and again you're there. This time there's no anticipation.

This time there's no wanting or waiting for something. The mind is fully okay with whatever happens, and when you least expect it the mind just drops, and that is liberation, the cessation of all phenomena, the cessation of all perception, feeling and consciousness. At this point the mind can touch the unconditioned, that is nibbana, the nibbana dhatu. When the mind touches the nibbana dhatu, as a result of that it then experiences great amounts of joy and relief. And so in the sutras it's talked about: the undirected, the signless and the empty or void contact, the touch with that which is empty of any self, which is signless because it's not an object, and which is undirected because there is absolutely no craving or desire in it at all.

That in itself is the unconditioned. Whenever you relax and let go, your mind experiences mundane nirvana, that's relief. And in this nibbana dhatu, the super mundane nirvana that arises or happens, it's just there. You don't have to do anything, just allow things to be as they are, and the 6R's whenever your mind gets disturbed one way or the other, and come back. And eventually when the conditions are ripe, the mind drops and touches nibbana, and when it touches nibbana, that contact that is undirected, signless and empty, it then experiences the feeling of joy and relief, which in itself is conditioned by the unconditioned, contact with the unconditioned. When you experience that joy and relief, then you notice that the mind says, what was that? And there is some kind of seeing that you experience, some kind of vision that you experience, maybe you see whatever it is you see. Some people, this is a mental model of how dependent origination arises. You notice the feeling, you notice the perception, you notice the contact, you notice all of this in some way or the other. Some people see links

Some people see wheels, some people see dots, some people see dashes, whatever it is you see doesn't matter. Don't look for it, it will come of its own accord when it arises, when it happens. Your mind experiences tremendous relief, and then at that point, in that moment, that mind is absolutely free for that moment. The mind actually experiences arahatship, because there is absolutely no craving, no ignorance, no conceit, no wrong views there. But because the mind says that was amazing, because there's no stability in that, as the Buddha says in Majjhima Nikaya 10 when he talks about the four foundations of mindfulness, he says if one is not stable in it then he goes to a lesser state, in this case either anagami or sakadagami or sotapanna. If the mind is not stable in that, what does that mean? If the mind remains unaffected even by that joy and relief and doesn't cling to that as me, mine or myself, then the mind experiences arahatship, rare and difficult but not impossible.

But for the majority, what happens is the mind looks and sees that it experienced something, so that is where there's a review process, that something amazing happened, and then you come to the teacher or the guide and you report that to them, and they say, okay, great, keep going. Rinse and repeat. What does that mean? Rinse and repeat: you go back and you start from faith, you go back to gladness, joy, tranquility, happiness, collectedness, equanimity. You do the same thing again, and when least expect it, it happens. This is what's very important for you guys to understand: if you anticipate it, it will not happen, but when you least expect it the mind just drops. And let's say then the mind does experience full liberation, let's say when mind makes contact with nirvana.

That there is just absolute pristine awareness of that, no clinging to this or that, just observing things as they are. When that happens the mind then looks back and sees that indeed all three Asavas are destroyed. What does that mean? The Asavas, the three taints: the taint of sensual desire, the taint of craving for existence, and the taint of ignorance. When the mind experiences becoming an anagami, it lets go of the taint of sensual desire; that means no more of the roots of any sensual desire can arise. And then when it attains arahatship, no more craving for existence or non-existence can arise, and because the mind is absolutely attentive, no more ignorance arises. Now the mind has completed, it completed what had to be done. That's why in the sutta as it says

the mind is liberated, and when it is liberated the mind knows it is liberated. What had to be done has been done, the holy life has been lived, there is no more birth, there is no coming to be in a new existence. And so that is the final phase, the destruction of the taints: all greed, all hatred, all delusion are destroyed.

And how does this happen? There is a sutta which is Samyutta Nikaya 12.23, the Upanisa Sutta, and in that sutta it says: one observes the arising and passing away of form, the arising and passing away of feeling, the arising and passing away of perception, the arising and passing away of formations, and the arising and passing away of consciousness. In seeing that these five aggregates are dependently arisen, the mind lets go of any notion of it being or of them being permanent, lets go of any expectation of happiness from them, and experiences anatta, sees them as not me, not mine, not myself. And because of that it completely drops everything. Having dropped it, it then has the knowledge of the destruction of the taints, that is the reviewing phase, and that is when the mind has that statement in one way or the other that it is liberated: birth is destroyed, etc., etc., etc., until you get there. All you have to do is rinse and repeat. It's that simple, don't complicate it. The reason why it feels complicated, the reason why the mind complicates it, is because it is so used to difficulty in life

that it expects even this to be difficult, but the Buddha has said there are different ways to experience this. There is the path that is difficult in the beginning and difficult in the end. There is the path that is difficult in the beginning and easy in the end. There is a path that is easy in the beginning and difficult in the end, and there is a path that is easy in the beginning and easy in the end. Which one would you choose? This is the path that is easy in the beginning and easy in the end. So I will just conclude with this last statement, because this is so important to understand. It says here: just as, monks, when rain descends heavily upon some mountaintop, the water flows down along with the slope and fills the clefts, gullies and creeks. These being filled up fill up the pools, these being filled up fill up the ponds, these being filled up fill up the streams, these being filled up fill up the rivers, and the rivers being filled up fill up the great ocean.

It's natural. If you bring up one link in this transcendence or transcendental dependent origination, it will spill over to the next, and as that is fully developed it spills over to the next and next and next. If you have just this map and follow it, it will take you all the way to the end. Any questions? Yeah, over there. I was curious about the taints, greed, hatred and delusion. So far we've, in the creation of suffering, talked about ignorance and craving and aversion. Are those taints something separate and what we've talked about already, or they're like, they're like a virus that infects the mind or the software of the mind, so they keep compounding every time the mind indulges in craving? That is greed. Every time the mind has aversion, that is hatred. Every time the mind forgets to see things as they are, that is ignorance or delusion. Is the clear quiet mind, is that kind of underneath everything all the time, but there's just stuff happening so you don't see it? That's right. This is known as the pabhasara chitta. If you read Anguttara Nikaya, the book of ones, the first few sutras

talk about that, the luminous mind. The Buddha says luminous is the mind, monks, that is the nature of the mind, but because of defilements, because of all of this stuff, the mind seems the way it seems. So in other words what happens is you take those defilements and everything else for the mind, rather than the clarity that is actually the mind. I get it, I think. Okay, I have a question, a couple questions actually. Once still mind has been reached, you mentioned you can stay there for a really long time, but is it like the next step is this cessation experience, or is that not really the next step? It can be. Okay, it can be, and what determines whether that's gonna be there or not? If the mind doesn't hold on to anything. Okay, okay. My next question was that

Is it necessary, if it seems that the previous stages have been sort of completed in a way, to go back from an earlier stage? Every meditation, no? You just start from where you left off, and then you make adjustments accordingly. All the way in the back there, I have three questions. The first one is, up until dispassion, disenchantment, liberation, until you touch the nibbana dhatu, you say, don't fall into it, don't let the mind do this. Who is that, that's telling or not telling or controlling? That the atmex principle or life principle or who is that that's over the mind? That is the mind itself.

So the mind is watching mind. It's like you have the mind here, and then you have a mirror, which is the consciousness, and the mind reflects. Whatever is reflecting off of the mirror of consciousness is the image, is the object. So it seems like there's two things going on here: there's a mind, and there's something above the mind. But in reality it is all just different aspects of mind watching what's going on. Does at any time in this journey, does the life want to leave the body? Like, you don't... people say they die, right? In that state. No one is going to die here in this retreat. No, but that is called mahasamadhi.

And that happens when it's a more complex process, where the mind, or let's say the meditator, lets go of the life principle. In other words, there are certain kinds of sankhara that tie the life, the life energy, to this body. But there are certain things, like the Buddha had done three months prior to his passing away, to his parinibbana. He let go of the life principle, and it unraveled in such a way that he attained that parinibbana. So that won't happen here in this process until the mind lets go of certain karmic residues that keep the life energies going in this body. And the last question is, even people, I mean, who have attained nirvana, and you know, there are descriptions, and some people who are alive, and whatever...

They still do. They bring emotions like anger, or any of those, just to get things done. They're not attached to it, but if they need something done, they may look angry. So when somebody becomes fully liberated, there's no more seed of anger or greed or hatred or delusion coming up, but they can be stern. They can use what seems like harsh speech to get their point across.

Right, they can be stern. We talk about tough love, for example, but they won't get angry. It's not coming or motivated from some kind of irritation or aversion. I mean, all of those, they use it as a tool rather than really feeling it. No, no, like if they need to get something done, or if somebody gives them some food and at the moment they put it in the tongue they say it's nice, but then they're not attached to it. Is it like emotion used as... So, I see what you're saying here. So sometimes that mind that is free will experience things that are pleasant, and sometimes it'll experience things that are unpleasant. And it will feel the pleasant quality of that, and it will say, oh, this is nice, and it will enjoy it, or it will say this doesn't feel good to me, or it just feels unpleasant. To that extent there will be that, but there will be a level of detachment where there won't be any mental agitation around that. This is in reference to the sutta last night.

we'll see how we do um there was one section he's talking about craving and aversion and then neutral so objects pleasant pleasant unpleasant neutral feelings right okay so pleasant if there's craving for underlying tendency to craving right not good if there's underlying tendency towards aversion problematic right and then which if you have a neutral feeling either neither positive or negative right then you are ignorant right and then it lists a whole sequence i think you don't understand how they arise you don't understand how they pass away and then there was like three other ones i didn't quite understand

What is it about neutrality, and how is it linked to ignorance? In this particular case, it's there because there's a level of taking it personally. Even if it's neutral, the mind can still try to possess it as me, mine, or myself. Even if it's not physical possessions, just like, oh, this is happening to me, and there's a certain level of personalizing going on. But in reality, that underlying tendency to ignorance underlies all three qualities of feeling. But it's only at the level of neutrality, because it's not painful and it's not pleasant, and there can't be any craving or aversion to it. But there can be still an identification process, and that identification process itself is the underlying tendency to it knows. And so

Does the Buddha assume, or Buddhism assume, that that identification process in neutrality is happening at a very deep level, continuously? Or is it much more overt, like, oh, it's a conceit? Like, I walk across the room. It's a fairly neutral experience, right? I'm not thinking, I am, I am, I am. That's right. That's right. But there is a sense of being a self separate walking through the room, right? Is that what we're talking about? That's what we're talking about. Okay. But for the purposes of designation and language, you could say I am walking across the room, right? But tied to that, I am walking across the room, there's no sense of self. The attachment of a personal sense of self to that is the ignorance. Okay. Okay, and then one other question. In terms of suffering to faith, and suffering that catalyzes people to search for a relief, and if it doesn't go of Buddhism, it might not simply go to drugs or alcohol, but could go to some other path.

Sure. It does seem at times that there's something very exclusive or exclusionary to Buddhism, in terms of its alleviation of suffering. And I'm curious about, and obviously there's been all sorts of forms of fundamentalism in Buddhism as well. But is there that exclusivity of the path for Buddhism? Or are there other ways of freedom from suffering? If you think about these first few links, faith, gladness, and even to some extent the joy, this is found in other paths too.

That is to say, the commitment to keep the precepts. The precepts are universal. If you think about it, it's everywhere, in all paths. The idea that you have peace in your mind and intensive loving-kindness in your mind, this is not exclusive to Buddhism. The things that are exclusive to Buddhism really primarily are right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration, the last three parts of that, and right view. So everything first starts with right view, because the right view is different from, let's say, the other views of the path, which might seem similar, because in the right view it talks about karma, action and consequence, and rebirth, and things like that. And there are some paths that talk about it as well. Right intention might also be similar in the sense that there's a cultivation of loving-kindness, the cultivation of compassion, and letting go of what is not me, not mine, not myself. The thing about, let's say, Buddhism is that it separates from all other paths when it does not conclude

on some absolute notion of self. That is the main distinction between Buddhism and, let's say, other paths: no eternal soul, no essential self. It doesn't conclude on that, it doesn't say anything about that. But other factors of the path you might find in different places, in different degrees and variations. But then the right view of the Four Noble Truths, that's also very much exclusive to Buddhism, in the sense that when we talk about dukkha, they're very specific dukkhas that the Buddha is talking about. And when you talk about the cessation of that dukkha, there's a specific way in which that's done and how that's done, and that's really the cultivation of the Eightfold Path. No deviation from that. Yeah. I've heard it said that the Buddha said something like, when he experienced liberation, it was like the entire cosmos was liberated. Is that something that experientially happened? I guess you'd have to find out what your source is, but

Um, at least in the suttas, in the Pali Canon, I've not come across that statement or him describing that kind of experience. Maybe it's something more said. Yeah, who knows. Within your experience, well, you guys are still here, aren't you? I actually had the same exact question as you had about other paths, because how would we account then for very highly evolved beings that aren't Buddhist? So, for example, you might be familiar with Amma, the hugging saint, right, who can spend 12 hours without eating or drinking, hugging thousands of people day after day after day. And so, where does she fall in? I know you don't know exactly, but -- you know, I'm gonna go actually. I might be able to see her when I go to Hawaii next week, so I might ask her. You're gonna ask her. Yeah. Have you ever gotten a hug from her before? Well, if I get to see her, I'll probably hug her.

But I guess just so you know, it's not just a pat, it's a full-on hug. It's like, oh yeah, I can hug, but she's like this extraordinary, like not even a human being, right? And so where would she... you know, is she ignorant because she doesn't know the Four Noble Truths? Or is she gonna have to be reborn and really get them, and then get fortunate enough to be exposed to the fourth truth? I'm sure she knows them, but you get my point. Yeah, see, this is why I don't really like to comment on other paths in that way, because when it comes to Buddhism it is very specific when it talks about ignorance. In Vedanta it's very specific about ignorance. In yoga it's very specific about what ignorance is. In Sankhya it's very specific about what ignorance is. So from the perspective of, let's say, Buddhism, the idea is that if you know the Four Noble Truths, and it's not just about knowing the Four Noble Truths, by the way, it's also about letting go of complete greed, hatred and delusion.

If you come across somebody like that, the other part of that is to ask how well they understand dependent origination. Again, that's from the perspective of Buddhism: how well are you able to see, understand, and not necessarily explain, but if you had to explain, be able to explain dependent origination? Because, again, that's a statement in the Pali Canon. It says, one who knows the Dhamma knows dependent origination. One who sees dependent origination understands the Dhamma.

Let me know what she says. Yeah, if I see her, I'll let you know. Yesterday, or a couple of days ago, I think you were mentioning how the links of dependent origination are not always explicitly linear, and in some cases there are loops. And is that the case for the transcendental links as well? Yes, it can be. It can be, because for example, when you talk about experiencing tranquility, you might experience that at an even later stage but at a deeper level, right? So it can loop back, and actually you are consciously, actively looping back every time you notice that you don't have enough disenchantment; you look back to equanimity. Every time you notice you don't have enough equanimity, you look back to the other. So it's more conscious than rather being automatic. I'm also thinking of Nibbana is the unconditioned, and I think you've mentioned in this talk how there's this sequential unfolding, right, of where Nirvana can land, and yet you've also mentioned that it can occur

in spontaneous moments outside of meditation, even, and I'm curious how that fits in. It fits in because at some point the mind has gone through these processes prior to it, not necessarily immediately before, but enough to be able to have that experience later on. Thank you. There was a question at the back, and it's just my observation, not a question, and again I'm a nobody, but at least, I think that people have obtained whatever you call it, nirvana, liberation... thousands of years before Buddha, and it'll happen after as well. So there have been... the names may be different, but the experience, I believe, is the same, at least from the descriptions of it.

And how somebody relates to it depends on what is relevant for that person, or how applicable it is, or how easily it is explained. Otherwise, you wouldn't have so many religions going back and forth, one dominating the other, or whatever. In the olden days, in the civilised societies, the way they solved it was through debate, not by sword. Through debate. Whoever won, they followed the religion of the winner. So the whole countries were actually changed into one or the other. So I think,

to me, the end experience is the same. How you reach it is different, and how well it is codified, or made it relevant to a common man, is probably the difference. And you know, some people, one path might work for others, it might not. Otherwise the whole world would be deliberated, you know. That's what I think. Yeah. I mean, what you said, I would just add to this that even within the context of Buddhism, when we talk about going from wrong view to right view, that's only one step. The final step in order for you to experience complete liberation is to go from right view to non-attachment to any views.

So trying to figure out which is the right path and the wrong path, and all of that, is still within the realm of the relative, still within the realm of using the concepts of the Dhamma. See, there's a sutta which is called the Simile of the Snake. It's Majjhima Nikaya 22, and there the Buddha says there is a right grasping of this practice and there's a wrong grasping, and the wrong grasping is when the mind starts to create identities around the practice itself

Starts to create attachments around the practice itself. If you want to continue with this path, you need to be able to go down this path completely without being attached to it, and that happens at gradual levels, until finally he uses the simile of the raft, where he says you take the raft from one shore to the other shore, but you don't carry the raft on you. Right after you get to the other shore, to keep walking, you leave the raft wherever it is. So in the most absolute sense, when you come to liberation of the mind, when you come to complete freedom from this cycle of birth and death, then you let go of all concepts altogether. There's no defending one view or the other, but you have come to that point where the mind is free

from all that. In the Sutta Nipata it talks about how you go from right view, and you let go of attachment to right view, to where the mind holds no views at all. That doesn't mean that the mind becomes skeptical. It doesn't mean the mind becomes an eel-wriggler. It just means that the mind is at rest in the unconditioned.

When we talk about the unconditioned, when we talk about Nibbana, the experience of Nibbana, or the way the Buddha has talked about Nibbana, he's used something like 33 different words for Nibbana. One of them is, you know, the uninclined. One of them is the uncreated. Another one is the unformed. The other one is the unconditioned. Another one is the island, the refuge, the shelter, the auspicious, the blessing, and so many different kinds of ways of describing it. Now, to the conceptual mind, the mind that looks at that, it says that sounds a lot like Brahman, that sounds a lot like the atma, that sounds a lot like the self, that sounds a lot like the doubt, that sounds a lot like God, that sounds a lot like this or that, but that's all within the realm of conceptuality

In essence, you have to go beyond conceptuality, and at that point you don't have to say anything, because you've experienced it. And once you've experienced it, that's it. There's no need to try to convince others that you've experienced it. There's no need to try to defend others or debate with others that this is the path and that's the path and all of those things, because if you do that, then that means there's still some conceit left in you. Only when somebody comes to you and asks you what it is that you practice or teach or learn or meditate on, then yes, you can go and say, this is what I do and this is what I've learned and this is what I practice. But in the ultimate, absolute sense, when you come to the unconditioned

you have no desire to really try to convince others. You have no desire to try to debate. You have no desire to try to say this is better than this or that's better than this. You're content within that experience, and those who want to come on this path will come on this path, and if you're available to show them the way, you show them the way. So religion, spirituality, philosophy, the different words that are used, all of these things lie within the realm of conceptuality. This whole world that we have here is just made up of concepts, and when you hold on to concepts, Majjhima Nikaya 18, the Honey Ball Sutta, the Madhupindika Sutta, it says when you hold on to these conceptual proliferations, that results in attachment and bringing up of the stick and sword, violence, the destruction that we've seen all around the world, the war, the battles, the violence. All of that arises because one person says I'm right, the other person says you're wrong, or one person tries to convince the other that this is the only way, and so on and so forth

When you come to that point where you are fully awakened, then you don't have to do anything. When the Buddha was fully awakened, he was content in his enlightenment. He was content in being there, sitting under the Bodhi tree and just relishing in the experience of the unconditioned. He spent one week under the Bodhi tree. He spent another week looking at it. He spent another week walking up and down contemplating dependent origination. He spent another week just looking at the Bodhi tree unblinkingly, and so on and so forth, and he had no inclination to teach it.

It was only when the Brahma Sahampati from the Pure Abodes came down and said there are those with little dust in their eyes, perhaps they might benefit from what you have experienced, and so that choice was given to him, and out of compassion he said, okay, but this is a very difficult and very subtle, very subtle experience, and not everybody will be able to grasp, and those who will be able to, fine, let's see what happens.

And so he set out and taught the first five disciples, and so on and so forth, and from there it grew. And that's why you have what are known as Sammasambuddhas, who out of compassion make that choice to go out and teach, because they have the faculties and capacities to do so, not because they have the inclination to do so. I find this statement quite funny in my mind, where, you know, the Bahiya Sutta, the one that I often quote, where the Buddha says to Bahiya. So the story is, Bahiya, who believes that he is fully awakened, one of his deva relatives goes to him and says, no, you're not, you need to go see the Buddha. He goes to see the Buddha. The Buddha is going to go for lunch. He's eager to go to lunch, and he says to Bahiya, come back after lunch, right, and I'll tell you. And he says to the Buddha

What if I die during lunchtime? If you need to tell me, tell me right now. Give me the most, you know, bang for my buck. And the Buddha says okay, fine, and he says that statement: in the seeing there's only the seen, in the hearing there's only the heard, in the sensing there's only the sensed, in the cognizing there's only the cognized. When by there is no you in that, there is no you before that, there is no you after that, just that is the end of suffering. Bahiya, I heard those few statements and attained arahatship, and then he died. He was crossing the street.

And a bull just gored him and he died. So much for mindfulness, huh? Now I'm just joking about that. But it happened. That was just his mind; he had to die. He died. But then the monks came to the Buddha and said Vakkali has passed away. And the Buddha says, "Monks, he passed away as one of you," meaning he became an arahant. Even though he was not formally ordained, the Buddha considered him to be someone ordained under his order. So he said to give the body the same treatment as you would for one of your fellow brother monks, so they did. And then he also had something else which I find humorous. He said, "Oh monks, did not bother me, did not annoy me with unending questions about the Dhamma, right?" Not that he was annoyed, not that he was bothered by it. But what he was pointing to is that there are those who ask questions because their mind is teeming with different kinds of concepts to compare and contrast. But his mind was ripe enough to say, "Just tell me one statement and I'll leave you alone."

he was so ready that without one statement he attained our hardship now this doesn't this is not some kind of offhand it common to you guys that stop asking questions but if you just understand this right the non conceptuality right it's difficult to understand because that in itself can become a concept but just keep letting go this is who is a concept this too is a concept this too is a concept you keep letting go and what you're left with so to speak is the unconditioned your mind will naturally drop into the unconditioned if in every experience that you have you do not project any kind of concepts to that experience then your mind is free

Let's 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. Thank you.