Day 5 Five Aggregates- Japan Retreat Dec 2023

So tonight I want to talk about the five aggregates. When we talk about the five aggregates, we understand them as points of experience or containers of experience. The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness. The aggregates come from the word khandhas in Pali or skhandhas, which means heaps. So they are heaps of experience that we have. The Buddha has categorized and delineated various modes or modalities of experience through either the five aggregates or the four foundations of mindfulness, through nama rupa, mentality materiality, which is one and the same as the five aggregates, or through the sixth sense basis. You will see in various different suttas that the Buddha talks about these aggregates directly as they are. In fact, in his second discourse, which is the Anatta Lakkhana Sutta.

The three marks of existence or characteristics of existence are impermanence, dukkha or suffering, and the impersonal nature of things, or anatta. He takes these five aggregates as a way of understanding that all of this is impersonal, not to be taken as me, mine, or myself. He also talks about it in terms of the sixth sense basis. For example, you have the eyes. You have the form aggregate of the eye itself. You have the feeling aggregate of seeing. You have the perception aggregate of perceiving what it is that you are seeing. You have the formations aggregate of formations arising from the I, and you have the consciousness aggregate in relation to the I, so the I-consciousness.

Likewise with any of the other five sense bases. This is what the Buddha gives as a discourse to Rahula, his son, which sets the course for Rahula to become an arahant. When you see the five aggregates as a process, an impersonal process, then you start to separate the idea of self in relation to all experience. So what is the form aggregate? The Buddha has talked about the form aggregate as gross or subtle, near or far, internal or external. So what does he mean by gross or subtle? When he says gross, he means the physical aggregate. The aggregate can mean near or far, meaning it could be the aggregate that's this body, or the aggregate that's this table, or the aggregate that's this lamp, or anything that is made up of different forms.

If you see a clock, if you see a lamp, all of that is made up of the form aggregate. The form aggregate is understood as that which is made up of the four great elements in essence. So what are the four great elements? You have the earth element, which is the solidity. You have the water element, which is the ever-changing liquidity of something. You have the air element, which is the gaseous state, and then you have the fire element, which is the temperature of that particular form. So this form aggregate is in essence impersonal, right? It's subject to change all the time. If we take a look at our eyes, if we take a look at our body, if we take a look at our ears, nose, tongue, even the brain or mind, it changes all the time, in every single moment, dependent upon contact.

It is degraded over time, which means that it is impermanent, subject to passing away, subject to change, and it fades away eventually. As we age, our eyes are not as strong, our ears are not as strong, our bodies are not as strong, and so on. So understanding the principle of the impermanence of the form aggregate, which is dependent upon the aggregation or the accumulation of the four great elements, meaning if the four great elements start to dissipate, so does that form aggregate. So if you start to see it in this way, then we know that the form aggregate is actually dependently arisen, which means that, being dependently arisen, when you take away the causes and conditions, it is subject to change.

And that is why we say it is impermanent. Being impermanent, it is subject to suffering. That which is impermanent is suffering, ultimately. Even if it is a pleasurable form that your eye makes contact with, even if it's the most beautiful object in the world that you see, it is still impermanent. Therefore, when it changes, it is liable to cause suffering. The happiness it gives you in this moment will change, and therefore it is subject to suffering. Now, when we talk about anatta, what does that mean? Anatta actually means, or comes from the Sanskrit, an-atman.

Atman. Atman means soul or self. Atman is that which is imperishable. The Buddha also didn't say that there is a self. What the Buddha was referring to is that during the time of the Buddha, and prior to that, there was the idea of a soul, the atman. Now, this atman is understood as being permanent, as being imperishable, as being changeless, as being a source of happiness and the nature of all beings. So the Buddha says, okay, let's use that understanding of self as the touchstone, as the parameter to understand all of our other experiences in this world. If you take into account the form aggregate, you see that the form aggregate continues to change.

Meaning it is dependently arisen due to causes and conditions. When that form aggregate starts to change, it will either cause us suffering, right? Or it will change and cause us happiness in that moment, but ultimately it changes again. It disappears and causes us suffering. So that which is impermanent and that which is liable to cause suffering, can it be understood as self, as atman? No. Therefore, what the Buddha is saying is, anatta doesn't mean no self. Anatta means that which is not self. So taking the form aggregate, you realize this body is not me, not mine, not myself. My body, or this table, or this lamp, or your body, or the body of the devas, the body of the Brahma lokas, the bodies of the hell beings, animals, all forms are not self.

They are not me, not mine, or not myself. So that's the form aggregate. Then we have what's known as the feeling aggregate. What is feeling? Feeling comes from the word vedana. Veda means knowledge, to know something. So it is the experience of something. Vedana is an experience. There is a confusion that it means that it's something emotional or hedonic. No. The hedonic idea of that experience as being painful or pleasant or neither painful nor pleasant is actually related to the perception aggregate, which we'll get to in a bit. But with the feeling aggregate, what it is, is any kind of experience that you have through any of the six sense bases. So what is feeling? Feeling is seeing.

Feeling is smelling. Feeling is tasting. Feeling is touching or experiencing. Feeling is thinking. But the feeling aggregate itself is dependently arisen. Dependently arisen by what? From what? Contact. What is contact? The sense base and the object make contact, giving rise to a corresponding sense-based consciousness. These three constitute the sense-based contact, which gives rise to some kind of an experience, the feeling. Understanding it in this way, we see that with feeling being dependently arisen through contact, when that contact ceases, in other words, when we pay attention to something else, then that feeling or that experience also ceases. Therefore, it is understood as being impermanent. All feeling, all experience is impermanent. That which is impermanent, if it is a pleasant feeling, if it is a feeling that causes joy and happiness, when it fades away, what does it leave in its mark?

Suffering. Dukkha. All experience, all feeling, whether it's the feeling of eating and enjoying your favorite piece of food, or being in the most super mundane state of jhana, being in the highest levels of meditation, or enjoying just sitting in silence. All of that is feeling. All of that is experience. And therefore, it is liable to change. Therefore, suffering. And therefore, not me, not mine, not myself. Now, what is Nibbana? Because Nibbana is the Nibbana dhatu, which is what the mind makes contact with. So in that sense, Nibbana can be seen as an object, but it can also be seen as a process that the mind experiences as a feeling, as a result of making contact with it.

Nirodha itself is not to be seen as an experience. So, when somebody asks Sariputta, you seem quite happy, why is it that you are happy? And he says, because I have no feeling. There are no feelings present right now. And that is Nibbana, right? That is vedana nirodha, and so on. And so the other person asks Sariputta, but then how could that be considered happiness? How could that be considered blissful? He said it is because there is no feeling, that is why it is blissful. Meaning, because it is unconditioned, there is no experience going on. That's why it's blissful. Then, for what it actually is, which is, it is impermanent, liable to change, liable to cause suffering, and therefore not me, not mine, not myself.

This understanding alone, for all experience, which means all experience that you're having, if you see it as a full experience, as something that you fully engage with, without the sense of I, there is just the feeling. Then there is no suffering. There is the wonderful sutta, the Bhaddiya Sutta, where Bhaddiya goes to the Buddha and asks the Buddha, give me a discourse that can make me understand the cessation of suffering very quickly. And what does the Buddha say? Come back later, I'm on my lunch break. It would be when you ask the Buddha for something three times, he's bound to give it to you. So what does the Buddha say? Bhaddiya, you should understand it in this way.

In the seeing, there is only the seen. In the hearing, there is only the heard. In the sense, there is only the sensed. In the cognizing, there is only the cognized. When Bhaya, there is no you in that, then there is no you by that. that, then there is no you after that. Just this is the end of suffering. In other words, all the experience that you're having, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking, if you do not implant a sense of I into it, then no suffering will arise. Do not take any experience personally. Don't take any experience as me, mine, or myself. Once you see this, then all experience is fading away without any kind of craving hooked into it, any kind of clinging hooked onto it, any kind of being hooked onto it, which can lead to birth of further karmic action and therefore lead to further suffering.

When you understand this principle, alone that in itself, right, when you have unmuddled mindfulness of the present moment, this is what it means. Mindfulness of the present moment means that you're experiencing everything as it is without projecting "I" onto it, without saying this is me, this is mine, this is myself. It is just an experience. It is just a process. When you see it in this way, all suffering... That is the key. So then you have tied to that feeling what is known as perception. Perception comes from the word sanna. What does sanna mean? Sanna means to recognize something, to recognize something. So the first time you see the color red, you... the color red.

By labeling it the color red, now it is in your memory. Being in your memory, every time you see the color red, you perceive it as red. Likewise with everything else that you've learned. So perception is rooted in memory and concepts. Perception is that which labels things. Perception can lead to suffering. Why? Because perception is tied to feeling, and feeling is dependent upon contact. When that contact changes, so does that feeling. When that feeling changes, so does that perception. Your memories themselves are impermanent. They are liable to change depending upon your mood and your mindset. You might have a bad memory, but if you are in an uplifted mood and you think back on that memory, you're giving about it, more accepting of it.

You might have a good memory, but you might be in a bad mood, and you think back on that good memory, and you might try to look at all the bad little things that you could bring down from that memory. So, memory and perception, these are closely linked, right? Perception comes from that memory, and if memory changes, so does perception. Perception, therefore, is impermanent, and when it changes, it is liable to cause suffering. Our memories are not our own. No matter how personal they seem, no matter how emotional they are, no matter how concrete they feel, they are not ours. Memories are just experiences. Memories are just the thinking process of the mind coming about. Pleasant memory, that it is a painful memory, or it's a neutral memory, is that process of perception. So feeling is just experience. That which says that that feeling is painful, pleasant, or neutral is perception. So perception is always changing all the time, right? Because of that, we can't say that perception is me, mine, or myself.

Therefore, perception is not self. Then we come into what's known as formations. Formations come from the word sankhara. So sankhara, so, sun is like S-A-N. Sun is the extreme form of something, or added upon. And kara is a process of making. So sankhara means to cook up something. It is the process of preparing something. So these are percolations, formations, mental constructs that come about in the mind. So these sankharas are threefold. We have the bodily sankharas. Bodily sankharas essentially are to do with inhalation and exhalation, with the processes of the body. When we intend to move in some way, or breathe, or breathe in or breathe out, that is facilitated through the bodily formations. Verbal formations allow us to think and examine something.

So verbal formations allow us to think and examine, and then break out into speech. For example, you want to say something to someone. There's a process of reflection: what should I say to this person? How should I say it to this person? All of this is facilitated through verbal formations. Then you break out into speech and you say what it is you want to say. Mental formations allow us to feel and perceive, smell, taste, touch, or to think. All of those are facilitated through mental formations, because ultimately whatever it is you are receiving in terms of sensory data, all of that then comes into the central database, which is the mind, which then takes that and interprets it as perception and provides some kind of an experience. That is why mind is the forerunner of all states.

Therefore, mental formations facilitate the processes of feeling and perception. Formations are dependent or interdependent with choices that we make in every given moment. They are interdependent with the inclinations that we have, the intentions we have. Generally wholesome, then the formations that continue to arise are generally wholesome. If the intentions are generally unwholesome, then the formations that arise are generally unwholesome. But that doesn't mean that just because they arise, we automatically go in that particular direction. Because of new information, such as the Dhamma and understanding of Siwa and so on, we can say, "Dhamma. I am going to, in that moment, make the choice to let go of the unwholesome and replace it with the wholesome."

Every time you do that, you are grinding away at the unwholesome formations and replacing that with wholesome formations. At the level of the brain, what that means is you are pruning the synapses that cause you to make the almost automatic choice towards an unwholesome state. And you are strengthening certain synapses, that are creating new synapses, that allow you to start to incline towards the wholesome. So the idea here is, or the question that would arise is, do we have free will or do we not? No, we do not. We do not have free will. Every intention that is there is always conditioned by some kind of factor. I'm being intentionally silent here because I want that to sink in.

You do not have free will. What you do have is free won't, which means what you will not do. Right? The choice in every moment, based on the conditions that are present, to say in the very, very last moment, no, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to change, I'm going to do something else. So what you do have is a conditioned intention, a conditioned will, conditioned by various factors: environmental factors, behavioral factors, genetic factors, things that you've learned from your parents, to things that you've learned from your grandparents, things that you see out in society, things that you've seen on television, and so on and so forth. All of these things, along with evolutionary psychology and so on, all of that has an effect on the choices that you make in every present

moment. However, there is that part of the mind that is able to say, I'm choosing not to do this, based on new information, based on your understanding of what seems wholesome and what seems unwholesome. So formations continue to change dependent upon choices we make in every given moment, and that is why formations are also known as the carriers of karma. That is to say, they are karmic facilitators. There is a contact that arises with the external world. This feeds back into the mind to bring up certain formations that allow us to experience the world, because of that karma, in a certain way. In that process, at that point of experience, we now have the choice to say, this experience is me, mine, or myself, and take it personally and crave more for it.

Or we can choose to let go of taking it personally, and let the process dissipate. So what does this mean? Everything from ignorance all the way down to experience, all of that is inherited karma. It is old karma that arises dependent upon choices we've made in the past. Now we can choose, by taking it personally, to crave more for it, with it, and then cling to that and make rationales for why we think we want it or why we think we don't want it, or why we identify with it, which then gives rise to becoming, which is "I am this," right? It's the habitual tendencies that then incline your mind towards a certain karmic choice that further propagates that particular karma, that further propagates that particular kind of

suffering. So that choice in every moment is present, where you can either say, I'm choosing to see this as impersonal and letting it go and accepting things as they are, or I'm choosing to hold on to it, wanting to change the present moment, cling to it, and cause myself more and more suffering. But this is all facilitated through mindfulness, awareness of things as they are right now, right here in the present moment. Once you have that, and with all of the other tools that you are cultivating through the meditation practice, using right effort, using the four R's or the six R's, whatever you want to call them, this all is present for you, available to you in that moment.

And if you just give a pause in that moment before reacting, this gives rise to the response towards what is happening, instead of reacting to the situation. Every time we have reactivity to a situation, every time we react in a way that causes us to cling further, we are causing more suffering. But if we have that pause, that gives time for the mind and compassion to arise, to be able to say, no, this is not the right choice, or no, I should not do it this way, or this is what I should be doing, or this seems most appropriate in this particular instance. So neuroscientifically, that means that you're allowing some time for your prefrontal cortex, your executive decision-making process, to come into alignment so that it can make the proper decisions.

Rather than being reactive. So this is the react versus response that's happening in every given moment. This is how the mechanisms allow formations to continue to change. Therefore, our choices are not our own. Our choices are not me, mine, or myself. And formations that facilitate those choices are not me, not mine, not myself. And karma itself is not me, not mine, not myself. In the morning you say, I am the inheritor of my karma, karma belongs to me, and all of these things. This is to make you more responsible, but in the absolute ultimate sense of the understanding, karma itself is impersonal, not to be taken as me, mine, or myself. Finally, we come to awareness, or vinnana, or consciousness.

Vinnana, so the word jnana, means, again, so that consciousness is essentially facilitated through our ability to pay attention to something. If I tell you all to look at this particular finger, all of your attention is on this finger. So your eye is making contact with the finger, and there is a corresponding eye consciousness dependent upon that. If I tell you to pay attention to the stove, now your attention is moved there. Your attention moving there, the consciousness dependent upon the eye and the finger has ceased, has dissipated. And a new consciousness has arisen, dependent upon your eye making contact with the stove. So consciousness changes dependent upon the placement of your attention, where you place your attention.

facilitated through the process of paying attention. That is why when we talk about the meditation, your attention wavers and goes to a hindrance, which means now there is no longer consciousness of loving kindness or whatever the object of meditation is. Now there is a consciousness dependent upon making contact with the hindrance. But that hindrance being an experience, being a feeling is old karma. Deal with it? Do you fight it? Do you hold on to it? Do you push it away? What do you do with it? Or do you accept it as it is in the present moment and choose to just let go of identifying with it and then return back to your object, which means now the attention dissipates from the hindrance and comes back to the object.

So all consciousness arises dependent upon its fuel, that fuel being any kind of an experience. That experience being facilitated through any kind of contact. When you see consciousness dependently arisen, then you understand that consciousness is also impermanent. If you have that experience in infinite consciousness, then you will see it for yourself, the arising and passing away of infinite consciousnesses, right, or contact going on over and over and over. It is tiresome and therefore dukkha. Seeing that, you see there is no controller here and therefore it is impersonal. It is not me. It is not mine. It is not myself. So these five aggregates, when they are explored in this way, when they are understood in this way, the mind becomes disenchanted with them.

What does it mean to be disenchanted with something? What does enchantment mean? Enchantment means to be caught up in something, right? To believe in the magic tricks, to get caught up in the magician's tricks, right? But disenchantment means now I see you for what you actually are. You are not me. You are not mine. You are not myself. This is not me. This is not mine. This is not myself. This leads to that disenchantment, which means no matter what arises, no matter how much, formation arises in the meditation, no matter all the different activities that are happening around you, you remain disenchanted from them. You are no longer interested in them. You are no longer caught up by them. Right, you have had enough of them. This disenchantment leads to this dispassion. This dispassion means no more passion. There is no more desire for that particular experience or for that particular state. The mind is in a bubble, remains completely unaffected by whatever is occurring, by whatever is arising, by whatever is passing away.

That dispassion then leads to vimutti, which is the liberation of mind in that moment, the cessation of all suffering. To experience the five aggregates in this way. That doesn't mean you have to investigate only. That doesn't mean you have to analyze only. That doesn't mean you have to reflect on it only. That is a fool's errand because you keep doing that and all you're doing is engaging in the thinking mind. That's all you're doing. It's more about seeing it for what it actually is in every moment and understanding, oh, there is a separation point here. It is not me. It is not mine.

Myself, because if you say it by rote, oh, this is not me and this is not mine, this is not myself, it's just a mantra in your mind. It's not going to get you anywhere. But if you actually see it just being available to the moment, then you are able to let go, and in letting go you have liberation in that moment. So this is the way to see the five aggregates. This is the way to detach the clinging in relation to the five aggregates. What does it mean when we say the clinging in relation to the five aggregates? Because that is a question that is asked in the suttas. Is the clinging the same as the five aggregates, or is the clinging different from the five aggregates?

And the answer is it's neither the same nor different. Because if it was the same, if you cease clinging, you cease the aggregates. But if it was different, then it means that once you cease the clinging, on their own in reality, the clinging is in relation to what the mind attaches the sense of self to. In terms of it says these aggregates are either mine, or these aggregates are me, or I am in these aggregates, or I am separate to these aggregates. Right, so that is the five aggregates, the four different kinds of self-view, which are the 20 different self-views. So that is the clinging that we're talking about. So the five aggregates themselves are impersonal.

So too is the clinging. But the clinging itself needs to be weeded out. Once the clinging is weeded out, then you see the five aggregates for what they actually are. Now there is no more taking things personally. Being, because that is another question. When you talk about being, how do you define a being? And the Buddha says, whenever there is some karmic engagement or whenever there is an identification with one or more of the five aggregates, there is said to be being. So the destruction of being, the letting go and extinguishment of being, is the letting go of taking the aggregates personally.

So just this understanding will liberate the mind. But in order for that understanding to arise, it requires the Eightfold Path, which includes Samadhi, which includes right collectedness, going through the jhanas and seeing for yourself how this process works. This is why when I say the mind is your teacher, it means that your mind is showing you how this process works. You have to just be open and observe like a scientist. This is what's going on. But that doesn't mean that you're observing from the sense of an observer. There is only observing happening. Going back to the Bhaya Sutta, there is no meditator that's there. There is only the process of meditation happening. So this is what is meant by metacognition.

The process of meditation. The mind is observing the mind meditating. The mind is observing the mind getting distracted. The mind is observing the mind 6R'ing and coming back. The mind is observing the mind going into this jhana. The mind is experiencing the mind seeing loving kindness and so on and so forth. If you create that space, then you will have true progress. Otherwise you will get stuck and attached to which jhana am I in? What jhana am I supposed to be in? All of these questions arise every time you take the practice personally. Every time you are outcome-driven in relation to the practice, that means you are taking it personally. Let go of that and just let the mind do its thing.

is at light speed. And before you know it, when you least expect it, the mind is liberated. Now, are there any questions? Thank you. It's such a fascinating teaching. And the thought of how does one approach that on a moment-to-moment basis when it's so kind of counterintuitive to our conventional way of seeing the world. So I don't know. Thinking this is not me, this is not mine. And then somebody steps on my foot and breaks my toe. And in that moment, my subjective experience will be, that's my foot and you stepped on it. So I'm kind of assuming that a fully awakened being would experience pain and shock, but would not be going, that's my foot and get off it or I'm going to punch you.

I mean, there are times when it's like, hey, that's my piece of chocolate. And then it's like, what? And just hearing that could turn the mind around and there'd be like an experience of letting go of self. But that's kind of like winning the lottery or something in a certain way, right? So I wonder if you could just speak to how to approach this on an ongoing basis. And what he says is, if you look at the grass outside, he's talking about it. He says, and if someone were to burn up that grass, how would you feel about it? And they would say, we wouldn't feel anything about it because it's just grass. That's the same way you should see the five aggregates, he says.

This is not mine, this is not me. So if it happens, it happens. But of course, subjective experience, it is painful. So how do you deal with it? That's where the two darts understanding comes to be. The first dart is the pain itself, the physical pain or whatever the experience is. The second dart is the implanting of "I" in relation to that pain and becoming enamored or enchanted or affected by that pain personally. So for the fully awakened being, they have the first dart. They are subject to pain. They are subject to all kinds of experiences. But there is no second dart that says, "Why did this happen to me? experiencing this. How dare they say that to me and all of these things.

The reactivity to the experience goes away. So I just had the image of a fender bender, you're in a fender bender and you're about to get out and go, oh, too bad about that. Are you okay? But then the ambulance chaser shows up and says, that guy was in the wrong. We should sue that guy. And suddenly the mind goes off on the story. It's kind of like that, right? That's right. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Thank you. I thought the free won't thing was interesting because that was what I was struggling with when I was trying to apply the don't do anything recommendation, because it felt like I can either do as the mind is impulsing me to, or I can veto that.

So it was like I got to do something either way. I'm not supposed to do anything. Interestingly, I don't know if I was applying this correctly, but I remembered your analogy of the flashlight. And then it's, at the end, it's just pointing at nothing. And so, when I was in quiet mind, I tried to apply that. And the way I thought of it was like, all right, I'm just going to try and point the flashlight in the same direction. So in terms of doing something, that's what I did. I didn't do anything except for that. I'm just like, let me just try and keep my attention on this in this same direction.

And then that worked. Yes. Because you weren't looking at anything in particular. It was just going in that direction, but not in anything in particular. Yeah. Another thing on that note, after that. Well, it's kind of gone away now, but for a while after that session, it felt like I had that. Usually when I'm going through the jhanas, I'll have these different, especially in the later jhanas, I'll have these different points of tension in my head or in my neck or something. And then they go away when I finish the sitting. But then this time they were still there and it felt like I was still kind of in jhana, mostly like head and neck tension.

I also get a lot of tension in the eyes. I think I know what you're going to say, but do you have any other tips on how to not get so much tension? So if I understand what you're saying, and make sure I understand this correctly, you're saying that when you're in the jhana, are you experiencing pain? Not pain. It's just tension. Especially when I was moving towards signless, I felt like there was a bunch of pressure building up in my eye. It didn't really hurt. It was just concerning.

Right. And then when you came out of it, was the pressure still there? Actually, no. When I went into signless, then it kind of disappeared and it felt like I didn't have any eyes. Yeah. There's your answer there. I just got to keep going. Keep going. It could be meditation. It could be mental. It's a psychosomatic experience. It's not necessarily physical. Okay. Kind of like an anticipation thing or something like that. Okay. All right.

Thanks. Sorry, I missed the first part. Sorry. Very first part. You said that anatta is... The Buddha didn't say there's no... Yeah, the Buddha didn't say that there is no self. No self. He also didn't say that there is a self. What he said is that every experience that we have, which is conditioned, is not self. It doesn't belong. I kind of missed the chocolate cake example with how that triggers you to pick up that chocolate cake. Watch the videos, you'll see them. Okay. One other question. When I'm thinking about it and I'm just thinking about it and I'm not in meditation, I have this fear that if I achieve some level of awakening then I'll be totally different. I'll lose all my aspirations and I'll just kind of throw away my career and all that, but then when I'm meditating none of that really pops up. Yeah, so is it, do I need to worry about it or should I do something about it or can I just forget it? If this happens, then I lose my identity.

But when you're in meditation, all of those thoughts cease naturally because your mind is very collected. So those thoughts are arising due to a mind that might not be collected in that moment. And all of these worries are stemming from conceit, the image of the self. But if you take that away and you just continue meditating, like I said, you can't accidentally become fully awakened, right? So you let go, you let go, you let go. But if there's still something that's still being held on to, then it will prevent you from going further. But you think about how this process works and what it changes. What it does is, as you get closer and closer to being fully awakened, one way or the other.

Like maybe once you become a stream enterer, you become more generous towards monastics or you become more generous towards causes in relation to the Dhamma. When you become a sakadagami, maybe you become a little bit more interested in listening to more Dhamma talks and so on. When you become an anagami, maybe that's when you choose to actually become a meditation guide or something. Or maybe you incline your career towards meditation. You incline your career towards how you can facilitate people to know more. So that's why I say being a fully awakened person means that you are the ultimate slacker. Nothing wrong in it. It's wrong because society says it's wrong. It's wrong because the way this world has been built says you have to be a contributor factor towards society.

But once you disengage with samsara, then when you re-engage with samsara, you do it from a way that is beneficial to samsara. And more effective and efficient in being beneficial to samsara. Thank you. One other thing. I feel like you mentioned this before. You were saying that because there can be a cessation that doesn't lead to a path or achievement, so then in order to try and have a cessation that does, you set an intention when you're in the signless state or right before, or you make the determination to see the links of dependent origination. I'm just trying to remember what that was. Well, I think it's going to be in relation to the attainment of being able to go into cessation.

I don't know if that was related to the links of dependent origination. I have to really think about that. Or maybe it was something about when you've had an attainment, because then you see the links of dependent origination. Is that accurate? Yeah. Okay. So the idea is that when you either you will see the links of dependent origination. Even afterwards you have better clarity on how it's like. For some people, for example, one person had a wonderful cessation experience, nothing happened, and then they were walking into the bathroom, and when they came out, ready to go to bed, it all just appeared to them. So it could be a little bit of a delay too, but seeing the links and understanding dependent origination is definitely a surefire way of knowing whether somebody has had a path of cessation.

Okay, thank you. For an unawakened being, does sankhara get carried from birth to birth? Not all sankhara. It depends upon what causes and conditions are present. So some sankhara can remain dormant for eons before they are awakened, to a certain kind of cause and condition. That's how karma works. Think about karma like different kinds of seeds. You have an apple seed, you have an orange seed, you have a watermelon seed.

And by the nature of that particular seed, it will germinate at a certain point in time and it will come to fruition at a certain amount of time. But if there's not enough water being given to the apple seed or not enough sunshine being given to the orange seed, but everything is proper in its right way for the watermelon seed, then the apple seed might grow slower or might not grow at all, the orange might grow slower or not at all, but the watermelon will come into full fruition. In the same way that works for karma and by extension for sankhara. Can you please comment on how that happens, the mechanism, from one birth to another? What in it, you mentioned the seeds, symbolically speaking, that they get carried into the next birth, but through what?

Through craving. When there's any kind of attachment or identification in that moment, it will awaken or activate certain formations, which will give rise to corresponding consciousness, which then transfers all of that into the next life. So in between birth, that process can happen, that can be craving. No, before the death of that being, at that moment of death. That reaction that being has at that moment of death is what determines what formations come into being and what formations are taken into the next birth. So that final moment seems to be crucial. So even the person might have done a lot of practice and they have, say, 60% of their habitual tendencies tend to be wholesome. But in that final moment that arises the unwholesome, and then that kind of determines it.

So that is why if you get to stream entry then you don't have to worry about it. There's a guy named Mahanama who spoke to the Buddha and he says, I'm very worried about something. The Buddha said, what? He said, what if in my final moments my mind inclines towards the unwholesome and I go to hell? And the Buddha said, for someone who is a stream enterer, they have closed off all formations that can lead to a lower realm. So their mind will always incline towards something wholesome. So the security is in entering the stream. So does that mean for a stream enterer, to confirm they are a stream enterer in their day-to-day life, their mind wouldn't incline to anything unwholesome?

No, that's not what it means. It means that they will maybe take something personally for some time, but because of the intelligence of the Dhamma, the wisdom of the Dhamma. So they will respond. Thank you. Just to clarify, have you ever encountered an anagami who said, have done that. I wish I would have stayed a sakadagami or a sotapanna so that I could continue to enjoy the things that I enjoyed back then. Have you ever met anyone like that? No. Thank you. No regrets. That's just a cross-examination. And I'm a little concerned with the language of a slacker. Just because someone who might encounter this without any background information might think, oh, what, they're just a bunch of lazy people.

And my experience has been that the more awakened somebody appears to be, the more incredibly valuable their existence and the activities they do are, and also the efficiency of the activity, both in terms of getting a lot done, but also in terms of the outcomes, is just exponentially better than anybody who's done time management courses or something, or works really hard or has a good work ethic and so on. So I just wanted to bounce that off you. Yeah, that's a good point. When I say slacker, of course it's tongue-in-cheek, but really what it's referring to is that they don't get invested in things that other people might get invested into, right?

And so such a person would be working off of intuition all the time, which means they allow intuition what's going on, which makes it that much more efficient and that much more valuable to themselves. Because they're not invested in the awakening of other beings. They're not motivated in having a certain number of followers. They're not motivated in propagating the Dhamma. That's what it means when they're slackers. They're not evangelists. But when they do find themselves in situations where people want to know about the Dhamma, if it's appropriate or not, and they teach or they light the path or whatever it is, it's that much more effective. Thank you. I just want to say, John, those are only the people you've met.

Oh, you think you've met. I was going to ask, wasn't there something or other Buddha who didn't actually want to teach anybody? Are the buddhas who basically stay in the key, stay in the force, and don't actually teach them? I have a question, very beginner, stupid question, I'm sorry. This time you were talking, my understanding is about five aggregates and happiness, and actually I have some hesitation to have loving kindness idea while dwelling in the meditation, because I say, may I be happy, but actually I know according to the Dhamma there's no me, and actually so what I will get, the happiness that I will get from this meditation, is different from what actually my mind wants.

I'm feeling I'm kind of lying. So I have some hesitation, but one of them would be such kind of thing. Do you have some recommendation? One of the things you have to understand is when we say happiness, there is an idea of happiness. But when you come to true happiness, it is not within the realm of concepts that are there in the mind. So you can only engage in concepts. Your mind can only engage in the idea of what happiness means. Happiness can mean an exuberant joy. Happiness can mean satisfaction and contentment and tranquility and serenity and all of it. So everybody's definition of happiness can be whatever it is. That's fine. All beings be happy is your definition of what happiness is.

The ultimate happiness, which is Nibbana, cannot be defined. It is undefined. Undefinable. It can only be pointed to by certain concepts that only point to the borders of that ultimate happiness. So you're not lying to yourself. Thank you very much. On the note of the use of language, I know it's been mentioned quite a bit in the Dharma teachings, the right view, right understanding, the word right. I've also read Dharma books that the original meaning of the Pali word of that doesn't exactly mean right. The word right might have a connotation of this being the only way and then everything else is wrong. What's your, yeah, can you please comment on that? But that is true according to that one, this is the only way. Does the original Pali word have other meaning or that's the sort of direct translation? So somehow can mean wholesome, somehow can mean ethical, somehow can mean effective, somehow can mean harmonious, but when the Buddha says right, it comes from the word ritta, actually, in Proto-Indo-European or Sanskrit.

Ritta means that which is like the Tao, that which is in unison with everything, harmonious with everything. So when we say right, think about the word right. When we're saying right, we're not saying it is the only thing, and the benefit of others. So samatha means beneficial. There's a beneficial view. There's a beneficial intention. There's a beneficial speech. There's beneficial action. There's beneficial mindfulness. There's beneficial effort. There's beneficial livelihood. So right and wrong doesn't mean it is absolute. Although the intention was to say that it is absolute. Because there is an absolute right and there is an absolute wrong. There's no grey area in terms of the ethics of it. Either you kill or you don't kill.

Either you steal or you don't steal. Either you lie or you don't lie. Either you cheat or you don't cheat. Either you have a drink or you don't have a drink. It's like that old Seinfeld joke about the laundry: either it's dry or it's not dry. There's no in-between. Thank you. You can't get a little bit pregnant. That's very good. I'm going through my list because I have a few. First, I have sort of an easy question. Just because this affected me personally, the Bodhisattva vow and the idea that if one has a Bodhisattva vow, then that could be an obstacle to experiencing attainments in this life.

And so I've heard two answers from you about that, and I'd like to just sort of hear them together. Yeah, so one was that, well, in order to actually have an effective bodhisattva vow, one has to take the vow in the presence of a living Buddha, right? And I think the Buddha also has to make a prediction that that will be true, and the second was, it'll be, it can be an obstacle if you make it an obstacle. So that second one is interesting to me because, and I think it speaks a little bit to Joseph's question. Thoughts that we have that could prevent us from progressing because we have a view about ourselves or our practice that just doesn't include that ability to awaken.

People who believe they can't awaken, even though they try really hard. I think related to that is the bodhicitta, right? The bodhicitta is the impulse towards awakening. And I think this is a matter of semantics and understanding of what bodhisattva vow actually means, because I think one interpretation is that it means that I will not be awakened until all beings are awakened. But I don't know if that's actually the vow, perhaps it's a different vow, because in other traditions the vow is, I will strive for my awakening and help others in the attainment of their awakening. I think that's a more sensible vow, because the Buddha himself, if he was a bodhisattva before he became a Buddha, would have had to wait until all of samsara was fully awakened and then become awakened. And if that's the case, what's the point of becoming a Buddha?

Also that other first part of it, I tend to also see it in that way, which is that you have to be in the presence of a living Buddha. And the Buddha has to be able to see if you have the capacity to actually go all the way and then say, yes, it can be done. So I think the bodhisattva vows that are done in certain traditions could be seen as bodhicitta, which is the impulse or the dedication for the mind towards awakening. That might be the better way to look at it. Thank you. I heard one person say that it's actually, we're taking this all too literally, and it's kind of poetry.

Like it's the heart's longing to help that makes this grandiose statement that just draws us to us. I think that's a good way of looking at it too, because it's like, yeah, I would like other beings to also be happy and awaken, right? I think the idea that before other beings can, before I'm awake and I will make sure other beings awaken, that comes from the ego. That's a big hubristic statement. Thank you. And this is sort of pertaining to what you mentioned.

a bit ago uh the idea that like there's uh there can be um you know like an attainment and like the the fruition um but then there seems to be a kind of fruiting as laurie was calling it in which uh like over a period of you know weeks months maybe i don't know yours could be uh there's a uh an in not even an integration but there's a kind of the activation of those qualities might realize like sila is coming at one in a completely new way that that wasn't there before that takes time to actually manifest so this idea of attainment of like um it sounds almost like a gradual path in a way in the sense of an attainment even being uh happening over time could you speak a bit to that yeah i think uh that's very valid because in the sutras also it talks about the gradual process of awakening right so the gradual like coming to the path means that you're walking on the path towards Arahatship.

Or once you attain Arahatship, there is a fruition that goes on. Or any of the different paths. So there is a walking, which is the actual process of attaining, and then being attained, which is the fruition. And that can happen immediately. Like there can be a path, and then there can be a fruition. But general examples in the suttas talk about, or I should say, major examples, or most examples, are of a gradual kind of awakening, a gradual kind of process. That's why when you look at Upanisha Sutta, you have different kinds of factors that lead to that liberation, but it's not a one-stop shop. It's like you have to do that, and then there's another level that you have to uncover, and another level you have to uncover.

But in terms of the fruiting aspect, I think when you talk about or cultivating more samadhi, that happens due to causes and conditions. So you might have the fruition, which is the destruction of the taste and so on. But the cultivation of psychic powers, for example, might be something else. Or the cultivation of certain meditative attainments might be something else. So those are all practical processes that you can cultivate. Is it necessary? Well, it's added on to it. Thank you.

I can't remember if it's at the sotapana level or further, but I vaguely recall, if I remember correctly, that one becomes not attached to rites and rituals, and does that also include precepts? No, precepts are not rites and rituals. Right, okay. So rites and rituals are with the idea that, I'm going to pray to this deity, for this much money, or I'm going to light this incense with the hope of pleasing this deity, or I'm carrying this lucky charm with me because it's going to help me in my practice or something. Those are the kinds of rites and rituals. I will sacrifice those rites and rituals. So, precepts, taking precepts is not a rite and ritual.

It is a practice. It is part of sila, samadhi, panna. I have a story that I heard about recently to the point of do we practice now or do we wait and practice later? There was a young couple that met and they both became Buddhists together. And they decided, well, we'd like to ordain, but wouldn't it be kind of fun to have a married life for a while? So they got married and they were very, very happy together. And they meditated and all of that. And after three and a half years, the wife died, and he ended up a year later going ahead and ordaining. But his wife, we don't know whether she'll ever have another chance in the human realm to see the Dhamma.

It's just a cautionary tale. You take your chances when you gamble like that, I think, and it's a choice you have to make. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fierce drop 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 these and having space and earth and the efforts of knowledge and mighty power share this merit of others. May they long protect the put in this disposition.