June 15 SN 41.6 "With Kamabu" Cessation and its attainment. Sunday Sutta Study

Let's get started. Everyone can see this? Looks good. Today I'm doing a sutta called the Dutiya Kamabhu Sutta, with Kamabhu. This is Samyutta Nikaya 41.6. Now on one occasion, the Venerable Kamabhu, it's supposed to be Kamabhu, not Kamabha. Anyway, Kamabhu was dwelling at Machi Kasanda in the wild mangrove. go grove.

Then Chitta the householder approached the venerable, paid homage to him, sat down to one side and said to him, "Venerable sir, how many kinds of formations are there?" "There are, householder, three kinds of formations: the bodily formation, the verbal formation and the mental formation," the householder said. And having delighted and rejoiced in the venerable's statement, he asked him a further question. "But venerable sir, what is the bodily formation?"

"What is the verbal formation? What is the mental formation?" "In-breathing and out-breathing, householder, are the bodily formation. Thought and examination are the verbal formation. Perception and feeling are the mental formation." A little bit more detail on this. So when we say bodily formations, they are related to the natural pattern of breathing, nothing to do with us controlling our breath, trying to slow it down, prolong it, quicken it, or any kind of pranayama thereof.

It's just the natural cycle of breathing that is facilitated through formations. Formations come from the word sankhara. Sankhara means to cook something up. They facilitate this reality that we experience as samsara, as whatever we are experiencing through the sense basis, through the mechanisms of the body, and through the process of actively thinking and contemplating about something. They allow us to move around. There are other formations related to that, called the well... they are kind of like bodily formations, but they're basically related to the metabolism, the heat of the body, making sure everything is functioning in terms of homeostasis for the body. We don't have control over that. We don't control our blood pressure as such. We don't control our heartbeat as such. Although you hear of yogis being able to do that, but that takes a great degree of skill, and it's just showing off and bragging.

Nothing great about that. And most of our bodily processes we don't really think about. It's just happening as a result of these formations. Thought and examination are the verbal formation. What do we mean by thought and examination? Find where? In the first jhana. Vitaka means to think about something, to actively contemplate something, and vichara is to sustain that process of contemplation.

When Einstein discovered the E equals mc squared formula, he went through a process of vitaka and vichara. He took up a subject or an object, whatever you want to call it, and he thought about it for a long time. Same with Newton. Same with any inventor or physicist or even creator. You think about it for a long time, and then you go through a process of sustaining the experience of contemplating that. That's vitaka and vichara. You're actively thinking. This is different from the thought streams that are there in the background. This is different from the daydreaming that might happen, that arise. You don't call upon those distractions.

You don't call upon those daydreams. You kind of get lost in that. And those are not part of verbal formation. The word verbal somehow gives the connotation that it's about speech, and part of that is the case. And contemplation, one way of putting it, happens when we think about something and then we may want to express it in speech.

Somebody says something to us and we hopefully think before we speak. We think about what it is that they say. We think about our response, and then we have the intention to say something. So this is the verbal formation. And mental formation is perception and feeling. So this is where the passive kind of thinking happens or is facilitated. Just as you cannot change the green of the grass or the green of the leaves during summertime, you can't change the flow of the thoughts that are arising. You can only observe what's going on. You can't change the sound of the birds. You can't change the feeling of a certain kind of fabric. It is just an experience.

It is a feeling and perception. Feeling being the sensation, the experience, the sensing, the cognizing, the thinking, and perception being that which labels. So when we experience background thoughts, those are facilitated through mental formation. Because we seem to forget sometimes that when we talk about feeling, Vedana, which is experience, it's six kinds. We think, oh, it's just seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. But thinking also is part of that. You can't change or control your thoughts. You can only observe them and change the attention to them towards your object.

So if you treat thinking just like the green of the grass or the green of the leaves during summertime, where we can't change anything about it, then we're just observing. We're seeing that in the seeing, there's only the scene. In the hearing, there's only... So first one thinks and examines, then afterwards one breaks into speech. In other words, first you have to actively contemplate what it is that you're going to say, and then you express it in speech. Idiot without any kind of understanding of what you're saying, and whatever you're saying won't be understood by the person trying to understand you. That is why thought and examination are the verbal formation.

Perception and feeling are mental. These things are dependent upon the mind. That is why perception and feeling are the mental formation. You always hear this. Mind is chief. Mind is the... What does this mean? All experience, whether through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the body, they all are experienced as reception through the sense basis, but ultimately felt, made sense of, and perceived by the mind, and hence they are mental formation. Likewise with thoughts. Venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable sir, how does the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling come about?

We'll get to what those words actually mean in this context. "Attaining" or "I have attained." That's the thing, right? The anticipation that occurs is what is blocking you from attaining. Anticipation is apekkha. Upekkha, which is equanimity, is the lack of expectation or anticipation. This is why I always say it occurs when you least expect it. Think about, for those who have experienced this the first time, you had no bloody idea what was going on. You were just following instructions and going through the process.

And then when you least expect it, because you had no idea, no concepts of what it was, your mind just dropped. And now the challenge is, now you have a concept around that, around not exactly cessation necessarily, but around the experience that comes from it, the joy and relief, for that experience again. So sometimes, because of the talks that Bhante has given or because of my talks or David's talks, we may go deep into the understanding of what cessation is as an experience.

But that might sometimes create a concept around your mind. So I make it a point to not really create that for you nowadays. Talk so much about it. It's all there. You want to see it. It's all there on the previous videos. But what's the point of trying to conceptualize what cessation is when it is completely a cessation of perception and feeling, which means it's a cessation of all conceptualizing altogether? So you can only create the soil or the nutrition for that experience by letting go and observing, right? That's it. That's all you have to do. 6R's and observe. Sir, he then asked him a further question.

Because we said bodily formation, verbal formations, mental formations first. So why is he saying in this order that verbal formation ceases first, then bodily formation ceases next, and then mental formation ceases finally? Why? Because when we are experiencing the jhanas, in the first jhana, we have vitaka and vichara, the thinking and examining thought. We have the joy or the piti. We have the comfort and the sukha. Then the mind, which is the citta ekagata, or ekagata, but those two factors of vitaka and vichara, thinking and examining thought, cease. You don't need to keep intentionalizing. You don't need to keep looking for the object. Your mind is self-confident and smoothly flowing with the object in the second jhana, and therefore the verbal formation ceases. You don't need to actively think about it.

Then the bodily formation ceases, which is in the fourth jhana, it says that the in-breathing and out-breathing cease. But I don't believe this is the case. What happens is the mind becomes so quiet, the body becomes so quiet that you only have pure mindfulness dependent upon equanimity. So you have deep equanimity, deep mindfulness. is so relaxed the breathing becomes much fainter and so it seems like that process is ceasing i refuse to believe that for you to get to the four china you need to stop breathing which basically means you're going to die so i would not recommend it then the mental formation ceases and this happens as you're getting up to the neither perception or non-perception, what's happening?

The perceptions start to come in and out, and that's why people have these so-called micro-cessations. And then eventually, because there is no attention given to any formations that arise in the form of these proto-thoughts bubbling up as images, patterns, and so on, and the mind is completely pristine and quiet, eventually all ceases. Even that sort of attention, the so-called boredom that arises. What is boredom? People get bored. People come to meditation retreats to find the quiet mind. And when they find the quiet mind, their mind is bored and wants something else to do. Because our minds and bodies are used to continuous assault of the senses and continuous stimulation.

So when we get to that quiet mind, there can be boredom. And boredom is just another thought. Boredom is just another thought, and a thought is just like the green of the grass that you can't change. You can only change your attention to where you put it. So if boredom is just a thought, then you see it for what it is, and you say, okay, this is where boredom is. Fine, no problem. You remain steady, steadfast. There, the formations start to cease completely and the mind experiences cessation of perception and feeling, which is the cessation of mental formations.

So then he asks, saying, good venerable sir, he then asks him a further question. Venerable sir, what is the difference between one who is dead and gone and one who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling? In the case of one who is dead and gone, the bodily formation has ceased and subsided. The verbal formation has ceased and subsided. The mental formation has ceased and subsided. His vitality is extinguished. His physical heat has been dissipated and his faculties are fully broken up. What does that mean? His vitality is extinguished. This is what in Pali is known as jivitindriya. The life energy, the life principle, as it were, has gone away. The physical heat, the metabolism, the cellular metabolism, all of that starts to dissipate and goes away completely.

His faculties are fully broken up, which means the senses have lost their ability to receive anything. The nervous system that receives the experience through the senses starts to dissipate completely and is broken up as the body decays. In the case of one who has attained a cessation of perception and feeling, the bodily formation has ceased and subsided, meaning the breathing has become so faint. The verbal formation has ceased and subsided. No process of initializing any kind of thought. The mental formation has ceased and subsided. No perception and feeling. But his vitality is not extinguished. His physical heat has not been dissipated. And his faculties are serene. This is the difference between one who is dead and gone and one who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.

So when we say that his vitality is not extinguished, which means those formations that allow for the processes of the body to continue, continue, albeit in a much slower state. And the physical heat has not been dissipated. Metabolism still continues, albeit at a slower state. It doesn't even need to be at a slower state. It's just that they are there and they're keeping the body alive. This vitality, jivitindriya, is dependent upon sankharas known as ayu sankharas. And ayu means longevity or life or age. So it's to deal with this at the cellular level.

And his faculties are serene, which means there's no traffic jam of sensory data going through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the body, the tongue, or the mind. Which means the eyes are present, the ears are there, meaning the faculties are there, and they are connected still to an active nervous system. They're connected to the ability to receive, but they are dormant, and so therefore they're serene. They're clear, right? It's like during the time of COVID, when we have no traffic jams. Not a car in sight on the road. Not one iota of sensory data coming in through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, or the body.

And we'll get into that a little bit later. So there's no mind that says, I will attain. It's just, or I will come back from this. There is a previous intention, and then that intention is set aside. It's kept deep in the mind or deep in the brain. And when the time arises, the mind arises. Saying, good, venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable sir, when a bhikkhu is emerging from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, which of these things arise in him first? The bodily formation, the verbal formation, or the mental formation?

Householder, when a bhikkhu is emerging from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, first the mental formation arises and then the bodily formation and then finally the verbal formation. What does that mean? So first you have an experience of a feeling and perception of joy and relief that is facilitated through mental formations.

Then the breathing becomes more apparent. You feel the relief in the body. So you have the bodily formations. And then you say, wow, what was that? That's the verbal formation. Now, this is important. Saying, good, venerable sir, he then asked him a further question. Venerable sir, when one has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, how many kinds of contact touch him? Householder, when one has emerged from that attainment, three kinds of contact touch him. Emptiness, contact, signless contact, undirected contact.

That's not in the order that usually is given. But I'll start with the usual order, which is the signless contact. So all these three, signlessness, undirectedness, and emptiness, or signlessness, desirelessness, or aimlessness, and emptiness. These are all qualities of Nibbana. Nibbana is not an object. It is undirected because there's no intention in it. And it is empty because no self arises from it or is present in it.

But the realization of these things can also be states of experience. Signless, when you realize that all objects are impermanent, your mind lets go of all objects. Non-attention to all signs is the signless awareness of mind. When your mind realizes that any intention will ultimately lead to some futility because it's going to lead to some kind of suffering in the end, you let go of all intentionalizing.

And when you realize that this is empty of any inherent structure that can be called the self, you have the experience of emptiness. So these are the three gates of liberation, and there are different angles of seeing liberation or nirvana, or like three doors leading to the same room. What do we mean by seclusion? The word seclusion comes from the word viveka. Sure, why they use the word seclusion for this? Because yes, the mind wants to be quiet, yes, the mind wants to be free of any kind of distractions and wants to be with itself and is withdrawn. But viveka also means the ability to discern, so it's a higher level of insight and wisdom. This is why I say to people, once you've experienced cessation, if you think you've experienced. Many arise in regards to your life, in regards to existence, in regards to self.

And note them down if you can. And people have some amazing insights that arise because of that. And that's because their mind is with itself. So that's the seclusion. And it's allowing the mind to discern what great insights have arisen. Oh, look, now it's kamhubti. So whoever has written this, they need a spell check statement. He asked him a further question. Venerable sir, how many things are helpful for the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling? I look at his answer. He says, indeed, householder, you are asking last what should have been asked first.

But I will answer you. For the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, two things are helpful. Serenity and insight. Vipassana, TWIM, tranquil wisdom, insight. That's the tranquil wisdom. The tranquility there is a serenity, wisdom, insight, meditation, TWIM. Samatha and vipassana yoked together. Maybe first you have samatha and then vipassana arises, but ultimately they come together, allowing you for this experience slash non-experience to happen. Or perhaps the insight arises, but your mind becomes calm and then they become yoked together. And then this experience slash non-experience arises. That's the end of that.

Does anybody have any questions? There, John. Hi, thank you so much. I'm curious about the kind of arisings that are just the random background stuff. You'd said that those are not. Well, what class of formations are those? Just the random bubbling memory of a second grade, high school, all that kind of thing. Mental formations. Those are mental formations? Okay, thank you.

Bill? Thank you. So what corresponds in this to the gateless gate of Zen, do you think? Gateless gate, doorless door, thresholdless threshold. I don't know. I mean, it's... Zen has very interesting koans and ideas to help alleviate the conceptualizing of the mind, so the mind gets very, very quiet. So the gateless gate is basically Nibbana, or their understanding of Nibbana, where there is, because we say the three gates or the three doors or whatever, but they're just a model, another model, another way of understanding that Nibbana is objectless. So that's gateless. Nibbana is undirected. You don't go to something, and Nibbana is empty. There's no one going anywhere.

That makes sense. Yeah, thanks. You have a message in the chat, a question in the chat. Is the seeing... In the seeing, there's only the seeing and the thinking and so on. So is it another way to point to selflessness? It's another way to point to the cessation of suffering. And these are the instructions that he gives. He says, you should train thus that in the seeing, there's only the seeing. In the hearing, there's only the heard, and so on. And when you do this, you realize that there's no inherent experience of I, me or mine. So it's selflessness. I don't know about the word selflessness. That sounds like you're being altruistic.

Self. And so it's a process of realizing that through this exercise, through this meditation practice, through this protocol, and then the mind just drops and suffering ceases in that moment. Yes. Empty yourself. Right. Anyone else ask something? Yeah. So, looking at the formations, verbal, bodily, and mental formations, I was wondering if you, and this might clear up a misunderstanding, when you think of them as scenes, like I've thought of them, the verbal formation is the potential I might have to say something, but it hasn't happened yet, and the potential of my bodily formation of doing an action later. Is that correct? Because it sounds like it's only the bodily process, so it's not the potential to act. Yeah. The formations are the thing that allow for these processes to arise, so it's like in seed form, right. So the seed germinates through consciousness and reality.

And then the process of thinking, or the process of doing an action, or the process of experiencing something through the senses, is happening through the body, the senses, and then the process of contact and feeling. So those are all active processes, or kinetic processes. And these are potentials. These are, sort of, like, can happen. The intention to do something is one thing, but to do it is another thing. But this is why the Buddha was so emphatic about the fact that intention is karma. So you have to still pay attention to intention, because before it's too late and that goes out into the world, you can kind of see that and let that go, so that you don't say something that's unwholesome or do something that's unwholesome.

Of your formations, look at the quality of your intentions. So they are facilitators. They're like in seed form, and they grow out through consciousness and everything else in that series of dependent origination. So if I can think of it that way, then the bodily formations are the seed? Yeah, yeah. Likewise with thinking and examining thought, and likewise with any kind of experience.

That's why, when we are in the Aichana, it's like really weird fever dream kind of stuff, because it's like you're not really able to discern what is being experienced, but those are the potentials of fully formed experiences that you can feel and perceive in the mind. Anyone else? Actually, Delson, Bhante would always say cessation of perception, feeling, and I'm going to add on consciousness.

Yeah. And it's kind of an interesting question whether, I suppose the text doesn't say that. Yeah. So perhaps we shouldn't say that. I don't want to say that. Yeah, I don't know. What do you think? Well, this is something that I've been contemplating as well. I understand where Bhante was probably coming from. I mean, I can only speculate, but we look at the sutta Majjhima Nikaya 43, which is the dialogue between Sariputta and Mahakotthita, and in there it talks about how feeling and perception are connected. They're intertwined, and where feeling arises, perception arises, and when perception arises, there is consciousness. So I understand, probably, that's where Bhante was like, that's cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. Yeah, but if you look at the original Pali, it says sanna vedayita nirodha. I probably butchered that, but what it means is sanna, perception, and vedayita, feeling, and nirodha, which is cessation. But it doesn't say sanna, vedayita, vinnana, nirodha.

So now there could be the understanding that we feel like awareness has ceased, because the thinking mind has completely stopped. And so there's a break in the memory of what happened in that moment as the mind touches Nibbana or experiences cessation. I also say that there is an experience of cessation of perception and feeling, but there could be still an experience of knowing that feeling and perception has ceased. But again, that's very sort of, well, what does that mean? If you're ceasing perception and feeling, but there's a knowing, then obviously you're experiencing something. So there's a cessation of some kind of a self-experience, or an experience of me having an experience. That completely is gone in cessation of perception and feeling.

So I would stick to just saying cessation of perception and feeling, just to kind of keep it to the suttas. Now, there are commentarial texts, and the Visuddhi Magga says, you know, cessation of perception and feeling means a complete blanking out of consciousness. And the word they use is achittaka. Achitta means lack of consciousness, the realm of the unconscious beings. So I think there's something else going on there, where consciousness pauses or consciousness has a different quality to it. And there's a couple of other suttas which talk about this, where the Buddha says where name and form cease, where this and that, all of that ceases, where earth, water, fire, air ceases, there you have consciousness without surface. Or there you have what's known as the vinnana anidassanam, which means no links are present in that experience.

So that's another way of pointing towards that, which means we don't blank out of consciousness. We don't go into a coma. We just lose all perception of what's arising, because there's complete cessation of that. And there's footage missing from the film reel, however many minutes of that recording of the Watergate scandal. You just can't find it. You can't find what happened in that. So that's what I see as cessation. Well, perhaps we could go a little bit more into the weeds and wonder about the Vipassana system. The Mahasi Sayadaw system has 16 insight knowledges, and at the end there is a blackout, this blackout, and it's called Nibbana, and this is what they say is Nibbana.

And the question is, any speculation about what this blackout could be? Anyway, we were talking about the blackout that has happened, and also is reported in Zen. I mean, many, they have this, oh, nothing's there. Yeah. Any speculation? So, sometimes people also experience what I call micro cessations. It's like they're dipping into a space where the mind, they even have a bodily reaction to it. Their mind just goes like this, or their body just goes like this. And then their mind feels like it's just dipped into something for a moment, but it's different from sloth and torpor. It's like the mind, kind of just tippy-toeing, just going little bit, little bit, little bit, but it's not completely gone.

Yeah, the thing about Satori and these kinds of states, for example, they would say, what was your face before your parents were born, going into that experience. So it's like a complete stopping of conceptualizing. And if we were to see that from the Sutta perspective, the Buddha calls Nibbana nippapancha, the cessation of mental proliferation.

So they might be trying to get to that, and they might have a blank. But I think the important question there is, what realizations arise from that? What understanding arises from it? Do you see dependent origination? Do you understand what dependent origination is? Theoretically, but actually realizing how the mind makes its own reality, makes up its own suffering, and makes up the sense of self. Well, I would guess that this blackout is gotten by concentration, by... That happens, yes, yes. Departing hindrances.

This has happened for some people I know and have talked with, Samadhi, for example, and they think that they're going and experiencing great degrees of bliss, which they are, which they are. And then their mind is like in this space of suspension. And then they come out and they feel like time hasn't passed at all. It's sort of like being in a coma, or having taken anesthesia, very suppressed, and as a result of which, there can be this unconscious blackout.

I guess we can leave it. Leave it there. Anyone else? Any more questions, or we're going to black out? I think we're not going to do our guided meditation. There's really only just a few people. Well, we can end it here then, and we can share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearlessly. 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, or share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. All right, thank you everyone. I'll see you around. All right, thank you. Thank you all, we'll see you next week.