Day 7 -2022 10 Day June Retreat - SN 12.25 Karma and Dependent Origination

Today we're going to go a little deeper into dependent origination with regards to karma and how karma works. I'm reading from Samyutta Nikaya number 12.25. This is called Bhumija at Savati. Then in the evening, the venerable Bhumija emerged from seclusion and approached the venerable Sariputta. He exchanged greetings with the venerable Sariputta and when they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and said to him, Friend Sariputta, some ascetics and brahmins, proponents of karma, maintain that pleasure and pain are created by oneself.

Action and consequence. When we talk about karma, we're not necessarily talking about something that is beyond our control. Karma starts with intention. The Buddha has said that intention is karma. If you want to pay attention to your formations, as I've said before, pay attention to the quality of your formations as they arise. Pay attention to your intention, pay attention to where your choices incline.

If your choices are rooted in the unwholesome, then the formations that arise are rooted in the unwholesome. If your choices are rooted in the wholesome, then the formations that have arisen are rooted in the wholesome. Now, here the question is in regards to those who are proponents of karma. That is to say, those ascetics and brahmins, those different kinds of sects that did understand karma or believed in some kind of karma, but they had a limited, let's say, capacity of karma in terms of how they understood it. That is to say, it is karma which is also pain and pleasure. So karma is not just your actions. Karma is also that which you reap from your previous actions.

And actions are not just physical, but verbal and mental. So the pain and pleasure that you feel, that is to say the pleasant feeling, the unpleasant feeling, even the neutral feeling, that's all the ripening of karma, all the ripening of choices you've made at a previous moment. Because of certain choices that you've made, they cascade down in a different moment and manifest as some kind of experience to be felt in that particular present moment. So this is why it's understood that they maintain that pleasure and pain are either created by oneself, or created by another, or created both by oneself or by another, or that they arise fortuitously, which means they arise beyond one's control, beyond one's own choices: pleasant feeling, unpleasant feeling, or neutral feeling.

So he's asking, how does the Buddha teach karma? How does he teach how pain and pleasure arise? How do we answer when somebody asks us, how does karma arise, so that we answer in such a way that there is no grounds for criticism? Friend, the Blessed One has said that pleasure and pain are dependently arisen. Dependent on what? Dependent on contact.

These three constitute eye contact. The ear and sounds make contact and give rise to ear consciousness. These three constitute ear contact. The nose and smells, the nose and odors and fragrances, join together, and the joining of these brings about nose consciousness. And these three constitute nose contact. The tongue and flavors come together, and from that arises tongue consciousness.

The joining of these three is tongue contact. The body and tangibles, that is to say temperature, heat, cold, the wind, fabrics, whatever it might be, make contact with the body. They make contact together, and from there arises body consciousness. And these three constitute body contact. There is the mind and mind objects, thoughts, ideas, concepts, meditation objects.

This makes contact with the mind, and dependent upon that, there is mind consciousness. These three constitute mind contact. So this is contact. This is phassa. This is the initial contact, which then, dependent upon which, gives rise to feeling. And that feeling can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. And what is feeling? Feeling is an experience. Any experience you're having right now. You're sitting in your chair, that's a feeling. You're listening to my voice, that's a feeling. You are seeing me, that's a feeling. You're contemplating, thinking about what is being spoken, that is a feeling.

In other words, Sariputta is saying that it's not one or the other. Any of these ways in which karma arises, arises dependent upon contact. So, what else does contact give rise to? Contact gives rise to feeling, as we just talked about. Contact gives rise to perception, tied to that feeling. Contact gives rise to intentions. Intention is karma, therefore contact also gives rise to karma.

So karma in the form of the active sense, where you make an action, mental, verbal or physical, that is the intention, that is the karma in one way. But karma as the passive, which is the ripening of old karma, that's the vipaka, the fruit of previous choices, is the feeling, is the perception, is the experience. Therein, friends, in the case of those ascetics and brahmins, proponents of karma, who maintain that pleasure and pain are created by oneself, and those who maintain that pleasure and pain are created by another,

And so the joining of those three won't happen and constitute ear contact. Likewise, if somebody was blind, if the eyes were not functioning, the light hits the eyes, but if the eye is not functioning, the joining of these three will not bring about eye consciousness. Therefore, there won't be eye contact, and therefore there won't be an experience dependent upon that contact.

So in order for karma to be experienced, it requires contact. In order for you to make an intention, there has to be some kind of contact. Whether it's pain or pleasure created by oneself, pain or pleasure created by another, pain or pleasure created by oneself or another, or pain or pleasure created outside of one's control or anyone else's control, whatever the circumstances are, that is experience dependent upon contact.

So contact is the key here. The Venerable Ananda heard this conversation between the Venerable Sariputta and the Venerable Bhumija. He then approached the Blessed One, paid homage to him, sat down to one side, and reported to the Blessed One the entire conversation between the Venerable Sariputta and the Venerable Bhumija. The Blessed One said, Good, good, Ananda. Anyone answering rightly would answer just as Sariputta has done. I have said, Ananda, that pleasure and pain are dependently arisen. Dependent on what? Dependent on contact.

Here, there is some kind of pain that arises or pleasure that arises, dependent upon contact. But there was an intention to experience that one way or the other. In the case of one that experiences pleasure and pain created by another: somebody comes to you and pokes you in the stomach. You didn't intend that, but the finger made contact with the body. That was contact. That gave rise to an annoying feeling, a painful feeling. Somebody came up and provided you with a glass of water because you were thirsty. You didn't intend for the glass of water, but somebody came up and gave it to you. And so your tongue made contact with the cool water, and you experience a pleasurable feeling, the quenching of that thirst.

And in the case of someone where there is karma created or karma experienced in the process of pain and pleasure caused by oneself and another, you decide to take a trip with a person. Both of you have made plans to go somewhere. And so you make the trip, and you start driving around. So both of you have caused this experience to happen in one way or the other, or whatever it might be. And in the case where karma fortuitously arises, you had no control over when this heat arose. You had no control over when the rain arises. You have no control over whether there is snow. You have no control over whether an earthquake strikes, or a tornado, or whatever it might be.

These all arise, and they make contact with the body, make contact with the sixth sense basis in one way or the other. Having arisen, that contact gives rise to karma in the form of a pleasant, unpleasant, or a neutral experience. So this is things that are beyond anyone's control, so to speak, beyond anyone's intentions. They arise, and they give rise to contact, and then they give rise to the feeling of the experience.

Ananda, when there is the body, because of bodily volition, pleasure and pain arise internally. When there is speech, because of verbal volition, pleasure and pain arise internally. When there is the mind, because of mental volition, pleasure and pain arise internally, and with ignorance as condition. So let's break that down. There is bodily volition, an intention rooted in the activity of the body.

There is verbal volition, an inclination or intention of the mind to say something dependent upon speech. There is mental volition because of the mind. And so because of an intention to think something, there arises a thought. So volition here is understood as intention or inclination. It can be understood as the mind that inclines towards a certain choice. This is known as chetana. It is one of the factors of nama-rupa, specifically nama, mentality. We talk about the factors of mentality as contact, feeling, perception, intention and attention.

Intention is also understood as inclination. In what way does the mind incline, and towards what does the mind incline? It is the rudder with which the mind makes choices. So that's why I'm saying, when you want to pay attention to the quality of your formations, pay attention to the choices that you're about to make. Where are your choices rooted? And if you are able to pay attention and see and recognize that there is an unwholesome choice about to be made, you can recognize it, Six R's, let it go, and recondition the mind to make a choice that is wholesome in nature.

Thereby you are effectively reconditioning the formations. And so here the Buddha says pleasure and pain arise internally, and with ignorance as condition. What is with ignorance as condition? Formations come to be. But that's a good point. With ignorance as a condition, what comes up? Formations. That's where your volition arises from. These formations, these sankharas, there are mental formations, verbal formations, and bodily formations.

The mental formations are related to the mind insofar as what it perceives, feels and perceives. Even if you make contact with the table, with your finger, ultimately the mind is experiencing that. Yes, the body makes contact, but ultimately it is experienced in the mind. When you're seeing things, the mind perceives, feels and perceives that through the eyes and creates an image.

When there are vibrations in the air and they hit the ear, the ear experiences that, but the mind is that which interprets that sound. When you have a mental object in the form of a thought or an idea, your mind makes contact with it and it starts to contemplate on it. It conceptualizes what it is that it is thinking about.

I tell you to not think about a purple elephant. What's the first thing you thought about? A purple elephant. Oh, a pink elephant, okay. So then you took that mental object and you changed it into a pink elephant. So these intentions to think, to act, to speak, they give rise to pain and pleasure with ignorance as condition. Because what is ignorance?

Ignorance is ignoring the four noble truths, not knowing what is suffering, not understanding what is the cause of suffering, not knowing the cessation of suffering, and not knowing the path leading to the cessation of suffering, which means you have lack of mindfulness. When there is lack of mindfulness in an experience, you take it personally. As soon as you take it personally, it feeds back to formations that root themselves in greed, hatred, and delusion, that have craving, have ignorance, have conceit, have wrong view, fettered in those formations, infected by those formations, affected by those formations, or those formations are affected by them.

So whenever you act upon your craving, what you are doing effectively is starting to strengthen the formations rooted in that craving. Every time you take something personally, you are strengthening the formations fettered in ignorance and conceit. So if you recognize that the mind is starting to do this and let go of the craving, let go of taking things personally, and that's dependent upon the recognized stuff, which is mindfulness, remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one thing to the other, using yoniso manasikara, wise attention.

And what is that wise attention rooted in? Rooted in reality. Reality of what? Reality that this experience is conditioned, dependently arisen. Therefore, it is liable to be impermanent, and therefore it is liable to cause suffering if held onto, and therefore not to be taken as me, mine, or myself. So when ignorance arises, dependent on the lack of mindfulness, which feeds back to that ignorance, that continues to strengthen the formations that arise, which means that any speech that you have, any intention to speak, any intention to act, any intention to think or feel and perceive, is also rooted in that craving, is also rooted in that ignorance, is also rooted in that conceit.

Let's break down that last one because that sounds like it's conflicting. It says, undeliberately, one generates that bodily volitional formation. Undeliberately, they generate a volition. How can that be? So this is where something arises which you did not intend to arise. It arose because the climate was hot, or your flight was canceled, or there was a big earthquake, or whatever it might be that is out of your own control. What arises is the intention behind how you choose to react. In other words, do you choose to get upset if your flight is cancelled? Do you choose to get afraid of a tornado? Do you choose to become upset by the heat? Do you choose to get upset by the lawnmower that's functioning outside, or by the air conditioning while you're meditating, or by people's movements, or when they yawn, or whatever it might be? Do you have the intention to get upset by it, or do you see it for what it actually is, just a sound that arises, and you let that go?

You notice the intention to get upset by it. And once you notice the intention to get upset by it, you can recognize it, and then you let that go using the 6R's, and come back to a mind that is equanimous. Somebody says something terrible to you that is out of your control. You didn't intend that. You didn't intend somebody to say that. So that is an undeliberate experience, that is to say that undeliberately one generates that particular volitional formation.

So you are experiencing something. Now what is the intention there? Is the intention to bite back at them and say something terrible back at them? Is the intention to punch them? Or is the intention in the mind to wish them harm? If you notice there is an intention like that arising, then you 6R it, let it go, and replace it with a wholesome intention.

This is where you have that choice. You can either decide to continue with whatever the automatic tendencies are to habitually react to situations if they're rooted in the unwholesome, or you can pay attention, let go of that, and recondition and make the choice rooted in the wholesome, thereby reconditioning the formations that arise, reconditioning the consciousnesses that arise, reconditioning the way nama and rupa experience reality, reconditioning the way that the sixth sense bases make contact and feel and perceive and experience, and thereby let go of the potential, or eliminate the potential, for aversion and craving and identification.

Which means there is no more of that ignorance, no more of that craving, no more of that clinging, no more of that becoming, no more of the birth of reactions rooted in craving, which give rise to that whole mass of suffering. So there is an understanding of old karma and new karma. As I said, karma is understood in two different contexts. What are the two different contexts? One context is that it is intention. It arises because of a choice.

That is the active karma that you make, right? That is the activity, the action that you do in the form of intentionally thinking something, intentionally saying something, intentionally acting from your body. And then there is the karma that arises based on those experiences, or arises based on those decisions, those intentions.

So where is the old karma and where is the new karma? In the context of dependent origination, the way to understand it is everything from ignorance all the way up to feeling is old karma. It's stuff you can't change. It's stuff that you are inheriting. It's stuff that arises dependent on previous choices that you made. You decided to have craving towards something, so the next arising will be rooted in ignorance and craving.

So then that means the formations that arise are fettered by that craving, hindered by ignorance, which means that consciousness will be tainted by greed, hatred or delusion, or the various upakilesas, the various defilements dependent upon greed, hatred, or delusion. Then that consciousness gives rise to how the nama-rupa experiences everything through the sixth sense basis. And so that contact, already conditioned by the craving, already conditioned by the ignorance, when the feeling arises, there is an underlying tendency to ignore, an underlying tendency to crave, an underlying tendency to have aversion towards, an underlying tendency to make a view about something, an underlying tendency to have doubt about something, an underlying tendency to identify with something, an underlying tendency to want to become something dependent upon that feeling.

So these underlying tendencies, when they arise, if the mind continues to act from that, that is the new karma. So the old karma is everything that you've inherited, including the experience you're having right now. You made the choice to come sit here and listen to me talk. That was the new karma, that was the action that you produced.

And now here you are, listening to my voice. This is the old karma. Everything that's arising now is old karma, dependent upon the choice you made to come and sit here. Now, the production of new karma is also the production of further suffering, further dukkha. That dukkha, that suffering, can arise in different ways. There are three different types of suffering.

There is what is the dukkha dukkha, the suffering of suffering. That's the suffering of painful feeling, the suffering of old age, the suffering of sickness, the suffering of death. Then there is the viparinama suffering, the suffering of change. Things change out of your control. You miss that flight or the flight gets cancelled. You're looking forward to going to see a baseball game and suddenly it starts to rain.

That's out of your control. On a cold winter's morning, you decide to have a really warm shower. And then suddenly, the hot water stops and there's cold water. That's the suffering of change. That's out of your control. Then there is the suffering that is known as sankhara dukkha. That is the inherent suffering in things, and the suffering of things that you identify with in regards to the five aggregates. Wherever you have identification with the body, with feeling, with perception, with intentions or formations, or with consciousness,

there arises this internal suffering. Because you either want to get something and you don't get it, or you get something that you don't want. Every time you identify with that, identify with the five aggregates that are then affected by craving and clinging, then you will experience that dukkha. So that dukkha then is experienced as old karma. So the new karma is the production of that old karma to be experienced in a later moment.

So how does that new karma arise? You identify with the experience, you identify with the feeling. When you identify with it, there can be an underlying tendency which you act upon and that gives rise to full-blown craving or aversion. If you continue to act with that craving and aversion, then now you are producing new karma. Now you are actively producing suffering for yourself.

First, you inherited the suffering in the form of old karma, in the form of previous choices you made. But if you decided to have resistance towards it, if you had the decision to have craving for it, now you're producing new karma to add to that repository of old suffering. So if you continue to crave and you continue to cling, which is you continue to rationalize why it is that you crave, you continue to associate all of your ideas of what you like and what you don't like, dependent upon that craving, which then gives rise to this concretized idea of the self in becoming, in habitual tendencies.

That causes the mind to act or react, which is the birth of action. And then that birth of action gives rise to further suffering. So the craving, the clinging, and the becoming, and the birth of action, this is all new karma. This is where you have some level of choice. Do you choose to crave? Do you choose to cling?

Do you choose to hold on to this identity? And then do you choose to act from those habitual reactions rooted in holding on to that identity? Or do you choose to see it as it actually is, which is the right intention, dependent upon right view? What is the right view? Knowing what is suffering, knowing what is the origin of suffering, knowing what is the cessation of suffering, and knowing the way leading to the cessation of suffering.

In other words, when you have that right view, it will start to establish itself in the mind and then condition the next set of formations that can be rooted in wisdom, rooted in compassion, rooted in letting go. And that right intention is threefold, or made up of three parts. Nekkhama, which is letting go, renunciating or renunciation, renouncing.

Letting go of what? Letting go of this is me, this is mine, this is myself. The second part to that is non-ill will. That non-ill will is arising through the practice of loving kindness. And then the third part of that is non-cruelty, or harmlessness, which arises dependent upon the cultivation of compassion. So when you let go of things, when you start to let go of identifying with things, when you have loving kindness, when you have compassion, that gives rise to what's known as right speech and right action.

That right speech and right action are non-productive of new karma. Meaning they don't produce suffering for yourself and for others. And that right livelihood, which does not produce suffering. So what is that karma? Or how is that karma? That is to say, that action, that speech, that intention, the mental karma, the bodily karma, the verbal karma, how does that arise in such a way that it is non-productive of further suffering, non-productive of new karma that is generated, that adds to the repository of the suffering to be experienced at a later time?

It's what you've been doing all this time with the retreat. The six R's. The six R's are right effort. It's through right effort that you go from wrong view to right view. You go from wrong intention to right intention. From wrong speech to right speech. From wrong action to right action. From wrong livelihood to right livelihood. From wrong mindfulness to right mindfulness. From wrong collectedness to right collectedness.

It is right effort that is the heart of the Eightfold Path, the core of the Eightfold Path. And that right effort is fourfold. There is the right effort to prevent the arising of unarisen, unwholesome states from arising. There is the right effort of abandoning the already arisen unwholesome states. There is the right effort to generate wholesome states of mind. And there is the right effort to maintain those wholesome states of mind. So when you are six R-ing, when you are doing the six R's, you are fulfilling these four right efforts. When you fulfill these four right efforts, you do not produce any new karma that can give rise to further suffering for yourself or for others.

So when you recognize that there is a distraction, when you recognize that there is an unwholesome state of mind present, you prevent the flow of that unwholesome state from continuing. When you release and you relax, you abandon the already arisen unwholesome state of mind. And then when you smile, come back to the smile, you generate a wholesome state of mind. When you return to an object of meditation like loving-kindness or quiet mind or whatever it might be, you are maintaining that wholesome state of mind. And whenever you repeat, you're continuing that process.

So that is why the most effective way of dealing with situations where unwholesome states of mind are is to 6R. In the case of your meditation, when hindrances arise, what is going on there? You made a choice in the past, at some point, to break a precept. Then that gives rise to, or culminates in, the arising of a hindrance in the mind.

When you break a precept, the mind starts to get agitated. Through that agitation, there can arise craving, there can arise aversion, there can arise doubt, there can arise sloth and torpor, there can arise restlessness. And so how do you deal with that? When you broke a precept, that was karma, or that was an action productive of suffering.

A karma that was productive of new karma. That's new karma. When you took that action, then at a later stage, you are now inheriting the consequences of that action, which develop in the form of the hindrances. So now that is the old karma for you to experience as a feeling. So that hindrance is a mental feeling. Now, how do you decide, or how do you choose, to deal with that hindrance? Do you choose to fight with it? Do you choose to push it? Do you choose to try harder to do something with it?

If you do any of that, you have craving in the mind. You have clinging in the mind. You have becoming in the mind, which means you're only adding to that hindrance. You're only adding to the energy of that hindrance. But if you 6R, if you do the right effort to let go of it, which means you have the right intention to let go, and you release and you relax, thereby letting go and tranquilising the formations that were rooted in the hindrance, the formations that were fettered by the craving when you acted on that craving, rooted in or fettered by the aversion when you acted on that aversion, rooted in or fettered by the doubt when you acted on that doubt, rooted in and fettered by the restlessness when you acted from that agitation, rooted in and fettered by that sloth and torpor when you acted from that sloth and torpor.

So every time you do anything with that hindrance except for 6R-ing, you are going to cause more of that. But if you 6R it, then that hindrance fades away. But what happens? In the next moment, it arises again. But this time when it arises, it is weaker. This is how karma dissipates. This is how inherited choices, or the effects of the choices that you made, dissipate.

You experience it. It's to be felt and it's to be experienced. You can't mitigate it. You cannot prevent it. You can't pray to some god to let it go. You have to experience it. And once you experience it, you either decide to hold on to it and crave for it or have aversion towards it, thereby causing more of that karma, or you choose to let go of it with right effort, thereby letting it dissipate as an experience.

And when it arises again, what happens? That hindrance is weaker. That hindrance becomes weaker and you continue to stick to it again. And when you stick to it again, it becomes even weaker, even weaker, even weaker, until there is a remainderless fading away of that craving, or whatever that hindrance is. Now, these hindrances, they are connected to the breaking of the precepts, as I said.

In the case of craving, in the case of sensual craving, they arise when there is the breaking of the precept of sexual or sensual misconduct. In the case of aversion, they arise when there is the breaking of the precept to intentionally harm and kill. Because when you intentionally harm and kill, there is aversion present in the mind. There is ill will present in the mind.

When you break the precept to lie or to have false speech, there arises doubts about yourself and doubts about others. And so that manifests as a hindrance of doubt. When you take what is not given, and that doesn't mean just physical possessions, but when you seek credit where credit is not due, when you're trying to seek more attention when attention is not due, when you try to take control of what's going on when it's not your turn to do so, what does that cause in the mind? Agitation causes restlessness.

And so there arises the hindrance of restlessness. When you indulge in intoxicants, and intoxicants here, very strictly speaking, is alcohol and drugs that produce a mind-altering effect on the state of your mind to such an extent that it causes you to break other precepts. And it causes you to have a lack of mindfulness and therefore terrible meditation.

But also indulging or overindulging in anything, whether that's food, whether that's browsing the internet, whether that's watching a TV show, whether that's reading a book, whether that's doing anything, an overindulgence in these things can give rise to sloth and torpor. Think about it. You spend a whole weekend binging on the latest Netflix show. By the end of that binge, how do you feel?

You feel pretty dull. You feel pretty tired. And that is the sloth and torpor that arises from the overindulgence of those things. So, having known this, having understood this, next time when you see a hindrance, understand it to be arising because of some choice you made to break a certain precept. At some point, it doesn't matter. You don't have to go back and see and link which precept did I break or when was it that I broke this precept. It's the same when you have an experience, when you have a painful feeling, right? Somebody shoots you in the arm. You're not going to think, how did this bullet come about? What was the gun that was made that caused this bullet to be shot?

Who was the person who shot that bullet? What manufacturer made that gun? What manufacturer made that bullet? You're not going to think about all those things. All you're going to be thinking about is, I am in terrible pain right now. Let me deal with this pain, and how do you deal with that pain? You pluck out that bullet, right? You let go of that, and you bandage yourself, or you go to the doctor, or whatever it might be. The same way, you're not dealing with the hindrance, you're not dealing with an experience right now thinking how did that arise, where did this arise from in this moment. How is that going to help you in terms of dealing with that situation or that experience? The only thing you can do is deal with it using the 6R's.

Deal with it either having craving for it or deal with it by letting it go, by letting go of the identification with it. Once you let go of identifying with it, you no longer have any craving towards it, you no longer have any clinging towards it, you no longer have any becoming towards it, and therefore you no longer have any reactivity against it. That's why every time you 6R, it reconditions the mind to have this little space where there's a response that arises rooted in wisdom and compassion.

Instead of immediately reacting to something, you are actually contemplating and waiting and seeing what it is, letting go of any craving. Whenever you do this, you are exercising right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness. And from that collected mind, then you act, rooted in wisdom and compassion. And when you do that, you are following the Eightfold Path. And anyone who follows the Eightfold Path will not produce new karma.

It is said in the Suttas by the Buddha that the cessation of karma is through the process of the Eightfold Path. Because when you have right speech, when you have right action, it has no intention to crave or harm. There's no intention there to do any of that. Instead, it experiences things as they are and it dissipates them through right effort.

Either deliberately, Ananda, one generates that verbal volitional formation conditioned by which pleasure and pain arise internally. Or undeliberately, one generates that verbal volitional formation conditioned by which pleasure and pain arise internally. So somebody says something to you that was unprompted. Maybe somebody actually said something great to you. Somebody really complimented something about you. And what happened? That was a pleasant experience that was unprompted.

But now you choose to identify with what they said. Oh, that was a great compliment. Yeah, I really am that kind of a person. And now you start to obsess over that. Now you start to identify with it. Now you crave for that everywhere you go. Now you're like, I'm going to see this person again. I'm sure they're going to say something good about me this time, right? Or you tell people, oh, this person said something about me, and then you have more craving and you have more clinging for that. And what happens is that person might change their opinion, and they might say something else about you, or to you, that is a criticism. Now from indulging in that compliment, you go to having aversion towards that criticism, and you say, how dare they say that about me, how dare they say anything like that, they don't know what they're talking about. Now you have aversion towards that. Now you have clinging, now you have becoming.

So that also arose unprompted, but you made the deliberate intention to crave for it, to identify with it and produce for yourself either pleasure or pleasant experience through that feeling of the compliment, or pain by taking that criticism personally and getting upset by it. Equanimity here is not getting controlled either by criticism or by compliments, by praise or by blame. You're seeing things as they are. With that equanimity and mindfulness, you don't react. Instead, you respond. Sure, you appreciate that criticism or you appreciate that compliment in the sense that maybe he's right about what he just said. Let me consider what he said. Maybe he's right about that compliment, and I'm grateful that he said that compliment, and you move on.

So obsessing over these things, getting caught up in these things, identifying in these things, whether prompted or not prompted, whether internal or external, whether you want it or somebody else wants it, that is always going to produce new karma for you through the process of your intention, to identify with it. But if you see things as they are, whether it's the compliment, the criticism, whether it's the weather, whether it's food, whatever it is, you see it all arising dependent upon causes and conditions, and you decide not to take it personally. The moment you start to take it impersonally, the moment you realize this is all impersonal,

And the moment you don't cling to any experience whatsoever, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, you experience freedom of mind right there and then. That is why the Buddha says, through not clinging, his mind was liberated. Don't take any experience personally, whether it's loving kindness, whether it's a jhana, whether it's an experience of cessation, whatever it might be. All of that is impersonal.

Even though you feel like it affects a me, as soon as you feel like it affects a me and I need to change it somehow or it doesn't work with my expectations of how this should go or of how that should go, if you can notice that in 6R and let it go, you'll have peace of mind right there and then. And that peace of mind right there and then is mundane nibbana, mundane cessation of suffering.

So here the Buddha is repeating the same thing, but in the context of body, speech, and mind. When it's unprompted, when it feels very hot, and you have a mental reaction to that, and saying, I hate this heat, now the intention is to have aversion towards that experience. And then you decide that you want to say something about that, and get upset by it, and curse that heat, or curse whatever it is going on. Now that is the intention to verbalize that, and so that is the speech.

And you decide you want to go into an air-conditioned room. That is the bodily action dependent upon that intention. Ignorance is comprised within these states. So ignorance, again, what is the ignorance? The not knowing of the Four Noble Truths. You have not understood suffering in that moment. You have not let go of craving in that moment. You have not experienced the cessation of that suffering in that moment, and you have not cultivated the Eightfold Path in that moment.

But if you 6R in that moment, instead of craving and reacting and averting, then you recognize here is suffering in the form of an unpleasant feeling or a pleasant feeling that is impermanent, or a hindrance, or here is suffering in the form of an identification with an experience, and then you let go or you abandon the second noble truth of craving for that experience or having aversion towards that experience, and thereby experiencing in that moment, realizing for yourself the nibbana of freedom from that experience, freedom from identifying with that experience, freedom from craving or having aversion for that experience, experiencing Nirodha right there and then.

That experience is a mind that is expansive, spacious, cloudless, like a cloudless sky. And because you have 6R's, which means because you have let go, because you bring up the smile, and because you come back to something that is wholesome, you are actively cultivating right effort, and thereby actively cultivating the rest of the Eightfold Path. Because, as I said, through right effort you go from the wrong factors of the wrong path to the right factors of the Noble Eightfold Path.

Every time you 6R, you are letting go of that ignorance. But every time you have identification within experience, there is ignorance that is comprised in these states, and they feed back to the link of ignorance further, which further conditions the formations, which further conditions the consciousness, the nama-rupa, the sixth sense base, the contact, and then the feeling again, and thereby strengthening certain underlying tendencies.

But if you 6R, and you let go of those underlying tendencies, and you let go of the craving and aversion, then there is no more energy fed back to the ignorance. Instead, that ignorance starts to fade away through non-activation. And thereby the formations that do arise are rooted in the Eightfold Path, are rooted in wisdom, rooted in compassion.

And so those formations give rise to a consciousness that's rooted in the non-greed, the non-hatred, the non-delusion, that's rooted in factors that are cultivated for the progress of the practice: love and kindness, patience, forgiveness, equanimity, and so on and so forth, generosity, and so on. And that consciousness then will condition how nama-rupa experiences contact. And when the feeling is experienced, pleasant, painful, or neutral, it just lets go and sees things as they are, experiences them as they are. And so there won't be any further craving and so on. And through this process of reconditioning, you are letting go of ignorance. And that's why The Buddha says, "But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance, that body does not exist conditioned by which that pain and pleasure arise internally."

"That speech does not exist conditioned by which that pleasure and pain arise internally. That mind does not exist, conditioned by which that pleasure and pain arise internally. That field does not exist, that site or area does not exist, that base does not exist, that foundation does not exist, conditioned by which that pleasure and pain arise internally." The remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance means the complete and utter destruction of ignorance that happens at arahatship.

When there is arahatship, there is no more ignorance, because that mind has fully understood what is suffering. That mind has completely abandoned craving and all of the states associated with craving. That mind has fully realized Nibbana and Nirodha. And that mind has perfected the development of the Eightfold Path. Because of that, that mind no longer has the link of ignorance in it. Ignorance is now replaced by wisdom.

Ignorance is now replaced by right view. The formations that were fettered by ignorance and craving are no longer present. Now those formations arise dependent upon wisdom and right view. Those formations give rise to a consciousness that does not establish into taking something personal, but remains unestablished, remains independent, or rather independent in the sense that it is no longer dependent upon craving, no longer dependent and fettered by ignorance, conceit, and taking things personally.

When that consciousness arises, that nama-rupa is not conditioned by ignorance. Rather, that nama-rupa is conditioned by wisdom. And the contact that arises is pure in the sense that when it arises, it doesn't take anything personally. And therefore, the feeling, the experience, painful, pleasurable, or neutral, is seen for what it actually is. And the mind doesn't take it personally.

Which means, what he's saying there, once that happens, that body does not exist conditioned by which that pleasure and pain arise internally. The body is still there. The bodily actions are still there, but they're no longer conditioned by ignorance and craving. Which means, any bodily action that's taken is rooted in right action. That speech does not exist, conditioned by which that pleasure and pain arise internally, meaning that speech now is rooted in right speech.

That mind does not exist, conditioned by which that pleasure and pain arise internally, which means that that intention is now rooted in right intention. And so there will still be pain and pleasure experienced as an arising of old karma that was created prior to full awakening, prior to full arahatship. And so that will continue to be experienced, but because of right intention, right speech and right action, there won't be any new production of that karma any further. It will just be experienced right there and then, and it will no longer exist. So that pain and pleasure will be experienced and then it will no longer exist. And so that field does not exist, that site does not exist, that base does not exist, that foundation does not exist, conditioned by which that pain and pleasure arise internally. What is that field? What is that site? What is that base? What is that foundation?

It is that mind, it is that consciousness, it is those sixth sense bases that are no longer conditioned by craving, no longer conditioned or rooted by ignorance. So that is the mind of the arahant. The mind of the arahant is unestablished. There does not exist in there any field, any base, any site, any foundation upon which any new karma can be produced, because that mind of the arahant functions automatically in a default mode of functioning from the Eightfold Path, which means it no longer produces any more karma.

Because it no longer has any notions of me, mine, or myself. It doesn't take anything personally and it doesn't therefore have any kind of clinging, any kind of craving, any kind of aversive attitudes towards anything. It doesn't even have any attachment to jhana, doesn't have any attachment to nibbana, doesn't have any attachment to any form of existence, because it sees all of that as not-self. It sees all of that, experiences all of that as an impersonal process, or impersonal causes and conditions.

Because it doesn't take anything personally, it cannot produce any new karma. So that field, that mind rooted in craving, that foundation that is rooted in ignorance does not exist. Pain and pleasure will be felt. Neutral experiences will be felt. But they will fade away right there and then without any further production of karma. And so this is the understanding of dependent origination.

There endeth the lesson. David, did you want to restart? Any questions? That's the answer. In other words, practice makes perfect. That's really it. You have to be able to continue to recognize any time unwholesome states arise, and unwholesome states arise. You have to be able to let them go and replace them with wholesome states of mind. So being able to stay in loving kindness 24/7, if you can, or any of those states, is one thing. But then being able to recognize when you get distracted from the wholesome states by the unwholesome states, and letting those go, that's a conscious effort.

And so when you get good in the meditation, that translates into your daily living, where you're able to be more conscious of when your choices are starting to incline towards unwholesome choices, and then you can 6R those and bring them back to something that is also actually—I only started reading the suttas probably at the beginning or middle of 2020. It was only through experience, only through continual practice, that you were able to then go back to the suttas and be able to recognize what is being talked about. Any newcomer who comes to the suttas is completely lost, because it's like, what are they talking about? Right here, what is neither perception nor non-perception? What does that mean? The signless collectedness of mind, what does that mean? Emptiness, liberation, what does that mean? And dependent origination, contact, feeling, perception, what are they talking about here? And you can only really understand that through experience, that is to say, continuing to cultivate the practice, continuing to unlock deeper insights through that practice, and then that practice becomes a decoder

for the suttas so when you go back you're like oh this is what they mean when they mean the first jhana this is what they mean when they see neither perception non-perception this is what they mean by karma and so on so you start to get deeper and deeper insights with its it's both the reason I say that is because when you have an experience when you have an attainment experience you can see the links of dependent origination and sometimes they're not as clear in the beginning but as your as your wisdom starts to deepen in terms of your understanding when you start to become more observant, which is you become more mindful, you become more aware, you become more cognizant and recognize when something arises in the form of contact or feeling or perception or craving or clinging, then that's the gradual aspect of that.

And as you continue to do that, when you have another experience where you're able to see the links of dependent origination post-cessation, you have an even deeper understanding of that. And sometimes you've been contemplating what formations are for many years or for many months, but until you have an experience, you then suddenly, when you look back at it, it all makes sense. And it's like, oh, this is what they mean by formations.

So there can be the acute, in the form of a post-cessation attainment experience, and the gradual, which is where you start to become mindful of the links of dependent origination when they arise in your day-to-day process of living. Let's hear some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free. May the fear-struck be fearless. 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. Samadhi, Samadhi.