A 'Mind without Craving' and a LIVE Meditation Experiment -Conversations with Delson Armstrong

Hi, I'm Metta Nanda, a Samanera monk here at Dhammasuka Meditation Center. And today I'm lucky to be joined by Delson Armstrong, who's a friend, a meditation teacher. He's leading retreats all around the world and is a very experienced yogi and meditator. He's actually been collaborating with elite neuroscience labs all over the world, in Amsterdam and soon at Harvard. Actually, in this episode, we'll have a cool visual demonstration of Delson's brainwaves using the Muse, which is a consumer EEG, a headband, as you'll see soon, that can measure Delson's brain while he meditates.

And most recently, Delson is the author of a book titled A Mind Without Craving. So, Delson, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. So I think that'll be a good place to start with the title of your book, A Mind Without Craving. What does that mean? Yeah, A Mind Without Craving. When we talk about a mind without craving, what we're saying is it's a mind that's happy all the time.

And the reason I say that is because if you look at it from the context of the practice that we do here, we're looking at it from what's known as the Four Noble Truths, which is suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering. And a mind without craving is the Third Noble Truth, which means you cease the craving.

When we talk about craving, craving is basically that mind that grasps at something from a sense of self. It says, I like it, or I don't like it, or I am it. And it manifests as tightness and tension in the head and in the body. So a mind without craving is basically a mind that has no mental suffering at all. It will still feel bodily pain, it will still feel bodily discomfort, it'll still have unpleasant feelings, but there won't be any mental agitation because of it. So there won't be any grasping, there won't be any kind of reactivity to it, and so that mind without craving is basically a mind that is relaxed all the time, that has relief all the time, and is happy all the time. I mean, this sounds like something that we would all want.

And I think it's kind of radical what you're saying, because most people don't realize that's even a possibility. I mean, it's just kind of accepted that part of the human condition is that there's this perpetual cycle of dissatisfaction and then striving to get something in the future that might make us happy, experiencing some joy here and there, but really looking for things a lot of the time. The meditation traditions have traditionally made this big promise that you can have a mind without suffering. But I don't think a lot of people even realize that's possible.

So how did this come about for you? If you're able to just kind of walk us through the last cognitive shifts that occurred for you when doing the meditation practice. What really differentiates it from other meditative practices, the majority of meditation practices, is that there is what's known as the relaxed step. So the way to apply the meditation is basically observing an object of meditation, and you remain collected in that object of meditation.

When your mind gets distracted, when your mind moves away from it, you use the six Rs. That is what's known as relax. So very briefly put, the six Rs are: recognizing when you got distracted, releasing your attention from it, relaxing any tightness and tension, that's the craving or agitation, coming back to a smile to uplift the mind, and returning back to your object. And the sixth is repeat.

So that was the application of effort that I did. So it was very relaxed, very open, very spacious in terms of the mindset and the awareness. Because of that, my mind was able to actually get really deep into the practice, and in a very relaxed manner. There comes a point in the meditation for everyone where there is a really wonderful, joyful cognitive shift that happens. And this happens when the mind first completely shuts off, as it were. There's no consciousness there. There's no awareness there. Then there's a rush of joy and relief that is experienced.

And as a result, when you come out of the meditation and you look around you, everything seems very hyper-vivid. Everything is much cleaner, as it were. There's no impediments. Before, you see a tree, and yeah, you see it's a tree. That's great. But after this cognitive shift, you look at the tree and you actually see each and every detail of the leaf of that tree and the bark of that tree, or each blade of grass, or each curvature of clouds in the sky. It's very hyper-detailed.

And the way I look at that, the way I understand it, is that the mind in that time has let go a lot of craving, let go of a lot of suffering. So there's no more of this filtration system, or the filter, as it were, has been cleaned up. That is amazing. So, you know, the way you describe this in your book, I think, is pretty beautiful. You say the mind of an arahant, which is someone who's fully awakened, is completely free from all concepts when he or she experiences reality as it is through the six sense bases. So this is the five senses and then also the mind, consciousness, feeling and perception. All these processes are completely empty, completely void.

They are empty of any conceit of I, me, or mine. When an arahant experiences reality, there is no conceptual proliferation that arises from any perception that arises. It is being experienced in that moment through the sense and the sense faculties. Their consciousness, the awareness, is still functional, but it is void of any sense of self, commonly talked about in different meditation traditions.

But I think it's a very confusing one for people, because they just look down at their body and they think, it's pretty obvious that there's a self here. So what does that actually mean experientially, to not feel like anything is self? Yeah. So when we talk about self and not self or no self, it's really not self, which is you understand that everything is just empty of any kind of personal self. You realize that everything is a process or a series of processes that are just causes and conditions to bring about that experience. Here, for someone who becomes fully awakened, they experience the world in such a way that there is no more, as it's written there, conceptual proliferation or mental proliferation.

So we could take the example of a chocolate cake, right? Somebody who's not fully awakened, or not awakened at all, looks at chocolate cake. And there can be all of these ideas around that chocolate cake. Like, my mother used to bake me this kind of chocolate cake. Or I remember having this chocolate cake at this particular restaurant or bakery. Or, I wonder how many calories are in a slice of chocolate cake. Or I wonder what kind of chocolate is used in that kind of chocolate cake. All of these different ideas.

Network. So on an experiential level, for the awakened mind, they just see chocolate cake. Now, their mind might be habituated towards enjoying chocolate cake, but you take away the chocolate cake from them and they won't get affected by it one way or the other. But to know if a mind is filled with craving, is, oh, they dig into the chocolate cake, you snatch it away from them and look at their reaction. Yeah, they will feel agitated by it. So coming back to that idea of craving, we talk about it in terms of this agitation as well: the mind that tightens up over something, around something, and then you look at that object of craving, and then you take that and you enjoy it, and then you feel relief. But that mind without any craving, that mind of the arahant, is basically in relief all the time, relaxed all the time, so they don't need any to make them happy, as it were.

Their mind is always happy. It's independent. It's liberated from the need or desire to enjoy something, the need or desire to have another object that will create happiness. Internally, they are filled with joy. Internally, they are filled with relief. Internally, they are filled with equanimity. So there's no conceptual proliferation going on. See things as they are. What it's saying is, in the seeing, you're only seeing it as it is. There is this filtration system, which is filtered by the craving. Filtered by what's in it for me.

How does this benefit me? Or what can I get out of this? All of that is based in conceit. And for the fully awakened mind, they don't see it in that way. They don't have an agenda. So they can fully enjoy things as they are, without having to add a layer or superimpose a layer of a sense of personal self. Right.

Yeah. So, I mean, this is, I think, intuitive for a lot of people, what you're saying, the sense that we're always seeking for happiness out there, looking for things to satisfy us. And we do this all day long. We do it on a micro level, whether it's just adjusting the position in our chair to get away from something that's unpleasant, or moving towards and wanting more of something that's like the chocolate cake. And we do it on a macro level, which is seeking the new house, the new job, the new partner that we think will finally make everything okay in our life. We'll finally be happy. And that might be true for some time, but then the mind just wants more of whatever it is that's pleasant or wants to get rid of unpleasant things, people we don't like, situations we don't like.

And so what you're describing, this mind without craving, this awakened mind, is really a mind that's content no matter what's going on. Is that right? Yes. Yes, exactly. It's content all the time. Now, we have to differentiate between, let's say, bodily pain and mental pain. So in the case of somebody who's not fully awakened, they will still have mental pain. We talk about this in the form of the two arrows or the two darts. Somebody feels pain, that's just the bodily pain, but then they add to it some kind of agitation, and that's where the reactivity and trouble start. But for the awakened mind, there's only the bodily pain. So they will still feel pain.

They will still feel some kind of discomfort. But there's no sense of anger or irritation or sadness or grief associated with that pain. Likewise, or on the flip side of that, if it's a pleasant feeling, they won't grasp around it. So I would venture to say that for the fully awakened mind, they don't have any sort of, I would think that their dopamine and serotonin levels are completely balanced in that sense. They're not like always looking for the next fix, as it were. Right, right.

Yeah. So the way this works with the chocolate cake example, for example, is when someone has already experienced chocolate cake, when they just at the mere sight of it again, their dopamine reward system is going to start going, this uncomfortable urge to go get some chocolate cake to satisfy that kind of agitated feeling. The cake will taste good, but it's really the relief that comes from finally feeling like, okay, that agitation is gone. And it sounds like in the awakened mind that no longer happens. And it also sounds like you've mentioned proliferation, where we're just constantly layering on layers of abstraction from raw data in the world. So like we look at something but we don't see it as it is. We see all of our memories of it and how it can benefit us in one way or another, and what we expect it to be, and how we want more of it or less of it, or, you know...

even like extreme emotions towards it instead of just like the color and form that's there in our awareness. Yes, yes. And so even the awakened mind will have perception, which is to say they will have, of, this is a person that I know from my friendship or from my childhood or whatever it might be. But that's where the layer of experience stops.

Beyond that, there's no like grudge being held against them, or there's no like, oh, this person did this to me or did that to me. We take a look at this, for example, this pen, right? This pen for us as humans is a writing instrument. For a dog, it would be a chew toy. Yeah. So you will still perceive it as it actually is. You'll still say, okay, this is a pen. But beyond that, it won't say, oh, this is a specific type of pen which I only like. Yeah. Or my father gave me this pen, so it has some kind of emotional value to it. Right. So those kinds of projections are gone in the awakened mind.

Right. So you're not going to cry and wail when you lose the pen, chewing on it. So that's good. That's reassuring. So, all right, this is kind of a, I don't know, a spicy question, but would someone rather be a fully healthy, happy celebrity? Because a lot of celebrities aren't happy, but at least people think they are. So let's pick a celebrity who, you know, actually is pretty happy and they've just, they want materially, they've got the, you know, the attractive partner and all that for 100 years or in the awakened mind for a single day. I think that's a no-brainer because you think about having a fully awakened mind. You know, we talk about a celebrity, right?

Let's say we talk about a celebrity who's extremely healthy, seems to be happy. But fame is what defines a celebrity, which means that they're somebody who's well-known, somebody who's celebrated in society. But for what reason? Because they're idolized for some kind of ideal that they represent, whether they're coming from the movies and they personify a specific type of character or music, or they are celebrated as somebody who's an artist or a writer or a politician or somebody who's made some great change in the world. That's all well and good, but I look at it from today's society.

Fame has become a currency, and it's become an emotional currency, and fame can be detrimental. Fame can be detrimental to one's mental well-being. So people who try to want to be famous, they have all of these grand ideas about what it means to be famous, but those very same things then become detrimental to what they thought was fame. So I guess for the sake of this thought experiment, maybe celebrity was the wrong term to pick, but someone who just has every material possession they could want in terms of the car, the partner, the job, the nice food, nice house, they can travel anywhere. Would you rather want 100 years of that or one day with a mind that's awakened, in terms of how much, I guess, joy you would get from it or whatever?

Yeah, like I said, it's a no-brainer. I'd take the single day. And the reason I would say that is because you're already happy. Your happiness is not dependent upon that car, or dependent upon your bank balance, or dependent upon your family, or dependent upon having a life that you always wanted, because having a life that you always wanted, there is that want. That's the craving. And so your mind is dependent upon all of these things and people and relationships. But imagine a mind that's just happy for the sake of being happy. Then you give them anything, they're happy. You give them a small little bowl of food, they're happy. Or you give them an entire smorgasbord of food, and they're happy too.

Doesn't matter. I guess also what I'm getting at is that happiness, to some extent, even more so than a mundane level of joy that someone would experience? Day of their life. Right, right. Yeah. Let's say an average person on their best day of their life, they have that uplifted joy, they have that uplift, uplifted feeling, and it's quite possible that that feeling is internal and not dependent upon things outside in terms of the sixth sense basis. So that's a wonderful kind of happiness to be it. But imagine that where it's not even dependent upon how the mind is experiencing anything. In other words, there can be physical happiness, happiness that is the gratification of the five physical senses, and there can be mental happiness, which we talk about from our practice as being associated with jhanas, these states of meditative experiences that allow us to experience joy and happiness and clarity and equanimity and tranquility and contentment and so on.

But we're going even one step further than that and saying that you have experienced the ultimate happiness. It is like layers or levels of happiness, and the fully awakened mind has gotten to the pinnacle of happiness. So everything else, compared to that, it's not worth it. Yeah, okay. So this is mega happiness. This is mega mega ginormous happiness. See, I think that's way better marketing than the end of suffering, for some reason, because it's kind of the positive take. Maybe we should say the beginning of happiness.

There we go. Yeah, anyways, so that was kind of like an inside Buddhist joke for those who don't know. The First Noble Truth is suffering, and that's kind of the promise, the end of suffering. But so when, in your own practice, your own life, what was the day-to-day change in terms of, did your family notice any change in you?

Yeah, that's a good question, because, let's say we were just talking about before or after. I was always the person who was always joking around and always somebody who was just very kind of happy-go-lucky, let's say. So my family didn't really notice a lot of changes in terms of, oh, there's some kind of shift there. But I think when it comes to day-to-day conversations, the quality and content of those conversations would have changed.

In other words, they would gravitate towards, is what you're doing really worth what you're doing? In terms of, is it actually going to give you happiness? Or is it just impermanent? So almost every conversation started to become a dhamma talk, as it were. A talk on the meditation practice. A talk on what is happiness? What is joy? Or does it make sense to do this or that? That kind of stuff. So I think they noticed those kinds of subtleties in terms of that. But meeting friends after a long time, let's say friends who I hadn't seen in over five years or in over ten years, they definitely noticed a shift, because I was a different person five or ten years ago, just by the fact that time has changed somebody. But regardless of that, they did notice certain shifts, in terms of, there was more wisdom about things.

There was more clarity about things. And a lot of my friends were wondering, what is it that you're doing? Can you tell me more about this? So I've had the good fortune to be able to help my friends go towards the beginning of happiness, towards the end of suffering. of put us in a neat little box and you talk about not filtering reality and we certainly when we see our family members we just think we know exactly who they are and they can't possibly change. But just as far as

like the day-to-day experience, what you're describing also sounds so radical that someone might expect that person who's just perfectly content to really just be a functional human in some ways. And so, but just getting to know you, and from what you've said, like taste still tastes good. There's still pleasure in that sense, or there's still the desire to, or not to... maybe desire is the wrong word, but just this ability to have a fun, joking conversation. So there's not this, the shift isn't so drastic that someone is becoming an entirely non-human. Right, right. And I think that's a very good point that you bring up, which is a fully awakened mind is one thing, and that doesn't mean that there is a personality shift in so far as how you take the world to be, but the things that you've grown up with, the way that you react

The language that you speak, the culture that you come from, the foods that you are used to eating, the friends that you have, the inside jokes you have between friends, and things like that, that doesn't go away. But what goes away is any kind of expectation from people. Any kind of expectation of how things should be, or a dissatisfaction with situations which are not how they should be. Because there's no idea of what should be and what shouldn't be. So that mind is completely in the present moment, as it were. It is a very clichéd thing, but it really is just present with everything. It's just always in a mode of observing things as they are.

So you mentioned earlier, a little bit earlier, about tastes and things like that. So foods actually taste better. When you have pleasant experiences, you are fully experiencing that pleasant feeling, which means there's no... when we talk about our filtration system, when you have these sensory data points coming in through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind, it's just fully experiencing it. So I would venture to say that tastes actually are deeper, smells are sharper, your vision is sharper, hearing is clearer. Whatever you experience, you're experiencing fully, because there's complete awareness there. Yes, complete mindfulness there.

It's due to lack of mindfulness that you don't fully experience things as they are, or a person doesn't experience things as they are. And there's always, like, what's next? What do I do next? What do I do here? What do I do there? All of that goes away. Right, right. Yeah, this is so interesting from a scientific perspective, because it's really supportive of different theories of how consciousness works, like the predictive processing theory of consciousness.

And I understand you've been involved in a study that hasn't been published yet, so you're not allowed to maybe share the full results, that are initial results that you know of. But is there anything you could say about what, just generally speaking, when they studied your brain, was there any findings that would support that experience of not adding to experience? Yes, I would say so. Explain exactly what the researchers had initially told us about what's going on, because the research paper is still pending publication, but I could just tell you that it definitely did support a lot of the ideas that we see traditionally from the ancient texts of Buddhism, specifically about the experiences of what is being experienced in terms of the feeling and the perception, the feeling being the actual sensory

experience, and the perception being the ability to cognize and understand what it is that is being experienced. What they did notice, and what I can translate from that particular language of the sutras, of the texts, is that there's no craving associated with it. So that mind is just basically not grasping at anything. There's no focus on "it has to be this way." There's no focus on "That needs to be mine." Yeah. It's just completely, in a sense, defocused, if you will. You use the term sticky, too. I think that's a good analogy. Yeah. So that mind is like a Teflon mind. It's non-sticky. Whatever comes up, it just completely glides on through. The mind doesn't stick to anything.

Nothing sticks to the mind. Right. And what that means is, the experience is always fluid. Right. It's always in flux, because it understands reality as being always arising and passing away, which means that things just come and go. And they come and go because of certain causes and conditions. So that mind doesn't hold on to it with an expectation of it will always be this way. It understands that whatever has happened has happened, but if those causes and conditions that provided that happening to be there, that occurrence to be there, if those go away, then that's going to go away as well. The experience is going to go away as well. So that's why that mind isn't focused on anything.

Yeah, and I think on the extreme end, we can all, well, I think we can all relate to being stuck on something, whether it's a thought, an argument we got into, and it just sticks in our mind, and it keeps replaying and replaying until finally it burns itself out. So what a relief if it would just pass through once, and then you're done with it.

But I also wanted to mention, as far as the research is concerned, that the next guest on the FitMind podcast is going to be Ruben Laconen, who's one of the scientists who's studying you. So we can maybe talk more about that part on this next episode. But for now, I thought it'd be fun to do a small demonstration, if you're up for it, with the Muse headband. So this is going to measure your brainwaves, and then we can show it on my phone, viewers only, obviously, because I think it just needs to be touching the skin of kind of behind your ear. Okay. Yeah, still not? Huh. Yeah, we can also just give it a sec. Okay, so I think we want to do a pre and post meditation, right? So this is... are you able to see this, David? You can see it?

I got it. Okay. Yeah, so the caveat is that it is a clinical grade EEG, but it's not nearly as sensitive as what you would find in the lab experiments that you did. But these are the different brainwave frequencies. You have delta, which is the slowest, theta here, purple, alpha, beta, and gamma, which is high frequency. And you can see the different amounts for them. So this is kind of like just Delson's default state. And this data would need to be analyzed to really tell how much there is of each frequency. There might be some kind of a shift if you do a one minute meditation. Well, we could try it. We could just try it. Okay, see. Thank you.

Thank you. Cool, so I mean it's really hard to tell what's going on because this is like us specific numbers or anything but one thing that i noticed or two things i noticed one was that as soon as you closed your eyes to meditate there was an immediate massive drop in the and that's not connected but there was an immediate massive drop in the uh in all frequencies across all the bands and then the other was that the delta was really going up and up into the right um for much of the session and delta is associated with deep sleep but it's also associated or what you would expect to find in some kind of cessation where there's, you know, the mind isn't, it's in a very, very calm or completely inactive state.

So thanks for that little demonstration. Good. So my understanding is that one of the things that's been studied in the lab is cessation, which I think you mentioned briefly at the beginning of our talk: this lapse in experience. There's no consciousness there, there's just like a blank spot. You were able to go in for an exact amount of time. So at 10 minutes you said, I'll go in, cessation, and they saw just a rapid decline in brain activity, and then at exactly the 90 minute mark it booted up. My understanding is you can also go in, you've gone in for up to six days. What is cessation and how does this work exactly?

When we talk about cessation, we're referring to a specific kind of non-experience, because it's not really an experience. But it's relating to what's known as cessation of perception and feeling. And really that's cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. What that means is there's no more sensory data being received. Even when the eyes are closed, you could still receive sensory data through the ears or through the nose or through feeling on the body.

Or the mind might be active in thinking about this or that, or there might be some kind of a mental constructive experience or so on. But in the case of cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, all of that goes away. The ear won't take in any kind of sound waves. There won't be any smell being received. There won't be any kind of, if you tap the person, they won't feel it. And tied to that, there won't be any kind of perception, which means that there won't be any kind of recognition of what is going on. And consciousness, what we're talking about here, is awareness. So there's completely like a blank. You don't know you are in that state until you actually come out of it.

Right, and I think you already alluded to this, but what is the benefit of going into this advanced meditative state? Why would someone want to do this? First we have to understand that there's two ways of looking at it. There's one way of where somebody goes through the whole process of the meditation, and they naturally experience cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness.

The difference between the two is that in the case of somebody who's meditating, their mind might shut off for maybe a split second. Don't really know how long it would have been. But as soon as they come out of it, their mind is utterly pure. This is what we would call being completely unconditioned, because all conditions have ceased, including consciousness. So when the mind comes back up again, any kind of contact, any kind of spark that arises is unconditioned, not caused by anything. That initial experience is an experience of nirvana or nibbana. When we talk about nirvana or nibbana, what we're saying is, nir or ni means no. And vana or bana, vana in Sanskrit, vana in Pali, it means fire.

So there's no greed, hatred or delusion there. There's no craving. There's no grasping. There's no aversion there. There's no identification with anything. So that's the unconditioned mind. That's the unconditioned mind. But it also means... vana and vana also mean forest. Meaning there's no forest of conceptual proliferation going on. There's nothing like being added to. There's no groves. There's no grass growing anywhere. It's just... right there and there. Pure mind. Pure mind.

So that mind is completely unconditioned. That is the benefit of going to cessation, being able to then experience, as it were, Nibbana. And there's some kind of a shift that occurs from that even before full awakening, right? Yes. Where just having seen how the mind actually works, seeing it kind of boot back up, to use a computer analogy, from cessation, kind of you can't unsee that. Now you really know how mind works. Yes, and this is what we refer to as dependent origination. What we are seeing is how mind works in terms of how it creates reality. Right. So subjectively, everything that we experience is through the five physical senses and the mind. So we are seeing, after coming out of cessation, how the mind creates its own suffering, or how the mind creates craving, whenever there is some kind of fuel for that craving.

It gets really deep, but what we're talking about are these percolations, these proto-thoughts that arise, giving rise to concepts and ideas that are projected onto an experience, that can then give rise to full-blown craving, clinging, and then suffering down the road. So we're seeing that in real time as these things come up, and we're able to let them go. The thing is, that mind is seeing it without having to bring it up, because it's always happening. It's actually happening whether you know it or not. But now, when you have this mind that is so pure that it can see things at that minute level, it's actually seeing, oh, this is what's happening.

Now, in the fully awakened mind, it sees it, but there's no grasping on it. Before that, there's some level of grasping, whether that's some kind of conceit or idea of a sense of self, or whatever it might be. But for the fully awakened mind, there's no kind of grasping of this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

It's just seeing it, and that's it. It's just completely equanimous. No feeling of relief or anything, because now it's just feeling relief all the time. Okay, okay. So you kind of punctuate that with certain, a few times, and eventually it becomes the default state. Yeah. And then all the time the mind is in this unconditioned state, where it's not, the dependent origination, the chain of causality doesn't. There's still feelings occurring and stuff, but it's not layering on top all this craving and all these ideas of how the world should be, or trying to grasp after experiences and whatever it is. Yeah. So basically, what we're saying here is that when you come out of cessation, perception, feeling, and consciousness, your mind is pure, which means your mind, for that split second, is like the mind of an arahant, is fully awakened.

But what happens is there is superimposed upon that some kind of clinging of self. There is superimposed upon that, like, I want this experience again. That's where the craving arises. But if you let go of that completely, where those layers of abstraction are gone, then that's it. What had to be done has been done. Yeah. I want to bring up a point here, because I think a lot of meditation teachers today and spiritual teachers will say the cliche, like, be here, some version of, like, be here now, or, you know, it's all about being present. You know, just be here. It's, you know, it's that easy. But it's not, as we all know. Like, it's the mind naturally just wants to get away from the present moment.

And do all this filtration, all this elaboration, and grasping after the next moment, wanting this moment to be different than it is. But that's so deeply ingrained that you can't just tell yourself, be here now. This is an actual training process that you've described. Is that right? That's correct. That's absolutely right. Because that's a wandering mind. So a wandering mind is a mind with craving.

So when the mind wanders, there's some kind of agitation, there's some kind of craving that's happening. So the six R's that we talk about is a process of deconditioning that wandering mind. And then reconditioning, so that it no longer wanders. And it's here now, as it were. It's always present, as it were. But you also have to understand that even being present, or the notion of being present, even in the present moment, there can be an idea of, this is me, a central sort of person around the present moment. For the fully awakened mind, that completely dissolves as well. So if you talk about the present moment, it's just a concept in that sense.

Is there any sense of an experiencer that's experiencing? There's only an experience going on. That's so radical. It's tough to imagine. A sense of self, like how could you take away the sense of an experience, and how could there be just an experience? Isn't there somebody actually observing the experience? No, as the experience is happening, there is a knowing of that experience. This is what's known as the eye of wisdom, or the eye of Dhamma. Right, so just being able to see things as they are, but there's no grabbing with the sense of I am experiencing it. It's just an experience. There is a knowing that this experience arose because something led to that experience.

So it's actually just seeing dependent origination all the time, up until the level of feeling. Beyond that, there's no craving. And before that, there's no ignorance, because it's always present. So if someone was inspired to start working towards this training regimen, you've mentioned the six R's, that is taught here at Dhammasuka. I've also put the six R's on the Fitmind app, and it's called the Deep Path module.

So that's really like a meditation practice that they can undertake in a sitting sense. But just in terms of going about their day, how might they start reconditioning the mind towards, you know, eventually that being their default state? But specifically, when we talk about meditation here, it's about being collected. And being collected means that the mind has sustained attention on one specific object, on one particular object. That doesn't mean that it's fully focused, doesn't mean that it's concentrated, doesn't mean that it's one-pointed. What it means is that that mind has an anchor to stay here, to stay here and now. In the course of our practice, we use loving kindness as a feeling, as a psychosomatic feeling that is experienced as loving kindness or compassion or joy or equanimity as we progress.

But that experience becomes the anchor to the present. It becomes an anchor to being here and now. Then, when you see that you're no longer on your object, that is how you decondition, using the six R's. Right. With using the breath as an object, but here it's often taught, in the way, in the tradition that you've practiced.

It's, and this is called the TWIM meditation, tranquil wisdom insight meditation. The object is this feeling of good vibes, of loving kindness, and it's naturally, it feels good for the mind to be with that. So effective, and it also is kind of conducive to this open awareness that's really able to investigate reality as it is, or experience as it is. Yes, yes. So that six R's process that we use is actually developing wisdom, understanding, and not getting caught up in the distraction, not having any resistance to the distraction, not trying to push away the distraction, but not trying to suppress the distraction. We're recognizing. Well, mind is no longer on its object. Mind is distracted. Okay, no big deal.

Release your attention from that. Relax. Let go of the tightness and tension. Let go of the craving. Come back to the smile. Now, the smile is so important here. So people can just start the meditation, or start coming into a meditative state if they're just starting. They should stay with the smile. Because the smile keeps the mind uplifted. Keeps it light. Keeps it joyful and playful, very present in whatever is going on. And you'll notice when people ruminate, when people start to think about this or that, their smile goes away. So you come back to the smile and you come back to your object. So this is the process. And you can apply the six R's anywhere.

It doesn't have to be just meditation. If you notice that your mind starts to pop up with all kinds of ideas resisting the present moment, not being happy with what's going on, or trying to change it in some way, or having a reactivity to somebody saying something, you can notice that that's the Recognize step. You can release your attention from that. You can relax in that moment and come back to the smile, or come back to something that's more uplifting. Yeah, and then respond with wisdom, respond with compassion, respond with balance of mind. So the meditation is not just formally sitting and staying with your object, but it's also being aware of how mind's attention moves from one thing to the other.

This is what we say is the definition of mindfulness, meaning you're observing how your mind actually works, and that's where wisdom comes from. Right, right. So you're just observing without interfering. It's an interesting point about the smiling too, because if you just look around people on the street, or wherever it is, a restaurant that you're eating in, you see so much tension in their faces, so many furrowed brows, so much anger, and you can just tell that their mindset must be one filled with craving. Yeah, yeah. And you could help them by trying to compliment them on something, or just passing a joyful comment to them, and you see how their eyes light up and how they're happy. This is the true understanding of meditation: it's not just the sitting and walking and everything else, but it's how you interact with people as well.

Yeah. So loving kindness is not about just feeling it, but actually being able to spread it through your actions, through your words, through your intentions. So if you can smile, you'll notice that people start to gravitate towards you naturally. Yeah. And they start to smile around you. And it's not something you have to go out of your own way to do. Naturally, it translates into situations and circumstances where people start to feel that kind of energy around you. Yeah.

Yeah. And the other point that you made that I just wanted to reemphasize is that when you relax, you're feeling the relief before needing to satisfy whatever it is you think you need to make you happy. So if it's the chocolate cake, if you just relax instead of feeling tense and then needing to eat the cake to finally relax, if you just relax that step of the six R's, you immediately feel just as good, in fact better, because you're not full of cake. Yeah, yeah. And that's a very good point. I mean, we talk about, at a very extreme level, crimes of passion or people who do something out of reactivity.

It's just like a split second. It's not even a decision, it's just like they act. But if you can slow things down on the cognitive level and realize that, oh, I'm starting to get agitated about this, and relax and experience really in that moment, when you relax you're experiencing relief, which is also the third noble truth of the cessation of suffering, right? So your mind being free of that craving, free of that suffering in that moment, is wise. So you won't react, you won't be reactive to the situation or to the person. You'll actually give that space, give that time for your mind to take in all that information.

Because it's relaxed, it can bring up something that is wholesome, bring up something that is the best outcome for that situation or that person. In a sense, I would think that what you're doing is you're giving your brain the space so that the prefrontal cortex comes up and is able to then really make a proper judgment of things rather than just immediately reacting. Right. Yeah, you're no longer a robot. You're responsive and aware of what's happening.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Are you ready for the traditional rapid-fire final section of the interview? Let's do it. All right. I know you're a big movie buff. What's your favorite movie of all time? Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and I'll tell you why. Please do. Please expand. Look, I mean, the whole Star Wars trilogy is great, right? But The Empire Strikes Back is the first time you meet Yoda. And that's the first time you get really deep wisdom into things that were, you know, the Jedi and the Jedi Order were really inspired from the ancient spiritual traditions, specifically Buddhism. And Empire Strikes Back is just a great movie.

Just in terms of cinematic appeal. It's got a great story, great characters, great script, great dialogue, all of those things. Now, it is difficult to choose one movie, but I would have to say, since this is a rapid fire, that's the movie I would choose. Thank you for being so definitive. And, yeah, my understanding is Yoda was based off of either Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or Tibetan Lama. Was it George Lucas? Yeah. Clearly did a lot of meditation. And we talk about this here in the meditation as well. People, you give advice to people and you tell them this is what you should try or you should not try.

That's the other thing. This is what you should do. Yeah. And then people will say, I'll try. Yeah, I'll try my best. I'll try my best. And that's when you say, there is no try. Do or do not. Yeah. And that comes from the great wisdom of Yoda. Yeah. But Yoda has some great lines that allow you to know, like, in one of the movies, he actually talks about dependent origination in some sense. He says, fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. So he's showing causality and conditionality.

This leads to this, this leads to that. Let go of this, and you let go of suffering. Let go of this, you let go of hate, and so on. So some great quotes by Yoda. Smart. Very smart little... Afraid line. No, sir. See through you. We can. Be mindful of your feelings. Your thoughts dwell on your mother.

I miss her. Afraid to lose her, I think. What does that have to do with anything? Everything. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. What's something people might be surprised to learn about you? That I was a screenwriter before I got into the meditative tradition.

And I actually, some of my screenplays were optioned by some really interesting celebrities. So, Matt Damon, right? Didn't he buy one of yours? Matt Damon, Robert De Niro, a few other people. Yeah. So any idea when that might be coming out? You never know with these things. When it comes to the movies, it can take anywhere from 10 to 15 years for a movie to come out because there's so much stuff to do in pre-production. But that particular script was optioned back in 2000, I'd say 2011 or 12, and then the other one, 2013. So any minute now. Okay. All right. or a minor check back in a few years.

What's one thing that you'd change about the world today? What's one thing I would change about the world today? Yeah, as far as, I should be more specific, like, in terms of geopolitically or kind of just in terms of what people are doing with their lives. better way to phrase it. Well, the way I would look at it is that's just their karma. So the way people react to situations, whether it's on a geopolitical scale or the climate change and all of these things, this is why we're here is to experience all of this. So in my mind, things are okay. Things are fine. It's just causes and conditions. But we have some kind of free will is a hairy topic.

Yeah, there's some kind of decision. There are decisions being made. Right. And if people were to slow down, as you described, and use this process of retraining the mind and being more aware, that might naturally change a lot of things, don't you think? Yeah, so I think one thing we should change is probably get TWIM to every single global leader. Yeah, like right away. Right away.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And then finally, what's a place you'd like to visit most in the world? Well, I think that a place I would like to revisit again would be back in the Himalayas, going to the cave, and chill there. Wonderful. And I'll also throw it out for those listening that you're doing this kind of world tour in your book through, I think, like 2023 now. Yeah. If they, I guess, if they live in a major city or somewhere at the meditation center, they could, you could probably be in Yeah, so they should get in touch with Suttavada, the Suttavada Foundation, and send an email to info at suttavada.foundation.

Or just go to the website, suttavada.foundation, and then if they're interested, they can contact the people there. So you've got India next for September through November, four retreats there. Yeah, so I got India and then Malaysia and then Indonesia. So I'll be in Jakarta for a couple of days and I'll be in Bali for a few days. And then from there, I'll be going to San Francisco.

I have time spent over here at Damasuka for at least three or four months. Missouri. In Missouri. And then also something going on in LA. Then from there, I'm going to Europe. So I'll be in the UK, possibly Netherlands, Belgium, possibly Italy, and then who knows where else. And then Australia is another option at the end of 2023.

And can people find these on a website somewhere? Where would they sign up for their retreats? Okay, so there's a couple of places. One would be Damasuka, damasuka.org, suttavada.foundation. Suttavada has actually created a new website, which is sort of just my kind of calling card. And that's DelsonArmstrong.info. Oh, nice. You're a .info now. Yeah, I'm a .info now. Great. So I'll put all those links in the show notes. And yeah, I also just want to give you a chance to plug. Oh, and also put a link to your Patreon page, which we're going to make soon. And then I just wanted to give you a chance to plug your work as far as where can people find your books?

Yeah. On Amazon, right? So Mind Without Craving is on Amazon. It's available for free download on the Suttavada webpage. And it's also available for free download on the DelsonArmstrong.info page. It is available on Amazon as paperback, as hardcover, and as Kindle. And here it is, shameless plug. Buy it now or download it free on those sites I told you about. And I should also mention that everything, all of Delson's teaching is for free and it's donation-based. So that model is, I think, kind of rare in the world today. And so he really, yeah, if you could support Delson on Patreon, if you think what he does is useful for the world, that would be just a great act of generosity. So anyway, Delson, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for coming on the FitMind podcast. Thank you. I had fun as always.