Day 6 "Dukkha to Tanha" the Links of Craving and what they are.

So we've already spoken of what I refer to as the transcendental dependent origination, and to review what it is, it is basically a roadmap to full awakening. But there is another side to this process. If you look at it in this way, in the context of the Four Noble Truths: The first Noble Truth is suffering, that there is suffering in this world.

The second Noble Truth is that there are certain causes and conditions that lead to suffering. The third Noble Truth is that there is an escape from suffering, the cessation of suffering. And the fourth Noble Truth is that there is a path leading to the cessation of suffering. Yesterday what we discussed is basically the third Noble Truth and the fourth Noble Truth: understanding how this process leads to liberation.

And so just to recap, we spoke about the knowledge of the mind being liberated, which is dependent upon liberation itself, which is dependent upon this passion, which is dependent upon disenchantment, which is dependent upon seeing things as they actually are, which is dependent upon collectedness, which is dependent upon tranquility, which is dependent upon sukha, or comfort, which is dependent upon piti, or joy, which is dependent upon gladness, or pamoja, pramoja in Sanskrit, which is dependent upon what is generally translated as faith. But we talked about how it's taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and Sangha. It's later on that that's transformed into the experiential conviction after having seen for oneself how this process works.

Now, this is dependent upon something. What is it dependent upon? This is what we're going to get into: the first two Noble Truths, the elaboration of which is known as paticca samuppada, which translates as dependent origination. So this so-called faith is dependent upon, believe it or not, suffering, dukkha. Because suffering leads to two paths. One path is where one has suffering and one does whatever one can to numb the suffering.

One tries to engage the mind through sensual pleasures, through sex, drugs and rock and roll, to numb out the suffering. And so what the Buddha says is this is where it leads to further confusion. Or on the other side, it leads to the search for the way out of suffering. It leads to the mind saying, is there one who knows a way out of suffering?

And for some of you, like myself, through the various kinds of suffering that are experienced, we may go through periods in which we experiment with all kinds of ways to seemingly eradicate that suffering, but only cause more suffering. And at some point, we then say, there must be another way out. And we do all kinds of things. We look for all kinds of different ways to do that. Spiritual paths and meditation and ayahuasca or whatever it is that we try to do.

For me, it was a simple Google search: What is loving kindness and where do I learn it? Because at the time, I was experimenting with the Yoga Sutras. And I was going back into the original Sanskrit text of the Yoga Sutras and looking at the section on Samyama, which talks about the different objects of meditation through which one can attain certain siddhis, or accomplishments.

And one of them was about the Brahma Viharas. There are two references to the Brahma Viharas in the Yoga Sutras. One is that through the Brahma Viharas, mind is stilled. Consciousness is stilled. And the second is, by placing the mind on one of the Brahma Viharas, one becomes the quality of that Brahma Vihara. And so I did my search and I found out about Bhante Vimalaramsi, and listened to some of his videos.

The one video that was just really the thing that hooked me was his audio description of how Nibbana happens, and I think it's called relief, something like that. And so later on I waited until I wanted to do a retreat with Bhante online, because I had a lot of things to do while I was in California him. But it seemed like he was not doing any online retreats, but there was another person who was, but he was on a wait list. So I patiently waited for a year until I got a hold of him, and that is the guy sitting here, David Johnson, and then the rest is history.

But this suffering, what do we mean by suffering? Dukkha. The word dukkha is very interesting. It is du, a prefix for something that is negative, something that is unwholesome, something that is bad. And 'kha' is the Pali for 'stha' in Sanskrit, which is actually an abbreviated form of stillness or stability. So dukkha means that which is not stable, that which has a certain quality to it that is not completely balanced, not completely flowing. And the analogy I always like to use is when you go to the grocery store and you take one of those carts out, and there's always one wheel of those four wheels that is just a little janky, and you're just pushing it and it just doesn't want to go the way you want it to go.

And that is dukkha. Because another image of dukkha in ancient India was the axle of the chariot was off balance and it wasn't functioning properly. So when we talk of dukkha, we talk of three kinds of dukkha. There is dukkha dukkha, viparinama dukkha, and sankhara dukkha. Dukkha dukkha means the suffering that we all kind of know. It's the original suffering. That is the suffering of pain, the suffering of grief, the suffering of despair, anxiety, the suffering of ill health, illness, of disease, sickness, of death, lamentation, sorrow.

All of that is part of dukkha dukkha. Viparinama dukkha is the suffering of change. It's when things happen that are not in our control. Things happen unexpectedly. Going back to the chocolate cake analogy: if I was told that we are going to have chocolate cake tomorrow, and I look forward to that chocolate cake for tomorrow.

And my morning interviews are there from 10 to 11, and I'm pretending to listen to you guys. But in my mind, it's just chocolate cake, chocolate cake, chocolate cake. And finally, I hear the lunch bell. Chocolate cake is here. But I'm delayed. I have somebody ask me something, and it goes a little bit beyond the schedule. So by the time I get to the lunch line, there's already a line ahead of me. So I'm hoping there's a piece of chocolate cake for me.

But alas, no chocolate cake. That is viparinama dukkha: looking forward to something and it doesn't go the way you planned it. Unexpected experiences are viparinama dukkha. And sankhara dukkha is an inherent dukkha. It is the dukkha that is present in all beings by virtue of the fact of being in existence. And this stems from identifying with one or more of the five aggregates.

The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Form can be internal or external. Form can be this body, form can be this table, form can be this camera, form can be this chair. Internal and external, all forms everywhere. Feeling is an experience that is either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. It could be my feeling, it could be your feeling, it could be a feeling internally, it could be a feeling externally. Many different categories of feeling.

Perception is that which labels what the feeling is. When I see this feeling as pleasant, that is my perception of it. When I see this is the color red, or the color blue, or this is an oak tree, or this is the soup is cold, that's all perception. And that's rooted in learning and memory. It is actually what is known as recognition.

I have already experienced it before, and now it's in my memory. And when I see it again, I recognize, ah, that's what the color red is. I don't even have to think about it. Immediately when I see red, that's red. That's perception. And so feeling and perception come together. They are interwoven. When feeling arises, perception arises. And then there are formations.

Formations are coming from the word sankhara in Pali, which means to cook up something, to prepare something. Or samskaras in Sanskrit, which are mental impressions. And they lead to the choices that we make. And the choices we make also further condition future samskaras. And then there is consciousness. Consciousness is dependent on its fuel. There are six types of consciousnesses.

Eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness. These five aggregates are basically what constitute our entire spectrum of existence in this world. And when we identify with any of these aggregates as me, mine, or myself, we experience the inherent suffering of sankhara dukkha. It is said that suffering has a condition. What conditions suffering?

Birth or rebirth. That is not in our control at this point, in terms of we have already been born into this existence. That is one perspective of understanding. Looking at it from the perspective of lifetime to lifetime, the coming together of the aggregates, the coming together of the sense bases, the coming together of life principle to come into existence, is birth.

But there's also another way of looking at birth: moment to moment to moment, which is the birth of new karma. The birth of action. The birth of mental action, verbal action, physical action. And this birth of karma, or birth of new action, means birth of action that has a sense of self attached to it. That is what creates suffering.

A fully awakened being continues to act, continues to have different activities, continues to have thoughts, continues to speak, continues to walk, and do all these other things. So what is the difference? There is no more birth, it's said, for the fully awakened being, because the actions that are produced are non-productive of new karma, because there is no identification with any of those actions. There is no projection of a goal or a desire or any motivation towards the craving and grasping of something. That kind of birth doesn't arise.

And obviously on a macro level, the rebirth is gone as well, is extinguished. The possibility of new rebirth. So this birth of action, or rebirth, has a condition. It is dependent upon its preceding link, which is known as bhava, B-H-A-V-A, bhava. Bhava, or what is usually translated as 'becoming' or 'existence' or 'habitual tendencies'. There are three categories of existence in samsara.

There is the sense-based experience or existence. There is the form existence, the luminous form existence. And there is the formless existence. The sense base experience or existence, that is to say, the existence in which the sense bases are active and one identifies with them, range from, in terms of the cosmology, from everywhere, from the lowest hell all the way up to the highest Deva realm and everything in between.

And so that means hell beings, that means hungry ghosts, that means animals, that means humans, titans, different categories of divine entities. All of them possess some level of sense basis, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and so on, mind. And so, we don't need to necessarily think about the macro level, but even on the day-to-day level, on one particular life level, we can see this arising.

Before I tell you how that is, let me also mention the luminous form existence and the formless existence. The luminous form existence are the four brahma-lokas, each of which corresponds to the four jhanas. And the formless corresponds to the four ayatanas, infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. When we have or develop certain kinds of actions in which we become greedy, hateful, vengeful, full of ill-will, our psychology, our internal states are corresponding to the states of beings who are in the hell realms, beings who are in the hungry ghost realms.

When our life revolves only around sensual pleasures, around survival, around eating and drinking and being merry, eating, drinking and reproducing, then it's a very animalistic kind of mindset and it corresponds to the animal realm. When we start to understand actions have consequences, when we start to have the ability to reflect and contemplate and understand where actions are coming from, then we are more human.

And when we become more compassionate and loving and kind and generous and patient, then we are more Deva-like. And so that psychology, that mindset, is related to those particular realms. When we continue to cultivate the first jhana, the second jhana, the third jhana, the fourth jhana, then depending upon where we are in our practice and where we continue to cultivate in our practice, it corresponds to the psychology of one of those brahma-lokas. If we cultivate the formless attainments, the ayatanas, if we walk in infinite consciousness all the time and we identify with that,

or with infinite space, or with nothingness, with neither perception or non-perception, then our psychological state obviously corresponds to those particular formless realms. This is one way to understand the existence, the habitual tendencies. But the other way to understand it is from right now in practical terms, it is a collection, a library, a storehouse of various different almost automatic inclinations and choices we make when presented with specific certain experiences. If we get disturbed by someone saying something to us because it triggers us, we almost automatically react in a certain way, and that is the habitual tendency. But there can be also wholesome habitual tendencies, the habitual tendency to meditate, the habitual tendency to 6R, the habitual tendency to keep the precepts, to take refuge, and so on and so forth.

And that's not an issue inherently, obviously we want to develop that. It ties us still to the birth of new action, or can tie us still to the birth of new action and to further suffering, because no matter where you go in this samsara, obviously from the hell realms up until the animal realms and the human realm, to an extent there is apparent suffering. But in the deva realms, in the brahma lokas, in the arupa lokas, there doesn't seem to be any apparent suffering, and yet because of the fact that those realms are impermanent and liable to decay

no matter how long it might supposedly take us to be in those realms, ultimately they will decay. They have suffering in them by that nature, and if we have not developed our minds to a certain extent, if you have not attained to a certain extent, then we just come back down somewhere else after extinguishing the karma of being in that particular realm.

So, the habitual tendencies here, even if they are wholesome, they need to be let go in terms of the conceit around them, the pride and arrogance around them, the I, me, mine, myself around them, the desire to acquire and make it into I am the one who meditates, I keep the precepts, I chant all the time. There is a very subtle pride in there, a subtle attachment of me, mine, or myself there.

And that clinging keeps us attached to those habitual tendencies, which lead to birth in newer realms, in higher realms possibly, and still some suffering. So it is possible, though, to 6R these habitual tendencies, which is to say, to recognize when the mind is about to lunge at a person for saying something, to react in a certain way. It is possible for us to 6R this. You see, you can look at dependent origination as a river.

And the different whirlpools are the different links in the river, in the stream. And the bend towards the waterfall is the becoming, the bhava. By that point, it is still possible to recover. It is still possible to save yourself. But by the time you go down the waterfall, you have entered birth of new action. You can't recall the intentional thought. You can't recall what you said.

You can immediately have the reaction. I shouldn't have said that, but it's too late. You can not recall the physical action. So when you go down the waterfall, you can't swim upstream. Now you have to experience the effects, the consequences of those actions. And the suffering is crashing into the rocks. So until becoming, you can still 6R. You can recognize, I'm about to do something that I might regret.

I release my attention from that. I relax. I replace it with a response rather than a reactivity. So I save myself from having to create new karma and leading to further suffering. And if I have a wholesome habitual tendency and I notice that subtle clinging, I can recognize that and I can let that go and say, okay, it's just this.

Yeah, I'm a great meditator, but no big deal. Okay, I have this particular attainment, but no big deal. I just continue. Keep on going. Now, this bhava is dependent upon something. It has a preceding link, and that is known as upadana, which is translated as clinging or grasping. Clinging. Now, clinging is essentially the rationalization for why it is you want something, why it is you like something, why it is you hate something, or why it is you identify with it.

And there are these four different types of clinging. There is clinging to sensual pleasures. So you rationalize, you associate, you make favorites of why it is you like something, and you make opinions about why it is you don't like something. And you have certain rationalizations of why you believe you should own that something. You should identify with that something.

I usually give this example. It used to be, I don't know if it still is. Next time we go to Walmart, we'll check. But it used to be that when you go to the grocery store, and you go to the cereal aisle, all of the colorful cereals are about three feet or four feet above the ground. Why?

Because it's targeting specifically the little munchkins that run around here and there, right? Little toddlers and kids who look at the beautiful colors and say, I want that. I don't know what's good for them. They don't know that it's full of sugar and all these terrible things for you. What they want it because it's colorful.

It's the same with us as adults. We seek a certain kind of status, and we get enamored by some kind of very slick advertising that says using this cologne, or driving this car, or wearing this suit, it means you are something, right? And so you rationalize, this is what I'm going to spend my money on, which is a representation of my time and effort, because it will make me feel good, and I associate good feelings with it. This is clinging to sensual pleasures.

Or, on the flip side of that, this is where we have triggers and trauma. Certain events arise in our mind, and certain colors associated with that particular event. Or somebody pats us on the shoulder, and the next time somebody does that, subconsciously our mind goes to that event. Our partners, our spouses, whoever they might be, may say something, or may just use certain words or a certain tone of voice, and we recall something our parents said in our childhood that made us feel bad, and we don't realize it, and then we associate those bad things with the spouse and the partner, and what happens?

We break out into a fight. So this too is clinging to sensual pleasures, on the other side of it. There is also something known as clinging to rites and rituals. Here when we say rites and rituals, it's the clinging to different kinds of rites and rituals with the idea that they will liberate us. But somehow they will change our karma.

Wearing a lucky piece of jewelry or doing this particular ritual or going to this particular place and doing that specific ritual for this specific deity, with the idea that at the end of my life I will be liberated because I do that, or something like that. Or for clinging to, I have to wear this particular color on this particular day, right? Because it's associated with luck.

Or I have to do this specific ritual because it's associated with changing my karma. So these clinging to rites and rituals, with that idea in mind, is part of wrong view. Because what we understand through right view is that there is action and consequence. And the way to deal with karma is for it to be experienced and for there to be a non-reactivity to that karma, in order for it not to prolong, in order for it to not further proliferate, to further renew, to further be reborn.

And so I can recognize when I cling to this. I can say, oh, why am I doing this? Am I doing it because I think it's going to lead me to Nibbana? Or am I doing it because it makes me feel good? That's fine. That's okay. But these clinging to rites and rituals can create a certain kind of attachment. Another kind of clinging to rites and rituals is clinging to a specific kind of schedule.

I must wake up at this particular time, and I must have my morning coffee by 7.15 a.m., or people will be experiencing hell. Right? So, things must be a certain way. And this creates an imbalance in the mind. If we start to see this resistance in the mind when our schedule is disrupted, or resistance in the mind, this pain and suffering in the mind, a kind of tension, when we feel like, if I just do this, this will work out.

Then we can recognize the clinging to that and we can let that go. You can 6R that. Then there's clinging to views. It is a big one, a very big one: clinging to views, clinging to opinions. On one side it's clinging to the different kinds of wrong view that are opposed to the understanding of right view. That could be nihilism, that could be materialism, that could be asceticism, that could be amoralism, that could be eternalism, different kinds of you, that there is no meaning in life, it doesn't matter what we do in life, that there is a fatalism, that no matter what I do, certain things will happen, so why should I do anything at all, that there's no karma, that it's my destiny for this to happen, or that there is an eternal state in which I will be there all the time, and therefore it doesn't matter if I break a precept, because I'll still live on and there won't be any consequences.

There's different kinds of views like that, and they can be clinging to that view. On the other side of that, or another side of that, I should say, is the clinging to opinions about things. Clinging to political views, clinging to religious views, clinging to my sports team is better than that sports team. My tribe is better than that tribe. That's basically tribalism. That's what we're talking about. And what the Buddha has said is, war begins with views.

The taking up of the stick and stone happens because of clinging to views. Every war in history has started because of that. Certain kinds of views, and another country opposes it, another leader opposes it. Sometimes disagreements start because two idiotic world leaders decide that he said something about me, or she said something about me, and I don't like this, so I'm going to put sanctions on them, and I'm going to do this. And then they react, and then they react further, and then there's a possibility of war.

And there's a lot of suffering in that. Everybody suffers in that. Clinging to opinions about certain things, about everything. Having an opinion is one thing, but clinging to it and saying, having the inability to change that opinion when you have new information, is also clinging to views. The stubbornness that's there. And yet on the final side is the clinging to right view as well, clinging to the Dhamma. Don't have to worry about that now. It's better that we have the Dhamma as our base and our foundation.

After a while, at some point, when you have a certain attainment, you can let go of clinging to the Dhamma and realize that even the Dhamma is impermanent and impersonal. The Dhamma is to be used as a raft to get to the other side, which is Nibbana. Not to be used or weaponized. Not to be used as a way of having conceit. Not a way of using it to be like, I am right and they are wrong.

Just to see the Dhamma as what it is. Leads me to the right understanding. Leads me to liberation. I am liberated. The Dhamma is in its place. These all can be recognized in the mind. Very subtle, very nuanced. But nonetheless, they can be recognized. And one can still 6R them. And finally, there is something known as clinging to self-view.

This is sakkaya ditthi. This is the view of a personal self, an intellectual clinging to the idea of a personal, permanent, independent self. And this arises whenever there is still attachment of self, or a mental relating to any of the five aggregates as self, as belonging to self, or as being in self, or as a self being in them.

And so what we say is, there are the five aggregates multiplied by these four different self-views, as self, belonging to self, within self, or self as in them. That's multiplied by four, is the 20 different types of self-view. And there can be clinging to this. This is a little bit more subtle to recognize, but still nonetheless, we are able to see it. How does it manifest?

When we start to take any of the body, the feeling, the perception, the choices, the consciousness, the awareness, as belonging to me, instead of seeing it as this arose due to causes and conditions. The impersonal experience, the seeing it as an impersonal experience, is wisdom. Is the cultivating of wisdom. This is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself. You can say that all day long, you can use it as a mantra, but unless you can actually see it in that way, it's of no use.

It's a good exercise, it's a good tool, but ultimately there is this space in the mind that just sees experience as experience. So anytime you notice this tension of wanting to own the experience, wanting to own the relationship, wanting to own the possession, you can let go of that and realize, no, it's just an experience. It's just a relationship. It's just a person. It's just a thing.

Anytime you cling to the idea, anytime you have this idea that I am the one doing this, there's a me there, you can let go of it and just see the process unfold without the me being there. Anytime you can recognize and see that tension arise when you think that there is this beautiful experience of being one with the universe, and I am that.

There is still a thought related to that. There is still an expression related to that that is within the realm of conditioned process. So if I notice that and I cling to that idea, then I'm clinging to the concept of self. But if I let that go, then there's nothing for me to idealize, nothing for me to conceptualize.

Even the non-conceptual mind can be reified, can be objectified, can be idealized. But if I just let go and just see it for what it is, that it is just an experience, then I'm free of that clinging. That clinging, or the umbrella of clinging, is dependent upon something. It has a preceding link. And that is what is known as tanha, or trishna, which translates usually as craving.

The literal translation of tanha, or trishna, is thirst, to thirst after something. So this craving, there can be craving for sensual pleasures, there can be craving for being, and there can be craving for non-being. There can be craving in terms of wanting something, wanting to possess something, not wanting to let it go, wanting it to continue, wanting it to be a certain way. There can be craving in which there is aversion.

I don't want this. I don't like this. I hate this. I want vengeance for this. And there can be the craving in which I identify with something. This is me. This is mine. This is myself. I own this. No one can take it away from me. So these kinds of craving arise as tension in the mind and in the body. The sensual craving is when we experience something that is pleasant, and that's just an experience, and then we don't want to let go of that experience. We want that experience to continue. We try to hold on to that experience for as long as we can.

This happens in the meditation as well. I have to be in this space as long as I can. I have to control the meditation. And then there's the craving in which we don't like something, and we say, I don't like it, I don't like it, because it's not pleasing to me, pleasing to my sense of self. I have aversion towards it. There's too much noise in the Dhamma hall. There's too much heat outside. Things aren't right, you know. I feel agitated. My mind is not working the way I want it to.

All of these are different kinds of craving, aversion. And then when I identify with something and I say, this is me, this is mine, this is myself, it can be as subtle as, I'm in the meditation and there is this experience, and I'm so close to that experience, and I can't see how much I'm identifying with that experience. It's like I'm almost becoming that experience, instead of keeping a distance, keeping a space, and just noticing the experience for what it is. It will change when it changes. It will come when it comes, it will go when it goes. I have no power over it, I have no control over it. So we let go of that.

There is something known as bhava tanha, which is the craving for existence. So these are craving for certain kinds of states, like craving for jhana, craving for certain kinds of status, craving for a certain kind of recognition, craving for name and fame and popularity and all of these things. There can be craving for non-existence. I don't like being here. I don't like being in this village or in this town. I don't like being in this family. I run away from this family. I don't like being in this relationship.

I don't want to fix it, I want to get out of it. I don't like being in this particular situation. It's too overwhelming. And so the most extreme form of this is suicide or suicidal ideation, because it becomes so overwhelming. Things become so overwhelming. So these are the different types of craving. And they can be experienced as tension in the body, tension in the mind.

And they are akin to the fight-or-flight, freeze-or-fawn response. The fight is the pursuit over something. I will fight for that chocolate cake. I will pursue that chocolate cake. Even before I have that chocolate cake, it is in my mind. I am obsessed by it. This is another word for craving, I'm obsessed by it. The flight is the aversion.

There is the last piece of chocolate cake and somebody is standing in front of me, just one person in front of me, and I see them reaching for the chocolate cake. I push them away. My flight, right? The running away. The aversion. I can't do it without chocolate cake, so I'm going to run away from that person who's trying to obstruct me from that.

Or another way of looking at it is I feel fear towards something and I run away from it. The freeze response is where I don't know what to do. I'm confused. I have a lack of discernment of what to do in this moment. And the fawn response is where I try to brush things aside because I'm afraid to deal in conflict. I'm afraid to set boundaries.

So these are very subtle, nuanced responses associated with craving. And they manifest as a sympathetic nervous system where the heart rate increases, the blood pressure increases, we feel like we're sweaty, and all of these things happen. But if we let go and if we relax and we bring up a wholesome object, in that moment we start to transition from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic response.

We give ourselves the space and time when we relax. We are giving a pause, away from reactivity that's deep in the limbic and primal parts of the brain, and allow for the wisdom mind, the higher mind, the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex, to come up and see with wisdom and execute in a way that is free of any kind of craving or injury. Indulgence.

That is the response that is rooted in wisdom and compassion and the eightfold path. So we can six our craving, we can six our clinging, we can six our becoming. And all of this, in order for us to do this, is dependent upon mindfulness. Mindfulness is the gatekeeper, is the watchman, is the security guard, is the one making sure craving doesn't seep in. And if craving seeps in, clinging doesn't seep in. And if clinging seeps in, becoming or habitual tendencies don't seep in. And if that happens, that's your last defense,

because by that time, if you act, you can't recall that, and you experience the immediate, sometimes immediate, suffering, or suffering at a later stage in time. So I'm going to stop here because there is a lot more that we have to discuss in terms of dependent origination, but this is part one. And I want you guys to have enough time to digest what we have so far.

So I'm going to stop here and we can open it for questions. Yes? You might want to just make a point that you just went through the books that you have back there. Oh yes, that's right. Another plug. But I have written five books on this: the book on suffering, the book on birth, the book on Bhava or Becoming, the book on clinging, and the latest book, the book on craving.

You were stuck in craving. I was stuck in craving for two years, guys. You know, I was saying, it'll come, it'll come, you know, it's going to come out. But it was just procrastination. That's all. Finally I have let go of it. Yay. So those books are available freely, you guys can take them and read them. All right, if there's no one else, let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation.