Ep156: Key To Enlightenment - Delson Armstrong 3

In this episode, I'm once again joined by Delson Armstrong, spiritual teacher, meditation virtuoso, and author of A Mind Without Craving. Delson draws on his scriptural knowledge and personal experience to take a deep dive into dependent origination, the doctrine believed by many Buddhists to be the key to enlightenment. In practical and relatable terms, Delson explains how this doctrine works, why it is important, yet so often misunderstood, to move from an intellectual understanding to the experiential understanding that is Buddhist enlightenment. Delson also compares the enlightened to the unenlightened experiences of time, memory, and the decision-making process, and gives a surprising answer to the question, can enlightened people make mistakes?

So, without further ado, Delson Armstrong. Delson Armstrong, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for having me. Well, I'm so happy to be talking with you again for a third time. Well, fourth time, if you include the dialogues, and today we're going to be talking about Paticca Samuppada, or dependent origination. And we were just saying before we began this recording that it's often said to be such an important doctrine, a key, in fact, to understanding Dharma and these ideas of nirvana and enlightenment and so on. But it's very often presented in a complicated way. It's complex. And so we're going to endeavor here to not miss any detail, but at the same time approach it in a way that hopefully will unlock these principles and this doctrine for those listening.

If you're the sort of person who's heard about dependent origination and you never understood it, or you found it too complicated, or you know a lot about it and you want to see what Delson has to say about it, well, then this, I think, is going to be the episode for you. So first of all, let's start biographically.

How did you, we haven't even defined the doctrine yet, but we'll get to that. How did you come across this doctrine of dependent origination? And how did you move from an intellectual understanding of it to an experiential understanding of it? 2016 or 17, because that's when I did the online retreat with David Johnson. So as part of the online retreat program, we actually have to watch videos of Bhante talking about the Dhamma practice, and he gets into deeper facets of the Dhamma, which include dependent origination. So that was really my first introduction into what dependent origination is all about. So he actually read from the suttas, certain suttas that delve deep into this doctrine.

The experience of dependent origination happens as a result of experiencing, or let's say post-cessation experience, which means go through this process of the jhanas and then you have the experience of cessation: everything stops. You come out and you make contact with Nibbana, and then you actually see something. A lot of people see things in very different ways. They might see dashes, or they might see little lights, or they might see concentric circles, they might see patterns, all kinds of things. And the way I look at it is that's the mind's way of interpreting what's happening as it turns back online.

So when it turns back online, this is your first introduction to how mind's processes work through the context of dependent origination. So the way I understood it was at the time is that those are formations coming up, sankharas. And those formations then give rise to certain things and experiences and feeling and perception. And you start to see the impersonal nature of things. was in 2016 with Bhante's videos where he talked about consciousness and that consciousness is dependent upon certain fuel for it to arise.

And then he talked about what are the different links to dependent origination. The way he teaches it and the way that I've come to see it and now start to teach it is that dependent origination is actually very practical. And so there are certain levels to it, or different levels to it. There's a level which talks about dependent origination from lifetime to lifetime. There's the level of dependent origination that talks about your daily experience in life, how you interact with the world and what happens in the mind as it interacts with the world, and then on the very, very microscopic level, where you see things happening in terms of sensory data packets arising and, you know, making contact and all of these other things.

So the way I've come to learn it is there are these three levels. I mean, there's multiple layers to it, but these are the main three levels of dependent origination. And so the more that I started to see dependent origination, the more I started to experience it, observe how it arises in your daily life and moment to moment, the more I understood that it is actually a basis for how beings produce karma and how beings suffer and how suffering actually comes to be. So once you understand that, then you can actually realize, okay, there is karma in terms of the fruition of karma and karma in terms of new karma beings make that causes further suffering and further rebirth.

So this is really the gist of my initial foray into dependent origination. That's very interesting. And maybe we should say at this stage, what's the bird's eye view of dependent origination? What's the concept here? And then I suppose we'll have to get into the links themselves. Yeah. Dependent origination, really, it's the elaboration of the second noble truth.

The first noble truth is that there is suffering in existence, that you can't really do anything about it, but there is suffering. Craving is the condition for suffering. So suffering arises because there's craving. But dependent origination really is the elaboration of how craving comes to be and therefore how suffering comes to be. So when we talk about dependent origination, and let's say the forward order, that shows how the second noble truth comes to be and the first noble truth comes to be.

There is another dependent origination, which is called transcendental dependent origination, which deals with the third noble truth of ceasing the craving and therefore ceasing the suffering, and that delves into the fourth noble truth of the actual Eightfold Path. So really, dependent origination is the Dhamma. It's actually mentioned in one of the suttas, Majjhima Nikaya 28, by Sariputta, who says that one who knows the Dhamma knows dependent origination, and one who knows dependent origination knows the Dhamma. So this is very essential, a very key aspect of deepening one's experience of the Dhamma. And the concept is that there's one thing gives rise to another thing, gives rise to another thing. There's a sort of sequence. That's the basic idea. And so, what I might ask, how could we define what it is and what's its relevance? Yeah. So dependent origination, it really is about understanding how you make choices and what choices arise as they are presented to you.

So the way to look at dependent origination is, yeah, as you said, the very basic understanding of dependent origination is one thing leads to the other. With the arising of this, that arises. With the cessation of this, that ceases. That's really the gist of dependent origination. It is cause and effect, causality and conditionality, this conditions this, and so on and so on. So what we're seeing is how our choices, when they're presented to us, create our reality. So when certain choices are presented to us, in every moment there are certain inclinations to one choice over the other, and that is because of the many, many, many, many millions of iterations of dependent origination that have happened, that create the inclination towards one way or the other.

It sort of sets the compass in one direction or the other. So if your mind is wholesome, if your mind is able to bring up wholesome qualities of mind, if your mind is able to have wholesome thoughts, wholesome images, wholesome intentions, then that actually conditions the next arising of dependent origination, so that when you're presented with choices in that next moment, in that next future moment, you can actually then start to incline the mind towards something that's wholesome. So dependent origination is really an understanding of how mind reconditions itself, and once you understand how mind reconditions itself, then you have some level of say in that matter. Before, the ignorance that arose was, 'This whole thing arises, I don't know how to deal with it.'

I don't know how suffering happens. I don't know how to see suffering. But then there arises this intellectual wisdom, which is, oh, there is a key to understanding suffering. There is a key to understanding how to let go of this suffering. And once you understand it from this context, and by the way, it doesn't have to be the same context of formations give rise to consciousness and so on. I mean, it does happen in that way, but you could use different language if it helps to really understand it. example, which is really the key to understanding how suffering arises, can be understood in so many different ways. In the twin practice, it's understood as tightness and tension.

It's understood as emotional reactivity. It's understood as that which grasps at something or that which resists something and so on. You know, and then clinging is a whole array of things, being or becoming, you could see it in different ways. But all of this is a way of understanding how do I see suffering and how do I let it go so that I experience the cessation of suffering. Yeah, very interesting indeed. I wonder if I ought to put up a graphic which I drew from one of your sites so that the viewers watching can see these links and then perhaps you could explain them. And then, so that would be an intellectual understanding. And then perhaps a bit later, we could talk about how to require the experiential understanding, and you've mentioned the twin practice.

I'd like to know, how does the TWIM practice interact with dependent origination? Here we have a graphic of dependent origination, and perhaps you could walk us through this, in an intellectual way, to give us a bit of an intellectual basis of what we're talking about. Yeah, so if you're looking at the left-hand side, it shows the flow, which is actually dependent origination, dependent origination of suffering.

And on the right-hand side is, as it says, the Path, the Noble Eightfold Path. So as I mentioned earlier, we have dependent origination, which allows us to know the first two noble truths, which is suffering and how suffering arises. And then we have dependent origination that allows us to understand the third and fourth noble truth, which is how do you let go of suffering? And what is the way of letting go of suffering? So in other words, what is the cessation of suffering? And how do you let it go using the Eightfold Path? On the left-hand side: ignorance, fabrication or formations, consciousness, name and form, six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, aging and death, which leads all to suffering. So ignorance is rarely understanding, or not understanding, I should say, not understanding what the Four Noble Truths are. So the way I see ignorance is there are different levels of ignorance. There's the ignorance that you don't even know the Four Noble Truths.

You've never been introduced to the Four Noble Truths. You've never been introduced to the Dhamma. But then there's the ignorance that is that you do know the Four Noble Truths insofar as you have been told about the Four Noble Truths, or you've read about the Four Noble Truths, or you've been introduced to them in some way or the other.

But you're not able to apply them because you're so caught up, a mind is so caught up in craving, so caught up in itself, that it just isn't able to apply the Four Noble Truths. So that gives rise to formations. Formations comes from the word sankhara. So sometimes you could call them preparations. So sankhara literally means something to cook up. So it starts to cook up the way that you see reality. It cooks up the way that you understand reality. So if formations are dependent upon or conditioned by ignorance,

which is really a lack of mindfulness. Ignorance is a lack of attention to the present moment, which then means that you take that present moment personally. And then when you take that present moment personally, it gives rise to certain sankhara, certain preparations that are rooted in that, which then actually conditions your consciousness. Consciousness here is the cognizing of your reality, cognizing of how you see things. rise to the way that you experience your name and form. So when we talk about consciousness, we're talking about the sixth sense based consciousness, so eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, and so forth. So how you perceive that, or how you experience that, is dependent upon those formations and the name and form, that's nama-rupa. Nama is mind, or mentality, which is made up of five factors. That is to say, you have contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention.

And then form, which is made up of the elements, that is, this actual body itself. Mind and body. And that really is the five aggregates. Because through contact, you experience form. Through contact, you experience feeling. Through contact, you experience perception. Through contact, you experience intention, which is chetana, which is how your mind inclines towards one thing or another.

And so that inclination is dependent upon the formations that arise, and vice versa. Not to complicate things, but when we see dependent origination, it is linear in a way, but it is also interdependent. So there's a lot of intersections between each of the links, the way I see it. So when you have the mentality coming up and the form that comes up, that's conditioned by how it's experienced, the sixth sense bases then are conditioned by that. So when we say the sixth sense bases, we're really talking about the six physical senses. We're talking about the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind itself.

These are all housed, let's say, in nama-rupa. They're housed in name and form, in mentality materiality. So they're conditioned by mentality materiality because they are part of mentality materiality. And consciousness is dependent upon mentality materiality in the same way that mentality materiality is dependent upon consciousness. What that means is you can't experience mentality materiality without consciousness being there. But consciousness, for it to be experienced, has to have mentality materiality there. So it's like this intercrossing of consciousness and mind and body. There's contact, which is the initial touching of the sensory data that's arising through photons and odor molecules and taste molecules and vibrations and so on, making contact, touching the sixth sense bases, which then conditions how you actually experience the world. So that's vedana, that's feeling. And feeling is really just, they say it's pleasant, unpleasant, and neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

So pleasant feeling is anything that feels good. Unpleasant feeling is anything that feels not good. And the neutral feeling, which can be indifference or equanimity about things. So that's an experience. And tied to that is perception. Perception is that which allows you to recognize what it is that you're experiencing. So you might see, for example, the stove fire for the first time, hover over the stove fire, and then experience this heat, and then experience pain.

Now you've created a memory in the mind that says, well, fire is painful. It can be painful. So the next time you see a stove fire, you make that connection and you're more cautious. That connection is perception tied to that experience. Now here's where it gets to that suffering aspect of it, which is craving. So when we talk about craving, tanha, which is thirst, this dissatisfaction, discontentment with the present moment, discontent with what is happening in terms of what you're feeling.

That discontent manifests as tightness and tension in the body and in the mind. It's a recoil of, I don't like this, or I'm looking at this and I want more of it, or identifying with that process and saying, I am this. The moment that the mind sees this and gets caught up in that, there can be clinging. And clinging, there's multiple types of clinging. There's clinging to sense bases or sense experiences.

There's clinging to views. There's clinging to rituals or rites and rituals. And there's clinging to this idea of the Dhamma itself, of clinging that can arise, which can give rise to becoming. And becoming, in the twin practice, it's understood as habitual tendencies, or it's a repository, if you would, of a lot of reactions that the mind chooses from based on what it's experiencing. And then that gives rise to birth, which can be birth in terms of the birth of the being, or it gives rise to birth in terms of birth of an action or reaction. And then that gives rise to aging and death, which is to say suffering. So it gives rise to a reaction to that action, which can come in the form of aging and death, and that gives rise to suffering. Now, that's from the perspective of your day-to-day life, like how do you respond to the world? Do you react to the world with craving, or do you respond to the world with wisdom? But then understanding how rebirth happens.

So ignorance, it's not actually the beginning of dependent origination. Ignorance is dependent upon the asavas. So the taint, or the fermentation, for the sensual desires, the fermentation for the craving for existence or for becoming or for being, and the fermentation of ignorance itself. So when that happens, then that gives rise to further ignorance, and those formations then actually give rise to a consciousness that then actually descends into a new nama-rupa, into a new mind and body, which then cultivates and creates the six senses. And from there contact arises, and then feeling arises, and this whole process of rebirth happens over and over until you understand really what is the key to dependent origination and what is the cutoff point of dependent origination.

So I leave it at that to let you digest that, and then we can go from there. Oh, yes, very interesting indeed. I've heard it said that, in fact, I heard Bhante Vimalaramsi say that many people, when attempting to explain dependent origination, explain it in terms of, well, backwards, how things come to be rather than how things cease to be.

Have this graphic up here. I'm wondering if you could, in the context of what you said, explain the difference between those directions, and perhaps what Bhante Vimalaramsi meant when he said that? Well, I could only say that when you talk about the forward direction, that is to say from ignorance all the way to suffering, that's really just teaching suffering. So what he would be saying, if I do understand him correctly, is that people have a tendency to teach how suffering arises, but they forget about the other part, which is how do you let go of that suffering? And that's really where right effort comes to be. We talk about right effort as being really the core of the Noble Eightfold Path. So that means being able to recognize, oh, here's craving in the mind, and then letting that go. So the way to teach, if you want to let go of suffering, is the reverse direction.

And the reverse direction is, I recognize here's craving, or I recognize here's clinging. And then I let that go using right effort, using the 6R's, which is the twin practice. And then letting go of that, you don't have any more of that craving, which means you don't have any more of that clinging, which means you don't have any more of that becoming, which means you don't have any more of that birth of action, or the suffering that arises because of that birth of reaction or action.

So the way to teach it in terms of the reverse order is to understand how does suffering cease? If I let go of this condition, then the whole stack of conditions after that won't come to be. So if I can recognize that, that means at craving, which is really where the trouble begins, right? If you can recognize here is the craving for something, in the form of, I want this, or I don't like this, I'm resisting it, or I am this, trying to hold your ground in terms of this, this is me. If you can recognize that and realize that that's causing the mind suffering, then you can let go of it and cease that craving, and hence cease all of the other links that happen after that. And so the 6R's of TWIM could be seen as sort of craving intervention in a way. That's the part of this sequence

that we're taking a different route than the one that you explained previously, which was, yeah, how suffering comes to be. Or perhaps it would be good then to talk about how does that occur specifically. Can you take us through the basic premise of the 6R's and how it acts, how it acts on craving in this way? Yeah. So the 6R's really are Recognize, Release, Relax, Re-smile, Return, and Repeat.

So Recognize is really the beginning of mindfulness. And what that means is, when you recognize that the mind is distracted by craving, recognize that the mind is distracted by a hindrance, you're stopping, or you're allowing that whole process to just come to a stop. In terms of, you are fulfilling the first right effort, which is you're recognizing, and then you're preventing the arising of unwholesome states that have not yet arisen. So in other words, there's a whole cascading of stuff that happens, which is that whole process of dependent origination. The formations, the sankharas that are rooted in the craving, happen, and then that gives rise and manifests as a hindrance, manifests as some kind of thought that says, this or I don't want this.

And then along with that is that tightening of the body. That's a very subtle tension that arises in the mind and body. So recognizing that is the first key. Once you recognize that, then you let go of it by releasing your awareness to it, your attention to it. So that means you take your attention away from that and you gently bring it back to the mind and body.

Once you bring it to the mind and body, for being here, being in the present, being in the here and now, and then relaxing. So releasing is taking that attention away. Relaxing is taking that tension and then releasing it, like relaxing it, letting it go. So in other words, you recognize here's the craving. You're taking your attention away from that, bringing it to mind and body, then relaxing any tension that's there in mind and body, the formations that are rooted in that craving. And then you re-smile. Re-smile is basically, the whole practice here starts off with the smile, a little Buddha smile on your face, in the mind and in the heart that keeps the mind uplifted.

Every time there's craving, there's a tendency that the mind, there can be a tendency that the mind isn't smiling because it has lack of mindfulness there. So the smile is just an anchor for the mind to be uplifted. So when you come back to the smile, then you've returned back to a collected mind. So in the meditation, that means you return back to your object of meditation, and you stay there, you remain there. And then when your mind gets distracted again, again, when craving happens, you repeat that process. So the six R's are like a wave.

They just happen in the course of three to four seconds, if you apply it correctly, that here's recognizing of craving, here's the releasing of it. Here's the relaxing of the tightness and tension. Here's the re-smile. I'm coming back to the object and I'm remaining there. I get distracted again, so I repeat that whole process again. So the six R's help us to understand when the mind has craving, when the mind has any kind of clinging, when the mind has any kind of habitual tendency that arises that can cause further suffering.

By the way, when you look at dependent origination, it's like a river. The river continues on from the beginning. You know, you have the stream that is the asavas, and then the ignorance and the formations that come up, and then there's all of these whirlpools, which are each of those different links, and then all the way up to becoming. And that's really the bend of the river into a waterfall. The birth of action is that waterfall, so you can't really come back from it. So when we talk about the six R's, we're saying we can apply them to the craving, the clinging and the becoming.

But once you've actually said something, once you've actually thought something, once you've actually done something, you can't bring it back. So that means you can't, you know, come back up the waterfall. So the only thing you are able to let go of, essentially, is any kind of craving that arises, which manifests as that I like it mindset, I don't like it mindset, or I am that mindset. The clinging, which is really what clinging is, is the association with that craving. It's that I want this, because it's the rationalization in the mind that says I want it because of so and so. And then standing your ground and saying I am this. This identification with that becomes further crystallized in becoming. If you can recognize these and let that go through the process of the six R's, which is really right effort,

then you stop that whole flow of dependent origination. This is the way to understand it. Yeah, very fascinating. I'd like us to go through, in a moment, the other side of that graphic. But I'm curious, what happens if you manage to do that? The way that these links operate and condition each other, you're driving off the track into the wilderness. What happens then? Is there a set of links that you're able to drop into, or does reality just shut off? Or what happens if you start to interfere with this process with a method like the six R's of TWIM?

Right. So you can actually six R all the way to the point that you completely eliminate craving altogether. So in other words, when you let go of the craving, what you experience in that moment is the third noble truth. You experience cessation, but I'm not talking about cessation in the form of cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, where there's a mind that just shuts off, you know, in the road, the summer party. Feeling relief in that moment from having to do something. So when you put that wrench, as you say, in that whole mechanic wheel of dependent origination, it ceases that whole process, and so you actually drop into the wisdom of dependent origination, as you would say, which is to say that you know that other part of the graph. But before we get into that, the experience of that, you know, of relaxing the craving, relaxing the mindset that is rooted in that craving, results in immediate and effective relief in the mind.

So reality just continues as it is. But all those projections of reality, that is, this is mine, this is me, this is myself, or that whole projection of, I need to get this, or, you know, this is me because I say so in this way, or all of these other thoughts that occur in the mind that cause itself suffering, that is put to a halt, and so what is experienced is complete silence in the mind. It's an expansiveness that's like a clear blue sky. So the mind in that moment is experiencing the third noble truth. So there's relief, there's rest, there's wisdom that comes up. And so from that mindset, the mind is able to further develop and cultivate the Eightfold Path, so that the mind continues to experience this for longer and longer periods of time.

Ultimately, what happens is then that mind, once it attains full awakening, let's say, then that whole process of dependent origination doesn't arise in the same way. For that mindset there are only certain links that operate. So ignorance is completely gone, because there's always mindfulness of what's happening. There's a lack of mindfulness, and that is really the ignorance. Once that's gone, the formations that arise are just cascading as a result of old karma, previous karma, but they're not any longer rooted in any kind of ignorance or conceit or craving. So for that kind of mind, a mind that is, let's say, fully awakened,

there's only the formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, the sixth sense basis, contact and feeling and perception tied to that feeling that arises. Because it's no longer producing any new karma. You see, when we look at dependent origination, what it really is, is a delineation of what is karma. There's the old karma, which we inherit as a result of past choices, that we can't necessarily control in the present moment. That is the formations, the consciousness, the nama-rupa, the six sense spaces, the contact and the feeling. So all of that karma manifests as an experience right here, right now. Whatever it is you're experiencing right now is a result of karmic choices you've made in the past.

But then the new karma, or the manifestation of further continuance of karma, happens when you take that experience personally. That's where the craving happens, the desire to become something, or whatever it might be, to have the sense of this is me, this is mine, this is myself. When that happens and you act upon that, then that's the new karma that arises. So if a mind has craving, it will continue to cause further karma, which continues to cause further rebirths in other existences.

But for the mind that is fully awakened, means that there's no more of that there's no more craving there's no more becoming there's no more clinging which means there's no more birth of reactive action the birth of action that arises for that person or that mind who that is fully awakened is a spontaneous action that's rooted in the fourth noble truth it's a spontaneous speech a spontaneous action that arises from right speech right action right livelihood and right intention And presumably that doesn't, that spontaneous action doesn't create karma.

Right. This is like an ineffective action, in so far as it's ineffective in producing further karma. The reason being is because karma, really at the very, very basic level, is action and reaction. And so when there's a mind that is fully established in wisdom, any action that arises is not as a result of trying to defend the mind, trying to defend a sense of self, or trying to get something for a sense of self. Instead, it's responding in such a way that it allows the mind to see things as they are. So reality as it is, which means it's not like you're necessarily seeing the codes of the matrix behind reality, but you're just understanding, okay, here's present this reality.

force of that by reacting to it. Instead, all of that force that arose as a result of that reality coming to be just happens to be there. And then if you add fuel to it by reacting to it, then the new karma continues to sustain that, and so it'll happen again and again and again, and it just gathers more and more strength. But the spontaneous action that I'm talking about, or the seemingly spontaneous action that's rooted in that wisdom, rooted in the right intention, right speech, right action, that's all in the process of letting go. So in other words, that mind doesn't hold on to anything. The right intention there is not to hold on to anything. The moment the mind lets go and doesn't hold on to anything, then it has no agenda to continue further. It's just responding in a way that allows that karma to dissipate. So any response that happens in the form of the speech or the action doesn't cause a further reaction to happen, which means it's ineffective in producing further karma.

So it does produce karma in the idea of action, that there is an activity that happens, but it is non-productive action. In other words, it's non-productive of further suffering, non-productive of further craving, clinging, which can lead to rebirth of newer and further suffering karma. And is the karma of past lives finite, and if so, what happens if it runs out? So the karma of past lives, in so far as previous choices that have been made, well, you're talking about, or the enlightened mind, if we can put it that way, the awakened mind, you're mentioning it still experiences the karma of past lives? Yeah, but that karma of past lives isn't continuing into new karma because of this awakening intervention.

So that sounds like maybe it eventually runs out. Is that the case? It eventually runs out. In other words, what we're saying is when you have these formations that come up, so for the enlightened mind, you have formations coming up. Those formations are carriers of karma from past lives. Up and then they continue with that whole experience that you're experiencing here, but eventually it runs out because there's no steam given to it, there's no fuel being added to it. So in other words, it's just the cessation of that karma, or the eventual cessation of that karma, and that is fully extinguished at parinibbana, which is like, because you still have the fuel of the body, you still have the fuel of the aggregates. Choices that were made prior to full awakening are still being experienced as a result in the present moment or in subsequent present moments.

But it is going to cease at some point, once it starts to lose steam. So it might arise over and over and over, but because it doesn't have any reactivity to it, it won't be strengthened and continue that, you know, recycling that experience. Instead, it will start to become weaker and weaker and weaker, and ultimately just cease and fade away. What does that mean for the awakened person? So that basically means that everything that they're experiencing in terms of their reality, they understand, is already impermanent. Like there's no need to add to this reality. It is whatever it is in terms of, you know, the dasanam in Pali, which is seeing things, the knowledge and vision of things as they are. So for the awakened mind, it's a matter of just operating in the world through its default mode of functioning with the fourth noble truth.

You see, the thing is, the beings that are on the way to enlightenment, or the beings that are not yet enlightened in one way or the other, they're always constantly looking at things from this reference point of self, this reference point of what can I get from this? How does this affect me? When they do that, it can manifest as further craving. It can manifest as, okay, I want to get this job, or I want to get that car, or I want to be in that relationship, or I want to have this experience, and so on and so forth. Every time that's there, that's adding to the repository of further karma.

So everything that they do, in terms of their choices, inclines towards how to get to that point, so that continues to add to that action. But the awakened mind, the fully awakened mind, it doesn't have a reference point of a self. It doesn't have an agenda. It doesn't have an intention to do this or that in terms of trying to have a goal to get somewhere. It's just responding to whatever is happening. So, for the, in terms of the experience, for the mind in terms of the experience of that fully awake mind, all it's doing is running out the course of karma. That's not to say that it's waiting for its eventual cessation in this life, but rather it no longer has all of these, you know, lighting up in the mind of, oh, how could I get this, like how will this help me, what will happen if I do this? All of that goes away. Which means that's arising in terms of a pleasant experience without attaching to it, which means if there's a pleasant experience, somebody gives you a very nice meal, you enjoy it, and that's it.

You don't have any further craving for it. Or you go on vacation, and that's the end of the vacation. You don't long for yourself to be there. It is whatever it is in that moment, and it goes away. Likewise, with an unpleasant experience, you get pain in the body. The tendency for an unenlightened mindset is to say, that's my pain, and then start to have all of this emotional reactivity to it. But for the awakened mind, if there's some kind of a pain that arises, there's none of that second dart that, you know, which is like this whole mental suffering that arises from it. That mental suffering is because of the aversion to it, which is the craving, the clinging and the becoming.

So whether it's good, bad or indifferent, whether it's pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, in terms of an experience, they're only seeing it from three lenses. That is to say that it is always in constant, that it will continue to change. It is impermanent, always in flux. Therefore, there's no point in holding on to it, because if you start holding on to it and it goes away, you're going to cause yourself suffering. And therefore, the mind doesn't take it personally. So that mind can enjoy things fully. You take it away, doesn't have a reaction that says, oh, I want more of that. The mind doesn't have a reaction that says, why did that person take that away from you?

It's okay with it. It's okay with whatever happens in the present moment. Part of the second dart is sometimes said to be this future projection and past rumination. I'm wondering how those faculties are, things we're comparing now, the unawakened mind to the more conventional mind or the unawakened mind or pre-awakened, however we want to say, if we want to be optimistic, then we can say that. But what about that? Enlightened people presumably can still plan things and remember things. So how is that reconfigured by this process?

Yeah. So, you know, for example, we talk about the past. An enlightened mind would go away, like, which means that just because they're always in the present, or always just being aware of what's going on in the present, it's not like that means that there's no longer all of those memories that arose, uh, gone. It's like it's just starting from a fresh slate. Instead, what's happening is when the enlightened mind does go back to the past, because it goes back to memories, like let's say there's a discussion about, do you remember the time when this happened? And the mind can go back and think about that. But there's no longer any of that emotional aspect to that.

In other words, you know, some people might cringe at something that they did that was awkward. Or some people might have, like, oh, I shouldn't have done that, or have remorse and all of that stuff. So the enlightened mind, you know, even if there were these cringeworthy moments or these awkward moments or unpleasant moments that it looks back at, there's none of this rumination of, oh, I shouldn't have done that. Or why did I do that? It's just, oh, well, okay, that was an awkward moment, you know? And you can have a laugh about it or whatever it might be.

And then in terms of future projection or planning, yeah, the awakened mind still plans in terms of, well, okay, we have to go here at this point, or we have a meeting here, or whatever it might be. Or all of those are there. But I will say that there's no sense of future projection in the form of goals.

In other words, like there's no desire to be something. There's no desire to become someone. There's no desire to obtain something. It's just there's plans to do something because you have to get from point A to point B. So, okay, for practical purposes, you do that. Or you need to go through this particular country because you have a retreat going on here, or, you know, whatever it might be in terms of all of that.

Any of that, there's no like obsession over, you know, is it going to work out fine, you know, what if this happens or what if that happens? All of these what-if statements in the mind don't occur. It's just, all right, this is what we have to do, let's go do that, you know. So there's planning there insofar as planning is concerned, but there's no like, I have to achieve this or I have to get so many, you know, so many things, or I have to acquire this, or I have to be recognized as such and such a person. All of that goes away. You know, if I think about my own decision-making processes, you know, they're very often informed consciously or unconsciously by my own pleasure-pain calculation, you could say, and that of course has several dimensions to it, many dimensions. A lot of it's invisible to me consciously, but there are several dimensions. I'm thinking about, well, what's going to be good for me today? What about maybe sometimes I'll do something today that I don't, so to say, feel like doing, because the pleasure-pain calculation

determines that the future benefit will be worth it, you know, whether or not it is or not, it's not the point, but that's my own calculation. But then it's also, what's good for me is nested within my environment, my relationships, etc. Selfishness in that way, because that's actually not good for me in terms of the long run. So at least that's what my pleasure-pain calculation thinks. Sometimes my pleasure-pain calculation's variables, values, are not correct, and so I discover that when I find myself in a situation that I don't want to be in, or I find myself having pursued something that ends up, then I regret it. I shouldn't have had that bag of chips at two in the morning, or something like that, I feel. But now it feels so good. I guess my pleasure-pain calculation got a little hijacked or was not properly informed at that time.

Anyway, I think about that. I'm sort of lurching around, driven by this carrot and stick to a greater or lesser degree, it seems. That's how I order my decisions. That's my hierarchy, if you like, that unfolds. How does the awakened mind decide what to do, given that it, you could just sit there doing nothing or you could do this or that? Is it driven by a similar mechanism or some other mechanism? So I would say that there is still intention. There's still decision making. There's still a process of making choices for that mind state. But it's driven by what seems most beneficial in that moment. And that might sound at the very surface of that being selfish.

be an expectation for someone who might be awakened that they're always on. If I ask them a question, or if I want to talk about the Dhamma or whatever it might be, they're always on, they'll be ready for you in all these other things. But that's not always the case. Because sometimes the mind feels tired, the body feels tired. And so the mind is addressing that the body is tired. And so there's not enough energy to talk. So there is, you could say, calculation going on in so far as understanding: is there enough energy now? Is it the right time to speak right now? Is the right time to do this and that? That arises not based on what's in it for me necessarily, but what's in it for the benefit of all concerned. So, giving that example of let's say somebody wanting to ask a presumably awakened person a question about the Dhamma, and then that presumably awakened person would say, that's not the right time right now, or I'm tired, and I don't want to talk right now.

That's not like they're being selfish, they're just being practical, because if they were to talk in that moment, they might not be their most efficient, they might not be their most effective for the other person to be able to take in what is being said. So they're mindful of that, as well. That is to say, they're mindful of what's happening and what is beneficial and what is the point of lowest tension. That's something that I took from, or borrowed from, let's say, Liam, which is, you go, it's the point of lowest tension, which is: is this going to cause further suffering for someone, or is this going to alleviate their suffering? So that is really the decision making process. Like, is this going to cause suffering, or is this going to cause the cessation of suffering? So for the awakened mind it's not about, is this beneficial for me or the other person necessarily.

but is this going to cause further suffering for this body, or is it going to cause further suffering for this person if it's unable to, if we're unable to interact in the correct manner, or is it going to allow the mind to experience further cessation of suffering or the body further often. So it's not driven by past, well, yes, I could say that the mind does learn from its past mistakes. So obviously, if the mind knew that saying this to a person would result in, or generally would result in, this kind of reaction, then the mind knows not to say those kind of words. The mind knows that's not... it knows that it apes at 2 a.m.

in the morning, it knows that maybe that's not the best way to deal with the health of the body and so on. So those factors are present. Those decision points are present, but they're present not in the sense of how does it affect me personally, but more present in terms of, is that really going to cause further suffering, or is that going to just lessen suffering? So it might be that we might be saying the same things so far as the pleasure-pain model versus the cessation of suffering and suffering model.

But I think there is a subtle difference in there, which is, it's talking, or the mind is ruminating about that, not in terms of how it deals with me only, but how it deals with everything or everyone concerned. So that's where I talk about the point of lowest tension, which is, is it going to alleviate the suffering of others involved? The suffering to them. So that mindset is motivated really by compassion for oneself, so to speak, and compassion for other beings.

So it's motivated by, can this help the other person in so far as whatever is happening, or is it not effective in helping that person? This is very fascinating. This leads to another question in my mind, which is, I mentioned that if I reflect on my own decision-making process, as a sort of, if you want, how can we say, representative of the unawakened camp, I noticed that, as I said, my pleasure-pain calculation, which is sort of designed, I think, towards the goal of benefiting myself or putting myself in the best possible position. And bear in mind, that doesn't necessarily mean to disadvantage others, because that doesn't always actually benefit me in the long run.

But nonetheless, the variables of that pleasure-pain calculation are informed. They're limited by a number of factors. One of them is that I don't know what all the factors are that are going on in the environment. And so it's sort of a best guess based on, as you said, the things I've learned in the past and this sort of thing. And future projection and past ruminations are all sort of going in there, I suppose.

But another problem with a vulnerability of the pleasure-pain calculation is that it's hijackable by, as you point out, craving. I noticed that. Oh yeah, sure enough, a lot of times if I think back at bad decisions I've made, I wasn't really in my right mind. I was a little bit intoxicated by craving of some sort or another, subtle or gross. And so I can certainly see how using TWIM, for example, to do this craving intervention could bring more general sobriety and lucidity to the mind, and could reduce its vulnerability to being hijacked by craving.

But what about this other problem I mentioned of lack of complete information of all the causes and conditions that are active, so that there may be unforeseen circumstances? So I think I'm doing something for this with the best information I've got. But I was not fully informed of all the causes and conditions active on the situation, that the awakened person is able to perceive these things more clearly. They have an almost tending towards the direction of omniscience. Is that the case? Can enlightened people make mistakes? If so, why do they make mistakes? And do they have some sort of, silly as it may seem, but it's scriptural in certain texts anyway, do they have a certain sense of omniscience or wisdom to see into causes and conditions in a way that the unawakened person can't?

from the get-go that an awakened mind doesn't immediately mean that it's omniscient. So there's actually some references in the Suttas where there's times where the Buddha had said something and it caused people to do things that they shouldn't have done. And then he was coming back from somewhere and he said, what happened? And he said, these people did this. And he said, okay, well, I have to restructure the way that I said that because that was not the intention. Or, well, I'm paraphrasing. I'm just giving a summary of what happened. But that's a good reference for understanding that it's not omniscient.

So the enlightened mind, the fully awakened mind, is not omniscient, but there can be the capacity for the mind to be able to be more clear about what's going on in terms of... So that mind, if it's able to be, because it can be more compassionate, and not all the time, but possibly empathic, so that it's understanding this person is really feeling this way.

So it's not omniscient in that sense, but it can place the mind towards an object or a person or a situation and kind of assess and understand what's going on there, and then actually be able to be spontaneous in terms of, this is the best possible action to do or not to do, because action can also be the not doing of something, or the prevention of doing something, so that it doesn't cause further suffering.

Or, this is the right thing to say in this moment, or this is not the right thing to say in this moment, and the right thing to do is just to stay silent. So there is clarity, because that whole veil that's there that filters reality, that filtration process, is all of this projection of, well, I did this before, so it could result in this kind of situation. Or this is the consequence of what happened the last time I did something like this.

It might not always apply in that situation. So that whole filtration process goes away, in so far as, when that happens in that moment, the mind is so fully aware of what's happening that it can actually act on or speak in a way that is not on the basis of past processes, not on the basis of past conditioning, but whatever seems the best possible situation or the best possible action or speech for that situation.

So very, very practically speaking, when the mind is experiencing pain, it's not going to be like, oh, where did this pain arise? Or, the last time I did this, this is what happened. It will actually tend to that pain in a way that causes the cessation of that pain. Very practically speaking. But let's say you get into a dialogue with somebody. You know that person to be somebody who's confrontational.

So based on having had situations where that person was confrontational, a person who's not fully awakened would have all of this baggage about that person. And that will manifest in the way you act, will manifest in the way you behave, will manifest in your facial features, will manifest in all these different subtleties. But with the awakened mind, it's not like they're seeing that and saying, oh, this person is confrontational, so I better be cautious with my words.

I better be wise with my words. Instead, that mind will say whatever seems the best approach to deal with that person. That could also mean actually being in a confrontation, not necessarily shouting and screaming and using foul language, but actually standing one's ground, to be able to, because maybe that person realizes that confrontational person needs to be able to see things in a different way. So they will stand their ground and be able to actually assess and be able to guide them away from that confrontation. So the awakened mind doesn't necessarily always see things from that perspective. They will always see it as what would be beneficial for this person. So would the awakened mind be able to read the minds of another person to an extent?

They would be able to understand where that person is coming from, to an extent. I mean, it's not like a fully awakened mind needs to be able to read people's minds. It's just that they no longer have all this veil of ignorance, veil of creating, veil of this whole filtration process that's going on. So when you speak, you speak with a motive to get something. You speak with the motive for expressing. You speak because you have all of these past conditionings and so on.

But generally, with the awakened mind, they will stay silent. They won't say a lot of things unless there's a practical purpose for saying it, unless there's a reason for saying it. When people act on certain things, they act with certain kinds of motivating factors to get something, to grasp at something, to do something. Very simply put, for the awakened mind, they won't act unless it just seems like that might be the best course of action.

So it's not like they don't want to act. It's just that they're always at rest. But if there is a reason to act in that situation, then they will act in accordance to whatever would be right action. So the awakened mind isn't something that just acts randomly. They act from a default mode of right action. In other words, they will act insofar as whatever is required that moment, as long as it doesn't break a precept, as long as it doesn't cause harm. They will say things as long as they know them, whatever they're saying, not to be inaccurate or not to be false. So can the enlightened mind make mistakes? Absolutely, it can make mistakes. Absolutely, it can create situations that cause mistakes, but it doesn't take those mistakes personally. It goes ahead and learns from those mistakes. So I would not say that the mind is perfect insofar as not making mistakes, but it is perfect insofar as no longer causing harm to individuals with an intention to cause harm to individuals.

So there might be things that the awakened mind might say that might seem harsh to the person, or that might feel like they're picking on them or something like that. But the intentions behind whatever is being said will always be with the intention of alleviating suffering. Intention will be always from compassion, always from loving kindness. But if that has a tendency to cause a mistake or create a misunderstanding, then it will create a misunderstanding. But that doesn't mean that's any new karma. It's just that, that person took it in a way that was not intended.

But there can be clarification for that. It can be clarity of, that was not the intention. Instead, this was the intention. Yes, I think we should not say that awakened people don't make mistakes. They can make mistakes. I have a couple more questions springing from what you said, which is very, very interesting indeed. There is a particular kind of conditioning, if we think, if I can use that word, maybe a little broadly, which I'd really like to know your opinion on, which is trauma. Trauma, of course, this idea that there are certain things

that can happen to a person physically, a physical injury or so, or psychologically. Let's just say psychologically. There's certain events that can happen to a person that can skew their perception in quite a radical way, actually. More so, it seems, than one's basic ignorance. Now, perhaps that's wrong. For example, one had an upbringing of being rejected in cruel or traumatic ways. And then going through life, one's prone to see or expect rejection, or to react more strongly to rejection that does occur, based on that previous trauma. That seems to be a kind of stronger version of what you had said before, which is, oh, I know this person to be confrontational. Maybe then you're more sensitive to them based on knowing that before.

It seems trauma is that, perhaps deeper, um, more difficult to access. At least it's in, in psychological theory of today, 2022, it's said to be the case that trauma is a sort of even deeper degree of conditioning, more intractable in some ways, with a greater potential to hijack a person's reaction and mind than even just simply having had experiences of someone being confrontational before. I don't know if you see that distinction. Recognize that distinction. What about trauma then? Does that have to be metabolized in a special way, or is it just simply a subcategory of conditioning that the usual methods work with? Are there any special considerations when it comes to trauma?

I would say, first of all, from the context of dependent origination, when you look at trauma, I see that as a process of clinging. And I'm not saying that a person necessarily clings to the trauma. I'm saying clinging is one way of understanding that word, clinging, which is the upadana, right, which is the fueling process or refueling process. I also see it as a process of associations. So the mind has the tendency to associate certain things in certain ways. So, given the trauma, for example the trauma of rejection as you said, or psychological rejection, leads a mind to kind of flinch when there is rejection at a future period of time.

And so the association of that pain with rejection, for example, since we're taking that example, that association is a clinging to it. Whereas if you were able to recognize that there's that flinching, if you're able to recognize that there's this cascading sort of way of wanting to respond to that situation based from there, using right effort, the 6R's process, you could actually recognize that and then let that go, relax that tension, then replace that with something wholesome like loving kindness or compassion or equanimity or whatever might be best for that situation. So this process of the Dhamma that we talked about, whether it's through dependent origination or the four noble truths or the eightfold path or meditation or whatever it might be, it's actually a process of reconditioning.

It's just a process of first deconditioning all of the states that cause affliction and suffering, through that process of, you know, recognizing it and letting it go. And then reconditioning it with the Eightfold Path, reconditioning it with things that are wholesome, things that are beneficial to the mind, like loving kindness, like compassion, like joy, like equanimity, like gratitude, like generosity, like patience and forgiveness, and all of these qualities that we have learned in our lives to be things that are beneficial for the mind state.

So once you recondition that mind in that way, it is a process of happening on a moment-to-moment basis. So it starts with that mindfulness. It starts with how we define mindfulness, which is to say, remembering to observe how your mind's attention moves from one thing to the other. So if the mind recognizes that, oh, here's an opportunity for me not to respond in a way that causes further suffering, because if I take this rejection personally, based on my past trauma, based on my past experiences, then I'm only going to add to that over and over and over.

But if I see that as it is, which is, oh, here is now an opportunity for me to respond in a different way, and recognize that there is this fermentation process. There is this percolation of things coming up that can manifest in the usual way that I react to things. And I can then let go of that, so stop that whole flow of percolation happening.

And then relax any of that tightness and tension. Relax any of that, any of those sankharas, any of those mental impressions in the mind associated with that past trauma. And re-smile. Re-smile here doesn't mean I've got to re-smile in that way, but re-smile really means replace it with something that's wholesome, which is: I understand that if I were to react in this way, I will cause further suffering. So instead, I'm going to replace it with something which is maybe a joyful mind state or a more equanimous mind state, replace it with being more mindful and equanimous, and then interact. Then what has happened is I have shut off that whole process of clinging to that trauma, clinging to all of that stuff that happened in the past.

I've cut that off and I'm now re-engaging with the world so that it doesn't create further suffering for myself and for others. So this is the use of the TWIM practice, or any right effort. I mean, the TWIM practice is really right effort, but right effort is essentially abandoning unarisen or unwholesome states, letting go, or rather preventing them, abandoning any arisen unwholesome states or letting those go, generating wholesome states of mind, and continuing to maintain those wholesome states of mind. So if you were to ask, is the mind of one who is fully conditioned or unconditioned?

The answer to that would be that it is conditioned. It's conditioned by wholesome states of mind. It's unconditioned insofar as it's deconditioned of the unwholesome states of mind. It's deconditioned by, or deconditioned from, greed, hatred, and delusion, which means that it no longer reacts from that trauma. So a fully awakened mind would have experienced some kind of trauma in the past. But no longer does that trauma take hold.

No longer does that trauma project all of these ideas of how to respond to future events associated with those traumatic events or those traumatic situations. It now learns from it. And now it's conditioned by things that are wholesome, things that are rooted in wisdom, things that are rooted in compassion. But it's now unconditioned insofar as it's deconditioned by all of that. That's very interesting indeed. You know, you're talking there about this orientation of loving kindness, or the responses coming from this context of loving kindness.

And I was wondering, and you've touched now on a follow-up question, what if we don't attempt to redirect to a positive state? Is it possible to simply opt out of the craving without opting in to the positive? achieve degrees of awakening that lack in that cultivation of positive states, still there is the reduction of craving. Is the process of reduction of craving and the process of generating or cultivating wholesome states, such as loving kindness, are they independent processes? Can they occur independent of each other, such that one can occur without the other occurring? Are they necessarily connected in some way? Is it possible that someone might reduce the craving without having generated the wholesome states?

Is that a possible thing? I think the way to look at it would be that once you let go of the craving, that in itself is wholesome. That is to say that the lack of craving in the mind means that there is a lack of suffering. So that can be the basis for that mind. That is to say that in itself is wholesome.

So I think when we talk about wholesome, the inclusion of a mind without any craving is also a wholesome state, right? Oh, there was my opportunity to plug the book, a mind without craving. Anyway, but the fact that there is no craving in that mind means that that mind is wholesome already. So when we talk about the four right efforts, the abandoning of the craving in the second right effort automatically leads to a mind that is feeling relief from that craving. So that actually just leads into generating that state, which is a lack of craving. And so the effort, as it were, would be to continue being in that state where there's no craving.

Is it necessary to proactively train positive states, such as loving kindness, or something of that nature? Is it necessary to orient them or cultivate them in some way, or is it simply sufficient to let go of craving? I would say that it is necessary, and the reason I would say that is because you think about it from the perspective of, the mind is such that it is always either in a state where it's looking at things in a way that is either craving, or looking at things in a way that is wholesome, or looking at things in a way that is personal or impersonal. It's always looking. So how do you reorient the mind is dependent upon what you choose to input into it.

So, the way of looking at it is, for example, a mind has hatred in it, a mind has anger in it, a mind has aversion in it. When you let go of the aversion, if the mind lets go of the aversion, what does it feel? that aversion. And really what happens is now it's starting to see that actually it's more beneficial to be loving and kind.

So it might automatically orient towards that which is loving and kind. But initially, as a form of practice, the idea is the antidote for hatred is loving kindness. So if somebody sees in their mind that their inclinations, their choices, are always leaning towards being angry, or always leaning towards being harsh, or always leaning towards being hateful in their mind, then it is required to be loving and kind, proactively being loving and kind, proactively having cultivated that loving kindness.

Because once you let go of that hatred, there's a tendency for that hatred to continue unless you stop that, until you input the code that's different so that that hatred starts to subside. And in that process, loving kindness actually replaces it. So you have to proactively do that. Another example would be somebody who has a jealous mind state. If you recognize, oh, I'm getting jealous of this person or this situation where these people are happy.

And then you let go of that. That's great. You've let go of that. Happiness, then another thought arises, but wait, then because the mind is always inclining towards something. So you have to be able to actually redirect the compass, redirect the rudder, as it were, to something else in place of that. So in the case of jealousy, you replace it with mudita, you replace it with empathetic joy, celebrating in their happiness. So there will always be this, let's say, rebalancing of mindsets that include, first of all, letting go, and then proactively replacing them with something else. - Very interesting. Perhaps one last question on this topic before I ask you about the other side of that graphic there.

Is it the case that in the process of working that you've described here, biographical history or stored emotions, etc., percolate up and are worked through? Is there a kind of, as is sometimes said, I've heard it said, let me put it this way, I've heard it said that when one meditates, one gets into contact with sometimes the deeper contents of the mind that are held in the unconscious, or something like this, held in those deeper layers? Is it the case that working in this way, one goes through periods of purification where previous experiences, traumas, to use that word again, actions, et cetera, can percolate up in a concentrated way?

Does that happen? Yeah. For example, when one is doing these processes, in meditation, in the process of becoming fully awakened, let's say, through that whole process, it can happen that memories come up, and they come in the form of hindrances in meditation practice, for example. And they can come up just at any random time. I mean, they can come up while you're walking down the street, and you realize, and you remember something somebody said to you that was hurtful, or you recall something that happened in your childhood, at the most inconvenient times, not just in meditation. So this process of actively or proactively being mindful of that and letting go doesn't just happen in meditation.

So when these processes happen, what they are, should be, or how they should be seen, is that they are feeling. So when we go into dependent origination, again, what they are is vedana. They're basically experiences in the mind of past memories, or past reflections of trauma or situations that happened. So how do you choose to deal with that memory? How do you choose to deal with how that happens?

Do you continue to add to it by becoming attached to it, or becoming affected by it in such a way that it causes you to deepen that trauma, to deepen that association with that trauma? If that happens, then that's a further process of craving, clinging and becoming, and then that leads to further suffering. But let's say you're walking down the street and you think about a bad memory, you think about something that happened. Now that bad memory, or it just arose, that percolation just arose out of seemingly nowhere, but the conditions were there for whatever happened, because the street, and then the brain was making all of these processes, and said, oh, the color red, and then the color red came up, something happened where this person was wearing a red shirt and they said something bad to me or they abused me or something like that. So all of these percolations happen. Now when this is happening, it manifests as an experience in the mind, a mental experience of a memory.

You could either choose to act on that memory by further trying to say, oh, that shouldn't have happened, or why did that happen to me, and all of these things. Or you can take it as an opportunity to see this memory as, okay, here's a present and unpleasant feeling, and then let go of the initial reactivity to it, or let go of anything that's happening in the form of all of these mental sort of baggage, processes like, why did they say that to me? Or why is it that it always happens to me? Or I shouldn't have done that. Or all of these other kinds of mental proliferation that happen. You can stop all of that with this process of the 6R's, with this process of right effort.

And that can happen, like I said, randomly when you're walking down the street. You can just recognize, oh, here is the mind again getting caught up in this, and stop that by recognizing it, releasing your attention away from it, relaxing it, replacing it with loving kindness towards that, replacing it with a mind state that is equanimous, replacing it with a mind state that has compassion for that person.

For example, even your emotions or even your moods can look at that same process, or look at that same memory, or look at that same person in different ways. For example, if you're irritated, if a person is irritated, or if a person is sad, or a person is in and they think about that person who harmed them, they will look at them in a certain way. They'll have anger towards them. They will be unforgiving, or they'll have some kind of remorse or something.

But if a person's mind state is uplifted, just naturally uplifted, and then they think back on that unpleasant emotion or unpleasant memory, it is quite possible with that uplifted state that in that moment, the mind will be more forgiving of that person. The mind will be more compassionate towards that person. Or in fact, even just think about something funny that happened with that person and start to make new associations with that experience.

This is actually what's happening with certain, as far as to my knowledge, certain therapies with trauma. That's with that experience of the MDMA. And now you're reframing that trauma so that it no longer has that same hold on you. This is what we're doing with the practice. It's basically a process of getting to an uplifted state, revisiting that trauma, or vice versa, revisiting that trauma, replacing the negative reactions to it with wholesome states of mind. Very interesting. Yeah, I also thought about MDMA-assisted therapy when, when you were describing that. That's very interesting indeed. Meditation is sometimes taught without this proactive inclining of the mind towards positive states, that somehow the repeated observation of the arising of craving, or whatever the case may be, is sufficient to produce some wisdom result that interrupts that flow somehow.

But you're making a key point here that this idea of inclining the mind towards positive states is actually crucial. Is that fair to say? So if that step is missed, you're saying that there's a possibility of just, in a certain sense, unnecessarily repeating those negative mind states because the mind's focused in that direction. So you have to move the mind in another direction is an important aspect, observing?

Absolutely. Observing is the first step, or noting, let's say, is the first step. Recognizing is the first step. But in order for the mind to actually experience the cessation of that suffering, the cessation of that craving, or the cessation of whatever that hindrance might be, in order for that to happen, in order for that mind to experience that, it needs to proactively actually let it go. It allows the mind to have that space then to cultivate the wholesome state of mind. So observing, you could observe craving all you want, but the way I would explain it is that just by observing it, the craving doesn't go away.

It might seem like it goes away because you're observing and so on and whatnot. You're possibly contemplating that here is craving, contemplating here is a mind that is having craving, that is suffering. But what I would say to that is, okay, you're experiencing that and it dissipates, but the fuel of your attention to it is just going to continue. Those formations will arise at a future period of time. You have to proactively, first of all, let go of it, and now that you're letting go of it proactively, replace it with those wholesome states of mind, which is, whatever it might be, loving kindness or equanimity or whatever it might be.

Because the way to look at sankhara is that they are like synapses. They're like neural connections in the brain. So it's not enough to just let go of those neural capacities that are associated with craving. You also have to rewire the brain actively by creating new neural formations, new neural synapses that replace it. Met with those same situations, the rudder is, again, using that same simile of the rudder, it's now orienting towards something that's wholesome, so that then through non-use of the neural pathways that were associated with reacting to it from an unwholesome manner, through non-use, start to fade away, start to weaken, and eventually just has the remainderless fading away that goes away. What happens is those neural pathways that are associated with the wholesome states of mind start to become the default way of interacting with the world.

So it's not enough to just observe and then to let go. You also have to replace it with something wholesome. Fascinating. Well, this has been amazing, Delson. Can we look at that second, that right-hand side of that graphic now? And perhaps under that umbrella, some of my other questions, such as, what does jhana have to do with this? And what about when you become a stream enterer or something like that? Is that some sort of save point in the computer game, which locked in a certain kind of movement away from one mode to the other mode? How do those things show up in this process? And perhaps that's going to be illuminated by this graphic.

Should I bring it back up? Yeah, please. The raft, just saying that it's a noble eightfold path. I will make some changes to this particular graphic insofar as certain words, because it might give a little more clarity about what we're talking about here. So, where does jhana come in this? Where does meditation come in this? Where does, you know, right speech and right action come in this? It actually comes at the level of faith. This comes from the word saddha. And saddha just means basically having the openness, the willingness to actually start the practice, to listen to what the practice is about.

But tied to this, because the suttas actually make the faith and virtue interchangeable. So it's not just faith, but it's also keeping the precepts. So the very first part of this is sila. Really the first part of this is having the openness and willingness to understand, okay, what are you talking about here? And then doing it in so far as keeping the precepts.

So sila is really the foundation. And then that gives rise to, it's actually pamojja, which is the gladness of the Dhamma, the gladness of, or another way of putting it is, non-regret. In other words, when you do keep the precepts, you see that there's a sense of upliftedness in the mind, and you actually relish in them. What that pamojja is, really, is that it gives rise to further joy, which is the rapture, which is the piti that arises. Then that gives rise to, it says your calmness, but that's really tranquility. So that's the mind that is relaxed. So joy and tranquility are really interchangeable. A mind that is joyful is also pretty tranquil, meaning it's pretty relaxed, and the mind that is relaxed is prone to experience joy.

So they are, I would put forth, that they are interchangeable here. That sense of calmness, that sense of tranquility gives rise to further ease in the mind and body, which is here translated as bliss, but it's also sukha. So that's a comfort in the mind and body. It's a certain sense of ease in the mind and body. The mind very collected, so that's the mind that's prepared for samadhi practice, that's a mind that's prepared for jhana practice, as it were. Now keep in mind, all throughout this process you actually are starting to get into a mind that is free of hindrances, which means that the mind is starting to cultivate enlightenment factors. So the mindfulness arises once you start to keep the precepts. The investigation of states arises once you realize that the mind has non-regret. The energy arises once you start to cultivate more joy, and then joy obviously arises, tranquility arises, and the collectedness.

So this collectedness is a mind that is able to stay with an object, and the attention that is non-dispersed. So the way I define collectedness is, or the way I would illustrate collectedness is, it's not like the mind becomes its object of awareness. It's not like it becomes one pointed, but it's like, this is the object, which is, let's say, the breath, or a brahmavihara, or a subha practice, or whatever it might be. Here is the object.

And here is the mind's attention. And it's like a satellite orbiting a planet. So collectedness is just being in the vicinity of your object, staying with it, not having to become it or not having to be one pointed towards it. The mind being collected to see things as they are, so wisdom sight here is really yathabhuta nana dassana, which is the knowledge and vision of things as they really are. And what that is, is actually the enlightenment factor of equanimity, because equanimity is being able to experience everything as it actually is without the mind being pulled in one direction or the other. So once you have the equanimity, what gives rise to disenchantment?

So disenchantment with what? Disenchantment with craving, disenchantment with a mind that takes things personally. So the way I would describe disenchantment, another synonym of disenchantment is revulsion. Because you think about, and this is one illustration I always give, which is like, you go to a buffet, for example, you go to a buffet, and you have your first plate of food, and it's all good and everything. Then craving arises and says, I wonder what else is there at the buffet. And you go to the buffet and you have another plate and you enjoy that. Now you go for the third plate and it's okay. You know, it's the law of diminishing returns.

Somebody suggests going for that fourth plate of food and you're like, no, I've had my fill. I've done it. I'm done. I don't want any more of that. This is disenchanted. It's like you're disenchanted. Let's say in the meditation practice, these things start coming up and you're starting to let go of them using right effort. Eventually, you don't get caught up in them anymore. Your mind just is like, don't want to deal with that anymore. It's not aversive towards it. It's not ignoring it. It's just saying, doesn't want to get caught up in it anymore. Then the dispassion, which is a state of mind, which is a detached mind.

It's a mind that's like a nonstick pan. It's got a Teflon mind. Anything that comes into it, it just glides over; the mind doesn't pay attention to it anymore. And then that gives rise, actually, to cessation. So here it says deliverance, but really cessation, which is the cessation of craving, cessation of suffering, cessation of mental processes. From there nibbana happens, and then there's the deliverance of mind. There's the knowledge that the mind is delivered. Now, in the process of getting there, it's a process of rinse and repeat. So for the stream enterer, they'll start with faith. They'll start with having, keeping the virtues, keeping the precepts. They'll go on to having gladness of the Dhamma.

They'll go on to have joy and tranquility and comfort and continuing the practice. They will experience the equanimity. They will experience the disenchantment and the dispassion. They will experience cessation. They will experience Nibbana, but it could be that when they didn't experience nibbana, there's still some craving present, there's still some aversion pressure present. But what they have dropped is, you know, the first three fetters. They've dropped the belief in a self-view, a personal self. They've dropped the doubt in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, so now their faith is even stronger, and so now it's an experiential confidence. And they've dropped the clinging to rites and rituals. So having done that, they also have a deeper sense of responsibility to keep the precepts.

They have a deeper awareness of keeping the precepts, appreciation, let's say, a commitment for keeping the precepts. So then they rinse and repeat and go through that whole process again. And then at the Sakadagami level, they experience Nibbana, and then they let go of further craving, sensual craving and aversion. It's weakened. So they repeat that process again and go through that experience of Nibbana, and then they let go of that completely. They repeat that process again, and then they let go of the five higher fetters, and that's when they have deliverance of mind, which is to say now they know things as they are. So now the mind is delivered from any kind of conceit, any kind of ignorance. So just as this wheel of dependent origination on the left-hand side is all about the wheel of samsara, the right-hand side is all about the wheel of Dhamma, which continues to flow until there's complete liberation of mind.

Fascinating. That was masterfully explained, Nelson, I must say. Very good. Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, this has been just an incredible interview, I must say. And is there anything left to say? Anything that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to say? Of course, people can read your book, Mine Without Craving, and follow that through. You're now offering retreats again all over the place, actually, at different places around the world. People can find that out through, I presume, Suttavada Foundation and the Dhammasuka site, etc. Your activities are listed there. But is there anything that I haven't asked you about that we ought to say by way of closing?

I think we've basically explored as best as possible in the time that we've been given dependent origination and how to cease that. And I think we've done as best as we could. So there's nothing more further really to say about that. I would just say for people is, if they are really interested in really understanding dependent origination, I would say not to really read up on it much, because it might be counterintuitive really understanding the process.

Yes, you can look at Dhamma talks. Yes, if you want, you can read and all of these other things, but don't get caught up in the intellectualization of it. Understand it in terms of your personal experience. So recognizing craving when it arises and letting it go with right effort, letting it go. If you want to use the twin practice, letting it go with the 6R's and having let go of it, able to actually experience the transcendental dependent origination. That is, understanding how the gladness arises, how the joy arises. So that would be my closing statement, right? It is not to make this whole process a process of study, but make it a process of practice, an application of study, and so that one can actually experience for themselves the fruits and benefit of the Dhamma. That's an Armstrong. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another Guru Viking podcast. For more interviews like these, as well as articles, videos, and guided meditations, visit www.guruviking.com.