4 Dec 2021 Online Retreat Q & A With Delson Armstrong Session 1 of 2

Welcome everyone to the second Q&A of this retreat. Who'd like to get started? And then, what is your opinion about this concept of universal consciousness? In some traditions they consider it as Nibbana, anidassana vinnanam. Does the universal consciousness exist? Yeah. So Nibbana has one of those terms, which is the vinnanam anidassana, which is basically what it means. The way I interpret that is the non-reflective awareness, non-reflective consciousness. But that in itself is not universal consciousness, or how we understand the concept of universal consciousness. There's a very subtle analogy I give with regards to describing anidassana, because it's a little complex to understand. The analogy is: you imagine the mirror in front of you, and there is a reflection in that mirror. But if you take away the person, is there their reflection anymore? It's just the mirror, but that concept of a mirror no longer exists, because the functionality of that mirror requires a reflection to be there. So in the same way, Nibbana is the unconditioned, which means that consciousness

is not within the scope of conditioned existence. So the experience that's there can be equated to be a non-experience, but at the same time there is some kind of an experience, but it's not within the scope of normal dependent consciousness as we understand it. Universal consciousness, the idea is that it is like the Brahman as we understand in some of the ancient Indian texts, like in the Upanishads. The idea there is that this universal consciousness is a substratum of the entire creation. All that we see is Brahman. That's the idea from the Upanishads, and that even this sense of the self, this atman, is the same as the Brahman. This is called Vedanta. Now, there are different types of Vedanta: there's Advaita Vedanta, Vishishta Advaita Vedanta, and all of these different qualifications and categories. But they're all saying the same thing, which is that there is this universal consciousness. But if you were to look at Majjhima Nikaya 38

a very famous one, which is with Sati, son of a fisherman. Sati's son of a fisherman has this idea that it's the very same consciousness that experiences all of these sensory experiences, and it transmigrates as a soul from one lifetime to the next. But the Buddha says such consciousness is dependent upon its fuel, just as a fire is known by its fuel. It can be a wood fire, or a stove fire, or a fire born from gas, or whatever it might be. Whole fire. In the same way you have consciousness. Now when we talk about consciousness, we're talking about vinnana. Vinnana, meaning jnana, which is knowledge, and vi, which is divided: the division of knowledge, and that awareness is divided and dependent upon the individual sense bases. So within that context you see that if there is no contact, then there cannot be any consciousness.

Contact gives rise to feeling. But how is contact understood? We understand contact to be: the eye, for example, meets with the form, meets with colour and form, which are the photons, and the meeting of these two brings up eye consciousness. So these three are what create eye contact, and then dependent upon eye contact there is eye feeling, feeling born of vision, and so on and so forth. So when you understand it in that way, you know that there cannot be a universal consciousness, an infinite eternal consciousness. There are some Buddhist traditions, but they don't think it itself. The only difference between them and... you had another question? There's a lot of questions. That's a comment. There are some Buddhist traditions also who believe in universal consciousness, but they do not think that's it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Sorry, Madhusudan, again I couldn't hear you, this technical difficulties. Go ahead, please. Again.

okay uh it's just a comment can you listen now there are some buddhist traditions who believe in universal consciousness but do not take universal consciousness as sale the only difference between them and vedanta is considering it's as safe or not so therefore oh yeah so yeah that's that's a good comment because you have that within certain traditions which is uh you know they call that buddha nature or they call that the dharmakaya or they call that uh you know rikpa or they call that empty cognizance meaning yes there is some universal consciousness but it is empty meaning it's empty of any kind of self it's an impersonal universal consciousness but if you were to think about that within the context of dependent origination it just doesn't it doesn't match

Any other questions? Yes, Delson, can you hear me okay? Yes, please go ahead. Question on the second part of the Samadhi Sutta, where he's talking about nutriment. Everything else seems pretty clear, that one I found a little bit challenging, because he talks about physical food isn't a nutriment, and then he says gross or subtle. So I'm not sure even what he's talking about there. If he means subtle, meaning non-material, or belonging to other realms, or if he's talking about that as the other

nutriments, which is contact, mental volition, and then he says consciousness, and with, then after that he says with the rising craving, here's the arising of nutriment. So I was looking at Bhikkhu Bodhi's explanation, because he has a little bit of a blurb after this section in the magic, where he talks about food as a nutriment for body, contact as a nutriment for feeling, mental volition as a nutriment for consciousness, and then consciousness, of course, for mentality-materialities. So some of those line up with the dependent origination.

Some of them are a little bit skewed. I'm just, is that how you see that in terms of the nutriments, and why is he kind of choosing these four, because almost everything is a nutriment for some other part of that chain of dependent origination? So what's your take on that? Yes. So when I look at nutriment, if I'm not mistaken, it comes from the Pali word, and Sanskrit word, which means ahara. Ahara means food, and what that means is it's nourishment, or it's fuel, or something. Now, in a general way, yes, you are right about that. For example, if you look at it from dependent origination: contact feeds feeling, feeling feeds craving, only if there is identification. I want this, I don't want this kind of perspective on it. Craving can feed clinging, clinging can feed being, being can feed birth, and so on. And I agree with Bhikkhu Bodhi's note in the sense that it makes complete sense, because

the nutriment for the physical body is food. The nutriment for, sorry, the nutriment for the body, yes, is physical food. Contact is a nutriment for feeling. Volition is a nutriment for, did you say consciousness? Yeah, and consciousness being a nutriment for mentality. But it's just one of those. And then craving is basically how this whole thing comes out to be, meaning there's craving for food, and that continues to condition the body, it continues to feed the body. There's craving for contact, and so that gives rise to feeling. There's craving in an intention, which is mental volition, and that gives rise to an awareness, or an experience. And then there's craving for rebirth. So when we talk about the consciousness rooted in craving, we're talking about it from the macro level of rebirth, which then gives rise to a new mentality-materiality, which conditions a new nama-rupa, which are essentially the aggregates, the form aggregate along with feeling, perception, intention.

So it's just a way of looking at things in one way, but it can be attributed to any of the links of dependent origination. Because if you look at dependent origination, until you eradicate craving completely, there is a potential for craving in each of the links of dependent origination, starting from ignorance, going all the way to birth.

Yes, that's a good point. I never really thought through that as clearly, that craving. I always think of it as kind of that one link right there in the middle, where we need to break that chain of causality. But in a way, it's kind of almost in every step. It's true. So craving basically leads to all those nutriments, anything that's a nutriment, right? Is that correct? Something is up with my idea again.

All right, let's see. Sorry, Paul, I missed about half of what you said, and I already forgot. Thank you for explaining that in terms of craving as being kind of part of every single step in the process of dependent origination, because then it makes sense also that leads to, at least, nutriment in all of its different forms as well. Yes. And I'll just expand that a little bit for anyone who needs more clarity about this. The way to understand how it is possible that craving be present in the links prior to craving is to understand that any time there's identification, that is to say conceit, identification with your intentions, identification with contact, identification with awareness, identification with the body, identification with feeling, taking this experience through the sixth sense base as me, mine, or myself.

There is potential for them to be underlying tendencies to arise at the level of feeling. These underlying tendencies can give rise to craving, can give rise to aversion, can give rise to conceit, can give rise to being, can give rise to doubt, can give rise to views, can give rise to ignorance. And when we talk about ignorance, what we're saying is ignoring the four noble truths, meaning there is an understanding that the four noble truths are present but choosing to ignore them. Any time there is lack of mindfulness, so at the level of feeling, if there is lack of mindfulness, you don't see things as they really are. That is to say, whatever is being experienced right now is impersonal, is impermanent, and therefore should not be held on to. Don't see it in that way, then that is liable to produce craving. But because you have mindfulness, then you don't

Or rather, you stop. It's the gatekeeper at feeling. When you have mindfulness and you see things as they really are and don't hold on to them, then there won't be any craving, there won't be any clinging, there won't be being. So the equation should be: mindfulness equals the gradual eradication of ignorance, ignorance equals lack of mindfulness. Any other questions? I know. Can you have some? That's okay. Doctor, please ask. I can ask later. Uh, can you let us talk with hormones? Sorry, it was not clear. Can you see again, please?

uh can we equate asava with hormones asava with hormones oh um well not just hormones you could say neurotransmitters uh certain synapses certain neural pathways right because uh you think about it every time you make a certain decision you're releasing certain neurotransmitters you're releasing certain neural hormones which give rise to certain kind of craving being or ignorance but as soon as you've let go of all of those things you're reconditioning the neural pathways you're reconditioning the arising and arising of certain hormones and the dissolution of certain hormones so you could see it in that way but not but not just hormones, there's a lot of other things that are interdependent and reconnected there. I have a question about the reading from a Buddha last word and trying to understand this

meaning of apomada my understanding of that is very similar to to sati like but my mindfulness alone doesn't really cut it and i would like to know a bit more about it please yeah yeah so you think about apomada and pamada the pamada means carelessness or heedlessness amada is lack of diligence lack of being aware being attentive so apamada is the opposite of that apamada is to be diligent in everything that you're seeing so it's an effort to be mindful mindfulness itself is the quality of the mind but it's the effort to become mindful it's the effort to be attentive it's the effort to exercise attention rooted in reality as we call it which is the yoni so manisakara you know i i believe if i'm not mistaken when the buddha was speaking about the the three characteristics in reference to sankharas and then his final words were about you know all conditioned things all sankharas are anicca all sankharas are impermanent

And he said strive and be diligent, make an effort, do the right effort and be diligent, which is to be using attention, to be using mindfulness. His last words are pointing to exercising mindfulness to be able to observe how your attention moves. In the very action of observing how your attention moves, you're actually exercising mindfulness. You're exercising attention. You're exercising that whole process, which is apamada: be diligent, be watchful, be aware, be careful, everything that you... Yes. To me there's like a five out of this eightfold path.

Like right mindfulness, right effort, right collectedness, even right understanding, right intention. Yes, yes, exactly, and the output of that would be right speech, and right action, and right life. So I think it's like the whole, all his life teaching can be pretty much summarized at the last word. Yes, pretty much, yes. It's so, so important to really understand his last words to that level, because that whole section that he says, you can speak about it for hours and hours and hours, because you can actually break down everything that we're talking about now in terms of the eightfold path, the four noble truths, right effort, right intention, mindfulness, collectedness, and so on. And then the implicit understanding of why does he say specifically all sankharas are impermanent? Because, fine, you get to the understanding that consciousness is impermanent, but then you understand consciousness and rebirth, and you say, okay, well then the sankharas

transport new consciousness to a new life. Does that mean consciousness? Does that mean sankharas are permanent? He was pointing to saying not even the sankharas are permanent. The sankharas also, the formations also, are impermanent. Is it ever-changing, dependent upon choices, decisions and intention? - Thank you, it's really nice. Any other questions? Can I ask one more question, please? Ask as many as you'd like. Thanks. This one comes to, for daily life, we know that some antidotes, for example, if we are a little bit agitated or angry, if you're doing loving kindness, cruelty with compassion, lust with impermanence or asubha, it's not nice things, right? But what about conceit? The reason I'm saying that is, lately I noticed this, especially in meetings and things like that. It's like conceit comes up and sometimes you just have to laugh it out, but it's really

It's subtle, very subtle. It's not like, definitely not like, a hatred or lust. When it comes up I notice that it's extremely subtle, but yeah, it doesn't stay that long in, but I'm just wondering what would be the most effective antidote of this? Thank you. Anatta sanna: the perception of the impersonal nature, everything impersonal, so impermanence and okay

Yeah, meaning what I mean by that is, yes, let's say the mind has a tendency to have conceit and say, oh, I really like that, or I really don't like that. In that moment, if you have the mindfulness to see that the mind is equating that with I, or me, or mine, you can let that go. And in letting that go there's that emptiness, the experience of the anatta. To stay there and perceive that, the more you see that there is an arising of conceit and the more you recognize it, let it go and replace it with the perception of anatta, seeing all things as not me, not mine, not myself, then you're reconditioning the mind. Point that it has no attachment to anything at all in the form of identification. Thank you. That's, that would really help me. Thank you.

More questions? Okay, there's no more questions, and do you have a question? I wanted to ask you one more question. But yeah, if this is meditation, like my current practice... question... lately as soon as I sit I could not pinpoint any of the drama, but it's a very calm, and but at the same time I don't think it's right away. It's not a quiet mind yet. Is there a state between the balanced mind and this is a quiet mind?

Because I have to say that's not a hundred percent quiet mind, because I notice, and I recognize, fragments of thoughts or things floating around, so I notice what they are, so that's why I said it. But yeah, I don't know what to call it. It's just mindfulness, because it might not be balanced mind. It could be equanimity, or it could just be pure mindfulness looking at things as they are rising. Yes, so your mind when you sit down, when you sit down for practice, this is actually a good practice to do, is to allow the mindfulness to arise with observation, and that's an observation without attaching onto things, without taking this as me, myself.

You're just observing what's happening, and there's no intention behind that observation. It's just aware of things as they actually are. And then you start to collect the mind around an object, your intention, and you see where the mind is inclined towards. It might go naturally one day towards loving kindness, it might go naturally one day towards joy, it might go naturally one day towards equanimity, or it might just drop into quiet mind. So that beginning starting point really is just the mindfulness, the exercise of my schooling. So just, just let it be. In yeah, yeah, right, because, yeah, normally I practice the brahmaviharas like an anchor, so always something to come back to, but right now it's nothing to go back to. This is just aware, so probably that awareness itself is my anger, right? So, yes, because that becomes, because that transitions into quiet mind eventually. It transitions into thank

You okay? Yeah, go ahead. In awareness of awareness, you are not aware of just mind but also the body sensations. Yes, yes. So sometimes my mind tries to get rid of the body because we are used to digest the white mind. There's no need to get rid of the substance; you just let go of the identification with it. It's okay. Yeah, you see it as what it is and let it go and come back to just being, because you're exercising mindfulness every time you notice it, and you're like just letting go. They're practicing right effort.

Okay, I think there are no more questions. Share some merit. May sufferers be suffering-free and the fear-struck be fearless. May the grieving share our grief, and may all beings find peace. 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, neighbours and nagas of almighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha dispensation.