Day 6: Dependent Origination part 2

Today we will conclude our understanding and exploration of dependent origination. We left off with talking about feeling, which we've understood as any kind of an experience that happens through any of the six sense spaces. So feeling is seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, thinking, and it is just a series of processes that give rise to this particular feeling. We talked about how feeling gives rise to craving through the underlying tendencies: the underlying tendency towards craving, towards aversion, towards ignorance, doubt, conceit, existence, and views. So how does feeling arise? What is the cause and condition for feeling or experience? It is contact.

Contact comes from the Pali word phassa, or in Sanskrit as sparsha. And sparsha actually literally means to touch. It's the trigger, it's the point of contact. This means this is when color and form make contact with the eye, sound vibrations make contact with the ears, odor molecules make contact with the nose, flavor molecules make contact with the tongue, and you have pressure and temperature making contact with the body, internally or externally, and then you have mind objects making contact with mind. So you need three things here. Actually, for contact to arise you need the sense base, you need the sense base object, and you need the sense-based consciousness. So what is the sense base? Any of the six sense bases, which are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind.

And then you need the sense base object. What is the sense base object? Color and form for eyes, sounds for ears, odors and fragrance for nose, flavors for the tongue, heat and pressure and temperature for the body, and thoughts for the mind. But for contact to actually arise, they need to make actual contact. That is to say, the eye has to make contact with its object, and so on. As a result of that initial contact, there arises a corresponding sense-based consciousness. So that is the eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, the nose consciousness, the tongue consciousness, the body consciousness, and the mind consciousness. So what is this sense-based consciousness that we're talking about? If a person were to be fully blind, even if light is hitting their retina, they're not able to actually capture that through eye consciousness.

A person who is deaf, even if their ears are there and the sound is there, if there is no consciousness there to pick up, they won't be able to hear that sound. So in this case, what actually is consciousness in regards to contact? It is the ability to pay attention to what is arising. So what does that mean? Contact keeps changing all the time. For those who experience infant consciousness, what are they seeing? They are seeing the arising and passing away of individual consciousnesses, but what they're seeing is internally contact, contact, contact, contact, contact, just arising and passing away, arising and passing away. So right now, hopefully all of your attention is on what I'm saying. Now, if I direct your attention to these flowers, what happens? Now the attention is here, which means now there is contact between the eyes and the flower, and the corresponding eye-based consciousness that arises from that contact.

In other words, contact keeps changing dependent upon where attention flows. That's how contact is impermanent. It is dependent upon the function of each of the six sense spaces, as well as the directing of where attention goes. So when we talk about consciousness, which we'll talk about a little later as we progress through this, we are saying that consciousness is dependently arisen. It is not independent of any kind of experience or causes and conditions.

Indeed, consciousness itself is a cause and condition for further arising and passing away, and we'll see how that arises or how that happens. What that means in the context of meditation is this: there is an intention to, for example, bring up loving kindness. Now, your attention is directed to the feeling of loving kindness. The mind object here is the experience of loving kindness. The mind makes contact with loving kindness, and there's a corresponding awareness of that and attention to that. But as soon as the attention is distracted, now mind makes contact with what? The distraction, the hindrance. And now there is a corresponding consciousness dependent upon contact between the mind and that hindrance. So what are we doing with the right effort?

We're redirecting the consciousness. We're redirecting the attention. We're letting go of our undue attention to that hindrance or that distraction and bringing it back to the object with our intention. This is how you understand the Four Noble Truths in practice. The hindrance is suffering, the first noble truth. The cause and condition for that now is our undue attention to it. When we let go of our attention to it and we bring it back to the object, we have let go, abandoned that, and experienced relief in that moment. And then, using the fourth noble truth of right effort as the heart of the Eightfold Path, we bring back our attention to the object. So in that process, when we are talking about attention being given to the object, the mind object of metta, does that attention remain constant?

Or does that attention remain scattered? This is what you have to see. If there are thoughts in the background, but your attention is still on the object, or you have one iota of attention on the object, you are still there. If no attention is being given to the object, and it is all scattered to those thoughts, then you are distracted. So, contact being impermanent, contact being dependently arisen, by its nature is impermanent, which then gives rise to dukkha by the nature of its being changing all the time. So contact, we cannot say is me, mine, or myself. So what is this contact dependent upon? What is the cause and condition for this contact? The salayatana, the six sense bases, the sixfold sense bases.

What are they? The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. These are the general six sense bases through which we experience this world. Our way in which we experience this world is our way, in terms of how it's interpreted. The data that's out there is received by these different sense bases. And then the mind takes that and interprets that data into some kind of a concept. It says, okay, this is warm. This is cold. This is red. This is blue. This is Beethoven's Fifth. This is the fragrance of a rose. This is the taste of curry, whatever it is. It takes that data and it interprets it. That interpretation process happens in the mind, and that is called perception.

So the six sense bases are essentially our interface with the world that we see or experience. How animals may experience the world might differ from how we experience the world. You think about a dog, for example, or a mouse. Their world is generally interpreted by smells, by scent, by fragrance, by odor, and that's how they are able to navigate through this world. Yes, they have eyes and so on and so forth, but their primary sense base is the nose, and understanding the world through that. Certain birds of prey have heightened vision, and so their dominant sense there is the eyes. They might see a greater spectrum of color or light than we can interpret.

So the six sense bases are dependent upon our nama rupa, our mentality and materiality. So what is this mentality and what is this materiality? First, let's talk about what materiality is. Materiality here are the four states of matter, or the four great elements: earth, water, air, fire. Now, we always talk about the four great elements in the suttas. But there are a couple of sutta references, like Majjhima Nikaya 143, the Greater Advice, or the Advice to Anathapindika, which refers to six elements. So the four elements are related to the body, related to solid matter, or related to matter in general. We have solidity. We have the earth, right? Something is soft, something is hard, and so on.

We have water, right? Something is liquid. We have air, where things are basically gaseous all around us, the different particles. And then we have fire, which is heat and temperature. These make up form, rupa. There is also what is known as the space element, akasha. The space element is related to whatever is taking, not taking up space, but is space itself. So if you have a vessel, let's say this glass, for example, was empty of any water, it is still containing some kind of space. That is the space element. And then there is the sixth element, which is the consciousness element.

What do we mean by consciousness element? It doesn't mean that there is some all-pervasive consciousness that is in all things. It's referring to mind consciousness. When we talk about consciousness, we're talking about mentality. It's referring to mano, vinnana, and citta, in different ways. There's a way in which these things mean the same thing, and a way in which they mean different things. In one way, mano can be referred to as the actual physical component of the mind, the brain that allows us to function, allows us to see, and so on and so forth. Vinnana is the consciousness which allows us to cognize, or the bare awareness and knowledge of something. Citta is the mindset. It is the set of similar kinds of thoughts that create a mindset.

So when you talk about mentality, mentality is referring to mind, nama. Actually, quite literally, nama means name and rupa means form. So what we're referring to is name and form. That principle that allows us to name things is made up of five subsets, five components. They are feeling, perception, intention, contact, and attention. This is all part of the mind. But wait a second. We already have feeling after contact, and we also have contact in the links. So why is it mentioned two times? Why is there feeling in mentality? Why is there contact in mentality? Why is there perception, because perception is tied to feeling anyway? So what is going on here? Well, you can think about it in this way. There is the faculty of feeling, the faculty of perception, the faculty of intention, the faculty of contact, and the faculty of attention. In other words, these are the instruments in the mind that allow the process of feeling as an activity to occur.

The feeling faculty leads to the process of feeling, allows for the process of feeling. Perception allows for us to label and interpret, dependent upon memory. Intention allows the flow of certain formations to arise, to incline the mind towards something. Contact is the faculty that allows us to make that contact, so it's dependent upon consciousness, which we'll talk about soon, and attention is the directionality in which consciousness flows. So in reality, the mentality-materiality is referring to the five aggregates: form, which is rupa or materiality; feeling; perception; intention is the flow of sankharas or formations; and attention is the flow of consciousness. So imagine, for example, we have this light over here shining down. You have a spotlight that is directed towards a person on stage. The light itself is consciousness or awareness. The attention is the direction where that spotlight is, and obviously there's the object, which is the person. The intention is that which controls the inclination, that which controls where that spotlight

moves. And so when the spotlight moves, so does the attention, the direction in which that consciousness flows. So wherever your attention is, there your consciousness is present. So this is nama rupa, mentality-materiality. Now, this is at the level of experience. This is happening all the time. Mentality-materiality continues to change in every given moment, dependent upon the choices that we make. It continues to change, continues to arise and pass away. Now, there is an inter-relationship, an interdependency, between mentality-materiality and consciousness. Before we go into that, we should also talk about the mentality-materiality being interdependent as well. Which is to say that in order for us to know materiality, we require mentality.

Otherwise, how would we know what is solid? How would we know what is liquid? How would we know what is hot or cold? How would we know what is circulating or not? It is through the faculties of mentality that we are able to be aware of and experience materiality. So now, this mentality and materiality are dependent upon consciousness. When we talk about consciousness as vinnana, what does vinnana mean? Jnana means knowledge; vi means to divide. It's the knowledge, the bare cognition or the bare awareness, divided between the six sense bases. And that's why you have the six classes of consciousness: eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, mind consciousness. But now we're going to get a little bit deeper in terms of understanding how dependent origination is actually also the mechanics of rebirth from one life to the next.

In Majjhima Nikaya 38, which is the Greater Discourse on the Ending of Suffering, there is an individual named Sati, not Sati, which is mindfulness, Sati, the Lange. And he is known as Sati, the son of a fisherman. Don't know why, but that's what he's called. And he goes to the monks, and he's also a bhikkhu, and he goes to the monks and he says, It is this very consciousness that perceives and feels and is subject to its karma. It is this very consciousness that transmigrates from lifetime to lifetime to lifetime. And the monks say, no, no, don't say that, Sati. That is a pernicious view. The Buddha has never said this. And so they go and report this to the Buddha.

And the Buddha says, okay, bring him in. Let me talk to him. So Sati goes there. And then the Buddha asks him, is it true, Sati, that this is the view that you have? And Sati says, yes, venerable sir, it is the view that I have, which is that this consciousness alone transmigrates from place to place. It is consciousness that is the hearer behind the heard, the seer behind the seen, and so on. What is the Buddha's reply? Misguided man. Not a good word to receive from the Buddha, misguided man. That word comes from the Pali moghapurisa, which means, you foolish idiot. When have I ever said that consciousness is in this way? In many discourses have I said that consciousness is dependently arisen.

In the same way, fire arises dependent upon its fuel. Consciousness arises dependent upon its fuel, whatever contact arises. And so then the Buddha talks about dependent origination in this way, and then finally he goes into the macro level, the large-scale level of consciousness and nama rupa. And what he talks about is, in order for a new life to arise, and we'll simplify this to understand it from the human life, in order for a life to arise, you need three things. You need the mother, you need the father, and you need the gandhabba. So this gandhabba is essentially the descending consciousness. And what is understood is that this descending consciousness is also known as patisandhi vinnana, which is the rebirth-linking consciousness.

So now we're going into some things that are beyond perhaps our normal conventional understanding, because now we're talking about rebirth from one life to the next. But stay with me on this. So what it's saying is that this consciousness has to descend into the womb where the sperm meets the ovum. If the sperm meets the ovum but there is no consciousness there, then there is no life. So this rebirth-linking consciousness needs to descend into the union of the mother and father, which is the nama rupa. In this case right now, just the materiality, but the genetic matter has to be an exact match for that consciousness, which is where the understanding of spontaneous rebirth arises from right view.

The idea here is as soon as a person is gone, that consciousness departs, and dependent upon whether there's craving or aversion or whatever fuel is present, it will then go to or activate the rebirth-linking consciousness, and it will go into its corresponding genetic matter. That genetic matter will then take that consciousness, and then there will be the arising and passing away of multiple consciousnesses in the womb as the embryo is developed in the body. So this genetic material, all of the different genes and the potentials that could happen, are one way of understanding sankharas, formations. So we're going one step backwards now. So these formations are threefold. They are physical formations or bodily formations, verbal formations, and mental formations.

When we talk about rebirth from lifetime to lifetime, what we're saying is at the point of death, what happens is that there can be a life review process where the mind goes through what has happened in this life. If there have been primarily wholesome tendencies, then that mind will incline towards the wholesome and will activate formations that are rooted in that wholesome. Those formations will give rise to that rebirth-linking consciousness that corresponds to that wholesome way of life. Then that consciousness transports all of that series of formations, which are the carriers of karma, down into the new genetic material, which is an exact match for the potential activation of certain karma. I say potential because it's not necessary that that karma has to arise.

It depends upon whether the causes and conditions are present. So, at that level, these formations or sankharas give rise to new births all the time. Another way of understanding sankharas or formations is they're like synapses. Synapses that continue to change all the time, continue to grow, are pruned, are strengthened, are weakened. Based on what? Based on the choices we make in every given moment and the inclinations towards those choices. If we continue to tend towards the wholesome, the synapses that are rooted in the wholesome start to become strengthened and the weaker ones are pruned away; the unwholesome is pruned away. That's the beauty of this practice and the Dhamma. Neuroplasticity, 2600 years ago, right? So this is the path.

This is the entire Dhamma. It depends on every given moment what choices you make. If you understood just this one thing and then used your mindfulness in every moment to understand what is present in mind, and then use right effort to let go of the unwholesome and incline towards the wholesome, that's all you have to do. And then at a later stage, you let go of taking it personally. But this is the step. First, you need mindfulness. You need to have the ability to be aware of your mind, what is going on in every given moment. Then you need the right effort to see where the mind is. Is it inclining towards the unwholesome? If it is, let go of it.

Start to navigate the mind towards the wholesome. Then, once the wholesome is established, once you start to see this more and more, at the very final stages, you let go of identifying even with the wholesome. That doesn't mean you let go of the wholesome. It means you let go of saying, this is my wholesome deed. These are my wholesome actions and so on. So, sankharas. What does sankhara mean? Sankhara literally means to cook up something, to prepare something. And that's what formations do. They are carriers of karma. They bring about some kind of karma through their activation, to be then experienced at the level of feeling. So what is the threefold sankharas? Bodily sankharas that have to do with the ability to inhale and exhale, but other kinds of bodily processes as well.

The ability to walk, the intention to walk, the intention to move, the intention to stand, the intention to sit. All of that is equipped by the bodily sankharas. When we break out into speech, we think about something first, hopefully. So we think about what we want to say, our mind thinks about the words, inclines towards the speech that we want to use, and then we break on into speech. This is facilitated through verbal formations, and that's why vitakka and vicara, which happen in the first jhana, are present, due to verbal formations. It is the intentionalizing of a thought, not thoughts themselves. In other words, the intentionalizing of bringing up words like, May I be happy?

May I be well? May I be filled with loving kindness? This is part of vitakka, bringing that up. Vicara is sustaining that attention, keeping that attention, or keeping your awareness on the feeling, inclining the mind towards that. So in the same way, when we see something, like we say here is a tree, first we see that tree. When we see that tree, we think about the tree and we break out into speech about that tree. This happens through verbal formations. And then we have mental formations. Mental formations allow us to feel and to perceive. In other words, it allows us to experience and label the experience. So, mental formations, why are they called mental formations?

Because they seem to also facilitate our ability to see and know what it is that we're seeing and hear and so on and so forth. Because ultimately, whatever it is we're experiencing through the five physical sense spaces is all interpreted by the mind, and therefore they are mental formations. Remember what you say every morning: mind is chief, mind is the forerunner of all states. So mind is what is interpreting everything, facilitated through the process of mental formations. So when you go through this process of meditation, when you get to the first jhana, you let go of the hindrances.

Right, and then you start to experience relief from the hindrances. Then there's joy, but there's also vitakka and vicara, which is inclining the mind towards an object and keeping the mind's attention sustained on that object. When you get to the second jhana, the vitakka and vicara cease, which means verbal formations cease. Now, the thing is, if verbal formations cease, it doesn't mean that you don't have thoughts coming up, because thoughts are facilitated through mental formations, just as when we see and hear, see color and form and hear sounds. The mind thinks we can't control what it is that we see. We can't control what it is that we hear. We can't control what thoughts arise. They are just data packets that are coming in, but they're being facilitated not through verbal formations, but through mental formations, even if they sound like words in our mind.

So that part of the mind that says, when you're in the meditation and deep in the meditation, it says, oh, now I'm experiencing loving kindness. Oh, now I'm experiencing equanimity. Oh, now here is this, and now here is this. That's not verbal formations. That is perception. That is the faculty of perception that is allowing you to perceive what's going on, and this is activated through mental formations. So now these formations, just as we were talking about how we have the underlying tendencies that underlie the feeling, like the underlying tendency towards craving and so on, there is another underbelly for these series of

formations. In the case of consciousness, when we talk about consciousness in an experience in day-to-day living, it is the bare awareness of something. But that consciousness can be stained by some kind of upakilesa. Upakilesa means a defilement. So there are up to 16 major upakilesas. Some of these upakilesas are like conceit, or pride, or arrogance, or stinginess, or anger, or contempt, or whatever it might be. Jealousy, fear, whatever it is. All of these stain the consciousness. But how does that arise? How do these defilements arise? They arise due to the roots in formations. If the formations are rooted in any kind of greed, hatred, or delusion, and they are activated, they can give rise to a certain kind of defilement of consciousness, which then affects the way contact is arisen and the way the mind takes that feeling or that experience.

And if the mind takes that feeling and experience and craves for it, or identifies with it, it only further strengthens the greed, the hatred, the delusion, and then further strengthens whatever defilement is there in that consciousness. So when we think about the process of dependent origination, it seems like a linear process in the chart, but actually it is feedback loops within feedback loops within feedback loops. Contact arises, gives rise to a mental formation, which facilitates the process of experiencing something.

And if that formation is rooted in greed, hatred, or delusion, it taints the awareness, stains the awareness with a defilement, if it has been acted on before, and then gives rise to an underlying tendency in that feeling. This is why it's important to see experience just as experience. The moment you take it personally, what are you doing? You are strengthening the craving.

You are strengthening the clinging. You are strengthening the becoming. And then you are also strengthening the roots that are fettered or fettering the formations, and thereby strengthening the defilements that stain the next arising of consciousness. And all of this happens in a matter of seconds. It's just always happening, arising and passing away. So what do we do? How do we deal with this? The only way we can deal with it is in the present moment. Or the so-called present moment, because even there, there's a delay in the present moment, in how we perceive it. However, when we see the present moment and the experience that's going on, if there is mindfulness there, and yoniso manasikara, proper attention rooted in wisdom, attention rooted in reality, which sees this experience naturally as dependently arisen, which sees this experience as impermanent, liable to cause suffering, and therefore not me, not mine, not myself, it is just an experience, then guess what happens?

No new craving can arise, because you're not taking it personally. No new clinging can arise. No new becoming or habitual tendencies can arise. And no new birth of karmic action can arise, giving rise to further suffering. So, yesterday I introduced you to the concepts of old karma and new karma, and the Buddha has said that old karma is everything that needs to be experienced and felt in any given moment, but new karma is the processing of that karma, taking it personally, identifying with it, and either craving for it or pushing against it. However, if there is mindfulness and equanimity with relation to feeling, then no new karma can arise. If you apply right effort at every moment and see if the mind is taking it personally and let go, then no new karma arises. That same karma that had arisen before weakens, and then, facilitated through the formations, it might arise again, but the next time it arises it is weaker, and then weaker and weaker and weaker, until it dissipates completely. This is how karma dissipates, so long as there is

mindfulness. However, due to ignorance, what is ignorance? Avijja. It is not knowing the four noble truths. Not understanding the first noble truth. Not abandoning the second noble truth. Not experiencing the third noble truth. And not cultivating the fourth noble truth. In other words, a lack of mindfulness. Practically speaking, that's what it is. Every time there's a lack of mindfulness in the present moment of an experience, we are feeding back energy and strengthening that ignorance, and then that ignorance strengthens the fettered formations rooted in craving, wrong view, conceit and so on, which then gives rise to a defilement in the consciousness, which then affects the way nama-rupa and the sixth sense bases experience contact and feeling. And so this whole process

continues but if the habitual tendencies are there and we see those habitual tendencies later down the road and we start letting them go then there is no birth but if we let go of the clinging then there is no becoming and no birth if we let go of the craving then there is no clinging and becoming and birth if we let go of identifying with the feeling and any underlying tendency that says oh i want more of this or i don't like this and i want to push it away or i am this or makes opinions about an experience and identifies with those opinions if we let go of all of those things then no new karma can arise dependent upon that experience in the same way with the meditation this is how you teach yourself in the meditation when a hindrance arises that hindrance is old karma to be experienced in the

mind. If we try to push that hindrance away, if we try to identify with that hindrance, we are craving, we are clinging, we are becoming, and then there is a new arising of that same hindrance, but stronger in the next moment. However, if we see that hindrance for what it actually is, take our attention away from it, relax, and bring up a wholesome state of mind, replacing that hindrance, then that hindrance will be gone for that moment. It may come up again, but when it comes up again it will be weaker, and eventually it will diminish and evaporate. There are times in the meditation where everything is great. Things are very quiet, everything is still, everything is very silent, and you say, oh, what a wonderful meditation. That's wonderful. Now you come out, you come for the interview, you talk about the meditation, you're all smiles and everything is great, and I say, great, keep going, all good, excellent. Okay, you go back, you sit down for the meditation, and there's all kinds of hindrances, all kinds of activities

What's gone wrong? What happened? I thought the meditation was going to be great. Everything was great this morning. What's going on now? Well, what's going on now is you're going to deeper, deeper levels. The way to understand the meditation is, you've only let go of a series of defilements at this layer, and now you experience some quietude. When you go back now, you're uncovering another layer of defilements. Did you really think it was going to be that easy?

So you uncover that layer of defilements and you let go of that, and then you find a deeper level of stillness, and hence it continues. So when you're at that very deep level, where you're starting to notice all kinds of mental activity, which are proto-thoughts, which I call proto-thoughts in terms of sankhara, it's just arising. They're like bubbling up to come up and create a fully formed thought. When you're at that level and you start to see those and you start to let go of them, then you get even deeper and deeper, and you come to a point where none of those formations arise, but there is still one formation left, or series of formations left, which is that formation that says, I am. That's the conceit. I am meditating. I am here. Oh, my mind is so quiet. This is wonderful.

If you let go of even that, which is a very, very sticky, headstrong, stubborn formation, if you're able to identify it and just relax into it and let it go, before you know it, all mental formations cease and you experience cessation of perception and feeling. So this process is essentially just uncovering deeper and deeper layers of dependent origination in the meditation. As you continue to do this, you start to recognize these links in everyday life. You start to notice, oh, here is the experience. Oh, here is the mind starting to clench around the experience and identifying. I'm letting it go. And in that relief, you should really be happy about that relief, because now no clinging is there.

No becoming is there. No new birth of karma is there, which means you have let go of that karmic action or the effect of that karmic action in that moment. And that's a beautiful thing. But you have to keep doing it until it goes away completely. In the case of habitual tendencies, going back to that, another kind of habitual tendency is different kinds of experiences that you seem to always attract around you. You might move to a different country and you seem to always attract the same kind of set of friends or the similar kind of situations. You seem to land up in the similar kinds of situations. So this is what? This is essentially the same as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

That's insanity. So how do you deal with it? Notice it, notice when every time your mind takes it personally, and let go of it. The more you let go of it and the more you're equanimous towards it, eventually you find that you're no longer in the same kinds of situations. You're no longer in the same kind of friend group. Right now you are actually growing or leaving that pattern. So that's another way of understanding habitual tendencies. They are different kinds of patterns that your mind gets into. So with ignorance, which is lack of mindfulness, giving rise to these formations, they then taint the consciousness and so on and so forth. But ignorance is also dependent upon something. Ignorance also has a cause and condition, and that is the asavas. It's not written here. So it's a bonus link in that sense.

The asavas are threefold. There is kama asava, there is bhava asava, and there is avijjasava, which means there are the three viruses. And the reason why I use the word virus is because when I was writing A Mind Without Craving initially, in the first couple of drafts I said we can translate the asavas as viruses. But then this was during the time of the pandemic, so the editors, the people who were reading this, said, "Are you sure you want to use this word?" Well, guess what guys, the pandemic is over, so let's go back to using the word viruses. But by virus, I don't necessarily mean a biological virus. I'm talking about a computer virus.

A computer virus that infects the software and operating system of your mind. So these three viruses are what? The virus of sensual desire, the virus of craving for existence, and the virus of ignorance itself. So these viruses, these asavas, what are they dependent upon? They are actually interdependent with the link of ignorance itself. In what way? Every time you have sensual craving in relation to an experience, you are strengthening that virus of sensual craving, and that gives rise to further ignorance or lack of mindfulness. Every time you take that feeling or experience personally and you have an existential craving towards it, you are strengthening that virus of bhava or becoming. Every time you are unaware of the impersonal nature of that experience, you are feeding back the energy to that virus of ignorance, because ignorance in essence is lack of mindfulness of the four noble truths in every given moment. The more you have mindfulness and the more you're able to see this, the more you are cutting away at these viruses, at these asavas.

And the more you do that, the less ignorance arises, the less the formations are fettered, the less the consciousness is defiled in every arising and passing away, and the easier it becomes for you to be rooted in wisdom in relation to every experience. Until finally, you have essentially rooted out, right? You have used the antivirus, the antidote of the eightfold path or right effort, to root out the virus from the operating system. And now the operating system functions as it should, completely effectively. Now that operating system is the operating system of an arahant. In that case, for an arahant, somebody who is fully awakened, certain components are functional and certain components no longer function.

In other words, certain links continue to function, but other links don't. So what links continue to function? Formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, the sixth sense basis, contact, and feeling. What has replaced the ignorance? Wisdom. The right view has been fully established and it acts as a permanent guard or permanent shield, a permanent defense mechanism from any further asavas from arising. They are completely eradicated, made extinct. The mind of an arahant continues to function in such a way that it can still process thoughts, it can still think, it can still speak, it can still act, it can still experience, it can still perceive those experiences. It can even say, what a beautiful experience, what a pleasant experience, or what a painful experience.

However, it will no longer be able to crave for an experience or have aversion towards the experience or identify with the experience. Which means for the arahant, no new karma is being generated. All that's happening is old karma is coming to be and being extinguished in every moment. That's it. It's being eradicated in every moment. On the subject of karma, when we talk about karma, how is it that certain karma arises and certain karma doesn't arise? What is the mechanism for this karma to arise and not to arise? It is due to certain causes and conditions. One of the best ways to understand karma is that you can imagine karma as different kinds of seeds.

You have a watermelon seed, you have an apple seed, and you have an orange seed. By virtue or nature of that seed itself, it will germinate at a certain amount of time, and so on and so forth. However, if one seed doesn't get enough nutrition through the soil, doesn't get enough water, doesn't get enough sunlight, it will not grow. But if it has the right amount of nutrition, the right amount of sunlight, the right amount of water, it will come to fruition. In the same way, there might be these karmic seeds everywhere. But unless the causes and conditions are right and the nutrition for that karma is present, it will not manifest. It will not come to fruition.

But when it does come to fruition, the key is, how do you deal with it? Does that fruit of karma lay out further seeds, which means furthered, fettered formations? Or are they seedless in the sense that they cannot generate further fruit or further karma? That is dependent upon your mindfulness, your attention and right effort. Are there any questions?

Yeah, I get the microphone. Now, this was impressive, multi-impressive. So, you mentioned already some Majjhima Nikaya books, 38. Yeah. And what more did you speak about? Oh, 143. Yes. And something that was not written. Something that was not written. It's not in here. Oh, the asavas, right? That is in Majjhima Nikaya 9. And why did you say it's not written? Because it's not lying on your table. It's not here, yeah. And it's only mentioned, actually, specifically in Majjhima Nikaya 9. This is where Sariputta is giving a discourse on dependent origination. And he says, ignorance also is dependent upon something. And that is the asavas. So if we later want to restudy your lecture from video, we better have these books with us.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your talk. I have a question about a consciousness. How will you explain the consciousness if a person is in coma and there is no electrical activity, either is still a consciousness or not? Can we measure it at all? And some people that are born with chromosomal defects, is there a consciousness or not? And does it mean they're still humans or the consciousness is like other beings? because they have other perceptions.

Yeah. With regards to somebody in a coma, there's still mentality present, there's still materiality present. What I didn't get into was also what's known as the Jeevat Indriya and what's known as Ushna, which is essentially what's known in the books as the life faculty, the life principle, which is dependent upon the heat, the Ushna, the metabolism, and interdependent amongst each other. But there will still be some kind of consciousness. Now, whether or not that's registered, we can't really say. These are all just different kinds of electrical signals and impulses. But a person who comes out of a coma can only say whether they were conscious or not. But there must be something going on, some kind of dormant mentality arising there.

Now, for people who have, let's say, some kind of chromosomal defects, they are still humans, definitely. Their level of perception might be different, but they're still experiencing perception. The mechanics of what is defined as a being is dependent upon not what kind of sense bases are there but also what kind of aggregates are present. In other words, if somebody is in an arupa loka, there is no form aggregate present but there's still mentality, there's still material mentality in terms of feeling, perception, intention and

attention. When we talk about people with different kinds of perceptions, like for example there are people with synesthesia, right? They experience the sense bases but they interpret that data a different way. But even though they're doing that, it's still dependent upon the sense bases. So we might say that they are hearing colors, for example, or that they're tasting music, or, you know, they're smelling textures or whatever. But even if that's the case, there is still dependent origination going through that. The idea is dependent origination might be different for different people, dependent upon what kind of sense bases are active and how they're active. But the chain will still continue in this way, whether it's for humans or any other being in this samsara.

- Based on the links of dependent origination, would true consciousness in artificial intelligence ever be possible? - This is a very good question. I think when we think about consciousness, there also has to be intention. And I would say that karmic beings, or beings who produce karma, can be defined by them having the ability to intend and have intention. Does that necessarily mean free will? No. But it is a will or a choice that is conditioned by other things that are going on. Now, we talk about transhumanism, for example, uploading consciousness into a computer and things like that.

Maybe it's virtually possible. It'd be interesting to see what happens and what links to dependent origination are present for that. But in terms of artificial intelligence, I personally don't believe we're there yet, where at any point AI can become sentient in that sense, where it has its own intentions. It's still programmed by different causes and conditions that are input. But it's getting there. It's getting very close, because you see things like ChatGPT and other kinds of AI software which are able to be intuitive. It's learning, right? And it's able to see what's going on in that sense. That's how we do things too. We take in information and then we adapt accordingly. But we also have the ability to say no. Like Venerable Metananda would say, it might be that we don't have free will, but we have free won't. So far we haven't heard of an AI saying, I'm not going to do that. Right? So let's see when it does. Maybe we should head to the bunkers at that point.

No, I'm just joking. Just to continue the line of questioning, what about plants? Yeah, this is a good question. Within the context of Buddhist cosmology, plants aren't defined as being karmically sentient. In other words, they can't produce karma. They're alive, they have the life faculty, they have the jivitindriya, they have heat, they have all of these things. But their ability to make intentions or intend isn't fully developed, as per the Buddhist cosmology. It's interesting, though, that in Jain cosmology, trees, plants and rocks are also taken into account. But the Jain philosophy says that karma is everything, not just intention. Even lack of intention is also karma. So that's what really distinguishes Buddhism and Jainism: karma is dependent upon intention all the time.

And then there's various plants, mushrooms or fungi. Right, they have a level of intelligence that they can grow, they can adapt, and they can communicate, absolutely. But again, according to this understanding, the intention is not fully developed as it might be in animals, or as it would be in humans and other higher dimensional beings. And do you think that these plants with intelligence could have a place at some point in Buddhist practice? Are you referring to plant medicines and things like that? Yeah.

Well, it depends on the person or the user's intention, because you could abuse it, you could misuse it also. But whether or not they are appropriate depends on, well, one, set and setting, but it also depends upon what is the intended use. Because these medicines can be used as medicines to treat certain kinds of conditions in the mind, or to treat the ability to look at things differently and then reframe our perspective on things. And I think those are all wonderful usages. But there can be the tendency to just go on a trip, and that trip can be a bad trip. So it all depends on the intention. Okay, then last question on this. For instance, ayahuasca, seen as there's a mother ayah, yeah, could it be that this plant has this plant life in one of the Buddhist realms, or is it simply a deity? How would that work? Well, actually, in Buddhist cosmology they do talk about tree spirits. These are different devas that hang around in the trees. Now, whether that's interpreted as actual devas hanging around in trees or actually

living in the trees is open to interpretation. In that sense you could interpret it that way. But I think a simpler, I wouldn't say simpler, but a different way, would be to say that the ayahuasca or any other kind of plant medicine is the coming together of different kinds of compounds to create this experience for us. I think also the intelligence behind how these compounds came together is also very fascinating. But that could be through the process of intuition from the shaman. He might have just seen it and said, these are the two things, and then seeing that it is the mother ayah, right? He's kind of created that experience through his interpretation from whatever he is downloaded with, that experience of the plant. So there are different ways of seeing it. Okay, and then maybe one last question. Do you have any experience with any of these kinds of medicine, or are you offering? Well, I would, if you're interested, that totally can. We'll talk offline.

Two questions. One, can you give pointers to how to get insight on the dependent origination links, the transcendental links, in the practice? I mean, I can see that, the more trivial ones, but in the stages like 20 or 21, 22, can you give pointers to how to really gain insight into that? I mean, not only see that spontaneously, but try to learn to get experiential insight in order to really realize that. And the second question is more curiosity about the stage where you say there's extinction. You call it extinction. Yeah, yeah. So what is the experience, and how does a person get out of it if he's extinct? Okay, I just want to clarify. Part of the extinction, when you mean how does a person get out of it, what do you mean by that? How do you come back, or whatever? I mean, you're just all the time in this extinct mode, or are you... you while living? You mean while living? Or yeah.

While living. Oh okay, yeah, okay. So the first part of your question, about the links 21 and 22, which is disenchantment and dispassion. Yeah, so first of all, disenchantment and dispassion are very much similar. They're just different degrees, but they're always dependent upon equanimity. So in order for the mind to bring that up into everyday living, into everyday practice, is through the process of developing strong amounts of equanimity, and as a natural resultant, they come. But also, the moment you start to see things as impermanent. I mean, for example, if you are in the right mindset, you contemplate on death and the decay of all things, you immediately have a disenchantment of all things, because you see that, okay, this is bound to fall apart, this is bound to go away. So there's a disenchantment of thoughts, there's a disenchantment of sensual craving, there's a disenchantment of aversion. So seeing impermanence is probably one of the most powerful or quickest ways that takes you to that disenchantment. And this dispassion, how do you use that state to understand dependent origination? Yeah, so you don't

necessarily use it to understand the dependent origination, but the understanding of dependent origination leads to it further, and vice versa. What I mean by that is, every time, in every moment, you see the experience as feeling, and just as feeling, as being impermanent, then you are disenchanted by it. You are dispassionate towards it, and as a result you are free from it. That's the liberation. So there is another sutta called the Six Sets of Six, which is a very powerful sutta. This is Majjhima Nikaya 148, the Chachakka Sutta 148, and there the Buddha goes through this guided meditation, actually, of looking at each of the six sense bases, each of the contacts, each of the feelings, each of everything, and seeing it as being dependently arisen, seeing it as being impermanent, seeing it as being not me, not myself. All of that is part of equanimity. All of that is part of seeing things with wisdom. And then in the end he says, seeing thus, he becomes disenchanted by forms

disenchanted by eyes, disenchanted by all of the different things, being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Having dispassion, his mind is liberated. That's the 22nd step, and the mind then knows that it's liberated. That's the final step, the knowledge of the destruction of the asavas. So practically speaking, what you're doing here is you're only looking at what is arising in every moment and applying the understanding of impermanence by seeing that it is arisen due to causes and conditions. As soon as you see that it's arisen due to causes and conditions, then you see there's no I there, there's no me there, and when that happens your mind immediately lets go of it, or naturally lets go of it. That letting go, in itself, is through that process of disenchantment, because you see, oh, this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself. So it works almost concurrently. The equanimity towards something immediately gives rise to disenchantment, immediately gives rise to dispassion. So just by investigating, or I should say, just by observing in every moment what is happening, your mind starts to become collected.

And as it becomes collected, it becomes equanimous. It's just seeing things without getting attracted by them or repulsing against them. It's just seeing everything, and then seeing it's not me, it just drops it. That dropping process is the disenchantment, dispassion, and liberation. The letting go process of that. And then your second question is, somebody who experiences the extinction of the viruses essentially, and all of the other links except for those six links, which is the formations and so on, that's what you're referring to? Referring to the step that you said, that after that the last link is... maybe you didn't say extinction, maybe you said cessation. Oh, cessation, yeah. Oh okay. So what happens when somebody comes out of cessation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's for you to let me

know. If I tell you, then you're going to be looking for it. Yeah. The only thing you would know is that you wouldn't know if you were in cessation until you come out of it. And what you experience out of cessation, cessation is completely different than anything else. For one, you would say, oh wow, what was that? Literally you would just say, wow, what was that? If you have that experience and then you explain to me what is going on, then there can be confirmation. Okay, this is probably cessation. But why spoil the surprise?

What I can say is that when you do come out of cessation, your mind does change. You have a different outlook on life, and there is a personality change for the better. So cessation can lead to an attainment, which means you become a stream enterer, or further attainments. But not every cessation can happen that leads to that, also. And then there's the ability to actually incline the mind towards cessation and go into it. This is known as nirodha samapati. And the mind that is able to do that basically lets go of the five aggregates, drops into cessation. And before it drops, it can say, okay, I will be in cessation for five minutes, or I'll be in cessation for ten minutes.

Unless there's a knock on the door or a fire or some kind of danger, then I will come out. So that mind does that and goes into cessation. And then when it comes out of cessation or just prior to cessation, that mind can make contact with what's known as the Nibbana dhatu, which is the Nibbana element. It is the unconditioned, the absolute. Touching on that, there is a contact that arises which is empty, which is undirected, and which is signless. So that contact, which is again here with the links of dependent origination, that contact is dependent upon having touched the Nibbana element, which happens through cessation. So in other words, I'm actually starting to give you some hint as to what's going on, the mechanics of this, where when the mind comes out of cessation, if it touches the Nibbana element, the contact that arises is signless, which means there is no object there.

The mind doesn't incline towards any kind of object. It is undirected because there is no desire there. There is no craving present. And it is empty because there is no sense of self present in it. As a result of this contact, a feeling arises, which can be some kind of positive, wholesome feeling. Now that feeling is conditioned.

That contact is conditioned by the unconditioned. For that reason, there is no personalizing going on. However, if that feeling of wholesome experience happens based on that contact, and the person says, wow, and grasps onto that experience, then the further links arise. However, if the mind sees it for what it is and doesn't have any inclination to holding onto it, doesn't have any identification with it, then none of the other links will arise, and in that moment it will drop everything. So what I'm getting at is, for the first few milliseconds post cessation, the mind experiences arahantship. It is free of all greed, hatred and delusion. However, due to the mind grasping at the feeling that arises from that unconditioned contact, it can give rise to further craving, which means certain fetters come back while certain fetters are gone. So then that means there's still more work to be done.

Yeah, yeah. I have a question directly related to that question, actually. You said that there's a personality change for the better, and I was wondering in what way for the better. Well, for one, sorry, and my second question is how do you define personality? Yeah. For one, what it means is that that mind is essentially stopping, stopping with this idea of a personal permanent self. It has let go of that, and there's greater connectivity with people. You are able to have more loving kindness, you're able to have more compassion, more equanimity, and so on. Now, when we talk about personality, I'm just using it as a way of understanding, but the definition of personality is really the series of habitual tendencies that come together to create a sense of self. Going back to Nibbida and dependent origination, that is seen with wisdom. Some meditators see it without wisdom, and this has been researched in meditation research and is referred to as the dark night of the soul.

Is there in the Pali Canon a reference to this wrong view in this particular direction? There might be some indirect references to it when you read the Digha Nikaya 1, the Brahmajala Sutta, where people have certain experiences and then they start identifying with those experiences and create some kind of concepts around it. But in terms of this dark night of the soul in particular, there's no real reference to it. So the only thing the Buddha would say about it is he talks about the practice that is good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end. So that means everything is hunky-dory. Then there is the practice that's good in the beginning but not so good in the middle, not so good in the end, and that might be referring to the dark night of the soul. Let's say any last questions?

Yeah, it's more, maybe, I'm so impressed about what you expose, you give, and related to that is who can teach it and who can understand it. What about just people coming together from the work, yeah, in the village hearing for the first time about Buddhism? I'm happy with it, but I'm really, how is the translation possible from this whole thing you tell? And I'm also asking, is the people who worked with the Buddha, were they just all big Brahmins or something, or just common people? Yeah, that's a good question.

studied or something. Yeah, that's a good question. And I would say that it is possible to teach dependent origination in a way that is very practical and very easy to understand. My intention for the last few days was to do that. Of course I've given a lot of information, but the best is to give practical examples of how this process would work. But it might not be necessary to lay out all 12 links in this way. If you just give a little detail about, if you do this, this is what could happen, if you take away this, this is what goes away, and you give practical examples of that, and if you were to boil it down to a very simple piece of advice, it is: every time you have lack of mindfulness of the present moment, you cause yourself suffering. Every time there is mindfulness of the present moment, everything is okay. And then you start to show that to people with different examples. But I would say the people who walked with the Buddha were of different kinds of mindsets there.

were Brahmins, of course, who came to the Buddha, but there were also farmers. They were also statesmen. There were also people who were laborers, fishermen. Sati, son of a fisherman. There you go. And so on. So I think with regards to dependent origination, the way it's laid out in the suttas in this manner, it is an elaboration that happens through many different talks by the Buddha, many different discourses by the Buddha. And you in fact will see other kinds of dependent origination, or variations of dependent origination, that are given by the monastics or by the bhikkhus in the suttas, based on their understanding. For example, when Ananda talks to the Buddha about dependent origination, the Buddha doesn't talk about ignorance.

He doesn't talk about formations because Ananda is not able to see that yet. So there is a way in which we can just talk about a few of these things and really make it practical. But this is really the full spectrum of dependent origination. The one who is teaching needs to know, needs to see for themselves and experience it, this real thing. Yes, otherwise you never can explain it. Simple. That's right. I think we can share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck be fearless, may the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired, for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, Devas and Nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's Dispensation. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.