Day 5 2022 SN 12.2 DO Analysis -July 4th -with Delson Armstrong

"Morning." So today we're going to be talking about dependent origination. 12.20. And it's called Conditions. At Savatthi, Bhikkhus, I will teach you dependent origination and dependently arisen phenomenon. Listen and attend closely. I will speak. Yes, venerable sir, those Bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this: "In what, Bhikkhus, is dependent origination? With birth as condition, aging and death comes to be."

And it's only understood for the first time after a long time by a sammasambuddha, or by a Buddha in general. And it is a Tathagata who then explains it as wisdom. Once you understand dependent origination, then it is said that you have wisdom, and a very specific kind of wisdom. So here it says, whether there is an arising of a Tathagata or no arising of a Tathagata, that element still persists. In other words, aging and death will still persist. Birth will still persist.

So when we talk about dependent origination, it's really about causality and conditionality. When this is, that comes to be. With the arising of this, there is the arising of that. With the cessation of this, there is the cessation of that. So when we talk about aging and death, that's just one component, called jara-marana in Pali. Aging and death is inescapable. Everybody experiences aging and death. And along with that, in certain suttas it talks about, in addition to that, the whole mass of suffering.

So grief, lamentation, sorrow, despair, and this whole mass of suffering. So when we talk about aging and death, it is unpreventable. It will be there. Aging manifests in so many different ways. It manifests as getting old, getting weaker in your faculties, whether that's mental or physical. And death, of course, is the dissolution of the body, the dissolution of the five aggregates.

So when we talk about dependent origination, we talk about it on two different levels. There is the macro level and there is the micro level. The macro level of dependent origination helps us understand how rebirth happens, how this process of going from one life to another happens. But for the purpose of our understanding, we'll also explore, more importantly, the micro level, which is that the links of dependent origination arise and pass away in every moment.

So with regards to aging and death, the body is always in decline, always experiencing some form of aging. When you are born, you come with an expiry date. That expiry date is, will be, the death of the body. Now, you can't 6R aging and death. Try as you might, you can't. Right? There's so many ways that people try to prevent their death, try to prevent aging.

And that stems from the fear of aging and death. That stems from a fear of the unknown. There is this understanding of what's known as the denial of death, and this was a big thing sometime back in the 50s and 60s, the denial of death, and something known as death anxiety. And at the very extreme of that, death anxiety can cause a person to become violent, can cause a person to become murderous. Power over death, they will destroy others.

I destroy others and therefore I am a conqueror of death. This is a very convoluted idea, but it can manifest in people who have extreme anxiety about death. So what can you 6R? What can you let go of? You can let go of the fear of death, part of life. Aging is a natural part of life. So when you notice that the mind thinks about death or the mind contemplates death and there is some anxiety there, there is some fear there, there is some kind of resistance there, you can recognize that, release your attention from that, relax the tightness and tension, come back to the smile and become more wholesome, generate a wholesome state of mind.

There's so many things people do to prevent aging, but all of that stems from that desire to live forever. But that is not possible in samsara. Now it says that with birth as condition, there comes to be aging and death. When we talk about birth, we're talking about it on two levels again. We're talking about the macro and the micro.

Here we're talking about jati, that is rebirth or birth on the macro level. And what is rebirth? A very simple way of understanding what rebirth is, the same definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So you're going to find in your life or in a series of lives that you come back to the same kind of people, that you come back to the same kinds of that you come back to the same kinds of reactions.

And that's because you haven't understood that this is an impersonal process. You have not understood with wisdom. And because you keep reacting to it, and because you keep responding to it in such a way that causes tightness and tension, that causes craving and resistance, you will still continue to experience those similar states, those similar states of existence. So until you learn to see this and let go of it, you will still continue having these kinds of rebirths.

Now on the micro level, what we talk about birth is as birth of action or birth of reaction. When we talk about birth of action or birth of reaction, we're talking about: there arises this thought, and that is the birth of a mental intention. There arises speech, and that is the birth of verbal action. There arises movement, where you do something, and that is the birth of physical action.

And so with existence as condition, there comes to be birth. Existence comes from the word bhava. Habitual tendencies. When we talk about existence in the sutras, it talks about three types of existence. There is the existence in the sensual realms, the existence in the form realms, and the existence in the formless realms. And habitual tendencies are that which cause you to behave in a certain way.

So dependent upon habitual tendencies, there is a certain type of birth of action, birth of reaction. Now when we talk about the three types of existences, they can also be psychological. On the macro level, it's all about: you have a certain kind of mindset, you have a certain kind of response, and that gives rise to a certain kind of craving or a certain kind of grasping.

That gives rise to certain formations which then take root in a new mentality-materiality. When it takes root in a new mentality-materiality, that is the new existence. And that could be the sensual realms, the sensual existence. That includes all of the hell realms, all the way up to the sixth sensual heaven. So what kind of existence you have is also determined by your psychological state now.

That is to say, if the mind is filled with a lot of wholesome experiences, a lot of wholesome intentions. If the mind is filled with generosity, if the mind is filled with loving kindness, if the mind is filled with equanimity, if the mind is filled with forgiveness, if the mind is filled with patience, then what arises is a deva-like mindset.

And a deva-like mindset gives rise to a deva-like existence, in this life or in another life. Conversely, if you have a mind that is jealous, envious, a mind that has a lot of anger, a lot of irritation, has a lot of ill will, that kind of mindset can give rise to a hellish existence. It can be here. You could have hell on earth through your psychological state, the way you behave, certain kinds of intentions rooted in anger, rooted in hatred, that causes you to see everything in a hellish way.

And so your habitual emotional reactions are rooted in those kinds of intentions. Now when we talk about animal realms, people can have animalistic ways of being. They're very much caught up in animalistic behaviors. They're caught up in trying to seek pleasure, sense pleasures, whether it's sex or food or whatever it might be. And as they have these kinds of animalistic desires, animalistic behaviors and intentions, that gives rise to a certain kind of psychological state that is animalistic.

And so the existence there is animalistic. Or hungry ghosts. People are craving for attention. People are craving for this or that. Then the actions that you produce are rooted in that kind of behavior. If you're always jealous, always seeking for things, always craving for things, you'll have a very restless mindset. Having that kind of a restless mindset, your actions that you produce, the birth of those actions, will be rooted in that kind of mindset.

What about form realms and formless realms? Four jhanas: first, second, third, fourth jhana. And if you have a mind that is imbued with these jhanic factors, then you experience jhana all the time. You can experience jhana all the time. That means then your mind is free, when you're in that state, of any of the hindrances. You don't have any kind of sensual craving. You don't have any kind of ill will. You don't have any kind of restlessness. You don't have any kind of sloth and torpor. You don't have any kind of doubt.

Your mind is non-agitated, clear and free. Imagine what that feels like, 24-7, being in that kind of jhanic state of mind. And so your existence here, right now, can be jhanic, can be in a form realm. Likewise, on the macro level, if a person continues to develop jhanas but stays attached to that, that can cause them to take rebirth in a brahma loka, in a jhana loka.

And then the same goes for formless realms, infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception, non-perception. If a person becomes very much attuned to infinite space, they feel compassion all the time, they feel infinite space all the time, or joy, empathetic joy all the time, along with that feeling of infinite consciousness. That's a different kind of existence that a person can have here and now, but as well as on a macro level in another life.

So habitual tendencies, also known as habitual emotional reactions, are a repository of the different types of reactions that the mind settles on. The choices you make condition the next set of choices that you can potentially make. So if your mind inclines towards reactions, and tendencies that are wholesome, then when you are met with something, your reactions or the library, the storehouse of reactions that you have, will be rooted in the wholesome. So your mind will incline towards the wholesome.

If your mindset is unwholesome and your reactions are always unwholesome, you react with irritation, you react with frustration, you react with anger, you will always react with anger. So your rudder will always incline towards something that is unwholesome. And so because of that, your next action will be dependent upon that inclination. These are the habitual tendencies. This is bhava.

With clinging as condition, habitual tendencies come to be. Now, when we talk about clinging, that comes from the word Upadana. Upadana is that mind that grasps at something. Upadana means acquisitions, assets, wanting to grasp at something. It also means to refuel that craving process. And there are different types of clinging. There is a clinging to sensual experiences.

There is the clinging to views. Clinging to rites and rituals, and there is a clinging to self-use. So we talk about clinging to sensual pleasures. On a very practical level, clinging is basically that process of mind that associates things with other things. So you have traumatic experiences, for example, and you associate certain kinds of sensual experiences that happen during that traumatic incident, that.

For example, somebody is at a funeral, and they're mourning their loved one, and somebody just pats that person's back. Now they've associated that feeling with comfort. They've associated that feeling of that experience, that sensual experience, with grief as well, with trauma. So sometimes, even when you're in a wholesome state of mind, you might be in a wholesome state of mind when somebody just pats your back or rubs your shoulder and then you're immediately brought back to that experience.

This process of association, this process of bringing up these kinds of events and then creating stories around them, this is clinging. On the flip side of that, that's also creating a sense of identity through creating favorites. These are my favorite sensual experiences. These are my favorite genre of music, my favorite genre of movies, my favorite fragrances, my favorite foods, my favorite blanket, whatever it might be. And so if you don't have those things, or you do have those things and then they go away, how do you react to it?

Do you have attachment to it? Do you have craving for it? Do you cling to it? Or do you see it for what it actually is? It arose and it can pass away. When it arises, the tendency is for people to attach to that arising process instead of tending towards the cessation of an experience. The mind that is fully awakened is always in cessation. And what that means is that mind understands that everything that arises passes away. Everything that arises ceases.

So clinging to sensual pleasures, creating favorites around sensual experiences, ideas around sensual experiences. This is the grasping that happens. So when you recognize that, or you can actually 6R that, you can recognize, oh, I'm starting to cling to this. I'm starting to create associations here. You can recognize that, release it, relax the tightness and tension, replace it with something wholesome.

So instead of allowing the clinging to go further and then create the habitual reactions, the habitual tendencies, which, by the way, you can also recognize. For example, let's say your habitual tendencies were always to defend yourself when somebody comes to you and criticizes you, and you take it personally. As soon as you take it personally, there is this habitual emotional reaction. There's this habitual tendency that arises that wants to defend the sense of self.

But if you recognize that arising and say, to let that go, I'm going to relax and generate a wholesome state of mind, then you are reconditioning that process of habitual tendencies. You're reconditioning that process of clinging. When we talk about clinging to rites and rituals, this is clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that they will take you to Nibbana. But it's also clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that if I pray to this deity or if I do this, or if I wear my lucky socks, it's going to be a good day. All of these kinds of associations. That completely is in violation of karma. Because karma says that what arises is dependent upon your own intentions.

Dependent upon your own actions. So you have to make the effort for something. You have to have the intention for something. And then act upon that intention. If you want something, just pray to a deity and just say, okay, give me a million dollars or whatever it might be. So this idea of luck, this idea of trying to gather luck, that's also in clinging to rites and rituals. The idea that if I only do it this way, then this is what's going to happen. Or another way is clinging to schedules, clinging to routines.

I have to do things a certain way. If I don't, I'll get cranky. If I don't get my morning coffee at 7 a.m. in the morning, I'm going to be cranky. If this doesn't happen by this time, I'm going to get cranky. You have to have flexibility. You have to be able to see where you're clinging to is. Are you clinging to routines? Are you clinging to schedules?

If you can be like water, if you can be flexible and just see everything as it is, then there's no that causes this sense of an identity in bhava. It's at bhava where the sense of self is most apparent. But the process of bringing that sense of self happens at clinging. When we talk about clinging to views, this is clinging to certain kinds of wrong views.

There are these 62 different types of wrong views. Let's go into all of them now. When we talk about the different types of wrong views, you can find it in Digha Nikaya 1. It talks about the different kinds of self-views and the different kinds of views about the world. Eternalism, annihilationism, and so on and so forth. In the Buddha's time, there were different kinds of rival ascetics, let's say, different kinds of teachings that were going on. And there were six main kinds of teachings. One was the view of eternalism, that there is this self that is eternal, that is always ongoing, all pervasive.

There was a view about the idea that there is only enjoyments, there's only material enjoyments. That's all you have to do here. There's no need for merit. There is no need to do good actions. There's no need to do certain kinds of good actions for you to be able to reap those merits. Everything is just about take. Everything is about just enjoying yourself to the fullest. So that creates a lot of attachment to the sixth sense basis.

Eternalism gives this idea of an I, that I am here, I am present. And it causes to create this conceit, this identity from which you act. A view in relation to asceticism. I have to do certain kinds of practices in order to negate my karma. So this was the view of the Jains. So the view of the Jains was that there is a soul that continues to reincarnate from lifetime to lifetime.

And here the idea is that as it goes from one lifetime to the other, it accumulates karmic particles, karmic dust, intentionally or unintentionally. That's in direct violation of what the Buddha talks about, which is karma is all about intention. It's your intention, not doing something by mistake, not doing something out of having, not an intention for that.

So intention is karma, but here the view is whether you did it or whether you intended to do it or not, you gather these karmic particles. And the idea is in order for you to be able to get rid of these karmic particles, you have to do certain kinds of purificatory rites and rituals. You have to do certain kind of ascetic practices.

So the Buddha had a question about that. If you're doing these kinds of rites and rituals, how much karma do you have left? Do you know your balance of karma that you have left? So for the Buddha, the response is, it's all about understanding karma from the perspective of intention and the effect of that intention and how you react and respond to that intention.

Then there's the view of what's known as the eel wrigglers. These are the skeptics. They don't have one way or the other. They don't know if this is right or this is wrong. That brings up a lot of perplexity. That brings up a lot of kinds of doubts, and actually makes you confused about what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, what is right view and what is wrong view.

Then there is also attachment to right view. You may actually have right view. You may actually understand what the Dhamma is. You understand that there is meaning in giving, meaning in being generous. You understand that there is mother and father, which means that you have gratitude towards one's parents who brought you here into this life for you to be able to have the potential to experience Nibbana and so on and so forth. And then you might have a form of super mundane right view, which is understanding dependent origination to a certain extent, but there can arise, based on that conceit and pride, and you become what's known as a Dhamma defender.

Somebody criticizes the Dhamma, somebody criticizes the twin practice, somebody criticizes what you're doing, what is the emotion that arises in your mind? Are you quick to attach to that and say, no, no, no, that's not how it is. Are you quick to defend the Dhamma? The Dhamma doesn't need defending. So don't identify yourself with the Dhamma. Understand the Dhamma as it actually is, but don't cling to it. This is another kind of clinging to views. And of course, on the very mundane level, it's clinging to opinions, clinging to different kinds of ideas.

This is what's happening, and this is what's happened all throughout the different eons of samsara. When you cling to different kinds of views, when you cling to different kinds of opinions, that can manifest at the very extreme into wars, the taking up of the stick and sword, as the Buddha says, clinging to views. You see that on news channels. People are just berating others because of their clinging to views. Or they're criticizing them for this, or criticizing them for that. And they forget that they should be compassionate. They completely forget about loving kindness. They completely forget about compassion. Completely forget about equanimity. All there is is, this is my view, and I am right, and you are wrong.

And what does that create? That creates aversion. That creates ill will. That creates hatred. Holding on to views in that way, trying to defend your views, taking it personally, causes you suffering. And it creates all of these habitual tendencies to cling to those views. And then if somebody says something that does not resonate with what you know to be true, and it doesn't resonate with you, what happens? There is this habitual tendency to incline the mind towards, oh, they are wrong. And then you want to say that they are wrong, or you want to defend yourself, or you want to defend that particular view.

So when you recognize this, oh, I'm noticing this, release your attention from that. Relax the tightness and tension. Generate a wholesome state of mind, and then respond. There's a difference between reacting and responding. You react from greed, hatred, and delusion, but you respond from wisdom and compassion. And the difference between the two is the six Rs. If you notice a reaction coming up, you can recognize it, you can release your attention from it, relax the tightness and tension, come back to the smile, and generate something wholesome, and then respond from that.

This is how you de-escalate situations. This is how you have peace, where there is discord. This is where you have unity, where there is division. This is how to do it. So loving kindness and compassion and all these things is not about just feeling all good and everything else. It's also about being able to convey that to others through your intentions, through your speech, and through your actions.

Notice that. Recognize that. Recognize when the mind has ill will, when it's clinging to a view, and let it go. Replace it with loving kindness and compassion. And then there's clinging to self-view. So this clinging to self-view is this identification with one or more of the five aggregates. There are these 20 different types of self-view, but it's very easy to understand them. It's the five aggregates multiplied by four types of views as self.

Or you see self in one or more of the five aggregates. Or you see self separate from the five aggregates. Or you see that the five aggregates originate from a sense of self. So these are the different kinds of self-views. And there's many more, but these are the main categories. And when this is there, there comes to be this attachment to form, attachment to feeling, attachment to perception, attachment to intention or formations, or attachment to consciousness, attachment to awareness, one way or the other. When that happens, the mind responds, or rather reacts, from a sense of self, a wrong sense of self.

So the clinging to self-view also has to do with: is there a self, or is there not a self? If you say there is not a self, what is that self that says that there is not a self? So let go of the idea of self or not self. It's not about that. It's understanding that things are impersonal, and that gives you peace of mind.

And so when the Buddha talks about what he teaches, he says, I teach only two things: suffering and the cessation of suffering. Does what you do lead to suffering, or does it lead to the cessation of suffering? So clinging to self-view has to do with clinging to a sense of identity. Let go of that. Recognize when the mind starts to identify with something.

Release your attention from that. Relax the tightness and tension. Come back to the smile and be happy. So with craving as condition, clinging comes to be. That's the big word. Tanha. Tanha in Pali means thirst. To be thirsty. To want something really badly. That's one side of it. Or to have resistance against something. That's the other side of it. Or to strongly identify with something.

So in other words, there's the craving for a pleasant feeling. There's the aversion towards an unpleasant feeling. And there is the identification, whether it's pleasant, painful, or neutral. So craving manifests as tightness and tension. There are three types of craving. There is sensual craving, craving for existence, craving for non-existence. What is sensual craving?

You see something beautiful and you want it. You say, I really like that, more of that. And how do you know if there's craving there? If you take away that object, how does the mind respond? Does it hold on to it, get upset when it's not there? Is there tightness and tension built around that? Why does the tightness and tension come about?

The tightness and tension arises because of the mindset that the mind has been conditioned to behave in. This fight or flight or freeze kind of condition. So when it sees something beautiful, or when it experiences something beautiful, when it has a pleasant feeling, the mind says, I hope this doesn't stop. I really like this and I want more of it. And so it gravitates towards it and the mind tenses up. The body recoils. The body tenses up for wanting that thing. It feels relief.

This is the way the mind has always been conditioned to experience reality. On the flip side of that, if there is something that is aversive, if there is something that is unpleasant, the mind recoils in fear or in anxiety or in resistance or in frustration or in irritation or in anger or hatred or whatever it might be, the mind says, oh, I don't like that. And so it does everything it can to push that away. It pushes away, it feels relief from that. So it's conditioned in this way.

But when you do the six Rs, what are you doing? You're reconditioning the mind. You're deconditioning the usual way in how you respond to situations or react to situations, and now reconditioning the mind. So instead of experiencing relief by acting upon the craving or the aversion, you can experience relief and then not have to crave for something. Not to have resistance towards something. So if you notice the craving coming up, if you notice the mind says, I want this and I want to own this, or if you notice the mind says, I really hate this, recognize that. Release your attention from that. Relax the tightness and tension.

When you relax the tightness and tension, you feel spaciousness. You feel happy. You feel clear. Then you generate something wholesome, like the smile. And now you respond with wisdom. You feel relief right there and then when you relax. So why do you need to act upon your craving if you feel relief right there and then? Why do you need to act upon your resistance and aversion if you feel relief right there and then?

So you let go of that and you experience relief. And then no craving arises further. No aversion arises further. No identification arises further. So we're talking about sensual craving here, that is related to the five physical sense bases. Craving for sound, or having irritation when somebody coughs while you're meditating, or somebody bangs open the door or closes the door, whatever it might be. Or there's a lawnmower going outside and you hear that and you get irritated by that.

That irritation is the aversion and identifying with that sound. Or when you're meditating, you experience back pain. Now it could be meditation pain, or it can be physical pain. How is it meditation pain? You know it's meditation pain when you get up and you move around and it goes away, but physical pain stays, it remains. Regardless of what the pain is, that is a painful feeling. How do you choose to respond to that painful feeling? Does the mind get distracted by it and starts to get irritated by it, or starts to wish that this pain was not there? Or does it see it for what it actually is? This pain is present.

It's not me. It's not mine. It's not myself. Just let go. Recognize the aversion to it. Recognize the pain and the aversion to it. Release your attention from it. Relax the tightness and tension. Relax the aversion. Let go of that. Abandon it. Come back to the smile and come back to the wholesome object of meditation. So when we talk about craving for existence, what is craving for existence?

Why am I not in this jhana yet? Why am I not feeling the loving kindness yet? Why haven't I achieved nibbana yet? What's going on? This is a type of craving for existence. On the very mundane level, it's like craving for being someone. The best meditator ever. I want to be a millionaire. I want to own this kind of a car. I want to be known as this kind of person. I want to have this kind of vacation.

I want to have this kind of family. I want to have this kind of recognition in society, and so on and so forth. These are all craving for existence. So when you can recognize that, you can recognize, oh, the mind is wanting this. The mind is saying, why am I not in this jhana yet? The mind is... You notice that, especially in quiet mind, right?

What happens in quiet mind? You have boredom. Or there can be a tendency for boredom to arise. And then what happens with that boredom? It can manifest as restlessness or as sloth and torpor. When you have a lot of thoughts, when you have a lot of energy, when you have a lot of different streams of ideas and things going on, that's the restlessness.

So you balance that. When you have sloth and torpor, you have a lot of dullness of mind. The mind feels like it's unable to pay attention to what's going on. And so this manifests as boredom. There's nothing going on in quiet mind. It's completely quiet. There's no vibrations going on. It could happen for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours. Nothing going on. And then an inkling of boredom arises and says, where's nibbana? It's waiting for nibbana.

So when we say patience leads to nibbana, we're not saying wait for nibbana. Waiting is another word for craving. Expectation is another word for craving. You're not waiting for anything. You're just there, present, in quiet mind. Expectations are meant to never be met. When you have an expectation, either it exceeds it, something happens and it exceeds the expectation, or it doesn't meet up to that expectation. Rarely does it ever actually meet your exact expectations.

So let go of expectations. Let go of this idea, I have to do it this way, or I have to do it that way, I want it to be exactly like this. Let go of that. When you notice the mind saying, in your mind you will notice it says, I want to be, or I want this. When you notice that, let go of it. Six are it. Because if you act upon that, if you say, I want to be this, there is this sense of self that arises, conjoined with that. And then there will be clinging, and then there will be becoming, and then there will be birth of action that causes further suffering.

Craving for non-existence. I don't want this hindrance to be present. Here is this hindrance. I don't like it. I don't want it to be here. On a mundane level, and at the very extreme level of craving for non-existence, it can manifest as suicide. Why does a person want to commit suicide? Generally, they feel this intense emotion. They feel like as if they are being overwhelmed.

They feel like there's so many things being, you know, bombarding their senses, bombarding their mind. They can't handle it anymore. And they're like, I wish this would stop. That's a craving for non-existence. And sometimes they take their own lives because they think that's relief from this painful existence. Of craving for non-existence. So when you recognize that aversion, when you recognize, oh, I don't like to be in this state of mind, or I don't like to be with this person, or I don't like to be here, or I don't like to be in this family, or whatever it is, recognize that, release your attention from that, relax the tightness, intention, come back to the smile, generate a wholesome object, generate equanimity, bring up equanimity, stay, stay with that equanimity. The more you do this, the more you decondition the mind from these kinds of craving and recondition the mind with wisdom, because you're seeing how your mind's attention moves from one thing to the other. That's mindfulness.

You're recognizing that, okay, mind is now feeling this way, mind is now experiencing this, let go of that and come back to wisdom, come back to compassion, come back to equanimity, come back to loving kindness. With feeling as condition, craving comes to be. When we talk about feeling, that comes from the word Vedana. When we talk about Vedana, Veda means to know.

So Veda comes from the word Vidya, to know. So whatever feeling you are experiencing through the sixth sense basis is Vedana. It's feeling. It's an experience to be felt. Tied to this feeling, there is perception. So feeling is one thing, perception is the other, but they're tied together. Remember I said before, feeling is just the seeing of the green leaf.

But knowing that it is a green leaf is perception. Recognizing that that color is green, recognizing that that is a leaf, is perception. Now, there can be pleasant feeling, unpleasant feeling, and there can be neither painful nor pleasant feeling. There are a hundred and eight types of feeling depending upon how you categorize it, but just for simplicity's sake we'll talk about the six feelings dependent upon contact with the six sense basis. So you can be seeing something, hearing something, tasting something, smelling something, thinking something.

So that's just the experience that is felt. But within that experience, there can arise potential for craving or potential for aversion. These are known as underlying tendencies, anusayas in Pali. And there are seven of these. There is the underlying tendency towards craving. There is the underlying tendency towards aversion. The underlying tendency towards ignorance. The underlying tendency towards doubt. The underlying tendency towards conceit. The underlying tendency towards becoming.

And the underlying tendency towards views about something. So you're having an experience. How do you take that experience? As soon as you see this experience and say, this experience is me, mine, or myself, now you have taken it personally. Personally, the mind will have an underlying tendency to crave for the pleasant feeling, or the mind will have an underlying tendency to have aversion towards the painful feeling, or have ignorance, lack of mindfulness. Ignorance is lack of mindfulness, or manifests as lack of mindfulness, not paying attention to things as they really are.

So how do you see things as they really are? It's here, whether it's walking, whether it's eating, whether it's sitting, whether it's standing, whether it's meditating. All experiences are conditioned. Conditioned by contact. Because they are conditioned, because they have dependently arisen, they arise and they pass away. Which means that they are impermanent. Therefore, they are not worth holding on to, and they should be seen as not me, not mine, not myself.

When we talk about anatta, there is a way of understanding anatta, the impersonal nature of things. During the Buddha's time, generally in ancient India, they had the concept of atta, or atman, the idea of a core, permanent, all-pervading, unchanging self. And the Buddha comes along and says, okay, all conditioned things, and even nibbana, is not self. What he says is, if you're going to use the self as a touchstone, your concept of a self, which is sat-chitananda, right? That it is existent, that it is always there, present, and that it is a source of bliss. If you're going to use that, let's see your experiences. Are they self?

Whatever experience you're having, whatever it is that arises, it's arising based on causes and conditions. Because it is arising based on causes and conditions, it's impermanent. Seeing it as impermanent, you realize that it is not self, because whatever is impermanent is liable to change. If it's a good thing, it's liable to change, and inherently it can cause you suffering. So whether it's good, bad or indifferent, pleasant, painful or neither painful nor pleasant, it is not self. Don't take it personally. The moment you take any experience personally, whether right now or whether in the meditation, you are going to cause yourself suffering. Because what arises dependent upon that is craving or aversion.

And then based on that, there is clinging, associating something with it, making favorites out of it, thinking about it, adding fuel to the fire of craving or aversion, to the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. And then dependent upon that, you start to create this sense of self. It becomes more concrete at bhava. And you have all of these habitual tendencies which you act out of, which causes you suffering, which causes you dukkha. Condition, feeling comes to be. Contact. This comes from the Pali word phassa, or sparsha in Sanskrit and Hindi.

That just basically means to touch, make contact with. So what is the contact we're talking about here? The eye and form, they make contact and there is eye feeling. Touch, they make contact. And born from that is ear feeling, hearing, the sensation of the ear. Likewise with the nose and odors, likewise with the tongue and tastes, likewise with body and tangibles, and likewise with mind and mental objects.

That's just contact. So when we talk about contact in jhana, for example, when we looked at Majjhima Nikaya 111, we saw that there was contact, feeling, perception, intention, attention, mind, all of these other things. So what was the contact there? Contact there was the mind making contact with the mental object. Loving kindness, for example. Dependent upon that, there is the feeling of loving kindness. There is a perception that the mind is in loving kindness.

So contact is just the touching of eye and form and so on and so forth. So when the eye and form meet, there can arise eye consciousness. The joining of these three is eye contact. And dependent upon that comes eye feeling. So in other words, that means that if the eye is defective, that a person is blind, or the ear is defective, or a person is deaf, even if light bounces off an object and hits the retina, there is no eye consciousness present.

And so there is no eye feeling dependent upon that, dependent upon that contact. Or if a person is deaf, fine, there is sound, but there is no reception of that sound. And because of that, there is no ear consciousness. And therefore, dependent upon that, there won't be any hearing going on. So you need that too. You need the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness and mind consciousness. We'll get into consciousness in a little bit.

With the sixth sense basis as condition, contact comes to be. So the sixth sense basis, that's basically what? The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind. That's it. Basis. So they're just present. I mean, there's nothing you can do about it. They are present. Everything from ignorance all the way up to feeling, all of that is old karma that you're inheriting, dependent upon previous choices that you're making.

So however your eyes are, however your ears are, however your nose is, however your tongue is, however your body is, however your mind is, it's dependent on previous choices that you've made. So it is only just old karma to be experienced and felt at feeling. What you choose to do and how you choose to react with that is what will either cause the craving, and therefore the clinging, and therefore the becoming, and therefore the birth of further reaction.

Or you can understand all of this as an impersonal process and don't take it personally. Once you see it as it actually is, yoniso manasikara, then you see everything as a series of dependent causes and conditions. Because of that, you don't take them personally. Because of that, you don't have craving for this or aversion towards that. So whatever arises just ceases there without any fuel of craving or clinging or becoming.

This is how you dissipate karma. Karma arises. For example, a hindrance arises. What is that? Old karma. That's a mental experience. Mind made contact and now there is a hindrance present. How do you deal with that hindrance? Do you crave for it? Do you have resistance towards it? Do you have aversion towards it? And if you do, what's going to happen? You're going to cling. And then when you have clinging, you have becoming. And then you have the birth of action. And then you have further suffering.

Or you can choose to see this. You see the hindrance as being present and being impersonal. Don't take it personally. A hindrance has arisen. If you do anything but see it for what it actually is, you're going to cause yourself suffering. But if you see the hindrance, acknowledge that it is there, release your attention from that, gently bring it back, relax the mind and body, which means you relax the tightness and tension, and come back to the smile, come back to your object. You are dealing with that hindrance with proper wisdom. With name and form, or mentality, materiality as condition, the six sense bases come to be.

Mentality, materiality, that is, mind and body, or name and form. So when we talk about mentality, there are certain factors to mentality. There's contact, there's feeling, there's perception, there's inclination or intention, and there's attention. And then when we talk about materiality, that is the body. So in essence, what we are talking about are the five aggregates. Form here, or materiality, is made up of the four great elements, or the four states of matter. You have the earth element, or the solid state of matter, or the liquid state of matter.

You have the air element, or the gaseous state of matter. And you have the fire element, or the plasma state of matter, the heat, the temperature. So these start to make up the body. Contact with the body gives rise to feeling, perception, intention or inclination, and attention. So contact is the key here. So when we're talking about contact, feeling, and perception, but we're also seeing it further down in the chain. We're seeing it as contact as a link. We're seeing feeling as a link. So what's the difference between the two?

These are the faculties in the mind that allow you to experience contact. So that is the receptors. The sense-based receptors are in mentality materiality. The feeling that's there, it's the faculty of feeling, allowing you to actually experience something. The faculty of perception. These are your memory centers in the mind that allow you to recognize and label what it is that you are experiencing.

Intention or inclination. Allowing you to act on something. That is cetana. It comes from the word cetana. That is to incline the mind towards one thing or the other. This is what is meant by when we say, where is your inclination? Where are your intentions? If you want to understand formations, the quality of formations, look at where your intentions lie. Look at where your inclinations lie. Formations go through, the formation aggregate goes through intention.

And finally, attention. Consciousness flows through attention. You have an intention to bring your attention or awareness here. And so now there is a cognizing of this. And so now there is an awareness of this. And so now there is an attention to this. Consciousness flows through wherever the attention is put on something. The five aggregates. So with mentality, you experience materiality.

But without materiality, you can't have mentality. So they are interdependent. You need the mentality, or you need the materiality for the mentality to be housed into something. And you need the mentality in order to know that you have a body, in order to know what is materiality. So when we talk about what is mind, mind is defined by its factors, by its faculties, which give rise to the processes.

So the faculty of contact allows you to experience contact, the process of contact. The faculty of feeling allows you to experience the process of feeling. The faculty of perception allows you to experience the process of perception. The faculty of intention or inclination allows you to experience the process of formations, how they arise and manifest. The faculty of attention allows you to cognize, allows you to have the process of cognizing whatever it is that you are experiencing. Condition, name, and form come to be. Consciousness.

Consciousness comes from the word vinnana. Vinnana means, so there's V and jnana. Jnana means knowledge. And V means to divide. It's divided knowledge. What does that mean? Knowledge divided by the experience of the sixth sense basis. In other words, there is the eye consciousness. There is the ear consciousness, there is the nose consciousness, there is the tongue consciousness, there is the body consciousness, and there is mind consciousness.

This is all happening on the micro level. When you go into the sixth jhana, when you go into infinite consciousness, what is it that you're experiencing? You're experiencing the arising and passing away of infinite eye consciousness, so infinite ear consciousness, or infinite nose consciousness, or whatever it might be. experience contact, that is the joining of the eye, the form, and eye consciousness.

So cognizing the experience of the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, or the mind. So consciousness basically is cognition. It's awareness. Now on the macro level, we talk about it from the perspective of rebirth from one lifetime to the other, where consciousness as a gandhabba, as a potential being, descends into nama-rupa, descends into a mentality materiality.

So for simplicity's sake, what happens is, when a person dies, when there's a dissolution of the body, what arises is certain kinds of thoughts and ideas and concepts. And then the mind takes that and either has craving towards it, grasps at it, or has aversion towards it. That gives rise to certain kinds of formations, which we'll get to. activate a type of consciousness that is rooted in that kind of craving. That consciousness then goes from there and descends into a new nama-rupa, into a new mind and body that manifests when there is birth.

And that is when there is procreation. When that happens, then that consciousness dissipates and there is a new arising and passing away of individual consciousnesses in that nama-rupa, in that mentality materiality. Why we say name and form are dependent upon consciousness on the macro level. On the micro level it is also dependent upon consciousness, because without consciousness you won't be able to know that there is a body. You won't be able to cognize the different factors of the mind.

And now in some of the renditions of the links of dependent origination there is an interdependency here as well. Dependent upon consciousness, mind and body arise. And dependent upon mind and body, consciousness arises. Why is that? Because in order for consciousness to come into being, it needs a mind and body on the macro level. On the micro level, you need some kind of body in order for you to experience the cognition of something.

You need the mentality factors for you to be able to cognize that here is contact. Here is feeling, here is perception, here is intention, here is attention. You need the mind and body in order for you to cognize the Sixth Sense basis. So that is why you have the Eye Consciousness, the Ear Consciousness, the Nose Consciousness, the Tongue Consciousness, the Body Consciousness, and Mind Consciousness.

With formations as condition, consciousness comes to be. Now, formations. That comes from the word sankhara in Pali. Sankhara. Or samskaras in Sanskrit. Sankhara actually has different kinds of connotations. It can mean formations. It can mean preparations. A more modern rendition is percolations because thoughts percolate up. proto-thoughts in the mind. When you're in quiet mind, for example, when you're in quiet mind, when you're in neither perception or non-perception, you're not able to really recognize what it is that you're seeing. You might see certain pictures, you might see certain kinds of ideas, you might see some kind of disconnected thoughts, but they're not fully formed thoughts. So these are proto-thoughts that percolate up into fully formed thoughts, and these are the formations.

Means to cook up something. Literally, it means to make something, to cook something. So the formations cook up your reality. Everything you're experiencing is based on formations. There are three types of formations: mental formations, bodily formations, and verbal formations. Mental formations are related to feeling and perception, whether it's mental physical sense basis. Verbal formations have to do with your expression of speech. You hear something, it makes contact with you, you think about it, that process of thinking about it is verbalizing, and then that process then actuates into speech, actuates into expression of something that you perceive.

So verbal formations are responsible for this. Traditionally, bodily formations are associated with breathing because they allow you to breathe in and out. But they allow you to do everything from moving to sitting to standing to walking. So these formations are then arising and give rise to a certain kind of consciousness. And then that manifests in a certain way of how you perceive your mind and body.

Then the sixth sense bases make contact with something and those formations then further color or cook up how you experience reality. Now, formations are carriers of karma as well. So contact, when we talk about the link of contact, it is one of the keys to understanding this whole process of dependent origination. Because from contact, feeling arises, perception arises, intention arises, karma arises.

If there was no contact, no karma would arise. Arise, it has to flow through the links of dependent origination. The formations carry forward that. And if the formations are pure or impure, that will then determine what kind of consciousness arises in terms of how the consciousness is colored. Is the consciousness rooted in envy? Is the consciousness rooted in anger? Is the consciousness rooted in bitterness? Or is the consciousness rooted in generosity and seeing things as they are, being happy and fulfilled?

So if the formations are fettered, that means they are fettered by ignorance, by craving, by conceit, by wrong views. How are they fettered? Consciousness, or rather formations, are dependent upon your previous intentions. That is why I say, if you want to understand the quality of your formations, notice how you're intending things. Notice where your mind is inclining towards.

In every given present moment, you have a choice. You can choose to be wholesome or unwholesome. Now, the rudder, the compass, gravitates towards either the wholesome or the unwholesome. That gravitation process is dependent upon the choices you made before. So if you start to act upon whatever choices you made before, then those formations will continue. See it for what it is and stop becoming unwholesome and gravitate your compass towards a wholesome choice, then the next arising of formations are conditioned by that choice.

So those formations start to be whittled away in terms of the fetters of conceit, of craving, of ignorance, of wrong view. So once that starts to loosen up, what happens? Those formations start to become pure and pure and pure. Eventually, those formations become completely unfettered, untainted. And so any consciousness that arises is pure, which means now consciousness that arises will not be rooted in any kind of emotion, will not be rooted in any kind of tendency.

And it won't give rise to any kind of tendency. It will just see reality as it actually is. Completely purified mind, they're just carrying forward karma, carrying forward the effects of choices made prior to full awakening. And those choices are then manifested in feeling. And because the mind is completely pure, it's not going to react to that experience in a way that causes craving, or identify with that experience, or have ignorance, which is a lack of mindfulness.

It will just see things as they are. And so that karma will just dissipate bit by bit by bit. On a practical level, when you're meditating and you have a hindrance that arises, what is that? That's old karma. That is the snowball effect of formations that were fettered and rooted in choices that were unwholesome at some point.

So now you're experiencing that hindrance. Now you don't have to be guilty because you did something in the previous choice that caused you to have that hindrance. You just see that that hindrance is present. If you take it personally, you're going to only add to that energy of hindrance. But if you see it for what it actually is, and you six R it, then what you're doing is you're whittling away at that hindrance. So it might arise again, but it will be weaker this time around. And it might arise again, and it'll be weaker in that next moment. It might arise yet again, but it will be even weaker. Eventually, there is the remainderless fading away of that.

Of that hindrance. So this is the way to understand formations. Just see where your choices lie. Where are you making your choices? And then if your choices are rooted in the wholesome, then you know the formations that are coming up are rooted in the wholesome. They are not rooted in greed, hatred, or delusion. They are rooted in non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion. Condition formations come to be. What is ignorance?

It is ignoring the four noble truths. Ignoring the first noble truth of suffering. Ignoring the second noble truth of the cause of suffering. Ignoring the third noble truth of the cessation of suffering. And ignoring the fourth noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. That is ignorance. Ignorance of the four noble truths. Now there's levels of ignorance. There's the ignorance that you have never been introduced to the Four Noble Truths. You don't even know that there's something called the Four Noble Truths. You've never been introduced to the Dhamma. That's one level of ignorance.

That you don't know that you don't know. But then there's another level of ignorance which arises because of lack of mindfulness. Now you have been taught the Dhamma. Now you know what is right view. Now you know what is suffering. Of suffering, now you understand how to let go of that suffering and experience the cessation of suffering, or rather how to let go of the cause so that you experience the cessation of suffering. But every time you have lack of attention, lack of mindfulness, lack of awareness, that adds to the link, that adds energy back to the link of ignorance. But every time you recognize, you are aware, and you use the six R's, you are whittling away at that ignorance.

Because why? Because every time you recognize, you are recognizing there is suffering present in the form of this hindrance or whatever it might be. Every time you release and relax, you are abandoning the attention to that suffering, attention to that hindrance, and thereby experiencing the third noble truth of the cessation of that hindrance, of that dukkha. And every time you use the six R's, you are utilizing the fourth noble truth, which is the eightfold path. Because the six R's are right effort, which is the heart of the eightfold path. It is from right effort that you go from wrong view to right view. Wrong intention to right intention. Wrong speech to right speech. Wrong action to right action.

Wrong livelihood to right livelihood. Wrong mindfulness to right mindfulness. And wrong concentration to right concentration. So the way to let go of ignorance is to continue to be mindful. Whether there is an arising of a Tathagata or no arising of a Tathagata, that element still persists, meaning this dependent origination will still continue. Whether there is a Buddha to let you know about it, or not.

The stableness of the Dhamma, the Dhamma being dependent origination. The fixed course of the Dhamma, specific conditionality. It's only from birth that aging and death come to be. It's only from becoming that birth comes to be. Now, here's another way of understanding this on the micro level. You can see dependent origination like a river. The ignorance, the formations, consciousness, the mentality, materiality, the sixth sense bases, the contact. All of these are streams.

And then there's the feeling that arises. And these are whirlpools. The feeling, the craving, the clinging, the becoming. All of these are there, cascading down. At each point, you can six R them. You can six R the craving that is rooted in them. Six R the ignorance that is rooted in them. Six R the conceit that is rooted in them.

But if you have the birth of action, that is the bend of the waterfall. When you're having the river, the bend of the waterfall is the becoming, the bhava. But the waterfall itself, you cannot swim up the waterfall. Once you have done the action, you cannot recall the action. You can't say something terrible and six R it out of existence.

So whatever it is that you're thinking, saying, or doing, that is the birth of action, birth of reaction. You can't do anything about it. But you can do something about all of the preceding links before that. And that is by using the six R's. Tathagata awakens to this and breaks through to it, teaches it, proclaims it, establishes it, discloses it, analyzes it, elucidates it. And he says, see, with this as conditions, bhikkhus, that comes to be.

Thus, bhikkhus, the actuality in this, the inerrancy, the not-other-wiseness, specific conditionality, this is called dependent origination. The actuality in this. It is existing. It is there. It is present. Whether you recognize it or not, that is reality. Conditioned reality. The inerrancy. Meaning there's no way for you to change it in terms of its order. It's just happening the way it will happen. That's the specific conditionality.

And the not-other-wiseness. This link with another link. You can destroy the links as you get through each of the attainments so that they don't arise, but you can't replace it. You can't say, okay, I'm not going to have craving, I'm going to replace it with clinging. There's a specific order in how these things arise. Now, with each attainment, certain levels of clinging go away, certain levels of craving go away.

So, in the case of a sotapanna, what goes away? The clinging to rites and rituals. The clinging to wrong views goes away because now they have established the right view. The sakadagami weakens sensual craving and weakens the aversion. But the anagami lets go of any kind of clinging to sensual pleasures. Let go of sensual craving altogether. And then finally with the arahat, they let go of the craving for non-existence, the craving for existence, and they let go of the clinging to any kind of views, even clinging to right view. And they also let go of clinging to self-view. There's no more identification with this, that, or the other.

So as you continue to progress through this practice, you start to whittle away, grind away at these different links present. And so in that mind that is fully awakened, what arises are formations that are pure, consciousness that is pure. Nama-rupa depended upon that consciousness. The sixth sense basis, contact and feeling and perception tied to that feeling. But there is no more ignorance.

There is no more craving. There is no more clinging. There is no more becoming. There is no more of reaction. So how does a fully awakened mind act? How do they think? How do they intentionalize? How do they speak? The ignorance is replaced by right view, which means they have a full understanding of the Four Noble Truths.

They have a complete understanding of suffering. They have fully abandoned the origin of suffering, namely craving and ignorance and so on. And they have fully realized the cessation of suffering. Meaning they have fully realized Nibbana, fully realized Nirodha. And they have fully cultivated and perfected the way leading to the cessation of suffering, which is the Eightfold Path. So for such a mind, that speech that arises, that action that arises, is not rooted in craving, is not rooted in clinging. That action is rooted in right action. That speech is rooted in right speech. That intention is rooted in right intention.

Which means the default mode of functioning for such a mind is always rooted in the Eightfold Path. They automatically act or speak or intentionalize from the Eightfold Path. And the Eightfold Path is also the cessation of karma. Which means they don't produce any new karma. There's no birth of action or reaction. There is just karma in terms of activity.

Ineffective karma. Non-productive karma. Non-fruitful karma. Because whatever karma that they produce is dissipated right there and then because of the usage of the Eightfold Path. Which means the cessation of karma happens through using the six R's. Six R's all the way to arahatship. Six R's everything until there's nothing left to six R. So for that mind, like I said, there's no ignorance now. All that's remaining is the formations, the consciousness, the nama-rupa, or mentality, materiality, six sense bases, contact, and feeling. Everything else is non-functional. It doesn't even arise. The seeds of that are completely destroyed.

And what, bhikkhus, are the dependently arisen phenomena? It's not like these are two different things. Dependent origination is the Dhamma. Dependently arisen phenomena are the same as the Dhamma. So whatever you're experiencing right now is all the Dhamma. phenomenon. And what is that? Aging and death, bhikkhus, is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation.

Birth is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation. Habitual tendencies are impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen. Subject to destruction. Vanishing. Fading away. And cessation. Clinging is impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen. Subject to destruction. Vanishing. Fading away. And cessation. Craving is impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen. Subject to destruction. Vanishing. Fading away. And cessation. Feeling is impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation.

Contact is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation. The sixth sense bases are impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation. Consciousness is impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen. Subject to destruction. Vanishing. Fading away and cessation. Formations are impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen. Subject to destruction. Vanishing. Fading away and cessation.

Ignorance is impermanent. Conditioned. Dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation. These bhikkhus are called the dependently arisen phenomenon. Each of the links of dependent origination, being conditioned, being dependently arisen, are subject to change, subject to destruction, subject to vanishing away, subject to cessation. So why would you hold on to any of those links? See them all as being impermanent, subject to change. Don't hold on to them.

That will be for your benefit, not otherwise. When, because a noble disciple is one who has an attainment, meaning they have attained to stream entry or attained to Sakadagami or whatever it might be, clearly seen with correct wisdom, as it really is, this dependent origination, which means has clearly seen. What happens? When the mind comes out of cessation, it sees dependent origination.

It makes contact with Nibbana. It sees dependent origination and has wisdom, correct wisdom. This is the ultimate insight, the understanding of dependent origination. And these dependently arisen phenomena, it is impossible that he will run back into the past thinking, did I exist in the past? Did I not exist in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what? What did I become in the past?

Why is that? understands that the self is dependently arisen. The idea of a self is dependently arisen. So which self are you talking about? Are you talking about your two-year-old self or your seven-year-old self or your ten-year-old self or your fifteen-year-old self? Or are you talking about the self that was on a Tuesday on March 5th, 1999?

Are you thinking about all of these things? You see everything has dependently arisen. So why would you take all of that personal? All of that past is past. Why would you think about how did I arise or how did this come to be? It just arose because of causes and conditions. In the same way, or that he will run forward into the future thinking, will I exist in the future? Will I not exist in the future? What will I be in the future? How will I be in the future? Having been what, what will I become in the future?

Would you think about the future? Once you see everything as being dependently arisen, would you really worry about the future? You understand certain causes and conditions have come to be, and they will lead to a certain kind of future. But will you really worry about that? Will he have anxiety about that? If he has fully let go, you're not going to have any anxiety about the future.

Likewise, or that he will now be inwardly confused about the present thus. Do I exist? Do I not exist? What am I? How am I? This being, where has it come from and where will it go? When was the last time you thought, do I exist? Or do I not exist? So all of these kinds of questions about existence and about the self, they are unnecessary suffering.

They don't lead to the understanding of what is suffering. They don't lead to the realization of the Four Noble Truths. So even if you're staying in the present, even if you are in the present moment, is there a sense of self there or are you just observing things as they actually are? Don't hold on to anything, not even the present moment. As soon as you hold on to the present moment, it's gone. What you think to be this present moment is not the present moment. It is a reflection of what you think is the present moment. So don't hold on to any standpoints about the past, the future, or the present. arisen phenomena.