Day 5 Apr Retreat DN15 Pt. 1 -Dependent Origination w/Dhammachariya Delson Armstrong

This is Digha Nikaya 15, Maha Nidana Sutta, the great discourse on origination. Blessed have I heard, once the Lord was staying among the Kurus. There is a market town there called Kama Sadama. And the Venerable Ananda came to the Blessed One, saluted him, sat down to one side and said, "It is wonderful, it is marvelous how profound this dependent origination is, and how profound it appears, and yet it appears to me as clear as clear."

"Do not say that, Ananda. Do not say that. This dependent origination is profound and appears profound. It is through not understanding, not penetrating this doctrine, that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string." So the Buddha is saying to Ananda, because Ananda has had some kind of an experience where he's seen dependent origination, but he hasn't seen all of it, as we'll see. Yes, it is quite profound, the understanding of dependent origination, but it doesn't always appear as clear as clear, as Ananda puts it.

And it is through not understanding dependent origination, which is basically the elaboration of the first and second noble truths. It's through not understanding that and being able to then let go of it and experience the third noble truth, using the fourth noble truth, are suffering. All beings are suffering. That's why wrong view exists in their mind, or has existed in their mind. And right view, which is the understanding of dependent origination, or which is facilitated through seeing and experiencing dependent origination for yourself, that you start to let go of wrong view and establish the right view.

"If, Ananda, you are asked, has aging and death a condition for its existence? That is jara marana. You should answer, yes. If asked, what conditions aging and death? You should answer, aging and death is conditioned by birth." So, aging and death. However, people identify with the form, identify with the five aggregates, and have fear of aging and death because of that clinging to the five aggregates.

And so you have people who get Botox done and color their hair and try to look at themselves in the mirror and deny the process of aging. These are inevitable, as I said. So it's not like you can 6R away aging and death. But you can 6R the response and reaction to aging and death. And you can come to peace with what is inevitable.

All beings that arise pass away. All conditioned things that arise pass away. Come to terms with the natural process of aging and the fact that one day their life will end. And if you have peace with that, then you have a wonderful mind which is embedded in equanimity, embedded in acceptance, embedded in relief. No one here is getting out alive at some point or another, right?

But we're okay with that to an extent because we understand the inevitability of death. So the Buddha says, if asked what conditions aging and death, one should say birth. Now we're talking about birth on the macro level, the birth of a being, the coming into being, the birth in the creation of the aggregates, the coming into being of the aggregates and the sixth sense basis. So there is another understanding of birth, because what we'll see with dependent origination is there is a macro level through which you understand the process of rebirth from one life to another.

But there is a micro level, let's say, which helps you to understand dependent origination of contact, feeling, perception, and so on, on a moment-to-moment level. So when we talk about birth at that level, we're talking about two things: the arising and passing away of consciousnesses, the birth of different consciousnesses, dependent upon experiences. And we're talking about the birth of action, or reaction, because there is a difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is rooted in craving. Responding is rooted in wisdom and compassion. One sees things as they really are with an experience.

Instead of taking that experience to be personal, instead of taking that experience to be this is me, this is mine, this is myself, or it's affecting a sense of me, mine, or myself, the mind that has wisdom sees it as impersonal, and therefore does not have birth or reaction that adds to suffering, and rather lets go of that reactivity in the mind.

"You should answer, aging and death is conditioned by birth." So when we talk about aging and death, we can also lump that up with the whole mass of suffering. That is dukkha. And so when we talk about dukkha, we have basically three categories of dukkha. There are three categories of dukkha. What three? There is dukkha dukkha, there is viparinama dukkha, and there is sankhara dukkha. Dukkha dukkha has to do with the bodily pain, the mental pain, the grief, the sorrow, the lamentation, the aging, the death, the illness, and so on. Viparinama dukkha is the dukkha of change, the dukkha of impermanence. Things change. Unexpected things happen.

You're on your way to the airport, and you're looking forward to having a retreat, and then suddenly you find out that the flight is cancelled. That's viparinama dukkha. There's nothing you can do about it, but you can deal with it through how you perceive the situation, as okay, there it is, and you have equanimity. And then there is what's known as sankhara dukkha. So viparinama dukkha is basically the dukkha of not getting what you want or getting what you don't want. And sankhara dukkha has to do with the clinging and craving through the five aggregates, that is to say, the five aggregates affected by clinging and craving. So identifying with them causes the mind to have certain expectations which lead to dukkha at some point or another.

So sankhara dukkha is sometimes translated as pervasive dukkha. That doesn't mean that all life is suffering, but what it means is there is suffering in life. And so by identifying with the aggregates, you build yourself up with certain expectations and ideas and concepts, which might not be the reality of the situation. And so that creates a sense of dukkha, a sense of disenchantment, let's say, or dismay with the world, with life. Because you realize that everything is impermanent and therefore not worth holding on to. But if you see it in the right way, which is rooted in wisdom, then you don't experience dukkha. Sankhara dukkha arises when you see things as impermanent, but you still cling on to form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

Even though you know that they're impermanent, somehow they're still clinging there. And so that idea, that dissonance between the two, is that experience of sankhara dukkha. So what conditions birth? Bhava. Bhava can be translated as existence, as becoming, as being, or as habitual tendencies. When we talk about the process of becoming, we're talking about the mind state that becomes something in the sense of a conceptualized self.

When we talk about habitual tendencies, we're talking about habits or habitual tendencies that the mind automatically uses as a way to react to situations. So on the macro level, we're talking about the mind state in which there is a process of when formations arise and the mind sees certain things and then there is a reaction to it in the form of craving or clinging to that or resisting to that. And the fuel of that causes that mind then to bring up a new consciousness that then takes or carries forward into a new life. That process is becoming, and that process is identifying with one of the three spheres of existence.

So if a mindset has been predominantly sensual-based, that is to say seeking out sense experiences, displeasurable sense experiences, having aversion to that, the mind will then create, or it will activate, a certain type of consciousness that will take root into a sense-based realm. Then you have the form realms and the formless realms. So this is to say someone who has developed jhana and has clinging to jhana, the first four jhanas. And so each jhana state is connected with a particular Brahma realm. And if one has certain clinging and craving for that jhana, it is possible that that mind state will cause the arising of a certain consciousness that will then go to that particular Brahma loka.

Likewise with the formless attainments. So sometimes when you see in the suttas this idea of becoming, they always talk about it on the macro level. That is existence. Existence in the sense realms, existence in the forms, jhanas, form realms, or existence in the formless realms. But when we talk about day-to-day living, when we talk about our momentary experience, moment-to-moment experience, there what we're talking about is bhava as habitual tendencies.

It's the different inclinations of the mind that are built up to create a sense of self. Tendencies, the mind then reacts. And so it could be certain kinds of ideas about who I am, or who I ought to be, or who people should think I should be, and so on and so forth. Clinging conditions becoming. So clinging is a process of rationalizing why you crave something. It: I like it, or I am that mind. And clinging is: I like it because, I don't like it because, I am that because. It's the process of taking that craving or resistance and saying I am right because of so-and-so, and so that rationalization, that process of association, that process of saying that I don't like this, and further deepening that process of craving through clinging, creates certain kinds of inclinations in bhava.

So I don't like this because this happened, therefore I am this kind of person, and so I will react from that standpoint. So breaking that apart, I don't like it is the craving, because of so and so is the clinging, therefore I am this person is the becoming. I will act in this way is the birth of reaction.

Craving conditions clinging. So craving is understood in threefold. There is the craving for sensual experience. There's the craving for existence, the craving to become something. And the craving for non-existence, the craving for not becoming something, to prevent something from happening. Wanting to prevent something from happening. So this kind of craving conditions the clinging. We'll go deeper into this as we go on. So it says, feeling conditions craving, contact conditions feeling, mind and body conditions contact, consciousness conditions mind and body. If asked, has consciousness a condition for its existence?

You should answer yes. If asked what conditions consciousness, you should answer, mind and body conditions consciousness. So for Ananda, he didn't see, or he wasn't able to recognize, his ignorance. So we talk about the four kinds of, let's say, competencies, which is unconsciously incompetent, consciously incompetent, consciously competent and unconsciously competent. And so what that refers to is the ignorance of not realizing you don't know the Four Noble Truths, not even introduced to the Four Noble Truths, have no introduction to understanding what the Four Noble Truths are. Then you realize, oh, I don't know what the Four Noble Truths are. I've been introduced to them, but I can't understand them. And then there comes a point where right view comes to be, and then you start to slowly understand the Four Noble Truths until the Four Noble Truths becomes your way of living.

And that's the fourth. So for Ananda, he was still unconsciously incompetent. He was not able to recognize the ignorance, and therefore wasn't able to recognize the formations that were conditioned by ignorance, of consciousness. And what's interesting here is the Buddha says mind and body, or nama-rupa, mentality materiality, is conditioned by consciousness. But consciousness is also conditioned by mind and body. And we'll take a look at why that's the case. But there's an interdependency between nama-rupa and vinnana, or mentality materiality and consciousness.

Thus, Ananda, mind and body conditions consciousness, and consciousness conditions mind and body. Mind and body conditions contact. Contact conditions feeling. Feeling conditions craving. Craving conditions clinging. Clinging conditions becoming. Becoming conditions birth. Birth conditions aging and death. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and distress, suffering, comes into existence. I have said birth conditions aging and death, and this is the way that this is the way that should be understood. If, Ananda, there were no birth at all anywhere of anybody or anything, of devas, to the deva state, of humans, of quadrupeds, of birds, of reptiles.

If there were absolutely no birth at all of all these things, then with the absence of all birth, the cessation of birth, could aging and death appear? No. No. Therefore, Ananda, just this is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for aging and death, namely birth. I have said, becoming conditions birth. If there were absolutely no becoming in the world of sense desires, of form or formless world, could birth appear?

No. Therefore, just this is the condition of birth, namely becoming. If there were absolutely no clinging, sensual clinging, clinging to views, to rites and rituals, to personality belief, could becoming appear? No. Now we're talking about four types of clinging within upadana. Clinging to sensual experience, clinging to views, clinging to rites and rituals, and clinging to self-view.

So what is the clinging to sense experience? That is where the process of associating sensual experiences through craving. I like this particular food because my mother used to make it a certain way. And so I make an association. And so I cling to that experience. I like this particular music because I grew up listening to this kind of music. And so when I turn a certain age, all the other music that the youngsters listen to is terrible. It's trash.

Right? It's the clinging to the associations of that sound, of that experience. So sensual experience, you know, when we look at the supermarkets or the malls or television or advertising, what is advertising doing? It's creating or facilitating the process of clinging to sensual experiences. They use bright colors. They use certain kinds of words. They use certain kinds of things that enchant the senses and say, I want that. That craving is there. And then when you have that, you cling to that experience and you say, that's my favorite.

I like this particular kind of food. I like Coke, but I don't like Pepsi. Right? Or I like jazz, but I don't like classical music. Or I like this particular aroma, but not that aroma. That process of clinging is that process of associating with that. So we talk about rationalizing, right? The because, the reason why you crave something, is that process of clinging.

Then we have clinging to views, types of wrong views. Don't worry, we're not going to go through all of them. But clinging to views is the clinging to certain opinions, clinging to certain ideas, clinging to certain kinds of concepts. You know, so I don't like this person because they're so-and-so and I identify with this particular view. They think this way but I think different way. And so I hold on to my view. My favorite sports team is this, but they are the rivals, so I hate them, right? Or I subscribe to this particular religion, and therefore all other religions are wrong.

So this idea, or I subscribe to this particular political ideology, and so everybody else who doesn't is an idiot, right? So this kind of rationalization is a type of clinging to views. But there's also another kind of clinging to views, which is, of course, we talk about wrong views. So clinging to wrong views prevents the mind from experiencing right view. And we talked about right view a little bit. We talked about the mundane right view, which had to do with the understanding that there is merit. There is meaning in giving. There is a cause and effect. There is karma. There's a process of rebirth. There is mother and father, who we provide gratitude for because they brought us into this life so we could experience the Dhamma.

There are teachers out there who know the Dhamma and who have perfected the Dhamma and so on. So in the Buddha's time, we talked about, you know, we just mentioned there were 62 different types of view, wrong view, which had to do with the idea of what is self, what is the world and so on. But during the Buddha's time, there were certain contemporary philosophies that were out there. And there were six main ones, which are considered within the context of the Dhamma to be wrong view. So these six views that were propagated at that time were materialism, amoralism, eternalism, the idea of asceticism, the idea of fatalism, and the idea of skepticism, like nihilism, which was nothing really matters.

Just live to feed the senses. There's no meaning in giving. There's no meaning in being right or wrong. Take, take, take as much as you want, you know, and gratify the senses. And so with that particular kind of mode of thinking, what happens is the mind craves more and more to the point that it acts in a way that has misconduct, that breaks the precepts. It doesn't matter if you have to break the precepts. Take, take, take. Enjoy the senses. This is materialism. But we understand from the context of the Dhamma that every action that we have has a reaction, has a consequence.

So this is in direct violation of the idea of causation, as we understand it through the perspective of the Dhamma. And then amoralism, the idea that nothing... part of that materialism, but it's like there's neither good nor bad. It's just whatever you think it is. It's just whatever you think you should do is what you should do. And so that idea says that there's no cause there. There's no cause for certain actions. Everything that you do is just in that moment and whatever seems right in that moment is right. So it doesn't take into account what is wholesome or what is unwholesome.

It doesn't have that right view that allows you to see what is wrong view and right view. And so this goes in direct violation of what we understand in the perspective of the Dhamma, that there are certain wholesome things and there are certain unwholesome things. The wholesome things are related to right intention, right speech and right action, and that has a direct correlation to how people and the world respond to you. So if you have wholesome mindsets, then you will see the world in a wholesome way and you will be more harmonious.

And then people around you respond in a harmonious way. They might not initially, but eventually they either go away and don't bother you or they respond in kind. But here what it says is there's no effect of good and bad actions. It doesn't matter. And then you have this view of eternalism. This idea that there are certain kinds of elements that are eternal. It says that the four elements, it says that the body, it says that the world, certain elements making up this world, all of that is eternal.

And so what that view says is, if somebody decides to attack another person, they're not really dead. So if I kill you, you're not really dead. So it doesn't really matter. Obviously, we know from the perspective of the Dhamma, killing somebody with that intention has terrible consequences. So this view is the view that there is this soul that is unaffected by fire, unaffected by wind, unaffected by weapons. So if somebody actually kills you, they're not killing you, they're killing what is surrounding the soul. But you live on, you continue to live on. And so this propagates all kinds of justifications for why we should kill in the name of this or in the name of that or whatever it might be.

The idea of eternalism is in direct violation of the understanding of impermanence. Everything that arises, every conditioned experience that arises, passes away. Then you have the view of fatalism. So the way that fatalism is understood is everything is predetermined. It's like a ball of yarn. It's a ball of string and you just roll it and then it just continues to unfurl, unroll, until it doesn't, until that's the end. Which means everything is predetermined.

When you have an experience, it is predetermined. The pleasant experiences are predetermined, the unpleasant experiences are predetermined. So you don't have a choice in that moment. Everything is already predetermined. Even your suffering is determined, even your awakening is determined, according to this view. His name was Ajita Kesakambali. Kesakambali means the blanket of hair. He actually wore a blanket made of human hair.

Anyway, he had this kind of view and he said there's no need to do anything. Everything is already predestined. But what happened to him? He went mad and he drowned himself in a river. He drowned himself in a river. He killed himself. Through the perspective of the Dhamma is there is a choice. Yes, that choice is conditioned by prior causes and conditions, by previous choices you made in the past. But every present moment that is given is an opportunity to make a choice. And that choice is either rooted in the wholesome or the unwholesome.

That means you can continue, a person can continue down a path of being unwholesome, and that leads to further unwholesome consequences. Or a person can let go of that using the 6R's and then come to the wholesome and start to recondition the mind, recondition the synapses, prune away those formations that are rooted in the unwholesome and strengthen those formations that become conditioned by the wholesome. And so this is how there's a process of reconditioning choices. So you always are able to make certain choices in the present moment. Nothing is predetermined.

You have to make the right effort for your awakening. Your awakening isn't just going to come to you. You have to make the effort. And then there's the view of asceticism. This idea came from the Jains. The Jains are still a philosophy that exists today. But the idea is that there is a soul, and that soul collects karmic particles as it reincarnates from one life to another. The way to decondition that soul, the way to clean up that soul, is by doing certain kinds of purificatory practices.

Practices that purify the mind and body and spirit. And the idea is you do this through a process of asceticism. You fast, you wear certain kinds of clothes, you go into the forest, and the idea is that bit by bit you're cleaning away at these particles and then your soul becomes clean and you go into a certain kind of heaven. But the Buddha asked the sect, how do you know how much is left in your balance of karmic particles? Do you know? And they said, no, we can't really answer that. So this idea is that the way that old karma is purified is through continuous asceticism.

Now, the Buddha tried it for himself, right? He had a luxurious life. He gave that up. Then he went into a mode of asceticism, a mode of self-modification. And what he realized is, All that does is create more unpleasant feeling. You're trying to negate the unpleasant feeling with further unpleasant feelings. It doesn't work. It's impractical. And then there's the view of skepticism.

These are the eel wrigglers. Or the people who sit on the fence, right? There's neither this nor that. There's neither a Tathagata nor a Tathagata. There is neither this world nor that world. There is neither, you know, all of these different kinds of ideas. Like, I don't know about it. That's their kind of statement. They're not conclusive about things.

And the main reason why they were like that was because they were afraid to get into arguments. They were afraid to have to come to some kind of standpoint and have to defend it. feet because of not being able to defend that particular viewpoint. But in the perspective of the Dhamma, we know certain things for a fact, which is we understand that there is karma. We understand that there is a process of rebirth. We understand that there is wholesome and unwholesome. We understand certain things. So we are not inconclusive. We're not perplexed by what is wholesome and unwholesome. We actually have a set of guidelines that allow us to know what is wholesome and unwholesome and so on.

So clinging to these kinds of views and the other kinds of views of the 62 wrong views is this part of clinging to views. Clinging to rites and rituals or, as I said yesterday, clinging to rock and roll, right? Do you remember that? Yeah. So clinging to rites and rituals is this idea that you're clinging to certain kinds of observances you believe will lead you to awakening. You believe will lead you to full awakening. That goes away as soon as you realize that when you walk the path of the Eightfold Path and you experience what you experience, that is to say the cessation of suffering in that moment, you experience Nibbana, you realize that this is the path.

No amount of chanting, no amount of prayer, no amount of lighting candles and lamps or anything like that is going to take you to Nibbana. Another understanding of seeing clinging to rites and rituals is this idea or belief in luck and coincidences. There's no such thing, actually, if you look at it from the perspective of the Dhamma. There's no such thing as coincidences.

There's no such thing as luck. Everything arises because of a series of causes and conditions. So what you might call luck is just you reaping the interest on your bank balance of karma. That's all it is. But people can take that to be luck. So they do certain kinds of rituals, they do certain kinds of prayers with the idea that that's going to mitigate their karma, the idea that that's going to take away their karma. But as we understand, karma is to be felt and experienced. That's the only way it runs through its course. And how you take it will either mitigate the intensity of that karma or actually increase the intensity. I mean by that is karma arises as an experience to be felt, right?

Good, bad, or indifferent, whatever kind of karma arises, it arises as an experience through your sixth sense basis. Now, you can perceive that as an experience that is me, mine, or myself, and crave or resist against it, and therefore cause more clinging, more being, and then further birth of further karma, to that repository of karma, which means that that new karma becomes old karma to be experienced at a future time. But if you take that experience and see it for what it is, that is to say you have yoniso manasikara, attention rooted in reality, you see it as an impermanent process not worth holding on to and therefore not to be considered as personal. As soon as you see it in that way, that means there's no craving there, no clinging there, there's no resistance there. So that karma, that old karma, arises in the process of feeling but then it dissipates, the intensity of that dissipates. So how do we contextualize this? When you're meditating and you have hindrances, what are those hindrances actually? They're feeling, their experience. You're experiencing an unpleasant feeling in the form of that hindrance. That hindrance arose because

at some point you a precept. So the breaking of that precept was a certain kind of karma and the effect of that is the old karma that you're experiencing in the form of the hindrance. How do you deal with that hindrance? Do you push it? Do you hold on to it? Do you ignore it? Do you deflect it? Or do you acknowledge it and see it for what it is and let go using right effort? Let go using the six Rs. What you'll notice is when you do six Rs, the hindrance might come up again but the next time it comes up what happens it becomes weaker and eventually you six are again and it becomes weaker and weaker and until it no longer comes into the mind in the same way in your daily living whatever you're experiencing is old karma the only way to mitigate that the only way to let it go is to see it as being are in your perception to it as being me, mine, or myself.

As soon as you do that, that experience might arise again, but the next time it won't be as intense. It won't be as gripping on the mind. And then finally, we have clinging to self-view. There are 20 different basic types of self-view. That's the five aggregates multiplied by four specific kinds of self-view. What does that mean? The idea that the five aggregates are the self, the five aggregates are in the self, the self is in the five aggregates, or the self is separate from the five aggregates.

So the idea that this body is self, or this feeling is self, or this perception is self, or this formation is self, or this consciousness is self, and so on and so forth. But that goes away when you eradicate the idea that there is a belief in a personal self. Yes, conceit might still arise until you become an Arahant, which is the identification with the five aggregates. That's just an intrinsic, implicit, almost automatic process until you start to recognize it and let that go. But the idea that you believe that any of these five aggregates is a self or contains a self or is contained in a self or is separate from a self goes away.

The clinging to self-view goes away upon stream entry. Clinging conditions, oh, here we are, clinging conditions becoming. If there were absolutely no clinging, sensual clinging, clinging to views, to rites and rituals, or to personality belief, could becoming appear? No. Craving conditions clinging. If there were absolutely no craving for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, mind objects, could clinging appear?

No. Now, craving can come in the form of, I like this, I don't like this, or I am this. Craving can come in the form of, I want to become this, or I don't want to become this anymore. Craving that you might experience is somebody mowing the lawn outside, and you're listening to that and you get distracted by that and you get irritated by that, and now you're clinging, you're craving, or you're having resistance to that, and now you're clinging to that and saying something like, they shouldn't be mowing the lawn while I'm meditating, don't they know that we're meditating, right? And then there's this whole concept of rationalizing that, and that I am a meditator, I've come here on retreat, and so this becoming, I am, you know. And then maybe you get angry about that, and then you have a reaction, hopefully you didn't, but maybe there was a reaction that came about, right? And so that's the birth of reaction, which leads to further suffering. But if you saw that experience as, okay, here is an experience, here is the sound of the lawnmower.

It's an irritating experience. It's an unpleasant experience, but it's a feeling that is arising and passing away. If you really understood that those are just sound waves coming to be and going away in every moment, then it's just sound. You know, what about the pleasant sound that you have of birds chirping? Do you get upset by those? That's also just sound, just impersonal sound. If you have that understanding, then there's no craving nor resistance to any of the sensual experiences.

Now the craving to become, what is that? I want to be in Dishyana. I want Nibbana. I want to experience cessation. The craving to become is the craving to be in a certain kind of mind state. To be whether it's in this life or a future life. What is the craving to not become? longer want to be this person this idea that there is a self that is moody i don't want to be moody anymore there's a difference here there's chanda which is the wholesome cultivated intention to continue to be something better for the purposes of evolution in the dhamma but if the mind obsesses over that and says i don't want to be here for example even in the experience of Jana, you say, well, I'm in the first Jana, but I don't want to be in the first Jana anymore.

I want to be in the second jhana. That not wanting to be in the first jhana is a craving for not becoming. And so now you want to be somewhere else. So these are like two sides of the same coin. Feeling conditions craving. If there were absolutely no feeling, feeling born of eye contact, ear contact, nose contact, tongue contact, body contact, mind contact, in the absence of all feeling, with the cessation of feeling, could craving appear?

No. So you can 6R becoming. You can 6R the habitual tendencies. You can 6R clinging, craving. Can you 6R the birth of action? No. You think about dependent origination like a river. It continues on and then there's a waterfall. That bend towards the waterfall is the becoming and then going down the waterfall is the birth of action. Once you have produced the action, can you recall that action back? You can't.

But you can 6R the sense of I am this, the sense of habitual tendency, I do it this way, it is my way, and so on and so forth. You can 6R that. You can 6R the rationalizations of why you like something or you don't like something. You can 6R the tension that's a manifestation of the craving.

Can you 6R feeling? You can't 6R feeling, but you can 6R the underlying tendencies that happen in feeling. And what do I mean by that? There are seven underlying tendencies. What's seven? The underlying tendency towards craving, the underlying tendency towards aversion, the underlying tendency towards views, the underlying tendency towards doubt, the underlying tendency towards becoming, the underlying tendency towards conceit, and the underlying tendency towards ignorance.

Now that happens when there is a painful feeling, there is the underlying tendency towards aversion. When there is a pleasant feeling, there is an underlying tendency towards craving. That can happen automatically if the mind is not mindful. And that underlying tendency is the intersection between feeling and craving. So if there is an underlying tendency towards craving and you act upon it, then you have full-blown craving that says, I don't like this. However, you might say, feeling, and then you let that go, and there's no craving. But if you say, I see this unpleasant feeling, and it's irritating, and I don't like it, that process is the process of underlying tendency towards craving. It's that bend that happens towards craving.

So when you have certain attainments, certain underlying tendencies go away. For example, the underlying tendency towards doubt goes away when you become a stream-enterer. The underlying tendency to wrong view goes away. The underlying tendency to craving and aversion goes away when you become an anagami. And the underlying tendency of becoming, the underlying tendency towards ignorance, and the underlying tendency towards conceit goes away once you have arahatship. So in the same way that's the case, certain kinds of craving go away. Sensual craving goes away when you become an anagami, when you become an arahant.

Certain kinds of clinging go away with certain kinds of attainment. Clinging to sensual pleasures obviously goes away when you become an anagami. Clinging to certain kinds of view go away when you have established right view. Clinging to rites and rituals go away when you get into stream entry. Clinging to self you goes away when you have stream entry. So what happens is as you get each attainment, bit by bit, you are whittling away at the craving, the different types of craving, the different types of clinging, the different types of becoming.

And so the more you 6R that, the more you use right effort, the more you become mindful, the more you have yoniso manasikara, attention rooted in reality, there is non-use of craving and therefore non-use of clinging and therefore non-use of becoming. And eventually they fade away as the fetters drop, as you experience certain kinds of attainments.

So when it comes to feeling, you can't 6R the feeling. You're feeling pain in the meditation. You can't 6R the pain away, but you can 6R the underlying tendency towards aversion for that painful feeling. So it's not the pleasantness of an experience or the painfulness of the experience that's the problem or the trouble. It's how the mind takes it, how the mind perceives it, that should be understood, and if needed, to be let go of. Therefore, Ananda, just this is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for craving, namely feeling. Appropriation conditions avarice. Avarice conditions guarding of possessions. And because of the guarding of possessions, there arise the taking up of stick and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying, and other evil, unskilled states.

So here the Buddha is talking about what happens when you have an experience of craving. So craving conditions seeking. The hungry ghost mind that's always looking for something. You see, when we talk about the different kinds of realm experiences, it's not just existential experiences, it's also psychological. If you have a hungry ghost kind of experience in the mind, a hungry ghost kind of psychology, you're always dissatisfied with everything. You're always seeking for something. And then that seeking conditions acquisition.

That acquisition process happens in clinging. Clinging, which is upadana. Upadana means the fuel for something. And that is the process of acquiring something, the process of acquiring an identity, the process of acquiring a favorite of something in the form of different kinds of sense pleasures. That kind of acquisition also can be acquiring wealth, acquiring power, acquiring status, acquiring fame. You have all of these things. And then that conditions how you make your decisions.

You decide in the form of trying to keep your acquisitions and not to let them disappear, not to lose them. From that, there comes lustful desire. Now, lustful desire here is really the action or the birth of reactivity to hoard that wealth, to hoard that power, to hoard that status, toward that fame. And from that lustful desire, there comes attachment. Now you attach to these things. So attachment is one thing and conditioning is another. When we talk about certain attachments, they arise as a result of conditioning.

Attachment itself is the process of identifying with something. This is my wealth. This is my status. This is my fame. This is my identity. But that's conditioned by previous choices you've made in the past. So I am like this because of certain choices that I've made in the past. And then from that attachment comes appropriation. Now that appropriation says, I have this much and you have that much. And that gives rise to avarice. I want what you have because I don't have enough.

So I crave for attention from you. I crave for wealth. I steal your wealth. I crave for status. I bring you down and bring up myself. All kinds of different things that people seek. And then from that is the guarding of possessions. Now I have this wealth and I'm keeping it. I have this power and so I'm keeping it. So when you see certain kinds of tyrants of the past, they had enormous amounts of power. What did they do? They tried to hoard it and they tried to invade other countries, invade other cities, and say, now this is mine. And so from there comes the taking up of stick and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying, and other evil unskilled states.

If only the world leaders knew this. I have said all these evil unskilled states arise because of the guarding of possessions. For if there were absolutely no guarding of possessions, would there be the taking of stick or sword? No. Therefore, Ananda, the guarding of possessions is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for all of these evil, unskillful states. I have said avarice conditions the guarding of possessions.

Appropriation conditions avarice. Attachment conditions appropriation. Lustful desire conditions attachment. Decision making conditions lustful desire. Acquisition conditions decision making. Seeking conditions acquisition. I have said craving conditions seeking. If there were no craving for sensual pleasures, no craving for existence, no craving for annihilation, would there be any seeking out? No. Therefore, Ananda, craving is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for all seeking. Thus, these two things become united in one by feeling.

In other words, this whole process happens because you take a feeling, the vedana, which is an experience. All of that is unified in the pleasant feeling or in the unpleasant feeling or in the neutral feeling, the mind taking it personally, and from that becomes this whole chain of dependent origination from craving, clinging, becoming, to birth of action and suffering.

Yes. So what this also talks about is mental proliferation. Papancha. So the process of clinging is a process of papancha. It starts from craving and then further deepens. And then there's becoming. So all these, that is craving, clinging, and becoming, constitute prapancha, constitute mental proliferation, which seeks out things. It's thinking about this or that, thinking about how do I get that, you know, how do I trick that person, or, you know, how do I get to this jhana, or what do I do now? And all of these other kinds of mental proliferations are basically the stuff that we've been talking about in this sutta. I have said contact conditions feeling. Therefore, contact is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for feeling.

Mind and body conditions contact. He missed something here, right? Sixth sense basis. Ananda wasn't able to recognize the sixth sense basis. But what we do understand is that the sixth sense basis are conditioned by mentality, materiality. So we're going to explore what is mentality materiality now, and we'll realize what that means in the form of the sixth sense basis. Here he says, idea of the body factor? That's a very confusing question.

Contact, feeling, perception, intention, attention. It's through these processes that mind is known. But these processes are dependent upon materiality. Can you experience contact without a body? Can you experience feeling without a body? You can experience mind, you can experience mental contact, but still that is dependent upon what? The processes of the brain, which is the materiality factor.

In other words, the mind factor is one thing, and the brain, which is the materiality, is another. So these processes of the mind, the contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention, are dependent upon the four elements that constitute the body, the rupa. This body that we have here is made up of the earth element, the fire element, the water element, and the air element, or the four states of matter. Solidity, liquidity, or solid state, liquid state, gaseous state, and plasma state. These constitute the experience of the body. And it's only through the processes of the body, that is to say the rupa, that you have an eye, that you have an ear, that you have a nose, that you have a tongue, that you have a body, that you have a brain through which the faculties of mind are able to function.

So that interdependency is also within this process. Mind depends on body for its function, but you can't experience body without mind. Right? So you can't experience, you can experience the sixth sense spaces only through what they're experiencing. That is to say, contact. The eye meets the form and there is eye consciousness. Eye consciousness happens because you're aware that the eye is seeing something and there is contact there. So eye, that is to say the physical eye, is one thing, but the process of contact and feeling, that is the mentality, is another thing. So that process of contact, feeling and perception of the eye and the eye feeling and the eye perception is dependent upon solidity of the eye that is the body.

So mentality is dependent upon the materiality, and you can only experience materiality through the factors of mentality. And that includes the Sixth Sense Basis. Wow. When you gave the factors of mentality, you didn't include consciousness. What consciousness is? Yes. So what I'm saying is contact gives rise to feeling, perception, intention, and attention. Attention is through which consciousness flows.

Which awareness or consciousness flows. So that's how it's understood. Contact also has consciousness. Yeah. Contact has consciousness because the joining of the three, the form and eye consciousness is eye contact, and the way that where you are seeing is the attention through which the consciousness flows. Right? So we have the five aggregates, which is form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness. So intention: there's the intention, and there is the formations.

It's through wanting to say something that you have verbal formations coming to be so that you can express speech. It's through the process of making a bodily movement that there is an intention to move, and through that bodily intention, bodily formations flow. And so mental formations, which allow you to feel and perceive, arise dependent upon contact. In fact, all, that is to say, all formations, intention, feeling, perception, are dependent upon contact.

When contact arises, there is feeling, and tied to that feeling, there is perception. Tied to that feeling and perception, there is consciousness of that feeling and perception. And tied to that is the intention to do something. Only when there is contact with the mind, or contact with the five physical senses, can then intention to say something or intention to do something arise. So that process of karma also arises dependent upon contact. If there was no contact, no karma would flow because karma is experienced as vedana. A pleasant experience, unpleasant experience, or neutral experience.

There were other hands that were raised up. Yeah. So you gave the example of an eye, a form. How does that work with a mind object? So a concept arises, a thought arises, and that's the object, and then everything else is the same. Your object in meditation arises, and that's a mental object. Mind makes contact with that. And there is the feeling of loving kindness. I think you had a question. You were going to raise your hand. No? Okay.

All right. So if we, now with all of that background information, let's go back to what he asked. He said, "If you didn't have contact, feeling, perception, intention, could you experience a body?" No. Body to the materiality, would there be any grasping at sensory reaction on the part of the mind factor? You couldn't, because the sixth sense bases are the physical materiality. It's through them that you experience the factors of mentality. If you didn't have those, would you be able to experience mind or the factors of mind? So then he says:

By whatever properties, features, signs, or indications the mind factor is conceived of, in the absence of these, is there any contact to be found? So the mind factor is conceived of, made up of contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention. Or the five aggregates, right? Or four of the five aggregates, because you have form. In the absence of that, can there be contact? In other words, if you didn't have mentality, would you be able to have contact?

No. Be aware of that contact. Then Ananda, just this, namely mind and body is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for all contact. I have said consciousness conditions mind and body. Now the Buddha is going to go to the macro level of understanding dependent origination. Because what he said is consciousness conditions. So first let's take up the first part of that: would there be further development of that into an embryo?

You need the gandaba. You need the consciousness for it to evolve into an embryo and a fetus and so on and so forth. So if it was not there, it would not develop. Or if consciousness, having entered the mother's womb, were to be deflected, would mind and body come to birth in this life? So now there is the embryo. There is the fetus. But if there was something that happened that caused the consciousness to depart from that fetus, would that fetus continue to grow? It would be stillborn.

Or if consciousness of such a tender young being, boy or girl, were thus caught off, would mind and body grow, develop and mature? If the child or even an adult were killed, that consciousness departs from the body. So what happens to the body? Does it continue to grow? Eventually it decays.

Just the nails grow, right? Maybe they have the experience of the asaniyata beings. Unconscious. Like there's no perception going on, nothing going on. But there is still life there. So when we're talking about consciousness in this context, we're talking about life. If the life descends, there will be growth of the mind and body. Therefore, Ananda, just this, namely consciousness, is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition of mind and body.

I have said. Now he's still on the macro level. He says, I have said, mind and body conditions consciousness. If consciousness did not find a landing place in mind and body, would there subsequently be an arising and coming to be of birth, aging, death, and suffering? No. So consciousness to be experienced is dependent on the factors of mind and body.

And to experience mind and body, you need consciousness, the ability to be aware of it through the process of contact and attention and so on and so forth. So this interdependency: consciousness depends upon mind and body because it can only be experienced through the factors of mind and body. But for mind and body to arise and to develop, it requires consciousness.

On the micro level, this is also very much true, because the consciousness that arises is dependent upon formations. Now, there are certain formations that arise. Those formations can be laced or tinged with craving, with wrong views, with ignorance, with conceit. They give rise to or activate a certain kind of consciousness, which here when we talk about consciousness, we're talking about as cognition, to cognize something. That's already tinged with craving. It's inclined towards seeing it as this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

And so that conditions the sense spaces in mentality materiality, which already conditions the way that contact and feeling is perceived. So if formations have craving in them, if formations have identification in them, that is to say they are conditioned by, laced by, hindered by, fettered by craving and identification, then the rest of that series, that is to say the cognition, that can be corrupted by the upakilesas. And there are 16 upakilesas, which I'm not going to talk about here. You can look for it for yourself. They can give rise to a certain kind of mindset in cognition, which then perceives or which experiences contact and feeling in a certain way. So if there are formations rooted in jealousy, or choices rooted in jealousy in the past, then it cognizes in such a way that it's always comparing whether I'm better than this person or they're better than me.

If there's anger there, if there's hatred there. That is to say, the unwholesome roots: greed, hatred, and delusion. These are conditioned by ignorance, which are then conditioned by the taints. Go ahead. thing as impersonal, you don't take even contact as personal. And so therefore, the feeling that arises is just vibration of sound or photons or taste molecules or odor molecules or bodily vibrations or circuitry in the brain that causes thoughts to arise and things like that. If you see it all as this impersonal process, then you're not going to say that: this is me, this is mine, this is myself. You're not going to say, I want more of that. You just see things as they are.

So the big challenge then is to develop that as a skill that is constantly with you as you're experiencing consciousness. Right. And that's facilitated through the process of the 6R's. When you start to see that your choices are starting to get rooted in craving, you can recognize, oh, here is a percolation of craving, and you can relax it and let it go using the 6R's, and then respond or make choices that are rooted in wisdom and compassion. What that does is, then the next set of formations, which are conditioned by the intention, conditioned by that choice, are now further steeped or further laced or further rooted in non-greed, in non-hatred, in non-delusion, that is to say, in wisdom, in compassion.

And so when that happens, these get strengthened, and those formations, through non-use and non-activation, because you don't make choices in the unwholesome, start to get pruned away, and there is a remainderless fading away of craving and conceit and views. Is that kind of how we move through the jhanas also? Kind of the same way? I don't know if that makes sense. arise is because of causes and conditions. All you're doing is placing, you have the intention to place your attention on an object of meditation. That means now you have let go of the hindrances.

You have let go of any kind of clinging or grasping at sensual experiences. Your mind becomes collected. So the formations that arise because of that arise as a result of you making the choice to be collected. The more you do that. That's why initially in the retreat, when you're in your first retreat, it seems like you're getting into jhanas at a slower pace. But now you've exercised those formations rooted in the experience of that jhana. So it's much easier on your second or third or fourth or fifth retreat, through continual effort and continual practice, to be able to experience that jhana almost instantaneously, because you have formations that are stronger in that choice to be meditative and so on and so forth.

The unwholesome are less or less strong because of what you said proved a way. That's right. So there's this thing called myelination, which Grant talked about at our last retreat, where the neural pathways that aren't used get pruned away. There's actually a cell that goes and trims them away and actually recycles the material, the whatever it is called, the neuromaterial. And so those old pathways, when they're not used, literally disappear through myelination.

If you look it up online, you can actually see a video on YouTube where myelination actually happens with this very, very tiny or highly focused microscope that records the cell doing it. So you actually see it clipped and pulled off away. And so then the stronger patterns that are supported, I guess wholesome in our case, would get larger instead of becoming, you know, being small, actually become kind of main highways. These would be conditioning patterns that become more and more familiar and more accessible, and so this would become skillful mental states or skillful activities, so that at a time of choice it would be just a matter of establishing perhaps that intent and just going directly to that location.

Right, and to those points, that's basically what we're saying then. When you start to let go of the craving and the clinging, you're letting go of those formations, those synapses that continue to fire up that craving, and eventually through non-use they're replaced by, or they're used instead, redirected towards wisdom, towards wise choices. But they're still bhava. So there might be no craving, there might be no clinging, but there can be taking that feeling still as personal. That is to say, I am in this jhana, or I have caused this jhana to be, or I am experiencing this. That sense of identification with the processes of the five aggregates can still lead to a certain kind of bhava.

That is to say, the conceit in I am a good person, or I developed all these wholesome things. So in order to get to arahatship, you have to go from the unwholesome to the wholesome, and then go from the wholesome to not identifying with the wholesome. It's not even my life. When I think about my karma, it's not even my karma per se. When I'm working on my formations, when I'm six-arming formations, etc., these are not my formations. I just kind of inherited these. It's almost like I'm just here for the ride. Right. You are inheriting your karma, as the Buddha says.

But in reality, the karma, the consciousness, the life, all of that is just arising because of impersonal causes and conditions. doing on a day-to-day basis is, you know, clipping away, if you will, at these formations, restructuring this brain so that it acts in a more wholesome way. But it's not. It's just a deck of cards that have been dealt. Never dealt in this life, if you will. Everyone just has different formations that they didn't ask for. That's what they have to work with. So now, in the case of the arahant, right, do they still have formations?

Yes, because those are karmic formations, formations arising because of previous choices made prior to full awakening. They don't produce new formations. They don't produce new karma. But what happens is everything from now on, the ignorance that's there, which conditions the formations, is no longer there. Instead, what is there is wisdom, is right view. arise are conditioned by that right view. But mechanically speaking, they are giving rise to certain kinds of karma. They're karmic formations which give rise to a certain kind of experience down the road of dependent origination. So formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, sixth sense bases, contact, and feeling are all the old karma arising as a result of previous choices made in the past.

At some point. Now, they don't produce any new karma because their mind, their formations, are rooted fully in wisdom, rooted fully in the Eightfold Path. And the cessation of karma is done through the process of the Eightfold Path. That is to say, if you have right intention, it's an intention of letting go automatically, nothing being held on to. Therefore, there's no craving, there's no clinging. The craving and the clinging, the being, are the processes for new karma to arise in the form of birth or reaction, which then causes suffering. And so that suffering becomes the old karma that you experience in that moment, or a subsequent moment, or a subsequent time in the future.

So that delineation point between old karma and new karma is the feeling and the craving. If the feeling, the experience that you're having right now, is old karma, that is to say, it is the effects of previous choices you've made in the past. How you take it will determine whether new karma is produced or you see it as a person falling into other states and being reborn. Thus far extends the way of designation, of concepts. Thus far is the sphere of understanding.

Thus far the round goes, as far as can be discerned in this life, namely to nama rupa, or mentality-materiality, together with consciousness. Self declares the self to be material and limited, considers it to be so either now or in the next world, thinking, though it is not so now, I shall acquire it there. The idea of a soul, the idea of a self, still continues on, so that whole process of reincarnation.

But what does that mean, material and limited? That the idea that the self is this body. And it's limited by this body. That's the self. But what about the self that is material and unlimited? That comes from the idea that myself is this entire universe, material universe. So what about the idea that myself is immaterial and limited?

The soul is contained in the body. It's immaterial, but it's limited within the confines of the body. Some concepts in ancient India had the idea that the soul was at the center of the spiritual heart and was the size of a thumb. Yeah. And then what about immaterial and unlimited? Yes. There's the idea that there's the Atman, which is the soul, and the Brahman, which is the substratum of all creation. The idea is Atman and Brahman, the self and the universe, are one and the same thing. The soul and the substratum of the universe are one and the same thing. Cosmic consciousness. Cosmic consciousness, yes.

We are one. We are one, yeah. And in a way, I think that a lot of people also think that about Nibbana. Yeah. That you end up in some eternal Nibbana state of being. Yeah. But Nibbana, as we know it, is the quenching of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. And it's impersonal. He says the same thing about the other four. He says, in what ways, Ananda, do people regard the self?

They equate self with feeling, saying, feeling is myself. Or to simplify, what he's saying is some people think the self is feeling, or the self is in feeling, or the self is that which feels. be told, Painful feeling is felt, but only neutral feeling. Pleasant feeling is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, bound to decay, to vanish, to fade away, to cease. And so too are painful feeling and neutral feeling. So anyone who, on experiencing a pleasant feeling, thinks, this is myself, must at the cessation of that pleasant feeling think, myself is gone.

And the same with painful and neutral feelings. Thus, whoever thinks feeling is myself is contemplating something in this present life that is impermanent, a mixture of happiness and unhappiness, subject to arising and passing away. Therefore, it is not fitting to maintain feeling is myself. So, we have to understand it from the ancient Indian context. There was an idea of a self. Whether it was in Hinduism or Brahmanism, there's this idea of a self. And that self is Satchit Ananda. That is to say, it is a self that has all-pervading existence, is completely permanent, and is the source of all happiness.

Now, if you were to use that as the touchstone of what is a self, if you use that touchstone for all experience, all your five aggregates, you can see that they are not that self because they are bound to change, they're bound to decay, therefore they're impermanent. And if they're impermanent, pleasant experiences when they go away are painful.

So they're mixed, as the Buddha says, of happiness and unhappiness, subject to arising and passing away. Therefore, it is not fitting to say that feeling is myself or form is myself, or perception is myself, or formations are myself, or consciousness is myself. But anyone who says, feeling is not myself, myself is impercipient, should be asked, if, friend, no feelings at all were to be experienced, would there be the thought, I am?

Should be asked, well, friend, if all feelings absolutely and totally cease, could there be the thought? Because the only way you know you are is dependent upon the process of feeling. If you were to say, I feel, as a self, but you would only know I am when there is a feeling. So the self is dependent, or the idea of the self that feels, is dependent on the process of actually feeling.

The idea is if someone no longer regards form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness as self, no longer regards the self as being impercipient, that there's a self that you cannot experience, but there are these aggregates. So there's a self outside of these aggregates. No longer regards that, and no longer regards that the self has a nature to have form, and no longer regards that the self has a nature to feel or to perceive or to have intention or to be aware.

He clings to nothing in this world. And so by not clinging, he is not excited by anything. And not being excited, he gains personal liberation, and he knows: Birth is finished. The holy life has been led. Done was what had to be done. There is no more coming to being. And if anyone were to say to a monk whose mind was thus freed, you tell an arahant this, the Tathagata exists after death. That would be seen by him as a wrong opinion and unfitting.

Likewise, the Tathagata does not exist, both exists and does not exist, neither exists nor does not exist after death. He would see all of that as wrong opinion. Why so? As far, Ananda, as designation and the range of designation reaches, as far as language and the range of language reaches. Now, I brought this question up to you at the Easter retreat. The definition of what is a being in the sense of a satta means a being. Not the being in terms of becoming, but a being in the sense of a personality, like an individual. How is that satta, that being, defined?

A being is one who has craving or attachment or identification with one or more of the five aggregates. But if the Tathagata or an arahant no longer has craving and clinging or identification for any of the five aggregates, are they a being or a non-being? They are awake. So all that doesn't matter to them, because, oh, that presupposes that there's a self there. That presupposes that there's a being there. But if there's no longer anything, you can't even say that there's no longer a being. There's no longer a non-being. To say that there was a non-being means there was a being which no longer became a non-being.

Does that make sense? Alright, we're going to get into some other things. How is your energy level? You guys are full? We'll continue these parts tomorrow and then we'll continue with whatever else we have. Goodbye. All right, let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free. May 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, and Nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.