Mumbai Retreat February 2025 | Day 2 - Dealing with Hindrances

Can everybody hear me okay? Yeah? All right. Today is what Bhante Vimalaramsi would call the second day blues. And usually that's because the second day of practice, as I was saying yesterday, can lead to sloth and torpor and many other hindrances. So I hope you've taken my suggestions to heart and given it some space, given it some time.

Over the next couple of days, the hindrances, especially sloth and torpor, will start to subside. Today we're going to talk about distractions and hindrances. There are five basic hindrances: sloth and torpor, restlessness and doubt. Craving is where the mind starts to get attracted to something, whether it's, let's say, some kind of beautiful piece of music that's playing in the background, or maybe some great fragrance from the kitchen reaches the hall and now you're thinking about food or what's for lunch or whatever it might be.

Aversion is, it's got a sense of, I don't want this. It's a sense of repulsion. It pushes things away. Around in the hall, and you're meditating, and the sound of them walking hits your ears, and you're thinking, I wish they were walking more silently or quietly, and you get irritated by that. So that's the aversion. You don't like the experience that's happening right now.

Sloth and torpor. Sloth is like a heaviness, in the body or heaviness in the mind. And torpor is where there's a dullness. The mind isn't as clear. There's a fog or a haze in the mind. And nothing is very clear in terms of what is present in the mind and what is not present in the mind.

And then there's restlessness. It's actually restlessness and remorse. Restlessness is like an anxiety about the future. It's a worry about what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. What's the interview going to look like? What do I tell Delson? What were the questions again? I hope I don't mess the questions up. All of these kinds of thoughts that might come up. Remorse is more about thinking about the past. So that's past regrets and getting caught up in those regrets and getting caught up in, oh, I should have said this or I should have done that. Or maybe you were having a conversation and you forgot to say something.

You're like, maybe I should have said that or maybe I should have done this. And doubt. There's two kinds of doubt. The first is doubt in the teaching itself, which is more like, for me. And you can't really do much about that except have an open mind to actually try and experiment for yourself whether this process works or not.

But in terms of the hindrances, when we're talking about doubt, it's a certain level of uncertainty of what states are present and what states are not present. There's a, you know, you're not sure whether you're in joy or you're experiencing whatever it is. So these are the five basic hindrances, and there are antidotes to each of these hindrances, which we will go through now. Before we do that, I want to contextualize something else. There's something called the seven factors of awakening. They're just basically qualities of the mind that you can bring up, and the seven factors are mindfulness, discernment, energy, joy, tranquility, collectedness and equanimity.

With the exception of mindfulness, the other six of these seven enlightenment factors are basically helping you balance the energy in your meditation. When your meditation becomes dull, you can use the more invigorating enlightenment factors to bring a more balanced state. When your mind has too much energy and there is restlessness, you can use the quieter, more tranquil aspects of the enlightenment factors to balance that out. So what am I talking about? With the exception of mindfulness, remember mindfulness is remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. So in other words, you're just in total observation mode.

You're observing without an agenda, observing without finding a goal, observing without looking for something, just observing, pure observation. And in that pure observation, you notice, okay, mind's attention has moved. Mindfulness. The knowing that mind's attention has moved is discernment. So, discernment allows you to know what state of mind you are currently in. Oh, there's craving here. Okay, the mind is getting caught up in thoughts of so-and-so.

Or, oh, there's sloth and torpor here, happening right now. So that's discernment. The ability to discern, the ability to perceive, the perception of what is present in mind and what is not present in mind. That is discernment. Energy. This is translated from the Pali word virya. Virya is to make an effort. It's strength. It's energy. I'm going to put my energy into this, and that is the general understanding of virya, the traditional understanding of virya, but it can be more nuanced than that. You can utilize energy in a way to bring up or elevate the mind out of the dullness and the slow sort of movement of the mind, or you can use energy in a way to

expand the mind, bring a little bit of spaciousness to the mind, bring a little bit of relaxation to the mind. So energy is like a dial. How much energy do you want in the meditation? That is dependent upon your intention, which is your choice, and your attention, how you utilize your attention. So I'm going to explain that, but let me go through each of the enlightenment factors. So now we have energy.

So that energy then leads to joy. What do we mean by joy? It comes from the word piti. Piti is experienced both mentally and physically. It can manifest as warmth or heat in the body. It can manifest as this sort of rising energy throughout the body. It can manifest as vibrations in the body. You think about when you are extremely happy, how does that feel in the heart? There's a glow in the heart. When you feel extremely happy, how does the mind feel? It's elevated. It's light. It's clear. Let's say there's an experience of enjoying the moment.

That's where the word joy is there. Enjoying the moment, really relishing what is happening, taking an interest, having an interest in whatever is happening. And then that leads to tranquility. Tranquility and joy are interrelated, interconnected. When the mind and the body feel joy, they are uplifted. And in being uplifted, there's a feeling of relaxation. There's a feeling of calm.

When you're feeling happy, when you're feeling in a process of joy, you will notice that you're also relaxed, relaxing consciously, just as you would using the four R's, using right effort. You notice that in that spaciousness there's a level of joy, there's a level of upliftedness, there's a level of relief, and this relief ultimately does lead to a greater degree of joy. This tranquility then leads us into collectedness. Collectedness is essentially, now you're paying attention to my words.

Hopefully, you guys are. That means your attention is on my voice right now. Your attention is collected. It's orbiting around my voice. I like to use the word anchor or orbit, and I'll tell you why shortly. I just want to go through these. Then that leads to something called equanimity. Equanimity is used in so many different contexts and in so many different spiritual traditions, and they all point to the same thing, which is a mind that is unperturbed, immovable, a mind that is unshaken by whatever is arising in the meditation. A detached observer that sees things as they are without getting caught up one way or the other.

What do I mean by that? If there's a pleasant sensation, the mind is aware, okay, there's a pleasant sensation. It doesn't follow that pleasant sensation and try to keep that pleasant sensation going. It just is observing: here's a pleasant sensation arising, here's a pleasant sensation ceasing, falling away, passing away. If there is an unpleasant sensation, the mind doesn't get caught up and say, I don't like this. It just feels uncomfortable. I'm going to push it away.

Instead, because you are in that equanimity, which happens naturally, your mind is able to see the painful experience, the unpleasant sensation, and say here is present an unpleasant experience, and remains unmoved by that, remains unshaken by that. And it just watches that painful sensation arise and then pass away. So this process of meditation, what are we doing when we are actually meditating?

We need a few components when we talk about meditation. The first is: you need an object. In this case, for the beginners, it's this feeling of loving kindness. If you're in the Six Directions, it can be compassion, maybe quiet mind. So you need an object. You need mindfulness. You need attention. You need collectedness. And you need effort.

So, the object, we understand what the object is. What is the mindfulness? The mindfulness is the pure observing of what is happening. There's a tendency for people who start off meditating, having this attitude of, okay, I'm going to meditate and I feel this loving kindness and I'm going to feel it. Now I feel it and it's continuing and it's going away. So I'm going to try to grab onto it and then bring it back. Loving kindness is fading away, I'm going to try to bring back the loving kindness. I'm going to try to bring up the joy again. I'm going to try to think about gratitude or my favorite deity or my spiritual friend or whatever it is that started that process again.

No. If you keep doing that, you're going to be kind of moving in circles. Let the loving kindness pass. It's fine. Let it pass. You notice for a little while the loving kindness is gone. So what do you do? You let go, you relax back into the moment and allow loving kindness to naturally arise again. If that doesn't happen, you wait for a while and then you start the process again. You don't need to immediately do that because all you're going to do is be in this hamster wheel.

And this is why we call samsara a wheel, because we're doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. So just relax into it. So now I have mindfulness of the object. So I have the object. I have mindfulness of the object. What is being mindful of the object? What is it that is mindful of the object? What is it that is directed towards the object? My attention.

What do we mean by attention? You can think of, say, that this is a stage, and this is a stage. The object of meditation is the actor on stage, or the performer on stage. The spotlight that follows the actor is the attention. So attention is how you direct your awareness to something with your intention, so moving around that effort. And whenever the mind remains fixed, that is to say the attention or the spotlight remains fixed on the performer, that's the collectedness, which means you can't bring up collectedness. Collectedness is a result of your mind or the awareness or attention remaining steady and anchored to the object for a certain period of time, until you don't need any more effort. So the effort here, what is the effort that we're using? The four R's. Oh, the actors here, but the spotlights there. What do we do? So now you recognize you're no longer there. So what do you do? You relax, come back, right, and you remain there. That's what you're doing. Another way of looking at collectedness is orbiting. You have a satellite that's orbiting the Earth.

And the gravitational field of the Earth is keeping that in orbit. But if the satellite starts to get too close to the planet, what happens? What does that mean? It means we're trying too hard. We're trying to focus too much on bringing the loving kindness. We're focusing on the feeling of loving kindness. Eventually, the depth of the concentration, the focus, that is to say the gravitational field, causes the satellite to crash land onto the planet. But if I don't have enough energy, and if I don't have enough interest and curiosity of what's going on, what happens? The orbit of the satellite starts to go away from the planet. It starts to drift. It's no longer in orbit of the planet. So what do I do? I have to send someone

or I have to send a drone or whatever to bring it back into orbit. That process that we're doing is the four R's, right? Effort, right effort, is the key. It's the key, it's the center point of this whole practice. The Buddha talked about four noble truths. The four noble truths are dukkha. One is dukkha, suffering. There is suffering in life. What is that suffering? We will get into it later, but basically: discomfort, anxiety, restlessness, depression, sadness, grief, longing, despair, painful sensations in the body, things that you want aren't coming to you, things that you don't want are coming to you. These are the parts of suffering, dukkha. The cause of dukkha, that's the second noble truth, the cause and condition of dukkha. Is that the standard understanding of the Four Noble Truths?

There's a deeper layer to this, which we will explore in subsequent talks. But that craving, what is that craving we're talking about? Getting caught up, taking things personally, instead of seeing everything as an impersonal process. When you don't see that, when you take things personally, that creates dukkha, that gives rise to dukkha. is the cessation of that dukkha.

The cessation of dukkha is the experience of letting go. The experience of relief. Imagine you are holding on to a hot coal and you drop it. How do you feel? Initially, you feel like, oh, that's a lot of pain, but as soon as you drop it, you feel relief. Or you've been holding on to a weight for an extended period of time. There's cramps, there's pain, there's this energy of I don't like this.

But as soon as we put the weight down, as soon as we let go of the burden, let go of the weight, we feel relief. That is known as nirodha in the third noble truth. And how do you get to that third noble truth? How do you experience the cessation? How do you experience that relief? The fourth Noble Truth, which is the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path we'll get into a little bit later, but I'm saying that the heart of that path is essentially using the four R's.

Recognizing, relaxing, re-smiling and returning. The beauty of right effort is you don't need to just do it in meditation, or that it doesn't need to be applied only in meditation. Anywhere, wherever you are. Let's say you're in the dining hall and you're eating your breakfast, and a terrible memory comes into mind. What do you do with that? How do you deal with it? Do you allow your mind to get fixated on that and then go into this process of craving and restlessness? Or can you use the right effort and recognize your mind is getting caught up in that? So what are you doing there? Every time your mind gets caught up in that, you notice, oh, I'm recognizing that this is happening right now.

So what is that? That's the first noble truth of dukkha. I'm getting caught up in the terrible memory. I'm getting caught up in the pain of that memory. I'm getting caught up in the suffering of that memory. What is the cause of that memory? It's my undue attention to that memory. By me continuing to pay attention to that memory, I'm causing myself further suffering.

So I recognize that and I let go of that attention. And I bring back that attention to the present moment. And I choose to relax in that present moment. When I relax in that present moment, I experience that tightness and tension loosening up. I experience a spaciousness in my mind. I experience a sort of emptiness in my mind.

And I return back to whatever it is that I was doing, eating my food, or drinking my water, or just sitting there, whatever it is, being in the present moment. When I do this, I have experienced the four Noble Truths. The first Noble Truth was getting caught up in the memory. The second Noble Truth was the undue attention to it.

The third Noble Truth was the relief from it. And I utilized the four R's, which is the fourth Noble Truth, to experience that relief, the cessation of that painful memory. So I can do the same thing in meditation. The hindrance that arises is essentially that painful memory. Whatever that hindrance is, craving, sloth and torpor, restlessness, doubt, aversion, whatever it is, it has come up. That is the present moment. That is the truth of the moment. I am now aware of this first noble truth, which is the hindrance, is present.

I choose to let go of that and relax into the present moment. We'll come back using the mind and body as the anchor. And I cultivate the smile, which lets me experience the joy, the piti, which elevates the mind. Relief. When I relax and re-smile, I experience relief and I come back to the object. So in that, I'm experiencing all four Noble Truths. The first Noble Truth was the hindrance. The second Noble Truth was my continuous attention on that hindrance.

The third Noble Truth was the relief from that hindrance. The fourth is using the four R's to come back to the object. So what are the different antidotes that we can use for these different kinds of hindrances that might come up? Let's take sloth and torpor, because that's probably the one that's the most dominating in people's meditation initially.

What does sloth and torpor feel like? Sloth and torpor is that heaviness, that dullness in mind. It feels like your mind is in molasses, and it's just slowly moving. So how do you deal with it? You can become mindful of it. So immediately you recognize, oh, I'm stuck in the sloth and torpor. How do I deal with the sloth and torpor? I use the three elevating enlightenment factors, the invigorating enlightenment factors. What are those?

Discernment. First, I'm aware there's sloth and torpor here. Energy. I notice my energy is lacking. So what do I do? I can bring slightly more focus into my object. Think about your attention like an aperture of a camera lens. The more focused I am, the more directed I am to my object. The less I'm focused, then I get out of orbit. It's all over the place, of what's going on. So I make the effort to bring interest.

That is the joy. I make an effort to bring more curiosity. That is the discernment. So joy, piti, is actually taking interest in the object, enjoying the object, relishing in the object. I decide that my mind is not enjoying the process enough, so I'm going to make an effort to concentrate a little bit more on the object. Fix my aperture.

Close in, hone in with my concentration, with my attention on the feeling of loving kindness. Not too much. Just little tiny adjustments. And I bring curiosity and interest into that. And when I do that, the sloth and torpor starts to go from this sludge to evaporating, but surely to where the mind is now more spacious, more nimble. The attention is more nimble. If that doesn't work, that's okay. What do you do? You open your eyes and go for a walk, a brisk walk in fresh air for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, and then come back and meditate again and see how your body is feeling. If that doesn't work, then wash, splash cold water on your face. Go for a 15 to 20 minute nap. If that doesn't work, then just sit through it. You may need to just go through that sloth and torpor, as long as you're not snoring. I think people will tell you if you're snoring.

And sometimes you just have to go through it. And eventually the sloth and torpor sort of evaporates. Restlessness. When you have restlessness, how do you deal with that restlessness? Why does restlessness come? Why does the restlessness arise? Restlessness arises because the mind pushes itself too much. Too much energy in the system, and that manifests as all kinds of thinking and thoughts and ideas and concepts about the future. And then you try to bring your attention back to the loving kindness, but then you think about something else, or you're directing it to a specific person and you think about that person, and then it just goes all over the place.

Because we're trying too hard, we're pushing too much. So how do we deal with it? We use the tranquil enlightenment factors. We bring in tranquility. How do you bring in tranquility? You bring in more space to the mind. You look at the restlessness and you try to bring in a degree or feeling of spaciousness in the mind. Allow the mind to take a step back. Just step back from all of that thought process.

And now you're in observer mode. As you're in observer mode, what you're doing is looking at all of the thoughts like traffic just passing by, like clouds in the sky or cows just going by on the road. Just watching. But not getting caught up in any of them. They're just going. And as we're just observing, we remain detached. We remain just, okay, here it is, like a movie, just watching the movie.

So we're relaxing, and we're bringing a little bit more collectedness. We're starting to bring a little bit more awareness towards our object, slowly and gently. And equanimity. So that silent observer is the equanimity. That silent observer mode is the tranquility. And then redirecting our attention back is using the collectedness. This is how you deal with restlessness. What about craving?

What do we talk about when we say craving? Craving is when I'm attached to a specific sensual experience. Now, this doesn't happen just in meditation. It can happen anywhere. When we're walking, or we're eating, we get some kind of sensual craving. How do you deal with that? Bring in internal joy. Bring in curiosity inside the mind. Find the loving kindness. Find the attention in the feeling of joy. As you do this, your mind starts to become more jhanic.

What is jhana? Jhana is the Pali version of dhyana. Dhyana means to meditate, to internalize, to withdraw the limbs of our attention into our mind. And as we start to find a pleasure that is inside, in the mind, and not connected to or dependent upon any external sources, we get less and less attached, less and less interested in those external sources of pleasure.

Aversion. What is aversion? Aversion is the mind that says, I don't like this. I don't want this. This isn't feeling good to me. I want to push it away. Here, you can use equanimity. Realize or recognize, here is aversion. And again, come back to that silent observer. And let the aversion dissipate. To dissipate, let go of the aversion.

And in its place, bring a feeling of appreciation, a feeling of loving-kindness. Any of the Brahma Viharas is fine as an antidote to that aversion. And finally, we have doubt, right? The inability to recognize what is present in my mind. Not being able to discern what is wholesome and unwholesome. This you will hear constantly in Buddhism. The wholesome and the unwholesome.

So this is the kusala and the akusala. So how do you know what is a wholesome state? We kind of know conceptually that a wholesome state is loving-kindness. A wholesome state is joy. A wholesome state is a feeling of upliftedness and so on. An unwholesome state, conceptually, is a state of aversion. Any of the five hindrances, a state of bleakness, depression, suffering, and so on and so forth.

But there is a way of identifying them on a more experiential level. The key distinction between the wholesome and the unwholesome feeling is that a wholesome feeling, no matter what it is, will bring expansion in the mind. It will keep the mind spacious. It will keep the mind relaxed, tranquil. It will keep the mind in a space where there's very little that's happening.

There's no tightness and tension. Whereas the unwholesome state will create tightness and tension. You will find that the mind becomes constricted, feels like the mind is honing in on something. So whenever you feel anger, what happens? When you feel anger, you feel the surge of tension throughout the body. You feel a surge of tension throughout the mind.

When you feel sad, when you feel depressed, what happens? You close in. You literally feel that in the body. But when you feel uplifted, when you feel joyful, when you feel relaxed, when you feel calm, how are you? Your body is relaxed. Your mind has a spaciousness. When I say spaciousness, imagine the mind like a clear crystal blue sky, free of any kind of clouds, right? Or you think of a lake.

I had gone to Austria a couple of years ago, and it was this beautiful Catholic monastery that had been renovated into kind of like a resort hotel. And that was booked for the retreat. It was very beautiful. But nearby, there was a lake. And we had a small walk through the trees and then down to this lake. And we sat down, and you could see to one corner all the hills with the cows grazing on them. And then this whole place, just a lake. Stillness in the lake, and for a moment you could see the sky, a cloudless blue sky, reflected on the surface of the still lake. Total tranquility, complete spaciousness. If you just observe that, that is the feeling of being wholesome. That is the expansion and spaciousness that I'm talking about. If you want to experiment one of these days, you can go out, hopefully

you might notice a patch of blue where there's no cloud. And you can just look at that and notice how the mind feels when it's just watching that blue sky. That is the state of being in a wholesome mindset. The absence of an unwholesome state is also wholesomeness. So you don't need to necessarily replace that unwholesome with something wholesome.

Once you've let go of the unwholesome, you'll feel that expansion. You'll feel that relief. And that's enough to be in a wholesome state. So how do you discern then? You need the discernment of noticing where you are. So what do you do? Come back to the present moment. Notice if you're unsure what is present in the mind. Is it loving-kindness? Are you feeling dread? Are you feeling restlessness? Are you feeling calmness?

In order for you to discern that, just notice: is there tightness and tension in my body right now? Now, there will be times, granted, where you're feeling loving-kindness, but you feel this tension in the back of your head, or a ring of tension in the head. And that could be because the mind is trying too hard, making effort in going on. And when you notice that, pull back. Okay, keep the loving-kindness going but pull back a little. This is how you discern. This is how you let go of the doubt. So to reiterate: for craving, let go of your attention to external experiences and come back to the internal joy, the internal loving-kindness that's there. For aversion, take a step back, come to that equanimity, and remain in that silent observer mode.

For restlessness, you do the same thing. Just come back, tranquilize, relax. For sloth and torpor, bring more attention, bring a little bit more joy, bring a little bit more focus on the object. And there are a few tips and tricks here and there. And for doubt, just recognize where you are, present in your mind and your body, and whether there's a feeling of spaciousness in the mind or a feeling of constrictedness in the mind and body. If there is, then gently, slowly relax and notice how that slowly translates into a more expanded mind, into a more relaxed body.

Don't worry about trying to digest everything that I've said. There's quite a lot of information there. But trust in your mind's ability to digest it, and when you need it most, it will come to you. Sometimes not, and that's okay. Sometimes you'll forget what you need to do, and that's fine. This is only really the first full day of practice.

Don't worry about, wait, did he say that I should relax when sloth and torpor is there, or should I focus more? Or what did he say about the craving? What did he say about the joy? Don't worry about that. If you get caught up in that, then recognize that, let go of that, come back to the present moment, come back to the feeling.

You will start to see for yourself, and this is why in this Buddhist system they say your own teacher is the mind and the hindrances are your own teacher. We who sit here and tell you what is what are just people who walk the path a little further, who've kind of understood the territory and the map, and walk through those territories, understood some of the shortcuts, understood some of the pitfalls, and are just showing you what you can look out for and what to go towards, where to go, what are the shortcuts.

But you create your own map as you start to meditate. You start to see for yourself what works for you and what doesn't work for you. So when you come into the interviews, I told you the five basic questions. What are the five basic questions? What is your object of meditation? Tell me how long was your best sit? Remember what your best sit is, the most part collected, where there's a good practice session going on.

How long were you able to stay with the object of meditation in that session? What did you do when you got distracted, and what did you do to come back to the object? And did anything unique or new or interesting happen in the sit in that session? I don't need to know about all your sessions. In order for you to utilize your time best, just remember your best session. Some of you are taking notes. That's really good. So you can do the same thing with the meditation.

Once you come out of the meditation, if you have a journal, you can write down the points of, okay, this is what happened. This is what happened. This is how I feel like I sat for, how long I sat for. Maybe this was on average how long I was able to stay with the feeling, and so on. Okay, what do I need to tell Delson? What do I have to remember? Okay, there's something interesting happening here. Let me make a mental note of that. That's going to derail you from your practice.

So make a note of it after your sit. And for those of you who don't have paper or pen or whatever, it's fine. All you do is, before you get up from your sit, just let the mind replay what happened. Trust the mind to replay the highlights of what happened and recall what came up, and trust in your mind's ability to remember it. Then come to the interview session and give me your report, and we will take it from there. So there's nothing you need to worry about. You're not going to be graded at the end of this retreat. Nobody is getting any kind of certificates here. Okay, so I'm not here to reprimand you.

I'm not here to give you approval. I'm not here to do anything but just be a mirror to reflect what you're telling me. That's it. And I'll tell you, this is what you do. This is what you do. Keep going. I'll see you tomorrow. And that's it. So don't feel nervous about the interview. It's all going to be fine. There's no big test at the end of the retreat, or is there?

Just relax. Everything is going to be okay. Now, do you guys have any questions? Yes. Oh, you want this mic? The third question that will be asked in the interview, around what did you do? Isn't the answer going to be four hours all the time? Probably. Probably. Or maybe, you were feeling sloth and torpor, so this is what you did. You took a nap or whatever it is that you did.

Hi, Delson. The 6R's, sometimes it's metta, sometimes it's very weak metta or compassion. I'm not able to distinguish. Is that okay? That's fine. That's fine. There is chanda, right? Yes. And there is also craving for the wholesome experience, and the sort of fixation on metta, compassion, whatever is happening.

It's easier to distinguish outside of meditation, right? Because it's very macro. How do you distinguish between both during the sits? Chanda is the wholesome intention, the desire for something that is wholesome. And it will only be there for the first few moments of the sit. You're not going to obsess over it over and over again. It will only be there for a few moments, and then your mind will take action.

Whereas tanha will be like, oh, why am I not there yet? Why am I not there yet? Why am I not there yet? It'll be just continuous fixation and obsession. Then if we go in macro, that background desire of, say, wanting to walk the path of enlightenment, and having that as a priority.

If it's in background and you are still able to function like a regular human, then it's chanda. Otherwise, can it go in the territory of tanha? Like, having the blinders on. - Yes, yes. - But then how do you identify if it's, because it's hard. A faulty system cannot correct itself, right? So how do you identify that? I'm going to go into some real deep stuff now. What do we mean by enlightenment? What do we mean by awakening? That's the first question. We take enlightenment at face value, to what the Buddha has talked about, which is the cessation of suffering, the letting go of the desire for rebirth, where the mind experiences total relief, and so on and so forth.

And then there are other ideas of enlightenment, where it's a non-dual experience, and it's an experience in which the small I disappears into the ocean of consciousness, or the experience where the mind completely ceases and touches this profound, unconditioned element, and so on and so forth. All of these things are concepts of the mind. If there is a desire to be free of suffering, that is chanda.

If there is a desire to experience those things that I just described, that is bhavatanha. Getting caught up in the concept of enlightenment is bhavatanha. It is the desire for states, desire for jhanas, desire for awakening factors, desire for the stages of awakening, desire for a conceptual model of what it means to be enlightened, because whatever you conceive as enlightenment, it itself is not enlightened. It's as simple as this. It's so cliche, but it is so true. It rings so true: the moment you stop seeking, in that moment you are liberated. Meditativeness and tune everything that in itself is meditativeness. You're meditating, you're sitting, your mind is collected, and it's observing how sharp the sounds of the drilling going on are, the sound of the fan, or even the quality of the thoughts that are arising. That means your mind's awareness is sharpening, so that's a good step, that's a good direction to go in. It's just that now, with that mindfulness,

I just observe everything like a passive observer: without, okay, fine, there's drilling going on, there's this going on, there's this smell. I'm aware of that. I'm the awareness that's behind that, and I'm just being aware of it. So you can keep that mind there for a few moments or a few minutes, whatever it is, and just consciously direct it back, gently direct it back to the feeling of loving kindness.

So it's not like these are distractions. These are signs that your mind is getting more and more meditative. Thank you. Say it again. I'm saying, is quiet mind a perception like the perception of nothingness? No. No, it's not. Quiet mind is just quiet mind. Neither perception or non-perception is the background in which quiet mind is. The jhanas themselves are not the object of meditation.

The jhanas are the territory. The jhanas are the background of what's going on. Let's say you and I are having a conversation and it's quiet enough for us to hear what's going on. So you're listening to my voice. voice is the object of meditation you listening is meditating becoming mindful of that now let's say that same conversation was going on in a very loud environment so the background environment is whatever is happening and that is the jhanas so neither perception or non-perception is the loud environment the quiet mind is my voice and you attention to the quiet mind is your mindfulness of that and how to deal with boredom and quiet mind so the boredom is it can manifest in two different ways generally it can manifest a sloth and torpor in which case you bring more focus to the quiet mind or it can manifest as boredom is because you know this is the irony we want to meditate because we want that quiet mind but as soon as we get that quiet mind what happens we get bored of it we get bored of the situation

So what we think we want is not actually what we want. It's just another way of playing with the mind. So what we have to do is get to a point of disenchantment and detachment. Disenchantment can only happen when you get tired enough of that cycle of boredom. It's different from boredom. The boredom is the mind seeking a stimulus, seeking different kinds of stimuli to pay attention to.

But because the mind is so quiet and there's very little going on, it will distract itself from this boredom, sloth and torpor, with past life memories, with restlessness, with all kinds of stuff. So what you do is, if you notice the boredom overtaking all of that, you go one step before that, which is radiating equanimity. That doesn't work? Radiate joy. That doesn't work? Radiate compassion. That doesn't work? Radiate loving kindness. And then you come back, and it will happen in a matter of minutes where your mind goes back to that quiet space, and then after a while again your mind gets formed. So what do you do? Go back and do that. And this cycle of doing that over and over creates a disenchantment, where the mind is like, you know what, even if it's bored, I don't care anymore. I'm just going to stay in this quiet moment. And that disenchantment then goes into dispassion or detachment, where the mind remains so utterly unattached and unaffected by anything that's going on, that whatever arises and passes away just breezes through, without the mind grasping at all, even the boredom.

This is the way of doing it. So even if there are vibrations in quiet mind, I just have to let them be and not do anything about it. That's my final instruction for people in quiet mind. Don't do anything. And that is easier said than done. Because we think, oh, it's so easy. Don't do anything. And I'm there in quiet mind and the mind is like, wait, this vibration is there. Let me see what to do. Maybe I should relax the vibration. Or, oh, there's this distant image. Let me explore into that image or let me let go of it. So even the desire to soften the vibration or do this or do that is the mind wanting to do something.

But you quite literally don't do anything. Thank you for the talk. Listen, I want to ask, what is consciousness and what is awareness? Yeah. What is the difference between that? Consciousness is dependent upon whatever is arising in the present moment in terms of the sense-based experiences. There is a way in which consciousness is synonymous with, or means the same thing as, awareness. Like for example, right now you're looking at me and you're listening to my voice. So there's two kinds of consciousnesses or awarenesses that are arising and passing away. The first is eye consciousness. Your eyes are making contact with me. The light bouncing off of me hits your eyes and creates an image.

Contact is threefold: one is the eye, the form, and the eye consciousness, or the eye awareness, that is dependent upon my attention, where I direct my attention. If I'm telling you to look at me, you're looking at me, and you're hearing me. Now all of you are looking at me and listening to me. So there is eye consciousness dependent upon seeing me, and yours is dependent upon listening to me, based on paying attention to what I'm doing and saying. Now, if I tell all of you to pay attention to that fan over there, right? If you direct your attention there, now pay attention to the sound of the fan. What is happening now? The consciousness that was arising dependent upon seeing me is now dependent upon seeing that fan. The consciousness that was dependent upon listening to me is dependent upon listening to that fan.

This is the understanding within the suttas of what consciousness and awareness are. There is another meaning behind these words, where they talk about consciousness as the carrier of energy that goes from one lifetime to the next lifetime. We will maybe explore that in talks, but for now just understand that when we talk about awareness, it can mean awareness dependent upon experiences, or the awareness that's behind all of this, and that is just mindful and watching and observing what is arising and passing away.

Thank you. Has the Buddha ever said something about what happens after enlightenment? Is it a stage? We're all hoping it's going to be better than now, isn't it? But what did he say about it? Well, you think about the Buddha's life itself, where he became enlightened at the age of 35 under the tree. And the first thing he did was say, this is a very, very subtle state to be in, and this is a very, very subtle understanding. And he decided, I'm not going to teach, I'm just going to remain here. And there was someone who told him, please, there might be some people who might have some understanding of this.

Please go and teach them. So, with some reluctance, he went out and started teaching. And what he talked about was how the perceptions of the world change. Before enlightenment, the perceptions of the world are that, for example, in Majjhima Nikaya 1, which is a great, great sutta that exemplifies this. He talks about the worldling who sees earth as earth, and earth in earth, and water in water. So in other words, they see objects, and they objectify those objects. They see that from a subjective point of view. They see that as me, mine, or myself, or in relation to a me, mine, or myself, a very intrinsic feeling.

But the one who has fully accomplished the work, or somebody who is a Buddha, will see all objects as not me, not mine, not myself, just merely as objects. So there's a collapse between what is subject and object in that experience of enlightenment. And afterward there is a switching back and forth between two states. The first state, which the Buddha talks about, is one where you realize that in the seeing, there is only the seeing. In the hearing, there is only the heard.

Right now, when you're listening to my voice, there is a person behind the listening. There is a central database from which you are listening and contemplating and thinking about things. After enlightenment, there's a brief moment when all of that collapses, and the realization arises that what I thought I was all this time was not me. But it comes back, and it comes back in a different way. Now it's like you having seen a movie that you really enjoyed, and you can never experience that movie the same way again, because now you know the jump scare is here, now you know this is where this happens. So you're watching the movie, you're enjoying the movie, but it doesn't have the same impact on you as it did the first time. So this time, in the seeing, there's only the seeing. In the hearing, there's only the heard. There's a realization that that is what it is, that there is no person behind the listening, there is no person behind the seeing. There's only a process of hearing and seeing and cognizing.

I have a follow-up question to that. So I understand you don't see the world in the same way, as in the attachments or the cravings don't remain. But what happens in terms of novelty? Like, won't every experience become novel? Because even if there is a very small difference, you are eating the same chapati, but it's different, right?

Distinction there. Yeah. Enlightenment is also described as the destruction of craving, and so on and so forth. For a more practical understanding, when we talk about the destruction of craving, what it is, is the destruction of the obsessive thinking, the mentally proliferated mind that creates stories upon stories around something. But it's not like experiences become novel. It's more like, okay, you've heard the Zen saying: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. So day-to-day life remains the same. The difference now is that you'll get less and less caught up in the minutiae of things. You get less and less caught up in the bullshit of the world. You get less and less caught up in the news. You get less and less caught up in, you had a fight with this person or this or that. You still experience suffering. You'll still experience pain. You'll still experience irritation. But now there is this experience of, oh yeah, that's just all part of the game. There is a deep realization that what you're experiencing

is a process of causes and conditions. Sometimes you may forget, and in the forgetting you get caught up in it, but immediately your mind is like, wait, I see that. It's different from an intellectual understanding and an intellectual realization. It's a very bone-deep experiential level, where you see this for yourself. So what's interesting about this also is that it's a refuge. The experience of enlightenment is a refuge.

Like if you have an idle moment to yourself, your mind will immediately, like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs, just go into that state. And then when you need to think about something, when you need to write an email, when you need to engage with people, you do that. And that's all there. But it becomes transactional. It becomes this process.

And at a more ontological level, which is to say on a level that is with regards to samsara, you have no interest, or you don't care, whether you come back or don't come back. It's more like, okay, it's just a game. It's the Leela of life, the play, the divine play of life, and you do your part in it, but you don't get caught up in it to perpetuate further karma that causes you to continue with the same behavioral patterns and the same relationships that cause you suffering, and the same experiences that result in confusion, and so on. So the first arrow remains, the second goes. Yeah, exactly. So for those of you who understand, the first arrow is, literally, let's say an arrow pierces your thigh. That's the pain that you experience, and that is unavoidable. But the suffering of that, like, oh, who shot me, and where does this arrow come from, and why is this pain here? That is the second arrow. That's not an actual literal arrow. It's my relationship to the pain, my relationship to the suffering.

So you've heard this, right? Inevitable suffering is optional. So the pain is inevitable, is the first arrow that will remain. You'll still experience all the hardships of life, but the suffering part is optional. You can choose to suffer. You can choose to get caught up in it, or you can choose to say, hey, I see this, and I'm letting it go, and I'm going to deal with the arrow and deal with the wound. That's what it is. Now, on our more integral level, which is to say a more integrated approach, how many of you are familiar with Ken Wilber, if at all? No.

You are familiar with Ken Wilber? So Ken Wilber talks about different kinds of things, like waking up, growing up, showing up, cleaning up. Yeah, you're familiar with this? Yeah. So waking up is only one part of it, but there's all of this other stuff that needs to be dealt with. Just because you wake up doesn't mean you no longer have a great relationship with your mother, if you never had it before. Just because you wake up doesn't mean all of life is now hunky-dory. No. So there's a process of showing up, which means how do you show up in the world? Are you representing just yourself? Are you seeing yourself as a part of a larger whole? Growing up means what level of growth are you at? At a fundamental level, when we talk about that, we talk about when we're infants, we're just me. Okay. What is this phone? What can it do for me? What is this thing? We're always grabbing as infants.

Some people don't grow out of that. Some people are always like that. When we grow out of that, we start to realize that we're part of a larger structure. And we grow out of that, we see, or we have, a belief system that we inherit, that might be magical thinking and mythological ideas. Some people don't grow out of that. Again, this doesn't mean there's something wrong with it. It's just that these are different layers and experiences. Beyond that, we have a more rationalistic approach. We think about things like freedom and equality and equity and justice.

Beyond that, we have a more integrated approach where we transcend and include these things. We're okay with the mythological as well as the rational. So that's the growing up, right? So there's the showing up, the growing up. There's the cleaning up. The cleaning up is where all of the trauma that we have to deal with comes in. Not going to fix your trauma. It's not going to fix your triggers. What we're doing in terms of the four R's, what we're doing with meditation and dealing with hindrances, is the exercise of how to deal with those triggers. But the experiential realization of waking up is one thing. All the triggers will still remain.

All the traumas will still remain. And that requires cleaning up. And for that, there are other things to do. There's forgiveness practice. There's a process of, literally, in your mind, being in the other person's shoes and understanding where they're coming from. There's understanding where our projections lie, how we're reacting in every moment. This is the whole process of the Eightfold Path.

So awakening is not the solution to everything. Awakening is the realization that samsara is a game to be played. And once the game is over, that's it. But the realization is, you know what, it doesn't matter whether the game is rigged or not rigged. I've decided to play the game on my terms. That's the freedom of mind. That's the moksha. That's the liberation.

But I will still be dealing with shadows and golden shadows and all of these things that I still have to deal with. And that's where this integrated approach... Yeah, I have a question there, after enlightenment. - Does it change? Who's told you that the sense of time changes after enlightenment? Or where did you get that idea? - I've read it. I've read about it. - This is going to get really deep for you guys, but let's get into it anyway. We talk about the four elements, right? The four great elements. There's the earth element, which is solidity, like the things that are solid, molecules. There is the water element, which is liquidity, that's water or juice or whatever the blood in our body is, and so on. There is the air element, like the air that's been circulating through the fans.

Then there is the fire element, which is the heat that you experience from the body, the digestive fire, the heat and temperature, the heat of the sun, and so on. But in some discourses in the Pali Canon, they talk about a fifth and a sixth element. The fifth element is akasha, that's space. Right now, there's a space here that we are filling up, and we're aware of that. And the sixth element is consciousness.

And this consciousness is basically mind. Mind is samsara, and samsara is mind. And dependent upon this, there are all of these other experiences. Without consciousness, you wouldn't be able to understand there is space. You wouldn't be able to understand heat, solidity and liquidity and so on and so forth. Now, what I'm going to tell you is not found in the suttas. So take it with a grain of salt.

What I say is that there is a seventh element, and that seventh element is time. Time. And how do you perceive time? Time can be measured as the space between one thought and the next thought. So when there is thought, there's time. When thoughts cease and when there is no awareness, time also ceases. So for one who experiences enlightenment, in there there is no time, there's no space, there's no consciousness, nothing is present. After that, there's a realization that time is just fine. Time is measured by this phone, time is measured by this watch, by this clock. But now, because you're always in the eternal now, right? We talk about being here now, that cliche, be here now. What does that mean? When you're here, you're present. When you're now, you're present in the now, in the present moment. In that present moment there is all of eternity, being here right now. There is only infinity, there's only infinite space, because in that point you're not about, I'm right here right now, meaning at this time, at 7:25 I'm right here right now. No, it's just now, and that nowness can continue and continues.

for such an awakened mind, so there's no like grasping of time, um, as something to be followed, as something that needs to be followed. Yes, you know, people have to be on time for work, they have to be on time for school, they have to be on time for all these other things. And that's why I'm saying, after enlightenment, shop would carry water. You continue to function in the world as you would. But your internal experience, the way you perceive the world now, is slightly altered, slightly different.

Okay, before we get too deep, because we still have another seven days, or something. Let's end it here. Let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearless being. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation.