Day 6 AN 6.63 Penetrative Discourse -The workings of Karma

So today we will go a little bit into karma. Karma is something that is central to most of the Indic traditions. Whether you talk about Hinduism or Jainism or Buddhism or any other kind of spiritual practice that's there in India, for the most part, karma is a central foundation for how things come to be. Now, there are differences in how Jainism might explain it and how Hinduism might explain it, but the idea overall, especially from the Buddhist framework, is that we have been here before in different identities, that there have been previous lives that we've experienced prior to this life, and should we not be doing the work? If we do not do the work, then we will come back again. We may have come back in many different capacities

in many different types of existences. So that is the, we can say, macro-religious level of understanding. But karma runs deeper than that. Karma is moment-to-moment understanding of how things come to be. So we have something called rebirth, which is different from reincarnation. Reincarnation is where one consciousness or soul takes many different lives, birth after birth after birth, and it's the same soul. So it's a reincarnation of that same soul.

Rebirth is the understanding that there is no fixed identity in this process. What is happening is that karmic conditions are coming together to create a certain sphere of existence. And personal karma goes from one to the other, one life to the other. But there is no continuity of identity in that. Now, if we look at it just in one single life, such is the case here too.

At the most minute level, we are experiencing rebirth every moment. The body is experiencing rebirth in every moment. Sensations, consciousnesses, awarenesses, perceptions. Everything is happening at such lightning speed that we can't see it, because it's so fluid, it feels so fluid. But if we take one step back, and go in between, then we see that we are experiencing rebirth in our life from phase to phase to phase.

Which is to say, you are not the same person as you are now, as you may have been a month ago, a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago. You don't carry the same interests. You don't have the same, maybe you don't have the same opinions as you may have had before. Education, knowledge, experience shifts your perceptions and your opinions, your worldview. Who you are as a person, as we say in terms of an identity, is nothing more than a collection of opinions and choices and decisions that create the idea of a person.

That's all we are, a collection of karma. And at the very root of that is the statement that the Buddha has said: intention is karma. So with that preface, let's go into what we're going to be discussing. This is Anguttara Nikaya 6.63, The Penetrative Discourse. Bhikkhus, I will teach you a penetrative exposition of the Dhamma. Listen and attend closely, I will speak.

Yes, Bhante, those bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this: And what, bhikkhus, is that penetrative exposition of the Dhamma? Sensual pleasures should be understood. The source and origin of sensual pleasures should be understood. The diversity of sensual pleasures should be understood. The result of sensual pleasures should be understood. The cessation of sensual pleasures should be understood. The way leading to the cessation of sensual pleasures should be understood.

Feelings should be understood. The source and origin of feelings should be understood. The diversity of feelings should be understood. The result of feelings should be understood. The cessation of feelings should be understood. The way leading to the cessation of feelings should be understood. Perceptions should be understood. The source and origin of perceptions should be understood. The diversity of perceptions should be understood.

The result of perceptions should be understood. The cessation of perceptions should be understood. The way leading to the cessation of perceptions should be understood. The taints should be understood. The source and origin of the taints should be understood. The diversity of the taints should be understood. The result of the taints should be understood. The cessation of the taints should be understood.

The way leading to the cessation of the taints should be understood. Karma should be understood. The source and origin of karma should be understood. The diversity of karma should be understood. The result of karma should be understood. The cessation of karma should be understood. The way leading to the cessation of karma should be understood. Suffering should be understood.

The source and origin of suffering should be understood. The diversity of suffering should be understood. The result of suffering should be understood. The cessation of suffering should be understood. The way leading to the cessation of suffering should be understood. So this is the preface he gives: sensual pleasures, feeling, perception, the taints, karma, and suffering. These are the six categories that we're going to explore. If you understand these six, that's the entire Dhamma. That's the entire understanding of what the Dhamma is talking about. This is why it's known as a penetrative exposition. Once you're able to see this, your entire worldview orients towards right view. Once you actually see this for yourself, you have right view.

When it was said sensual pleasure should be understood, the source and origin of sensual pleasure should be understood, the diversity, the result, the cessation, and the way leading to the cessation of sensual pleasure should be understood. For what reason was this said? There are these five objects of sensual pleasures: forms cognizable by the eye that are wished for, desired, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensual pleasure, tantalizing; sounds; odors; tastes; tactile objects cognizable by their corresponding sense spaces. So in the case of sounds, the ears. In the case of odors, the nose. In the case of tastes, the tongue. In the case of tactile objects, the body, that are wished-for, desired, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensual pleasure, tantalizing.

Now listen carefully. So, what are we saying here? What are sensual pleasures? What do we mean by sensual pleasures? He has dissected it in such a way that he's not including the mind. We're talking about just the senses, the physical senses of the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the body. And the pleasures, when we're saying pleasures, we're talking about an experience, right? A pleasure is something that is a pleasant experience, something that is tantalizing, as the Buddha says.

So he says, however, these are not sensual pleasures. Okay, so he's saying they are connected with sensual pleasure. However, these are not sensual pleasures. What you see that is pleasant, what you hear that is pleasant, what you smell that is pleasant, what you taste that is pleasant, what you experience with the body that is pleasant: these are not the sensual pleasures.

In the Noble Ones' Discipline, these are called objects of sensual pleasure. A person's sensual pleasure is his lustful intention. There is a difference. You see, everybody has mistaken Buddhism to be ascetic in nature, because we have the monastic system. And they criticize some people, especially monks, for enjoying good food, for having good drink, not wine and all of that. I'm just saying, like, a nice soda pop or something.

But in other words, they think that the monastics have somehow abused their power because they are enjoying such pleasant things. People even offer them, you know, a gift card to get a massage or something, right? So are these the problem? These are just experiences. What the Buddha is pointing out is that when we say sensual pleasures, we're not talking about the experiences.

We're talking about the intention. When the mind grabs on and says, I want more, I can't live without this, this belongs to me, this is mine, that is defined as the sensual pleasure, the lustful intention. It all boils down to intention. And so he says, they are not sensual pleasures, the pretty things in the world. A person's sensual pleasure is lustful intention. The pretty things remain just as they are in the world, but the wise remove the craving for them.

How do you relate to experiences? How do you relate to pleasant states, specifically pleasant experiences of the senses? They will remain just as they are. That chocolate cake will be chocolate cake. That strawberry ice cream will be strawberry ice cream. But if I, the greedy person that I am, look at the chocolate cake and say, oh, I need that chocolate cake, and I find out somebody has made chocolate cake, maybe Rose has made chocolate cake, and I find out it's going to be there for dessert tomorrow's lunch, and now my mind is thinking about chocolate cake all night long.

When do I get it, right? I rush up to the dining hall and I see a long line. It's like, can these people get out of the way so I can get my chocolate cake? So my mind is now obsessed by that, but the chocolate cake remains the same. You're not as obsessed with chocolate cake as I am, so for you it's just chocolate cake. It remains the same.

But guess what? Everybody gets a piece, and there's not one piece remaining. Now I'm mad. Now I'm upset. Now I don't want to do the interviews. Right? That's my lustful intention. So it's how I relate to objects of sensual pleasure. When you experience joy in the meditation, when you experience sukkha, like comfort, when you experience tranquility, there can arise the pleasure of those experiences, right? So now that's just an object of the mind. It's being able to see that.

But then there's a desire to repeat that. There's a desire to go back to that. Okay. But then there's also the block to experience that. So how do you feel? Do you beat yourself up? Do you feel upset? Do you feel bad? Yesterday's practice was great. This morning was great. But this afternoon, I don't know what happened. So our desire for things is one thing, but our craving is another. There is a difference between craving and desire.

Desire comes from chanda, which is a wholesome inclination. When you have desire for food, that's not craving. That is just desire that's biologically driven by your hormones. And so you go and you eat. But craving is like my obsession with chocolate cake. If I can't have it, I will feel bad. But it's not the chocolate cake's mistake, right? It's not like it's baked by Mara. Could be, could be.

But even if it was baked by Mara, it's still just chocolate cake. It's how I take it personally, how I relate to it, that creates the craving. How I identify with it. And, bhikkhus, what is the origin, the source and origin of sensual pleasures? Contact is their source and origin. Remember, the sensual pleasures in this case are really just pleasant experience, right?

The only way to experience anything is through the sense basis. In order for the sense basis to experience what is out there, there needs to be what's known as contact. Phassa in Pali or sparsha in Sanskrit. And what sparsha means is to touch. Touch. So when the eyes touch upon the pleasant visual field in the sense of there is the chocolate cake, now there's light bouncing off of the chocolate cake going into my eyes, and I see it as a pleasant thing.

In order for me to be able to experience that, I needed the contact. And how does the contact arise? There are three things you need. You need the eye. In this case, let's say with the visual field, you need the eye, you need the sense-based object, chocolate cake in this case, and you need the underlying eye consciousness. So what is eye consciousness? It's paying attention.

You need a functional eye, obviously, but you need the awareness, the attention directed to the chocolate cake for you to be able to see it. I've given you this example before. All of you are right now looking at me. If I direct your attention to the flowers, now there is a new underlying consciousness that has arisen, a new contact that has arisen because you have shifted your attention from me to the flowers.

So now there is eye contact dependent upon seeing the flowers, dependent on the flowers, right? So your intention to change or shift your attention is what changes the contact and which changes the experience. That is what contact is. And what is the diversity of sensual pleasures? Sensual desire for forms is one thing, sensual desire for sounds is another, sensual desires for odors still another, sensual desire for tastes still another, and sensual desire for tactile objects still another. This is called the diversity of sensual pleasure. So here he's talking about the different forms of, let's say, craving. He says desire in this case, but really he's talking about sensual craving. So that's the diversity.

That's the diversity. And what is the result of these sensual pleasures? Interesting. Listen to this. One produces an individual existence that corresponds with whatever sense pleasures one desires and which may be the consequence either of merit or demerit. This is called the result of sensual pleasures. Let's break this down. So what is the result of seeing the chocolate cake, my desire for chocolate cake? Does it mean that I enter into a chocolate cake heaven or a chocolate cake hell?

Perhaps, depends. But what it actually is saying here is with that sensual pleasure, one produces an individual existence that corresponds with whatever one desires. This is what is known as becoming or habitual tendencies. This is what's known as bhava in Pali, an individual existence. When you are meditating and you are in jhana, your mind, because it is placed there, is in a jhanic state, which means it is corresponding to a realm of the brahma lokas, the brahma worlds. When you are deva-like, which means you are patient, you are loving, you are kind, you are generous, you are forgiving, all of these things.

When you're a teenager, where you only are thinking about food and sex all the time, you're an animal. You have an animal consciousness. When there is greed and jealousy and stinginess, you are like a hungry ghost. When you are violent, create harm and terror for others, that's being like a hellish being. So you don't have to go to these realms, you don't have to believe in those realms. You can experience them right here, right now, depending on your mindset.

That's bhava. That's the habitual tendencies. Dependent upon what? Maybe dependent upon merit or demerit. Punya and papa, which means your good karma and your bad karma. The results of your good actions and your bad actions. I may get the chocolate cake if I've been a good boy. But if I haven't, I may not get it. It just depends on that.

So the result, what he's saying is the result of these sensual pleasures is a new existence is created dependent upon that craving. That is why it is said, for one who is fully awakened, there is no more being. Because they've completely eradicated cravings. There's no desire to go here or there. There's no craving to become anything, to be anything, to have any state of existence. It doesn't mean that they've become suicidal. It doesn't mean they've become nihilists.

They just don't have any desire for being or non-being. And what is the cessation of sensual pleasures? With the cessation of contact, there is the cessation of sensual pleasures. Cessation of contact, how does that happen? Well, when you were looking at me there was contact, right, with me. As soon as you direct your attention to the flowers, you have ceased contact with me. It's a matter of changing your attention, which means you're no longer paying attention to the craving. You're letting go of the craving, you're letting go of the identification,

you're redirecting your attention to a wholesome state. It could be equanimity, it could be disenchantment, it could be loving kindness, it could be whatever. But now that has ceased, because you have changed your attention, you have redirected your attention. That's what the six R's are all about. Redirecting your attention away from the unwholesome towards the wholesome. That is the crux of the path.

That is the heart of the path. I think if you were to look at it as sensual craving, if you were to look at pleasure as craving, that's all. And pleasant sensations. That's the distinction. Can I ask that another way? Yeah. So, back to chocolate cake. Chocolate cake and... Thank you, there you go. So, you heard about the chocolate cake. Yeah. You're excited about the chocolate cake. You can't wait. You get there, you find either there's no chocolate cake or you know you're not going to do it. Right. And you're fine. Yeah. So, is that an example of you had some craving but no clinging? That's a good question, actually. So if my mind is obsessed with chocolate cake, there's already craving in there.

This is what we call mental proliferation. So I have fantasies of chocolate cake. I have all these castles of chocolate cake built in my mind, right? So that's mental proliferation. That's like a revving up of craving and clinging and becoming continuously until I actually acquire the chocolate cake. But if I'm able to find myself being obsessed by that, and if I let go of that, then it's more like a pleasant thought. Ah, chocolate cake's going to be there today. Wonderful. Great. And I move on with my day.

Right? And then, when I see that there is no chocolate cake, and I'm like, okay, fine, maybe next time, there's no craving there. So before you don't eat your chocolate cake, you can still be doing the becoming and all of that. In the mind, yes. So the mental proliferation of craving, clinging, and becoming. These are the ingredients for what we would call new karma.

The intention of doing something. Once I have done that deed, then it becomes old karma to be experienced as the consequence of that action. So in my mind, I can continue to create the ingredients for the new karma until I have acted on that intention. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of sensual pleasures or craving, namely, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness. So I said earlier that the six R's are a mnemonic device to understand the right effort, the four right efforts. The first being the recognizing and preventing the arising of unwholesome states. The second one is the abandoning of those unwholesome states.

The third is to generate wholesome states of mind. And the fourth is to keep those states of mind going. That's what we're doing with the six R's. We are cultivating right effort, which is the heart of the Eightfold Path. It's compressed completely in this one particular aspect. When a noble disciple thus understands the sensual pleasures, the source and origin of sensual pleasures, the diversity of sensual pleasures, the result of sensual pleasures, the cessation of sensual pleasures, and the way leading to the cessation of sensual pleasures, he understands this penetrative spiritual life to be the cessation of sensual craving.

And then when it was said about feelings should be understood and so on, for what reason was this said? There are three feelings: pleasant feeling, painful feeling, and neither painful nor pleasant feeling. Now, when we say feeling, a lot of people may understand it as emotion. But feeling just comes from the word vedana, which means to know, to experience, to see, to understand.

Really, it is to experience. We can have a pleasant feeling, an unpleasant feeling and a neutral feeling. We can have a physical feeling or a bodily feeling, or we can have a mental feeling, experience in the mind, which can include emotion. And so a pleasant feeling is anything that makes us feel good. An unpleasant feeling is something that makes us feel bad. And a neutral feeling doesn't make us feel one way or the other. It is just experience, so it could be that we're just observing sensation, right? And so it's neutral. There's no like

pleasing to some to pleasing to the eye or anything like that. So for one example, you would say, in the case of equanimity, it is pleasant but it is really neutral in the sense that there is no high or low about it. It's just balanced. So jhanas are pleasant feelings. Bliss is a pleasant feeling, joy is a pleasant feeling, loving kindness is a pleasant feeling. Chocolate cake, eating chocolate cake, is a pleasant feeling, right?

All of these are pleasant feelings. Unpleasant is that which is displeasing to the eye and the other senses. And what is the source and origin of feeling? Contact is their source and origin. As we rightly said, when we have contact, we have an experience. When you are seeing me, you are experiencing. When you have contact with me, your eyes have contact with me, your ears have contact with my voice, you are seeing and listening to me.

When you direct your eyes to the flowers, you have contact with your eyes and the flowers, but you're still listening to my voice. So you see there are multiple kinds of contact happening, depending upon where your attention is. And this happens at a very, very, very minute level. That's why we were saying earlier, the snap of a finger, that sound is a hundred thousand arising and passing away of your consciousness, your contact.

And what is the diversity of feelings? There is worldly pleasant feeling, there is spiritual pleasant feeling, there is worldly painful feeling, there is spiritual painful feeling. There is worldly neither painful nor pleasant feeling, there is spiritual neither painful nor pleasant feeling. This is called the diversity of feeling. What is a worldly pleasant feeling? Chocolate cake. What is a spiritual pleasant feeling? Loving kindness.

Being in the first jhana, in the second jhana, and so on. What is a worldly painful feeling? Strawberry ice cream? Depends, right? Depends on what you like, what you don't like. You're going to need up my craving. So anything that is displeasing to the senses is a worldly painful feeling. What is a spiritual painful feeling? The hindrances.

When you have craving, when you have aversion, when you have identification, when you have all of these agitations, slop and torpor. There is worldly neither painful nor pleasant feeling. It's just seeing things without adding any kind of coloring to it. You're just seeing it for the sake of seeing. In the seeing, there's only the seeing. In the hearing, there's only the heard.

And the spiritual, neither pleasant nor painful feeling is, as we said, equanimity. Disenchantment, this passion. You're just seeing things as they are. Your mind is like completely uninterested. Not indifferent, just uninterested. And what is the result of feelings? One produces an individual existence that corresponds with whatever feeling one experiences, which may be the consequence either of merit or demerit.

This is called the result of feelings. If that feeling is identified with, if what is being seen, heard, cognized, or sensed is identified with, then there can be craving, there can be clinging, and there can be becoming. Whatever you're experiencing in the moment is old karma. It can be, it may be, as the Buddha says, a consequence of a previous action.

You all made the intention, for better or worse, to come here. And now you are experiencing the consequence of that action. So that is the experience. That is the individual existence of being in that experience. When you identify with the experience and want more of it, then that feeds into craving, feeds into clinging, feeds into becoming. That creates another existence in the future.

And if the causes and conditions are right, then you will experience the consequence of that experience, holding on to that experience. And what is the cessation of feelings? With the cessation of contact, there is cessation of feelings. Makes sense, right? You change your attention, go somewhere else, you're no longer experiencing that particular thing. One interesting example of this is, if you go to, let's say you go to watch a concert, a classical music concert, a symphony, and you see the orchestra, you listen to the music, it's wonderful, you can hear the music as a whole, or you can start to pay attention to just the violins or pay attention to just the oboes or pay attention just to the French horns.

What's going on there in the background? The experience of the sound is there, but your attention to that specific instrument is the feeling you're experiencing in that moment. Then you switch your attention somewhere else. So with the cessation of contact with the violins, with your attention to the violins, there is a cessation of that experience. It's there. Objectively, it's there. But subjectively, now you're experiencing something else based on your attention.

And then you can choose to listen to the whole thing as one piece, as one thing. As one experience. This noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of feelings, so 6R-ing the experience if it is unpleasant, if it has craving in it. When a noble disciple thus understands feelings, the source and origin of feelings, the diversity of feelings, the result of feelings, the cessation of feelings, and the way leading to the cessation of feelings, he understands this penetrative spiritual life to be the cessation of feelings.

Likewise, when it was said about perceptions, for what reason was this said? There are, bhikkhus, these six perceptions. Perceptions of forms, perception of sounds, of odors, of tastes, of tactile objects, and of mental phenomena. What is perception? Perception is rooted in memory. You have learned about something. When you were in school, we learned about the color red. So whenever you see the color red, you recognize it. That's perception.

You learned about numbers. So when someone tells you there are two things there, you know what that means, what the number two actually represents. That's perception. So when you are listening to my voice, you're perceiving this is the sound belonging, this is the voice belonging to Delson. When you are meditating and you notice craving, you are perceiving craving as a mental phenomena.

When you notice the aggregates, you experience them, for the most part, as mental phenomena, with the exception of form, because that's the body. When you notice the jhanas, that's a perception of mental phenomena. So it's the ability to label, to put a concept on what it is you're experiencing. And what is the source and origin of perceptions?

Contact is their source and origin. So contact is giving rise to the sensual pleasures. Contact is giving rise to feeling, and contact is giving rise to perceptions. Rightly so, because what you feel, you perceive. What you experience, you perceive. When you are seeing me, it's not just you having the sensation of seeing me. It's you recognizing who it is that is sitting here and speaking.

And what is the diversity of perceptions? The perception of forms is one thing. The perception of sounds is another. The perception of odors, still another. The perception of tastes, still another. The perception of tactile objects, still another. And the perception of mental phenomena, still another. So that's the diversity, right? You're perceiving the color of red. You're perceiving the book. You're perceiving the table. You're perceiving the person speaking and moving their hands. So there's diversity of perceptions happening.

And your mind's attention is going to each one of those, creating a fluid experience for you, a fluid field of perception. And what is the result of perceptions? I say that perceptions result in expression. In whatever way one perceives something, in just that way one expresses oneself saying, I was percipient of such and such. This is called the result of perception. Interesting.

This is not just about verbal formations. This is something else. A lot of people say, when I'm in need of perception or non-perception, or if I'm in nothingness, or I'm in quiet mind. But my mind is like having some kind of commentator. This is going on now. This is going on now. This is going on. What is that? That is the result of perception.

That is your mind expressing to itself what it is experiencing. That is internal expression. That has nothing to do with verbal formations. That has to do with mental formations. So there's the, oh right, I recognize this, I see this jhana, I see this experience. That's the result of perception. So a lot of people try to 6R the commentator.

You don't have to do that, that's okay. It's just happening, it's the nature of the mind to feel and perceive. And what is the cessation of perceptions? With the cessation of contact, there is a cessation of perception. Rightly so, right? When you're looking at me, you have the perception of seeing me. You have the experience of seeing me. You close your eyes, there's no longer that perception.

That contact has ceased. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of perceptions. So, in this case, we're talking about the 6R's. Letting go of that field of perception. So, when we're talking about cessation of perception and feeling, it's 6R's all the way down until you completely cease all perception and feeling. Just keep letting go. That's it.

When a noble disciple thus understands perceptions, the source and origin of perceptions, the diversity of perceptions, the result of perceptions, the cessation of perceptions, and the way leading to the cessation of perceptions, he understands this penetrative spiritual life to be the cessation of perceptions. When it was said that the taints should be understood, and so on, what was that said for?

There are these three taints, the taint of sensuality, the taint of existence, and the taint of ignorance. The taint of sensuality is that seed form that wants to grasp at things, to own them, that starts the greed, that greed then starts to crave, so in other words, the taints are the viruses in the mind, the sensuality here is, I want to possess this, it comes in the form of a vibration, a kind of trigger that comes up, and then there are fetters, right, there are formations that are fettered in that greed or hatred or whatever. And then from there, there is craving.

When the mind identifies with an experience, then there can be liability for craving to arise. Let me just finish this. Then there is the taint of existence. When we're saying the taint of existence, we're talking about existential craving. The desire to become something, the desire to be something. This is a desire to perhaps attain to a certain level, to be in a certain jhana, to be a certain status in society, to be a certain kind of deva or whatever it is, the desire to become.

And it could be as simple as, today I want to do this, okay, great. But now there can be obsession around that, to be. Because there is a sense of I, the me, the mind, that needs to transform into that thing. And the taint of ignorance is basically every time you have a lack of mindfulness, that feeds back to that taint.

Ignorance, for all intents and purposes, practically speaking, is the lack of mindfulness of the Four Noble Truths in every given moment. In other words, I'm not aware in this moment if craving is there or not. If I'm aware craving is there, I can let it go. If I'm aware craving is not there, I don't have to do anything. Just be. Just rest.

But every time I identify with the experience, I've lost my mindfulness. The security guard, the gatekeeper, is non-existent in there. And so, in the next arising, in the next moment, that virus becomes stronger. That's right. I'm going to talk about that later, not here, but in the next few days. But yes, that's exactly it. You have a lot of examples of people who are known as Shreishtis, which translates to, in the modern day, millionaires and billionaires, who are Sakadagamis and Anagamis. But money is not evil in the context of the Buddhist understanding. In fact, money or currency or resources are important and they are utilized in wholesome ways.

So we'll talk about that. We'll get into that. We know the three taints, right? The taint of sensuality, the taint of existence, and the taint of ignorance. Now, what is the source and origin of the taints? It says, ignorance is the source and origin of the taints. Remember yesterday what I said, that ignorance is dependent upon and conditioned by the three taints.

But the three taints are interdependently conditioned by ignorance. That's what moves the wheel of rebirth. Why? Because every time I'm ignoring the four noble truths, I don't have mindfulness of the four noble truths, I'm adding to the virus, to the potency of the virus, so it keeps projecting outward. But every time I have mindfulness and I'm able to let go, oh, when there is craving, when there is identification, then I'm weakening.

So that is the practice that we're doing. We're learning how to be mindful as much as possible to keep the mind guarded and protected. But also, we should not beat ourselves up when something slips through. We should see it, notice it, let it go, make an intention to do better next time, so to speak. That's all.

And what is the diversity of the taints? There are taints leading to hell. There are taints leading to the animal realm. There are taints leading to the realm of hungry ghosts. There are taints leading to the human world. There are taints leading to the deva world. This is called the diversity of the taints. So that's what we're saying. These viruses, these taints, are the fundamental building block of rebirth on the macro level.

The desire for being is one thing. The sensual desire is another thing. The ignorance is yet another thing. In different permutations, when they are there, they can lead to certain kinds of thoughts before you die. And when you have those thoughts, and those thoughts are clung to, they lead to the next birth, the next existence. And they're all happening under the hood because of these three taints.

And what is the result of the taints? One immersed in ignorance produces a corresponding individual existence, which may be the consequence either of merit or demerit. This is called the result of the taints. So ignorance is what again? Not noticing when the mind has craving. So when we talk about rebirth from one life to the next, not noticing that there's craving there, not noticing that there's agitation there, not noticing there is aversion there.

The freedom from the cycle of continuous existence is done so through non-reactivity. Non-identification and non-reactivity. When you die, you will be met with different signs. There will be beings, there could be thoughts, there could be a life review process. There could be an attraction to a certain kind of light. There could be all kinds of things. And if the mind identifies with them, has aversion or a pull towards them, notice that.

Let go. In letting go, there is no reaction. And with no reaction, no identification, no fuel for further birth. No fuel for further existence. In the Vakkali Sutta, there is a monk who wants to take his own life because he's very sick and he's very old. And he goes to the Buddha and he says this is what he wants to do.

And the Buddha gives him a discourse on feeling, on experience, to let go of feeling and experience, and Vakkali goes up to Vulture's Peak. For those of you who are interested, you should go to Vulture's Peak. It's a beautiful area, it's a bit of a hike, but it's a beautiful place. You will see the caves where Sariputta and Moggallana and Ananda meditated, and you will see the place where the Pacceka Buddhas were. And you go up to Vulture's Peak and there's a beautiful view of the mountain range or the hills.

Anyway, Vakkali goes up there, contemplates what the Buddha said, takes his own life and there is this dark smoke that comes up. And the Buddha says, you see that dark smoke amongst. That is Mara trying to find the new consciousness of Vakkali, unable to find it, because he let go through non-identification and non-reactivity. No new consciousness could be found for further rebirth, which means what? He became fully awakened.

Now in our daily lives, how does this translate? How do we translate this in daily life? Whenever there is ignorance, there is liability for craving to arise. Whenever there is lack of mindfulness, we can take something personally. We can react to it. And when we react, there is a new state of existence in the mind and around us. When we react with anger, we are in an angry state of existence in the mind and we're dealing with anger with other people.

This results immediately in suffering. But if ignorance was eradicated in that moment and we saw the anger arising and we let go, or we were able to be mindful enough so that anger never arose, then no new renewed existence of anger in the mind is present. And we use non-reactivity, we are responsive through intelligent wisdom to de-escalate whatever situation it is.

Intuition comes up to let us know whether to stay silent or to say something or to do something else in accordance with whatever is appropriate for every given situation. Trust in that intuition, let go of craving, let go of identification, and trust in the intuition that arises. What is the cessation of the taints? With the cessation of ignorance, there is a cessation of the taints. There you go. Once you have let go of ignorance, once you are mindful, the taints don't have hold over you anymore.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of the taints. 6R-ing ignorance by looking at the lack of mindfulness, letting that go, by letting go of any identification or craving, results in that moment in the cessation of the taints. When a Noble Disciple thus understands the taints, the source and origin of the taints, the diversity of the taints, the result of the taints, the cessation of the taints, and the way leading to the cessation of the taints, he understands this penetrative spiritual life to be the cessation of the taints.

When it was understood, karma should, or when it was said, karma should be understood and so on, for what reason was this said? It is intention that I call karma, because for having willed, having intended, one acts by body, speech, or mind. Only when there is intention can we call that karma. What is mental karma? The intention to think of something or someone a certain way.

What is verbal karma? To speak because you have thought and intended a certain way. What is physical karma? To act out of that intention. This is known as new karma or productive karma, karma that produces consequences. And what is the source and origin of karma? Contact is the source and origin of karma. Why? Because when there is contact, there is an experience. When you have an experience, you make an intention to decide how to deal with that experience.

When there is an identification of the experience, that results in new karma. When there's non-reactivity and non-identification, that results in something known as kiriya, which is selfless action, which is action rooted in the Eightfold Path, action rooted in letting go. That is action that is non-productive, doesn't have any craving in it, doesn't have any clinging in it. It is intuitive action, action that is done for the sake of whatever is appropriate for the situation.

Also, whatever you are experiencing in the moment can be a result of karma. Not all the time, but it can be. So contact allows for that to happen. You see everything from ignorance to formations to consciousness to mentality, materiality to the sense bases to contact and feeling. That's all old karma. That's the consequences of actions that may have been done in the past.

Not everything is karma. Remember this. The Buddha made a very important point about this. Because there were people who believed, oh, then everything is my karma. And he said, you have to take account for the climate, the environment. You have to take account for accidents, because nobody intended that to happen. It was just an accident. You have to take account for the imbalances in the body, which can create diseases.

You have to take account for somebody assaulting you, unprovoked. You didn't provoke that, it just happened. So these things can't be called karma. Karma is always starting with intention. And this is important to understand, because otherwise we can say we are experiencing this because of some karma that happened in Lifetime 462. How is that helpful? The reality is, how do I deal with what's happening right now? Am I reacting to it or am I responding to it? And what is the diversity of karma? There is karma to be experienced in hell. There is karma to be experienced in the animal realm. There is karma to be experienced in the hungry ghost realm. There is karma to be experienced in the human world.

There is karma to be experienced in the deva world. This is called the diversity of karma. What is the result of karma? The result of karma, I say, is threefold. Three types of ways of experiencing or results of karma: to be experienced in this life, or in the next life, or on some subsequent occasion. This is called the result of karma. So what does that mean? Karma is dependent, the fruition, what we call vipaka. Vipaka is old karma, the consequence of previous karma.

That fruition is dependent upon whether the right causes and conditions are present or not. So the example here is you have three different types of fruit seeds. You have an apple seed, you have an orange seed, and you have a mango seed. Now by the nature of those seeds, they will grow at whatever rate they will grow.

But if you've given nothing to the apple seed in terms of good soil, good nutrition, sunlight, water and so on, but you're given that to the other two, then the apple seed will not germinate into an apple tree. So if the right causes and conditions are not present, that karma will not be experienced there. If the right causes and conditions are there, depending upon the seed, it will grow at a certain rate.

Likewise with karma, depending on the intensity of the intention and the karma, that karma will grow at a certain rate when the right causes and conditions are there. A good example of this is what are known as the five, you can say five karmas, the five acts, the five things that you do that are immediately productive of that karma. And what are those? Those are all bad karmas. Those are the unforgivables, so to speak. That is to kill one's mother, to kill one's father, to kill an arahant, to draw blood of a Buddha with the intention of harming him,

and to create a schism in the Sangha. So these five actions come to the front of the line when it comes to your karma. So when you die, if you do something like that, what happens? Your mind has immediate regret for what it did. And immediately you go to that particular realm, namely the hell realm in this case, the realm of suffering.

So the intention has a certain kind of intensity, a certain kind of quality. It will arise at a certain rate or at a certain speed dependent upon that intensity or that quality. So even if you have the right soil and just the right amount of nutrition and just the right amount of sunlight and just the right amount of water, just because they're two different karmas, two different seeds, they will grow at different rates.

Likewise with karma. And what, bhikkhus, is the cessation of karma? With the cessation of contact, there is the cessation of karma. Letting go of contact, letting go of your attention to the unwholesome, leads to the cessation of that unwholesome. That's what you're doing with the six R's. You're redirecting your attention from the unwholesome, dropping it, rather than fighting with it, rather than pulling it, rather than pushing it, rather than suppressing it, which only causes undue attention to fuel it further. But if I just drop it, I'm not ignoring it. To ignore it, to be indifferent to it, means I have some relationship to it.

I'm saying I'm letting it go. I'm just dropping it and I'm replacing it with something that is wholesome. That's how you deal with karma in everyday situations. Six are the anger that comes up. Six are the craving that comes up. Six R, the identification that comes. Six R, the desire to defend from the sense of self. Six R, the reactivity that comes from identification.

The noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of karma. We just said this, the six R's. When, bhikkhus, a noble disciple thus understands karma, the source and origin of karma, the diversity of karma, the result of karma, the cessation of karma, the way leading to the cessation of karma, he understands this penetrative spiritual life to be the cessation of karma, the cessation of rebirth.

When it was said suffering should be understood, the source and origin of suffering should be understood. The diversity of suffering should be understood. The result of suffering should be understood. The cessation of suffering should be understood. The way leading to the cessation of suffering should be understood. For what reason was this said? Birth is suffering. Old age is suffering. Illness is suffering. Death is suffering. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish are suffering. Not to get what one wants is suffering. In brief, the five aggregates that are identified with or subject to clinging are suffering.

We all know about this, right? The dukkha-dukkha, the categories of suffering, the suffering of suffering. That's the pain and old age and so on. The suffering of change, things happening unexpectedly. And the inherent suffering, which is identifying with the five aggregates. What is the source and origin of suffering? Craving is the source and origin of suffering.

Craving is the shorthand for identification, reactivity, aversion, ignorance. And what is the diversity of suffering? There is extreme suffering. There is slight suffering. There is suffering that fades away slowly. There is suffering that fades away quickly. This is called the diversity of suffering. Pretty self-explanatory. And what is the result of suffering? Here someone overcome by suffering with a mind obsessed by it sorrows, languishes and laments.

He weeps, beating his breast, and becomes confused. So, in one case, the suffering causes further anguish, confusion. Oh, why am I experiencing this? Why me? Woe is me, right? On the other hand, overcome by suffering with a mind obsessed by it, he embarks upon a search outside, saying, who knows one or two words for putting an end to this suffering?

Suffering, I say, results either in confusion or in a search. A search for what? A search for a way out. That's what happens. Any spiritual practice that you started, think about your spiritual journey. For the most part it started because at some point you were suffering. Is there a way out of this? Maybe you said, oh, I just want to feel more calm, I want more peace in my life, I want to learn how to forgive. Why did you do all that? Because you were suffering.

This is called the result of suffering. And what is the cessation of suffering? With the cessation of craving, with the cessation of reactivity and identification, is the cessation of suffering. This noble eightfold path is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. In other words, these six R's of craving lead to the cessation of suffering. When, because one understands thus suffering, the source and origin of suffering, the diversity of suffering, the result of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering, he understands this penetrative spiritual life to be the cessation of suffering.

When it was said suffering should be understood, it is because of this that this was said. This because is that penetrative exposition of the Dhamma. Any questions? Yeah. See, the thing is, you want to give, you want to get rid of the causes and conditions for those to arise, so you want to get rid of the reactivity that results in their activation? No, no. That's an interesting question, but no, that's not the case. In fact, in sharing merit we actually increase our merit, and there's nothing wrong with that. The idea is not to escape the good and bad karma by not doing any more, or by trying to get rid of it.

It's more about how we identify with our reactions, that results in their further propagation. So when we're sending merit, that's a wonderful thing. And it doesn't mean we're now still in rebirth or something. It just means how we identify with it. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear struck fearless be. 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.