Delson Armstrong 8 Fold Path Series - Right View

Delson, you have the screen. Thank you. Hello, everyone. It's all good to see you all. I don't know. Most of you, I probably don't know. But in any case, it's good to see you all. So I'm going to start on the Eightfold Path. And I want to explain to you why we want to do the Eightfold Path as a study series.

The fourth noble truth. When we talk about the four noble truths that the Buddha has talked about, he said that there is suffering, right? And there are causes and conditions for that suffering. That's the second noble truth. There is a cessation of suffering, and there is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. So suffering in of itself can be a whole topic, a whole discussion, or series of discussions, because he's divided up suffering into different facets and different variants. When we talk about the causes and conditions for suffering, we can discuss dependent origination, which we've done in the past, and we've talked about it quite often in the retreats and in the symposium and so on. Then the cessation of suffering is essentially nirodha, right? And when we talk about nirodha, it can mean the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. But here we're talking about dukkha nirodha, which is the cessation of suffering.

And so this can be synonymous with Nibbana, the experience of Nibbana. So what is Nibbana? Nibbana is essentially the cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion, the seeds of suffering. These are the roots that cause the mind to create all kinds of mental proliferation: types of craving, clinging, becoming, and then finally the birth of suffering, birth of action, and then suffering.

So when we look at Nibbana, what we're saying is it's the unwinding of that process. Every time the mind experiences the world, if it doesn't have the tools necessary, essentially the Eightfold Path, synonymous with right effort or encapsulated in right effort, in the 6R's, if we don't have that, then the mind will continue to create suffering through craving, clinging and being, and birth of new action. And so it succumbs to old karma, karmic choices and intentions that were done through the mode of craving, which leads to further craving, which leads to further suffering, which leads to further karma.

So the idea here is to unwind all of that. And the way we do that is to recognize that there is something arising in the form of craving. There's a tension or tightness in the head and in the body. Or that we see that there is this craving for becoming happening. Or that there is this attachment to an outcome happening. We recognize that. In the meditation, we recognize any of the hindrances. And so those hindrances are also suffering.

We recognize that. We release our attention from that. It's the attention to those hindrances or to that aspect of suffering that keeps it going, that perpetuates it. So we take away that attention by releasing our mind's attention from it, bringing it back to the mind and body, and then relaxing and letting go of any type of intention. The moment we do that, we experience the mundane form of Nibbana.

And then we come back to the Re-smile, which is to generate a wholesome object, a wholesome mind object. And then from that, we continue with our object of meditation, primarily loving kindness, but it can be compassion. It could even be the breath. It could be whatever it is that you're taking as your object of meditation. And then we repeat whenever necessary. This process of the 6R's is essentially right effort. And the right effort that we're talking about is really the heart of the Eightfold Path. So you'll notice in the schedule that we have, we're not really going to discuss right effort, because it's encapsulated in the Eightfold Path. It's an encapsulation of the Eightfold Path, but it's also interwoven through the entire Eightfold Path.

And you'll see how it is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. So when the Buddha talked about the middle way, in his very first discourse at Sarnath, at the Deer Park, he spoke to the first five disciples and he said that there is a middle way. There is the way of excess. There is the way of indulgence, and that does not lead to anything noble.

And then there's the way of asceticism. There's the way of causing pain and tension and suffering in the mind and body with the idea that that's going to lead us out of suffering. So what he said was, neither of these two extremes is going to take us to where we want, which is ultimately the freedom of mind, ultimately ceto vimutti, ultimately freedom from the bondage of samsara.

Liberation. And so that's when he introduces in this discourse the Eightfold Path. It's called the Noble Eightfold Path because it is what leads one to becoming noble. A noble person is somebody who is awakened, who has reached at least the first level of awakening, right? And so on. So the first factor of the Eightfold Path is what we're going to discuss today, that is samma ditthi. So samma ditthi is generally translated as right view.

But I want to first bring an understanding to this word, samma, because some translations have it as right, some have it as proper, and so on. So samma, which is in Pali, comes from the Sanskrit samyak. It is proper, that which is fit to follow, that which is essentially effective in the sense that it is effective for leading you towards Nibbana. But even the word right, when we use the word right, it's not only an ethical way of looking at it, that is to say it's a wholesome path. When we say right view, it's a wholesome view. When we say right intention, it's a wholesome intention, and so on. But if you go back to the root of the word right, that too comes from a word called ritta in Pali and Sanskrit.

Ritta, that's R-T-A. Ritta means that which is harmonious, that which is in harmony with the cosmic order, that which aligns with Nibbana, that which aligns with what is required to experience and attain Nibbana. So once you have this context, then you understand that the Eightfold Path is essentially a blueprint. It's a guideline. It is the way leading to Nibbana. And so when we talk about samma ditthi, right, so now the word ditthi, which is the Pali for drishti, can mean to gaze at something, that could mean view, that can mean vision, something, a perspective, whatever you want to call it.

But essentially, when we say right view, we're talking about two levels. So when we're going to explore each of these different facets of the Eightfold Path, we're going to be looking at it at two levels. One is the mundane level, and the second is the super mundane level. The mundane level is essentially when you start out on the path, there are certain things that are required for you to actually have that mundane right view. And these elements actually allow for a more wholesome state of mind.

It's actually psychologically beneficial to have these different facets of mundane right view when you start out on the path. And then that will take you ultimately to the super mundane right view. So I'm going to use Majjhima Nikaya 117 as my source material. I'm not going to read the whole thing. I'm just going to pick out certain elements from there to discuss each of these different facets.

And so this is Majjhima Nikaya 117, The Great Forty. So here's the mundane right view. So here the Buddha says, There is what is given and what is offered and what is sacrificed. There is fruit and result of good and bad actions. There is this world and the other world. There is mother and father. There are beings who are reborn spontaneously. the other world. This is right view affected by taints, partaking of merit, ripening in the acquisitions.

So what does he mean by this? Affected by the taints, partaking of merit, ripening in the acquisitions. So when he says affected by the taints, he's talking about the asavas. So we have three primary asavas. Sometimes they're listed as four, but they're actually three. So the first asava is the asava of ignorance. The second asava is the asava of becoming. And the third is the asava of craving, sensual craving.

So affected by these. In other words, you haven't actually rooted out any of the asavas yet. There is still sensual craving. There is still some level of desire for becoming. There is still some level of ignorance. Although you have been introduced to the Eightfold Path, although you've been introduced to the Four Noble Truths and the Dhamma and so on, there is work to be done, because you can't just say, I know it and now it's done.

A certain level of ignorance is gone once you understand the Four Noble Truths. But when you start applying them and you actually root out the ignorance, then that particular asava is gone. But it happens in a certain order as well. First, you let go of any kind of sensual craving. Then you let go of the desire for existence, the desire for becoming something. These are the habitual tendencies.

These are the different ways that the mind says, I want to be so and so, even wanting to be a great meditator. It's a great aspiration to have, but becoming obsessed by it, becoming obsessed by having a certain level of achievement, that can also be the desire for a certain type of existence. And then finally, ignorance itself, talking about not knowing, not understanding, and not applying the Four Noble Truths in every moment. So the best way of looking at ignorance is that it is a lack of mindfulness, a lack of mindfulness of the Dhamma, a lack of mindfulness of the Four Noble Truths, a lack of mindfulness of the moment in general.

So this is what it means when it is affected by the taints. So there's work to be done. Partaking of merit, in other words, it's still you're still producing karma, you're still producing effects of various actions. So what this means is, when the mind is free from all craving, free from all desire for any kind of renewed existence, free from all ignorance, then any of the links of dependent origination that start from craving onwards disappear for that particular mind. That is the mind without craving. That is the mind of somebody who is fully liberated.

And when that mind is fully liberated, they are still beckoning to the call of previous karma, but they're not producing any new karma. Therefore, they're not partaking of any merits. They're not partaking of any effects of good or bad actions taken prior or continuously being taken, because they have let go of any kind of fuel for new karma.

But any kind of old karma that arises, arises in the form of being made contact through the sixth sense basis. So experiencing a pleasurable feeling, experiencing a painful feeling, it's all karma. It's all a result of previous actions that were taken prior to full awakening. In other words, these actions were rooted in an intention that was guided by craving. These actions were motivated by craving, motivated by the desire for existence, the sensual desire, motivated by ignorance or fueled by ignorance. So all of that is now having to come through at some point or another if the causes and conditions are right. For an arahant, for somebody who is fully liberated, those actions or the effects of those actions stop right there and then in terms of the experience, in terms of the feeling. Now there's no identification process with that action. There's no identity in relation to the effect of those previous actions, and therefore there is no more fuel. So that kind of partaking of merit is essentially somebody who hasn't let go fully, somebody who still has work to be done.

And then finally, it says ripening in the acquisitions. So when we say ripening in the acquisitions, acquisitions here can be another word for clinging. So when we talk about clinging, we talk about four different types of clinging. But essentially, when we say clinging, we're saying there's still ripening in the identification process with even right view. So that means that the mind says that I am the one who has right view. This right view is mine.

I am a good meditator. I'm a good follower of the Eightfold Path and so on and so forth. The identity is what ripens in acquisitions. And this identity then gives rise to further acquisitions and so on. So now we'll get into the mundane right view. There is what is given, and what is offered, and what is sacrificed.

So when we say offered and sacrificed, these can be used interchangeably depending upon the context. But let's go back to given. Given here means dana. Something that is given. This means the exercising of generosity. So when we give to another person, we are exercising generosity. Loda has stated that if you understood the significance, the vitality, the importance of generosity, if you understood how much it provides you in terms of what you get back when you exercise generosity, you would not hesitate. You would not waste a moment to share whatever it is that you have. Every meal that you have, you would want to share something of your meal with another person. That is the level of importance that is given to generosity.

And when we talk about generosity, there are different ways of being generous. We can offer money, but that's a very basic kind of generosity. We can offer food, we can offer shelter, we can offer medicines, we can offer clothing. But the fundamental level of generosity is offering our loving kindness, our goodwill towards others, being generous with our compassion, being generous with our empathetic joy, being generous with our equanimity and patience.

And it all starts with the smile. That is the importance that's given here in this practice of the 6R's, the Relax and then the Re-smile. Every time you smile, you come back to the present moment. Every time you smile, you bring greater awareness, you bring greater mindfulness. And every time you share your smile with another person, every time you share a good joke with another person, every time you uplift another person's heart, every time you laugh with another person, you make somebody laugh. You are being generous. It's as simple as that. When you talk about what is offered and what is sacrificed, let's just take the word offer here. We're really specifically talking about what is offered to the community, that is the sangha, and primarily the bhikkhus and the bhikkhunis.

Because what is offered to the bhikkhus and the bhikkhunis is seen as being offered to the entire sangha. That's what the Buddha has said. He has said that when you offer to me as the Buddha, or you offer to any of the bhikkhus, you are offering to the entire sangha. And that is the merit that you're receiving by offering to the sangha, which talks about the different levels of offering. It talks about offering to somebody outside of the Dhamma. It talks about offering to animals. It talks about offering to even people who aren't following the precepts. There is still something received in terms of merit. And then, of course, in the giving, there is a purification of that process through one who is giving, in the mind of one who is giving, and in the mind of one who is receiving.

But when we offer to the bhikkhus and the bhikkhunis, what we're doing is we're having an opportunity to essentially transfer that merit to our loved ones, and especially to those who have passed on. So in different parts of Asia, you'll see this. For example, when I was in Cambodia, there is this celebration called Chonban. In there, it's essentially all the lay people going to the monasteries and offering food, offering shelter, offering robes, offering even money.

And what they're doing is, in this offering, they are essentially praying that may the merit of this offering go to my loved ones who have passed on. And so you will see in a lot of stories in the Petavatthu, for example. The Petavatthu is a story of the hungry ghosts. It talks about how if somebody is a hungry ghost, somebody who has no ability to do anything in terms of producing new actions because they are beholden to the effects of their previous actions from past lives, but they have no ability to even generate any good actions that can cause them to experience a higher level of birth, they are essentially helpless. So they have to wait until many, many, many thousands of years, even hundreds of thousands of years sometimes, but generally thousands to ten thousands of years, to let that karma burn out. And then whatever good karma is there standing in line is accrued, and that provides them the ability to go into a new, higher rebirth. But there is a way out of that, that's a little faster, a little quicker.

And what that is, is essentially the hungry ghost's relatives who are still alive in the human realm. What they will do is they will offer to the bhikkhus and the bhikkhunis, and they will then dedicate that merit to those relatives. Now, you know, not everybody knows where their relatives are. Some might be devas, some might be in another life, hungry ghosts, it might be whatever they are. But in offering to the monks, to the bhikkhu sangha, and then transferring that merit, dedicating that merit, if there are those who are in the hungry ghost realm, they will receive that and they will have a better opportunity, a faster opportunity, to get out of there and then go into possibly a human realm or even devaloka.

So this is the understanding of what is sacrificed. The word sacrificed in Pali comes from the word yitta. And in Pali, yitta comes from the Sanskrit yajati, right? Yajati means a yagya. And a yagya is essentially a fire sacrifice. It's oblations. Praying to the Buddha, right? We don't actually pray to the Buddha, but what we're doing is we're offering our goodwill to everybody. And we're saying and accepting that there was somebody known as the Buddha who essentially founded this path.

And now we are offering our thanks. We are offering our gratitude for that. But in some parts of Asia, you'll also see what's known as dhatu puja. It's called dhatu puja. And what that is, is they will take the relics of the Buddha or they'll take relics of a supposed arahant or a monk or whoever it is. But essentially it would be the Buddha or a supposed arahant. And they will do what's known as dhatu puja. That's essentially a ceremony and a ritual that is, you know, kind of like an oblation to the path, and they haven't really acquired right view yet in terms of the experience of it, and they still pray to the devas or they still do certain kinds of ceremonies. Maybe they light candles or they light lamps in the temples, or whatever it is. It's fine, completely fine. The idea here is that we're not saying that a person needs to pray. We're not saying a person needs to be. What we're saying is it's the attitude that is brought out by a person when they do these kinds of things.

And that's essentially the beginning of some kind of faith. Some kind of willingness to try and see for oneself what this path is all about, confidence when we walk this path. So I would say it's better to believe in something than not at all, because it gives you a certain level of gladness in the mind. It gives you a feeling of being uplifted.

There is a famous, well, he's a professor, a neuroscience professor, let's say. His name is Robert Sapolsky. He talks about how atheists are probably one of the most depressed people on this planet because they have nothing to believe in. But people who have a certain kind of belief system, people who believe in anything, doesn't mean that they have blind faith necessarily. It doesn't mean that they're gullible, but they have a certain level of faith in something. It actually is beneficial and healthy for them from a neuroscientific perspective, has even that basic level of some kind of belief in something outside of ourselves, whether you want to call them the devas or God or whatever it is that might be there. And once it's there and you start walking the path, you see that that faith starts to renew itself into faith in the Dhamma and the sangha, the Buddha, Dhamma and sangha. And that faith is not something where we have to say we have to believe in something, we have to [hold] to an idea or whatever.

The Buddha has always said, see for yourself. See and experiment and see for yourself by walking the path. Once you walk the path, then you have established the experiential confidence. So this is the understanding of what sacrifice is. It's the idea that there is some belief in a world outside, and we'll get to that as well, and that in that world outside, there are other beings and so on.

There is fruit and result of good and bad actions. So this is essentially karma. When we talk about karma, there is a whole level of complexity about karma because there is karma, which means the intention to do something. There's karma in terms of the effect of that intention. And there's karma, which is just pure action, that's not motivated by craving. But there is fruit and result of good and bad action. This is also very important psychologically speaking, because if you don't have this understanding, then whatever you do, it's a very nihilistic way of looking at the world. You will say that whatever I do has no meaning. Whatever I'm thinking, whatever I'm saying, whatever I'm doing has no meaning.

So it doesn't matter if I lie. It doesn't matter if I cheat. It doesn't matter if I steal, kill, because there's no result of any good and bad actions. In fact, this is one of the wrong views that the Buddha has pointed out, and in that wrong view it's been our world and roll it up into one mass of flesh, and if I was to cut that mass of flesh up there would be no result from that. But actually we do see in our world and in our experience of the world that our actions do have consequences.

Our actions that are rooted in certain kinds of intentions have consequences. And therefore, what I say, what I do, what I think about has a direct effect in the future. It might not happen immediately, but it could happen 10 years down the road. It could happen in another life. It could happen in a life that's 10 lives down the road. It doesn't matter. What the Buddha is saying here is that all of our actions have some kind of consequence, good, bad or indifferent. So when you have this understanding of karma, then you become more mindful of your intentions. You become more mindful of the kinds of words that you use. You become more mindful in your interactions with beings around you. And so the idea is, if you see that there is to your actions, then you will prevent yourself from harming other individuals, harming other beings.

Because that can have a direct result on your future. You may be having to face that same kind of treatment down the road. And so that's where the understanding of the precepts comes into place. So the idea that I will not cause harm to other living beings because I don't want to be harmed. Don't want to lie to other beings because I don't want to be lied to. I don't want to have any kind of sensual misconduct because I don't want people to act in a way that is going to disturb me. So in other words, when we talk about sexual or sensual misconduct, it's the pursuit of sensual pleasures to the other precepts.

Or I don't want people to steal from me, so I will not steal. So the idea is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the understanding of there is fruit and result of good and bad actions. There is this world and the other world. Now, this is a very interesting statement. It can mean that there is this world that we experience in terms of this existence and that there are other layers of existence.

From a cosmological standpoint, when we talk about the Indian cosmology, and particularly Buddhist cosmology, there are many different levels of existence. There are layers to those different realms. So we have the six central heavens above us. There is the four Brahma Lokas, but within those four Brahma Lokas, there are three subdivisions: animal realm, the hungry ghost realm, the niraya or the hell realms. And within those hell realms, there are different subsets depending upon the crime and punishment and so on.

But that's something that not everybody can necessarily subscribe to, because they haven't seen it for themselves. And so we don't need to subscribe to it. We don't need to blindly follow that this is the case. Something beyond just our limited human understanding that we can't see, that we cannot interpret even, because this world that we have is defined by the matrix of our five physical sense spaces.

Everything we see through the eyes, everything we hear through the ears, everything we smell and taste, everything that we feel through the body, all of that is essentially different kinds of sensory data points. The eyes pick up photons. The ears pick up vibrations. The nose picks up odor molecules. The tongue picks up taste molecules. The body picks up different kinds of variations in heat and temperature and vibration internally and externally. And then that is interpreted as perception, as I'm seeing the color red or seeing the color blue, or I'm hearing Beethoven's Fifth, or I'm smelling this particular perfume, or I'm tasting this curry, or I feel hot, or I feel cold, or I feel a stomachache going, or I feel a headache.

All of these are essentially different sensory data points. And this is the world that is defined by those sense bases. We cannot see anything outside of it for the time being, unless we're able to cultivate perception. And that happens through the cultivation of various different kinds of psychic faculties. And that can happen through the attainment of the jhanas and understanding how the jhanas happen and so on.

But what is the other world that we're talking about? The other world, yes, it can be outside of the scope of our limited sensory experiences. But the other world can also be the mind itself, and primarily the super mundane experience of the mind. That means we can say that this world is the mundane. This world is right here, right now, through our sense bases. But the other world is super mundane. It is elevated. It is beyond our sense bases, and that is the experience of jhanas. So the first jhana, the second jhana, the third jhana, the fourth jhana, and then the arupa jhanas or the ayatanas can be understood as the super mundane, that is beyond just the sense-based experiences.

And then the ultimate super mundane, so to speak, would be the experience of Nibbana itself. So there is this world and the other world. There is this world that I'm experiencing now through my sense bases, but there's a possibility of transcending this world through meditation, through the process of collectedness and going into these high states of experience, states in the sense that they are altered because they're not based in any kind of thought, they're not based in any kind of thinking. Initially, in the first jhana, when we talk about the first jhana, we have thinking and examining thought to the point that we bring up an object and we sustain our attention on it, but immediately after that we let go of that and then we're cruising through in the second jhana, the third and the fourth, and now we're experiencing that which is. And so therefore, this is the right view affected by taints, partaking of merit, ripening in the acquisitions.

This is all part of the mundane. Now we'll talk about the super mundane right view. Before I continue with this, this particular passage is different in the sense that usually when we talk about the super mundane right view, what we're saying is it comes about at stream entry. It comes about when somebody experiences the first level of awakening. And now they have established experiential confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. They've let go of any kind of wrong view, and they've let go of any kind of belief in rites and rituals with the idea that they will take you to Nibbana.

In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, there is a passage where Ananda asks the Buddha, when you are gone, because he's already announced that he's going to be going in three months, he's going to be attaining parinibbana. So Ananda says, how are we to know? How are we to see? How are we to understand when somebody experiences stream entry?

It's very interesting because the Buddha doesn't talk about letting go of wrong views, although it is there. He doesn't talk about letting go of attachments to rites and rituals or the idea that they'll take you to Nibbana, although it's there. He specifically points out the mirror of the Dhamma. Ananda is to see if someone has total conviction and confidence in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. So what does it mean when we say conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha? First and foremost, we're talking about the faith in the Buddha, the faith in the idea that there was somebody there who experienced for themselves Nibbana and brought up the ability or showed the way how to experience that Nibbana.

When we talk about the Dhamma, the Dhamma itself is essentially understanding dependent origination and following the Eightfold Path. And when we talk about the Sangha, the Sangha is essentially the community of people that you have who are practicing the same thing you are. So that's the Bhikkhu Sangha and the Bhikkhuni Sangha. That is the Sangha of those beings who have experienced levels of awakening. And then there is the Sangha that is the entire Sangha of those who follow the Buddha's ways.

So before I go on, looks like there's some other ones that I've skipped here. So then there is mother and father. So when we say there is mother and father, what the Buddha is saying is we have to understand and acknowledge the people that took care of us. It doesn't necessarily have to be our biological parents. It could be people who brought us up. It could be our caregivers. It could be our cousins who might have brought us up. It could be our aunts and uncles. It could be our grandparents. It could be whoever it was. But the idea is that we cannot return the debt that our parents gave us.

Even if our parents were not as loving as we wanted them to be, even if they were not as accepting as maybe we wanted them to be, the fact is they brought us into this world, and bringing us into this world allows us the potential to experience Nibbana. And for that alone, we can have some level of gratitude. And then we acknowledge all of those people who have taken care of us as we've grown up, so that we understand how the world functions, to the Dhamma. Whether or not they have, we still acknowledge that they were able to bring us up into this world to a certain point, so that we do come to the Dhamma.

And then finally, well, there's a couple of things here. It says there are beings who are reborn spontaneously. So when we say there are beings who are reborn spontaneously, we're saying that rebirth, there's a potential for rebirth. Now, this is also in alignment with what I said earlier about this world and the other. It's not like we have to blindly believe that there is rebirth. We should have a level of openness to say that potentially it could be rebirth. But as we start to experience the Dhamma for ourselves, what we start to see is that in fact rebirth is happening at every moment, because what we talk about as consciousness is not one consciousness that is there, pervasive throughout.

It is the arising and passing away of individual consciousnesses, individual sense-based consciousnesses. Even the life that we have in this world or in this existence, in this particular birth, is impermanent. It arises and passes away. There is, in that sense, what is known as a jivita indriya, which is the life faculty. And that could be understood as a level of consciousness that comes into existence when it joins with the embryo, right? The mother and father join together. And then there is the gandhabba, that is the descending consciousness that then gives life to that particular biological or organic material.

And so this consciousness then gives life to the series of the arising and passing away of sense-based consciousnesses. But when that being dies, that consciousness too departs. It's not the same consciousness. It goes through layers and layers of changes, and that's happening in every moment. So if we start to see it in this way, and then we finally start to experience it in this way, then we say there's actually spontaneous rebirth.

There is the idea that even within the understanding of rebirth, that there might be a So that's basically kind of like a purgatory or a intermediate between this world or this life and the next life. But all of that actually is happening at the level of mind. You think about our own identities, the identities that we've built up. They are spontaneously generated. They spontaneously arise and pass away. They continue to change all the time. You were, 10 years ago, or five years ago, or three years ago, or a year ago, a different person. You're not the same person you were six months ago, a month ago, a week ago. You're not even the same person you were when this talk started, because new information potentially has been given to you.

And now your identity chooses to take it or not to take it. But in essence, your consciousness continues to arise and pass away. For beings who are reborn spontaneously, there is no pause between the arising of one consciousness and the arising of the next consciousness, or let's say the passing away of one consciousness and the arising of the next consciousness. It is seamless. It happens like that. And then finally, part of the mundane right views, there are in the world good and virtuous recluses and brahmins who have realized for themselves by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world. So this is essentially talking about the Buddha and arahants, essentially people who have walked the path for themselves, done the work, done what had to be done, experienced for themselves Nibbana, and walked the path to the end. So doing so, they can actually guide others. They can say, this is the way I have done it, this is the way that I have learned it, and so try and see for yourself. And we say, indeed, that there are teachers, there are guides.

Maybe they haven't walked the entire path, but there are still teachers and guides who have walked some of the path, who know some of the map. And so when we acknowledge that, then we can just follow in their instruction and then start to practically apply it. And we will see for ourselves whether it works or not.

Now, I'll come back to the super mundane right view. I was talking about how that really is the understanding of right view as being experiential confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha. And that's the way it's understood in most suttas, and primarily the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. It's not just, I know that there is suffering. I know that there are causes and conditions for the suffering. I know that there's a way out of the suffering, to the end of the suffering. It's not just, I know this by rote. I know this in my mind. It's more that I have applied the Four Noble Truths, and therefore I'm able to see the Four Noble Truths and utilize the Four Noble Truths for whatever is arising.

So the ultimate understanding of right view, therefore, is that you fully understand what suffering is. You fully abandon all of the different causes and conditions for that suffering. You fully realize the end of that suffering, which is Nibbana. And you fully develop, cultivate, and perfect the way leading to that end of suffering, which is the Eightfold Path.

But as I said earlier, in this particular sutta, it's a little different. And this is what the Buddha says: "wisdom, the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the investigation of states, the enlightenment factor, the path factor of right view in one whose mind is noble, whose mind is taintless, who possesses the noble path and is developing the noble path. This is right view that is noble, taintless, super mundane, a factor of the path." So this is the super mundane right view. It is noble because it is being exercised by somebody who is a stream enterer and above. It can be taintless because it's being exercised automatically, spontaneously, by somebody who is an arahant. It's super mundane because it transcends the rebirth into future existences.

It transcends all the way towards Nibbana. So these factors, the wisdom, the faculty of wisdom, and the power of wisdom. What does it mean when we say wisdom? So when we say wisdom, we're talking about wisdom as the understanding of the Four Noble Truths, but it's also the understanding of dependent origination. And not just the understanding, it's the application, the realization, the experiencing, the observing of dependent origination. When you experience Nibbana, what happens is the mind makes contact with the Nibbana element, with a nirvana element. That contact is said to be empty, empty of any kind of self. It's undirected because there is no direction, there is no desire, and it's said to be signless because it's not an object that's being taken. Nirvana cannot be considered as an object. Even though we say there is this idea of the nirvana element, it's just words that we're using to specify something.

But in reality, it's this experience that is beyond any condition. It is the absolute, it is the unconditioned experience. And in that unconditioned experience, from that, there arises this contact, which gives rise to feeling. That feeling is conditioned by that unconditioned contact. And that feeling then can give rise to seeing the links of dependent origination. Indeed, when you see the feeling or experience the feeling and you start to see the other links in whatever way you are, that is basically a projection of your mind's ability to see it in whatever way it sees it. It doesn't matter how you see it. What matters is your mindfulness is so sharp that you're able to see, in fact, that there is no person here.

There is no self here that is guiding this whole process. It is all a series of impersonal experiences, impersonal input, personal processes that are happening. And when you see that, that's when you develop the wisdom. That's when you touch upon wisdom. That is wisdom. And when we talk about the faculty of wisdom and the power of wisdom, so the faculty of wisdom is the ability to discern between what is wholesome and unwholesome. The ability to understand what is the path leading to Nirvana and what is not the path leading to Nirvana. And the power of wisdom is the immediate, to use your intuition. So another way of looking at wisdom is that, yes, it comes from the word panya, which means insight.

But wisdom here can also be intuition. And when we talk about intuition, that is the ability to spontaneously know what needs to be done in that moment and that is appropriate for that moment. It is not preconceived. It is not conditioned. It just arises because that mind, which is now taintless, which means it has experienced full awakening, that mind is functioning all the time from intuition.

And the way to develop your intuition is to see for yourself how your mind works, right? You can exercise your intuition by seeing how the mind works, by giving it a question. Maybe you have a problem that you're trying to solve. Maybe there's decisions that you need to make, certain choices that you need to make. But that part of the mind that is, let's say, the thinking mind, the mind that is conditioned, the mind that is still rooted in some level of ignorance, that is still having chitter-chatter, that is still restless, is trying to deal with the situation in a way that is not necessarily fully effective. It can use all kinds of analysis.

It can use all kinds of logic to come to some kind of rational conclusion, limited. When you use intuition, it bypasses all of that. Intuition is essentially surrendering the mind to the moment, surrendering the mind to the synchronicity of what is around you, of what is available. So essentially, when you quieten the mind, when the mind becomes completely quiet, and the heart is awake, the heart is open, at that point in time, there is intuition.

So when you say the heart, what we're saying is the ability to feel, not in terms of feeling, but the ability to actually pick up on messages. And those messages aren't necessarily coming from some universe or God or whatever. These messages that come up in the form of thoughts, that can come up in the form of pictures or ideas or even visions, whatever they are, are guiding the mind to the synchronicities that it can experience, and that is appropriate for the solutions that are required in that.

So this is intuition. This is the ability to exercise intuition. So you can start off small. You can start off very mundane. You can say, I have these choices to make. Either I do this or do that, but I'm not going to think about it. I'm going to quieten my mind. I'm going to present that mind with the choices and I'm going to let it go and just walk away from it. And all of a sudden, when you least expect it, this is the very important thing to understand. When you least expect it, in other words, when there is no craving involved, when there is no attachment to an outcome involved, when there is no expectations involved, then the true answer will come to you and it will hit you like a Eureka moment.

And when you take that choice, when you make that decision, it might not be the decision you personally want to make, situation, and it ultimately takes you in a direction that leads you towards the Dhamma, leads you towards, right intention, right speech, right action, and so on and so forth, which we'll explore later. So the mind that is able to exercise the Eightfold Path in every moment is exercising the faculty of wisdom, right? So they have possessed some level of wisdom in seeing for themselves how this is an impersonal process when they see the links of dependent origination.

But then they start to exercise. In other words, they utilize right effort. They utilize right mindfulness. They become mindful of the Dhamma in every moment. They understand what is going on. When they do that, they're open. They are surrendering to the moment. They are taking refuge in the moment. When they do that, then the power of wisdom cultivates.

And then it becomes automatic. And that power of wisdom is intuition, spontaneous intuition. And that is the mind of one who is fully awakened, complete spontaneity, right? Spontaneity, not in the sense that I'm going to do this today, or all of a sudden I change my mind, I'm going to do this instead. It's more like, there is no required thinking needed. Eightfold Path. So whatever that mind does, it will always be rooted in the Eightfold Path. It will always be rooted in the Dhamma. And therefore, it won't produce new karma. It won't produce any new rebirth, any potential for further existence. It will just stop right there and then. But it will exercise right speech, right action, right livelihood in a way that is appropriate, right?

That mind might say, I don't need to speak right now. Or these are the words I have to say in this particular order for people to understand what needs to be done. The Buddha obviously was a master at that, right? He understood and he surveyed the minds and he was able to see what is required and then use the right exposition, right usage of words to penetrate to the innermost core of their minds.

Oftentimes you'll see in the suttas where it starts off where the Buddha is, you know, might be going out for alms round and he says it's too early for alms round and maybe he sits down and meditates and then all of a sudden, like, he gets a thought. It says a thought occurred to him that maybe I should go to this place, or maybe I should go see the Sakians or the Mullins or whoever it is, and then he goes there and it's appropriate for him to go there because it was needed for that moment or needed for that time, so that he could give a discourse or so that he could interact with them and help liberate people.

So this is the power of wisdom. The investigation of states, enlightenment factor. This is called, or in Pali, this is called dhamma vicaya. Dhamma, of course, are the phenomena, the states. Vicaya here is to investigate. But the word investigate, it denotes the idea that we have to rationalize, we have to analyze, we have to think about it, penetrate by continuously analyzing, but that's not how we're doing it. The way I would look at it is investigation of states is really the understanding of what is happening in every given moment, right? So this is dependent upon the component of the preceding enlightenment factor, which is mindfulness.

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one thing to the other. Mindfulness comes from the word Sati. Sati comes from the word smriti, which means to remember. What are we remembering? We're remembering the Dhamma in every moment. Remembering to see where is my mind in this moment? Is my mind in a wholesome state? Or is my mind thinking and proliferating all of these different kinds of ideas? Is my mind content in this moment? going to happen right so that ability to see and discern so another word for this discernment of what states are present in the mind is also part of this super mundane right view and the path factor of right view in one whose mind is noble so one whose mind is noble would be somebody who is a stream enterer with fruition, whose mind is taintless, somebody who possesses the noble path, right?

Somebody who's walking the path and one who is developing the noble path. So this could be somebody who is a faith follower, somebody who is a dharma follower, somebody who is walking the path but hasn't yet experienced stream entry. But the fact is they're starting to utilize the different aspects of the Eightfold Path, right? They're starting to utilize right effort. They're starting to utilize mindfulness and starting to see for themselves, how mind works.

So all of these are factors of the mundane right view. Therefore, this is the view, or this is right view, that is noble, taintless, super mundane, a factor of the path. That's also the investigation into could there have been a better way? If not, then that was probably the best way to deal with the situation that would have led to this particular moment. It's even a little tricky because in this second, maybe there's a moment of harm, but then in this next few moments, it turns out really good. So was that a good...

So that's what I'm saying. So that's where we have to look back and say, do I have an intention to be harmful there? Or was it unintentionally harmful to that person? But ultimately, for example, the decision to leave somebody or the decision to say something to someone because it's needed in that moment. But we can't be responsible for how they feel. Only they can be responsible for how they feel. But we know that we have to say it in order to come out of the situation or we know that we have to leave them in order to find a better outcome.

So in those situations, we're not motivated by any kind of ill intentions. We're just motivated by trying to free ourselves, liberate ourselves from that. So when we look back and we see, okay, it might have seemed harmful in that moment, but possibly when we look back, yes, that person might have felt harmed, that person might have felt like we were being unjust, whatever it was, but ultimately it was the best outcome for them too, right? So for them too, it was like, oh, yeah, that was good. That was fine. I'm a better person for that to have happened.

It's awfully complicated because by when, you know what I mean? It's like, and then it keeps going. That's why, with that said, we try to look at karma in all those ways. It is a literal mind-blower. So best to just work in the present moment. Yeah, thank you. Who else do we have? I have a question, Delson. Yes. First of all, thank you for the talk. This is about the 6R's. The tension that happens and we release the tension. I know, I think in the, we mentioned it's because of the craving. tension. So is it that we are catching it after the craving arises and we are stopping the becoming or is it just that we are holding, catching the defilements and preventing the craving?

Maybe I'm trying to be very granular as to where it fits in the dependent origination links. If you can elaborate there, that would be very helpful. Craving is the cause of tension, but craving is also tension. So craving can be identified by tension and identified as tension. And so we are catching it. Oh, so craving and tension are the same thing and we let go of the craving, so we let go of the becoming then. Right.

And so we have to get to a point where we feel no tension then at all. And then you can even become more granular, since we're talking about this. And we can notice just before the tension arises, what is the intention behind it? What are the underlying tendencies that come up? And then we can choose to let go of those two before it goes into full-blown craving, before it becomes complete suffering.

Thank you. Hi, Delson. I have one more question. In the process of meditation, sometimes we see that there's no agency. Things happen by themselves. There's no free will, per se. For example, in walking meditation, you might always be putting your left foot forward. And then you kind of see that, and then you realize that you are actually creating the narration that you move this foot forward.

So is there any free will per se? Is it free will only if you are mindful enough? So there is no free will. There is a conditioned intention that arises, right? So when we talk about free will, what we're saying, first of all, the word, the phrase free will has so many different connotations of determinism, predeterminism, all of these different ways of looking at it. But let's just simplify it and understand that in every given moment, there is a choice presented. And however the chain of reactions that have arisen, right, however they arise, will give some kind of automatic or almost automated inclination towards a particular choice.

And this is where then, you know, methananda would say you have what's known as free won't you always have the choice in every given moment to notice that that energy of you know continuous reactions that now come and project into wanting to take this choice and then the utilization of seeing that and saying i'm choosing not to do that letting go of that and going to let's say from the unwholesome to the wholesome in that there is the free won't there is the ability to say i do this right and you could say that that's free will but actually no because that's conditioned by understanding the dhamma being introduced to the dhamma right so there's always conditions that are going on but if we say there's no free will there can be the misunderstanding then that means that there is no meaning to the actions that we're taking but we're not saying that either we're saying that every action that is being taken is a consequence of previous intentions which are consequences of previous habitual tendencies which are consequences of previous choices and formations and so on and that's continuing to be conditioned

Until you come out of that and you experience the unconditioned, the absolute, which is nibbana. So to that extent, that is outside the scope of even seeing that as free will or not free will. All it is, is conditions arising and conditioning other conditions, and so on. So the only way to have free will is to be mindful, then. That's right.

That's the attention rooted in reality. That's what I call it. But that's the yoniso manasikara. That is the proper attention being given to the moment and understanding what is present. And then that's why I say there's also the react versus respond. When you go through a choice automatically, you're reacting. The mind is reacting based on previous information and the chain reactions.

But when it's responding, because of that mindfulness, because of that attention, you're taking a pause for a few moments, making the mind collected, and then being able to discern what choice should be made. And therefore, then that free will comes about. Delson, another question. There's right view, but then it is said that the Noble Eightfold Path also has right knowledge, right? And to my mind, they sound a little bit separate. So why would there be a distinction? The right knowledge would be like a full accomplishment of the right view, or how is that understood? I'll actually go more in detail later on, but right knowledge. So we have two, actually: right knowledge and right liberation.

So right knowledge comes from the word sammasana, that's right insight. So that knowledge or that wisdom is the full understanding, the full observation, the full experience, the full unbridled, unadulterated experience of seeing all facets of dependent origination. That is what right knowledge is, which then informs the establishing of the super mundane right view. And that thing is connected to the power of wisdom, or the faculty for wisdom, but 100% full on. So in that way, they are connected.

That's right. I have a question, and thank you very much, Delson, for speaking with us today. My question is around when one is going in meditation through this 6R's process and letting go of the thoughts that arise, the distractions, and so on, presumably letting go of, instead of the attachment, to craving. Is there a point where one is moving, I've heard it said, through the links of dependent origination closer in the direction of ignorance? So I'm not really sure. My experience is letting go of the thoughts, letting go of the craving, but as one progresses into deeper jhanas, or the higher rupa jhanas, there it changes, and I'm just wondering what exactly is going on there. Is it craving that we're letting go of there? Are there other aspects?

So when you get into the arupas, you're actually starting to look at consciousness, right, in infinite consciousness. You're starting to see how the arising and passing away of consciousness happens. When you go into neither perception or non-perception, you're actually starting to go into the level of formations. and starting to see the proto-thoughts. That's what I call formations, the proto-thoughts. Just before the thought can be fully formed, you're able to let go of them.

You're able to just, like, they just cascade out. Instead of becoming fully formed into a thought, they are basically just let go of. And so it is, in that sense, going, reversing through dependent origination, all the way towards ignorance. But in this case, ignorance... When you experience, or when you go, have, when your mind experiences the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, it replaces the ignorance. And in that moment, when the mind comes out, instead of ignorance being there, it's nibbana.

And when it's nibbana, in that moment, whoever is experiencing that, for that split moment, their mind is free completely, the mind of an arahant. But what happens is, once you start to see the links and then you have attachment to, oh, that was an experience, I wonder what that was, the sense of self comes up, the craving comes up. Then all of that comes back through the next arising of the links. And so whatever is let go of is let go of, but whatever is remaining is remaining. So for the mind of the arahant, how they get through that is they experience nibbana and nothing but nibbana. They don't take anything personally. They don't attach any sense of self to any of that.

Therefore, all the fuel is then burned out. Just a follow-up question around that. Just wondering about that process of dropping some of the fetters and touching the nibbana element. How do you know that that has taken place? You'll only know through a long period of experimentation and putting yourself in different situations, to see if craving is still arising, to see if mental agitation is arising, to see if the mind is getting irritated by something, and so on. So you have to expose the mind back into the world and see how it's taking it.