Day 4 Apr Retreat -DN15 Pt 1 Dependent Origination

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

Do not say that, Ananda. Do not say that. This dependent origination is profound and appears profound. It is through not understanding, not penetrating this doctrine, that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string. Covered as with a blight, tangled with coarse grass, unable to pass beyond states of woe, the ill destiny, ruin and the round of birth and death.

So the Buddha is saying to Ananda, because Ananda has had some kind of an experience where he's seen dependent origination, but he hasn't seen all of it, as we'll see. And the Buddha is saying that, yes, it is quite profound, the understanding of dependent origination, but it doesn't always appear as clear as clear, as Ananda puts it.

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

"If, Ananda, you are asked, 'Has aging and death a condition for its existence?' That is Jara Marana, you should answer, 'Yes.' If asked, 'What conditions aging and death?' You should answer, 'Aging and death is conditioned by birth.' So aging and death. Aging and death are inevitable. However, people identify with the form, identify with the five aggregates, and have fear of aging and death because of that clinging to the five aggregates.

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

And you can come to peace with what is inevitable. All beings that arise pass away, all conditioned things that arise pass away. And so seeing that, people have come to terms with the natural process of aging and the fact that one day their life will end. And if you have peace with that, then you have a wonderful mind which is embedded in equanimity, embedded in acceptance, embedded in relief.

Because we all know no one here is getting out alive at some point or another, right? But we're okay with that to an extent because we understand the inevitability of death. So the Buddha says, if asked what conditions aging and death, one should say birth. Now we're talking about birth on the macro level, the birth of a being, the coming into being, the birth and the creation of the aggregates, the coming into being of the aggregates and the sixth sense basis. So there is another understanding of birth, because what we'll see with dependent origination is there is a macro level through which you understand the process of rebirth from one life to another.

But there is a micro level, let's say, which helps you to understand dependent origination or the process of contact, feeling, perception, and so on, on a moment-to-moment level. So when we talk about birth at that level, we're talking about two things. The arising and passing away of consciousnesses, the birth of different consciousnesses dependent upon experiences. And we're talking about the birth of action or reaction, because there is a difference between reacting and responding.

Reactivity is rooted in craving. Responding is rooted in wisdom and compassion. One sees things as they really are with an experience. Instead of taking that experience to be personal, instead of taking that experience to be this is me, this is mine, this is myself, or it's affecting a sense of me, mine, or myself, the mind that has wisdom sees it as impersonal and therefore does not have birth of reaction that adds to suffering, and rather lets go of that reactivity in the mind.

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

The aging, the death, the illness, and so on. Viparinama dukkha is the dukkha of change, the dukkha of impermanence. Things change. Unexpected things happen. You're on your way to the airport, and you're looking forward to having a retreat, and then suddenly you find out that the flight is cancelled. That's viparinama dukkha. There's nothing you can do about it, but you can deal with it through how you perceive the situation. Do you take it personally or do you see it as, okay, there it is, and you have equanimity.

And then there is what's known as sankhara dukkha. Viparinama dukkha is basically the dukkha of not getting what you want or getting what you don't want. And sankhara dukkha has to do with the clinging and craving through the five aggregates. That is to say, the five aggregates affected by clinging and craving. So identifying with them causes the mind to have certain expectations, which lead to dukkha at some point or another. So sankhara dukkha is sometimes translated as pervasive dukkha. That doesn't mean that all life is suffering.

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

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

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

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

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

It's the different inclinations of the mind that are built up to create a sense of self. And then from that repository of habitual tendencies, the mind then reacts. And so it could be certain kinds of ideas about who I am or who I ought to be or who people should think I should be and so on and so forth.

Clinging conditions becoming. So clinging is a process of rationalizing why you crave something. So craving is the I don't like it, I like it, or I am that mind. And clinging is I like it because, I don't like it because, I am that because. It's the process of taking that craving or resistance and saying I am right because of so and so. And so that rationalization, that process of association, that process of saying that I don't like this, and further deepening that process of craving through clinging, creates

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

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

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

And that's the fourth. So for Ananda, he was still unconsciously incompetent. He was not able to recognize the ignorance and therefore wasn't able to recognize the formations that were conditioned by ignorance. But he was able to recognize the arising of consciousness. And what's interesting here is the Buddha says, mind and body, or nama-rupa, or mentality-materiality, is conditioned by consciousness.

But consciousness is also conditioned by mind and body. And we'll take a look at why that's the case. But there's an interdependency between nama-rupa and vinnana, or mentality-materiality and consciousness. Thus, Ananda, mind and body conditions consciousness, and consciousness conditions mind and body. Mind and body conditions contact, contact conditions feeling. Feeling conditions craving, craving conditions clinging. Clinging conditions becoming, becoming conditions birth. Birth conditions aging and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and distress.

Thus, this whole mass of suffering comes into existence. I have said, birth conditions aging and death. And this is the way that should be understood. If, Ananda, there were no birth at all, anywhere, of anybody or anything, of Devas to the Deva state, of Gandavas to the Gandava state, of yuccas to the yucca state, of ghosts, of humans, of quadrupeds, of birds, of reptiles.

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

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

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

Right? It's the clinging to the associations of that sound, of that experience. So sensual experience, when we look at the supermarkets or the malls or television or advertising, what is advertising doing? It's creating or facilitating the process of clinging to sensual experiences. They use bright colors. They use certain kinds of words. They use certain kinds of things that enchant the senses and say, I want that. That craving is there, and then when you have that, you cling to that experience and you say, that's my favorite. I like this particular kind of food. I like Coke but I don't like Pepsi.

Right, or I like jazz but I don't like classical music, or I like this particular aroma but not that aroma. That process of clinging is that process of associating with that. So we talked about rationalizing, right? Because the reason why you crave something is that process of clinging. Then we have clinging to views. There are 62 different types of wrong views.

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

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

There are teachers out there who know the Dhamma and who have perfected the Dhamma and so on. So in the Buddha's time, we talked about, we just mentioned there were 62 different types of view. Wrong view, which had to do with the idea of what is self, what is the world, and so on. But during the Buddha's time, there were the certain contemporary philosophies that were out there. And there were six main ones, which are considered within the context of the Dhamma to be wrong view. So these six views that were propagated at that time were materialism, amoralism, eternalism, the idea of asceticism, the idea of fatalism, and the idea of skepticism.

So materialism was a type of nihilism, which was nothing really matters. Just live to feed the senses. There's no meaning in giving. There's no meaning in being right or wrong. Take, take, take as much as you want, you know, and gratify the senses. And so with that particular kind of mode of thinking, what happens is the mind craves more and more, to the point that it acts in a way that has misconduct, that breaks the precepts. Doesn't matter if you have to break the precepts. Take, take, take. Enjoy the senses. This is materialism. But we understand from the context of the Dhamma that every action that we have has a reaction, has a consequence.

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

And so this goes in direct violation of what we understand in the perspective of the Dhamma, that there are certain wholesome things and there are certain unwholesome things. The wholesome things are related to right intention, right speech, and right action. and that has a direct correlation to how people and the world responds to you. So if you have wholesome mindsets then you will see the world in a wholesome way and you will be more harmonious and then people around you respond in a harmonious way. They might not initially

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

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

And this idea of eternalism is in direct violation of the understanding of impermanence. Everything that arises, every conditioned experience that arises, passes away. Then you have the view of fatalism. So the way that fatalism is understood is everything is predetermined. It's like a ball of yarn, right? It's a ball of string, and you just roll it and then it just continues to unfurl, unroll, until it doesn't, until that's the end, which means everything is predetermined. When you have an experience, it is predetermined. The pleasant experiences are predetermined, the unpleasant experiences are predetermined. So you don't have a choice in that moment. Everything is already predetermined. Even your suffering is determined, even your awakening is determined, according to this view.

Now the person who propagated this view, his name was Ajita Kesakambali. Kesakambali means the blanket of hair. He actually wore a blanket made of human hair. Anyway, he had this kind of view, and he said there's no need to do anything. Everything is already predestined. Well, what happened to him? He went mad, and he drowned himself in a river.

He drowned himself in a river. He killed himself. What we understand through the perspective of the Dhamma is there is a choice. Yes, that choice is conditioned by prior causes and conditions, by previous choices you made in the past, but every present moment that is given is an opportunity to make a choice, and that choice is either rooted in the wholesome or the unwholesome. That means you can continue, a person can continue down a path of being unwholesome, and that leads to further unwholesome consequences, or a person can let go of that using the six R's and then come to the wholesome and start to recondition the mind, recondition the synapses, prune away those formations that are rooted in the unwholesome and strengthen those formations that become conditioned by the wholesome.

And so this is how there's a process of reconditioning choices. So you always are able to make certain choices in the present moment. Nothing is predetermined. You have to make the right effort for your awakening. Your awakening isn't just going to come to you. You have to make the effort. And then there's the view of asceticism. This idea came from the Jains. The Jains are still a philosophy that exists today. But the idea is that there is a soul and that that soul collects karmic particles as it reincarnates from one life to another. And the way to decondition that soul, the way to clean up that soul, is by doing certain kinds of purificatory practices, practices that purify the mind and body and spirit.

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

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

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

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

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

No amount of chanting, no amount of prayer, no amount of lighting candles and lamps or anything like that is going to take you to Nibbana. And another understanding of clinging to rites and rituals is this idea or belief in luck and coincidences. There's no such thing, actually. If you look at it from the perspective of the Dhamma, there's no such thing as coincidences. There's no such thing as luck. Everything arises because of a series of causes and conditions. So what you might call luck is just you reaping the interest on your bank balance of karma, that's all it is. But people can take that to be luck, so they do certain kinds of rituals, they do certain kinds of prayers with the idea that that's going to mitigate their karma, the idea that that's going to take away their karma.

But as we understand, karma is to be felt and experienced. That's the only way it runs through its course. And how you take it will either mitigate the intensity of that karma or actually increase the intensity. And what I mean by that is karma arises as an experience to be felt, right, good, bad or indifferent. Whatever kind of karma arises, it arises as an experience through your six sense bases. Now, you can perceive that as an experience that is me, mine or myself, and crave or resist against it, and therefore cause more clinging, more being, and then further birth of further karma, adding to that repository of karma, which means that new karma becomes old karma to be experienced at a future time. But if you take that experience and see it for what it is, that is to say you have yoniso manasikara, attention rooted in reality, you see it as an impermanent process not worth holding on to and therefore not to be considered as personal.

As soon as you see it in that way, that means there's no craving there, there's no clinging there, there's no resistance there. So that karma, that old karma, arises in the process of feeling, but then it dissipates, the intensity of that dissipates. So how do we contextualize this? When you're meditating and you have hindrances, what are those hindrances actually?

They're feeling, they're experience. You're experiencing an unpleasant feeling in the form of that hindrance. That hindrance arose because at some point you broke a precept. So the breaking of that precept was a certain kind of karma, and the effect of that is the old karma that you're experiencing in the form of the hindrance. How do you deal with that hindrance? Do you push it? Do you hold on to it? Do you ignore it? Do you deflect it, or do you acknowledge it and see it for what it is and let go using right effort, let go using the six R's? What you'll notice is when you do six R, the hindrance might come up again, but the next time it comes up, what happens?

It becomes weaker, and eventually you six R again and it becomes weaker and weaker, until it no longer comes into the mind. In the same way, in your daily living, whatever you're experiencing is old karma. And the only way to mitigate that, the only way to let it go, is to see it as being impersonal. And so 6R-ing your reaction to it, 6R-ing your perception of it as being me, mine, or myself. As soon as you do that, that experience might arise again, but the next time it won't be as intense. It won't be as gripping on the mind.

And then finally we have clinging to self-view. There are 20 different basic types of self-view. That's the five aggregates multiplied by four specific kinds of self-view. So what does that mean? The idea that the five aggregates are the self, the five aggregates are in the self, the self is in the five aggregates, or the self is separate from the five aggregates.

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

So the clinging to self-view goes away upon stream entry. So, clinging conditions, oh, here we are, clinging conditions becoming. If there were absolutely no clinging, sensual clinging, clinging to views, to rites and rituals, or to personality belief, could becoming appear? No. Craving conditions clinging. If there were absolutely no craving for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, mind objects, could clinging appear? No. Now, craving can come in the form of I like this, I don't like this, or I am this. Craving can come in the form of I want to become this, or I don't want to become this anymore. Like the sensual craving that you might experience is somebody mowing the lawn outside

and you're listening to that and you get distracted by that and you get irritated by that, and now you're clinging, you're craving, or you're having resistance to that, and now you're clinging to that and saying something like, they shouldn't be mowing the lawn while I'm meditating, don't they know that we're meditating? Right? And then there's this whole concept of the process of rationalizing that, and that I am a meditator, I've come here on retreat, and so this becoming, I am, you know. And then maybe you get angry about that, and then you have a reaction. Hopefully you didn't, but maybe there was a reaction that came about, right? And so that's the birth of reaction, which leads to further suffering.

But if you saw that experience as okay: here is an experience, here is the sound of the lawnmower. It's an irritating experience, it's an unpleasant experience, but it's a feeling that is arising and passing away. If you really understood that those are just sound waves coming to be and going away in every moment, then it's just sound.

You know, what about the pleasant sound that you have of birds chirping? Do you get upset by those? That's also just sound, just impersonal sound. If you have that understanding, then there's no craving nor resistance to any of the sensual experiences. Now, the craving to become, what is that? I want to be in jhana. I want nibbana. I want to experience cessation.

The craving to become is the craving to be in a certain kind of mind state, to be, whether it's in this life or a future life. What is the craving to not become? I am this person now, but I no longer want to be this person. This idea that there is a self that is moody. I don't want to be moody anymore. There's a difference here. There's chanda, which is the wholesome cultivated intention to continue to be something better for the purposes of evolution in the Dhamma. But if the mind obsesses over that and says I don't want to be here, for example, even in the experience of jhana, you say, well, I'm in the first jhana, but I don't want to be in the first jhana anymore, I want to be in the second jhana. That not wanting to be in the first jhana is a craving for not becoming.

And so now you want to be somewhere else. So these are like two sides of the same coin. Feeling conditions craving. If there were absolutely no feeling, feeling born of eye contact, ear contact, nose contact, tongue contact, body contact, mind contact, in the absence of all feeling, with the cessation of feeling, could craving appear? No. So you can 6R becoming. You can 6R the habitual tendencies.

You can 6R clinging. You could 6R craving. Can you 6R the birth of action? No. You think about dependent origination like a river that continues on, and then there's a waterfall. The bend towards the waterfall is the becoming, and then going down the waterfall is the birth of action. Once you have produced the action, can you recall that action back? You can't. But you can 6R this sense of 'I am this', the sense of habitual tendency: 'I do it this way, it is my way', and so on and so forth. You can 6R that. You can 6R the rationalizations of why you like something or you don't like something. You can 6R the tension, which is a manifestation of the craving.

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

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

So when you have certain attainments, certain underlying tendencies go away. For example, the underlying tendency towards doubt goes away when you become a stream enterer. The underlying tendency to wrong view goes away. The underlying tendency to craving and aversion go away when you become an anagami. And the underlying tendency of becoming, the underlying tendency towards ignorance, and the underlying tendency towards conceit go away once you have arahatship. So in the same way, certain kinds of craving will go away. Sensual craving goes away when you become an anagami. Craving for becoming and craving for not becoming go away when you become an arahant.

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

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

So when it comes to feeling, you can't 6R the feeling away. You're feeling pain in the meditation. You can't 6R the pain away, but you can 6R the underlying tendency towards aversion for that painful feeling, in that painful feeling. So it's not the pleasantness of an experience or the painfulness of the experience that's the problem or the trouble. It's how the mind takes it, how the mind perceives it, that should be understood and, if needed, let go of. Therefore, Ananda, just this is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for craving, namely feeling. And so, Ananda, feeling conditions craving,

craving conditions seeking, seeking conditions acquisition, acquisition conditions decision-making. Decision-making conditions lustful desire. Lustful desire conditions attachment. Attachment conditions appropriation. Appropriation conditions avarice. Avarice conditions guarding of possessions. And because of the guarding of possessions, there arise the taking up of stick and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying, and other evil, unskilled states. So here the Buddha is talking about what happens when you have an experience of craving. So craving conditions seeking. It's that mind, the hungry ghost mind, that's always looking for something. You see, when we talk about the different kinds of realm experiences,

it's not just existential experiences, it's also psychological. If you have a hungry ghost kind of experience in the mind, a hungry ghost kind of psychology, you're always dissatisfied with everything. You're always seeking for something. And then that seeking conditions acquisition. That acquisition process happens in clinging. Clinging, which is upadana. Upadana means the fuel for something. And that is the process of acquiring something. The process of acquiring an identity. The process of acquiring a favorite of something in the form of different kinds of sense pleasures. That kind of acquisition can also be acquiring wealth, acquiring power, acquiring status, acquiring fame. Now you have all of these things, and then that conditions how you make your decisions.

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

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

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

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

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

In other words, this whole process happens because you take a feeling, vedana, which is an experience. All of that is unified in the pleasant feeling, or in the unpleasant feeling, or in the neutral feeling. And the underlying tendency towards that particular feeling, or from that feeling, can cause the mind to take it personally. And from that becomes this whole chain of dependent origination, from craving, clinging, becoming, to birth of action and suffering. Is seeking already a form of craving? Yes. Yes.

What this also talks about is mental proliferation. Papancha. The process of clinging is a process of papancha. It starts from craving, and it further deepens, and then there's becoming. All these, that is craving, clinging, and becoming, constitute papancha, constitute mental proliferation, which seeks out things, just thinking about this or that, thinking about how do I get that, how do I trick that person? Or how do I get to this jhana? Or what do I do now? And all of these other kinds of mental proliferations

are basically the stuff that we've been talking about in this sutta. I have said contact conditions feeling. Therefore, contact is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for feeling. Mind and body conditions contact. He missed something here, right? Sixth Sense Bases. Ananda wasn't able to recognize the Sixth Sense Bases. But what we do understand is that the Sixth Sense Bases are conditioned by mentality, materiality. So we're going to explore what is mentality, materiality now. And we'll realize what that means in the form of the Sixth Sense Bases. Here he says, by whatever properties, features, signs or indications the mind factor is conceived of, would there be in the absence of such properties pertaining to the mind factor be manifest any grasping at the idea of the body factor?

Mentality is mind. Mind is made up of five factors: contact, feeling, perception, intention, attention. It's through these processes that mind is known. But these processes are dependent upon materiality. Can you experience contact without a body? Can you experience feeling without a body? Can you experience perception without a body? You can experience mind, you can experience mental contact, but still that is dependent upon what the processes of the brain, which is the materiality factor, are doing. In other words, the mind factor is one thing and the brain, which is the materiality, is another. So these processes of the mind, the contact, feeling, perception, intention and attention, are dependent upon the four elements that constitute the body, the rupa.

This body that we have here is made up of the earth element, the fire element, the water element, and the air element, or the four states of matter: solidity, liquidity, solid state, liquid state, gaseous state, and plasma state. These constitute the experience of the body. And it's only through the processes of the body, that is to say the rupa, that you have an eye, that you have an ear, that you have a nose, that you have a tongue, that you have a body, that you have a brain through which the faculties of mind are able to function.

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

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

Which awareness or consciousness flows. So that's how it's understood. Contact also has consciousness, yeah. Contact has consciousness, because the joining of the three, the I, the form, and I-consciousness, is eye contact. And the way that where you are seeing is the attention through which the consciousness flows. But then you've got the five aggregates, which says something different. So we have the five aggregates: form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

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

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

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

If you didn't have those, would you be able to experience mind or the factors of mind? So then he says, by whatever properties, features, signs, or indications the mind factor is conceived of, in the absence of these, is there any contact to be found? By whatever properties, features, signs, or indications the mind factor is conceived of. So the mind factor is conceived of, made up of contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention, or the five aggregates, right? Or four of the five aggregates, because you have form.

In the absence of that, can there be contact? In other words, if you didn't have mentality, would you be able to have contact? No. You wouldn't be aware of that contact. Then, Ananda, just this, namely mind and body, is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition for all contact. I have said consciousness conditions mind and body.

Now, the Buddha is going to go to the macro level of understanding dependent origination. Because what he said is, consciousness conditions mind and body, but mind and body also condition consciousness. So first, let's take up the first part of that. If consciousness were not to come into the mother's womb, would mind and body develop there? No. You need the descending of consciousness into mentality materiality. So that is to say, at the point of procreation, the mother and father join. But if there's no consciousness that descends, would there be further development of that into an embryo?

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

Or if consciousness of such a tender young being, boy or girl, were thus caught off, would mind and body grow, develop and mature? If the infant or the child or even an adult were killed, that consciousness departs from the body. So what happens to the body, does it continue to grow? Eventually it decays. Just the nails grow, right? Maybe they have the experience of the asanyata beings, unconscious, like there's no perception going on, nothing going on. But there is still life there. Yeah, so when we're talking about consciousness in this context, we're talking about life. If the life descends, there will be growth of the mind and body.

Therefore, Ananda, just this, namely consciousness, is the root, the cause, the origin, the condition of mind and body. I have said, now he's still on the macro level, he says, I have said mind and body condition consciousness. If consciousness did not find a landing place in mind and body, would there subsequently be an arising and coming to be of birth, aging, death and suffering?

No. So, consciousness to be experienced is dependent on the factors of mind and body. And to experience mind and body, you need consciousness, the ability to be aware of it through the process of contact and attention and so on and so forth. So, this interdependency: consciousness depends upon mind and body because it can only be experienced through the factors of mind and body. But for mind and body to arise and to develop, it requires consciousness.

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

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

If there's anger there, if there's hatred there, whatever it might be. And these all stem from the akusala mula, that is to say, the unwholesome roots: greed, hatred, and delusion. These are conditioned by ignorance, which are then conditioned by the taints. Go ahead. It was saying, though, that if you stopped the identification at the beginning, you would cut off that entire spectrum. Yes.

Completely seeing this whole thing as impersonal, you don't take even contact as personal. Right. And so, therefore, the feeling that arises is just vibration of sound, or photons, or taste molecules, or odour molecules, or bodily vibrations, or circuitry in the brain that causes thoughts to arise, and things like that. If you see it all as this impersonal process, then you're not going to say that this is me, this is mine, this is myself. You're not going to say, I want more of that. You just see things as they are.

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

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

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

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

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

Right, and to those points, that's basically what we're saying then, is when you start to let go of the craving and the clinging, you're letting go of those formations, those synapses, that continue to fire up that craving. And eventually, through non-use, they're replaced by, or they're used instead, or redirecting towards using it for wisdom, using it for wise choices.

But there's still bhava, so there might be no craving, there might be no clinging, but there can be taking that feeling still as personal. That is to say, I am in this jhana, or I have caused this jhana to be, or I am experiencing this. That sense of the identification with the processes of the five aggregates can still lead to a certain kind of bhava. That is to say, the conceit in, I am a good person, or I developed all these wholesome things. So in order to get to arahatship, you have to go from, it's this whole process is going from the unwholesome to the wholesome, and then going from the wholesome to not identifying

with the wholesome. Yeah. Just correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of when we say impersonal process we're talking about consciousness coming down into mentality, into reality it kind of seems to me like, so when I say my life, it's not even my life when I think about my karma, it's not even my karma per se when I'm working on my formations when I'm six-arming formations etc, these are not my formations, I just kind of inherited these it's almost like i'm just here for the ride right you are inheriting your karma as the buddha says but in in reality the karma the consciousness the life all of that is just arising because of impersonal causes and conditions and all i can do well not all i can do What I do, if you will, is, you know, 6R and make wholesome choices and follow the old path so that this consciousness doesn't, you know, doesn't torment someone else in the future.

I have future rebirth, but hopefully it just ends here, but otherwise what I would be doing on a day-to-day basis is, you know, clipping away, if you will, at these formations, restructuring my brain, restructuring this brain so that it acts in a more wholesome way, but it's not, it's just a deck of, the cars have been dealt with, never dealt in this life, if you will, everyone just has different formations that they didn't ask for, they just, that's so now in the case of the arahat right do they still have formations yes because those are karmic formations formations arising because of previous choices made prior to full awakening they don't produce new formations they don't produce new karma but what happens is everything from now the ignorance that's there which conditions the formations is no longer there instead what is there is wisdom, is right view.

And so those formations that arise are conditioned by that right view. But mechanically speaking, they are giving rise to certain kinds of karma. They're karmic formations, which give rise to a certain kind of experience down the road of dependent origination. So formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, sixth sense bases, contact, and feeling are all the old karma, arising as a result of previous choices made in the past at some point.

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

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

Thus far, the round goes as far as can be discerned in this life, namely to nama rupa, or mentality materiality, together with consciousness. In what ways, Ananda, do people explain the nature of the self? Some declare the self to be material and limited, saying, 'My self is material and limited.' Some declare it to be material and unlimited.

Some declare it to be immaterial and limited. Some declare it to be immaterial and unlimited. Whoever declares the self to be material and limited considers it to be so either now or in the next world, thinking, 'Though it is not so now, I shall acquire it there.' The idea of a soul, the idea of a self, still continues on. So that whole process of reincarnation.

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

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

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

They equate self with feeling, saying, "Feeling is myself," or "Feeling is not myself, myself is impercipient." Or, "Feeling is not myself, but myself is not impercipient, it is of a nature to feel." So, to simplify, what he's saying is some people think the self is feeling, or the self is infeeling, or the self is that which feels.

"Now, Ananda, one who says feeling is myself should be told, there are three kinds of feeling, friend: pleasant, painful, neutral. Which of the three do you consider to be yourself? When a pleasant feeling is felt, no painful or neutral feeling is felt, but only pleasant feeling. When a painful feeling is felt, no pleasant or neutral feeling is felt, but only painful feeling.

And when a neutral feeling is felt, no pleasant or painful feeling is felt, but only neutral feeling. Pleasant feeling is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, bound to decay, to vanish, to fade away, to cease. And so too are painful feeling and neutral feeling. So anyone who, on experiencing a pleasant feeling, thinks, 'This is myself,' must, at the cessation of that pleasant feeling, think, 'Myself has gone.'

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

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

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

Because the only way you know you are is dependent upon the process of feeling. If you were to say, "I feel, as a self," but you would only know "I am" when there is a feeling. So the self is dependent, or the idea of the self that feels, is dependent on the process of actually feeling. So, to which he would have to reply, no. Therefore, it is not fitting to maintain, "Feeling is not impercipient, myself is of a nature to feel."

"From the time, Ananda, when one no longer regards feeling as self, or as the self as being impercipient, or as being percipient and of a nature to feel, by not so regarding, he clings to nothing in the world." So when we talk about feeling, we also say form, perception, formations, consciousness. The idea is if someone no longer regards form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness as self, no longer regards the self as being impercipient, that there's a self that you cannot experience, but there are these aggregates, so there's a self outside of these aggregates.

No longer regards that, and no longer regards that the self has a nature to have form, and no longer regards that the self has a nature to feel, or to perceive, or to have intention, or to be aware. He clings to nothing in this world, and so by not clinging he is not excited by anything, and not being excited he gains personal liberation. He knows birth is finished, the holy life has been led, done was what had to be done, there is no more coming to being. And if anyone were to say to a monk whose mind was thus freed, 'You tell an arahant, this Tathagata exists after death,' that would be seen by him as a wrong opinion and unfitting. Likewise, 'the Tathagata does not exist after death,' 'both exists and does not exist,' 'neither exists nor does not exist after death,' he would see all of that as wrong opinion.

Why so? And to maintain that such a liberated monk does not know and see would be a wrong view and incorrect. Now, I brought this question up to you at the Easter retreat. The definition of what is a being, in the sense of a satta. Satta means a being. Not the being in terms of becoming, but a being in the sense of a personality, like an individual. How is that satta, that being, defined?

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

Does that make sense? All right, we're going to get into some other things. How is your energy level? You guys are full? We'll continue these parts tomorrow, and then we'll continue with whatever else we have. All right, let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free. May the fear-struck be fearless. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's Dispensation. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.