Day 3 8 Fold Path - The Journey w/Delson Armstrong

So yesterday I went through the reasons why we do what we do in the morning: for the precepts, the recollections, the refuges, the verses and so on. And I explained to you that there are these three segments of the path: Sila, Samadhi, and Panya. Sila is ethics. Samadhi is meditation or collectedness. And Panya is wisdom.

And I want to explore that more with you, these three segments, which we find in what's known as the middle path, the middle way. Before the Buddha became the Buddha, he was known as the Bodhisatta. Self-awakening, right? We call that the Sammasambuddha, one who has awakened himself, not through his own effort, but not through any other teaching. In other words, he becomes the discoverer of a path, and this path is called the Eightfold Path.

Now, to give you context of why we call this the Middle Path, why is it called the Middle Path? It's in between what? What two extremes? There is the path of indulgence and there is the path of asceticism. So in the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the prince, he led a very luxurious life as a prince. He made sure that he never experienced any kind of vision or hearing of suffering in any form.

This is how the story goes. And so he was never exposed to suffering. He was never exposed to any form of anxiety, depression, goes to old age, sickness, death, any of these things. In other words, what his father had done is he closed off and he cordoned off this whole area, which was the palace grounds, and he made that into a pleasure garden for Siddhartha so that he never had to leave for any want of anything. for many Buddhas, before they become Buddhas, that he was interested in seeing what was going on outside the palace.

And with his trusty charioteer, Channa, he went out and he was exposed to the four sights. Now, a lot of scholars will say this didn't happen to Gautama, but that it happened to a previous iteration of a Buddha. But as tradition goes, they apply it to Gautama as well. So what were the four sights that he saw?

The four sights were a sick man, an old man, and a corpse. I'll get to the fourth, which is a very interesting one. So he sees somebody who is sick. And he says to Channa, what is wrong with this person? What has happened to them? And he says, they are ill. They have a disease. They have an affliction.

And he thinks to himself, will I too experience that affliction? Will I too experience disease? Will I too succumb to illness? The second sight that he sees is an old man. And he says, what is with that person? Well, he is old. He has gone through the process of aging. So will I too, he thinks to himself, experience this?

Because he sees the old man as being weak and feeble and so on. His sense faculties have weakened and his health isn't in the best shape and so on. And then he sees a corpse. the corpse to the fire because in India even to now that's how they deal with their dead, they put them in funeral pyres. I would urge all of you to pay a visit to Varanasi at some point. Varanasi in India, it's a very interesting place. It's one of the places that the Buddha visited, and actually nearby he gave his first and second sermon.

But Varanasi is also famous for having the Ganga River, the Ganges River, and on that river are what's known as ghats, these different places on the shores. And one of them is called Manikarnika Ghat. It's very famous because everybody who is anybody wants to be cremated over there. Because as soon as they get cremated there, the belief is that you attain moksha.

You become liberated. So that funeral pyre has been going on for thousands of years, 24-7. If you go there and visit, it's a very different kind of experience. You see the body there on the bed of logs and then the fire is ignited, and how that body starts to slowly burn up. And you see the process of decay.

This is everyone's destination at some point. Death is everyone's destination. I don't mean to sound gloomy. I know I'm wearing all black. I'm in my goth phase. But I don't mean to sound so gloomy. Saying this is what he saw for himself. And he thought, will my body also be gone? Where will I go? What will happen to me?

Will I too be ending up in a funeral pyre? And Channa says, yes, everybody experiences this. So you think about it, this person, Gautama, has never been exposed to any of these things. In total shock and anxiety of what is life, and what is this suffering, and there must be a way out. Now finally they get to the fourth sight, the fourth vision, and they see a serene man sitting under a tree.

He is an ascetic, he is a wanderer, who is meditating, and with a smile on his face, and he is happy and content. And so the Bodhisatta looks at him and he says, wow, what is that man doing? Why is he happy? And Channa says, there are these wanderers who go into the forest and meditate and they look for the end of suffering. They look for the way out of suffering. They look for life's answers.

And so he gets inspired to do this. Now, the traditional story goes that in the middle of the night, he left the palace and, you know, all these things happen. But there are other segments in the suttas where you see he actually speaks with his father and his wife. And he says, I want to go and understand what enlightenment is, how to awaken from suffering.

And he says, I will come back and I will show you if I have learned it, if I have understood it. So anyway, he does that and he goes out into the forest and he becomes an ascetic. So the first 29 years of his life, he has experienced all kinds of indulgences. That is the path of indulgence, a luxurious path. There is no want for anything in his life. And he has experienced the heights of sensual pleasures, of entertainment, of everything that could possibly be provided at his stature.

And now, from the age of 29 to about 35, he goes on to the path of asceticism. And he tries all kinds of things. He goes to learn from two teachers. One is Alara Kalama and the other is Ramaputta. And from them he learns how to attain certain meditative states. get up to nothingness, and I can show you. And so he learns from him, and he experiences nothingness.

And so Alara Kalama says, there is no difference now between you and I. You are no longer my student, and you can be an heir to my teaching. But his intuition says, there is something beyond this. This is not the final escape. This is not the way out of suffering. So he says, thank you very much, but I have to move on. And he leaves.

And he meets with Uddhaka Ramaputta. And Ramaputta says, I know of a way of getting beyond nothingness. I myself have not experienced it, but I know the instructions of how to do it because my father has taught it to me. So I will instruct you and I will show you, and you can see if you can get there.

So he does it, and he experiences what's known as neither perception nor non-perception. And it's a very highly refined state, but he's still not satisfied. And he says, this is not the way. There must be something beyond this. My suffering has not gone. My suffering has not ceased. And so Ramaputta also says to him, you are now equal to me, actually higher than me. Go on and teach. He says, thank you very much, but I'm not interested. And he leaves.

And he becomes an ascetic. He becomes a wandering ascetic. He goes and sees the Ajivakas, who are a certain sect. He sees the Negantas, who are a certain sect, who are the predecessors of what is known as the Jain philosophy or the Jain religion, for those of you who might be familiar with it, because in India we don't just have Hinduism and Buddhism.

We also have Sikhism and we have something called Jainism. Jainism is a certain philosophy whose monks and whose wanderers are ascetic in nature. Their whole idea is ascetic practices help to burn off karma. So if you've ever been to India or if you ever have a chance to go to India, find the opportunity to go to a place or an event called the Kumbh Mela.

Also known as, there's other kinds of Mela, it's called the Magh Mela, which I recently went to. And you go, a Mela is basically a festival. This is the prototype for Burning Man. This is the original Burning Man. You spend 40 days, a month, whatever it is, three months. And you have all of these different encampments and you have all of these different sects of meditators and sadhus and people who are, you know, they've been holding up their arm for decades as part of their practice. And you can actually see that their arm is withered away by doing that. That's an ascetic practice, right? They do different kinds of practices. They smoke chillums. Chillums are like these pipes filled with cannabis and datura.

And they think that that is the way to, you know, experiencing whatever it is they think they're going to be experiencing. So he encountered these different kinds of sects and sadhus and teachers and ascetics, and he did all kinds of practices. There's a whole list of practices that he does, you know, if you have sensitive ears, you probably don't want to hear it. Let's just say that. So he does all of this and he's now at this point where he gives up food. He will only eat fruit from the tree, but the fruit that has fallen from the tree, he won't even pluck the fruit. So he's gotten to that point where he's like, only fruit that is offered by the tree I will eat.

And eventually he gives up even that. And he says, I will only subsist on water. And eventually he's like, no, no, there's got to be a much more extreme form. So for you guys who are like these biohackers and let's do this kind of fasting and let's do this and let's do that, he went to the extremes of everything.

And finally, he was on the verge of dying. He was a skeleton. There are some images I think you see in the dining hall. There is one statue you will see of the Buddha or the Bodhisattva where he's nothing but skin and bones. He's very skeletal. The rib cage touches, I think he says, what is it, the rib cage or the stomach touches the backbone, or something like that. Anyway, he's basically about to die, and he's like, this is not the way. This is not the way. There has to be a different way. And the story goes that he has his bowl with him, and he says, if I am to attain full awakening in this life, and he takes the bowl, and he says, may this bowl, he's about to put it onto the river, and he says, may this bowl go upstream.

And the bowl goes upstream. We've seen the river when we went to Bodhgaya. Of course, it's not a river anymore. It's now become like a bunch of sand. But that river is still there, or remnants of it are still there. And he gets inspired, and he says, what shall I do? And so he gets up, and he's with five other people, his companions in this journey for enlightenment. And he leaves them, and he goes and sits under a tree, and there's a woman named Sujata who sees him, and she thinks that he's a great yogi. She prepares for him what is known as kheer, rice, and milk. It's a very nice Indian dessert.

And she offers it to him. And he eats it. And his companions, the five companions, see that and they say, you have lost your way. You have lost your way. You have become indulgent. So asceticism, that's not the path. He realizes that he starts to nourish himself, and then he sits down under the Bodhi tree and he meditates, and he goes through a process of going through the jhanas, going through the first jhana, the second jhana, the third jhana, the fourth jhana, and then from the fourth jhana his mind inclines towards seeing his many different past lives, and then from there his mind goes towards

seeing the arising and passing away of beings. And then finally, he sees the four noble truths. He understands through his intuition what dependent origination is, and he discovers for himself the four noble truths. And he goes through a process of reviewing for seven days, just going through dependent origination, up and down the stream of dependent origination. I'll explain what that is, but basically dependent origination is the spine of everything when we talk about Dhamma, in terms of Buddha Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha.

It is the essence of how one understands in what way the mind creates its suffering and in what way to let go of it. noble truths. So he discovers this for himself. He attains full awakening. He becomes awakened, and he's just sitting there and contemplating and seeing what this path is all about. And he realizes that this path is so subtle and this process is so subtle that he wonders how many people will actually get this? How many people will actually understand this? How many beings? So, as the story goes, there is a being that is seeing this, and he says, there are those with little dust in their eyes.

There must be people who may experience what you experience if you only teach them out of compassion. And so he chooses to, and he says, I will go and do that. So he's walking down the road, and there's a guy, and he sees him at the crossroads, and he says, who are you? Because he sees him, like this wonderful, mindful wanderer who's glowing, and he's come out from meditation. And he says, who are you? And who is your teacher? And he says, I am the perfectly self-awakened one. I am the arahant. I am this and that and the other. And there is no teacher but me. And I am the one who has discovered the path to awakening.

So what does the guy say? And he walks away. The story goes he shakes his head and he says, oh, it's one of these delusional guys. And he just walks away. So what does the Buddha realize? He says, I've got to work on my marketing campaign. So he goes to the five ascetics, his companions. And they look at him and they say, oh, there is that guy, self-indulgent. We are going to ignore him. He's walking towards us, but we're going to ignore him. We're not going to pay attention. We're not going to pay any attention to him. Just continue doing whatever we're doing. As he's walking towards them, one of them lays down a seat for him.

The other goes and fetches water. The other one starts to prepare something so that he can eat. So it's just the power and the aura of him walking that they realize there's something about this guy. And so he sits down, and they ask, what have you discovered? You seem to have transformed what's going on here. And he says, I have found the way to awakening. I have found the way to the end of suffering.

And hence begins his first discourse. And that first discourse is known as the turning of the wheel of Dhamma. And he says, there are these two paths that are ignoble, that do not lead to the end of suffering: the path of indulgence and the path of asceticism. But there is also a middle path, which is the noble path, which leads to the end of suffering.

And so what is this path? It's called the noble eightfold path. It is right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness. So, as he's explaining what this path is, and as he's explaining and letting them understand that these are the facets of the different aspects of the path, one of them becomes a stream enterer just upon focusing on what he's saying. He gets it and he says, aha, this is what it is. And he attains the first level of awakening.

So if you understand what we're doing here, if you truly understand what the six R's are, what are the six R's? The six R's are the heart of the Eightfold Path. You're not going to find these six R's in the Pali Canon. You're not going to find that it says recognize, release, relax, re-smile, return, and repeat. You're not going to find that.

So what are the six R's? This is a modern rendition of what is known as right effort. And right effort is at the heart of the path. It's through right effort that we are able to apply this path. When we utilize the six R's, we are applying the Eightfold Path. Because as the Buddha says, through right effort, one goes from wrong view to right view.

From wrong intention to right intention. From wrong speech to right speech. From wrong action to right action. From wrong livelihood to right livelihood. From wrong mindfulness to right mindfulness. And from wrong collectedness to right collectedness. So let's get a little bit into what the Eightfold Path is about. Because once you understand this, then you'll know how to walk the path. While you are here for the next eight days, you can learn to see for yourself.

Are my actions in alignment with the path? Is my speech in alignment with the path? Are my thoughts in alignment with the path? Are my intentions in alignment with the path? Because once I have this as the touchstone, it is very easy for me to just know where I need to make course corrections that will lead me down the stream towards full awakening.

So what does the Buddha mean when he says right view? What is right view? Right view is essentially the basic fundamental awareness of karma. Action and reaction. Action and consequence. When he elaborates right view, he talks about it from the perspective of meaning in that which is given. There is meaning in that which is offered. There is meaning in that which is sacrificed.

In other words, there is meaning in our generosity. There is meaning in letting go of the things that no longer serve us. There is meaning in offering to those teachers and monastics and those who have come before us, not only as a sign of reference and gratitude, but as a sign of acknowledgement that actually, when you do this, you purify your own mind. That there is mother and father, what does that mean? That there is mother and father, that this body, this mind, this nervous system, everything that is made up of what we call ourself, so to speak, arise due to the union of mother and father.

It is through our parents that we have been given this life. And for that reason, we have great acknowledgement for it. Now, in India, and in many parts of that part of the world, there is this certain reverence for elders, and there is a certain reverence especially for our parents. Because we understand that our parents gave us the opportunity to live this life.

Just the biological opportunity to come into this life. We have a tendency to, when we're younger, much younger, a tendency to blame our parents for everything. And some of us don't outgrow that. In our 30s and 40s and 50s, we continue to blame our parents. Why didn't he say, I love you enough? Why didn't he hug me enough? Why did she do that? Couldn't she be better? Couldn't she do this? Couldn't they do whatever it is? And that's how we have therapy, right? Some parents don't know how to be parents. Some parents have been very abusive.

And we acknowledge that as well. So we don't have this lack of boundaries. But we have the acknowledgement that we offer our gratitude just for the basic fact that they gave us this life. But what is so special about this life? What's so wonderful about this life? Haven't we heard all this time that there's suffering in life?

So why should we be grateful? Because this life is an opportunity for us to be able to experience awakening. The human life is very rare. We have all been winners of an existential lottery. To be able to even be here and to have the opportunity to practice and observe how our mind works is a rare opportunity. It's unfathomable.

And the Buddha talks about that. He says it's immeasurable to see the rarity of human life. Because we have just the right amount. We may not feel it. We may feel life is unfair. But in reality, we have just the right amount of joy and pleasant experiences and just the right amount of unpleasant experiences. This is the Goldilocks center of existence. Just the right amount.

Because if we had only suffering, it wouldn't make any sense. And if you had only pleasures, why do anything at all? But we see that there are pleasures, but there are different levels and gradients of pleasure. And something even beyond the sensual pleasures. And we see that, in fact, the cessation of suffering itself is pleasurable. The cessation of pain itself is pleasurable, whether it's physical, mental, or emotional.

So the fact that we have this life, we owe that to our parents. And so that's why the Buddha says, there is mother and there is father. There are beings who have been spontaneously reborn. That's another thing that he talks about as right view. That it is possible that there are other beings that we are not aware of. This gets into the territory of certain kinds of metaphysics.

And it's not necessary for us to delve deep into it. But what the Buddha is saying is, if we can open our minds up to a decentralized understanding of existence. So, in other words, a human-centric existence. There are other beings out there. There are animals, there are birds, there are fish that we can see, but also other beings that we may not be aware of.

So while human existence is rare, it's not the only kind of existence. And these beings are purported to be spontaneously generated, spontaneously born. World and the other. Now, almost every religion on this planet has talked about some form of paradise or heaven or the good place and the bad place, hell, perdition, whatever you want to call it.

And these are different ways, no matter how you look at it, but these are different ways that the mind is motivated to do good and to prevent unwholesome actions from happening. Now, all of this might seem like, oh, this is very basic stuff. What about the postmodern world? What about nihilism? What about all of this stuff that we hear from 20th century philosophy and stuff?

The reality is, and even the Buddha said, look, let's say that there was not a heaven and that there was not a hell, but that in your last moments, you go through all of the events that you have experienced in this life, would you not want to have a happy passing away? Would you not want to have enough memories in your mind to say, yeah, I did good.

That was a good life. Be the reward. So what do we mean by there is this world and the other? Another way of looking at it is there is this world of the sense basis and there is the other world that is beyond the senses that we experience in the form of meditation, different meditative attainments, what are known as jhanas.

And then he says, there have been in the past teachers and guides and Brahmins, as he calls them, and all these people who have experienced for themselves this very thing. And he's pointing out that, hey, there is a Sangha out there. So right view is there, not as some kind of dogma, but a perspective to the mind that brings upliftment to it.

There's a teacher out there named Ajahn Sona, and that's what he says, that the perspective that you take with right view is psychologically uplifting. You take up the view of nihilism, sure, it's cool to be a nihilist when you're a teenager. But eventually it's riddled with anxiety and, oh my God, what's going to happen? So in Buddhism or in the Eightfold Path, there's nothing about deities and worshipping and all of these things. It's all very systematic and rationalistic to the best of its abilities.

There are some aspects which you can kind of set aside if you need to. What the Buddha is talking about is, if I understand that if I do action A and the result of it is effect B, then I should understand what effect that I want. If I do wholesome actions, eventually wholesome effects take place. If I do unwholesome actions, eventually unwholesome effects take place. So this is the gist of right view, which leads to right intention. Three things.

Contentment. Having an intention of contentment. Non-ill will and non-cruelty. What does it mean to be content? Have any of us ever felt content? Or are we always chasing in our mind the next best thing? That's what the Buddha talks about. He says that contentment is one of the greatest mental factors to have. Because it is the greatest wealth that you can have.

When you see people on the Forbes list, the Forbes list of billionaires, you see all these people who apparently are very, very wealthy, but what are they actually? They are what are known as hungry ghosts, never satisfied. How do I get to number one, and how do I maintain that status of being number one, and how can I get... So contentment, coming back to this moment here and now, and being aware of all the so-called possessions that we have, and not in terms of material possessions, but the fact that right now, if you think about this moment, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

There's absolutely nothing to have to do. I always tell people this. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing to do. There's no one to become. You start from there, everything is achieved. It's this sense of lack, that I need to get here, that I need to do this, suffering. So contentment is one aspect. Non-ill will. What is ill will? It is the desire to harm another being. It doesn't have to be physical harm. It's just that I wish them, I wish that something bad happened to them. That's ill will.

So ill will comes from aversion. Something has happened in your past, something has been done to you that is unpleasant, and your response or your reaction to that is aversion. I don't like it. I push it away. And the source of that aversion is what I hate, what I don't like, and I wish them ill. That is ill will. So what is non-ill will?

The letting go of that. At the very least, no longer having any more emotionality around, they did this to me and therefore they should suffer. The letting go of that, because there's a lot of peace in that. We are only causing ourselves constant pain by reflecting on that person or that event or that experience. What is a deterrent?

What is an antidote to ill will? Loving kindness. What is loving kindness? What is metta? At the very fundamental level, it is the ability to observe our own goodness and to recognize the goodness in others, even those who have harmed us. Even those who have talked behind our backs. Even those who have betrayed us. Even if we're not saying that we need to be perfect, what we're saying is, for our own peace of mind, for progress on this path, we let go of ill will and we use loving kindness, the recognition of the goodness in ourselves and the goodness in all other beings. Because when we see that, we can genuinely have metta for others. That same goodness that resides in me resides in all of us.

And non-cruelty. What is non-cruelty? Non-cruelty basically means this. Cruelty is adding to another being's suffering. The inability to recognize their suffering. And hence the inability to recognize our own suffering. If you truly saw how this person is suffering, if you truly saw the pain behind the anger, the desire to be heard behind the verbal assaults, a scared little child who's trying to show to the world that they belong and that they matter. That's what's behind that pain. That's what's behind a person who is causing this kind of suffering on another person, because they don't recognize it. They don't see it.

And if we retaliate in the same way, if we act out in the same way, we are only causing ourselves suffering and them more suffering. We are adding to that constant cycle of suffering. But if we choose to say, for my own peace of mind, if I can't think about the other person, at least for my own peace of mind, for my own benefit, let me let go of this: the desire to have the final word. I will show them. I have a smart rebuttal against what they just said. That satisfaction is short-lived.

And actually, it creates agitation in the mind. Easier said than done. But if we can let go and realize, like, really, how does this matter if I have the upper hand? How does it actually matter if I have the final word? If we recognize our own suffering, we recognize the suffering of others, and we choose to be in a space in which we see when a person is acting out, it's coming from their suffering, what do we do? We have compassion for them.

May this person be free of suffering. May they be at ease. May they experience love and kindness and compassion. May they be felt heard. May they be felt seen. The more you do this, the more it will happen to you. Because you will start to go away from the circles where you are not seen and you are not heard, and you will start to bring into your circle people who do see you and who do hear you and who do understand you.

You start to find your Sangha, your people. So right view and right intention, these two are part of what is known as panya, the segment of wisdom. So we start with wisdom. We start with this mundane wisdom. We get our act together mentally and from a perspective process. Then we go into sila, into ethics. This is what we were talking about when we were talking about the precepts. Why do we take the precepts?

To purify the mind. So that the mind doesn't get agitated. So that the mind is free of hindrances. Because when the mind is free of hindrance, it feels relief. And when the mind feels relief, it experiences ease. And when it feels ease, the mind becomes uplifted. It is joy. And from that joy comes contentment. And from that contentment comes tranquility. And from that tranquility comes equanimity.

And from that equanimity comes the ability to see reality as it actually is. And from that there is disenchantment and dispassion. And through that the mind becomes liberated. This is the entire path. The Buddha has laid out the path in many different ways. talk to you about, we will talk about in a few days. It's known as transcendental dependent origination.

That which transcends the mundane. It is the links or the conditions that lead one to the precipice so that when you take one step further, you dive deep into Nibbana. But it all starts with sila. It starts with the ethics. So what is right speech? Right speech is refraining from using false speech. Refraining from gossip and unnecessary speech.

Refraining from speech that is harsh and abusive. Refraining from speech that is divisive. That causes a schism among friends and communities. There's an acronym that I have offered up for people, which is called THINK, to think before you speak. So what do we mean by THINK? T is: is it timely what I'm about to say? Is it the right time to say what I want to say? for honesty.

Do I know what I'm about to say is true or not? If I don't know, I preface it with this is what I've heard and I don't know if it's true. I is for intention. What is the intention behind what you want to say? Is the intention to make peace? Or is the intention to divide? Is the intention to agitate? O is the intention to calm down.

N is for necessity. Is it necessary for me to say what I have to say? A lot of people are uncomfortable with silence. They need to fill it up with different things. Do you hear about the news about so-and-so? Oh, did you watch the game last night? And just little things that they have to keep saying. And our media and entertainment and newspapers and tabloids and magazines, that's their bread and butter.

They rely on our desire to gossip and talk about other people because it feels fun. I know this more than anyone here because in India, and they talk about last night's party. Did you see what she was wearing? Did you see the guy that she was with? All this happens over their morning cup of chai. And it's so casual.

But the mindset that it creates, the agitation that it creates, we don't realize. So is it necessary to say what we want to say? Is it kindness? Can we say it with kindness? Do we need to use harsh words? Or can we say it with kindness? Think before you speak. Right action is the other precepts. Abstaining from killing and harming other beings.

Abstaining from sexual and sensual misconduct. And abstaining from taking what is not given. Right livelihood. Now there's a list of different things with regards to right livelihood that monks can do and cannot do. But that's for the monks, that's for the monastics. The understanding of right livelihood is not to engage in any trade, business, employment, career, or job.

that deals with the harm of oneself or of other beings. That's what right livelihood is. Try to find something in your life, as your life path, because you need to earn a living while we are lay people, that allows you to do what you like and gives you sustenance to the world and if not contributes to the world at least does not cause further harm to yourself or to the world around you. That's right livelihood. Right effort is the gist. It's the connective tissue of everything else. Right effort is the 6R's, but when we talk about right effort we're talking about what's known as the four main right efforts.

What are the four main right efforts? The first is to recognize and see when unwholesome states arise. The second is to abandon those unwholesome states. The third effort is to generate wholesome states. And the fourth is to, after generating those wholesome states, keep those wholesome states going. This is exactly what we do with the 6R's. We recognize when an unwholesome state is there in the form of the hindrance. We recognize and then we release our undue attention to that unwholesome state. We abandon it. Drop it like it's hot.

Then we relax. When we relax, our mind experiences a very short-lived but very crucial moment where we have deep clarity. And this is the beginning of wholesomeness. And when we smile, that's not just bringing joy, but that's uplifting the mind further. And when we return back to the object, in which case it can be loving kindness, or compassion, or joy, or equanimity.

These are all wholesome states of mind. We maintain those wholesome states of mind. So every time you apply the 6R's, not just in meditation, but also in your daily life, you notice you're getting pissed off? Recognize that. Release the undue attention to it. Relax back into the body. Relax any tightness and tension. Maybe you can't smile because you're in a conflict and people might be weirded out by that. So, smile internally.

and then come back to that space that is free of any ill will and act from there. This is why we're saying right effort allows us to go from the wrong path to the right path, from wrong view and wrong intention and wrong speech and wrong action and wrong livelihood to right view and right intention and right speech and right action and right livelihood.

So the 6R's are not just for meditation. They are for our life. There will be times when we mess up and we forget. And that's okay. But if we can make this a habit continuously, then what we're doing, that is the whole purpose of this path: the causes and conditions for our suffering, and recondition our mind away from those causes and conditions and condition it towards that which leads and results in the end of suffering and the liberation of the mind.

That's it. It's deconditioning the mind from the unwholesome and reconditioning it with the wholesome. Naturally follow suit. You don't have to do any. This is what the Buddha says. It's like if you have that intention of being wholesome, it's just as a river flows down into the ocean. It does it naturally. That intention naturally leads towards faith and gladness and joy and tranquility and collectedness and equanimity and seeing things as they are and disenchantment and dispassion.

And liberation. But consistency is key. You don't just walk the path for one day and say, okay, that's enough. You don't walk the path just for ten days and say, that's enough. You can choose to do what you want after the end of this retreat, but I would, as a friend, suggest that you try to consistently practice. Many times I'll have people come to me and say, it's been a few months since I've practiced and now I'm coming back.

So they may take the precepts and they'll say, okay, I'll take the precepts. But they don't realize that they have to keep taking the five precepts every day after the retreat. They think they just keep it for the retreat and then they can do whatever they have to do off retreat, and then they ask themselves, why am I not progressing? What's going on? So this is a lifestyle. This is a lifetime commitment, should you choose to do it. Nobody's asking you to take the Buddha as your lord and savior, right? Nobody's asking you to do anything actually want to do.

But these are the suggestions and these are the ways in which you can follow a certain system that has been tried and tested to lead towards awakening. So what is right mindfulness? What do we mean by mindfulness? And what do we mean by collectedness? That we will get into tomorrow, because that in itself is a completely whole other topic.

But understand that if you want to meditate, you need to get your perspective straight. You need to have the right intention. You need to have the right speech. You need to have the right action. You need to have the right livelihood. And you need a 6R. Mindfulness will follow, and from mindfulness, collectedness will follow. I rest my case.

Any questions? Yeah. - Would you please repeat what you said about why evil people harm people? I didn't misunderstand you, I just would like to hear it again. - Yeah. Because their inner child is seeking love. Their inner child is seeking the desire to be heard and seen. And this is the only way they can act out because they don't know any better, for the most part.

Sometimes they do know better, but out of their ignorance, they still choose to act in this way. Suffering, not only because of the anger, but that the anger itself is coming from suffering. And the only way they think that they can alleviate that suffering, the only way they think they can resolve an issue, solve a problem, is through anger, is through pain, is through inflicting suffering on another person.

Anybody read the book Denial of Death? Or heard of it? It's a very interesting book. It talks about death anxiety. And that the understanding that we are all going to die starts to come up at some point in our life, around the age of 9 or 10. And then we realize, oh, we are mortal beings. That means there's a limitation to this life.

And some serial killers. The reason that they kill is because they want to feel in control of their own lives. They inflict death on others with the desire or the ignorance of the idea that they will be in control of death. It's a very deranged way of thinking, obviously. goes to the maximum. So in the same way, when people are suffering, they feel like when they inflict suffering on others. They may not know this consciously, but it happens. And that's the only thing that they know.

And that's how they think that they are in control of the outcome, in control of the situation. So next time you see somebody who is acting out, trying to see the child in them, trying to see what is this inner child of this person seeking out. And generally what they're seeking out is love. It's to be heard. That's a form of love. It's to be seen. It's to be understood.

For those of us who have done forgiveness practice, the statement that we say is, I forgive you for not understanding. I forgive myself for not understanding. What is conflict? It's a misunderstanding. I'm unable to understand your suffering, and therefore I act out in this way. I am unable to engage with my suffering and understand my own suffering, and that's why I act out this way. Understanding, once I have clarity on this, naturally what happens? That forgiveness becomes compassion to oneself and to others.

That is what compassion is, the recognition of self. Any other questions? Yeah? Yes. Yeah, there are many suttas that talk about it, but number one is Majjhima Nikaya. It's called the Great Forty. Yeah, it's in the Majjhima Nikaya. And there's a Vibhanga Sutta, which is in Samyutta. Anyway, it's called Vibhanga Sutta, and it breaks down the difference. Do I have a handout? Yeah, maybe what we can do is with this video... That's right. They're still trying to upgrade me, right? They have an AI upgrade, so... Yeah, yeah, that's right. You could do that. But maybe David, if you want, you can take this video and have AI summarize it and put it in the description.

Okay. If there is no one else, let's share some merit. May the fear-struck be fearless. May the grieving share 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.