Dependent Origination Part 2 with Delson Armstrong

So yesterday we spoke about the links of dependent origination that have to do with really the renewal of karma. The way to understand dependent origination is that it is a collection of gears that turn the wheel of samsara. And in essence, they turn the wheel of karma. So everything we've discussed yesterday, craving, clinging, habitual tendencies, birth, and aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair, all of that is in essence culminating in new karma.

It's the ingredients to create new karma. So we'll now talk about the links that precede craving, which have to do with purana karma. That is to say, old karma. Karma that we inherit. One of the five reflections that you guys take is, I am the inheritor of my karma. Karma is my relative. Karma is my resort. Well, it's these links here that you inherit in every single moment.

So prior to craving, we'll take again the context and template of the Four Noble Truths. We have craving as the First Noble Truth. What is craving dependent upon? What is craving fueled by? Feeling. With the cessation of feeling, there is the cessation of craving. The way leading to the cessation of craving is the 6R's. So here in this chart, it says there are three kinds of feeling. Pleasant, painful, neither pleasant nor painful. These are sensations.

These are experiences of the sense basis. The Buddha has talked about feeling in different kinds of ways. He's talked about them as three kinds of feeling. He's talked about them as six kinds of feeling. He's talked about them as 18 different types of feeling, 36 different types of feeling, up to 108 different types of feeling. The reason being is we take the three primary qualities of every experience. In our minds, they can be pleasant, they can be unpleasant, or they can be neutral.

And then we have the sixth sense basis. So there can be feeling based on the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. Those are six. There can be a worldly feeling and an unworldly feeling, or an otherworldly feeling. And there can be feeling that is in the past, in the present, or in the future.

So these different types of feeling are categorized in this way. But feeling, what is feeling? Feeling is essentially everything you are experiencing right now in every given moment, in every present moment, right now, as you're experiencing contact with the chair or the cushion, experiencing my voice, experiencing seeing me, experiencing the reflection that happens in the mind as you listen to my words. And so on. This is all feeling. This is all experience. So then the question arises, why does feeling give rise to craving? Craving is one thing and feeling is the other. Why does this feeling condition craving? Well, it's when you identify with any kind of experience, any kind of feeling, as me, mine, or myself, that craving can arise.

So the bridge between feeling and craving are the underlying tendencies. There are seven underlying tendencies that are not mentioned here, but I'll tell you what they are. There's the underlying tendency towards craving, the underlying tendency towards aversion, the underlying tendency towards ignorance, the underlying tendency towards views, the underlying tendency towards doubt, the underlying tendency towards conceit, and the underlying tendency towards being, or bhava.

And what that means is the underlying tendency is what underlies the feeling. If the quality of the feeling is pleasant in the mind, if the mind has lack of attention and lack of mindfulness, it will take that feeling and say, I want more of it. What causes it to do that? The underlying tendency towards craving. And what brings that up? Whenever there is a sense of me, mine, or myself.

Whenever the mind identifies with that experience. Likewise with aversion. If it's a painful feeling, the mind will say, I don't like this, and pushes it away. The mechanics of how that happens, or how that's delivered from feeling to aversion, is the underlying tendency towards aversion. What about ignorance? That underlies a neutral feeling. When you have a neutral feeling, you don't think one way or another about it, but you still can identify with it due to lack of mindfulness, which is the ignorance.

When we talk about the underlying tendency towards views, you can have opinions and judgments and ideas and concepts about the experience that you're having. You can project all kinds of things towards experience, right? That is a view. These are the different kinds of views. Underlying tendency towards doubt: when you have confusion about what is pleasant and unpleasant, what is wholesome and unwholesome, that is a kind of doubt, not knowing whether the experience gives rise to wholesome tendencies or unwholesome tendencies.

When we talk about the underlying tendency towards conceit, what is the underlying tendency towards conceit? Here the mind says, this feeling is me, mine, or myself. There is this self-image that the mind has. It's almost like it's a mechanism of the brain that says, this is me. It creates boundaries. This body is me. This body is mine. This body is myself.

This is who I identify as. This core concept of a self, this image that the mind has, is the underlying tendency through which it judges or interacts with an experience: this is pleasant to me, or this is unpleasant to me, or this is neutral to me. Or the experience through the eyes is mine. The experience through the ears is mine or myself, and so on and so forth.

And then we have the underlying tendency towards bhava, towards becoming. So not only do we want to possess that experience, now from that experience we want to become other things. We want to have more of those experiences, or we want to have greater degrees of those experiences. Or on the flip side, we don't want that experience at all, and we don't want any experiences similar to that particular experience that might be unpleasant to us.

So these underlying tendencies that the mind has, how do they arise? They arise out of habit. They arise out of continual seeing of reality in a certain way. The continual projection of reality in a certain way. Everything we experience right now, we see as me, mine, or myself, because the mind has been habituated from birth. Now, just in this lifetime alone, from saying, this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

The sense of smell is the sharpest for an infant when they are born, a newborn. The smell of the mother, they denote as, or they connect with as comfort, as pleasant. So I have to be what this entity called my mother. So that is me, that is mine, that is myself. And then the mind starts to create other kinds of ideas and concepts around every experience: this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

Usually around the age of four or five, a mind becomes pretty self-conscious, and there is now more selfing going on, more boundaries created. Oh, this is the color red, this is the color blue, this is the color yellow. I prefer the color red as opposed to blue or yellow. Now you just start creating all of these ideas of what you do like and what you don't like.

And as you grow up, you have other ideas about all kinds of sensations and experiences. So not only are the experiences taken as self, but there is association going on, which means craving and clinging in relation to that feeling, in relation to experience. So what is the way out of letting go of identification with any kind of experience?

It's to relax into the experience. In other words, release any tension that arises from trying to own the experience as me, mine, or myself. If you fully experience everything as it is without adding I to it, just that is the end of suffering. The Buddha has talked about this, and he said in the Bahiya Sutta, as in the seeing there is only the seen.

In the hearing, there is only the heard. In the sensing, there is only the sensed. In the cognizing, there is only the cognized. When there is no you in that, then there is no you after that, and there is no you before that. In other words, there is just the experience. The mind is aware that there is an experience going on. The mind is aware it's an unpleasant experience, or it's a pleasant experience, or it's a neutral experience. To that extent there is mindfulness. But then there is no personalizing going on around that experience.

Just that is the end of suffering. Just that is dukkha nirodha. Once you understand this key aspect of the Dhamma, once you understand that if you see every experience, or if you understand every experience with proper attention, attention rooted in reality, attention that understands this experience as conditionally arisen, dependently arisen, if you notice each experience as being impermanent, therefore not worth holding on to, therefore not me, mine, or myself, then there is no possibility of craving.

There is no possibility of clinging, no possibility of being, no possibility of birth, of action that results in further renewal of suffering. When you are met with a hindrance, what is that hindrance? It is a mental experience. It is a mental feeling. What do you do with that hindrance? Do you push it away? Do you fight with it?

Do you identify with it? Because any of those things, if you do, what happens? That hindrance results in stronger growth. It becomes more unbearable, and the mind becomes overwhelmed by it. But if you notice the hindrance as just a hindrance, as just an experience, and you release your identification with that hindrance, and you let go of the tightness and tension which is identifying with it, which is wanting to change it, then your undue attention to the hindrance ceases, and with it the hindrance itself.

So that hindrance, in essence, is experience, and all experience is inherited karma. Now, if you choose to crave for an experience, if you choose to have aversion towards that experience, if you choose to identify with it, then you will start to bring up the ingredients for the production of new karma, which can result in suffering, which can result in experiencing that again to a greater degree at a future time, maybe in the next moment, or maybe in a subsequent time or time after that.

But if six are the hindrance, what do you notice? When you let go of the tightness and tension related to that hindrance and you replace it with a wholesome object, what happens? That hindrance weakens. Your attachment or aversion to that hindrance weakens. And it might arise again, but this time it doesn't bother you as much because that hindrance is weakened. The old karma has dissipated in its energy.

And so what do you do there? You have equanimity and you say, there is a hindrance and you six are it. Then that hindrance goes away and you are mindful for some time, you are in jhana for some time, the hindrance comes up again, you notice it. But this time the hindrance is even weaker. And so you let go of it again. You use the six R's.

And by doing that, the hindrance goes away completely. The same thing happens with every experience that you have. All of the different habitual tendencies that you encounter in the form of the different choices you make can be reconditioned using the six R's. Not only that, every experience in the form of a similar kind of relationship that you've had before, that you've broken away from, or where you find yourself in similar kinds of situations, if you continue to be upset by that or by those situations, they will continue to give rise to more and more of those situations.

But if you let go and accept and have equanimity towards that situation to the extent that you don't identify with them, then your mind's attention goes away from that. And what happens next? Then you start to recondition the way you make decisions so that at a certain point in time, those decisions don't lead to those similar kinds of situations.

So dependent origination is not just theory. Once you fully understand it, you can apply the Four Noble Truths in this way to change any kind of karma, to let all karma dissipate without the production of new karma. It's a gradual process. It happens bit by bit, but you start to notice the changes and you let go of identification, even of those changes, no matter how wholesome they might be.

So all experience. Now we have experience as the first noble truth. All experience is dependent upon the second noble truth of contact. That contact gives rise to a feeling, to an experience. With the cessation of that contact, there is a cessation of that experience. And the way leading to the cessation of that experience is using the six R's.

So what do we mean by contact? Contact is made up of three things. It is the senses, the sense base, the sense base object, and the consciousness dependent upon the two. In other words, when there is color and form that meets the eye, there is an awareness that is tied to that eye. When vibrations in the atmosphere hit the ear, there is an awareness that arises dependent upon the contact between the two.

Likewise, when you have temperature and pressure changes in the body and outside of the body, it makes contact with the body, internally or externally. Dependent upon the two, there is an awareness of that. And these three make up body contact. Likewise with the tongue, likewise with the nose, likewise with the mind. So what is contact? Contact is the sense-based, the sense-based object, and the sense-based awareness.

What is that sense-based awareness? That is attention being given to that contact. Somebody who is blind or somebody who is deaf, for example. Their eyes are there. The color and form is there. The ears are there. The vibrations in the air are there. But there is no corresponding awareness to the eye or to the ear that can give rise to contact, which can give rise to feeling.

So you need all three in order for contact to give rise to feeling. So when we say awareness, what are we talking about? We're talking about the attention. In other words, right now you are all looking at me. The light is bouncing off of this particular body and making contact with your eyes. Now there is an attention given to that contact, and so you are seeing me.

But if I direct your attention to this flower over here, or these flowers over here, now there is a new awareness that arises dependent upon the meeting of the eye and the flowers. Wherever your attention goes, there is contact. So in the meditation, for example, when there's contact with the hindrance, attention is being given to the hindrance.

And there's the experience of the hindrance. But if you relax, if you let go, and your attention goes back to its object, what happens? The hindrance disappears. There's no more awareness of the hindrance. Now there's awareness of the object of meditation. So understand this, that your attention is really so vital to the liberation of your mind. Where you put your attention, how you put your attention, to what degree you put your attention, is all dependent upon your intentions.

And what are your intentions dependent upon? Your previous choices. Your intentions are the inclination that is where your mind bends towards in every given moment. And they are dependent on previous choices you've made. That is why contact also is part of old karma. Karma that you inherit as a result of past choices. The more unwholesome choices you make, the more your mind inclines towards unwholesome tendencies, which is why when you are met with choices, your mind automatically or almost automatically chooses that particular unwholesome choice.

But this process of the Dhamma is all about changing that. It is possible to change that. Every moment presents itself as a choice to either take it personally or to see with proper wisdom thus, that this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself, and let go. Now that contact here is the first noble truth.

Dependent upon the sixth sense basis, that contact arises. With the cessation of the sixth sense basis, there is the cessation of that contact. The way leading to the cessation of that contact is using the six R's. So what are you six are in here? You can't six are your sense bases away. You can't six are your eye away. You can't six are your ears away. What you are six are in is the taking of the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind as self. You're letting go of identifying with those sense bases.

The sense bases are essentially this world. That's what it is. The Buddha has said that this world that you experience is conditioned by this fathom-long body and the sense bases in it. Everything you experience right now, in this moment, in terms of the colors that you see and the forms that you see, is all conditioned by the mechanics of your eyes. The levels of sounds that you can hear and the different kinds of frequencies you can hear or cannot hear are dependent upon your ears. The kind of odor molecules or taste molecules your nose can smell, your olfactory bulb can receive, or your taste receptors can receive, is dependent upon the structure and level of intensity that your nose and tongue can experience.

The different kinds of quality of feeling in terms of your body, the temperature, the pressure, the kind of cloths that you can feel, all of that is dependent upon your body, dependent upon the skin, dependent upon the nervous system, dependent upon the nerves. All of the things that you can think about, all of the things that come to mind. If I tell you to stop thinking about a purple elephant, what happens? You think about a purple elephant. How do you know what a purple elephant looks like?

Do you know that a purple elephant looks the same in my mind as it looks in your mind? That is just consensus reality, that we have this consensus reality that all of us say this is what reality is. It is just dependent upon all kinds of concepts that we have applied to this world, that we have projected onto this world.

This world, as we see it, does not exist. It only exists here. This mind is samsara. All of samsara is mind-made. Mind is chief. Mind is the forerunner of all states. Why? Because even the different vibrations that are present in the form of the electromagnetic field of color and form, in the form of frequencies, in the form of temperature and pressure, in the form of all kinds of different things, are received as signals through these sixth sense bases. And they are then received by the mind, which interprets and creates this idea of a world outside.

That is the matrix that we are living in, defined by our sixth sense bases. So now these six sense bases are the first noble truth. Dependent upon mentality, materiality, these six sense bases arise. With the cessation of mentality, materiality, there is the cessation of the six sense bases. The way leading to the cessation of those six sense bases is the use of the six R's. What does that mean?

What is mentality and what is materiality? So nama-rupa is usually translated as name and form, or mind and body, or mentality and materiality. So rupa, form, let's start with the easiest first. Rupa, what is that? Rupa is made up of the four great elements: earth, water, fire, and air. In modern context, that is really the states of matter. Or, let's say, in terms of earth, that is solid matter.

In terms of water, liquid states of matter. In terms of air, gaseous states of matter. In terms of fire, heat and temperature, and plasma in the form of fire from the sun and from any kind of fire that you produce. That, in different capacities, creates this body that we experience, which continues to change all the time. And because of that, the sixth sense bases also continue to change all the time. That's why you have failing eyes. You have decline in your hearing. You might not taste as well as you did in terms of the food. You might not smell odors as you did before. Your sense of touch might decline.

Indeed, in the dying process, this is what happens. The different sense bases decline in a certain way. The states of matter of the body start to decline in a certain way. But within these different states of matter that create this concept of the body that we experience, whatever we experience is also what we believe is the mind contained within the body.

And so mind, how do you know mind? How do you become aware of mind? What is mind? When we talk about name and form, with no form, but when we talk about name as mind or mentality, what are we saying? It is the capacity to conceptualize what it is that we are experiencing. Can we say that the mind is the brain and the nervous system?

Or is the mind more than that? Because when we talk about mind, mind can be my mind or mind can be your mind. Mind can be the mind of those rabbits outside. The mind can be the mind of the deer that are out in the forest. Or the mind of the dogs and the cats. There are different capacities for mind.

But in essence, they are all part of mind. So what does it mean, mind? How do you know someone's mind? How do you know your own mind? Mind is understood by its, and through its, faculties and characteristics. Here in mentality, when we talk about mentality, it's feeling, perception, formations or intention, contact, and attention. So mentality, materiality, in essence, is really the five aggregates.

The five skandhas or khandhas, right? Rupa corresponds, or materiality corresponds, to form. Feeling to feeling, perception to perception, intention to formations, and contact and attention to awareness or consciousness. Just as certain parts of the brain allow us to experience reality a certain way, like we have the different kinds of lobes in the brain, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, prefrontal cortex, and so on and so forth. All of these different parts of the brain work together to help us create an experience.

In the same way, the faculties allow us to experience reality a certain way. The faculty or organ or instrument of feeling allows us to have feeling, the ability to process feeling. The faculty or instrument of perception allows us to recognize what it is that we are experiencing. So what is perception, sanna? Perception is basically rooted in memory. What we learn as: this is the color red, that's the number two, this is hot, this is male, this is female, this is a flower, this is a book, and so on and so forth, all kinds of concepts that we attribute to an experience, rooted in our learning and memory.

That faculty of perception then allows the mind to perceive in the form of a processing of perception. Intention, chetana. What is that? That is an inclination, the way your mind is geared towards something. The intention of where your mind goes, it's through intention that samskaras flow, that sankharas flow. When your mind inclines towards a certain choice, it conditions the next arising of sankharas, and then those sankharas continue to further strengthen that particular choice, that particular intention, that particular inclination. But as I said, in every given moment you do have a choice, conditioned by new wisdom, new knowledge, that says this is the wholesome and this is the unwholesome, this is beneficial, this is unbeneficial, this is afflictive, this is non-afflictive, and so on and so forth. And so your mind starts to go towards that which is wholesome, beneficial, and non-afflictive.

And so new formations arise dependent upon that choice and intention. And those samskaras continue to condition the choice towards that direction every time that choice is made. Now, it's through contact and attention that consciousness flows. Where you put your attention, there your consciousness will flow. And so that is the aggregate of consciousness. Now, here's an interesting thing. So dependent on mentality and materiality, there is consciousness.

And dependent upon consciousness, there is mentality and materiality. They are interdependent. Why? In order for you to know that you have a mind and body, in order for you to understand name and form, you need awareness. But in order for that awareness to actually flow, you need a body. You need a mind and body. So what is that consciousness? That consciousness is sixfold, dependent upon the eyes, dependent upon the ears, dependent upon the nose, dependent upon the tongue, dependent upon the body, and dependent upon the mind. These are the six consciousnesses that arise and pass away dependent upon contact, feeling, and perception.

What one experiences, that one recognizes as a certain type of experience. For one to recognize, one first has to cognize, which is that process of consciousness, that process of cognition. And that is dependent upon where you put your attention. And in this way, that consciousness is dependent upon mentality and materiality, and vice versa. Now, consciousness can be understood as arising and passing away from moment to moment to moment.

But dependent origination also allows us to understand. We don't have to believe in it, but it gives us the framework to understand, at some level, at a future period in time, to experience it for ourselves, how rebirth occurs from one life to the next. Because the understanding is that consciousness is required for the functioning of mentality-materiality. And these three are actually important in the framework of rebirth from one life to the next life. That is sankharas, or formations, consciousness, and mentality-materiality.

So before we go into that, let's first understand what sankharas are. There are three types of sankharas that are mentioned here: bodily, verbal, and mental. Bodily sankharas allow us to move around, allow us to inhale and exhale. Verbal formations or sankharas allow us to express thought into speech. The thinking and examining thought that we have when we internalize an image or verbalize words like, may I be happy, may I be well, this is the usage of verbal formations coming into being. Thinking and examining thought, then, that can be expressed as speech. And what about mental sankharas? Mental formations allow us to feel and perceive. Why

Because everything culminates in the mind. Even though you think you're seeing through the eyes, you think you're hearing through the ears, you think you're smelling through the nose, tasting through the tongue, feeling through the body, actually all of that channels back into the mind, and so all experience, physical and non-physical, is dependent upon mental formations. Now, these formations can be entrenched in, can be hindered by, can be fettered by ignorance, by craving, by conceit, by wrong views.

Why? Because every time you make the choice not to pay attention, which almost happens automatically for most people, you continue to strengthen those formations conditioned by ignorance. Every time you choose to crave and start to identify as this is me, this is mine, this is myself, you strengthen those formations rooted in that conceit and craving. And every time you forget about right view, in the same way, you start to strengthen those formations that are fettered by wrong view.

Now, these sankharas, when they give rise to consciousness, also give rise to a certain mindset that is rooted in those formations. So if the formations are fettered by greed, hatred, and delusion, that arises up to 16 different types of upakilesas, like stinginess, like jealousy, like anger, like pride. All of these different kinds then condition the way mind makes contact with the world, and that can create or strengthen certain underlying tendencies for the mind to crave or have aversion towards something, and then cling, become, birth of action, and dukkha.

But if the formations are not rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, then what happens? Those sankharas, those samskaras, are known as being pure. In the case of somebody who has let go of all ignorance, all conceit, all craving, all wrong views, they have become fully awakened. So that means no ignorance is present. However, those formations are now karmic formations.

They allow for the facilitation of karma to be experienced through mind, body, and speech. And so that is why I'm saying everything up until feeling is all old karma. What you choose to do with that karma in any given moment will then decide whether there is a renewal of that karma through the ingredients of craving, clinging, becoming, or the dissipation of that old karma by understanding that experience to be impersonal.

Not me, not mine, not myself. Now, from one life to the next, this is why there's an emphasis in all ancient Indian traditions, but also within the Dhamma here, that your last thought or the last experiences you have prior to death will then give rise to your corresponding existence in the next life. And so that is why there is another emphasis, an emphasis on being wholesome, because the more wholesome you become, the more wholesome choices you have, the more automatic your inclination becomes towards those choices. So if a person has continued to keep the precepts, if a person has continued to be wholesome throughout their lives, what happens?

The samskaras that arise in that mind give rise to wholesome images, give rise to memories of wholesome attitudes, give rise to times when the mind was wholesome, and as a result the mind relishes in that, identifies with it, and as a result of identifying with it gives rise to a corresponding consciousness that transfers from this life immediately to the next life. But in order for that consciousness to continue, it requires a nama-rupa, or mentality-materiality.

And so if we just talk about from one human life to the next, let's say, from one human life, when the samskaras arise that are wholesome, the mind then gravitates towards them and the fuel of that gives rise to a new consciousness that then immediately takes root into the genetic material of the new being. When the sperm and the ovum meet in that moment, if consciousness descends into that, then there is said to be a renewal of that life.

Genetic material, all of those potential genetic markers and expressions, are also corresponding to the different kinds of karma that being might potentially experience, and has a perfect match with that corresponding consciousness that descends into that mind and body, into that nama-rupa. So those samskaras, those sankharas, are dependent upon, in this case, ignorance. What does that mean? It means you ignore the four noble truths, ignore this whole process that arises. So there are levels of ignorance too. There is ignorance where you never have heard about the four noble truths, you've never heard about this whole process. That is one level of ignorance.

Then there is that ignorance where you do know about the four noble truths, but because your mind hasn't really applied them, it ignores them in every moment, and bit by bit you let go of that ignorance. How? Through mindfulness. Practically speaking, ignorance equals lack of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? Remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one thing to the other. Every time your mind slips in its mindfulness, the gatekeeper that's there slips, and what slips through is ignorance and craving, giving rise to further karma. When you have proper mindfulness, unmuddled, my mindfulness, clear, collected mindfulness in every moment.

Then you are doing away with that ignorance bit by bit, because, like I said yesterday, these links of dependent origination carry forward the energy from the prior link, and so the momentum continues. But as that happens, there are also feedback loops. When there is lack of mindfulness at feeling, it feeds back at ignorance, right when there's back into the formations, and so on, and that further fuels the different choices and intentions that are made with regards to every feeling that is experienced. So if you just knew or understood this one principle, that there's nothing you can do about the ignorance that you had in the past. There's nothing you can do about all of the different unwholesome choices you made in the past.

But what you can do is figure out how to deal with what happens dependent upon those choices in a given moment. You can choose to have resentment. You can choose to have remorse. You can choose to have anger. You can choose to have all of these things dependent upon previous choices. Or you can choose to see them and let go of them and replace them with their polar opposites.

In other words, instead of getting angry, you can have compassion. Instead of having aversion, you can have loving kindness. Instead of having jealousy, you can have empathetic joy. Instead of having restlessness, you can have equanimity. Instead of having resentment, you can have forgiveness. Now, how do we know that if you let go, no new karma is produced?

How do you know? You have to see for yourself. Now, according to the Sutta, it's said that the cessation of karma happens through the application of the Eightfold Path. So every time you 6R, which is the encapsulation of the Eightfold Path, you are letting go of karma. And more importantly, you're not producing any new karma. You're reconditioning the way the mind experiences the world.

So dependent origination is not only about understanding how this process works, but most importantly, applying that process so that you understand how to let go of suffering. Thus ends our lesson. Any questions? Yeah, the opposite of remorse would be essentially forgiving yourself. This really works on the video, so let's use it. I think I understand the application of the 6R's in terms of our, you know, the metta meditation, but could you give some examples and how, why, in the course of maybe not while meditating? Yeah, of course. All the time, every single moment. Let's say you get yourself into an argument with somebody and they start to get upset at you, and your immediate reaction is to retaliate, let's say.

That's your habitual tendency right there. Every time somebody says something to me, there's contact with the unpleasant sound of somebody saying something to you. There's the feeling of the unpleasant words and the perception of that. Then the mind says, I don't like that. That's craving. I don't like that because I'm so and so person. That's clinging, and whenever somebody says that to me I act in this way, that sexual tendency, and then there is the application of that action in the form of birth of action. But if you can recognize in that moment any of those thoughts

I don't like what that person said, how dare they say that to me, or this is not who I am, any kinds of thoughts like that. If you can recognize that in that moment, release your attention from that, relax, maybe not necessarily smile because you might aggravate the other person, but at least uplift your mind, and then bring loving kindness or forgiveness, equanimity or compassion. Then whatever you say, whatever you do, will be conditioned by the wholesome rather than all of those unwholesome tendencies. So the 6R's can be used in any situation.

But it takes practice, and yes, you will slip up. That will happen, and that's okay. The determination to apply the 6R's whenever you can. The 6R's can be used for any situation where you don't have to retaliate in a way that produces new karma, because let's say you didn't 6R, you didn't apply the Eightfold Path there, and you do decide to retaliate in kind to that person. What does that do? That upsets the person even more.

And then there's just a back and forth of continuous cruelty amongst the two of you. Right? There is that statement by the Buddha. Hatred cannot cease by hatred, but by love alone. This is the eternal law. So the unwholesome can't cease by the unwholesome. You need to replace it with the wholesome. And bit by bit it dissipates. Yeah, first question: what's the difference between vinnana and citta? So vinnana, when we say vinnana, that really is the process of cognizing, and jnana is knowledge, to cognize.

Citta here can be understood as mindset, because when we talk about citta in the context of the suttas, what it says is that citta is essentially a type of mind, a quality of mind, a quality of consciousness. So if there are certain corruptions of the mind, those are citta upakkilesas, which means that mindset is tainted by a certain kind of quality, whereas the process of cognizing itself is vinnana. Thanks. And a second question: is it possible to directly perceive formations and six are them? You sort of see them, interpreted by the mind, whenever you are in the eighth jhana, let's say the quiet mind, because that's where you have that hypnagogic state, like the dreamlike, where you're asleep and awake at the same time, and what you're seeing are the proto-thoughts. So I call formations also the proto-thoughts that bubble up and percolate up into fully formed thoughts that are experienced as thinking or as images in the mind. So you can experience it in that way, but if you want to know the quality of what the formations are like, observe the quality of your intentions. If your intentions are wholesome, then the formations that have risen are also wholesome, and vice versa.

Thanks. So the formations kind of point your attention, is that right? I kind of can. Formations are like synapses in the brain. You continue to have certain kinds of synapses, and as you start to make certain choices, they start to prune the synapses, and so the more synapses that are built around a certain kind of experience, then in that sense they direct towards a specific kind of choice.

Yeah, there was a question in the back, and then the person in front, and then the person chance. I'll just ask maybe two and give chance for this. The first question is, the four factors you mentioned, basically they're the punch of both us, yeah, yeah, which is your pradriyagni up, and why you, yeah. But there's a fifth element, not like the movie Fifth Element, but the fifth element is what they call akasha. Yes. Where does, why doesn't Buddhism have that? It does. It does. It has six of them actually. It has earth, water, fire, air or wind, space or akasha, and consciousness or mind itself. But where is akasha? I didn't hear that. Akasha. Well, again, this is just for the body when we talk about the body, but within the body, in other suttas, they talk about space within the body as well, in the form of spaces in between

different parts of the body and so on. That's the internal space. Then there's the external space, which is a quality or an element of existence, and then consciousness or mind as the sixth. The second question is samskara vasanas, because you're saying samskaras are also seeds? Yes. Vasanas are supposed to carry from birth to birth? Yeah, in a seed form. Here they're used, I mean, we don't use the word 'vasanas', but they are understood as interchangeable, yes.

And the last, just a comment. You mentioned about the smell, that it is in an infant. I also heard that smell, sense of smell and smell, is very, very important spiritually. You lose that, you belong in a spiritual ICU, you've lost a lot. Yes, and interestingly, the 65 of Covid patients lost their smell. That's right, it was the last to come back. That's right. So I was telling you earlier about how the six sense bases actually depart in a certain way when somebody is dying. So one of them is the sense of smell. The sense of smell goes away, then the sense of taste, and the sense of sight, and the sense of touch, and then the sense of hearing, and then finally the mind itself. That's the order in which it goes away.

Question here, yeah, the person in the green, to your green and purple. Yeah, my question has to do with the 6R's in the relaxed step. So, if you see the quiet mind, if we have like strong tension, and if you kept telling your mind to relax, that it doesn't work. I wonder if we should spend a little bit more time on the relaxing step before we move to turning our attention to the object of meditation, or can you suggest different ways we can slowly relax in that third, yeah, in that step.

So Bhante would say that don't use the 6R's like a stick. In other words, don't play whack-a-mole. What that means is sometimes attention is there and sometimes the mind is having aversion to that tension, and it's trying to 6R that tension. In other words, it's rooted or motivated by aversion towards that tension. First, let's pay attention to how the mind perceives that tension, and let go of any kind of aversion to it, and have some equanimity towards it, and then let the tension relax.

And if the tension is there, let's say in the quiet mind, for example, sometimes it's okay to just see the tension as not me, not mine, not myself. As soon as you do that, then there's no personalizing of it, and it starts to dissipate as well. At that point, then, you can just relax. Relax and let it dissolve, and then come back to your object.

I wonder if I should spend more time relaxing, like, a few more minutes. A few more minutes? Yeah, or just go back to 6R right away. No, I just told you. You have to understand, when you try to 6R the tension, then you're not 6R-ing it. There is aversion to that tension. You have to change your relationship to that tension, and allow the tension to be there. Fine, there's tension. And then you just let it go. You just, that's fine.

I was going to say to that, but yeah, it may not go away at all, that tension, and that's okay. You're 6R-ing your own aversion to it, is what I find for me, anyway. The example is not a tension in the forehead, but you just don't, it doesn't go away. No. Yeah, so my question is about attention, and so in mentality materiality, and since it becomes before contact, does it mean that by the time contact arises, it's kind of too late? The attention is already directed? It's not attention, isn't even a conscious thing that's happening? I guess I'm looking at it because it's listed under a potential. No, so let me explain again. Like I said, the feeling, perception, formations, contact and attention, these are instruments

through which attention can arise. It's not attention itself, it's not the process of attention. It's the same way that the eyes are allowing you to see, the faculty of attention is allowing you to have the process of attention, so it will wake up after contact, basically. It will wake up, actually, concurring to contact. Is there a word for the process of identification, the phenomenon, as I mean, mine? Yes, it's called conceit. It's translated from the Pali, which is mana, which means to compare, to measure.

And that can take place at any of the links? Yeah. But specifically, it's strongest at feeling, which then can give rise to craving. And the antidote is to let go. To let go. All right. Thank you. About birth of action, does that also include mental phenomena, like thoughts? That includes intentional thoughts. In other words, a thought of anger where I don't like this person and I want to do this to them, that's a birth of action.

But like formations, do you have any control over those? No. Not directly. Only through how you let go. So all thoughts, not all thoughts need to be 6R'd. This is what you have to understand. Only thoughts that are rooted in craving, in conceit, in ignorance, and wrong view. Other thoughts are the same as you seeing a movie or listening to a symphony or whatever. It's just sounds in the air. It's just sights.

You can't do anything about them. They're just there. The thoughts are the same way. The thoughts that are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, that you have to let go of. It was a yeah, I lost my sense of smell most of it during COVID. Is some bad can happen. Yeah, we'll all send you loving kindness. Now you'll be fine. There's one here in the front. So my question is, what's going on with our karma when there's a cessation? There is no karma there. Okay, it's not a result of karma in any way.

No, it's just a come. Oh, you mean there's a karmic, um, conditioning for cessation, you know, in a way, yeah, is that a thing? Or maybe you could just explain what's going on. It's to the extent that you start to let go, that is what's known as... Okay, let me backtrack a little and contextualize karma in another way. So the Buddha also talked about karma as bright karma and dark karma, bright and dark karma, and neither bright nor dark karma. So bright karma is wholesome choices, wholesome intentions. Dark karma is unwholesome choices and intentions. Bright and dark are the thing you do in your everyday life depending upon those choices, and then, for example, you know, you might have an unwholesome intention towards someone, but then you notice that you let go and now your choice is wholesome, and then there's neither, which is essentially the karma or the action or the intention that is rooted in the Eightfold Path.

And that is intention that is non-productive in the sense that it doesn't produce new karma. So when we talk about the application of the Eightfold Path, continuing to 6R and let go, that leads to cessation to that extent. Does the Buddha ever speak of ultimate origination, of where all this stuff is coming from, where karma originated from? He says that samsara is beginningless, there is no first cause that he's found. It's just cycling through over and over and over again. Yeah, there's big bang karma, and before the big bang there was nothing, or seemingly nothing, potential, and prior to that there was a contraction, and prior to that there was

an expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction, and so on. So in the way that we're in an expansion right now or different, we're, yeah, we're in an expansion right now. One last question here in the back. You know, the mind has an interesting concept of a bat, of a rat, they're all different. Right. Their functions are different, their expectations are different. Because what you do in this life and rebirth depend on the kind of karmas you do. I was thinking if you were doing a lot of bad things, or if you were in a position of power, but you lent a blind eye to a lot of anya or bad things going on, you didn't do anything about it.

Do you take a rebirth as a bat that has no eyes and flying around just sending ultrasound and hearing it? You know, is that somewhat of a nature's logic? It could be. It could be, maybe not exactly in those parameters. Every choice that a person takes, every choice of being takes, has some kind of consequence, whether it's in the subsequent moment or a subsequent life, and the way that is calculated, or let's say formulated, is dependent upon a few things: dependent upon the level of action that was taken in terms of its intensity, and also the various other co-factors like the environment and society or whatever else it is in that particular existence that can allow for the fruition of that karma. So the way to understand karma in that sense is that karma is like different kinds of seeds.

When enough water is given, then that seed will grow at a faster rate, possibly at a certain rate, then compared to the seed that has not enough water and has not enough sunlight or enough nutritious soil, the same way when which can give rise to a certain kind of consequence. But if the causes and conditions that allow for that consequence to arise are not present, then it won't arise in that time, but perhaps a subsequent time, if the causes and conditions are right. I think it's similar to genes and circumstances, why with some genes some people will get cancer. Right. That's right. If you smoke and you have a gene. Behavior, environment, genetic expression, and so on.

Interesting. So I want to follow up on that. So then if you extinguish all the causes and conditions for that, then the karma will just -- Won't be there to -- So it will dissipate after some time or -- It might, or it might still remain in some kind of potential. Alert. One question was here.

I just had a question about the 6R's in the context of meditating here, because I think I was a little, perhaps a little confused about it. So let's just say that the only six are things that we'll just call negative. Yeah. All of the thoughts that are rooted in the unwholesome. Yeah. So, what in the situation where I'm trying to meditate and I have... I kind of go off into a thought process, but it's me fantasizing about doing something wholesome. I mean, I have two kids, so this, half this is maybe I'm like, oh, I just have this insight, I want to share, because I think it'll be beneficial or something like that. How do I... but it's still pulling me, I still get lost in it. It's pulling me completely away from the intention of meditating. What's the how should I handle that, and if that happens in

outside of here, when I'm trying to do something, also intentional, that's rooted in action, and I'm getting pulled away, that I would say is a distraction, and you should let go, so just turn attention away from it. Yeah, back to, okay, using the 6R's, always using the 6R's on that. Okay, so I can understand how the confusion is. You just said that, and the thought process will be, I just said that you have to let go of all thoughts that are rooted in the unwholesome, and any other thoughts are okay, and then I just said this, so where is the disconnect or where is the connection? So when I say that you have to let go of all thoughts that are rooted in the unwholesome, that's one thing, right? You have to use the 6R's to let go of that, but what I'm also saying is when you get to that point where there are thoughts in the background that might not even register completely in the mind

the same way as you are seeing something and there are other things going on around you that you might not be seen. You can't control those, but as soon as your mind goes towards that, then there's what is called a lack of attention, or inattention, or proper attention, ineffective attention, and that in itself is also, for the purposes of the meditation, can be seen as unwholesome, even if the thought process is wholesome, because here the objective is to stay on the feeling or a loving kindness or whatever I get. Because it's really that my mind is trying to create a scenario that makes me feel good. I mean, it's a type, it feels like a type of craving, right?

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, you can define it as restlessness if you want as well. Yeah, okay. Let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired, for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings in hell, may they long protect.