On Retreat -Delson talks to the meditators at the Solar Eclipse Retreat

So does anybody have a question? You can get this thing started. Okay, you do. All right, can you come up? And Ken, hi Delson, nice to meet you. Right. So I endure a number of chronic physical ailments and find that while meditation helps to bear the discomforts, I still experience considerable aversion, especially knowing that a lot of these symptoms will probably be with me for life. So I'm curious if you're aware of any discourses that offer any additional wholesome coping skills. Uh, actually, one of the best ones I would say is Majjhima Nikaya 143, Anathapindikovada Sutta, which is the advice to Anathapindika. Now, in that sutta, Anathapindika is actually quite sick and unwell, and he's on his way to leave this particular life. But the way Sariputta guides him through letting go of the pains and the ailments, by letting go of the aggregates, letting go of the elements, letting go of feeling, letting go of consciousness.

If you listen to that as a meditation, or if you read that and contemplate on it, it really does help you to let go of any discomfort or any kind of pain that might be there in the body. What else? Meditation questions? Got to be something here. Okay, put it on it. Christina. Hello, Delson. Nice to meet you. I have a question. I'm very new to Buddhism, and I was curious how Buddhism thinks of near-death experiences, and any sort of, I don't know, thoughts on that.

Yeah. It's interesting you bring up near-death experiences, because I've met with people who've had near-death experiences. I've had near-death experiences myself, so I have some understanding of it. And from the perspective of Buddhism, you look at the transition from one life to another life. And oftentimes what it's mentioned is there is a life review process that goes on. And so the karmic highlights that are there of your life start to show up. And if the mind has any kind of craving, any kind of identification, it will clutch to them, causing the arising of new consciousness to be propelled forward. Or sometimes there's the signs of destiny, which is to say, for the next life, what could be the case? For example, if somebody has been wholesome, they might see angels, or they might see different kinds of light beings or luminous beings.

If they've been unwholesome, they might see dark beings or ghosts and things like that. But these are all mentioned in different, let's say, commentaries, not necessarily suttas, but there might be recollections of that in the Petavatthu or things like that. In any case, this is just letting you know, to set up a context of what's happening within your death experience. Which is oftentimes when somebody has a near-death experience, they will experience the light at the end of the tunnel.

They'll experience seeing different kinds of beings. They'll experience doing a life review process. And it doesn't mean that they have totally died. It doesn't mean that they've totally crossed over, because what's happening is the dying process is still utilizing the functions of the mind outside of the scope of the five physical sense bases. So the mind is still active, and the consciousness within mind is still active. So you might come across, for example, in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in Tibetan Buddhism, to talk about bardos, which are different segments of reality that people or beings cross through in order to get to the next life. But these are all again happening within the vicinity of the mind that is present just before the next leap forward into a next life. So this is what you could take away, which is that all near-death experiences are, are basically functions of the mind, or experiences of the mind.

So to put a finer point on that: when you are dying, is that near-death experience happening in this body as it is dying, or is it already gone? It's happening in this body. Yeah, to be more precise, it's happening, let's say, within this body. So there's a way in which the body starts to dissipate, and the aggregates start to dissipate in the dying process. So we talk about the elements of the body, which is earth, water, fire, air, space, and actually consciousness. So it's four great elements plus the other two. And then you talk about the different sense bases. We have the sixth sense base.

So in a certain order, these different sense bases and these different elements start to depart in somebody who is dying. But the last aspect to go, in the case of sense bases, is the mind. And the last element to go, let's say, is consciousness. So mind and mind consciousness are still present, still within the vicinity of this particular body, before it transitions into the next.

Okay. May I ask a follow-up? Please. Yeah. So I guess there's a little bit of an explanation before the follow-up. I asked about near-death experiences because in my meditation experience here, I recognized in jhanas an experience that I had, having an unplanned C-section with my son, where I felt like maybe I was close to the other side. But now I'm thinking maybe that's not it, maybe there was so much meditative joy that I was experiencing something else. But I guess as I was experiencing another sort of jhana, I also experienced a little bit of fear, right? Because I remembered a similar experience and just tried to 6R that.

But I guess my question is, do you have any more ideas or guidance on how to approach that little bit of fear or aversion, with an altered sort of state, just out of recognition of, oh, this is when I was maybe leaving my body, and trying not to, or something like that? Yeah, so a couple of things. One is, in reality, when we meditate and we're doing this process of TWIM, what's going on is we're actually preparing ourselves for the great meditation, which is death itself. So every time we meditate

and we're going through the jhanas, it's actually an unraveling process. That doesn't mean that anybody is going to actually die in the meditation. So far my record's been good, nobody has died on any of my retreats, so, you know, yeah, and David can attest to that. But it's a practice of letting go. It helps you to let go of any kinds of attachments, aversions, points of identity that can get in the way of being liberated from death altogether. So this is like a simulation of death. And in fact, when you look at the jhanas, Bhante Vimalaramsi has always said the jhanas are levels of understanding, which means that when you go through each jhana, your mind comes to a certain understanding of reality, whether it's an understanding of mental joy, an understanding of seeing consciousness, and understanding of seeing space, and so on.

But another way to look at it is there are levels of cessation, and so the great cessation is the death itself, the death of this body and the death of the mind. And you have that, quote-unquote, experience, non-experience, through cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, for a split second, for a brief moment. You are out. You don't know where you were or what was going on. And then when you come back from that, let's say when the mind comes back online from cessation, it experiences a great amount of relief and joy, as if it's just been reborn. So in essence, it is experiencing that dying process, but within controlled means and controlled measures. And it's not going to actually lead to somebody leaving their body altogether, because for that to happen you need to be in cessation beyond seven days. And so far we haven't had that case yet. But in terms of the fear, and this is very common for people who get into these refined states of jhanas, but more so when they're starting to approach cessation

and that's because the sense of self, the identity, is saying, no no, I'm going to be going. And so it does feel like you're going to die. It does feel like I'm no longer going to exist. And in those moments, what you do is you recognize that, you let that go, and you take a step towards equanimity. So if you are approaching where you see the mind or consciousness is going to slip, and you get afraid of that, then you need to go back to equanimity, because the equanimity balances that out. And it might take a few cycles of that until the fear just dissipates completely and you're able to let go without hesitation.

What else, Indu? What do you got for us? I know you've got a question. Hello, Indu. So there is some strange experience that I have been going through. I've been training the mind in loving kindness, and recently I've noticed that when I practice the jhana, some determination practice, to stay in the lower jhanas, I don't feel the loving kindness in my heart. It seems to read it from the mind. Is that some sort of blockage in the heart, or is this kind of from mind, is mind doing the trick, or some sort of different...? Yeah. So when you're doing the determinations and when you're starting with the first jhana, it's not necessary for you to feel the loving kindness in your heart center. For some people they will feel it, and for some people it might be there naturally, but because if somebody, like an advanced practitioner, is experiencing loving kindness

all throughout, or from the head outwards, that's the natural place of being. The difference is that tied with that feeling of loving kindness in the head, there is still the feeling of piti and sukha, which are major factors of the first jhana and the second jhana. So if you're noticing a predominance of piti and sukha, even though the loving kindness is in the head, then know that you're still within the vicinity of the first and second jhana. Of course, with the first jhana you have vitakka and vicara. So that's the way to recognize that. In that case, should we try to bring it down to the heart? Or whatever it is, wherever it is. If it's in the heart, let it be in the heart. If it's in the head, let it be in the head. If it's all throughout, let it be all throughout. No need to control the loving kindness itself. Just pay more attention to which jhana you're in, based on the factors of the jhanas. That's how you'll be able to recognize, to test that.

Would it be better to go in and out, to see that? Because if we stay in one particular state, it just becomes one experience. To see the contrast, go out and come back. So is that something you recommend, or try to... Well, it depends on your goal. It depends on your goal. I mean, if you want to do the determinations, it's best to just try the determinations for being in that jhana for a specific intended time, right? So if you were saying, 'I'll be in the first jhana for no more than four minutes and 32 seconds,' or something like that, then your goal there is to just sustain that, or be in it for that particular duration of time. But if you want to be able to understand the jhana better, it's okay to come in and out of it. It's almost like how well it is exactly, how sorry, but they did it in Majjhima Nikaya 111, right? He went into these states.

And then he recognized these states were there. Having recognized that they faded, he understood that they're impermanent. So he had come out of it, recognized what was going on, reviewed what had happened, and then moved to the second jhana and the third and the fourth. So this is applicable when you really want to dissect, to a very finer point, different aspects of each jhana. And it's helpful because you really understand the territory of it, and along with it you develop a more refined mindfulness, a more refined ability to investigate, and a more refined way of using wisdom and intuition. So it just depends on your goal.

Thank you. Hello Delson, wants to meet you. Hello. Um, could you explain the difference between cheto vimutti and panna vimutti, and cheto and panna vimutti, the three paths, uh, sort of three entrances truly to release? I asked the question because for a split second yesterday it felt like there was a choice to either expand through the brahmaviharas on out until everything evaporated, and to rest sort of in the clinging that had just been dropped, and that reality of non-clinging, and the joy and openness and in release and cessation. And I decided to just let reality decide, and reality seems to take me down the path of this sort of awareness release, the cheto vimutti path of evaporation. But I just, I don't think I ever quite understood that moment there, when you sort of have that split second moment where you

you feel like you can go either way. I was just wondering if you could speak. I think I know a little bit. I've read the suttas, I know what the Buddha said about it, but I want to hear more what you have to say about it. Thank you. Well, if you know what the Buddha said about that, that should be enough. Well, what I remember is that the three were described, and he'll explain. Yeah, okay, he's joking. So: panna vimutti, cheto vimutti, and liberated both ways. So liberated by wisdom is essentially the first four jhanas.

So the idea is that a person goes through the four jhanas and experiences each of the jhanas, and by seeing with wisdom, what are you seeing with wisdom? You're seeing the links of dependent origination, and you let go, and you experience cessation, you experience links of dependent origination again, you experience through wisdom, and you're released. So there, panna vimutti means you have attained the full awakening through the first four jhanas. In the case of somebody who has cheto vimutti, that is, as you said, awareness release, or translated other ways. Interestingly enough, cheto vimutti also means, I translated it as, freedom of mind. So freedom of mind means that the mind is liberated from any kind of form or formless, but it goes through the form, and then it goes from the form, through to the formless.

And then from there attains cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, and then experiences arahatship. So that's really the difference. You attain panna vimutti, liberation by wisdom, in the fourth jhana, and with cheto vimutti you can experience it anywhere from any of the eight jhanas, right? And liberated both ways is basically where you have both wisdom and awareness. So in that sense you could say samatha and vipassana tie together, and that is actually what TWIM is all about. Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation: tranquil is the samatha aspect of it, the calm, clear aspect of it; wisdom insight is the vipassana aspect of it, the clarity. So you have serenity and you have clarity, of samatha and you have vipassana. When they're yoked together in this way, the mind is liberated in both ways. This is one way of understanding it. Now this goes into, you know, other aspects of liberated through faith, liberated through wisdom, and so on and so forth, but these are all finer details. What's important to understand is

when we talk about liberation we're talking about it in the same way, whether it's liberation by wisdom or awareness release, which is cheto vimutti. Both of them are pointing to the same thing, which is arahatship, which ultimately means the destruction of greed, hatred and delusion, and the letting go of all ten fetters. So it's just how you... what route you take, what road you take, or where you stop on the map, on the path to nibbana, right? Where your mind naturally stops, and then from there attains nibbana, because you can experience

cessation from the first jhana onwards. It doesn't mean that you have to go through all eight jhanas. It's very rare for that to happen, but you do see instances of that happening in the suttas, or at least mentions of that possibility happening in the suttas. Any follow-up to that, or does that make sense? What was the question? I mean, seriously, can the question be asked in a way that we can understand what it was? It's into the weeds. It's getting... I think, you know, the question is getting into areas we really haven't covered yet. Dependent origination, the differences of the paths. And this is, let's say, the advanced course, and that's rather than spending the next few days on it. I don't know. One thing, we were talking jhanas last night, so we're at the jhana talk level. Okay. And the next thing would be, it would be good to have a quick thumbnail of maybe from contact of dependent origination, of the links. And can you do that? Yeah, eight sentences. All right.

We're just playing with the chatbot, and somebody wanted, let's see, what did you want? Something. Yeah. Oh yeah, dependent origination in six sentences, no, three sentences, something like this. And it did it. Oh, what did it say? Do you remember? I have no idea, but it was really good. All right. Dependent origination: first of all, you have to understand that dependent origination is not theory. It's often presented as theory, as a theory of rebirth or the mechanics of how rebirth works, and stuff. All that is well and good, but for practical purposes, dependent origination is understanding what's happening in every moment. Right, so right now you're hearing the sound of my voice. This is part of contact.

When the sound vibrations, that is to say the sound waves, touch your ear, there is the contact between the ear and the sound. Dependent upon the ear and sound, there is what's known as your consciousness. Your consciousness means you're paying attention to what's in the ear. When you're seeing me, there's the light, right, that's bouncing off from the screen to your eyes, so there is contact between what is being seen, that is the form and the color, and the eye, or the eye receptors. Dependent upon these two

there is eye consciousness. When we say eye consciousness, we're saying that there's an attention being given to the experience of what's happening with the eye. If I say right now, 'You look at me,' your attention is on me. If I point to David and say, 'Look at David,' your eyes will dart towards David. So now, instead of the eye consciousness dependent upon the contact between seeing me and the eyes, there's eye consciousness dependent upon seeing David and your eyes. So eye consciousness always changes dependent upon where the eyes' attention is going. That is eye consciousness.

So likewise with nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, mind consciousness. So contact really is the initial impact of sensory data upon any of the sense bases, the receptors. Dependent upon that, there is vedana. Vedana means feeling. We're not talking about emotional feelings, although that can be part of it. We're talking about feeling in terms of any kind of experience. Sometimes you call them sensations, you can call them experiences, you can call them feeling. Essentially, when you're seeing, when you're hearing or listening, when you're smelling something, when you're tasting something, when you're feeling something on the body, when you're thinking, that is the process of feeling. It's a verb, it's a process. So this process of seeing and hearing and so on is feeling. Now tied to that feeling is perception. The perception can be, this is a good feeling, this is a bad feeling, or this is a neutral feeling. This is part of perception. So in other words, feeling can be threefold

depending upon the quality of it. It can be pleasant, which is the good feeling; it could be unpleasant, which is the bad feeling; and it could be neither pleasant nor painful, which is the neutral feeling. So this process of perception is recognizing based on memory. So when you see the color red for the first time, now you have it imprinted in your memory. Now every time you think of the color red, you know what red looks like, so you don't have to keep thinking, 'What does red look like?' It's immediately there, because you recognize it. Recognizing something is perception coming back into your memory and then labeling what it is that you are experiencing. Now, when you have a feeling, if it's a pleasant feeling, the mind will say, 'Oh, this is wonderful, I want more of this, I don't want this to stop.'

That's where craving happens. Craving is the, it's called tanha, literally means thirst. To thirst for something, to hunger for something, to crave for something, which means I want this. I'm grasping at this and saying I want more of this. I'm not going to let go of this pleasant feeling. If it's an unpleasant feeling, I'll say I don't like this, I don't want this, I want to push it away. If it's a neutral feeling, I won't have any reaction except that I recognize it as my feeling.

That this feeling is me, mine, or myself. I identify with that feeling. This is the threefold aspects of craving: the I wanted mind, the I don't want it mind, and the I am mine, the I am this, mine, I am that mind. Dependent upon that craving, there's what's known as clinging. The clinging is the stories that occur in the mind that rationalize why you think you want something, or why you think you don't want something, or why you think you are something.

It's the I am this because of so-and-so, or I like this because of so-and-so. It's the associations you make that make you say, this is my favorite food, this is my favorite clothing, this is my favorite whatever it is. Deeper than that, there can be clinging to views, clinging to opinions, clinging to different kinds of rites and rituals, clinging to identity itself.

So these are the stories that the mind makes up to rationalize why it is that it identifies or craves or has aversion towards something. Dependent upon the clinging there is what's known as becoming, or habitual tendencies. That's the word we usually use, habitual tendencies, because it's at this level where the mind has taken that story of why it wants something or why it doesn't want something and creates an identity around it. So the mind has tendencies towards behaving a certain way, and it creates the identity that I am this person, therefore I will act in this way, which leads to the birth of action.

So before the birth of action, you are presented with different choices. Now, wherever your mind almost automatically inclines to words is dependent upon those habitual tendencies. That says, how can this person say this to me? Don't they know who I am? So what happened? Somebody said something negative to you, somebody said something painful to you. What happened there was a sound vibration that hit your ear, that's the contact. There was attention given to that, that's the sound, that's the ear consciousness, that's part of the ear contact. Then there was the feeling of hearing what they had to say, tied with the perception: these are the words they use, this is the tone they use, this was the expression on their face. And it created this image that they are angry at me and therefore they are insulting me.

So now I don't like what they said, that's the craving. I don't like, I, that is the identity. Don't like, that is the aversion. That's all part of craving. I don't like this because so-and-so, maybe my father, my mother, whoever would act like this with me, and so I've associated that behavior with an insulting way. Therefore I cling to the idea that this person is acting in a way that's insulting to me, and now my habitual tendency is to lash out. I have a choice to either stay calm and try to de-escalate the situation, try to calm them down, see compassion, see through compassion that they are suffering. Or, which usually happens, is my automatic tendency to say I don't like this and I'm going to lash out at that person. So from that particular lashing out, or the choice to lash out, is the birth of action, which is I'm going to return in kind what they've said to me. I'm going to get angrier, or I'm going to say something nastier. I'm going to say something meaner.

There's the birth of action. As a result of which, what happens? The other person hears that. What do they do? They escalate the situation. What does that lead to? Suffering, dukkha. So what is suffering, dukkha? It is essentially everything that arises which causes suffering. Now that means that it's basically different varieties of suffering. There is the dukkha dukkha, which is to say the dukkha in relation to the body: painful pain in the body, sickness, old age, these kinds of things are dukkha dukkha. There's what's known as vipari nama dukkha, which is the dukkha of change. You're on your way

to the airport, ready to go on vacation, and then when you reach the airport you go and see that the flight's cancelled. That's the dukkha of change. So the expectations of things to happen a certain way, that's the craving, and when things don't happen the way you want them to be, that's the vipari nama dukkha, the dukkha of change. And then finally there's the sankhara, the inherent dukkha of taking things personally. When I identify with any of these five aggregates, I identify with the body, I identify with the sensations or the experience, I identify with the labeling process of the experience, I identify with my choices and decisions, I identify with my awareness of that, then there is inherent suffering. Because when I identify with something, and if that thing is challenged in some way, because the I, the sense of me myself, is already on shaky ground, but as soon as that's challenged and disappears,

then the mind feels fractured and it experiences that this inherent suffering. So this is happening in every moment. At the snap of a finger you are experiencing millions and millions and millions of cycles of dependent origination. Some will take you all the way to suffering and some may take you only to feeling it. It depends upon whether you have mindfulness in that moment or not, whether you have correct attention, that is to say you're aware of what's going on, and therefore you can catch the mind before it causes itself to suffer through craving. And how do you catch it? You recognize when the mind starts to become constricted. You recognize when the mind has tightness and intention, in reaction to something.

And when you let go of it, having let go of it, you let go of the craving. When there's no craving, there's no clinging. When there's no clinging, there's no becoming or habitual tendencies. When there's no habitual tendencies, there's no birth of action. When there's no birth of action, there's no suffering. So the key here is to use the 6R's to let go of all craving and stop that flow of dependent origination, to go beyond feeling towards suffering. Every time you do this you are creating new patterns, new habitual tendencies that are rooted in the wholesome, that don't lead you to suffering, that don't lead you to experience further propagation of karma, let's say, because dependent origination is also the understanding of how karma works. In essence, how karma works is it's an action that you've produced, and at some point, whether it's the next moment, the next 10 minutes, the next 10 days, the next 10 years, the next 10 lifetimes, depends upon the causes and conditions, that reaction to that action will arise based on your intentions.

how you choose to face that reaction is dependent upon your wisdom your ability to use the six stars in that moment if you use the six hours and let go of identifying with that reaction then that reaction loses steam and therefore you don't propagate further new reactions and as that reaction loses steam you let go of all the karma all the old karma that arises and as you do this you develop further wisdom and then that translates to your meditation practice where you have less and less hindrances because in the meditation practice you are seeing dependent origination you might not know that you're seeing it right now but you are seeing it every time you notice a hindrance what are you seeing you're noticing the mind making contact with the mental object of the hindrance and you're noticing the feeling that's unpleasant now if you say i like it or i don't like it you're further fueling that hindrance which is an old karma but if you use the six stars recognize it's there gently let it go relax bring up something wholesome come back to your object

you are letting go of that hindrance without it becoming stronger instead it becomes weaker and weaker and weaker until there's the remainderless fading away of it so what i'm saying is dependent origination is basically all there is to this experience that we call life it is literally the ones and zeros of the matrix of this existence when you start to see it in this way you you stop taking things personally and that's how your mind starts to become liberated perfect was that eight sentences i tried i tried it's okay the the ai companion will summarize

All of that. But no, that was great. I think you tied it all up to what, how you use all of these ideas in the meditation, which is really, that's the important part. Why do we need to know this? Because it's that craving that comes in that's creating those sufferings, and we need to understand that. Any follow-ups to this? Oh, oh yeah, okay, it's not a follow-up, or just... okay, go ahead, any follow-up to this talk? Oh my goodness. At the core of all these spiritual practices is just letting go of craving, is the goal? Yeah, letting go of craving. Yeah. I would say the 6R's can be observed, can be summarized into observing and letting go, right? Oftentimes what happens is if there's a practice that's all about concentration, concentration, concentration,

it seems like it's letting go, but it's replacing that with something else, which the mind is craving for. I have to be a certain way, I have to be in this jhana, or I have to be experiencing this particular state. That's another kind of craving, which is the craving for existence. But the basis for the Buddha's practice, or the way the Eightfold Path has been assembled, is essentially starting with letting go. If you look back at right intention, whenever you guys are going to do the Eightfold Path, if you do it you'll see that right intention has three parts to it. The first part is called nekkhamma, which means to let go.

So the essence of that practice is to observe and to let go, because you need both. You need the letting go and the observation, which leads to the wisdom. So that wisdom is one part of it. Letting go is the application of that wisdom. So unless you know what you have to look for by observing, you won't be able to let go correctly, because it's not about letting go of everything. It's about letting go of craving, letting go of identification, letting go of all the processes that cause the mind to hold on to things that accumulate in clinging. So it's letting go of that. But what remains, actually, is that mind without creating. What remains is that mind that is able to function from intuition until the fuel runs out, until the aggregates run out. And then that's it.

That's the end of it. Let's get someone else. Here. I just have kind of a general question, and I'm not even really sure what my question is. Um, I started really getting kind of more committed to meditation and Buddhism back in 2020, when my mom was diagnosed with dementia. And it was a really bad, she had psychosis, and a lot, you know, she just suffered a lot. Um, and as a result my sister and I suffered a lot. And she kind of took on the worst aspects of her personality and kind of got stuck there, in that mind. And so that's, you know, kind of why I started getting more committed to meditation and Buddhism. Is this the mind I want to be stuck in in the future? Because Alzheimer's and dementia runs in my family, and so I'm trying to make sure that when my time comes, I'm in a good place and I'm not suffering.

But, you know, I just wonder if there's, like, any kind of guidance or approach to what if the mind goes first and the body's still there? Because that's kind of what my family's history is: the mind, the body goes on, but the mind is what we lose first. Yeah. Start now. Start practice now. That's the best you can do. The best preemptive approach is to really keep practicing. Keep your precepts. Very important is to keep your precepts, which will take you to a more stable mind or mindset.

And if the mind goes first, at least it will be rooted in something that's more wholesome, maybe more wholesome memories or a way of behaving in a more wholesome manner. That's the best you can do. This might just be general advice I'm asking. Hi, Delson. Nice to meet you. You know, this is Gia. Have you talked to him before? You know Liam. Liam is my brother-in-law. I don't want to bring you to the family. Father's won't. Right. Now we're hauling in. Yeah, we're hauling in, you know, more levels from that family.

The whole Midland Park plan is coming, yes. That's right. Anyway, now I've really messed you up, so go ahead. Um, I'm not nervous. Um, it's okay, it's okay. So I'm very new to meditation, um, but in the past couple of days I really experienced something that I never experienced before. I felt my mind dissolve into openness, and I felt lighter than ever. And it almost contradicts the way I approach life and work previously, which was all about grinding out and achieving my goals. I just want to hear your advice on how do you bring this new perspective back to, like, real daily life? And what's your advice for someone who just started this journey of giving up identities and, um, navigating these changes in personalities, and maybe the things I do, I want to go back. Yeah, so, um, are you sort of into neuroscience, like Liam is, or you have no... I don't have. I just listen. I just learned a little bit from him. But finance? Finance, yeah. I mean, oh, finance. Okay, all right.

So it's all about numbers and you know all this other stuff. The reason I'm asking about that is because I can help you contextualize it by understanding this world. When you do any kind of meditation for the first time, there's a tendency for the mind to want to try too hard, and when you engage in that mode of trying too hard, you're essentially engaging with the analytical mind, or that part of the brain that tries to analyze things. But as you start to let go, and as you start to see this process as a natural unfolding and you actually experience it, you're engaging with mostly right-brain activity, which means it's the more expansive, more intuitive aspect of the mind. The beautiful thing about this is, when you're able to engage the world and life in this way, with the intuitive, expansive mindset, then actually things start to become more efficient.

The way you engage with people starts to become more flowing. The way you might even analyze numbers, or do whatever it is that you might be doing in your work, starts to become less of a burden or less of a task to be fulfilled, and more of just a flow of activity. So my practical suggestion would be: when you get back into the world outside of damasuka, and you're going back into daily life and your daily routine, start the process with some amount of meditation, at least 30 minutes before you start your day. Meaning, before you go out the door and do whatever it is that you're doing, because that's going to help you engage with that right intuitive mindset.

And that's going to help you to see the world in a more expansive way. When you do this, you're going to notice that, yeah, when you actually, we are doing the work that you're doing, maybe sending out emails, reading, this, writing, whatever it is, there's a certain kind of flow to things, the way things are going now. Liam had a very interesting way of looking at it. He talked about, you know, when we talk about focus, you take your finger in front of you and you put all of your attention on your finger.

And you'll notice a certain tension, and that's the way most people function. They focus on things, and then, focusing on things, they feel like they're in flow, because there's a certain level of focus during a certain amount of time that causes the mind to go in that direction. But this is one-pointedness, and it feels like it's flowing, and it might for some while, but then the mind gets exhausted. But then he talked about, if you just look at the finger and then expand your awareness outward, that's what he would call lantern consciousness. There, the mind is able to take in the finger but also everything else. And that's taking in the TWIM approach, the approach of an open but collected awareness.

And you can all try this exercise. When you want, you just stare at a point on the wall, and you keep looking at it. But now, when you look at it, you just take your hands and put them here, just maybe almost around here. Yeah. And what you're trying to do is look at the point on the wall, and at the same time, through the periphery of your eyes, look at your fingers, being able to see your fingers moving around. When you do this, this is the state you want to be in in meditation. This is how the mind is when it's open but collected.

So just try it in your day-to-day life, and you are going to notice how things are much more efficient and effective. Thank you. I'll try that and record back. All of a sudden, I thought we were on a roller coaster. Hey, Delson, thanks for being with us this morning or this evening, as it may be for you. Yeah. My question is, it seems that when I hear someone express difficulties or a challenging situation in their life, I feel compassion in my heart, in the center of my chest, and it's sort of a warmth, and it's a good feeling.

Um, and I can feel the compassion on my face, this kind of sympathy or empathy, and that seems to be very accessible to me. The metta has been challenging for me at times during this very short retreat. Um, sometimes it's almost as if I'm looking for it, and when I say the phrases, and when I, um, and when I conjure up an image, I notice tensions around in the face and in the body. I notice this sort of tension, from maybe it's trying. Um, and it's really hard to sort of find that metta and to stay with it. When I was walking, it was easier to just kind of smile and bring to mind my spiritual friend, and then just kind of be in an easeful, happy state as I was walking around the property. So I guess those are three different experiences, and I'm wondering if compassion can be substituted into the TWIM 6R's, and then what you... what you concern about my difficulties with metta, and yeah.

So, you know, the thing is, it depends on the person's mindset. So that's why the meditation might have subtle variations while following the same process and procedure, depending upon a person's mindset. So what you're doing, where you're smiling, just smiling and walking and just enjoying that, bring that into the sitting practice, where you just stay with the smile and notice how that basically evokes certain kinds of positive feelings, and then stay with that, and then direct those feelings towards your spiritual friend. So with compassion you can do that, but you need to understand what compassion actually is, which is: it isn't really sympathy, which is to say you're looking down at a person, but more of a recognition of another person's suffering and the wish that they be free of that suffering.

So if you can get into that state of mind and use that, no big deal. That's fine. You can do whatever seems to be best suited for your practice. If it doesn't feel right to just bring up statements or verbalizations or things like that, but it makes sense to go with the smile, do that. But if you're still more gravitating towards the compassion while not looking down at another person, but just having compassion, like, you know, I wish the freedom from suffering for you, that's okay too.

Thank you. Thank you for joining us. My question is about reconciling forgiveness and letting go of identity with justice. My work is in social, economic, gender, and racial justice, and that's rooted in identity. And so I really struggle with how do I, an example is forgiveness practice. We talked about forgiveness last night. I can see the beauty and the release for a person to practice forgiveness, to let go of the harm and pain that they carry with them. And at the same time, I struggle with the forgiveness when there's been no atonement or accountability, or if there's a lack of justice. And I don't mean justice in terms of the law or the courts, but just in terms of the balancing of scales or seeking rightness and goodness for everyone.

And then just in general, letting go of identity, but also wanting to hold on to the part, recognizing that because identity is often the root for so many of the reasons that they are experiencing harm or violence or discrimination. I'm just curious if you have any advice for those of us who are justice oriented but also have a desire for letting go and seeking forgiveness. What are some ways to reconcile those two concepts? Yeah, so first it's important to understand why we're doing the forgiveness practice. I think you touched upon that in what you were saying, which is the forgiveness is not for the other individual or for the other person. The forgiveness is more for our own mind, to be free from the grudges, be free from the guilt, be free from whatever it is that seems to be aching the heart. But it doesn't mean that we have forgiven in the sense of, like, that person is now off the hook. No, not at all. You can forgive but you don't have to forget, which means

doesn't mean that if you are forgiving, that you have to now go to that person and be all nice and accepting of them when you're interacting with them. All it means is you've let go of the enmeshment of negative emotions whenever you bring up that person in your mind. So they might still be an enemy in the sense that they still hate you and they still will do this and that, whatever, but you don't return that hate with your own hatred. Instead you realize that, you know, that person's suffering, and that's on them, but I'm choosing not to suffer. I've let go of being subdued or succumbed by their interactions, or by whatever they have done in the past to me. So how do you know that forgiveness is actually successful, or that you're done with forgiveness? Let's say, is if that person comes to mind or if the things that they've done come to mind, they come in as memories but without any of that emotional core, you know, that emotional intensity that might have been there before.

The thing about this world, and this is the Buddhist perspective about this world, this world that we call samsara, is that there is a great deal of justice, but it's not justice on our terms. It's not the justice that we believe to be justice. And it might not be justice in the time frame that we want it to be.

It's over many, many lifetimes, many, many eons. And so that justice means that, people say life's not fair. Well, actually, within the Buddhist perspective it's absolutely fair. It's just all dependent upon the karmic conditions that are arising. When the right karmic conditions arise, then justice, so to speak, will be served. You may not be there to see it, but then that's just the way it is. And the other thing to understand about samsara is it's already screwed up. I mean, beginningless samsara is screwed up, and it's not our job to unscrew it. So our job is to let go of it, to transcend it. It's to understand why we came into this samsara in the first place. That's due to our craving, due to our, you know, wrong views, and so on and so forth. But then being able to let go of it, we actually are able to transcend samsara while we're still in samsara. That's the beauty of it, which means yes, we still see suffering. Yes, we are subject to suffering. Yes, we are subject to, you know, bad actors in this world

but they no longer affect us in the same way. Doesn't mean that we accept it in the same way, in the sense that we're like a doorman. It just means we have a higher perspective, we have a more wise perspective, you have a more compassionate perspective. So with this practice, especially with forgiveness, it's all about recognizing the suffering of others, which motivates them to be bad actors, but doesn't excuse them. Doesn't excuse them, because they still have the intention to choose to be a bad actor. Or to understand, this is why in the forgiveness practice we say, I forgive you for not understanding, because you in that moment were ignorant. Whoever that bad actor was, was ignorant. Doesn't excuse it, but we're letting go of our attachment to it. This is the way to look at it. Thank you.

Hello Delson, first time swimmer here. But so that being said, you know, it's been just a roller coaster, right? Just figuring your stuff out. And, you know, during the interviews you realize how many people are experiencing the same things, and it's just pretty mind-opening. But sometimes when you get really deep into the meditation, like, you don't know how much of it is part of the experience versus your mind making it up. So just trying to understand that difference between what I'm supposed to be, I'm not accepting at all, but just where the mind's taking me versus part of the practice, and journaling or something like that, help try to make more sense of the deep meditation experience? Yeah. So the best way to look at it is the mind is always making stuff up, whether you want to intentionally make it up or not. The difference is that when you get into these states, refined states of jhanas, let's say, or experiencing, you know, joy and happiness and all of these other things,

whether it's made up or not, I would just take it, you might as well take it because it's, you know, it's there. So allow it to be there and experience it. If it's made up, it's made up, it's fine. The jhanas themselves are made up because they are made up of what they're made up of, our intention to let go. They are a natural resultant of letting go. And so, if it helps to journal, I would say journaling in the sense of, when you come out of a sit, to just reflect back on the highlights of that sit and maybe just write that down. That might help for your interviews too, to be able to say, oh, this happened, okay, this was interesting, and all of that, you know, in that sense. So then over a period of time you start to recognize the key markers for that state or for that particular experience, and you start to make the connections in that way.

That helps to that extent. Great. Thanks. One more question. Come on up. I'm new to meditating, and this morning we did a practice where you listen to your guided meditation for all directions, and in it I felt the love and kindness here rise up to my head and radiate outward in all directions. And at the same time I felt like there's a tight band around my head that stayed with me through the whole meditation. At the same time I felt very light, and literally my vision field was very light even when I was closed. And then all the way to breakfast I maintained also this radiance through my head, but also again this tightness around. But I didn't know how to address the tightness. It was very quiet and still in my head and very light, and at the same time very tight around the outside. And how long did the tightness last for? Um, the whole meditation. I mean, we did probably 40 minutes, 45 minutes, and then through walking to breakfast and through breakfast, just that part of the time, still in this state.

And, uh, what about the feeling of spaciousness? Did that, my question is, did it last longer than the tightness, or was it in tandem with the tightness? Um, I think they came up together. They came up to my head and I felt this outward radiance, but also something constricting at the same time around. So, uh, this is quite common for new meditators, because this is the balancing act that you have to do. In understanding when you start to radiate outward, it's more of observing in that particular direction. Like you have the intention of loving kindness or compassion or whatever the feeling is, and you're just observing, and your process of observing is just fueling it to be outward. It's just propelling it to be outward. You're not pushing it. It's very important to understand not to push any of the experiences or to try to make something happen. Just observe the radiance going on, observe the mind illuminated in this feeling of loving kindness.

and it naturally starts to expand, because by the very fact that your awareness is there on it, it will slowly but surely expand. Maybe not to a greater degree, but it will, and eventually it will encompass pretty much the entire room and then beyond, and so on. Try to do that. Just observe the awareness of the loving kindness expanding, rather than trying to make it expand. So just relax and rest on it. Thank you. Perfect. Okay, I think that is it. Delson, wonderful. This has been a good conversation. I think, um, dependent origination and everything else. Perfect. Thanks for your time and thanks for all the questions. Thank you, and, uh, enjoy the eclipse. We're gonna try to enjoy the eclipse. That's right. Good. All right, thank you guys. Take care, have fun. Bye. Thank you.