1 Dec 2021 Online Retreat Q & A with Delson # 1 part 2 of 2

So welcome everyone to the first Q&A of this retreat. So you're welcome to ask any questions regarding the practice, regarding the suttas, regarding anything you might have read, the booklet, or in the suttas, or any videos you've watched. So, who would like to begin? Well, I'll begin. Can you hear me? All right. I can hear you. Good. Good. Since it just came up again in this meditation, I tend to get a lot of... it's a very practical question. I tend to get quite a bit of tension around here and around the eyes. It's much better than it used to be.

When I first did an online retreat back in the spring, I actually wound up with real muscular pain around the eyes and decided to stop meditating for a few days and then gradually get back into it because I was concerned about it. My last online retreat, the guy suggested, because I was starting to focus on that too much, he said essentially that I shouldn't worry about it and just stick to the mind because the mind was really independent of these perceptual problems. But since it's tension and the whole practice is to relax, it still is a concern for me, partly because of the discomfort and the distraction, but also I wonder how much it interferes.

And the other thing about it is that I tend to, I think, because it's such a constant feature, I tend to conflate or intermingle the sensations that I get physically with the feeling of metta or whatever, which then becomes even more confusing, it tends to be, for me. So I wondered if you could comment on that or if you had any suggestions. Generally, what I would say is if you are experiencing any kind of pain or tension in the head or anywhere in this region, you also want to see if the mind is becoming too focused or too energetic in terms of its meditation, in terms of its centering around the object of meditation.

because another thing you might notice is because the mind is trying too hard uh essentially pushing to experience the meta or whatever it might be there can be also a a increase an increase in the number of distractions that arise are you finding that for yourself ah this seems to be a little independent i mean that does happen if i'm focusing too much but this seems to be if I try to relax say one part then I feel a twinge somewhere else and it kind of ripples around a little bit so I'm not and it's certainly my personality is such that I'm always trying too hard so that's certainly an element but I have worked on that tried hard not to do that.

It takes quite a bit of, you know, brought it from a talk that I heard you give, I'm not sure, like maybe one of the ones just recently, you talked about having a kind of enveloping or going around the object in a way. And that helped instead of trying to concentrate like this, just having a sense of opening up the field, sort of.

But I have to pay very close attention to that as well uh so it's another concentration in a way that comes in yeah yeah no what i would say is if you're able to experience the metta where you're able to feel it in whatever way you're feeling it and just have the bare awareness that it's there so just allowing the mind to just rest in it to relax into it you might find a different quality of meditation so in other words uh whatever your object is if it's metta and you're radiating to your spiritual friend you can allow the mind to just rest in the feeling of of the method in the heart with your spiritual friend there and just allow the mind to rest in it to relax in it so it's almost like you're just kind of sinking into that feeling instead of you know trying to contain it uh with your with your concentration

and it later on when you're doing the radiating uh then you know you kind of just allow the mind to be aware of the radiating of metta but i think at this point wherever you are it's a matter of just letting the mind rest in it letting it relax into it yeah well i kind of with the radiating as well i think i was pushing way too hard for that so i've really more or less stopped thinking about it i just let it percolate and do whatever it's going to do because otherwise that created immediate problems yeah yeah yeah and the other thing i tend to tell people now nowadays is whatever energy you think that you need for the meditation have it you know have it okay

you can always you can always bring a little bit more energy you know it's it's much easier to do it that way thank you you're welcome okay i'll uh ask a practical question as well if i may can you hear me all right all right first of all i'm really i'm so grateful to be having this opportunity to be doing this so huge thank you to you and siddhartha um so if i understand correctly then because i heard you and bante vimala ramsi say it in talks that i've listened to when the matter moves to the head basically you just we just take the matter in the head as the object in the same way that we use the the meta feeling in the chest or does that do we do anything differently than when we feel that there is a difference uh so so when you when it does move up into the head and you've gotten the instructions the intermediate instructions where you're breaking down the barriers and after that then you'll be told to radiate the metta and then that metta will change so when we talk about radiating it's like

let's say sort of in your mind's eye you're looking in the forward direction without any without any frame of a border or any resistance you just like it's like a light that's shining on and that light is representative of the metta so you're just watching the flow of metta in that direction and then in the next direction and in the next direction and then finally after six directions in all directions at the same time now when it's in all directions at the same time it's sort of like you're in a bubble and the bubble is just expanding expanding expanding expanding and so your your focus or your attention should not be to push that outward feeling or push outward that feeling it's more about being aware of the experience or the quality of the feeling and just allowing it to be sent out so one of the one of the one of the analogies that i use is like if you look at a very clear crystal clear still lake you put a little pedal

and it just starts to ripple up so it's just like that like you have an intention of this meta going in one direction and you're just watching observing the rippling of that matter going in that direction and then in the next direction and in the next direction and so on until you get all six directions and you're doing it all at the same oh okay yeah well i haven't had any of these instructions i just chanced upon it i think and uh was just wondering what to what to do with it now but maybe we can clear that up the one-on-one distribution all - All right, okay. - Yes. - Thank you. - Great.

well if no one else has anything i'll continue if that's all right um uh looks like i just lost connection to my audio give me one second - Okay, there we go. I think you were asking a question, or you were- - I was just saying if no one else had, but I think, okay, yeah, Patrick just said that he'll ask questions next time since he's on a bus. Yeah, I... Now I've just lost which one it was.

Oh yes, it's about thinking, okay, and having thoughts. I first went into jhanas, this is a little before I discovered Montevimala Ramsey, and I just started relaxing essentially because I was having a lot of problems with doing noting practice because I have back problems so I'm super sensitive to nerve pain and this was increasing it with the noting practice.

So I actually went to the sutta and looked at the tranquilization part and thought, "Well, I should try this." And I tried it, and suddenly I was going into these three very clear phases. And I thought, "That's interesting, what are those?" And I read and thought, well, it seems like a mild version compared to what some people describe, or at least the concentration of the jhanas, except that I had always understood and been told as well, that after the first jhana, you don't think, there are no thoughts arising, but I always have thoughts there. I mean, not always, obviously the mind does stop periodically, but there are thoughts going on quite often. And even in the Arūpājānas, I'm still getting,

or what I've been told by my guides are the Arūpājānas, I'm still getting these thoughts going on in the background and occasionally my mind will wander to it then I let go of it and return. But is that, does that just mean that my understanding previously was incorrect about that? Are you, in terms of the thoughts going on? At this point, I suppose my understanding at this point is that in a way it's just like seeing or hearing or anything else, these things go on because that's what the mind does um yeah yeah so so the way to understand it uh let's let's take the let's take the first two jhanas or let's say the the the rupa jhanas is starting with the first one what's happening is we have what's known as vitaka and vichara so vitaka vichara traditionally translated as uh you know thinking and examining thought

and what that's really saying as as we understand it from this particular way of looking at it is it's really the initial application of thought which is to say the initial intention of bringing up your spiritual friend or bringing up the metta and then you are having a little bit more intention with the vichara with examining thought or sustained thought which is to kind of stay with that object of meditation but in the second jhana what happens is those two fade away primarily because number one now you're with your object and number two now it feels like a flow it's it feels effortless so there's a bit of efforting if you will in the first jhana with regards to an intention with regards to application of thought taking the thought and saying i want to send it to my spiritual friend or i send to myself first and then to my spiritual friend or radiating whatever it might and there will be thoughts in the background even second third fourth jana but those thoughts when they do appear they're just like as you said uh picking up sounds

in the background, but your mind doesn't deviate to them. Your attention doesn't get deviated to them. What you might notice is, if you start to look at and become a little more mindful of the thoughts, not that you need to go and explore and note what thoughts those are, but I'm just saying, if you look back on the quality of those thoughts, you'll see more often than not that they're more image related rather than verbal, verbalized. So they're more like pictures in the mind, or more like memories, or more like some kind of formation of thoughts. Because you'll experience that especially in the eighth, or the arupa jhanas, where what you're seeing is the arising of sankharas, the arising of formations that create proto-thoughts. They're like the bubbling up of thoughts that aren't fully formed yet. So those will still continue to an extent, but you're not going to have full-blown thoughts that are verbal necessarily in nature. Here's a note. The Buddha said that you cannot enter the right jhana if you can't patiently endure sense contacts.

Mind is also a sense base. So this is from the Sultan concentration, Anguttara Nikaya 5.13. Is that it? I don't remember. Probably Book of Fives, probably Book of Fives. So maybe it's 5.13, probably, yeah, might be, yeah. So you have to treat the mind as a sense base, because that is what it is. We talk about the six sense bases. So sound waves enter the ear, photons enter the eye, you have taste molecules and smell molecules, you have pressure on the skin, and so on. These are all going to be there in the form of contact.

Likewise it's going to happen with regards to the mind. But I will say, if you look at the quality of your thoughts, you probably will see there's less verbal thoughts and more image-based thoughts, or more kind of visual, imaginary kind of thoughts, than thinking about things really. Yeah, because the moment you have verbal thoughts, there's a bit of an intention there, there's a bit of application of thought. I can have whole conversations go on with people that I don't know, and I've never heard this conversation in their voices. I haven't heard them. So I would think that might depend on the kind of, I mean, a person's natural tendencies. Mind, yes, verbal, that's very true. Background, that's very true. Yeah. You see, when we talk about the second jhana, it's understood that the verbal formations, the verbal sankharas, start to die down. They start to cease, primarily because you stop thinking about or you stop applying

more effort towards feeling the metta, and you let go of that up for initial application of thought, and are just letting them at the flow. So there won't be as much of those happening, and if they are, it's no big deal. I mean, the main point here is to allow those thoughts to be there in the background. If they're not deviating your attention away from your object, you're all fine. If your attention starts to think about that thought, now the mindfulness, or rather the attention, is now on that thought or that series of thoughts instead of being on your object. So all you're doing there is bringing it back through right effort, which is the 6R's process. You recognize that, oh, here is a thought, and I'm thinking about this thought. You let go of it, and you bring your mind to relaxing the mind, when the body, and then coming back to the re-smile, and then returning to the object

and then repeating whenever the mind deviates from its object. It's a very gentle thing. There's no force here, there's no roughness here. It's all very soft and gliding. You just go, okay, here's a thought, I got distracted, letting go, relaxing, smiling, coming back. So it shouldn't happen more than three seconds at the most, three or four seconds at the moment. Okay, thank you. Okay, then I'll go with another curiosity question. I was wondering, because since, and with the sort of attainment, the fetter of personality view is basically destroyed, I was wondering what impact that has on the relationship with pain, or the perception of pain, because I can, let's say, I'm meditating, I feel a pain coming up, I can feel all the pain. I understand on a theoretical basis that it is just pain, it is impersonal, it's not me, not myself, and so on, but

what, how does that translate for a, you know, somebody who has past attainments, in terms of how they deal with and or perceive pain? Yeah, so that fetter of the false belief in a personal self, that's really what it is. The personality view, the sakkaya ditthi as it's understood in Pali, is basically a conceptual idea that I am a self, that there is some self here, and that self can be this body, feeling, perception, intention, or awareness. So the body, or rather the mind, equates one of these, or takes one of these as being self, or as part of self, or self in it, or separate to self, or whatever it might be. Really these are the different self views that we talk about, the belief in the personality. There are 20 of them, and basically, like I just pointed out, the 20 views are the five aggregates multiplied by the four types of views for each of the five aggregates.

So that goes away, because you no longer take that to be self on an intellectual, conceptual level. There is something known as conceit, which is still there, which takes that as this is mine, this is me, this is myself, to the extent of having some kind of identification with it. So there will still be some kind of identification process with the pain. However, there will be a recognition

that is much more quicker than, let's say, somebody who hasn't had an attainment yet. So they'll be like, oh, I just noticed this pain, I noticed the aversion here, and I'm choosing to let it go. Whereas if one was not a sotapanna, they would take that pain, think about that pain, think about, is there something more that I have to worry about, or you have to go see a doctor, and just that whole mental proliferation happens. Now, with the sakadagami, you see, that's what we're talking about here. Sotapanna and sakadagami still have some kind of craving, sensual craving, and some kind of aversion. The sakadagami has less of it, so they're able to immediately recognize that there is some kind of aversion here and let it go. So really, the sotapanna and the sakadagami are using the tools, that is to say the 6R's, as a way of noticing quicker than someone who hasn't had attainment, and there will be less mental proliferation there. So the sakkaya ditthi, the personality view, is just the dropping of any kind of conceptual belief

in a personal self, in a soul, or an atman, as it's called, because you have seen for yourself, when you become a sotapanna, that this whole thing is impersonal. When you come out of the cessation of perception and feeling, you see how the links are dependent arising, dependent origination, and therefore you see that this whole process isn't brought on by some kind of inner self or some kind of inner consciousness. It's dependent upon previous causes and conditions, and that destroys any kind of belief in the self. So intellectually you no longer have the understanding that there is some kind of self there. It's just that it's all impersonal. You will still have identification until you let go of the conceit, the mana, which is one of the higher fetters that had to be eradicated for arahant, right? Okay, yeah, thank you.

And I have another one, and nobody else has anything. Yeah, go ahead. I'll jump in with just something I've been wondering about, because in the, oh, I don't know which that is, but it's in the Majjhima Nikaya, there's mention of, maybe he's called Mahanama, he's a cousin of the Buddha and the brother of Ananda. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, it is kind of implied in that sutta that he's at least a sakadagami, but also it becomes clear in the sutta that he has, or he says it himself, he has never had the experience of jhana. So I was just wondering how that squares up with our usual understanding, or would that be somebody who just managed to pull off a path attainment by, I don't know, by hearing something, or would that be such a case? I don't quite understand. Yeah, I wonder what sutta that would be in Mahanama, because the understanding is that you can attain

stream entry just by listening very deeply to a discourse or reading a sutta and then immediately get it, and you let go of the first three fetters. Now, it is possible that because of that ability to experience the Dhamma in that way, you are experiencing jhana in some way or another, and so that jhana allows the mind to become calm and collected. Anytime the mind is collected, free of the hindrances, and is in, let's say, a super mundane state, no longer distracted by external causes and conditions, you could say that that is a jhana state, because jhana really is all about a mind that becomes collected around something, collected around the Dhamma, collected around metta, whatever it might be, and is no longer distracted, no longer has the hindrances. You think about the eightfold path. The eighth fold, the last step of that, is samadhi, right collectedness

which includes jhana. So I'd have to look at the translation to see what he's referring to, to really make a comment on that, but I would say you would still need some kind of mind that is pure or purified by some kind of enogenic state in order to get to that understanding. Well, I think in the sutta, he basically goes to the Buddha and asks him, why do I still have these basically cravings for sensual pleasure come up, even though I have had past attainment? So, my words now, obviously. And then the Buddha expounds to him, like, why they still come up, and that explains that it has to do with him not having experience of the pleasure that has nothing to do with the senses, basically.

Um, but I can check. Yeah, I'd have to look up that sutta. I'd have to see what it's really referring to. I think, probably, and I'll... I mean, this is obviously based on the fact that I haven't read the sutta itself, but I would venture to say that if the Buddha is talking about not experiencing pleasure not born of the senses, and that's why he's not yet an anagami, let's say, it could be that he's not experiencing jhana enough, or he's not practicing jhana enough. Because you think about jhana, or the experiences of the jhanic states, it is definitely a super mundane pleasure. It's definitely a super mundane kind of happiness, which means it's transcending the happiness you get from the five physical senses. And therefore, the more you experience jhana, the less you become interested in the pleasures born of the physical senses.

And so the more you do that, the less attached you become. You might still have identification, you might still have attachments here or there, but they don't affect you as strongly as they did before, because you have a different quality, a better quality of happiness, if you will. So actually, there's a sutta called The Many Kinds of Feeling, which is Majjhima Nikaya 59, and the Buddha talks about the different types of feeling in there. And he talks about how you have the pleasure of the senses, but then when you experience the pleasure of jhana, you let go of any interest in the pleasure of the physical senses. And then when you have the pleasure of nibbana, and he doesn't say it in here, but I'm just saying, when you have the experience of nirodha, or you had the experience of nirvana, even the jhanas become less interesting, because now you have, like, the ultimate happiness, the ultimate bliss. So it's like climbing the ladder of happiness, where these lower kinds of happiness, if you will, become less important to the mind.

Yeah, that also, because I remember in that sutta also, because Mahanama decided to remain a householder, whereas his brothers went on to become a monk. And so I also remember that the Buddha basically tells them, well, and that's why you're still a householder, because you're still really attached to the central pledges. Yeah, thank you.

Would you then in the end become somewhat bored with the jhanas? Yeah, you would. You would actually, I mean, unless you become attached to them, because any form of pleasure within conditioned experience can become a source of attachment. You see, the thing is, when we talk about the anagami, the thing that they have to let go of is clinging to the dharma, and that's also clinging and identifying with the jhanic states. So eventually, when they realize that even the jhanas, being conditioned, are therefore impermanent

and therefore not something to hold on to, then they let go of that and experience aram hanshu, and then at that point the jhanas are just pleasant abidings. They're not something that they're looking forward to necessarily as a form of attachment. Yeah, I haven't got the attainment, but I don't find them nearly as interesting or as compelling as I did eight months ago, say. Partly because they're not as intense, but also it's in a way the same thing again, and I know that it's temporary. I'd still rather be in one than not.

I've lost your sound. Yeah, your audio is gone. Okay, how about now? Yeah, okay, good. You know, the wonderful thing about this is when you do the jhana practice, you can experience jhana even while walking. You experience a form of jhana even while you're driving, or whatever it might be, anytime you're collected around your object of meditation and you're free of any of the hindrances. You experience that super mundane awareness, if you will, or experience. And the thing is, it's a natural process, it's a natural progression, in order for a being to be able to let go of attachments to the sensual pleasures, the five physical sense pleasures, they get to jhana, and eventually they become tired of the sensual pleasures. And then, as the anagami who then lets go of identifying with the jhanas, sees that all things are therefore impersonal, including jhanas, they come to the unconditioned, the bliss of no feeling, as I put the word, put it. And then the jhana has just become a thing to be in, you know, whenever they feel like. But I think I would have to emphasize the importance

of saying be in jhana as much as you can. It's curious though, sometimes since starting the TWIM practice and getting somewhat further along in it, even just now, I really didn't get into much during the meditation, possibly because it's the first time I've done sitting meditation in about two years because of my back. So that feels a bit awkward, and also the group and whatnot. But I feel much more now than I did during the meditation 20 minutes ago. And sometimes when I'm meditating, which is usually lying down,

I have trouble with it, et cetera, and I don't get particularly far, and there are distractions. And then I go out for a walk, and suddenly it's very easy and I'm just moving along. - Yeah. Well, yeah, that's interesting, because one of the things I do recommend for people with that kind of a mindset, because you have people with different kinds of mindsets. Some are naturally having restlessness, some are naturally kind of more on the side of thought and torpor, or some are more naturally on the side of aversion, and so on and so forth until they aren't anymore.

For those who are a bit more restless, not in the sense of actively restless, but just that the mind is a little more energetic, I recommend doing more walking practice. And it seems like for you, that seems to be really helpful. So you might want to just do more walking if that helps. And then really find a posture that works for you, whether it's lying down, that's totally fine. It's just a matter of not letting the mind drift into la-la land. Just being more energetic, being a little more attentive to your object in meditation.

Yeah, I don't have any trouble with that anymore in lying down. Maybe the first half hour or so. Right. But after that, it's just energy. But with walking, you can't really get into the deeper jhanas, I wouldn't think, while you're walking along. You would be surprised. You know, what happens is when you get into, like, for example, the seventh jhana, unless there's a strong gust or a strong wind or something, all you're feeling is contact with the feet and the ground.

That's all you're feeling, and then it's like there's no body here at all. It's a very interesting state to be in while you're walking, standing. Something to look forward to. Yeah, okay, thanks. Well, I can ask another one, which isn't quite as directly practically relevant. Is it possible to have an experience of cessation without having any kind of contact with nibbana after it?

I suppose, well, it is. I went through a period about four months ago when I was having these little lapses, which sometimes can be falling asleep very briefly, but a few of them over a period of a few days weren't, and it seemed like a sudden blank, and I'd come out of it and be completely more alert and feel the sense of relief and whatnot, but no sense of having seen dependent origination or anything like that. Did you experience any joy, though? Did you experience any, like, increase in joy and energy? Yeah, definitely increase in energy. Joy, not as intense as other times, but yes. But not, some previous to that I've had experiences of joy that were really extreme. This wasn't... it was not that, but more a sense of relief and energy.

Okay, okay, certainly not coming out of being asleep or something. Well, that's fine, that's fine. I think we probably want to talk about that in your first interview tomorrow, privately, because I want to know more information about that. But just on very general terms, I would say there are times where people experience some kind of a blank, blacking out, or a blank out where it's just like there was nothing, and then they come back up. And it can happen in the eighth jhana, where it's like you're coming up and down, like, kind of, and it's not grogginess. It's just what's happening is the perception aspect of the mind starts to become diminished, and then eventually that leads to a larger cessation, let's say, in the sense of cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, which is

very noticeable after you come out of it. So when you're in the jhana, your attention bobs from being attentive to having perception, to no perception, to perception, no perception. And they're very micro in length. They're not as perceptible, if you will, in terms of when you do come out of it. And there are times where people, I'm not saying you're doing it, but I'm saying in general, there are people who would meditate and come to a point where they suppress the mind so much in concentration that it does go into a blackout, and that's a kind of a state of suspended animation, if you will, of all thoughts and feelings and so on. And it's like a level of unconsciousness. So if we were to talk about it theoretically in the context of the 31 realms of existence, for example,

people who do that, it's understood, go into the realm of the unconscious beings, because there's no mind there at all. There's no mind movement, there's no thought process, there's no feeling, there's no perception. But because they haven't come out of it, there's no change in perspective, there's no change in the understanding and wisdom and so on. So cessation can happen anywhere. Anywhere, by the way. I mean, there was one person who was having cessation where they were eating their food, and then everything just stopped.

And then when they came back up, they experienced joy and happiness, and the colours became brighter and sounds became clearer, and there was a different quality to their experience, and they were filled with joy for the next day. They had seen, or they felt, or they experienced, some kind of shift in the way that they understood or perceived reality. So cessation doesn't have to happen just while you're sitting. It can happen while you're washing the dishes, or walking the dog, or taking a walk, or whatever, because your mind becomes so collected it just lets go, and then experiences that nirodha and contact with nibbana within the jhana. So that still counts as a contact with nibbana, even if it happens outside of a jhana, so to speak. All right. Well, yes, that's the thing, like I said. That person would have had

some experience with jhana in the past, but what happens is they're not practising necessarily at that point in time, but they've already had prior practice of jhana, and their mind just becomes collected and very quiet and mindful, and then they stop doing whatever it is they're doing, and their mind just turns inward and then stops all feeling and perception. Right. I have a question. It's all right, yes. Before joining this retreat, I've been doing more breathing, twin breathing, and should I go back to, or should I go through, like sending metta to myself and a spiritual friend, or go back to sending it everywhere, like I've done before? So I need a little clarity on that. So you were doing breathing before, meaning you were doing breathing mostly lately, the last half year or something, and before that, when I was on retreat, I did the sending metta everywhere. Okay, so you went through that process of sending it to yourself, spiritual friend. Yeah, so on and so forth. Yeah. Okay. I would say for the time being, for this retreat,

just radiate whatever feeling comes up, just radiate metta, compassion, or whatever. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any last questions? Yeah, one more, I suppose. It's concerned with this question of the feelings. I find it now very difficult to differentiate. I can think, okay, I'm deeper now, or I'm not as deep, or I've just come out of something, which happens, and the feelings themselves, I think, okay, I'm feeling this intensely, joy is distinct, this is very mild, and then sometimes it's just completely... there's almost nothing, and I realise I'm not smiling, but it's not that I'm out of anything, it's just that the feeling has become so, I don't know, attenuated in some way, returns again.

But I have no idea what any of this means in terms of what level I'm at or what is there. It seemed to me it used to be much clearer and now it just mixes around. Okay, yeah. So one of the things you have to understand is with regards to metta, it can sometimes be looked at as being, of course, a very pleasant feeling, and then sometimes there's a tendency for the mind to take that experience of joy that comes up, followed by the metta, as the metta.

and so the joy might come up in like let's say the first or second jhana and then it starts to attenuate in in the third and then finally disappears in fourth and so there's a tendency for the mind to take that as being metta and saying oh i've lost the feeling what's going on and what they were doing was looking at the joy and other factors of the jhana and then mistaking that for the meta itself the meta not it won't necessarily be constant but there is a distinguishing uh feel a distinguished feeling or separation between what the metta feeling is and what the joy factor and the pity or the sukkah factor and so on might be experienced in the mind and what i'm saying here is the quality of metta really is just this

This very open, clear, expansive feeling that feels, in the beginning, like a warm feeling in your chest, and it just feels good. You have this love and kindness for yourself, and then you have this love and kindness for your spiritual friend, and that's all there is to it. If it changes to joy or whatever it might be, in that case what's happening is you're experiencing the factors. So if you see that the mind becomes deviated towards that, just let it be there. Okay, that's fine, but come back to the quality of the metta. You'll be able to start to recognise it, because the metta will be stable, a little more stable than just the joy, and eventually, wherever you are in the practice, whether it's the first, second, third or fourth jhana, even that metta will change, not in terms of its quality but in terms of where it's experienced.

And here we talk about how the feeling changes in terms of where it moves and how it moves, and so on. So that will happen. You know, it will happen when it happens. But the point here that I'm making is, whatever experiences you have in the highs and the lows, and it starts to gradually change, that's all just factors of the jhanas. You're experiencing piti, you're experiencing sukha, then you're experiencing, you know, just sukha, and then experiencing tranquility and equanimity, and so on. So that's fine, that's okay. But then don't allow that to be the metta or the object of meditation. Just come back to the feeling and see what's happening with the feeling. So the equanimity, and that would be not a different level of jhana but simply a factor that you would be a factor. Yeah, yeah.

In the beginning we don't tend to talk about where you're at in terms of the practice, because that just brings in the thinking mind, brings in the reflective mind, which then is a hindrance for progress. But you'll know, you'll know when, when, when, where you're at, and we'll let you know when certain things happen. Yeah. We'll be looking for certain things in the interview, and that'll give us an indicator of where, and it will tell you when... Yes. Well, we can talk about it more tomorrow, I suppose. Yes, yes.

Did you have any other questions? I have one more question. I'm a little bit confused with the time, so I actually expected this one to be when I woke up today. But is there any more online Zoom meetings today, or is this the last one? This is the last one, and then tomorrow we will see each other individually for the interviews, and I think there's one on Saturday where we have a Zoom meeting, and then a final one on Thursday, next Thursday. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Okay, let's share some merit.

May suffering once be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired, for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation.