Day 9 Dependent Origination Pt 2 - Karma Discussion

The essence of the Buddha's teachings are given in a sutta called Bhaddiya Sutta, and it is Udana 1.10. Bhaddiya of the bark cloth, is what he's called? Because he wore bark for clothing, tree bark. And in terms of the context of why we're talking about this, it's to really understand the next links of dependent origination. Bhaddiya was somebody who understood the philosophy of the Upanishads. Upanishads are part of the Vedantic tradition.

And there is a Upanishad, if I'm not mistaken, it is Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which talks about the Atman as the eyes behind the eyes, the ears behind the ears, the nose behind the nose, the tongue behind the tongue. It is the mind behind the mind. It is the experience. And Bhaddiya was under the impression that he was fully awakened and that he had become an arahant, worthy of veneration and alms and so on.

And as the story goes in that sutta, there is a deva who is his relative from the human life. And the deva says to him, Bhaddiya, you are mistaken. You are not an arahant. You have still some work to be done. And there is this fully awakened, self-perfected Buddha who lives in so-and-so. And Bhaddiya says, okay, let me go seek him out. And he walked for many days in search of the Buddha.

Finally, he ended up near where the Buddha was. He asked the monks around where is the Buddha. They said he is on alms round. He is off to get some food. So Bhaddiya goes towards town, towards the village, looking for the Buddha. Finds him and he says to him, Give me your teaching in short, so that I may practice and understand the full Dhamma. And the Buddha says, I'm on lunch, come back later.

So Bhaddiya asks a second time. And the Buddha says, it's not the right time. I'm on my alms round. When I finish, we will talk. And Bhaddiya said, but please. And so, if you ask the Buddha something three times, he is bound to give it to you. So the Buddha says, okay, Bhaddiya, understand this. In the seeing, there's only the seen.

In the hearing, there's only the heard. In the sensing, there's only the sensed. In the cognizing, there's only the cognized. When, Bhaddiya, there is no you in that, then there is no you defined by that. Defined by that, then there is no you before or after that. Just this is the end of suffering. If you just take that and turn it into a fridge magnet and put it up on your fridge every day and read it, because that is the essence of the entire Dhamma.

That practice. In the seeing, there's only the seen. In the hearing, there's only the heard. Why did the Buddha say this? Because he understood in Bhaddiya's mind that he was coming from that philosophy of the Upanishads, where there is a thing that is the seer behind the seen, that is a hearer behind the heard. There is a sensor behind the sensed. There's a cognizer behind the cognized.

And the Buddha is telling him, no, the way to shift your understanding is to let go of that. Because once that is let go of, then no you, no I, no me arises that is defined by the experience, which can lead to further craving and clinging and habitual tendencies and birth of action and suffering. So this understanding, right? How, I should say, do we do that? The link of feeling leads to and conditions craving.

But how does that happen? First of all, what do we mean by feeling? We mean feeling as sensation, as any kind of experience, mental or physical, or neutral. Suppose the feeling arises and leads to craving. What is it that is causing it to lead to craving? Now we can get very technical and talk about the seven underlying tendencies. We can talk about how the mind looks at an experience and says, I don't like that, and then there is the mind looks at something and said a version, there's some. The mind comes into something pleasant and says, I like that, and then is gravitated toward, and there's craving. There's all different ways, but the gist of it is this: I, me, mine, myself. If you are able to experience everything fully, nothing else you have to do.

Don't chase states. Don't chase an experience. That process of chasing is dependent upon a me. I have to achieve something. I have to get somewhere. I have to do something. Then the question arises, what have we been doing for the last seven or eight days? Have we not been meditating? Have we not been wanting to get into jhanas? Have we not been wanting to get to Nibbana?

Therein is the falsehood. There is a me wanting to get somewhere. Every talk that we've talked about in terms of jhanas, in terms of mindfulness, there is an assumption of a me that needs to be liberated, whereas the liberation is the letting go of the me. Is it possible to meditate in such a way that meditation just happens?

Is it possible to sit down with the mind and allow the mind to do what it's doing, a person 6R-ing, to let go without someone letting go? It is possible. The moment you let go of an outcome that the mind is driven by, the moment you let go of some kind of expectation that I must achieve this, what will you do when you achieve it?

Who is achieving it? Oh, it was a terrible meditation. This happened and that happened. Who is saying that? Who is experiencing that meditation? Meditate in such a way that you're just sitting for the sake of sitting, meditating for the sake of meditating. A lot of turbulent thoughts are coming up? That's fine. A lot of silence is there? That's also fine.

Did you control the thoughts to be there? Did you wish for the silence to be there? Or did it just arise when the causes and conditions were present? You, as the I, is just a passenger. There's no controller here. It's just happening due to causes and conditions. There's intention of bringing up something in terms of an object of meditation. To that extent, there is some kind of push or manipulation, let's say, the process of bringing up something.

But when you start the meditation with, I have to achieve something, I have to get somewhere, I am experiencing this, where am I on the path? Maybe I am not doing good enough. What is the underlying theme, denominator in all of these statements? I, me. I, I, I, I. Mindfulness, when we talk about mindfulness, the ability to observe how mind's attention is moving, where it's moving in relation to an experience, that is the gatekeeper that prevents the feeling from entering into the territory of craving.

What do we mean by this? Mindfulness here is the security guard. It's the one that is the awareness of the here and now. Mind is distracted. That is an experience. That is a feeling. That is the old karma coming to fruition. What do you choose to do in this moment as a distraction arises? I don't want this feeling to be here. That's the first reaction.

My destination is Nibbana, which I don't even know what it is, but I know that's the destination. So deal with things as and when they come, in the practice and in life. When something comes up in the form of a distraction, you're just dealing with it right here. Okay, here is a distraction. What do you do? The only thing to do that doesn't propagate further karma, that doesn't propagate further craving, is letting go, is abandoning, is releasing, softening.

When you let go, when the mind drops that, what it's doing is it's letting go of any I, me, or myself that feels like it needs to do something with it. You're dropping the hindrance by taking away the attention that fuels it and bringing it to something wholesome. To that extent, we have something known as free will. There's always that question: did the Buddha talk about free will, or is everything destined?

Well, the thing is, that wasn't such a big deal back in the time of the Buddha. He was only concerned with, is there suffering, or is there the cessation of suffering? So, we may rephrase this by saying, the only choice you have is either to take things personally and further propagate things, or to see it for what it is, which is that it is an impersonal process dependent on causes and conditions, and let it go.

The beauty of that is when you let go, you actually experience Nibbana. When you let go, you are experiencing an iota of Nibbana. That sense of relief, that sense of, ah, there is no suffering here. That is Nibbana in that moment. And the idea is to sustain the mind in that space. But again, any volition, any intention is not going to do that.

Because there's still an I over there. There's still a me that's there. So when we talk about feeling as sensation, as experience, it is arising due to causes and conditions. And that specific cause and condition is something known as contact: phassa, or sparsha, which means to touch. What makes contact? The sense bases, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, the mind, makes contact with their corresponding sense-based objects.

The eye with color and form, the ears with sound, the nose with odors, the tongue with flavors, the body with tangibles, and the mind with mind objects. That's what it is. That's all contact is. When these two come together, the eye, that is the eyes, and color and form come into contact with each other, there arises the attention to that. And that attention is the I, that is E-Y-E, consciousness. I'll give you the example of, right now you may all be looking at me. There's contact with my form and your eyes. There's contact with my voice and your ears. There's contact with your mind and mind objects. And with each contact, there is a corresponding consciousness that arises

for that period of time that continues to arise and pass away. Because we think contact, when you're looking at me, is one straight fluid experience of contact. No. It continues to be contact, contact, contact, contact, contact. And with every contact, contact, contact, contact, there is consciousness, consciousness, consciousness, based on that attention. And the example I gave you was when I asked you to look at the statue of the Buddha, now your eyes are making contact with the statue of the Buddha, which means that the consciousnesses that arose dependent upon the contact between the eyes and my form have passed away. They have disappeared.

And now there is consciousness that has arisen, arisen and passing away, arisen and passing away, dependent upon the attention being given to the image of the Buddha. You think about it. You might be listening to someone in conversation, and they may be thinking that you're listening, but your mind is thinking and reflecting on what they've said, and starts to pay more attention to the thoughts that are coming up.

And for those few moments, when you're paying more attention to those thoughts, you miss what that person said, even though they're speaking, even though sound is coming out. Why? Because your attention has gone away from that. So no underlying consciousness is arising dependent on that. So this contact is just an impingement of the sense bases. This contact requires what? It requires functional sense bases. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. These are all receivers of raw sensory data.

They're just bringing in whatever data is coming in. It is the interface with which you use to interact with the matrix. That's what it is. And so this six-fold base, the sense bases, are enmeshed in what is known as mentality-materiality. So what is mentality-materiality? It's a fancy way of saying name and form. That's all. Nama, rupa. Nama is name, rupa is form.

When we're talking about form, we're talking about the body. The body that is made up of the four elements. Earth, water, fire, and air. Or the different states of matter and heat and temperature. Mentality is that which allows us to experience contact. Feeling, perception, intention, and attention. So mentality-materiality actually is the five aggregates. It's the five aggregates, if you were to say purely just the five aggregates, not affected by clinging. Because there's the five aggregates that are affected by clinging when there is ignorance of the me, mine, self, present. Then they are affected by clinging. But just the five aggregates. What are the five aggregates?

Form, feeling, perception, choices or formations, and consciousness. Rupa, that is the materiality, is the form. The contact is a faculty in the mind. Think of it as some kind of thing in your brain that allows for the process of contact to happen. Allows for feeling to arise. Contact with the outside world allows for feeling to arise. Allows for perception to arise.

Now these are the faculties that allow the feeling to come up. That allow the perception to come up. And that allow for intention to arise. Volition. This volition is essentially the same as formations. If you want to know what the quality of your formations are, look at what your choices are in the present moment. If I have a wholesome choice, if I have a choice that's rooted in wisdom, if there's a choice without the me present, that have arisen in the past, just a few microseconds before, are not rooted in any greed, hatred, or delusion.

And attention is the carrier for consciousness. And so we use that analogy of being on stage for meditation. In this case, let's say it's the meditation. What is the meditation here? What are we talking about? So we have a stage and there is a performer on stage. And in order for you to be able to see that performer, you need light on that performer.

That performer is your object of meditation. What is allowing for that object to be seen? It's your attention. Right? The attention is the spotlight that allows for the flow of consciousness to connect with that object. The spotlight operator is the intention that moves so that it is following. That is to say, the light continues to follow the performer so you can stay collected, stay with your object.

And the stage manager is mindfulness. The presence of mind to be here and now to see what is happening. When the spotlight operator falls asleep, the stage manager notices it. That's the recognition. The release and the relax and the returning back is the stage manager. Mindfulness, yelling into his walkie-talkie, to wake up the attention, or the intention, to now redirect the spotlight back on the performer, so that the entire meditation, that's the performance, runs well.

So that is what attention is. It's the flow of consciousness. Mentality, materiality, is the actual mechanisms through which consciousness flows, through which feeling flows, through which formations flow, through which perceptions flow, all housed within form, the body. So it's body and mind, or name and form, or mind and body, and name and form. In order for mentality-materiality to function, it requires consciousness. Vijnana. Vijnana is the condition for the arising of mentality-materiality. Vijnana means knowledge that is divided. Vijnana is knowledge. V is to divide.

Vijnana means knowledge that is divided between the six sense spaces. Now, on a more metaphysical or macro level, we can say that in order for mentality and materiality to function, it requires consciousness as the Gandhava. The Gandhava here is the consciousness that comes into the next life and descends into the name and form of the sperm and the ovum. And then there is life and so on and so forth. So this consciousness is required for mentality, materiality to function, to do what it needs to do.

But consciousness is interdependent with mentality, materiality. Consciousness cannot just exist on its own. In order for it to function, fuel. Mentality, materiality gives rise to consciousness, allows for the flow of consciousness to happen. So Sariputta calls it, it's like when you see palm leaves, the reeds of the palm leaves, and they're bunched together like this. One is dependent on the other.

So consciousness is dependent upon mentality, materiality, and mentality, materiality is dependent upon consciousness. But in order for this consciousness to arise, it requires fuel. And that fuel is karma. And that karma arises through something known as formations, sankharas or samskaras. Sankharas means to cook something up. They are the conditioners. They are the literal ones and zeros that make up the matrix, to use that analogy.

There are three types of sankharas: bodily, verbal, and mental. Bodily sankharas are those that allow for the function of the movement of the body, breath, for the processes of the body to happen. Verbal formations are those that allow for the thinking and examining of thought to come up, the vitakka and vicara. So when you say vitakka and vicara, we're saying bringing up something as an object, right, in the case of meditation.

But it can also be to reflect on something, and to talk about something. That's why they're called vacha sankharas, verbal sankharas. Suppose I am outside, and I see a nice apple tree, and it's just a very beautiful apple tree, and I want to tell everyone about it. So what has happened? There is contact there between my eyes and the tree, and there's an experience.

But there is an intention, to come back to the Dhamma Hall and tell everyone, hey, look at that apple tree. So what has happened? Bodily sankharas have arisen for me to be able to move. Mental sankharas have arisen for me to feel and perceive the experience. And verbal sankharas have come to have that intention of coming and expressing in speech, hey, look at that apple tree, way in which we experience reality.

They are literally the storehouses for karma to flow. When there is contact with the world, with our sense bases in the world, these three can arise. Feeling, perception, and intention. And feeling, perception, and intention is karma. Intention is karma that you produce actively. Feeling and perception is karma you inherited from previous intentions as a result of contact.

Now, if these formations are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, at the root level, they are fettered, conditioned by greed, which is what? The root of mine, mine, mine. The root of I want more, more, more. Or hatred, which is I don't like this. Take it away from me. I hate this. I want to hurt it. I want to push it away.

Or delusion. What is delusion? The misperceiving of reality as that which is conditioned, or I should say, that which is impermanent as permanent. The misperception of reality as that which is suffering as happiness. As that which is non-self as me, mine, or myself. That's the delusion, the misperception. How are formations fettered? Are formations rooted in this greed, hatred, and delusion?

They are conditioned by something known as ignorance, avija, or avidya. Avidya literally means no wisdom or non-wisdom. Vidya is wisdom. There's a statement in Sanskrit. I think it's, which means that knowledge and wisdom that liberates. So not having that knowledge, not having that wisdom that liberates, namely in the context of Buddha Dharma, the Four Noble Truths, not having the wisdom of seeing suffering arising, not having the wisdom of understanding what is causing that suffering and letting that go.

Not having the wisdom to see the relief in the release from suffering. Not having the wisdom to be able to cultivate and see the application of the Eightfold Path. That's the fourth noble truth. So this avidya, what it does is, it is practically the lack of mindfulness. So this is why the theoretical aspects of dependent origination, when you start to see dependent origination upon reflection and from your experience of letting go, what you start to see is there are a lot of internal feedback loop systems.

It's not as linear as you might take it to be from the suttas. As you start to experience it on your own, you start to realize, ah, here's contact. So now there's feeling and perception. But that contact arose from contact between the sixfold base and their corresponding objects, and so on. But then the contact informs the arising of formations. In the present moment, the lack of mindfulness of seeing this experience as not me, not mine, not myself. When you don't have that, then what's going to happen? Obviously, you will take it personally.

You will see that experience and you will take it personally. Taking it personally, the formations that will arise will be fettered in delusions, possibly greed and hatred. But when there is mindfulness, when there is clarity of what is arising in this moment as this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself, just seeing experience as experience, sensing the danger in the experience. What do we mean by that? The danger in the experience. The danger of taking it personally will cause further suffering.

Just seeing that and understanding the escape from it, the relinquishing of that, allows for freedom to come up, which is no craving, no clinging, no becoming. So as we do this continuously, as this happens, then the formations continue to be reconditioned. You start to chop away at the fetters of greed, hatred, and delusion, which means what? Vidya starts to slowly turn to Vidya, to wisdom, the understanding of the four noble truths.

So when that happens, formations will still arise. But those formations are said to be pure, pure in the sense that they're no longer tainted by greed, hatred, and delusion. Whatever arises will not be stained by any of that push and pull of defilements, of jealousy, of anger, of stubbornness, of competitiveness, of rivalry, of whatever it is that's coming up.

And because of that, when contact arises, it's pure. Mine or this is affecting a me. There's just feeling. Now you can try to think your way through all this and say, okay, this is what's happening now. Here's the contact. Here's the feeling. Okay, there was the intention and so on. Or you can just drop everything and let experience flow as experience.

Be in a space of total acceptance of things as they act. This doesn't mean that you are passive. It just means you're giving enough time for the mind to let go of the clutches of ignorance and for wisdom to arise. What is that wisdom? The wisdom to see that this is an impersonal process allows one to act in accordance with right speech or right action.

Which means I prevent the arising of further karma. And I slow down, dissipate and eradicate the karma that has already arisen just by me experiencing it. This is what the Buddha says about karma. Karma cannot be escaped. It can only be experienced. And its terminus is at feeling. Contact allows for that process to happen. Now, this ignorance is also conditioned by something. It's conditioned by something known as the asavas or asharavas, which means to flow. It's an inflow or an outflow.

Sometimes they're translated as fermentations that ferment the mind. I translate them as viruses, because they corrupt the software of the mind. And what are these asavas? There is kamasava, the first inkling of, oh, this is mine, I want more of that. Or, I don't like this, take it away from me. am this. Bhavasava, which is, oh, I want to be more of this. This is who I want to be. This is the state that I'm chasing.

This is the experience that I'm going after. Notice how that's happening in the mind. How the mind makes up and conceptualizes what it thinks will be the best being or personality or thing to have to make us feel happy. You see, we're always chasing. I never hear. I'm always looking to the next moment, next moment, next moment. That is bhavasava in action, in motion.

Then the question will arise, then how do we function in the world? Don't we have to think about things? Don't we have to plan out things? Don't we have to implement different ideas? Don't we have to go to meetings and do this and that and the other? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But can it be done when it needs to be done rather than worrying about it?

Okay, I got to get this next thing done. I got to get this next thing done. Can it be in such a way that, okay, in this moment, this needs to be done. Just do it. And then move on to the next thing if you need to. Or just rest. You see, the mind is never satisfied because it's always looking for... And that's the irony. It's never satisfied because it's always looking for security and stability.

It's making itself feel insecure and unstable. Because nothing is ever enough. He doesn't even know what is going to be enough for it. He just inherits this idea from the world that if I only make this much money, if I only retire at this age, if I only do this, if I only do that, then I will be happy.

That is the bhavasava. And then there is avijjasava. That is the virus of ignorance itself. The carelessness. The negligence. The not seeing where you're going in every moment. The not seeing where your mind is in every moment in relation to the activities that are happening. You're not standing in line for food. You're standing in line for food thinking about, okay, what am I going to say in the interview? Or how am I going to do this meditation?

Or I hope there's enough food at the end of the line. Not standing. That's the practice. That is what you're doing here, to learn how to just be available to the present moment as it unfolds, every given moment as it unfolds, without trying to make it anything and just accepting it, being with it, experiencing it the way it actually is. That is what Dhamma is.

Reality as it actually is, allowing for events to unfold as they do. Again, I know that there is the risk of the mind thinking that that means I just have to be passive. No. You just have to be present and rely on your intuition. And intuition only arises as the mind that is steeped in wisdom. The Jnana Chitta, the wisdom mind.

Which will arise only when you let go of the mind that continuously thinks about things, continuously is in discursive ideas. Just letting that go, having that quietude and silence, is the womb of intuition. That is where intuition is born. And it will be in alignment. As you continue to follow the Eightfold Path, it will be in alignment with the Eightfold Path. It will know what to say, when to say what, whether to say something. It will know whether to act or not to act and how to act.

So when you continuously are present with every given moment and seeing things as they actually are, adding any sense of I, me, or mine to it, what you are doing is reconditioning so that those asavas, those viruses, weaken in the next arising. And that ignorance slowly transforms into wisdom. And that wisdom informs the arising of the karma such that the formations don't influence our intentions to be rooted in greed, hatred, or delusion.

So you are in control, so to speak, in every given moment with this choice. Take it personally or let go of taking it personally. Taking it personally, we know what happens. Craving arises. Clinging arises. Becoming arises. Birth of action arises. Suffering. Not taking it personally. Letting go of taking it personally. Intuition arises. The wisdom mind arises. And whatever actions are produced are non-productive of future karma.

That binds to samsara, but rather liberates from samsara. And so for one who is fully awakened, all ignorance has been destroyed. All the viruses have been destroyed. There cannot be any new karma that's produced in the form of the craving, the clinging, the becoming, and so on. So what remains? Formations for the activation of karma. Consciousness, which is the knowing capacity to see what's going on. Mentality, materiality, the five aggregates, contact with the world, or the six-fold base, of course, but contact with the world and feeling. These remain constantly until the fuel runs out.

So, even when someone is fully awakened, that does not mean they have stopped all their karma. This is a misconception some people have. And it's a very insidious misconception. What happens is that when one is fully awakened, now any karma that will arise in the future due to identification ceases from that point forward. But any karma that was produced prior to full awakening, momentum there. There may be still some fuel there.

And so what does that fully awakened mind do? It experiences it and it's terminated at that experience. That's it. It accepts karma as it is when it arises. Now, not all karma needs to be experienced either. So that's another misconception, that somebody fully awakened, when they pass on, has exhausted all their karma. Not necessarily. You can look at karma as different kinds of fruit seeds.

You have an apple seed, you have an orange seed, you have, let's say, a mango seed. And now, these are three types of karma, three different kinds of karma. And you plant those seeds into the soil. Now, for the apple seed, you give it enough water, enough sunlight, you give it enough nutrition in the soil, it will grow.

But for the orange seed, you don't give enough. So it might not grow as it should, or might not grow at all. And for the mango seed, you don't give it anything. And so the chances of it to grow are basically nil. Karma arises when the right causes and conditions are present for it to arise. When the right soil is there, when the right nutrition is there, when the water is there, when the sunlight is there.

Now, in the case of all three seeds receiving the same amount of causes and conditions, they may not grow at the same rate. That's because of the seed itself and what kind of fruit it produces, which means it also depends on the intensity and quality of the intention. That is the seed, which will then produce at its own rate, dependent on those causes and conditions.

The example of this is the kind of karma, the terrible karmas, I think they're the five types of karma, that immediately take one to a hellish realm. And that's killing one's parents, killing one's mother, killing one's father. That is taking the life of an arahant. That is creating a schism. And that is intentionally harming a Buddha. With karmic intentions that come to fruition, then they come into the front of the line because of their intensity.

The emotionality of that intensity is so intense. It is so powerful that it comes to the front of the line. And so that is what you will remember before you die if somebody does that. And that leads to immense regret, immense suffering, which leads to that particular hellish realm. So this is what I mean by the intensity of that intention, the quality of that intention. So the seeds of the fruit trees all have the same level of nutrition and everything, but by the nature of their seed, they will come to fruition at whatever rate they will come.

That's the same with intention. That's the same with choice. That's a little bit of understanding karma is and all of those things, but as I always say, understand what's happening here and how to deal with what's happening here and now. If you notice the second dart of taking it personally, let that go. Just by letting that go, that's probably going to be enough, and by letting that go you might give enough space for the wisdom mind to arise. You can act in a way that resolves the issue, whether it's internally in your mind or resolves the issue karmically with a person in a relationship or an argument or whatever the situation might be.

So everything from the formations or even ignorance, formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, karma, karma that we inherit, karma we can't do anything about except experience it. But everything from craving to clinging to becoming, which are the momentum for new karma to arise, we can stop using the 6R's: the Recognize step, which is the bringing up of mindfulness; the Release and Relax, which is the abandoning of that space or that state; and the Re-smile and Return, which is the generation of the wholesome. In this case it might be just the mind that is intuitive that arises, which is wholesome, to allow you to act in such a way that doesn't lead to further suffering. So those are all the new ingredients: the craving, the clinging and the becoming. By the time you get to the birth of action, where you've actually done the action, there's no recall, no taking it back, no take-backs. And so there we may be beholden to that experience that we may have to experience in a future time based on those choices, based on those intentions, based on those actions, based on the words that we've said. So that is dependent origination in a nutshell.