Day 3 The Jhanas

DIN THAYAM CHAGKU MAHEKARÁJÁ HARISAVANNO PATA VIPPA BHÁSAM TAM TAM NAMAS SAMI HARISAVANNAM PATA VIPPA BHÁSAM TAYANJA GUNDHAVI HARE UDIVASAM YEM BRAHMENA VEDAKU SAMBUDHAVE TEME NAMOTECAMAMPANYANTU. Three types of feeling. So when we talk about feeling, we're not talking about emotions. We're talking about experience. Feeling is vedana, anything that is to be experienced. That could also include emotions, because those are mental kinds of feeling.

But feeling here encompasses sensations and experiences. Sensations in terms of our experiences through the five physical senses, and in the mind, which is mental types of feeling. So here, Panchakanga is saying, no, I've heard the Buddha talk about two types of feeling, pleasant feeling and painful feeling, and that neither painful nor pleasant feeling is actually a sublime kind of pleasure.

What he's referring to here is an experience of what is known as the fourth jhana. There is neither painful nor pleasant there. It is neutral, equanimous. A second time and a third time the Venerable Udayeen stated his position, and a second time and a third time the carpenter Panchakanga stated his. But the Venerable Udayin could not convince the carpenter Panchakanga, nor could the carpenter Panchakanga convince the Venerable Udayin. So they have come to a stalemate. Neither could convince the other.

The Venerable Ananda heard their conversation. Ananda was the Buddha's chief attendant. Then he went to the Blessed One, and after paying homage to him, he sat down at one side and reported to the Blessed One the entire conversation between the Venerable Udayeen and the carpenter Panchakanga. When he had finished, the Blessed One told the Venerable Ananda, "Ananda, it was actually a true presentation that the carpenter Panchakanga would not accept from Udayeen. And it was actually a true presentation that Udayeen could not accept from the carpenter Panchakanga.

I have stated two kinds of feeling in one presentation. I have stated three kinds of feeling in another presentation. I have stated five kinds of feeling in another presentation. I have stated six kinds of feeling in another presentation. I have stated 18 kinds of feeling in another presentation. I have stated 36 kinds of feeling in another presentation.

I have stated 108 kinds of feeling in another presentation. That is how the Dhamma has been shown by me in different presentations. So I want to go over these different types of presentations. Bhikkhu Bodhi has commented on this and I'm going to read from that note. He says, the two kinds of feeling are bodily and mental. Is this done? Yes. He says, the two kinds of feelings are bodily and mental, or less commonly the two mentioned by Panchakanga. The three kinds are the three mentioned by Udayeen: the pleasant, unpleasant, and neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

The five kinds are the faculties of bodily pleasure, mental joy, bodily pain, mental grief, and equanimity. These are the five kinds of experiences: bodily pleasure, mental joy, bodily pain, mental grief, and equanimity. When we talk about bodily pleasure, bodily pleasure is a pleasant experience through the five physical sense bases. Seeing good things, seeing things that are pleasing to the eye, hearing beautiful music, smelling wonderful fragrances, tasting good food, experiencing warmth and comfort, things like that of the body.

Mental joy, that's what we're going to explore today with this sutta. When we talk about mental joy, that is encompassed within the experience of the jhanas. Pain. So, things that are unpleasant to the five physical senses, right? Seeing something that is displeasing to the eye, smelling some kind of disgusting smell, hearing a cacophony of loud music, tasting food that you don't like, wearing coarse clothes, things that feel unpleasant to the physical senses.

And then we have mental grief. Mental grief can arise in different ways. There can be depression, there can be sadness, there can be grief, there can be all kinds of mental unpleasant experiences. And then there's a different type of grief, which is the grief that says, "Oh, when will I experience Nibbana?" That's a different kind of grief. That's the grief of the renunciant, and we'll get into that later.

And equanimity. Equanimity, which is upekkha. Equanimity is seeing things as they are without getting affected one way or the other. Having a clear mind about what it is that you're experiencing, not grasping at anything, not pushing anything aside, just seeing things as they are. The six kinds of feelings. The six kinds are the feelings born of contact through the six sense faculties.

Contact that is phassa, or sparsha in Sanskrit. That contact, that initial contact between the eye and form, ear and sound, nose and odor, taste and tongue, or tongue and taste, body and tangibles, and then mind and mind objects. Mind objects are thoughts, essentially thoughts, ideas, concepts, things like that. So the contact between these two, the internal sense base and the external sense base. The internal is the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind.

The external are those different sense base objects, right, which I just mentioned. So when these two make contact, when these two touch, there is what arises: eye consciousness or ear consciousness or nose consciousness or tongue consciousness or body consciousness or mind consciousness, the awareness of an experience. These three constitute the phassa, the contact. Dependent upon that, there is an experience, there is feeling. So the six kinds of feeling are the feeling born of contact with any of these six sense bases.

The 18 kinds are the 18 kinds of mental exploration, exploring the six sense objects that are productive of joy, productive of grief, and productive of equanimity. So that's the six sense bases, their experiences that cause joy, or cause grief, or cause equanimity. So three multiplied by six, 18 kinds of feeling. The 36 kinds are the 36 positions of beings. That is to say, the six kinds of joy, grief, and equanimity, each based either on the household life or on renunciation.

So that is, you have the six kinds of joy, grief, and equanimity, multiplied by three, that's the 18, multiplied by two. That of the householder's life, which is to seek, which is to acquire, which is to grasp. And that of the renunciate, which is to let go, which is to abandon. The 108 kinds are the previous 36 considered as referring to the past, present, and future. So that's 36 multiplied by the three times. This is how you get up to 108 kinds of feeling.

Although I've given you all of these explanations, there is not going to be a test, so you don't have to remember all of them. All you have to be aware of are experiences through the sixth sense basis. That's it. What is happening in terms of the eye and form, and the feeling born of that, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind.

That's it. So let's continue. So when the Dhamma has thus been shown by me in different presentations, it may be expected of those who will not concede, allow, and accept what is well stated and well spoken by others that they will take to quarreling, brawling, and disputing, stabbing each other with verbal daggers. But it may be expected of those who concede, allow, and accept what is well stated and well-spoken by others, that they will live in concord with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes. So here the Buddha is talking about, since there are different ways that the Buddha has talked about the Dhamma.

There are different, you could say, approaches in terms of the practice, in terms of understanding, in terms of experience. It's not that there are different kinds of Nibbana. All he's talking about is that there are different presentations. There's no conflict that you will find between one sutta or the other anywhere in the Nikayas, but there is potential for people to cling to their supposed version of the Dhamma and say, this is what I was taught and this is how it should be, and when somebody else comes

has experienced the Dhamma and explains it in a slightly different way, such a person feels like they have to defend the Dhamma because they're clinging to views. But if you have a mindset that is open, a mindset that says, let me listen to this person without making any kind of conclusions, without making any kind of judgments, and then accordingly discern what it is that they're saying. Is it in accordance with what I have learned in the Dhamma? Does it make sense?

Right? So don't jump to conclusions. Listen to people. They might be saying the same exact thing that you're saying, just differently. But if you've already made up your mind, then you're lost. Ananda. There are these five chords of sensual pleasure. What are the five? Forms cognizable by the eye that are wished for, desired, agreeable, and likable, connected with sensual desire and provocative of lust. Sounds cognizable by the ear that are wished for, desired, agreeable, and likable, connected with sensual desire and provocative of lust.

Odors cognizable by the nose that are wished for, desired, agreeable, and likable, connected with sensual desire and provocative of lust. Flavors cognizable by the tongue that are wished for, desired, agreeable, and likable, connected with sensual desire and provocative of lust. Tangibles cognizable by the body that are wished for, agreeable, desired, and likable, connected with sensual desire, and provocative of lust. These are the five chords of sensual pleasure. Now, the pleasure and joy that arise dependent on these five chords of sensual pleasure are called sensual pleasure. Right, so that's clear. What is sensual pleasure? Anything that arises in dependence upon the experience of the five physical sense bases, the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the body, these are called sensual pleasures. Should anyone say this is or that is the utmost pleasure and joy that beings experience.

And that mental pleasure starts from the first jhana. So now we're going to get into the territory of jhanas. When you are listening to this talk, don't try to figure out which jhana you are in. Just listen and just understand. Jhanas are states of mind, states of mental experience, that are void of any kind of hindrances. In that sense they are pure. These mental states, or these levels, are also understood to be levels of cessation, and I'm going to explain as we get deeper into this. There are levels of experience, there are levels of understanding, and there are levels of cessation.

So what is the first jhana? He says, "quite secluded from sensual pleasures, quite secluded from sensual pleasures." What does that mean? Your mind, your body is erect. You're sitting down, let's say for meditation, and you close your eyes. Closing your eyes, you're no longer able to see what's going on. You're only seeing what's behind your eyelids. You center your mind around an object. You keep your mind collected by staying with some kind of an object, which means your attention is not dispersed.

Your attention is not refracting to different experiences of the sense bases. Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states. What are unwholesome states? Hindrances. Mind is free of any hindrance. Having let go of that hindrance, there is the intention of staying with an object of meditation. It could be staying with loving-kindness. It could be with the breath. It could be radiating loving-kindness. It could be the quiet mind. It could be whatever it is. There is now an intention to stay with that. In the beginning of the practice, when you start out, you bring up something that brings up joy to you. You bring up something that brings you loving-kindness, and then you stay with that loving-kindness.

This is the thinking and examining thought, the vitakka and vicara in this case. The vitakka is to bring up something, intentionalizing, bringing up an object. And the vicara is to stay with that object, the intention to stay with that object. It's not to contemplate it. It's just to keep your awareness resting on that object. Thinking and examining thought.

With pleasure born of seclusion. Seclusion, what does that mean? Mind is secluded from any unwholesome state. Think about what happens when your mind is free of any kind of hindrances. When you keep your precepts, notice this in the mornings when you take the refuges and when you keep the precepts. Pay attention to the quality of your mind. Your mind in that moment experiences something known as pamoja in Pali. Pamoja means joy of the Dhamma, joy of being virtuous.

When you keep your precepts, commit to keeping your precepts, your mind becomes uplifted. In the same way, when your mind is free of any kind of hindrance, in that moment it experiences relief. And from that relief there comes joy, and this joy is piti in Pali. Piti. And there is sukha tied to that sukha, which is comfort and ease in the mind and the body. Here the Buddha says, "Should anyone say that this is the utmost pleasure and joy that beings experience, I would not concede that to them."

This is that other kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than the previous pleasure. So now we're talking about the second jhana. I told you that jhanas are also levels of cessation. In the first jhana, what ceases are the hindrances. In the second jhana, what ceases is the thinking and examining thought, the intentionalizing of bringing up the object of meditation and staying with it. No longer is that required in the same way. When you start the ignition of a car, you don't have to keep starting the ignition. You have started the car, and now the car is running. So you let go of any verbalizing. You let go of any of the wholesome images and stay in the awareness of the experience of loving-kindness. Let the mind rest in that experience of loving-kindness. Because of that, there is what is known as self-confidence. Now there is a flow to this experience.

Now there is a natural progression. Now the effort becomes less apparent. Everything is just gliding on. And there is singleness of mind. This singleness of mind, or unification of mind, doesn't mean that the mind becomes one-pointed. Singleness of mind means that the mind does not remain refracted. The mind doesn't disperse into seven different kinds of colors. It stays as one light.

The attention remains collected. Remember what I talked about yesterday and the day before. The mind is like a satellite. The attention of the mind is a satellite, and your object is the planet. The satellite orbits around that experience, around loving-kindness or whatever the object is. So your awareness is panoramic. It's not single-focused, right? The object allows the mind to be anchored, allows the attention to be non-dispersed.

And because of that mind being collected, there arises further joy and further comfort born of that collectedness. In other words, in the first jhana, the relief that was experienced gives rise to the piti, the joy, and the comfort. That relief from the five hindrances gives rise to the joy and the comfort. But now that the mind remains further collected, there is further deepening of that joy and that happiness. The piti and the sukha.

This is that other kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than the previous pleasure. So now, in the first jhana, the hindrances cease. In the second jhana, the thinking and examining thought ceases. In the third jhana, the joy ceases, and there is a further deepening of comfort in the body. Now, experientially, this can translate in which the body feels lighter.

The body feels more comfort. The body feels even heavier, but it's not some kind of painful heaviness. The body just feels grounded, feels rooted. So this is the comfort with the body, the sukha that one experiences. And there is equanimity arising. There's further tranquility. The mind is at complete rest. The awareness remains steadfast with the object of meditation.

So that tranquility and that equanimity are signatures of the third jhana. The mind feels at complete ease. Everything is going fine. What you might experience is that the body feels, or parts of the body feel, like they are disappearing. The hands might feel like they're disappearing. You might not be able to feel your hands for some time. Your legs might feel like they're disappearing.

And what is that other kind of pleasure? "Here, Ananda, with the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the fourth jhana, which has neither pain nor pleasure, and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity." This is that other kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than the previous pleasure, the fourth jhana. The joy ceases in the third jhana, and there is comfort and ease. Now, even that sukha goes away, ceases in the fourth jhana. And what remains is that purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. Purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The way to look at this is, yesterday I talked about the seven enlightenment factors.

The seven enlightenment factors are mindfulness, investigation of states, energy, joy, tranquility, collectedness, and equanimity. The way to look at the enlightenment factors is that one leads to the next. The mindfulness leads to the investigation of states. The investigation of states leads to energy. Energy leads to joy. Joy leads to tranquility. Tranquility leads to collectedness. And collectedness leads to equanimity. But another way to look at this is in a cyclical way. That is to say, as you are progressing through the jhanas, the enlightenment factors become more apparent and deeper. So the way I would look at jhana is the non-arising of any of the unwholesome states of mind, and the arising and presence of the wholesome states of mind, particularly the enlightenment factors.

So as you start to go through this process, as you 6R, you start to activate the enlightenment factors. Remember, when I said you recognize, your mindfulness comes up. Your investigation of states comes up. Your ability to discern what is wholesome and unwholesome comes up. When you release, there is a balance in your effort and energy. When you relax, there's tranquility. When you re-smile, there's joy. When you return, there's collectedness. And when you do that whole process, you are developing equanimity. Now, as you continue doing this, the enlightenment factors cycle through as you deepen in each jhana. Which means not only does the mindfulness lead to investigation of states and so on, all the way to equanimity, but then that equanimity conditions the next arising of mindfulness, until you get to the fourth jhana where there is utter purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.

So there is complete pristine awareness here. Mind is completely balanced. Mind isn't affected one way or the other by joy or grief, pain or pleasure. Complete neutrality. And that awareness being sharpened through right effort, that awareness being sharpened and clarified through the cycling through of the enlightenment factors, becomes absolutely pure. Should anyone say that is the utmost pleasure and joy that beings experience, I would not concede that to him. Why is that? Because there is another kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than that pleasure.

And what is that other kind of pleasure? Here Ananda, with the complete surmounting of perceptions of form, with the disappearance of perceptions of sensory impact, with non-attention to perceptions of diversity, aware that space is infinite. A bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the base of infinite space. This is that other kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than the previous pleasure. So technically speaking there are only four jhanas. Now what we are getting into is a territory of what is known as the ayatanas. Ayatana means the sphere of something, the dimension of something, the base of something, the experience of something, the realm of something.

So when we talk about the Salayatana, we're talking about the sixth sense basis, the foundations. So here the experience is now in the fourth jhana itself. Now what we're talking about when we talk about ayatanas, they are happening in the experience of the fourth jhana itself. So when you come to this point in the fourth jhana, there's also starting to be a loosening of the senses, sensing of the body. And it feels like everything is moving up into the head.

So here the Buddha talks about it and he says the disappearance of perceptions of sensory impact. Now the mind is going in itself, nothing related to the body. Now you are coming into a purely mental experience, void of anything related to the body or the physical senses. With non-attention to perceptions of diversity, now the mind becomes even more non-dispersed. Doesn't mean it becomes focused.

It's just that the awareness becomes so clarified that it doesn't get scattered in seeing what is going on. Now there is a unique experience that happens where everything related to the fourth jhana experiences cease and there is an experience of infinite space, boundless spaciousness. When you are radiating loving-kindness in all directions, it feels like it can go on forever. It just feels like there are no limits. It's boundless, and from here you have the experience of infinite space.

This is the first ayatana. Now tied to that, there can be the experience of what is known as karuna or compassion. There is another sutta called the Metta Sahagata Sutta, and there the Buddha talks about the four brahmaviharas and in a sense their limits, and I'll explain what that means. You have metta or loving-kindness, you have karuna or compassion, you have mudita or empathetic joy, and you have upekkha or equanimity.

What the Buddha talks about, he says that the experience of metta can be experienced up to the fourth jhana. Compassion up to infinite space, empathetic joy up to infinite consciousness, equanimity up to nothingness. That doesn't mean that you cannot experience compassion in the first jhana onwards. That doesn't mean you cannot experience or use compassion, or use mudita, or use upekkha as an object of meditation. You certainly can.

All it's saying is it is tied to that experience. So in the case of infinite space, what happens is that the experience of metta gradually softens and changes into a different quality of experience, which is the experience of karuna or compassion. So what is the difference between metta and karuna? Metta, loving-kindness, is wanting good for yourself and wanting good for other beings.

Wanting benefits for yourself and wanting benefits for other beings. Wanting things that are wholesome for yourself and wanting things that are wholesome for other beings. What is compassion? Compassion is the recognition of suffering in you and therefore the suffering in others. When we talk about right intention in the Eightfold Path, right intention is the second aspect of that. Right intention is made up of three components: nekkhamma, which is renunciation, letting go of things; non-ill will; and non-cruelty.

Non-ill will is facilitated through the cultivation of loving-kindness. Non-cruelty is facilitated through the cultivation of compassion. So compassion, recognizing that you are suffering and recognizing that others are suffering. If you truly recognize the suffering in other beings, you will not be cruel to them. You will not seek to add to that suffering. Instead, you would wish that they be free of the suffering that they actually have. Compassion is being there for a person who's suffering, but not being a crutch to them, showing them the way, showing them the method of how to get out of that suffering, and being supportive. But you cannot walk the path for them. You can only show them the path.

And so compassion allows you to recognize that violence, cruelty, harmfulness is being in a state of mind with the intention to add to the suffering of other beings. If you truly recognize your own suffering, if you truly recognize the suffering of other beings, then you would never be cruel, then all violence would stop. So through the cultivation of that, through the cultivation of compassion and the perfection of compassion, you have the perfection of non-cruelty.

Here, Ananda, by completely surmounting the base of infinite space, aware that consciousness is infinite, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the base of infinite consciousness. This is that other kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than the previous pleasure. Infinite consciousness. So here you experience infinite space, and your awareness, your consciousness, becomes aware of that infinite space, and your awareness becomes infinite. In that sense, boundless awareness. There is another way of understanding this through the experience of infinite consciousness, and that is seeing that the fluidity of awareness is actually made up of parcels or data packets of consciousness.

In the same way that you would see sunlight as one ray of light, but in reality it is made up of quintillions and quintillions of individual photons. The same way, the fluidity of consciousness is made up of micro-moments of individual arising and passing away of awarenesses. Now the Buddha has talked about the different kinds of feeling, and he's talked about how feeling is something that is impermanent.

In infinite consciousness, what you experience is the impermanence of feeling. You could call it the impermanence of consciousness, you could call it the impermanence of contact, but it's also the impermanence of feeling, because you see for yourself that consciousness, dependent upon these six sense bases, arises and passes away. Dependent upon that experience, you see for yourself, in that moment. Now, yesterday I talked about not trying to analyze, not trying to reflect on the impermanence of things. Rather, there is a perception that arises. The perception of impermanence leads to the perception of dukkha or suffering. The perception of dukkha leads to the perception of anatta, or the impersonal nature of all experiences. The perception of impermanence, or impersonality, or anatta, rather leads to the perception of equanimity.

The perception of equanimity leads to the perception of disenchantment. The perception of disenchantment leads to the perception of dispassion, and the perception of dispassion leads to the perception of cessation. So in this experience of infinite consciousness, it will be revealed in your mind through your own experience: the perception of impermanence, of seeing the arising and passing away of consciousnesses, of experiences. And it becomes tiresome. And therefore you see the dukkha nature of all experience.

And you see that there is no controller here. It's happening because of a series of causes and conditions. Anything that is dependently arisen is impermanent, therefore liable to cause suffering, therefore should not be considered as me, mine, or myself. Seeing this, the mind lets go and experiences equanimity. So here in infinite consciousness, what can arise is empathetic joy. After having wished that all beings be free of suffering, you recognize that there are beings who experience happiness, wholesome states of mind, and you relish in that. You are happy for them.

This is empathetic joy, celebrating in the wholesome success of other beings. Empathetic joy is an antidote for jealousy and envy. Why do you become jealous or envious? You see the success of another person and you think, I want that. Why don't I have that? But when you have empathetic joy and celebrate and say I'm happy for that being, then there is no jealousy that arises. There's actually joy that arises. Now, in that process of infinite consciousness, seeing impermanence, seeing dukkha, seeing anatta, there comes the experience of equanimity. The gaps between the arising and passing away of individual consciousnesses turn into wider and wider spaces of experience, and we'll get into that now.

So now the experience is where the gaps between the arising and passing away of experiences widens, and now there's an experience of nothing being present. Sometimes you'll experience different kinds of things in infinite consciousness: rings of light, flashes, clicking sounds, phantom smells, all kinds of things. But eventually all of that slows down and there is this experience of no-thingness. The mind is aware of an experience of blankness, aware that there is nothing, and tied to that is the brahmavihara of equanimity. You could be in here for a long period of time without any thought arising, just nothing going on. And at this point all you are doing is radiating in all directions equanimity, just allowing that to happen. At this point all you're doing is putting small amounts of intention. It's like when you drop a pebble onto the surface of a still lake and there are these ripples that arise, and then the ripples go away for a while. So you add another drop of intention, and then those ripples continue, but then there comes a

point where the mind doesn't want to do anything. It just wants to rest in itself. This is what is sometimes known as the quiet mind, but in reality it is not altogether that quiet. There are things happening under the surface of that mind. But here mind is just resting on itself. Mind is aware of itself. This is the Pabhassara Citta, the luminous mind. Awareness of awareness. So we'll get into that and what happens there. Should anyone say that is the utmost pleasure and joy that beings experience, I would not concede that to them. Why is that? Because there is another kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than that pleasure. And what is that other kind of pleasure? Here, Ananda, by completely surmounting the base of nothingness, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the base of neither perception nor non-perception.

This is that other kind of pleasure, loftier and more sublime than the previous pleasure. Neither perception nor non-perception. Sounds like a paradox. So what's happening here? Now the mind rests on itself. Here there are the limits of perception. What is perception? We already know what feeling is. Feeling arises dependent upon contact through the sixth sense basis. But there is something tied to that feeling and that is perception.

So feeling is the experience. Perception is that which notes the experience, labels the experience. The feeling is one thing and knowing the quality of the feeling is another. Seeing the color red is the experience. Recognizing it as red is perception. So perception is rooted in learning and memory. You learned what these colors are, red, blue, white, black, yellow, so on. And you see them for the first time, and now there's a memory made of what those colors are. The next time you see that, you recognize those colors. If you learn certain types of plants, certain types of trees, when you have the experience of seeing that tree, you can recognize that's an oak tree, that's a maple tree, that's a bodhi tree, a people tree, that is so-and-so tree.

So the recognition of an experience is perception. At this level of neither perception or non-perception, that recognition aspect of the mind destabilizes. The mind becomes so calm, so clear, and then it starts to shut down bit by bit. And one of the things that's shutting down is the aspect of perceiving things, the aspect of recognizing what it is that you are seeing. That is why neither perception or non-perception is sometimes experienced as being asleep but awake at the same time. Your mind feels like it's totally gone, totally asleep, but you're alert. And random kinds of thoughts, or seemingly random kinds of thoughts, ideas, pictures, what seem to be like distant memories arise, and you can't really make sense of it because you're not recognizing what's going on.

You're not able to fully perceive what's happening, and so when you are in this experience, what can happen is there can be gaps in your awareness. These are micro cessations that you're experiencing. The mind starts to have little shifts, and starts to have a gap in awareness, and then you come back up, but your mind is brighter, and you don't know what happened in that previous moment. And those gaps start to become wider and wider, and there's just this level of non-perception that continues on. So at this level there's still some experience going on. The formations, the sankharas, these are like proto thoughts. They are bubbling up to the surface, but they don't bubble completely up to the surface to create a fully formed thought that you can perceive. You're only starting to see the prototypes of that little bit. So when you come out of the state, one of the things that you should be doing is spend a couple of minutes recollecting what happened there, and you might notice certain patterns, certain pictures, certain shapes, certain colors

things like that coming up in your mind, and every time you see those things, all you have to do is six art, that's it, and then you finish practice. But there is a pleasure that is loftier than this and we will talk about that. Should anyone say that is the utmost pleasure and joy that beings experience, I would not concede that to him.

Cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. Before this happens, the mind becomes very quiet for long periods of time. There might be things that arise under the surface, but all you have to do is relax. When you are here, the mind has a tendency to become bored, and because of that boredom two things can happen. One of two things can happen: the mind tries to stimulate itself, thus causing restlessness to arise, or it tries to fall asleep, experiencing sloth and torpor. This is where you have that delicate balance, or rebalancing, of energy. If you notice that the mind has restlessness arising, soften the mind, relax, pull back.

If you notice that the mind is becoming dull, bring a little bit more energy, a little bit more effort, a little bit more focus in what it is that you're seeing, and let the mind just rest. Once you are in the quiet mind, once you are in the quiet mind, this is the most difficult instruction for most people: once you are there, don't do anything. Easier said than done. There's always a tendency for the mind to say, oh, maybe I should look into what's going on here, am I actually in quiet mind, maybe I should relax a little bit, maybe I should soften more. I said don't do anything.

Don't do anything. Now, while you're here there can arise an even deeper experience before cessation, and this is known as animitta samadhi. This is known as a signless collectedness of mind, and here it's where the mind doesn't even take itself as an object. It's an objectless awareness. It's like taking a flashlight and pointing it up to the sky, and the light goes up into space, and assuming that there is no space object for the light to land upon, that light continues, goes on and on and on.

In the same way, when you let go of even the mind and there is just an awareness not landing on any object, eventually the attention of the mind, which is fueling the mind, stops paying attention to anything in particular. So the sankharas that were arising, the mind completely becomes disenchanted with this passionate and... and since there is no more fuel, since the batteries of that flashlight run out, what happens? The flashlight turns off. In the same way, now that there are no more sankharas to fuel the mind, no more mental formations, the mind shuts off. Now there is complete cessation of all perception, feeling and consciousness.

And it could happen for a split second, it could happen for who knows how long. You won't know you're in that state. But when you come out of that state, you will definitely know something happened. In fact, a lot of times people will say, "What just happened? Wow, that was amazing." Whatever happens after that, we will talk about in our private interviews.

But this is a preview of what can happen if you continue with this practice. It is possible, Ananda, that wanderers of other sects might speak thus: The Recluse Gautama speaks of the cessation of perception and feeling, and he describes that as pleasure. What is this, and how is this? Wanderers of other sects who speak thus should be told, "Friends, the Blessed One describes pleasure not only with reference to pleasant feeling. Rather, friends, he describes as pleasure any kind of pleasure, wherever and in whatever way it is found."

So even the pleasure of the feeling of no feeling is actually pleasurable, is pleasant, because you realize all feeling is conditioned, all feeling that is conditioned is impermanent, and therefore even pleasant experiences, being conditioned, are impermanent and liable to change. Which means they have inherent dukkha in them, and therefore are not to be seen as me, mine or myself. So in this whole experience that you're having, don't hold on to any experience. Experience everything fully, completely, observe everything as it is, but don't hold on to it. The loving kindness changes, the loving kindness moves, the loving kindness goes away. That is the nature of all experience.

So don't hold on to anything. Don't beat yourself up for the feeling not being there anymore. If you hold on to an experience, there arises further craving for that experience, and you don't continue on the journey, you don't continue on the path, instead you become stagnant. So allow things to be as they are, just observe everything as it is. Observe it like a movie, that's it.

That is what the Blessed One said. The Venerable Ananda was satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words. Any questions? They can be experienced in a sequential order, but there have been cases where people experience infinite space without having to go through the first three jhanas. Like in the case of Alara Kalama and Uddhaka Ramaputta, Alara Kalama introduced the experience of nothingness to the Bodhisattva.

Likewise, Uddhaka Ramaputta showed the Bodhisattva the way to neither perception nor non-perception. So it wasn't sequential in that way. What's a so-and-so tree? What's a so-and-so tree? So and so, a tree. So and so forth. Inuberating these trees. Yes. So and so. Yeah. So it's an et cetera tree. It's an et cetera tree. It's testing the objects that all this time. If a person is medicated, then every time it's instructed to start with loving-kindness, and the mind doesn't want to radiate loving-kindness, it just wants to be in the void. So generally what I say is, if you want to stay in quiet mind, just for the first five minutes see if you can radiate any of the brahmaviharas, and if the mind just automatically goes to quiet mind, then stay there.

The mind will seep into the point of lowest tension. Point of lowest tension. This is what I learned from Venerable Metta Nanda, where you carve out the different experiences through the brahmaviharas up into quiet mind. And then the mind will seek what is the point of lowest tension, always. So if it wants to go there, let it go there. Sometimes the mind feels like it wants to radiate mudita. Radiate mudita. Sometimes it feels like it wants to radiate equanimity, radiate equanimity, and then once it gets into quiet mind, let it be in quiet mind. So nowhere do you need to start with loving-kindness. If the mind feels like going at one particular brahmavihara for that particular meditation, start from there. If it feels like it wants to go directly to quiet mind, I would recommend that instead of doing that, spend a few minutes radiating.

This balances out the energy in the mind. And eventually, it does feel tense for the mind to do anything. And at that point, don't do anything. And just stay with the quiet mind. Actually, sometimes the mental is relaxing When you say, when you say dropping of dropping off. So this can happen in neither perception or non-perception, where the mind experiences gaps in awareness and it kind of drops sometimes that's also led by physical sort of yeah but when the mind comes back up there's no grogginess over there there's no dullness there in fact there's a brightness over there so this is happening at neither perception non-perception this is one of the qualities of the experience of neither perception we're on perception no it's just that the mind is starting to loosen its perceptions perceptions are ceasing

So those micro gaps in awareness are the non-perception aspect of it. Neither perception nor non-perception, until it eventually becomes full cessation of all perception. Probably because of good sitting practice. But I know that some people, if they have experienced cessation, what they notice is they completely kind of slouched for that time being, of being in cessation. That's okay, that's fine. But so far I've never heard of anyone kind of falling off their chair yet. So yeah, actually, I had somebody who did feel like they were going to drop off of their chair if they got any further, but when they did have some kind of an experience, they found that it was okay. They didn't actually fully drop off. So I think when you're like that, there's very limited chances. I wouldn't say zero chances, but very limited chances that you're going to fall off of your chair.

they go through the type of community and then they are there for quite some time and after that only they say okay i was there but i was not there so how do you distinguish between this right so you you brought up a good point here because uh this is mentioned in a few other sutras when they talk about what is required for cessation through nirodha serenity and insight samatha and vipassana yoked together now what you're referring to is where some yogis will meditate for long periods of time and get to a point where they become so focused meaning they only have samatha right where it just becomes where like they have no awareness of anything so this is in alignment with what is known as the realm of the unconscious beings or

imperceptive beings let's say yeah so that happens because the mind doesn't have any kind of clarity of what's going on so there is a tendency if you become very focused or if you allow the mind to become very much one-pointed it will drop into this experience but the difference between the two the difference between so the similarity is in both cases the mind is unconscious there is no consciousness but coming out of the as-sanyata experience there is no change in terms of the shift in perspective whereas when you come out of cessation there is a definitive experience that happens where the mind has touched something and having touched something experiences a dropping of certain kinds of unwholesome states and fetters

So when we are doing the process of right effort, we are practicing letting go of the defilements. Doing that and then getting into Samadhi, getting into Samatha and Vipassana, the mind has been calibrated through its process of right effort to let go on an even deeper way. level to a point where that fetter will no longer arise or where that defilement will no longer arise. So the practice of continually letting go in daily life is facilitating the remainderless fading away of that defilement altogether, which means the cessation, it's not that the cessation is a must, but the deep experience that leads to a cessation allows for the mind to drop that fetter altogether.

There have been cases in the suttas where people have been listening to the dhamma and then attained stream entry. So they have let go of the fetter of doubt, let go of the fetter of wrong self-view, let go of clinging to rites and rituals. But there was no there was no supposed cessation that preceded it. At least that's not what the suttas imply. They talk about the arising of the Dhammachapu. The arising of the Dhammachapu. Yes. That's what's used. Yes. I think it's good to define it. I think it's good to specify it, but that's one of the things that I would like about that day when you were explaining this, is that this is a very different practice, where

instead of using force to draw the line and to make it be the way that, let's say, the Seven Sports of Awakening would like her to be selected, really happy, really interested in its course, but that is not, when the force is not there, then it all collapses. yes yes yes this practice is very different whereas we are using wisdom using discernment yes there is no there's no question what what is this distraction when you force your mind but

bringing up the mentha for example and then the mind wanders that goes away and there's this questioning that there's that discernment coming to talk about wisdom there's this oh my mind was uplifted it was collected it was happy and then it was gone it was distracted and there's an understanding yeah and so it's a very very different path and that's why the cessation that you're talking about here is a very different sensation that this kind of lapsing of awareness where actually in many different traditions they talk about coming out of this and awareness is kind of rocky it's not actually clear it's a bit but it's really this practice is very different where it's actually

there's nothing forced and when you've practiced right now it's because you've understood you have the button there just by chance or by forcing the mind is because we've understood the practice so many times that it's become built and now it's just there yeah so and that cessation happens, then the mind is blank. And it gets more and more, it creates this deeper and deeper compression in the mind. And that's-- everybody's different, so everybody will drop their own things whenever they're going to drop them. And then there's no-- it's not like we have a mathematical algorithm. Right, exactly. And I also want to clarify about that also. I also want to clarify about that, which is to further your point, that not every cessation is going to equal a path and a fruition.

It can happen, but it's not always the case. So for you for those of you who don't know what we're talking about is we're talking about the path and fruition. What we're talking about is the four stages of awakening. So in in the context of the Dhamma there are four stages of awakening. There is stream entry or Sotapana. There is once returner or sakatagami, there is a non-returner or anagami and there is one who is fully awakened or an arahat. And in each of those four stages there is an entry into them which is the path and then there is a fruition which is basically the fruition of that particular attainment.

So the path is entering upon the stream entering into the awakening of one's returner, entering into the experience of a non-returner or entering into the experience of an arhat and the fruition. So now if you enter the path of a stream-enter, when you pass on, before you pass on, you will definitely experience the fruition. So if anybody here thinks that they have experienced the path of something, and they're trying to struggle to get the fruition of something, take it easy. It'll happen. So, just to elaborate on these different stages of awakening, in the case, there are these 10 fetters, and in each stage, or in almost every stage of awakening, certain fetters are dropped.

So as we understand it from the suttas, in the case of a stream enter, there are three fetters that drop. First fetter is the belief in a personal self. This is different from conceit. The belief in a personal self means that from an experiential level, you understand in your mind completely that there cannot be a permanent self.

You understand completely that there cannot be a self that is independent of causes and conditions. That whatever arises as a self arises dependent upon causes and conditions you see it for yourself you see it for yourself when you have this experience of stream entry then because you've had this experience you also have no more doubt in the buddha dhamma and sangha and you don't have any clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that those rites and rituals will take you to an experience of awakening so all those go away in the case of a once returner that is a sakadagami the sensual craving or the sensual lust and the aversion are greatly decreased so so the mindfulness of such a person is is so sharp that they're able to see the seed of that lust or the seed of that aversion.

And 99% of the time, maybe less, are able to let go of that. Sometimes what can happen is they have a lapse in mindfulness and therefore there is the arising of that lust or the arising of that aversion, but they're able to immediately recover from that, let go of that and recover from it. In the case of an anagami, there they have let go completely of sensual lust and aversion. Not even a seed of sensual lust, not even a seed of aversion will arise in them. And then finally with the arahant, the first, the second five, so the first five are gone in the the Anagami. And the remaining five, the conceit, the restlessness, craving for form, craving for formless, and ignorance.

These five completely go away. So restlessness, we talked about restlessness the other day, and you said restlessness is also that general movement of the mind that happens. When you sit down to meditate and you close your eyes, there's this general movement. And as one teacher would say, it's like you have to take out the trash before you actually fully meditate. In the case of an arhat, there's no trash in the mind to take out. So there's no restlessness at all. Now the conceit, taking things as me, mine or myself, different from the belief in a personal self, that conceit is gone. So the mind will no longer have any kind of attachment of an I or me or mine in relation to any kind of experience.

There is a list. I'll have to have someone send Bharat that list. I don't know if you still have it or not, but we'll send it. It talks about all of the different types of conceit: the one type of conceit, the two types of conceit, the three types of conceit, the four types, the five types, the six types, the seven types, all the way up to the 11 types of conceit. Adding all of that up, that's something like 44 kinds of conceit, something like that. So, that conceit, all of that goes away. The pride in knowledge, the pride in one's wisdom, the pride in the Dhamma, the clinging to the Dhamma, the attachment to the Dhamma, all of that goes away.

Dependent upon that, there is no more of that restlessness. Dependent upon that, there is no more craving for jhanas either, craving for form realms, craving for formless attainments, craving for infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception or non-perception. And because one has completely understood the Four Noble Truths, that is to say, one has fully understood suffering, understood dukkha, Fully abandoned all of the causes and conditions for that dukkah and experienced completely that nirodha of dukkah, the cessation of dukkah, through the perfection of the cultivation of the Eightfold Path.

Ignorance gets destroyed. When we talk about ignorance, we talk about ignorance on two levels. There is the ignorance where you don't even know about the Four Noble Truths. And then there is the ignorance that arises where you are introduced to the Four Noble Truths, but you become ignorant of them when there is a lapse in mindfulness, a lapse in awareness. And that is dependent upon what are known as asavas.

These are deeply rooted aspects of the mind that create suffering. So there is the taint of sensual desire, the taint of being, or the desire for being, and the taint of ignorance. These are all dependent upon a lapse in attention. Every time you have an experience and you take that experience to be personal, and you have a lapse in awareness, a lapse in mindfulness of that experience as being impermanent, liable to cause suffering, and impersonal, if you don't see it that way, it can feed back to the asava of ignorance. And if you act upon it with sensual desire, it can feed back on the taint of sensual desire. And if you act on it from the craving for existence, it can feed back to that taint of being, the taint for the desire to be.

So all of that is gone in an arahant. Another word for the arahant is khinasava, one who has destroyed all of the asavas. If you want to go a little deeper than that, a little trivia for you, it's not going to be on the test, so don't worry. There are certain types of sotapannas, certain types of anagamis, and certain types of arahants.

There are three kinds of sotapannas in the suttas. There is a sotapanna where, up to seven lifetimes, they will have to take rebirth until they have full awakening. There is what is known as the Kulungkala sotapanna, from one clan to the next clan, up to three lifetimes. And then there is the Ekabija sotapanna, the one-seeder, who takes birth one more time and then attains full awakening.

The sakadagami does the same thing, but there is a key difference there. With the Ekabija sotapanna, they will always take birth on an earth plane, whereas a sakadagami can take birth in any of the six sensual heavens, and from there attain anagami. Now, when we talk about an anagami, there are five types of anagamis. There is the anagami who becomes fully awakened just prior to the experience of death.

There is the anagami who becomes fully awakened and attains parinibbana upon landing in the next life. There is that anagami who becomes an arahant upon landing, or it takes some time. Then there is the anagami who takes effort in the next life to become an arahant. And then finally, there is that anagami who has to traverse through each of the five abodes until becoming fully extinguished.

So this is a little trivia for you. Anything else? Actually, there's a sutta, Sutta number four, the Bhaya Bherava Sutta, fear and dread. And there the Bodhisattva goes into a jungle thicket, goes into the forest, and experiences fear. And he says the only way through fear is to actually go there and understand the qualities of your mind. If your mind is free of certain impurities, then there's nothing to fear.

So actually, one of the antidotes is to look into your mind and be aware of the wholesome states that it possesses. That uplifts the mind, and the mind lets go of the fear. And of course, the usual answer that I will always give, six artists, but being aware of the generally good qualities of the mind makes your mind uplifted, and the fear kind of just melts away. Yeah. Like anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a breaking point between anagami and a half. Yeah, yeah. And it's really kind of a wonder, because the Buddha seems to say that pretty much fear goes away without a lot of fear. I haven't come across as soon as he says it, but it's gone anagami or he's like really fear about it.

And from what I can notice, it seems like it's just restlessness. It's an uncomfortable kind of restlessness that's not okay with being eaten by a tiger. Not that you have to be okay with being eaten by a tiger, but if you think about it from that perspective, which is a very good perspective, you could actually then use tranquility to tranquilize the fear. Well, I actually wasn't tigers. It was the wild boars, like Kamasuka. Oh, yeah.

And then walking up to the dana hall in the morning at like 4.30, I would do a kujo by myself before I even precepted the refugees. And they were wild boars running in the bush. I couldn't see them. Well, what time of the year was this? That was in May. That was in May? I probably won't be there then. But it was a really interesting reflection to feel that fear arising. So it was actually, if you think about that fear or that restlessness, it was an undue expectation of something that might not happen.

There is an expectation that that wild boar will appear, and it didn't happen. But I'm just thinking with the people, because that's really something that I could remember. Yeah. What I could see is that, you know, I know this is Buddhism and Dhamma and everything, but I have to quote Yoda here, where he says, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

So I could see that the fear, the restlessness, could potentially give rise to ill will. Yeah. Yeah. I think also a lot of fear comes back to the fear of death. And Ajahn Chah writes about this experience he had when he was meditating in the charnel ground. He was alone, and he was still a young monk at the time. And he was hearing what he perceived to be a ghost walking along, and he could hear the footsteps.

And then it got closer and closer to him, and he knew he couldn't run. There was nowhere to run to. And then it was in front of him, and he could perceive it kind of about to kill him. So he looked into his fear, and he thought, what am I actually afraid of? It's non-existent. And then he just kind of felt it away, and he experienced the incredible relief and joy from that. And then the ghost went away, and it started to abandon, and in the end, immense relief. So I think every fear might be able to be traced back to the fear of non-existence.

Yeah. And that fear can also be dependent upon conceit, taking things personally. I'm afraid because that wild boar is going to harm my body. I could die. I could get hurt. I feel fearful of what others would think about me, whether I fail in the situation. Right. That represents fear, but that would be in oneself. Right. And so if it's strong, then the fear would be more strong. Right.

So that's why I say the conceit is really the basis. The conceit is the foundation upon which restlessness arises. Otherwise, what would you be restless about? It would be, like you just said, if there is a personality view and then there's a conceit where you identify with one or more of the five aggregates in one or more of the four ways. That is to say, you see your body as self, or you see this body belonging to you, and so on and so forth. Having seen it in that way, you will try to defend yourself or you will feel afraid. What if I fail? What if I'm not able to speak in person? All of these things that happen.

So the conceit is always the foundation. And that conceit, I would say, is dependent upon ignorance. So although we have that ten-fetter model that we see traditionally from the suttas, it does boil down to the conceit at the higher levels. With the ill will and the aversion or the sensual desire, it's still some kind of conceit. It has to please me. I have to seek it out because it makes me feel good. Or I have to push it away because it makes me feel bad. So some kind of identification process is still going on there. But dependent upon that, there can be the arising of restlessness, which, let's say, we could say is fear and anxiety.

Or remorse, restlessness and remorse. And also dependent upon that conceit is craving for existence, or craving for non-existence. But that conceit can be dependent upon ignorance, not being aware of the Four Noble Truths in every moment. Because, for example, when you identify with an experience which is very unpleasant, extremely unpleasant, the height of that can be the desire for suicide.

So there's a craving for non-existence because you think that it will feel good if I do that. It's an escape from things that feel extremely unpleasant. So the fear of non-existence as well, the craving and the fear, these are two sides of the same coin. That is why we say craving and aversion, desire and aversion, are really two sides of the same coin. It is through conceit that it arises. No, no. We're talking about the craving or fear for existence or non-existence.

There will only be craving when there is an "I" there. There will only be fear when there is an "I" there. How do you know there is existence or non-existence? There's still an I there. That's what we are discussing here now. Existence presupposes not. Yeah. Does non-existence presuppose not? I am, therefore I don't exist. If there is existence, if there is just existence without the I, and it's just an experience, what is it that knows that experience? That's being, right?

That in itself is conceit, the desire for being, even the being, the becoming, existence. For there to be existence, or to know there is an existence, there needs to be a knower of that existence. I'm not saying that for Narayan, let's take the unlikely event of a Narayan, and wouldn't there be a being that's any of this? That there is no more coming to any kind of being. Is that what you're referring to? Because I think I understand what he was saying as that there can't be still a being in this without an I in this. Okay, you're talking about that. You're not talking about universal existence. You're talking about just there being a being without the I.

It's a blue organist without the quantity of light. I think that the original machine is related to the fetter. And the fetter is craving for being. But here's a question since you brought up the topic of the arahant. So the arahant says that there is no more coming to any kind of existence, any new existence, no more becoming, no more being.

There is a Sutta called the Sutta Sutta, where Sutta, like being, is another connotation for the word being, where somebody asked the Buddha, what does it mean to become? What does it mean to be? What does it mean that you are a being? And the Buddha talks about it and he says, insofar as there is an identification with one or more of the five aggregates, in one or more of the four different ways, there is the stipulation of a being. If an arahant has let go of all conceit, are they a being, or are they not a being? Neither nor, or both, or neither both or not? Sorry, you guys. This has become a conversation, rather than a... Anyway.

Nasadiya Sukta in the Rig Veda talks about not knowing where it came from, neither knowing it came from somewhere and all of these other kinds of standpoints. For the arahant, all of that goes away. This was just a little joke that I put up, is it a being or is it not a being or a non-being or neither not a being? But yes, in terms of a being, a beingness, that is to say that there is an experience going on, without the superimposition of an I, that is possible.

That comes from the Bhaya Sutta, which I talked about last retreat. In the seen, there is only the seen. In the heard, there is only the heard. In the cognized, there is only the cognized. In the sensed, there is only the cognized, the sensed. If by a, there is no you in that, no you before that, and no you after that, just that is the end of Safra. No superimposition. There's just an experience, but no experiencer added to the experience. Same way I would say with the meditation. There's just a meditation.

Yes, there's an observing of the meditation happening, but there's no superimposition of a meditator in the meditation. What happens to them, is it depending on the maturity of their practice in this lifetime, and what happens to them in the death? You're talking about specifically of sakadagami? It's a level of faculties that they've developed, how much more development is required, how many more lifetimes are required for the development of those faculties or the 37 requisites, let's say.

That's why even for the anagami, we think when we say anagami means non-returner, right? It means that they only have one more lifetime. That's a misnomer. We just talked about the fifth type of anagami who goes from one pure abode to the next, to the next to the next and then attains parinibbana. When we say anagami, we're saying one who does not return back to the sensual dimensions.

There are these five pure abodes. Sudhasa, Sudhasi, Aviha, Sudhavassasi, the pure abodes they're called here. So seven lifetimes, or three lifetimes, or one lifetime, yeah. However, they can progress while still on the earth plane. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So if you become a sotapanna, you can still go towards becoming a sakadagami, and so on and so forth. I think it's, for me, it's an interesting reflection to think that a sotapanna, for example, is going to have seven more lifetimes, and then the sakadagami will have one, what about the fifth and the sixth? We make such really concrete, hard things, claim the payments and things like that, but when are you paying your fourth lifetimes or your fifth? Right.

It's because it's a progressive training, so you can see that you can see. Yeah. There are kind of marks here and there, but it's good too. That's a good point, if you have up to seven lifetimes. What lifetime are you in now? Have you marked the last time? It is possible but not always the case. Even in the Suttas they talk about arahants who don't teach but they are still teachers in the way that they act and they talk, and their actions inspire others.

If you were to ask an arahant about anything related to the Dhamma, they would generally be able to tell you from experience that this is how it's the case. But it's not like they take it upon the idea that they have to become a teacher as such. For example, it says that if somebody becomes a stream enterer with path, then before they pass on, at the time of death, they will attain fruition.

Or if somebody was a sakadagami with path, then at the time of their death, they would attain fruition of sakadagami. Not that they would attain the next step, but they would attain the fruition of that particular path. How long did you find that they attained fruition? After many, many, many experiences, testing the mind. If anyone thinks that they're a stream enterer, anyone thinks that they're whatever it is, I give them a minimum of three years to test out if they truly are that.

It was five years before, but now I'm being a little more generous and I'm saying three years. You have to have the mind be able to be in different situations, different circumstances, dealing with different kinds of people and see what kind of reactions are happening in the mind. And ultimately, to try to confirm for yourself, there's not really much use there, actually.

It's really how much suffering have you let go of? How much craving have you let go of? How much ignorance have you let go of? What is your understanding of the Dhamma? How do you react in difficult situations? When somebody gives you your favorite meal and snatches it away from you, what is your reaction? You know, different kinds of situations like that. Probation period of three years, yeah. With the path to stream enterer, there's actually mentioned the seven categories of beings, seven categories of people. is a Dhamma follower and one is a faith follower. If there is faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, and actually this comes from the Digha Nikaya, Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Digha Nikaya 25, one of those.

Mahaparinibbana Sutta, it talks about the mirror of the Dhamma, and Ananda asked the Buddha, how are we supposed to understand where someone is on the path. And the Buddha says for someone who is a stream winner, this is what the translation says, someone who is a stream winner, they will have conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. So that's the minimum. Having conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha allows you to know if there's a potential for stream entry to be there or not. But here I'm saying potential, but in the sutra that actually says one is a stream winner if one has conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. It's not just faith, it's experiential conviction. You could just say I have faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. Yes, unwavering confidence, unwavering confidence. Someone who just listens to the government and feels very inspired, that's the thing. Well, you hear it, you have faith, you pick it up. That doesn't mean you can keep it. Right.

If you're willing to get deeper into it, you study it and then you acquire a more reflective acceptance of it, then you don't. Right. And if you bring that to a deeper commitment, it's so that that difference it actually really happens until it gets really unshakable. Because then there's the view attainer, one who has established right view, that's another aspect of entering the stream, and then there's levels of that. There's a mundane level of right view and then there's a super mundane level of right view. So the view attainer and so on and so forth. Traditionally it's been said that the faith follower and the Dhamma follower are entering the stream, but then the view attainer and one liberated by faith have gotten fruition of sotapanna.

Can one have conviction and yet still disagree on someone that their experiences are different than the Buddha's experiences? How do you mean exactly? Well, it seems like the faith entrance sometimes can be childish in a way. I think rather than saying faith we should say confidence, that is to say after having tested and seen for oneself, there's clarity in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, clarity in why one has confidence in the Buddha, in the Dhamma and in the Sangha. One's direct experience being slightly different than the Buddha's experience, since he does say, and I tell you all this, but go find out for yourself also.

Can one still say one's created has conviction and yet has maybe different experiences? Yes, yes, like we were talking about, right? Somebody has faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, but just because they have faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, they might not be following the words of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, and their experience could be different. They're not applying the Eightfold Path.

The application of the Eightfold Path is what's required for the experiential confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha. In another sutta, it's talked about how one who determines and starts walking the Eightfold Path is headed towards becoming a stream-enter. It is just this eightfold path. Yeah? I was expanding on that, what I was supposed to say. When I was starting with that, at some point, it was screaming. But Buddha asked him, "Do you believe in this teaching?" And he says, "No." So that's kind of where she might be at the movie. Do you even know what? Say it again. Yes, you believe what? Do you believe in the solution? Yes, yes. No, I think whatever is good.

But I think that could also apply for a stream enter, not just an Arahant. Because for a stream enter, they have had a glimpse into the Dhamma. One who doesn't have faith, because he doesn't need it anymore. Yeah, because he is completely there. You need some kind of faith, you need some kind of guidance until you complete. When you have completely there, you don't need it anymore. It's actually a sequence that happens that not a lot of people pay attention to, because a lot less people are interested in the Vinaya. But when you read the Vinaya, it's a sequence that happens a lot, because the Vinaya is also designed to be a little bit of the biography of Sariputta at the same time, so you get a little bit of a glimpse of the story. And that's where you actually have suttas that Rathbhita will deliver in this course to an audience, apparently always, and we will begin by uplifting their minds, which is a really interesting line.

We have a talk on generosity, kindness, devas, which was a very uplifting thing for a lot of people all the time. And once their mind was clean and bright and a bit of dust, he would give one horrible truth, and then they would enter the stream and have fun of each other with their lives. And then he would say that that's a stock sequence. And then they would attain perfect confidence in the teacher, without, in the teaching, without an external, without somebody else's help to get their own understanding. They haven't seen it, they didn't get it from somebody telling me, you should do this. It's like they saw the compound, because their mind was clear, bright, lifted, it was beautiful, and then they were ready to receive the Dhamma.

That's what he also uses as a technology. And then once that happens, they gain confidence in the teaching without another person, so they are able to stand for themselves and say, no, this is true, this is what I experienced also. It's interesting because it's in a lot of places in the community. Actually, based on that, there was an interesting story that I read about Yasa. This is a funny story to me, actually, if I remember it correctly. Yasa is basically hungover from a party that he had last night, and he's seeing all these people just like hungover and sleeping and just disgusted and disenchanted with all of that, and he decides to take a walk into the park or something. He's taking the walk and he sees the Buddha over there, and the Buddha sees that his mind is right, and then he gives him a similar discourse about generosity and the virtues, and he goes through the whole path with Yasa, and Yasa becomes a stream enter. Then Yasa goes away and he's around there, but he's hidden. Right, he's hidden.

And Yasa's father is looking for him, so Yasa's father asked the Buddha, have you seen my son Yasa? And it's the way I paraphrase it. The Buddha says, never mind that, let me tell you about this, and then he gives him the whole Dhamma, that same sequence, and then Yasa's father becomes a stream enter. But while Yasa is listening to that, he becomes an arahant. So, listening one time, he becomes a stream enter; listening another time, he becomes an arahant. The same stock sequence. When he goes to Yasa's place, isn't Yasa's mother the woman who offered the cure to the woman? Is the mother of Yasa? Oh, interesting. Okay. When Yasa goes to Yasa's place, it becomes the same teaching.

Yeah. All right. Any other questions? Yeah. The way to look at that is when we talk about that kind of pain, we call it meditation pain. And that can arise at any point in your meditation. That arises because the mind is too fixated on its object. It becomes too focused, and that can create some kind of pain, or there can arise some level of aversion there, and that manifests as pain and restlessness.

That can happen too. The way you know that something is meditation pain is if you get up and move around, that pain disappears. If it's physical pain, you'll still feel it in the body. So really, that is mental pain that feels like it's manifesting in some aspect of the body. It can happen in the shoulders, in the neck, in the back, wherever it might be. But that pain, you have to understand as just painful feeling. You cannot 6R's away a painful feeling. You can recognize your relationship, your mind's relationship to that pain. There is this pain. How is the mind reacting to it? Is there aversion to it? And you let go of that and come back to your object. Generally, when that happens, soften the mind. When the mind becomes too hard, too constricted, it can develop as some kind of feeling of pain in the body.

There is an interconnection between mind and body. When mind is tired, body feels tired. When body feels tired, mind feels restless. When you see that, soften, relax more after you 6R's, and then come back to your object. Generally, you don't want to. Just see through the pain. You don't have to go gung-ho and try to be like, I'm going to stay with the pain. It's not about staying with the pain. It's about being okay that the pain is there. So that means you have to develop more of your equanimity.

How do you develop equanimity? Develop more of your collectedness. How do you develop your collectedness? Develop more of your tranquility. Tranquility gives rise to collectedness. Collectedness gives rise to equanimity. Equanimity gives rise to disenchantment. Disenchantment means you don't care about that pain anymore. If it's there or not, it doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. Are you sitting? You're sitting in a chair, okay? Yeah. Is that clear? All right. I think everybody's pretty much ready to go. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck be fearless. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Thank you.