Day 8 Intro to Dependent Origination-6 Craving links - Craving, Clinging, Tendencies, Birth -Part 1

There is a Sutta in which the Buddha talks about where he says that he's holding a handful of leaves. And so he has a handful of leaves and there is this forest around. And he likens the handful of leaves to what knowledge and wisdom is necessary for the liberation from suffering, for freedom from suffering. And that the rest of the forest is just other knowledge. We can be very interested in the mechanics of many different things, of how this works and how that works in dealing with devas and devatas to this realm and that realm and attaining this power and that power and all kinds of interesting knowledge and esoteric ideas.

But they will not lead to the end of suffering. They're fun. They're interesting. Colorful. But if our goal is to end suffering, a certain kind of wisdom is necessary. A wisdom born from the Eightfold Path. A wisdom born from Right View. And when we talk about the super-mundane Right View, we're talking about the Four Noble Truths. So the wisdom of the Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths are expanded in something known as paticca samuppada. This is translated as Dependent Origination. In Majjhima Nikaya 28, in the Greater Discourse on the Elephant's Footprint, Sariputta says, quoting the Buddha, that one who knows and sees the Dhamma knows and sees Dependent Origination. So it's that important.

But dependent origination is not theory, it's not a PhD course, it's not something to memorize, it's not something to debate. It is reality. It is the reality of everything that we experience. It's the truth. It's the understanding of how suffering arises and how suffering ceases. So when the Buddha attained awakening, full awakening in Bodh Gaya, you will see, if you ever go to Bodh Gaya, it's a very interesting place. There is purportedly that tree under which the Buddha attained full awakening.

And there is a temple behind it called the Mahabodhi Temple. And for all of its beauty and splendor and supposed power of meditation, it's very noisy. It's very noisy. There are monks from all over the world, whether it's Theravadan or Mahayana or Tibetan, coming and doing their prostrations, doing their circumambulations, doing their chants at 5 a.m., at 5 p.m.

There's laypeople, there's dogs, there's chipmunks. It's all kinds of beings, seen and unseen, very noisy. But it's interesting, when you go there, you will see there are these seven blocks in the ground to commemorate the steps that the Buddha took while contemplating the different aspects of the Dhamma. And so, seven days contemplating different aspects, seven times. So, 49 days of further contemplation after he became fully awakened. But one week of that contemplation was the contemplation of dependent origination.

He utilized his intuition in such a way to discern how does suffering arise? What is the cause and condition for suffering? And he discerned it was birth. Birth is the cause and condition for suffering. Namely, jara marana, which is old age and dying, or old age and death. And then he asked a further question in his mind. With what as condition does birth arise?

Becoming. Habitual tendency as condition. Birth arises. With what as condition does habitual tendency arise? Clinging. With what as condition does clinging arise? Craving. With what as condition does craving arise? Feeling. With what as condition does feeling arise? Contact. With what as condition does contact arise? The six-fold base. With what as condition does a six-fold base arise?

Mentality, materiality. With what as condition does mentality, materiality arise? Consciousness. With what as condition does consciousness arise? Formations. With what as condition do formations arise? Ignorance. With the cessation of the sixth sense base, there is a cessation of contact. With the arising of contact, there is the arising of feeling. With the cessation of contact, there is a cessation of feeling. With the arising of feeling, there is the arising of craving.

With the cessation of feeling, there is a cessation of craving. With the arising of craving, there is the arising of clinging. With the cessation of craving, With the arising of clinging, there is the arising of becoming, or habitual tendencies. And with the cessation of birth, there is the cessation of suffering. This entire schema of the 12 links of dependent origination, if you fully understood that and saw how it arises and how it ceases, that is the specialized wisdom that liberates from the bondage of samsara.

When Sariputta and Moggallana were, they were good friends from the beginning, they were from the same village. And they were young and they were quite excited to hear about the circus coming into town in their village. And so they said, let's go and visit and enjoy the circus and the festivities. And they went the next day, and they went the next day, and they went the next day. What do you think happens when you see the same thing over and over again?

Disenchantment. They became disenchanted. They said, is this all there is to life? There must be more than just pleasing the sense bases. And so they went forth and they became students of a man named Sanjaya Dalaputta, who was the founder of what is now seen as agnosticism or skepticism. It's what, in the suttas, they're known as eel wrigglers. They don't hold on to any views because they're afraid to debate on those views. So they're like, it could be, it might be, it couldn't be, who knows? They'd be perfect in a Woody Allen film.

And they were there for a while, and then they saw a man walking down, and they saw this man, his features were bright, and he was so calm and collected. And Sariputta went to see him, and he asked him, who is your teacher, and what does he teach? And he said, my teacher is the Buddha, and he teaches this. With the arising of this, there is the arising of that. With the cessation of this, there is the cessation of that. This is what he teaches.

And that first half, with the arising of this, there's the arising of that, with the cessation of this, there's the cessation of that, he became a stream-enter. It took a little longer for Moggallana, he had to hear the entire stanza, and then he attained stream-entry. And so they went to see the Buddha, and the rest is history, basically. They became the chief disciples of the Buddha. Moggallana was foremost in psychic faculties. You wouldn't see a lot of Moggallana mentioned because he was out there hanging out with the different Devas and things like that. And Sariputta was foremost in wisdom.

And so you would see, in fact, in Majjhima Nikaya number nine, which is the Sammaditthi Sutta, it's probably, in my opinion, one of the best elaborations and exercises of dependent origination, and it's given by Sariputta. So, this understanding of causality and conditionality, that is the fundamental basis for all of the Buddha Dharma. So what is suffering? Now we will go into some of the links.

We'll go into understanding how suffering arises, because we start with suffering and we move in reverse order. This is how dependent origination is taught, because you're starting to see the cause and condition for that, and then the previous causes and conditions for the thing that causes that. So you're looking at this in reverse order. So when we talk about suffering, it's a very dramatic word. We think suffering is this operatic thing of like we're in woe and lamentation all the time.

And yes, that's part of suffering. But suffering is essentially karma. It's the understanding of old karma. It's the way of understanding whatever we're experiencing right here, right now. Not all of it, but some of it that arises is a result of our actions. Things we may have failed to do. Things we may have done. Things that are not in our control.

And so the Buddha in the Mulya Sivaka Sutta takes accounting for this. He says there are those who will say everything is due to karma. Everything that happens is due to karma. And he said there are other factors present. Karma is one. Karma in terms of our intention which leads to a certain outcome. Karma in terms of inheriting the outcome of our previous intentions.

So there is the active and passive karma. Action and reaction. Action and consequence. But he said there are other things that you don't take account for that can happen. Such as the environment. The climate. We don't have control over that. We're not able to really see that as karma. It's just something that's happening around us. The sun to shine. We didn't ask for the clouds to come in. We didn't ask for a snowstorm.

It's just the climate that's there around us. And then there is accidents. You know, an accident by virtue of its word, accident, means that it was not intentional. We didn't intend to cause that accident. Obviously, we didn't intend to be in that accident. It happens. Then the imbalance of the body. During that time, in their time of medicine, they had the three humors, and so an imbalance of the humors is not necessarily karmic. It's just whatever maybe you ate, or you sat too long, or not enough exercise, or whatever it is, maybe something you drank, and that's just an imbalance in the body. You didn't intend for that to happen. And then unprovoked assault attacks.

Just walking down the street and somebody decides they want to attack you. Was that your karma? Well, that's a very uncompassionate way of looking at karma. Oh, they are this and this because they did something in lifetime 528. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't need to make sense. Karma should be dealt with in the present moment. The Buddha gave an analogy for this. He said, it's like somebody shoots an arrow at someone.

And instead of taking out the arrow and tending to the wound, one says, what type of arrow is this? Who shot the arrow? How fast did the arrow go? What is the wood that this arrow was made out of? You see, you're laughing. It's funny. It's stupid. wound. The same with karma. Why wonder, why did this karma arise? How did it arise? What happened in whatever lifetime? What happened three years ago that I might have done that resulted in this karma?

To deal with karma is to deal with the present moment. To deal with karma is to say, here is what I'm dealing with right now. I acknowledge it's not pleasant. How do I deal with it? Do I further propagate it with my reactions? And so there is the other analogy of the two darts. You may have heard this statement: pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

That comes from the understanding of the two darts. The first dart is the pain, the painful feeling, the unpleasant feeling, whatever that experience is. The second arrow is all of the identity and identification and taking it personally and wondering what do I do about this and lamenting about it. You may lament about it for maybe a few minutes, that's fine.

But the more aggravation you have about the pain, the further the pain feels more intense. I think you can all see this when that happens in meditation. You're sitting for long periods of time and parts of your body are on fire or they feel like they're on fire. And you say, when am I going to get out of this? How do I deal with this? Will this pain stop?

That's the second dart. The first dart is just the pain that arose from contact between your body and the chair or the cushion. Can you recognize the second arrow? Can you recognize the discomfort that is arising due to your reaction to the pain? And can you soften it? Can you relax it? Because what you'll see is when you do that, the pain subsides.

Because it's our reactions that amplify the experience, that amplify the feeling. Our reactions. That's karma. And why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about it in this context? Because whether you talk about Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Yoga, whatever it is, in the Indic, ancient Indian philosophy systems or the systems of practice, they did not negate the idea of rebirth. Rebirth as the problem.

The root cause for suffering is the rebirth in samsara. Now we live in a different world and a different time. How do we prove that rebirth actually exists? We cannot. There is no fail-safe proof to say this is what rebirth is. We have the evidence from this, this, and this. However, we can look at rebirth in a different way.

Have you not found yourself in situations where you say, I am not going to continue in this kind of relationship anymore. And two years down the road, you find someone that you're very interested in. And you're in a relationship with them. And somehow, you end up with the same patterns that you had in the previous relationship. Is that not rebirth?

You might say, I'm going to leave this country and I'm going to go halfway around the world and resolve my problems by doing that. I'll leave the community that I find despicable. I will leave the environment I find irritating and I'll go halfway around the world. And I go there. We go there. And then six months down the road, we find ourselves in similar situations.

These people don't speak the same language from where you were halfway before, halfway around the world before. And yet you find them similarly irritating. You find yourself similarly in the same or similar situations, and you're wondering what happened. And that's rebirth. That's rebirth. The rebirth of action. Doing the same actions. Having the similar kinds of intentions. And then causing similar kinds of suffering.

So this process that we're doing with meditation is to enlighten us to our cravings. to our patterns of behavior and thinking that cause us to produce the same actions that result in suffering. And the right effort that we do, the six R's, is to be aware of when the pattern is coming up again and to let it go.

To seeing it and letting it go. When you let go, the mind is free of its fears and anxieties, free of any defensiveness, free of any identity struggle of what I should do and what I shouldn't do. And it allows for intuition, which is wisdom to arise, you can speak, you can act in accordance with what is appropriate for that given situation, which is a type of action that is non-productive of further karma. And that action, whether it's in mind, body, or speech, is in full alignment with the Eightfold Path.

Any kind of action that is in alignment with right speech, right action, right intention, right livelihood, does not result in further karma. It only results in the attenuation of whatever karma has arisen and the eventual dissipation and disappearance of it. It's the same in meditation. The hindrances that you are experiencing, that is the karma that you have inherited due to previous causes and conditions.

Because you may have indulged in feelings and intentions of ill will. You may have indulged in feelings of sensual craving, in intentions of that. And so that manifests. And sometimes horrible memories come in. Things we regret, things we are remorseful for. Anxieties about the future, what will happen? Different kinds of things come up. Now here's the thing. Don't like to hear this, but meditation is a way of learning how to die.

Because when you're about to die, you will be met with an onslaught of many different thoughts from your life. How you choose to respond to that will determine further rebirth on a macro level, from one life to the other. Be happy that you are experiencing that now, in the meditation so you can practice how to let go.

The hindrances that are arising, the thoughts that are arising are the old karma, the effect, the reaction of past actions. Now if you choose to try to push it, to hold on to it, to manipulate it in any way rather than just letting it go, adding further fuel to the fire. That fuel being your attention and the intention to possess or to push.

And when you have that fueling the attention which fuels that further propagation, then you're not doing anything. You're just being a victim to your mind. But the moment you're able to recognize, be aware, have the mindfulness, the clear comprehension, here is a hindrance. It is just a hindrance. This is my karma in this moment. How do I choose to deal with it?

Can I let it go? Can I soften it? Can I relax it? And in doing so, once it has been let go, fulfill the second part of right effort, which many people overlook, the bringing up, the reconditioning of the mind by bringing up a wholesome object, a wholesome condition. Thereby, what we are doing effectively is taking out the corrupt people pieces of software in the operating system of our mind and installing new updated software which runs seamlessly and effectively.

And that is the Eightfold Path. That is the wholesome, skillful states of mind that we are installing. And as we do this over a period of time, you will see a change in how you respond to the same situations that used to aggravate you, how you respond to the same hindrances that used to bother you in meditation, that now no longer have a hold on you, in which case you are able to let go.

And that same hindrance, that same situation, that same type of person that comes into your life, It has less of an effect on your mind. And it starts to continue to weaken over time. Until there is complete dissolution of it. And the non-arising. It no longer arises anymore. And if it does, it no longer has that same emotional quality to it. It's just an experience. without a me, mine, or myself, without a story around it, without taking it personally.

That is the essence of dependent origination. It's not about trying to memorize all of the links in the reverse order and the forward order. It's not about trying to figure out all the different types of sub-links and things that are happening in there. We'll go through all of that. know it or you recall it or you remember it. Just remember this. Understanding dependent origination is understanding this arises because of this. If I let go of this, that will no longer arise.

I am in this situation because right now I can choose to leave the situation based on how I respond, how I react. I can choose to be in a space that is peaceful, in a space that is happy, in a space that is tranquil. Not necessarily passive, but I can choose to respond in a way that is empowering.

Because if I choose to hate with the same hatred that I am being given in this moment, There is no difference. It only further adds to the fire of suffering. But through wisdom and understanding, if I see this hatred from this person, is because they are suffering themselves. And I don't add to that suffering. And I don't add to my own suffering.

Because real passivity is just being in that clouded thinking of, I need to retaliate. That's the actual passivity. The real action, the real taking of action is being filled with wisdom and seeing what is happening, choosing to let go that initial spark of hatred and acting out of kindness, acting out of patience, acting out of equanimity. And what happens?

You disempower that hatred. And a person who is expecting you to react in kind is like, wait, this isn't working. What's happening? And they may double their efforts. So what do you do? You double your efforts. And eventually they'll go away. So this is what it means to understand dependent origination. The application of dependent origination is to see everything ultimately as an impersonal process, as empty of any kind of personal permanent self.

The process of full and total complete non-identification with all experience. And so when we talk about dukkha or suffering, suffering or dukkha is essentially an experience that is something that we don't want. The etymology of dukkha, it actually is related to a wheel that is slightly off-center. karma. But every time I go to Walmart, I get that one cart where that one wheel is just slightly dangling and it doesn't want to work.

And I've seen it. Sometimes one of these two will be pushing the cart and it's smooth. As soon as I push it, the wheel just... And that's what suffering is. Something is just slightly not working the way it should. And so we have the general category of suffering, we have the unexpected category of suffering, and we have the existential category of suffering. This is known as Dukkha-dukkha, Viparinama-dukkha, and Sankhara-dukkha. So the general category is the usual kind of suffering we experience, the pain in the body, the aging, the death, the illness. These kinds of things, depression, anxiety, grief, sadness, sorrow, lamentation, all of these are the usual fare of dukkha, of suffering.

And then we have something called viparinama dukkha, the dukkha of unexpected change. Not like unexpected change, like some money drops into your pocket. Change in terms of something that you didn't expect to happen in a bad way. That kind of change is like missing your flight or finding out once you get to the airport, your flight is cancelled. Or getting a flat tire when you're driving. Something that happens that you didn't expect to happen, something you didn't want to happen happens.

And the thing you wanted to happen doesn't happen. Which shows what? Total control of our situations. There is no controller here. We think we can control everything. That's what life is. That's what this samsara is. Every invention, every technology, every business is in the process of trying to bring more control in our lives. Like we have more power by being in the air-conditioned room when it's hot and sunny. We're trying to control our environment, we're trying to control our bodies, we're trying to do all kinds of things.

But we can never be in full control of things. And that comes to existential dukkha, the sankhara dukkha, which arises when we have this identification, this idea of taking personally body, that the self is the body, or the self is experiences, or the self is the perceptions, or the self is our choices, or the self is awareness.

These different views of what are known as the five aggregates, the form, the body, right? Anything in terms of form. Feeling, that is sensations and experiences. Perceptions, that is the labeling of what it is that we are experiencing, the choices, the formations, the decisions that we've already made, and the awareness. When we identify with them as they belong to us, they are us, or we are in them, or we are separate from them, this misperception results in existential dukkha. That's when the question arises, why me? What is my purpose in this life? Who am I? What am I going to do? Where did I come from?

These thoughts all come from this one single letter, I. And this I is rooted in what's known as conceit. The word, mana, to measure, to compare. Either I am inferior to this person, or whatever it is, my experiences, whatever it is, or it is superior, or it is even equal to. There is always that I, there's always that taking it personally.

And that comes from a desire to be secure and stable in an otherwise unstable and insecure world. When we are in the womb, we experience security and comfort and safety. Nutrition is provided for us. Everything is provided. We don't have to think about anything. And then birth happens. And we find ourselves looking at all these unfamiliar faces, like what is going on. And we recognize a familiar feeling, a familiar vibration, a familiar scent that is the mother.

And we find comfort in that. We find security and stability in that. And we hold on quite physically to that for many months and years. It's almost like our personality is inbuilt, is enmeshed with the caregiver, with the mother. And then later, we start to develop a sense of an independent I, based on whether I like mashed peas or mashed applesauce. Whether I like the color red or the color green. Whether I like a cube or a sphere.

And different things come up where we're like, I like this. This is part of me. This is who I am. three. These peas should not be touching these carrots. This is not what I want. So we start to develop a personality. We start to develop an I. We find security in that. And then we meet someone else that seems to be similar to our age, similar to our size, a different person. What do they have? I want what they have. do.

And if you ever had siblings, right, that's where you'll learn how to be exactly right in the middle. Why does she get more and I get this much, right? Why didn't you shout at her and you scolded me? This is all conceit. This is all the I, the identification that comes up. And so when we have that, there is an existential suffering there that arises.

And the condition for these kinds of suffering is what's known as jati, which is usually translated as birth or rebirth. And in the context of our lives, what that rebirth means can depend on the context. It can mean different kinds of contexts. For example, it can mean rebirth of the arising and passing away of consciousnesses. That's a kind of rebirth that's happening in every moment.

But it could also mean the rebirth of similar kinds of situations. Like for example, we said, we move halfway around the world. But somehow we attract the same kind of people. Same kind of situations. That's a rebirth. That's a birth of new karma. And that arises because of our habitual tendencies. Our habitual reactions. The type of person that we think we are.

And this is called bhava, which is sometimes translated as existence. Because in every moment, we are shaping our existence based on our intentions. There are three categories of existence. The sensual, the form or luminous form, and the formless categories of beings. We talk about the cosmology in the universe, and you might see it over there in that chart where it talks about the hell beings and the animal realms and the hungry ghosts and all of these things.

But putting that aside, we can see that in terms of our psyche, right? When we become jealous, when we become greedy, when enough is not enough. I'll tell you where the hungry ghosts are. They're all on the Forbes list of billionaires. Because they don't have enough. They don't feel like they have enough. They need to do better all the time.

That is the mentality of a hungry ghost. Not enough. Always hungry. Teenagers are very animalistic. They're only about food and sex. Some people don't grow out of that. It's very animalistic. Then there are hellish beings. People who harm others for their entertainment. The people who cannot see the suffering of others. People who inflict a lot of pain and torture.

That's very hellish in nature. who are warm and they're giving and they're generous and they're loving and they're kind and they're compassionate and they're forgiving. And so they're very Deva-like, as we may say. They enjoy being in the company of people who are like-minded in the sense that they're there to build things. They're there to forge relationships. They're there to make peace.

When you say devas, they're like angelic beings, in that sense. And then there is the luminous form and the formless. So somebody who meditates all the time and gets in these jhanas, as they continue to do this, their mindset, their psyche, is very similar to, is in alignment with the first jhana or the second jhana or the third or the fourth or an infinite space or infinite consciousness or nothingness or neither perception or non-perception.

While they're eating, they're in the jhanas or in the formless states. When they're walking, when they're driving, when they're on the airplane. Such a person who has that mindset has very little craving in their mind. They're just, they let go. Because their inner joy, their inner happiness, their inner contentment doesn't allow for them to be so inclined into, I need this and I want this and I want to possess this.

And so those are the habitual tendencies, the existence, the psyche, with which you take a decision, with which you take an action, with which you say something. When you are met with choices in your life, which are similar to previous choices, previous situations, there is an inclination towards a specific choice. That is the action, or that is the propulsion, that is the momentum of bhava, of habitual tendency, that causes you to take that particular choice, which is known as the birth of karma.

As soon as you've thought the thought, as soon as you've said the word, as soon as you've taken the action, you cannot recall it. You can't call it back. You can see it coming up in the mind, and here is a choice I'm about to make, which I know is not the best choice, in fact is a detrimental choice, but I'm only doing it because my mind is conditioned to behave in this way. But wisdom arises using the 6R's and I let go of that. That's the bhava, I let go of that, so no further propagation of that same karma can arise. I do the action. Or I don't act.

Or I say something differently. Or I choose not to say something. And so I don't find myself in the same circumstances again. It changes. So if you think about dependent origination like a stream, like a river, all of the different links all the way come towards becoming, habitual tendencies, and that's the bend of the waterfall. You can still swim away towards security by the 6R's. But once you go down the waterfall, once you have taken the decision and acted on that, you can't come back up. You crash into suffering.

So this becoming, this association, or I should say this habitual tendency, is dependent on something known as clinging. Upadana. Upadana means fuel. There are four kinds of clinging. And these kinds of clinging are essentially the rationalizing of why it is we think we want something or we hate something. So when you find in your mind, you say, I like this thing, quality of, I need to possess this thing, or I hate this thing, take it away from me.

There is a further thing that's happening. I don't like this thing because of so-and-so. Therefore, I will act this way. I don't like this thing is the craving or the aversion. Because of so-and-so is the clinging, is the rationalizing of why I don't like something. is the becoming, is the bhava, is the habitual tendency. And then I act in that way.

So when you talk about sensual clinging, clinging to sensual pleasures, it's the clinging of, I like this particular product, or I like this particular fragrance, or I like this particular bedding, or I like this particular food, or I like this particular whatever sensual pleasure it is, because of so-and-so. You have an association with that. And this is what great marketers do. They tap into your clinging.

A person only wants to drive a specific car because it shows what kind of person they are to the world. They will only wear a certain type of clothing or brand of clothing because it is associated with a certain type of industry, the visual that they want to project. A good example of this is, nowadays, I don't know, but when you go to the grocery store, you go to the cereal aisle, you see what?

About two or three feet from the ground is all the colorful cereal. Because they're targeting the little kids with the colors. I want this. I want that. Because it's this color, or because it's got a bunny on it. Marketing is that. It's the ability to associate certain things with certain products, with certain services. And the flip side of that, that also includes trauma.

The kind of trauma that we've had in life informs us of what we don't like. We find ourselves meeting a person, or find ourselves going to a place, or there's a certain situation, and it reminds us of something that we experienced before as traumatic. And we don't like it, and we push it away. So that's the sensual clinging, that's the clinging to sensual pleasures. There's clinging to views. Clinging to views means we cling to certain kinds of wrong views, specifically any view that is not in alignment with right view.

So in the time of the Buddha, you had these different views related to extreme asceticism, related to eternalism, related to nihilism, related to skepticism or agnosticism, related to different things that were not fully in alignment with the understanding of right view, not in alignment with the understanding of karma, of what intention is. But then there's also something called clinging to views in general, clinging to our opinions about things.

I used to think that it was only in the U.S., because I used to see people watching something like CNN or Fox News or whatever, and they all would listen to these talking heads just argue with each other about this topic or that topic. And you can see in the mind of that person, they're identifying with one particular opinion, and they cling to that particular idea, or they cling to that particular ideology.

The basis of all conflict, the basis of all wars, is clinging to views. And the Buddha says this, that the clinging to views results in the taking up of the stick and the sword. And we create a personality around that opinion or those set of opinions. But if you start to see that those opinions are not actually your own, you've inherited them from your parents or your friends or your teachers or your fellow students or people at your office, whatever it is, or something you've read, or something you've watched online or on TV.

And so if it's aligned with your views, you accept it. If it's not, you push it away. And sometimes you mischaracterize an entire group of people for having a view that is opposite to your own. And it can be as insidious as taking up a specific kind of political ideology, or, you know, some people get very passionate about sports teams.

Why does that arise? Why does that happen? It comes from conceit. It's the desire for security, tribalism, the desire to belong, the desire to feel like you're part of something. That's the conceit. And so you associate with certain views. And that becomes part of your personality. That's the existence. And you act from there. And that's the karma. The karma is intention.

Then there's something called clinging to Dhamma. Clinging to the Dhamma itself. How do you cling to the Dhamma? intended to be, which is a vehicle for liberation. You make it into another ideology where it's like, this is the right Dhamma and they're all wrong and we have to show them how wrong they are. But if you let go, by seeing the Dhamma as a raft that takes you from one shore to the other. It takes you from ignorance to wisdom. It takes you from craving to contentment. It takes you from bondage to freedom.

Now that you have reached the other shore, why carry the raft with you? Use the raft whenever you need to travel, but why carry it with you? Don't make it into another view. In Majjhima Nikaya 74, Diganaka Sutta, there is a man named Diganaka. He is either the cousin or the nephew of Sariputta, one of the chief disciples.

And Sariputta is fanning the Buddha while the Buddha is having a discussion with Diganaka. So he comes to the Buddha and he says, I have let go of all views. I don't hold on to any views. And the Buddha says, but have you let go of the view that you have no views? And then he goes into a discussion about what feeling is, what vedana is, and letting go of identification with all experience.

And as Sariputta is listening to him, he realizes the Buddha is not even attached to his own Dhamma. He has used the path to go where he needs to, but he's no longer attached to it. And at that point, he attains arahant, Sariputta. That is clinging to views. When you let go of that, there is a lot of relief in it.

And if you just see how much peace there is in just being present, we don't have to give your views all the time. We don't have to be opinionated about things all the time. You can just live life as it unfolds. Freedom in that. And then there's something known as clinging to rites and rituals. What this means is we cling to certain kinds of rituals that are either detrimental for us or for others. The most apparent one at the time of the Buddha was sacrifices that were offered, and there were animal sacrifices or sometimes even human sacrifices.

Obviously, that is a clinging to a wrong kind of rites and rituals. But there's also something about clinging to moral perfectionism. People get so caught up in, am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing the right thing? Was this right? Was that wrong? Or what happened there? Just relax and just notice what was your intention behind it. Yes, there are unintended consequences. It has nothing to do with karma.

If you can go back and see your intention is in alignment in not harming others or harming yourself, then let go of trying to see whether you are doing it exactly as it should have been. That's the clinging to moral perfectionism. And then finally, there's clinging to self-view. That's the clinging to the body or the experiences or the perceptions of those experiences, clinging to our choices or intentions, clinging to awareness or consciousness, whatever you want to call it, as belonging to me, mine, or myself.

Taking it personally. You see, this doesn't go completely away until you become fully awakened. But when you enter the stream, you have an experience that informs your mind where it can no longer have these intellectual views related to a personal permanent self. Things are impersonal without a shadow of a doubt. You might still identify on a nuanced and subtle level, because of conceit, which only goes away when you become fully awakened.

And so these kinds of clinging, these associations with our opinions about things, with sensual pleasures, with how we identify with one or more of the five aggregates, with certain kinds of rites and rituals, they build up, again, a certain kind of personality, which is the becoming. And from that personality, that habituation, those habitual tendencies, there is an action. And that action invariably leads to further propagation of karma that we don't want.

That we want to dissipate. Now this clinging is dependent and conditioned by something known as craving. Tanha. Tanha literally means thirst. To thirst. And it has this very tight obsessive quality about it. And it arises because there's a deep identification with whatever is being experienced. There are three types of craving. Sensual craving, craving for being, and craving for non-being.

Sensual craving is, I see that piece of chocolate cake. It's a pleasant looking chocolate cake. And I take the first bite of that chocolate cake. And it's a pleasant sensation of wonderful chocolate cake. But I want more and more and more, to my own detriment. I get obsessed by chocolate cake. That obsessive quality is craving.

The craving for being is the craving for becoming something or being someone. I have to be in this jhana. Why am I not in this jhana? Why am I not here? Why am I not there? Why am I unable to let go of this? That stems from frustration. That is the craving for being. Craving for non-being. That is, I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in this space. I don't enjoy being here. I want to push it away. And you think about people who take their own lives.

Why do they do that? Because things become so overwhelming that for them the idea of relief is to end all of it. And it comes from identification with the me, mine, or myself. That is the root of craving. The ignorance that this is me, mine, or myself. So we've gone through six links. There are six left which we'll talk about tomorrow.