Day 9 Last Day -Ending Samsara

Please sit with your back straight and calm your mind and repeat after me. I now take refuge in the Buddha. I now take refuge in the Dhamma. I now take refuge in the Sangha. For the second time, I take refuge in the Buddha. For the second time, I take refuge in the Dhamma. For the second time, I take refuge in the Sangha. For the third time, I take refuge in the Dhamma. For the third time, I take refuge in the Sangha. Please clear your mind and pay close attention and repeat after me. I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from killing or harming living beings on purpose.

I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from taking what is not given. I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from wrong sexual activity. I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from telling lies and harsh speech. I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from taking drugs and alcohol. I undertake to be loving and kind to myself and all beings. I think that's it right there. That's right. Let them eat cake. Today is the final day. The last day.

You guys survived. Good. Today is actually my final talk of the final day of the final retreat of mine here in Dhammasukha. So it's important to understand what it is that you've experienced on retreat and what you take away back into the real world. Where there will be pain and suffering. There will be jerks and idiots.

There will be difficult and challenging situations. So how do you choose to deal with all of that? Is it possible to maintain your awareness of what you have learned and apply it when it counts the most? Because it's easy to be mindful in situations and circumstances and places and with people who are peaceful and calm and tranquil. But your mind will still have the same familiar habitual tendencies.

And now the real test comes when you go back into the world. How will you choose in every given moment? How will you decide in every situation? Are you going to be clear minded? Or if not, are you going to be able to recognize, give a pause, relax, and then deal with the person or situation?

Are you going to remember to keep the precepts? Are you going to remember to take refuge in your own mind? When you do that, nothing can shake you. The Buddha had said in one of his final words, in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, he said, take refuge in your mind.

Be an island unto yourself. You have cultivated a mind that is relatively collected. A mind that has loving kindness. A mind that has generated compassion. A mind that has even experienced, to some extent, dispassion. Can you call upon those things? Can you make that your home base from where you can think, speak, and act?

And when mindfulness slips, do you? Do you, or will you, judge yourself? Beat yourself up? Be upset about being upset? Or will you forgive yourself? I slipped up. I choose to let go. I choose the determination to do better next time. What is required on this path is total sincerity.

When it comes to sila, that is keeping the precepts, samadhi, that is meditation, and panya, that is wisdom. Be sincere. Be humble. Be open to the world around you. Do not keep any kind of concepts when it comes to the world. When you can do this, when you can have a mind that is free of projecting opinions and views upon people and the world, just in that experience, your mind is free of any mental proliferation.

We are not trying to attain Nibbana as some kind of a state. Nibbana is not a state. We are not trying to attain some kind of super normal power. Nibbana is in the right now. Every time you can do this. Every time you can give a sense of a state. Every time you let go and abandon the desire to control the present moment, you are letting go of the sense of self.

And when you let go of the sense of self, what remains is a mind free of any ignorance. Free of any kind of conceit. Free of any kind of craving. The mind is vast. Like the clear blue sky. The mind is vast.

Like the clear blue sky. Without a trace of clouds. A trace of birds flying. Just a clear, crystalline blue sky. Tranquil. No. How enlightened have I become. How much more work is left to be done. Rest in the clarity and luminosity of the clear blue sky. Mind.

That is the nature of the mind. It is naturally luminous. And when obscuration arises, it's okay. Recognize them. Relax. Come back. When you have this kind of mind, there is nothing to think about. There is nothing to contemplate. There is nothing to reflect on. The mind is utterly intuitive.

Every choice that may arise comes from intuition. And that intuition is aligned with the Eightfold Path. It is aligned with the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. That intuition is what you are developing. What you have been developing. You have the Suttas. You have the words of the Buddha as your guide.

As your teacher. But at the end of the day, you are your own teacher. No matter how much of an imposter syndrome you may have, underneath all of that is the natural luminosity of mind. And if you are your life. And if you trust in that. If you take refuge in it, it will never fail you.

It will lead you in the directions that need to be taken in order for the release of suffering, and the release from suffering. When you make that your base, your actions. Your words. Your thoughts. Your intentions. Will not only be aligned with the Eightfold Path. Whether it's this is my religion, this is my race, this is my identity, this is who I am.

The more we have that, the further down the rabbit hole we are. The deeper we are entrenched in the game, we become fixated by what state am I in? Which jhana am I in? Am I doing this right? What's going on here? We get closer and closer to that state, to that space, to that level of being slash non-being. Which is not concerned, not interested, disillusioned by the VR game.

We choose to take off that VR headset. That's the Dhamma. But remember, the Dhamma itself can also be a VR headset through which we view the world. Today, for some reason, I have been seeing a lot of spiders. Outside of my door, there's this beautiful spider web. When I got into the Delson Mobile, there was a web right near the driver's seat.

When I came up to the interview cabin, there was another web. So opening the door, you go bow down and get into the door. I saw spider webs everywhere and spiders everywhere. And that's the world that is existence. And that is the mind of somebody fully awakened. They see the web for what it is.

They realize they have created that web through viewpoints and notions and ideas, through concepts, through attachments, through aversions, through identification, through this relationship is mine. This person is mine. They realize the entire web. But at some point, they choose to let go of all of that.

Even the Dhamma. And what do we mean by that? It's like when the spider has done the design of the web and done what needs to be done. Now what does it do? It abandons, lets go of the spider web. It breaks apart the spider web. It's not done the spider web. It's not needed anymore. The Dhamma is the platform. It's the rowboat to get to the other shore. Once you are on the other shore.

Once you are on the other shore, your efforts are to just remain there. Don't worry about the Dhamma. If you remain in that space, you are automatically fulfilling the Dhamma. You are automatically protecting the Dhamma. You are automatically engaging with the Dhamma. Such a mind becomes even dispassionate towards the Dhamma. It's like the game is no longer interesting.

The mind has taken refuge so deeply in the realization of what this world is, what samsara is, and the escape from it. And the realization of so many different games that we have played through constant repatterning, through constant habitual tendencies, through constant rebirth. And it becomes totally disenchanted from it. It recognizes the importance of what needs to be done or what has been done.

It doesn't abandon that. But it becomes fully dispassionate and disinterested in identifying with it. It's like this. It's like this cycle here. It's like this circle where initially we are all ignorant of the suffering that we are causing ourselves. We numb the pain through different modalities. And then at some point we recognize and realize we are suffering. We've had enough of that depression. We've had enough of the anxiety. We've had enough of the grief. We've had enough of the pain. We've had enough of constantly making the same actions over and over again. Expecting a different result.

And so we choose to follow a path. The Dhamma. To let go of that suffering. And we become free of that suffering. Or we start to free up. Our minds. From that suffering. And then we come full circle to 360. Where we're no longer ignorant of the suffering. But we just don't care. There is suffering. There is no suffering.

Because the mind has such a mind has transcended that. Such a mind is aware that it is free of suffering. And at the same time it doesn't care if there is suffering. Not in the sense that it has lack of compassion for oneself. It just recognizes the illusion of the game. It realizes the illusion of the game.

It realizes the amount of times it has played the game. And has decided I'm not playing this game anymore. I'm done. And that is freedom. It's interesting that not only the Buddha. It's interesting that not only the Buddha but most ancient Indian traditions when they talk about Moksha or the escape from suffering or the letting go of the cycle of rebirth and samsara they specifically call it freedom.

They specifically call it liberation. Because what we have in terms of consensus reality. What we have in terms of consensus society. What we have in terms of this world that we have made up as a global human civilization. Is nothing more than a prison. What we have in terms of the inmates and the jailers. And we seem to enjoy playing both the inmates and the jailers.

And we seem to enjoy playing both roles. But at some point we recognize, wait a minute. How long do we want to play this role? Is there a way out? Samsara is a prison. The desire to escape. The wholesome inclination. And freedom is Nibbana, the other shore. The escape from prison.

And it's just our mind that is imprisoning our views, our concepts. Our ideas. Our attachments. They are the bricks. They are the bricks that make up this prison. And because we are in consensus reality. We accept it without realizing we are in a prison. We just accept the fact that it's okay to break precepts. It's okay to indulge. Indulge in sensual pleasures and identify with them. It's okay to experience whatever it is we experience.

And it's okay to identify with it. It's okay to defend. It's okay to create an identity around the things that we desire, around the things that we like. Around the things that we want, around the things that we don't like, around the things that we hate. And this is all of samsara. The beauty of being a human is that we have the ability to discern this.

We have the capacity to discern this. But if I were to judge what is happening around the world, I would say that many are not using that discernment. We have the truth.

We have the truth. to relive similar situations. So that you will learn and let go. And once you have let go, you do not experience that again. Or if you do. You are the wiser. And you are the stronger.

And the experience and situation is the weaker. And you choose to let go again until you are free. Until you are free from that particular jail cell of habitual patterns. And you continue your journey towards escaping. Until there's no more fetters. What do we mean by fetters? The word fetter. They are chains.

Imprisoning us. Until you are free. Until you are broken free from all of them. And you see the doorway out into freedom. Outside. So it will be tough. It will be challenging. It will be difficult. But it gets easier.

As we continue. And there will always be karma. No matter what. But eventually we become even disenchanted. And dispassionate towards karma. It's not like we have let go of our boundaries. It's not like we have become puppets. It's not like we have become ragdolls. To allow life to throw us here. It's not like we have been there and there. It's not like we are there and there. It's just that we don't care anymore.

We have stopped playing the game of this is mine. This is me. So come what may. We just are totally. I don't care. Why? Because I have something else. Which is my refuge. My own mind. I can take refuge in. And find that peace. And tranquil awareness. When I can fall back on that. Nothing affects me. As I said. It's a process. It will take time. Because you have a lot of things to unwind. We all have a lot of things to decondition. And recondition.

So that we can stay in the uncondition. We get caught up in our stories. We get caught up in our traumas. We get caught up in our reliving of those stories. We get caught up in our minds all the time. And it is the VR headset that we take on through which we see the world.

Oh he said this to me. She did that to me. They spoke about spoke about me behind my back. How could they say that? Why would they do that? Don't I also have a right to be the way I want to be? Don't I also have a right to be the way I want to be? Don't I also have a right to be the way I want to be? All these thoughts come up.

And it all starts from that one singular thought and concept. Me. I want to be the way I want to walk this path enough. You feel freedom. But the bars. They prevent you. It's the me. When you learn to surf the waves of experience as just experience. Completely in the flow. Of every given moment. As just experience. Then those bars disappear. And the other shore is in sight. So I will leave you with that. What do you choose? Prison or freedom? Thank you.