Oct 16, 2021 - Questions and Answers with Delson and Syl

I think we can open it up for questions. Oh yeah, I would like to start off. It's actually, I have a question about, still about Dana, that occurred to me. I was reading, I don't remember which exact sutta it was, it was on the fruits of actions or fruits of giving. And one of the last, or one of the highest fruits of giving was said to be that it is an adornment for the mind. And I was wondering what kind of person gives with such an intention, or what does it take to have such an intention?

I didn't understand that part about the adornment of the mind. Yeah, it puzzled me as well. So this sutta goes up from increasingly more noble motives. Yeah, I wish I had the sutta number for you somewhere in the number discourses. And this is, yeah, it follows from, well, giving is good, and then it corresponds to this kind of fruit coming from such and such an action, and then one of the highest motives would be that it supports the mind, or that it adorns the mind. So that's the translation I read. Yeah, it might be very specific, but I was wondering, so, yeah. Well, I don't recall the sutta reference, but it kind of sounds similar to lots of food, kind of, in terms of its gradual, gradual...

...you know, process of giving, in terms of giving to one who is unattained, and the sotapanna, and so on and so forth. And then, if I remember that one correctly, or I might be confusing it with another one, it does say that the highest is with loving kindness. The cultivation of loving kindness supersedes all of these, below all of these other acts of generosity and kindness and so on. But it goes even a step further and says beyond that is the perception of impermanence. So when you're cultivating loving kindness, when you're doing the loving kindness meditation,

you are actually doing one of the highest forms of generosity, because you're sending out to yourself, you're sending it out to a friend, or you're sending it out indiscriminately in all directions. And that can be experienced, and that can be felt by others. There are experiences of those who have been able to send loving kindness or compassion, and they suddenly experience knowing that that person is fine, and they might get a phone call from them or something. So it's not just a feeling in the mind, but it's actually also radiating in such a way that other people also notice it, and they'll notice it in subtle ways. Beyond the loving kindness, it's the perception of impermanence. So when you talk about the perception of impermanence,

that is the understanding of the arising and passing away of all conditioned things, that gives rise to the perception of the fact that all conditioned things are suffering, or dukkha, and therefore are liable to create suffering because of the fact that they're impermanent, and therefore they should not be taken as self. And that's the perception of anatta. So if you look at it from the context of practice, you start off with loving kindness. Well, even before that, you start off with generosity. You start off with your smile. You start off with having an attitude of gratitude. You start off with taking your precepts and trying to maintain them, and making sure that you don't break a precept, and that helps cultivate the mind.

And that gradually leads to an experience of loving kindness when you come into the meditation practice. And then, finally, that leads you to the experience of later stages of the Brahmaviharas, like compassion and joy, and so on. But there comes a point in the practice where you actually start to see the arising and passing away of phenomena.

And so you are seeing, in that moment, the truth of reality, which is that it is constantly arising and passing away. So that's the perception of impermanence, and then that leads to understanding deeper levels of insight, like understanding dukkha, understanding the nature of not-self, or non-self, the nature of anatta. And that ultimately leads to seeing reality as it is. That ultimately leads to disenchantment and dispassion, and ultimately cessation, and the experience of nibbana. So this is really the gradual path. Maybe I could add something to that. I will read a little part

from a sutta which talks about the female lay follower Velukantaki, and she was preparing an offering, and the Buddha praised her. He said the donor has three factors, and the recipients have three factors. And the three factors of a donor are: the donor is joyful before giving, she has a placid, confident mind in the act of giving, and she is elated after giving. And the three factors of the recipients are: the recipients are devoid of lust or are practicing to remove lust, they are devoid of hatred or are practicing to remove hatred, and they are devoid of delusion or are practicing to remove delusion. And if the gift is being given with these six factors in total, the Buddha says it's not easy to measure the merit of such an offering. Thus just so much is the stream of merit, the stream of the wholesome. So

it really depends on the minds of both the giver and the recipients how valuable this is so maybe the adornment of the mind also points a bit in that direction cool thanks yeah i think that's definitely uh definitely what i was uh kind of looking for there i i didn't yeah cool i i actually have a a second question and it's it's a i think this is a bit bit hard to answer but i was um i was wondering what what is uh mind because uh you know that the dutch language doesn't have this word exactly so it's it's kind yeah it's kind of tricky i i asked this to uh to sister keema as well and i i told her what i thought and she said well you know keep working on it but maybe you you have some pointers as well

What did you say? Well, I said to her I understood it as the functioning and working of the brains, and she said, well, that's a good starting point, and keep working on it. So that's what I'm doing, but maybe you have something to add without spoiling anything for me. Still, do you want to take this one first? Mind is a concept that is basically, I think, a great starting point, to not think of it like a kind of internal entity. But to tell you more about it would certainly spoil things, so I'm a bit hesitant. Well, you think about the Dhammapada reading, which we do when we have retreats,

we think about mind being the forerunner of all states. Why is that? Because it's through mind that you experience the factors of nama-rupa. Specifically nama. You think about nama, and that is the different factors: phassa, feeling, perception, intention, and attention. These five factors make up mind, but how do they make up mind? That is the work you have to do to find out. It's more than the brain, because if it wasn't, there wouldn't be any higher realms with beings who don't even have a body. Yes, that's true. Thank you, thank you for this angle. Attached to it, I have a question about sleep. I mean, it's something I've had trouble with most of my life, and on a meditation retreat especially, you know, it's like I've been meditating all day, so when I lie down and go to bed I'm still meditating. It's just really hard to turn it off. And right now, even when I get a full night's sleep, I just don't feel rested. I only really start to feel refreshed just from meditation. Do you have any advice?

well that's pretty good i mean if you can be refreshed from meditation and you have less do you have less need for sleep do you find um right now i feel like i have the same need for sleep okay yeah you know sometimes what happens is when people get deep into meditation especially once they start getting into like neither perception non-perception at least this has been the experience of some people in retreat is they have difficulty going to sleep because their mind is just always observant and so it's just watching what's going on and that's not necessarily a bad thing it's just a matter of how you see it eventually what happens is you become really mindful that even in your sleep you become quite mindful and you're able to see the different patterns of sleep or the different different levels of sleep and and things like that but think you have to come to a balance and when it comes to sleep you have to see what works for you you have to see what schedule works for you and don't try to do any kind of meditation

that can cause the mind to be, you know, thinking about this and that. Of course, the whole point of meditation is to let go of all of that process. So if you find that you meditate and then you're meditating closer to when you sleep, you might find that the mind is quite alert. That's just because the mind has been going through jhana, and it's quite collected and aware and attentive. So that's a good thing. Just don't allow your mind to think of it in a negative light. Be able to see it as a process, and be able to relax. You know, I mean, that's really the tranquilizing factor, the factor of relaxation, or the factor of tranquility,

is a very important element to cultivate as you get closer to sleep. Can I ask what kind of practice you're doing right now? Right now I'm doing forgiveness meditation. Okay, okay. And do you do it in the mornings or evenings, or how do you do it? I normally do it in the morning, but then also at night, right before I go to sleep, I send loving kindness to myself. Right? I would suggest, I mean, that's good. If you can send loving kindness to yourself, but what could be happening is that while you're sending loving kindness to yourself, you're getting into the first and second jhana, which is a very vibratory state. It's a very energetic state. It's filled with some kind of joy. Do you feel joy when you experience that? It's more like,

It's, I wouldn't quite... it's kind of subdued and pleasant. I know I'm doing forgiveness meditation now, but in the past I've gone much, much deeper, and this is like backtracking. Okay, so you have to see what works for you. Some people, if they meditate closer to the night or they have this experience, they can kind of be wired for most of the night and they won't be able to really go to sleep. So maybe see if it helps not to meditate before you go to sleep, and just meditate in the morning and in the afternoon. And if you are doing forgiveness practice, my suggestion is just to do forgiveness practice. Don't let the mind go into loving kindness or anything else until the mind is ready to completely let go of the forgiveness practice. And maybe, yeah, as a practical tip, from personal experience, I found it quite helpful when I discovered that I should stop counting the hours of sleep I had.

Because it can be really depressing when you say to yourself, "Oh, I only had three hours of sleep." It makes it worse somehow. Yeah, that makes sense, because a lot of people think they need seven, eight hours of sleep, and then they compare it to what they feel like. We have one participant here now, when we're at the Damasuka Retreat Center, who only sleeps three or four hours a day, but they are refreshed and they feel fine. So not everybody needs seven or eight hours of sleep. Sometimes you need less, sometimes more. It really depends upon your own body.

I have lots of questions on other things, but I don't want to stop other people from asking questions. Go ahead. It's fine. You can ask one more question and see if somebody else comes back with a different question. I have a question about contact. My understanding is the way dependent origination works is a link arises and then it seizes.

And contact is the meeting of consciousness, the sense organ, and the sense object. But consciousness arises and falls several links before contact. So how is there consciousness for the meeting of those three things? Yeah. First, I just want to let you know, if you want to understand contact, you should see it as the contact between the sense and the sense object. Dependent on that, there arises a sense consciousness.

So in other words, when the eye hits or meets the form, so light hits the eye, there is an awareness of that. So it's not the meeting of the three, although they are conjoined, but really the consciousness comes right after the light hits the eye, that there is eye consciousness. Now, that's the same consciousness that you experience at the link of consciousness, a couple of links before. So when you have formations, they activate a certain type of link of consciousness. That consciousness then gives rise to an experience when there's contact.

You have to look at it like there is a sense of looking at it linearly, like in a linear way. But there's also a sense of how it adds to things. It adds to the experience. And so when we talk about formations, if they're formations which are really, you know, conditioned by previous choices and previous intentions, if those formations are rooted in the unwholesome, then it will give rise to a consciousness that can be tinged by something that is unwholesome in the way that it looks at things, and because of that it conditions how the nama-rupa, contact, feeling, perception, intention and attention, and the body experience reality. Along with that is the sixth sense basis. So what's happening is that consciousness, that awareness, which is conditioned by, let's say, the unwholesome, when contact arises, that same consciousness is experiencing that contact or experiencing that feeling and perception and filtering how that feeling and perception is experienced. For example, if the formation is rooted in greed, a mind that might be rooted in, you know, wanting things and grasping for things

let's say it's lust, you know, some kind of lust, and so it's rooted in that kind of lustful manner, and that lust that arises in that consciousness, that mindset, that awareness, that vinnana, when the contact arises. Let's say you see somebody. Now you're already filtered in terms of how you perceive them. So that consciousness that arises, dependent upon the eye and the person that you're seeing or the being that you're seeing, gives rise to a consciousness, which is the awareness of the experience.

But the awareness of that experience also influences how you perceive that experience. In other words, it filters out how you see it. In other words, it will show you it in a lustful way, or it'll show you in a greedy way, or I'll show it to you in an aversive way, or an irritated way, or a jealous way, or whatever it might be. So it's the same consciousness, but what's happening there is when there is contact, that same consciousness arises and then passes away, giving rise to another consciousness that arises and passes a working. I mean, that's a lot of information. I don't know if that clarified for you? Yeah, no, it does help. I guess I'm just kind of confused because I haven't... there's lots of students talking about dependent origination, but

It just always seemed, I do think of it linearly, and it's like, this happens, it's here, then it's gone, then it's here, then it's gone, and so on and so on. And I had this idea that I asked before, and people told me it was mistaken, but it's like one link kind of changes the potential for the next link, so the conscious link arises and passes, but then once that happens there's like a little bit of consciousness in all the following links, but I was told I was thinking about that incorrectly. Well, I would look at it like a momentum. So when that consciousness arises, which is tinged by some kind of mindset, that continues to influence how the nama-rupa, the mentality-materiality, perceives reality. So that mentality-materiality, which includes the sixth sense basis, also, then it influences how the contact arises. Now that contact then influences

how the feeling is perceived, and if that feeling is perceived in a way that causes craving, then it will continue to cause craving. The idea to look at dependent origination is not only linearly but also as feedback loops. So in other words, when there is a feeling and you act upon the underlying tendencies of feeling, when you act with a lustful mind, when you act, and act doesn't mean just physical but verbal or mental as well, when you react or act upon those underlying tendencies towards greed or craving or aversion and hatred and so on, that is liable to cause craving. But then when you do that, it feeds back the energy to the formations again. So what's happening is you'll start to see circles within circles in dependent origination. So every action you take has an influence on the next set of choices that you make in the future. This is karma, and what that means is if your intentions, your choices in the past, have been unwholesome, then

then your next set of choices will deviate towards the wholesome. What you have to do there, you have a choice to either continue to be on autopilot, so to speak, or to make a conscious decision to let go of the unwholesome and tend towards or incline towards the wholesome. The more you do that, then the formations are reformatted, reconditioned, as it were, and then your choices start to deviate towards the wholesome. They automate towards the wholesome 90% of the time, until eventually it's all the time. So what we're doing here with dependent origination is understanding how mind works, how mind perceives reality, and how that can change dependent upon choices in every given moment.

And is consciousness different than awareness? Um, because, like, you know, there's habitual tendencies going on. I know that there's habitual tendencies going on, but that's quite removed from the consciousness link, no? No. Consciousness is basically cognition. So consciousness is not like some kind of ethereal container of life, so to speak. It's not the life energy, it's not the soul, or anything like that. Of course, instead, consciousness comes from the word vinnana, which means divided awareness or divided knowledge, which is just basically awareness. So you could say cognition, you could say consciousness, you could say awareness, and these are used interchangeably. So for me to know something, there has to be awareness or consciousness. So why is there, yeah, so why is there a specific link that is consciousness if it's in everything that's, you know, that I can like know or understand

or perceive, because anytime, you have to look at it like this: feeling, perception and consciousness, these three run around each other anytime there's contact. And when we're talking about contact, we're not just talking about one linear process of contact. When I'm speaking to you, or speaking right now, there is contact with the ear. When you're seeing me on the screen, there's contact with the eyes. When the mind is reflecting on what is being said, there's contact with the mind object. When you're sitting in your chair, there is contact with the experience of sitting in the chair, and so on. So it's always happening, and it's always sort of crisscrossing, if you will. So when we talk about consciousness, it's always happening whenever there is contact, whenever there's feeling, whenever there's perception. If you have an experience, anytime you have an experience there is an awareness tied to it. So the experience of craving

will have tied to it an experience of awareness of it. Well, when I say awareness, it's really, you know, the knowing of it, the knowledge of it, the cognizing of it. I don't mean the mindfulness of it, because if somebody had the mindfulness of craving, then they would have let it go. But if the craving leads to clinging, there's still an awareness of the clinging, insofar as knowing the experience is happening, the experience is being experienced. If there are habitual tendencies, or bhava, being there, there is an experience of that, and there is a knowledge of that experience. The knowledge of that experience is cognition, hence consciousness.

But we are talking about millions and millions of consciousnesses arising and passing away every second, so what you call being aware of something would actually entail millions of consciousnesses arising and passing away. But it's so fast that it's like a movie. You don't see the separate frames, you just see one stream of consciousness. And that is why many religions believe that there is an eternal consciousness, because they don't see it. Certainly when they don't meditate, they don't see it as arising and passing away. Yes, yeah. That's really important to also understand, because consciousness can look like this fluid process, that it's just one thing that's happening. But it's like, and I've used this analogy before, it's like a ray of light. You look at light and it's just one beam of light. You don't really consider that light is made up of innumerable, innumerable photons, individual photons. In the same way, consciousness that seems to be just one singular flowing consciousness is actually made up of iotas of separate individual arising and passing away of various consciousnesses. But that consciousness, remember, is cognizing. It's cognition.

It's not some kind of a being. It's just an experience, dependent upon, or rather I should say, it's a phenomena that arises dependent upon or tied to an experience. And there are many different kinds of consciousnesses: consciousness of the eye and the object that is being seen, consciousness of the ear, consciousness of the sound, and also a consciousness that is mental, consciousness of thought. Yeah, you think about that. That's the triad: the consciousness of the sense, or the awareness of the sense sphere, the awareness of the sense object, and the awareness of the experience that's happening, the feeling of that experience. So there are 18 different types of consciousnesses in terms of just the experience itself, but then it's happening at million millions of times per second.

Anyone else? Um, hello. I have a question. Yes. Today I was thinking about what would happen if a sotapanna would carry out suicide, because killing a being is coming with a rather bad vipaka, I guess. But what would happen to a sotapanna if he or she would do that? I don't think I've ever come across a sotapanna trying to commit suicide. I'll just say that I think the mindset is so wholesome that they won't try to kill themselves.

And I don't know if this is leading to the question about, you know, certain arahats who reportedly committed suicide in the sutta. No, no, no. Okay, but I would say that for sotapannas, even though their mind state will be quite agitated and restless, they will definitely think twice before committing suicide, I guess they will. Yes, yeah. They wouldn't. They would have very little reason to commit suicide if they understood the dharma to that extent of seeing the experience of nibbana. What could cause them to, you know, want to commit suicide? That's one thing. I mean, they would be very extreme situations, and even then they would really think twice before committing. Well, there are two levels of sotapanna, so thinking about what, um

Path with path knowledge, yeah, only, yeah. Okay, but yeah, yeah, so, for example, the one with the path knowledge, they are bound for fruition, so they'll be bound for fruition either if they experience the fruition. Even if it's, you know, for the fruition of the experience, whether it's in nibbana, in one's life, or whether it's at death, but that by no means should motivate the sotapanna to commit suicide. That would be a wrong action. So if somebody is experiencing suicidal tendencies and they are a sotapanna, then they should really consider getting help first. They should really consider consulting with somebody who can really guide them through that process and help them to understand that, you know, suicide is really not the answer at all.

That would be a good suggestion, yeah. Yeah, it's important to find the support system for somebody who has that experience, or who has contemplation of that experience, and be able to know, you know, know that there are people out there who are looking out for them, know that there are beings out there who are looking out for them. And, you know, even if it's a painful feeling, even if it's at the point of death, think about it in this way: even when it's at the point of death, all beings still want to live on. Even if somebody decided to commit suicide, there will still be a desire to live. There will still be fear, there will still be anxiety there when they contemplate suicide. I mean, it's, no being wants to die, no being wants to experience the end of their life, even if they think that will mean the end of suffering. That is the thing about this life, that is the thing about this whole process of being and becoming, them, so

I would say, if any sort upon I would be contemplating suicide, don't understand, you know, the process is to cultivate a more wholesome state of mind. There are other ways of dealing with whatever stresses, whatever situations, whatever experiences, whatever people one has in their life that is a cause of aversion, because the desire for suicide comes from the desire not to be. It comes from the craving to stop things because you have aversion towards them. And that's okay. I mean, it's just an aversion, it's just an experience, it's an unpleasant experience, it's an unpleasant feeling. See it as that and let it go and replace it with something that is more wholesome. And as I said, always try to find a community that will be supportive. However that would be, that would be a good answer. Thank you, Phil. Do you want to add anything? Me? Oh, Silk

Well, I would look at it from the perspective that even if one would commit suicide, who says that the next life would be that much better? Conditioned existence is having suffering, experiences, unpleasant feelings. So it would basically continue on another level, in another being, so to speak, but it's still conditioned existence that is being experienced with its share of unpleasant feeling. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It would be one less lifetime to go for a sotapanna, so to speak. Yes, but the sotapanna might have very long lifetimes left, in which a human life might seem really short. But if a sotapanna ends up in the next lifetime, the second lifetime, let's say in the realm of nothingness, it would make the idea of a human life more like the lifespan of a fly.

Just saying. Yeah, that's true, though. It wouldn't be more pleasant. It would be more pleasant. Yeah, thank you. Somebody asked a question. Ignorance is first, and consciousness arises because of that. So to stop samsara we need to stop ignorance, but when we have a body, consciousness arises always because there is a contact. So how to stop ignorance if we always have contact? If we understand how it works, consciousness will still arise. Yeah, that's right. Consciousness will still arise, whether you are unawakened or awakened, until there is the dissolution of the five aggregates, and what that means is

What is ignorance? First we have to understand what is ignorance. Ignorance is on two levels. There is the intellectual ignorance of not knowing the four noble truths, and there is the ignorance of ignoring the four noble truths after you have understood them to a certain extent, after you have been told about them and you have some kind of an experience with them or start to reflect on them. So ignorance arises every time there is lack of mindfulness of any kind of experience. When there is contact there is feeling, and when there is feeling, if there is a lack of mindfulness, that lack of mindfulness means taking something personally, seeing some experience as being me, mine or myself, which is liable to cause further craving and identification, and so on. Then that gives rise to ignorance. Like I talked about earlier, there is the feedback loops.

So if you have a lack of mindfulness, that feeds energy back to ignorance, and then that ignorance continues to condition the formations. So you have to understand: when the enlightened mind, the completely awakened mind, experiences the dissolution of ignorance, formations will still arise, because in conditioned reality, in conditioned experience, so long as the five aggregates are there, so long as there is no cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, formations will arise based on contact. And that contact will give rise to either one of three different types of formations. It can give rise to a mental formation, which gives rise to feeling and perception. It can give rise to a verbal formation, which gives rise to experiencing thought, to express speech, or it can give rise to a physical formation, which gives rise to an intention to move or to breathe or whatever it might be.

So formations will always be there. The difference is the formations will no longer be fettered, as we say, fettered by any kind of craving, fettered by any kind of identification, fettered by any kind of ignorance. And so that formation will give rise to a consciousness, but that consciousness will not be rooted in any kind of fetter. So when that consciousness gives rise to an experience, even though it's conditioned, that contact will not be taken as personal, since that contact is not taken as personal, nor will the feeling be taken as personal. And so when one sees this, one doesn't create any new karma, because craving, clinging, being and birth of action are all new karma. If one sees feeling as being impermanent, sees feeling as being liable to cause suffering if one holds on to it, whether it's pleasant, whether it's painful, whether it's neutral

And one sees it as being impersonal, as being anatta, then there is nothing to let go of. There's nothing to crave for. There's nothing to react to. In that sense, any old karma that is experienced, whether you're fully awakened or not, will dissipate and won't add to further fettering of formations, add to further ignorance. So the way to dissolve ignorance bit by bit is to continue to practice mindfulness. The more you do the 6R's, the more you sharpen your mindfulness, and the sharper your mindfulness is, the easier it is for you to see the impersonal nature of all that you are experiencing in the way of feeling through the sixth sense basis. When you do that, then the mind is not liable because further craving and thus add to the ignorance, and rather actually let go of that ignorance bit by bit.

I wonder if that answers your question. It's good. I was reading a sutta that was, after the introduction, it starts with the Buddha calling one of his bhikkhus to him because he has been spending too much time with the, becoming defensive of the bhikkhunis, and he says, this is not proper for someone who has gone forth out of conviction. And I was wondering what other motive is there, besides conviction, to go forth? I was thinking, if you're sort of a bond servant, it's a way to escape, but maybe there is something else.

Oh, I mean, there are multiple reasons why you would want to go forth. I mean, look at the world around you. You definitely would want to go forth because there's just dukkha everywhere, but the understanding is there are certain rules and regulations to going forth as well. When you read up on the Vinaya, there are certain kinds of rules and regulations of who can be accepted for the going forth and who cannot be. Somebody is under debt if somebody doesn't have the permission of their parents, and if somebody is not of a certain age, if somebody is an animal impersonating a person. That's an interesting one. You had, back then, the idea of nagas, who were shapeshifters, and there's a story where there's a naga who actually goes forth, and later on in the night time they change back into their naga form, so to speak, and then there was a rule made from this. So the Vinaya is just rules that have been made because of situations like this.

There were situations where somebody tried to escape being out of debt, and that's not the correct way to go forth, and so on. So there are certain questions asked when you do the going forth, when you do the ordination. And some of those questions are: are you an animal or are you a human? Are you under debt? Are you of a certain age, and so on and so forth? So once you meet all of those requirements, then you are permitted to actually take the going forth. - All right. And are nagas prohibited? Because I understood this from a different talk, because nagas are unable to attain enlightenment, is it? Or is there no reason really given in the Vinaya? Well, I mean, nagas are kind of beings who have a certain kind of coldness, so they're not really able to develop fully in terms of their faculties.

So humans, or in the human realm, the human mind, let's say, has certain faculties and capacities to experience loving kindness, to experience joy, and to experience these things. Nagas don't necessarily have that full capacity to do so, which is why you wouldn't have an animal either go forth, because animals don't have quite that well developed a faculty. I mean, they experience emotions, they experience other things, but there is something known, let's say in your scientific terms, as metacognition, that humans possess definitely, but not all animals have the ability to have that kind of metacognition. Most, if not all, are behaving out of just whatever is happening in terms of the sense bases, but humans have a capacity to reflect and meditate and understand a little more, let's say, than animals do. And nagas are intelligent, nagas are quite calculative, and so on, but they don't have the full capacities that humans have and be able to experience certain kinds of wholesome emotions either.

Okay, thank you. So was there anything you wanted to add to that? I don't know anything about nagas, but about the reasons for going forth. There were plenty of people who saw how the Buddha's followers got plenty of food and had robes and things like that, so there were reasons to have less wholesome intentions to join and pretend of being a monastic. So yeah, not everyone was really that virtuous. Yeah, yeah. They wanted what was known as a free lunch, but, as we know in this conditioned reality, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

That would violate the laws of karma, and we still have people like that today. I mean, there are quite infamous people who pretend they are Buddhist monks, and they wear Ray-Ban sunglasses and go fly around in jets and things like that, and they get plenty of money that they accept with their own hands from followers. So it's not something only from the past; it's still going on today. Hi, Delson. Hello. Hi. I'm all right, thank you. I'm just wondering whether you can explain a little bit around the emptiness, in terms of how the Buddha uses emptiness in the suttas, and the emptiness of the immediate nature of our experience, as well as the emptiness of all conditioned things. Just, I'm really keen to hear how the Buddha uses emptiness to kind of explain

explain our existence, and also maybe the second part of the question is, are there any suttas that would be good to read around the emptiness? Yeah. So I would say there are two contexts of emptiness, sunyata, or sunnata as it's known in Pali and Sanskrit, and there are two contexts to understand. Number one is the context of emptiness of something that used to be there. So you go to Majjhima Nikaya one to one, that is the shorter discourse on emptiness, and the Buddha is approached by Ananda, and Ananda says, as I understand it, you are practicing or going into meditation on emptiness, and the Buddha says yes, and he explains what that is. Basically, emptiness is understood in this context as, for example, when you are in infinite consciousness.

when you are in the sphere of infinite consciousness the experience is empty of the perception of infinite space the experience is empty of the perception of the fourth third second john and so on likewise when you go into nothingness it's empty of its preceding states likewise when you go to neither perception non-perception it's empty of those preceding states and so on that's one kind of understanding of emptiness there is a deeper understanding of emptiness which is emptiness of self that is the experience of anatta in other words you come to an experience where you see everything as being impersonal and even nibana being impersonal obviously so in that experience you are experiencing the emptiness of the five aggregates you're seeing the anatta or not self aspect the impersonal nature of each of the five aggregates

And there is a sutta, I mean there's been a bunch of suttas, but there's one specific sutta where Ananda says to the Buddha, 'Emptiness, emptiness, what do you mean by this emptiness?' And the Buddha says, 'I consider I talk about emptiness insofar as the aggregate of form, the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of perception, the aggregate of formations, the aggregate of consciousness are empty of any kind of abiding self, empty of any kind of personal self.' I can't tell you what particular sutta number that is, but I know it's there. I've seen it. It's somewhere close to the sutta about the, um, about what is it called, about the soap bubbles or the bubbles, a foam, like the aggregates are like foam. So it's somewhere in that region. I think it's either the Anguttara Nikaya or Samyutta Nikaya. But these are the two contexts of emptiness as we understand it in the Dhamma. Syl, do you want to add something? Um, everything about ourselves, our body, our mind, every object we encounter

It's like we instantly see it through a lens of something to do with a me. Either it's a perception of 'I am experiencing this, I am seeing this', or 'this object is my possession', or it's very dear to me, or I really hate it. So we hardly ever experience anything like reality truly is. We see... I often use a simile of seeing: we see everything with sunglasses on, that we perceive through a lens of self. When I look outside I see my tree, but it's ridiculous, it's not my tree. It's just a plant that is growing there. But I have bought this house, so it's my house, my garden, my tree, my birds. Everything is me and mine. Likewise, my father, my son, my friend, my enemy.

We constantly misperceive reality. We think in concepts, and usually these concepts are pertaining to taking it personal in some way. It's quite obvious when things are pleasant: I like this, I like the taste of this food, or whatever. Have we lost Syl? I think we lost Syl for a moment. I think maybe while we're waiting for Syl, I'm wondering whether it has put us taking that emptiness to that next level, in a sense that emptiness in terms of non-self and impermanence. So something was still started, still was explaining about one's experience once in relation to external world, and that in itself is empty because there's no self. And if you kind of extrapolate to all of the interactions, then has put out kind of taking it to the next level of the world of the impermanence and the world of non-self, and there must be an emptiness around all conditioned things and all interactions. Yes, and I'll add one further, third context.

Which is the arahant's mind, empty of all suffering, completely empty of any kind of mental suffering, empty of any kind of craving. So through that process of seeing the emptiness of reality, conditioned reality, there is the emptying of the mind of any kind of craving. Because you go back to that particular sutta, Majjhima Nikaya one to one, but also Majjhima Nikaya 43 towards the end, there is an understanding of what are the different kinds of meditations, and one of them is related to the experience of emptiness. But it's also related to the liberated mind, which is empty because it's unshakable. It has seen through reality as being impersonal, and therefore that mind is empty of any kind of suffering. Syl, we lost you there for a few seconds.

Not sure what happened. You went into emptiness, so you're back again. So tell us how it went. The meeting was empty of me. Yes. Well, yes, basically, I've said everything that is important that I wanted to say. It's just that we misperceive reality. We add something to reality that isn't there, and maybe coming back to the previous question about that consciousness that seems like a stream, the sense of self is also a bit like that. We constantly walk around with this sense of self, so it's really hard to unsee that. But when

Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm sure you'll get in touch with Syl and she'll give you more information, but that's a good sutta to read too. Samyutta Nikaya 35.95, because that one talks about the same thing. If there is no self before the process of the experience, during the process of the experience, and after the process of the experience, if there is no self in any of the links of dependent origination up until the level of feeling, then there is the end of suffering, that is the cessation of suffering. So that's a good sutta to reflect on as well.

Thank you. There's another question. If I understood correctly, Bhante said that each of the 12 nidanas, links of dependent origination, as the four noble truths. Can you explain what this means and give an example? Yes, you should read Majjhima Nikaya number nine, which is the Sammaditthi Sutta, the right view, in that Sariputta actually contextualizes each of the links of dependent origination through the view of the four noble truths. An example of this would be... and what you have to look at is the four noble truths. It is basically a formulaic understanding. You have dukkha, you have suffering. You have the cause of suffering, the samudaya, which is usually craving, but it can be also ignorance, it can be taking things personally, and things like that. You have the cessation of suffering, that is nirodha, and you have the magga, which is the path leading to the cessation of suffering, and that is the eightfold path. So in the context of dependent origination, the way Sariputta talks about it is, for example, there is feeling, and that is liable to create dukkha because it is conditioned. That is the first noble truth. The cause, or the samudaya,

of that feeling is contact. The cessation of contact is the cessation of feeling. The way leading to the cessation of contact is the eightfold path. So this is the way to understand each of the links. So in terms of your practice, let's say you see that craving has arisen, there is aversion here. That aversion is to be understood as being dukkha. The cause of that aversion is because of taking it personally. So you see that, and you let that go using the eightfold path. What is the eightfold path, and the understanding of this practice? It's the 6R's. The 6R's are the eightfold path encapsulated. The 6R's are right effort, which is the heart of the eightfold path. As I always say, it's through, and it's said in the sutta, it's brought it's

through right effort that you go from wrong view to right view, wrong intention to right intention, wrong speech to right speech, wrong action to right action, wrong livelihood to right livelihood, wrong mindfulness to right mindfulness, and wrong collectedness to right collectedness. So using the 6R's, every time you use the 6R's you become mindful of what is happening in the present moment. If it's a hindrance, you let go of it, whatever it might be, whether it's craving, aversion, doubt, whatever it might be, taking it personally. When you let go of it, you have the experience of the cessation of suffering, the cessation of dukkha, in so far as understanding there was feeling here, there was an unpleasant feeling. By letting go of personalizing it, you cease it through the process of the 6R's. So this is the way to understand how the four noble truths are inherent in each of the links of dependent origination. You're welcome. Hi everyone, may I have questions? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm new to TWIM, so bear with me. I did the online retreat with you, so thank you, a few months ago. So my questions are about sending loving kindness to six directions. As I understand it, we send each direction at a time, and then afterward we send the loving kindness to all directions. And in sending to each set of directions, I feel the mind being disturbed a bit, because it kind of has a little bit of thinking and, you know, imaginations in there, somewhat, one at a time. So I kind of tend to skip it and go a bit faster, or maybe send straightaway to all those directions at the same time.

Interested in knowing your comment or recommendations or advice on that. - Okay. Phil, do you want to take this? - So if I understand correctly, when you are radiating in one direction, let's say you get distracted a bit, I think I need to have intention, I need to have my imagination, like I go, say for example, in the front of me and, you know, my right and my left and things like that. So why I think that my mind doesn't want even to think, it kind of tries sitting there rather than, you know, that in front and the right, the left or so on. So I need to divide, you know, the things around me into six directions. So rather I say, okay, I don't kind of limit where, where I just go everywhere. It's kind of easier, and that's my point. If you understand that, if it doesn't make sense, yes. Um, I'm not sure, but I don't think there is anything wrong in going to all the directions at the same time. It's

more that when you start with one direction at each time, you get a certain focus that calms the mind a bit more easily for some people. I think that is the reason behind it. Personally, I would say that if you find it easier to radiate in all directions at the same time, by all means do it, but it might be that it takes more time for the mind to calm down even further. But I'm not sure what Delson would say about it. Yeah, I'm in agreement with that. If it feels like you're forcing it to do it individually in each direction, the mind just seems to gravitate towards sending it in all directions at the same time. Go for it, that's fine.

That's totally fine, thank you. Because, you know, we're reading a sutta, and the sutta is, like, kind of in one direction, and you're providing, you know, into the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and then think, and kind of, you know, if I go six directions in one go, I go against, I don't know, a little bit conflicting with the sutta. No, it's fine. Yeah, that's fine, because if you think about the context of the suttas, at the end of it the Buddha says, or anybody who gives us instruction says, and he pervades above, below and all around, and so that indicates all directions. But it's just a starting point. You know, some, it might be easier for some people to start with two minutes in each direction, or it might just be easier for people to want to radiate in all directions at the same time from the get-go.

It's anyway, you're going to get there anyway, right? If you're either going to do individual directions, you're already anyway going to get to radiating in all directions. So if it works for you to be able to radiate in all directions without doing the individual directions, that's fine. It's the same thing; it leads to the same experience. Yeah, but as you said, yeah, well, I just wanted to add that: always keep in mind what the Buddha's aim is. The aim is the end of suffering. The aim is to practice the eightfold path. So instead of getting bogged down in technicalities, even if you radiate in all directions at the same time, you are in a very wholesome state of mind.

And when you get distracted, you use the 6R's, so that is basically all that there is to it. You are doing as the Buddha instructs, and that is way more important than doing one direction at a time versus all directions at the same time, I would say. Think about it this way also. Not to trivialize the situation, but it's a funny way of looking at it: in the Buddha's time most people sat cross-legged.

And so there is an understanding: okay, if I say cross-legged, there must be some magic to it. But now you can sit in a chair and still experience nibbana. So, you know, the clinging or the attachment to it has to be done a certain way. You look at the suttas and it's not like that. It's very suggestive. It's saying this is what you can do, and then your mind will teach you. Your experience, in your mind, are your teacher. They will guide you in terms of where to go. And this is then using the process of intuition. Obviously you don't want to go off the beaten path where you do something completely different, but within the context of the Dhamma, if you're starting to see what works for you and what doesn't work for you, by all means just do what works for you.

Thank you. Maybe my second question is, you know, when we do meditations, should we... I know that they should not, but, kind of, you know, we tend to see where we are, right? So they kind of... yeah, now we go in general one and go to general two, or so on. Or we just ignore it altogether? It's okay, it's not important, it's not necessary? Yeah, it's not important to really know where you are in the beginning of the practice. If you are radiating in the six directions, know that that is already considered to be an advanced practitioner.

Now you'll get to know where you are, depending upon how the feeling changes. If the quality of the feeling changes, then you're starting to get into another level of experience. So this is the way to guide yourself to be able to understand it. And of course, you can always, for further clarity, send an email, and then somebody can give you some more pointers about that.

Thank you. Okay, about it. So are there any last questions? Wait for a few more seconds. uh i have a another question um yeah what what exactly is the fetter of doubt because you know none of us have met the buddha and you know we're you know we're going through these texts and so there's yeah so like there's certain things that we can't necessarily know but there's still this like better that goes away so what what like what goes away and like what doesn't so your answer please i will start with one that is almost always skipped in explanations about what it is and that is that in the suttas part of doubt is not knowing the difference between wholesome and unwholesome states so that is one part of the feather of doubt that people

don't really know what is a good wholesome thing to do or to think or whatever and not uh it's it it says so in multiple suttas but it gets glanced over quite often also doubt is what is usually explained as doubt in the buddha in the dhamma and the sangha so you have doubts in whether he was truly an awakened person that truly knew how reality worked so to speak doubt in the dhamma is it really so important that dependent origination maybe it works a bit differently

is emptiness, do they mean this, or maybe they mean something else, whatever? And also doubt: is nibbana really a thing? Maybe it's just some nice state and it's not really that important. So it's really doubts about everything pertaining to how reality works, that you are not sure that it truly works this way, and maybe it works in an entirely different way, or maybe even another religion is right and Buddhism has it wrong, or things like that. Yeah, so that's a good explanation, because that's really what it is all about. Think about the fetter of doubt, or the hindrance of doubt, as it is when you experience it in the practice. It comes about in the process of thoughts like: am I doing this process correctly? Am I really radiating loving kindness?

Should I be doing it this way, or even going one step before that, which still talked about, which is the unwholesome and the wholesome? Should I really be doing this, or should I really say this lie, or would it be okay if I do this, and things like that? This is also known as indecision, and it can give rise to restlessness. So specifically with the fetter of doubt, that is really doubt in, as we said, the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha in these different ways, and that fetter is destroyed when you see for yourself the experience of nibbana. When you have the experience of nibbana for the first time, you completely have no doubts about the path, no doubts about how this process works.

And so you will no longer have any questions that keep you indecisive, that prevent you from taking the next step on that path. So the way to let go of doubt first, of course, is something like this, where you can ask questions and remove your doubts and figure out what is the Dhamma and what is not the Dhamma, and so on. Now, when we talk specifically about the doubt, the faith in the Buddha, the conviction in the Buddha, we talk about the conviction in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. What we are saying is: yes, the Buddha, the fully awakened, self-realized, or in another way a self-awakened being or person, was there who found this path. So there is some sort of appreciation and gratitude for that, that gives rise to an understanding of: yes, there is something known as this Dhamma that he taught, and the Dhamma includes at the very core dependent origination.

And the way leading to that experience and understanding of dependent origination is this particular set of ways, which is basically encapsulated in the Eightfold Path. So when you see it for yourself, when you practise it, there's nobody asking you to have any faith in it in the sense of religious faith. All that is, is come and see for yourself. And if you can see it for yourself, then your doubt is removed by your own self, so to speak. Your own mind, as being the teacher, removes that doubt, because it experiences in the here and now what this path is and how it contributes to the cessation of suffering. And then the faith in the Sangha is the understanding that there is a continuation of the Dhamma through the Sangha of monastics, through the ariya Sangha of those who have attained, and that the Dhamma goes on because of the Sangha. And so there is an appreciation for that, there's a gratitude for that. I have been told, and it's interesting to note, that in the Buddha's time there was only the two refuges

which is refuge in the Buddha and in the Dhamma, and then later on, after the Buddha's very nibbana, it happened in terms of the three refuges, because the Sangha also includes teachers who have realized the path, or monastics, or lay people who have realized the path, and who can guide you along the way. They can just nudge you along the path and say, hey, have you tried this? Have you tried this? And so that community of people who have also experienced it is part of that Sangha. So you have a conviction in that kind of a community. You have a conviction in that kind of a tradition.

But by no means is anyone asking anyone to have some kind of blind faith in the three jewels, or have blind faith in the path. It's all about experiencing it, and then from that, knowing that this is the path, that this is the way leading to nibbana. It's as simple as, you know, somebody tells you that there is a country called, let's say, Canada, and you've read about it, and then you've seen documentaries about it, and things like that. But how do you really know? And this is a very, very interesting experience. But how do you really know if that country actually exists? You've only read about it, or you've only been told about it, or you've been told, you know, Canada is this kind of weather, or Canada is this or that. And you go there and you experience it for yourself. That's the first-hand experience that allows you to say, yes, I understand now what this is. So doubt, the removal of doubt, is first-hand experience, seeing for yourself.

This is what happens when I'm wholesome. This is what happens when I'm unwholesome. This is what happens when I do take the path. This is what happens when I don't take the path, and this is the path leading to nibbana. On a very, very minute level, another example would be somebody tells you that this is how sugar tastes. They can tell you everything about, you know, the quality of sugar. They can tell you about the history of sugar. They can tell you about the chemical compositions of sugar. They can tell you all these things, but you don't really know, and you have some doubts about: well, okay, what is actually the taste of sugar?

That is the process of doubt. Not really knowing for sure what it is until you experience it for yourself. Then when you experience the taste of sugar, it's just known. Now you know that there is this taste of sugar. You just know it to be there because you experienced it firsthand. - Can a sotapanna with path attainment have some doubt? The fetters are still there, like a little bit? - I would say no. Actually, it's at the path, it's the entry into the path, that the fetters are destroyed. But what happens at the fruition is it's kind of locked in.

But if there's doubt, those doubts would be doubts regarding the practice and things like that, not necessarily a larger form of doubt about whether I'm in the right direction or not. - All right, thank you. - Let us share some merit. May suffering once be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless being may the grieving shadow 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.