June 8 -Day 4... '12 Step' to Enlightenment -Delson Armstrong

So today I'm going to talk to you about the 12-step program to Enlightenment. No, I'm serious. 12-step program. Recovering Meditators. That's right. Recovering Meditation Addicts. Yes. The sources for what I'm going to tell you are from the Samyutta Nikaya 12.23 and Anguttara Nikaya 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4. It's called the Upanisa Sutta. Videos or somewhere I can't remember, but it was such an idiotic comment.

They said, oh, how could he call that transcendent dependent origination? How could he say that? There's no such thing as that. If you look at the translation of the word "upanisa", it literally means "transcendent conditions". "Upa" is "above", it's above, it's upper or transcendent. "Nisa" is a kind of form of word which is "nidana", which means "conditions", and it's referring to a transcendent form of dependent origination. It has nothing to do with suffering, and everything to do with liberation. So there are literally 12 steps in this process, and these 12 steps can vary, especially in the beginning, and that's fine because I'll explain the variance as we get to those points. But I'm going to start from the top, the end of the path, which is what it's the knowledge of liberation, that's what it's known as, for one who knows and sees. For one who knows and sees what? And it says in the sutta, such is form, such is feeling, such is perception, such are formations, such is consciousness.

For one who knows and sees, thus the taints are destroyed, not for one who does not see and know thus. So, the five aggregates. This is a very essential, important, vital understanding to have. The development of wisdom arises through, not necessarily the investigation, but the contemplation and the seeing of the arising and passing away of the five aggregates, and understanding them on an experiential level: their instability or impermanence, their nature or liability to cause suffering, and their empty aspect of not-self. That these aggregates are not me, not mine, not myself.

The first sermon that the Buddha gave, the first talk he gave, was, as I said the other day, the turning of the wheel of Dhamma. The second sermon he gave was the Anattalakkhana Sutta. Both of these sermons he gave at Sarnath, which is where we've been, we've gone. And I had the good fortune to give a talk on both these sermons in the place where he gave these talks. Beautiful experience.

The importance that he gave to anatta, and how did he give that importance? He talked about the five aggregates. He spoke of seeing through form, through feeling, through perception, through formations, through consciousness. And the first five students of the Buddha became arahants. Just by meditating with him and reflecting on what he said, they dropped all craving, all conceit, all ignorance, and experienced the destruction of the taints. You have a question? Can you define the dream by formation? I will. So formations are essentially the synapses in the brain. When we are born, we are born with more synapses than we have currently. And as we continue to age, and develop, and understand the world, these synapses are pruned.

And these synapses determine, or are conditions for, how we behave, and how we see the world, and how we experience the world. And they continue to change over a period of time. This is the beauty of the Buddha's teaching. He talks about neuroplasticity, you know, 2,600 years ago, that we can... Yes, he talks about that, which means that he's referring to how you can recondition the mind. And formations, the very last words of the Buddha were to keep going, right? But before that he said, all formations are impermanent. That's what he said: "sabbe sankhara anicca." And he said that because he was giving his final teaching to them by saying that not even formations are permanent.

We think formations are the things that determine consciousness and how consciousness arises, and then from that how feeling and perception arise, and then form, and so on and so forth. He understood that people would think that formations are permanent, because the mind maybe is unchanging, they might have that idea. But the formations are threefold: physical formations, verbal formations and mental formations. Physical formations have to do with how the body reacts and moves, namely through breathing, through walking, through sitting, through all these different bodily processes. Verbal formations have to do with how we express the perceptions that we have. We take in the world and our mind starts to create an idea, and we express it through our speech.

Or how we think, consciously, intentionally, is guided and conditioned by these verbal formations. Mental formations allow us to feel and perceive how we sense the world, how we experience the world, how we perceive the world that we are experiencing, how we label the world that we are experiencing. I've kind of skipped ahead to address that, but we'll get into the five aggregates more maybe tomorrow or the day after. But what we're saying here is, in order for the mind to be liberated, it needs to know and see. And what it needs to know and see is the impermanent, dukkha or suffering, and the anatta of these five aggregates. This is the development of wisdom. And what is this knowledge of liberation dependent upon? That's the final step. The knowledge of liberation is dependent upon liberation. You need to be liberated in order for you to know that you're liberated. And the word liberation comes from the Pali vimutti.

Vimutti or vimukti is there are variations of this word, mukti, moksha, muchyate, all of these words in the Sanskrit/Pali lexicon. They're all interrelated and they all mean one thing: to be free. Vimukti is interesting because when we say Vimukti or Vimukti, we're saying it's the ultimate freedom. It's the final freedom. Nothing beyond it. And the word muchyate actually comes from when you see any kind of fruit that is ripe and it's ready to drop, it just drops to the ground. And so that word for that is muchyate. It is free from its bondage. What is the bondage here? Greed, hatred and delusion.

The bondage here is avidya. Avidya is usually translated as ignorance, but actually it is the misperception of reality, the misapprehension of reality. So what do we mean by liberation? What are we being liberated from? We're being liberated from greed, hatred, and delusion. When we experience the jhanas, what are we liberated from? We are liberated from the hindrances. Therefore, the jhanas are known as temporary liberations. And we experience this liberation when our mind completely lets go of trying to control for a certain outcome.

And this is why it is said that liberation in these suttas is dependent upon something known as yata-bhuta-nyana-dasanam. Yata-bhuta means "as it is". Yata-bhuta means "reality as it is". Buddha is the present, without any filters, without any variation of what it should be and what it should not be, without any conceptual proliferation. Jnana is knowledge, Dasanam is vision. So, the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, without being swayed in one direction or the other.

In other words, we need equanimity. But in between this process of knowledge and vision of things as they actually are and the vimutti, there are two more things. Those two things are disenchantment and dispassion. Now, the word disenchantment, as I was saying the other day, sounds like we've become disillusioned with reality. And it's not exactly that. Same with dispassion. I want you to listen to this very carefully, because this is going to help you understand what to do when your mind gets bored in the space of quiet mind.

You are bored, or the mind is bored, because there is not enough of this so-called disenchantment and dispassion. The dispassion, the detachment, the unstickiness of the mind. That is where the mind will see through everything, will not be interested in holding on to anything, will not be interested. It will come and go. It's there. It's just all kinds of stuff coming up, whether that's in restlessness or in either perception or non-perception, all kinds of different patterns and pictures and memories and images. Words even, sounds, music, all this stuff comes and goes. But the mind remains detached. Nothing sticks to it.

Nothing is held on by the mind. And this disenchantment, or as we were saying the other day, freedom from enchantment, is the space where the mind says, All right, I've had enough of this. I understand what's going on here now. This isn't going to stop. There will be more. There will be more and more and more. So what do I do? I get tired of it. I'm like, I have enough. This is enough. So you can bring it on, mind. It's okay. But I am free from you. But in order for you to have that, you need the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, which is another word for equanimity. And this equanimity comes from the word upekkha, which is the opposite of apekkha, which means expectation.

So we hold no expectation of any kind of outcome in the meditation. You only do the best you can in the practice and do not hold on to the fruits of the practice. You will hear this in another text, which is non-Buddhist, in the Gita, where he says, You are only beholden to the actions that you do but not to the fruits. In other words, I can only do what I can do in my practice. But if I focus on the effects of that practice and what I will get and what will happen, then I'm not actually practicing. If my mind is anticipating, okay, this is what I want or this is what's going to come after this, then I'm not actually practicing.

My mind is now in a hindrance. When I'm actually practicing, my mind is free of a hindrance and totally collected around my object. And if I'm in quiet mind, my mind is just observing the quietude of the mind, and it is seeing things as they actually are, with total equanimity. There comes a point in the practice where there will be the restlessness, there will be the boredom, there will be the sloth and torpor, there will be the slight anxiousness of what's coming next in the form of anticipation or expectation. Or there will be a slight fear of what is on the other side. And this is the conceit, the clinging to a sense of self that feels like it will disappear, which it does.

But it feels like it will die when you experience cessation. And that's why it clings on for its illusory, dear life. And to loosen this grip, to let go of these restless points in the practice, to deal with the bombardment of all of these formations that manifest in the form of these images and proto-thoughts and bubbling up of different kinds of patterns and sounds and memories and music and this and that and the other.

You go a step back. You need disenchantment. You need freedom from enchantment to deal with these things. But if your disenchantment, your freedom from enchantment, is not strong, that means you need to go a step back. And to go a step back, it means you need equanimity. So my suggestion to all of you, when you get to that space, and you notice that there's agitation in the mind, you notice there's boredom in the mind, you notice that no matter how much tranquility you microdose on, the restlessness will not cease. Go back a step and enter into equanimity and radiate that equanimity very gently. Like the analogy that I used yesterday, just a little dropper, right?

Or just a little pebble that you drop into the still surface of a lake and you see the little ripples of equanimity going in different directions. And as you do this, your mind starts to calm down again, and you start to settle into the quiet mind again. And as you're settling into the quiet mind, your mind is now having some level of disenchantment. You start to get disinterested in any kind of formation, and you have detachment or dispassion. And when you least expect it, you have freedom. You cannot anticipate these things. Even one who can enter into cessation at will cannot anticipate exactly when that will happen. Such a being can only create the right causes and conditions for that cessation to occur at will. The only thing in control is how long one will be in cessation and when they will come out.

So to lessen the sharpness of anticipation, do this step. And whether you realize it or not, eventually, because you keep doing that step of going back to equanimity, your mind gets tired of it and just automatically develops that freedom from enchantment, and automatically develops that passion: I've had enough, how many times am I going to radiate equanimity and go back to quiet mind? I'm just not going to do anything. So this knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, this equanimity, is dependent upon samadhi. This samadhi, or even-mindedness, or what's usually translated as collectedness, is basically when you're in a jhana. When your mind is free of hindrances, your mind has now developed the enlightenment factors through right effort, through the process of the 6R's, and now it's in a jhanic state.

You are in samadhi. The mind is effortlessly collected around its object of meditation. So if you find that you don't have enough equanimity, what do you do? You go one step back. Is my mind collected enough? What happened to the collectedness of my mind? Is there an object that interests my mind right now? Maybe I need more loving kindness.

Maybe I need more joy. Maybe I need more compassion. This samadhi, this even-mindedness, this collectedness, is dependent upon sukha, not the cat. Sukha in terms of comfort. Comfort in the mind and comfort in the body. First of all, if you're not sitting in a proper posture, that is to say if you are sitting in a place on a mat, like that towel there, where it's not comfortable enough, if you don't have a comfortable body, you will have a hard time of having a comfortable mind. If sitting on a mat or on a cushion with your legs crossed is good for you, then that's fine. But if sitting in a chair with more cushioning works for you, that's fine too.

So make sure that you have a comfortable sitting position. But that's the very basics. What we're talking about when we say sukha is a mind that is comfortable in itself. And when the mind is comfortable in itself, it is naturally balanced. Being naturally balanced, it is collected effortlessly around its object. And over a period of time, it develops good equanimity. And as it becomes more equanimous, it becomes less enchanted and free from the enchantments of all kinds of thoughts, ideas, concepts, formations and so on in the mind. And it becomes disinterested and detached. Nothing sticks to the mind. And eventually the mind is liberated. The mind experiences cessation. So what is this sukha, this comfort, dependent upon?

It is dependent upon something known as passaddhi. Passaddhi is tranquility. Tranquility is relaxation. When you are relaxed, when you have noticed in your body any tightness and tension, and you consciously soften it, you consciously relax it, you find a sense of relief and comfort. This is what we are doing with the six-R process. That relaxed step is essential to this practice. When you go to the Anapanasati Sutta, it talks about where one, breathing in, knows one is breathing in long. Breathing in long, one knows one is breathing in long. Breathing in short, one knows one is breathing in short. And as he knows this, he tranquilizes the bodily

formations. He relaxes any tightness and tension in the body. You do the same thing when you notice your body or your mind starting to fixate or tighten around the thought, or have some kind of craving, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, doubt. With that comes some kind of tightness there. There is an edginess to the nervous system. The nervous system is in a sympathetic state, which means it's sort of in a fight-or-flight state. Fight-or-flight means the fight: I'm ready to charge ahead and take what is mine. That's the craving. The flight: I don't like this, I'm gonna run away. That's the aversion.

And so the nervous system being in that sympathetic state is only going to keep producing more tension. But as you consciously relax, as you learn how to recondition the body, recondition the mind through this process of right effort, you start entering into a parasympathetic state, which is what? Rest and relax. The Buddha had been in that so-called fight or flight without being in that fight or flight as the Bodhisattva for those six years of ascetic practices. How will you find any kind of relaxation by lifting your hand up like this and keeping it for a year?

How are you going to find any rest or relaxation in, in some cases, these sadhus, what they do is they pierce through their body and they hang from, I don't know, whatever it is they hang from. And they do all kinds of crazy practices. How do you relax from that? They may say, oh, it's because we're training our body to let go of the pain and thereby we are inducing ourselves into a state of euphoria or trance and so on.

But why harm the body in the process? The other day, there was this question asked about sitting for long periods of time, and what if there's an itch or what if there's like a shuffling that you need to be doing? And I say that it's only fair to do that, because you want to make an adjustment when there's pain in the body to the point that it's going to be detrimental, going to damage the body. So to that extent you can make some adjustment, but understand that what we are dealing with on a very subtle level is our relationship to how we respond to pain. Do we have aversion towards it, or do we see, oh, here is pain, and how do we deal with it?

The other idea, the ascetic idea, is that I will go through this pain and I will dominate the mind and subdue the mind and fight mind with mind with a clenched jaw. That's what the Buddha says in some of the suttas. So, to relax is essential to this process. It's right there as one of the steps towards freedom: passaddhi, tranquility, relaxation. It doesn't say pierce your body. It doesn't say walk on fiery coals. It doesn't say hold up your arm for a year. It doesn't say any of those ascetic practices. It doesn't say clench your mind and push and strive and suppress all of the hindrances and then just go at it gung-ho.

It says relax. And through that relaxation, you have comfort. When the Buddha realized, as the Bodhisattva, that this is going to kill him, he stopped trying so hard, pushing in every different way, and then he ate that rice pudding and he sat on the kusha grass and he started his practice, and he found that this was a much more pleasant way towards enlightenment, towards awakening. This was the noble path that he discovered.

So the Buddha has said, there are those practices that are difficult in the beginning and easy in the end, difficult in the beginning and difficult in the end, easy in the beginning and difficult in the end, and easy in the beginning and easy in the end. And so he asks, which one would you take? Which one would you practice? You have enough difficulties in life. Why add to them through some kind of meditative process? It just makes no sense. Why would you come on retreat and cause yourself pain when you're trying to let go of pain? So what is this tranquility, this process of relaxation, dependent upon?

It is dependent upon what is known as piti. It's a kind of joy that is super mundane. In other words, it's not related to any of the five physical sense bases. It's a joy that arises internally. It's the joy of the first and second jhana that you're experiencing. This is also an enlightenment factor. Tranquility is an enlightenment factor. Joy is an enlightenment factor. That leads you to sukha. That sukha leads you to samadhi, which is an enlightenment factor. That samadhi leads you to equanimity, which is another enlightenment factor. And then that takes you to disenchantment or freedom from enchantment, that detachment or dispassion, and that liberation. So, if you're not having enough equanimity, figure out what happened to your collectedness.

Where is it going? If you don't have enough collectedness, are you relaxed enough? What is it that's bothering you? What is it that's causing you unnecessary and undue pain? Can you relax the tightness and tension? If you don't have relaxation, are you able to find the joy, the inner joy in the mind and heart? How do you find the inner joy in the mind and heart? Through loving-kindness, through gratitude, through a myriad of different ways that help you uplift the mind. This piti is dependent on something known as pamojja. And usually it's translated as gladness. But that's a very weak, lukewarm word.

It's more than just that. It is relief. And what is that relief that we're talking about? It's the relief from the five hindrances. It's the relief from any kind of craving, the relief from any kind of pain, mental anguish, sorrow, despair, and so on. It's also gladness in the Dhamma. So when you are taking the precepts in the morning, I told you, right? The precepts you're taking are essential for this practice.

Because if you are following the Eightfold Path, you need to follow all of the paths in order to have proper or right meditation. But what you also do is you take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Why do you do that? Is it a religious thing? Is it a spiritual thing? Is it a ritual? What are you doing when you take refuge? What does it mean to take refuge? It comes from the word sharanam. Buddham sharanam gacchami, Dhammam sharanam gacchami, Sangham sharanam gacchami. I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dhamma, I take refuge in the Sangha.

When we take refuge in the Buddha, what are we taking refuge in? Are we taking refuge in Gautama or Siddhartha Gautama? We're taking refuge in the possibility of what is available to all beings. The nature of awakening. When we say we take refuge in the Dhamma, what is the Dhamma? The Dhamma is wisdom of what is real and what is unreal. What is essential and what is unessential. The Dhamma is the understanding of how we create our own suffering through the process and mechanics of craving. But it's also the release from that, the knowledge and vision and wisdom of how to release that and thereby experience the supramundane cessation of suffering, which is Nibbana.

What is the Sangha? The Sangha is all of us here. We take refuge in our friends. For the monks, for the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, it's their Sangha, the bhikkhu Sangha. For lay people, it's their community of like-minded practitioners who come together. When I say I take refuge in something, it means that I... Now, this is an interesting word. So, sharanam literally means to bow down to, to surrender to, to submit to. And in the Western world, and even now, in many parts of the Eastern world, that's seen as a weak thing to do. It's seen as power play. We're not talking about that kind of stuff. When we say surrender, we're saying, look, there is something available that is more than I am.

When we talk about the Sangha, we're talking about beautiful friendship. And the Buddha says, that is the whole of the path. Beautiful friendship is the whole of the Dhamma. So, it's not just about, I feel loving kindness in myself. Compassion in myself, and I radiate outwards. Can I also speak in a compassionate manner? Can I act in a compassionate manner? Can I think in a compassionate manner towards the people in my Sangha, in my community, in my group?

And by the way, compassionate and loving kindness doesn't always mean using flowery words or pleasant words. When you see somebody is not on the right path, and you feel like speaking up and talking about it, go ahead and do it. What's the worst that could happen? They shut you down. That's it. They don't want to listen to you. That's it. But you did your part and you felt like you could help with some words of advice, with some words of suggestions. This is what somebody who teaches does. They have compassion. They spend time speaking to you about these things, instructing you, helping you, guiding you, doing interviews with you. All of these things.

And you can do the same for yourself and for others in the community. So this sharanam, this refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, this isn't some kind of ritual. It is a process of the realization that everything that we experience is an interconnected process. In order for me to experience that Buddha's awakening, which is available to all of us, the difference between a Buddha and another fully awakened being within the Sangha is that the Buddha did it first. That's it.

So we're just seeing the possibility of that. And we realize in order for us to have that possibility, we must follow the Dhamma, which is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths: the craving aspect and the letting go aspect. And thereby the Nibbana, which happens through the Eightfold Path. And we need beautiful friendship for that. That's the Sangha. And that's where the pamoja arises. That I am among friends and like-minded practitioners who can depend on me and I can depend on them to talk about Dhamma, talk about practice not out of competition, not out of, oh, why is she in the eighth jhana and I'm only in the sixth, why are they a sakadagami and I'm only a sotapanna, but out of community, out of a sense of, oh, how did you get to that, what did you do exactly? Right? And you exchange notes, you talk about it. Obviously you're not doing it here, but I think on the last day you will be doing that.

So understand that, that we can be there for each other, we can be compassionate towards each other in this way. When we have these Sunday sessions, that's what we're doing, we're coming together, we're reading a sutra, and somebody like oneself, myself, talks about the sutra, and then there's a question and answer session, and maybe later on they discuss it amongst themselves. There's different ways of getting involved with your Sangha, and this is what keeps the practice alive. But the Buddha also says another thing. He says, if you can't find a Sangha, if you have a lousy Sangha, better to go out on your own, or find a different Sangha. That's fine too. But the pamoja, this is coming back to pamoja, the relief, the gladness in the Dhamma.

This is also dependent upon what is known as faith. So in Samyutta Nikaya 12.23, that's the Upanisa Sutta, it talks about faith. So faith or saddha leads to pamoja. Pamoja leads to piti. Piti leads to tranquility. Tranquility leads to sukha. Sukha leads to samadhi. Samadhi leads to equanimity. Equanimity leads to disenchantment. Disenchantment leads to dispassion. Dispassion leads to freedom. Freedom leads to the knowledge of freedom. This is the entire 12-step program. So what is that faith that we're talking about? When you guys came here, most of you are already familiar with TWIM, but when you first came to TWIM, you came on the basis of hearing about it from someone else or going on YouTube and searching for a meditation practice, whatever it is you searched for.

You saw Bhante's videos, later on you saw David's videos, later on you might have seen my videos and you're like, oh, this is interesting. Let me do a retreat and see what it's all about. That's faith. You decided to spend your time and energy and attention to come here out of faith. Yeah, of course, there's word of mouth and people have said this and that and all the other. And you've seen for yourself how this process works through the videos and listening to Sunday talks and this and that and the other. But that's all faith. That's all part of faith. You made the decision, the conscious decision, to listen and listen to what this person has to say.

So that ability to put aside everything else for the time being and just try to follow this practice, that's also faith. And that faith then turns into experiential confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. And when you have that experiential confidence, you are well on your way to stream winning. The fruition of stream entry. This is what the Buddha says in the Maha Parinibbana Sutta. It's the longest sutta in the entire Pali canon. And there's so many segments and episodes in that sutta, in so many different sections.

But there's a section called The Mirror of the Dhamma, and Ananda, his attendant, the Buddha's attendant, says, now that you're going to be gone, now you're going to attain Parinibbana, we will never see you again. How do we help ourselves, and how do we entrust in others that they are where they are, that they have attained the stream? How does one get to know for oneself that one has attained the stream? And the Buddha says there is the mirror of the Dhamma, and one who has attained the stream is one who has experiential confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. So we're not talking about just lip service faith here. We're talking about you have walked the path, seen for yourself that this path works, and you have unshakable faith, unshakable confidence and conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.

It's not some kind of religious faith. It's the realization that for you, this path works, and you're just going to keep going with this path. And not out of somebody else's will, and not because you're pressured to do it, but because you yourself see that now that I've practiced this, there's nothing else that I can do but walk this Eightfold Path. It makes total sense to me. It doesn't defy any kind of logic. It's all practical knowledge and wisdom and experience, and thereby I have total conviction in the Buddha and Dhamma and Sangha, and I have gladness in that. That's the pamoja. So the faith leads to gladness, or the relief.

That leads to the joy, that inner joy of the piti. That leads to tranquility, where the mind is relaxed, the body is relaxed. That leads to sukha, where the mind and body are comfortable. That leads to samadhi, where the mind is collected. So the mind is now in jhana, free of any hindrances. Then that leads to yathabhuta nanadassanam, the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are. And then from there, that leads to disenchantment, freedom from enchantment. That leads to dispassion. That dispassion leads to vimutti, freedom. And that freedom leads to the knowledge of being free. Now, in other suttas, like 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 of the Anguttara Nikaya, he gives a different variation.

He says, the virtue, the precepts, keeping the precepts, leads to non-regret. So when I keep the precepts and continue to follow them, my mind has no regrets. My mind has no doubts about being filled with any kind of blame, because I'm doing the best I can keeping my precepts. So I have no regrets, non-regrets, and I have relief because of that. I have joy in the Dhamma. I have piti, and then the rest of this sequence continues in the same way. But that's just 11 so far, if you guys are keeping count. That faith is dependent upon dukkha. You're not going to get on this path unless you've experienced some kind of suffering, generally.

I was saying the other day that dukkha, which I will explore in detail on another talk. But this dukkha is the suffering of experiencing death, like the death of a loved one, death of a friend, experiencing grief, experiencing despair, depression, anxiety, experiencing pains in old age, the fear of death. The suffering of change: things happen unexpectedly, and the things that we want don't happen, the things we don't want happen, and so on and so forth. And in order to deal with that, we take a ton of drugs. That's one way to numb the pain, and that's the confusion.

At some point, if you don't die of an overdose, we realize there must be a way out. And we start searching for that way out. And that leads towards the realization that if I keep my precepts, out of faith I go to a retreat or I listen to the words of the Buddha. And eventually I experience that pamoja, the gladness and the Dhamma, the relief. And as I meditate, I experience the joy of the first and second jhana. And the rest of the sequence continues. So this is how the Buddha has mapped out the path to realization, the path to awakening, the path to freedom from suffering. Any questions?

Yeah. Earlier you talked about formations and what they are. How do we experience them? We don't. We generally don't, I should say, because we're experiencing usually feeling and perception. But they are facilitated by formations. And some formations arise due to our intention. I've always said, if you want to know the quality of your formations, take a look at the quality of your intentions. So the intentions are reflections of what formations arise.

But when you are, for example, as I said, generally we don't experience it in everyday life. But when we are in a very quiet state of mind, like neither perception or non-perception, we might see different patterns and things like that. And these are the proto-thoughts, the formations, that come up in the form of these underdeveloped ideas or these seemingly random kind of patterns and memories and things like that. And those are like the immediate arising of formations.

Yes? Once again, thank you. I feel like you're talking to me, but I bet the others in the room felt the same way. I'm just getting used to going through the genres forward, going backwards. Any words of wisdom moving backwards into acting? Yeah, yeah. The reason I gave this was because just as we are radiating loving-kindness, we're radiating loving-kindness in different directions, that changes to compassion, that changes to joy, and then that changes to equanimity. And we get a sense of what that equanimity feels like, which is a very tranquil feeling. And eventually, our mind doesn't want to radiate anymore, so we just start mind-watching mind. And that's the process. But when we experience the pain of restlessness in the mind, as it gets quieter, there's stuff that comes up, and we can't escape it, we can't let go of it immediately. I'm saying we take a step back by just generating equanimity again.

Coming back to the memory of that feeling of equanimity and then having the intention of radiating that. Trusting that memory is in there. That experience is there through your intention. It might take a while, but it might take a short while. And we can sink back into that and then radiate it. Yeah? May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.