MN 111 The Path Through the Jhanas-Very Good Explanation of the Jhanas

Yeah, that's a good point. Today we're going to be discussing jhanas. So jhanas are essentially levels of understanding, levels of wisdom, and levels of cessation. So how important are jhanas? They're both important but also not that important. I don't want you to get caught up in trying to figure out what jhana you're in when you're listening to the description of the jhanas. That's my job.

So the jhanas are essentially part of what's known as right collectedness, sama samadhi. Samadhi is the eighth aspect of the Eightfold Path. So how do you get into jhana? The common understanding, or let's say common misperception, is that in order for you to get into jhana you have to concentrate really hard and push yourself and make an effort to the point that you become super focused.

And the idea there is that your attention is like light that's been scattered. And now you are focusing it all into one point, like a laser. concentration, which are known as jhanas, according to that school of thought. But the way the Buddha taught it, according to the suttas, is that the jhanas arise naturally, organically, without too much effort.

The effort that is required here is a process of letting go and relaxing. And so this is a gradual and natural progression. It's a series of progressive steps of cessation leading towards total cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. And I will explain what that means. So today's sutta is going to be Majjhima Nikaya 111, One by one as they occurred.

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Savati in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's Park. There he addressed the bhikkhus thus: Bhikkhus. Venerable Sir, they replied. The Blessed One said this: Bhikkhus, Sariputta is wise. Sariputta has great wisdom. Sariputta has wide wisdom, joyous wisdom. Sariputta has quick wisdom. Sariputta has keen wisdom. Sariputta has penetrative wisdom.

So whenever the Buddha or any of the monks use the word wise or wisdom, they are referring to a level of understanding that is very, very deep, to the core of the nature of existence, and that is the understanding and seeing of the links of dependent origination. Dependent origination is a deep and vast topic, and it is the core of the Dhamma. In another sutta, Sariputta actually himself says that the Buddha has said before that one who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma. One who sees the Dhamma sees dependent origination.

Now we will explore dependent origination in a few days. And as I said, it is a very complex topic, a complex subject. So don't get rattled by all of the concepts that we're going to go over. I'll explain why when we actually talk about dependent origination. Here, when he refers to wisdom, he's referring to that. And Sariputta was the foremost disciple of wisdom. He was one of the chief disciples of the Buddha.

So the other chief disciple was Moggallana. Moggallana and Sariputta were two best friends living in the same village. A circus in town, a fair coming to town. And both of them decided to go and visit this place and check out what was going on, the festivities and so on. And they were quite elated, quite happy, quite uplifted, quite joyful.

And they decided that they were going to go to that festival every single day for that one month or however long it was. Then that enthusiasm for those festivities started to wane, until finally they became disenchanted with it. Disenchanted means they became tired of it, and they said there must be more to life than just seeking out sensual pleasures. So they started out on their journey. They went forth, as it's understood. So they became wandering ascetics. They just wandered around in the forest from town to town. And they joined a group led by a person named Sanjaya, Sanjaya Belaputta, who was basically the one who talked about philosophical skepticism.

And this idea was, well, they were known as the eel wrigglers because they never really concluded on anything. They basically said we don't hold on to any views at all. And one day Sariputta and Moggallana were walking in the forest and they saw this particular monk, this particular disciple of the Buddha. This was in the early days of the time of the Buddha, after he was fully awakened. When they saw him, they were so enamored by him because he was glowing and he had this certain presence and power. And they asked, who is your teacher and what does he teach? And he says, my teacher is the Tathagata. The Tathagata is a title for the Buddha. Tathagata means one gone forth, one thus gone or one thus come.

Gone to where or come from where? From the Dhamma, from understanding, from wisdom. And he teaches essentially one thing and one thing alone. And he gave them a couplet. And what he said was, he talked about causation and conditionality. He said, whenever this arises, that arises. Whenever this ceases, that ceases. That's the paraphrase of what he said.

And it took Moggallana half of that verse to attain what's known as stream entry, which is the first level of awakening. Sariputta took a little longer because he had to listen to both verses to attain stream entry. And so both of them went to the Buddha and they trained under the Buddha. Buddhahood, full awakening. Sariputta was a slow learner. It took him about two weeks.

After that, around that time, they were declared the chief disciples. The Buddha proclaimed them as the chief disciples because they had made a determination. They had made a resolution many, many, many, many lifetimes ago, eons ago, to be born again as the next Buddha's chief disciples. And so in order for them to do that, they would have to go through developing many, many eons of paramis, which means developing loving kindness, developing compassion, developing forgiveness, developing patience, and so on and so forth. Generosity, keeping the precepts, and so on. of Sariputta from the first jhana to his full awakening. So we're going to explore how he does that.

During half a month, Bhikkhus, Sariputta gained insight into states one by one as they occurred. Now, Sariputta's insight into states one by one as they occurred was this. Here, Bhikkhus, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, Sariputta entered upon and abided in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. This is essentially the first jhana. Quite secluded from sensual pleasures. What does that mean? Quite secluded from sensual pleasures. Eyes closed, so you're secluded from any kind of experience in terms of the visual experience. You start to bring your mind towards a mental object. In this case, for all of us here, it's the brahmaviharas, loving kindness. So your mind starts to bring up the feeling of loving kindness as an object. And then it says, secluded from unwholesome states.

So when we talk about unwholesome states, we're essentially talking about the five hindrances. That means secluded, or the mind is void of any kind of sensual craving, any kind of ill will, any kind of restlessness, any kind of doubt, and any kind of sloth and torpor. These are the five hindrances. As a result of being secluded, or void of any kind of unwholesome states, the mind experiences rapture and pleasure born of that seclusion. And you experience some kind of agitation.

What do you do with that agitation? Do you fight with it? Do you suppress it? Do you push it away? Or do you acknowledge it? You recognize here is agitation. You take your attention away from it. You release it. You relax the tightness and tension in mind and body. Come back to the smile. You are letting go of any kind of craving.

And in that moment of relaxation, you experience a mundane form of Nibbana. In that moment, the mind feels like it is completely clear and pristine, like the open cloudless blue sky. And as a result of that, the mind is uplifted. The mind experiences relief. Relief from that hindrance. Relief from distractions. As a result of which, joy arises.

And that joy is experienced in different ways. This is known as piti. And happiness, which is also understood as sukha in Pali. Sukha means to be comfortable in the body and in the mind. Piti is an experience of joy, an experience of euphoria that arises. Now, this isn't something that you have to bring up. This is something that arises naturally as a result of the mind becoming collected, as a result of the mind becoming free from a hindrance.

Now, it will take time to actually recognize the hindrance, release your attention from it, relax, re-smile, and return back to your object. After some time, the mind experiences relief and joy arising naturally. So you're not bringing up joy here. You're just letting the mind rest in a collected state around its object of meditation, which is the loving kindness.

Now when we talk about applied and sustained thought, what does that mean? Vitakka and vicara. Applied and sustained thought. of loving-kindness that comes up in the form of using mental verbalizations like, may I be happy, may I be well, may I be free of suffering, and so on. Or you bring up an image, a wholesome memory, gratitude, and so on and so forth.

That is only present to the extent it's required for the loving-kindness to come up. Once the loving-kindness comes up, you let go of the verbalizations, you let go of the image, and just stay with the pure feeling of loving-kindness that can be manifested as a feeling of warmth and glowing in the chest, as a feeling of being content and happy for oneself, and then for a spiritual friend. Wishing happiness upon oneself and wishing happiness for a spiritual friend.

And so this is the first jhana. That's all it is. That's the first jhana. It's not like you have to bring up joy. It's not like you have to cultivate happiness. It's not like you have to do any kind of effort to suppress the hindrances. The moment you suppress hindrances, what happens is maybe for some time, for that progress in meditation, you experience happiness and joy. Maybe for a few hours you still experience that bliss.

And then what happens when you're met with an uncomfortable situation? The hindrance arises with full force again. So this is not a process of suppression. It's a process of seclusion. Seclusion here is referring to abandoning and letting go. Relaxing. From relaxing, there is relief. From that relief, there is joy. That is the piti. Now, that piti can arise in different ways. It can arise as heat in the hands or in the body. It can arise as energy circuits in the body. It can arise as a glowing feeling within the body. It can arise as just pure mental happiness.

Different ways, different facets of piti, and they are intensified by how focused you are. Now the key here is not to be focused to the point that your mind becomes one-pointed. What does that mean, one-pointed? It means that the mind becomes attached to the object of its attention, to the object of meditation. You don't want to be attached.

You want to be in orbit of the object of meditation. So the analogy here is the planet, the earth, is the loving kindness that is your object that you bring up. Your attention is the satellite that orbits around the earth. If it's too close, what happens? The satellite crashes. If it's too far, what happens? The satellite starts to drift away.

If it's too close, your mind is unable to have proper wisdom and insight. If it's too far, your mind is unable to remain collected and unscattered. So what do you do when your mind gets distracted? And what is a distraction? If you are meditating and you're with your object and there are thoughts in the background, but you're staying with the object, you don't have to do anything. Just stay with it. The thoughts themselves will dissipate because they have the lack of fuel, which is your attention.

When you get distracted, that means the satellite starts to go out of orbit and drifts away. What do you do? You need a machine or a person to bring that satellite back into orbit. And that is the six R's. You recognize the mind has gotten distracted. You release your attention from that distraction. You relax the tightness and tension.

You re-smile, and you return back to orbit. You come back to the object of meditation. And then you repeat whenever you get distracted. This continual process of using the six R's whenever you get distracted, whenever you are no longer on your object of meditation completely, this is the process, this is the equipment, this is how you get into right collectedness, right meditation. How you get back into jhana. And jhana can feel really, really, really good, or it can be very subtle. And that just depends on your mindset, how well your mind is attuned to that experience, whether you've had experiences like that before or not. And if you haven't, it can feel amazing for the first time.

Used to it, it starts to become more and more subtle, and that's okay, because jhana is not the goal here. Jhana is a stepping stone towards your ultimate goal, which is the cessation of all suffering, the experience of nibbana. And the states in the first jhana: the applied thought, the sustained thought, the rapture, the pleasure, and the unification of mind.

Unification of mind, that means the mind remains unified around its object of meditation. Doesn't mean it becomes one-pointed. The contact, feeling, perception, volition, mind, the zeal, decision, energy, mindfulness, equanimity, and attention. Don't worry about these. Don't have to look out for them. What Sariputta is doing, because he is a master meditator, is able to pinpoint these different facets of the experience of each of the jhanas that he's going through.

And so when you see contact, feeling, perception, volition and mind, for example, what that's talking about is elements of the mind that are experiencing that particular jhana. The contact there is mind making contact with joy, mind making contact with its object of meditation. The feeling is the experience of joy, and the perception is the knowing that joy is present. The volition is the intentionalizing of being in a certain jhana. And then mind is the attention to that. Energy, mindfulness, equanimity, and attention.

The zeal, decision, energy. So the zeal here is the enthusiasm, relishing the experience, being deep in that experience. The decision is to be resolute, to be in that experience, making a point to remain collected and remain relaxed. Energy. This is the balance of energy that arises from letting go of the hindrances. So in other words, energy means effort, but it means the right effort. And that right effort is essentially the six R's.

Mindfulness. Mindfulness means remembering to observe how your mind's attention moves from one object to the other. So when you see, okay, now there's joy, your attention has gone there. Fine, but you're now staying collected. Or you notice that now the mind is no longer in jhana because there is some kind of distraction. You still have mindfulness. Every time you recognize the mind was distracted, your mindfulness returns. Equanimity. Equanimity here, essentially in this context, means that the mind remains unaffected by what is arising and passing away. It's just present.

Not doing anything else. Not going to this or that. And attention. Manasikara. Attention here means to take something to heart. To really pay attention to what's going on. That's really what it is. These states were defined by him one by one as they occurred. So it's not necessary that these states, if you do see these states, they might not arise in that same order as they're listed out. Here they're listed out in this order as a means of memorizing, so that it's easier for monks to memorize, but they will arise as and when they will arise, in whatever order they arise, and your job is not to look for them at this point in time. Your job is to just relax and keep your mind steady

by letting the mind rest in the feeling of loving kindness. Everything else will take care of itself. As your mindfulness sharpens, as your practice of attention sharpens, you'll start to see these things. But not for a very long time, and that's okay. That's not the goal here. That'll happen later. Even some of the most advanced meditators. So, don't worry about it.

So not worth holding on to. Don't get attached to them. You're not feeling the joy. That's okay. It's fine. It'll come up whenever it comes up. Loving-kindness fades away, that's okay. What do you do? Come back. Bring up the object by verbalizing. Bring up the object by coming back to a wholesome state. That's it. So, you're teaching yourself. When you go through these states of jhanas, you're teaching yourself how mind works.

Regarding those states, he abided unattracted, unrepelled, independent, detached, free, disassociated with a mind rid of barriers. So you're just watching the show unfold, remaining independent. You are the observer here, just watching the show of this experience happening. This is a process known as metacognition, meta-awareness, not the awareness of meta, although it can be. It's the awareness of the mind meditating.

You're just watching the mind go through these different states but remaining unaffected by them. They're just arising and passing away. Your objective is to stay with the feeling. Your objective is to stay with your object of meditation. That's it. And the six R's whenever you get distracted. There is an escape beyond. In other words, the first jhana is just a gateway into something else. That is not the ultimate state to be in.

And with the cultivation of that attainment, he confirmed that there is. Again, Bhikkhus, with the stilling of applied and sustained thought, Sariputta entered and abided in the second jhana, confidence and singleness of mind without applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of concentration or collectedness. What are the factors of the second jhana? And this happens naturally. As your mind becomes more collected, you do away with the verbalizing. You do away with the imagery. You stay fully on the object of meditation.

Once you let go of verbalizing, once you let go of the imagery, that means there is no more applied and sustained thought. Now you are in the second jhana. And things start to become like autopilot. Everything starts to flow. That's the self-confidence that arises over here: that the attention becomes more unscattered. Not necessarily one-pointed, not necessarily like a laser, but it remains now fully in orbit, comfortably and confidently in orbit, without any nudges or implementations.

Everything becomes automated. In other words, now that the mind becomes further collected, the attention becomes further unscattered, there is deeper joy that arises. Not necessarily more energetic in nature, but there is a deeper feeling of joy. There's a deeper feeling of happiness that arises. So the joy starts to become like a spring of joy, a fountain of joy that comes up.

And it's very smooth. It's not, you know, it's not hazy. It's not, there's no uncertainty about it. It's very, very free-flowing. And the states in the second jhana: the self-confidence, the rapture, the pleasure, and the unification of mind. The contact, feeling, perception, volition, and mind. The zeal, decision, energy, mindfulness, equanimity, and attention. So these are all the same states, except for the self-confidence, the rapture, pleasure and the unification of mind, which are the signatures of the second jhana. These states were defined by him one by one as they occurred, known to him. Those states arose, known they were present, known they disappeared. He understood that with the cultivation of that attainment, he confirmed that there is an escape beyond. So now, in the first jhana, how do you know that you are in the first jhana? First and foremost, there are no hindrances present.

There is no doubt. There is no restlessness. There is no sensual craving. There is no ill will. There is no sloth and torpor. There is a feeling of being uplifted. There is a feeling of being collected. And that is accompanied by the intentionalizing. So as your mind starts to get deeper into its object of meditation, as it starts to rest deeper, for a certain amount of time, your mind automatically enters into the first jhana. And now, once you let go of the intentionalizing, once you let go of the imagery and you let go of the verbalizing, it enters into the second jhana. Again, Bhikkhus, with the fading away as well of rapture, Sariputta abided in equanimity and mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure in the body or with the body, he entered upon and abided in the third jhana.

On account of which noble ones announce, he has a pleasant abiding, who has equanimity and is mindful. So what happens in the third jhana? In the third jhana, the joy fades. So oftentimes in the interviews, people will say, I felt great amounts of joy, but then it started to go away. And they have a forlorn look on their faces. But it's a good thing, because now you're becoming more collected. You're having deeper levels of sukha, of happiness.

But that happiness is not energetic. One of the ways that it's been described, the difference between piti and sukha, the difference between joy and bliss and happiness and comfort, is like a candle flame. Joy has the quality of a flickering flame. Energetic, it's too vibrant. But comfort and happiness is slower, more flowing, and therefore more long-lasting. And so there's a feeling of being comfortable in the body, there's a feeling of being content, there's a feeling of being balanced in the mind. And here, nothing can disturb the mind. The mind is very mindful. In other words, very sharp.

Able to experience and understand what is arising and passing away. It's a very pleasant experience. Not necessarily pleasurable, although it can be, but it's pleasant in the sense that the mind is very content. This is a very important highlight and hallmark of the third jhana. And the states in the third jhana: the equanimity, the pleasure, the mindfulness, the full awareness, and the unification of mind. So now we have the equanimity. The mind is very calm, very collected, content.

The mindfulness, the full awareness, the mind can see things very clearly, whatever is arising. And the unification of the mind, the attention remains undiverted, unscattered. The contact, feeling, perception, volition and mind, the zeal, decision, energy, mindfulness, equanimity and attention. These states were defined. So here, when you're in the third jhana, another signature of the third jhana is that the feeling of loving kindness starts to feel more expansive. There's a certain spacious quality to it. And you might feel different experiences in the body. The body might feel lighter, or it might feel very grounded. That just depends upon your faculties.

But when you're experiencing these things, then you know that you're starting to get into the third jhana. Again, bhikkhus, with the abandoning of pleasure and pain, with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, Sariputta entered upon and abided in the fourth jhana, which has neither pain nor pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. Now at this point what happens is the mind starts to experience the feeling of loving kindness starting to rise up. It is because the experience of loving-kindness is starting to become more expansive.

It's pervading the entire body, but more importantly, it is felt as being up in the head. And when the feeling of loving-kindness is up in the head, there is great levels of calmness and clarity. The mind just doesn't feel like doing anything. When you ask somebody in an interview, how do you feel, they'll say, fine, just fine.

Everything is okay. They have complete balance in their mind. And so this is total equanimity, which is a hallmark of the fourth jhana. And complete clarity, which is mindfulness. The mind is unshaken. It's difficult for the mind to come out of that kind of state because it feels so good. It's so good. And when you come out of it and you go about walking, you remain there. The mind is very quiet.

The mind experiences expansion, spaciousness. And so when you experience that, that will be the fourth jhana. And so when you experience the fourth jhana, an advanced meditator. A lot of times people will experience this usually around the third or fourth day, and once they start to realize, oh, I was in the fourth jhana, they are in disbelief, because they think from prior training or from prior schools of thought that the fourth jhana is something unattainable, and that the fourth jhana means that there is no breathing going on and that there is complete isolation of mind from the body.

That's not the case. The understanding here is certain things that are related to the body functions, including inhalation and exhalation, start to become more and more relaxed. Relaxed with the body, and you feel more like you are in a spacious mindset. But that doesn't mean that if there's an ant crawling on your hand, you won't feel it. Your attention will go there, and it will feel it faintly.

But you will be equanimous towards it. You'll remain unaffected by it. So it doesn't mean the total dissolution of contact with the body. The states in the fourth jhana: the equanimity, the neither painful nor pleasant feeling, the mental unconcern due to tranquility. You just don't care about what's going on. You're just so happy, but it's a different kind of happiness, a happiness from being completely balanced. The purity of mindfulness. Your mindfulness is unscattered, unimpinged. The signal is absolutely clear.

It feels like there's a resistance there, because loving-kindness now wants to flow out. And it wants to flow out in all directions. So those directions are forward, backwards, right, left, below you, above you, and then pervading all directions. And when that happens, what you're doing is you're taking the loving-kindness and you're sending it out in different directions first, individual directions, for about five minutes each. And then from there, the loving kindness starts to become more spacious.

And as it starts to become more spacious, it becomes more expansive. And now you stop feeling your body. You are now in your head. You are now in a mental realm. And that feeling of expansion starts to translate into the experience of infinite space. And the feeling of metta, the feeling of loving kindness, changes in its quality.

It starts to become more translucent. It starts to become softer, like cotton candy. And so that feeling is compassion. Karuna. So with the infinite space, the experience of expansion, there is the experience of compassion. And then that becomes your object of meditation. So you switch over from metta to compassion, not intentionally, but automatically, naturally, progressively. Now that feeling of compassion can then be taken as your object while you're doing your walking meditation.

And that feeling of compassion can be understood as understanding the suffering of other beings, but not being affected by their suffering. In other words, the moment you become affected by their suffering, you become ineffective to be able to help them out of their suffering. You don't want to be a crutch for them out of their suffering, and be instrumental in their ability to come out of that suffering. This is the practical understanding of compassion in action.

Accompanied by Mudita, empathetic joy. What do we mean by infinite consciousness? In some traditions, there is an experience of becoming one with all. The unification of the small being with the big being, being one with the universe, being one with existence. Now qualitatively, that experience is similar to infinite space. It is not infinite consciousness. Because when we talk about infinite consciousness here, we are referring to infinite consciousnesses.

What happens is you start to pervade all of space with the feeling of compassion, with the experience of compassion. And as you're doing this, you start to see that the borders start to become more rippled and start to break down. And some people experience it in different ways. Some people see rings of light, circles of light in their mental field of vision. Some people start to see flickers of light on and off, on and off, on and off. Some people hear certain flickers.

Some people feel surges in their face or in their body. It's like as if there are spiders crawling up their face. Some people start to feel electricity buzzing in their tongue. And some people start to see there is some kind of gap in between one thought and the next. And these gaps start to become wider and wider and wider. Now this is infinite consciousness. What you are starting to see is the breaking down of the experience into its momentary fragments, the arising and passing away of individual sense-based consciousnesses. So when we say consciousness here, we're talking about the awareness of an experience, the bare cognition of an experience. Right when you snap your fingers, that right there was a large amount of arising and passing away of your consciousness.

When you're seeing me, what you are seeing is this fluid experience of me speaking and moving my hands around. But if you were in infinite consciousness, you would start to see the breaking down of individual consciousnesses or awarenesses of light hitting back and forth between the eye, your eye, I should say, and my body. Like when, if anybody has been at a party or at a nightclub and you see the strobe effect and people are dancing and you just see every other movement that's going on, I have experienced that. Walking into the kitchen when I was in San Diego, when I was in infinite consciousness, I would walk and I saw people there, and they move like jittery, like this, and everything started to break down.

But the good thing is I had enough equanimity not to freak out. Sometimes you will experience infinite consciousness by hearing a sound and you start to see its individual sound waves. It's like everything slows down. Now these are all perceptions. These are all experiences you're having, subjective experiences you're having. What's happening there is you're starting to see how dependent origination works. It yet, but you'll understand when we talk about dependent origination. You're starting to see when a sense base makes connection or touches its object, when light hits the eyes, when a sound wave hits the ears, when molecules hit the taste buds or the olfactory bulbs, when temperature and pressure start to make contact with the skin or internally.

Or in the mind, you start to see the gaps in thoughts. Because things are starting to slow down to such an extent that you're able to see them at a microscopic level. Now, when you do this, you're experiencing infinite consciousness. And accompanied by this is what is known as empathetic joy. This is not a vibrant kind of joy. A cottony kind of joy. It's much softer than compassion, much more long-lasting than compassion, much more stretched out than compassion.

And that is now your object of meditation. All the tricky psychedelic stuff that happens around it, that's not your object. That's just a hallmark, a signpost letting you know that now you are in infinite consciousness. From infinite in infinite consciousness is this, you start to see the arising and passing away. So what are you seeing? You're seeing the nature of reality, the arising and passing away, coming and going, arising and passing away. And then you're starting to see that it becomes tiresome after a little while. It becomes boring. It's like, okay, been there, done that, times, I'm done with this. That is called dukkha, suffering.

And then you realize that there's no controller over here. You can't make it arise and pass away. It's just arising and passing away. And now you're going into the insight of anatta, which is not self. This is not me. This is not mine. This is not myself. Things that will happen naturally as you progress through this practice. These are not things you have to look for.

And as a result of which, your mind starts to go away from that and goes into the gaps between the arising and passing away and the passing away and the next arising. And these gaps start to widen and widen and widen. And now you come to a point where it's the next stage, which is this. And these states were defined by him one by one as they occurred. He understood thus, there is an escape beyond this.

And with the cultivation of that attainment, he confirmed that there is. Again, bhikkhus, by completely surmounting the base of infinite consciousness, aware that there is nothing, Sariputta entered upon and abided in the base of nothingness or no-thingness. Now those gaps widen. Of absolutely nothing. There's nothing going on there in your field of vision. There's just a blank. But accompanied by this, there is an experience of equanimity, and that is your object. So in the case of infinite space, you are radiating first loving-kindness, which changes to compassion. In the case of infinite consciousness, the compassion changes into empathetic joy, you radiate. And now in the case of nothingness, where there is a blank and the mind feels very calm, very collected, you are radiating equanimity.

And at that point, the equanimity is radiated so softly, so gently, that you're almost not even aware of it sometimes. You're just so happy and content to be in it. It's like you have the surface of a very still lake and you drop a little pebble and then it starts to create these soft ripples on the surface. So the pebble, or dropping the pebble, is your intention to pervade all of space with equanimity. And now all you're doing is you're observing that pervading, that process of pervading, that process of the ripples through space, and those ripples being the equanimity. And what happens is, at a certain point, it stops, and the mind is feeling very content and collected.

So you try again, you do it again. You drop another pebble, and again you send out equanimity in all directions. And that keeps happening. But eventually what happens is, at this point, the mind feels a little tense. It doesn't want to do anything. And this is where it takes itself as an object. Mind rests in itself. It inverts into itself. There's just an awareness there which is known as the quiet mind. Now it's known as a quiet mind because it's quite quiet. But there can be little ripples here and there. And that's fine.

But there can be long stretches of time where absolutely nothing is going on. We're talking 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, even an hour of nothing going on. No vibration going on. Just this awareness. And that's just the mind itself. And when that happens, you are in a state known as neither perception nor non-perception, which I'll get to now.

Again, bhikkhus, by completely surmounting the base of nothingness, letting go of nothingness, letting go of radiating equanimity, Sariputta entered upon and abided in the base of neither perception nor non-perception. What happens in this state? This is a state of neither perception nor non-perception, which means, what is perception? Perception is the mind's ability to comprehend what it is experiencing. When you see this, you see that this is the color white. When you see this, you see that this is a table.

When you hear my voice, you recognize that it is my voice that is speaking. So that is the recognition aspect, rooted in memory, to be able to comprehend what it is that the mind is experiencing through any of the five physical sense spaces or through the mind itself. But that becomes wonky in neither perception nor non-perception. Because now different aspects of the mind are starting to cease, starting to take a pause, starting to shut down, including the ability to fully comprehend what's going on. And a lot of people, a lot of meditators, report that it feels like they're asleep but awake at the same time. This is not sloth and torpor, where the mind feels dull and heavy and unable to come out of it.

This is where the mind is light, bright, radiant, but it just feels like it's asleep. It's asleep but awake at the same time. And different kinds of images start to appear, but you can't fully comprehend what those images are. It's like they're distant memories, or feels like they might be from a different life. Remember, if you've ever had that kind of experience before through those memories, and they're all very disconnected. It's like you're in this twilight zone of experience that you can't really make any sense out of, and that's okay. That's just the background of your mind as neither perception nor non-perception. The key to that is not to try to pay attention to what exactly that is, because as soon as you do that, guess what?

You go back to perceiving. So you're no longer neither perceiving nor not perceiving. Now you're fully perceiving. So if you notice that's going on, it's okay. Just relax into it. All right? And stay in the center, which is the eye of the storm. Whatever is happening around you, don't do anything with it. If your mind starts to go down a pathway and try to explore what's going on there, as soon as you recognize that's going on, just relax.

And relax back into quiet mind, in that spaciousness where nothing is going on. And just relax. Because the moment you start to try to figure out what's going on, you're taking steps backwards. The key here now is to do two things. It's distracting. That's it. Ultimately, the only thing I would tell you to do in this particular process, at this particular time when you're there, is don't do anything.

And that's easier said than done, because the mind feels like it needs to follow this, or am I resting enough, or am I staying in this object, or, you know, all of these things come up in the form of doubts. So don't try not to do anything. Just don't do anything. Do or do not, there is no trying. So just rest and don't do anything.

Now, when the mind starts to go towards sloth and torpor and you start to realize your attention is going away, and there's starting to be sleepiness, then you recognize that and you let that go and put a little bit more attention in being restful. If you notice that the mind becomes more excited and there's stuff coming up and you feel overwhelmed by that, recognize that, relax, and rest into again the quietness. And listen to this. He says, mindful from that attainment.

In other words, he was not able to recognize or perceive the different states that were arising when he was in neither perception or non-perception. So, the suggestion here is that when you're at this level, and if you have not gone beyond that, and you're experiencing that, and you come out of the meditation, sit, spend a couple minutes to just relax and look back on what arose.

You will see shapes and patterns and images, distant thoughts. All you have to do there is the 6R's, then. And then you come out of the sit and do whatever it is that you're doing. Ceased and changed. That's what he did. He was not able to actually penetrate what was going on in either perception or non-perception, because the moment he did that, he's no longer in there.

But having emerged from that attainment, he went back and he looked at what had arisen, what was there, and what passed away. So indeed, these states, not having been, come into being; having been, they vanished. Regarding those states, whatever those states were, he abided unattracted, unrepelled, independent, detached, free, disassociated, with the mind rid of barriers. He remained unaffected. So in other words, if you do that process, when you come out in either perception or non-perception, and you see shapes, patterns, and things like that, don't try to make any kind of meaning out of it. Remain unaffected.

Just six are them. And come back to the quiet mind. He understood there is an escape beyond. and with the cultivation of that attainment, he confirmed that there is. Again, bhikkhus, by completely surmounting the base of neither perception or non-perception, Sariputta entered upon and abided in the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. And his taints were destroyed by his seeing with wisdom.

This is a very interesting state. Now you are in neither perception or non-perception, and you are in quiet mind. And for very long stretches of time, there is no activity that's going on. Just tiny vibrations here and there. But as your mind starts to settle into the quiet mind, and because it starts to remain there, it doesn't fuel any arising of more vibrations with its attention. In other words, becoming distracted by this or that. levels of vibration start to diminish, start to cease.

And what happens is for a moment, for however long it might be, there is a blank. It's like you went somewhere and for a moment you have no recognition of what happened there. It's like you just tapped into something or you tapped out of something. It's like you went unconscious for a moment. There was a gap in your awareness.

And then as a result of coming out from there, you see certain things. So he's seeing with wisdom. I'm not going to tell you what he sees. I'm not going to spoil the fun for you guys. You have to report to me what it is that you see. But you will also experience great amounts of relief, as if you shed a thousand pounds in an instant.

You will feel extremely relaxed and a transcendent level of joy and happiness. That will continue for a long time. We're talking about hours, to even throughout the night. You might not be able to sleep. That's okay, because you're just basically blissed out. When you go out to walk around, it's like everything becomes super 4K high definition. The greens are like greens you've never seen before. Everything sparkles. And this is a hallmark that what you have experienced is stream entry, the first level of awakening.

And is that possible? Yes. Absolutely. It can happen on this retreat. We'll see what happens. No promises. But this is the entire journey that Sariputta had gone through. And this is the entire journey most meditators go through. As they're practicing, they go through these levels of cessation until they experience total, complete cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness.

And coming out of it, the mind then experiences Nibbana and enters the stream. He emerged mindful from that attainment. Having done so, he recalled the states that had passed, ceased, and changed. Indeed, these states not having been come into being, having been, they vanished. In other words, he realized that the mind made contact with nirvana. And then he saw the feeling that was conditioned by that, the experience that arose. But regarding those states, he abided unattracted, unrepelled, independent, detached, free, disassociated with the mind grid of barriers. That's very difficult to do at that point because it feels so good. The mind says,

Let's do it again. Right? It's like you go on a roller coaster and you experience it for the first time and you say, I want to go on it again. And so what is that? That's a level of craving that's there. So what do you do there? You let go of that. As best as you can, you come back and you sit and you repeat that whole process again.

And you do that again and again and again until you experience awakening. And so there are these levels of awakening that you can go through, which are being a stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and a fully awakened being. He understood there is no escape beyond. And with the cultivation of that attainment, he confirmed that there is not. In other words, you cannot go beyond cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness.

Nibbana is the final stop on this bus ride. It's the final destination. Bhikkhus, rightly speaking, wore it to be said of anyone, he has attained mastery and perfection in noble virtue, attained mastery and perfection in noble collectedness, attained mastery and perfection in noble wisdom, attained mastery and perfection in noble deliverance. Virtue, keeping the precepts. Collectedness, samadhi, doing this process over and over again.

Wisdom, being able to penetrate into the nature of reality by seeing the links of dependent origination. Deliverance, being liberated from ignorance, craving, and anything that ties you down and causes suffering. It is of Sariputta, indeed, that rightly speaking, this should be said. Bhikkhus, rightly speaking, word to be said of anyone, he is the son of the Blessed One, born of his breast, born of his mouth, born of the Dhamma, created by the Dhamma, an heir in the Dhamma, not an heir in material things. It is of Sariputta, indeed, that rightly speaking, this should be said. Bhikkhus, the matchless wheel of the Dhamma set rolling by the Tathagata is kept rolling rightly by Sariputta. That is what the Blessed One said. The Bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words. Any questions? Yes.