Deerpark Retreat Day 8 'Deeper Aspects of Dhamma Pt 2' w/Delson Armstrong

Today we're going to be continuing the series of questions and answers. This is Majjhima Nikaya 44, the Shorter Series of Questions and Answers. Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Rajagaha in the bamboo grove, the squirrel sanctuary. Then the lay follower Visakha went to the Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna. So the Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna was an arahant. And Visakha was an anagami. Dhammadinna was Visakha's former wife before she became a Bhikkhuni. And the story goes, the Safra had gone to visit the Buddha, and he was gone all night listening to the Buddha's discourse.

And as he was listening to it, he became an anagami. The next morning he came back home, and he was very silent, very radiant, happy, relaxed. Didn't say a word, and his wife thought, what's going on? And then when they were ready to go to sleep together, he decided to sleep on the floor. He didn't want to sleep with her in the same bed. And she thought, this is strange.

Maybe I did something to bother him or upset him. The next morning she asked what happened. And he says that he's let go of all craving, all lust, everything is gone after listening to the Buddha's discourse. So she said, "Oh, that's interesting. I'd like to check out the Buddha's discourse." So she went there and listened to the Buddha, and was inspired to become a bhikkhuni. And Visakha was quite happy about this. And then she became an arahant. So now here is Visakha coming to Dhammadinna, asking her questions.

And after paying homage to her, he sat down at one side and asked her, Lady, identity, identity is said. What is called identity by the Blessed One? Friend Visakha, these five aggregates affected by clinging are called identity by the Blessed One. That is, the material form aggregate affected by craving and clinging. The feeling aggregate affected by craving and clinging. The perception aggregate affected by craving and clinging. The formations aggregate affected by craving and clinging. And the consciousness aggregate affected by craving and clinging. These five aggregates affected by craving and clinging are called identity by the Blessed One.

Saying, Good lady, the lay follower Visakha delighted and rejoiced in the Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna's words. Then he asked her a further question. Lady, origin of identity, origin of identity is said. What is called the origin of identity by the Blessed One? Friend Visakha, it is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by delight and lust, and delights in this and that. That is craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being.

This is called the origin of identity. Lady, cessation of identity. Cessation of identity is said. What is called the cessation of identity by the Blessed One? Friend Visakha, it is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of that same craving. This is called the cessation of identity by the Blessed One. Lady, the way leading to the cessation of identity. The way leading to the cessation of identity is set. What is called the way leading to the cessation of identity by the Blessed One? Friend Visakha, it is just this noble eightfold path. That is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

So we're going through the Four Noble Truths again. And we're applying it to understanding how identity arises. Identity is said to be when the mind takes personal any of the five aggregates. Sees the body as self. Sees feeling, experience as self. Sees perception as self. Sees intentions as self. Or sees awareness as self. And that seeing it as self, that personalizing it, taking it personally, is that craving which leads to renewal of being, renewal of habitual tendencies, renewal of existence, of identity, concretized into the sense of self.

So that is the origin of identity, identification with the five aggregates. The cessation of identity is to let go of that identification, noticing it, using the eightfold path. How do you use the eightfold path? How do you apply the eightfold path? Six eyes. Six eyes. You guys are learning. Good. So using the six steps, applying right effort, you let go of the notion of self, personalizing things. Here's an interesting question he asks.

Lady, is that craving and clinging the same as the five aggregates affected by craving and clinging? Or is the craving and clinging something apart from the five aggregates affected by craving and clinging? In other words, we say these aggregates are affected by craving and clinging. These aggregates can be affected, have the potential of being influenced through craving and clinging. But is the craving and clinging the same or different from the five aggregates? This is what she says. Friend Visakha, the craving and clinging is neither the same as these five aggregates affected by craving and clinging, nor is craving and clinging something apart from the five aggregates affected by craving and clinging. Like I said, arahants never give you a straight answer.

But she says, it is the desire and lust in regard to the five aggregates affected by craving and clinging, that is the craving and clinging there. The desire and lust in regard to the five aggregates. This form feels good to me, so I identify with it. This form is painful to me, so I want to push it away. The I comes up.

This experience is pleasurable or unpleasant, and then there is an identity tied to it. This perception. So it's the identification with it. There is a Sutta called Satta Sutta. S-A-T-T-A Sutta. Satta actually is the Pali for Sattva, which means being in terms of a person. Being in terms of, you know, a being. Not like to be something. It's an actual being. So the question that's given to the Buddha is, what is being? What is the definition of being? Not to be, but what is the definition of a being?

And the Buddha says the definition of a being is whenever there is attachment in reference to the five aggregates. Whenever the mind takes personally and identifies with form, feeling, perception, intention, and or awareness. So the question I pose based on that is, that means there is no more being when you let go of identification. So the arahant, are they a being or are they a non-being? Could you say neither? Then what are they? Because the expression is you just said. Right.

The arahant realizes that there was no self to begin with. The mind doesn't land on being or being a non-being. Lady, how does identity view come to be? So this is psychiatry. How does the sense of self view come to be? How does the belief in a personal self come to be? How does the intellectual attachment to the I, me, myself come to be? Here, friend Visakha, an untaught, ordinary person who has no regard for noble ones and is unskilled and undisciplined in their dhamma, who has no regard for true men and is unskilled and undisciplined in their dhamma, regards material form as self, or self as possessed of material form, or material form as in-self, or self as in-material form.

So the four self-views is each of these five aggregates are considered as self, that these five aggregates are me or that there is a self that possesses these five aggregates or that the self resides in the five aggregates or that the five aggregates reside in some kind of overarching self. That is how identity view comes to be. Lady, how does identity view not come to be? Here, friend Visakha, a well-taught noble disciple who has regard for noble ones and is skilled and disciplined in their dhamma, who has regard for true men, and is skilled and disciplined in their dhamma, does not regard material form as self, or self as possessed of material form, or material form as in self, or self as in material form.

The second is doubt in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. And the third is clinging to rites and rituals. The first one, this is what we are talking about, sakkaya ditthi. When one becomes a stream-enter, they understand on a mental level, through some level of experience of seeing things as they are, and detaching from the self-concept, that indeed, none of these five aggregates can be considered to be self.

They see things as impersonal. That doesn't mean that they don't stop identifying, because there can be a point where they do identify it. But in that process of identifying, they can recognize, oh, I'm identifying, and start letting go. That identification process, that deeper rooted identification process, is conceit, the mana, that is eradicated when you attain arahantship. Lady, what is the Noble Eightfold Path?

and non-cruelty facilitated through the process of cultivating compassion. Right speech: refrain from harsh speech, false speech, slander, gossip, malicious speech, abusive speech. Think before you speak, right? T-H-I-N-K. Is it the right time to say what you want to say? Is it honest? What is the intention behind it? Is it intentionally wholesome or unwholesome? Is it necessary for you to say it, and can you say it with kindness? Right action: the precepts, refraining from killing living beings, harming living beings, refraining from taking what is not given, refraining from sexual and sensual misconduct, and by extension, refraining from indulging in intoxicants, which can lead you to the other precepts.

And then we have right livelihood. Right? Livelihood is having livelihood that does not cause harm to oneself and to others. And then right effort: preventing the unarisen, unwholesome states from arising. Abandoning the already arisen, unwholesome states. Generating unarisen, wholesome states, and then maintaining those arisen wholesome states. In other words, six R's. And then right mindfulness, saying body as body, mind as mind, feeling as feeling, mind objects as mind objects, in relation to is there creating or not. In essence, remembering to observe how the mind's attention moves from one object to the other.

And then right concentration, letting go of the hindrances coming to our mind that is devoid of sensual pleasure, and then entering the different jhanas. Lady, is the noble eightfold path conditioned or unconditioned? Friend Visakha, the noble eightfold path is conditioned. You're using causes and conditions for the mind to let go at deeper and deeper levels until it ceases and touches the unconditioned. Lady, are the three aggregates included by the noble eightfold path, or is the noble eightfold path included by the three aggregates? Here, when they say three aggregates, and I'm talking about three of the five aggregates, they're talking about the three categories: sila, samadhi and panna. The three aggregates are not included by the noble eightfold path. But the noble eightfold path is included by the three aggregates.

Right speech, right action, right livelihood. These are included in the aggregate of virtue, sila. Right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. These states are included in the aggregate of concentration, samadhi. We'll see more about how that happens. Right view and right intention, these states are included in the aggregate of wisdom. Lady, what is concentration? What is samadhi? What is the basis of samadhi? What is the equipment of samadhi? What is the development of samadhi? So the first question is, what is samadhi?

Unification of mind, friend Visakha, is samadhi: ekaggata, an attention that is non-dispersed, a mind that is not refracted, a mind that stays with its object of meditation. Is samadhi, being collected. What is the basis of samadhi? The four foundations of mindfulness are the basis of samadhi. In other words, how do you come to samadhi? Recognizing when the mind is not in samadhi and bringing it back, remembering to observe how your mind's attention moves from one object to the other. Right mindfulness is the basis of samadhi. So what is the equipment of samadhi? What are the tools used to gain samadhi? The four right efforts are the tools for samadhi, are the equipment of somebody. So how you get into samadhi: recognizing your mind is distracted, releasing your attention from that distraction.

Relaxing the mind's tension and tightness, the craving in the mind and body, coming back to the smile, generating a wholesome state, and then returning back to an object of meditation. This is the six R's, the four right efforts. What is the development of samadhi? How do you continue to develop samadhi? The continual repetition, development and cultivation of these states is the development of samadhi therein. The right effort, the six R's, to regain your mindfulness, which leads to your collectedness, is the development of samadhi. When you let go, when your mind doesn't become collected anymore, becomes distracted, come back to right effort. Use the six R's, regain your mindfulness, deepen your awareness, come back to samadhi.

When you get distracted again, do the same process. The cultivation, repetition of these states, the six R's, mindfulness, observation, and collectedness, is the development of samadhi. Every time you are not in jhana, to bring back your mind in jhana: six R's, regain your mindfulness, and then develop collectedness. Lady, how many formations are there? How many types of sankhara are there? How many categories of sankhara are there? There are these three formations, friend Visakha: the bodily formation, the verbal formation and the mental formation. But Lady, what is the bodily formation? What is the verbal formation? What is the mental formation?

In-breathing and out-breathing, inhalation and exhalation, friend, are the bodily formation. Applied thought and sustained thought are the verbal formation. Perception and feeling are the mental formation. So he has some interesting question. He says, but Lady, why are in-breathing and out-breathing the bodily formation? Why are applied thought and sustained thought, or thinking and examining thought, the verbal formation? Why are perception and feeling the mental formation? Friend Visakha, in-breathing and out-breathing are bodily. These are states bound up with the body. Any kind of states that are bound up with the body are included in the bodily formation. That is why these states are the bodily formation.

In the case of the verbal formation, first one applies thought and then sustains thought, and subsequently one breaks out into speech. That is why applied thought and sustained thought are the verbal formation. Thinking and examining thought: you see something, you have an experience of something, and then your mind sees it, contemplates it, thinks about it, and then you break out into speech of what it is you want to express based on that thought. These are constituted in verbal formation. Perception and feeling are mental. Even bodily perception and bodily feeling are mental. These are states bound up with the mind. That is why perception and feeling are the mental formation.

So in the process of predetermining how the mind attains cessation, there's no sense of the I attaining the cessation. There's just a predetermined time. Mind will cease and emerge after this many hours. Or my mind will emerge at so-and-so time, or whatever it might be. That's the prior intention, prior determination. But in the process of attaining, there's no thought that I am attaining. There's no thought that I have attained.

Because when you actually get into cessation, your verbal formation will cease. We'll see how that happens. As soon as you catch yourself going into cessation, that's where the trouble is. You're recognizing, oh, this is the pathway leading to cessation. What happens? Rebel formations come up. And then what happens? Your mind becomes agitated. So what do you do? Six R's. Let go. Soften.

Come back to the prior state before the mind heads towards cessation, and continue to develop that. It could be equanimity, which leads to disenchantment, which leads to dispassion, which leads to cessation. Your mind recognizing there's cessation and then getting agitated about it, excited about it, means that you haven't developed dispassion to the fullest extent. Dispassion doesn't care if it attains nibbana or not. Nibbana happens when you least expect it.

When you least anticipate. Because anticipation and expectation are synonyms of craving. So recognizing you're about to get into cessation, or the fear that arises in taking that plunge, means there's not enough discussion. Take a step backward. Come back to the dispassion, continue to cultivate it, let go of any expectations, and don't do anything, and then when you least expect it, cessation. Lady, when a bhikkhu is attaining the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, which states cease first in him? The bodily formation, the verbal formation, or the mental formation? Friend Visakha, when a bhikkhu is attaining the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, first the verbal formation ceases. Then the bodily formation ceases.

Then the mental formation ceases. Why is this? When you get to the fourth jhana, you start losing contact with the body. And the bodily formation starts to cease, and you become deep in your mind where you start to experience infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness and so on. But in the case of verbal formations, they cease in the second jhana. The first, the verbal formation ceases.

Right? Because you let go of the thinking and examining thought. The thoughts in the background have nothing to do with thinking and examining thought. The thoughts in the background are just feeling. But the prior determination, through bringing up a feeling, using imagery, those kinds of things, those cease in the second jhana. So verbal formations cease in the second jhana. The bodily formations cease in the fourth jhana. And then, the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness means all mental formations cease, because all feeling and perception ceases. All mental feeling and perception also ceases.

Or, I have emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. But rather, his mind has been previously developed in such a way that it leads into that state: prior determination, of when mind will come out. But the thought that I am arising, that personalizing of it, does not come out. There is a knowing that mind has come out. And there is a big knowing that mind has come out, because of what happens when it comes out of cessation.

And that's the verbal formation. Lady, when a bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, how many kinds of contact touch him? When a bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, three kinds of contact touch him: voidness contact, signless contact, and desireless contact. Voidness means it's empty of any kind of self. Signless means that it's not taking anything as an object. Desireless means that there is no direction in the mind going somewhere. Voidness comes from the realization of the emptiness of self, anatta. Signlessness comes from the realization of the impermanence of things, anicca. And desirelessness, or undirected mind, comes from the realization of dukkha.

that any kind of direction somewhere will lead to dukkha. So the prior experience of this happens in infinite consciousness. You start to see the impermanent nature of consciousness, and it becomes tiresome, therefore you see dukkha, and then you realize there's no control right here, and you understand anatta. These three allow you then to experience Nibbana. So this contact that they're talking about: contact that is void or empty. Contact that is signless. Contact that is desireless. This is contact with the nirvana element. When contact arises, what arises in dependence on contact? Feeling. Right? So when the contact with the nirvana element happens, what happens next? There is a feeling of joy and relief that is felt. There's a feeling of energy, a feeling of clarity. The first time this happens there's a lot of joy that comes up, a lot of energy. People can't sleep. The joy lasts for a day, maybe a couple of days, and this is the feeling that's being experienced.

So don't mistake the feeling of joy to be Nibbana. It is conditioned by the experience of Nibbana, by contact with Nibbana, but the contact with Nibbana itself is unconditioned. And so sometimes the question arises: how do these attainments happen? Through the prior development of right effort. The more you 6R are, the more you let go of identification with processes. The more you let go of craving, the easier it is for your mind to stop taking personal the feeling of joy and relief that arise dependent upon contact with the Nibbana element. And so,

when the mind makes contact with Nibbana, for that moment, mind is completely free. Free of the fetters, free of the taints, completely free. But what happens when the feeling arises? There's an I, there's a me that grasps to that feeling and doesn't want that feeling to go away. So as you start to see this identification process, and as you start to let go of it deeper and deeper, then the next attainments happen, until the experience of the body is no big deal. When that happens, then our hardship mind doesn't... it's okay, cool, whatever.

But because the mind is always looking for it, they can still be the fetters. They can still be the Lady, when a bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, to what does his mind incline? To what does it lean? To what does it tend? Friend Visakha, when a bhikkhu has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, his mind inclines to seclusion, leads to seclusion, tends to seclusion.

This is one translation of the word. That's the word seclusion. Of course, the mind after cessation is just like floating. Everything is just vivid. You feel like you're just, on cloud nine, just floating around. Everything is fine. Not really talking to people. Don't care about people. Don't care about anything. Just want to be there. That's one kind of seclusion. But there's something else which this word seclusion is translated from. That is viveka. Viveka. Discernment.

How do you discern? What are you discerning? You are seeing the links of dependent origination and realizing for yourself how everything arises dependent upon impersonal causes and conditions. That's what your mind tends to do. Seeing the links of dependent origination. Why? Because when your mind makes contact with nirvana, it's unconditioned, that contact. But, dependent upon that contact, there is feeling and perception.

So there is the arising of the links of dependent origination based on that contact. If the mind clings to that feeling, ignorance continues again. Fettered formations arise again. Tainted consciousness arises again. And one sees the links of dependent origination in that way. If there's no clinging at all, this is why the Sutta says, through not clinging, his mind was liberated.

If there's no clinging, then it will just be seen as it is. No ignorance comes, no fettered formations arise. Pure formations, dependent upon that contact, arise. Pure consciousness arises, and the rest of the series, until feeling. No craving, no clinging, no becoming, no birth, election, no whole mass of suffering arises. Lady, how many kinds of feeling are there?

How many kinds of vedana are there? Friend Visakha, there are three kinds of feeling: pleasant feeling, painful feeling, and neither painful nor pleasant feeling. But Lady, what is pleasant feeling? What is painful feeling? What is neither painful nor pleasant feeling? Friend Visakha, whatever is felt bodily or mentally as pleasant and soothing is pleasant feeling. Whatever is felt bodily or mentally as painful and hurting is painful feeling.

Whatever is felt bodily or mentally as neither soothing nor hurting is neither painful nor pleasant feeling. Lady, what is pleasant and what is painful in regard to pleasant feeling? That's an interesting question. What is pleasant and what is painful in regard to pleasant feeling? What is painful and what is pleasant in regard to painful feeling? What is pleasant and what is painful in regard to neither painful nor pleasant feeling? Friend Visakha, pleasant feeling is pleasant when it persists and painful when it changes.

Painful feeling is painful when it persists and pleasant when it changes. Neither painful nor pleasant feeling is pleasant when there is knowledge of it. You're paying attention to that feeling, even if it's neutral feeling, meaning there's complete mindfulness. And painful when there is no knowledge of it, lack of mindfulness. When there's a lack of awareness of it, there can arise the tendency of conceit, the tendency of craving, and so on and so forth. The tendency of identifying with that feeling.

Lady, what underlying tendency underlies pleasant feeling? What underlying tendency underlies painful feeling? What underlying tendency underlies neither painful nor pleasant feeling? Visakha, the underlying tendency to lust underlies pleasant feeling. The underlying tendency to aversion underlies painful feeling. The underlying tendency to ignorance underlies neither painful nor pleasant feeling. Make sense? If it's a pleasant feeling, there will be this bending towards wanting it.

If it's a painful feeling, there's this sense of not wanting it. And if it's a neutral feeling, there can arise lack of mindfulness to it, because it's neither painful nor pleasant. Now this is an interesting question. He asked, Lady, does the underlying tendency to lust underlie all pleasant feeling? Does the underlying tendency to aversion underlie all painful feeling? Does the underlying tendency to ignorance underlie all neither painful nor pleasant feeling? Then, Visakha, the underlying tendency to lust does not underlie all pleasant feeling. The underlying tendency to aversion does not underlie all painful feeling. The underlying tendency to ignorance does not underlie all neutral feeling. Why is that?

When you have a pleasant feeling, only when you say, "This is my pleasant feeling," and you want to hold on to it, does the underlying tendency to craving arise. Only when there's a painful feeling and you say, "I don't like that painful feeling," does the underlying tendency to aversion arise. Only when there is a neutral feeling and you start identifying, or you don't even notice that feeling because there's lack of mindfulness, does the underlying tendency to ignorance arise.

But if you are aware of pleasant feeling, if you are aware of painful feeling, if you are aware of neutral feeling, meaning there is complete mindfulness, complete attention, you don't take it as permanent, you don't take it as personal, then there won't be the underlying tendency to greed, to aversion, or to ignorance. "Lady, what should be abandoned in regard to pleasant feeling?

What should be abandoned in regard to painful feeling? What should be abandoned in regard to neither painful nor pleasant feeling?" "Visakha, the underlying tendency to lust." The underlying tendency to lust should be abandoned in regard to a pleasant feeling. The underlying tendency to aversion should be abandoned in regard to painful feeling. The underlying tendency to ignorance should be abandoned in regard to neither painful nor pleasant feeling.

So you don't abandon the feeling. You can't 6R a feeling. You abandon the identification with that feeling. You abandon the lust for that pleasant feeling, the aversion for that painful feeling, and the ignorance of the neutral feeling. You abandon the lack of mindfulness, bring up more attention, understand it to be dependently arisen, let go of identifying with it. It is dependently arisen, therefore impermanent, therefore liable to cause suffering, therefore not to be seen as me, mine or myself. The awareness, the observation, the mindfulness, the attention that prevents the underlying tendencies from arising, and when they do arise, the regaining of mindfulness, of observation, of attention, lets go of those underlying tendencies.

lets go of those underlying tendencies. Now here's the other question. Lady, does the underlying tendency to lust have to be abandoned in regard to all pleasant feeling? Does the underlying tendency to aversion have to be abandoned in regard to all painful feeling? Does the underlying tendency to ignorance have to be abandoned in regard to all neither painful nor pleasant feeling? And Vissaka, the underlying tendency to lust does not have to be abandoned in regard to all pleasant feeling. The underlying tendency to aversion does not have to be abandoned in regard to all painful feeling. The underlying tendency to ignorance does not have to be abandoned in regard to all either painful nor pleasant feeling. Why?

If you're already aware, then there won't be underlying tendencies in regard to those feelings. So you don't have to abandon them all the time. They are only abandoned insofar as when they arise due to lack of attention, lack of mindfulness, lack of awareness, lack of observation. Now here's a deeper explanation of that. Here, Friend Visakha, quite secluded from sensual pleasure, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. With that, he abandons lust, and the underlying tendency to lust does not underlie that. Here, bhikkhu considers thus: When shall I enter upon and abide in that base

Fourth jhana. With that he abandons ignorance, and the underlying tendency to ignorance does not underlie that. So the first jhana allows you to let go of lust and the underlying tendency to lust. The chanda towards liberation allows you to let go of identifying the painful feeling and the underlying tendency to aversion. And then the fourth jhana, there's neutrality there, complete awareness there, strong mindfulness.

So no underlying tendency to ignorance can arise. Technically speaking, none of the underlying tendencies would be present if you are in jhana in the right way. That is to say, you have metacognition. You understand that jhana to be impermanent and conditioned. Therefore, you don't take it personally. So there won't be any arising of aversion, craving, ignorance, doubt, views, conceit, or the desire for being. Will you say again how the chanda brings out, brings about the release of already? So I'll read that again.

So he asks, lady, what is the counterpart of pleasant feeling? Ben Bissaka, painful feeling is the counterpart of pleasant feeling. Makes sense, right? Painful feeling is the opposite of pleasant feeling. What is the counterpart of painful feeling? Pleasant feeling. Pleasant feeling is the opposite of painful feeling. Painful feeling is the opposite of pleasant feeling. So far, so good.

What is the counterpart of neither painful nor pleasant feeling? Ignorance is the counterpart of neither painful nor pleasant feeling. It's not saying ignorance is the opposite of neither painful nor pleasant feeling. It's saying ignorance, you get to ignorance through neither painful nor pleasant feeling, when there's lack of mindfulness of it. So in this case, it's not the opposite, but it's leading to that.

Now he asks, what is the counterpart of ignorance? Wisdom. True knowledge is the counterpart of ignorance. Now he's asking, what is the opposite of ignorance in this case? So, true knowledge, wisdom. What is the counterpart of true knowledge? But he's not asking this time what is the opposite. What is the counterpart? What is true knowledge leading to? Liberation. Liberation, deliverance of mind, is the counterpart of true knowledge. What, well, okay, so actually it's deliverance of mind which is cessation. What is the counterpart of deliverance? Now, what is the opposite of deliverance? What does deliverance lead to?

Now it's Nibbana. Nibbana is the counterpart of deliverance. Lady, what is the counterpart of Nibbana? Friend Visaka, you have pushed this line of questioning too far. You are not able to grasp the limit to questions for the holy life. Friend Visaka is grounded upon Nibbana, culminates in Nibbana, ends in Nibbana. If you wish, friend Visakha, go to the Blessed One and ask him about the meaning of this. As the Blessed One explains it to you, so you should remember it.

Then the lay follower Visakha, having delighted and rejoiced in the Bhikkhuni Dhammedina's words, rose from his seat, and after paying homage to her, keeping her on his right, he went to the Blessed One. After paying homage to him, he sat down at one side and told the Blessed One his entire conversation with the Bhikkhuni Dhammedina. When he finished speaking, the Blessed One told him, The Bhikkhuni Dhammedina is wise, Visakha. The Bhikkhuni Dhammedina has great wisdom. If you had asked me the meaning of this, I would have explained it to you in the same way that the Bhikkhuni Dhammedina has explained it. Such is its meaning, and so you should remember it. That is what the Blessed One said.

The lay follower Visakha was satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's ways. I'm going to read just a small section. No, I can't find it. But there's another sutta called Kamabu Sutta. And it's very similar to the other sutta we just read, but in that sutta the question is, how do you get to this experience, what is it facilitated by? And he says serenity and insight yoke together. In other words, you need both samatha and vipassana to get to your cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. That's all. That's all I wanted to explain to you.

Any questions? So, I just had two questions. I didn't get the last part about why does essentially ignorance lead to neither pleasant nor painful feelings? No, neither painful nor pleasant feelings can lead to ignorance. I didn't get why that would lead to ignorance. Because if there's of mindfulness of that experience, because that's neutral, that can lead to ignorance. Right, right. So it is a lack of mindfulness of that which can lead to ignorance, not the presence of it itself. But because if there is a neutral feeling, that is a condition where the mind is not aware of, can lead to ignorance. Right, got it. The other question I had was that, after we finish the retreat, when we go back, what is the right mix of meditation techniques which we should use?

Because I'm assuming that as life restarts, I'm hoping I don't do anything wrong for which I need to forgive myself. But if anyone else does that to me, then should I be going back to the forgiveness practice or should I be doing only six directions? So now you have a toolkit with you, right? So you have the six R's, you have loving-kindness, you have compassion, you have mudita, you have equanimity, and you have forgiveness. Now you can use your intuition to guide you where you need it, when you need it. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. A very small clarification. Online, when we are talking of the, I'm just taking the example of the pleasant feeling, the underlying tendency is the attachment, you said.

Right. And attachment is to be evident and not the feeling. Exactly. But I thought that it was the other way, because the attachment is arising because of the pleasant feeling. Even if he removed attachment, the pleasant feeling still continues. Which is fine. And more attachment arrives. Right. So here the Buddha was talking about, when he talked about any kind of experience, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

He said that the experience itself was not the issue. The pleasant feeling or the unpleasant feeling is not what is the issue. It's the craving intention, or the intention rooted in craving. Now yes, what you're saying is quite valid, which is, the pleasant feeling gives rise to the underlying tendency of attachment. But the only way that pleasant feeling goes away is if it changes. That's why I'm saying you cannot do away with a feeling. but you can do away with any personalizing or identification with that feeling. So in other words, if it's a pleasant feeling,

it will remain a pleasant feeling whether you crave for it or not. But the craving in relation to the pleasant feeling is where the trouble is, not the pleasant feeling itself. Oftentimes, even when you see fully awakened beings, they will still experience pleasant feelings, but they don't have any attachment to that. They'll still experience painful feelings, but they won't have any aversion to it. They just allow the painful feeling to be there, or they allow the pleasant feeling to be there. On a regular basis of the retreat, what would be the ideal time for sitting daily? I would say if you can sit for at least one hour a day.

That should be sufficient, and if you can take one once a week or once every two weeks where you're doing a soft retreat, you switch off your phone or social media, just what you're doing here, once every two weeks, let's say, and in that time span, three, four, five, six, eight hours, as much as you can. You see, the practice has a cumulative effect. The more you do it, it has built a momentum which then leads to deeper and deeper experiences and insights. I think there was a question. Yeah, will you please share some definitions

for yourself, just in life, can you share the difference between joy and happiness? Oh yeah. So now there are different kinds of joy and there are different kinds of happiness, right? There are levels to it. There are layers to it. There is the joy in relation to sensual experience. Now, first of all, let me say joy and happiness as it's mentioned in sutras. It talks about piti and sukha. Piti is that elevated experience of energetic joy. Sukha is more stable. One of the analogies that's given is piti is like a flickering flame. It's very energetic, but sukha is a very stable flame. You can see it's arguably longer lasting in that sense, because it's more stable. Now, the joy that arises in dependence upon sensual experiences is one kind of joy.

The joy that rises in relation to jhana, the joy and happiness that arises in dependence on jhana, is another kind. The difference is, in the case of sensual pleasures, even though they're experienced by the mind, they originate through the experience of the sixth sense basis. Whereas the joy of jhana, joy and happiness of jhana, arise only in the mind.

Only through one's mental letting go of hindrances. So letting go of hindrances, there is this relief that's experienced. That relief is then the joy of the time. This is called the pamojja. This is another kind of joy. Then that leads to further joy, which is the piti that you experience. And then that leads to further sukha, which leads to further tranquility. So joy and happiness in and of themselves are impermanent. They're just conditions that lead to deeper states of mind that ultimately take you to the unconditioned.

And the ultimate bliss is the bliss of no feeling. This is what Sayaprata has said. Somebody asked, how can you say that that's blissful? The fact that you don't feel, how can you say it's blissful? He says, it is because of the fact that I don't feel that it is blissful, because I'm no longer being, my mind is no longer being conditioned to have craving for this experience, or attachment, or aversion towards that experience. That kind of thing is very close to contentment.

Contentment and acceptance. I would say, if you boil down everything that is there in the Kama to one word, it is acceptance, accepting everything as it is. So just to follow up with that, for you, as you go through life, you experience just in normal mundane life things. What do you experience happiness and joy? Just out of curiosity, what do you experience enjoyment out of? Happiness versus joy? Well, when I go into jhana, for example, I experience joy, and when I go into jhana I experience happiness. I enjoy a good laugh. If you tell me a good joke, I'll laugh. And watch a good movie, if it's a good comic movie, I'll laugh. So just even one day, yeah, normal things, also you can experience happiness. Does an arahant feel sadness, or is that due to personalization? Sadness is due to mistaking what is permanent, what is impermanent, as permanent, and then the rest of that series. So I didn't find with that process as well. And what would you say is the definition of depression?

I would say depression is this prolonged sort of dissatisfaction, this prolonged sort of, not necessarily energetic agitation, but there's just this nothing feels right. It's an unpleasant experience, but it's not necessarily heightened by large amounts of sadness all the time. And I think that this dissatisfaction is also rooted in taking things personally and identifying and misperceiving. When I say misperception, I'm talking about misperception of, again, taking what is impermanent as permanent, taking what is suffering as not suffering, taking what is not self as self. So depression, anxiety, any of these afflictive states of mind and heart, they arise because of misperception.

And then finally, can you share, when we're speaking with other people, as we were talking about yesterday, for example, someone says, hey, I'm interested, what do you, how do you define meditation in an easy way for a non-meditator to understand? And also then share a little bit of the path, or about what is possible, or something in terms that people understand, coming off the street? I would help people define that. To define meditation to somebody who's just starting out is basically: what if you could have a mind that is never distracted, or a mind that is all the time never distracted, or almost all the time never distracted?

And in terms of the practice, explaining, what if you could feel contentment, what if you could feel happiness without the external cause for that happiness? Just to touch on something that Samuel is asking about, depression, I would define depression as pain plus resistance, not accepting whatever it is. You know, it's painful at the beginning, you don't accept it, you resist it. The longer it stays, that's a definition by Bhante Vimalaramsi, by the way. It just continues. Okay. Now to my question, I love the sutta by the way. The beginning part of it, I think, is for the people in India, I think, or anyone who's in the Dhamma or believes in Buddhism, I think this would be a great situation, because, you know, he comes home and she realizes that something's going on, but this is a great thing for her because she's also in the dung, right? Unfortunately in the west world this isn't the case.

If we are referring to a young couple, let's say they just got married, a couple of years married, and the young woman becomes an anagami, doing some sort of meditation retreat or whatever, and comes home, and the guy, you know, psychologically in the West, or even psychologically, people need intimacy as a way of validation for themselves. It's important, it's part of it. And this could cause a lot of turmoil, I would say. So I think this is a really relevant question for individuals that are into meditation, are into Buddhism, are into this, but have spouses that are not, and how to engage with these situations, especially if the other person, again, is not even interested. I don't think you're going to like the answer I'm going to tell you.

But, jokes aside, I think anyone who has that experience has to have a frank discussion that, look, that doesn't interest me anymore. It's just not possible for me to engage in something like that. I mean, there's been debates about that, in arguments or, let's say, discussions about it, which says that, you know, an anagami or an arahant, out of compassion, will have sexual intercourse with, you know, their partner.

It's not possible. It's just not possible. You know, so there has to be some frank and direct discussions about this, and accordingly there has to be some kind of agreement. And if there's not, then there has to be further discussion about what that means for the relationship. It's their karma. It was the karma to happen. I mean, that's one way to kind of look at it if you wanted to, but I don't know if the other person would take that as being compassionate.

Just a small one, since a very concise definition from two ends for the depression, can you also please give a very concise suggestion to someone who is struggling with this problem, what advice? Please, in brief. I'm not... Come to dear part. Come to dear part. This is what I was told. As my friend mentioned, depression is pain plus resistance. I think the resistance is a very important part of it. So, coming to dear part would have resistance. It connects us to other suggestions also. You know, with someone who has depression, you can only be supportive to them. You can't take them out of that depression.

You can give them all the kinds of advice and all kinds of things to say, hey, you know, come out of it, cheer up, do things, do that. But you can only be supportive. And that support is only being there for them, being respectful of their space, being silent, just being there, just being a presence. That might be more than enough for them to know that there's somebody who cares.

First, they need to know that somebody cares about them, and that there's somebody that they can go to, to discuss anything, and that they know that that person will not judge them for whatever it is that they say, even judge them for that depression. That would be the first step. And then bit by bit they start opening up. And then you can start to kind of help them reframe. Help them. Don't reframe it for them. Help them through their own processing.

Reframe how they're seeing the world. That's the only way they can come out of it. They have to make the effort, but you can be that support system and facilitate that process. But in the beginning it starts with just being a mere presence and saying, hey, I'm there for you. I'll listen to you without judgment, and I'll accept everything that's going on without judgment.

If I could also add something: depression is also a story that someone's telling themselves, and they have to want to let go of that story in order for change to happen. And we can all notice this in ourselves, I think, sometimes, when there's this thought that's playing in our mind. And at first we're kind of indulging in it, even though it brings us a lot of pain. We just continue to think this thought and tell ourselves this story. And then eventually we suffer enough and we decide, I'm done with that story. But it'll still keep coming back for a little while. It's just you've kind of reached that point of, like Delson was saying, someone gives you your third portion of your favorite meal.

But in this case, you know, maybe it's not... it's a disgusting meal. But you're just kind of rubbles. You have revulsion for the thought. And then that's when the change will occur and the thought will stop coming up eventually. So the thing about depression is it works at the level of stories, which is different than the level of insights, meditative insights. So you can't necessarily meditate your way out of depression. Cognitive behavioral therapy is pretty helpful for depression, because if you think about it, you're trapped in this room, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is rearranging the furniture.

And meditation is trying to get out of the room. But sometimes there's furniture blocking the door, like if someone has depression. So they need to first rearrange their furniture at the level of stories, and kind of working with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and then they can get out of the room once things are kind of back to normal, with meditation. Would you say some of the Dhamma practice is also kind of like cognitive behavioral therapy? You are reprogramming the way the mind thinks and works.

I would first try to say that the Dhamma itself is a form of CBT. That's a great point. And it can be applied that way, right? Like the 6R's can also be applied at the level of clinging. You notice the story, you relax, release, come back, smile. And that is like CBT. But actually, sitting in meditation and trying to get them into deeper states of jhana, that isn't going to help. First, they have to work at the level of clinging. Intensity of the depression, maybe very intense situations can't be handled using meditation. And the other thing I mean to add to that would be, sometimes it's a chemical imbalance in the mind and the brain, you know, and they require certain kinds of medications, and that might be a first step for them to get out of that. So you can't use meditation as a panacea for all issues, in that sense.

Same like for bipolar disorders. Yes, yes. I'd just like to touch a little bit more on the answer about with regards to depression. And to Metananda's point, it's a story, a story that we're going through. For a lot of us, I think, if we go back to dependent origination, and we realize that the entire thing is an impersonal process, it becomes easy to forgive whatever it is that's making you depressed. Because you're taking the story on, you're making it personal, and then you're resisting it. But if you go through dependent origination and you go, oh, hold on a second, this person who did this to me, they didn't do it to me, it wasn't a personal attack to me, they were just reacting to their causes and conditions.

Meditating on that a lot does help you. I'll touch on something that's not related to suttas, but I found it very helpful, which is Tonglen, a method of meditation found on the Fitline app. Tonglen, a little plug there. Tonglen is where you picture someone who has hurt you, and on the breath in, you take in their suffering, and on the breath out, you give them good vibes, love and kindness, compassion.

Something happens there in the brain, it just clicks, and the person just shifts. Let's say there was a woman who was raped. This is a really hard situation, okay? I think if the person who first understands dependent origination, really understands it, and says, oh wow, that person was just a really bad person. They're reacting to their causes and conditions. I just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here's what happened. This person's depressed. They're going to be depressed for a long time. They take a look at dependent origination and go, wow, this has nothing to do with me. I just have to be in the wrong place for a long time.

I've been resisting this thing the entire time. It takes a lot to sit down and take that person who hurt you so much and say, I will take your suffering in, on the in-breath. And I will give out compassion. Compassion's a huge tool. So, my two cents on that. So, this is a bit of a devil's advocate question. We're in the same topic of depression.

Can meditation lead to depression? Yes. Oh, yes. And then what kind of meditation are you doing? It can be because of the kind of perspective the meditation provides you that leads to, like, this world isn't worth living in, that kind of stuff. It can lead to craving for non-existence. It can lead to psychosis even sometimes, if they're minor. I was going to say the dark night of the soul, I inferred that. But we actually haven't had any, I don't know of any cases of that in the dual practice even. I think the closest to that is just experiencing discomfort with infinite consciousness, let's say, at its times. Usually it happens because the mind becomes very, very focused and experiences a lot of restlessness.

And sometimes it becomes so one-pointed that it can be just disturbing to the way the mind is perceiving things. Like, you can be so focused that it's like you're seeing only this much. And then every time you look around, it's like, what's going on here? And then you can't see the whole picture. So certain kinds of practices or certain kinds of ways of doing meditation can lead to that. So doing it wrongly can lead to that as well. Yes.

So going back to the suttas. So here is an anagami talking to an arahant. Sometimes these are basic questions, right? So, is there an aspect that he wants to learn from the arahant, or is it just, hey, here's my wife, let me describe. Right. I think in this case, it could be that he generally wanted to know certain things.

Because sometimes, I mean, an anagami will be free of, like, the first five fetters. But that doesn't mean their understanding of the Dhamma is always as clear as it can be. So it's quite possible that that's the case. Now there's a similar, almost same dialogue, like this, between Citta, the householder, and Kamabu. That was the one that I wanted to go over.

And in that, Citta was an anagami who would actually teach monastics, because his understanding of the Dhamma is really good. And in this case it was just like trying to figure out, this guy Kamabu, does he know his stuff? So this is a simple observation: you said that not being aware of the neutral feeling can lead to ignorance.

Right. Lack of mindfulness, not being aware, lack of attention. So is it like boredom? Yes. Boredom and indifference. So here I am sitting, nothing much is happening. Yes. Yeah. Let me do something. Yes. And that's why I keep saying don't do anything. So the third question I have is, can you expound on clinging to rites and rituals, rules and regulations? There's a spectrum, I suppose. So the very basic understanding is clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that they will take you to Nibbana. Clinging to certain kinds of ideas that, if I only do this, this is going to take me to Nibbana. If I only do that, setting up conditions in your mind that if only this was not here, or if only I had done it this way, these kinds of things can also happen.

Clinging to rites and rituals can also mean clinging to a certain kind of routine. If I don't do this routine this certain way, my mind gets disturbed. Another kind of thing to rise in rituals is seeking out through prayers that this be changed, so that's the direct violation of the Dhamma in terms of your karma. So it's like, things like believing in luck: if I have my lucky sock, if I have this gem, or if I wear this, if I wear that, this is going to make everything okay for me. Sacrifice, yeah. Animal sacrifices, things like that.

How about astrology? I'll get to that, but I know this person has been waiting for something. So one of the things which I wanted to ask is that. That essentially post-retreat, you know, like one of the things which you've been doing during the retreat to us on a daily basis is that you've been seeing how we've been doing and you've been tuning the technique that we do. So what is going to be the replacement for this post-retreat? Like, is there any guidelines you would have about how we should tweak or tune our practice?

So if you have questions and things like that, you can always join the Telegram support group, which is quite active. So you go to damasuka.org, and you look for the Telegram support group. You look for the, it's called Groups.io, used to be called Yahoo Groups. They're very active over there. So you can just ask a question and people are more than willing to help you out with that. And I found that, because I'm not on the Telegram group, but I'm on the Yahoo group, so once in a while on my Yahoo email, I'll see somebody ask a question and there's like six or seven different perspectives on how to help that person. So that's probably the beginning of that.

Another thing is you could always try to attend wherever available weekly talks that are being provided. I used to do weekly talks a lot, but now with all the traveling and retreats, it's getting a little challenging. But I know that Suttavada does do weekly talks with their teachers, and I think Namah Sutta might also. Another thing to try is online retreats. So you can go do an online retreat maybe every couple of months or every three or four months, depending upon your schedule. Because those online retreats, you can do from the comfort of your home, and email them and do Zoom and all of that. So those are some of the resources that can help you.

Great. Thanks. But essentially, actually, what I was more referring to was that, like on a daily basis, the sort of fine-tuning, stay with this, stay with that. Yeah. But I think there's no replacement for that except being at the retreat. Well, yeah. Or you could hire me. How much? But you start to get in alignment with your intuition.

If there's something going on with your meditation and you don't know what's going on, you could just pause. Just ask the mind the question, what's going on here? And wait for the answer. Intuition really helps. And it's a matter of continuing to exercise that ability to apply intuition. Go ahead. And just another thing which I'd just like to add to the question which was asked about the advice to anybody who's in depression. One of the things which I've seen, which is a very low hanging fruit, is that if there is usually someone who is adding or who is trying to feed negative thoughts to someone in depression, if at least you can get rid of that, whoever that is, the entity who's adding negative thoughts, to take them out of the picture.

I don't know how, but... In a non-violent way. Yeah, basically, it's looking at some of the causes of what's leading to it, or aggravating the situation. I don't see that as rites and rituals if you start becoming very attached to it. Astrology is basically a patterning of understanding your old karma. Especially Vedic astrology. It's so complex if you look at it. It goes into so many details and calculations.

Now, the Buddha had talked about how wrong livelihood is also astrology, but that's in reference to monastics again. But astrology can help some people, depending upon what kind of astrology it is, I suppose. But generally speaking, it helps you understand, or it can help you understand certain aspects of your personality. Now, the thing is, people will rationalize and say, oh, that's a coincidence and things like that. So you see what works for you. But I wouldn't negate it as being something that's clinging to rites and rituals, unless it leads you to getting attached to it in such a way that you've always consulted. That's the only way I have to do it. Especially trying to predict the future.

Trying to predict Nibbana. Exactly. At what date and hour will I achieve Nibbana? In a similar vein, what do you think about, or what does the Buddha think about, people being blessed by spiritual masters? For example, India is a very rich country with much history, and the one I know most about is Neem Karoli Baba. There are at least three books written by hundreds of different people who have experienced some sort of change in their life. I've met some of the different people on Panjigam who have had healings or different things like that done by biology, for example. I think that could be sort of like a dedication of merit kind of situation, where they say, let my wholesome karma

bless this person. At least that's how I would interpret it. That wouldn't fall into the rites and rituals, because some of these people have great bhakti for... yeah, I mean, that's their choice, if they have bhakti for that, because they consider them to be divine or this or that. That's their choice. So two things. Could you expand a bit more on how to cultivate that dispassion that you need for the quiet mind? Yes. And the other thing is, any things that you have seen to synergize with TWIM, fasting or a darkness retreat or something like that? You're always trying to calibrate, aren't you?

In the case of understanding how to develop more disenchantment, understand what leads to the disenchantment, or what leads to the dispassion. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the Upanisa Sutta, which is this whole path that you guys have been walking through throughout this retreat. This leads to this, this leads to that. So in this case, the equanimity leads to disenchantment. If your disenchantment is weak, go back to the equanimity.

Develop and cultivate that equanimity and let that lead to disenchantment. If your dispassion is weak, come back to disenchantment. Maybe you have to take two steps before that. If your equanimity is weak, come to collectiveness. If your collectiveness is weak, come to tranquility, relax. If your tranquility is weak, bring up joy, bring up sukha, and so on. So this path, which I'll lay out tomorrow, you'll see the different factors that lead to each of them. And once you understand that, then you can just go back and recalibrate it.

And in terms of things that are synergistic with TWIM, do you have a question? Yeah. I would say in general, anything that leads to relaxation and uplifts the mind. So a couple of examples would be sensory deprivation tanks, so I'm going to ask about that in the interview, yoga nidra, progressive relaxation, different calming pranayama, so for example, nadi shodhana, alternate nostril breathing, full yogic breath, which is kind of a three-part breath, can be very calming.

And then different yoga asanas that can just help alleviate tension in the body and allow you to sit longer. So in general, and then on the uplifting-the-mind part, there are thousands of practices that uplift the mind. It could even be, like Tom Lennon, what Humberto mentioned, or just any way of cultivating the Brahma Viharas. Gratitude practice. Gratitude. Yeah, that's really good. I give this advice to people who have sort of low, let's say, self-esteem or some level of self-criticism. Every day in the morning, write down five things that you like about yourself. Write down five things that are good about you. Every day for one month.

But every day you write it, it has to be different, a different set of five things, and that starts to rewire your perspective. And let's go and soften all that self-criticism and self-judgment. Because at the beginning of the retreat, if you remember, I said there are two main things that cause people to sort of backslide or hit a plateau.

One is trying too hard, and the other is not accepting, whether it's themselves or not accepting nature. Yesterday you were talking about this one, on that. Sometimes people can encounter a situation where your goodness is taken advantage of, like you won't speak harsh speech, like you will always be loving and kind. They might take advantage of you, right? But you can do this. You can be assertive.

You can call them out on it and say, hey, what you're doing is wrong. Don't take advantage of me. That's it. There's a great story about that. You might know Sharon Salzberg, a pretty famous American teacher. She was over in India visiting some of her teachers, and Emma Nindra was her teacher at the time. So she was in one of these little, I don't know what they call them here, but like taxi cabs, tuk-tuks or something, a big shop. And she was in the back. The rickshaw got stuck because there was so much rain during the rain season. Then someone tried to jump into the rickshaw and grab her and kind of make an advance on her.

Eventually she wrestled herself free, or the tuk-tuk was able to get unstuck. Then she saw her teacher after that, and she said, I didn't know what to do, because I didn't know how to deal with this person without hurting them or harming them somehow. And he said, with all the loving kindness in my heart, I would have taken your umbrella and whacked them over the head.

I have another theory question. In India, even, there are some stories, even in the case of the Buddha, that they can know exactly what time they will be dying. How can it be possible? It is possible. When you understand your own karmic stream and the choices you made in the past, and then start to look into the future, you can know exactly the time and date of your passing. It is possible.

In the case of the Buddha, I don't know whether I understand correctly or not. The Buddha himself determined his own time? He knew it was time to go. Actually, if I remember the sequence of events correctly, I believe Mara came to him and said, now is the Buddha's time. And the Buddha said, alright, don't worry about that. And then he relinquished his life force, it says. And he said, three months from hence, I will, I think, pass away. So I had a comment and a question about fasting. I'm just sharing my personal experience. I fast 36 hours a week, once a week. On days when I was meditating regularly, I found that the morning I break my fast...

Before I break it, so I would have fasted for around 32 hours. My mind was clearer and I could concentrate better. I don't know whether it's true for everybody, but yeah, I felt really good, and my meditation would generally go better than on other days. If I could just comment on that also. Actually, if you think about the way the Buddha structured how, at least in the Theravada tradition, monks are supposed to eat, how monastics are supposed to eat, they don't eat after the moon day and everything. In a sense, what they're doing is intermittent fasting.

They only eat maybe up to two meals a day, up until 12 o'clock. And then they don't eat until the next two. You're doing that similar here, right? If you skip the soup in the evening, you're fast. You're doing at 24, something like that. Yeah, similar to that, exactly. What was your question? So it was about Nibbana. So you spoke about the various after effects after Nibbana, whether it's joy, energy, deep deprivation, stuff like that. Is it the same no matter what level of Nibbana you come out of, no matter what succession it is? Not always. Because as you get to subsequent attainments, you don't experience the same level of joy you experience in the first time.

you experience, you start to experience more equanimity, actually, more balance of the mind. That's what I'm saying, I'm not sure if it's like, I don't care, it's Nirvana, whatever, you know, because you have so much equanimity, so much tranquility, and so the mind doesn't need to necessarily recover from the after effects. And when I say recover, meaning, you know, with a sleep, lack of sleep, that happens because of a lot of energy and things like that. And the other thing is you'll also start to see dependent origination even outside of the meditation. You'll start to recognize the sequencing of dependent origination. It just comes to you very clearly. So I got another question that popped up in my mind.

So, in the case of those who attained higher states, they can see people, their past kamma and their current kamma, and they can also even notice somebody going in the wrong direction. It can probably be possible that they just judge. They can see exactly what stream they are going in. How do they manage the judging and compassion? Oh, they never judge. One familiar professor said they never judge. But if the person is immediately about to break a precept, they make every effort to prevent them from breaking that precept. In the case of, for example, the Buddha and Angulimala, he saw that Angulimala was going to kill his mother.

He stepped in, and he gave him the discourse, and Angulimala let go of his old ways and then joined the Sangha. So they never judge what a person is doing, but they know, okay, this person might be going in this direction. Sometimes, like parents, they have to just allow that person to do what they are doing so that they learn from that experience. You can't always prevent them from doing what they want to do. I have some friends, very good friends, but they kind of break precepts, especially alcohol, which is kind of common in society right now. So I can't say that you don't drink. He knows that I don't recommend drinking.

These kinds of situations are quite common. How do you help other people? If you say that I don't want to be with you, if you don't... You know how when somebody goes to buy cigarettes and they have those pictures of lung cancer and all of that? Just carry cards with you. When they're about to order a drink, just give them that one card. Take a look at this. This is what happens when you drink alcohol. No, I'm just joking. But that's their choice. That's their choice. You can always say, hey, maybe you want to not drink. Just suggest it a couple of times. That's the part of beautiful friendship, Kalyanamitta: you try to help them out of breaking precepts.

But ultimately, the choice always is theirs. I think Deerpark would be another place. Yeah, no, of course, send it to Deerpark. Come here and stay for one month. This retreat is sponsored by the airpark. Can one radiate emptiness? No. Emptiness is a quality of the mind. Emptiness is basically just... It's a quality of existence in general.

So the experience of emptiness can lead to equanimity, which you can read on your paper. But emptiness itself is just, it's apparent once it becomes apparent. - In my meditation, six R's are going well and I come back, but sometimes I don't know what my object is because I'm in nothingness. So what, I don't know where to land. I think if you just stay out there and allow the mind to just rest in that, that's fine too. So you don't have to hate anything. Just let the mind rest in that awareness.

In that space I'm finding that actually distractions happen a lot more. Yes. So when that happens, that's where you start to develop the disenchantment and dispassion, which is like you just stay in the awareness. You just stay in the awareness of that and whatever is happening, even if it's like attacking you from sitting in the front, just don't do anything. Just allow your mind to just stay with the mind, the way the awareness is, and eventually the distractions will start to fail. As soon as your attention goes to the distraction or the series of distractions, it will fuel it, which will cause it to erupt even more and more. The other thing you can do is add tranquility. Just in the beginning, just add a little tranquility, just have some more relaxation, and then just relax into the awareness, and that's it. And then from there, that develops this disenchantment and this dispassion, naturally.

So, tranquility, for you, is, whatever your definition is, relax? Passaddhi, which is just to relax. Passaddhi, which is tranquillizing, to just soften things. How about adding a little bit of an anapanasati instruction, like breathing out, tranquilize the mental or body formations? You're saying as a... Yeah. Whenever the instructions or the agitation of the energy is too much, to actively breathe out and to tranquilize? No, unless you're doing anapanasati from the get-go, but don't do it as practice, because you're going to equate the process of relaxation, you're going to tie the process of relaxation to your breath, and the mind then becomes dependent upon the breath. You want to have the mind like independent, let the mind be self-driving, self-sufficient, to be able to do things through its own intentions. So a process of just relaxing, a process of pulling back the attention, that should be enough for that moment, and then making sure that the mind just rests in the awareness. It doesn't do anything. So I have a couple of questions.

Does relating a loving kindness to a special friend who may be inclined to alcohol, would that help? It could, it could. I mean, if you're just sending loving kindness to them, that's really nice. As to whether that changes them from drinking alcohol. Yeah, for them to have the space to reconsider or take a pause. Yeah, but that always lies in their own awareness. Right. The next question is, when you were speaking about astrology, does it become invalid at some point during a progress in meditation? Yes.

Because at some point, first, that's the thing you have to understand. Astrology to try to predict the future implies that your life is sort of predetermined in that way. But your choices always change, which means the karmic streams that branch out will also change. So to a certain extent, you start letting go of consulting astrology and things like that. You just do whatever is happening. Accept everything as is. We just had a question. What are your thoughts on Reiki?

Reiki? I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yes, good job. Could you expand the cool distance? I mean, if a person wants to cultivate the ability to do Reiki and stuff, by all means, that's fine. It's helping another person, right? Thanks, Guru says, if you are practicing Reiki, that's his interpretation. I'm just parroting it. He says that you have to be careful because you are altering that person's karma. So you should be also sometimes willing to take that.

To what extent would I need? Yeah, I don't know about that. Because I would say, when it comes to karma, karma is always changing. And the thing about karma is, karma can change dependent upon a person's choice, dependent upon outside environment, dependent upon climate, dependent upon a person's illness or non-illness, depending upon a lot of different things.

Whether it alters their karma, you couldn't really know it unless you actually saw their karma. But as you take on another's karma and things like that, I think it's just a process, again, of dedicating merit. That's it. If you look at it in that light, then it's just like, whatever good deeds I've done, may the merit of that go to that person. That's it. Pretty cool. Yeah, it is pretty cool. Can you explain what is compassion exactly? Yeah. Compassion is, it's a mindset. And compassion is the ability to recognize the suffering in another being.

Because you understand your own suffering. And then not having sympathy for them. But a level of empathy. That level of empathy is basically understanding their suffering because you've had some kind of suffering similar to theirs. But beyond that, compassion is also wishing them to be free of suffering, one, mentally, but being able to facilitate the ability for them to come out of their suffering. But I also talked about how you don't want to do it in such a way that you become a crutch, and then they always depend on you whenever they're suffering, to be like, okay, show me what I should do, and then you have to do the actions.

Empower them to take the actions to come out of their suffering. Whatever that means when you say empower. Give them the tools, give them the information, be a support system, be there just listening. The process of just listening to a person is compassion and action. Many people just want to speak and be heard. If you can listen to a person without trying to figure out an answer and just listen, that's also compassion.

We're radiating the wish for beings to be free of suffering. While you're here, could you also expand on Empathetic Joy? Empathetic joy, or mudita, is basically being able to celebrate in another person's wholesome success. That's why it's known as an antidote to jealousy and envy. When somebody becomes jealous, it's because they've achieved something and now the person begrudges them for that. But mudita, or empathetic joy, is saying, wow, I'm genuinely happy for that person's achievement.

I was talking about the other day, somebody from San Francisco, he was saying, every time he sees somebody driving a really nice car, or whatever it might be, the first thought that arises is, good for them, I'm so happy for them. That's empathetic joy. How do you radiate it? That is understanding that, okay, there are beings who experience joy and you're happy for them.

Connecting with their joy. Connecting with their happiness. Connecting with their temporary relief from suffering. Or even permanent relief from suffering. As you said, Reiki interferes with the karma. So what, doctors are also interfering by curing the person? Yes, of course. Of course. But why is that a problem? Yeah, how do we know that our metta is reaching to the people we are sending it to? We can't, we don't. But there might be times where when you're sending metta, like I was saying earlier, there might be times where a person thinks about you and says, or calls you or sends you a WhatsApp message and says, "I was just thinking about you." So first thing, tomorrow, I get my mobile...

You might be having a lot of messages in a while. I'll just check if I receive messages. Secondly, I was just wondering, when I was meditating yesterday, I spoke to you about this. Again and again, my mind was getting distracted. Again and again I was using the six R's. More than meditating, I was using more of the six R's. Was it my lack of knowledge of meditation, or was it ignorance, or I don't know? No, no, no. It's the right thing that you were doing. It's the right thing. You were meditating, actually. If you were six R's, it means that you were applying right effort. You had the mindfulness to recognize that you lost it and you came back.

It might take a hundred times a minute. But then I was getting very bored by giving six hours. Not bored, but I don't know if I used the right word, but it was bothering me again. I gave it to use the six hours. That time you just relax. At that point, maybe what happens is it could be that the mind is just 6R-ing as a preventative thing, and then you just relax. Relax into the awareness. Try doing that and see what happens. Thank you. You don't have to 6R every thought. You don't have to 6R every thought as long as you're still with the field of awareness.

And sometimes people say, oh, it was a bad session because I was 6R-ing a lot. But if you were 6R-ing a lot, it's actually a good session. What is restlessness? How to handle that restlessness? Restlessness is basically an imbalance in energy. Whether it's lafantropor or restlessness. Basically, restlessness means that there's too much energy in the mind. And that arises because the mind is trying too hard.

Or the mind is focusing too much. And then there's all of this agitation coming up. So when that happens, then you, like I said, pull back your attention and relax. Then you rebalance the energy so that instead of having too much energy, the energy kind of counters back to being in the middle. So if you find that happening, then all you have to do is just pull back your attention and relax. That's it.

The book, it also says restlessness, or maybe it was a meditator's experience, restlessness is putting the mind into the future. Yes, restlessness can arise. Okay, that's the restlessness and remorse that we were talking about the other day. Restlessness in terms of anxiety about the future, remorse in terms of guilt about the past. Others? Can you talk a little bit about karma purification and techniques of karma purification?

Karma is to be experienced all the time. Right now, what's your experience in karma? Karma brought you here. Karma will take you other places. Karma cannot be purified in the sense of doing sacrifices and all of these other things. Karma can be let go by understanding it as being an impersonal process and not clinging to it. Remember, I was talking about in terms of hindrances, old karma and new karma.

Old karma is that which you inherit, and now this is all old karma. If you take it personally and keep acting from there, you just add to that repository of karma. But if you want to let go of that karma, you see it for what it is. Detach from it. Use the six R's. So all the techniques of the Paya Santa, for example, in Tibetan Buddhism?

I'm not familiar with that. What is that? It's karma purification. How do you know that your karma's been purified? You trust. What I'm saying here is that it's a practical application using right effort to be able to let go of the ingredients for continuing that karma, which is craving, clinging, and becoming. That delineation point between old karma and new karma is the feeling and the craving. The bridge is the underlying tendency. Everything you're experiencing right now is a result of old karma. How you choose to take it will then determine whether you crave, cling, and become, which can lead to furtherance of that karma. That's the purification in so far as letting it go, letting it be as it is.

In the Sutta, the Buddha talks about the Eightfold Path as being the path leading to the cessation of karma as well. Because when you have right speech, that doesn't create new karma. Any karma that leads to renewal of being. When you have right action, that doesn't lead to any new karma, to the renewal of further being. And so on and so forth. So it's seen as more of a non-continuance of already old karma. There was a group at the time of the Buddha. There are many suttas where the Buddha has interactions with the Jains. And the Jains held this belief that they needed to purify all of their karma, and that's how they got enlightened.

He was really hard on the Jains, actually. You don't hear the Buddha going and picking fights very often. But with the Jains, he was frustrated with, or not frustrated, in a Buddha type of way, he was unhappy with them because of how much suffering they were causing themselves and that view was causing others. And that's why I asked that question. It's nothing that I'm, you know, maybe it is purifying, but the question that he asked the Jains was, how do you know in this balance somewhere of kamma, you know, this kind of piggy bank of kamma, how do you know how much is left or how much you've gone through? And there's another sutta where he goes to them and he basically says, so you believe that by experiencing painful feelings that you're purifying your kamma.

And these painful feelings come from previous bad actions, right? And they say, yes. And he said, well, you must have done something really terrible to be born a Jain then. Because they're causing themselves pain. Let go of the pain, to in theory let go of pain that they caused themselves in the past. So all of that's just to say that the view that you need to somehow purify yourself is explicitly denounced by the Buddha over and over again.

If you read a chapter on karma, I don't know how far you've gotten in my black leaving book, but there are certain suttas that it talks about which you can go to and you can see where the Buddha talks about how to deal with karma. And there is some description of karma and rebirth in that chapter. So I have a look at what you do. Speaking of purification, I wanted to actually talk about restlessness. I found today, I had an insight that once sila is pure,

which personally I feel like I am working on purifying, there's a level of purification that is happening here. And so restlessness still came up. And I realized it was an uninvestigated thought. So restlessness can still come even after sila is pure. The thought was, oh, I'm not good enough for this or that, and then I realized, oh, is that true? I need to investigate that, is that true or not? So I just wanted to share that about restlessness. And that's the other thing you have to understand: even after you purify sila you can still experience the hindrances, because there's momentum from previous choices. So, in the same way, somebody becomes fully realized, they still have to experience the consequences of their previous actions prior to full awakening. So yeah, I mean, if that helps in terms of understanding how this thought process arose and then letting go of the cause of the restlessness, that's cool. Yeah, just, once I saw that, it's like, six R's, that. But, yeah, it's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.

One basic question. Could you please enlist in whatever jhana stage 1 is, and he should radiate conventionally like 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, up to 8.5? Do you want me to review the notes? No, just, Manai, is it possible to, Manai, taking our attention in all directions is possible or required in which stage, Manai, like that? Oh, you can do it from the first jhana outwards, that's fine. Up to, up to? Up to 8th, in the 8th you don't do any jhana. That's what, 6, 7, 8, we were just discussing and having an issue. By the time you're in the 8th, then you're just required, not radiating. 7th? In radiating, 7th you radiate equanimity, up to 7th.

Okay. You go ahead. Does a place of birth, a state, a home, like home and a home impact people's lives? Impact people's lives, that's actually also a karmic fruition, right? Where you're born and where you live, what kind of people you interact with, what kind of parents you have, what kind of upbringing you have, that's also all old karma. In Hindu mythology, in some way it has been written that your place of birth is already, or the home in which you are going to be born, your karma has been written from that home, the way the home has been formed. Right. So the idea is that certain choices that you make in your previous life can lead you to being born in a certain kind of family, in a certain kind of home or lifestyle.

Thereby we are just confirming the societal structure, for that matter? We are what? Confirming the social, economical status of the people, effectively, they have. Well, yeah, I mean, when you say confirming, how do you mean? Confirming, I mean, it is out of their stock of kamma. Right, exactly, right. People tend to blame the situation, the people and the history maybe sometimes. It's a larger perspective.

But the lessons you'll be learned about that is also this. There's like, the Buddha talked about four entry points and four exit points. In other words, a person comes into a life where it's very wholesome, but they can take that wholesome life and make it almost. For example, somebody's born in a very rich household but then they get influenced and decide that they want to use their wealth for unwholesome means, and they can squander their wealth and live all kinds of situations for themselves. Likewise, somebody can be in an unwholesome state, that is to say maybe in a state of deprivation, in a state where things are not good, but that inspires them to lead a wholesome life, lead them out of, let's say, poverty or whatever that might be, and get inspired to uplift others in the community.

So that's from the, from the, I don't want to use the word negative, but you know, something that's not so well to something that is better. And then there's also somebody who is in a better state and then improves that state. And somebody who's in a terrible state and continues to, or a Washington person in that state. Yeah. So the idea is, yeah, fine, it can be confirmation of socio-economic status. But what you choose to do with that, that's important.

Always. What do you do with the karma that you have now in the present moment? How generous, how good you were. Yeah. So on the same topic of karma, I think there's a really good sutta, you mentioned it just a moment ago. Moggallana, yes. He became an arahant. All right. When he met the Buddha, running around and stuff and everything else, kind of cool story. It's pretty cool. It's very cool. At the end of the day, he was an arahant. He has the robes on, people are still throwing stuff at him. Yeah. He was picking up all that old karma, right? That he had done from taking people's fingers off, whatever. From what I understand, he was even, like, actually a pretty good guy before that. That's right. Yeah. But you actually see that there's no purification, even in becoming an arahant. You're still going to pick up some of your old karma, right, based on what you did. Moggallana is a prime example of this as well.

I often quote Moggallana's example, which is actually where in a previous life, at some point, he killed his parents. Then the immediately effective karma, there are five immediately effective karmas that lead you to a state of hell. One of them is killing your mother, another is killing your father, another is killing an arahant, another one is shedding the blood of a Buddha, down with the desire to harm them, and then creating a schism.

So in doing that, it led him to an immediately effective karma of experiencing a hell realm. Fine. But the remnant of that karma was still there to the extent that even after lifetimes, the effect of that was even after he became an arahant, he got beaten up by a rival community, which he then tried to evade using his psychic powers. Eventually that failed him and they beat him up till he died. Even the Buddha had back problems. Buddha would take rest and lie down because his back was hurting, and that was apparently from breaking someone's back in a past life. He was a wrestler. His famous friend was the backbreaker. No, this is more like a commentary, but how Moggallana was so good to be in a right or left hand of Buddha, even after having such a bad come up, and this is all. This is a hopeful thing, right?

This shows that your karma is changeable and there's always hope for people, for anyone. Even Devadatta, who created a schism. Later on, it says that he's going to become a Pacceka Buddha. Or even Ajatasattu, who killed his own father, it says that later on he will become a Pacceka Buddha. So it's possible to kill another hat, but it's not possible to kill another. I don't think anyone has. Someone has attempted it, but so far I don't think there has been any success.

So this is a personal question, so you can skip it if you don't. I'm skipping it. Alright, ask the question. In the morning, if you go to take a shower and there's no hot water, do you hesitate? Or do you just take the shower with the cold water anyway? What I actually do is, if it's like a really hot country, like Cambodia and stuff, I take cold showers.

If it's cool, like over here, I'll take a warm shower, but I'll always finish it with a cold shower. You don't really have to exercise awakened powers to do that. I just turned them off. This is a follow-up on my question from yesterday. Maybe you answered it, but maybe I missed it. What is it that makes the cessation for stream entry easier than that of Anagami or Arahant? First time around, it's always easy because you don't know what to expect. Then once you know how the pathway is, then you kind of recognize the signposts. So it's arguably more difficult the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth time around

because you know the passage. So there you need even more disenchantment and dispassionment. So it's like there's different levels of letting go required at each? There's different levels of letting go, but again, they're facilitated by how much you six-star and what you six-star. In other words, for the Anagami, if you want to get into Anagami, you have to be able to recognize when sensual craving arises. You have to be able to recognize when aversion arises and let them go until you stop experiencing them. In the case of arahant, you have to let go of any restlessness that arises, let go of any kind of conceit that arises, let go of craving for jhana, craving for formless attainment, becoming more attentive, becoming more aware of, so lack of mindfulness, you have to let go of that.

This is a follow-up question on that from Alice, Melbourne, Australia. She asked me to ask you this: "What emphasis would you put on fruition as another peak experience, because the commentaries or the Abhidhamma say you need eight moments of cessation to get to arahant? But imagine a person listening to a discourse of the Buddha and then becoming an arahant. Okay, personally I feel it's problematic to have eight moments of boom boom boom boom. Right? And then, okay, fine, I'm still standing. So is it more of a commentarial thing that they took the fruition to another level, or how do you see this?" I would say, having not really read it for myself, I'll explain it.

I don't exactly know the full context of whether it's in the Abhidhamma or whether it's in the commentary, but there have been people who've had 24 cessations. By now they should be like a triple. The idea, the way I look at it, is it's more about what happens in terms of what you do to keep letting go that leads to the cessation, not the cessation itself. So, when you talk, again, going back to fruition, what was the question? Is it another peak experience?

One of the things I have noticed with people, and this is my own experience with interviewing people, is that the fruition, you will know it's a fruition when you for sure see the links of dependent origination. And another cessation experience. Right, post-cessation experience. How about, let me give this analogy. You listen to a lecture for three hours, and then you go back home, you do some homework, and then you say, hey, that's what the lecture was all about. It's that application of that experience that you had in those three hours,

and then you just... And then it just all clicks. You just get it. That is true. Yeah, that's true. right so it doesn't have to be another well I'll give you an example of somebody that they've happened at the San Francisco retreat this was earlier this year and this person had been in the for many many years and he just didn't really he just wasn't getting to the right path and the right way of doing things and he started doing this practice and every time he did this practice his arm was hurting his leg was hurting finally he was in a sling it was like torturous for him and one day in the interview he came and he was just so happy and everything and I said you've had a experience

and he explained what happened, and he said, yeah, this is what happened. Okay, great. And then he was listening to Chachakka Sutta, the six sets of six. And he came back and he said, the first day, yesterday when you told me this, I didn't believe you. I was like, okay, maybe he's just saying that. But while I was listening to the Sutta, something happened where I had to, after the end of the reading, I had to just go to my room. As I was going to my room, there was a blackout and I experienced this amazing joy and everything just made sense.

He no longer had his arm in a sling, and it was like the pain that he was experiencing became pleasure, and there was joy in that experience. So yes, cessation will happen and there will be a fruition, and sometimes the cessation is so small you might not even recognize it. There have been people who have had cessation in their sleep, and then when they wake up they experience immense joy, and then everything makes sense to them. That makes a lot more sense. It doesn't have to be another wow. It could just be a tiny click. Could you expand a bit more on

What do the links of dependent origination look like? Because I've heard it described as flickering in the eye or the ear, but there's just so much flickering in it. No, no, no. That flickering in the eye and the ear is mainly the infinite consciousnesses that we're seeing. But dependent origination, I'm not going to tell you guys. You have to tell me, or you have to tell a teacher, and then they will be able to confirm the experience for you. Otherwise, you guys are going to be looking for it, and be like, yeah, I saw it.

You said, right before you answered that question, you said something about you believe that it's more due to the practice leading up to the cessation? Yes. Can you show that? Can you expand that more in real life? Yeah, in other words, I said, for the Anagami, right? They have to let go of craving, sensual craving and aversion. In day-to-day life? In day-to-day life, whenever you see sensual craving arising, you have to be able to keep practicing that. So that translates into, when in a post-session experience, the mind naturally lets go of that fetter. You've built that natural tendency. Yeah. It's a momentum. That's the cumulative effect of the practice. It leads to that breaking of the fetters.

I will now summarize. Observe in a six hour. Thank you. Stop it, stop it. Any other questions? to never come back to the retreat? Say, for instance, whatever circumstances you were in, you never came back to a retreat, maybe you've never meditated ever again, but you worked on your ethics, could you still attain attainment? No, you still need to practice. You still need to practice, because it's sila, samadhi, panna. You see the sila, the ethics part is there, that's great. Now here's another thing to understand: if you've had a path and you don't practice, you will still have a fruition that will happen at the time of your death. But if you want to get to the next path, let's say, then you need to repeat that whole process, consistently.

And we'll see you next year then. Or just keep practicing, that's it. Just keep practicing. Alright, is that it? May suffering once be suffering free, and with fear struck fearlessly. May the believing shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings shed this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabit in space and in earth, they give us and have us of mighty power, share this merit on cost. May they long protect with us dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.