MN 9 Samma Ditthi Sutta with Delson Armstrong at DSMC

Today we're going to be discussing Majjhima Nikaya No. 9, which is the Sammaditthi Sutta, or Right View. So I want you all to pay very close attention, because we're going to be detailing a lot of information regarding each of the links of dependent origination. And as you'll see, it's using the formula of the Four Noble Truths as a way of understanding what that link is and how to use the Eightfold Path to cease that particular link.

And anytime you hear the Noble Eightfold Path, understand that to be talking about the six Rs. Thus have I heard on one occasion. The Blessed One was living at Savatthi in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's Park. There the Venerable Sariputta addressed the bhikkhus thus: Friends, bhikkhus. Friend, they replied. The Venerable Sariputta said this: Indeed, friend, we would come from far away to learn from the Venerable Sariputta the meaning of this statement.

It would be good if the Venerable Sariputta would explain the meaning of this statement. heard it from him, the bhikkhus will remember it. Then, friends, listen and attend closely to what I shall say. Yes, friends, the bhikkhus replied. When we talk about right view, that is the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. And right view has two understandings. There is the mundane and there is the super mundane. The mundane has to do with the understanding of karma and rebirth.

In other words, one understands that our actions have consequences. Wholesome actions have wholesome consequences. Unwholesome actions have unwholesome consequences. There is also the understanding that we came into this world, we came into this existence, and we should be grateful for those who brought us into this existence. is the Dhamma, and that there are those who know and understand the Dhamma, and we should pay respect to them.

This is really part of the mundane right view. The super mundane right view has to do with the Four Noble Truths. That is to say, the first noble truth of suffering, of dukkha, the second noble truth of the cause of suffering, which is craving, the third noble truth of the cessation of suffering, and the fourth noble truth of the Noble Eightfold Path.

When somebody enters right view, that is to say, attains Nibbana and enters the stream, they attain right view. They have an understanding of what suffering is. They abandon craving. They experience and realize for themselves the cessation of suffering. And they have used the Eightfold Path in doing so. And that is the use of the six Rs. Sariputta said this: Friends, when a noble disciple understands the unwholesome and the root of the unwholesome, the wholesome and the root of the wholesome, in that way he is one of right view, whose view is straight, who has unwavering confidence in the Dhamma and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

And what friends is the unwholesome? What is the root of the unwholesome? What is the wholesome? What is the root of the wholesome? Killing living beings is unwholesome. Taking what is not given is unwholesome. Misconduct in sensual pleasures is unwholesome. False speech is unwholesome. Malicious speech is unwholesome. Harsh speech is unwholesome. Gossip is unwholesome. Covetousness is unwholesome.

Ill will is unwholesome. Wrong view is unwholesome. This is called the unwholesome. What Sariputta is referring to here are the ten courses of unwholesome action. And you'll immediately recognize that the very first five are breaking of the five precepts. So anytime you break a precept, you are cultivating unwholesome mind states. And what is the root of the unwholesome?

Greed is a root of the unwholesome. Hate is a root of the unwholesome. Delusion is a root of the unwholesome. This is called the root of the unwholesome. So anytime there is craving present, anytime there is aversion present, anytime the mind takes what is arising as personal, sees it as personal. And what is the wholesome? This is called the wholesome.

And what is the root of the wholesome? wholesome. Non-delusion is a root of the wholesome. This is called the root of the wholesome. So as you understand the five precepts, maintaining your precepts is the wholesome. Having a good mindset, having a wholesome mindset, having wholesome thoughts, thoughts of loving kindness, using words that are loving and kind, using words that are kind to yourself and kind to others, and acting in a way that benefits others in a wholesome manner. So maintaining the precepts, keeping the precepts, that is the core of the practice. That is the foundation of the practice. Otherwise, you are not going to have a good meditation.

As soon as you break a precept, you start to see how your mind starts to wander, of restlessness that arises, or sloth and torpor, or any of the other hindrances. This is how the hindrances arise any time you break a precept. So when you do break a precept, take it again, make the determination that you're not going to do it again, and then go back with your practice.

And when it says non-greed is a root of the wholesome, non-hate is a root of the wholesome, non-delusion is a root of the wholesome, that means that you're not taking what is arising as personal, whether it's good or bad, whether it's pleasurable or painful or neutral. You're not identifying with the experience. You're seeing it as an impersonal process.

And one of them, when there's a pleasurable feeling, is the underlying tendency to craving, which then, if acted upon, if reacted on, will lead to a full-blown craving, and thus a whole process of suffering. And so he abandons the underlying tendency to lust, abolishes the underlying tendency to aversion. This is the other side of the coin. Craving isn't just being attracted to something, the mind pulling into something, but it's also pushing.

It's that "I don't like it" mindset. So it's the "I like it," which is craving, and "I don't like it," which is aversion. He extirpates the underlying tendency to the view and conceit I am. So this conceit I am, this is the residue of taking things personally, the moment that this thing that is arising is personal, that this is me, this I am, this is myself.

Anytime you have an experience in the meditation, whether good or bad, and you start to look at it in the view of a self, and you say, here is this loving kindness, and this is my loving kindness, or I am experiencing this loving kindness, or a hindrance arises, and you say, why is this hindrance coming up to me? You're taking it personal instead of letting it be, not making it a big deal. Seeing it for what it really is, just a result of impersonal causes and conditions. The loving-kindness or any of the objects of meditation that you cultivate arises because of your intention, but that intention itself is impersonal, as we'll see.

So when someone sees this and lets go of the personalization of this process and experience, they are grinding away at the fetter of conceit. They are no longer identifying with the situation in every moment. And by abandoning ignorance. Ignorance here is the ignorance of the Four Noble Truths. And we'll get deeper into that, but essentially every time you become mindful, meaning every time you recognize that there is an unwholesome state of mind arising, and you use the six Rs, you are cultivating the knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, and you are whittling away at ignorance because of your mindfulness, because of the six Rs.

And arousing true knowledge, he here and now makes an end of suffering. You see it for yourself. When you use the six Rs, there's all of this tension in the mind, tension in the body. As soon as you release your awareness from it, as soon as you relax the tension, you cultivate the wholesome through your smile, and you come back to your object, there is a purity of mind, especially after the relaxed step. That is where you experience the cessation of suffering. The mind is completely pure, completely collected, completely calm.

Saying, Puta's words. One of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is nutriment? What is the origin of nutriment? What is the cessation of nutriment? What is the way leading to the cessation of nutriment? There are four kinds of nutriment for the maintenance of beings that already have come to be and for the support of those about to come to be.

What for? Physical food as nutriment, gross or subtle, contact as the second, mental volition as the third, and consciousness as the fourth. With the arising of craving, there is the arising of nutriment. With the cessation of craving, there is the cessation of nutriment. The way leading to the cessation of nutriment is just this noble Eightfold Path. That is right view. Right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness.

Here Sariputta is talking about the four kinds of nutriment. Number one is physical food. That is what builds up the body. That's what builds up form. The second is contact. With contact, you have feeling, you have perception, and you have the arising of formations. The way that happens is when you see something, using David's example yesterday of the ice cream tub, you see the strawberry ice cream and there is contact with the eye and the form and color of the ice cream tub.

The joining of these gives rise to the awareness of that. That is the eye consciousness. From there, there is the experience, perception, the feeling of seeing the ice cream, and the perception of understanding that that is the ice cream. Now an intention arises, and the intention arises because of formations, so intentions drive forward the formations for you to act. For example, the physical formations, which will then have the intention for you to move forward towards that ice cream if you want it. And in that there can be craving, as we've seen, gives rise to feeling, perception, and formations.

The physical food gives to form. So what we're talking about, really, is the five aggregates. And then we have consciousness, which then also gives rise to nama-rupa, as we will see, or mentality, materiality. And how is it that the craving, with the arising of craving, there is the arising of nutriment? Craving is what brings renewal of being.

Craving is what brings birth, whether it's in every moment or whether it's from lifetime to lifetime. It is the craving that arises at the end of one life that leads for a consciousness to arise and then transport it to a new life and dissipate. So craving is really what gives rise to this renewal of being. It gives rise to these four. You cease craving with the six R's process.

You let go of your attachment, your sense of I am, to these five aggregates and to these nutriments. Now we'll talk about the Eightfold Path a little bit. And I'm going to explain it in the way one understands through what one has read and experienced. As we said, right view, that is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. That is the super mundane right view. Intention. Here intention can sometimes mean that there's an intention to hold on. So we can probably use the word inclination here. And that is to say we are letting go. That is the right intention. The intention is what is known as renunciation. And that renunciation is not taking things personal and letting go of any attachments, letting go of any kind of craving.

Intention. So every time you cultivate loving-kindness, every time you cultivate compassion, you are using right intention. You have the right intention. Right speech. So right speech is abstaining from false speech, abstaining from harsh speech, abstaining from gossip, abstaining from any kind of speech that divides. And the way I like to instruct people about this is to use an acronym, that is to say, think before you speak. T, H, I, N, K. T is for timeliness: is it the right time to say what you want to say? H is honesty: is it truthful, is it not false speech? I is the intention: is the intention wholesome, and is it necessary for the other person to know what you're about to say?

And K, kindness. Can it be said with kindness? Can it be said with loving kindness? And so if you meet these five parameters, only then you can speak. Otherwise, maintain noble silence. Right action. This is, again, following the precepts. Abstaining from killing. Abstaining from taking what is not given. Abstaining from sexual and sensual misconduct. Now, it's not mentioned here, traditionally speaking, but it's implied through the practice of right mindfulness, which is that you abstain from taking intoxicants, abstain from drugs and alcohol, because it dulls your mindfulness.

It dulls the mind and makes it prone towards sloth and torpor. Right livelihood. Right livelihood here is also about right behavior. That is to say, a career or a choice of lifestyle in which you're not harming other beings. So you abstain from selling poisons, selling weapons, selling people, selling meat, and selling poisons, selling weapons, selling meat. Killing. Yes, killing.

And there was a fifth one, but it's gone out from my mind. But I'll say it again. Selling poisons, selling people, trading in weapons, and killing for meat. There was a fifth one, but maybe... It's the intention to do it, yes. Right effort. This is the six R's process. So right effort is basically preventing unwholesome states from arising. That's the first right effort.

Second right effort is to abandon the already unwholesome states that have arisen. The third right effort is to generate a wholesome state. And the fourth right effort is to maintain it. Now, the reason why we say the six R's is really the Eightfold Path is because right effort is at the heart of the Eightfold Path. You use right effort to go from wrong view to right view, to go from wrong intention to right intention, to go from wrong speech to right speech, to go from wrong action to right action, to go from wrong livelihood to right livelihood, to go from wrong mindfulness to right mindfulness, to right collectedness. So how are you using the six R's and how are they able to fulfill this right effort?

Every time you recognize that there is a hindrance or an unwholesome state arising, you are preventing the flow of that hindrance from continuing. You have recognized it and it stops right there. When you release your attention from it and put it towards relaxing the mind and body, relaxing the formations, abandoning that unwholesome state, you are abandoning that hindrance.

When you come back to your smile, when you re-smile, you are generating a wholesome feeling because it cultivates joy. And when you return to your object of meditation, you are maintaining that wholesome state. And you repeat that process every time a hindrance arises. Right mindfulness. So right mindfulness here is understanding. The definition of mindfulness is observing mind's attention and seeing where it moves in every moment. So observing how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. When you're actually using mindfulness, then you're able to immediately recognize the hindrance and let it go using the six R's process. Mindfulness also incorporates the four foundations of mindfulness. That is to say that the mind is understanding what is arising as it's collected.

So when you're meditating, when you're with your object in meditation, whether it's loving kindness or radiating to the six directions or whatever it might be, you don't have one-pointed concentration. When you have one-pointed concentration, the mind becomes suppressed and there is wrong mindfulness there. There's actually no mindfulness there. But if there is an open awareness, an openness to the mind, a mind that is fresh, seeing things as they arise, then the mind is collected. And only when the hindrance arises, the mindfulness is there to see it, to recognize it, and to let it go using the six R's process.

What is the cessation of suffering? What is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? Birth is suffering. Aging is suffering. Sickness is suffering. Death is suffering. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering. Not to obtain what one wants is suffering. This is called suffering. So birth, aging, sickness, and death. This is the physical component of suffering. It's inevitable. Everybody will experience it. Everybody experiences birth. Everybody experiences aging. Everybody experiences sickness at one point, and everybody will experience death.

But what is avoidable, what is possible to completely cease altogether, is the sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. This is part of the mental suffering. This is the suffering that arises because you take something personal. This is the suffering that arises because you crave for something or you have aversion towards it. Not to obtain what one wants is suffering. That also is part of mental suffering.

So there are three kinds of dukkha that are understood to be there: Dukkha Dukkha, Viparinama Dukkha, and Sankhara Dukkha. Dukkha Dukkha is this understanding of the basic suffering that we have in terms of the physical and mental suffering. Viparinama Dukkha is the dukkha that one experiences when there is change. You have a pleasant feeling that arises. Again, using the example of the strawberry ice cream.

You go and see the ice cream, and you're ready to go and eat it, and then suddenly, it falls over the countertop and the ice cream falls to the floor. It changed. It's no longer edible. So the transformation of something from pleasant to unpleasant is the Viparinama Dukkha. It's the dukkha that you feel when you're on your way to taking a vacation and your flight gets cancelled.

It's unexpected. It wasn't in your control. That's what happens. Sankhara Dukkha is a deeper layer of dukkha. That's related to the five aggregates affected by clinging. And Sankhara Dukkha is that dukkha that is inherent in beings in terms of having a sense of dissatisfaction with life, a sense of dissatisfaction with existence. And it's within the five aggregates insofar as when a person identifies with the five aggregates and clings to them and takes them personal, this Sankhara Dukkha arises because there is the understanding that these aggregates are impermanent and therefore they are liable to change. And so that is part of the parinama dukkha, but it is inherently dukkha in that sense. But I want to point out that we have to understand that not all life is suffering.

There's nothing wrong with having a pleasurable feeling. When you meditate and when you have loving kindness, when you have compassion, when you have joy, when you have equanimity, those are all pleasurable states to be in. And there's nothing wrong with it. You're cultivating your mind when you do that. And you're cultivating your mind towards the Dhamma. So enjoying that piece of apple pie or taking a nice warm shower, enjoyable, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying them.

The problem is when things change and we expect things to be permanent, we expect them to be everlasting. That misconception or reality is one of the causes of suffering. And what is the origin of suffering? It is craving which brings renewal of being. This is called the origin of suffering. This is the big one, the craving. Craving manifests as tension.

Every time you have a pleasurable feeling, and you don't want it to stop, sense of self to it, there is a tightness that arises. There is a reaction within the mind, a reaction within the body that tightens. When you recognize that, that is the craving that you have to let go of. This sensual craving, craving for sensual pleasures, is related to the experiences that happen through the sixth sense basis.

Primarily the five physical senses, because those are known as the... But even mentally, if the mind has a very good thought and it starts to obsess over it, or it starts to obsess over some kind of nostalgic memory that feels good, and that brings about unwholesome states of mind, that is a form of craving. Any kind of movement of thought, any kind of movement like that, that causes the mind to tense up, that causes the body to tense up, is craving.

The craving for being, and the craving for non-being. This is the bhavatanha and the vibhavatanha. The craving for being is the sense of, I want to do something. I have made it a point in this retreat that I am going to enter the stream. That is the craving for being. I am going to enter the quiet mind. That is the craving for being.

Or the craving for non-being is, again, that I don't like it attitude. I don't like being in this state. I want this to stop. This is the craving for non-being. This agitates the mind. This makes the mind restless and therefore causes the mind to suffer. What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go and rejecting of that same craving. And what is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this Noble Eightfold Path, the six R's process.

You experience a hindrance in the mind, you experience some kind of disturbance in the mind, that is the suffering. Your undue attention to it, your I-don't-like-it attitude to it, that is the craving. When you use the six R's process, you let go of the hindrance, and that is the cessation of that hindrance. When a noble disciple has thus understood suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way, too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. Saying, good friend, the bhikkhus delighted and rejoice in the Venerable Sariputta's words.

So the disciples, they're not yet satisfied. They want to know more. is one of right view. called aging. The passing of beings out of the various orders of beings. Their passing away, dissolution, disappearance, dying, completion of time, dissolution of the aggregates. That's the five aggregates. Laying down of the body. This is called death. So this aging and this death are what is called aging and death.

In today's modern world, we have a lot of ways to, let's say, delay aging or the appearance of aging. We have plastic surgery, we have Botox, we have wigs and hair color and all kinds of things. But that is the attachment to the body whenever you use that. You're identifying with the body and that agitation that you're not satisfied because the body is aging causes suffering. inevitable for all beings. All beings that come into existence will die.

That is just the nature of life. So when one says that the process of the Eightfold Path, or the 6R's, is the way leading to the cessation of aging and death, it's leading to the cessation of identifying with that aging and death process. Identifying with the body. With not liking the fact that you see a gray hair, not liking the fact that you're starting to see wrinkly skin, and all of those things. You completely accept the truth of the situation. That is the reality of the situation, that there is aging.

And when you see that the mind doesn't like it, you 6R it. Let go of it. Stop identifying with the body. Stop identifying with the aging process. on, that fear of death arises because there is still a belief in a personal self. There is still a belief that there is a personal permanent self. And so this death, how can there be this death? But if you understand that death is natural, you understand it through the process of the Eightfold Path and through wisdom, you won't be afraid of death either. the origin of aging and death, the cessation of aging and death, and the way leading to the cessation of aging and death, he here and now makes an end of suffering.

What is the way leading to the cessation of birth? This is called birth. With the arising of being, or habitual tendencies, there is the arising of birth. Birth is just this noble eightfold path. So when we talk about birth, we're talking about number one, the physical birth, the birth of beings, whether it's in this realm or another realm. And birth really is the arising of the five aggregates, the arising of the sense basis for contact. But there is another understanding of birth, which is the birth of action.

This whole process of dependent origination on the level of day-to-day, moment-to-moment, It leads to the birth of action, which can lead to suffering. If you look at dependent origination like a river, when you have the river bend and it goes into the waterfall, that waterfall is the birth of action. That birth of action, when you have an action, when you intend an action, whether it's in mind, body or speech, it's unretrievable.

It's like having shot the arrow and you can't call it back anymore. Whole momentum of dependent origination that causes that kind of an action. So at the birth of action one has to realize what happened and one has to realize what is it that caused that birth of action, and it's the bhava that we'll talk about. It's this process of being or the habitual tendencies or the habitual emotional tendencies. When a noble disciple has thus understood birth, the origin of birth, the cessation of birth, and the way leading to the cessation of birth, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

Saying, good friend, the bhikkhus delighted and rejoice in the Venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question, but friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma? There might be friends. disciple understands being or habitual tendencies, the origin of being, the cessation of being, and the way leading to the cessation of being. In that way, he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is being? What is the origin of being? What is the cessation of being? What is the way leading to the cessation of being? There are these three kinds of being, sense sphere being, So here we're talking about bhava.

Bhava can be understood as the library of different reactions. There's a certain way that you tend towards seeing things or interacting with people, or reacting to situations. It's the storehouse of reactions that are automated or almost automated. So that leads to the birth of action. So perceiving a person a certain way, having certain kinds of prejudices about them, thinking about them a certain way, this is all habitual tendencies.

These reactions that you have, this person is always going to be this way. I don't like this person being that way because they always have a tendency to do something like this. All of these thoughts, all of these ideas, all of these concepts are part of the bhava. And it's also part of where the identity is most solidified.

The idea of a personal self is most solidified. And it's from this sense of self that you act. So when we talk about the sense-sphere being, what we're talking about is the sensual realm. What we're talking about now is this plane of existence that we have here, as well as the sensual deva realms and so on. When you act in a way that causes you to crave for sensual things, for sensual experiences, you start to cultivate a mindset, start to cultivate a behavioral tendency, a habitual tendency to gravitate towards it. And so your birth of action is dependent upon these tendencies towards that sensual experience. The fine material, which is to say the luminous form or the Brahma realms, and the arupa, that is to say the realm of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception and non-perception.

If you have an attachment to the factors of these jhanas, this will tend to create further identification with the jhanas and will not help you to move forward. So wherever you are at your practice, if you tend to make a big deal out of whatever is happening in terms of the jhana or the arupa jhana, it's going to prevent you from going further. And that is your habitual tendency that you're cultivating because you're continually identifying with those factors. You're continually making those factors a big deal. So you have to let go of that and allow the process to happen naturally.

And it will happen as long as you don't have that bhava. So bhava is a really complex thing, because every time you act out of bhava, what you're doing is a feedback loop. So we see dependent origination as a linear process, but it's also cyclical, and it also has certain kinds of feedback loops. Every time you react from habitual tendencies, it feeds back energy to the formations. It feeds back energy to the taints that we'll talk about later. of action or act out of the habitual emotional tendencies, you're going to further feed the formations that are going to be rooted in those tendencies.

And so all you're doing is digging deeper and deeper into that process. And this is really rebirth. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That's the definition of insanity. But that is also rebirth. Not seeing and understanding that there is a way out by seeing the fact that there is an identification with this process.

Letting go of that identification process, letting go of craving for this whole experience, and seeing it as impersonal, and just observing. Observing without judgment, observing without expectation, observing without any intention, leads you to detach from this bhava. Leads you in a state of mindfulness, very sharp mindfulness, so that your intention and your actions are rooted in wisdom. Saying, "Good, friend." The bhikkhus delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question: "But friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma? There might be, friends. When a noble disciple understands clinging, the origin of clinging, the cessation of clinging, the way leading to the cessation of clinging."

In that way, he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is clinging? What is the origin of clinging? What is the cessation of clinging? What is the way leading to the cessation of clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging. Clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, clinging to rules and observances, and clinging to a doctrine of self. of clinging.

Now we're going to spend a little more time here with clinging because we're talking about the four kinds of clinging. The clinging to sensual pleasures, the clinging to views, the clinging to rites and rituals, and the clinging to a doctrine of self. The clinging to sensual pleasures arises when there is craving for sensual pleasures. It arises from the moment you're born and even before you are born. When you are in the womb, you're used to being there for nine to ten months, you're used to being there and you're really enjoying it because your food is delivered to you and you don't have to worry about a thing. And then in that process, there is birth and there is the suffering of birth.

And now you're exposed to a whole new world. You're exposed to all kinds of lights and people and all of these other things. And now you hate it because the mind has clung to the womb, has clung to the comfort of the womb. But then it's introduced to the mother. It's introduced to the scent of the mother. And the being immediately recognizes that scent, clings to the scent of the mother, clings to the taste of her breast milk or to the taste of milk or whatever is the nutrition for that baby.

And it gets used to that. And it craves for that. And you see that with babies all the time. They cry because they want food. They want milk. And so they know if I cry, I will get milk. So there is this embedding of craving in there. There's this embedding to the clinging of that food. Eventually you wean the baby off of the milk and they don't like that either because they have clung and they have become attached to that milk. Now they don't like solid foods, different kinds of foods that they're being introduced to. Eventually they think about this food and they start to select what are their favorite foods. I only like white colored foods and green colored foods, but I don't like orange colored foods.

bitter tastes. These ideas, these opinions about flavors, about smells, about sights, about things that you hear, about mindsets and thought processes, setting your favorites, creating all of these thoughts about it, this is the process of clinging. This process of clinging creates that sense of identity in bhava. As you grow up, the same thing happens. You replace the old foods for new foods. Or you replace old tastes for new tastes. You grow up listening to a certain type of music. You grow up listening to a certain type of, or watching a certain type of show. And those are your favorite shows. Those are your favorite genres of music and so on. And this clinging, this identifying with that process, if it becomes strong enough and you don't have what you cling to, it can cause an unwholesome reaction in your body and in your mind, because that whole process of developing these favorites in that clinging.

And you see marketing and you see advertising all around us. They use bright colors and certain kinds of music and they use certain kinds of smells when you go to the grocery store. All of this is intended to create a sense of clinging. I only buy this kind of brand of potato chips because I like the way it tastes and I associate it with my childhood.

So these associations, different experiences to the sensory pleasures or even sensory displeasures, there's an example of somebody who was at a funeral and one of their parents had died, and in order to comfort them they would rub their shoulder, and so they associated that experience of rubbing the shoulder with that painful feeling. And later on, when somebody else did it and it was a happy event, they immediately went to that memory. So this association process with these experiences and with those sensory experiences, the sensual experience, is where that clinging arises. So trauma, people who experience different kinds of trauma, it's because they associate certain experiences with certain actions, certain feelings or emotions with certain sensual experiences.

And to let go of the clinging, one has to see and identify that there is clinging going on. That arises through a further tensioning of the mind. That arises from further craving. So when you use the 6R's process, every time you notice that the mind is starting to react from this process of clinging, starting to react from this process of association, you let it go. You use the 6R's process and you let it go.

So the next one is clinging to views. So clinging to views, really, first and foremost, we talk about views in terms of just general opinions about things. If you adhere to those views and you adhere to those opinions, that is liable to cause you suffering. And it might seem very trivial, but the idea of having a favorite sports team, having a favorite basketball team or football team or whatever, it can get quite aggravated, very attached to different kinds of games and they're, I like this and, you're wrong because you're a fan of the other sports team or whatever it might be. That's a very trivial understanding of attachment to views and opinions.

But you create ideas about politics. You create ideas about religion. You create ideas about societies. And you adhere to these views and these opinions and you act from there. Violence. This is what causes violence in the mind mentally, causes violence in speech when you speak, causes violence in actions when you physically assault somebody because you adhere to those views. So there's something known as confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Confirmation bias is where you'll only adhere to those views that seem to be okay with the views that you're currently holding. And cognitive dissonance is where somebody gives you new information

And it can eradicate those views, but your attachment to those views are such that you're not able to cognize it correctly. There is that dissonance, and you still hold on to that view. Holding on to such views, even holding on to the Dhamma, as we'll talk about in a little bit. But I want to talk about the different kinds of wrong views. This is really talking about the different kinds of wrong views. And there are up to 62 types of wrong views in Digha Nikaya number one. I'm not going to go through all 62 views, don't worry. But I want to talk about the six main views that were there around the Buddha's time.

And you might be able to recognize these kinds of views even in today's society through different cultures and different understandings of reality. So the first view was the view of amoralism. The idea that your actions don't really matter. So there's no need to be moral. There's no need to maintain the precepts. But we've already seen through the Dhamma that there is a need for that. Because we see through the process of karma that our unwholesome mindset states or unwholesome mindsets cause unwholesome actions, which then cause unwholesome consequences.

So there is something to be said for keeping the precepts. is in direct violation of the Dhamma. It's a view that you cannot hold to because you already see for yourself, every time you break a precept, your meditation is not so good. And so when you maintain that precept, you take the precept again, your mind becomes uplifted and your meditation becomes smoother, becomes much easier.

The second type of view was the view, what we can consider now is materialism. We understand now in modern-day advanced capitalism in the sense that it's all about gratifying the senses. Do whatever you can to gratify the senses. And this particular view had a certain kind of belief that take up loans and do whatever you have to because it doesn't matter. All you have to do is gratify the senses. But this view is in direct violation of the Dhamma as well. The Dhamma doesn't say that you should not feel pleasurable feelings, but rather let go of the attachment to those pleasurable feelings. Let go of the identification with those pleasurable feelings. Let go of the expectation that these pleasurable feelings will continue on.

So when you get into jhana, what you realize is you're secluded from sensual pleasures. You're secluded from unwholesome states in the first jhana. And this immediately brings to the mind the understanding that it's not just material gratification. It's not just gratifying the senses. Because in trying to gratify the senses, you cause the mind to identify and you can agitate the mind and it can start breaking precepts. Because if it thinks that all there is is to gratify the senses, then I'll do anything I can to do that. Some super mundane, let's say, pleasurable feeling, a mental feeling through the process of jhana, your attachment to the sense pleasures starts to weaken. And you start to see correctly that there is an identification with the sensual pleasures.

And so you start to use a six-R process to let that go. So materialism here is in direct violation of the Dhamma in that sense, anytime there's attachment there. The third wrong view that was there and that was held at that time was something known as Niyati Vada. In Pali that means fatalism or determinism. And this idea is that I don't have to do anything. My suffering has been meted out for me.

And also my cessation of suffering has been meted out for me. So anything I do, anything I intend, has no consequence, because it will lead to the cessation of suffering whenever it will lead to. But obviously this is in direct violation of the Dharma as well, because as we see, every time we have an intention to do something, it helps us to create an action that causes certain kinds of consequences.

So it's not that we don't have free will according to fatalism. It's not that we don't have some kind of choice. We always have a choice in the moment. Either to cultivate the wholesome or to cultivate the unwholesome. And the cultivation of either of those has consequences. And we see this in our everyday lives. Every time we speak badly to somebody else, we see the pain and suffering in that person. And they may react in the same way. That is immediately showing that we have our intention that can create some kind of consequence. There is just a meted out set of events that are going to happen in our lives.

So this idea of fatalism is in direct violation of the Dhamma as well, because it's saying that you have no choice in the matter. But indeed, the whole point of the Dhamma, the whole point of the Noble Eightfold Path, is that you have right intention, you have right action, you have right speech. You're doing it with intention, you're doing it with choice. So there is choice in every given moment. There are conditions to those choices, or conditions leading to those choices, as we'll talk about. In other words, if you continue to cultivate unwholesome states of mind, your choices will deviate towards the unwholesome choices.

Your intentions will deviate to the unwholesome choices. But you still have a choice in that moment to say, stop, take a pause, recognize this, let it go, and make the choice to cultivate the wholesome. So you have the choice to actually root out the unwholesome choices, root out the unwholesome intentions, and you have the choice to cultivate them and replace them. And this is what is known as weakening the unwholesome formations and strengthening the wholesome formations through your choices and through acting from those choices.

So that is the disputing of the third view, that is the fatalism. The fourth view is eternalism. That is what we were talking about yesterday, the idea that there is this consciousness, this soul, that runs through this thread of lives. Just one unifying consciousness that continues from one lifetime to the next. So that's really reincarnation. But it goes a step further in this particular view, which says that if everything is eternal, then if I kill somebody, or somebody kills me, I won't really die.

So one is liable to break the precept of killing with this idea. One is liable to break the precepts in general with this idea. Because if everything is eternal, then what is the point of me having to do anything? I'm going to live on anyway. So I don't really have to face any consequences. So this view is also in direct violation of the Dhamma, as all conditioned things are impermanent, and therefore the idea of a self being dependent upon conditioned things like the links of dependent origination is also impermanent and therefore liable to cause suffering and therefore not self. So this idea of eternalism comes about because of the brahmanical views that were there during ancient India, the idea that there was an atman, a soul, and therefore this soul was the one that was. So that is the fourth view that is disputed.

The fifth view is the view of restraint. It's also the view of what was known at that time as the Niganthas. And the Niganthas are basically the predecessors to what we know as Jains in today's modern day. Jainism is a particular belief system that says that there is a soul and that there is karma and all these other things. But the way to purify that karma is through painful ascetic practices. So you do certain things in your life that cause you pain. And that somehow purifies your karma, purifies your unwholesome karma.

But the Buddha actually asked a question about this. He said, okay, I understand what you're saying. But then how do you know that you're purifying the karma? Like, is there some kind of an exchange rate? Is there some kind of bank balance? And are you able to sense that you have purified your karma? And obviously, they didn't really have an answer to that. So the idea that you need to restrain yourself within the practice as well. I have to do really well. I have to be super concentrated. I have to try as hard as I can.

That is also part of that. You have to let go of that. You have to relax. The kinder you are to yourself, the gentler you are with this practice, the softer you are with this whole process, the more advancements you are going to make. And the way that this view is disputed is the understanding of something known as old karma and something known as new karma. Old karma is the sense of the effects of previous choices you have made in the past. And this old karma is everything from formations all the way up to the experience of feeling, dependent origination.

And Ananda has said in one of the suttas that the way, and it's in response to this particular view, the way to purify the old karma, is to understand the process of sila, samadhi, and panna. Cultivating the precepts and maintaining the precepts, meditating and getting into a collected mind state so that you understand with wisdom this whole process as being impersonal.

When that happens, you no longer have attachments or identifications with the old karma. Because anytime you react to the feeling, you are producing new karma. And that new karma is in the form of craving, clinging, being, or habitual tendencies, and the birth of action. And every time you do that, you are only perpetuating that karma. And so Ananda said, the way to let go of the old karma is to not react to it. And the way you don't react to it is through insight that you have through the Four Noble Fruits, through the practice of sila, through the practice of samadhi. Painful feeling, anytime there's a pleasurable feeling, if you have a reaction to it with craving, if you have a reaction to it with personalizing, you're liable to cause new karma.

You're liable to produce new karma. But if you see and you sense the arising of that, and you six R's, and you let it go, you are cultivating the Eightfold Path. And the Buddha said that the Eightfold Path is the cessation of old karma. So that means, in the practice, when a hindrance arises, that hindrance is old karma. That hindrance arose because you broke a precept at some point in your life or previous lifetimes.

That hindrance being old karma arising in your mind, if you react to it, if you say, I don't like this, or you have attachment to it, then you're further strengthening that hindrance with your reaction. But if you use the Eightfold Path through the Six-R process and you let it go, what you will notice invariably in your practice and it might come back again, but this time it will be weaker.

And it might come again, but you use the six Rs and it gets weaker and weaker and weaker until it completely fades away. And this is what is known as the cessation of old karma. This is the way to understand how to let go of your attachment to whatever is happening in the way of feeling. So this is the, did I say the fourth? The fourth, the fifth view.

The sixth view is that of skepticism. And that is to say, oh, well, I don't know if there's a right view. I don't know if there's a wrong view. I don't know if there's a Buddha. I don't know if there's karma and all these other things. So it's a view that the Buddha, or at that time, they called them eel wrigglers because they always just use different kinds of words and techniques to kind of not come to some kind of conclusion. violation of the Dhamma because that causes doubt and that doubt will cause you suffering and will take you away from the Dhamma, take you away from experiencing Nibbana. So these are the six different views that I wanted to explain to you that was present at the time of the Buddha and which you might recognize once in a while and if you do, you can let it go and come back to the Dhamma.

Then there is the clinging to rites and rituals, the clinging to rules and observances. And this is really clinging to the idea that certain rites and rituals are going to take you to Nibbana. So chanting or lighting a candle or doing this or that is going to take you to Nibbana. And this is dissipated when you become a sotapanna, when you become a stream-enterer, because you see for yourself how this process works, and you see that the path that led you to the experience of Nibbana is the Eightfold Path. It had nothing to do with chanting. It had nothing to do with observing rites and rituals.

So this clinging to rites and rituals will cause you suffering because you're going further and further away from Nibbana every time you have this idea that if I chant, if I pray, or whatever. There's nothing inherently wrong with chanting. There's nothing inherently wrong with doing whatever it is that you want to do. If it uplifts the mind, so be it. But have the understanding that this is not going to take you to Nibbana. So you have to let go of that clinging. Of self, there are 20 types of self-view.

And the way to understand these 20 different types of self-view is to understand the five aggregates multiplied by the four kinds of view of self. So that is the idea that the five aggregates are self, that there's the five aggregates within self, that the self is in the five aggregates, or that the self is separate aggregates. So in other words, you multiply the five aggregates by those views and you have the 20 different self views. And first we have to understand what does it mean when they say self, because the self during that time in the Brahminical tradition was the idea of a soul, the idea of this permanent consciousness. But if you think about the five aggregates, you see them to be impermanent, form decays over time, feeling in that moment arises and passes away, perception along with it, formations along with them, and consciousness as well.

You see the arising and passing away of consciousness in the sixth jhana, in the realm of infinite consciousness. And this immediately shows you the truth of anicca. It shows you the truth of impermanence. And therefore, you no longer believe that the consciousness is self, or is some kind of permanent self. Likewise with the other four categories of views. The idea that there is a self in the aggregates would mean that when the aggregates are gone, the self is also gone because the self is dependent upon those aggregates. So this is also a misguided view. The idea that the aggregates are in the self assumes that the aggregates themselves are permanent as well.

And then the idea that there is a self separate to the aggregates assumes there's some kind of ethereal permanent self that doesn't belong to the aggregates or not connected to the aggregates. But as we understand, this experience of a so-called self is rooted in mental experience and mental experience is a feeling and feeling is impermanent and therefore it is also conditioned and this self-you is also false. But I want to also make you understand it through the process of the practice.

Whatever your object of meditation is, whether it's loving kindness or radiating to the six directions or whatever it might be, that is a mental experience. That is a mental feeling and perception. If you take that to be self, then you're going to cause yourself suffering. If you say, this is my loving kindness, if you say, this loving kindness belongs to me, or I am in this loving kindness, you start to personalize. You start to make this a personal process. And when you do that, the mind becomes agitated and the mind starts to lose mindfulness because now it's taking it personally. And now when it changes, you think what's going on. When you take any of the factors of the jhana as self, when you take the joy and you see that as self and it fades away, your mind becomes agitated and wonders what's going on.

So the whole point here is not to take any of the object of meditation as self, whether as being in self, whether as self being in them, or whether as self watching this process of the object of meditation. It's all an impersonal process. Your intention to bring up the loving kindness, the loving kindness coming up, it's all arising because of impersonal causes and conditions.

Once you see it with that understanding, then you won't get attached. You won't make it a big deal. Whatever is happening, whether it's compassion, whether it's the quiet mind, whether it's the experience of cessation itself, and Nibbana, you won't make it a big deal, and because of that you won't be liable to suffer. You won't be liable to crave that experience again because you see that as impersonal. So my suggestion here would be in your practice, whatever is arising, see it as an impersonal process. No matter how wonderful it is, no matter how amazing it feels, see that it arose and by the fact it arose, it is also liable to cease. That is the nature of reality.

Whatever arises is bound to cease. This is the understanding that opens up the eye of the Dhamma. And that is what takes you to stream entry. But to put it back to the practice, just look at the object of meditation as being impersonal. Rest your mindfulness on it. Allow your mind to just keep observing it. Don't have any other intentions, don't have any other inclinations, don't have any other attachment. Just keep observing. And just 6R every time you see some kind of hindrance arise. Anytime you see the mind starting to deviate away and starting to take the hindrance as an object, use the 6Rs and come back to your original object of meditation.

So this is basically the clinging to the self doctrine. Saying, good friend, the Bhikkhus delighted and rejoice in the Venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question. But friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma? There might be friends. When friends, a noble disciple understands craving, the origin of craving, the cessation of craving, and the way leading to the cessation of craving. In that way, he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is craving? What is the origin of craving? What is the cessation of craving? What is the way leading to the cessation of craving?

There are these six classes of craving. Craving for forms, craving for sounds, craving for odours, craving for flavours, craving for tangibles, craving for mind objects. With the arising of feeling, there is the arising of craving. With the cessation of feeling, there is the cessation of craving. The way leading to the cessation of craving is just this noble eightfold path. When a noble disciple has thus understood craving, the origin of craving, the cessation of craving, and the way leading to the cessation of craving, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view, and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

So we already touched upon craving a little bit, but let's just revisit it because it's always good to understand craving. As we said, craving is that tightness that you experience every time the mind takes an experience to be personal. Every time the mind says, I like that and I want more of it. Or every time the mind says, I don't like that and I don't want any more of it. Or anytime the mind just makes something a big deal. This is me. This is myself.

This is craving. And you can see it in the manifestation of tension in the mind and in the body. So when you notice this, what do you do? You use the Eightfold Path. You use the 6R process to recognize it, release it, relax it, re-smile, return to your object, and repeat the process again whenever craving arises. There's a craving for wanting to be, and there's a craving of not wanting to be. So this craving of wanting to be is why am I not in quiet mind yet? This wanting to be, and why am I not experiencing equanimity yet? This longing for it is that craving.

And when you notice this, all you have to do is let it go. Six R, relax. The more you relax, the more you six R, flow of meditation is going to be, the easier you're going to traverse through the jhanas all the way up to quiet mind and so on. And again, the idea of craving for non-existence or craving for non-being, this is to say that I don't like this hindrance here right now. I don't like being in this situation right now and so on and so forth. When you see that hindrance, remember, hindrances are your teachers. They shed light on where your attachments reside.

So be grateful for them. See them as being teachers and let them go. Every time you let go a hindrance, you're letting go of that particular attachment related to that hindrance. So see it in that way and you will also let go of that craving for non-being because you're no longer attached to it. You're no longer having aversion towards it.

Saying, good friend, the bhikkhus delighted and rejoiced in the venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question. They still want to know more. But friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma? There might be friends. When friends, a noble disciple understands feeling, the origin of feeling, the cessation of feeling, and the way leading to the cessation of feeling, in that way he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is feeling? of feeling? With the cessation of contact, there is the cessation of feeling. The way leading to the cessation of feeling is just this noble eightfold path.

When a noble disciple has thus understood feeling, the origin of feeling, the cessation of feeling, and the way leading to the cessation of feeling, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. So here we understand the six basic types of feeling related to the sixth sense spaces. Feeling born of contact with the sixth sense spaces and their sense objects. There are up to 108 different types of feeling. I'm not going to be listing them out, so don't worry. But just understand that feeling is impersonal. Feeling is impermanent. You have painful feeling, you have pleasurable feeling, and you have neutral feeling.

is conjoined with perception. being, the underlying tendency towards conceit, and the underlying tendency towards ignorance. And how do these underlying tendencies arise? Every time you have lack of mindfulness. Every time you see this pleasant feeling or pleasurable feeling, whether it's in meditation or out and about in your daily life, if there is lack of mindfulness, if there is lack of understanding that this feeling is impermanent, and therefore impersonal and not worth holding onto, there is going to arise one or more of these underlying tendencies. So if it's a pleasant feeling, and you take that to be personal, and you say, I like that, you are now giving rise to the underlying tendency towards craving. And this is your bridge, or this is the bridge, let's say, between the link of feeling and the link of craving.

Every time you have the mindset of, I don't like it, you have the underlying tendency towards aversion. And this is causing the mind to have craving in the form of aversion. Likewise with doubt, likewise with views, likewise with ignorance, conceit. Every time you take it personally, there's an identification process with that feeling going on in general.

It will give rise to doubt, it will give rise to views, it will give rise to ignorance, it will give rise to some kind of conceit, or it will give rise to a desire for being. How do you eradicate it? Using the Sixth Hour Process. Seeing that the mind is starting to take this experience, starting to take this feeling and perception personally, and when you start to notice that, you start to see tension, or you start to see that there are kinds of thoughts arising around it, and these are the underlying tendencies that are starting to arise, which can come into full-blown craving, where the mind is now super tight and just closed, and there's no way for the mind to react out of, or respond, let's say, out of wisdom.

When you use the Eightfold Path, when you use the Sixth Hour Process, you are letting go of the underlying tendencies, and that feeling, which, as I said, is the old karma, dissipates right there and then. Because of your non-reaction to it, because of your letting go of it, if you have reacted to it, it is not going to cause any more new karma in the form of craving, clinging, being. So this is the way to let go of old karma that happens in the form of hindrances, painful, pleasant, or neutral feelings. And what is contact? What is the origin of contact? What is the... There are six classes of contact.

Eye contact, ear contact, nose contact, tongue contact, body contact, mind contact. With the arising of the sixfold base, there is the arising of contact. With the cessation of the sixfold base, there is the cessation of contact. The way leading to the cessation of contact is just this noble eightfold path. When a noble disciple has thus understood contact, the origin of contact, the cessation of contact, and the way leading to the cessation of contact, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. Contact, you're having contact right now. When you're hearing my voice, my voice, which is the sound, is meeting with your faculty and the conjoining of those two gives rise to the ear consciousness.

When you see me, you're seeing this color and form. That is meeting with the eye faculty and with the arising of that is the eye consciousness. Likewise with the other faculties. And so this contact being dependent upon the sixfold base, contact will not be able to arise. For example, if the eyes are non-functional, you won't be able to see. If the ears are non-functional, There won't be an experience of seeing. There won't be an experience of hearing.

So understanding this and seeing the fact that these six sense bases are all also impermanent, therefore that contact is also impermanent. Now what happens is when the arising of that consciousness is there dependent upon contact between, let's say, the eye faculty and the form and color, there is a link of consciousness that we understand to be cognition, the awareness of the sixth sense basis.

And that then gives rise to nama-rupa and then the experience of the sixth full basis in the form of contact, feeling, and perception. It's that same consciousness. But if that consciousness is imbued with an unwholesome state of mind, then that's going to filter the way you perceive reality as well. In other words, if the awareness has corruptions, that is to say the defilements, the upakilesas, as they're known, and they are tainted by that, then the consciousness too, when it arises in terms of I consciousness, your consciousness, and everything else, will be liable to take that personally, will be liable to take that as permanent, and thus cause suffering. So how does one let that go?

Seeing in that moment when the arising of contact happens, that this is impersonal. And if the mind starts to crave towards it, if the mind has aversion towards it, if the mind starts identifying towards it, seeing that and recognizing the tension that manifests as a result of that, using the Sixth Hour Process to let that go, you cease that kind of contact. You cease a contact that is filtered by that sort of defilement in the consciousness that arises based on that contact.

There are these six bases, the Eye Base, the Ear Base, the Nose Base, the Tongue Base, the Body Base, the Mind Base. With the arising of mentality-materiality, there is the arising of the Sixfold Base. With the cessation of mentality-materiality, there is the cessation of the Sixfold Base. The way leading to the cessation of the Sixfold Base is just this noble eightfold path. When a noble disciple has thus understood the Sixfold Base, the origin of the Sixfold Base, the cessation of the Sixfold Base, and the way leading to the cessation of the Sixfold Base, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

The sixfold base is really just the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. These are dependent upon mentality-materiality. Mentality-materiality is essentially the four great elements, or let's say the four states of matter, which make up this form, which make up this body. Mentality is the process of contact, feeling, perception, intention and attention. This is all part of the processes that happen in the form of the mind. The mano, as we say, is really basically equated or equivalent to the brain. So this whole mind-body process that we have, the brain that we have, the nervous system through which we experience contact, feeling, perception. All of this gives rise to the experience of the sixth sense basis, gives rise to the feeling, gives rise to the perception and so on.

Since this whole process of nama-rupa is impermanent and therefore conditioned and dependent upon other factors, causes and conditions, so too is the sixfold base. The sixfold base is, again, when we talked about the delineation between old karma and new karma, the sixfold base is old karma. How you have your eyes, how you have your ears, how you have your nose and so on is dependent upon choices you made in the past, whether it's in previous lifetimes or whether it's in this particular lifetime. Something that could have caused an accident to your eyes, something you did mistakenly or you were reckless in the way you were doing something, might have caused you to lose your urine and so on.

So your choices can still influence the sixfold base in that sense. But what you have to really understand here is not to take the sixfold base, or the experience of the sixfold base, as being permanent. The moment you do, the mind is liable to suffer. And the moment it does, you have to use the Sixth Hour Process to let that go. A noble disciple understands mentality-materiality, the origin of mentality-materiality, the cessation of mentality-materiality, and the way leading to the cessation of mentality-materiality.

In that way, he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is mentality-materiality? What is the origin of mentality-materiality? Mentality, materiality. What is the way leading to the cessation of mentality, materiality? Feeling, perception. It says volition, but it was crossed out and says observation. Contact and attention. These are called mentality. The four great elements and the material form derived from the four great elements. These are called materiality.

So this mentality and this materiality are what is called mentality-materiality. With the arising of consciousness, there is the arising of mentality-materiality. With the cessation of consciousness, there is the cessation of mentality-materiality. The way leading to the cessation of mentality-materiality is just this noble eightfold path. So mentality, materiality, and consciousness are actually interdependent. When you have consciousness descending into the womb, it gives life, it gives activity to the mentality, materiality, which is the nama-rupa, that is to say the mind and body.

But without the mind and body, there can be no consciousness either. So consciousness arises dependent on an experience. So when there is birth of a being, there is a descent of that consciousness into the nama-rupa. It is that which arises and passes away dependent upon that nama-rupa. There is no independent consciousness. There is no consciousness independent of mentality, materiality.

Now when we talk about the factors of mentality, here it says it's feeling, perception, observation, contact, and attention. I also like to see it in the way of the five aggregates. In the sense that you have materiality, you have feeling, you have perception, you have volition or observation, but that's through the process of formations. And you have attention through which your consciousness flows, let's say. So whatever you put your attention to, that is where your cognition will cognize.

So if you have the object of awareness of loving-kindness, there your awareness will reside. There your mindfulness will reside in meditation. There is contact between the mind and the loving-kindness. There is an intention or there is an observation of seeing that loving-kindness. There is a feeling and perception of that loving-kindness, and the mind's attention stays on that loving-kindness. This is the experience of mentality when it is in meditation, whatever the object of meditation might be.

Now, all of these are potentials. There's nothing you can do about it in terms of whatever arises. Because whatever arises in the way of contact, feeling, and perception is what you can actually see in terms of whether the mind is identifying with it. To an extent you can, because you can identify with the body, or you can have thoughts about the body, or thoughts of the contact, feeling, and perception. But those are dependent upon, again, the mentality and materiality itself. And so if those thoughts are unwholesome, those thoughts are liable to cause craving. Than you six are those thoughts.

and the way leading to the cessation of consciousness. In that way he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is consciousness? What is the origin of consciousness? What is the cessation of consciousness? What is the way leading to the cessation of consciousness? There are these six classes of consciousness. Eye consciousness.

Ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, mind consciousness. With the arising of formations, there is the arising of consciousness. With the cessation of formations, there is the cessation of consciousness. The way leading to the cessation of consciousness is just this Noble Eightfold Path. When a noble disciple has thus understood consciousness, the origin of consciousness, the cessation of consciousness, and the way leading to the cessation of consciousness, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. As I just said, consciousness is the bare awareness of something. It is the cognition of the sixth sense-based experiences.

So we have feeling, we have perception, and we have consciousness. And these three run around. In the sense that when there is feeling, there is a perception of that feeling. So when I am seeing you, I am seeing a crowd of people, that is the feeling. But now when I recognize that there's David here, there's Bhante here, and there's other people here, that is the recognition, that is the perception, that is the understanding of what that feeling is. The awareness of that experience, the cognizing of that, is consciousness. When there is consciousness, there will be a feeling tied to it. Because consciousness is only going to arise dependent upon an experience of the sixth sense basis.

When there is perception, there is a feeling tied to it. Because recognition can only arise when there is a feeling. You can only recognize something when it arises in the form of an experience. And therefore, you can only be aware of something when there is an experience of a feeling. So this is how these three are conjoined. When you have the cessation of perception and feeling, what you're having is actually the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness.

Because the consciousness is dependent upon the feeling and perception. When you get to the very minutest levels of the meditation, that is the quiet mind, and you start to let go of any formations that are arising, and we'll see that in a little bit, those are the mental formations giving rise to feeling and perception. Let go of those, letting go of your identification with them, letting go of your experience of them, and there comes a point where there is no more feeling, there is no more perception, and therefore there is no more consciousness. And that is that cessation experience.

When you come back up online, so to speak, when the mind comes back online, and there is then the experience of seeing the links of dependent origination, there is a cognizing of that, a feeling of that, and there is a perceiving. So the consciousness that arises is dependent upon the experiencing of seeing of the links of dependent origination.

So the question always arises: what is it that sees the links of dependent origination? And there is an assumption that it is some kind of consciousness, some kind of awareness, and that goes into the territory of some kind of personal permanent consciousness. But the way one can understand it is that consciousness is like a ray of light or a ray of sunlight. It seems like it's one fluid consciousness, but it's made up of trillions and trillions of photons, and these individual photons are the individual consciousnesses. So when you see the links of dependent origination, that is the cognizing of the links of dependent origination. It is the cognition dependent upon the arising of one link and passing away, then the arising of a new consciousness dependent upon that link, and arising, arising and passing away. So this is the way it's seen, but it seems like it's one fluid motion.

So you will have this experience when you get to infinite consciousness. You will see for yourself that there are flickers in the eye or the air or whatever it might be, and you will start to see that consciousness is not permanent, that there are millions and millions of consciousness throughout your day arising and passing away, arising and passing away, actually more than that. You start to see it, and then you become tired of this. And this tiredness of it is that suffering. Because you see that this is not going to stop, and you have no control over it. And not having control over it, you're seeing into anatta. You're seeing into the impersonal nature of the arising and passing away of consciousness.

So when we talk about consciousness in the context of dependent origination, all we are saying is the awareness dependent upon the feeling, depending upon the experience of the sixth sense basis. Saying, good friend, the bhikkhus delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question. But friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma? There might be, friends. When, friends, a noble disciple understands formations, the origin of formations, the cessation of formations, and the way leading to the cessation of formations.

In that way, he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what are formations? What is the origin of formations? What is the cessation of formations? What is the way leading to the cessation of formations? There are these three kinds of formations: the bodily formation, the verbal formation, the mental formation. With the arising of ignorance, there is the arising of formations. With the cessation of ignorance, there is the cessation of formations. The way leading to the cessation of formations is just this noble eightfold path. When a noble disciple has thus understood formations, the origin of formations, the cessation of formations, and the way leading to the cessation of formations, he here and now makes an end of suffering.

A noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. How do formations cease? We just talked about bodily formations, verbal formations, and mental formations. Let's start with verbal formations. Verbal formations are the thinking process, that process of thinking about something and formulating something to say, to express. And so there are verbal verbalizations, verbal thoughts about something, which causes the mind to intend to speak. When you're in the second jhana, your verbal formation ceases. You no longer have any verbalizations. There's no longer the thinking and sustained thought. The bodily formation is traditionally associated with the breathing processes. And it is said that at the fourth jhana, the breathing stops. But I would say the breathing becomes quite imperceptible.

Bodily formations generally refer to the entire physicality of the body. Meaning, you have an intention to move, you're moving the body. The intention drives forward the bodily formation, giving rise to an action, or giving rise to an experience of the body. So when you are in the four jhana, what is happening is you're starting to lose awareness of the body. And so what's happening is you're starting to cease the bodily formations.

The mental formations are related to mental feeling and perception. Feeling and perception, as we understand, the feeling is the actual sensation or the experience and perception being the recognition of that. At the Aichana, when you start to cease letting go, when you start to let go of all of these formations in the form of different kinds of thoughts, when you're in either perception or non-perception, there comes a point that all formations cease. And those formations that are ceasing are the feeling and perception. Formations also can be understood as that which activates consciousness. It gives rise to a kind of consciousness. Formations can be rooted in the unwholesome and can be rooted in the wholesome. How do you recognize the quality of your formations?

You recognize it by the quality of your inclinations. Is the mind inclining to the wholesome or is the mind inclining to the unwholesome? That's the way you see how formations are in terms of the wholesome and the unwholesome. And what you see in this whole process is that the formations themselves are impermanent. Formations give rise to consciousness and rebirth on the macro level from one lifetime to the next. way of an experience, the mind clutches to it, the mind gravitates towards, inclines towards it, and that activates a kind of formation. And the quality of those formations activate a certain type of consciousness that then takes root in a new nama-rupa or a new nama.

But on the general day-to-day level, what we're saying here is that the formations are constantly arising and passing away in the same way. So we have to clarify that we already That is why the Buddha said in his final words that all conditioned things, that is to say all formations, are impermanent. Be mindful of this fact. If you start to make the formations permanent, then you're getting towards wrong view. And the formations are impermanent because they're always changing dependent upon actions. They're changing dependent upon our mental, verbal, and physical actions.

The more you gravitate towards the wholesome, the more you're strengthening the wholesome formations, and the more you're weakening the unwholesome formations. And what that does is, we were talking about choice, in every given moment. And sometimes there's a choice that deviates or gravitates towards a specific choice, whether it's wholesome or unwholesome. And that's dependent upon the formations that are strengthened. So the formations are fettered by ignorance. If they are fettered by craving, if they are fettered by conceit, the mind is liable to have no mindfulness at the experience of feeling and take it personal, take it permanent, and thus cause suffering.

But taking away the ignorance, with the cessation of ignorance, with the cessation of craving, with the cessation of conceit, those formations, no longer being fettered by ignorance, craving, and conceit, are pure. Formations will always arise, doesn't matter what, because formations arise based on contact, in the conditioned experience. But these formations will give rise to the right intention if they are pure, if they are not influenced by ignorance, if they are not influenced by craving. And so what I'm saying here is, in order for you to recognize your formations, recognize your mindset, understand where it is your mind deviates towards, be mindful of the choices you're making in every single moment. And there is where you have, let's say, quote unquote, the power, in the sense that now you see that if you have mindfulness, then you can make the choice and say, I choose not to be unwholesome, but I choose to be wholesome.

I choose to see this process as being impersonal, and therefore I am experiencing the cessation of suffering, and I have a mind that is calm, collected, clear, and quiet. Saying, "Good friend," the bhikkhus delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question. "But friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view, Dhamma? There might be friends. When, friends, a noble disciple understands ignorance, the origin of ignorance, the cessation of ignorance, and the way leading to the cessation of ignorance, in that way he is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma. And what is ignorance? What is the origin of ignorance?

What is the cessation of ignorance? What is the way leading to the cessation of ignorance? Not knowing about suffering, not knowing about the origin of suffering, not knowing about the cessation of suffering, not knowing about the way leading to the cessation of suffering. This is called ignorance. With the arising of the taints, there is the arising of ignorance. With the cessation of the taints, there is the cessation of ignorance. The way leading to the cessation of ignorance is just this noble path. When a noble disciple has thus understood ignorance, the origin of ignorance, the cessation of ignorance, and the way leading to the cessation of ignorance, he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too, a noble disciple is one of right view and has arrived at this true Dhamma.