Dependent Origination Symposium 2023 with Ācariya Delson Armstrong - Talk #1 Introduction

Yeah, this is going to be different from the usual retreat that you would do because it's more about an exploration into really the core of the Buddha's teaching, which is dependent origination. Dependent origination is the elaboration of the first two noble truths. The first two noble truths are dukkha, suffering, and the cause and condition of suffering, which is primarily craving.

So when we talk about dependent origination from ignorance all the way to suffering, what we're saying is this is how suffering arises due to certain causes and conditions. And we'll explore that and we'll also explore how do you let go of suffering so that you can experience or let go of craving so that you experience the cessation of suffering. transcendental dependent origination.

So we have a few days to get into as much as we can, but I have structured this particular symposium in a certain way because I want to talk about the links that a lot of people have challenges really understanding, specifically bhava, that is being or habitual tendencies. And formations. So formations are very important to understand. Sankhara. Very important to understand because that's the way to understand rebirth. That's the way to understand consciousness and how rebirth arises. Not only moment to moment, but from one lifetime to another.

People may not believe it, but we have been around here for a long time. Samsara. Samsara is beginningless. The Buddha tried to look for a beginning, a first cause to samsara, and he was unable to find it because he kept seeing repeated patterns of different actions, different behaviors, different situations, and it just became tiresome. It was dukkha.

So the goal for these few days is to really understand what are those conditions for samsara and how to let go of them and experience Nibbana. Let's see if we can do it in four days. It would be a record. But at least you will have certain insights that you can take home with you to be able to explore them and apply them in your daily practice and daily life.

So I'm going to actually read from a Sutta shortly, but I just want to give you some clarity on what we're going to be doing in terms of the structure and in the meditation. So there is another meditation I want to offer you guys, and it is separate to loving kindness, separate to the Brahma Vihara practice that we generally do. Vihara practice however you want to meditate but I would encourage you to try this meditation that I'm going to show you and talk about now and then we will do a guided meditation later this evening.

So the reason this meditation came about is because it's rooted in the suttas and I will be reading the sutta from which this meditation comes. But I want you to understand why I want to introduce this meditation, especially to you guys, because you have been meditating for quite some time, and all of you are having some experience with the meditation and other profound insights and so on.

So the idea is that in Digha Nikaya 14, there is a section which talks about the Bodhisatta who would become the Vipassi Buddha. And in that section, what it says is that he goes through each of the links of dependent origination. So he actually contemplates and understands how does dukkha arise? How does jara marana arise? How does suffering arise? How do aging and death arise?

And using his intuition, his attention, he's able to go back and see all of the different causes and conditions all the way up to consciousness, because he's only contemplating within this particular life. Like I said, when we talk about sankhara, those have to do with rebirth. So he was only looking into this life. So he saw the cessation of those links, he saw the arising of those links. So first he said arising, arising. That was his profound realization that this is how suffering arises. And then he saw the cessation of that and he said cessation, cessation. That was his utterance from profound realization that this is the way to cease suffering. And then he saw the arising and the passing away. Once he understood this, he let go. And then he contemplated the five aggregates. The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

He saw that these five aggregates are dependently arisen, and that which is dependently arisen is subject to change, is impermanent, because you take away the causes and conditions that led to that, and that ceases. That these aggregates are impermanent. He then saw that indeed these five aggregates are dukkha. They are tiresome. They accumulate suffering, accumulate karma. Indeed, they themselves are karma. The five aggregates are karma.

We'll go into karma a little later, but once he saw that, then he realized that this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself. This is the realization of anatta. The realization that this whole process is impersonal. That there is no controller here. Having seen that, it said that his mind was liberated from the taints.

After seeing the conditioned or conditionality, I should say, of these five aggregates, and then seeing the three characteristics in a certain way, he became disenchanted. That's the first part. He became disenchanted with the aggregates. That disenchantment led to dispassion. That dispassion led to cessation and the experience of freedom. So that's what we're going to be doing. That's the meditation that I'm going to describe to you.

So what's happening here? The goal is that while you're learning about dependent origination, in tandem with that is the meditation on the five aggregates. So the insights that you receive from dependent origination will inform your contemplation of the five aggregates and allow you to let go on a deeper level. So we will be exploring the first four books in the series. We'll be exploring dukkha tomorrow. We'll be exploring birth.

We'll be exploring being, becoming, existence, bhava. That'll be day after tomorrow. That's a big one because that's really the vortex where all of the links come together before it becomes the birth of action. So that one we're going to spend a whole day on. We'll see how much time we have, because there will possibly be some breakout sessions where everybody will get into groups and you will basically discuss bhava and you will discuss different experiences of bhava. They'll be given, you know, you'll be given some kind of worksheet that you can use, and I'll spend time with each of these groups. Then we'll come back and then we'll have a Q&A after that. The following day we will discuss clinging, and clinging will be followed by basically karma and consciousness, so we will understand how consciousness arises, we'll understand how rebirth happens.

This is very important to understand because if you see rebirth and you start to let go of the factors of rebirth, you will let go of suffering altogether. You will let go of samsara altogether. So you have to be tired of samsara in order to let go of it. So you have to keep seeing this until your mind becomes disenchanted.

That's the key. If there's one takeaway from this, it is to understand how to experience disenchantment, because there's still some things there that the mind is enchanted with. Right? Craving might be let go of. Aversion might be let go of. But there's still conceit. And the goal here is to let go of conceit, because based on conceit, everything else arises.

This I, this me, this mine. From there, the craving arises. From there, the aversion arises. From there, restlessness arises. Ultimately, it's due to ignorance, because the mind has lack of mindfulness, lack of clarity to be able to be present, to have presence of mind, to be able to see in that moment that this has nothing to do with the me. This has nothing to do with the self.

So the goal is to be in that space all the time. So that's what we're going to explore these next few days. So in terms of practical stuff, before I go into this, I see already people are taking notes. That's good stuff. You're encouraged to take as many notes as you want. This is partially a silent experience where for the first part of the day, it will be silence. So there will be meditation time. There'll be time to just be with yourself, do some sitting practice, do some walking practice, discussing dependent origination. And there'll be opportunities to ask questions. Now, when it comes to questions, please make sure that the questions are relevant to whatever it is that I'm discussing, right? And as interesting as it might be, please don't hog the time for questions.

There will actually be an entire section of time where we will just dedicate to questions and answers, usually at the end of the day. Oh yeah, and we will have a special guest who will take us all to hell. Hopefully not literally. That will happen after I discuss karma and consciousness in the nighttime. It'll be very spooky.

Did we get the dry ice by the way? No. So, yeah, I mean, like any retreat, you know, you guys want to be light, you want to be fun, be like little children, be playful, be joyful. Try to keep the conversations tied to the Dhamma during lunchtime and whenever you feel like you want to have little breakout sessions. Keep it oriented towards deeper and deeper understanding of dependent origination. That's what you're here for.

So like I said, the practice, so I'll get into the practice now, the meditation practice. I'll do a guided practice later this evening, but just to give you the details, you will start out with some kind of object of meditation. So for everybody here, when I do the guided meditation, I will start with loving kindness.

So you'll start with loving kindness for the first 10 and 15 minutes to yourself. Let that keep going, extending it outward, pervading it to all beings in all directions. And as your mind starts to get quiet, then we will get into the contemplative stage of that. And then I'll guide you through each of the five aggregates. And you start to look for yourself. You don't look in the form of analyzing and investigating. Just look through the process of whatever is arising and understanding it to be, you know, arisen, understanding it to be impermanent, suffering, and not worth holding on to as me, mine, or myself. So that would be the basic practice. And then with the walking or whatever it is you're doing, I would like you to just stay present in your mind and notice what's happening in terms of how is your mind identifying with something that's going on, what are the thoughts that are arising that is causing the mind to say that this is mine or that this is myself or that this is me.

And if you can see that in 6R's, let it go and just come back to a spacious mind. That will be your everyday practice for the next few days. So when you're doing the walking practice, notice what thoughts are arising. Stay with that emptiness of self. Stay with that awareness of anatta. Stay with seeing that there is just clarity and nothing else.

But if your mind starts to wonder and starts to take things personally, starts to identify with them, starts to see that this is mine, this is me, this is myself, 6R's it. Let that go. Come back to that clarity. Come back to that clarity of not-self. So I'm going to read the Sutta from where I basically base this meditation on. So just listen carefully and I'll try to explain it along the way.

So this Sutta is Majjhima Nikaya 147, Rahulovada Sutta, the shorter discourse of advice to Rahula. Thus have I heard on one occasion the Blessed One was living at Savatthi in Jetavana Grove, Anathapindika's park. Then while the Blessed One was alone in meditation, a thought arose in his mind thus: the states that ripen in deliverance have ripened in Rahula.

Suppose I were to lead him on further to the destruction of the taints. So the Buddha gathered that Rahula was ripe for deliverance, for freedom. So what is that freedom that we always talk about? What is the Vimuti, as it's said in Pali? During the time of ancient India, it was already taken for granted that we've been here for many, many, many lifetimes.

Countless lifetimes. And the Buddha understood that and he took it a step further and he said, it's not some kind of incarnation that goes from one lifetime to the other. It is a set of causes and conditions that create karma and then create the conditions for that next rebirth. So that's why everybody is here in this world, this existence, because of repetitive patterns of thought, repeated behavior patterns, repeated relationships, similar kinds of relationships, similar kinds of situations, and we just don't learn from them, and we still have to keep dealing with them until we learn from them. But the problem is, it's like that definition of insanity: keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Right? That's rebirth. You don't know any better, that's the ignorance. But once you understand it, now you have the tools. You've done this practice for a long time, some of you decades. You understand how this practice works. You understand how the 6R's work. You understand

how dependent origination works to some extent. Now is the key to applying that in every moment. Now is the time to do that. Because ultimately, what are you doing this for? Why are you meditating? What are you meditating for? You could probably spend your time doing something else, but you decide to meditate. Why? Because it's peaceful, because it brings you joy, because it brings you clarity of mind, gives you better focus, helps you with your anger issues or depression or whatever it might be.

These are all side benefits to the practice. Preparation for death. What has happened in rebirth is that over many lifetimes, during the time of death, during the process of dying, the mind forgets and takes things personally, starts to identify with them. And as a result of those formations coming up, the mind takes those personally, clings to them, and there is a further rebirth.

What you are doing in the meditation is you are letting go of formations that are rooted in craving, that are rooted in aversion, that are rooted in conceit, that are rooted in ignorance, rooted in wrong view. You are recognizing those formations that manifest as hindrances, as unwholesome states of mind. And then when you let go of them, you are invariably letting go of the fuel that causes those formations to arise.

And once you do that, you replace those formations with wholesome formations. Those wholesome formations are rooted in right view, rooted in the path that takes you to the end of suffering. And the point is to keep doing that over and over and over and over until it becomes automatic. And it only becomes automatic if you continue to recondition the mind in this way.

So the more you do that, the easier it will become when it's to let go in the final moment. When you let go in the final moment, there will be no more fuel for rebirth because you will have seen all of that and you will 6R all of that. But that can only happen if you've been doing it as a lifetime practice.

This is why there is the emphasis not only in Buddhism, not only in the Dhamma, but in any spiritual tradition. That the five basic precepts are always there, right? It's because you continue to be wholesome. Because that understanding was there. That the more you are wholesome, the more you are able to generate wholesome states of mind, the more automatic that becomes, the more automatic the mind inclines towards the wholesome.

And you start to let go of the unwholesome, bit by bit by bit. Right? So that's why when somebody is generous, somebody is grateful, somebody has loving kindness, has compassion, is forgiving, and all of these things, over long periods of time in their life, the things that arise in their mind just before they go, before they leave this life, memories of being generous, all of the happy memories of being a good person, of being wholesome, that invariably uplifts the mind and that allows the person to let go. But because there's still identification with those wholesome states of mind, it takes them to a better destination, but still within the purview of samsara, which means there is still some inherent dukkha.

There, as we'll see, but ultimately the goal is to get off of the wheel of samsara, because at some point you will realize that you've been doing this over and over and over again and it becomes tiresome. So if you start to let go to the point that you have experiences that allow you to drop the fetters bit by bit by bit, and ultimately drop conceit, and then invariably drop ignorance, then you won't have any identification with what arises in those final moments of death.

This is the purpose of the practice. So you eliminate rebirth altogether. That's why, I don't know how many of you know Venerable Natananda, but he's a very dear friend of mine. I experimented this practice on him. Practice and see what you think about it. And he said, you know what you should call this practice? The destroyer of conceit.

Or the conceit terminator. So with that understanding, you clarify why you're doing this. You're clarifying why it is you're practicing. There your mind is on is wholesome, your mind is uplifted, you have joy, you have clarity, all of that. But then what happens, you have to come back again unless you let go of identifying completely. Then when it was morning, the Blessed One dressed and taking his bowl and outer robe, went into Savatthi for alms. When he had walked for alms in Savatthi and had returned from his alms round, after his meal he addressed the Venerable Rahula thus: "Take your sitting cloth with you."

Rahula replied by taking his sitting cloth with him and he followed close behind the Blessed One. Now on this occasion many thousands of deities, devas, followed the Blessed One thinking, "Today the Blessed One will lead the Venerable Rahula further to the destruction of taints." So before I go on, I also want to address this. So the Buddha understood that the states that ripen in deliverance have ripened in Rahula. What are those states that have ripened in him that allow the mind to completely let go?

He has, the Brahma Viharas is for one thing, of many of the hindrances. He's let go of many of the fetters. The cultivation of loving-kindness. Remember, if any of you recall, if you've read that sutta, when he went to Sariputta, he asked Sariputta for meditation instruction, and Sariputta said to focus on the breath. But then the Buddha said, don't do that yet. First focus on the asubha practices. So Rahula has had an extensive experience in different meditation subjects or objects.

And because of that, he's let go of identifying with the body, or at least understanding that the body is not me, not mine, not myself, through the asubha practices. He's done breath practice. He's done all kinds of practices within the purview of the Dhamma. But the other states that have ripened in him is, along with the cultivation of loving kindness, compassion, along with the cultivation of joy and along with the cultivation of equanimity, he has started to experience a deeper level of disenchantment.

That's the first step. That's the key to let go completely. So that is dependent upon seeing things as they actually are. In the Pali, this is known as yathabhuta nanadassanam. Yathabhuta means things as they actually are, or things that have come to be as they actually are. And nana means knowledge. Dassana means vision. The ability to see and know things clearly as and when they arise.

This is basically equanimity. Not liking, not disliking, not identifying towards them, or pushing them away, or taking them as me, mine or myself. As a result of which there is disenchantment. That disenchantment, as we will see, is going to lead to this passion, and that this passion will lead to liberation. I'll get into that more. And so the devas that were there, the thousands of deities that followed him, thinking, today the Blessed One will lead the Venerable Rahula further to the destruction of taints. Then the Blessed One went to the blind man's grove and sat down at the root of a certain tree on a seat made ready. So the devas that were there, the footnote about this says that these devas were relatives in a past life or past lives of Rahula in different lifetimes, and they were there to basically witness something great, which is Rahula becoming an arahant. We'll see how that happens.

And the Venerable Rahula paid homage to the Blessed One and sat down at one side. The Blessed One then said to Rahula, to the Venerable Rahula. Now, this can be in the form of a questionnaire. So if you want to speak up, speak up when I ask this question. But more than just repeating or answering. Why is it impermanent? Yeah, but why does it arise and pass away?

How does it? Right? We don't see it, but the eye is always changing in every moment, right? The eye, you might have had better vision in the past, right? But as you age, it starts to weaken. Maybe for some it strengthens, who knows? But it changes. It's subject to change due to causes and conditions. Therefore, it's impermanent.

What do you think? Is the I suffering or happiness? Why? Because it's impermanent. Right. It's not long-lasting. It's not going to give you long-lasting happiness. The I itself, because it's arising due to causes and conditions, is impermanent. And therefore, why would you look at it as a form of happiness? It's inherently going to lead to suffering at some point or the other.

Even if in that moment it's pleasant, the fact that it changes is dukkha. Change is dukkha. Large bills are not. Is what is impermanent, suffering and subject to change, fit to be regarded thus? This is mine, this I am, this is myself. No. Why? First of all, let's understand what he is referring to when he says this is me or this is mine, and this I am, this is myself. He's invariably talking about the notion of a self. So in ancient India there was this idea of a self, the atman. That's why when we talk about anatta, that is anatman, that which is not self, it's not talking about there is self or there is no self. Let's put that aside. Let's understand this notion of self denotes from the understanding of ancient India.

In ancient India, the idea of a self was that which is permanent, and that which is a source of happiness, and that which is all-pervasive. That is the self. That is the true self, as it would be called. And there were different philosophies in India that interpreted that notion of self in different ways. But this was the basic idea.

So using that understanding, you're taking that as the touchstone, and you're trying to see and measure all of these different experiences and ways through which we experience existence. So we talk about the I. We've said the I is impermanent because it's subject to change, dependent upon causes and conditions. And because of that, if it is pleasant, it will change to the unpleasant, and therefore it is suffering. In that case, how could you say that this is self, using that notion or concept of self? It's not fit to be regarded as this is mine, this I am, this is myself. So then he asks, so now that's the I, right? That's the sense base of the I. Then he asks, what do you think, are forms permanent or impermanent? Why?

So the forms are also arising due to causes and conditions. Forms are made up of their constituents, right? You try to break down a form to its elementary level, you can't. It just keeps going deeper and deeper and deeper. Investigate it and look through a microscope, and it's made up of solid molecules. And then I try to penetrate deeper into those molecules, and I see the atomic structure. And I go deeper into that atomic structure, and I see all kinds of particles and subatomic particles and quarks and this and that.

But I'm still not getting to the basic root of what it's made up of. The same with our bodies, the same with any form that you're experiencing. It's arising due to causes and conditions. Whatever that cause and condition is, but it is creating a composite of what we interpret as form, as something. So you cannot break down anything to its most basic fundamental level and call that the self, because that is what is considered self. It is the all-pervasive foundation of all of existence.

Yet to be found. Now, is what is impermanent happiness or suffering? Suffering. Form is also suffering, invariably, because it might be great now. It might be awesome. You know, buying that new Tesla, you have that joy of driving that new Tesla. It's awesome. What happens six months later? There's a new Tesla, a new model out. And now you compare that one with the other. And now you always find fault in that Tesla that you own. So any kind of form is subject to decay.

All form is subject to decay. All elementary particles are subject to decay. Maybe at different rates, they're still subject to decay, because of that they continue to change because they decay, because they're not as new as they were when you first saw them or first experienced them. They are invariably suffering. So is what is impermanent and suffering fit to be regarded thus, this I am, this is mine, this is myself? No. What do you think? Is eye consciousness permanent or impermanent?

Impermanent. Why? So let's understand what eye consciousness is, or any sense-based consciousness is. That's right. That's what creates contact. So consciousness depends upon, or sense-based consciousness depends upon, contact between the sense-based and its object. So first we talked about the eye, and we understood the eye is impermanent, it's dukkha, and not to be regarded as self. Then we looked at the object, which is the form, in relation to the eye. It too is subject to change, impermanent, and not fit to be said as myself.

Now, if the I-consciousness is dependent upon these two things that are impermanent, could you say that I-consciousness is permanent? Anything that is dependent upon that which is impermanent is invariably impermanent. Is impermanent suffering or happiness? Suffering. Why? Because it changes. It's not long-lasting. That I-consciousness that we experience at the level of contact, which is probably going to be the next thing we'll talk about, but that contact arises because of attention.

So we have what is known as nama-rupa in the links of dependent origination. Mentality, materiality. Materiality is this form, this body, right? That's the four states of matter. Solid, liquid, gaseous, and heat. So the components that make up the mentality or mind are contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention. Each of these represents the five aggregates. Feeling for feeling, perception for perception, intention for formations, and through contact with the body is formed, of course. But attention is associated with consciousness.

Where your attention goes, there consciousness flows. So if your attention, now I snap my finger, your attention was on the sound, the vibration in the air, that is the sound vibration, which made contact with the ear, and your attention to that gave rise to the experience of that. But if your attention was not on this, and it was something else, even though it's there, the sound is there, your attention not going to it, there won't be contact with it.

Which means, and you might have experienced this in your own sort of day-to-day routine or life, where for a moment you're watching the television or you're watching something very enchanting and very fun and everything. And then there's a scene that happens, and you're watching that, but then now your mind goes somewhere else. And like five minutes later, even though your eyes are on the screen, they're like, what happened? How did that guy come up? Because your attention went somewhere else. So contact requires these three things: the sense-based, the sense-based object, and the sense-based consciousness. But if the sense-based consciousness arises dependent upon the sense-based and the sense-based object, which are already known to be impermanent, then we know that consciousness is also impermanent, and therefore being liable to change, not dependable.

Not fit to be said as this is me, this is mine, this is myself. What do you think? Is eye contact permanent or impermanent? Impermanent. So why is eye contact impermanent? It's conditioned. What is contact conditioned by? Six sense bases. So what are the six sense bases? Eye, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind. In the case of here, we're talking about eye contact.

So eye contact is dependent upon the eye faculty. But if the eye is impermanent, then obviously the eye contact will also be impermanent. And what is impermanent? Suffering or happiness? Suffering, because it continues to change. Your attention continues to go from one place to the other. Your attention is scattered. That in itself is dukkha. Actually, the mind is in so many different places. The mind can only do one thing at a time, but somehow it feels like it's still scattered, because your attention goes here, here, here, here, here, here, and it feels like it's in different places at the same time.

So attention itself is also dukkha. So can you say that this eye contact is me, mine, or myself? No. Because that contact arose due to causes and conditions that had nothing to do with you. An intention of paying attention to something else. Like right now, you're seeing me, so there's contact with this form. That is to say, your eyes are making contact with this form, and the light is hitting, bouncing off, hitting your retina, and because there's awareness there, hopefully, you're able to actually see me, and you're able to make contact.

Now, you might be seeing right through me. If you're paying attention, that's great. Maybe you might be pretending to pay attention and your mind might be somewhere else. So that happens because of causes and conditions as well, where the mind wavers or the attention wavers. It has nothing to do with you. So it cannot be fit to be said as this is me, this is mine, this is myself.

There's no controller there. So now he asks, what do you think are any feeling, any perception, any formations, any consciousness that arise with eye contact as conditioned, permanent or impermanent? Impermanent. Because first of all, we already said the eye itself is being impermanent. But he talks about feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. What are those? Aggregates. So what is the fifth? So we're talking about the four aggregates here. Feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. What about the form aggregate? What is that?

Formations. I'm sorry. I'm talking about the form aggregate. Here in this case, what is the form aggregate he is implying? Yes. Yeah. The question was, so we talked about feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Those are the four aggregates. What about the aggregate of form? What is he implying there? He's talking about the I itself. So the I here is the form aggregate. And dependent upon that, the feeling arises, the perception arises, the formations arise, and consciousness arises.

What is feeling? Feeling is translated from vedana. Feeling is basically any experience that you're having. So feeling arises dependent upon contact. You take away the contact, the feeling goes away. Same thing. Right now, your eyes are making contact with this form, and there is attention there. There's an awareness of that, and arising from that is the experience of seeing, the experience of seeing me.

If you turn your head away, you look at that piano. Now the piano is the form, is the sense-based object, and the eye is making contact with that sense-based object, and there is an awareness to that. Which means what happened? The seeing changed, the feeling changed, the experience changed. You were first experiencing this, and now you're experiencing that. Your attention changed, the contact changes. So if that's the case, could you say that the feeling or the seeing of one thing is permanent or impermanent?

It's impermanent. It keeps changing. All experience keeps changing. What is perception? Perception is the ability to recognize, or recognize in the sense that it's rooted in memory, whatever you've experienced before. I think all of you have seen me somewhere, right? At some point or another. So you can recognize that this guy here sitting on this table is Delson.

So you're putting a name to what it is that you are seeing. What it is that you are experiencing. Now, for some of you, that's a pleasant experience. For some of you, that might be a painful experience. So the pleasant experience, knowing it to be pleasant, perception; knowing it to be painful, is also perception. Feeling can have a quality, but the quality that you project onto it, or the idea of what you think it to be, is the perception. So this is rooted in concepts, in ideas, in memories, in things that you've learned. That's perception.

So for those of you that, when you are seeing me, it's a painful experience, over time, hopefully, it'll start to become pleasant as you get to know me. So that means that experience changes, the perception changes. Therefore, that perception is impermanent. So when that perception is impermanent, it is suffering. Now, that perception of whatever it is that you see, and you say that this person is so-and-so, or that person is so-and-so, or this experience is so-and-so, that continues to change. So it's impermanent and so on. But how is it changing?

It's changing due to causes and conditions. Who are having a pleasant experience of seeing me. Somebody spreads a rumor about me, and the mind listens to that, and now it changes the perception. It filters the way you are perceiving me. But you didn't choose to do that. It just happened because you heard it. And now that it's there in the mind, and now the perception is there, it's added into the concept and perception of whatever it is that you're experiencing as pleasant, painful, or neutral.

So you didn't control it. That's not you. It arose due to external causes and conditions or even internal causes and conditions. For example, if you think about somebody or you think about a situation that was unpleasant in your life and your mood is crummy. You feel angry. You feel upset. You don't feel so good. And you think back to that memory, even if it was a happy memory, there is some level of perception that makes it unpleasant.

That memory. But you look at that same memory, or let's say that memory was sad initially; memory was unpleasant. Maybe it was something that hurt you. Maybe it was the loss of someone, the loss of a relationship, or whatever it is. But if you're in a happy mood and you're in an uplifted mood and you go back to seeing that same unpleasant experience or that unpleasant memory, the mood conditions the way you perceive that memory and hateful, you look at that and you're more forgiving about it. That's the whole point of forgiveness, right? You look at whatever the experience was, whatever the person did, whatever the situation was. Initially, you were holding on to it and you had all kinds of negative, unwholesome ideas about it.

But through the conditioning of forgiveness, you start to let go. And that same person, that same situation, that same memory, no matter how painful it was, is now no longer a source of internal pain. Now there's compassion for it. Now there's understanding for why or how that arose. And there's ultimately equanimity and acceptance about whatever it is that happened.

So perceptions continue to change, and are not related to any kind of self as me, mine, or myself. Now, formations, sankharas, the big one. Sankharas are threefold. There is bodily formation, there is verbal formation, and there is mental formation. Due to contact, formations arise. Certain formations will arise. So you will start to see, as we explore dependent origination, that these links are not just linear, but they are interconnected, interdependent, and they feed back to other links prior to them.

So the contact arises. As a result of that contact, and what are formations? Formations are carriers of karma. They facilitate the arising of karma from previous choices and intentions. So these formations, if they are bodily, they're related to the inhalation and exhalation. They're related to different bodily processes. There's ayu-sankharas that are related to longevity. Those continue to change depending upon the contact with the environment and the genes and so on.

When we talk about verbal formations, verbal formations that allow you to express, to reflect, to think about what it is that you are experiencing, and that continues to change. And then mental formations allow you to feel and perceive, synapses that allow you to experience the world in whatever way it is. Now, if those formations are conditioned by ignorance, or if they're conditioned by conceit, they're conditioned by craving, conditioned by aversion, conditioned by wrong view, your awareness dependent upon those formations will also be rooted in that craving, in that conceit, in that ignorance, in that wrong view. And so whatever it is you experience is conditioned by that consciousness whatever it is you have that attention to words, so formations arise simultaneously or seemingly simultaneously, and they arise at a rate that is incomprehensible. When I do that, there was so much contact going on there. The sound vibration, you know, kept hitting the and there was attention given there constantly, but it looks like one fluid experience of a snap.

It's broken down to contact, contact, contact, contact, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling. But along with that formations, formations, formations, allowing you to experience that. And so from those formations, this consciousness arises. If that consciousness is dependent upon those formations, and those formations are dependent upon that are impermanent, that whole scheme of things is all impermanent. There's no controller there. Formations are also dependent upon your intentions. Now the thing is the mind takes those intentions and closely, strongly identifies with them: I chose to do that, I decided to do that, that was my decision, that was my choice.

I intended it. Intention also is impersonal. What you think are the choices that you've made are only because of the matrix of causes and conditions that were available to you in that time and space. They are limited by whatever was available. The illusion of choice. It can only give you so many choices. And based on those choices, the intention arises to do this or that.

But the problem is the mind says, I did that. I chose that. That was conditioned by inclinations from the past. Those choices are now almost automatic. I'm going to give you three choices. I want you to raise your hands for ice cream. How many of you like chocolate? Raise your hands. Oh, good. Chocolate it is. How many like vanilla?

How many like strawberry? But guess what? There's only chocolate and vanilla available. Now which one will you choose? It's like a fate worse than death. Right? But you are limited by only those choices. You might like something. You might choose something. But those choices might not be available to you. So your intentions are not you, not yours.

They have been conditioned by previous choices, conditioned by previous experiences. Why do you like strawberry ice cream? For whatever it is. You have an association with strawberry ice cream. You have an idea that strawberry is better than all the others. Whatever it might be. That's right. Continuing to associate pleasure with whatever that experience is. So it's not a free choice that you're doing. It is conditioned by pleasant experiences. You will always choose whatever seems to be the most pleasing to that sense base. Yeah, absolutely. It's not personal.

All the choices you've made in your life are all dependent upon just previous iterations, previous experiences. Right? So formations are dependent upon choices and choices are dependent upon formations. Intention is dependent upon formations and formations are dependent upon intention. It's separate; it's its own separate thing within the mind, with formations. So all of the choices you've made up until this point have been determined or conditioned by previous formations.

And the formations that arise, continue to arise, arise due to choices that you make in the present moment. That's basically karma. Whatever intention you have, that gives rise to certain formations that carry forward the effect of that karmic choice. Intention, whatever it is, gives rise to certain formations, and then those formations continue to strengthen that particular choice whenever that choice is present in any given moment. That's why if I asked you, do you want strawberry or chocolate, you go with strawberry because you've continued to make that choice over and over and over again. But if you recondition the mind and try to like chocolate

As hard as it seems, as impossible as it seems, the same way if somebody's mind has been unwholesome for a long time, and they continue to make wholesome choices using the 6R's, you have to 6R the strawberry ice cream and replace it with chocolate ice cream. I feel so biased in this. And so the consciousness arises dependent upon those intentions as well. Same with formations. The consciousness that arises is dependent upon those formations.

And so the Buddha goes over the same thing with the ear and sounds, with ear consciousness, with ear contact, with any feeling, sounds, and consciousness. Same with the nose and odors, nose consciousness, nose contact. Any feeling, perception, odors, any consciousness that arises with the nose contact. Same with the tongue, same with the flavors, same with tongue consciousness, same with tongue contact.

Any feeling, any perception, any flavors, any consciousness that arises, dependent upon that tongue contact. Then he goes with the body, with tangibles. By the way, when we talk about the body, we always think about it in terms of external. But there's a lot of stuff that's happening internally, but there's no attention given to it, even though it's happening.

But our attention is always towards the external, in terms of what's happening here. Do I have knee pain? Am I having a bodily pleasurable sensation? That's always external, but internally as well. You always have some kind of internal bodily contact that can happen, that could be a stomach ache, that could be butterflies in your stomach. So anything related to the body, in relation to feeling, perception, formations, consciousness, all of that again is impermanent. So he's going through each of the six sense bases. And we understand the eye is impermanent, we understand the ears are impermanent, we understand the nose is impermanent, we understand the body is impermanent, the tongue is impermanent, and so on.

Likewise, everything that depends upon those sense bases, the contact with those sense bases, the feeling, the perception, the intentions, the choices, the decisions, the formations, the awareness, the consciousness, whatever it is, all of that is impermanent, liable to change. Therefore, not worth holding on to as me, mine, or myself. So what this is, is Buddha taking each of these sense bases as form.

And then he's saying, okay, that's the form aggregate. The eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and even the mind. And then he's saying the feeling dependent upon these aggregates. And he's going through each of these. And then you're able to see that even those are impermanent, liable to change. Therefore, there's no me, mine, or myself in that. Same with any kind of perception related to it. Same with any feeling related to it, with any consciousness related to it. So all of these are seen as just conditionally arisen. So once he goes through that, then he says,