1 Dec 2021 Online Retreat Q & A with Delson # 1 part 1 of 2 - AUDIO ONLY

So, welcome everyone to the first Q&A of this retreat. You are welcome to ask any questions about your practice, about the suttas, about anything you've read in regards to the practice. So let's begin. I would like to get started. It's amazing. You guys all understand everything. There are no questions at all. It's a wonderful thing. Am I already going to tell him? Yes, you are.

Okay. See, sabbe sankhara dukha, that means all sankhara are dukha. But it is also said that everything is not dukha. One day says that everything in life is not dukha. So, how do you explain it? Sabha sankhara dukha, right? So, in other words, sankhara, when we talk about sankharas, talking about conditioned existence so we're talking about conditioned reality which is dukkha because of the fact that it is impermanent so if you look at the whole thing he talks about he says all conditioned phenomena is impermanent all conditioned phenomena therefore is dukkha and all conditioned phenomena including actually the unconditioned that means all phenomena

is not self is another. So when we talk about, you know, life, life is suffering. That's the old model of understanding dukkha, which is, you know, everything is suffering. But if that was the case, then why is there happiness? Why do we experience joy? Why do we experience joy that is otherworldly, in the sense of the jhana joy, you know, the piti and the sukha that we experience in jhana, or any of the other super mundane elements of the jhanas? Because it is beyond the six, it is beyond the five physical senses. It's happening on the mental level. So even the joy that you experience from just being with people who make you happy, and things like that, that's still joy. There's still some loving kindness there. There's still some compassion there. There's still some equanimity or mudita, and so on. So the old model of life is suffering doesn't make sense, because what we can say is there is suffering in life, which is the first noble truth, that that is that conditioned experience that we have. There is suffering there.

But there is a way out of that suffering as well, and that is the cessation of craving. So in other words, there's nothing wrong with being with a family member and enjoying their presence, or enjoying that piece of cake, or enjoying that vacation that you go on, or whatever it might be. The dukkha arises due to the craving, that is to say, the identification with that process. Or, you know, the ending of that joy. If it causes dukkha, it is because there's craving attached to it: that I don't want this to end, or I want more of this. That craving aspect is what really causes the dukkha. Even in happy situations, the ending of happy situations is the dukkha, but the happy situations in and of themselves are not.

Anyone else? Yeah, I have a question. Hi. Hi. So, yeah, so the first day today of doing this again, or meditating a lot, I should say, my mind was just very distracted a lot. And so just even when I did a couple of long sittings, well, for me because I haven't been sitting so long lately, and even still, it would just be very much just not staying on the object very long at all. Yeah. And I know that Bhante always says, well, that is the first day, that's the hardest day, but it does seem that even for me it's that way a lot. So any other

thing, and I tried lots of different little techniques too, you know, bringing in different factors, and, you know, 6R's are in the moment. You see a little movement, but it may, maybe I was trying too hard. It's possible, I don't know. It is possible. Maybe you were over enthusiastic and the mind just became very, you know, focused on it. But I would say yes, Bhante always says the first day, he calls it the first day blues, you know. And the other question is to ask yourself, is there anything that you're doing in the way of activities that's causing the mind to be active? Is there anything that you're considering

in your mind when you're doing things that causes the restlessness? Because that can also be experienced in the meditation as a result of things that you're doing throughout the day. So, with the online retreat, it is a bit more challenging than a physical retreat, where in the physical retreat you're not, you know, distracted by other things that are happening during the day, whether it's responsibilities that you have to take care of, because you're at your home and you might have to do other things, or whatever it might be. But having said that, I think it's just a matter of allowing the mind to turn inward, allowing the mind to just relax and rest in the moment. And, you know, if there are things that can be taken care of after the retreat

practically speaking, then, you know, just let them be and really allow the mind to tune into retreat mode, as I would call it. But outside of the retreat, if you're finding situations where the mind is restless or the mind is just not able to stay with its object of meditation, again, look at the reactions of the mind throughout the day when it comes to activities, when it comes to meeting with people, when it comes to situations where you are dealing with people, because that can also have an effect on the mind. Everything that you do throughout the day has an effect on the mind and therefore has an effect on the meditation. So since we understand that to be the case, then we also have to understand that there's an importance of 6R-ing anytime a situation arises that causes restlessness. So it's about being able to bring that mindfulness outside of the meditation and being able to practice that, because there's always that interdependency

where if you are having mindfulness in your daily activities, that translates to better meditation sits, and if you have that continuing on in your meditation sits, that translates into better clarity, attention and mindfulness in your daily activities. Yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. There's probably a few things I could cut out. I still have to check email, but I can maybe cut a few things out, like maybe not check as often, or something. Yeah, yeah. And then of course, you know,

take it easy. I mean, you know, this is just the first day, and just let your mind kind of, you know, get into it, relaxing. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Any other questions? Wilson, after one attends arahant, he has to produce sankharas till his day. So those sankharas are not considered dukkha. Sorry, can you say that last part of that about the sankharas? I kind of... And arahant, he has to produce sankharas till his day. Yeah. Yeah. So are sankharas considered dukkha or not? Oh yes, so I think first we have to understand the context of the word sankhara, because sankhara, we know, has so many different meanings. We have sankhara in the way of dependent origination, which is the formations that we understand: the verbal, mental, physical

Then we have the sankharas in reference to the aggregate of sankharas, the aggregate of formations, that's identical with three, for me, three types of formations that we talk about. Then we talk about sankharas in the way of intention, that is to say chetana, and there is an interconnection between chetana and formation. So the way you understand the quality of sankharas or formations is to understand the quality of your intention, the choices that you're making. So if the intention is rooted in conceit, if the intention is rooted in craving, if the intention is rooted in clinging and identification, and ignorance, and so on, then the sankharas that are arising are dukkha in that sense.

But for the arahant, the sankharas that arise are what we would call, let's say, pure. Pure, meaning they've been purified of any kind of craving, purified of any kind of conceit or identification, and purified of any kind of ignorance or noble truths. But there's still sankharas in conditioned existence, which is dukkha, but it's not mental dukkha in the sense that the arahant personalizes it in terms of an intention and so on, or physical pain that arises that is unavoidable in conditioned existence. So long as you have a body, so long as you have a nervous system, you will experience pain and pleasure, and that pain and pleasure is bound to be impermanent, and therefore the god and so on. So the arahant, until there is final nibbana, parinibbana, where there's the dissolution of the five aggregates, will still continue to experience dukkha, but that dukkha will be physical dukkha, let's say, not any

Nobody else has any questions, I guess not. Okay, I think we can share some merit and end it here, then. I do have a question, Delson. I heard the interview that you did with, I can't remember what his name is, talking about your experience, your background and stuff. I was kind of curious about how you view, obviously, these other practices that you did, which clearly you have respect for, but how it all fits together. Part of the reason I'm asking is because I heard someone else listen to the same interview, saying he felt that what you were saying was

that there are different roads that all kind of end up in the same place, which wasn't what I really took away from that at all. And so I just wondered if you could clarify that. Sure. You know, the first thing, I'll just address that notion that a lot of people have, or sometimes take away, which is that all paths lead to the same thing. That's something that you see a lot nowadays. And so what we do understand, or from my understanding or from my experience, is that no, not all paths lead the same, because I have really gone through the end of each path through yoga and Vedanta and all of these things. But the thing about this path, when we talk about the Dhamma and when we talk about the twin practice, is it's coming to this experience of, let's say, non-experience, because I have not experienced the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness.

As an end of or as a result of the previous practices that I've done, I've talked about in different interviews how nirodha is experienced in yoga and so on. In yoga they talk about nirodhas being cessation of all mental activity and so on. But then you talk about that, and then right after that it says, and then is when you see your true self. Now, in this practice, or in this path that I've experienced with the Dhamma, when you experience cessation, or when you have that experience of cessation and you come out of it, you don't experience your true self there. There's an understanding of the impersonal nature of reality. There's an understanding of seeing the links of dependent origination, and you come to the unconditioned in Nibbana. So my explanation, or my answer to those people who would say that you know, I am saying that all paths lead to the same, in fact I'm not. What I'm saying is all of these different paths do lead to some kind of experience.

But that's just it, it leads to some kind of experience that's still within conditioned spheres of experience. When you talk about the understanding of Vedanta, where you have the experience of Brahman, the experience of infinite consciousness and so on, that's still in the realm of conditioned experience. And therefore, if it's conditioned, it's liable to change, and if it's liable to change, it's liable to go away, which causes dukkha, and therefore can't be considered self. And the wonderful thing about the Dhamma in this case also is that the Buddha says even the unconditioned is not self. Even the unconditioned is impersonal, so you don't even take the unconditioned as any kind of a self, a transcendent self, or anything like that. So, having said all of that, like I said and like you rightly said, which is I do have respect for the traditions that I have gone through, only because they have laid the foundation for me to understand.

What is the Dhamma and what isn't the Dhamma, for me to have experiences of different meditative attainments and understandings, so that as a guide I can understand where a person is coming from and then be able to say to them, okay, well, you're experiencing this right now, have you thought of changing it in this way, so you can see what happens after that. So that is why I have a lot of deep respect for my journey. Previous to 20, previous to the Dhamma, is for the fact that it has given me the discipline and it's given me the openness to explore different paths and come to the conclusion for myself, and the certitude that the path really is the noble eightfold path if you want to get to the unconditioned, if you want to experience the complete cessation of suffering.

And sort of in a follow-up to that because I think one of the things that you said or and maybe I'm misstating this but when was that um you sort of it sort of suggested that it Monte asked you if you would teach and you know that you sort of go where the teaching is and likewise you know that sounds like you would teach anything any of these but but it's my sense from you is not that's not what you were saying again but rather that that um you have respect for those traditions but this is what you're teaching and you don't have any intention of teaching anything else is that accurate yeah that's that's that's exactly so uh so when i said you know i would just go where everyone wants me to teach that is specifically teaching the dhamma teaching at the twin practice yes okay okay any last questions going once going twice sold May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fears that the fears be.

May the grieving shadow grieve, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisitions of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas, by their almighty power, share this merit of ours. May the long protected Buddha dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I'll see you all at your individual interviews starting tomorrow. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you.