Day 5: Jhāna 2

Today we will talk about the formless jhanas, which are also known as ayatanas. Yesterday I mentioned that in conversation, or casually, we could say that there are eight jhanas. So whenever we refer to certain jhanas from five onwards, like the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th jhana, they are all really just ayatanas. They are part of the 4th jhana. An ayatana means a dimension, or a space, or a sphere.

It's an area or a base. Yesterday we discussed the first four jhanas, and we explained how these jhanas are levels of understanding and levels of cessation. Now, as you get into the fourth jhana, as I said, you will notice that the feeling starts to become more expansive. It feels like the energy is coming up into the head. You have less contact with the body. There is sharper mindfulness and very deep equanimity. After that, you will notice, once you mention this in the interviews, I will give you further instructions, and those instructions will be to take the loving-kindness and to radiate it in different directions. As you're radiating it out in different directions, you will notice after a while that the awareness is tied primarily to the mind.

You lose any sense of the body. It doesn't mean that if something touches the body, you won't feel it. It doesn't mean that if you make contact with the sound, you won't hear it. But it is more in a headspace, or more in a mind space, we should say. One of the things I will tell you is that when you are radiating, it doesn't matter where you're radiating from. You can feel like you want to radiate from the head or from the heart, but I would say the best is to feel like there is an energy of loving-kindness around you, maybe half a meter or a meter away from the body, so that it has nothing to do with the body, and it's just purely a mental experience that you're having. You send out this loving-kindness in different directions. The key is not to push. Now, as you're doing this, what you will experience is the fifth jhana of infinite space. So you will feel some kind of expansion

some kind of spaciousness in the mind. It feels like you might be here somewhere and you are in outer space, or it might feel like the loving-kindness starts to become expansive, and it's becoming more spacious. Now, as this happens, you will also notice that the loving-kindness itself changes in its quality. It becomes softer, it becomes more diffused. It becomes, as one person has described it, like cotton candy. It's very diffused, it's very soft. And so this turns into what's known as compassion, karuna.

So compassion, in terms of meditation, qualitatively speaking, is a lighter form of loving-kindness. It's gentler, softer, lighter, brighter. Now, this compassion when applied in everyday living is not the same as compassion when we think about it in terms of sympathy, because sympathy denotes that we're looking down at someone. Here we're talking about something connected to empathy. We recognize the suffering in another being and we wish them free of that suffering. We recognize that suffering to be similar to our own suffering, so we don't have any intention to cause further suffering to them. Instead, we wish for them to be happy, to be free of that suffering. So when you have applied compassion, it doesn't mean that you become a crutch for someone. You cannot walk the path for someone. You can support them with your words, you can support them with your actions, you can support them with advice, you can support them by showing them the way, but they themselves have to walk the road in order for them to experience it for themselves. This is one kind of understanding of

compassion. Now, while you're here in this experience, let me explain that in one sutta, which is called the Metta Sahagata Sutta, it mentions that the upper limits of each of these brahmaviharas is tied to one of these levels. So the upper limit of loving-kindness is called the beautiful, which is also known as the fourth jhana. The upper limit of compassion is infinite space. So after a while, as you are sending out this compassion or loving-kindness, which changes to compassion, it becomes more spacious, and it feels like there's no more border between what is inside and outside. It's like you don't have a body anymore. There's no distinguishing between what is up and down, right and left. It's all just spaciousness. Then after a while, the loving-kindness, the compassion, can change further into what's known as empathetic joy, mudita. Empathetic joy is essentially that you become happy for those who are happy. So if compassion is the wishing of people, or all beings, being free of suffering, empathetic joy is the joy of people experiencing the cessation of suffering.

That's one way to look at it. Mudita, or empathetic joy, is also seen as a cure or an antidote for envy and jealousy. So you can apply empathetic joy in the workplace, you can apply empathetic joy in family life, you can apply empathetic joy in your circle of friends. When you notice a tinge of envy coming up for somebody else's success, like how come I don't have it, or how come they have it, or I should be better than that, or whatever those kinds of thoughts come, you can recognize them, let them go, and then generally wish them goodwill and be happy for their success. Be able to engage yourself in the celebration of their success. Obviously it has to be a whole success.

You can't be happy for somebody who becomes rich by robbing the bank. Right? It has to be wholesome. So empathetic joy is tied to what's known as infinite consciousness. So what is infinite consciousness? One level of understanding infinite consciousness is that the mind expands so much, the awareness expands so much, that aware that space is infinite, it lets go of that and becomes infinity itself. That awareness itself is infinite, but it can go deeper than that. The awareness itself can fragment into particles of consciousnesses that arise and pass away, individual arising and passing away of iotas of consciousness, and they can manifest in different ways. Perhaps what can happen is, in the periphery of your mental field of vision, you see a ring of light, or you see shimmers of light

or you see flickering coming on and off, on and off, or you feel tingling on your skin, or you feel tingling in your face or through your neck or the back of your head, or you might have phantom smells, phantom sounds. You might hear flickering in your ears. You might have phantom tastes, or you start to notice the gap between one thought and the other, and those gaps start to widen. So all of these can be associated with infinite consciousness, and what this is showing you is that consciousness is dependent, not independent, and consciousness arises and passes away dependent upon its causes and conditions. In reality, what you're experiencing is contact. When we talk about dependent origination we'll explore that further, but contact is the initial touch or trigger that happens between a sense base and its object, and then the underlying

awareness that arises dependent upon it, the consciousness that arises dependent upon it. So for a lot of people, they will see these things, and they might even see them not in the meditation. They might be going for a walk and all of a sudden it's like the eyes start to slow down, the frame rate of reality. This can happen too. Or you might be hearing sounds, but then the sounds start to become more echoey. They kind of become slower and gradual, and so you're starting to experience an altered state, which is this infinite consciousness. It's a very interesting state to be in if you have jumped into it. Sometimes what can happen is you might skip right past it, and that's okay. Oftentimes when you're on retreat you might be expediting your mind through these stages and not even looking at them, and going through whatever is the point of lowest or least tension in the mind, which are the more refined states of mind, the higher states of mind. But there are certain insights you get in infinite consciousness. What you see is the arising and passing away of individual sense-based

consciousnesses. So what you're seeing right in front of you, the arising and passing away, is the impermanent nature of all conditioned things. Seeing the impermanent nature, eventually, as the arising and passing away continues, your mind starts to become tired of it. It's like, okay, I've seen enough. And that is dukkha. It's tired of seeing the arising and passing away constantly. And as a result of it, it also sees, I am not controlling this. There's no controller here. It's just arising of its own accord, dependent upon causes and conditions. So you have a direct glance into not-self, into anatta. So you see for yourself, so to speak, the three characteristics of existence. You see impermanence, you see dukkha or suffering, and you see anatta or not-self, the impersonal nature of this process. Now, in a few suttas, namely in Digha Nikaya 33 and 34, where Sariputta talks about the different elements of the Dhamma, he also mentions that there are various perceptions a mind can experience in meditation, and he says the perception of impermanence leads to the perception of suffering.

The perception of suffering leads to the perception of the impersonal nature of all things. The perception of the impersonal nature of all things leads to equanimity, or the perception of equanimity. The perception of equanimity leads to the perception of disenchantment. The perception of disenchantment leads to the perception of dispassion, and finally that leads to cessation. So we'll break down what that means. So already in infinite consciousness, what happens is the mind has these three perceptions of impermanence, suffering, and the impersonal nature of all causes and conditions

Then, as your mind starts to go away from infinite consciousness, maybe the flickering starts to slow down, the ringlets of light start to become less and less apparent, and they dissolve into this blank space. You might start to see the gaps between your thoughts start to widen, deeper and deeper, and become more spacious until there's nothing there. And so this is the next stage, which is nothingness. You might experience a blank space of darkness, or you might notice a white space, or you might notice a blue space, or any kind of just blankness that's there. And so what you're aware of now is the awareness of nothingness. This is the seventh stage, or the third ayatana, the dimension of nothingness: no thing going on. The mind is no longer bothered by what's going on outside, and now there is a transformation from compassion to empathetic joy to equanimity, and this equanimity is almost almost so

invisible, so translucent that it's like you can't really grasp onto it. So this equanimity almost feels the same as that nothingness. And so sometimes when I ask somebody to radiate equanimity they say, what does that mean? Basically it's this calm feeling that's there in the mind. You are radiating calmness to all beings, you're radiating tranquility and serenity to all beings. So if the feelings change in this direction towards equanimity, you're going in the right direction. If it feels like it's become flat and there's just peace of mind there, then you just keep sending it out. It's much softer when you send it out. It's not as vibrant as when you're sending out metta. It becomes much softer and almost, almost like it's not even there. So the analogy I like to use here is it's like the

lake. It's very, very still on the surface, and you throw a tiny pebble into the lake. What happens there is this ripple effect that happens on the surface. The same thing happens with equanimity. You have a small intention of radiating equanimity and you start to see that happening in the mind, creating ripples of equanimity throughout. And eventually that starts to fade away. So what do you do? You do it again. Okay, radiate equanimity. You might have to do this a few times until it feels like the mind doesn't want to do anything. Mind just wants to stay here. And this is where you get into mind, just mind itself.

Now mind is looking in on itself. It's no longer extroverted towards an object. Now mind is taking itself as the object, so now the awareness rests on the mind and it feels very stable, it feels very collected. And it might be quiet, and it might not be quiet. There might be things there, there might not be things there. It might be very soft and relaxed, or it might have a lot of activity, and that's okay. Eventually, what you do is, once you're in mind, it starts to sink into the level of neither perception nor non-perception. So what does this mean? Neither perception nor non-perception. What do we mean by perception? Perception comes from the word sanna in Pali, which means to recognize, to recognize what it is that you are experiencing.

So when you see the color red, there is the feeling of seeing red. But the knowledge that it is red is the perception. When you have a pleasant feeling, it's a feeling, but the knowledge that it is pleasant to you is the perception. Or the knowledge that it is painful to you is the perception. So walking down the road and seeing bluebirds, you see the bluebirds, you hear the bluebirds. But in recognizing them as being bluebirds, by seeing them and then by hearing their chirp, that's the recognition. So perception is rooted in memory. It is rooted in memory and learning. Whatever you have learned through your years in this existence, that adds to perception. Which means perception can change, keep changing.

The perception of a person, the perception of an event, the perception of a memory that you have in your life, it keeps changing. So best not to hold on to perceptions. Let them be as they are now. What does that mean? Neither perception nor non-perception. What does that mean? Neither recognition nor non-recognition. You will start to get, your mind might start to sink into what could be a hypnagogic state. It's a very, very trippy state to be in, because there's all kinds of images, shapes, patterns. And some people think that they're going into sloth and torpor. But no, you're not. Because your mind is still alert. Your mind is still aware of what's going on.

It just isn't able to make sense of what's there. You might see distant memories, or you might feel like you're having a memory from a different lifetime. You might see different kinds. Your mind will start to make up different kinds of concepts, like oh you know this is the color blue and if it's blue then that means it's three o'clock right now you know it's just very very convoluted very convoluted but the best thing to do is just let it be don't do anything if your mind starts to go in a direction towards an image or a picture or a pattern that's when you have to just relax you don't have to do the full effort you just relax back into home base which is here this quiet space of mind and eventually all of that all of that perception or neither perception non-perception starts to clear up the fog starts to clear up and then what's coming in is a even a quieter space and this is known as the pabhasar chitta this is the luminous mind the mind that is bright and radiant it is pure mindfulness completely

alert. And at this point your mindfulness is so strong that even before something comes up, it's able to catch it and it's able to just let it go and relax it. And so this quiet mind can go on for some time, and there might be some little vibration in the background, some little thoughts here and there, some portions of perception that would say, oh, this is what's going on, this is what's going on. That's okay. If your mind starts to gravitate towards them, then you just relax and come back here. Now, this is where, in this territory, you can feel boredom, right? You guys are lucky that Bhante Vimalaramsi is not here, because if you use the word boredom, I am bored, he would chew you out.

Who is bored, right? So why does this boredom arise, or how does this boredom arise? Well, what happens is when you get to these very quiet stages of the mind, there's less stimulation for the mind to deal with. And the mind is used to lots and lots of stimulation, always used to thinking about this or that, always used to seeing things, hearing things, tasting things, smelling things, feeling things, and so on. But now it's going so quiet that nothing is really penetrating it. Nothing is really jarring its interest. So this boredom is essentially another word for

craving. You're waiting for something to happen, right? You're in the waiting room waiting for something. You don't even know what's going to happen, but you're just waiting for something to happen. You just don't want to be in this space. So how do you deal with that? Now, that boredom can manifest into restlessness and lots and lots of activity, or it can manifest as sloth and torpor, where the mind starts to dull out and falls asleep. At this stage also, what can happen is for a split moment the mind can kind of dip into this space where it feels like you were in sloth and torpor, because of the action of your head going like this. But you will notice that coming back out from it your mind is radiant, your mind is bright. That's not sloth and torpor. The mind is just dipping into deeper levels of letting go.

So at this point, if you have restlessness, that's when you've got to bring up a little bit of tranquility and say, okay, I'm relaxing that. I'm letting that go, coming back here. If you notice dullness, where the mind feels groggy and heavy and dense, then you say, okay, I'm going to bring up a little bit more energy, a little bit more joy, a little bit more interest in being in this place, a little more attention. When I say little, I mean very little. You're now micro-dosing on these enlightenment factors, right? You're not making too much of a movement. It has to be very smooth, very soft, very gentle. So when you do this it will have a profound effect on the mind. Now, when you come back to homeostasis, so to speak, where your mind is just here, then don't do anything.

At this point, don't do anything. It will sink even further into a still mind where there's absolutely no vibration at all. And you can stay in this space for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, 1 hour, hours, where nothing is going on and you're okay with it. Now, if the mind does experience restlessness again, and if the mind feels agitated and it's difficult for the mind to let go of the patterns and the pictures and the formations, because at this point this is where the formations come up.

This is the point where the bubbling up of proto-thoughts, before they turn into fully formed thoughts, comes up at the surface of your consciousness. You might encounter these, and if the mind becomes enchanted by them, gets drawn into them, into the stories, then what you do is you go back one step. You go back to the feeling of equanimity and you radiate equanimity again until you get back into this quietness again, and then stay there. You might have to do that a few times in the sit. Why are you doing this? Because remember what I said, it says that the perception of equanimity leads to the perception of disenchantment. What is

disenchantment? Disenchantment means you are no longer interested in what is arising. You have become tired of it. So even if it's coming in your way, you're just looking past it. It doesn't interest you anymore. It doesn't engage your attention anymore, even if it's there. It's like you're watching just fish in an aquarium. You're just looking past them, not really looking at anything in particular. So if your mind does gravitate and pull towards something, then that means there's still attachment there, there's still enchantment there. So all you need to do is strengthen your equanimity, seep your mind with equanimity, and then allow that to transition back into the quiet space, into quiet mind, and then back into still mind. Now at this point you get also dispassion, or you get the beginnings of dispassion. What does dispassion mean? Your mind is now enveloped in like a bubble, where whatever tries to come towards it doesn't stick in the mind at all. It just swerves past it. Your mind becomes like a non-stick pan. Nothing will stick to it. It just flows right through, and there's no interest in anything but just resting in

this, a deep rest in this now. For all of these things to happen, your mind needs the time to meditate, which means you need to at least sit for two to two and a half hours before all of this starts to happen. Three hours is even better, but you build your way up to it as best as you can. Now, eventually that still mind also feels tense, and so now you dig deeper into what's known as the doorway to the signless. The doorway to the signless can be experienced as an actual wall of light in your visual field, or if you remember the old TVs which had those kind of black and white dots, it feels like that, or it seems like that. And your mind, all you have to do there is just relax into it. You walk through the doorway, you just relax into it, and then mind itself, the borders of the mind itself, start to dissipate.

Relax and all you're left with is what's known as the signless collectedness of mind. This signless collectedness of mind is pure awareness, but not awareness of anything in particular. It's like a flashlight that's shining up into the sky, and as it shines up into the sky it reaches into space, and there's absolutely nothing to deflect it, nothing for it to land on. There's no asteroid, there's no satellites, there's no meteorites, nothing. It just keeps going. The same with your awareness: it doesn't land on anything, it doesn't land on any kind of an object. And then when you're shining that light, eventually the batteries run out and the light stops. In the same way, the fuel of your attention to anything in particular

including the mind itself, including this awareness itself, it just stops. The energy stops and the mind drops into cessation. This is the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness. You don't know that you are getting into it, you don't know that you are in it. But when you come out of it you will know it, because it's like my mind went somewhere and there's missing footage in my memory of what exactly happened. It's an error 404, not found, and it's for a split moment. It's like something happened, my mind went somewhere. And when all causes and conditions have ceased, there the mind makes contact with Nibbana. Having made contact with Nibbana, when it comes back out from that space, it experiences great degrees of joy and relief, as if you have let go of a weight off your shoulders.

An amazing amount of relief. And when you come back from that meditation, the first thing you'll say is, what was that? That's why Bhante Vimalaramsi wanted to call this meditation the Oh Wow Meditation, because it is like that. You keep seeing things like, oh wow, oh wow, oh wow. So when you come out of it, you might see certain things. And whatever it is that you're seeing will be your mind's interpretation of how dependent origination arises. And you will have let go, as Bhante would say, of an ocean of suffering. At that point, it would be said that you have entered the stream. You have become a stream enterer, a sotapanna with path. And you may report this to me, and I won't say much.

I'll say, oh, this is great and everything, you know? And I'll say, go sit again. And before you go to sit, maybe if it's daytime, you'll walk around and you'll see, wow, everything is like in hyper 4K definition, right? The leaves are so detailed. Everything is so crisp, the colors are deeper and richer. So that's a sign that the mind has experienced a level of relief of letting go. And so when you enter the stream, it means you've let go of three things, because you've seen them for yourself. You've let go of the intellectual belief in a personal self, because you see everything as, oh, it's arising through causes and conditions. This doesn't have anything to do with me.

I'm not taking this personally. You will take this personally at some point, and that's okay. But on an intellectual level, you understand there's no abiding, permanent, separate self. Then you also let go of any kind of doubts in the path, because you've walked it for yourself and you've seen where it takes you. So you have total conviction in this process.

You have a renewed experiential conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. It's not just for the sake of faith. It's actually from conviction. And you let go of any clinging to rites and rituals with the idea that they will take you to Nibbana, because you have seen that walking this path in the way that you've been doing, it is taking you to Nibbana. And so I'll tell you to go and sit. You'll sit, and maybe after a while you might experience it again, and at that point that is what's known as fruition. It locks in. You are a stream enterer with fruition.

fruition now not every cessation will lead you to a path in fruition it's all dependent upon how how much you let go but in the ideal sense of this process let's say, then another person goes back and experiences another cessation. Now this is where just giving an example. It doesn't have to happen in this way exactly. This will take a person to one's returner, a sakadagami. A sakadagami with path and this is somebody who has attenuated, has decreased the level of sensual craving and aversion in their minds and so their mindfulness is even

Now, another thing about being in these attainments is that there is this inclination to keep the precepts as best as you can. It's like an automatic thing. The mind immediately says, no, I don't want to do that, because that would be breaking a precept. And so if it does break a precept, it immediately feels like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. And so you just forgive yourself, let go of that, retake the precepts and continue. But there is this deep connection to wanting to keep the precepts. It has become part of your life.

So then a once-returner with path and a once-returner with fruition, it just locks that in. And then if somebody goes again, let's say, and they have another experience, it can happen. I'm just saying, in this ideal situation, they can then experience entry into anagami, that is the path of anagami. And so an anagami, or non-returner, what does an anagami mean? Some people have this idea that an anagami means that they will have only one more lifetime left before they attain nibbana, full nibbana, until they attain full awakening. Not accurate. It can be, but not accurate. What a non-returner is, is somebody who does not return back to a level of existence that is related to the sense basis. They might have more lifetimes in higher lokas, in higher realms, but it doesn't mean they'll come back to the human realm. Doesn't mean they'll come back to a deva realm. It doesn't mean they'll come back to, obviously they won't come back to any lower realm.

So once you're a stream-enterer, you have closed off any possibility of that happening. So for an anagami, they have absolutely no sensual craving and no aversion. So they're not motivated by wanting things. They're not motivated by sensual craving. They're not motivated by manipulating things around them. They just are going with the flow of things. But there's still attachment to the Dhamma. They're still craving for existence, meaning they're still attached to being in meditation and attached to jhanic states. And there's still conceit, taking things personally at a very deep level. And there's ignorance, meaning their mindfulness is not yet completely perfect, 100%. Maybe 98%, but not 100%. There might be slip-ups in their mindfulness. And let's say in the ideal situation they have it again, then they'll have the fruition which locks in that.

Then they'll go again, and they have path of arahatship. At that point, they've let go of conceit, taking things personally completely, let go of any kind of restlessness, which means when they sit down for meditation, it doesn't take time for them to go into jhana. Immediately, as they want, they can go into jhana. There's not all of this activity that they have to deal with by letting go and relaxing. Immediately, wherever they want to incline their mind, they can. But they've also let go of any attachment to being in any kind of jhana, an attachment to being in any kind of formless realm, or infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, or needed perception, or non-perception. And their mindfulness is completely perfect.

They have full awareness of the Four Noble Truths. It becomes a lived reality for them. So these are the different stages of awakening that can happen for someone who goes through this process. So a little Dhamma trivia, not really important, but just some things for you to know, which are in the suttas. So a person can be a sotapanna, and they can be one of three different types of sotapanna. They can be a stream-enterer that has up to seven lives before they attain full awakening. Or they can be what's known as a kolankala stream-enterer, which means from family to family. Up to three, maybe five lifetimes, they go from family to family before they have full awakening.

And these families are dhamma families. In other words, they are into spirituality, they are into practice, they are into keeping the precepts and so on. And then there is an eka bija, or a one-seed sotapana. And this is somebody who has only one more lifetime before they have full awakening. And they will always come back to the human realm in that case. And then there's something known as a jhanagami. This is mentioned a couple of times in the suttas. And what it means is, if you have attained stream entry, and if you have not gone beyond that, if you have attained stream entry or sakatagami, and you have not gone beyond that, But you still continue to practice, still continue to dip into jhana, or still continue to dip into the ayatanas.

Upon the dissolution of the body, the mind will incline towards that particular loka, or space, or dimension related to that jhana, and they become an anagami from there. They won't come back to this realm of the senses. Which means, if you have become a stream enterer, keep practicing. Even if you don't go beyond, if you keep practicing, you don't have to come back to this life again. You can go back, you can go into the Brahma lokas, or you can go into the pure abodes, and from there attain arahanship. So this is known as the jhanagami. Anyway, that's just a little bit of trivia for you, and motivation for any stream enterer out there to keep practicing.

But ultimately, you know, you might say, oh, yes, I must have entered the stream. What's another seven lifetimes? What's another three more lifetimes? But then as you start to live life, you're like, maybe I should get to the next level. And then you become a once-returner, and you say, oh, what's another one more lifetime? You know, and then you keep living life, and you're like, anagami. And you become an anagami and you say, this is great, I'll be in the pure abodes. But then you realize, oh, there's still some suffering there in the pure abodes too. So you have to determine or be motivated to get all the way to full awakening.

But that will only happen through life experience. The more suffering you have, the more motivated you become to become fully awakened. Are there any questions? So just a quick question first. Could you name the name of the sutta that links the jhanas to the brahmaviharas? Yeah, Metta Sahagata, M-E-T-T-A, S-A-H-A-G-A-T-A, Metta Sahagata. So this is basically where the idea comes from, what we are practicing. That's right. Okay. That's right. And it also talks about the enlightenment factors accompanying these different stages. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. And then I was wondering, according to the suttas, if one is a stream-enterer, for example, and then gets reborn, what does that next life look like, for example? Are they born without the three fetters, or do they have to get rid of them again?

No, they're born without the three fetters. Without? Yeah, which means they have an idea that, okay, there's no real permanent self here. They have no interest in clinging to rites and rituals, and they have a deep interest in exploring the Dhamma. So when they're born as a stream-enterer, this is some of the indicators for someone to be a stream-enterer. Yeah, this is all a pretty precise and structured knowledge. Who brought everything, the whole knowledge, to us? I would say, I assume it was the Buddha, but would that mean if you start to get enlightened, you just know this? Yeah. For a Buddha it's interesting, because for a Buddha to become a Buddha, they have to go through many, many eons of being a bodhisatta, and they have to go through this process of perfecting loving-kindness, perfecting compassion, perfecting being honest, perfecting forgiveness, perfecting patience, perfecting what are known as the paramis, paramitas, and also in their last life where they become, let's say, sammasambuddha, a fully awakened Buddha, fully

realized, they are born with certain capacities in that lifetime to be able to look at and investigate into the nature of all kinds of sankharas, and if I do this, what will happen? So the intuition is very, very sharp, and so the position of being able to see these are the jhanas, and then these are the ayatanas, and then these are the levels or stages of the eighth jhana, all happen because they experience it for themselves, and then they come back, report it, and then they start teaching about these things. So it is a sammasambuddha, that is, somebody who is

Because you have two different kinds of Buddha: you have a paccekabuddha and you have a sammasambuddha. A sammasambuddha means somebody who is fully awakened and has the capacity and inclination to teach, not necessarily wanting to teach, but if they're requested to go and teach, they will. A paccekabuddha is somebody who has that same kind of knowledge; however, they don't have the inclination to teach and they don't have the capacity to teach. So they just remain in the cave or in the forest or whatever. Now, with the sammasambuddha, they essentially open up the path, or reopen the path, to this understanding with the Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths.

And they discover or rediscover the understanding of dependent origination. That's really the important aspect here. So this is how it happens. When somebody becomes fully awakened as a sammasambuddha, they can actually go to great position and explain exactly what's going on. So who is this you, impersonal self, that is going in another lifetime? It's not you. It is a series of causes and conditions that are creating the next life. So if you think about the candle, right, if I have one candle that is lit, and you have a candle that's unlit, and I light that candle with this candle, that flame that arises, is it the same flame as the previous flame, or is it different from the previous flame? It's just conditioned by the previous one, and it arises or continues to be fueled by the new conditions.

So what is it that is going from lifetime to lifetime? That wouldn't be the case that it's going from lifetime to lifetime. Instead, conditions are coming up for that life to come up, and so the memories of those different lifetimes are stored in the sankharas, and these sankharas regenerate new consciousnesses to then go into that next life, taking with them those sankharas, the karma, with them. So there's no soul or self directing this, except through craving and aversion. So we'll get deeper into this, dependent origination, but from one lifetime to the next, when a person dies, there is a process where they go through a life review. They see all of the highlights of their life, and if their mind is inclined towards the wholesome, then they will have an uplifted state of mind.

But if they have had a life that is unwholesome, it can cause regret and remorse and guilt and all of these other unwholesome states of mind to arise. And so there can be craving for more of the wholesome, or there can be aversion towards the unwholesome. And that is what fuels the next arising of the consciousness, which then is known as the rebirth-linking consciousness, that takes all of that energy into the next life, whether it's a wholesome or an unwholesome life. That's why there's the emphasis on being wholesome. It's not just about the morality or ethics of it, it's about what happens in those final moments of your life. So in reality, I was talking to Venerable Abbas earlier today in between our breaks of interviews.

I said the meditation is essentially learning how to die. And she said, maybe you shouldn't say that on the first day. But that's what it is. It's preparing you, training you how to go towards the wholesome. How to dis-identify with the things that arise in your mind, so that you're ready for death. You can accept death as it comes. Any other questions?

Yeah. I have two questions. The first one is related to something you said yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure, was about equanimity being basically like without joy. So there's no joy in equanimity, if I understood you correctly. But then at what point does the enlightenment factor of joy come again? Yeah, this is a good question. So with equanimity, equanimity itself doesn't have any joy. But underlying there can be, it won't be felt, but it can be experienced as interest in the object of meditation at that point. It's not more of an emotive joy, it's more of an interest in the object. The second question is a bit more practical. When I sit for longer periods of time, I notice that my head is like in some kind of awkward position, and because of that there is pain, and I was wondering, would it be better to just relax and let it be and return to the object of meditation, meditate like this, or would it be better to just move it back?

The best would be to tie a strap around your head to the back of the chair. No, I'm just joking. It's okay to move a little bit like that, making tiny adjustments like that. For example, if your head goes like this, you can make small adjustments mindfully, coming back. It's fine. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm going back to the death aspect. Some people, we can see that they're not wholesome, but they themselves think they're wholesome, and so when they die, would that make them go to a better place? No, no, not at all. Not at all. Because they have the intentions that they're wholesome? Yeah, but they're deluded, right? So there's delusion there. I have another question about death.

Something you mentioned in a talk I saw on YouTube, and that was that, and I forgot, that's why I would want to know that again, that the different qualities they leave one by one, and I can't remember which one was first and last. That was very interesting. Yeah, I'll talk about that when we speak about dependent origination, because that will be part of death and suffering. Yeah. Yeah. But just so everyone's aware, it's basically like the sense bases, there's a sequence in which the sense bases start to dissipate in the body, and there's a way in which the elements start to dissipate in the body, a sequence of order that happens until there's absolute death.

Yeah, that was it. And I have one more question. Because it is being said from the fourth jhana, there's no body, but sometimes I'm in another jhana, for sure, and I feel the body in between. Am I then out of the jhana for that second? Yeah, this is where I was saying that in the fourth jhana, you can still feel contact. What it's saying is that the bodily formations have tranquilized to such an extent that even the breath becomes very, very soft and it's imperceptible. So in the same way, even the contact becomes faint. You can still feel it. So if you are, for example, in quiet mind, you may still hear things. If you are in nothingness, you might still hear things, but they're very faint or distant.

But there cannot be pain, for example. There can be pain. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely there can be pain. A lot of people have a lot of pain while they're sitting for a long period of time. Yes. Okay. Yes. Do you mention that at one point you attain Nibbana? It is possible to attain Nibbana without practice, just accidentally, living a very big trauma and somehow finding a great relief after that, but being such an ignorance, not knowing anything about the practice, not recognizing, and being a small child, forget, but not have the memory of that, and after years somehow recuperate that memory. It is possible. I try to make sense about what I'm not saying, but I try to understand. Yeah. So Nibbana, really, what Nibbana means is that it is the cessation of greed, hatred and delusion, which means no fuel for any of that to arise. So for a split moment when somebody experiences that

and they come out of it, or the mind comes out of it for those moments, that contact that arises with the nibbana element is also unconditioned, which means it's objectless. It doesn't take anything as an object. It's empty of any notion of self, and it's undirected. There's no craving in there. And so for that few moments, that mind is free of all fetters, which means for those few moments that mind is an arahant. But what happens is, when the feeling of joy and relief arise, the mind clings to that and says, "Oh, that was amazing," and so then the fetters reunite.

reform and so one enters into the stream or whatever it might be, but in order for you to experience Nibbana the way it's mentioned in the context of the Dhamma, the way the Buddha has described it, it is not just any kind of an altered state. It is not just a feeling of relief, because the feeling of relief itself is conditioned by Nibbana. It is an experience of letting go, using right view and the other factors of the Eightfold Path. And if you've experienced Nibbana, it will take you there, namely that conviction in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. That's the way to understand it. So Nibbana cannot be within the context of Buddhism the same as, like, a samadhi in a yoga samadhi or an experience of Brahman or unity with all consciousness and so on.

It is definitely different because it's taking away all causes and conditions. So relief is one thing, the experience of relief is one thing, and Nibbana is another, which is the knowledge and vision of the Dhamma that arises due to following the path. So you need the path in order for the mind to experience or drop into Nibbana. I begin the question coming down the road. If I do the gratitude, I'm grateful for the nice song of the bird and I'm grateful because I like it. So, if I get to the higher level, I disconnect from like and dislike, so I don't care for the birds anymore. No, that's not what it means. Can you explain?

What it's saying is that the equanimity means that there is no more directing your mind towards that in that state. But that's still an impermanent state. You can still like things. You can still say, I like the sound of birds, or I like the summer breeze, or I love seeing the trees, or whatever it is. That's all fine. It's all part of pleasant experiences. Equanimity basically says you're seeing those things, but you're not getting attached to them. You're not identifying with them in a way that causes you to want more of it. You're just okay with them as they are, and you're happy with it. You're okay with it. But it's not like you will incline your mind and say, I want more of it.

Or you will incline your mind and say, I don't want more of that. That's the only thing. There's a balance of mind there. But it doesn't mean your liking of songbirds or whatever it is stops. Sorry, just to re-clarify the same question, would someone get emotional, would they cry at the death of a willity, for example? Of course they would. Why not? Unless they become fully awakened, of course they would. Ask your question again, because your question is in relation to what? So if you're like an Anagami or Arahat, even at that level, the person's mother dies or something like that. Because you've got all great attachments, would you feel sad and crying? No.

When the Buddha died, when he attained Parinibbana, when Sariputta passed away, for example, actually this is a better example because it's showing the dichotomy here. So when Sariputta passed away, Ananda got the news that Sariputta had passed away. He had attained Parinibbana. And Ananda became tearful and he said, "I feel like I'm being drugged and I can't breathe." And he was full of grief. And the Buddha saw him and he said, "Ananda, what happened?" And Ananda tells him that Sariputta has gone from this world. And the Buddha says, "Have I not said in many ways that all things that arise are bound to pass away? And has Sariputta taken from you the qualities that you have developed through your practice?"

And Ananda says, "No." So, let that go. It's okay. Death is a natural part of existence. So for somebody who is an Anagami or an Arahat, that experience of death being so visceral, it's so real, that they remain unaffected by it. Even if it's the death of their parent, the death of a loved one or whatever. Because they have that complete wisdom that, yes, everyone dies. So they don't feel sad about it. They won't have any grief about it.

Relating to this, it seems for me that it has an extra bonus for all mothers, because it's so different. Since I'm a mother, this kind of letting go, or having, kind of, yeah, being anxious, yeah, yeah, about death. I never felt this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, because with people who, let's say, people who are Anagamis or who have attained Arahatship, it's not like they won't be in connection with their families. It's not like they will leave their family in the sense that they'll never make contact with them. Because even the Buddha, after his awakening, would visit his home from time to time. And there's actually an interesting story in the sutta where he's seated under the shade of a tree.

There's a picnic going on. So he's with his father and his stepmother and his siblings and everybody. And somebody asks and says, hey, why don't you sit over here? And the Buddha says, I prefer to sit in the company of my loved ones. So it's not like they will have an uncaring mind for their loved ones. In fact, they'll have more compassion, more loving kindness and so on. But at the loss of a loved one, there won't be any grief there. Because what is grief at the end of the day? What is grief, really? Grief is not grieving for the person. It's grieving for what the person has left behind, which is: now I can no longer connect with this person anymore.

Grief is all about us. This person is not available to me anymore. This person can't call me anymore. I won't be able to see them anymore. So for somebody who is fully awakened, they've let go of that concept. Yeah, pretty heavy. Any light questions? Anybody have any? Yeah. I have maybe a technical question. You said it, I think, yesterday or the day before, that even till the end of the eight genres, you can experience mind-talking, right? So, what is it exactly? Because if it would be a thought and we would be in the high state, like nothingness or even beyond, you would see when they started to talk, but it's like almost permanent, separate.

So that thing that is commenting on what's going on, that's the perception that's going on. That's the quality of the mind that is able to perceive, oh, here is a silent mind. Like the mind that says, oh, the mind is very quiet. That's the perception aspect of the mind. That's all. So when we get into dependent origination, we'll talk about nama-rupa, mentality, materiality, and one of the core aspects of mentality is perception. The let's say instrument of perception is still there, that's dependent upon mental formations for it to function. It's only with cessation of all perception, feeling and consciousness that all of that just drops away completely, because all mental formations have ceased.

So with the jhanas, when you talked about the last four jhanas being part of the fourth, what does that mean? Why is there even a distinction of saying there are four separate ones, or saying they're part of the fourth? Yeah, because it's just happened, it's evolved through the suttas and it's evolved through time that they are distinct states. So that's why they are denoted by these things. But because they are within the vicinity of the mind that's happening in the fourth jhana, they are part of the fourth jhana. But there's still discernible, distinct, separate kinds of states that you can direct your mind towards. And you don't have to go in succession again. You don't have to go through succession.

You could skip through these stages and go directly somewhere. So, for example, in Majjhima Nikaya 121, the shorter discourse on emptiness, there the Buddha talks about going into the emptiness of the previous four jhanas and entering into infinite space by expanding one's awareness. So that's happening directly. You can do it directly as well. Because of that, they are distinct stages, but they're still happening within the mind of the fourth jhana. Is there a level of attainment that's not attainable for a layperson? Or is there a level of attainment where a layperson would no longer want to live life as a layperson? Yeah, in the suttas and in traditional commentaries, it talks about arahatship. So a layperson in this case would be somebody still fettered by the household life.

That's what the Buddha says. Somebody who has the fetter of householdership cannot get on towards arahatship. And then when you enter arahatship, you no longer are interested in maintaining a householder life. You either enter the Sangha of bhikkhus or bhikkhunis, or you just become a wanderer, a nomad. And there's no longer any ability, I should say, for the mind to want to earn an income or keep a family or do all of these things related to the household life. Okay, thank you.

Let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.