From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xRzyi3guTiY

Context: Throughout this transcript, Bhante Vimalaramsi is the speaker unless otherwise indicated.

okay

this suit tonight is called the greater

series of questions and answers

it goes quite deep

so i hope you

understand thus if i heard on one

occasion the blessed one was living in

sawatee in jetta's grove and

athenpendika's park

then when it was evening the venerable

mahakohita rose from meditation

went to the venerable sariputta

and exchanged greetings to him

he didn't go alone he went with his

students

and sorry puta was sitting with some

students

so that's why these questions he was a

mahakohita was an arahat he already knew

the answers but he was asking the

questions for his students

when this courteous and amiable talk was

finished he sat down at one side and

said to the venerable sorry putta

one who is unwise one who

is unwise is said friend

with reference to what was this said one

who is

unwise

that is why it is said one who is unwise

and what doesn't one wisely understand

one doesn't wisely understand this is

suffering

now he's actually talking about the

links of dependent origination

okay one does not wisely understand this

is the origin of suffering

one does not wisely understand this

is the cessation of suffering

one does not wisely understand this

is the way leading to the cessation of

suffering

one does not wisely understand one does

not

wisely understand friend

that is why it is said one who is unwise

saying good friend the venerable maha

kohita

delighted and rejoiced in the venerable

sariputta's words

then he asked him a further question

one who is wise one who is wise

is said friend with reference to what

was this said one who

is wise so basically what he's asking

is when you're wise or when when you're

unwise

you don't understand the links of

dependent origination

that have the four noble truths in each

link and

the three characteristics

and this is a big push with a lot of

people that are practicing

uh other forms of meditation they make

an

emphasis of impermanence

suffering not self

but in each link you will see

this for yourself

so when we're talking about the links of

dependent origination we're also talking

about the four noble truths and the

three characteristics

it's all interconnected and combined

one wisely excuse me

one wisely understands one wisely

understands friend that is why it is

said one who

is wise what does wise

what does one wisely understand

one wisely understands this is suffering

one wisely understands this is the cause

of suffering or the origin of suffering

one wisely understands this is the

cessation

of suffering one wisely

understands this is a way leading to the

cessation of suffering

one wisely understands one wisely

understands friend

that is why it is said one who is wise

consciousness consciousness is said

friend

with reference to what is consciousness

said

it cognizes it cognizes friend

that is why consciousness is said

what does it cognize well

cognize is an

interesting word and it's its

meaning is seeing in the present

okay when you recognize

or recognize that means you're going

into your memory to think to things that

have already happened

but when you cognize that means you're

seeing it

directly in the present

whatever it happens to be

it cognizes this is pleasant

it cognizes this is painful

it cognizes this is neither painful nor

pleasant

it cognizes it cognizes friend

that is why consciousness is said

wisdom and consciousness friend are

these states conjoined

or disjoined and is it possible to

separate

each of these states from the other in

order to describe the difference between

them

wisdom and consciousness friend these

states

are conjoined not disjoint

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states from the other

in order to describe the difference

between them

for what one wisely understands

that one cognizes

and what one cognizes that one

wisely understands again we're talking

about the links of dependent origination

and when you see it you wisely

understand what it is right

that is why these states are conjoined

not

disjoined and it is impossible to

separate

each of these states from the other in

order to describe the difference between

them

what is the difference friend between

wisdom

and consciousness these states that are

conjoined

not disjoint the difference friend

between

wisdom and consciousness

these states that are conjoined not

disjoint is this

wisdom is to be developed

so you develop the ability to see the

links

consciousness is to be fully understood

so you fully understand the links

when you see them for yourself

so you have to develop the ability to

start

seeing the links

and understand what you're seeing

pretty straightforward

feeling feeling as said friend with

reference to what is feeling

said it feels it feels fred

that is why feeling has said

what does it feel it feels pleasure

it feels pain it feels neither pain nor

pleasure

it feels it feels friend that's why

feeling

has said

perception perception is said friend

with reference to what his perception

said it perceives

it perceives friend that's why

perception has said

what does it perceive it perceives blue

it perceives yellow it perceives red

it perceives white

now perception

is the very start of

conceptual thinking

what is what is blue

it's a concept right

it's made up of other things but we call

it this is blue

every thought you have

is a concept

that's why learning how to translate is

so

tricky because there's all different

kinds of concepts with

words

when you experience nibana

another definition of this

experience is

no more concepts

so you're going beyond just

thinking mind

you're going on beyond conceptual ideas

and it would be a relief to have that

right

that's why perception is said

feeling perception and

consciousness friends

are these states conjoined or disjoined

and is it possible to separate each of

these states from the

others in order to describe the

difference between them

feeling perception and consciousness

friend

these states are conjoined

not disjoint and it

is impossible to separate each of these

states from the

others in order to describe the

difference between them

for what one feels that

one perceives and what

one perceives that one

cognizes

okay so this is kind of an interesting

thing

because you have the five aggregates

right you have

body feeling perception

formations and mind

so the five aggregates are

actually three aggregates

because feeling perception and

consciousness

are conjoined you can't separate them

so it's just another way of describing

things

i think this that this has has caused a

lot of

confusion

with some of the translations

of the text

now you always hear me say when i'm

talking about

the cessation of perception feeling

and consciousness in the translation it

just says

perception and feeling

but there has to be the cessation of

consciousness too

and that's what the cessation of

suffering is all about

when you experience

the uh

they call it in in uh pali niroda

samapati

that means the cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness

that's a blackout that happens you

don't know you're in it until you come

back

out and reflect on seeing what it was

interesting state to be in now with

if for the first two stages of awakening

these will happen by themselves

but it'll only be for a short period of

time

when you get to be an onigami

your understanding of how the length of

dependent origination

is very much stronger

and you can make a determination

that you want to experience the

cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness and you can do

that

for as as long as you want

up to seven days

now i i have some students in indonesia

that they started experiencing

experimenting with the cessation of

perception

feeling and consciousness

and they wanted

they wanted to see what it was like to

do it for a short period of time

just to see if they could do it

and see what happened when they got back

out of it

so they would make a determination

to sit in the cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness for 20 minutes

and they would do that especially when

they were tired

and they would come out of that state

and they were

very energetic and very happy

but the thing with this is you have to

make a determination

on the the amount of time you're going

to be in this

if you try to sit more than seven days

the sixth sense doors

the vitality and heat

dissipate and the body

dies when the body dies then there is no

more

there is no more of that person

they will be reborn in another realm

they'll die from the human realm

so it's it's kind of interesting

that

in in some circles with the theravada

monks

they say that the only time you can

experience the cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness

is when you're either an onigami

or an arad

but you experience it

in the lower stages but you don't have

control over it

it just happens it's going to stay as

long as it's going to stay and then

your consciousness comes back

but when you get to be an onigami you

can sit for up to seven days

that means no bathroom breaks

that means no eating that means

no uh

no interruption and there is no

consciousness

but there is still body functions

i you still have breath you still

have heartbeat

but they're very much reduced

now i had one teacher that could do this

and sit up to seven days

and it really sounds neat it sounds like

a good thing

okay let's do that you know and i said

well

why do you want to do that

and she gave me a one-word answer

relief think about that

no sound is going to bother you

nothing on the physical plane is going

to bother you

for seven days no thoughts

what relief

and when they come out of that

they are absolutely radiant

you know you see a lot of the pictures

of

different saints and such like they have

a halo

around them well that's what it looks

like

their face is really

radiant and incredibly beautiful

so what i suggest to anybody that's

around somebody like that when they come

out of that state give them

something their mind is

absolutely pure

and giving to someone that's very pure

you make a whole lot of merit

and that will come back to you in all

kinds of wonderful ways

so it's a real good thing

and the good qualities of the buddha

dhamma and sangha when he's talking

about the sangha

one of the statements that's made is

they're worthy of gifts

now there's actually ten kinds of sangha

okay i know most of the time in america

you you just hear about well there's the

monk sangha

and that means community so all of the

laymen can be

sangha too well that's two kinds of

sangha

the other eight kinds of sangha

are sodapana sodapana with fruition

anagami onogami with fruition

or saktagami saktagami with fruition

onigami onigami with fruition

are hot or hot with fruition

these are the eight kinds of individuals

that are really

worthy of gifts

so

these these ten different kinds of

sangha are reasonably

different

and when you

when you practice your generosity with

a

oh i can't think of the word that's what

happens when they start getting tired

the

noble sangha the noble sangha

is people that have had

the experience and have become saints

that's the definition of a saint in

buddhism

being a saint and other traditions means

that they had to do some kind

of thing and there had to be some kind

of miracle in it

and then you have to wait for a few

years

to be claimed that you were a saint

letty sayadaw in uh burma

he was quite a remarkable scholar

and it was claimed while he was alive

that

there's this only happens have somebody

of his caliber of

understanding intellectually

about once every hundred years and he

he said that

the noble sangha

is what makes up the age

of saints and we're still in this

age we're in the age of saints

ain't that neat i mean

you hear about saints of all different

kinds and

well they they were real special people

too

but it's nothing quite like

becoming a sudapana i mean you don't

you're not gonna have more than seven

lifetimes before you get off the wheel

of sansara

you're never going to be born in

lower realms

the lowest realm you'll be reborn in

is human being

and quite often the

uh when the sodapanar saktagami

die they're reborn in

either brahmaloka or devaloka

devalokas are like the low heavens

you don't have to do

any meditation to get into the

deva loca you just have to be a really

good person

and you have to well you practice your

generosity and your compassion

and keep your precepts

now there's six different

developers the first devaloka

is called earthbound spirits

okay now one day in that devaloka

is equivalent to 50 years

for us

now the next one is where

saka lives the king of the

heaven of the 33.

now these these realms are very

pleasurable

beautiful sights beautiful sounds lots

of singing

lots of partying

i think they do they float around with

them all the time

but one day in the uh

tabs and teams of heaven that's the

second realm

is equivalent to a hundred years as a

human being

and you live to be um

around 100 years so it lasts for a long

time

one of the things about being in the

devaloka

which is kind of an interesting

phenomena

is that they have to eat something every

day and

grapes appear to them

and so they're always munching on grapes

or if they want to get out of that realm

they just stop eating and

they will be reborn in another realm i

mean the

the bodhisattva when he was reborn as

uh in the tabs of teams of heaven he

just spent a short time there

because he wanted to come back in the

human realm

but depending on his merit at the time

and

his past actions he might be reborn as a

animal he might be

reborn as human being he might be reborn

again

in another realm

so the next realm i can't remember the

name of it

last for in

human terms one day there is equivalent

to 200 years

where the bodhisattva maitreya

is is in the tusita heaven

one day there or yeah one day there is

equivalent to 400 years here

and he's going to be hanging around in

that for

quite a while before the conditions are

right

for him to arise again or the

buddha to arise

our buddha

was called an intelligent buddha

because when he took a bodhisattva vow

he became a buddha pretty quickly

uh for maha kappas and a hundred

thousand lifetimes

and that's considered quick

now a mahakapa

one mahakapa is considered to be

in human terms

10 with 560 zeros behind it that's how

many years

one mahakape is so he's going to be

reborn

many many many times some of those

rebirths are going to be

very challenging some of them are not

going to be so challenging

but for that whole period of time that

he's a bodhisattva

he is working on perfecting what is

called

his parame

and that has to do with loving-kindness

and

when the bodhisattva became a

bodhisattva when he took that vow

he never lied

in all of his lifetimes

and in doing that he

he developed

the truth

and was perfect with his truth

that's one of the reasons why you read

about the buddha

and he would have oh 5 000 people around

him or more

and he would give a dhamma talk he never

raised his voice so everybody could hear

they could hear it but if you were

outside this big mass of people

you wouldn't hear what he said

it only goes right to that last last

person that's listening

and when he said something you knew

that what he said was true he wasn't

he wasn't trying to

fool you

and his voice was very very

sweet to listen to

there's a bird in asia

that it's a little tiny yellow bird i

don't remember the name of it anymore

but this bird had a really big voice

and any time you hear that bird you stop

and listen everybody does and that's

what the buddha's voice was like that's

what it says

it was just so pleasing to the ear that

it's it's like oh yeah there he is

a good one and it makes you smile

so there's different kinds of buddha

okay he was an intelligent buddha

the next kind of buddha

he works for eight maha

kappas and a hundred thousand lifetimes

and he is called

energetic buddha

now he's reborn in a period of time when

lifetimes for human beings starts to be

longer

because we all go we go through those

kind of things

and he would only

give a dhamma talk maybe

once a year something like that but he

might live

10 000 years in human re the way we

think of human time

the other kind of buddha is

called a moral

buddha and it takes

him sixteen thousand maha

16 maha kappas

and a hundred thousand lifetimes so

we're talking about somebody that's

really really amazing

and he only he he lives in a time when

the lifetime of human beings is around a

hundred thousand years

and he

gives a dhamma talk once every hundred

years

or so

but go to mabuda and they

they all teach exactly the same thing

okay go to mabuddha

gave dhamma talks quite often

and he was

always traveling around talking and

spreading the

the the truth of existence

and how it actually worked

now if he was going to teach the dhamma

like this

he affected around 60 million people

in the world at that time

if he taught the way to become a

sodapana so you could become a saint

in a way that was complicated

hard to understand and took a long time

to understand it

he would not have been near as popular

as he was

this is why when you look at the good

qualities

of the dhamma it says this is

immediately effective

he couldn't teach somebody yeah you got

to go five years before you really get

it

they didn't have time for that they were

simple folks for the most part

they were not well educated he had to

teach

them something that they could grasp

very quickly

and easily

now during the time as a buddha and

even today it can

happen that you can become a boot

uh uh sodapana

by listening to the dhamma

and you listen attentively

it's not you don't start thinking about

something else oh i've heard this before

but you listen very attentively

and if your understanding is good

you can become a just by listening

to the dhamma

that happened a lot that happened to

visakha

who later became the the

foremost uh

supporter of the female supporter

of the sangha during the time of the

buddha

she built a castle for the

monks to stay in she fed monks

continually

if they got sick she had somebody taking

care of them

she was always working for the

dhamma now when she was eight years old

her grandfather took her to listen to

the buddha and she became a sodapana

eight years old her understanding was

good

don't get me wrong i mean she really did

she was a

very intelligent woman

and her heart was so pure that she

didn't allow

any kind of distractions even at eight

years old

she just listened to what he said and

understood it

became a soda upon it right then

she stayed herself upon her for her

whole life

interesting thing when she got married

she wound up having 20 children

20.

oh that's amazing

and she was just super generous

always giving and she was so smart

and so wise that some of

the rules for the monks

were her idea it came from her and the

buddha

heard what she had to say and said yes

that's right let's

let's put that in

now this idea that

a lot of feminists have about buddhism

about being equal and all of this sort

of thing they don't run across stories

like this

that show how the buddha

highly respected women

but there had to be a hierarchy

the way that he had it set up

and there are some nuns in sri lanka

that i highly respect

because they're so interesting

and they understand the dhamma in a way

then

and they can explain it in a way that's

easy to grasp

so when they come in the room even

though they're a female

monks aren't supposed to get up for

other people when they come in the room

i always stand for her

i always well there's more than one

actually but i always i always

rise for them and wait until they sit

down

and then sit down and it's it's

a it's an asian thing about

showing your respect that way but

i think it's nice so that's why i do it

okay

uh let's read this one thing again so

you really

start to get it in a deeper way

what one feels that one perceives

the perception here is that's painful

that's pleasant that's neither painful

nor pleasant

and when that arises you're

cognizing it you're seeing it you're

understanding it

that is why these states are conjoined

not disjoint

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states from the others

in order to describe the difference

between them

now here is a really interesting part of

the sutta

this is called noble by

mind alone

friend what can be known by purified

mind consciousness

released from the five faculties that

means your body

your eyes your ears your tongue your

nose your body

friend by purified mind consciousness

released from the five faculties

the base of infinite space with

compassion

this can be known as infinite space with

compassion

with the base of infinite consciousness

with

joy now you

you hear me say you don't have a body

now this is what i'm talking about

these five faculties they only arise

when there's

contact and contact means putting your

attention

on them so when i tell you

you don't have a body this is a mental

realm

don't put your attention on your body

at all just stay with mind

and your object to meditation

and the base of nothingness with

equanimity

friend with what does one understand

a state that can be known

one is talking about the arupa

jhana

friend one understands a state that can

be known

with the eye of wisdom

what is the eye of wisdom it's seeing

without having you're

cognizing you're seeing for yourself

how the links actually work

and you're seeing the impersonal nature

you're seeing with a mind that doesn't

have distractions in

it you're cognizing in the present

what is there

so you when i say you don't have a body

what i'm trying to get across to you

is your mindfulness is not quite

strong enough and you're letting your

attention

go to the body you're not seeing it

as it first arises as this

little movement or vibration

and as soon as you see that movement or

vibration

relax now a lot of you

are in neither perception nor

non-perception and that's who i'm

talking to

right now okay

so when when you are in that space

where there's nothing

a lot of people want to call that void

but that's not quite it either

it's neither perception or

non-perception

and your mind is exceptionally

still and there's no movement there's no

vibration

at all as you

keep your interest in watching

that when something

starts to arise you'll see that movement

of mind's attention right then

and relax

things still might arise after that but

you have let go of the craving

and that's what the meditation is about

letting go of craving

it's hard to keep interested when

there's nothing to watch

and it's also kind of fun

because

there's real relief in that there's

real

it's really quiet

and that's nice

one of my students in indonesia

she sat every time she did a retreat

with me she would get into this state

and she'd sit and there was no movement

or vibration for a whole hour

and then she'd break her sitting and get

up and start moving around

nothing's happening anyway i gotta go do

this i gotta do that

i i did everything i wanted i wanted to

get some duct tape and tape her down so

she wouldn't

move

and i scolded her i begged with her i

did everything i could to get her to

stop doing that

and in the third year i finally came up

with something that she understood in

asia making merit practicing your

generosity and

and wholesome nature is really important

to them

so i finally said you can't make

any better merit on the physical

plane than

sitting in this

peaceful mind

without any movements in it

and finally she her her want to make

more merit

made her start paying attention to that

and she was she was successful when she

sat for oh

two and a half hours or something like

that now a lot of you

i i suggest that you sit longer

and the reason that i suggest that is

because you need the time

of not having any disturbance

so that you can see clearly

when a little thing starts to arise

what is that little thing it is a kind

of distraction

it has some craving in it so you have to

relax into that let go of that craving

that's how you purify your mind when

your mind is pure enough you will get to

the cessation

of perception feeling and consciousness

that's the way it works

so developing the eye of wisdom

means seeing everything

is impersonal

everything doesn't matter whether you're

sitting in meditation or not

everything is impersonal

everything you see every building

every floor every ceiling everything

is impersonal

and seeing things impersonally

mean seeing things without

craving

friend what is the purpose of wisdom

interesting question

the purpose of wisdom friend is

direct knowledge

its purpose is full understanding

its purpose is abandoning

abandoning what all craving

all disturbance

okay friend how many

conditions are there for the arising of

right view

friend there are two conditions for the

arising of right view

the voice of another and wise attention

now you people hear that and they say uh

that's

that's my voice it's not this is a voice

of the buddha

so you use wise attention when you hear

and start to understand how the links of

dependent origination

work

these are the two conditions for the

arising of right view

and the thing that makes the buddha so

brilliant and i read it to you

was how he came up to understand the

lengths of dependent origination i mean

these are things that hadn't been

thought

of before for a long period of time

friend how many factors is right view

assisted when it has deliverance of mind

by

path and deliverance of mind

with path and fruition

when it has deliverance of mind by

wisdom

for its path and deliverance of mine

by wisdom for its path and fruition

friend right view is assisted by

five factors when it has

deliverance of mind for its path

deliverance of mind for its path and

fruition

when it has deliverance of mind by

wisdom

for its path and deliverance of mind by

wisdom for its path and fruition

here friend right view is assisted by

virtue keeping your precepts

learning discussion

serenity and insight

one of the interesting things that a lot

of people don't know

when you go back and you look up either

jhana or serenity

in the the index

and then you look up

uh insight and then you start comparing

where they are

in the suttas you see that insight and

drama or serenity are

very often mentioned in the same

sentence

and it's kind of interesting to think of

it that way

and one of the suit is 149

says that serenity

or jhana practice and insight

are yoked together now you think of

an ox carton

now if you want to go in a straight line

those oxen have to be pulling equally

hard

if one of the oxen is pulling a little

bit too hard

then you're going to start going in

circles

if the other one is

pulling too hard then you're going to go

in circles the other way

in order to go in a straight line you

need to be pulling equally

with serenity and insight

now a lot of people today when they're

talking with me

about their practice

excuse me they were having such

magnificent

and they really were magnificent

insights

i mean this was really a joyful day for

me

so many people had these insights into

how they were doing things and how they

could

see that now and once they see

how their attachment worked they can let

it go very easily

it's great

a real fun day

right view assisted by these five

factors

virtue keeping your precept learning

discussion serenity and insight

these five factors has deliverance of

mine

for its path deliverance of mine

for its path and fruition it has

deliverance of my

deliverance by wisdom for its path

and deliverance by wisdom for its path

and fruition

friend there are many kinds of being

how many kinds of being are there friend

there are three kinds of being friend

sense fear being

fine material being

that means china

but the rupa genus the first four genres

and the immaterial being another thing

that

a lot of people don't realize because we

don't talk about it this way very often

is that when in the suttas when it's

describing

zama samadhi it just talks about four

janas

the first jhana ii jhana third john iv

jhana

but what a lot of people don't realize

is the fourth jhana has four different

aspects to it and that's what the arupa

jhanas are

when you get to the fourth jhana you

have equanimity

and then that equanimity starts to get

stronger and there's more

peace and calm and then you experience

infinite space and as you keep going

the equanimity starts getting stronger

and stronger

until you get to the realm of

nothingness

and that's when you use equanimity as

your object of meditation

and then you get into that neither

awake but aware

or not

i just screwed it up you get into

the state of like being asleep and being

aware

at the same time now the reason that you

don't talk about the equanimity

in this state is because

mind is so subtle that you're not really

able to see it or

feel it

neither perception nor non-perception

is

like it says in one of the suttas if

you're going to have an attachment

this is the highest and best attachment

you can have

that's what that's what ananda said to

the buddha and the buddha agreed he said

yeah this is right

if you want to be attached be attached

to neither perception or non-perception

and if you don't keep you using your six

hours when there's a little tiny

movement then you'll go beyond that

friend how is renewal

of being in the future generated

friend renewal of being in the future

is generated through the delighting and

this and that

on the part of beings who are

hindered by ignorance and fettered

by craving

okay so what do we say in here

you don't understand the four noble

truths

and you're caught up in not

seeing and recognizing what craving is

you can let

it go that's what the six hours are all

about

friend how is renewal of being in the

future

not generated

friend with the fading away of ignorance

with the arising of true knowledge

with the cessation of craving

renewal of being in the future is not

generated

getting off the wheel of sansara is

a good thing so then you will not

have ever again

any suffering i think that's worth it

okay now we're going to talk a little

bit about the first

jhana friend what is the first jhana

here friend quite secluded from sensual

pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states

a monk enters upon and abides in the

first john i which is accompanied by

thinking

and examining thought with joy

and happiness born of seclusion

this is called the first jhana

friend how many factors does the first

jhana have friend

the first jhana has five factors

when a person has entered the first

jhana their occur thinking

examining thought happiness

joy and unification of mind

that is how the first jhana has five

factors

friend how many factors are

abandoned in the first channel

and how many factors are possessed

friend in the first jhana five factors

are abandoned and five factors

are possessed

here when a monk is entered upon the

first

jhana sensual desire is abandoned

ill will is abandoned

sloth and torpor are abandoned

restlessness and anxiety are abandoned

and doubt is abandoned so what are we

saying when you're

in the jhana you don't have

a hindrance arising but when your

mindfulness gets

weak for whatever reason and you get

distracted a little bit

guess who comes to dinner

one of the hindrances is going to rise

so what i try to get you to do is stay

with your

object to meditation for as long as you

can

and when your mindfulness gets weak

you're not in the drama anymore

now you have a hindrance that you get to

work with

okay and hindrances are

good they're not bad they help you to

develop your mindfulness

sometimes it's hard to let go of the

hindrances

they keep coming back okay

no problem

when your mind gets pulled away again

then relax

that hindrances that hindrance

is helping you so that your mindfulness

can get

stronger

so your observation of how

this process works grows

and then when it gets strong enough then

you get into the next genre

so the hindrances occur

in between every jhana whether it's

rupa-jhana or

of rupa-jana

distractions happen

so you're knocked out of the drama then

you get to

practice your six ah but the 6rs don't

work

they do work

but you have to use all 6rs

it's not just release relax release

relax

release relax that doesn't work

guaranteed

you have to do the whole formula

bringing up something wholesome smile

i don't feel like smiling don't care

smile anyway

bring that light clear mind

back to your object to meditation

simple right

not always easy but simple

okay so these are the things that are

abandoned

and there occur thinking

examining thought joy happiness and

unification of mind

this is how in the first genre

five factors are abandoned and five

factors are possessed

now we get to talk about the five

faculties this

is interesting stuff

friend these five faculties each

have their separate field a

separate domain and do not

experience each other's field and domain

excuse me that is

the i faculty ear faculty

knows faculty tongue faculty and body

faculty

now these five factors each have their

separate field

right you don't see with your tongue

you don't taste with your ear so this is

it's separate

each one of these are separate they have

their own function

and separate domain

not experiencing each other's field and

domain

what is their resort

what experiences these fields and

domains

friend these five faculties each have

a separate field and a separate domain

and do not

experience each other's field and domain

that is the i faculty here faculty knows

faculty

tongue faculty and body faculty

now these five faculties each having a

separate field and domain

are not experienced are not

experiencing each other's field and

domain

they have mind as their resort

and mind experiences their fields and

domains

right in order to see

you have good working eye you have color

and form

high consciousness arises

that's what contact is

friend as to these five faculties

that is the i faculty year faculty

knows faculty tongue faculty and body

faculty

stand independence on

no i missed something what do these five

faculties stand independence on

friend as to these five faculties

that is the high ear nose tongue

and body faculty these

five faculties stand independence

on vitality

friend what does vitality

stand independence on

vitality stands independence on

heat

friend what does heat

stand independence on you're going to

love this answer

heat stands independence on vitality

uh just now friend we understood the

venerable sorry putta to have said

vitality stands independence on heat

and now we understand him to say

he stands independence on vitality

how should the meaning of this statement

be

regarded reasonable question

in that case friend i shall give you a

semilly

for some wise men understand

the meaning of a statement by means of

a simile just as when an

oil lamp is burning

its radiance is seen independence on its

flame

and its flame is seen independence on

its radiance

got it

something is burning okay you have a

flame

there's no radiance if there's no flame

and there's no flame if there's no

radiance

you see well that we'll get more into

the vitality and

and heat in a minute so

okay it's flame is seen depending on

it's radiant and

okay friends

are vital formations things that can be

felt or are vital formation

formations one thing

and things that can be felt another

vital formations are not things that

can be felt if vital formation were

things that can be

felt then a person who has entered upon

the cessation

of perception feeling and consciousness

would not be seen to emerge from it

because vital formations are one thing

and things that can be felt another

a monk who has entered upon the

cessation of perception

and feeling and consciousness can be

seen to emerge from it

friend when the body is bereaved of how

many states

is it then discarded forsaken left

lying senseless like a log

friend when this body is bereaved of

three things vitality

heat and consciousness

it is then discarded and forsaken

left lying senseless like a log

friend what is the difference between

one who is dead

and one who uh one who has completed his

time

and a person who has entered upon the

cessation

of perception feeling and consciousness

it's almost like being dead but there is

some difference

friend in the case of one who is dead

who has completed his time his

bodily formations have ceased and

subsided

his verbal formations have ceased and

subsided his mental formations have

ceased

and subsided his vitality

is exhausted

his heat has dissipated

and his faculties are

fully broken up in the case of

in okay broken up period

in the case of a person who has entered

upon the cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness his bodily

formations have ceased

and subsided his

verbal formations have ceased and

subsided

his mental formations have ceased and

subsided but his vitality

is not exhausted

his hate has not been dissipated and his

faculties become exceptionally

clear so even while they're sitting

in the cessation of perception feeling

and consciousness

their face becomes radiant

very clear this is the difference

between one who is dead

who has completed his time

and a monk who has entered upon the

cessation of perception feeling

and consciousness in other words he

still has the vitality

of the six senses it's still there

still has heat going through his body

so there is some slight

beating of the heart there

is some breathing and they breathe you

breathe through your skin

and your ears but not through your lungs

so

you have to make a determination

to go into this state

and stay in this state for up to seven

days

how much time do you have well i got a

good weekend so i'm gonna go in for two

days

in asia people get real afraid if they

see

somebody sitting without breathing

oh they're dying

and they they really don't like to be

around people

that are sitting in the cessation of

perception feeling and consciousness

very much so

when when they have that ability to do

that they generally go someplace where

other people can't see them

friend how many conditions are there for

the attainment

of neither painful nor pleasant

deliverance of

mind

friend there are four conditions for the

attainment

of neither painful nor pleasant

deliverance of mine

here with the abandoning of pleasure and

pain

with a previous disappearance of joy

and grief a monk enters upon

and abides in the fourth jhana

which has neither pain nor pleasure

and purity of mindfulness

due to equanimity so when you get to the

fourth jhana

i tell you now you're an advanced

meditator

when you get to the fourth jhana because

of your

experience with the meditation

you're able to understand a lot

of what it says in the suttas

before that it can be very confusing

and when people come to the meditation

center if they haven't gotten to the

fourth jhana i don't let them read

anything i want to see the newspaper

no i want to get on my

internet no take that away

you don't need that when you get to the

fourth jhana you have this balance of

mind

and this is where the buddha praises

people about their mind in the fourth

jhana

your mind is wieldy your mind is

manageable your mind is really

clear and you have that equanimity

these are the four conditions for the

attainment of neither painful nor

pleasant deliverance of mine now this

is a kind of deliverance of mine but

it is mundane not supra mundane

friend how many conditions are there for

the attainment

of the signless deliverance of mind

that is a cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness you don't have

any signs

no consciousness

friend there are two conditions for the

attainment

of the signless deliverance of mine

non-attention to all signs

and attention to the signless element

these are the two conditions for the

attainment of the signless deliverance

of mind

friend how many conditions are there for

the persistence

of the signless deliverance of mind

friend there are three conditions for

the persistence

of the signless deliverance of mine

non-attention to all signs

attention to the signless element

and the prior determination

of its duration so you have to make a

determination when you're going to get

out

and when you start working with the

determinations at the start of the

retreat i said i wanted you to

have do two things before you went to

sleep

one make a determination

to the second of when you get

up and

make a determination to wake up smiling

and happy right

now the reason that i wanted you to

start doing that and do it every night

whether you're on retreat or not when

you

start working with waking up at a

particular

time you're starting to set your body

clock

and you can get quite accurate with it

and consistent

but it takes practice so start now and

do it every night and before

long you'll you'll say well i've got two

minutes to do this

and you know that it's two minutes when

you're when you've got it done

okay these are the three conditions for

the persistence

of the signless deliverance of mind

so when you get good at it and your

meditation gets good

and you can get into the cessation of

perception

feeling and consciousness then you will

be able to say

i'm gonna sit for three days

five hours 47 minutes

and 3 seconds and exactly

like that that's when you come out of

the cessation

friend how many conditions are there for

the

emergence of the signless deliverance of

mine

friend there are two conditions for the

emergence of the signless

deliverance of mind attention to this

all signs and non-attention to the

signless

element

these are the two conditions for the

emergence from the signless deliverance

of mind

friend the immeasurable deliverance of

mind the deliverance of mind through

nothingness the deliverance of mind

through

voidness the signless

deliverance of mind are these states

different in meaning and different in

name

or are they one in meaning indifferent

in name only

friend the immeasurable deliverance of

mind the deliverance of

mind through nothingness the deliverance

of

mind through voidness the signless

deliverance of mind

there is a way in which these states are

different in meaning and different in

name

and there is a way in which they are one

in meaning and different in name only

what friend is the way in which these

states are

different in meaning and different in

name

here a person abides pervading

one quarter with a mind imbued with

loving kindness likewise a second

likewise the third likewise the fourth

does this sound familiar

so above below around and

everywhere as to all

as to himself he abides pervading the

all-encompassing world with a mind

imbued with loving kindness

abundant exalted immeasurable

without hostility and without ill will

he abides pervading one quarter of his

mind imbued with compassion

and then it goes through all six like uh

six directions

again he avoids pervading one quarter of

a mind

of his mind imbued with joy

and he does it six directions again

he avoids pervading one quarter of a

mind

imbued with equanimity likewise the

second

likewise the third likewise the fourth

so

above below around and everywhere

to all as to himself he abides pervading

the all-encompassing world

with a mind imbued with equanimity

abundant exalted immeasurable

without hostility and without ill will

this is called the immeasurable

deliverance of mind

and that's what i've been showing you

and what friends is a deliverance of

mine through

nothingness

here with the complete surmounting of

the base of infinite space

aware that there is nothing

a mind enters upon and abides in the

base of

nothingness this is called the

deliverance of mind through

nothingness

and what friends is a deliverance of

mine through

voidness

here a monk gone to the forest or

to the root of a tree or an empty hut

reflects

thus this is void

of a self or

of what the belongs to a self

this is called the deliverance of mind

through voidness in other words

using this meditation i when i did it

for about six months i

i didn't say it in these words

but when a thought come up would come up

or a feeling

or sensation whatever it happened to me

my question to myself was

is this me is this mine

is this who i am and they always always

the answer was

you can get to the seventh drama

by doing this

and it is interesting because you stop

taking your crazy thoughts

your attached thoughts and you start

going

well did i ask this to come up is this

me

is this mine i don't have any control

over it

it arose by itself

it's a real good way

to understand the impersonal nature of

everything

when you question every thought every

feeling

every sensation is this me

did i ask this to come up it's a way of

learning

how to let go of the desire

to control

so i found it real interesting doing

that

but then again i'm kind of a fanatic

when it comes to

finding out what it says in the suit is

i want to see if it's right

i'm going to practice it

there are some some practices for monks

that are they're called dutonga

practices they're extra

things that monks can do

they're not quite getting into

asceticism

but they're somewhat close

one of the things is only practicing

three postures sitting

standing walking

not lying down

and i did that for a period of time

and i saw there is an advantage you

actually

wind up having more energy when you do

that

which doesn't sound right

but there's three levels of doing it one

level

is you sit in the middle of the room and

you sit

and sleep

and what generally happens is before

long

you start slumping so you have to wake

up

again and then you you try to do that

for three or four hours

see what happens the next

level is leaning against a wall

okay that's what i did i leaned against

the wall for about six months

and the next

level is sitting in a chair

without any arms and sleeping

i knew a monk from burma

that when he died i think he was 96

years old

for 76 years he never

lied down

he always just sat in a chair

he was quite a meditator too

but that is that's a a special kind of

practice other kinds of practice

is uh only

eating what's put in your home spool

so if you see something else on the

table and you want some you know you

don't do that

you only eat what's given to you

so there's a lot of different kinds of

practice

that you can do the

one of the practices is

only

sleeping under a tree

and that's a tough practice it's not

real comfortable under trees if you

haven't noticed for a lot of them

they got roots coming up and all sorts

of things

and there's one practice of never being

under a tree and what they did was they

took their robes

and they made it into a kind of tent

with a stick

and then they would go under there and

they would sit there

that's how they they got out of the

direct sun

so there's there's a lot of different

kinds of practices that you can do

that are kind of extra special

and i found advantage to do a lot of

them

just having three robes

and uh

you have to wear one robe while you wash

the other

and then dry it and then switch back and

forth

it's kind of a

an interesting practice

now the brown robe that i have

i've had that robe for

20 years it was given to me in 1995

and i'm still using it

it's starting to get kind of skinny it's

starting to get bare thread

and it breaks my heart because i love

ropes that

are very old they're comfortable it's

like a pair of

jeans before they still start falling

apart

and that takes away the

thought or necessity of

being attached to certain colors

and being attached to

different kinds of material and that

sort of thing

so it's real interesting

and there i i've had robes that

started out as white

and then i had to uh

dye them and what what we did

in the forest was we got the

the inner bark of the jackfruit tree

and boiled it and then

boiled the the cloth with it

and if you do it just right and you do

it long enough you come out with a robe

that is

really wonderful looking

and it's kind of a glowy orange color

anytime you see a monk that has one of

those you go oh

man i wish i had one of those

but the problem is it only lasts like

that for a little while and you have to

re-dye it

and the way that you set the

dye is by letting it stay

wet and folding it up and putting it in

a dark place

and it gets moldy and the mold is the

thing that sets the color

and it's it's real interesting

doing that sort of thing taking care of

yourself that way and not

going out and buying something new you

don't need to buy something new just

take care of what you got

i have or i had a

spoon i gave it to a layman and he

wanted to wash it and he broke it

that was made out of coconut

when you eat in a in a bowl it goes

up like that a little bit coconut is the

perfect

roundness so that you can can eat

and i had that for

well

87 i had

that for

13 years a coconut shell

that's what i eat ate with

so one of the things about being a monk

is that you don't want to get caught up

too much

in

obtaining things

people used to give me all kinds of

things

paintings and pictures and

i got a lot of robes given to me

and what do i do with my robes there was

one vsoc day

that i had over

50 robes given to me 50 ropes what am i

going to do with 50 roads i got my robe

that i've had for five years i don't

need that

so i wound up sending it to one of the

poor

monasteries in sri lanka

don't need a lot of stuff

and it makes life easier when you don't

have so much

sometimes i get invited to some people's

houses

and they they have this

idea that

uh it's clean

it's orderly and it's cluttered

on a table they'll put all kinds of

little things

and there's no room to walk around and

things like that

that's one of the things that when the

buddha said

lay life is dust dusty and crowded

life as a monk is wide open

i can sleep anywhere and i do

i'm sleeping in all kinds of different

places

and more often than not i wind up

sleeping on the floor because i don't

want to sleep in a bed

i do have a mat now that i'm getting

older i get stiff a little bit

so i have a mat that i sleep on

but i get the best sleep there

because i don't have these

ideas that things have to be in a

particular way

in order for me to be comfortable

don't have that so much easy to let

things go

not be attached people give me something

i accept it with this and find somebody

to give it to

when i was

the last time i was in indonesia

there were about 40 robes that were

donated and i have to accept it

i have to accept all those robes

and i had to get a

place to store them and

a couple years ago that happened and

there was some real problems in

bangladesh where the muslims were going

to the monasteries and burning

clothes and burning monasteries down and

that sort of thing

so as soon as i heard that i

sent 80 80

ropes or was it many boxes

of robes and they didn't get to the

monks

so i said let's do it again

i don't certainly don't need that many

monks that many robes

and we're sangha and sangha there you

don't

own things personally this is for the

sangha

one interesting thing that i

want to make clear for you

is that when you

offer something to me i don't

say thank you very often

why because if i say thank you

then that's a personal gift from one

person to another

and i want you to to have the most

amount of merit you can make when you

give something

so don't give it to me personally

give it to the sangha with the buddha at

its head

and that's how you make the most merit

so i'm not being rude by

by not saying anything or i might say

sadhu which means well done

because i want you to have the highest

amount of

good coming back to you

and in america people get offended if

you don't say

thank you and they hand you something

but i don't and i want i want people a

lot of people to start understanding

that

that is a good thing

by not saying thank you when

you give it with the entire sangha

as your in in your mind

and that means that i can share it with

any other monk around

because it's not a personal gift i would

share personal gifts

anyway but

so it's really kind of interesting

being a monk is good fun but it's also

when you first become a monk it's not

the easiest thing in the world to do

when you become a monk you're taking off

that

that thin layer that you have where

things that touch you don't bother you

so much

and then as you start purifying your

mind some

somebody can say something and it's very

hurtful and it's

wow but you learn to develop your

equanimity and acceptance of things

without trying to change them

so that makes everybody real anxious to

put on the robes right

but it is good fun and i

have had some of the best dominant

discussions

without ever knowing the name of the

person that i was talking to

they just come to a monastery and i was

there and

we'd sit down and start talking and we

might talk for six or eight hours and

just be

fascinated by what was being said and

figuring out how to change the way you

see things and

just being with somebody that cared

enough

to tell you the truth

that's remarkable experiences

good fun

anyway

okay we're almost done with the suit so

and what friend is the signless

deliverance of mind

here with non-attention to all signs

a person enters upon and abides in the

signless collectedness of mind

this is called the signless deliverance

of mind

this is the way in which these things

are different in meaning and different

in name

and what friend is a way in which these

states

are one in meaning and different in name

only

lust is a maker of measurement

hate is a maker of measurement

delusion is a maker of measurement

in a person whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump done away with

so that they are no longer subject to

any future arising

now this was lust

hatred delusion

what's another word for that

craving

i like it i don't like it i take it

personally

okay this is just another way of

describing craving

and when you let go of craving

you will become in our eye

of all the kinds of immeasurable

deliverance

of my the unshakable deliverance of mine

is pronounced the best

now that uncheckable deliverance of mine

is void of lust void of hate

and void of delusion void of

craving lust

is a something hatred

is a something delusion

is a something in a monk whose tapes are

destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump

done away with so that they are no

longer

subject to future arising

of all the kinds of deliverance of mind

through

nothingness the deliverance

the unshakable deliverance of mine is

pronounced the best

now that unshakable deliverance of mine

is void of lust

void of hate and void of delusion

lust is a maker of signs

hate is a maker of signs

delusion is a maker of signs

in a monk whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump done away with

so that they are no longer

subject to any future arising

of all the kinds of signless deliverance

of mind the

deliverance of mine is pronounced the

best

now that unshakable deliverance of mine

is void

of lust void of hate and void of

delusion

this is the way in which these states

are one in meaning and different in name

only that is what the venerable sorry

putta said

the venerable maha kohita was satisfied

and delighted in the venerable

sariputta's words

so the importance

of being able to recognize craving

cannot be

understated and the reminder to

see it and relax and let it be

cannot be stated often enough

it's that important

and when you're able to do that

you will be able to get to a state

where you are going to let go

of a whole ocean of suffering

that's what meditation is for that's the

main purpose

of the buddha's teaching

everything he taught was different

ways of getting to the same end result

and that is experiencing

the coolness of nibana

so i've been talking again for a long

time

do you have any questions

you mean i have explained everything so

well

that you don't have a question okay

when you said a few days ago that

consciousness arises

a hundred thousand times in the duration

of the snap yeah

is that a is this a

fundamental number or is this no

when you get to numbers in buddhism they

get them screwed up quite a bit

it's just a way of saying a lot

okay sometimes people say a million

you've got to take it with a grain of

salt

and the burmese when they were

translating and they

come to numbers they always the

translator always makes a mistake

no it's not 12 it's eight or whatever

so you take take it with a just as

a kind of simile

to give you an idea of how fast these

things really are occurring

can you explain the periods

no let's do it this way a maha kappa

has four asenkayas

and asankaya is a period of time

when the universe is expanding

and then it will stop and it stops

foreign

and then it contracts foreign

and then it stops an asancaya

and asankaya generally speaking

according to buddhist and i don't know

how good their numbers are

with this but they say it's

one asan kaya is 10 with 160 zeros

behind it so that's a long time

but the the universe is always in a

state of flux it's

not i mean it's expanding it stops

it contracts it stops but it's always

doing that

and that's one mahakapa so

one maha kappa is

four asenkayas and that makes it

a 10 with 560 zeros behind it

that's a fairly long period of time

and we've been around many

many many many

mahakapas

being born this close

to a samasan buddha means that you've

done a lot of

good stuff in the past

to be born this close is amazing

i mean his teachings are still

reasonably intact

how lucky you are

so there's

a according to lenny said

he said that the uh

the buddha era that we're in right now

is only going to last about 5 000 years

so we're about halfway through that

and then there's going to be a long

period of time when there

is no idea

of buddhism

and when the world starts suffering

enough

people in the world start suffering

enough and they're starting to get awake

to the fact that they're really causing

themselves pain

then the future buddha will take a look

at the conditions and say

well okay i'm gonna i'm gonna

get out of the two-seat to to heaven be

reborn as a human being

and then he will spread the dhamma

an interesting thing with gotama

was when he became a bodhisattva

when he made the vow in front of

the tomato buddha

he said i'm

going to search and suffer for

six years to show my determination

so people will be inspired by that

not all buddhas go through that some

buddhas

they just get to a certain age in life

and all of a sudden

it happens for them they see it

but there's still the curiosity about

the links of dependent origination and

and having that understanding

so not all of the buddhas really

work as hard as gotama did

and some of the things that he did in

his ascetic practices

are really really disgusting

uh i'm not going to read it to you from

from the suttas but he

drank his own urine and ate his own

thesis

until there was no more

thinking that that was a way to become

awakened because that was some of the

practices that were happening during

that time

he would

he would sleep on thorns and things like

that

he would hang from a tree

upside down because he thought that

might be the way to become enlightened

he starved his body everybody knows

about that one

really a lot

but every practice he did he went to the

end of it and he said i can do this

as a human being this far

nobody can go further than that without

dying

but they can equal what i've done to see

whether the nibana was attained that way

a lot of people in india especially

think foods

if you just eat this food or that food

then you'll become

awakened so he did that

to see how it how it how it went

and he did things like holding his

breath

and you know that partition you have

here

under your tongue he cut it so he could

swallow his tongue

and stop breathing through his lungs

and when he did that the

air started going through his ears and

it was

really loud so he started plugging his

ears up when he was holding

his breath and then

he would have really intense

pains like somebody was

uh two men were big and strong and they

held him over a fire

and it was burning his feet up and

that's what it felt like

and he would stop and he he would

regain a little bit of strength and then

he would say well i think i'll try that

again

see what happens and he'd tortured

himself

and went to the end of it

to see whether is this work or not

and i for one truly am

happy that he proved a lot of those

things don't work

so i don't have to try them

actually you're gonna have to wait for

that

okay i'll do that next retreat

there's there's some some sutas in here

that are really

good fun sutas

that talk about these kind of things

okay yeah yeah be with me i think you

said sari putin attained nabana while

fanning the buddha

was that just an understanding or did he

like blues

consciousness it happened fast

yeah fast so

what happened was sorry puta

like he and mogallana became buddhist

monks

at the same time and mogul lana became

an arahat

in seven days and

sariputa it took him

14 days he was kind of slow

but the reason that that happened was he

kept on

watching how dependent origination

worked and he was

fascinated by it

and when he was fanning the buddha now

he had the potential to become an arahat

really fast while he was fanning the

buddha

the buddha was giving a dhamma talk to

somebody else and sorry put to realize

that the buddha was not even

attached to the dhamma

and he saw that he was he just had one

little tiny attachment and as soon as he

let it go

he had a very quick cessation and

attainment

with fruition of our hardship

in the time that he did this

he actually already have a certain

concentration

i read to you how he went through every

one of the jhanas didn't he

but it can happen at any time i've had

some students that have not even gotten

to the

arupa jhana and they had the experience

of nibbana

now in the past at some point i'm sure

that they did meditation

that's in some lifetimes they had

deep understanding and they saw how this

process worked

and there was no question and they

they had that experience with the

cessation

it's pretty interesting

and pretty impressive to see

yeah that's how that can happen for

anybody that has experienced even the

first

jhana you have the potential to attain

nibana

you have that potential now

it's just a matter of

using the 6rs and understanding

how this process works

so

you ready for it to happen tonight

why not

don't push for it to happen please

well i had a

korean man that did a retreat with me

and he was zooming

up to neither perception or

non-perception

and he just stopped he didn't go any

deeper

and i didn't actually know what to tell

him

so i said why don't you ask yourself a

question

and he was getting angry at me like i i

was stopping him from attaining

nibana and i said

you need to ask yourself

what is making you slow down with your

progress

you just ask one time and this is in the

suttas

what is the cause and condition for this

arising

or not arising as a case may be

so he went off and he asked that

question and his intuition

came back and the next day i

said his face looked a lot brighter and

he was not so

angry at me like i had some control over

it

and he said i stopped waiting

okay waiting is being impatient right

who's impatient

who wants something to happen

right after that he did very nicely

so

another thing i want to mention

because a lot of people have a lot of

different practices

and they go to these different teachers

and the teachers say

well it's really good to take the

bodhisattva vow you ought to take a

bodhisattva

that vow is so strong that it stops you

from attaining nibana

a bodhisattva is a vow to become

a future buddha now there's three kinds

of buddha you know how long they had to

work to get to it

if you don't take a bodhisattva foul

in front of a samasan buddha

and he will look into the future to see

whether you have strong enough

determination

to go through all of the things

necessary to become a buddha

he will tell you don't take the

bodhisattva vow if you can't do it

but these days a lot of mahayana they

they come up with some ideas about the

bodhisattva vow

oh you can renounce nibana you can

become an arahat

renounce nibana and help all beings

help all beings to be get off the wheel

of samsara

well the buddha couldn't do that

if he could we wouldn't be here

right so

why say that sort of thing

it's not true but when you take a

bodhisattva vow

it will stop you from attaining nibana

so what i tell people to do is if

they've taken a bodhisattva vow they can

renounce the bodhisattva vowel

with a solemn mind you go in front of a

buddha image

and you say three times i now

renounce the bodhisattva vow i

give it up

and if you've taken a bodhisattva vow

you will feel strong

relief

now what happens to most people that

take a bodhisattva vow but they don't

take it in front of a buddha

to

to find out if they really can do

it or not is that after a

few thousand lifetimes

they start realizing that this is really

a difficult path

and then you give up the bodhisattva vow

but you're not in a buddha era anymore

so you're stuck in sansara

until you get to be around another in

another buddha era

so i don't think that it's skillful to

take a bodhisattva vow

because you go through a lot of

suffering many lifetimes of suffering

and it's really nasty i mean there's

instances in the jadika tales where the

buddha

he spent eighty thousand maha kappas

in the

frozen realm

you like being cold how about 80 000

maha kappas of it

okay so it's possible that in another

lifetime it is possible

if you don't know

all beings have suffered a lot

but if did you have a

a dream when you were a

kind of a 15 year old or a

teenager like that did you have a dream

of

entering a buddha

you can you can renounce the bodhisattva

but the way you know that you're taking

the bodhisattva

is by having a dream like that

of actually entering in like a

little doorway in front and through into

the buddha

see if you've taken the bodhisattva vow

it doesn't matter whether you think you

know what it is

you will have a dream where you will

enter

into a buddha but the interesting thing

was when i took world religions class

as a catholic i saw the teachings

of the buddhism and i went this is truth

and i

completely was disillusioned

okay

you might have been

a buddhist in some past lifetime

but that doesn't necessarily mean you

took a buddhist vow

save all beings

no

there are some monks that take a

bodhisattva

but they don't advertise it they don't

talk about it at all

as you purify your mind

you naturally start helping

other people and

helping them to overcome suffering

naturally and i

had some mahayana people that practiced

mahayana for a long time and they

came and they saw how much i was giving

dhamma and helping other people and

doing things like that

and they said you're a true bodhisattva

but i'm not a bodhisattva

but that's what it looks like that's

what we do at the center

we help everybody that comes along we do

a lot of good

things

because i think i've met a lot of people

who

are seriously interested in buddhism but

it's almost as if

they unconsciously have a wish to be a

body sapper

without having really appreciated what

the actual corollary

of that decision is yeah do you think

that there are people who sort of quasi

unconsciously commit to being a body

sapper without merely

absolutely and that vow is so strong

that it will stop you from attaining the

obama yeah

that's why i tell a lot of people and i

don't care whether you keep a

bodhisattva

or not it's up to you but i give you the

opportunity to understand

how this really works and i think that's

important so that you can make an

informed decision whether you want to

stay a bodhisattva or not

so how would you even know

i told you you have a dream you enter in

you will and you naturally will have it

that's

so when he talked about the snapping

and hundred thousand consciousness um

could you explain a little bit how the

other conscience was like eye

consciousness

it all works the same way like

the only thing you have to believe in

buddhism

everything happens one thing at a time

that's the only thing you have to

believe and

you'll see it for yourself as you go

deeper into meditation

so it's not a blind belief

and if you have any doubt as to whether

you took a bodhisattva

or not read out that's okay

it's not a bad thing

it would be interesting to see if your

hip rate of stream entry

really tells us how you incorporated

doing that i'm hitching from the

bodhisattva thing

with every group right at the beginning

of your relationship

i think i need to spend some time

educating first

and and when people start having more

confidence

in the teaching of what i'm showing then

i could say it

but it's up to every individual

to make that choice for themselves

but one of the things i found with

that happened to me in when i went to a

zen

retreat was they had me repeating

words from another language

and i found out that i was taking

a bodhisattva and i didn't know it

yeah so i i renounced that right

straight away and i

i told the person that did that you're

not being honest by

giving this bodhisattva to other people

without explaining it

well yeah you have to be serious about

it

is there any dream that tells you how

many lives

not that i know of

okay

so let's share some merit now

may suffering ones be suffering free

and the fear struck fearless being

may the grieving shadow of 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 powers shared

as merit of ours

may they long protect the buddha's

dispensation

you