From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CdU8m26KnTA

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

[Music]

[Laughter]

oh well

okay so

today we're going to do suta number 52

the ata conga

gara suta

if i heard on one occasion the venerable

amanda was living

in a town near vasali

now on that occasion the householder

dasama

had arrived at oh

man patsy liputa

for some business or other

he went to a certain monk

in cuckoo park

after paying

and after paying homage to him he sat

down at one side

where's my oh there it is

and ask him where is the venerable

ananda

where is he living right now

i wish to see venerable ananda

venerable ananda is living in a village

close to this alley

then the householder sadama

had completed his business in paterlea

putta

he went to the venerable ananda in the

village

after paying homage to him he sat down

at one side

venerable amanda has any one thing

been proclaimed by the blessed one who

knows and sees

accomplished and fully awaken

wherein excuse me

if a monk abides diligent ardent and

resolute

his unliberated mind comes to be

liberated

and his

destroyed saints as taints

come to just be destroyed

and he attains a supreme security from

bondage

that he had not attained before

yes halder the householder one such

thing

has been proclaimed by the blessed one

what is that one thing ananda

here householder quite secluded from

sensual

excuse me from sensual pleasures

secluded from

unwholesome states

a monk enters upon and abides in the

first journal which is accompanied by

thinking and examining thought

with joy and happiness born of seclusion

he considers this and understands it

thus

the first jhana is conditioned

volitionally produced

that means he's pointing his mind to

stay on the object of meditation

but whatever his condition and volition

volitionally produced is impermanent

subject to cessation

standing upon that he attains the

destruction of the taints

anytime you get into any one of the

jaundice you don't have

any hindrances arising so your mind is

very clear

but if he does not attain the

destruction of the taints

then because of that desire for the

dhamma

that delight in the dhamma with the

destruction of the five lower fetters

he becomes one due to reappear

spontaneously in a pure abode

and there attained final nibana without

ever

returning from that world

this is one thing proclaimed by the

blessed one who knows

and sees accomplished and fully awakened

wherein if a monk abides

diligent ardent and resolute

his unliberated mind comes to be

liberated

and his destroyed taints come to be

destroyed

and he attains a supreme security from

bondage that

he had not attained before

now in the and gutru nikaya

in book number four

section 120

124 something like that

it talks about

uh

that's what it is and anytime you get

into

[Music]

one of the jhanas you have the potential

to attain nibana and get off the wheel

of sansara

so

one of the things that i have tried to

encourage you for the last month or so

is taking care of

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

and

with your daily activities

be in a genre

now if you can do that

the nibana can happen to you at any time

while you're uh mopping the floor while

you're

doing your wash or while you're doing

any other mundane kind of thing if you

can stay in the janna

you'll feel your mind all of a sudden go

very deep

and you stop what you're doing and just

sit down for a little while and watch

the show

see what's happening so you can attain

nibana

while you're taking a bath

or

cleaning something up or doing some

other mundane kind of thing

this comes from having a pure mind this

comes from

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

now one of the real advantages of

keeping the precepts

is your mind will get concentrated very

quickly

that's one of the advantages of this

and with that deeper kind of

awareness

with your daily activities

you can have nibana happen at any time

during the day

an awful lot of people have this idea

that the only time you can attain nibana

is while you're

sitting in meditation and that's just

not

quite true

that idea came from

people that are practicing one pointed

concentration

they say you can't get into a jhana

unless you're sitting very still

but that's not what is called full

awareness

if you're just doing it while you're

sitting and then forget

forget about the meditation while you're

doing your daily activities

then you lose that concentration

and hindrances come in

so you really

want to try to keep your

practice going with your daily

activities

now sometimes

you have expectations

and you expect

that your mind is going to get to a

certain place and then you just let it

be there and don't don't go

further

but when you stay in the jhana

then you're not going to have any

hindrances arising

and you actually become much more

efficient at what you're doing while

you're doing

it

and you have some joy there and you feel

very comfortable while you're doing it

so you don't have emotional things

that that would come up and distract you

away from

the uh

the hindu distract you away from being

in the genre

i had a discussion with

venerable punigy who was one of my

teachers

and he he'd been going around saying the

first

jhana is nothing you can't attain

nibana by just being in the first jhana

and i showed him the suta

and he stopped doing this he stopped

talking that way

so this this particular suit

it's it gives you a clearer idea of what

ajana

actually is now before

i was starting to talk about getting

mastery of a

jhana mastery of a jhana means that

in the blink of an eye you can go from

just regular mind to jonomite

and you can hold it for as long as you

uh

as you as you can

of course it takes practice

and it is a pretty exacting kind of

way of practicing the jhana

so you make a determination how long

you're going to be

in the jhana

and then you get into the drama and you

stay there for that length

of time say 14 minutes and 31 seconds

and then you try to come out at exactly

that time

and you do it often enough

in in say one sitting you can have

four four or five times you can go

through that

or six times however long you're gonna

sit

and what you're doing is training your

mind

to stay with your objective meditation

and gaining mastery means

mastery to go into the genre

stay in the jhana and pull out of the

genre

at exactly the the

time that you a lot for that

and when you can hit it five or six

times in a row

then you can start extending the amount

of time that you

work with the mastery

after you hit that

five or six times your mind really does

start to expand

and understand more of what you're

trying your

your purpose is

so

everybody that gets in a jhana

is called a janagami

and gami means attainer

so you're a jhana attainer

but when you come here and you do a

retreat i don't really talk about what

genre you're in

until you start getting into the

arupajamas

which happens fairly quickly to be quite

honest

when i first became a monk

in the 20 years before that

i

was always told getting into a genre

it takes a long time

and there was one monk that he became

very

very popular in thailand

and he could sit in the realm of

nothingness

and there is this feeling around him

that

oh he's somebody that's really really

special

but now a lot of my students

go even beyond that

so it's it's pretty amazing the

uh ideas that people

have about

uh the different kinds of genre

i know there's one teacher that says

there's not two different kinds of jhana

well there actually is

because one is an aware genre the other

is a one

pointed jhana

and the one pointed jhana you can't

carry it with you with your daily

activities you can't be walking around

when i came back from asia

and i guess it was 98

uh

i got mocked quite a bit because people

said that

no then in the suti maga it says that

you have to be sitting still

and i kept on saying you can be in a

jhana you can have equanimity

for long periods of time

while you're walking from one place to

another while you're doing your

other daily activities you can still

experience

one of the four lower janas

so

again with distilling of thinking and

examining thought a monk enters upon and

abides in the second genre

which has self-confidence

and very strong joy

and very strong tranquility and

happiness

and you're able to stay in that genre

for a longer period of time

he considers this and understands it

thus

the second genre is conditioned and

volitionally

produced it's vulitionally produced

because you're

you're pointing your mind that way

you're making up your mind that you want

to

get to that drama

but whatever is conditioned and

volitionally produced is impermanent

subject to cessation standing upon that

he attains the destruction of the taints

now one of the things that can happen in

any one of the dramas is when mind is

ready for it you will

be able to feel your mind go very deep

and then you will experience a cessation

okay now you don't know you're in that

state

until you get out of that state you

don't know how long you stayed in that

state

and

when you come out you have

some sharper awareness

of some people even in the first genre

when they experience

that and then they get into a cessation

when they come out

they can see some of the links of

dependent origination very clearly

doesn't happen for everyone it depends

on

the condition of their mindfulness

now when i'm talking about staying with

whichever genre you want to be in at the

time

[Music]

when you hit the sensation

you are becoming more and more

clear

everything around you is more clear your

understanding of how your mind works is

more clear

your

the joy you experience the awakening

factor of joy

is a happy feeling but it doesn't have

the excitement

in it that you have in the lower

genus

and actually it doesn't fade away

that feeling of joy doesn't fade away

but you get so used to being in that

state that you don't

notice it as much at first it's going to

be

pretty exciting but

after a period of time you can still

have

that joy that uh

happiness and full understanding of

how this process works

it becomes more clear more alert

brighter and

things look more vivid more

more 3d like

and colors become much more

vivid and alive

and you start to feel things uh in a

different way

um you get around some plants and you

can

you can all feel the color coming out at

it

coming back at you you can

be standing beside a tree and you can

hear the trees sing

or you can hear the tree

talk this happens with a quiet mind that

is an uplifted happy mind

and i know that i get criticized because

i say

you could you can hear the

the trees you can hear them talking

among themselves

and i've had students that

they thought i was absolutely crazy to

do that

and then they come out here and they

hear the trees talking

the american indians

they talked a lot with the trees

and a pine tree if they were

emotional about something and they were

troubled

they would go sit and put their back

against a pine tree

and that pine tree would take that sad

upset feeling away

so there's all kinds of different ideas

about this sort of thing but the

american indians were

real smart about that sort of thing they

were in touch with nature

much more than we ever will be in this

kind of culture

anyway

you can experience a cessation

anytime your mind

becomes quiet

and it can be a very active time with

your body but all of a sudden your mind

says oh

we're going to take a few steps down and

calm down

and then you can go sit someplace by

yourself without getting disturbed and

watch what's happening with your mind

and the cessation can happen at that

time

so this too is one thing proclaimed by

the blessed one wherein if a monk abides

diligent ardent loot he attains

the supreme security from bondage

that he had not attained before

again with evading a way of joy a monk

enters upon and abides in the third

jhana

which has

equanimity balance of mind

and full awareness of things around them

now a lot of people that are doing one

pointed concentration they'll say well

you lose your body at the third jhana

and in a way it's true what happens when

you get

to the third genre as you stop

noticing things in your body as much

you lose feeling in your hands or you

lose feeling in an

arm or a leg for a period of time

and if you put your attention

on your hands you will feel your hands

but when you stay with your object of

meditation

you just don't notice what's happening

in the body

and you'll go along for a period of time

and you'll start losing more and more

feeling in the body

as long as you don't pay attention to it

and the feeling that's in your heart

will move up into your head

this is a good sign

i had one student some years ago

that was so attached to the idea that

they were supposed to

have that feeling in the heart

that when the feeling went up in the

head she started fighting it

and she pushed it back down to her heart

and she almost drove herself crazy

but she wouldn't tell me that that's

what she was doing

so that was a problem

when she finally told me that's what she

was doing i

i told her in no uncertain terms to stop

stop resisting what's happening with the

meditation

your job is to observe you're not your

job is not

to control

that's what the definition of

mindfulness is all about

it's your observation power of how

mind's attention moves

and when it doesn't move the way you

want it to now you're fighting with the

truth because the truth is

when your mind wants to do something it

it

will try to do it

so you you don't use the six r's as some

kind of

club to beat your mind

back to where you think it's supposed to

be

you allow that to be there but you don't

keep your attention on whatever is

distracting you

even though it's a feeling of loving

kindness

you don't hold on to that feeling you

don't try to expand that feeling it'll

expand all of it on its own

when you're doing the practice properly

so it's pretty amazing to watch

uh how some people resist

because they have this idea that

mind is supposed to do this and i've

been sitting so

long i get into a habit of

just going so deep and then

not keeping your resolution

not keeping your

[Music]

mindfulness and awareness you just get

caught in

that feeling

and you can get stuck there for a long

period of time

but when you're practicing six hours not

as a way to control

things but as a way to observe things

and you don't keep your attention on

your distraction

you stay with your objective meditation

then your mind will all of a sudden one

day

you you get used to being oh it just

goes this deep and that's what i

sit in for a period of time then i get

up and walk away and do other things

i had a student in indonesia

for three years

she would sit every day

she had it in her mind that she needed

to sit for one hour and she never

extended that

and for three years i

did everything i could to get her to

stop doing that

she said after i sit for an hour

nothing is happening

so i got things to do i could get up and

walk away and start doing

these other things

and finally i had to threaten her with

my walking

stick i said i'm gonna hit you the next

time you

don't go beyond an hour

and she finally heard me

and all of a sudden she was going so

deep she just came to the interview and

she was just shaking her head i can't

believe how much deeper i'm going

i see what you finally are you're

telling me about

and i told her that every time i saw her

for three years

and finally she heard it when i

threatened to

hit her with a stick if she didn't

follow the directions that i was giving

her i was tired of it

and her progress in meditation was

fantastic after that i mean it was she

really

really did well

and she got to the third stage she got

to

become an onagami but

she just had this idea

that the meditation is supposed to be

like this

and that's what i'm going to put up with

and any anything other than that i'm not

going to mess with it

well

now i bring it up anytime in indonesia i

bring i bring her

situation up just to impress on

everybody else that there's

more to the meditation even if you've

had an experience of becoming a sodapan

or there's still more to do

the buddha had 45 years of telling

people the same thing over and over and

over again

he had magnificent patience

my patience doesn't last so long

so i threaten

[Laughter]

anyway

he considers this and understands that

thus

this third genre is conditioned and

volitionally produced

but whatever is conditioned and

volitionally produced is impermanent

subject to cessation

standing upon that he attains the

destruction of the taints again

experiencing the cessation

that is the true destruct destruction of

the taints

while you're in that state

but if he does not attain the

destruction of the taints

become an arahat without ever returning

from that world

this too is one thing proclaimed by the

blessed one

wherein a monk abides diligent ardent

and resolute

he attains the supreme security from

bondage

that he had not attained before

each level of jhana is a learning level

and you're teaching yourself continually

by letting go of your old

experiences not making a big

deal out of whatever

has arisen

the second step of the the six

hours is release release

don't keep your attention on anything

that calls your attention do it just let

it be there

then you relax and when you relax

you're letting go of that craving

and now your mind is pure so you don't

have

the clinging and you don't have the

habitual tendency and you don't have

the birth of other kinds of

action and you don't have

sorrow lamentation pain grief and

despair

you let these go now

some people say well how do you

uh i just had a member of the family die

and i have a lot of grief and i have a

lot of sadness

what most people do when they have this

kind of

experience is they fight

with that feeling they don't like that

feeling

they indulge in that feeling and they

claim it as theirs personally

now from the studies done

with elizabeth kubler-ross

she says that

if you resist and try to push away

those thoughts and feelings even though

they're

they're coming up often if you try to

push them away

you're going to have some kind of

physical illness

within two years of the death of that

person

and i've seen it happen a lot

i've seen people that they

are in a state of depression continually

not liking that that their

loved one is gone and they can't talk

with them anymore

so when i was working with hospice and i

was working at a nursing home with

people that were dying i also worked

with the families

to teach them that just because a

painful feeling arises

doesn't mean you have to make it go away

there's pleasant feeling and there's

painful feeling

and it's all right for either one to be

there

it has to be all right because that's

the truth

when that feeling arises if you make a

big deal out of it

and fight it and try to push it away

you only make that pain bigger and more

intense

you have to allow that feeling to be

there

it's painful yeah it is

and it's okay for it to be painful

but you still relax

like try lightening your mind just a

little bit

not making it some kind of big like some

kind of

joke but lightening your mind

that's what the smile is for well i

don't feel like smiling

don't care there's a lot of studies that

are being done

on smiling right now and how that

changes your perspective

even when you don't feel like smiling

so i tell people to do some

things when they have a loved one

die one thing i have them do

is have a nice picture of that

person that has died and talked to him

tell them how sad you are and how

you you miss them being around

also i've i've had people

sit in front of a mirror and smile even

when they're sad

now your mind can take off and try to

try to tell you

oh my face is ugly when i'm smiling and

i'm not really very good

you six are that kind of

um perception

the nature of the sadness that occurs

when your

loved one dies and you truly

do feel sorry for that

the nature is that it will eventually

get less and less

and then it might be a month or two

months or three months

it's not quite so bad

and then you'll get hit with it all of a

sudden

you'll get hit with that sadness and

that frustration and anger whatever

whatever grief that arises

everybody is looking for

reasons that it happens

and that's what a lot of religions

talk about the reasons that it happened

well god

called me and i'm supposed i'm i'm in a

heavenly realm and

i'm in a better place and all of these

kind of things

[Music]

but

when i give you instructions and loving

kindness

i tell you one of the things that has to

happen

is that you send loving kindness

to a person that's living now this is

for the meditation only

if you have sadness coming up

you can send loving and kind thoughts

to the person that has

gone away

and wish them well

now the reason i tell you not to do that

while you're at a retreat

is because

you need to have that person alive

and that energy the the life energy is

there

but that doesn't mean that you can't

send loving and kind

thoughts to someone that has passed you

just won't be able to get into the genre

so and how many times

have i given you the definition of

compassion

it's seeing someone else in pain

allowing them to have their own pain

and love them without any conditions at

all

wishing them well

now you can do that for people that

have died and they can feel that

and they will appreciate that and they

will help you as much as they can

even though they're not in a physical

form anymore

so when when you're getting

into a jhana and you can stay in that

genre with your daily activities

and a big shock of somebody that dies

that you were very close to and you

weren't prepared for them to die

it can knock you out of the drama

because your mindfulness

is not so good at that time

then you use your compassion

and send them loving and kind thoughts

and send them to yourself

and send them to all of the family

members

remember you never have to be

hopeless or helpless

there's always something that you can do

that can help other people around you

and people that have

left this plane

so that's how you overcome

grief and grief can be any any number of

different hindrances

some people they get angry some people

they feel guilty because they didn't

do or say something while that person

was alive

there was a lady that i knew that she

she was staying with this friend

and she was always with her

and she had to get up and go to the

toilet

and she came back and the friend was

dead

and she felt so guilty because she

wasn't

with that person as they died

what's there to feel guilty about really

you do better by sending loving kindness

to all of the relatives that are

suffering

there's always something that you can do

and say and the way you can

be that helps other people around you

that's part of the practice isn't it

i mean that's a whole reason that you

wind

looking for peace and calm that's why

you come to

uh to buddhism

i when i came finally found buddhism

i was in a state of depression all the

time

not happy

and i was suffering so much i started

telling myself

there's got to be something better than

this the life

is not worth this and i tried

being doing the christian way and

praying and that sort of thing but it

didn't really suit me very well

so when i started hearing about

meditation

and it's supposed to bring you peace

then i started really getting interested

in

learning how to let go of the

the depression i was extremely

shy

and i spent a lot of time by myself

but always looking for an answer i wound

up reading

all of the the great philosophers of our

times

in the great books i read all the great

books and all

of these different philosophers had all

these different ideas about

life and how to live it

but that wasn't very satisfying that was

only intellectual knowledge

but the beauty of buddhism is that

you are your own teacher and it's not

intellectual knowledge that you learn

when you are

practicing meditation it's practical

you get to see how you cause yourself

suffering

and you get to see the different

things that you can do to help overcome

that suffering

so

the whole idea of

overcoming the taints destroying the

things

you do that little bits at a time

that's what the third noble truth is

about right

letting go of the suffering

the more you practice your mindfulness

the more

you practice staying in a genre

while you can

and never criticize yourself

because you don't do it in exactly the

same way every time

then you can

teach yourself some brilliant things

and those things that you learn for

yourself

you can be an example of how to

overcome suffering for other people

now the big thing that was going around

when i was

first learning about meditation

everybody wanted to become a teacher

and being a teacher

is

it takes a certain kind of person to be

a teacher

to be able to explain things so that

people understand it so you can use the

language that's

not highly intellectual

and still get the idea across

i ran across a thing in a reader's

digest it was an

old one it was like from the 60s or

something like that

and it was talking about

the simpler you keep your language

the easier it is for everybody to

understand it

and then they did an example

they didn't use a word they didn't use

any word that was over four letters long

and as soon as i read that i understood

exactly what they were saying

and that's one of the that's one of the

goals of being a teacher

is to be able to explain things so that

people

really do understand and they can try

themselves

to be a teacher you need to

be able to repeat the same thing over

and over and over and over and over

again without losing your enthusiasm

to be a teacher you have to go through

your own experiences and be able to

explain those experiences to other

people

in a way that they want to try it

so this goes all the way through all of

the

the rupa jhanas the aru pajamas and it's

basically

saying the same thing that

uh this is

this is volitionally produced

why is it volitionally produced because

you're taking a conscious effort

to point your mind to that object of

meditation

and then use the six hours to continue

on with it

and you have to learn

to develop your own patience

that's another thing with being a

teacher

and i had this stuff down my throat

by usain ananda because

every day i was i was in i was

patient i was patient as long as i

got what i wanted when i wanted it

but when it didn't happen

i'd get impatient geez i wish it would

hurry up and

get here

so he was continually giving me that

lesson

over and over and over again and

eventually i actually heard what he had

to say

that's why the repetition

a lot of people don't like to read the

suttas because it has so much repetition

in it

but you have to understand

that you have to hear things at least

three times

before it starts to sink in

and that's how the buddha was so so

brilliant about

things because he could explain things

that

and i'd repeat it over and over and over

again just like the

the six sets of six

there's some people who listen to it and

they're bored by it and they let their

mind go

away i feel sorry for those kind of

people because they're not

actually hearing and putting into use

the lessons of

that suta

and that suta is very very powerful

so this particular suta goes through

everything up to cessation

cessation is not volitionally produced

it happens when the conditions are right

and like i said you don't have

consciousness

and because you don't have consciousness

you're not aware of things around you

you're not aware of anything that's

happening with your body you're not

aware of anything that's happening

within

other things around you at all

so

the sutas on the uh

janagami one of the things

it says is that if you become

a jhanagami

you'll be reborn in a heavenly realm

when you die from this realm and from

there you will attain

our hardship

and get off the wheel of zanzara

which i'm looking forward to i think

that would just be

great

so okay

i've been talking for a long time

now it's your turn do you have any

questions

you have a question

sure is quiet hello

hello yes

i got this question uh you have to turn

the microphone on okay

how about now

wait just a second

okay try again yeah uh my question

is related to nutrients

i don't hear you my question is related

to nutrients

now i'm starting now i'm beginning to

hear you

yeah so my question is related to

nutriments

uh when in samadhiti it says

there are four kinds of nutrients

and the first one is physical food like

palpable food so my question is like if

if there is a arahant

does it mean that arahan doesn't get

hungry

no they get hungry

they eat food

but the nutriment that they were talking

about

was

[Music]

before right before contact

contact is a kind of nutriment

okay and that means

that you're making a big deal out of

whatever arises you're keeping that

contact as soon as it happens

then you make a big deal out of it and

it sticks around for a long time

so you need to let go of that

let go of that contact let let go of the

formations

and stay with your object of meditation

and the letting go

of the hindrances

okay monday i will ask another question

okay it's related to jana's like for

example

uh if someone is in fourth jana

and mind automatically switch to fifth

jana

that happens

and uh in that case can i say something

like

he does not explode everything in fourth

jhana

maybe not necessarily see when you when

you're practicing

uh you're practicing

mastery you make a determination

to go no higher than

the whatever genre you're doing

so you're training your mind to be able

to go to that drama

and you're not going to experience any

of the other genres

it will just automatically go to that

genre and stay with it as long as you

make the determination for it

okay okay

those two are my questions one more

thing is a happy new year

oh thank you and you too thank you very

much smiling have fun

thank you okay hi bankei

hey how are you good how are you thanks

good yeah i'm a beginner of train

and uh i i do have

some question on the practice i think

the biggest trouble that i have

i when i meditate i have the pulsation

sensation my head

okay so what do you do with that

uh i i so i

listen to your talk a lot so maybe not

about maybe

in the past months i do understand from

your talk

so i think i took i made a big deal

before

and i took it personal uh

don't make sense to me but when practice

not have

trouble to do the relaxing step

oh when i try to relax i feel nothing

and sometimes when i try to

not try when i see to see if what i can

feel

it makes sensation younger

you're trying too hard you're not

smiling

enough you need to improve your

mind fullness okay

and you have to let go of the

expectation

that whenever i use the relaxed step

it's going to feel

really relaxed you have to let go of

that idea

sometimes you might have to

do the six hours

five or ten times before you actually

feel the relax

but you're relaxing every time

you just don't feel it it's not as big

as you think it's supposed to be and

then you get frustrated

and you're with the frustration then

you're not on your objective meditation

and then you have more and more emotion

and that that's a problem so you're

trying too

hard

you know when i give a retreat i

always tell people they have to smile

they have to laugh laugh with yourself

for trying too hard

and you have to have fun with it you're

over serious

you have an expectation that you want it

to be

in a particular way and it's not going

to be like that

it's going to be different so let go of

your expectation

and relax into it and just have

fun just kind of make it into a game

okay

okay uh yeah it sounds easy but it looks

to me so if i don't know how

what's the feel of relaxation how can i

do that

my own more you will improve your

mindfulness and

you will see for yourself remember

you're teaching yourself

but you're indulging in your expectation

of what you think it's supposed to be

and you have to let go of that

okay and smile more all the time

okay okay and be lighter be lighter with

your expectations

you don't know what it's supposed to be

so you kind of project the way you think

it's supposed to be

and when you don't meet that expectation

then you cause yourself more and more

suffering

and that's funny in itself so laugh with

that

okay okay

thanks okay good

yes uh hi bondage just had a couple of

questions

um so uh so in this suta

it uh seems to imply that

if you have reached the arupa janas

then you're automatically uh you're no

longer

born into human uh in the human form

and that you're essentially um destined

for

for uh nibana right

um and also you had said at the end of

the talk that

uh if you uh ever ex if you experience a

jana then you

um it you're not going to deteriorate

from that state and go back to

um right you'll be reborn in

either deva loca or if you go further

than that

into the other uh into the brahmaloka

uh right so so does that then

imply that if you uh attain any jhana at

all then that you

you've automatically become a serta

certain partner

because of that experience

you have the potential to become a solar

panel

right but it is still possible to to um

to lose uh to lose the progress that

you've made and

no it's such a wholesome state

getting into that genre the first genre

is

is amazingly

important there there's three

three different places that are

amazingly important

in the progress the first is getting

into the first china

it's such a wholesome state

that you can never do meditation again

but on the deathbed you're going to

remember that joy and that's going to

elevate you to a devaluka

or possibly it depends on

what you do with the meditation

many times okay

um i just had uh one other question

okay um which which is which is related

to my practice

okay uh so i uh so last week when i was

uh

here uh i don't know if you remember but

i

um i had quite an interesting experience

i don't know exactly whether it was

a jana or not but it was certainly

different from

anything else that i had experienced

before

um but since then um

so what i've experienced in my life is

that when

the outer circumstances are good then

my mind settles down very easily and i'm

able to meditate for longer periods and

become more concentrated

but when uh but when there's something

stressful or something that requires

a lot of attention that i need to think

about then my practice kind of

it's difficult for me to to keep the

concentration and the

you you would rather think about an

indulgent

rather than stay with your object of

meditation is that what you're saying

[Music]

i mean i um probably

not probably really

it's a trap that we all get caught in i

i can laugh

because i've been there i i've had the

same kind of stuff happen to me

so i can laugh with it and it's it's

like

one time you have a really good sitting

and then you get up

and you walk and you come back and you

start telling yourself you want that

sitting to continue now and be as good

as it was

and it never happens yeah

it's because you put in too much energy

you're putting too much effort

right and that stops you from

getting into that quiet space that you

had experience that you want

that's when you really need to develop

your sense of humor about how

you're causing yourself all of this

suffering and

laugh with yourself

and then you

smile more

and lightly start again

lightly

everybody that doesn't meditate it all

has the same experience like that

right i think i've also seen that

uh doing things like singing or

uh engaging in some kind of service to

other people

uh can also help oh yes but

that's that's what i i'm trying to get

you to to help other people

by being an example and by being an

example means helping other people

overcome their suffering

that's a great thing to do

right um well uh thanks very much

pandey and i'll i'll be back

to get more advice come and visit me

when you can

i i will definitely do that this year

okay thanks very much bunji

i i look forward to seeing you thank you

okay

hello hey oh sorry go ahead go ahead

whichever

[Laughter]

how are you so sofia i'm doing very well

ponte thank you

you have a good christmas yes very

restful

thank you you know it's really kind of

amazing

this is the first year i've been here in

the states for christmas

in 10 years and when

in asia oh

it's just another day it's like no big

deal

we had some snow here so it was very

very beautiful

white christmas oh god i'm

jealous it was just

enough just a little powder so yeah

that really makes it feel like christmas

right

yes

what did you have to ask yes i was just

curious about

what you mentioned in your talk today

about

being able to hear the trees talk

yeah and i was wondering

two things one what do they talk about

and two can they talk to you or can you

talk to them

well i hear them sing when when it's uh

uh raining they get real

happy when i'm screaming

and they have they have fears and

anxieties they hear

somebody is like uh i have a neighbor

that he is

uh or he was a lumberjack

so he was cutting down trees all the

time

and i had this man that he didn't

believe in in

talking trees at all and he went out

walking

where this lumberjack had looked at

these five trees

that were nice and straight and they

were big enough around

to chop down and he was talking

about that with somebody else

and when my friend went up near these

trees

he heard them say please don't

cut us down

and he came running back to me and his

eyes were about that big

he said the trees really talk and i said

well yeah

and he said well they talked to me i

said what did they say

and they said they didn't want to get

chopped down so i went to the neighbor

and i told him please leave these trees

alone

and then i had i had the man go back

and tell the trees that it was safe that

they could have a happy life

and they thanked him very much

that's funny the thing with talking with

trees is you have to have a very quiet

mind

and you can ask them questions

yes

excuse me i have something caught my

throat

you can you can ask them about what the

weather is doing

or is it time to go to sleep yet

in the winter they

will they will sleep when it gets cold

and in the springtime they feel all

energized

they'll talk to you about that sort of

thing

but you have to just quiet your mind

when you're when you're around them and

if you have an emotional problem

go sit by lean against a pine tree

you'll see the american indians were

amazing with that

they were so in touch with the land

that they learned a lot

they learned a lot by talking to

different plants to see whether

they were edible or not or they were

used for medicine

would one's mind have to be really

trained for something like that

right it seems like

the meditation i'm teaching you when you

get to a certain place and your mind is

quiet you can start hearing them

now not everybody is is able to do that

it depends on their sensitivity to

feeling

okay okay thank you monty

happy new year happy new year to you new

year man

thank you

hi uh ponte can you hear me okay here

again

oh cool um so i'm having one of these

trying too hard experiences that i hope

you could you can maybe help me a little

bit with

okay i talked to david recently about

this and

i've been doing the forgiveness

meditation for a few weeks now

and i've learned gradually that i was

kind of saying the phrase is a bit too

fast

i was correlating them with the breath

when i shouldn't really have been

and that has is improved but i've

noticed now that

it's become a big distraction for me in

that

when i do the out breath i feel almost

as a cue

to relax or a cue to say

the phrase you know i'm just asking you

should i just ignore that should i do it

you should do it

you should ignore the breath completely

okay

you're just distracting yourself so

forgive

yourself for being distracted

relax and start again

okay so ideally i should not even know

like my

problem i guess is that i'm aware don't

pay attention okay cool

yeah okay i guess that's it all right

thanks

hello

[Music]

you said earlier that the jhana of

cessation was not volitional

so does this mean that it is

is that you you're pointing your to your

mind towards an

object of meditation that is volition

right including the cessation of

perception is also

volitional

no that happens by itself it's not

volitional

okay so does this mean that someone who

is

at neither percent perception or

non-perception

might be there for a long time until

it's still you're still holding on to an

object of meditation even though that

object of meditation is quietness

that's still volitional it's with the

cessation

of perception feeling and consciousness

that's not volitional that happens by

itself

so someone in in neither perception

there's nothing for them to do too

there's something for them to do they're

staying

with the quiet mind they're watching the

quiet mind

that means it's volitional

and then you just just wait until the

non-perception happens

if you're waiting then you're wanting it

and that doesn't work so good so you

just

you just observe just keep observing

until it happens on its own when

conditions are right for it to happen

no matter how long that takes right well

that's entirely up to you and your mind

is your mind pure enough

see when you get to that state

you have an exceptionally pure mind

you don't have any distractions

your mind is completely

clean and you keep

relaxing if there's any kind of

disturbance that starts to come up

so you're you're experiencing as

as pure a mind as a human being can have

before they attain the obama

[Music]

okay thank you happy new year

oh thank you and same to you

hi hello

i on the back of the previous uh

question

um when you're practicing in

um your previous state of mind or state

of jhana would be

let's say john 7 or a

when you go back and do the daily life

and come back the next day

you may not get to that state of mind or

genre you won't get to that

this is with the four lower genres that

i'm talking about

okay being able to walk around and be in

in in terms of the practice when you do

sedimentation and

when when i do that um of course one day

you are there but next day you go back

to daily life

and you come back at night and want to

sit and um

the mind either is busy or it doesn't

get to that estate

um do i need to go from the first

journal or just practice

it may get back to that john or not no

when people get into the arupa dramas

i generally recommend that they do they

start

with loving kindness

and when they get to the loving kindness

their mind will

settle down and all of a sudden it'll

jump to equanimity

and then it will go to cessation

or the not cessation but the

uh neither perception or non-perception

but it'll do it all on its own

so what i generally recommend is start

with

the meta and let it let

mine do what it's going to do it might

jump

all the way to the cessation and might

jump to

uh infinite space

doesn't matter let your mind do what

it's going to do

by itself remember you're just there to

observe you're not

there to control right

and for instance if there's kind of like

exceptional day or

the the work is hard and sometimes it

doesn't even go to

deeper state yeah just yeah

but you start loving kindness

you you're going to get to that pretty

quick

okay and that would be starting with a

spiritual friend and

in six directions no no there's six

directions

the sixth direction okay right the other

question i have is that

in some of the texts sutras they talk

about four genres some

others they talk about eight do they

basically combine all the first

four and also the the fifth genre in one

genre when they talk about four ghana

you have to understand that the buddha

when when he's talking about the

eightfold path

and he talks about right concentration

he's always talking about the first four

genres the fourth drama has four

parts to it they're different states

i don't give those numbers i generally

say that it's

infinite space infinite consciousness

joy or

equanimity

but i don't give them numbers that's an

american way of

kind of following up things and

it gets confusing

right so when the buddha talks about for

jhana so the

the fourth genre is basically contained

three

or four aru pajanas or the last one is

right right okay there are different

levels of equanimity is what it

really boils down to

okay got you well one last question

um when you want to practice the the

mastery of genres

sometimes it's difficult to distinguish

between the

first or second or basically the uh the

the body

genres um not really

you're learning about the dramas all the

time

in one of the sutas

sorry puta stayed in meditation all day

and he was coming back to his his hut

and uh

sorry ananda saw him

coming in the distance and he went up to

sariputa and he said

monte you're your

countenance you're you're very

uh very

bright and you're very clear and you're

very

composed what drama did you sit in today

and sorry putta said i sat all day in

the first chunk

right and the next day he comes walking

and

walking back from his daily sit and

again ananda said you're

you're radiant you really are very

beautiful and uh

very inspiring what jhana did you sit in

today and he said well i sat in the

second jhana

all day now when you're doing

mastery you will see the difference

very clearly between the first channel

and the second job and you're teaching

yourself a lot of lessons

about each of those genres how you can

get into them how you can practice them

but generally in order to get into genre

just bring up the feeling that you

experience in that journal and

that would be the object of meditation

when you're when you're getting into

mastery you

you have to let's say you're just doing

it to the first

genre you're doing it for 15 minutes at

a time

you make a determination not to go any

higher than

the first drama

right

and when you go through

all of the different stages of the first

genre

then you make a determination now i'm

gonna go

no higher than the second job

and you do that for 15 minutes a half an

hour and an

hour and you hit those

and then you go to the third journal and

you do that again

and then the fourth channel

you can do the arrow pajamas if you want

but they're a little bit more difficult

but is there an object for each of those

let's say if you sit for 10 minutes and

you

practice determination i guess the up

yes of course and the object would be

the

feeling of the first genre i assume if

you want to go to the first genre

or the feeling of genre right you

already know what it feels like

then you try to get in at first you're

not going to even get into the first

genre and then

you you'll you're teaching yourself all

the time

and then you start hitting it now and

then

and then it starts you hit it closer and

closer to the time

and then you continue on

right

thank you so much okay

i have more questions i don't know if

others have questions i keep asking

questions

[Laughter]

sorry um don't be sorry be happy

sure um buddha talks about the

eightfold past the

right mindfulness or the wholesome the

um the harmonious mindfulness

he talks about the full foundation of

mindfulness the body and body feelings

and mind and

object of the mind

in this meditation i assume we don't

need to

focus on each aspect but

the major question is that how do you

meditate mind in the mind and

what he meant by mind because i guess

object of the mind is talking about

getting in and out of the dramas

oh the whole thing with the foundations

of mindfulness

it is about a drama practice with

insight right

so there is no need to individually

practice on each foundation of

mindfulness no

okay that an awful lot of people get

confused about that well i'm going to

take mind his mind as my object the

meditation

see the whole thing is those four

foundations

you got to feel all of them you got to

see all of them

all right okay they're not

divided well i'm just gonna

walk feeling if you don't have a body

how do you have feeling

yeah i was i was i had troubling uh with

distinguishing between each of course

as the whole body and mind yeah right

right well thank you so much

happy new year wish you the best in 2021

thank you and you thank you thanks

hope to see you soon any other question

not now thank you so much okay

have a great one

thanks bye

anybody else

okay let's hear some merit then

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fierce drug

fearless be may the grieving shed

all grief and may all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that

we've 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

sadhus foreign

you