From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V3ub1v6qz88

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

okay by popular demand

now this is is interesting because at

uh in in the

mahabharata it tells

about the whole story of the

the buddha was dwelling at gaia and

he converted a whole bunch of monks

and it was 1250 monks

and here it says that it's headed by

together with a thousand miles so

there's a little

discrepancy in the numbers

there there he addressed the monks thus

monks all is burning

and what monks is all that is burning

the eye is burning forms

are burning i consciousness is burning

eye contact is burning and whatever

feeling arises with eye contact as

conditioned whether pleasant

or painful or neither painful nor

pleasant

that too is burning

with what burning with the fire of lust

burning with the fire of hate burning

with the fire of delusion

burning with birth aging and death

with sorrow lamentation pain grief

and despair now this particular

suit doesn't say

what it's burning with and it's burning

with breathing that's the cause of the

fire

and that's a hint for you to see what's

happening before

the ear is burning

sounds are burning here

consciousness is burning ear contact is

burning

and whatever feeling arises with

ear contact as condition

whether pain pleasant or painful or

neither

present nor painful that too

is burning burning with what

burning with the fire of lust burning

with the fire of hatred

burning with the fire of delusion and

remember

delusion is always taking it

personal

okay so it's

do i like it i don't like it

it's basically what it's saying right

now

when it's talking about lust hatred and

delusion

it's the identification with

the liking and with the dislike and what

is that

the big c crazy

so in in a roundabout way what the suit

is is saying is the same thing i was

just saying

but it's just doing it a little bit

the nose is burning odors are burning

nose consciousness is burning nose

contact

is burning and whatever feeling arises

with nose contact

as conditioned whether painful or

pleasant or neither painful or pleasant

that too is burning burning with what

burning with the fire of lust

burning with the fire of hatred

burning with the fire of delusion

burning with birth aging and death

with sorrow lamentation pain

grief and despair i'd say

the tongue is burning

flavors are burning unconsciousness is

burning

tongue contact is burning and whatever

feeling arises with tongue contact as

conditioned whether it plays pleasant or

painful or neither painful or pleasant

that too is burning burning with butt

burning with the fire of lust burning

with the fire of

hatred burning with the fire of delusion

burning with birth aging and death

with sorrow lamentation pain grief

and despair the body

is burning

tangibles are burning body consciousness

is burning body contact is burning

and whatever feeling arises with body

contact as condition whether

pleasant or painful or neither painful

or pleasant

that too is burning burning with what

burning with the fire of lust with the

fire of hatred with the fire of delusion

burning with birth aging and death

with sorrow lamentation

pain grief and despair i say

mind is burning mine

my

mental formations are burning my

consciousness is burning mind contact is

burning whatever feeling arises with

mind contact

as conditioned whether pleasant or

painful or neither painful nor pleasant

that too

is burning burning with what

burning with the fire of lust

burning with the fire of delusion

and hatred burning

with birth aging and death with sorrow

lamentation pain grief and despair

seeing thus amongst the instructed noble

experiences revulsion towards the eye

towards forms towards eye consciousness

towards eye contact towards

whatever feeling arises with eye contact

as conditioned

whether pleasant or painful or neither

painful

or pleasant experiences revulsion

towards the ear towards the nose

towards the tongue towards the body

towards the mind

towards whatever feeling arises with

mind contact as conditioned

experiencing revulsion he becomes

dispassionate

now the revulsion is see the pain

of these things as they arise

you're starting to see that on a very

fine level

so as you calm down you start seeing

these on finer and finer

levels of understanding

and the revulsion is just seeing

the disturbance

because your mind is very peaceful and

it's good

all of a sudden there's this disturbance

that arises

and you you say oh that things are that

so we don't have any disturbance here

and as you let that go

you become this passionate force

and the dispassion means seeing it

without getting involved with it

seeing it as it truly is just

part of a process

that has nothing to do with you involved

in

is just part of an arising

and passing away a phenomena

as you become more calm

and you see these in finer and finer

ways

you start noticing what happens right

before that

that light disturbance occurs

and when you recognize that

and you start letting go of it right

then

you are experiencing very deeply

the cessation of suffering

through dispassion his mind is liberated

through seeing how beginning origination

he understands destroyed his birth

a holy life has been lived what had to

be done

has been done there is no more state of

being

this is what the blessed one said now

the thing

is with this particular sutta

it's a very short suta

and the buddha would come along and he

would give a suta and if nobody

asked him to explain it more deeply

i would assume that everybody understood

it

and as these monks had been practicing

meditation for a long time

and they'd been practicing one point in

concentration

now he added that extra step of relaxing

and he started see they started saying

with insight

how dependent origination actually works

because that's what we're talking about

here

all of these monks became aura

with just hearing this

this very simple thing

on what is burning

and how is it burning now you notice

that

each one of these different things

has burning in it

the eye has burning form has

burning high consciousness has burning

now we're seeing dependent origination

and we're seeing it through the eyes of

dependent origination

and we're seeing it through the eyes of

the formable trees

okay the four noble truths are really

the the method

of being able to recognize the subtlest

parts

of craving and how it arises

and it shows you how to let it go

that's that's the beauty of the

affordable truths

when you're able to see this subtle of

rising and passing away your six

r's should be pretty automatic it

doesn't take any effort

it's just recognizing

i recognizing form

and six hiring them the whole time

relaxing into that letting go of that

burning letting go of that craving so it

doesn't arise anymore

now somebody that's just starting out in

meditation you hear about this stuff

and it sounds like it's way

far away this is so difficult

but it really kind of depends on

the individual and it kind of depends

on their curiosity

as to being able to watch how

it all occurs

the more curious you are

the more you see subtle things

the nutriment is basically

the craving that's the cause of the

nutriment arising

he's saying that

i'm catching because earlier in the day

he

read the 666 before lunch

and i caught sort of the

how the flame simile

comes into this and so yeah

hear that in that way tonight

but it gets into the you know yeah

pretty amazing

the whole thing that we have to realize

is the subtlety of creating

it's a tiny little flash

and there's bernie

and what happens is

as you calm your mind down more and more

through the method that i'm teaching you

and you start realizing that this

method is not about

loving kindness and it's not about

compassion and it's not about joy and

it's not even about

equanimity it's about being

able to observe in

subtler and subtler ways how

all of these things arise

and as you do that and you start

seeing and you start relaxing and you

start letting go of these things

you feel your mind become very much

more happy more uplifted

because you're really starting to

understand

and it's easy to catch these things

way before they come up and cause all of

these problems

so the whole point of getting you to do

more tranquility and

recognizing through the calm line

how mind starts wobbling

and when it first starts to wobble

that's when you start six arms

and then the wobble will cease and your

mind will stay on your object to

meditation again

but it'll start wobbling again

and quite often what happens

especially when we're in the lower jaws

or just beginning

is your mind starts wobbling and you

don't really

your observation power is not very

strong

so it it wobbles and then it starts

wobbling away and then it's caught

okay so the importance of

using the six r's and allowing

that whatever it is that distracted you

to be there

not trying to change it not trying to

make it any different

just allow it to be there but don't pay

attention to it anymore

and relax into that and smile

and come back to your object meditation

that's the thing that gets you so that

you can see

more and more quickly how this wobble

works and it is a wobble i mean your

mind is

it does that

but as you go deeper the wobble becomes

less endless finally you go beyond the

wobble

and then you start seeing other things

but that takes a

very still mind to be able to do that

and this is something

that you can experience it doesn't take

very long for some people other people

to dictate so well

it doesn't matter how long it takes

what it is is getting into

being able to

recognize the movements of mind's

attention and how it does that

see if you're continually hearing me say

how what happens first what happens

right after that

now this is with all of the hindrances i

don't care which hindrance it is

the sleepiness happens the same way as a

restlessness

doesn't that sound out

but it happens in the same way there is

that

wobble off of your object of meditation

then that feeling comes up in the case

of sloth and torpor it's kind of a ah i

like it

in the case of restlessness it's oh i

don't like that one

but that doesn't matter because that's

the same coin

what are you watching

being able to adjust

your observation

of how it occurs

means putting in a little bit more

effort or not quite so much effort

see that's that's where the effort comes

comes in it's not

trying to make something it's just

noticing where your energy is down a

little bit and you start picking it up a

little bit that's all

but it's taking the interest in

how it arises

that's the key

when you take more and more interest in

how

these things work

your mind starts to get the idea and you

start going deeper into your

meditation and everything becomes easier

that's not to say you're not going to

have some times during the day

where your mind goes crazy for a while

and that's why i'm more interested in

your best sitting i don't care about

your words today

i want to hear about your best city

because i want to hear about

how the how

of your meditation how are you doing

this

how are you observing when i find out

how you're observing

then that gives me the key to say

well if you put a little bit more energy

in this one

and that means curiosity

or you don't put quite so much in this

one

or you need to be a little bit more

tranquil

when i hear how you're doing things

that lets me know how to tell you to

perceive so you go faster

in your meditation you go better in your

observations

so the whole point of

the meditation is

not getting some pie in the sky

but learning

that's what meditation is all about

that's why it gets to be so much fun

because you start learning how your mind

works and you start going

oh wow i never saw that before

this is amazing and you can hear me talk

about that same thing

for years but until you really

experience it you don't know what i'm

saying and the words i'm saying aren't

even close to describing it

sorry i just don't have that ability to

describe

what the actual experience is

but as you learn and take an

interest in how all of this stuff arises

and you start seeing how the craving

comes up and you start situating

more and more you'll find out

that the craving although it seems like

it's overpowering

is really it's a wuss

you know what it was well from the

context i just

like that it's nothing but it's that's

right

it has no strength it has no strength it

has no

power it's just persistent it just

is continually

arising

so the more you take an interest in

how the things arise rather than

why they are right or get involved in

the story

about them

then

it's real easy to get excited about what

the buddha was talking about

it really is

because once you start seeing what do

you have on your finger

it looks like you have a tape no it's

actually

um blistered a teal

the the whole thing with

the buddha's teaching is that he was the

most

magnificent educator

ever as far as i can see

he wasn't talking philosophy he was

always continually trying to get you

to see it for yourself and when you see

it for yourself then he comes along and

he says

see told you

and you go yep ain't no doubt in my mind

yep this really is right

this really does work this way

and that's why it's not a religion

because you have to have the direct

experience

it doesn't take faith or blind faith

you've got to believe the only thing

that you have to believe in buddhism

and you'll see this for yourself so it

turns out to be not blind date

is that everything happens one thing at

a time

when you see you don't hear

when you hear you don't taste

but it's happening so fast it seems like

it does happen at the same time

no i just got through reading about all

of these different consciousnesses that

arise and pass away

all of these different scent stories

you can see the individual scent stories

and you can see that they do happen

by themselves one domain does not

encroach on the other

you don't smell with your eyes

you don't hear with your tongue

it's each of these individual

consciousnesses

and sense doors and when you start

seeing the individual scent stories

when they arise and you start

seeing how they are burning

then you become dispassionate towards

that sense story

you say oh look okay

you don't have the passion to fulfill

the lust of that sense door

it's just there it is

it's just this sensor

and that's what the dispassion is all

are all about

this culture doesn't like the word

dispassion

this culture likes the word passion very

much

and when you talk about this passion

it's very much

misunderstood but when there is

passion there is

there is the identification

with the concepts

of that

i like this taste i want this taste

and then you start your clinging

concepts and opinions and ideas and

identifying even more and more and then

your old

habitual tendencies

come up and then you get further and

further away

from the actual experience

so while you're seeing something very

beautiful

or tasting something very tasty you're

not

really there with it

you're fluttering away over here or over

there someplace

i remember when i had that taste before

oh it was so good

oh that's when i met this person or that

person

and then all of a sudden you're a

thousand miles away thinking about other

things

you don't even taste what you have in

your mouth

because you're not watching what's

happening

when you let go of that burning when you

let go of that craving

you get into the present moment

completely and you stay there

and that means that

you taste completely

you smell completely you hear

completely you see completely

and in that is relief

in that is

the dispassion but you're seeing it

and doing it completely in that moment

without allowing your mind to pull you

away

and get into your thoughts and feelings

and all that others

now just because i'm saying this

i don't want you to try to push

so that you can see more turn that's the

first thing that'll happen that causes

restlessness to arise

you can't you have to point your mind in

the direction

but you can't want

but it is a there is a um

i should say uh legal pleasurable

feeling when you realize

that you are able to

that you're on the right track to seeing

this

more and more and more deeply there is a

kind of

contented yes it's a it's a relief but

there's a kind of pleasure that

is in knowing that you're on the right

track and

you are feeling the momentum of moving

in the direction of seeing this clearly

absolutely you know dispassion does not

mean dysfunction

this is the misunderstanding

it's just like letting go

of all your concepts

means being in the present moment

particularly

without thinking but

there is wisdom's high

that is observing without the craving

in it

so you can be doing something you can be

eating something that's particularly

good

but there's not the like and dislike

that's pulling you around although it's

a pleasant feeling that arises it's not

a painful feeling it's not a neutral

feeling it's there

and as you relax into it you allow it to

be there

and come back to your object of

meditation

having that like mind of smiling

is very necessary

because that's the thing that's the

thing that helps remind you

to have that

clarity and bringing that

light mind back to your object

i'm a sneaky monk i'm gonna get tell you

to do all kinds of things and i'm not

necessarily going to tell you why

some things i've been telling sister

kema for years

i just told her why not too long ago and

she went

well that's what i've been doing

it constantly goes on of a different a

different

level of seeing something

something that we were discussing with

someone leaving this morning was that

you know you you think you're just going

to

start to investigate and you get

interested and you're you're going to

investigate in your mind you think will

you investigate for

a month or a year but then there's more

to see more to see more to see more to

see

it's like a little musical thing there's

always

more to see more to see more to see

that's what makes it so interesting it's

fascinating

yeah i mean i've been practicing this

for 35 years and i haven't seen

everything that needs to be seen

and maybe with the deeper each time you

go a little

deeper there is a different kind of

relief that

sort of widens in

in the present yeah you don't

have that big gross grabbing on to you

and driving you through all these

emotional rollercoasters

what you have is the observation

of little tiny waves there's still

pleasant feeling there's still painful

feeling that's going to be there

because that's the nature of having a

body having being a human being

means you're going to have these kind of

things arise

it has to be okay that they arise

but it's your choice whether you get

involved with them

and fight with them or let them go

it's your choice

so the more you become aware of how the

process

works the more freedom there is

in doing it

and it's great fun

okay i didn't talk very long ago

isn't that amazing

anybody got any questions comments

anything the relaxing is very cool

because the burning is the craving

the relaxing is letting go of the grief

but don't try to do it too fast don't

try to do it as some form of control

that's a big one yeah

it has to be allowing because the

feeling is still going to be there

i've i've had students that

they were very good sitting in

meditation

and they were very bad at doing their

daily activities

well i keep releasing and relaxing and

release and relax release

relax and that i still have all of this

pain and suffering

yeah why does that not surprise me

you're not following the directions of

the meditation

you're trying to shortcut it and you

can't

you gotta smile and come back to your

object to meditation

then there's relief but just release

relax release relax release relax

it doesn't work and the release release

release

or the relax relax relax doesn't work at

all

it takes you shoves you back to the

beginning

so you know that that little booklet

that i gave you that gave you the

instructions and the meditation

that's instructions in life

how to live life it's not just about

seeing

quiet it's about being observant of what

your mind is doing all the time

and

relaxing into it smiling a little bit

wishing somebody happy

then you mic gets more and more at ease

and then you'll start seeing more of how

the process works

there's going to be times that you

forget

even while you're sitting there's going

to be times that you forget

welcome to the human race again

it happens that way but as soon as you

remember

start again without being

critical that's why i say

over and over again play this like it's

a

game have fun with how crazy your mind

can be

when you start having that light

perspective

it's so much easier to let go of the

heaviness

and you start letting go of that super

critical mind that says i'm supposed to

be perfect

because i think i am perfect well

i'm perfect at blowing it and perfect it

not being perfect

and that's okay too

it has to be okay because i i'm gonna

miss them

still get caught not for very long

but that's what practice is about the

more you become familiar with

how your mind gets distracted

the less distracted you are

over time

this is a gradual training how many

years have you lived developing the way

you

act when certain feelings arise

you don't have to go that many years

to change the habit

my father used to tell me i could change

any habit that i had

in one month just by remembering

to do that

i never really believed him so i never

did it

until later

so

anything else

the more curious you are about how it

works

and the easier it gets to observe

and often something will happen

while i'm sitting in meditation and it's

like

a boink you know and my mind says

wow how'd that happen

so then i start watching a little bit

more oh that's

it

so you start catching it more quickly

let it go more easily

before long you haven't got that

distraction

but that's a question that you need to

ask yourself fairly often

how'd that happen and don't be serious

with it

okay so i'm sure samaritan

face on earth

sensations

you