From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eoO8mvJDn1Y

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

[Music]

so

[Music]

the great discourse on origination

thus if i heard once the lord was

staying among the crews

there is a market town there called kama

sadama

and the venerable ananda came to the

blessed ones saluted him

sat down to one side and said

it is wonderful

it is marvelous how profound

this dependent origination is

and how profound it appears appears

and yet it appears to me as clear as

clear

do not say that ananda do not say that

this dependent origination is profound

and appears profound

it is through not understanding not

penetrating this doctrine

that this generation has become like a

tangled ball of string

covered as with a blight

tangled with coarse grass

unable to pass beyond states of woe

the ill destiny ruin and the round of

birth and death

so the buddha is saying to ananda

because ananda has had some kind of an

experience

where he's seen dependent origination

but he hasn't seen

all of it

as we'll see

and the buddha is saying that

yes it is quite profound the

understanding of dependent origination

but

it doesn't always appear as clear as

clear as ananda puts it

and it is through not understanding

dependent origination which is basically

the elaboration

of the first and second noble truths

it's through not understanding that and

being able to then let go of it and

experience the third noble truth using

the fourth noble truth

that people are suffering all beings are

suffering

that's why

wrong view exists in their mind or has

existed in their mind

and right view which is the

understanding of dependent origination

or

which is

facilitate facilitated through

seeing and experiencing dependent

origination for yourself

that you start to let go of wrong view

and establish the right view

if ananda you are asked

has aging and death a condition for its

existence

that is jarrah marana

you should answer yes

if asked what conditions aging and death

you should answer aging and death is

conditioned by birth

so aging and death

aging and death are

inevitable however people

identify with the form identify with the

five aggregates

and have fear

of aging and death because of that

clinging to the five aggregates

and so you have people who

get botox done and color their hair and

try to

look at themselves in the mirror and

deny the process of aging

now aging and death are inevitable as i

said so it's not like you can six r away

aging and death

but

you can six our the response and

reaction to aging and death

and you can come to peace with what is

inevitable

all beings that arise pass away

all conditioned things that arise pass

away

and so seeing that people have

uh

come to terms with the natural process

of aging and

the fact that one day

their life will end

and if you have peace with that

then you have

a wonderful

mind which is em embedded in equanimity

embedded in acceptance embedded in

relief

because

we all know no one here is getting out

alive

at some point or another

right

but we're okay with that to an extent

because we understand the inevitability

of death

so the buddha says if asked what

conditions aging and death

one should say birth

now we're talking about birth on the

macro level the birth of a being the

coming into being the birth and the

the

creation of the aggregates they're

coming into being of the aggregates and

the sixth sense bases

so there is another understanding of

birth because what we'll see with

dependent origination is

there is a macro level which

through which you understand the process

of rebirth from one life to another

but there is a micro level let's say

which helps you to understand dependent

origination

or the process of

contact feeling perception and so on

on a moment-to-moment level so when we

talk about birth at that level we're

talking about two things

the arising and passing away of

consciousnesses the birth of different

consciousnesses dependent upon

experiences

and we're talking about the birth of

action

or reaction

because there's a difference between

reacting and

responding

reactivity is rooted in craving

response or responding

is rooted in wisdom and compassion one

sees things as they really are with an

experience

instead of taking that experience to be

personal instead of taking that

experience to be this is me this is mine

this is myself

or it's affecting a sense of me mine or

myself

the mind that has wisdom sees it as

impersonal and therefore

does not have birth of reaction

that adds to suffering

and rather lets go of that

reactivity in the mind

you should answer aging and death is

conditioned by birth so when we talk

about aging and death we can also

uh lump that up with the whole mass of

suffering

that is dukkha

and so when we talk about dukkha we have

basically three categories of dukkha

there are three categories of dukkha

what three

there is dukkha

there is vipari namaduka and there is

sangharaka

has to do with the

bodily pain the mental pain

the

you know the grief the sorrow the

lamentation

the aging the death the illness and so

on

vipari namaduka is the dukkha of change

the dukkha of impermanence things change

unexpected things happen

you're on your way to the airport and

you're looking forward to having a

retreat

and then suddenly you find out that the

flight is cancelled

that's vikari namaduka there's nothing

you can do about it but

you can deal with it through how you

perceive the situation do you take it

personally or do you see it as okay

there it is and you have equanimity

and then there is what's known as

sankhara

so vipari namaduka is uh

basically the dukkha of not getting what

you want or getting what you don't want

and sankara dukkha has to do with the

clinging and craving through the five

aggregates that is to say the five

aggregates affected by clinging and

craving

so identifying with them causes the mind

to have certain expectations which lead

to dukkha at some point or another so

sankhara dukkha is sometimes translated

as pervasive

that doesn't mean that

all life is suffering

but what it means is there is suffering

in life

and so

by identifying with the aggregates

you build yourself up with certain

expectations and ideas and concepts

which might not be the reality of the

situation

and so that creates

a sense of dukkha a sense of

disenchantment let's say or dismay

with the world with life

because you you you realize

that everything is impermanent and

therefore not worth holding on to

but if you see it in the right way which

is rooted in wisdom then you don't

experience dukkha

that dukkha of sankaradaka arises when

you see things as impermanent but you

still cling on to form feeling

perception formations and consciousness

even though you know that they're

impermanent somehow they're still

clinging there

and so that idea that that dissonance

between the two is

that experience of sankhara dukkha

so what conditions birth

becoming conditions birth

can be translated as existence

as becoming

as being or as habitual tendencies

when we talk about the process of

becoming

we're talking about the mind state that

becomes

something in the sense of

a conceptualized self

when we talk about habitual tendencies

we're talking about a repository

of

habits or habitual tendencies

that the mind automatically uses as a

way to react to situations

so on the macro level we're talking

about the mind state in which there is

a process of when formations arise and

the mind sees certain things and then

there is a reaction to it

in the form of craving or clinging to

that

or resisting to that and the fuel of

that

causes that mind then to bring up

a new consciousness that then

takes or carries forward into a new life

that process is becoming and that

process is

identifying with one of the three

spheres of existence

so if a mindset has been

predominantly

sensual based that is to say seeking out

sense experiences or resisting to

un

displeasurable sense experiences having

aversion to that

the mind will then create

or it will activate a certain type of

consciousness that will take root

into a sense-based realm

then you have the form realms and the

formless realms so this is to say

someone who has developed jhana and has

clinging to jhana

the first four chanas

and so each jhana state is

connected with a particular brahma realm

and if one has certain clinging and

craving for that genre it is possible

that that mind state will cause the

arising of a certain consciousness

that will then

go to that particular brahmaloka

likewise with the formless attainments

so sometimes when you see in the suit as

this idea of becoming they always talk

about it on the macro level

that is existence

there are three types of existence

existence in the sense realms

existence in the form genres form realms

or existence in the formless realms

when we talk about day-to-day living

when we talk about our momentary

experience moment-to-moment experience

there what we're talking about is bhava

is habitual tendencies it's the

different inclinations of the mind that

are built up to create a sense of self

and then from that repository of

habitual tendencies the mind then reacts

and so it could be certain kinds of

ideas about who i am or who i ought to

be

or who people should think i should be

and so on and so forth

clinging conditions becoming

so clinging is a process of

rationalizing why you crave something

so craving is the i don't like it i like

it or i am that mind

and clinging is

i like it because

i don't like it because

i am that because it's the process of

taking

that craving or resistance and saying

i am right because of so and so

and so that rationalization that process

of association that process of

saying that i don't like this and

further deepening that process of

craving through clinging

creates

certain kinds of inclinations in bhava

so

i don't like this because this happened

therefore i am this kind of person and

so i will react

from that standpoint

so that breaking that apart i don't like

it is the craving

because of so and so is the clinging

therefore i am this person is the

becoming

and so i will act in this way is the

birth of reaction

craving conditions clinging so craving

is understood in threefold

there is the craving for sensual

experience there's the craving for

existence the craving to become

something and the craving for

non-existence the craving for not

becoming something to prevent from

something

prevent something from happening wanting

to prevent

uh something from happening

so this kind of craving conditions the

clinging

we'll go deeper into this as we go on so

it says

feeling conditions craving contact

conditions feeling

mind and body conditions contact

consciousness conditions mind and body

asked has consciousness a condition for

its existence

you should answer yes

if asked what conditions consciousness

you should answer

mind and body conditions

consciousness

so for ananda he didn't see or he wasn't

able to recognize his ignorance

so we talked about the four kinds of uh

let's say competitive

competencies which is

unconsciously incompetent

consciously incompetent

consciousness consciously competent and

unconsciously

competent

and so what that refers to is

the

ignorance of not realizing you don't

know the four noble truths

not even introduced to the four normal

truths have no introduction to

understanding what the four noble truths

are

then you realize oh

i don't know what the four noble truths

are i've i've been introduced to them

but i can't understand them

and then there comes a point where right

view comes to be

and then you start to slowly understand

the four noble truths until the four

noble truths becomes your way of living

and that's the fourth

so for ananda

he was still

unconsciously incompetent he's not able

to recognize the ignorance

and therefore wasn't able to recognize

the formations that were conditioned by

ignorance

but he was able to recognize the arising

of consciousness

and what's interesting here is the

buddha says

mind and body or nama rupa or mentality

materiality is conditioned by

consciousness

but consciousness is also conditioned by

mind and body and we'll take a look at

why that's the case but there's an

interdependency between

nama rupa and vinayana or mentality

materiality and consciousness

thus ananda mind and body conditions

consciousness and consciousness

conditions mind and body

mind and body conditions contact

contact conditions feeling

feeling conditions

craving

craving conditions clinging

clinging conditions becoming becoming

conditions birth

birth conditions aging and death sorrow

lamentation pain grief and distress

thus this whole mass of suffering comes

into existence

i have said birth conditions aging and

death

and this is the way that

this is the way that should be

understood

if ananda

there were no birth at all anywhere of

anybody or anything

of devas

to the devastate of gandabas to the

gandaba state of yakkas to the yaka

state of ghosts of humans of quadrupeds

of birds

of reptiles

if there were absolutely no birth at all

of all these things

then with the absence of all birth the

cessation of birth

could aging and death appear

no

therefore ananda

just this is the root the cause the

origin the condition for aging and death

namely birth

i have said

becoming conditions birth

if there were absolutely no becoming

in the world of sense desires

a form or formless world

could birth appear

no

therefore just this is the condition of

birth namely becoming

clinging conditions becoming

if there were absolutely no clinging

sensual clinging clinging to views

to rights and rituals to personality

belief

could be coming up here

no

now we're talking about four types of

clinging within uppadhana

clinging

to sensual experience

clinging to views

clinging to rights and rituals and

clinging to self-view

so what is the clinging to sense

experience

that is where the process of associating

sensual experiences through craving

i like this particular food

because my mother used to make it a

certain way

and so i make an association

and so i cling to that experience

i like this particular music because i

grew up listening to this kind of music

and so

when i turn a certain age

all the other music that the youngsters

listen to is terrible it's trash

right it's the clinging

to the associations of that sound of

that experience

so central experience you know when we

look at

the supermarkets or the malls or

television or advertising

what is advertising doing

it's creating or facilitating the

process of clinging to sensual

experiences

they use bright colors they use certain

kinds of words they use certain kinds of

things that

that

enchant the senses

and say i want that that craving is

there and then when you have that you

cling to that experience and you say

that's my favorite

i like this particular kind of food i

like coke but i don't like pepsi

right

or i like uh

jazz but i don't like classical music

or i love i like this particular aroma

but not that aroma that process of

clinging is that process of associating

with that so we talk about rationalizing

right

because the reason why you crave

something is that process of clinging

then we have clinging to views

there are 62 different types of wrong

views

don't worry we're not going to go

through all of them

[Laughter]

but clinging to views is the clinging to

certain opinions clinging to certain

ideas clinging to certain kinds of

concepts

you know so

i

i don't like this person because they're

so and so and i identify with this

particular view they think this way but

i think a different way and so i hold on

to my view

my favorite sports team is this

but they are the rivals so i hate them

right

or

i

subscribe to this particular religion

and therefore all other religions are

wrong

so this idea or i subscribe to this

particular political ideology and so

everybody else who doesn't is an idiot

right so this kind of rationalization is

a type of clinging to views

but there's also another kind of

clinging to views which is of course we

talk about wrong views

so clinging to wrong views

prevents the mind from experiencing

right view and we talked about right

feel a little bit we talked about the

mundane right view which had to do with

the understanding of that there is merit

there is meaning in giving

there is a cause and effect there is

karma there's a process of rebirth there

is mother and father who we provide

gratitude for because they brought us

into this life so we could experience

the dhamma there are teachers out there

who know the dhamma and who have

perfected the dhamma and so on

so in the buddha's time we talked about

you know we just

mentioned there were 62 different types

of view wrong view which had to do with

the idea of what is self

what is the world and so on but during

the buddha's time there were the certain

contemporary philosophies that were out

there and there were six main ones which

were which are considered within the

context of the dhamma to be wrong view

so these six views that were propagated

at that time

were materialism immoralism

uh eternalism

the

idea of asceticism

the idea of fatalism and the idea of

skepticism

so materialism was a type of like

nihilism which was nothing really

matters just live

to feed the senses

there's no meaning in giving there's no

meaning in being right or wrong take

take take as much as you want

you know and

uh

gratify the senses

and so with that particular kind of

mode of thinking what happens is the

mind craves more and more to the point

that it it

acts in a way

that has misconduct

that breaks the precepts doesn't matter

if you have to break the precepts take

take take enjoy the senses this is

materialism but we understand from the

context of the dhamma that every action

that we have has a reaction has a

consequence

so this is in direct violation of the

idea of

causation as we understand it through

the perspective of the dharma and then

amoralism the idea that nothing again

it's part of that materialism but it's

like there's neither good nor bad it's

just whatever you think it is

it's just whatever you think you should

do is what you should do and so that

idea says that there's no cause there

there's no cause for certain actions

everything that you do is just in that

moment and whatever seems right in that

moment is right so it doesn't take into

account what is wholesome or what is

unwholesome it doesn't have

that right view that allows you to see

what is wrong with you and right view

and so this goes in direct violation of

what we understand in the perspective of

the dhamma that there are certain

wholesome things and there are certain

unwholesome things the wholesome things

are related to right intention right

speech in right action and that has a

direct

correlation to how people and

and and the world responds to you so if

you have wholesome mindsets

then you will see the world in a

wholesome way and you will be more

harmonious

and then people around you respond in a

harmonious way they might not initially

but eventually they either go away

and don't bother you or

they respond in kind

but here what it says is there's no

effect of good and bad actions it

doesn't matter

and then you have this view of

eternalism

this idea that there are certain kinds

of elements that are eternal it says

that

the four elements

it says that the body it says that the

world certain elements made up making up

this world

all of that is eternal

and so what that view says is

if somebody decides to attack another

person

they're not really dead

so if i kill you you're not really dead

so it doesn't really matter

obviously we know from the perspective

of the dharma killing somebody with that

intention has terrible consequences so

this view is the the view that there is

this soul that is unaffected by fire

unaffected by wind unaffected by weapons

so if somebody actually kills you

they're not killing you

they're killing what is surrounding the

soul but you live on you continue to

live on

and so this

propagates all kinds of justifications

for why we should kill in the name of

this or in the name of that or whatever

it might be

and this idea of eternalism is in direct

violation of the understanding of

impermanence

everything that arises every conditioned

experience that arises

passes away

then you have the view of fatalism

so the way that fatalism is understood

is everything is predetermined it's like

a ball

of yarn right it's a ball of string and

you just roll it and then it just

continues to unfurl unroll until it

doesn't until that's the end which means

everything is predetermined

when you have an experience is

predetermined the pleasant experiences

are predetermined the unpleasant

experiences are predetermined so you

don't have a choice

in that moment

everything is already predetermined even

your

suffering is determined even your

awakening

is determined according to this view

now the person

who propagated this view his name was

ajita kesakumboli

kesakumboli means the blanket of hair he

actually wore a blanket made of human

hair

anyway he had this kind of view and he

said there's no need to

do anything everything is already

pre-destined

well what happened to him he went mad

and he drowned himself in a in a

river he drowned himself in a river he

killed himself

so

what we understand through the

perspective of the dhamma is there is a

choice

yes that choice is conditioned by prior

causes and conditions by previous

choices you made in the past but every

present moment that is given is an

opportunity to make a choice and that

choice is either rooted in the wholesome

or the unwholesome

that means you can continue a person can

continue down a path of being

unwholesome and that leads to further

unwholesome consequences

or a person can

let go of that using the six hours

and then come to the wholesome and start

to

recondition the mind recondition the

synapses prune away

those formations that are rooted in the

unwholesome and strengthen those

formations that become conditioned by

the wholesome and so this is how there's

a process of reconditioning choices so

you always are

able to make certain choices in the

present moment there's nothing as

predetermined

you have to make the right effort for

your awakening your awakening isn't just

going to come to you you have to make

the effort

and then there is the view of asceticism

this idea came from the jains the genes

are still a philosophy that exists today

but the idea is that there is a soul

and that that soul

uh collects karmic particles as it

reincarnates from one life to another

and the way to deconditioning that soul

the way to clean up that soul is by

doing certain kind of purificatory

practices

practices that purify the mind and body

and spirit

and the idea is you do this through a

process of asceticism

you fast

you wear certain kinds of clothes you go

into the forest and the idea is that bit

by bit you're cleaning away at these

particles and then your soul becomes

clean and you go into a certain kind of

heaven

but the buddha asked

the the sect

how do you know how much is left in your

balance of karmic particles do you do

you know and they said no we can't

really answer that so this idea is that

the way that old karma is purified is

through continuous asceticism

now the buddha tried it for himself

right he had a luxurious life he gave

that up then he went into a mode of

asceticism a mode of self-modification

and what he realized is all that does is

creates more unpleasant feeling

you're trying to negate the unpleasant

feeling with further unpleasant feelings

it doesn't work it's impractical

and then there's the view of

skepticism

these are the eel wrigglers

the eel wrigglers

eel wrigglers because

where the people who sit on the fence

right they're like there's neither this

nor that there's neither

a tattaga nor a tataka there is neither

this world nor that world there is

neither

you know all of these different kinds of

ideas like

i don't know about it that's their kind

of

statement they're not conclusive about

things

and the main reason why they were like

that was because they were afraid to get

into arguments

they were afraid to have to come to some

kind of standpoint standpoint and have

to defend it and they were afraid of

defeat because of not being able to

defend that particular viewpoint

so

but in the perspective of the dhamma we

know certain things for a fact which is

we understand that there is karma we

understand that there is a process of

rebirth we understand that there is

wholesome and unwholesome we understand

certain things so we are not

inconclusive

we are not perplexed by what is

wholesome and unwholesome we actually

have a set of guidelines that allow us

to know what is wholesome and

unwholesome and so on so clinging to

these kinds of views

and the other kinds of views of the 62

wrong views is this part of clinging to

views

clinging to rights and rituals or

as i said yesterday clinging to rock and

roll right

do you remember that yeah

so

clinging to rights and rituals is this

idea that you're clinging to certain

kinds of observances

that

you believe will lead you to awakening

you believe will lead you to full

awakening that goes away as soon as you

realize that when you walk the path of

the eightfold path

and you experience what you experience

that is to say the cessation of

suffering in that moment you experience

nibana

you realize that this is the path

no amount of chanting no amount of

prayer no amount of lighting candles and

lamps or anything like that is going to

take you

to nibana

and another

understanding of seeing clinging to

rights and rituals is this idea or

belief in luck

and coincidences

there's no such thing actually if you

look at it from the perspective of the

dhamma there's no such thing as

coincidences there's no such thing as

luck

everything arises because of a series of

causes and conditions

so what you might call luck is just you

reaping the interest on your bank

balance of karma

that's all it is

but people can take that to be luck so

they do certain kinds of rituals they do

certain kinds of prayers with the idea

that that's going to mitigate their

karma the idea that that's going to

take away their karma but as we

understand

karma is to be felt and experienced

that's the only way it runs through its

course

and how you take it will either mitigate

the intensity of that karma or actually

increase the intensity and what i mean

by that is

karma

arises as an experience to be felt

right good bad or indifferent whatever

kind of karma arises it arises as an

experience through your sixth sense

basis

now you can perceive that as an

experience that is me mine or myself

and crave or resist

against it

and therefore cause more clinging more

being and then further birth of further

karma and adding to that repository of

karma which means that that new karma

becomes

old karma to be experienced at a future

time

but if you take that experience and see

it for what it is

that is to say you have yoni so many

sikhara attention rooted in reality

you see it as an impermanent

process not worth holding on to and

therefore not to be considered as

personal

as soon as you see it in that way that

means there's no craving there there's

no clinging there there's no resistance

there so that karma

that old karma arises in the process of

feeling but then it dissipates the

intensity of that dissipates

so

how do we contextualize this when you're

meditating and you have hindrances what

are those hindrances actually

they're feeling their experience you're

experiencing a unpleasant feeling in the

form of that hindrance that hindrance

arose because

at some point you broke a precept

so the breaking of that precept was a

certain kind of karma and the effect of

that is the old karma that you're

experiencing in the form of the

hindrance

how do you deal with that hindrance do

you push it

do you hold on to it

do you ignore it do you deflect it or do

you acknowledge it and see it for what

it is and then let go using right effort

let go using the six r's

what you'll notice is when you do 6r

the hindrance might come up again

but the next time it comes up what

happens it becomes weaker

and eventually you six star again and it

becomes weaker

and weaker and until it no longer

comes into the mind

in the same way in your daily living

whatever you're experiencing is old

karma

the only way to mitigate that the only

way to let it go is to see it as being

impersonal and so six aring your

reaction to it six houring your

perception to it as being me mine or

myself as soon as you do that that

experience might arise again but the

next time it won't be as intense

it won't be as gripping on the mind

and then finally we have clinging to

self-view

there's 20 different basic types of cell

few that's the five aggregates

multiplied by four

specific kinds of self-view

so what does that mean

the idea that the the five aggregates

are the self

the five aggregates are in the self

the self is in the five aggregates or

the self is separate from the five

aggregates

so

the idea that this body is self

or this feeling itself or this

perception itself or this formation

itself or this consciousness itself and

so on and so forth

but that goes away when you eradicate

the idea that there is a belief in a

personal self

yes conceit might still arise until you

become an arahant which is the

identification with the five aggregates

that's just an intrinsic

implicit almost automatic process until

you start to recognize it and let that

go

but the idea that you believe that any

of these five aggregates

is a self

or contains a self or is contained in

the self or is separate from itself goes

away

so the clinging to self use goes away

upon stream entry

so clinging conditions

oh here we are clinging conditions

becoming

if there were absolutely no clinging

sensual clinging clinging to views

to rights and rituals or to personality

belief

could be coming appear

no

craving conditions clinging

if there were absolutely no craving

for sights sounds smells tastes

tangibles mind objects

could clinging appear

no

now craving can come in the form of i

like this i don't like this or i am this

craving can come in the form of i

want to become this or i don't want to

become this anymore like

the sensual craving that you might

experience is

somebody's mowing the lawn outside

and you're listening

to that and you get distracted by that

and you get irritated by that and you

get and now you're clean you're craving

or you're having resistance to that and

now you're clinging to that and saying

something like they shouldn't be mowing

the long lawn while i'm meditating don't

they know that we're meditating

right and then there's this whole

concept of

the process of

rationalizing that and that i am a

meditator i've come here on retreat

and so this becoming i am you know and

then maybe you get angry about that and

then you have a reaction hopefully you

didn't but maybe there was a reaction

that came about right and so that's the

birth of reaction which leads to further

suffering

but if you saw that experience as okay

here is an experience

here is the sound of the landmower

it's an irritating experience it's an

unpleasant experience

but it's a feeling that is

arising and passing away if you really

understood that those are just sound

waves coming to be and going away in

every moment

then it's just sound

you know what about the pleasant sound

that you have a bird's chirping do you

get upset by those

it's that's also just sound just

impersonal sound if you have that

understanding then there's no craving no

resistance

to any of the sensual experiences

now the craving to become what is that

i want to be in this shana i want nibana

i want to experience cessation

the craving to become is the craving to

be in a certain kind of mind state

to be whether it's in this life or a

future life

what is the craving to not become i am

this person now but i don't no longer

want to be this person

this idea that there is a self that is

moody i don't want to be moody anymore

there's a difference here there's chanda

which is the wholesome cultivated

intention

to continue to be something better for

the purposes of

evolution in the dhamma

but if the mind obsesses over that and

says i don't want to be here for example

even in the experience of jhana you say

well i'm in the first jhana but i don't

want to be in the first jana anymore i

want to be in the second channel

that not wanting to become b in the

first jhana is a craving for not

becoming

and so now you want to be somewhere else

so these are like two sides of the same

coin

feeling conditions craving

if there were absolutely no feeling

feeling born of eye contact ear contact

nose contact tongue contact body contact

mind contact in the absence of all

feeling

with the cessation of feeling

could craving appear

no

so you can six are becoming you can six

are the habitual tendencies

you can six are clinging

you could six our craving

can you six are the birth of action

no

you think about dependent origination

like a river it continues on and then

there's a waterfall

that then towards the waterfall is the

becoming and then going down the

waterfall

is the birth of action once you have

produced the action can you recall that

action back

you can't

but you can six are

the sense of i am this the sense of

habitual tendency i do it this way it is

my way and so on and so forth

you can six are that you can six r the

rationalizations of why you like

something or you don't like something

you can six r the tension that's a

manifestation of the craving

can you six our feeling

you can't six our feeling but

you can six are the underlying

inclinations that happen in feeling and

what do i mean by that

there are seven underlying tendencies

what's seven

the underlying tendency towards craving

the underlying tendency towards aversion

the underlying tendency towards views

the underlying tendency towards doubt

the underlying tendency towards becoming

the underlying tendency towards conceit

and the underlying tendency towards

ignorance

now that happens when there is a painful

feeling there is the underlying tendency

towards aversion

when there is a pleasant feeling there

is an underlying tendency to words

craving

that can happen automatic if the mind is

not mindful and that

that underlying tendency is the

intersection between feeling and craving

so if there's an underlying tendency

towards craving and you act upon it then

you have full-blown craving that says i

don't like this

however you might say

this is a unpleasant feeling

and then you let that go and there's no

craving but if you say i

i see this unpleasant feeling and it's

irritating and i don't like it that

process is the process of underlying

tendency towards craving

it's that bend that happens towards

craving so

when you have certain attainments

certain underlying tendencies go away

for example the underlying tendency

towards doubt goes away when you become

a stream enter the underlying tendency

to wrong view goes away the underlying

tendency to craving and aversion go away

when you become an anagon and the

underlying tendency of becoming the

underlying tendency towards ignorance

and the underlying tendency towards

conceit goes away once you have our

hardship

so in the same way that's the case

certain kinds of craving will go away

sensual craving goes away when you

become an onigami

craving for becoming and craving for not

becoming goes away when you become an

arahat

certain kinds of clinging go away with

certain kinds of attainment

clinging to sensual pleasures obviously

goes away when you become an anagaming

clinging to certain kinds of view go

away when you have established right

view clinging to rights and rituals go

away when you go get into stream entry

and clinging to self clinging to self

view goes away when you have stream

entry

so what happens is as you get each

attainment bit by bit

you are whittling away at the craving

the different types of framing the

different types of clinging the

different types of becoming

and so the more you six are that the

more you use right effort the more you

become mindful the more you have yoni so

manisakar attention rooted in reality

the more

there is non-use of craving and

therefore non-use of clinging and

therefore non-use of becoming

and eventually they fade away as the

feathers drop

as you experience certain kinds of

attainments

so when it comes to feeling you can't

six are away the feeling you're feeling

pain in the meditation you can't

uh six are the pain away but you can six

r the underlying tendency towards

aversion

for that painful feeling

in that painful feeling

so it's the it's not

it's not the pleasantness of an

experience or the painfulness of the

experience that's the problem

or the trouble

it's how the mind takes it how the mind

perceives it that should be understood

and if needed to be let go of

to be let go

therefore ananda just this is the root

the cause the origin the condition for

craving namely feeling

and so ananda

feeling conditions craving

craving conditions seeking

seeking conditions acquisition

acquisition conditions decision making

decision-making conditions lustful

desire

lustful

desire conditions attachment

attachment conditions appropriation

appropriation conditions

avarice

adverse conditions guarding of

possessions and because of the guarding

of possessions there arise the taking up

of stick and sword quarrels disputes

arguments

strife abuse

lying and other evil unskilled states

so here the buddha is talking about what

happens when you have an experience of

craving so craving conditions seeking

it's that mind the hungry ghost mind

that's always looking for something

you see when we talk about the different

kinds of realm experiences it's not just

existential experiences it's also

psychological

if you have a hungry ghost kind of

experience in the mind a hungry ghost

kind of psychology you're always

dissatisfied with everything you're

always seeking for something and then

that's seeking conditions acquisition

that acquisition process happens in

feeling sorry in clinging

clinging which is upadhana rupadana

means the fuel for something

and that is the process of acquiring

something the process of acquiring an

identity the process of acquiring a

favorite of something in the in the form

of different kinds of sense pleasures

that kind of acquisition also can be

acquiring wealth acquiring power

acquiring status acquiring fame now you

have all of these things

and then that conditions how you make

your decisions

you decide in the form of

trying to keep your acquisitions

and not to let them disappear not to

lose them

from that there comes lustful desire now

lustful desire here israeli the action

or the birth of reactivity to hoard

that wealth to hoard that power to hoard

that status to hoard that fame and from

that lustful desire there comes

attachment now you attach to these

things

so attachment is one thing and

conditioning is another when we talk

about certain attachments they arise as

a result of conditioning

attachment itself is the process of

identifying with something this is my

wealth this is my

status this is my fame this is my

identity but that's conditioned by

previous choices you've made in the past

so i am like this because

of certain choices that i've made in the

past

and then from that attachment comes

appropriation

now that appropriation says i have this

much and you have that much

and that come that gives rise to avarice

i want what you have

because i don't have enough

so i crave for attention i take away

attention from you

i crave for wealth i steal your wealth i

crave for

status

i bring you down and bring up myself all

kinds of different things that people

seek

and then from that is the guarding of

possessions now i have this wealth i'm

keeping it i have this power and so i'm

keeping it so when you see certain kinds

of tyrants of the past they had enormous

amounts of power what they do

they try to hoard it and they try to

invade other countries invade other

cities and say now this is mine and so

from there comes the

taking up of stick and sword quarrels

disputes arguments strife abuse

lying in other evil unskilled states

if only the world leaders knew this

i have said all these evil unskilled

states arise because of the guarding of

possessions

for if there were absolutely no guarding

of possessions would there be the taking

up of stick or sword

no

therefore ananda the guarding of

possessions is the root the cause the

origin the condition for all of these

evil unskillful states

i have said avarice conditions the

guardian of possessions

appropriation conditions avarice

attachment con conditions appropriation

lustful desire conditions attachment

decision-making conditions lustful

desire

acquisition conditions decision-making

seeking conditions acquisition i have

said craving conditions seeking if there

were no craving

for central pleasures

no craving for existence

no craving for annihilation would there

be any seeking out

no

therefore ananda

craving is the root

the cause

the origin the condition for all seeking

thus these two things become united in

one by feeling

in other words

this whole process happens because you

take

a feeling the vedana which is an

experience

all of that is unified in the pleasant

feeling or in the unpleasant feeling or

in the neutral feeling and the

underlying tendency towards that

particular feeling or from that feeling

can cause the mind to take it personally

and from that becomes this whole chain

of dependent origination from craving

clinging becoming

the birth of action and suffering

so what this also talks about is mental

proliferation

papancha

so the process of clinging

is a process of papancha it starts from

craving

and it further deepens

and then there's becoming so all these

that is craving clinging and becoming

constitute

prapancha constitute mental

proliferation which

seeks out things just thinking about

this or that thinking about how do i get

that you know how do i trick that person

or you know how do i get to this genre

or what do i do now and all of these

other kinds of mental proliferations

are basically the stuff that we've been

talking about in this suta

i have said contact conditions feeling

therefore contact is the root the cause

the origin the condition for feeling

mind and body conditions contact he

missed something here right

sixth sense basis

ananda wasn't able to recognize the

sixth sense spaces

but what we do understand is that the

sixth sense bases

are

conditioned by mentality materiality

right so we're going to explore what is

mentality materiality now and we'll

realize

what that means in the form of the sixth

sense basis

here he says

by whatever properties

features

signs or indications

the mind factor is conceived of

would there be in the absence of such

properties pertaining to the mind factor

be manifest any grasping at the idea of

the body factor

that's a very confusing question

so let's break that up

now his response is no

and then the buddha says or in the

absence of any such properties

pertaining to the body factor

would there be any grasping at sensory

reaction on the part of the mind factor

and ananda says no

so what we're saying here is we have

mentality materiality

mentality is mind mind is made up of

five

factors

contact feeling

perception intention attention

it's through these processes that mind

is known

but these processes are dependent upon

materiality

can you experience contact without a

body

can you experience feeling without a

body

can you experience perception without a

body

you can experience mind you can

experience mental contact but still that

is dependent upon what the processes of

the brain

which is the materiality factor

in other words the mind factor is one

thing and the brain which is the

materiality is another

so these processes of the mind the

contact

feeling perception intention and

attention

are dependent upon

the four elements that constitute the

body

the rupa

this body that we have here

is made up of the earth element the fire

element the water element and the air

element are the four states of matter

solidity liquidity or solid state liquid

state gaseous state and plasma state

these constitute the experience of the

body and it's only through

the processes of the body that is to say

the rupa that you have an eye that you

have in year that you have a nose that

you have a tongue that you have a body

that you have a brain

through which the faculties of mind are

able to function

so that interdependency is also within

this process

mind depends on body for its function

but you experience body without mind

right so you can't experience you can

experience the sixth sense spaces only

through what they are experiencing that

is to say contact

the eye

meets the form and there is eye

consciousness

eye consciousness happens because you're

aware that the eye is seeing something

and there is contact there

so i

that is to say the physical eye is one

thing but the process of contact and

feeling that is the mentality is another

thing

so that process of contact feeling and

perception of the eye and the eye

feeling and the eye perception is

dependent upon the solidity of the eye

that is the body

so mentality is dependent upon

the materiality

and you can only experience materiality

through the factors of mentality

and that includes the sixth sense basis

wow

consciousness

so consciousness is

included in the five aggregates yes

so what i'm saying is contact gives rise

to feeling perception

intention

and attention attention is through which

consciousness flows

which awareness or consciousness flows

so that's how it's understood

contact also has consciousness yeah

contact has consciousness because the

joining of the three the eye the form

and eye consciousness

is eye contact

and the way that where you are seeing is

the attention through which the

consciousness flows

right

right so we have the five aggregates

which is form

feeling perception

formations and consciousness

so intention

there's the intention and there is the

formations

it's through wanting to say something

that you have verbal formations coming

to be so that you can express speech

it's through the process of making a

bodily movement

that there is an intention to move and

through that bodily formations or

through that bodily intention bodily

formations flow

and so

mental formations which allow you to

feel and perceive arise dependent upon

contact in fact all

that is to say

all formations intention

feeling

perception are dependent upon contact

when contact arises there is feeling

and tied to that feeling there is

perception

tied to that feeling and perception

there is consciousness of that feeling

and perception

and tied to that is the intention to do

something

only when there is contact with the mind

contact with the five physical senses

can then intention to say something or

intention to do something arise

so that

so that process of karma also

arises dependent upon contact if there

was no contact no karma would flow

because karma is experienced as vedana a

pleasant experience

unpleasant experience or neutral

experience

there were other hands that were raised

up

so

you get the example of an

of an eye

a form

how does that work with a mind object so

a concept arises

a thought arises and that's the object

right and then everything else is the

same your object of meditation arises

and that's a mental object mind makes

contact with that and there is the

feeling of loving kindness

right

i think you had a question you were

going to raise your hand

no okay

all right

so if we

now with all of that background

information let's go back to what he

asked he said

by whatever properties features signs or

indications the mind factors conceived

of

would there be in absence of such

properties that is to say in absence of

the mind factor pertaining to the mind

factor

would there be manifest any grasping at

the idea of a body

if you didn't have contact feeling

perception intention could you

experience a body

no

and so then he says

or in the absence of any such properties

pertaining to the body to the

materiality would there be any grasping

at sensory reaction on the part of the

mind factor

you couldn't because the sixth sense

bases are the physical materiality it's

through them that you experience the

factors of mentality

if you didn't have those

would you be able to experience mind

or the factors of mind

so then he says

by whatever properties

features signs or indications the mind

factor is conceived of

in the absence of these is there any

contact to be found

all right

by whatever properties features

signs or indications

the mind factor is conceived

of so the mind factor is conceived of

made up of

contact feeling perception intention and

attention or the five aggregates right

or four of the five aggregates because

you have form

in the absence of that can there be

contact in other words if you didn't

have mentality

would you be able to have contact

no

you wouldn't be aware of that contact

then ananda just this namely mind and

body

is the root the cause the origin the

condition for all contact

i have said consciousness conditions

mind and body

now the buddha is going to go to the

macro level of understanding dependent

origination because what he said is

consciousness conditions mind and body

but mind and body also conditions

consciousness

so first let's take up the first part of

that

if consciousness were not to come into

the mother's womb

would mind and body develop there

no

you need the descending of consciousness

into mentality materiality so that is to

say

at the point of procreation

the mother and father

join but if there's no consciousness

that descends

would there be further development of

that into an embryo

you need the gandaba you need the

consciousness for it to evolve into an

embryo and a fetus and so on and so

forth

so if it was not there it would not

develop

or if consciousness having entered the

mother's womb

were to be deflected

would mind and body come to birth in

this life so now there is the embryo

there is the fetus

but if there was something that happened

that caused the consciousness to depart

from that fetus

would that fetus continue to grow it

would be stillborn

or if consciousness having entered the

mother's womb sorry and if consciousness

of such a tender young being boy or girl

were thus caught off

would mind and body grow develop and

mature

if the if the infant or

the child or even an adult were killed

that consciousness departs from the body

so that what happens to the body does it

continue to grow

eventually it decays

just the nails grow right

maybe they have the experience of the

asanata beings

unconscious

like

there's no

perception going on nothing going on

just but there is still life there

yeah

so when we're talking about

consciousness in this context we're

talking about life

if the life descends there will be

growth of the mind and body

therefore ananda just this namely

consciousness

is the root the cause the origin the

condition

of mind and body

i have said now he's still on the macro

level he says i have said

mind and body conditions consciousness

if consciousness did not find a landing

place in mind and body

would there subsequently be an arising

and coming to be of birth aging death

and suffering

no

so consciousness

to be experienced is dependent on the

factors of mind and body

and to experience mind and body you need

consciousness

the ability to be aware of it through

the process of contact and attention and

so on and so forth

so this interdependency consciousness

depends upon mind and body

because

it can only be experienced through the

factors of mind and body

but for mind and body

to arise and to develop it requires

consciousness

on the micro level this is also

very much

true because

the consciousness that arises is

dependent upon formations

now there are certain formations that

arise those formations can be laced or

tinged with craving

with wrong views with ignorance with

conceit that can create or give rise to

or activate a certain kind of

consciousness

which here when we talk about

consciousness we're talking about as

cognition

to cognize something

that's already tinged with craving it's

inclined towards seeing it as this is me

this is my this is myself

and so that

conditions the sense spaces in mentality

materiality which already conditions the

way that contact and feeling is

perceived

so if formations

have craving in them if formations have

identification in them that is to say

they are

conditioned by laced by hindered by

fettered by craving and identification

then the rest of that series that is to

say the cognition

that can be corrupted by the upaki

lasers

and there are 16 upaki lisas which i'm

not going to talk about here you can

look look for it for yourself but

they can give rise to a certain kind of

mindset

in cognition which then perceives or

which experiences contact and feeling in

a certain way

so if there are formations rooted in

jealousy of choices rooted in jealousy

in the past then it cognizes in such a

way it's always comparing whether i'm

better than this person or they're

better than me

if there is anger there if there's

hatred there whatever it might be and

these all stem from the akusala mula

that is to say the unwholesome roots

greed

hatred and delusion

these are conditioned by ignorance which

are then conditioned by the taints going

if

on

if you stop the identification of it

at the beginning you would cut off that

entire spectrum yes

completely seeing this whole thing as

impersonal

you don't take even contact as imper as

personal right

and so therefore the feeling that arises

is just vibration of

sound

or photons

or you know taste molecules or order

molecules or bodily vibrations or

circuitry in the brain that causes

thoughts to arise and things like that

if you see it all as this impersonal

process

then

you're not going to say that this is me

this is mine this is myself you're not

going to say i want more of that you

just see things as they are

so the big challenge then is to develop

that as a skill that is

constantly with you as you're

experiencing consciousness right and

that's facilitated through the process

of the six hours

when you start to see that your choices

are starting to get rooted in craving

you can recognize oh here is a

percolation of craving and you can relax

it and let it go using the six r's and

then respond or make choices that are

rooted in wisdom and compassion

what that does is then the next set of

formations which are conditioned by the

intention conditioned by that choice

are now

further steeped or further laced or

further rooted

in non-greed in non-hatred in

non-delusion that is to say in wisdom in

compassion

and so when that happens

these get strengthened and those

formations through non-use and

non-activation because you don't make

choices in the unwholesome

start to get pruned away and there is a

remainderless fading away

of craving and conceit and views

so the way the genres arise is because

of causes and conditions all you're

doing is you're placing you have the

intention to place your attention on an

object of meditation that means now you

have let go of the hindrances

you have let go of any ident any kind of

clinging or grasping at sensual

experiences your mind becomes collected

so the formations that arise because of

that

arise as a result of

you making that choice to be collected

the more you do that that's why

initially in the retreat when you're in

your first retreat it seems like you're

getting into jana's at a slower pace but

now you've exercised those formations

rooted in the experience of that jhana

so it's much easier on your second or

third or fourth or fifth retreat through

continual effort to continual practice

to be able to experience that jhana

almost instantaneously

it's you're able to be more meditative

because you have formations that are

stronger in that choice to be meditative

and so on and so forth

are

less

or

less strong

because of what you said

proved away that's right so there's this

thing called myelination

which grant talked about

at our last retreat

where

the

neural pathways

that

aren't used

uh get pruned away there's actually a

cell

that goes and

trims them away and actually recycles

the

the um

material the

whatever it is called

the neuro material

and

and so that those old pathways

actually like when they're not used

literally get

to disappear through myelination

if you look it up online

you can actually see a video on youtube

where myelination actually happens

with this very very

tiny

um or

highly focused

micro

microscope that records the cell doing

it so you actually see it clipped and

pulled off away and so then

the

the stronger patterns that are supported

i guess wholesome in our case

would get larger and instead of becoming

you know having being small actually

become kind of main highways yeah yeah

yeah

i would think that you you would be

developed you would be conditioning

these patterns

that become more and more familiar and

more accessible and so this would become

a skillful skillful mental states or

skillful activities so that

at

the time of choice

it would be just a matter of

establishing perhaps that intent and

just going directly to that location

right and to those points that's

basically what we're saying then is when

you start to let go of the craving and

the clinging

you're letting go of those formations

those synapses

that continue to fire up that craving

and eventually through non-use they're

replaced by

or they used instead of redirecting

towards using it for wisdom using it for

wise choices

but

there's still power

so there might be no craving there might

be no clinging but there can be taking

that feeling still as personal

that is to say

i am in this jhana or i have caused this

jhana to be or i am experiencing this

that sense of the

the identification with the processes of

the five aggregates can still lead to a

certain kind of bhava that is to say the

conceit in i am a good person

or i developed all these wholesome

things so in order to get to arahatship

you have to go from it's this whole

process is going from the unwholesome to

the wholesome and then going from the

wholesome

to not identifying

with the wholesome

just correct me if i'm wrong i feel like

i'm getting a better understanding of

when we say personal process

we're talking about consciousness coming

down into a mentality into reality

it kind of seems to me like so when i

say like my life

it's not even

my life right when i think about my

karma it's not even my karma per se

um

when i'm working on my permissions right

when i'm 6r informations etc

these are not my formations i just kind

of inherited these it's almost like i'm

just here for the ride

right you are inheriting your karma as

the buddha says

but

in in reality the karma the

consciousness

the life all of that is just arising

because of impersonal causes and

conditions

and all i can do

well not all i can do

uh what i do if you will

is

you know six are and make wholesome

choices and follow the equal path

so that this consciousness doesn't you

know

doesn't torment someone else in the

future at a future rebirth but hopefully

it just ends here right

but otherwise what i would be doing on a

day-to-day basis is

you know clipping away people like these

formations restructuring my burden

restructuring this brain

uh so that it acts a more wholesome way

but it's not

it's just a deck i mean the cars have

been dealt with

that right

in this life

everyone just has different formations

that they didn't ask for they just

right

so now in the case of the arahat right

do they still have formations

yes

because those are karmic formations

formations arising because of previous

choices made prior to full awakening

they don't produce new formations they

don't produce new karma

but what happens is

everything from now the ignorance that's

there which conditions the formations

is no longer there instead what is there

is wisdom

is right view

and so those formations that arise are

conditioned by that right view but

mechanically speaking they are

giving rise to certain kinds of karma

their karmic formations which give rise

to a certain kind of experience down the

road of dependent origination so

formations consciousness

mentality materiality sixth sense basis

contact and feeling

are all the old karma arising as a

result of previous choices made in the

past

at some point

now

they don't produce any new karma because

their mind their formations are rooted

fully in wisdom rooted fully in the

eightfold path

and the cessation of karma is done so

through the process of the eightfold

path that is to say

if you have right intention it's an

intention of letting go automatically

nothing being held on to

therefore there's no craving there's no

clinging the craving the clinging the

being

are the processes for new karma to arise

in the form of birth of reaction which

then causes suffering

and so that suffering becomes the old

karma that you experience

in that moment or a subsequent moment or

a subsequent time in the future

so that delineation point between old

karma and new karma

is the feeling and the craving between

the feeling and the craving

if the feeling the experience that

you're having right now all of this

is old karma

that is to say it is the effects of

previous choices you've made in the past

how you take it will determine whether

your new karma is produced

or

you see it okay

thus far then ananda we can trace birth

and decay

death and falling into other states and

being reborn

thus far extends the way of designation

of concepts thus far is the sphere of

understanding

thus far

the round goes as far as can be

discerned in this life

namely to nama rupa or mentality

materiality together with consciousness

in what ways ananda do people explain

the nature of the self

some dis

declare the self to be material and

limited

saying

myself is material and limited

some declare it to be material and

unlimited

some declare it to be immaterial and

limited

some declare it to be immaterial and

unlimited

whoever declares the self to be material

and limited considers it to be so either

now

or in the next world thinking

though it is not so now i shall acquire

it there the idea of a soul the idea of

a self

still continues on so that whole process

of reincarnation but what does that mean

material and limited

that the idea that the self is this just

this body

and it's limited by this body that's the

self

but what about the self that is material

and

unlimited

that comes from the idea that myself is

this entire universe

material universe

so what about the idea

that

myself is immaterial and limited

the soul is contained in the body

it's immaterial but it's limited within

the confines of the body some some

concepts in ancient india had the idea

that the soul was at the center of the

spiritual heart and was the size of a

thumb

yeah

and then what about immaterial and

unlimited

yes

there is the idea that the

in there's the atma which is the soul

and the brahman which is the substratum

of all creation

and the idea is

the self and the universe

are one and the same thing

the soul

and the sub stratum of the universe are

one in the same thing

cosmic consciousness yes

we are one

lot of people yeah think that about

obama yeah that you end up in some

eternal

state of being yeah

but nibana as we know it is the

quenching

of the fires of greed hatred and

delusion

and it's impersonal

so

he says the same thing about the other

four he says

in what ways

ananda the people regard the self

they equate self with feeling saying

feeling is myself

or feeling is not myself myself is

impercipient

or feeling is not myself but myself is

not impercipient it is of a nature to

feel

so

to simplify what he's saying is some

people think the self is feeling

or the self is in feeling or the self is

that which feels

now ananda one who says feeling is

myself should be told there are three

kinds of feeling friend pleasant painful

neutral

which of the three do you consider to be

yourself

when a pleasant feeling is felt no

painful or neutral feeling is felt but

only pleasant feeling when a painful

feeling is felt no pleasant or neutral

feeling is felt but only painful feeling

and when a neutral feeling is felt no

pleasant or painful feeling is felt but

only neutral feeling

pleasant feeling is impermanent

conditioned dependently arisen bound to

decay to vanish to fade away to cease

and so too are painful feeling and

neutral feeling so anyone who on

experiencing a pleasant feeling thinks

this is myself

must at the cessation of that pleasant

feeling think

myself is gone

and the same with painful and neutral

feelings

thus whoever thinks

feeling is myself is contemplating

something in this present life that is

impermanent a mixture of happiness and

unhappiness subject to arising and

passing away

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is myself

so

we have to understand it from the

ancient indian context there was an idea

of a self right whether it was in

hinduism or brahmanism there is this

idea of a self and that self is sachit

ananda that is to say it is a self that

has

all pervading existence

is completely permanent and is the

source of all happiness

now if you were to use that as the

touchstone of what is a self

if you use that touchstone for all

experience all your five aggregates

you can see that they are not that self

because

they were bound to change they're bound

to decay therefore they're impermanent

and if they're impermanent pleasant

experiences when they go away

are painful

so they're mixed as the buddha says

of happiness and unhappiness subject to

arising and passing away

therefore it is not fitting to say that

feeling is myself or form is myself or

perception is myself or formations or

myself or consciousness is myself

but anyone who says feeling is not

myself myself is impercipiant should be

asked

if friend no feelings at all were to be

experienced

would there be the thought i am

to which he would have to reply no

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself myself is

impercipiant

and anyone who says

feeling is not self but my but myself is

not impercipiant

myself is of a nature to feel that is to

say i

i am the self and i feel

the feeling is not the self but i feel

okay

should be asked well friend if all

feelings absolutely and totally cease

could there be the thought i am this

because the only way you know you are is

dependent upon the process of feeling if

you were to say i feel

as a self but you would only know i am

when there is a feeling

so the self is dependent or the idea of

the self that feels is dependent on the

process of actually feeling

so

to which he would have to reply no

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself myself is

impercipient

oh sorry uh to which it is

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself but myself is not

impercipiant myself is of a nature to

feel

from the time ananda when a monk

when one no longer regards feeling as

self or as the self as being

impercipient

or as being percipient and of a nature

to feel

by not so regarding he clings to nothing

in the world

so when we talk about feeling we also

say

form perception formations consciousness

the idea is if someone

no longer regards form feeling

perception formations and consciousness

as self

no longer regards the self as being

impercipient that there is a self that

you cannot experience

but there are these aggregates so

there's a self outside of these

aggregates

no longer regards that

and no longer regards

that the self has a nature to have form

and no longer regards that the self has

a nature to feel or to perceive or to

have intention or to be aware

he clings to nothing in this world

and so by not clinging

he is not excited by anything

and not being excited he gains personal

liberation and he knows birth is

finished

the holy life has been led

done was what had to be done there is no

more coming to being

and if anyone were to say to a monk

whose mind was thus freed

you tell an arahat this

the tata exists after death that would

be seen by him as a wrong opinion and

unfitting

likewise the tathagath does not exist

both exists and does not exist

neither exists nor does not exist after

death

he would see all of that as wrong

opinion

why so

as far ananda as designation and the

range of designation reaches

as far as language and the range of

language reaches as far as concepts and

the range of concepts reaches as far as

understanding and the range of

understanding reaches as far as the

cycle reaches and revolves that

one who is liberated from all that by

super knowledge

and to maintain that such a liberated

monk does not know and see would be a

wrong view and incorrect

now i brought this question up to

you at the eastern retreat the

definition of what is a being in the

sense of a sata

sata means a being not the being in

terms of becoming

but a being and in the sense of a

personality like

an individual what how is that

sata that being defined

a being is one

who has craving

or attachment or identification

with one or more of the five

aggregates but if the tatagath or an

arahant

no longer has craving and clinging

identification for any of the five

aggregates

are they a being

or a non-being

[Laughter]

so that all that doesn't matter to them

because that's like oh that presupposes

that there's a self there that

presupposes that there is a being there

but if there's no longer anything

you can't even say that there is no

longer

a being there's no longer a non there's

a non-being to say that there was a

non-being means there was a being which

no longer became a be a non-being

does that make sense

all right so we're going to get into

some other things

how is your energy level

you guys are full

we'll continue these

these parts tomorrow and then we'll

continue with whatever else we have

all right let's share some merit

may suffering ones be suffering free may

the fear stroke fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may they all being share this merit that

we have thus acquired for the

acquisition of all kinds of happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long protect

the buddha's dispensations

others

[Music]

[Music]

so

[Music]

the great discourse on origination

thus if i heard once the lord was

staying among the crews

there is a market town there called kama

sadama

and the venerable ananda came to the

blessed ones saluted him

sat down to one side and said

it is wonderful

it is marvelous how profound

this dependent origination is

and how profound it appears appears

and yet it appears to me as clear as

clear

do not say that ananda do not say that

this dependent origination is profound

and appears profound

it is through not understanding not

penetrating this doctrine

that this generation has become like a

tangled ball of string

covered as with a blight

tangled with coarse grass

unable to pass beyond states of woe

the ill destiny ruin and the round of

birth and death

so the buddha is saying to ananda

because ananda has had some kind of an

experience

where he's seen dependent origination

but he hasn't seen

all of it

as we'll see

and the buddha is saying that

yes it is quite profound the

understanding of dependent origination

but

it doesn't always appear as clear as

clear as ananda puts it

and it is through not understanding

dependent origination which is basically

the elaboration

of the first and second noble truths

it's through not understanding that and

being able to then let go of it and

experience the third noble truth using

the fourth noble truth

that people are suffering all beings are

suffering

that's why

wrong view exists in their mind or has

existed in their mind

and right view which is the

understanding of dependent origination

or

which is

facilitate facilitated through

seeing and experiencing dependent

origination for yourself

that you start to let go of wrong view

and establish the right view

if ananda you are asked

has aging and death a condition for its

existence

that is jarrah marana

you should answer yes

if asked what conditions aging and death

you should answer aging and death is

conditioned by birth

so aging and death

aging and death are

inevitable however people

identify with the form identify with the

five aggregates

and have fear

of aging and death because of that

clinging to the five aggregates

and so you have people who

get botox done and color their hair and

try to

look at themselves in the mirror and

deny the process of aging

now aging and death are inevitable as i

said so it's not like you can six r away

aging and death

but

you can six our the response and

reaction to aging and death

and you can come to peace with what is

inevitable

all beings that arise pass away

all conditioned things that arise pass

away

and so seeing that people have

uh

come to terms with the natural process

of aging and

the fact that one day

their life will end

and if you have peace with that

then you have

a wonderful

mind which is em embedded in equanimity

embedded in acceptance embedded in

relief

because

we all know no one here is getting out

alive

at some point or another

right

but we're okay with that to an extent

because we understand the inevitability

of death

so the buddha says if asked what

conditions aging and death

one should say birth

now we're talking about birth on the

macro level the birth of a being the

coming into being the birth and the

the

creation of the aggregates they're

coming into being of the aggregates and

the sixth sense bases

so there is another understanding of

birth because what we'll see with

dependent origination is

there is a macro level which

through which you understand the process

of rebirth from one life to another

but there is a micro level let's say

which helps you to understand dependent

origination

or the process of

contact feeling perception and so on

on a moment-to-moment level so when we

talk about birth at that level we're

talking about two things

the arising and passing away of

consciousnesses the birth of different

consciousnesses dependent upon

experiences

and we're talking about the birth of

action

or reaction

because there's a difference between

reacting and

responding

reactivity is rooted in craving

response or responding

is rooted in wisdom and compassion one

sees things as they really are with an

experience

instead of taking that experience to be

personal instead of taking that

experience to be this is me this is mine

this is myself

or it's affecting a sense of me mine or

myself

the mind that has wisdom sees it as

impersonal and therefore

does not have birth of reaction

that adds to suffering

and rather lets go of that

reactivity in the mind

you should answer aging and death is

conditioned by birth so when we talk

about aging and death we can also

uh lump that up with the whole mass of

suffering

that is dukkha

and so when we talk about dukkha we have

basically three categories of dukkha

there are three categories of dukkha

what three

there is dukkha

there is vipari namaduka and there is

sangharaka

has to do with the

bodily pain the mental pain

the

you know the grief the sorrow the

lamentation

the aging the death the illness and so

on

vipari namaduka is the dukkha of change

the dukkha of impermanence things change

unexpected things happen

you're on your way to the airport and

you're looking forward to having a

retreat

and then suddenly you find out that the

flight is cancelled

that's vikari namaduka there's nothing

you can do about it but

you can deal with it through how you

perceive the situation do you take it

personally or do you see it as okay

there it is and you have equanimity

and then there is what's known as

sankhara

so vipari namaduka is uh

basically the dukkha of not getting what

you want or getting what you don't want

and sankara dukkha has to do with the

clinging and craving through the five

aggregates that is to say the five

aggregates affected by clinging and

craving

so identifying with them causes the mind

to have certain expectations which lead

to dukkha at some point or another so

sankhara dukkha is sometimes translated

as pervasive

that doesn't mean that

all life is suffering

but what it means is there is suffering

in life

and so

by identifying with the aggregates

you build yourself up with certain

expectations and ideas and concepts

which might not be the reality of the

situation

and so that creates

a sense of dukkha a sense of

disenchantment let's say or dismay

with the world with life

because you you you realize

that everything is impermanent and

therefore not worth holding on to

but if you see it in the right way which

is rooted in wisdom then you don't

experience dukkha

that dukkha of sankaradaka arises when

you see things as impermanent but you

still cling on to form feeling

perception formations and consciousness

even though you know that they're

impermanent somehow they're still

clinging there

and so that idea that that dissonance

between the two is

that experience of sankhara dukkha

so what conditions birth

becoming conditions birth

can be translated as existence

as becoming

as being or as habitual tendencies

when we talk about the process of

becoming

we're talking about the mind state that

becomes

something in the sense of

a conceptualized self

when we talk about habitual tendencies

we're talking about a repository

of

habits or habitual tendencies

that the mind automatically uses as a

way to react to situations

so on the macro level we're talking

about the mind state in which there is

a process of when formations arise and

the mind sees certain things and then

there is a reaction to it

in the form of craving or clinging to

that

or resisting to that and the fuel of

that

causes that mind then to bring up

a new consciousness that then

takes or carries forward into a new life

that process is becoming and that

process is

identifying with one of the three

spheres of existence

so if a mindset has been

predominantly

sensual based that is to say seeking out

sense experiences or resisting to

un

displeasurable sense experiences having

aversion to that

the mind will then create

or it will activate a certain type of

consciousness that will take root

into a sense-based realm

then you have the form realms and the

formless realms so this is to say

someone who has developed jhana and has

clinging to jhana

the first four chanas

and so each jhana state is

connected with a particular brahma realm

and if one has certain clinging and

craving for that genre it is possible

that that mind state will cause the

arising of a certain consciousness

that will then

go to that particular brahmaloka

likewise with the formless attainments

so sometimes when you see in the suit as

this idea of becoming they always talk

about it on the macro level

that is existence

there are three types of existence

existence in the sense realms

existence in the form genres form realms

or existence in the formless realms

when we talk about day-to-day living

when we talk about our momentary

experience moment-to-moment experience

there what we're talking about is bhava

is habitual tendencies it's the

different inclinations of the mind that

are built up to create a sense of self

and then from that repository of

habitual tendencies the mind then reacts

and so it could be certain kinds of

ideas about who i am or who i ought to

be

or who people should think i should be

and so on and so forth

clinging conditions becoming

so clinging is a process of

rationalizing why you crave something

so craving is the i don't like it i like

it or i am that mind

and clinging is

i like it because

i don't like it because

i am that because it's the process of

taking

that craving or resistance and saying

i am right because of so and so

and so that rationalization that process

of association that process of

saying that i don't like this and

further deepening that process of

craving through clinging

creates

certain kinds of inclinations in bhava

so

i don't like this because this happened

therefore i am this kind of person and

so i will react

from that standpoint

so that breaking that apart i don't like

it is the craving

because of so and so is the clinging

therefore i am this person is the

becoming

and so i will act in this way is the

birth of reaction

craving conditions clinging so craving

is understood in threefold

there is the craving for sensual

experience there's the craving for

existence the craving to become

something and the craving for

non-existence the craving for not

becoming something to prevent from

something

prevent something from happening wanting

to prevent

uh something from happening

so this kind of craving conditions the

clinging

we'll go deeper into this as we go on so

it says

feeling conditions craving contact

conditions feeling

mind and body conditions contact

consciousness conditions mind and body

asked has consciousness a condition for

its existence

you should answer yes

if asked what conditions consciousness

you should answer

mind and body conditions

consciousness

so for ananda he didn't see or he wasn't

able to recognize his ignorance

so we talked about the four kinds of uh

let's say competitive

competencies which is

unconsciously incompetent

consciously incompetent

consciousness consciously competent and

unconsciously

competent

and so what that refers to is

the

ignorance of not realizing you don't

know the four noble truths

not even introduced to the four normal

truths have no introduction to

understanding what the four noble truths

are

then you realize oh

i don't know what the four noble truths

are i've i've been introduced to them

but i can't understand them

and then there comes a point where right

view comes to be

and then you start to slowly understand

the four noble truths until the four

noble truths becomes your way of living

and that's the fourth

so for ananda

he was still

unconsciously incompetent he's not able

to recognize the ignorance

and therefore wasn't able to recognize

the formations that were conditioned by

ignorance

but he was able to recognize the arising

of consciousness

and what's interesting here is the

buddha says

mind and body or nama rupa or mentality

materiality is conditioned by

consciousness

but consciousness is also conditioned by

mind and body and we'll take a look at

why that's the case but there's an

interdependency between

nama rupa and vinayana or mentality

materiality and consciousness

thus ananda mind and body conditions

consciousness and consciousness

conditions mind and body

mind and body conditions contact

contact conditions feeling

feeling conditions

craving

craving conditions clinging

clinging conditions becoming becoming

conditions birth

birth conditions aging and death sorrow

lamentation pain grief and distress

thus this whole mass of suffering comes

into existence

i have said birth conditions aging and

death

and this is the way that

this is the way that should be

understood

if ananda

there were no birth at all anywhere of

anybody or anything

of devas

to the devastate of gandabas to the

gandaba state of yakkas to the yaka

state of ghosts of humans of quadrupeds

of birds

of reptiles

if there were absolutely no birth at all

of all these things

then with the absence of all birth the

cessation of birth

could aging and death appear

no

therefore ananda

just this is the root the cause the

origin the condition for aging and death

namely birth

i have said

becoming conditions birth

if there were absolutely no becoming

in the world of sense desires

a form or formless world

could birth appear

no

therefore just this is the condition of

birth namely becoming

clinging conditions becoming

if there were absolutely no clinging

sensual clinging clinging to views

to rights and rituals to personality

belief

could be coming up here

no

now we're talking about four types of

clinging within uppadhana

clinging

to sensual experience

clinging to views

clinging to rights and rituals and

clinging to self-view

so what is the clinging to sense

experience

that is where the process of associating

sensual experiences through craving

i like this particular food

because my mother used to make it a

certain way

and so i make an association

and so i cling to that experience

i like this particular music because i

grew up listening to this kind of music

and so

when i turn a certain age

all the other music that the youngsters

listen to is terrible it's trash

right it's the clinging

to the associations of that sound of

that experience

so central experience you know when we

look at

the supermarkets or the malls or

television or advertising

what is advertising doing

it's creating or facilitating the

process of clinging to sensual

experiences

they use bright colors they use certain

kinds of words they use certain kinds of

things that

that

enchant the senses

and say i want that that craving is

there and then when you have that you

cling to that experience and you say

that's my favorite

i like this particular kind of food i

like coke but i don't like pepsi

right

or i like uh

jazz but i don't like classical music

or i love i like this particular aroma

but not that aroma that process of

clinging is that process of associating

with that so we talk about rationalizing

right

because the reason why you crave

something is that process of clinging

then we have clinging to views

there are 62 different types of wrong

views

don't worry we're not going to go

through all of them

[Laughter]

but clinging to views is the clinging to

certain opinions clinging to certain

ideas clinging to certain kinds of

concepts

you know so

i

i don't like this person because they're

so and so and i identify with this

particular view they think this way but

i think a different way and so i hold on

to my view

my favorite sports team is this

but they are the rivals so i hate them

right

or

i

subscribe to this particular religion

and therefore all other religions are

wrong

so this idea or i subscribe to this

particular political ideology and so

everybody else who doesn't is an idiot

right so this kind of rationalization is

a type of clinging to views

but there's also another kind of

clinging to views which is of course we

talk about wrong views

so clinging to wrong views

prevents the mind from experiencing

right view and we talked about right

feel a little bit we talked about the

mundane right view which had to do with

the understanding of that there is merit

there is meaning in giving

there is a cause and effect there is

karma there's a process of rebirth there

is mother and father who we provide

gratitude for because they brought us

into this life so we could experience

the dhamma there are teachers out there

who know the dhamma and who have

perfected the dhamma and so on

so in the buddha's time we talked about

you know we just

mentioned there were 62 different types

of view wrong view which had to do with

the idea of what is self

what is the world and so on but during

the buddha's time there were the certain

contemporary philosophies that were out

there and there were six main ones which

were which are considered within the

context of the dhamma to be wrong view

so these six views that were propagated

at that time

were materialism immoralism

uh eternalism

the

idea of asceticism

the idea of fatalism and the idea of

skepticism

so materialism was a type of like

nihilism which was nothing really

matters just live

to feed the senses

there's no meaning in giving there's no

meaning in being right or wrong take

take take as much as you want

you know and

uh

gratify the senses

and so with that particular kind of

mode of thinking what happens is the

mind craves more and more to the point

that it it

acts in a way

that has misconduct

that breaks the precepts doesn't matter

if you have to break the precepts take

take take enjoy the senses this is

materialism but we understand from the

context of the dhamma that every action

that we have has a reaction has a

consequence

so this is in direct violation of the

idea of

causation as we understand it through

the perspective of the dharma and then

amoralism the idea that nothing again

it's part of that materialism but it's

like there's neither good nor bad it's

just whatever you think it is

it's just whatever you think you should

do is what you should do and so that

idea says that there's no cause there

there's no cause for certain actions

everything that you do is just in that

moment and whatever seems right in that

moment is right so it doesn't take into

account what is wholesome or what is

unwholesome it doesn't have

that right view that allows you to see

what is wrong with you and right view

and so this goes in direct violation of

what we understand in the perspective of

the dhamma that there are certain

wholesome things and there are certain

unwholesome things the wholesome things

are related to right intention right

speech in right action and that has a

direct

correlation to how people and

and and the world responds to you so if

you have wholesome mindsets

then you will see the world in a

wholesome way and you will be more

harmonious

and then people around you respond in a

harmonious way they might not initially

but eventually they either go away

and don't bother you or

they respond in kind

but here what it says is there's no

effect of good and bad actions it

doesn't matter

and then you have this view of

eternalism

this idea that there are certain kinds

of elements that are eternal it says

that

the four elements

it says that the body it says that the

world certain elements made up making up

this world

all of that is eternal

and so what that view says is

if somebody decides to attack another

person

they're not really dead

so if i kill you you're not really dead

so it doesn't really matter

obviously we know from the perspective

of the dharma killing somebody with that

intention has terrible consequences so

this view is the the view that there is

this soul that is unaffected by fire

unaffected by wind unaffected by weapons

so if somebody actually kills you

they're not killing you

they're killing what is surrounding the

soul but you live on you continue to

live on

and so this

propagates all kinds of justifications

for why we should kill in the name of

this or in the name of that or whatever

it might be

and this idea of eternalism is in direct

violation of the understanding of

impermanence

everything that arises every conditioned

experience that arises

passes away

then you have the view of fatalism

so the way that fatalism is understood

is everything is predetermined it's like

a ball

of yarn right it's a ball of string and

you just roll it and then it just

continues to unfurl unroll until it

doesn't until that's the end which means

everything is predetermined

when you have an experience is

predetermined the pleasant experiences

are predetermined the unpleasant

experiences are predetermined so you

don't have a choice

in that moment

everything is already predetermined even

your

suffering is determined even your

awakening

is determined according to this view

now the person

who propagated this view his name was

ajita kesakumboli

kesakumboli means the blanket of hair he

actually wore a blanket made of human

hair

anyway he had this kind of view and he

said there's no need to

do anything everything is already

pre-destined

well what happened to him he went mad

and he drowned himself in a in a

river he drowned himself in a river he

killed himself

so

what we understand through the

perspective of the dhamma is there is a

choice

yes that choice is conditioned by prior

causes and conditions by previous

choices you made in the past but every

present moment that is given is an

opportunity to make a choice and that

choice is either rooted in the wholesome

or the unwholesome

that means you can continue a person can

continue down a path of being

unwholesome and that leads to further

unwholesome consequences

or a person can

let go of that using the six hours

and then come to the wholesome and start

to

recondition the mind recondition the

synapses prune away

those formations that are rooted in the

unwholesome and strengthen those

formations that become conditioned by

the wholesome and so this is how there's

a process of reconditioning choices so

you always are

able to make certain choices in the

present moment there's nothing as

predetermined

you have to make the right effort for

your awakening your awakening isn't just

going to come to you you have to make

the effort

and then there is the view of asceticism

this idea came from the jains the genes

are still a philosophy that exists today

but the idea is that there is a soul

and that that soul

uh collects karmic particles as it

reincarnates from one life to another

and the way to deconditioning that soul

the way to clean up that soul is by

doing certain kind of purificatory

practices

practices that purify the mind and body

and spirit

and the idea is you do this through a

process of asceticism

you fast

you wear certain kinds of clothes you go

into the forest and the idea is that bit

by bit you're cleaning away at these

particles and then your soul becomes

clean and you go into a certain kind of

heaven

but the buddha asked

the the sect

how do you know how much is left in your

balance of karmic particles do you do

you know and they said no we can't

really answer that so this idea is that

the way that old karma is purified is

through continuous asceticism

now the buddha tried it for himself

right he had a luxurious life he gave

that up then he went into a mode of

asceticism a mode of self-modification

and what he realized is all that does is

creates more unpleasant feeling

you're trying to negate the unpleasant

feeling with further unpleasant feelings

it doesn't work it's impractical

and then there's the view of

skepticism

these are the eel wrigglers

the eel wrigglers

eel wrigglers because

where the people who sit on the fence

right they're like there's neither this

nor that there's neither

a tattaga nor a tataka there is neither

this world nor that world there is

neither

you know all of these different kinds of

ideas like

i don't know about it that's their kind

of

statement they're not conclusive about

things

and the main reason why they were like

that was because they were afraid to get

into arguments

they were afraid to have to come to some

kind of standpoint standpoint and have

to defend it and they were afraid of

defeat because of not being able to

defend that particular viewpoint

so

but in the perspective of the dhamma we

know certain things for a fact which is

we understand that there is karma we

understand that there is a process of

rebirth we understand that there is

wholesome and unwholesome we understand

certain things so we are not

inconclusive

we are not perplexed by what is

wholesome and unwholesome we actually

have a set of guidelines that allow us

to know what is wholesome and

unwholesome and so on so clinging to

these kinds of views

and the other kinds of views of the 62

wrong views is this part of clinging to

views

clinging to rights and rituals or

as i said yesterday clinging to rock and

roll right

do you remember that yeah

so

clinging to rights and rituals is this

idea that you're clinging to certain

kinds of observances

that

you believe will lead you to awakening

you believe will lead you to full

awakening that goes away as soon as you

realize that when you walk the path of

the eightfold path

and you experience what you experience

that is to say the cessation of

suffering in that moment you experience

nibana

you realize that this is the path

no amount of chanting no amount of

prayer no amount of lighting candles and

lamps or anything like that is going to

take you

to nibana

and another

understanding of seeing clinging to

rights and rituals is this idea or

belief in luck

and coincidences

there's no such thing actually if you

look at it from the perspective of the

dhamma there's no such thing as

coincidences there's no such thing as

luck

everything arises because of a series of

causes and conditions

so what you might call luck is just you

reaping the interest on your bank

balance of karma

that's all it is

but people can take that to be luck so

they do certain kinds of rituals they do

certain kinds of prayers with the idea

that that's going to mitigate their

karma the idea that that's going to

take away their karma but as we

understand

karma is to be felt and experienced

that's the only way it runs through its

course

and how you take it will either mitigate

the intensity of that karma or actually

increase the intensity and what i mean

by that is

karma

arises as an experience to be felt

right good bad or indifferent whatever

kind of karma arises it arises as an

experience through your sixth sense

basis

now you can perceive that as an

experience that is me mine or myself

and crave or resist

against it

and therefore cause more clinging more

being and then further birth of further

karma and adding to that repository of

karma which means that that new karma

becomes

old karma to be experienced at a future

time

but if you take that experience and see

it for what it is

that is to say you have yoni so many

sikhara attention rooted in reality

you see it as an impermanent

process not worth holding on to and

therefore not to be considered as

personal

as soon as you see it in that way that

means there's no craving there there's

no clinging there there's no resistance

there so that karma

that old karma arises in the process of

feeling but then it dissipates the

intensity of that dissipates

so

how do we contextualize this when you're

meditating and you have hindrances what

are those hindrances actually

they're feeling their experience you're

experiencing a unpleasant feeling in the

form of that hindrance that hindrance

arose because

at some point you broke a precept

so the breaking of that precept was a

certain kind of karma and the effect of

that is the old karma that you're

experiencing in the form of the

hindrance

how do you deal with that hindrance do

you push it

do you hold on to it

do you ignore it do you deflect it or do

you acknowledge it and see it for what

it is and then let go using right effort

let go using the six r's

what you'll notice is when you do 6r

the hindrance might come up again

but the next time it comes up what

happens it becomes weaker

and eventually you six star again and it

becomes weaker

and weaker and until it no longer

comes into the mind

in the same way in your daily living

whatever you're experiencing is old

karma

the only way to mitigate that the only

way to let it go is to see it as being

impersonal and so six aring your

reaction to it six houring your

perception to it as being me mine or

myself as soon as you do that that

experience might arise again but the

next time it won't be as intense

it won't be as gripping on the mind

and then finally we have clinging to

self-view

there's 20 different basic types of cell

few that's the five aggregates

multiplied by four

specific kinds of self-view

so what does that mean

the idea that the the five aggregates

are the self

the five aggregates are in the self

the self is in the five aggregates or

the self is separate from the five

aggregates

so

the idea that this body is self

or this feeling itself or this

perception itself or this formation

itself or this consciousness itself and

so on and so forth

but that goes away when you eradicate

the idea that there is a belief in a

personal self

yes conceit might still arise until you

become an arahant which is the

identification with the five aggregates

that's just an intrinsic

implicit almost automatic process until

you start to recognize it and let that

go

but the idea that you believe that any

of these five aggregates

is a self

or contains a self or is contained in

the self or is separate from itself goes

away

so the clinging to self use goes away

upon stream entry

so clinging conditions

oh here we are clinging conditions

becoming

if there were absolutely no clinging

sensual clinging clinging to views

to rights and rituals or to personality

belief

could be coming appear

no

craving conditions clinging

if there were absolutely no craving

for sights sounds smells tastes

tangibles mind objects

could clinging appear

no

now craving can come in the form of i

like this i don't like this or i am this

craving can come in the form of i

want to become this or i don't want to

become this anymore like

the sensual craving that you might

experience is

somebody's mowing the lawn outside

and you're listening

to that and you get distracted by that

and you get irritated by that and you

get and now you're clean you're craving

or you're having resistance to that and

now you're clinging to that and saying

something like they shouldn't be mowing

the long lawn while i'm meditating don't

they know that we're meditating

right and then there's this whole

concept of

the process of

rationalizing that and that i am a

meditator i've come here on retreat

and so this becoming i am you know and

then maybe you get angry about that and

then you have a reaction hopefully you

didn't but maybe there was a reaction

that came about right and so that's the

birth of reaction which leads to further

suffering

but if you saw that experience as okay

here is an experience

here is the sound of the landmower

it's an irritating experience it's an

unpleasant experience

but it's a feeling that is

arising and passing away if you really

understood that those are just sound

waves coming to be and going away in

every moment

then it's just sound

you know what about the pleasant sound

that you have a bird's chirping do you

get upset by those

it's that's also just sound just

impersonal sound if you have that

understanding then there's no craving no

resistance

to any of the sensual experiences

now the craving to become what is that

i want to be in this shana i want nibana

i want to experience cessation

the craving to become is the craving to

be in a certain kind of mind state

to be whether it's in this life or a

future life

what is the craving to not become i am

this person now but i don't no longer

want to be this person

this idea that there is a self that is

moody i don't want to be moody anymore

there's a difference here there's chanda

which is the wholesome cultivated

intention

to continue to be something better for

the purposes of

evolution in the dhamma

but if the mind obsesses over that and

says i don't want to be here for example

even in the experience of jhana you say

well i'm in the first jhana but i don't

want to be in the first jana anymore i

want to be in the second channel

that not wanting to become b in the

first jhana is a craving for not

becoming

and so now you want to be somewhere else

so these are like two sides of the same

coin

feeling conditions craving

if there were absolutely no feeling

feeling born of eye contact ear contact

nose contact tongue contact body contact

mind contact in the absence of all

feeling

with the cessation of feeling

could craving appear

no

so you can six are becoming you can six

are the habitual tendencies

you can six are clinging

you could six our craving

can you six are the birth of action

no

you think about dependent origination

like a river it continues on and then

there's a waterfall

that then towards the waterfall is the

becoming and then going down the

waterfall

is the birth of action once you have

produced the action can you recall that

action back

you can't

but you can six are

the sense of i am this the sense of

habitual tendency i do it this way it is

my way and so on and so forth

you can six are that you can six r the

rationalizations of why you like

something or you don't like something

you can six r the tension that's a

manifestation of the craving

can you six our feeling

you can't six our feeling but

you can six are the underlying

inclinations that happen in feeling and

what do i mean by that

there are seven underlying tendencies

what's seven

the underlying tendency towards craving

the underlying tendency towards aversion

the underlying tendency towards views

the underlying tendency towards doubt

the underlying tendency towards becoming

the underlying tendency towards conceit

and the underlying tendency towards

ignorance

now that happens when there is a painful

feeling there is the underlying tendency

towards aversion

when there is a pleasant feeling there

is an underlying tendency to words

craving

that can happen automatic if the mind is

not mindful and that

that underlying tendency is the

intersection between feeling and craving

so if there's an underlying tendency

towards craving and you act upon it then

you have full-blown craving that says i

don't like this

however you might say

this is a unpleasant feeling

and then you let that go and there's no

craving but if you say i

i see this unpleasant feeling and it's

irritating and i don't like it that

process is the process of underlying

tendency towards craving

it's that bend that happens towards

craving so

when you have certain attainments

certain underlying tendencies go away

for example the underlying tendency

towards doubt goes away when you become

a stream enter the underlying tendency

to wrong view goes away the underlying

tendency to craving and aversion go away

when you become an anagon and the

underlying tendency of becoming the

underlying tendency towards ignorance

and the underlying tendency towards

conceit goes away once you have our

hardship

so in the same way that's the case

certain kinds of craving will go away

sensual craving goes away when you

become an onigami

craving for becoming and craving for not

becoming goes away when you become an

arahat

certain kinds of clinging go away with

certain kinds of attainment

clinging to sensual pleasures obviously

goes away when you become an anagaming

clinging to certain kinds of view go

away when you have established right

view clinging to rights and rituals go

away when you go get into stream entry

and clinging to self clinging to self

view goes away when you have stream

entry

so what happens is as you get each

attainment bit by bit

you are whittling away at the craving

the different types of framing the

different types of clinging the

different types of becoming

and so the more you six are that the

more you use right effort the more you

become mindful the more you have yoni so

manisakar attention rooted in reality

the more

there is non-use of craving and

therefore non-use of clinging and

therefore non-use of becoming

and eventually they fade away as the

feathers drop

as you experience certain kinds of

attainments

so when it comes to feeling you can't

six are away the feeling you're feeling

pain in the meditation you can't

uh six are the pain away but you can six

r the underlying tendency towards

aversion

for that painful feeling

in that painful feeling

so it's the it's not

it's not the pleasantness of an

experience or the painfulness of the

experience that's the problem

or the trouble

it's how the mind takes it how the mind

perceives it that should be understood

and if needed to be let go of

to be let go

therefore ananda just this is the root

the cause the origin the condition for

craving namely feeling

and so ananda

feeling conditions craving

craving conditions seeking

seeking conditions acquisition

acquisition conditions decision making

decision-making conditions lustful

desire

lustful

desire conditions attachment

attachment conditions appropriation

appropriation conditions

avarice

adverse conditions guarding of

possessions and because of the guarding

of possessions there arise the taking up

of stick and sword quarrels disputes

arguments

strife abuse

lying and other evil unskilled states

so here the buddha is talking about what

happens when you have an experience of

craving so craving conditions seeking

it's that mind the hungry ghost mind

that's always looking for something

you see when we talk about the different

kinds of realm experiences it's not just

existential experiences it's also

psychological

if you have a hungry ghost kind of

experience in the mind a hungry ghost

kind of psychology you're always

dissatisfied with everything you're

always seeking for something and then

that's seeking conditions acquisition

that acquisition process happens in

feeling sorry in clinging

clinging which is upadhana rupadana

means the fuel for something

and that is the process of acquiring

something the process of acquiring an

identity the process of acquiring a

favorite of something in the in the form

of different kinds of sense pleasures

that kind of acquisition also can be

acquiring wealth acquiring power

acquiring status acquiring fame now you

have all of these things

and then that conditions how you make

your decisions

you decide in the form of

trying to keep your acquisitions

and not to let them disappear not to

lose them

from that there comes lustful desire now

lustful desire here israeli the action

or the birth of reactivity to hoard

that wealth to hoard that power to hoard

that status to hoard that fame and from

that lustful desire there comes

attachment now you attach to these

things

so attachment is one thing and

conditioning is another when we talk

about certain attachments they arise as

a result of conditioning

attachment itself is the process of

identifying with something this is my

wealth this is my

status this is my fame this is my

identity but that's conditioned by

previous choices you've made in the past

so i am like this because

of certain choices that i've made in the

past

and then from that attachment comes

appropriation

now that appropriation says i have this

much and you have that much

and that come that gives rise to avarice

i want what you have

because i don't have enough

so i crave for attention i take away

attention from you

i crave for wealth i steal your wealth i

crave for

status

i bring you down and bring up myself all

kinds of different things that people

seek

and then from that is the guarding of

possessions now i have this wealth i'm

keeping it i have this power and so i'm

keeping it so when you see certain kinds

of tyrants of the past they had enormous

amounts of power what they do

they try to hoard it and they try to

invade other countries invade other

cities and say now this is mine and so

from there comes the

taking up of stick and sword quarrels

disputes arguments strife abuse

lying in other evil unskilled states

if only the world leaders knew this

i have said all these evil unskilled

states arise because of the guarding of

possessions

for if there were absolutely no guarding

of possessions would there be the taking

up of stick or sword

no

therefore ananda the guarding of

possessions is the root the cause the

origin the condition for all of these

evil unskillful states

i have said avarice conditions the

guardian of possessions

appropriation conditions avarice

attachment con conditions appropriation

lustful desire conditions attachment

decision-making conditions lustful

desire

acquisition conditions decision-making

seeking conditions acquisition i have

said craving conditions seeking if there

were no craving

for central pleasures

no craving for existence

no craving for annihilation would there

be any seeking out

no

therefore ananda

craving is the root

the cause

the origin the condition for all seeking

thus these two things become united in

one by feeling

in other words

this whole process happens because you

take

a feeling the vedana which is an

experience

all of that is unified in the pleasant

feeling or in the unpleasant feeling or

in the neutral feeling and the

underlying tendency towards that

particular feeling or from that feeling

can cause the mind to take it personally

and from that becomes this whole chain

of dependent origination from craving

clinging becoming

the birth of action and suffering

so what this also talks about is mental

proliferation

papancha

so the process of clinging

is a process of papancha it starts from

craving

and it further deepens

and then there's becoming so all these

that is craving clinging and becoming

constitute

prapancha constitute mental

proliferation which

seeks out things just thinking about

this or that thinking about how do i get

that you know how do i trick that person

or you know how do i get to this genre

or what do i do now and all of these

other kinds of mental proliferations

are basically the stuff that we've been

talking about in this suta

i have said contact conditions feeling

therefore contact is the root the cause

the origin the condition for feeling

mind and body conditions contact he

missed something here right

sixth sense basis

ananda wasn't able to recognize the

sixth sense spaces

but what we do understand is that the

sixth sense bases

are

conditioned by mentality materiality

right so we're going to explore what is

mentality materiality now and we'll

realize

what that means in the form of the sixth

sense basis

here he says

by whatever properties

features

signs or indications

the mind factor is conceived of

would there be in the absence of such

properties pertaining to the mind factor

be manifest any grasping at the idea of

the body factor

that's a very confusing question

so let's break that up

now his response is no

and then the buddha says or in the

absence of any such properties

pertaining to the body factor

would there be any grasping at sensory

reaction on the part of the mind factor

and ananda says no

so what we're saying here is we have

mentality materiality

mentality is mind mind is made up of

five

factors

contact feeling

perception intention attention

it's through these processes that mind

is known

but these processes are dependent upon

materiality

can you experience contact without a

body

can you experience feeling without a

body

can you experience perception without a

body

you can experience mind you can

experience mental contact but still that

is dependent upon what the processes of

the brain

which is the materiality factor

in other words the mind factor is one

thing and the brain which is the

materiality is another

so these processes of the mind the

contact

feeling perception intention and

attention

are dependent upon

the four elements that constitute the

body

the rupa

this body that we have here

is made up of the earth element the fire

element the water element and the air

element are the four states of matter

solidity liquidity or solid state liquid

state gaseous state and plasma state

these constitute the experience of the

body and it's only through

the processes of the body that is to say

the rupa that you have an eye that you

have in year that you have a nose that

you have a tongue that you have a body

that you have a brain

through which the faculties of mind are

able to function

so that interdependency is also within

this process

mind depends on body for its function

but you experience body without mind

right so you can't experience you can

experience the sixth sense spaces only

through what they are experiencing that

is to say contact

the eye

meets the form and there is eye

consciousness

eye consciousness happens because you're

aware that the eye is seeing something

and there is contact there

so i

that is to say the physical eye is one

thing but the process of contact and

feeling that is the mentality is another

thing

so that process of contact feeling and

perception of the eye and the eye

feeling and the eye perception is

dependent upon the solidity of the eye

that is the body

so mentality is dependent upon

the materiality

and you can only experience materiality

through the factors of mentality

and that includes the sixth sense basis

wow

consciousness

so consciousness is

included in the five aggregates yes

so what i'm saying is contact gives rise

to feeling perception

intention

and attention attention is through which

consciousness flows

which awareness or consciousness flows

so that's how it's understood

contact also has consciousness yeah

contact has consciousness because the

joining of the three the eye the form

and eye consciousness

is eye contact

and the way that where you are seeing is

the attention through which the

consciousness flows

right

right so we have the five aggregates

which is form

feeling perception

formations and consciousness

so intention

there's the intention and there is the

formations

it's through wanting to say something

that you have verbal formations coming

to be so that you can express speech

it's through the process of making a

bodily movement

that there is an intention to move and

through that bodily formations or

through that bodily intention bodily

formations flow

and so

mental formations which allow you to

feel and perceive arise dependent upon

contact in fact all

that is to say

all formations intention

feeling

perception are dependent upon contact

when contact arises there is feeling

and tied to that feeling there is

perception

tied to that feeling and perception

there is consciousness of that feeling

and perception

and tied to that is the intention to do

something

only when there is contact with the mind

contact with the five physical senses

can then intention to say something or

intention to do something arise

so that

so that process of karma also

arises dependent upon contact if there

was no contact no karma would flow

because karma is experienced as vedana a

pleasant experience

unpleasant experience or neutral

experience

there were other hands that were raised

up

so

you get the example of an

of an eye

a form

how does that work with a mind object so

a concept arises

a thought arises and that's the object

right and then everything else is the

same your object of meditation arises

and that's a mental object mind makes

contact with that and there is the

feeling of loving kindness

right

i think you had a question you were

going to raise your hand

no okay

all right

so if we

now with all of that background

information let's go back to what he

asked he said

by whatever properties features signs or

indications the mind factors conceived

of

would there be in absence of such

properties that is to say in absence of

the mind factor pertaining to the mind

factor

would there be manifest any grasping at

the idea of a body

if you didn't have contact feeling

perception intention could you

experience a body

no

and so then he says

or in the absence of any such properties

pertaining to the body to the

materiality would there be any grasping

at sensory reaction on the part of the

mind factor

you couldn't because the sixth sense

bases are the physical materiality it's

through them that you experience the

factors of mentality

if you didn't have those

would you be able to experience mind

or the factors of mind

so then he says

by whatever properties

features signs or indications the mind

factor is conceived of

in the absence of these is there any

contact to be found

all right

by whatever properties features

signs or indications

the mind factor is conceived

of so the mind factor is conceived of

made up of

contact feeling perception intention and

attention or the five aggregates right

or four of the five aggregates because

you have form

in the absence of that can there be

contact in other words if you didn't

have mentality

would you be able to have contact

no

you wouldn't be aware of that contact

then ananda just this namely mind and

body

is the root the cause the origin the

condition for all contact

i have said consciousness conditions

mind and body

now the buddha is going to go to the

macro level of understanding dependent

origination because what he said is

consciousness conditions mind and body

but mind and body also conditions

consciousness

so first let's take up the first part of

that

if consciousness were not to come into

the mother's womb

would mind and body develop there

no

you need the descending of consciousness

into mentality materiality so that is to

say

at the point of procreation

the mother and father

join but if there's no consciousness

that descends

would there be further development of

that into an embryo

you need the gandaba you need the

consciousness for it to evolve into an

embryo and a fetus and so on and so

forth

so if it was not there it would not

develop

or if consciousness having entered the

mother's womb

were to be deflected

would mind and body come to birth in

this life so now there is the embryo

there is the fetus

but if there was something that happened

that caused the consciousness to depart

from that fetus

would that fetus continue to grow it

would be stillborn

or if consciousness having entered the

mother's womb sorry and if consciousness

of such a tender young being boy or girl

were thus caught off

would mind and body grow develop and

mature

if the if the infant or

the child or even an adult were killed

that consciousness departs from the body

so that what happens to the body does it

continue to grow

eventually it decays

just the nails grow right

maybe they have the experience of the

asanata beings

unconscious

like

there's no

perception going on nothing going on

just but there is still life there

yeah

so when we're talking about

consciousness in this context we're

talking about life

if the life descends there will be

growth of the mind and body

therefore ananda just this namely

consciousness

is the root the cause the origin the

condition

of mind and body

i have said now he's still on the macro

level he says i have said

mind and body conditions consciousness

if consciousness did not find a landing

place in mind and body

would there subsequently be an arising

and coming to be of birth aging death

and suffering

no

so consciousness

to be experienced is dependent on the

factors of mind and body

and to experience mind and body you need

consciousness

the ability to be aware of it through

the process of contact and attention and

so on and so forth

so this interdependency consciousness

depends upon mind and body

because

it can only be experienced through the

factors of mind and body

but for mind and body

to arise and to develop it requires

consciousness

on the micro level this is also

very much

true because

the consciousness that arises is

dependent upon formations

now there are certain formations that

arise those formations can be laced or

tinged with craving

with wrong views with ignorance with

conceit that can create or give rise to

or activate a certain kind of

consciousness

which here when we talk about

consciousness we're talking about as

cognition

to cognize something

that's already tinged with craving it's

inclined towards seeing it as this is me

this is my this is myself

and so that

conditions the sense spaces in mentality

materiality which already conditions the

way that contact and feeling is

perceived

so if formations

have craving in them if formations have

identification in them that is to say

they are

conditioned by laced by hindered by

fettered by craving and identification

then the rest of that series that is to

say the cognition

that can be corrupted by the upaki

lasers

and there are 16 upaki lisas which i'm

not going to talk about here you can

look look for it for yourself but

they can give rise to a certain kind of

mindset

in cognition which then perceives or

which experiences contact and feeling in

a certain way

so if there are formations rooted in

jealousy of choices rooted in jealousy

in the past then it cognizes in such a

way it's always comparing whether i'm

better than this person or they're

better than me

if there is anger there if there's

hatred there whatever it might be and

these all stem from the akusala mula

that is to say the unwholesome roots

greed

hatred and delusion

these are conditioned by ignorance which

are then conditioned by the taints going

if

on

if you stop the identification of it

at the beginning you would cut off that

entire spectrum yes

completely seeing this whole thing as

impersonal

you don't take even contact as imper as

personal right

and so therefore the feeling that arises

is just vibration of

sound

or photons

or you know taste molecules or order

molecules or bodily vibrations or

circuitry in the brain that causes

thoughts to arise and things like that

if you see it all as this impersonal

process

then

you're not going to say that this is me

this is mine this is myself you're not

going to say i want more of that you

just see things as they are

so the big challenge then is to develop

that as a skill that is

constantly with you as you're

experiencing consciousness right and

that's facilitated through the process

of the six hours

when you start to see that your choices

are starting to get rooted in craving

you can recognize oh here is a

percolation of craving and you can relax

it and let it go using the six r's and

then respond or make choices that are

rooted in wisdom and compassion

what that does is then the next set of

formations which are conditioned by the

intention conditioned by that choice

are now

further steeped or further laced or

further rooted

in non-greed in non-hatred in

non-delusion that is to say in wisdom in

compassion

and so when that happens

these get strengthened and those

formations through non-use and

non-activation because you don't make

choices in the unwholesome

start to get pruned away and there is a

remainderless fading away

of craving and conceit and views

so the way the genres arise is because

of causes and conditions all you're

doing is you're placing you have the

intention to place your attention on an

object of meditation that means now you

have let go of the hindrances

you have let go of any ident any kind of

clinging or grasping at sensual

experiences your mind becomes collected

so the formations that arise because of

that

arise as a result of

you making that choice to be collected

the more you do that that's why

initially in the retreat when you're in

your first retreat it seems like you're

getting into jana's at a slower pace but

now you've exercised those formations

rooted in the experience of that jhana

so it's much easier on your second or

third or fourth or fifth retreat through

continual effort to continual practice

to be able to experience that jhana

almost instantaneously

it's you're able to be more meditative

because you have formations that are

stronger in that choice to be meditative

and so on and so forth

are

less

or

less strong

because of what you said

proved away that's right so there's this

thing called myelination

which grant talked about

at our last retreat

where

the

neural pathways

that

aren't used

uh get pruned away there's actually a

cell

that goes and

trims them away and actually recycles

the

the um

material the

whatever it is called

the neuro material

and

and so that those old pathways

actually like when they're not used

literally get

to disappear through myelination

if you look it up online

you can actually see a video on youtube

where myelination actually happens

with this very very

tiny

um or

highly focused

micro

microscope that records the cell doing

it so you actually see it clipped and

pulled off away and so then

the

the stronger patterns that are supported

i guess wholesome in our case

would get larger and instead of becoming

you know having being small actually

become kind of main highways yeah yeah

yeah

i would think that you you would be

developed you would be conditioning

these patterns

that become more and more familiar and

more accessible and so this would become

a skillful skillful mental states or

skillful activities so that

at

the time of choice

it would be just a matter of

establishing perhaps that intent and

just going directly to that location

right and to those points that's

basically what we're saying then is when

you start to let go of the craving and

the clinging

you're letting go of those formations

those synapses

that continue to fire up that craving

and eventually through non-use they're

replaced by

or they used instead of redirecting

towards using it for wisdom using it for

wise choices

but

there's still power

so there might be no craving there might

be no clinging but there can be taking

that feeling still as personal

that is to say

i am in this jhana or i have caused this

jhana to be or i am experiencing this

that sense of the

the identification with the processes of

the five aggregates can still lead to a

certain kind of bhava that is to say the

conceit in i am a good person

or i developed all these wholesome

things so in order to get to arahatship

you have to go from it's this whole

process is going from the unwholesome to

the wholesome and then going from the

wholesome

to not identifying

with the wholesome

just correct me if i'm wrong i feel like

i'm getting a better understanding of

when we say personal process

we're talking about consciousness coming

down into a mentality into reality

it kind of seems to me like so when i

say like my life

it's not even

my life right when i think about my

karma it's not even my karma per se

um

when i'm working on my permissions right

when i'm 6r informations etc

these are not my formations i just kind

of inherited these it's almost like i'm

just here for the ride

right you are inheriting your karma as

the buddha says

but

in in reality the karma the

consciousness

the life all of that is just arising

because of impersonal causes and

conditions

and all i can do

well not all i can do

uh what i do if you will

is

you know six are and make wholesome

choices and follow the equal path

so that this consciousness doesn't you

know

doesn't torment someone else in the

future at a future rebirth but hopefully

it just ends here right

but otherwise what i would be doing on a

day-to-day basis is

you know clipping away people like these

formations restructuring my burden

restructuring this brain

uh so that it acts a more wholesome way

but it's not

it's just a deck i mean the cars have

been dealt with

that right

in this life

everyone just has different formations

that they didn't ask for they just

right

so now in the case of the arahat right

do they still have formations

yes

because those are karmic formations

formations arising because of previous

choices made prior to full awakening

they don't produce new formations they

don't produce new karma

but what happens is

everything from now the ignorance that's

there which conditions the formations

is no longer there instead what is there

is wisdom

is right view

and so those formations that arise are

conditioned by that right view but

mechanically speaking they are

giving rise to certain kinds of karma

their karmic formations which give rise

to a certain kind of experience down the

road of dependent origination so

formations consciousness

mentality materiality sixth sense basis

contact and feeling

are all the old karma arising as a

result of previous choices made in the

past

at some point

now

they don't produce any new karma because

their mind their formations are rooted

fully in wisdom rooted fully in the

eightfold path

and the cessation of karma is done so

through the process of the eightfold

path that is to say

if you have right intention it's an

intention of letting go automatically

nothing being held on to

therefore there's no craving there's no

clinging the craving the clinging the

being

are the processes for new karma to arise

in the form of birth of reaction which

then causes suffering

and so that suffering becomes the old

karma that you experience

in that moment or a subsequent moment or

a subsequent time in the future

so that delineation point between old

karma and new karma

is the feeling and the craving between

the feeling and the craving

if the feeling the experience that

you're having right now all of this

is old karma

that is to say it is the effects of

previous choices you've made in the past

how you take it will determine whether

your new karma is produced

or

you see it okay

thus far then ananda we can trace birth

and decay

death and falling into other states and

being reborn

thus far extends the way of designation

of concepts thus far is the sphere of

understanding

thus far

the round goes as far as can be

discerned in this life

namely to nama rupa or mentality

materiality together with consciousness

in what ways ananda do people explain

the nature of the self

some dis

declare the self to be material and

limited

saying

myself is material and limited

some declare it to be material and

unlimited

some declare it to be immaterial and

limited

some declare it to be immaterial and

unlimited

whoever declares the self to be material

and limited considers it to be so either

now

or in the next world thinking

though it is not so now i shall acquire

it there the idea of a soul the idea of

a self

still continues on so that whole process

of reincarnation but what does that mean

material and limited

that the idea that the self is this just

this body

and it's limited by this body that's the

self

but what about the self that is material

and

unlimited

that comes from the idea that myself is

this entire universe

material universe

so what about the idea

that

myself is immaterial and limited

the soul is contained in the body

it's immaterial but it's limited within

the confines of the body some some

concepts in ancient india had the idea

that the soul was at the center of the

spiritual heart and was the size of a

thumb

yeah

and then what about immaterial and

unlimited

yes

there is the idea that the

in there's the atma which is the soul

and the brahman which is the substratum

of all creation

and the idea is

the self and the universe

are one and the same thing

the soul

and the sub stratum of the universe are

one in the same thing

cosmic consciousness yes

we are one

lot of people yeah think that about

obama yeah that you end up in some

eternal

state of being yeah

but nibana as we know it is the

quenching

of the fires of greed hatred and

delusion

and it's impersonal

so

he says the same thing about the other

four he says

in what ways

ananda the people regard the self

they equate self with feeling saying

feeling is myself

or feeling is not myself myself is

impercipient

or feeling is not myself but myself is

not impercipient it is of a nature to

feel

so

to simplify what he's saying is some

people think the self is feeling

or the self is in feeling or the self is

that which feels

now ananda one who says feeling is

myself should be told there are three

kinds of feeling friend pleasant painful

neutral

which of the three do you consider to be

yourself

when a pleasant feeling is felt no

painful or neutral feeling is felt but

only pleasant feeling when a painful

feeling is felt no pleasant or neutral

feeling is felt but only painful feeling

and when a neutral feeling is felt no

pleasant or painful feeling is felt but

only neutral feeling

pleasant feeling is impermanent

conditioned dependently arisen bound to

decay to vanish to fade away to cease

and so too are painful feeling and

neutral feeling so anyone who on

experiencing a pleasant feeling thinks

this is myself

must at the cessation of that pleasant

feeling think

myself is gone

and the same with painful and neutral

feelings

thus whoever thinks

feeling is myself is contemplating

something in this present life that is

impermanent a mixture of happiness and

unhappiness subject to arising and

passing away

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is myself

so

we have to understand it from the

ancient indian context there was an idea

of a self right whether it was in

hinduism or brahmanism there is this

idea of a self and that self is sachit

ananda that is to say it is a self that

has

all pervading existence

is completely permanent and is the

source of all happiness

now if you were to use that as the

touchstone of what is a self

if you use that touchstone for all

experience all your five aggregates

you can see that they are not that self

because

they were bound to change they're bound

to decay therefore they're impermanent

and if they're impermanent pleasant

experiences when they go away

are painful

so they're mixed as the buddha says

of happiness and unhappiness subject to

arising and passing away

therefore it is not fitting to say that

feeling is myself or form is myself or

perception is myself or formations or

myself or consciousness is myself

but anyone who says feeling is not

myself myself is impercipiant should be

asked

if friend no feelings at all were to be

experienced

would there be the thought i am

to which he would have to reply no

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself myself is

impercipiant

and anyone who says

feeling is not self but my but myself is

not impercipiant

myself is of a nature to feel that is to

say i

i am the self and i feel

the feeling is not the self but i feel

okay

should be asked well friend if all

feelings absolutely and totally cease

could there be the thought i am this

because the only way you know you are is

dependent upon the process of feeling if

you were to say i feel

as a self but you would only know i am

when there is a feeling

so the self is dependent or the idea of

the self that feels is dependent on the

process of actually feeling

so

to which he would have to reply no

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself myself is

impercipient

oh sorry uh to which it is

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself but myself is not

impercipiant myself is of a nature to

feel

from the time ananda when a monk

when one no longer regards feeling as

self or as the self as being

impercipient

or as being percipient and of a nature

to feel

by not so regarding he clings to nothing

in the world

so when we talk about feeling we also

say

form perception formations consciousness

the idea is if someone

no longer regards form feeling

perception formations and consciousness

as self

no longer regards the self as being

impercipient that there is a self that

you cannot experience

but there are these aggregates so

there's a self outside of these

aggregates

no longer regards that

and no longer regards

that the self has a nature to have form

and no longer regards that the self has

a nature to feel or to perceive or to

have intention or to be aware

he clings to nothing in this world

and so by not clinging

he is not excited by anything

and not being excited he gains personal

liberation and he knows birth is

finished

the holy life has been led

done was what had to be done there is no

more coming to being

and if anyone were to say to a monk

whose mind was thus freed

you tell an arahat this

the tata exists after death that would

be seen by him as a wrong opinion and

unfitting

likewise the tathagath does not exist

both exists and does not exist

neither exists nor does not exist after

death

he would see all of that as wrong

opinion

why so

as far ananda as designation and the

range of designation reaches

as far as language and the range of

language reaches as far as concepts and

the range of concepts reaches as far as

understanding and the range of

understanding reaches as far as the

cycle reaches and revolves that

one who is liberated from all that by

super knowledge

and to maintain that such a liberated

monk does not know and see would be a

wrong view and incorrect

now i brought this question up to

you at the eastern retreat the

definition of what is a being in the

sense of a sata

sata means a being not the being in

terms of becoming

but a being and in the sense of a

personality like

an individual what how is that

sata that being defined

a being is one

who has craving

or attachment or identification

with one or more of the five

aggregates but if the tatagath or an

arahant

no longer has craving and clinging

identification for any of the five

aggregates

are they a being

or a non-being

[Laughter]

so that all that doesn't matter to them

because that's like oh that presupposes

that there's a self there that

presupposes that there is a being there

but if there's no longer anything

you can't even say that there is no

longer

a being there's no longer a non there's

a non-being to say that there was a

non-being means there was a being which

no longer became a be a non-being

does that make sense

all right so we're going to get into

some other things

how is your energy level

you guys are full

we'll continue these

these parts tomorrow and then we'll

continue with whatever else we have

all right let's share some merit

may suffering ones be suffering free may

the fear stroke fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may they all being share this merit that

we have thus acquired for the

acquisition of all kinds of happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long protect

the buddha's dispensations

others

so

[Music]

the great discourse on origination

thus if i heard once the lord was

staying among the crews

there is a market town there called kama

sadama

and the venerable ananda came to the

blessed ones saluted him

sat down to one side and said

it is wonderful

it is marvelous how profound

this dependent origination is

and how profound it appears appears

and yet it appears to me as clear as

clear

do not say that ananda do not say that

this dependent origination is profound

and appears profound

it is through not understanding not

penetrating this doctrine

that this generation has become like a

tangled ball of string

covered as with a blight

tangled with coarse grass

unable to pass beyond states of woe

the ill destiny ruin and the round of

birth and death

so the buddha is saying to ananda

because ananda has had some kind of an

experience

where he's seen dependent origination

but he hasn't seen

all of it

as we'll see

and the buddha is saying that

yes it is quite profound the

understanding of dependent origination

but

it doesn't always appear as clear as

clear as ananda puts it

and it is through not understanding

dependent origination which is basically

the elaboration

of the first and second noble truths

it's through not understanding that and

being able to then let go of it and

experience the third noble truth using

the fourth noble truth

that people are suffering all beings are

suffering

that's why

wrong view exists in their mind or has

existed in their mind

and right view which is the

understanding of dependent origination

or

which is

facilitate facilitated through

seeing and experiencing dependent

origination for yourself

that you start to let go of wrong view

and establish the right view

if ananda you are asked

has aging and death a condition for its

existence

that is jarrah marana

you should answer yes

if asked what conditions aging and death

you should answer aging and death is

conditioned by birth

so aging and death

aging and death are

inevitable however people

identify with the form identify with the

five aggregates

and have fear

of aging and death because of that

clinging to the five aggregates

and so you have people who

get botox done and color their hair and

try to

look at themselves in the mirror and

deny the process of aging

now aging and death are inevitable as i

said so it's not like you can six r away

aging and death

but

you can six our the response and

reaction to aging and death

and you can come to peace with what is

inevitable

all beings that arise pass away

all conditioned things that arise pass

away

and so seeing that people have

uh

come to terms with the natural process

of aging and

the fact that one day

their life will end

and if you have peace with that

then you have

a wonderful

mind which is em embedded in equanimity

embedded in acceptance embedded in

relief

because

we all know no one here is getting out

alive

at some point or another

right

but we're okay with that to an extent

because we understand the inevitability

of death

so the buddha says if asked what

conditions aging and death

one should say birth

now we're talking about birth on the

macro level the birth of a being the

coming into being the birth and the

the

creation of the aggregates they're

coming into being of the aggregates and

the sixth sense bases

so there is another understanding of

birth because what we'll see with

dependent origination is

there is a macro level which

through which you understand the process

of rebirth from one life to another

but there is a micro level let's say

which helps you to understand dependent

origination

or the process of

contact feeling perception and so on

on a moment-to-moment level so when we

talk about birth at that level we're

talking about two things

the arising and passing away of

consciousnesses the birth of different

consciousnesses dependent upon

experiences

and we're talking about the birth of

action

or reaction

because there's a difference between

reacting and

responding

reactivity is rooted in craving

response or responding

is rooted in wisdom and compassion one

sees things as they really are with an

experience

instead of taking that experience to be

personal instead of taking that

experience to be this is me this is mine

this is myself

or it's affecting a sense of me mine or

myself

the mind that has wisdom sees it as

impersonal and therefore

does not have birth of reaction

that adds to suffering

and rather lets go of that

reactivity in the mind

you should answer aging and death is

conditioned by birth so when we talk

about aging and death we can also

uh lump that up with the whole mass of

suffering

that is dukkha

and so when we talk about dukkha we have

basically three categories of dukkha

there are three categories of dukkha

what three

there is dukkha

there is vipari namaduka and there is

sangharaka

has to do with the

bodily pain the mental pain

the

you know the grief the sorrow the

lamentation

the aging the death the illness and so

on

vipari namaduka is the dukkha of change

the dukkha of impermanence things change

unexpected things happen

you're on your way to the airport and

you're looking forward to having a

retreat

and then suddenly you find out that the

flight is cancelled

that's vikari namaduka there's nothing

you can do about it but

you can deal with it through how you

perceive the situation do you take it

personally or do you see it as okay

there it is and you have equanimity

and then there is what's known as

sankhara

so vipari namaduka is uh

basically the dukkha of not getting what

you want or getting what you don't want

and sankara dukkha has to do with the

clinging and craving through the five

aggregates that is to say the five

aggregates affected by clinging and

craving

so identifying with them causes the mind

to have certain expectations which lead

to dukkha at some point or another so

sankhara dukkha is sometimes translated

as pervasive

that doesn't mean that

all life is suffering

but what it means is there is suffering

in life

and so

by identifying with the aggregates

you build yourself up with certain

expectations and ideas and concepts

which might not be the reality of the

situation

and so that creates

a sense of dukkha a sense of

disenchantment let's say or dismay

with the world with life

because you you you realize

that everything is impermanent and

therefore not worth holding on to

but if you see it in the right way which

is rooted in wisdom then you don't

experience dukkha

that dukkha of sankaradaka arises when

you see things as impermanent but you

still cling on to form feeling

perception formations and consciousness

even though you know that they're

impermanent somehow they're still

clinging there

and so that idea that that dissonance

between the two is

that experience of sankhara dukkha

so what conditions birth

becoming conditions birth

can be translated as existence

as becoming

as being or as habitual tendencies

when we talk about the process of

becoming

we're talking about the mind state that

becomes

something in the sense of

a conceptualized self

when we talk about habitual tendencies

we're talking about a repository

of

habits or habitual tendencies

that the mind automatically uses as a

way to react to situations

so on the macro level we're talking

about the mind state in which there is

a process of when formations arise and

the mind sees certain things and then

there is a reaction to it

in the form of craving or clinging to

that

or resisting to that and the fuel of

that

causes that mind then to bring up

a new consciousness that then

takes or carries forward into a new life

that process is becoming and that

process is

identifying with one of the three

spheres of existence

so if a mindset has been

predominantly

sensual based that is to say seeking out

sense experiences or resisting to

un

displeasurable sense experiences having

aversion to that

the mind will then create

or it will activate a certain type of

consciousness that will take root

into a sense-based realm

then you have the form realms and the

formless realms so this is to say

someone who has developed jhana and has

clinging to jhana

the first four chanas

and so each jhana state is

connected with a particular brahma realm

and if one has certain clinging and

craving for that genre it is possible

that that mind state will cause the

arising of a certain consciousness

that will then

go to that particular brahmaloka

likewise with the formless attainments

so sometimes when you see in the suit as

this idea of becoming they always talk

about it on the macro level

that is existence

there are three types of existence

existence in the sense realms

existence in the form genres form realms

or existence in the formless realms

when we talk about day-to-day living

when we talk about our momentary

experience moment-to-moment experience

there what we're talking about is bhava

is habitual tendencies it's the

different inclinations of the mind that

are built up to create a sense of self

and then from that repository of

habitual tendencies the mind then reacts

and so it could be certain kinds of

ideas about who i am or who i ought to

be

or who people should think i should be

and so on and so forth

clinging conditions becoming

so clinging is a process of

rationalizing why you crave something

so craving is the i don't like it i like

it or i am that mind

and clinging is

i like it because

i don't like it because

i am that because it's the process of

taking

that craving or resistance and saying

i am right because of so and so

and so that rationalization that process

of association that process of

saying that i don't like this and

further deepening that process of

craving through clinging

creates

certain kinds of inclinations in bhava

so

i don't like this because this happened

therefore i am this kind of person and

so i will react

from that standpoint

so that breaking that apart i don't like

it is the craving

because of so and so is the clinging

therefore i am this person is the

becoming

and so i will act in this way is the

birth of reaction

craving conditions clinging so craving

is understood in threefold

there is the craving for sensual

experience there's the craving for

existence the craving to become

something and the craving for

non-existence the craving for not

becoming something to prevent from

something

prevent something from happening wanting

to prevent

uh something from happening

so this kind of craving conditions the

clinging

we'll go deeper into this as we go on so

it says

feeling conditions craving contact

conditions feeling

mind and body conditions contact

consciousness conditions mind and body

asked has consciousness a condition for

its existence

you should answer yes

if asked what conditions consciousness

you should answer

mind and body conditions

consciousness

so for ananda he didn't see or he wasn't

able to recognize his ignorance

so we talked about the four kinds of uh

let's say competitive

competencies which is

unconsciously incompetent

consciously incompetent

consciousness consciously competent and

unconsciously

competent

and so what that refers to is

the

ignorance of not realizing you don't

know the four noble truths

not even introduced to the four normal

truths have no introduction to

understanding what the four noble truths

are

then you realize oh

i don't know what the four noble truths

are i've i've been introduced to them

but i can't understand them

and then there comes a point where right

view comes to be

and then you start to slowly understand

the four noble truths until the four

noble truths becomes your way of living

and that's the fourth

so for ananda

he was still

unconsciously incompetent he's not able

to recognize the ignorance

and therefore wasn't able to recognize

the formations that were conditioned by

ignorance

but he was able to recognize the arising

of consciousness

and what's interesting here is the

buddha says

mind and body or nama rupa or mentality

materiality is conditioned by

consciousness

but consciousness is also conditioned by

mind and body and we'll take a look at

why that's the case but there's an

interdependency between

nama rupa and vinayana or mentality

materiality and consciousness

thus ananda mind and body conditions

consciousness and consciousness

conditions mind and body

mind and body conditions contact

contact conditions feeling

feeling conditions

craving

craving conditions clinging

clinging conditions becoming becoming

conditions birth

birth conditions aging and death sorrow

lamentation pain grief and distress

thus this whole mass of suffering comes

into existence

i have said birth conditions aging and

death

and this is the way that

this is the way that should be

understood

if ananda

there were no birth at all anywhere of

anybody or anything

of devas

to the devastate of gandabas to the

gandaba state of yakkas to the yaka

state of ghosts of humans of quadrupeds

of birds

of reptiles

if there were absolutely no birth at all

of all these things

then with the absence of all birth the

cessation of birth

could aging and death appear

no

therefore ananda

just this is the root the cause the

origin the condition for aging and death

namely birth

i have said

becoming conditions birth

if there were absolutely no becoming

in the world of sense desires

a form or formless world

could birth appear

no

therefore just this is the condition of

birth namely becoming

clinging conditions becoming

if there were absolutely no clinging

sensual clinging clinging to views

to rights and rituals to personality

belief

could be coming up here

no

now we're talking about four types of

clinging within uppadhana

clinging

to sensual experience

clinging to views

clinging to rights and rituals and

clinging to self-view

so what is the clinging to sense

experience

that is where the process of associating

sensual experiences through craving

i like this particular food

because my mother used to make it a

certain way

and so i make an association

and so i cling to that experience

i like this particular music because i

grew up listening to this kind of music

and so

when i turn a certain age

all the other music that the youngsters

listen to is terrible it's trash

right it's the clinging

to the associations of that sound of

that experience

so central experience you know when we

look at

the supermarkets or the malls or

television or advertising

what is advertising doing

it's creating or facilitating the

process of clinging to sensual

experiences

they use bright colors they use certain

kinds of words they use certain kinds of

things that

that

enchant the senses

and say i want that that craving is

there and then when you have that you

cling to that experience and you say

that's my favorite

i like this particular kind of food i

like coke but i don't like pepsi

right

or i like uh

jazz but i don't like classical music

or i love i like this particular aroma

but not that aroma that process of

clinging is that process of associating

with that so we talk about rationalizing

right

because the reason why you crave

something is that process of clinging

then we have clinging to views

there are 62 different types of wrong

views

don't worry we're not going to go

through all of them

[Laughter]

but clinging to views is the clinging to

certain opinions clinging to certain

ideas clinging to certain kinds of

concepts

you know so

i

i don't like this person because they're

so and so and i identify with this

particular view they think this way but

i think a different way and so i hold on

to my view

my favorite sports team is this

but they are the rivals so i hate them

right

or

i

subscribe to this particular religion

and therefore all other religions are

wrong

so this idea or i subscribe to this

particular political ideology and so

everybody else who doesn't is an idiot

right so this kind of rationalization is

a type of clinging to views

but there's also another kind of

clinging to views which is of course we

talk about wrong views

so clinging to wrong views

prevents the mind from experiencing

right view and we talked about right

feel a little bit we talked about the

mundane right view which had to do with

the understanding of that there is merit

there is meaning in giving

there is a cause and effect there is

karma there's a process of rebirth there

is mother and father who we provide

gratitude for because they brought us

into this life so we could experience

the dhamma there are teachers out there

who know the dhamma and who have

perfected the dhamma and so on

so in the buddha's time we talked about

you know we just

mentioned there were 62 different types

of view wrong view which had to do with

the idea of what is self

what is the world and so on but during

the buddha's time there were the certain

contemporary philosophies that were out

there and there were six main ones which

were which are considered within the

context of the dhamma to be wrong view

so these six views that were propagated

at that time

were materialism immoralism

uh eternalism

the

idea of asceticism

the idea of fatalism and the idea of

skepticism

so materialism was a type of like

nihilism which was nothing really

matters just live

to feed the senses

there's no meaning in giving there's no

meaning in being right or wrong take

take take as much as you want

you know and

uh

gratify the senses

and so with that particular kind of

mode of thinking what happens is the

mind craves more and more to the point

that it it

acts in a way

that has misconduct

that breaks the precepts doesn't matter

if you have to break the precepts take

take take enjoy the senses this is

materialism but we understand from the

context of the dhamma that every action

that we have has a reaction has a

consequence

so this is in direct violation of the

idea of

causation as we understand it through

the perspective of the dharma and then

amoralism the idea that nothing again

it's part of that materialism but it's

like there's neither good nor bad it's

just whatever you think it is

it's just whatever you think you should

do is what you should do and so that

idea says that there's no cause there

there's no cause for certain actions

everything that you do is just in that

moment and whatever seems right in that

moment is right so it doesn't take into

account what is wholesome or what is

unwholesome it doesn't have

that right view that allows you to see

what is wrong with you and right view

and so this goes in direct violation of

what we understand in the perspective of

the dhamma that there are certain

wholesome things and there are certain

unwholesome things the wholesome things

are related to right intention right

speech in right action and that has a

direct

correlation to how people and

and and the world responds to you so if

you have wholesome mindsets

then you will see the world in a

wholesome way and you will be more

harmonious

and then people around you respond in a

harmonious way they might not initially

but eventually they either go away

and don't bother you or

they respond in kind

but here what it says is there's no

effect of good and bad actions it

doesn't matter

and then you have this view of

eternalism

this idea that there are certain kinds

of elements that are eternal it says

that

the four elements

it says that the body it says that the

world certain elements made up making up

this world

all of that is eternal

and so what that view says is

if somebody decides to attack another

person

they're not really dead

so if i kill you you're not really dead

so it doesn't really matter

obviously we know from the perspective

of the dharma killing somebody with that

intention has terrible consequences so

this view is the the view that there is

this soul that is unaffected by fire

unaffected by wind unaffected by weapons

so if somebody actually kills you

they're not killing you

they're killing what is surrounding the

soul but you live on you continue to

live on

and so this

propagates all kinds of justifications

for why we should kill in the name of

this or in the name of that or whatever

it might be

and this idea of eternalism is in direct

violation of the understanding of

impermanence

everything that arises every conditioned

experience that arises

passes away

then you have the view of fatalism

so the way that fatalism is understood

is everything is predetermined it's like

a ball

of yarn right it's a ball of string and

you just roll it and then it just

continues to unfurl unroll until it

doesn't until that's the end which means

everything is predetermined

when you have an experience is

predetermined the pleasant experiences

are predetermined the unpleasant

experiences are predetermined so you

don't have a choice

in that moment

everything is already predetermined even

your

suffering is determined even your

awakening

is determined according to this view

now the person

who propagated this view his name was

ajita kesakumboli

kesakumboli means the blanket of hair he

actually wore a blanket made of human

hair

anyway he had this kind of view and he

said there's no need to

do anything everything is already

pre-destined

well what happened to him he went mad

and he drowned himself in a in a

river he drowned himself in a river he

killed himself

so

what we understand through the

perspective of the dhamma is there is a

choice

yes that choice is conditioned by prior

causes and conditions by previous

choices you made in the past but every

present moment that is given is an

opportunity to make a choice and that

choice is either rooted in the wholesome

or the unwholesome

that means you can continue a person can

continue down a path of being

unwholesome and that leads to further

unwholesome consequences

or a person can

let go of that using the six hours

and then come to the wholesome and start

to

recondition the mind recondition the

synapses prune away

those formations that are rooted in the

unwholesome and strengthen those

formations that become conditioned by

the wholesome and so this is how there's

a process of reconditioning choices so

you always are

able to make certain choices in the

present moment there's nothing as

predetermined

you have to make the right effort for

your awakening your awakening isn't just

going to come to you you have to make

the effort

and then there is the view of asceticism

this idea came from the jains the genes

are still a philosophy that exists today

but the idea is that there is a soul

and that that soul

uh collects karmic particles as it

reincarnates from one life to another

and the way to deconditioning that soul

the way to clean up that soul is by

doing certain kind of purificatory

practices

practices that purify the mind and body

and spirit

and the idea is you do this through a

process of asceticism

you fast

you wear certain kinds of clothes you go

into the forest and the idea is that bit

by bit you're cleaning away at these

particles and then your soul becomes

clean and you go into a certain kind of

heaven

but the buddha asked

the the sect

how do you know how much is left in your

balance of karmic particles do you do

you know and they said no we can't

really answer that so this idea is that

the way that old karma is purified is

through continuous asceticism

now the buddha tried it for himself

right he had a luxurious life he gave

that up then he went into a mode of

asceticism a mode of self-modification

and what he realized is all that does is

creates more unpleasant feeling

you're trying to negate the unpleasant

feeling with further unpleasant feelings

it doesn't work it's impractical

and then there's the view of

skepticism

these are the eel wrigglers

the eel wrigglers

eel wrigglers because

where the people who sit on the fence

right they're like there's neither this

nor that there's neither

a tattaga nor a tataka there is neither

this world nor that world there is

neither

you know all of these different kinds of

ideas like

i don't know about it that's their kind

of

statement they're not conclusive about

things

and the main reason why they were like

that was because they were afraid to get

into arguments

they were afraid to have to come to some

kind of standpoint standpoint and have

to defend it and they were afraid of

defeat because of not being able to

defend that particular viewpoint

so

but in the perspective of the dhamma we

know certain things for a fact which is

we understand that there is karma we

understand that there is a process of

rebirth we understand that there is

wholesome and unwholesome we understand

certain things so we are not

inconclusive

we are not perplexed by what is

wholesome and unwholesome we actually

have a set of guidelines that allow us

to know what is wholesome and

unwholesome and so on so clinging to

these kinds of views

and the other kinds of views of the 62

wrong views is this part of clinging to

views

clinging to rights and rituals or

as i said yesterday clinging to rock and

roll right

do you remember that yeah

so

clinging to rights and rituals is this

idea that you're clinging to certain

kinds of observances

that

you believe will lead you to awakening

you believe will lead you to full

awakening that goes away as soon as you

realize that when you walk the path of

the eightfold path

and you experience what you experience

that is to say the cessation of

suffering in that moment you experience

nibana

you realize that this is the path

no amount of chanting no amount of

prayer no amount of lighting candles and

lamps or anything like that is going to

take you

to nibana

and another

understanding of seeing clinging to

rights and rituals is this idea or

belief in luck

and coincidences

there's no such thing actually if you

look at it from the perspective of the

dhamma there's no such thing as

coincidences there's no such thing as

luck

everything arises because of a series of

causes and conditions

so what you might call luck is just you

reaping the interest on your bank

balance of karma

that's all it is

but people can take that to be luck so

they do certain kinds of rituals they do

certain kinds of prayers with the idea

that that's going to mitigate their

karma the idea that that's going to

take away their karma but as we

understand

karma is to be felt and experienced

that's the only way it runs through its

course

and how you take it will either mitigate

the intensity of that karma or actually

increase the intensity and what i mean

by that is

karma

arises as an experience to be felt

right good bad or indifferent whatever

kind of karma arises it arises as an

experience through your sixth sense

basis

now you can perceive that as an

experience that is me mine or myself

and crave or resist

against it

and therefore cause more clinging more

being and then further birth of further

karma and adding to that repository of

karma which means that that new karma

becomes

old karma to be experienced at a future

time

but if you take that experience and see

it for what it is

that is to say you have yoni so many

sikhara attention rooted in reality

you see it as an impermanent

process not worth holding on to and

therefore not to be considered as

personal

as soon as you see it in that way that

means there's no craving there there's

no clinging there there's no resistance

there so that karma

that old karma arises in the process of

feeling but then it dissipates the

intensity of that dissipates

so

how do we contextualize this when you're

meditating and you have hindrances what

are those hindrances actually

they're feeling their experience you're

experiencing a unpleasant feeling in the

form of that hindrance that hindrance

arose because

at some point you broke a precept

so the breaking of that precept was a

certain kind of karma and the effect of

that is the old karma that you're

experiencing in the form of the

hindrance

how do you deal with that hindrance do

you push it

do you hold on to it

do you ignore it do you deflect it or do

you acknowledge it and see it for what

it is and then let go using right effort

let go using the six r's

what you'll notice is when you do 6r

the hindrance might come up again

but the next time it comes up what

happens it becomes weaker

and eventually you six star again and it

becomes weaker

and weaker and until it no longer

comes into the mind

in the same way in your daily living

whatever you're experiencing is old

karma

the only way to mitigate that the only

way to let it go is to see it as being

impersonal and so six aring your

reaction to it six houring your

perception to it as being me mine or

myself as soon as you do that that

experience might arise again but the

next time it won't be as intense

it won't be as gripping on the mind

and then finally we have clinging to

self-view

there's 20 different basic types of cell

few that's the five aggregates

multiplied by four

specific kinds of self-view

so what does that mean

the idea that the the five aggregates

are the self

the five aggregates are in the self

the self is in the five aggregates or

the self is separate from the five

aggregates

so

the idea that this body is self

or this feeling itself or this

perception itself or this formation

itself or this consciousness itself and

so on and so forth

but that goes away when you eradicate

the idea that there is a belief in a

personal self

yes conceit might still arise until you

become an arahant which is the

identification with the five aggregates

that's just an intrinsic

implicit almost automatic process until

you start to recognize it and let that

go

but the idea that you believe that any

of these five aggregates

is a self

or contains a self or is contained in

the self or is separate from itself goes

away

so the clinging to self use goes away

upon stream entry

so clinging conditions

oh here we are clinging conditions

becoming

if there were absolutely no clinging

sensual clinging clinging to views

to rights and rituals or to personality

belief

could be coming appear

no

craving conditions clinging

if there were absolutely no craving

for sights sounds smells tastes

tangibles mind objects

could clinging appear

no

now craving can come in the form of i

like this i don't like this or i am this

craving can come in the form of i

want to become this or i don't want to

become this anymore like

the sensual craving that you might

experience is

somebody's mowing the lawn outside

and you're listening

to that and you get distracted by that

and you get irritated by that and you

get and now you're clean you're craving

or you're having resistance to that and

now you're clinging to that and saying

something like they shouldn't be mowing

the long lawn while i'm meditating don't

they know that we're meditating

right and then there's this whole

concept of

the process of

rationalizing that and that i am a

meditator i've come here on retreat

and so this becoming i am you know and

then maybe you get angry about that and

then you have a reaction hopefully you

didn't but maybe there was a reaction

that came about right and so that's the

birth of reaction which leads to further

suffering

but if you saw that experience as okay

here is an experience

here is the sound of the landmower

it's an irritating experience it's an

unpleasant experience

but it's a feeling that is

arising and passing away if you really

understood that those are just sound

waves coming to be and going away in

every moment

then it's just sound

you know what about the pleasant sound

that you have a bird's chirping do you

get upset by those

it's that's also just sound just

impersonal sound if you have that

understanding then there's no craving no

resistance

to any of the sensual experiences

now the craving to become what is that

i want to be in this shana i want nibana

i want to experience cessation

the craving to become is the craving to

be in a certain kind of mind state

to be whether it's in this life or a

future life

what is the craving to not become i am

this person now but i don't no longer

want to be this person

this idea that there is a self that is

moody i don't want to be moody anymore

there's a difference here there's chanda

which is the wholesome cultivated

intention

to continue to be something better for

the purposes of

evolution in the dhamma

but if the mind obsesses over that and

says i don't want to be here for example

even in the experience of jhana you say

well i'm in the first jhana but i don't

want to be in the first jana anymore i

want to be in the second channel

that not wanting to become b in the

first jhana is a craving for not

becoming

and so now you want to be somewhere else

so these are like two sides of the same

coin

feeling conditions craving

if there were absolutely no feeling

feeling born of eye contact ear contact

nose contact tongue contact body contact

mind contact in the absence of all

feeling

with the cessation of feeling

could craving appear

no

so you can six are becoming you can six

are the habitual tendencies

you can six are clinging

you could six our craving

can you six are the birth of action

no

you think about dependent origination

like a river it continues on and then

there's a waterfall

that then towards the waterfall is the

becoming and then going down the

waterfall

is the birth of action once you have

produced the action can you recall that

action back

you can't

but you can six are

the sense of i am this the sense of

habitual tendency i do it this way it is

my way and so on and so forth

you can six are that you can six r the

rationalizations of why you like

something or you don't like something

you can six r the tension that's a

manifestation of the craving

can you six our feeling

you can't six our feeling but

you can six are the underlying

inclinations that happen in feeling and

what do i mean by that

there are seven underlying tendencies

what's seven

the underlying tendency towards craving

the underlying tendency towards aversion

the underlying tendency towards views

the underlying tendency towards doubt

the underlying tendency towards becoming

the underlying tendency towards conceit

and the underlying tendency towards

ignorance

now that happens when there is a painful

feeling there is the underlying tendency

towards aversion

when there is a pleasant feeling there

is an underlying tendency to words

craving

that can happen automatic if the mind is

not mindful and that

that underlying tendency is the

intersection between feeling and craving

so if there's an underlying tendency

towards craving and you act upon it then

you have full-blown craving that says i

don't like this

however you might say

this is a unpleasant feeling

and then you let that go and there's no

craving but if you say i

i see this unpleasant feeling and it's

irritating and i don't like it that

process is the process of underlying

tendency towards craving

it's that bend that happens towards

craving so

when you have certain attainments

certain underlying tendencies go away

for example the underlying tendency

towards doubt goes away when you become

a stream enter the underlying tendency

to wrong view goes away the underlying

tendency to craving and aversion go away

when you become an anagon and the

underlying tendency of becoming the

underlying tendency towards ignorance

and the underlying tendency towards

conceit goes away once you have our

hardship

so in the same way that's the case

certain kinds of craving will go away

sensual craving goes away when you

become an onigami

craving for becoming and craving for not

becoming goes away when you become an

arahat

certain kinds of clinging go away with

certain kinds of attainment

clinging to sensual pleasures obviously

goes away when you become an anagaming

clinging to certain kinds of view go

away when you have established right

view clinging to rights and rituals go

away when you go get into stream entry

and clinging to self clinging to self

view goes away when you have stream

entry

so what happens is as you get each

attainment bit by bit

you are whittling away at the craving

the different types of framing the

different types of clinging the

different types of becoming

and so the more you six are that the

more you use right effort the more you

become mindful the more you have yoni so

manisakar attention rooted in reality

the more

there is non-use of craving and

therefore non-use of clinging and

therefore non-use of becoming

and eventually they fade away as the

feathers drop

as you experience certain kinds of

attainments

so when it comes to feeling you can't

six are away the feeling you're feeling

pain in the meditation you can't

uh six are the pain away but you can six

r the underlying tendency towards

aversion

for that painful feeling

in that painful feeling

so it's the it's not

it's not the pleasantness of an

experience or the painfulness of the

experience that's the problem

or the trouble

it's how the mind takes it how the mind

perceives it that should be understood

and if needed to be let go of

to be let go

therefore ananda just this is the root

the cause the origin the condition for

craving namely feeling

and so ananda

feeling conditions craving

craving conditions seeking

seeking conditions acquisition

acquisition conditions decision making

decision-making conditions lustful

desire

lustful

desire conditions attachment

attachment conditions appropriation

appropriation conditions

avarice

adverse conditions guarding of

possessions and because of the guarding

of possessions there arise the taking up

of stick and sword quarrels disputes

arguments

strife abuse

lying and other evil unskilled states

so here the buddha is talking about what

happens when you have an experience of

craving so craving conditions seeking

it's that mind the hungry ghost mind

that's always looking for something

you see when we talk about the different

kinds of realm experiences it's not just

existential experiences it's also

psychological

if you have a hungry ghost kind of

experience in the mind a hungry ghost

kind of psychology you're always

dissatisfied with everything you're

always seeking for something and then

that's seeking conditions acquisition

that acquisition process happens in

feeling sorry in clinging

clinging which is upadhana rupadana

means the fuel for something

and that is the process of acquiring

something the process of acquiring an

identity the process of acquiring a

favorite of something in the in the form

of different kinds of sense pleasures

that kind of acquisition also can be

acquiring wealth acquiring power

acquiring status acquiring fame now you

have all of these things

and then that conditions how you make

your decisions

you decide in the form of

trying to keep your acquisitions

and not to let them disappear not to

lose them

from that there comes lustful desire now

lustful desire here israeli the action

or the birth of reactivity to hoard

that wealth to hoard that power to hoard

that status to hoard that fame and from

that lustful desire there comes

attachment now you attach to these

things

so attachment is one thing and

conditioning is another when we talk

about certain attachments they arise as

a result of conditioning

attachment itself is the process of

identifying with something this is my

wealth this is my

status this is my fame this is my

identity but that's conditioned by

previous choices you've made in the past

so i am like this because

of certain choices that i've made in the

past

and then from that attachment comes

appropriation

now that appropriation says i have this

much and you have that much

and that come that gives rise to avarice

i want what you have

because i don't have enough

so i crave for attention i take away

attention from you

i crave for wealth i steal your wealth i

crave for

status

i bring you down and bring up myself all

kinds of different things that people

seek

and then from that is the guarding of

possessions now i have this wealth i'm

keeping it i have this power and so i'm

keeping it so when you see certain kinds

of tyrants of the past they had enormous

amounts of power what they do

they try to hoard it and they try to

invade other countries invade other

cities and say now this is mine and so

from there comes the

taking up of stick and sword quarrels

disputes arguments strife abuse

lying in other evil unskilled states

if only the world leaders knew this

i have said all these evil unskilled

states arise because of the guarding of

possessions

for if there were absolutely no guarding

of possessions would there be the taking

up of stick or sword

no

therefore ananda the guarding of

possessions is the root the cause the

origin the condition for all of these

evil unskillful states

i have said avarice conditions the

guardian of possessions

appropriation conditions avarice

attachment con conditions appropriation

lustful desire conditions attachment

decision-making conditions lustful

desire

acquisition conditions decision-making

seeking conditions acquisition i have

said craving conditions seeking if there

were no craving

for central pleasures

no craving for existence

no craving for annihilation would there

be any seeking out

no

therefore ananda

craving is the root

the cause

the origin the condition for all seeking

thus these two things become united in

one by feeling

in other words

this whole process happens because you

take

a feeling the vedana which is an

experience

all of that is unified in the pleasant

feeling or in the unpleasant feeling or

in the neutral feeling and the

underlying tendency towards that

particular feeling or from that feeling

can cause the mind to take it personally

and from that becomes this whole chain

of dependent origination from craving

clinging becoming

the birth of action and suffering

so what this also talks about is mental

proliferation

papancha

so the process of clinging

is a process of papancha it starts from

craving

and it further deepens

and then there's becoming so all these

that is craving clinging and becoming

constitute

prapancha constitute mental

proliferation which

seeks out things just thinking about

this or that thinking about how do i get

that you know how do i trick that person

or you know how do i get to this genre

or what do i do now and all of these

other kinds of mental proliferations

are basically the stuff that we've been

talking about in this suta

i have said contact conditions feeling

therefore contact is the root the cause

the origin the condition for feeling

mind and body conditions contact he

missed something here right

sixth sense basis

ananda wasn't able to recognize the

sixth sense spaces

but what we do understand is that the

sixth sense bases

are

conditioned by mentality materiality

right so we're going to explore what is

mentality materiality now and we'll

realize

what that means in the form of the sixth

sense basis

here he says

by whatever properties

features

signs or indications

the mind factor is conceived of

would there be in the absence of such

properties pertaining to the mind factor

be manifest any grasping at the idea of

the body factor

that's a very confusing question

so let's break that up

now his response is no

and then the buddha says or in the

absence of any such properties

pertaining to the body factor

would there be any grasping at sensory

reaction on the part of the mind factor

and ananda says no

so what we're saying here is we have

mentality materiality

mentality is mind mind is made up of

five

factors

contact feeling

perception intention attention

it's through these processes that mind

is known

but these processes are dependent upon

materiality

can you experience contact without a

body

can you experience feeling without a

body

can you experience perception without a

body

you can experience mind you can

experience mental contact but still that

is dependent upon what the processes of

the brain

which is the materiality factor

in other words the mind factor is one

thing and the brain which is the

materiality is another

so these processes of the mind the

contact

feeling perception intention and

attention

are dependent upon

the four elements that constitute the

body

the rupa

this body that we have here

is made up of the earth element the fire

element the water element and the air

element are the four states of matter

solidity liquidity or solid state liquid

state gaseous state and plasma state

these constitute the experience of the

body and it's only through

the processes of the body that is to say

the rupa that you have an eye that you

have in year that you have a nose that

you have a tongue that you have a body

that you have a brain

through which the faculties of mind are

able to function

so that interdependency is also within

this process

mind depends on body for its function

but you experience body without mind

right so you can't experience you can

experience the sixth sense spaces only

through what they are experiencing that

is to say contact

the eye

meets the form and there is eye

consciousness

eye consciousness happens because you're

aware that the eye is seeing something

and there is contact there

so i

that is to say the physical eye is one

thing but the process of contact and

feeling that is the mentality is another

thing

so that process of contact feeling and

perception of the eye and the eye

feeling and the eye perception is

dependent upon the solidity of the eye

that is the body

so mentality is dependent upon

the materiality

and you can only experience materiality

through the factors of mentality

and that includes the sixth sense basis

wow

consciousness

so consciousness is

included in the five aggregates yes

so what i'm saying is contact gives rise

to feeling perception

intention

and attention attention is through which

consciousness flows

which awareness or consciousness flows

so that's how it's understood

contact also has consciousness yeah

contact has consciousness because the

joining of the three the eye the form

and eye consciousness

is eye contact

and the way that where you are seeing is

the attention through which the

consciousness flows

right

right so we have the five aggregates

which is form

feeling perception

formations and consciousness

so intention

there's the intention and there is the

formations

it's through wanting to say something

that you have verbal formations coming

to be so that you can express speech

it's through the process of making a

bodily movement

that there is an intention to move and

through that bodily formations or

through that bodily intention bodily

formations flow

and so

mental formations which allow you to

feel and perceive arise dependent upon

contact in fact all

that is to say

all formations intention

feeling

perception are dependent upon contact

when contact arises there is feeling

and tied to that feeling there is

perception

tied to that feeling and perception

there is consciousness of that feeling

and perception

and tied to that is the intention to do

something

only when there is contact with the mind

contact with the five physical senses

can then intention to say something or

intention to do something arise

so that

so that process of karma also

arises dependent upon contact if there

was no contact no karma would flow

because karma is experienced as vedana a

pleasant experience

unpleasant experience or neutral

experience

there were other hands that were raised

up

so

you get the example of an

of an eye

a form

how does that work with a mind object so

a concept arises

a thought arises and that's the object

right and then everything else is the

same your object of meditation arises

and that's a mental object mind makes

contact with that and there is the

feeling of loving kindness

right

i think you had a question you were

going to raise your hand

no okay

all right

so if we

now with all of that background

information let's go back to what he

asked he said

by whatever properties features signs or

indications the mind factors conceived

of

would there be in absence of such

properties that is to say in absence of

the mind factor pertaining to the mind

factor

would there be manifest any grasping at

the idea of a body

if you didn't have contact feeling

perception intention could you

experience a body

no

and so then he says

or in the absence of any such properties

pertaining to the body to the

materiality would there be any grasping

at sensory reaction on the part of the

mind factor

you couldn't because the sixth sense

bases are the physical materiality it's

through them that you experience the

factors of mentality

if you didn't have those

would you be able to experience mind

or the factors of mind

so then he says

by whatever properties

features signs or indications the mind

factor is conceived of

in the absence of these is there any

contact to be found

all right

by whatever properties features

signs or indications

the mind factor is conceived

of so the mind factor is conceived of

made up of

contact feeling perception intention and

attention or the five aggregates right

or four of the five aggregates because

you have form

in the absence of that can there be

contact in other words if you didn't

have mentality

would you be able to have contact

no

you wouldn't be aware of that contact

then ananda just this namely mind and

body

is the root the cause the origin the

condition for all contact

i have said consciousness conditions

mind and body

now the buddha is going to go to the

macro level of understanding dependent

origination because what he said is

consciousness conditions mind and body

but mind and body also conditions

consciousness

so first let's take up the first part of

that

if consciousness were not to come into

the mother's womb

would mind and body develop there

no

you need the descending of consciousness

into mentality materiality so that is to

say

at the point of procreation

the mother and father

join but if there's no consciousness

that descends

would there be further development of

that into an embryo

you need the gandaba you need the

consciousness for it to evolve into an

embryo and a fetus and so on and so

forth

so if it was not there it would not

develop

or if consciousness having entered the

mother's womb

were to be deflected

would mind and body come to birth in

this life so now there is the embryo

there is the fetus

but if there was something that happened

that caused the consciousness to depart

from that fetus

would that fetus continue to grow it

would be stillborn

or if consciousness having entered the

mother's womb sorry and if consciousness

of such a tender young being boy or girl

were thus caught off

would mind and body grow develop and

mature

if the if the infant or

the child or even an adult were killed

that consciousness departs from the body

so that what happens to the body does it

continue to grow

eventually it decays

just the nails grow right

maybe they have the experience of the

asanata beings

unconscious

like

there's no

perception going on nothing going on

just but there is still life there

yeah

so when we're talking about

consciousness in this context we're

talking about life

if the life descends there will be

growth of the mind and body

therefore ananda just this namely

consciousness

is the root the cause the origin the

condition

of mind and body

i have said now he's still on the macro

level he says i have said

mind and body conditions consciousness

if consciousness did not find a landing

place in mind and body

would there subsequently be an arising

and coming to be of birth aging death

and suffering

no

so consciousness

to be experienced is dependent on the

factors of mind and body

and to experience mind and body you need

consciousness

the ability to be aware of it through

the process of contact and attention and

so on and so forth

so this interdependency consciousness

depends upon mind and body

because

it can only be experienced through the

factors of mind and body

but for mind and body

to arise and to develop it requires

consciousness

on the micro level this is also

very much

true because

the consciousness that arises is

dependent upon formations

now there are certain formations that

arise those formations can be laced or

tinged with craving

with wrong views with ignorance with

conceit that can create or give rise to

or activate a certain kind of

consciousness

which here when we talk about

consciousness we're talking about as

cognition

to cognize something

that's already tinged with craving it's

inclined towards seeing it as this is me

this is my this is myself

and so that

conditions the sense spaces in mentality

materiality which already conditions the

way that contact and feeling is

perceived

so if formations

have craving in them if formations have

identification in them that is to say

they are

conditioned by laced by hindered by

fettered by craving and identification

then the rest of that series that is to

say the cognition

that can be corrupted by the upaki

lasers

and there are 16 upaki lisas which i'm

not going to talk about here you can

look look for it for yourself but

they can give rise to a certain kind of

mindset

in cognition which then perceives or

which experiences contact and feeling in

a certain way

so if there are formations rooted in

jealousy of choices rooted in jealousy

in the past then it cognizes in such a

way it's always comparing whether i'm

better than this person or they're

better than me

if there is anger there if there's

hatred there whatever it might be and

these all stem from the akusala mula

that is to say the unwholesome roots

greed

hatred and delusion

these are conditioned by ignorance which

are then conditioned by the taints going

if

on

if you stop the identification of it

at the beginning you would cut off that

entire spectrum yes

completely seeing this whole thing as

impersonal

you don't take even contact as imper as

personal right

and so therefore the feeling that arises

is just vibration of

sound

or photons

or you know taste molecules or order

molecules or bodily vibrations or

circuitry in the brain that causes

thoughts to arise and things like that

if you see it all as this impersonal

process

then

you're not going to say that this is me

this is mine this is myself you're not

going to say i want more of that you

just see things as they are

so the big challenge then is to develop

that as a skill that is

constantly with you as you're

experiencing consciousness right and

that's facilitated through the process

of the six hours

when you start to see that your choices

are starting to get rooted in craving

you can recognize oh here is a

percolation of craving and you can relax

it and let it go using the six r's and

then respond or make choices that are

rooted in wisdom and compassion

what that does is then the next set of

formations which are conditioned by the

intention conditioned by that choice

are now

further steeped or further laced or

further rooted

in non-greed in non-hatred in

non-delusion that is to say in wisdom in

compassion

and so when that happens

these get strengthened and those

formations through non-use and

non-activation because you don't make

choices in the unwholesome

start to get pruned away and there is a

remainderless fading away

of craving and conceit and views

so the way the genres arise is because

of causes and conditions all you're

doing is you're placing you have the

intention to place your attention on an

object of meditation that means now you

have let go of the hindrances

you have let go of any ident any kind of

clinging or grasping at sensual

experiences your mind becomes collected

so the formations that arise because of

that

arise as a result of

you making that choice to be collected

the more you do that that's why

initially in the retreat when you're in

your first retreat it seems like you're

getting into jana's at a slower pace but

now you've exercised those formations

rooted in the experience of that jhana

so it's much easier on your second or

third or fourth or fifth retreat through

continual effort to continual practice

to be able to experience that jhana

almost instantaneously

it's you're able to be more meditative

because you have formations that are

stronger in that choice to be meditative

and so on and so forth

are

less

or

less strong

because of what you said

proved away that's right so there's this

thing called myelination

which grant talked about

at our last retreat

where

the

neural pathways

that

aren't used

uh get pruned away there's actually a

cell

that goes and

trims them away and actually recycles

the

the um

material the

whatever it is called

the neuro material

and

and so that those old pathways

actually like when they're not used

literally get

to disappear through myelination

if you look it up online

you can actually see a video on youtube

where myelination actually happens

with this very very

tiny

um or

highly focused

micro

microscope that records the cell doing

it so you actually see it clipped and

pulled off away and so then

the

the stronger patterns that are supported

i guess wholesome in our case

would get larger and instead of becoming

you know having being small actually

become kind of main highways yeah yeah

yeah

i would think that you you would be

developed you would be conditioning

these patterns

that become more and more familiar and

more accessible and so this would become

a skillful skillful mental states or

skillful activities so that

at

the time of choice

it would be just a matter of

establishing perhaps that intent and

just going directly to that location

right and to those points that's

basically what we're saying then is when

you start to let go of the craving and

the clinging

you're letting go of those formations

those synapses

that continue to fire up that craving

and eventually through non-use they're

replaced by

or they used instead of redirecting

towards using it for wisdom using it for

wise choices

but

there's still power

so there might be no craving there might

be no clinging but there can be taking

that feeling still as personal

that is to say

i am in this jhana or i have caused this

jhana to be or i am experiencing this

that sense of the

the identification with the processes of

the five aggregates can still lead to a

certain kind of bhava that is to say the

conceit in i am a good person

or i developed all these wholesome

things so in order to get to arahatship

you have to go from it's this whole

process is going from the unwholesome to

the wholesome and then going from the

wholesome

to not identifying

with the wholesome

just correct me if i'm wrong i feel like

i'm getting a better understanding of

when we say personal process

we're talking about consciousness coming

down into a mentality into reality

it kind of seems to me like so when i

say like my life

it's not even

my life right when i think about my

karma it's not even my karma per se

um

when i'm working on my permissions right

when i'm 6r informations etc

these are not my formations i just kind

of inherited these it's almost like i'm

just here for the ride

right you are inheriting your karma as

the buddha says

but

in in reality the karma the

consciousness

the life all of that is just arising

because of impersonal causes and

conditions

and all i can do

well not all i can do

uh what i do if you will

is

you know six are and make wholesome

choices and follow the equal path

so that this consciousness doesn't you

know

doesn't torment someone else in the

future at a future rebirth but hopefully

it just ends here right

but otherwise what i would be doing on a

day-to-day basis is

you know clipping away people like these

formations restructuring my burden

restructuring this brain

uh so that it acts a more wholesome way

but it's not

it's just a deck i mean the cars have

been dealt with

that right

in this life

everyone just has different formations

that they didn't ask for they just

right

so now in the case of the arahat right

do they still have formations

yes

because those are karmic formations

formations arising because of previous

choices made prior to full awakening

they don't produce new formations they

don't produce new karma

but what happens is

everything from now the ignorance that's

there which conditions the formations

is no longer there instead what is there

is wisdom

is right view

and so those formations that arise are

conditioned by that right view but

mechanically speaking they are

giving rise to certain kinds of karma

their karmic formations which give rise

to a certain kind of experience down the

road of dependent origination so

formations consciousness

mentality materiality sixth sense basis

contact and feeling

are all the old karma arising as a

result of previous choices made in the

past

at some point

now

they don't produce any new karma because

their mind their formations are rooted

fully in wisdom rooted fully in the

eightfold path

and the cessation of karma is done so

through the process of the eightfold

path that is to say

if you have right intention it's an

intention of letting go automatically

nothing being held on to

therefore there's no craving there's no

clinging the craving the clinging the

being

are the processes for new karma to arise

in the form of birth of reaction which

then causes suffering

and so that suffering becomes the old

karma that you experience

in that moment or a subsequent moment or

a subsequent time in the future

so that delineation point between old

karma and new karma

is the feeling and the craving between

the feeling and the craving

if the feeling the experience that

you're having right now all of this

is old karma

that is to say it is the effects of

previous choices you've made in the past

how you take it will determine whether

your new karma is produced

or

you see it okay

thus far then ananda we can trace birth

and decay

death and falling into other states and

being reborn

thus far extends the way of designation

of concepts thus far is the sphere of

understanding

thus far

the round goes as far as can be

discerned in this life

namely to nama rupa or mentality

materiality together with consciousness

in what ways ananda do people explain

the nature of the self

some dis

declare the self to be material and

limited

saying

myself is material and limited

some declare it to be material and

unlimited

some declare it to be immaterial and

limited

some declare it to be immaterial and

unlimited

whoever declares the self to be material

and limited considers it to be so either

now

or in the next world thinking

though it is not so now i shall acquire

it there the idea of a soul the idea of

a self

still continues on so that whole process

of reincarnation but what does that mean

material and limited

that the idea that the self is this just

this body

and it's limited by this body that's the

self

but what about the self that is material

and

unlimited

that comes from the idea that myself is

this entire universe

material universe

so what about the idea

that

myself is immaterial and limited

the soul is contained in the body

it's immaterial but it's limited within

the confines of the body some some

concepts in ancient india had the idea

that the soul was at the center of the

spiritual heart and was the size of a

thumb

yeah

and then what about immaterial and

unlimited

yes

there is the idea that the

in there's the atma which is the soul

and the brahman which is the substratum

of all creation

and the idea is

the self and the universe

are one and the same thing

the soul

and the sub stratum of the universe are

one in the same thing

cosmic consciousness yes

we are one

lot of people yeah think that about

obama yeah that you end up in some

eternal

state of being yeah

but nibana as we know it is the

quenching

of the fires of greed hatred and

delusion

and it's impersonal

so

he says the same thing about the other

four he says

in what ways

ananda the people regard the self

they equate self with feeling saying

feeling is myself

or feeling is not myself myself is

impercipient

or feeling is not myself but myself is

not impercipient it is of a nature to

feel

so

to simplify what he's saying is some

people think the self is feeling

or the self is in feeling or the self is

that which feels

now ananda one who says feeling is

myself should be told there are three

kinds of feeling friend pleasant painful

neutral

which of the three do you consider to be

yourself

when a pleasant feeling is felt no

painful or neutral feeling is felt but

only pleasant feeling when a painful

feeling is felt no pleasant or neutral

feeling is felt but only painful feeling

and when a neutral feeling is felt no

pleasant or painful feeling is felt but

only neutral feeling

pleasant feeling is impermanent

conditioned dependently arisen bound to

decay to vanish to fade away to cease

and so too are painful feeling and

neutral feeling so anyone who on

experiencing a pleasant feeling thinks

this is myself

must at the cessation of that pleasant

feeling think

myself is gone

and the same with painful and neutral

feelings

thus whoever thinks

feeling is myself is contemplating

something in this present life that is

impermanent a mixture of happiness and

unhappiness subject to arising and

passing away

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is myself

so

we have to understand it from the

ancient indian context there was an idea

of a self right whether it was in

hinduism or brahmanism there is this

idea of a self and that self is sachit

ananda that is to say it is a self that

has

all pervading existence

is completely permanent and is the

source of all happiness

now if you were to use that as the

touchstone of what is a self

if you use that touchstone for all

experience all your five aggregates

you can see that they are not that self

because

they were bound to change they're bound

to decay therefore they're impermanent

and if they're impermanent pleasant

experiences when they go away

are painful

so they're mixed as the buddha says

of happiness and unhappiness subject to

arising and passing away

therefore it is not fitting to say that

feeling is myself or form is myself or

perception is myself or formations or

myself or consciousness is myself

but anyone who says feeling is not

myself myself is impercipiant should be

asked

if friend no feelings at all were to be

experienced

would there be the thought i am

to which he would have to reply no

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself myself is

impercipiant

and anyone who says

feeling is not self but my but myself is

not impercipiant

myself is of a nature to feel that is to

say i

i am the self and i feel

the feeling is not the self but i feel

okay

should be asked well friend if all

feelings absolutely and totally cease

could there be the thought i am this

because the only way you know you are is

dependent upon the process of feeling if

you were to say i feel

as a self but you would only know i am

when there is a feeling

so the self is dependent or the idea of

the self that feels is dependent on the

process of actually feeling

so

to which he would have to reply no

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself myself is

impercipient

oh sorry uh to which it is

therefore it is not fitting to maintain

feeling is not myself but myself is not

impercipiant myself is of a nature to

feel

from the time ananda when a monk

when one no longer regards feeling as

self or as the self as being

impercipient

or as being percipient and of a nature

to feel

by not so regarding he clings to nothing

in the world

so when we talk about feeling we also

say

form perception formations consciousness

the idea is if someone

no longer regards form feeling

perception formations and consciousness

as self

no longer regards the self as being

impercipient that there is a self that

you cannot experience

but there are these aggregates so

there's a self outside of these

aggregates

no longer regards that

and no longer regards

that the self has a nature to have form

and no longer regards that the self has

a nature to feel or to perceive or to

have intention or to be aware

he clings to nothing in this world

and so by not clinging

he is not excited by anything

and not being excited he gains personal

liberation and he knows birth is

finished

the holy life has been led

done was what had to be done there is no

more coming to being

and if anyone were to say to a monk

whose mind was thus freed

you tell an arahat this

the tata exists after death that would

be seen by him as a wrong opinion and

unfitting

likewise the tathagath does not exist

both exists and does not exist

neither exists nor does not exist after

death

he would see all of that as wrong

opinion

why so

as far ananda as designation and the

range of designation reaches

as far as language and the range of

language reaches as far as concepts and

the range of concepts reaches as far as

understanding and the range of

understanding reaches as far as the

cycle reaches and revolves that

one who is liberated from all that by

super knowledge

and to maintain that such a liberated

monk does not know and see would be a

wrong view and incorrect

now i brought this question up to

you at the eastern retreat the

definition of what is a being in the

sense of a sata

sata means a being not the being in

terms of becoming

but a being and in the sense of a

personality like

an individual what how is that

sata that being defined

a being is one

who has craving

or attachment or identification

with one or more of the five

aggregates but if the tatagath or an

arahant

no longer has craving and clinging

identification for any of the five

aggregates

are they a being

or a non-being

[Laughter]

so that all that doesn't matter to them

because that's like oh that presupposes

that there's a self there that

presupposes that there is a being there

but if there's no longer anything

you can't even say that there is no

longer

a being there's no longer a non there's

a non-being to say that there was a

non-being means there was a being which

no longer became a be a non-being

does that make sense

all right so we're going to get into

some other things

how is your energy level

you guys are full

we'll continue these

these parts tomorrow and then we'll

continue with whatever else we have

all right let's share some merit

may suffering ones be suffering free may

the fear stroke fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may they all being share this merit that

we have thus acquired for the

acquisition of all kinds of happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty power share

this merit of ours may they long protect

the buddha's dispensations

others

[Music]