From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pq86qx8hkMc

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

okay

last night

we were on

contemplation of mind objects

number 36

okay

now we're going to start on the

contemplation of mind objects

this part is called the five hindrances

and how monks does a monk abide

contemplating

abide observing mind objects as mind

objects

you should be patient about

now this particular

part of the sutta

is something that

when they're pra people are practicing

straight vipassana they kind of leave

out

they

tend to use

the

suta that i read the other night about

uh

gritting your teeth and pushing your

tongue against the roof of your mouth

and crushing mind with mind they don't

go by what it says

in this

chamber

and how does a monk abide constantly

observing mind objects as mind objects

in terms of the five hindrances

and he also understands how there comes

to be the arising of the un arisen

sensual desire

and how there comes to be the future

non-arising of abandoned central desire

is

okay now we get to the fun part

how

does

the arising of unarisen sensual desire

occur

and i want an answer

is that what you said okay

uh good

but not quite

when you're on your object of meditation

then one of the hindrances arises

so that's how

the unarisen

hindrance

comes into being

hindrances when they arise no matter how

big they are

are there to help you

uh

the hindrances are there to show you

where your attachment is

how does the hindrance arise

the first thing that happens is your

mindfulness

gets weak or slips off the object of

meditation

then your mind is doing this on the

object of meditation and it goes faster

and faster and then it flutters away and

now you're distracted

the trick that you have to understand

is

to observe how it happened not why it

happens

you see

the links of dependent origination arise

and pass away very very

so when you start looking

at how your mind gets distracted

you start you can start seeing

little tiny things that arise and pass

away if your mindfulness is

when your mind starts to wobble a little

bit

it's the lengths of dependent

origination are already there and active

uh

because of craving

that wobble gets bigger and bigger until

you're pulled away and you're distracted

everyone

when you start sharpening your

mindfulness you can start seeing

subtle little things that happen that

arise and pass away very quickly

if your mindfulness is sharp you're able

to see that first wobbling of mind's

attention

and if you recognize that your six are

right then

and your mind stays on your object of

meditation

it takes

very very calm peaceful mind to be able

to notice this stage

and just so you know that's not the

start of the dependent origination

arising there's something that happens

before your mind does this on your

object to meditation

and some of you i've told you

to

wow

we have them here too

some of you i've i've asked you to

tell me what it what happens before your

mind's attention moves

what i'm telling you is

i want your mindfulness so sharp

that you'll be able to see little tiny

things arising and passing away

um

and when you're able to see that it's

quite impressive

uh

that's a question that very few people

by seeing it actually can answer

uh

it is there and it's real and

you will be able to see it when your

mind is super quiet

so there's all these different levels of

things that occur

a lot of you don't notice that your mind

is distracted until

thoughts start to come up

um

but as you start to

6r

and come back to your object of

meditation you start noticing that

things happen

in a very

systematic way

at first what happens is your mind gets

distracted

and then you six are and you bring your

mind's attention back to your object of

meditation

when you get familiar with

this process then you notice

right before

your mind got fully distracted something

else arose

and this time when your mind gets

distracted

the six are right when that other little

thing arose

eventually you're able to recognize a

lot of these little stages right before

your mind gets distracted

and you will

be distracted for less period of time

and you'll stay on your object of

meditation for a longer period of time

i forgot what i was going to say

eventually your mind becomes so peaceful

and calm

that you'll catch distractions

just

before they really arise and then use 6r

and come back

they're helping you

to recognize the distraction

and the attachment to that distractions

this is my feeling this is my thought

this is my idea this is my opinion

now there's a lot of different layers

that you go through and these are called

jhana

again

a lot of people simply define the word

jhana as concentration

a lot of times i don't talk to you about

what level of understanding you're at

uh

and by that time your understanding is

very strong

because

you've gone through all of these

hindrances

and she had a brother-in-law that was

very much christian

oh

and they would get together every now

and then and compare

buddhism with christianity

and

the student i had

had become an advanced meditator

so she was able to see and understand

how mind worked

so the brother-in-law would start

talking about you've got to believe in

all of these things

and she started giving him definitions

of the words he was using

she wasn't

and finally he stopped and said what

makes buddhists so smart

and she didn't have an answer criticism

and probability of [ __ ] so she came and

told me

and then she said

what makes buddhists so smart

what you're doing is using the book

and practicing to see if it's right or

not

a phrase that's used often in the suttas

and that is

knowledge and vision

um

because you get to see it directly for

yourself

i thought that was kind of fun and

interesting

that christians complained because

buddhists are too smart

okay how there comes to be the

abandoning of a risen sensual desire how

does that come to be

taken

come on you can do it

how does it come to be how do you

abandon

a distraction

ignorance

i expected everybody to say that

see how smart you are

and how there comes to be the future

non-arising of abandoned sensual desire

with the case of putting

so you see

the way this is written it makes it

sound complicated

but it's really not complicated at all

the first part is how does the hindrance

arise well your mindfulness gets weak

and there's the hindrances

how do you keep the hindrances away

stay on your object of meditation

and when you come to appreciate

that the hindrances are there to teach

you lessons

then you don't have to fight with the

hindrances anymore

sometimes a hindrance can be so strong

that it just doesn't go away when you

six are

uh

i even have people come and complain

about it

so what is my answer to that

yeah but it won't go away well you're

not using the six rs to make it go away

you're using the six hours to let go of

the attachment to that hindrance

sometimes hindrances can be very strong

and stay for a period of

for time a meditation pain

but when you use the 6r's enough

eventually that will fade away by itself

because you have let go of your

attachment to it

well

so

like your meditation pain don't fight

with it

even though it's painful it's there to

help you

so you can improve your mindfulness and

see

how

it arises

now this suit or this part of the suit

goes through all of the different

hindrances but you treat all hindrance

in exactly the same way

he can get

now we're gonna go to the five

aggregates number 38.

again monks

excusing abides

observing mind objects as mind objects

in terms of the five aggregates

this is a standard

way of describing that and it's

it's lacking a little bit

it says the five aggregates affected by

clinging and

that is a little bit misleading

because it is affected by

craving

and clinging

such is material form

such its origin such its disappearance

if you want to

material form

is a

kind of

suffering

it's a kind of unsatisfactoriness

that is

using the six r's

which is the way leading to the

cessation of suffering

and that is how it disappears

so what did i just show you right here

oh these aggregates have

the four noble truths

and it shows you how you use the four

noble truths

with

and it does it with each one of these

aggregates

such as feelings such its origins such

its disappearance

such as perception such its origins

such are the formations such their

origins such their disappearance

okay now an interesting thing in

suit number 43

it's in section number 9

43 section number nine yeah

let me see

and it's not the first paragraph it's a

second

43 section number nine what

our super number four is

first

number 43 what's the title of it

feeling perception and consciousness

friend these states are conjoined

43

just a second

okay

feeling perception and consciousness

friend these states are conjoined not

disjoined

in

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states from the others in order to

describe the difference

higher

so right there it says that these three

states feeling perception and

consciousness are joined together

uh

so actually

the five

aggregates

are

three aggregates

okay

but the buddha did this

just to show you

that you can

be able to recognize these individually

um

every time feeling arises whether it's

pleasant or painful or neither painful

or pleasant

it doesn't

matter if it's mental

or

physical

english

when your mind grabs on to it there is

craving and cleaning

what does that mean

when one of these aggregates arise

it causes tightness in your head in your

mind

and then you begin to think about

the feeling or

body or formations whatever it happens

to be

we don't want her in here

she's sleeping yes

it's very disrespectful to do that

no

b

go out of the hall

so when we start talking about the

aggregates we're talking about the four

noble truths

and we're also talking about the four

foundations of mindfulness

was a

major

insight

that i had

when i was practicing

and i started to see how all of the

buddha's teachings are intertwined and

interconnected

that is

what page is that

okay

on page 14 there is the five aggregates

and how they turn into

the four foundations of mindfulness

and when your mindfulness slips

it shows you

how the aggregates arise

i mean how the hindrances are right

excuse me

okay now we're going to go to the six

bases

number 40.

you have six spaces okay

152.

you ask

now this section here

and the last part of the

mind objects

is the basic difference between the

maha-satipatana suta and the satipatana

it goes into more detail

with the six bases

and the four noble truths

than

the satipatana

does

uh

the six bases it turns into the lengths

of dependent origination and it it is

quite a bit longer

today

again monks a monk abides

observing mind objects as mind objects

in terms of the sixth internal

and external basis

and how does a monk abide contemplating

mind objects as mind objects in terms of

the six

internal and external bases

today

he understands the fetter that arises

dependent on both

what is the fetter that arises dependent

on

foreign

nobody else

it's the big c word

no

he also understand how there comes to be

the arising

of the unarising better how does that

come to be

when

contact

arises then feeling arises feeling is

pleasant painful neither pleasant nor

painful

the tension and tightness that's very

subtle in your head in your mind

this is why the six r's will take you

all the way to nibana

because you're

relaxing and letting go of that tension

and tightness you're letting go of

cravings

okay

english so

if your eye hits the color and form and

that eye consciousness arises

the rest of the links of dependent

origination will not arise arrive

this is important to understand

he was a yanum

every tiny little disturbance that you

see

you need to six are

when your mind goes deep in the

meditation

now for some people their mind hasn't

gone that deep yet they haven't become

uh advanced meditators so you're still

going to be seeing the gross movements

and things like that

but it seems like there is a growing

number of people that are able to

sit for fairly long periods of time

without having any disturbance in their

mind at all

and then when they see a slight little

vibration as soon as they recognize that

they succeed

the whole thing

with these vibrations is that's movement

and every time you relax and let go of

that movement your mind is clear your

mind is bright your mind is

exceptionally alert

and when you relax

that

movement gets smaller and smaller as you

relax

this is called the cessation of

perception feeling and consciousness

when you come out you will see the links

of dependent origination

they do happen very quickly

so you're just seeing little tiny things

rising passing away

from

as you get to the second stage you'll

see it arise and pass away two times

very quickly

japanese

but by now

your awareness is

so subtle that you'll be able to

recognize these links

even though they happen so quickly

and then

you go deeper and you go through this

experience again and it happens three

times

as they come up and go away

of course it happens four times and you

see it

completely

and you see that nothing

in this universe

is

has anything to do with me my or i

is

not only do you see the links of

dependent origination this way but you

also see the four noble truths and

realize that they're in each link

and when that

formation link

fades away

there is no

more

movement at all

what's the cause of

and if there is no more craving

then your mind becomes

absolutely pure

so it's real important

do you want to tell her she

she's not she shouldn't be here right

now

okay

so

this is how it works

and

a lot of people they have a lot of

questions about an aura hot

what are they like

well the advantage of being around

someone who actually is an arahat i am

not don't even come close to saying that

their mind is so clear and so bright

because it doesn't have any craving in

it

they will be able to give you answers to

all kinds of questions that you can ask

i would hear that this monk or that monk

is

i would go to where they were living and

be with them for a period of time

to see whether that was true or not

it doesn't mean that they're not there

it just means that i couldn't find them

can we develop into arahat's now

yes

by using the

six other

hammers

okay

so now we're going to go into the

awakening factors

number 42.

a monk abides contemplating mind objects

as mind objects in terms of the seven

awakening factors

in

english they say enlightenment factors

the buddha talked as

of people that were walking around like

they were sleepwalking

so when he became awakened

he wasn't

didn't have that sleep mind

awake

so

uh

okay

here there being mindfulness awakening

factor in him a monk understands there

is the mindfulness

awakening factor in me

or there being no mindfulness awakening

factor in him

he understands there is no mindfulness

awakening factor in me

on

and he also understands how there comes

to be

the arising of the unarising

mindfulness awakening factor

and how the arisen mindfulness awakening

factor

comes to fulfillment by development

so

how

does the arising

of the unarising mindfulness factor come

to be

practice of the

the practice of the six hours

that's what makes your mindfulness

sharpe

and as your mindfulness

keeps improving and you're able to see

more and more subtle little things and

six are those

then it comes to

the

fulfillment

by developing that mindfulness awakening

factor

um

now this

goes through all of the list of the

awakening factors

uh

so we're talking about

the

investigation of your experience

awakening factor

the energy

awakening factor

iran

the joy

the joy awakening factor

the tranquility awakening factor

the collectedness awakening factor s

now these factors

are very helpful for your meditation

when you have sloth intorpur

then you and use the investigation

of the experience

uh

when you're able to recognize

how

this arises

then you start applying the next

and you start

adding a little bit more energy into

staying on your object to meditation not

a lot

just a little bit at a time

and then

when it's in balance

joy naturally arises

now when you have restlessness

as i've told some of you

what you want to do is bring up a

feeling of

peace and calm

of meditation

when you are restless

please

do not

you have so much energy you feel like

you're going to jump out of your skin

have you ever had one of these days in

your daily life where you felt like i

had

15 things to do and i've only got 10

minutes

and you run around and you do some of

this and oh i got to do that and oh i

got to do this

you understand what i'm saying

that is restlessness

how do you overcome restlessness

don't move

bring up a feeling of peace and

tranquility

you open up your eyes and you see all

the things that have to be done

and you do this one completely

done

and then you do this one

done

and you become very efficient

at what you're doing while you're doing

it

there's

so you become very efficient with what

you're doing

and you surprise yourself because you

get everything done and there's still

time left to do other things

some of you i have told you

to use your object of meditation with

stillness

as your object of meditation as your

wish

um

the reason i would tell you that is

because your mind is a little active and

when you use stillness it just

becomes very still and quiet

and you need to have equanimity

why

because restlessness is a painful

feeling and you need to have balance

with it

now these

seven awakening factors

all have mindfulness with each one of

them

so you have mindfulness

investigation and energy on one side of

the joy

and you have tranquility

stillness and equanimity on the other

side of joy

so joy is right in the middle and that

helps keep everything in balance

when all of the awakening factors are in

perfect balance

guess what happens

arises

so this gives you an idea of how you can

use

the awakening factors

in a practical way

in even your daily life

okay the last part of

this

is talking about the four noble truths

and i've already talked about it

uh

if anyone should develop

these four foundations of mindfulness in

such a way

for seven years

one of two fruits can be expected for

him

either final knowledge here and now that

means becoming an arahat

or if there is a trace of craving and

clinging left

non-return

let alone seven years monk

if anyone should develop these four

foundations of mindfulness in such a way

for six five four three

one of two fruits can be expected for

him

either final knowledge here and now

or if there's a trace of craving and

clinging left non-return

let alone one year monks

if anyone should develop these four

foundations of mindfulness in such a way

for seven six five four three two

one month or a half a month

one of two fruits can be expected for

him either final knowledge here and now

or if there's a trace of craving and

clinging left non-returning

now please pay close attention to what

the next part is

let alone half a month monks

if anyone should develop these four

foundations of mindfulness in such a way

for

seven days

what is this day four you still have

three days

one of two fruits can be expected for

him either final knowledge here and now

or if there's a trace of craving and

clinging left non-returning

sorrow and lamentation

for the disappearance of pain and grief

for the attainment of the true way

for the realization of nirvana

namely the four foundations of

mindfulness

and you can see for yourself that it is

talking about

insight

knowledge

and

jhana

practice

at the same time

it is called

vipassana

and it's very interesting that the word

vipassana only comes up

about a hundred times in the text

the word

comes up many thousands of times

which is another way of describing jhana

practice

and vipassana are mentioned together

most of the time

so

when people try to tell you that the way

to attain the obama is through

vipassana only that

how you can practice these two things

together

what kind of insights do you have when

you're practicing

your personality

the insights you have

are

how

the processes work

you start understanding more and more

deeply what the buddha was actually

teaching

me and you'll run across one suta

and you read it and you understand it

and you just sit back and go

wow

i had that experience

that is

the kinds of insight that the buddha was

teaching

is an insight

and it really gets to be fun to learn

this stuff because you can see it for

yourself

do you have any questions

uh you said that the

craving

appears with the vibration

can you see it

arising during daily life also oh yes

it depends on

how deeply you've gone into meditation

but you can see craving arise

very easily just by that

tightness that happens in your head

some other

and you can recognize that tightness has

movement in it

as

well now there's a lot of people

that are teaching meditation

and saying you don't need to sit in

meditation you just have to be

mindful

sit

the sitting meditation is very important

because that's your private time

to observe

how this process works

when you're moving around with your

daily activities you can be generally

mindful

um

but you need to have that quiet time so

you can see

without moving your body around

how this process is working

and again i'll remind you

the more you smile the easier your

meditation becomes

that's the truth honestly

have you seen anybody close to arab

i seen anybody close to an arahat i have

met one

anagami

at least that was the claim she was a

very powerful

four foot nine indian woman

four foot nine is

short

well that's about

under a meter and a half

yeah only a million

but when you walked in the room

where she was

she seemed like a giant

you immediately felt happy and very very

calm

that's the closest i've come

well it's time for you to get to work

okay

anything else

don't be shy

okay

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear-struck fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief

and may all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that

we've thus acquired for the acquisition

of all kinds of happiness

many beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty power share

this merit of ours

may they long protect the buddha's

dispensation