From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=z8JUk95JpCY

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

this

is the samut nikaya

and there's

84 or 86

uh sutas on dependent origination

in this particular section

i'm going to read one section to you

because this is very

important for you to understand

at sawati monks as to those

ascetics and brahmanas who do not

understand

these things the origin of these things

the cessation of these things and the

way

leading to the cessation of these things

now what i just said was here's the four

noble truths

in the lengths of dependent origination

and what are those things that they do

not understand

whose origin they don't understand whose

cessation they don't understand and

awaiting

the way leading to who to whose

cessation they don't understand

they don't understand aging and death

first noble truth they don't

understand its origin

second noble truth they don't understand

its cessation third noble truth

and they don't understand wheat leading

to the way of cessation

now they don't understand all of the

lengths of dependent origination

these are the things they do not

understand

these i do not consider to be ascetics

among ascetics or brahman among brahman

and these venerable ones do not by

realizing for themselves with direct

knowledge

in this very life enter and dwell

in the goal of asceticism or the goal of

brahminhood so

that says if you don't understand the

links of dependent origination you're

not going to attain nibana

and that's a lot different than the

explanation

of other people that use commentaries

in particular the

um

the practice is being taught in burma

known as strait vipassana

they say that when you get to a certain

place

it's called uh sankaru pekka

it's uh

equanimity to formations

your mind becomes very balanced

everything is great

and then you'll have a kind of blackout

and you will see

impermanence four or five times horizon

pass away

or you will see suffering four or five

times

rise and pass away very quickly or you

will see

anata in perm in impersonal nature

four or five times a rise and pass away

and then you attain nibana

so that doesn't agree with what it says

here

so what do you want to see happen

it says basically what you're asking

so

monk says to those ascetics and

brahmanas who

understand these things

the origin the cessation in the way

leading to the cessation of these things

what are these things that they

understand

they understand all of the links of

dependent origination they understand

the

origin the cessation and the way leading

to the cessation

of each one of the links

so dependent origination in the four

noble truths

are connected each of the links

is connected

in the

in the vineya

there is a small

statement that

says you can see one

or all of the three characteristics of

existence without ever seeing the links

of dependent origination

but when you see the links of

dependent origination you always see

the three characteristics of existence

so the idea that

just seeing one of the characteristics

of existence

that that leads to nibana is not quite

as accurate as it could be

according to the buddha's teaching and i

wanted to bring that up to you

now there's a

a lot of questions about what

you look for in a teacher

and it tells you right here

okay

this is how to find a teacher

amongst one who does not know and see as

it really is the origin

and all of the links of dependent

origination

with the four noble truths

should search for a teacher in order to

know this

as it really is

so this is telling you right here

that if you want to find a true teacher

the teacher has to be able to explain

how the links of dependent origination

work

and this is real important to understand

this is the backbone of the buddha's

teaching

this is it and this leads

directly to the experience of nibana

so i wanted to bring that up

so that you would understand that

from the very first talk that i

gave in the instructions i was

telling you about the links of dependent

origination

and a lot of you now understand that

pretty well

and that makes me happy

and it's not because i'm so special

it's because you took the time to see

how it works yourself

you are your own teacher

the guide can bring up some points for

you to check out

but ultimately you have to do it

yourself

you are your own teacher

and

many people when they get done with

retreat they thank me for being their

teacher and

i'm not

i thank them for for working so hard

for understanding this so that you can

have

a liberating experience but

you have to understand you've done it

yourself

i might bring up some suttas that make

things clearer i might say some things

that make it a little easier to

understand

but still i'm not your teacher and i

don't like being put on a pedestal

okay

because once you get on a pedestal it it

falls when you get off the

you fall off the pedestal for one reason

or another

i don't like that

so i am your what is called cali amita

i am your

spiritual friend and i will help you

in any way i can so

that you can have these kinds of

experience

so

ah in the in nepali tech society this

is five books

beku bodhi has a very strange sense of

humor

because he puts it all in one book and

this weighs four or five pounds which

doesn't really

sound like a lot until you're going

on an airplane and then it gets kind of

heavy

and this was three books

bad sense of humor

okay now tonight i'm going to read you

the greater series of questions

and answers this is suta number 43

the mahavida sutta

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living in sawatee in

jettas grove annathan pendika's park

then when it was evening the venerable

mahakohita rose from meditation

and went to the venerable sorry put and

exchanged greetings with him

he didn't actually go just

one person to one person and talk

he had students with him that's why he

asked these kind of

kind of questions maha kohita

was always sitting in meditation

he was the foremost meditator

and he knew all these answers that he's

talking to

sorry puta about but because

they both had their students there they

would ask these questions

and they're actually quite interesting

when this courteous and amiable talk was

finished he sat

down at one side and said to venerable

sariputta

one who is unwise

one who is unwise is said friend

with reference to what is this said

one who is unwise

friend

that what what is why it is said

one who is unwise and what does one

what doesn't one wisely understand

one doesn't wisely understand this

is suffering one wise does not wisely

understand this is the origin of

suffering

one does not wisely understand this is

the cessation of suffering one does not

wisely

understand this is the way leading to

the cessation of suffering

now what he's talking about with not

wisely understanding

is how the four noble truths and the

links of dependent origination

are intertwined with each other

so anytime you hear wise or

wisdom and buddhism

and this is not a definition you're

going to get in any other dictionary

in buddhism it's referring directly to

the links of dependent origination

that's why it is said one who is unwise

saying good friend the venerable

mahakuhita

delighted and rejoiced in the venerable

sariputta's words

then he asked a further question

one who is wise one who is

wise is said friend with reference to

what was this set

one who is wise i've already told you

the answer to this

one wisely understands one wisely

understands friend that's why

it is said one who is wise

what does one wisely understand one

wisely understands this

is suffering one wisely understands

this is the origin of suffering one

wisely understands this

is a cessation of suffering one wisely

understands this is the way leading to

the cessation of suffering

one wisely understands one wisely

understands friend that's why it is said

one who is wise

consciousness consciousness is said

friend

with reference to what is consciousness

said

it cognizes it cognizes friend that's

why consciousness

is said what does it cognize

this is pleasant

it cognizes this is painful

it cognizes this is neither painful nor

pleasant

it cognizes it cognizes friend that's

why

consciousness is said

wisdom and consciousness

friend are these states conjoined

or disjoined and it is is it possible to

separate

each of these states from the other in

order to describe

the difference between them

wisdom and consciousness friends

these states are conjoined not

disjoined and it is impossible to

separate

each of these states from the other

in order to describe the difference

between them

for what one wisely understands

that one cognizes

and what one cognizes

that one wisely understands

you got it

don't all say one yes at once

let's do it again

for what one wisely

understands you understand how the links

work

that you cognize you know

you're aware of it you see how it works

and what one cognizes when you see

how things work you naturally wisely

understand is that better

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states

from the other to describe the

difference between them because they are

conjoined

that's how they work

so if one sees it and now you're

wisely understanding but if you

read it and

you don't experience it directly but

you're experiencing it

through literature is that

wisely understanding or no it depends on

your understanding at the time

when you think deeply about this

and you hear someone either read it or

say it or you read it yourself

and you deeply truly do

go ah yeah that's exactly right

it can be through word of mouth that you

become a sodapana

the first stage of awakening

by your understanding exactly what the

suta is saying

doesn't happen very often

because well we're kind of slow i know i

am i'm kind of slow

so i figure everybody else is going to

be about the same

so we have to go through the practice of

it

okay what is the difference

friend between wisdom and consciousness

these states that are conjoined not

disjoint

the difference friend between wisdom and

consciousness these states that are

conjoined not disjoined is this

wisdom is to be developed

and consciousness is to be fully

understood

feeling feeling has said what

is said friend with reference to what is

feeling

said it feels

it feels friend that is why feeling is

said what does it feel

it feels pleasure it feels pain

it feels neither pleasure nor pain

it feels friend it feels

that is why feeling is said

it's not my feeling it's

just a feeling that arises because the

conditions are right

for it to arise and this is the same

thing

with every link of dependent origination

okay

perception perception as friends

is is said friend with reference to what

is perception

said it perceives

it perceives friend that's why

perception is said

what does it perceive it perceives blue

it perceives yellow it perceives red it

perceives white

these are the colors in the buddhist

flag

if you were wondering and

what he's really saying here there's no

such a thing as blue color

that's a concept all of these things

are concepts

that is why perception is said

feeling perception and consciousness

friend

are these states conjoined or disjoined

and is it possible to separate each of

these states from the others

in order to describe the difference

between them

feeling perception and consciousness

friend

these states that are conjoined not

disjoint

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states from the others in order to

describe the difference between them

four what one feels

that one perceives and

what one

what one perceives that one cognizes

okay

that is why these states are conjoined

not

disjoint and it's impossible to separate

each of these states from the other

in order to describe the difference

between them

knowledge by mind alone

friend what can be known by purified

mind

consciousness released

from the five faculties

friend by purified mind consciousness

released from the five faculties

the base of infinite space can be known

the base of infinite consciousness

can be known and the base

of nothingness can be known

friend what does one

underst with what does one

understand a state that can be known

interesting question

friend one understands a state that can

be

known with the eye of

wisdom what does that mean

no the eye of

wisdom is seeing whatever arises

as part of an impersonal

process

because everything independent

origination

is impersonal

right so when you

let go of craving what are you seeing

the eye of wisdom is there

because you see without

thinking you cognize

very easily

because your mind is pure

your mind is bright your mind is very

alert without any

coloring of craving

that is the eye of wisdom

a lot of people go to kathmandu and

there's a very famous

stupa that's there that has a pair of

eyes and has a

curly q thing coming right in the middle

and that's what it is is showing you

see with the eye of wisdom

that little curly cue thing is

actually one of the marks of a great man

and what it is is a very long

hair that grows right there

and it was white and it was

very very soft

but it was one long hair

another interesting thing about the

buddha

is that the buddha had blue eyes

that's kind of an interesting little

phenomena that not be

not many people really understand

now you know there's a lot of different

buddha images

and they're doing this

what is the artist trying to show you

that the buddha is talking about

first noble truth second noble truth

third noble truth fourth noble truth

mostly you see either this

or this not very often do you see

this we're in the process

of uh having some made

in sri lanka i'm sorry

the significance is they weren't black

like every other asians

they were blue

yes why would i say that if it didn't

i i will give you the name or the

the suta to go look at it

i think it's 90 no 91.

yeah suta number 91

in the magiman nikaya this is the 32

marks of a

a superman of a great man friend

what is the purpose of wisdom

the purpose of wisdom friend

is direct knowledge

its purpose is full understanding

its purpose is abandoning

interesting huh

right view friend how many con

conditions are there for the arising

of right view

friend there are two conditions for the

arising of right view

the voice of another person

and wise attention

this is not my voice that you're

listening to this is the buddha's voice

he's the real teacher

these are the two conditions for the

arising of right view

friend how many factors is right view

assisted when it has deliverance of mind

for its uh path

and deliverance of mind for its path and

fruition when it has deliverance

by wisdom for its path

and deliverance by wisdom for its path

and fruition

friend right view is assisted by five

faculty faculties five factors

excuse me when it has

deliverance of mind for its path

deliverance of mind for its path and

fruition

when it has deliverance by wisdom for

its path and deliverance by

wisdom for its path and fruition

here friend right view is assisted

by virtue

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

learning discussion

serenity and insight

what am i teaching you tranquil

wisdom insight meditation

serenity and

insight a lot of you

have had great insights

and they're not like the insights of

the mahasi method the insight

you have is how you personally see

that you cause yourself pain and you

decide and we ain't going to do that

anymore

let's let that one go and you you have

these insights and they happen all the

time

and it turns into kind of and i wanted

to call this

this this meditation this kind

of a name i wanted to call it oh wow

meditation but i

got vetoed

so we're going to start up a magazine

called oh wow

right view is assisted by these five

factors

has deliverance of mind for its fruit

uh its path deliverance of mind for its

path and fruition

it has deliverance of mine by wisdom

for its path and deliverance by wisdom

for its path and fruition friend

how many kinds of being are there

there are three kinds of being friend

the sense sphere being now i've changed

the word

being to

habitual behavior

but the reason i do that

is because it's easier to understand

when you're first starting out

it has other definitions

too and it doesn't match so well with

habitual behavior but i've gone to many

different very very learned

scholarly monks and i asked them to talk

about

bhava which is a pali word for

what bhikkhu bodhi says is being

and as they were talking and describing

all of the different aspects of this

in my mind i was replacing it with

habitual tendency or habitual behavior

and it worked

and then i would tell them you know what

you just described i'd describe it in

different words and i would say

now i want i want you to listen to this

and then i would give them what i

thought habitual behavior was

as bava and they they agreed

and when i talk about very scholarly

monks

my teacher was using ananda

before he was 27 years old

he memorized this many books

and when i say memorized it i mean he

had it down

cold and then he took a test on it

and the test is okay this is the magiman

nikaya

number 390. page number 390

the mahavidala sutta

and i would read one line

continue and he did

now this test in burma is such that

if you make six mistakes you failed

he didn't make a mistake

now this is with 12 books

and that's half of the test the other

half

is a written test

and it's very comprehensive the kind of

questions he was asked and he was

number one in burma of all the monks

that took the test that year

he's one of them that i talked to about

this

i also talked to a monk that was

really really famous he was even in the

world book of records for the best

retentive

memory he memorized

the entire topitica

and you know you you

you're in college and you have to go

take a final test

and it's four hours of real hell

well with what he had memorized

he took a test 10 hours a day

for 30 days in a row

and he got 90 percent correct

and i talked to him about this so i'm

when i'm talking about i went to very

scholarly monks this gives you an idea

of what i'm talking about

that's one of the reasons i spent 12

years in asia i was looking up these

kind of monks that

that have this kind of mind that i could

really delve into

interesting questions at least they were

interesting to me

it was actually good fun

unfortunately a lot of the teachers that

i had are now

dead i went

to not only burmese monks but i went to

sri lanka monks i went to thai monks

and quite often i had to go through

translators but that was okay

because the people i asked to translate

were monks and they understood what

what we were talking about and that's

really important

so there is the

sense sphere being the

immaterial being

or the fine material being

that means the devas and brahmalokas and

things like that

they have a we have a gross

body they have a fine material body

that's why you don't see them hanging

around even though they do

there are divas that come for dhamma

talks

they are in the room right now

and immaterial being

friend how is renewal of being in the

future

generated renewal of being in the

future is generated through the

delighting

in this and that on the part of beings

who are hindered by ignorance

and fettered by

craving so there you see you had

what i was talking about ignorance and

craving

those are the two things that we want to

let go of relax

six are as much as you can remember

keep six houring now i

insist upon saying that a lot in the

dhamma talks

and the reason i say it a lot is

maybe when you get out into your daily

life

you'll even remember it and maybe

by chance use it

when you start to have a headache

what do you generally do with that start

looking for some aspirin

when i was in burma

i started to get

a real deep headache

and i went to them and they gave me an

aspirin

one i cut it in half

i used it and it screwed up my

meditation for the rest of the day

so i kind of back away from using things

like

aspirin or any drugs for that matter

i much prefer the natural approach to a

headache

you start to feel a headache start

relaxing the tightness in your neck

start relaxing the tightness in your

head

watch how it disappears

now i've been a monk for 28 years i've

had

less than five headaches that didn't go

away

in 28 years can you say that

but when you remember to use the six

r's that can help you a lot

this is something that you carry with

you all the time

i try to get you to smile all the time

why because when you go out there

and you're smiling more your

mind is light your mind is bright

and it's easy to see

when hindrances come up

it's easy to let them go

i don't care if it's a physical

hindrance or a mental entrance

you can relax into it

this stuff works not just while you're

practicing here

this works all the time if

you remember to use it

you know anytime you have repeat

thoughts

guess who is suffering

and guess who is causing them

self-suffering

and why not use the six r's

and start letting that kind of nonsense

stuff

go let the rubbish take it out

no need

friend how is renewal of being

in the future not generated

can you guess

with the fading away of ignorance

with the arising of true knowledge

with the cessation of craving

renewal of being in the future is not

generated pretty simple

now we're going to talk about the first

jhana

what is the first jhana here friend

quite secluded from sensual pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states a monk

enters upon and abides in the first

jhana which is accompanied by thinking

and examining thought with joy

and happiness born of seclusion

this is called the first jhana

everybody here has experienced jonathan

do you understand how

incredibly nice that is

because you have experienced such

a wholesome mind if you never do

any more mental uh

development for the rest of your life

at the time of your death you're going

to remember that

joy and that peace and that calm

and you will die very peacefully

and you will be reborn in a

brahmaloka just from having that

experience

one time

so this is this is amazingly

powerful stuff

now most of you have experienced

going into the arupa jhanas

into the immaterial realms infinite

space

infinite consciousness nothing neither

perception nor non-perception

if you don't attain nibana in this

lifetime

and you have one of these

immaterial dramas let me give you an

idea of what will happen for you

in buddhism there's something that's

called an asankaya

it's a length of time where it's a 10

with 160

zeros behind it that's how long it is in

years

so it's a pretty long period of time

now the universe what it does is

it expands for one asancaya

and then it stops for one asan kaya

and then it contracts for

and then it stops for one ah saying kaya

now these four asancayas

are called

and just

a maha kappa and my mind just went blank

for a moment

maha kappa is 10 with 560 zeros behind

it that's how long

one maha kappa is in years

when you get into the

of rupa jhanas if you go no

higher in this lifetime than

infinite space you will be reborn

in an immaterial realm that lasts 20

000 maha kappas that's how much

good merit that you're making for

yourself

right now if you go

no higher than infinite consciousness

that's 40

000 maha kappas

you go to the realm of nothingness sixty

thousand

maha kappas

you go to neither perception nor

non-perception

eighty-four thousand maha kappas now

that's

a long time i mean

a real long time

that's how much merit you're making by

doing this practice right here right now

it's pleasurable realm that you're in

for that long because you're doing

so much good merit

by keeping your mind pure

so that gives you an idea of what we're

actually working with here

i tell you okay radiate loving kindness

for

all the different beings and then start

radiating loving-kindness

for all beings in all the directions

which basically means the fourth jhana

if you know go no higher than that

you will be reborn in a realm that lasts

for 500 maha kappas

it's a lot of merit that you're making

by

purifying your mind right here

right now and of course i

want to push you to go further so you

don't get off the wheel you don't have

to be reborn

but this is this is what what you're

you would experience if you don't ever

do any more

in this lifetime you've already got this

experience

and i want you to go more

so how many factors does the first jhana

have

friend the first jhana has five factors

here when a monk has entered upon the

first jhana

there occur thinking examining thought

joy happiness and unification of mind

there's five things that happen when you

get into the first

jhana

friend how many factors are abandoned

in the first jhana and how many factors

are possessed

friend the first jhana in the first

jhana

five factors are abandoned what are the

five

factors that are abandoned the five

hindrances

lust greedy mind hatred

aversion mine sloth and torpor

restlessness doubt

when you're in the first jhana or you're

in

any of the jhanas these kind of things

won't arise but

when your mindfulness gets a little bit

weak

guess who comes for dinner gonna eat you

up

the hindrance arises now you have to

work with the hindrance

let it go and then you get back into the

jhana

but the hindrances are a necessary part

of the practice

because every time your mindfulness gets

weak

for whatever reason and a hindrance

arises

it's helping you to go deeper

and it's teaching you how

this process works

so it's a real interesting thing that

these five factors are abandoned while

you're

in the genre and when you're not in the

genre

these five factors pop up at you

they get you and that's good

and five factors are possessed

here when a monk is entered upon the

first jhana

sensual desire is abandoned

ill will aversion is abandoned

sloth and torpor are abandoned

restlessness and anxiety are abandoned

doubt is abandoned see

and there occur thinking

examining thought joy

happiness and unification of mine

that is how the first jhana in the first

jhana five factors are abandoned and

five factors are possessed

friend these five faculties

each have a separate field a separate

domain and do not experience

each other's field and domain

that is the i faculty ear faculty

knows faculty tongue faculty body

faculty

they each have their own field you don't

smell with your eyes

right you see with your eyes

you smell with your tongue that it has

its own domain

it has each one of these has its own

thing

now these five faculties each having a

separate field

a separate domain do not experience each

other's

field and domain

what is their resort

what experiences their fields and

domains

these five faculties each have a

separate field a separate domain

and do not experience each other's field

and domain that is

the i faculty year faculty knows faculty

tongue faculty and body faculty

now these five faculties each have a

separate field a separate domain

not experiencing each other's field and

domain

they have mind as their resort

mind experiences their fields and

domains

that's why there's six

cent stores

friend of these five faculties that is

the i

faculty here faculty knows faculty

tongue faculty

and the body faculty what do these five

faculties stand independence on

interesting questions

friend as to these five faculties that

is the eye

ear nose tongue and body faculty

these five faculties stand

stand independence on vitality

friend what does vitality

stand independence on this gets tricky

in a minute

you'll see vitality

stands independence on heat

friend what does heat stand

in dependence on this one's going to get

you

heat stands independence on

vitality

just now friend we understood the

venerable sari putta

to have said vitality stands

independence on heat

and now we understand him to say he

stands independence on vitality

how should the meaning of this statement

be regarded

that's a decent question don't you think

in that case friend i shall give you a

simile

for some wise men here understand the

meaning

of a statement by means of a simile

just as when an oil lamp is burning

its radiance is seen independence

on its flame and its

flame is seen independence on its

radiance got it

so too vitality stands independence on

heat

and heat stands independence on vitality

can have one without the other

friend are vital formations things that

can be

felt or are vital formations

one thing and things that can be felt

another vital formations friends

are not things that can be felt

if vital formation were things that can

be

felt then when a monk

who has entered upon the cessation of

perception

feeling and consciousness would not be

seen to emerge from it

that we'll explain that in just a bit

because vital formations are one things

and things can be that can be felt

another

a monk who has entered upon the

cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness can be seen

to emerge from it

friend when this body is bereaved of how

many

states is it then discarded

and forsaken and left lying senseless

like a log friend

when this body is bereaved of three

states

vitality heat and consciousness

it is then discarded and forsaken left

lying senseless like a log

friend what is the difference between

one who

is dead who has completed his time

and a monk who has entered upon the

cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness interesting

question

friend in this case one who is dead

who has completed his time his bodily

formations have ceased and subsided

his verbal formations have ceased and

subsided

his mental formations have ceased and

subsided

his vitality is exhausted

his heat has been dissipated

his faculties are fully broken up

in the case of a monk who has entered

upon the cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness his bodily

formations have ceased and subsided

his verbal formations have ceased and

subsided

his mental formations have ceased and

subsided

but his vitality is not exhausted

his heat has not been dissipated

his faculties become exceptionally

clear that is a difference between one

who is dead

who has completed his time and a monk

who has emerged

upon the cessation of perception feeling

and consciousness now some

some of you when you've come in for

an interview i say

your face is really bright what do you

think i'm seeing

i'm i'm seeing the vitality

and i'm seeing how clear your mind

is

and there are some people that their

face

gets so bright and so clear

that you don't need to have light in the

room

because you you see and there is a glow

around them

their face becomes amazingly

clear and bright and really wonderful to

see

now when you get to the third stage of

awakening

called onagami you will be able to make

a determination

to sit in meditation in the cessation of

perception feeling and consciousness

for up to seven days

and right here it says anybody that's

sitting in this

their their features become

exceptionally bright and

clear

so if you happen to run across somebody

that

when you look at them it's like their

face is so

beautiful and they're the

light coming off them is so strong

give them something they have

just been sitting in the highest amount

of merit that you can make as a human

being

and giving them a gift

the merit that you get for doing that

comes back

a lot

now there's a story about sariputta

he was an arahat he could sit for up to

seven days

just like i was saying and he would do

that occasionally

and he would sit in neither perception

or he would sit in the cessation of

perception feeling

in consciousness for seven days

and when he came out

he would generally look for people that

are very

good but not necessarily

well off and go on alms around

and give them the opportunity to give to

him

and he did this one day and he went

off and there was

this poor farmer between

he and his wife they had one shirt

so he was out plowing his field without

a shirt on

and his wife had made some some

food for him for for lunch

and he came she came to

give him the food and she did and

he saw sariputa

and he decided it was more important to

give the food that

little food that he had to sariputa

and also his wife came with some water

and she donated some water to sariputta

and sorry putta sat down and

ate the food and drank the water and got

up and left

and they turned around and looked at the

field that he was plowing

and it had turned to gold

and he didn't know what to do with all

that gold

so he went to the king and he said i've

got a lot of gold out in my field

how about if you help me and and

uh find a place to store it until i can

figure out what to do with it

so the king set out some people with

carts some of his helpers and such

and as they were picking up the gold

they were saying

this is a king's gold and it turned back

to dirt

and they saw that that happened and they

said we can't say that this

is this farmer's gold and

they filled the carts up and he became

exceptionally wealthy because of that

gift

so what i would suggest if you happen to

run across

anybody that really has a very

bright radiance about them

give them food give them something to

drink

give them anything you can

and the amount of merit that comes back

for that

is really a lot yeah

is what

i would think so i don't think we can

count on social security

no don't touch monks so

it's it's a huge amount of merit

that you make when even when you

experience

this blank out for a short period of

time

your mind is as pure as it possibly

could

ever be and still be alive

okay

now we're going to talk about

deliverance of mind

friend how many conditions are there in

the attainment

of neither painful nor pleasant

deliverance of mind

friend there are four conditions for the

attainment

of neither painful nor pleasant

deliverance of mind

here with the abandoning of pleasure and

pain

with the previous disappearance of joy

and grief

a monk enters upon and abides in the

fourth jhana

which has neither pain nor pleasure

and purity of mindfulness due to

equanimity

these are the four conditions for the

attainment of neither painful nor

pleasant deliverance of mine

friend how many conditions are there for

the attainment

of the signless deliverance of

mind that's going into

the cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness

friend there are two conditions for the

attainment

of the signless deliverance of mind

non-attention to all signs

and attention to the signless element

these are the two conditions for the

attainment of the signless

deliverance of mind friend how many

conditions

are there for the persistence

of the signless deliverance of mind

there are three conditions for the

persistence of the signless

deliverance of mind non-attention to all

signs

attention to the signless element

and the prior determination

its duration so before you go

into this state you make a determination

depending on how much time you have at

the time

that you're going to sit for

four days 12 hours

16 minutes 31 seconds

and then you come out at exactly that

time

and it goes up to seven days

over seven days your vitality disappears

your heat dissipates and body

dies

so it's it has a time limit on it

and i have met monks that tell me that

they sat in that

that state for two weeks

and i look at him and i go maybe

you know

doesn't understand what kind of states

he was

my in teacher said we sat

in arupajanas

for up to two weeks

a rupidjanas possible

cessation of perception feeling in

consciousness

no

and even that i would question if

somebody sat for two weeks

that's it's not easy sitting that long

it really isn't

uh i had a teacher that i went to see

in australia and he sat for three days

but he still moved a little bit

he wasn't sitting like the cessation of

perception feeling in consciousness

but he became very famous because of

that

and sitting for three days

it is it puts you through some changes

it really does

friend how many conditions are there for

the emergence of the signless

deliverance of mind

there are two conditions for the

emergence of the signless deliverance of

mind

attention to all signs and non-attention

to the signless element

these are the two conditions for the

emergence

of the signless deliverance of mind

friend the immeasurable deliverance of

mind the deliverance of mind through

nothingness

the deliverance of mind through voidness

the signless deliverance of mind

are these states different in meaning

and different in name

or are they one in meaning and different

in name only

friend the immeasurable deliverance of

mind the deliverance of mind through

nothingness

the deliverance of mind through voidness

the signless deliverance of mind

there is a way in which these states are

different

in meaning and different in name and

there

is a way in which they are one in

meaning and different

in name only

what friend is away in which these

states are different in meaning and

different

in name here a monk

abides pervading one quarter

with a mind imbued with loving kindness

likewise the second likewise the third

likewise the fourth sound familiar for

some of you

so above below around

and everywhere sound familiar

kind of like the instructions i was

giving you

imagine that

to all as to himself he abides pervading

the all-encompassing world with a mind

imbued with loving-kindness

abundant exalted immeasurable without

hostility

and without ill will he abides pervading

one quarter of his mind with compassion

he avoids pervading one quarter of his

mind imbued with joy

he abides pervading one quarter of his

mind imbued with equanimity

likewise the second the third and the

fourth

so above below around and everywhere

as to all as to himself

he abides pervading the all-encompassing

world

with a mind imbued with equanimity

abundant exalted immeasurable without

hostility and without ill will

this is called the immeasurable

deliverance of

mind and what friend is a deliverance of

mine through

nothingness here with the complete

surmounting of the base of

infinite consciousness aware that there

is

nothing a monk enters upon

and abides in the base of nothingness

this is called the deliverance of mind

through

nothingness

and what friend is a deliverance of mine

through voidness

here a monk gone to the forest or to a

root of a tree or an empty hut

reflects this is void

of a self

or what belongs to a self

this is called the deliverance of mind

through

voidness now this particular

practice you can do on your own

everything that arises you remind

yourself

it's not mine not me

not myself

and you don't have to use those three

statements

one of the things that i i practiced is

for a while

just so i could be able to teach other

people

and the statement that i used was

where am i

am i these thoughts am i these feelings

no

where am i everything is impersonal

there is no personal self

in anything in this

phenomenological existence

but we sure believe there is

and what friend is the signless

deliverance of mind

here with non-attention to all signs

a monk enters upon and abides in the

signless collectedness of mind this

is called the silence

signless deliverance of mind

this is the way in which these states

are different in meaning

and different in name and

what friend is the way in which these

states are

one in meaning and different in name

only

lust is a maker of measurement

hate is a maker of measurement

delusion is a maker of measurement

lust i like it

hate i don't like it

delusion i am that

another way of saying what

craving

in a monk whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump

done away with so that there are no more

they are no longer subject to future

arising

all of the kinds of immeasurable

deliverance of mind the unshakeable

deliverance of mind

the pronounced is pronounced the best

now that unshakeable deliverance of mine

is void of lust

void of hate void of delusion

no more craving

lust is a something

hate is a something delusion

is a something a monk

whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump

done away with so that they no longer

are subject to future arising

of all the kinds of deliverance through

nothingness the unshakeable deliverance

of mine is pronounced the best

now this uh that unshakable deliverance

of mine is void of lust

void of hate and void of delusion

lust is a maker of signs

hate is a maker of signs

delusion is a maker of signs

a monk whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump done away with

so that they are no longer subject to

future arising

of all the kinds of signless deliverance

of mind the unshakable deliverance of

mine is pronounced the best

now that unshakable deliverance of mine

is void of lust

void of hate and void of delusion

this is the way which these states are

one in meaning and different

in name only

that is what the venerable sariputta

said the venerable maha kohita was

satisfied and delighted

in the venerable sariputta's words

interesting suta

one of one of the ones that i really

like

any kind of thing

any kind of object any any kind of

material object

or mental object so it could be foreign

so what are you really asking

i was just relating it to what i've been

experiencing

and because there are states where there

are

signs and objects and then states they

disappear

but there's still something there

there's something there

well mind is formless right

and you take mind as your object of

meditation

right it's still a sign

any kind of movement or disturbance

is a sign

when you have that

cessation of perception feeling in

consciousness

that's the signless there's no signs

that arise

when you come back you're real happy

because of that

and that's how you see the links

any consciousness

formation

that any any consciousness is is

that a formation or a centaur

if it's an object it's a centaur

well well just let me think it through

for a minute because there's a lot of

different definitions here that i have

to work with

yes

well that's part of the that's that has

to do with the links

that's what i'm asking i mean it's a

practical question

yeah but there's a there's a lot of

different definitions that i have to run

through before i can give you a

real yeah don't ask me for the

definitions

thank you

just to clarify one can go into

cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness at any time

can't happen at any time

from the first experience of a jhana

but it wouldn't have

well you'll feel it coming on you'll

feel your mind starting to go like this

and that's the time to pull over

hopefully it's not a traffic jam

i'm very puzzled and i was hoping that

you could explain to me

what is accumulating merit

but what actually is

merit itself

i really could do this better with

glasses on

okay this is the the shorter exposition

of action

now merit is good action

okay

135.

maybe if i can get to it there it is

does somebody ask the buddha

what is the cause and condition why

human beings are seen to be inferior or

superior

for people are seen to be short-lived

and long-lived

sickly and healthy ugly and beautiful

uninfluential and influential poor

wealthy low-born highborn stupid

and wise the buddha's answer to that

beings are owners of their actions

life continuum heirs

of their action they originate from

their

actions are bound to their

actions have actions as their

refuge it is action that distinguishes

beings different beings for different

stations in life

things like that did that help

it continues by itself because of the

actions

yep okay

it comes down to matters of epistemology

and faith and i can't get it so

okay

yes

everything that arises has some craving

in it

every link that arises has some craving

in it

until you finally let it go all the way

right

so let's say in meditation

um

completely

let's go craving

while perceiving one of these

three then they all fall apart right

in in essence yes

yes

yeah so given the sub fisherman um

what what is it that you were talking

about that is

reborn in

another your

actions cause you to be reborn

it's the life continuum thing

your craving causes you to be reborn

your ignorance causes you to be reborn

that's what i just got through reading

in those um things that you were saying

well you have this many thousands of

years here and there

yeah that's all that's all common yeah

absolutely

who is you

not gonna i'm not gonna go

wisdom's obvious there wisdoms i

understand

instead of you because they probably put

him in a corner back then

and said what what understands it's

language that's why i don't

i don't try to discuss what nibana is

how can you talk about something with

only conditioned ideas

and words in when it's an unconditioned

state

and i i know monks that

they write a letter to me occasionally

and they

never use the word i

because i don't want to be attached

they they say their name every time

instead of i just saw this and i thought

it was interesting

they say well ponte so-and-so saw this

and he thought it was interesting

yeah it's it's just odd ideas about

language

language is very difficult

because you're trying to experience

something that

doesn't have any concepts in it

i've had a lot of students come up to me

when they

i discuss suit to 1-1-1

all of the different genres that you can

experience and that sort of thing

and they say you know you explained it

very clearly is very accurate

and it's not even close to the actual

experience

and it's true it's not even

close but you got to use

words to get across some things and some

things you can't

so you try the best you can and see how

it goes that's about all you can

do

so in the modern days if you take

someone

who has been doing like slaughtering

animals

robbing and all that things and if the

person realized after so many years that

i'm doing my own thing and i want to go

right back

the person doesn't have accumulated

merit from

past lives they wouldn't

try

there was a time during that there was a

man

during the time of the buddha that

he was a thief and he was with

20 other people that were thieves

and they got taken to the king and the

king said well you need to be

executed i'm going to cut all your heads

off but he didn't have an executor

and he asked the thieves well are any of

you willing to do this

to become an executor and this one man

yeah so he just started lopping people's

heads off for

a lot of years until he wasn't strong

enough to do it anymore

now it was during the time of the buddha

and one time sorry putta

was out on alms round

and he saw sorry puta and he put a

little bit of rice i mean not very much

just a little bit in his bowl

and when he died

they went to the buddha and said where

was he reborn he said he was reborn in

in a heavenly realm devaloka

i think it was probably the

tafsa timsa heaven and he said

he killed hundreds and hundreds of

people how can he be reborn there

and he

remembered at the time of his death

the happiness he experienced by sharing

some food with zariputa

that doesn't mean at some point later

he's not going to suffer from all of

those killings

so you know you hear about all these

people these rich people and they're

really nasty

and they they cause all kinds of

problems for other people

and they keep getting richer and richer

and you go

well that karma should be coming back at

them they should

be killed for this or that well their

karma is such

that they're burning off their good

karma and creating themselves an

awful lot of bad karma and that will

come back it's a balancing act

it does happen

the trick is everybody wants to know

when

and it depends when the conditions are

right

good and bad action will take care of

itself

everything that happened to you a result

of karma would something

happen that's not a result of karma

come on

you see that's like the 1960s they used

the word karma

and the girl some slipped and fell or

something and some other woman was

saying oh

that's a karma right or you're you're in

a relationship and you make a bad

decision how well it was her karma

and the whole meaning of this thing got

lost okay

um but you have a choice right you have

volition and buddhism

to crave and claim or not to pray make a

choice every single time you do that

right

you have a choice to use loving kindness

you have a choice so you're making

choices all the time

but suppose you had something in your

life like i had an experience

from

or you're afraid of water and you can't

touch the water and you have kids that

you can't go in the river and you can

spin your ankles with them

you're scared to death of the water or

you're afraid of heights where did that

come from nothing in your life this life

had

anything to do with that where did that

come from

yeah so you that's but your whole life

right now is that because it has caramel

no but it has a lot to influence it

okay

it talks about 24 causal relationships

of karma is one of

causal relationships

you want to find out more about it i'll

give you a book you can read it

if you can understand it

you know something happened and they

said was that because of

you know bad actions in the past and

what has said

uh it

somebody else is asking a question i

have the same question

and the way i came to terms with it was

the saying like he had to comment

everyone has

it coming but people focused about when

it's coming they forget that the present

moment we have this coming too

and you should let go of the attachment

of when you have it and focus on

that you have this coming right here

well and you have a choice

to make whether you're going to go this

way or that way

yeah i meant like don't worry about

that's right

right

if you experience nibona does that

probably

clear up some of the confusion for you

about what gets reborn

well body and mind gets reborn

what condition is it going to be reborn

in

depends on past action

when the conditions are right

things happen in a particular way

fine material kind of it's not reborn

it's

kind of just materializes

you wind up with a body that's like a

teenage body

where you're ready to romp and play and

sing and dance and

do all kinds of good fun stuff

but in the devaloka

you have to eat every day

and what they eat is grapes

they just appear you have to be munching

on the grapes

if you don't eat what happens is

the uh the heat

gets too big and the body dies

so you have to eat every day but when

you're practicing

meditation you're in the brahmalokas

and their nourishment to keep

body alive is joy

so you just have to

have some joy come up every day then

there's a few but i mostly

let all that stuff go because it's not

interesting to me

the first suit in imaginakia

it goes through every one of the 32

realms of existence or 31 realms of

existence boring

so anybody that that gets a copy of the

magiman nikaya i told them

do not read to start out by reading the

first

suta if you try

you'll put the book down and never pick

it up again

and that's that's really true

you can see it for yourself when you get

to certain places in your meditation you

can go visit these

by developing your mind in such a way

i just said wow oh i thought you said

how wow

you know i i just want to recommend the

introduction

to the maja manikaya yeah it was written

by beckel

and he did it it's one of the finest

pieces of writing

about the buddha and what the buddha

taught

and the impact he had in this

world and if you

don't read anything else the

introduction

is rather 75 pages or something like

this

a probably the single most wonderful

work

on the subject and some of his ideas

don't match what it says inside the

suttas

some of his ideas are influenced very

strongly by

commentary so you have to read it with a

a grain of salt i noticed that too yeah

he puts that parenthetically in many

cases

but it is good it is good

next to concept and reality it's one of

the better

better things to read

yeah that was one of the first books i

ever wrote or ever read on

on

concept in buddhism is the book that's

coming from sri lanka when they fill the

container

yeah i don't know how long it's how much

longer it's going to be but

i've already it's already been paid for

everybody is just waiting

and we'll put it on on the website that

it's available and anybody wants a copy

we can send

it to you do they have buddha sculptures

in sri lanka because i'm a landscape

architect and maybe i could order

something

how how big do you want it to be

really

when we went to japan

we saw this

one truly

amazing standing buddha that was about

25 feet tall

style was carved out of one piece of

rock

but it was so big they couldn't get it

through the tunnels

in japan and they had to cut

no they didn't cut the boot up they had

to cut the

so it could fit and then they came back

and glued them back together

how big do you want it they have they

have a buddha image

that it must be over a hundred feet tall

yeah surely

then and down the street from the buddha

museum

they make wooden buddhas like

all in these shops and you can get them

as tall as this room

yeah and they had they have a lot of

that are made out of marble

if you want them uh

they have one

buddha image

that

it got overgrown by the forest

and they've been walking beside it just

on a little trail

for a few hundred years and somebody for

some reason

went inside and they looked up

and they saw this buddha image it's 40

feet high it's a lying buddha

40 feet high 135 feet long

well it just got overgrown by the forest

so what size do you want

you know not everyone can afford a crane

they're about 2500

a day well this is

this is actually made out of bricks

and then plastered

so i've ordered

two sitting buddhas from

bali

and they're six feet tall

it takes four people to pick it up

that's about as big as i'm interested in

depends where you get it the sitting the

sitting buddha that i'm getting

is well they don't ship by weight

because they're shipped by boat that

makes it easier

it's more volume the sitting buddha

is to buy it outright would cost

somewhere around two hundred dollars

yeah i i get a lot of stuff when i go to

and then you truck it to missouri

no there's cement cement

it might be cheaper to bring the

artisans

they won't

but they also make other kinds of hindu

can do yeah things

that's what they do in that village and

people in bali are very very deeply

connected to their

you'd knowledge to get people from

somewhere else but i mean you could

start a school training artisans and

missouri to order images because they're

quite in demand

i imagined to all those local churches

yeah but i don't like the chinese faces

every uh every country

they they make the buddha image

different

and one of the most beautiful to me

is the indian buddhas because they have

a western face

he was an aryan he had blue eyes

and golden skin

and they don't put the little uh

curly cues all over his head they just

leave his hair like it actually was

now i understand why they they put those

curly q's on his head because that's

supposed to represent

the pineal gland

the spiritual gland for the body

snails

no there was the only

being that i know of that did anything

during his enlightenment period was when

it started

raining a big snake came and

covered him so that he wouldn't get cold

or wet

while he was sitting in the cessation of

perception feeling and consciousness

okay let's share some merit

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 way

thus acquired

for the acquisition of all kinds of

happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

davis and nagas of mighty powers shares

merit of ours may they alone protect the

buddha's dispensation

you

this

is the samut nikaya

and there's

84 or 86

uh sutas on dependent origination

in this particular section

i'm going to read one section to you

because this is very

important for you to understand

at sawati monks as to those

ascetics and brahmanas who do not

understand

these things the origin of these things

the cessation of these things and the

way

leading to the cessation of these things

now what i just said was here's the four

noble truths

in the lengths of dependent origination

and what are those things that they do

not understand

whose origin they don't understand whose

cessation they don't understand and

awaiting

the way leading to who to whose

cessation they don't understand

they don't understand aging and death

first noble truth they don't

understand its origin

second noble truth they don't understand

its cessation third noble truth

and they don't understand wheat leading

to the way of cessation

now they don't understand all of the

lengths of dependent origination

these are the things they do not

understand

these i do not consider to be ascetics

among ascetics or brahman among brahman

and these venerable ones do not by

realizing for themselves with direct

knowledge

in this very life enter and dwell

in the goal of asceticism or the goal of

brahminhood so

that says if you don't understand the

links of dependent origination you're

not going to attain nibana

and that's a lot different than the

explanation

of other people that use commentaries

in particular the

um

the practice is being taught in burma

known as strait vipassana

they say that when you get to a certain

place

it's called uh sankaru pekka

it's uh

equanimity to formations

your mind becomes very balanced

everything is great

and then you'll have a kind of blackout

and you will see

impermanence four or five times horizon

pass away

or you will see suffering four or five

times

rise and pass away very quickly or you

will see

anata in perm in impersonal nature

four or five times a rise and pass away

and then you attain nibana

so that doesn't agree with what it says

here

so what do you want to see happen

it says basically what you're asking

so

monk says to those ascetics and

brahmanas who

understand these things

the origin the cessation in the way

leading to the cessation of these things

what are these things that they

understand

they understand all of the links of

dependent origination they understand

the

origin the cessation and the way leading

to the cessation

of each one of the links

so dependent origination in the four

noble truths

are connected each of the links

is connected

in the

in the vineya

there is a small

statement that

says you can see one

or all of the three characteristics of

existence without ever seeing the links

of dependent origination

but when you see the links of

dependent origination you always see

the three characteristics of existence

so the idea that

just seeing one of the characteristics

of existence

that that leads to nibana is not quite

as accurate as it could be

according to the buddha's teaching and i

wanted to bring that up to you

now there's a

a lot of questions about what

you look for in a teacher

and it tells you right here

okay

this is how to find a teacher

amongst one who does not know and see as

it really is the origin

and all of the links of dependent

origination

with the four noble truths

should search for a teacher in order to

know this

as it really is

so this is telling you right here

that if you want to find a true teacher

the teacher has to be able to explain

how the links of dependent origination

work

and this is real important to understand

this is the backbone of the buddha's

teaching

this is it and this leads

directly to the experience of nibana

so i wanted to bring that up

so that you would understand that

from the very first talk that i

gave in the instructions i was

telling you about the links of dependent

origination

and a lot of you now understand that

pretty well

and that makes me happy

and it's not because i'm so special

it's because you took the time to see

how it works yourself

you are your own teacher

the guide can bring up some points for

you to check out

but ultimately you have to do it

yourself

you are your own teacher

and

many people when they get done with

retreat they thank me for being their

teacher and

i'm not

i thank them for for working so hard

for understanding this so that you can

have

a liberating experience but

you have to understand you've done it

yourself

i might bring up some suttas that make

things clearer i might say some things

that make it a little easier to

understand

but still i'm not your teacher and i

don't like being put on a pedestal

okay

because once you get on a pedestal it it

falls when you get off the

you fall off the pedestal for one reason

or another

i don't like that

so i am your what is called cali amita

i am your

spiritual friend and i will help you

in any way i can so

that you can have these kinds of

experience

so

ah in the in nepali tech society this

is five books

beku bodhi has a very strange sense of

humor

because he puts it all in one book and

this weighs four or five pounds which

doesn't really

sound like a lot until you're going

on an airplane and then it gets kind of

heavy

and this was three books

bad sense of humor

okay now tonight i'm going to read you

the greater series of questions

and answers this is suta number 43

the mahavida sutta

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living in sawatee in

jettas grove annathan pendika's park

then when it was evening the venerable

mahakohita rose from meditation

and went to the venerable sorry put and

exchanged greetings with him

he didn't actually go just

one person to one person and talk

he had students with him that's why he

asked these kind of

kind of questions maha kohita

was always sitting in meditation

he was the foremost meditator

and he knew all these answers that he's

talking to

sorry puta about but because

they both had their students there they

would ask these questions

and they're actually quite interesting

when this courteous and amiable talk was

finished he sat

down at one side and said to venerable

sariputta

one who is unwise

one who is unwise is said friend

with reference to what is this said

one who is unwise

friend

that what what is why it is said

one who is unwise and what does one

what doesn't one wisely understand

one doesn't wisely understand this

is suffering one wise does not wisely

understand this is the origin of

suffering

one does not wisely understand this is

the cessation of suffering one does not

wisely

understand this is the way leading to

the cessation of suffering

now what he's talking about with not

wisely understanding

is how the four noble truths and the

links of dependent origination

are intertwined with each other

so anytime you hear wise or

wisdom and buddhism

and this is not a definition you're

going to get in any other dictionary

in buddhism it's referring directly to

the links of dependent origination

that's why it is said one who is unwise

saying good friend the venerable

mahakuhita

delighted and rejoiced in the venerable

sariputta's words

then he asked a further question

one who is wise one who is

wise is said friend with reference to

what was this set

one who is wise i've already told you

the answer to this

one wisely understands one wisely

understands friend that's why

it is said one who is wise

what does one wisely understand one

wisely understands this

is suffering one wisely understands

this is the origin of suffering one

wisely understands this

is a cessation of suffering one wisely

understands this is the way leading to

the cessation of suffering

one wisely understands one wisely

understands friend that's why it is said

one who is wise

consciousness consciousness is said

friend

with reference to what is consciousness

said

it cognizes it cognizes friend that's

why consciousness

is said what does it cognize

this is pleasant

it cognizes this is painful

it cognizes this is neither painful nor

pleasant

it cognizes it cognizes friend that's

why

consciousness is said

wisdom and consciousness

friend are these states conjoined

or disjoined and it is is it possible to

separate

each of these states from the other in

order to describe

the difference between them

wisdom and consciousness friends

these states are conjoined not

disjoined and it is impossible to

separate

each of these states from the other

in order to describe the difference

between them

for what one wisely understands

that one cognizes

and what one cognizes

that one wisely understands

you got it

don't all say one yes at once

let's do it again

for what one wisely

understands you understand how the links

work

that you cognize you know

you're aware of it you see how it works

and what one cognizes when you see

how things work you naturally wisely

understand is that better

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states

from the other to describe the

difference between them because they are

conjoined

that's how they work

so if one sees it and now you're

wisely understanding but if you

read it and

you don't experience it directly but

you're experiencing it

through literature is that

wisely understanding or no it depends on

your understanding at the time

when you think deeply about this

and you hear someone either read it or

say it or you read it yourself

and you deeply truly do

go ah yeah that's exactly right

it can be through word of mouth that you

become a sodapana

the first stage of awakening

by your understanding exactly what the

suta is saying

doesn't happen very often

because well we're kind of slow i know i

am i'm kind of slow

so i figure everybody else is going to

be about the same

so we have to go through the practice of

it

okay what is the difference

friend between wisdom and consciousness

these states that are conjoined not

disjoint

the difference friend between wisdom and

consciousness these states that are

conjoined not disjoined is this

wisdom is to be developed

and consciousness is to be fully

understood

feeling feeling has said what

is said friend with reference to what is

feeling

said it feels

it feels friend that is why feeling is

said what does it feel

it feels pleasure it feels pain

it feels neither pleasure nor pain

it feels friend it feels

that is why feeling is said

it's not my feeling it's

just a feeling that arises because the

conditions are right

for it to arise and this is the same

thing

with every link of dependent origination

okay

perception perception as friends

is is said friend with reference to what

is perception

said it perceives

it perceives friend that's why

perception is said

what does it perceive it perceives blue

it perceives yellow it perceives red it

perceives white

these are the colors in the buddhist

flag

if you were wondering and

what he's really saying here there's no

such a thing as blue color

that's a concept all of these things

are concepts

that is why perception is said

feeling perception and consciousness

friend

are these states conjoined or disjoined

and is it possible to separate each of

these states from the others

in order to describe the difference

between them

feeling perception and consciousness

friend

these states that are conjoined not

disjoint

and it is impossible to separate each of

these states from the others in order to

describe the difference between them

four what one feels

that one perceives and

what one

what one perceives that one cognizes

okay

that is why these states are conjoined

not

disjoint and it's impossible to separate

each of these states from the other

in order to describe the difference

between them

knowledge by mind alone

friend what can be known by purified

mind

consciousness released

from the five faculties

friend by purified mind consciousness

released from the five faculties

the base of infinite space can be known

the base of infinite consciousness

can be known and the base

of nothingness can be known

friend what does one

underst with what does one

understand a state that can be known

interesting question

friend one understands a state that can

be

known with the eye of

wisdom what does that mean

no the eye of

wisdom is seeing whatever arises

as part of an impersonal

process

because everything independent

origination

is impersonal

right so when you

let go of craving what are you seeing

the eye of wisdom is there

because you see without

thinking you cognize

very easily

because your mind is pure

your mind is bright your mind is very

alert without any

coloring of craving

that is the eye of wisdom

a lot of people go to kathmandu and

there's a very famous

stupa that's there that has a pair of

eyes and has a

curly q thing coming right in the middle

and that's what it is is showing you

see with the eye of wisdom

that little curly cue thing is

actually one of the marks of a great man

and what it is is a very long

hair that grows right there

and it was white and it was

very very soft

but it was one long hair

another interesting thing about the

buddha

is that the buddha had blue eyes

that's kind of an interesting little

phenomena that not be

not many people really understand

now you know there's a lot of different

buddha images

and they're doing this

what is the artist trying to show you

that the buddha is talking about

first noble truth second noble truth

third noble truth fourth noble truth

mostly you see either this

or this not very often do you see

this we're in the process

of uh having some made

in sri lanka i'm sorry

the significance is they weren't black

like every other asians

they were blue

yes why would i say that if it didn't

i i will give you the name or the

the suta to go look at it

i think it's 90 no 91.

yeah suta number 91

in the magiman nikaya this is the 32

marks of a

a superman of a great man friend

what is the purpose of wisdom

the purpose of wisdom friend

is direct knowledge

its purpose is full understanding

its purpose is abandoning

interesting huh

right view friend how many con

conditions are there for the arising

of right view

friend there are two conditions for the

arising of right view

the voice of another person

and wise attention

this is not my voice that you're

listening to this is the buddha's voice

he's the real teacher

these are the two conditions for the

arising of right view

friend how many factors is right view

assisted when it has deliverance of mind

for its uh path

and deliverance of mind for its path and

fruition when it has deliverance

by wisdom for its path

and deliverance by wisdom for its path

and fruition

friend right view is assisted by five

faculty faculties five factors

excuse me when it has

deliverance of mind for its path

deliverance of mind for its path and

fruition

when it has deliverance by wisdom for

its path and deliverance by

wisdom for its path and fruition

here friend right view is assisted

by virtue

keeping your precepts without breaking

them

learning discussion

serenity and insight

what am i teaching you tranquil

wisdom insight meditation

serenity and

insight a lot of you

have had great insights

and they're not like the insights of

the mahasi method the insight

you have is how you personally see

that you cause yourself pain and you

decide and we ain't going to do that

anymore

let's let that one go and you you have

these insights and they happen all the

time

and it turns into kind of and i wanted

to call this

this this meditation this kind

of a name i wanted to call it oh wow

meditation but i

got vetoed

so we're going to start up a magazine

called oh wow

right view is assisted by these five

factors

has deliverance of mind for its fruit

uh its path deliverance of mind for its

path and fruition

it has deliverance of mine by wisdom

for its path and deliverance by wisdom

for its path and fruition friend

how many kinds of being are there

there are three kinds of being friend

the sense sphere being now i've changed

the word

being to

habitual behavior

but the reason i do that

is because it's easier to understand

when you're first starting out

it has other definitions

too and it doesn't match so well with

habitual behavior but i've gone to many

different very very learned

scholarly monks and i asked them to talk

about

bhava which is a pali word for

what bhikkhu bodhi says is being

and as they were talking and describing

all of the different aspects of this

in my mind i was replacing it with

habitual tendency or habitual behavior

and it worked

and then i would tell them you know what

you just described i'd describe it in

different words and i would say

now i want i want you to listen to this

and then i would give them what i

thought habitual behavior was

as bava and they they agreed

and when i talk about very scholarly

monks

my teacher was using ananda

before he was 27 years old

he memorized this many books

and when i say memorized it i mean he

had it down

cold and then he took a test on it

and the test is okay this is the magiman

nikaya

number 390. page number 390

the mahavidala sutta

and i would read one line

continue and he did

now this test in burma is such that

if you make six mistakes you failed

he didn't make a mistake

now this is with 12 books

and that's half of the test the other

half

is a written test

and it's very comprehensive the kind of

questions he was asked and he was

number one in burma of all the monks

that took the test that year

he's one of them that i talked to about

this

i also talked to a monk that was

really really famous he was even in the

world book of records for the best

retentive

memory he memorized

the entire topitica

and you know you you

you're in college and you have to go

take a final test

and it's four hours of real hell

well with what he had memorized

he took a test 10 hours a day

for 30 days in a row

and he got 90 percent correct

and i talked to him about this so i'm

when i'm talking about i went to very

scholarly monks this gives you an idea

of what i'm talking about

that's one of the reasons i spent 12

years in asia i was looking up these

kind of monks that

that have this kind of mind that i could

really delve into

interesting questions at least they were

interesting to me

it was actually good fun

unfortunately a lot of the teachers that

i had are now

dead i went

to not only burmese monks but i went to

sri lanka monks i went to thai monks

and quite often i had to go through

translators but that was okay

because the people i asked to translate

were monks and they understood what

what we were talking about and that's

really important

so there is the

sense sphere being the

immaterial being

or the fine material being

that means the devas and brahmalokas and

things like that

they have a we have a gross

body they have a fine material body

that's why you don't see them hanging

around even though they do

there are divas that come for dhamma

talks

they are in the room right now

and immaterial being

friend how is renewal of being in the

future

generated renewal of being in the

future is generated through the

delighting

in this and that on the part of beings

who are hindered by ignorance

and fettered by

craving so there you see you had

what i was talking about ignorance and

craving

those are the two things that we want to

let go of relax

six are as much as you can remember

keep six houring now i

insist upon saying that a lot in the

dhamma talks

and the reason i say it a lot is

maybe when you get out into your daily

life

you'll even remember it and maybe

by chance use it

when you start to have a headache

what do you generally do with that start

looking for some aspirin

when i was in burma

i started to get

a real deep headache

and i went to them and they gave me an

aspirin

one i cut it in half

i used it and it screwed up my

meditation for the rest of the day

so i kind of back away from using things

like

aspirin or any drugs for that matter

i much prefer the natural approach to a

headache

you start to feel a headache start

relaxing the tightness in your neck

start relaxing the tightness in your

head

watch how it disappears

now i've been a monk for 28 years i've

had

less than five headaches that didn't go

away

in 28 years can you say that

but when you remember to use the six

r's that can help you a lot

this is something that you carry with

you all the time

i try to get you to smile all the time

why because when you go out there

and you're smiling more your

mind is light your mind is bright

and it's easy to see

when hindrances come up

it's easy to let them go

i don't care if it's a physical

hindrance or a mental entrance

you can relax into it

this stuff works not just while you're

practicing here

this works all the time if

you remember to use it

you know anytime you have repeat

thoughts

guess who is suffering

and guess who is causing them

self-suffering

and why not use the six r's

and start letting that kind of nonsense

stuff

go let the rubbish take it out

no need

friend how is renewal of being

in the future not generated

can you guess

with the fading away of ignorance

with the arising of true knowledge

with the cessation of craving

renewal of being in the future is not

generated pretty simple

now we're going to talk about the first

jhana

what is the first jhana here friend

quite secluded from sensual pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states a monk

enters upon and abides in the first

jhana which is accompanied by thinking

and examining thought with joy

and happiness born of seclusion

this is called the first jhana

everybody here has experienced jonathan

do you understand how

incredibly nice that is

because you have experienced such

a wholesome mind if you never do

any more mental uh

development for the rest of your life

at the time of your death you're going

to remember that

joy and that peace and that calm

and you will die very peacefully

and you will be reborn in a

brahmaloka just from having that

experience

one time

so this is this is amazingly

powerful stuff

now most of you have experienced

going into the arupa jhanas

into the immaterial realms infinite

space

infinite consciousness nothing neither

perception nor non-perception

if you don't attain nibana in this

lifetime

and you have one of these

immaterial dramas let me give you an

idea of what will happen for you

in buddhism there's something that's

called an asankaya

it's a length of time where it's a 10

with 160

zeros behind it that's how long it is in

years

so it's a pretty long period of time

now the universe what it does is

it expands for one asancaya

and then it stops for one asan kaya

and then it contracts for

and then it stops for one ah saying kaya

now these four asancayas

are called

and just

a maha kappa and my mind just went blank

for a moment

maha kappa is 10 with 560 zeros behind

it that's how long

one maha kappa is in years

when you get into the

of rupa jhanas if you go no

higher in this lifetime than

infinite space you will be reborn

in an immaterial realm that lasts 20

000 maha kappas that's how much

good merit that you're making for

yourself

right now if you go

no higher than infinite consciousness

that's 40

000 maha kappas

you go to the realm of nothingness sixty

thousand

maha kappas

you go to neither perception nor

non-perception

eighty-four thousand maha kappas now

that's

a long time i mean

a real long time

that's how much merit you're making by

doing this practice right here right now

it's pleasurable realm that you're in

for that long because you're doing

so much good merit

by keeping your mind pure

so that gives you an idea of what we're

actually working with here

i tell you okay radiate loving kindness

for

all the different beings and then start

radiating loving-kindness

for all beings in all the directions

which basically means the fourth jhana

if you know go no higher than that

you will be reborn in a realm that lasts

for 500 maha kappas

it's a lot of merit that you're making

by

purifying your mind right here

right now and of course i

want to push you to go further so you

don't get off the wheel you don't have

to be reborn

but this is this is what what you're

you would experience if you don't ever

do any more

in this lifetime you've already got this

experience

and i want you to go more

so how many factors does the first jhana

have

friend the first jhana has five factors

here when a monk has entered upon the

first jhana

there occur thinking examining thought

joy happiness and unification of mind

there's five things that happen when you

get into the first

jhana

friend how many factors are abandoned

in the first jhana and how many factors

are possessed

friend the first jhana in the first

jhana

five factors are abandoned what are the

five

factors that are abandoned the five

hindrances

lust greedy mind hatred

aversion mine sloth and torpor

restlessness doubt

when you're in the first jhana or you're

in

any of the jhanas these kind of things

won't arise but

when your mindfulness gets a little bit

weak

guess who comes for dinner gonna eat you

up

the hindrance arises now you have to

work with the hindrance

let it go and then you get back into the

jhana

but the hindrances are a necessary part

of the practice

because every time your mindfulness gets

weak

for whatever reason and a hindrance

arises

it's helping you to go deeper

and it's teaching you how

this process works

so it's a real interesting thing that

these five factors are abandoned while

you're

in the genre and when you're not in the

genre

these five factors pop up at you

they get you and that's good

and five factors are possessed

here when a monk is entered upon the

first jhana

sensual desire is abandoned

ill will aversion is abandoned

sloth and torpor are abandoned

restlessness and anxiety are abandoned

doubt is abandoned see

and there occur thinking

examining thought joy

happiness and unification of mine

that is how the first jhana in the first

jhana five factors are abandoned and

five factors are possessed

friend these five faculties

each have a separate field a separate

domain and do not experience

each other's field and domain

that is the i faculty ear faculty

knows faculty tongue faculty body

faculty

they each have their own field you don't

smell with your eyes

right you see with your eyes

you smell with your tongue that it has

its own domain

it has each one of these has its own

thing

now these five faculties each having a

separate field

a separate domain do not experience each

other's

field and domain

what is their resort

what experiences their fields and

domains

these five faculties each have a

separate field a separate domain

and do not experience each other's field

and domain that is

the i faculty year faculty knows faculty

tongue faculty and body faculty

now these five faculties each have a

separate field a separate domain

not experiencing each other's field and

domain

they have mind as their resort

mind experiences their fields and

domains

that's why there's six

cent stores

friend of these five faculties that is

the i

faculty here faculty knows faculty

tongue faculty

and the body faculty what do these five

faculties stand independence on

interesting questions

friend as to these five faculties that

is the eye

ear nose tongue and body faculty

these five faculties stand

stand independence on vitality

friend what does vitality

stand independence on this gets tricky

in a minute

you'll see vitality

stands independence on heat

friend what does heat stand

in dependence on this one's going to get

you

heat stands independence on

vitality

just now friend we understood the

venerable sari putta

to have said vitality stands

independence on heat

and now we understand him to say he

stands independence on vitality

how should the meaning of this statement

be regarded

that's a decent question don't you think

in that case friend i shall give you a

simile

for some wise men here understand the

meaning

of a statement by means of a simile

just as when an oil lamp is burning

its radiance is seen independence

on its flame and its

flame is seen independence on its

radiance got it

so too vitality stands independence on

heat

and heat stands independence on vitality

can have one without the other

friend are vital formations things that

can be

felt or are vital formations

one thing and things that can be felt

another vital formations friends

are not things that can be felt

if vital formation were things that can

be

felt then when a monk

who has entered upon the cessation of

perception

feeling and consciousness would not be

seen to emerge from it

that we'll explain that in just a bit

because vital formations are one things

and things can be that can be felt

another

a monk who has entered upon the

cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness can be seen

to emerge from it

friend when this body is bereaved of how

many

states is it then discarded

and forsaken and left lying senseless

like a log friend

when this body is bereaved of three

states

vitality heat and consciousness

it is then discarded and forsaken left

lying senseless like a log

friend what is the difference between

one who

is dead who has completed his time

and a monk who has entered upon the

cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness interesting

question

friend in this case one who is dead

who has completed his time his bodily

formations have ceased and subsided

his verbal formations have ceased and

subsided

his mental formations have ceased and

subsided

his vitality is exhausted

his heat has been dissipated

his faculties are fully broken up

in the case of a monk who has entered

upon the cessation of perception

feeling and consciousness his bodily

formations have ceased and subsided

his verbal formations have ceased and

subsided

his mental formations have ceased and

subsided

but his vitality is not exhausted

his heat has not been dissipated

his faculties become exceptionally

clear that is a difference between one

who is dead

who has completed his time and a monk

who has emerged

upon the cessation of perception feeling

and consciousness now some

some of you when you've come in for

an interview i say

your face is really bright what do you

think i'm seeing

i'm i'm seeing the vitality

and i'm seeing how clear your mind

is

and there are some people that their

face

gets so bright and so clear

that you don't need to have light in the

room

because you you see and there is a glow

around them

their face becomes amazingly

clear and bright and really wonderful to

see

now when you get to the third stage of

awakening

called onagami you will be able to make

a determination

to sit in meditation in the cessation of

perception feeling and consciousness

for up to seven days

and right here it says anybody that's

sitting in this

their their features become

exceptionally bright and

clear

so if you happen to run across somebody

that

when you look at them it's like their

face is so

beautiful and they're the

light coming off them is so strong

give them something they have

just been sitting in the highest amount

of merit that you can make as a human

being

and giving them a gift

the merit that you get for doing that

comes back

a lot

now there's a story about sariputta

he was an arahat he could sit for up to

seven days

just like i was saying and he would do

that occasionally

and he would sit in neither perception

or he would sit in the cessation of

perception feeling

in consciousness for seven days

and when he came out

he would generally look for people that

are very

good but not necessarily

well off and go on alms around

and give them the opportunity to give to

him

and he did this one day and he went

off and there was

this poor farmer between

he and his wife they had one shirt

so he was out plowing his field without

a shirt on

and his wife had made some some

food for him for for lunch

and he came she came to

give him the food and she did and

he saw sariputa

and he decided it was more important to

give the food that

little food that he had to sariputa

and also his wife came with some water

and she donated some water to sariputta

and sorry putta sat down and

ate the food and drank the water and got

up and left

and they turned around and looked at the

field that he was plowing

and it had turned to gold

and he didn't know what to do with all

that gold

so he went to the king and he said i've

got a lot of gold out in my field

how about if you help me and and

uh find a place to store it until i can

figure out what to do with it

so the king set out some people with

carts some of his helpers and such

and as they were picking up the gold

they were saying

this is a king's gold and it turned back

to dirt

and they saw that that happened and they

said we can't say that this

is this farmer's gold and

they filled the carts up and he became

exceptionally wealthy because of that

gift

so what i would suggest if you happen to

run across

anybody that really has a very

bright radiance about them

give them food give them something to

drink

give them anything you can

and the amount of merit that comes back

for that

is really a lot yeah

is what

i would think so i don't think we can

count on social security

no don't touch monks so

it's it's a huge amount of merit

that you make when even when you

experience

this blank out for a short period of

time

your mind is as pure as it possibly

could

ever be and still be alive

okay

now we're going to talk about

deliverance of mind

friend how many conditions are there in

the attainment

of neither painful nor pleasant

deliverance of mind

friend there are four conditions for the

attainment

of neither painful nor pleasant

deliverance of mind

here with the abandoning of pleasure and

pain

with the previous disappearance of joy

and grief

a monk enters upon and abides in the

fourth jhana

which has neither pain nor pleasure

and purity of mindfulness due to

equanimity

these are the four conditions for the

attainment of neither painful nor

pleasant deliverance of mine

friend how many conditions are there for

the attainment

of the signless deliverance of

mind that's going into

the cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness

friend there are two conditions for the

attainment

of the signless deliverance of mind

non-attention to all signs

and attention to the signless element

these are the two conditions for the

attainment of the signless

deliverance of mind friend how many

conditions

are there for the persistence

of the signless deliverance of mind

there are three conditions for the

persistence of the signless

deliverance of mind non-attention to all

signs

attention to the signless element

and the prior determination

its duration so before you go

into this state you make a determination

depending on how much time you have at

the time

that you're going to sit for

four days 12 hours

16 minutes 31 seconds

and then you come out at exactly that

time

and it goes up to seven days

over seven days your vitality disappears

your heat dissipates and body

dies

so it's it has a time limit on it

and i have met monks that tell me that

they sat in that

that state for two weeks

and i look at him and i go maybe

you know

doesn't understand what kind of states

he was

my in teacher said we sat

in arupajanas

for up to two weeks

a rupidjanas possible

cessation of perception feeling in

consciousness

no

and even that i would question if

somebody sat for two weeks

that's it's not easy sitting that long

it really isn't

uh i had a teacher that i went to see

in australia and he sat for three days

but he still moved a little bit

he wasn't sitting like the cessation of

perception feeling in consciousness

but he became very famous because of

that

and sitting for three days

it is it puts you through some changes

it really does

friend how many conditions are there for

the emergence of the signless

deliverance of mind

there are two conditions for the

emergence of the signless deliverance of

mind

attention to all signs and non-attention

to the signless element

these are the two conditions for the

emergence

of the signless deliverance of mind

friend the immeasurable deliverance of

mind the deliverance of mind through

nothingness

the deliverance of mind through voidness

the signless deliverance of mind

are these states different in meaning

and different in name

or are they one in meaning and different

in name only

friend the immeasurable deliverance of

mind the deliverance of mind through

nothingness

the deliverance of mind through voidness

the signless deliverance of mind

there is a way in which these states are

different

in meaning and different in name and

there

is a way in which they are one in

meaning and different

in name only

what friend is away in which these

states are different in meaning and

different

in name here a monk

abides pervading one quarter

with a mind imbued with loving kindness

likewise the second likewise the third

likewise the fourth sound familiar for

some of you

so above below around

and everywhere sound familiar

kind of like the instructions i was

giving you

imagine that

to all as to himself he abides pervading

the all-encompassing world with a mind

imbued with loving-kindness

abundant exalted immeasurable without

hostility

and without ill will he abides pervading

one quarter of his mind with compassion

he avoids pervading one quarter of his

mind imbued with joy

he abides pervading one quarter of his

mind imbued with equanimity

likewise the second the third and the

fourth

so above below around and everywhere

as to all as to himself

he abides pervading the all-encompassing

world

with a mind imbued with equanimity

abundant exalted immeasurable without

hostility and without ill will

this is called the immeasurable

deliverance of

mind and what friend is a deliverance of

mine through

nothingness here with the complete

surmounting of the base of

infinite consciousness aware that there

is

nothing a monk enters upon

and abides in the base of nothingness

this is called the deliverance of mind

through

nothingness

and what friend is a deliverance of mine

through voidness

here a monk gone to the forest or to a

root of a tree or an empty hut

reflects this is void

of a self

or what belongs to a self

this is called the deliverance of mind

through

voidness now this particular

practice you can do on your own

everything that arises you remind

yourself

it's not mine not me

not myself

and you don't have to use those three

statements

one of the things that i i practiced is

for a while

just so i could be able to teach other

people

and the statement that i used was

where am i

am i these thoughts am i these feelings

no

where am i everything is impersonal

there is no personal self

in anything in this

phenomenological existence

but we sure believe there is

and what friend is the signless

deliverance of mind

here with non-attention to all signs

a monk enters upon and abides in the

signless collectedness of mind this

is called the silence

signless deliverance of mind

this is the way in which these states

are different in meaning

and different in name and

what friend is the way in which these

states are

one in meaning and different in name

only

lust is a maker of measurement

hate is a maker of measurement

delusion is a maker of measurement

lust i like it

hate i don't like it

delusion i am that

another way of saying what

craving

in a monk whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump

done away with so that there are no more

they are no longer subject to future

arising

all of the kinds of immeasurable

deliverance of mind the unshakeable

deliverance of mind

the pronounced is pronounced the best

now that unshakeable deliverance of mine

is void of lust

void of hate void of delusion

no more craving

lust is a something

hate is a something delusion

is a something a monk

whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump

done away with so that they no longer

are subject to future arising

of all the kinds of deliverance through

nothingness the unshakeable deliverance

of mine is pronounced the best

now this uh that unshakable deliverance

of mine is void of lust

void of hate and void of delusion

lust is a maker of signs

hate is a maker of signs

delusion is a maker of signs

a monk whose taints are destroyed

these are abandoned cut off at the root

made like a palm stump done away with

so that they are no longer subject to

future arising

of all the kinds of signless deliverance

of mind the unshakable deliverance of

mine is pronounced the best

now that unshakable deliverance of mine

is void of lust

void of hate and void of delusion

this is the way which these states are

one in meaning and different

in name only

that is what the venerable sariputta

said the venerable maha kohita was

satisfied and delighted

in the venerable sariputta's words

interesting suta

one of one of the ones that i really

like

any kind of thing

any kind of object any any kind of

material object

or mental object so it could be foreign

so what are you really asking

i was just relating it to what i've been

experiencing

and because there are states where there

are

signs and objects and then states they

disappear

but there's still something there

there's something there

well mind is formless right

and you take mind as your object of

meditation

right it's still a sign

any kind of movement or disturbance

is a sign

when you have that

cessation of perception feeling in

consciousness

that's the signless there's no signs

that arise

when you come back you're real happy

because of that

and that's how you see the links

any consciousness

formation

that any any consciousness is is

that a formation or a centaur

if it's an object it's a centaur

well well just let me think it through

for a minute because there's a lot of

different definitions here that i have

to work with

yes

well that's part of the that's that has

to do with the links

that's what i'm asking i mean it's a

practical question

yeah but there's a there's a lot of

different definitions that i have to run

through before i can give you a

real yeah don't ask me for the

definitions

thank you

just to clarify one can go into

cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness at any time

can't happen at any time

from the first experience of a jhana

but it wouldn't have

well you'll feel it coming on you'll

feel your mind starting to go like this

and that's the time to pull over

hopefully it's not a traffic jam

i'm very puzzled and i was hoping that

you could explain to me

what is accumulating merit

but what actually is

merit itself

i really could do this better with

glasses on

okay this is the the shorter exposition

of action

now merit is good action

okay

135.

maybe if i can get to it there it is

does somebody ask the buddha

what is the cause and condition why

human beings are seen to be inferior or

superior

for people are seen to be short-lived

and long-lived

sickly and healthy ugly and beautiful

uninfluential and influential poor

wealthy low-born highborn stupid

and wise the buddha's answer to that

beings are owners of their actions

life continuum heirs

of their action they originate from

their

actions are bound to their

actions have actions as their

refuge it is action that distinguishes

beings different beings for different

stations in life

things like that did that help

it continues by itself because of the

actions

yep okay

it comes down to matters of epistemology

and faith and i can't get it so

okay

yes

everything that arises has some craving

in it

every link that arises has some craving

in it

until you finally let it go all the way

right

so let's say in meditation

um

completely

let's go craving

while perceiving one of these

three then they all fall apart right

in in essence yes

yes

yeah so given the sub fisherman um

what what is it that you were talking

about that is

reborn in

another your

actions cause you to be reborn

it's the life continuum thing

your craving causes you to be reborn

your ignorance causes you to be reborn

that's what i just got through reading

in those um things that you were saying

well you have this many thousands of

years here and there

yeah that's all that's all common yeah

absolutely

who is you

not gonna i'm not gonna go

wisdom's obvious there wisdoms i

understand

instead of you because they probably put

him in a corner back then

and said what what understands it's

language that's why i don't

i don't try to discuss what nibana is

how can you talk about something with

only conditioned ideas

and words in when it's an unconditioned

state

and i i know monks that

they write a letter to me occasionally

and they

never use the word i

because i don't want to be attached

they they say their name every time

instead of i just saw this and i thought

it was interesting

they say well ponte so-and-so saw this

and he thought it was interesting

yeah it's it's just odd ideas about

language

language is very difficult

because you're trying to experience

something that

doesn't have any concepts in it

i've had a lot of students come up to me

when they

i discuss suit to 1-1-1

all of the different genres that you can

experience and that sort of thing

and they say you know you explained it

very clearly is very accurate

and it's not even close to the actual

experience

and it's true it's not even

close but you got to use

words to get across some things and some

things you can't

so you try the best you can and see how

it goes that's about all you can

do

so in the modern days if you take

someone

who has been doing like slaughtering

animals

robbing and all that things and if the

person realized after so many years that

i'm doing my own thing and i want to go

right back

the person doesn't have accumulated

merit from

past lives they wouldn't

try

there was a time during that there was a

man

during the time of the buddha that

he was a thief and he was with

20 other people that were thieves

and they got taken to the king and the

king said well you need to be

executed i'm going to cut all your heads

off but he didn't have an executor

and he asked the thieves well are any of

you willing to do this

to become an executor and this one man

yeah so he just started lopping people's

heads off for

a lot of years until he wasn't strong

enough to do it anymore

now it was during the time of the buddha

and one time sorry putta

was out on alms round

and he saw sorry puta and he put a

little bit of rice i mean not very much

just a little bit in his bowl

and when he died

they went to the buddha and said where

was he reborn he said he was reborn in

in a heavenly realm devaloka

i think it was probably the

tafsa timsa heaven and he said

he killed hundreds and hundreds of

people how can he be reborn there

and he

remembered at the time of his death

the happiness he experienced by sharing

some food with zariputa

that doesn't mean at some point later

he's not going to suffer from all of

those killings

so you know you hear about all these

people these rich people and they're

really nasty

and they they cause all kinds of

problems for other people

and they keep getting richer and richer

and you go

well that karma should be coming back at

them they should

be killed for this or that well their

karma is such

that they're burning off their good

karma and creating themselves an

awful lot of bad karma and that will

come back it's a balancing act

it does happen

the trick is everybody wants to know

when

and it depends when the conditions are

right

good and bad action will take care of

itself

everything that happened to you a result

of karma would something

happen that's not a result of karma

come on

you see that's like the 1960s they used

the word karma

and the girl some slipped and fell or

something and some other woman was

saying oh

that's a karma right or you're you're in

a relationship and you make a bad

decision how well it was her karma

and the whole meaning of this thing got

lost okay

um but you have a choice right you have

volition and buddhism

to crave and claim or not to pray make a

choice every single time you do that

right

you have a choice to use loving kindness

you have a choice so you're making

choices all the time

but suppose you had something in your

life like i had an experience

from

or you're afraid of water and you can't

touch the water and you have kids that

you can't go in the river and you can

spin your ankles with them

you're scared to death of the water or

you're afraid of heights where did that

come from nothing in your life this life

had

anything to do with that where did that

come from

yeah so you that's but your whole life

right now is that because it has caramel

no but it has a lot to influence it

okay

it talks about 24 causal relationships

of karma is one of

causal relationships

you want to find out more about it i'll

give you a book you can read it

if you can understand it

you know something happened and they

said was that because of

you know bad actions in the past and

what has said

uh it

somebody else is asking a question i

have the same question

and the way i came to terms with it was

the saying like he had to comment

everyone has

it coming but people focused about when

it's coming they forget that the present

moment we have this coming too

and you should let go of the attachment

of when you have it and focus on

that you have this coming right here

well and you have a choice

to make whether you're going to go this

way or that way

yeah i meant like don't worry about

that's right

right

if you experience nibona does that

probably

clear up some of the confusion for you

about what gets reborn

well body and mind gets reborn

what condition is it going to be reborn

in

depends on past action

when the conditions are right

things happen in a particular way

fine material kind of it's not reborn

it's

kind of just materializes

you wind up with a body that's like a

teenage body

where you're ready to romp and play and

sing and dance and

do all kinds of good fun stuff

but in the devaloka

you have to eat every day

and what they eat is grapes

they just appear you have to be munching

on the grapes

if you don't eat what happens is

the uh the heat

gets too big and the body dies

so you have to eat every day but when

you're practicing

meditation you're in the brahmalokas

and their nourishment to keep

body alive is joy

so you just have to

have some joy come up every day then

there's a few but i mostly

let all that stuff go because it's not

interesting to me

the first suit in imaginakia

it goes through every one of the 32

realms of existence or 31 realms of

existence boring

so anybody that that gets a copy of the

magiman nikaya i told them

do not read to start out by reading the

first

suta if you try

you'll put the book down and never pick

it up again

and that's that's really true

you can see it for yourself when you get

to certain places in your meditation you

can go visit these

by developing your mind in such a way

i just said wow oh i thought you said

how wow

you know i i just want to recommend the

introduction

to the maja manikaya yeah it was written

by beckel

and he did it it's one of the finest

pieces of writing

about the buddha and what the buddha

taught

and the impact he had in this

world and if you

don't read anything else the

introduction

is rather 75 pages or something like

this

a probably the single most wonderful

work

on the subject and some of his ideas

don't match what it says inside the

suttas

some of his ideas are influenced very

strongly by

commentary so you have to read it with a

a grain of salt i noticed that too yeah

he puts that parenthetically in many

cases

but it is good it is good

next to concept and reality it's one of

the better

better things to read

yeah that was one of the first books i

ever wrote or ever read on

on

concept in buddhism is the book that's

coming from sri lanka when they fill the

container

yeah i don't know how long it's how much

longer it's going to be but

i've already it's already been paid for

everybody is just waiting

and we'll put it on on the website that

it's available and anybody wants a copy

we can send

it to you do they have buddha sculptures

in sri lanka because i'm a landscape

architect and maybe i could order

something

how how big do you want it to be

really

when we went to japan

we saw this

one truly

amazing standing buddha that was about

25 feet tall

style was carved out of one piece of

rock

but it was so big they couldn't get it

through the tunnels

in japan and they had to cut

no they didn't cut the boot up they had

to cut the

so it could fit and then they came back

and glued them back together

how big do you want it they have they

have a buddha image

that it must be over a hundred feet tall

yeah surely

then and down the street from the buddha

museum

they make wooden buddhas like

all in these shops and you can get them

as tall as this room

yeah and they had they have a lot of

that are made out of marble

if you want them uh

they have one

buddha image

that

it got overgrown by the forest

and they've been walking beside it just

on a little trail

for a few hundred years and somebody for

some reason

went inside and they looked up

and they saw this buddha image it's 40

feet high it's a lying buddha

40 feet high 135 feet long

well it just got overgrown by the forest

so what size do you want

you know not everyone can afford a crane

they're about 2500

a day well this is

this is actually made out of bricks

and then plastered

so i've ordered

two sitting buddhas from

bali

and they're six feet tall

it takes four people to pick it up

that's about as big as i'm interested in

depends where you get it the sitting the

sitting buddha that i'm getting

is well they don't ship by weight

because they're shipped by boat that

makes it easier

it's more volume the sitting buddha

is to buy it outright would cost

somewhere around two hundred dollars

yeah i i get a lot of stuff when i go to

and then you truck it to missouri

no there's cement cement

it might be cheaper to bring the

artisans

they won't

but they also make other kinds of hindu

can do yeah things

that's what they do in that village and

people in bali are very very deeply

connected to their

you'd knowledge to get people from

somewhere else but i mean you could

start a school training artisans and

missouri to order images because they're

quite in demand

i imagined to all those local churches

yeah but i don't like the chinese faces

every uh every country

they they make the buddha image

different

and one of the most beautiful to me

is the indian buddhas because they have

a western face

he was an aryan he had blue eyes

and golden skin

and they don't put the little uh

curly cues all over his head they just

leave his hair like it actually was

now i understand why they they put those

curly q's on his head because that's

supposed to represent

the pineal gland

the spiritual gland for the body

snails

no there was the only

being that i know of that did anything

during his enlightenment period was when

it started

raining a big snake came and

covered him so that he wouldn't get cold

or wet

while he was sitting in the cessation of

perception feeling and consciousness

okay let's share some merit

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 way

thus acquired

for the acquisition of all kinds of

happiness

may beings inhabiting space and earth

davis and nagas of mighty powers shares

merit of ours may they alone protect the

buddha's dispensation

you