From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=USJPI7MP3Tw

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

mark asked if i would maybe

start mentioning things about the

practice of jhana

and what that actually is

there's a real

interesting phenomena that's been

happening in america for the last

30 35 years

and that is the

over dependence on commentary

and taking that as what the buddha is

teaching

as opposed to the actual suttas of what

the buddha is teaching

and because of that there's been some

very

deep misunderstanding about what jhana

is and what the practice is

people have the idea that jhana means

concentration concentration doesn't lead

to nibana waste of time don't do it

but that's not what the buddha said

that comes from the commentary that

divides

insight meditation on one side and

concentration practice on the other side

and the two shall never meet

i know this for a fact because i

practiced that way for 20 years before i

decided i wanted to find out more about

what the buddha said

jhana does not mean concentration

jhana means a level of your

understanding

and

because of the way the commentaries

taught

what they do was they compartmentalized

a lot of

different teachings from the buddha

but all of the buddha's teachings they

go together

it's like weaving together a cloth

and you can't take one part out without

affecting all the other parts

now i know for a fact because of the way

that i practiced

uh that

a lot of people have the idea

that the hindrances when they arise when

you're in you're

doing your practice there's something to

fight

there's something to push away there's

something to stop to run away from

because they really are

troublesome

but actually a hindrance

is your teacher

a hindrance is your best friend as it's

showing you

where your attachments are

and what is an attachment

what makes an attachment an attachment i

mean these are all common words that

everybody throws around

but what does it mean for the last

15 to well for the last 15 years

i've been working a lot with buddhist

definitions

and the way i get my ideas about what

the buddha was talking about is

by going to the suttas and seeing what

the buddha said

was

the definition

attachment always means

taking whatever arises as being

personal this is me

this is mine this is who i am it doesn't

matter whether it's

mental or physical

anytime you take anything personally

then you are caught by an attachment

and this is what happens with every one

of the hindrances

now i've i've been uh

to zen practices i've been to all

different kinds of practices

and the zen say well you just have to

drop your

drop your thinking and get clear mind

okay what does that mean

how do you do that

and you wind up developing a form of one

pointed concentration

one point in constant concentration is

this

your mind is on your object of

meditation

it gets distracted you let go of that

distraction and immediately come back to

your objective meditation

okay

when you do that enough you get into

what is called

access concentration

where the force of the concentration

becomes

strong enough that it pushes down the

hindrances and doesn't allow them to

come up

at that time

but the real trouble is

when you lose that concentration guess

who comes to dinner

you have these

that come at you and it's not

just because or

not just when you're sitting in

meditation you have hindrances coming up

all the time

if you're not able to recognize the

hindrances

and to

relax

and let go of the hindrance you're going

to get

very caught by it

and you're going to start fighting with

it and you're going to start taking it

more and more

personally and you're going to cause

yourself

more and more pain

the whole point of the buddha's practice

is to learn how to let go of the pain

let go of the suffering what is

suffering

well not getting what you want that's

suffering

getting what you don't want that's

suffering

every time you identify with a thought

or feeling or sensation in your body

and you take it personally that's

suffering

how do you let go of the suffering

well the buddha was real big on this he

said

there's a cause of suffering and the

cause of suffering is craving

now what's craving

how does it manifest

nobody okay craving

okay what's attachment

it's taking it personally well

it's no it's more than that well it is

that

but it's it's goes on a subtler level

than what you're saying

craving always manifests

as tension and tightness in your mind

and in your body

okay always anytime you feel

any tension in your mind or in your body

there is craving craving is the i like

it

i don't like it mine

but the problem is as soon as that

craving

is touched right after that you have

clinging

and the clinging or all of your thoughts

and all of your opinions and all of your

ideas

and concepts and stories about

why you don't like that feeling or why

you do like that feeling

clinging or all of all of the thoughts

about

and the clinging is where the

real big idea of this is me

this is mine this is who i am

grabs on right

after the clinging then you have your

habitual

tendency your habitual tendency

is every time this kind of feeling

arises i always act that way

now this is an impersonal process

but we make it personal when we

don't see the craving and we don't see

the clinging

and we don't see our habitual tendency

our want to make things different than

they are

so in the anapanasati

suta in the satipatana suta in the maha

sativatana there's a set of instructions

and they say if you're going to practice

mindfulness of breathing you have to

follow

these instructions i had 20 years of

having the mascara

stuff down my throat nobody ever gave me

the instructions

that says in the sutta what to do

they always gave me instructions in how

to practice mindfulness of breathing

anytime there's a distraction your mind

gets pulled to it you note that until it

goes away and immediately come back to

the breath

you're using the breath

as your main object of meditation like

there's some kind of information in the

breath

there's no information in the breath

the instructions in how to do the

mindfulness of breathing meditation

are very simple there's only four

sentences

you understand when you breathe in long

you understand when you breathe out long

you

understand when you breathe in short you

understand when you breathe out shortly

what's the key word in this is it

nostril is it nostril tip is it abdomen

or is it understand

you understand what the breath

is doing you know when it's long you

know when it's short

you know when it's fast you know when

it's slow

you know when it's fine you know when

it's course

okay you know what the breath is doing

now nowhere in there did it mention any

body part

nowhere did it mention that this is all

that you have to focus on

the next part of the instructions are

where the real instruction begins

it says you trained us you train this

way

on the in-breath you experience the

entire body

not body of breath body

physical body on the out breath

you experience the entire physical body

the next part of the instructions this

is it

it says on the in-breath

you tranquilize the bodily formation

on the out breath you tranquilize a

bodily formation

now does that sound different than what

most people have been

practicing or teaching you to practice

if you don't have this step

of relaxing on the in-breath

and on the out breath and anytime

there's a distraction

letting it go relaxing and coming back

if you don't practice like this

the end result is not the same as what

the buddha was talking about

it's that simple this

extra step that the buddha put in

is the thing that makes his kind of

meditation

different from anyone else's

and what is that extra step

how to recognize when there is craving

and

let go of the craving

so your one point of concentration your

mind is on your object to meditation

distraction let go of the distraction

come back

what are you bringing back to your

object of meditation

your attention with craving in it

so when you're practicing

this samata vipassana

meditation your mind is on your

objective meditation it gets distracted

you notice that distraction and let it

go you notice the tightness caused by

mind's attention

moving from one thing to another

and you relax when you relax right then

your mind is clear your mind doesn't

have any thoughts in it

your mind is pure why is it pure because

you don't have any craving in it

now you bring that mind back to your

objective meditation

that one extra step if you add that

into your practice will change your

entire

practice and this is not a maybe

i see it happening all the time

there are some teachers that say well

in the anapanasati suta it says

that you have to

uh you you have to feel tranquil

that's what that suta is saying

that's not what it means the pali is

saying

there is a word in pali called possum

baya

and it can be a verb it can be a noun

it can be an adjective it can be an

adverb depending

on the context that it's used

and the context is he

trains thus that means

that this word to tranquilize

is a verb it's an action verb

it's something you have to do you

tranquilize on the in-breath

you tranquilize on the out breath any

kind of distraction

let go and tranquilize and come back to

your object to meditation

you use the breath as the reminder

to tranquilize on the in-breath and

tranquilize on the outbreak

it's the reminder you're not

using the breath to focus deeply on

there's no information in the breath

where you get information

is when you start recognizing how

mind's attention moves from one thing to

another

now i was talking about the hindrances a

little while ago

this is why the hindrances are so

important

and why we don't want to fight the

hindrances when they come up

they're not the enemy

your mind is on the on your object of

meditation and everything is fine

and all of a sudden you start feeling

restless

for instance and your mind is distracted

okay so you notice the distraction and

you relax

and you come back to your object of

meditation and it bounces back again

how did that happen

now if you're you were practicing with

some

teachers they would say why did that

happen

but why is not something that we're

interested in

we're interested in how the process

works so we let go

of why that we leave that for

psychologists and therapists and that

sort of thing

and we go into how did this process work

my mind was very calm and peaceful on

the object of meditation all of a sudden

it's over here out in left field

how'd that happen

so you let it go and you relax

and you come back and as you

start to bounce back and forth with the

hindrance

you start noticing things about this

right before your mind gets really

carried away

right before your mind really gets

carried away for a period of time

you notice that there's something there

and so you relax and come back

and then when you notice that you start

letting that go and relaxing that

and coming back to your object of

meditation

always relaxing and bringing that

relaxing mind

back to your objective meditation

you purify your mind you're bringing a

pure

mind back to your object to meditation

a mind that doesn't have any craving in

it at that time

now craving is not particularly strong

but it is particularly persistent

it's always popping up

it's subtle now the tightness that i say

excuse me

the tightness that i'm talking about

that you have to learn to recognize

and relax into is subtle

and it's tightness that happens in your

head

it's in your brain

you have your your brain is like two

parts right

and you have a membrane that goes around

your brain everybody's brain as it's a

head is the same way

every time there is a distraction there

is a contraction of that membrane

you need to be able to re realize

that there is this slight tension

and when you let go of that tension in

your head

you feel an opening

and then your mind becomes calm and you

bring

that mind back to your object of

meditation

now on the in-breath you relax and on

the out breath you relax relax what

there's tensions and tightnesses in your

head that you

never knew that were there until you

start

looking at that

and we have two halves of our brain

there is another membrane that goes

between these two halves and

as you start relaxing you start feeling

little tensions and tightnesses that

start letting go

and as you do it more and more you start

going deeper

and deeper

so you're on every in-breath and on

every out breath

even though you might not feel that

there's any tension or tightness

there is some

and as you relax over and over again

it begins to

let go more and more the subtle

little things begin to relax

and let go of

one thing that i i add to the practice

that is not um

in the suttas but i found it to be

very helpful more than

a little a little helpful

and i had 20 years of vipassana practice

i went through all of the inside

knowledges i know all of that stuff very

well but i had 20 years

of watching other people do retreats

brownie really

a sour face

trying hard concentrating

although the concentration was in the

wrong way

so i got tired of that

i'm by nature i'm more of a goof-off i

guess

i like to laugh and i like to smile and

i like things to be as easy as they can

and i found out that when i smiled while

i was meditating

that there was some wonderful things

that actually happened in my mind

while you're sitting in meditation and

you smile

your mind naturally becomes lighter

when you have a lighter mind your mind

is more

observant your awareness

is quicker

now if you don't believe me hang on to

some

anger for a while and see how how sharp

your awareness

is it does doesn't

doesn't do so good

so when you start smiling

with your practice

and smile into your

of your hindrances then you start

noticing that you don't take them so

personally

and if you start noticing that this is

just part of a process

and you start having fun

with the meditation does has anybody

else

heard that expression fun in meditation

in the same sentence

and this practice gets to be fun because

as you go deeper into the practice

you start letting go of the hindrances

more quickly more and more easily and

what are you really doing

you're letting go of your attachment

of your personal belief that these

feelings that came up they're me

they're mine and that's who i am as you

let them

go there's real relief

now you you'll work with the same

hindrance for a period of time

when you let go of that hindrance the

relief

is immediate and wonderful you feel

great and right after that you have a

lot of joy arising

how many people have been told when you

have joy

don't be attached

i had that one for 20 years i know that

one

you don't have to be attached to joy any

more than you have to be attached to

pain

it's just a feeling right

painful feeling joyful feeling

same coin different sights

treat it in the same way when the joy

arises

allow it to be there relax into it come

back to your object of meditation

now the kind of joy you feel is

it will make you smile

there's such relief the first time you

you

work with a hindrance and let go of the

hindrance that it's amazing

after a period of time that joy will

fade away by itself

on the other side of the joy you feel

very

tranquil you feel

really really comfortable in your mind

and in your body

you can still have some distracting

thoughts come in

but you see them really quickly and it's

almost

without any effort you know you see it

should let it be you relax

and come smile and come back

and your mind stays on your object of

meditation

nicely with almost no effort

i just described to you the first job

i just described to you how to get to

the first job

it's easy

now what's the advantage of getting into

the genre

well when you start really studying the

suttas

i do weird things sometimes like if

i'm looking for a particular word i'll

start counting how many times i've seen

it

and i counted in the entire

uh topitica well not the entire tibetica

i didn't do it in

in the abhidhamma that's this

but there's mention of vepasana a

hundred times

and about 80 of those times the word

vipassana

is mentioned with the word samata

in the same sentence

and then i started looking at how many

times the word

jhana was being used by the buddha

and it i stopped after a few thousand

times

now what do you think the buddha talked

about

he talked about janna why did he talk

about jonah

because that's the path

that leads to nirvana

that's the path that he taught

almost everyone

the mindfulness of breathing meditation

is

is mentioned eight times

in the suit

loving-kindness meditation is mentioned

many hundreds of times

which do you think he taught most

the one he talked about most

the one he saw the most advantage for

not but he had to talk about the

mindfulness of breathing because

that's a meditation that everybody

can get benefit from

loving-kindness meditation even though

you might not like the idea

is not suitable for every kind of

personality

i won't teach

some people loving-kindness meditation

although i like to teach loving-kindness

meditation

more than i like to teach mindfulness of

breathing

but it's not for everyone

i just got back from germany and we had

20 or 25 people that were coming toward

a one one week retreat

they all had prac my practice

mindfulness of breathing

i looked at them and i said you've all

been practicing

this breathing meditation and you've

been doing it

the way of one pointed concentration

i don't want you to do that anymore i

want you to practice loving kindness

meditation

a lot of resistance in that

oh i know the breathing meditation yeah

and you've developed bad habits

and it's real hard to let go of those

bad habits

and because it's such a natural thing

that when you go deep enough all of a

sudden you're staying

on the breath and you're not relaxing

anymore

so i say okay all you folks

you get to do loving kindness meditation

you have to start over again at ground

one

and after the grumbles and

uh the somebody came to me

i just heard something

anyway by the second day i'm seeing

people smiling and they're starting to

get into their practice a little bit

and by the third day they're all

starting to radiate this wonderful

glow of loving kindness

and by the end of the retreat

almost half of the people

had not just gotten into jhana everybody

got into drama that's easy

the half of the people had become

advanced meditators

an advanced meditator is somebody that

has experienced the fourth job

now they had all of this yes

yes in a week

uh the advantage of practicing loving

kindness meditation

is that you progress in your meditation

faster with loving kindness than you do

with any other kind of meditation

it's amazing to watch

and i'm getting spoiled enough by the

students that come through if they don't

get into the genre by the third or

fourth day i'm starting to go why not

what's the matter here

a jhana is a stage of understanding

understanding what how your mind's

attention moves

from one thing to another

the hindrance is your

teacher the hindrance

is your best friend

because your hindrance when it comes up

it really grabs you

this is where my attachment is and it

yells it at you

and then you learn how that process

works i'm on my object of meditation now

i'm over here on this entrance whoa

how'd that happen

see with buddhism it's always how

how does this process work

somebody at the retreat asked me

what the buddha said you should look for

in a teacher and

what kind of teaching you should look

for

from that teacher

and he gave very clear

short directions on that he

basically said you look for someone

who knows and can understand

can un knows understands and can

explain how dependent origination works

it's that simple

now i've been talking about dependent

origination to you

i haven't told you that's what it is but

i've been talking about it

i've been talking about the four noble

truths to you i haven't told you that's

what it is

but that's what i've been talking about

dependent origination is how the process

works

you have six sense doors you have

contact

with contact as conditioned feeling

arises

feeling is painful

pleasant neither painful nor pleasant

that's all with feeling as conditioned

craving arises craving is always

tension and tightness i like it i don't

like it mine

with craving as condition clinging

arises

all of your story all of your concepts

all of your opinions

all of your really heavy identification

with these are my ideas they're my

concepts this is how it works

that can cloud the way you see things

with clinging as condition

habitual tendency arises

in in poly they call it bhava

i had uh some fairly major discussions

with both biku bodhi and

my uh

my spiritual father he's uh he was a

monk that just died not too long ago his

name was lucille

about the use of habitual

tendency rather than experience

because that's the way it's always

translated by big devotee as

experience

bhikkhu bodhi didn't like habitual

tendency usil ananda did

so i got a split decision there what am

i going to do with that i

tend more towards the

the habitual tendency because it's

easier to understand

with habitual tendency as condition you

have

birth birth of action

with birth of action as condition you

have death

you have sorrow you have lamentation you

have pain you have grief you have

despair

that's how this whole mass of suffering

comes to be

that's dependent origination i just gave

it

so the buddha said anytime you can find

a teacher that knows and

understands dependent origination then

you should go to him

see how it works and start practicing

with him practice seeing

how the dependent origination actually

works in your life

that is the key to a successful practice

and that is why these people in germany

did so well

with the meditation they

had good concentration already they

already had their practices

they've been practicing for five years

eight years twelve years like that

but when i added this extra step of let

go of the craving

let go of this tension and tightness

and i had them change from the habitual

tendency of

doing the practice this way with the

mindfulness of breathing

now you got to do it this way with a

loving kindness

well it's hard at first not used to that

at first

kind of resent the idea that i can't

stay on my breath like i'm used to

but when you start getting into your

heart

and start radiating that feeling in

into

another person

your understanding becomes very

very sharp

when i teach loving kindness meditation

of course i teach that you got to smile

how can you give something if you

haven't got it so you gotta smile

and the more you smile the more you feel

this loving kindness the easier it is to

give it away

you see when the when the back when the

buddha was talking about meditation he

wasn't talking just about sitting

he was talking about an engaged kind of

practice

that you take with you off the cushion

and carry with you all the time

what's easier than taking your smile

off of the cushion and carrying it with

you all the time

and giving it away the first part of the

meditation the buddha said

was generosity

oh generosity always means i got to dig

into my pocket for

some coin to throw in a box no

generosity is having pleasant thoughts

and giving them away

having kind speech and giving it away

having kind thoughts all the time

smiling as much as you can and give that

smile away

that's the first part of meditation

it's easy except when it's hard

the second part of the meditation is

something that an awful lot of people

they really don't like to talk about

especially in this country

you gotta practice your morality you

gotta keep your five precepts

and this doesn't mean yeah once in a

while this means

all the time

if you don't keep your precepts sitting

in meditation is a waste of time

because you're going to be attacked by

all kinds of hindrances

what causes entrances to

arise breaking the precepts

don't kill or harm living beings on

purpose

don't take anything that's not given

don't have any wrong sexual activity

the next one biggie don't tell

lies don't use

harsh speech that means cursing

don't slander slander means

trying to divide one group from another

don't gossip what is gossip

give me give me a good definition what

is god

talking about

but the gossip is making up stories that

aren't true

and telling other people as if they were

true

okay that's gossip

don't take any drugs or alcohol no this

doesn't mean medicine

and this is when i should give you the

story of my friend

in in australia

he wrote and told me he's been

practicing mindfulness of breathing

for six years and his mind is very

stable and on his breath he's practicing

absorption concentration

but he said there's something missing in

the practice

and i can't bring my practice into my

daily life there's something that's not

working

so he said he wrote to me and he said

what do you think

and i said well i'll tell you what

why don't you try practicing putting

that extra step of relaxing

on me and breath relaxing on the out

breath

wrote a brilliant thing to him telling

him this is what you ought to do

so a week later he writes back and i

said

well how's it going and he says no

difference

and i said you're not relaxing

well i kind of forget i get so deep in

my concentration i just don't do it

okay i want you to change your

meditation

i want you to do loving kindness

meditation

gave him the instructions in a loving

kindness meditation

he writes back the next day no this is

not right

my mind's moving around all over the

place there's all kinds of problems with

this this

i don't want to do this no you got to do

it

and he was kicking and screaming for a

week

oh this is too hard i can't get focused

all of this nonsense stuff

so finally i said

enough i want you to do this practice

and that means i don't want you to sit

and meditate for a full week

i don't want you to do any kind of

meditation

what i want you to do is smile

for one week

into everything and when you can't

smile i want you to laugh

that's all i told him

so a week goes by and i don't hear from

him and i'm thinking oh well

there he goes and then he writes back

and he said you know i really took to

heart what you said

and i tried it these are some of the

things that i noticed

my mindfulness has improved so much

that it's unbelievable

i'm able to see what my mind is doing in

the present moment so much more

quickly he said

always before i was walking around my

head was down

i was walking in my mental haze

going from here to there doing this or

that always in this mental haze

when i started smiling my posture

started coming up a little bit

and i started looking around a little

bit more

and something really strange happened

when i smiled at people they started

smiling back

this never happened before

and they actually started coming up

closer to me

and talking with me that never

happened before

even when i didn't feel like smiling

i smiled and gained benefit from it

my mind was more uplifted more

clear

so he has all of these advantages

of doing his daily practice

his daily activities

with a light mind see the

thing is the more you can develop

joy in your life

in your daily activities

the more you develop that the

sharper your mindfulness becomes and the

more

you see the heaviness come and start to

pull you down

how many times have you

done a whole bunch of meditation and you

get out of the meditation and somebody

comes up and they're all

excited about something and you said

leave me alone

i just got done meditating

do you notice that as a version

do you notice that dislike do you

notice how your mind closes down

well that's the opposite of what the

buddha is talking about

there's no mindfulness there because all

of a sudden your mind shut down

you're going back into your old craving

your old clinging your old habitual

tendency

your old pains your old demands that

reality

be the way you want it to be when you

want it that way

i don't want much right

when you start practicing smiling more

you start

seeing these kind of patterns and you

can start

letting them go

if you don't put a smile smile in your

practice

your progress in the meditation is

slow

when i got these germans i need to think

about it

germans smiling

i mean their faces just became radiant

it was

wonderful to walk in the meditation room

because

there was such lightness there there

wasn't this heavy

german push and you've got to do it this

way

there wasn't any of that there was a

fluid feeling there was a nice feeling

in the room

if they can do it i figure anybody can

do it

and because of that they were extremely

successful

now sometimes people

say well you want me to change my

meditation that means i have to start

all over

again you've already got a base of

practice you have a base of discipline

all i'm suggesting is adding a little

bit to it

add that relaxed step with the smile

and see how your practice goes

if you don't let go of the craving

your concentration will get deeper and

deeper and

eventually suppress the hindrances

you'll never get to experience

an unconditioned state with the

condition

of suppression

one of the things that's real important

to realize

is that while you're doing the practice

while you're letting go of this craving

you start letting go of the want to

control

the want to control is a tight mind

i want things to be the way i want them

to be

when i want them that way

and when it doesn't match your

wants how much suffering do you cause

yourself because of that

see the whole thing with the meditation

is

as you go deeper into meditation your

mind starts getting more balance

all the time now this is not

just while you're sitting

this is a practice of

life living

living with a more and more balanced

mind means that you

will be more uplifted

and happy and at ease and that's what

the buddha is teaching

so adding this extra step of relaxing

into your practice it can be easier it

can be difficult depending how long

you've been doing the practice

if you find that you want to add it in

but you keep forgetting about it

think about changing your practice

it's still the same thing the loving

kindness is still

working with letting go of the tensions

and tightnesses just like you do with

any other kind of practice

your progress is faster because your

mind is much

lighter mind is much more at

ease now one of the things that i've

been noticing and

reading the buddhist magazines and

stuff from ims and my imw

in all of these places they're really

big

on you should practice the brahma

viharas

now let's sit down and practice loving

kindness for five minutes

and compassion for five minutes and joy

for five minutes

and then equanimity for five minutes

that's not how you do in practice

loving kindness

because of the commentary you think

loving-kindness takes you to the third

jhana and that's as high as you can get

with loving-kindness

you practice compassion to the third

jhana that

that's as high as you can get with

compassion

you practice joy to the third jhana and

that's as high as you can get with joy

you practice equanimity to the fourth

jhana that's as high as you can get with

that

that is not what it says in the sudden

that's what it says in the commentaries

when i teach people loving kindness i'm

kind of a sneaky monk i don't tell

people everything that they're doing

or why and try to let them to figure it

out by themselves

when you practice loving kindness you

practice loving kindness to the fourth

genre

when you get to

experience compassion

that's the first of rupa jhana

you've heard of infinite compassion

mahayanas are real big and talking about

that

well actually it's a little bit mixed up

it's compassion in infinite space

you keep practicing more your practice

changes from

the compassion to the joy and you start

experiencing

infinite consciousness

you keep practicing more your practice

goes from infinite consciousness

to the realm of nothingness

and this is where the equanimity is

the buddha taught this more the four

brahmavi higher

viharas he taught that more than it did

mindfulness of reading

you know the kalama sutra that famous

suta that the buddha says

don't do this and don't do that it's

only

this it's only that well you only see

the first part of that suta you never

get to notice the next part of the suta

that's teaching you

the brahma viharas

the brahma biharas are very important

they will not

take you all the way to nirvana

they will take you to the realm of

nothingness

yes that's not in the suit is that

i've heard that rupert is before it's

something you focus on for example

i remember focus for example in space

now that you you don't focus on on any

of the brahma biharas they happen by

themselves

no i'm saying when he discusses he tends

to say focus

everywhere as soon as i breathe i'm not

saying about them

focus on space focus on consciousness

well he's he's not actually saying focus

he's saying

pay attention to this is what happens

when

it's 1607 page 16.

i use that a lot

but what happens once you get to the

deeper

stages of the equinimity

is that

mind will become so subtle that you

can't tell

whether it's actually there or not

and this is called neither perception or

non-perception

now you don't know you're in this state

until you get out of the state

and then you start reflecting of what

happened while you were sitting

and you'll see that there were things

that were happening

by this time it's an automatic that

you're relaxing

you're relaxing all the time anytime

there's

even the slightest little movement of

mind's attention there's a

recognizing areola

now the the the genres go like this

in the first genres or even before that

your mind is flip-flopping around

quite a bit as you go into the genres

this

the big movements stop and then it gets

to be less and less and you get to the

fourth genre

where it's not so much movement anymore

as its vibration and as you go

deeper in the genres the vibration

becomes subtler and subtler and subtler

until finally you can't tell whether

it's really moving or not

and when you come out of that state you

reflect what happened

in that state yeah this

there's still things that are happening

they're still feeling there's still some

perception but not a lot

as you keep relaxing eventually mind

stops and this is called the cessation

of perception and feeling

there's no mind's attention moving

at all

many times

if you don't know the answer is yes

now when you come out of this

cessation of perception and feeling and

you get

perception and feeling coming up again

you see the links of dependent

origination

you see it's like everything stopped

and now it's starting up again and your

awareness is sharp enough that you see

each one of the links and how they arise

and you see how they cease

and when you get to the final letting go

of

ignorance which means now you truly

understand the four noble truths

there's an oh wow that happens

you've taught yourself going from jonah

to jhana

every depth of jhana is another

understanding

of how dependent origination works

and now you see it firsthand

it just happens really quickly by itself

and that understanding causes a real

explosion to happen in your mind the

light bulb is

real big that goes off

and right after that nibana occurs

nibana occurs through your understanding

of the process of dependent origination

and that's the only way it occurs

while i was in germany there was an

intellectual

type of person that had been practicing

meditation a little bit but more

study he kept on telling me that the

weighted the

the way the sutras talk about nibana you

get to nirvana by seeing

anitra dukkha and anata

you can see anitra duke and anato

without ever seeing dependent

origination

if you see dependent origination you

always see an initiative

seeing just you know seeing just anitra

duka

does not take you straight to nibana

everything is changed

everything is a form of

unsatisfactoriness

now you you heard me talking about

vibrations and move my mind

movements and all of that there's a

certain unsatisfactoriness that

causes that arises because of that

we're always looking for that ultimate

peace and quiet and calm

because that there is always this

movement

there is some unsatisfactoriness

and everything is an impersonal

process so it's seeing everything is

impermanent

uh unsatisfactory and impersonal

but you can see those characteristics

without seeing seeing dependent

origination

but anytime you see dependent

origination you always see those

characteristics

always it's not a maybe

you really see him and you understand

so this is different and this

intellectual kept on coming up with

well in this suita it says that you only

get there by seeing anichiduka

and that's just from his

misunderstanding of

uh dependent origination

because there's a lot of sutras and i

don't mean a few i mean there's a lot of

suttas

there's 84 sutras on dependent

origination

just in one section of the samut nikaya

and it says there very plainly if you

don't see

all of the links of dependent

origination you will not

attain nibana

but if you do you will

it's that plain it's that simple

i can show it to you

i know this kind of shoots a hole in and

some things that you might have heard

from other teachers

but when you start really getting into

the sutas

and start understanding it through your

own direct experience

all doubt in what i'm saying will

disappear

and i don't want you to believe anything

i say

i really don't don't believe a word of

it

go try and see yourself

see if it works i have friends that have

been practicing meditation for 20 25

years

and they they're stuck in their

meditation

and they come and they say there's got

to be something more to this meditation

try this extra step see what happens

they come back and go on geez i had no

idea the meditation would go so deep so

quickly

it's so much deeper than anything i've

ever experienced before

and i'm talking about people and monks

that have gone into the arupa genres

and now it's fun

i'm talking about people that are

really serious about the practice but

they haven't been taught

that extra step of relaxing

and i know that there's some teachers

that they'll talk about surface relaxing

well just feel relaxed while you're

doing the practice

no that's not it you have to

intentionally purposefully

relax the tension and tightness on the

in-breath

relax the tension and tightness on the

out breath

there's a distraction let go of the

distraction

relax the tension and tightness caused

by mind's attention

moving there

bring back that mind that has no craving

in it

to your objective meditation

you know one of the things that the

buddha talked about and

monks chant whenever they get together

in

chant chant about the dhamma

they chant about how the dhamma is

immediately affected

this practice will show you that that's

right

it is immediately effective you start

feeling a sense of relief when you put

that relaxed step

into your practice

and you start progressing faster than

you ever

dreamed possible

so i've been talking for a long time

do you have any questions comments yeah

um i'm used to thinking

in terms of the four types of aria

formula

and tabby

when you're talking a bucking about the

different stages of sainthood

can become a sodapana by listening to a

dhammata

you can become a saktagami by listening

to a dominant

you can't go any deeper than that by

listening to them

i'll tell you an experience i had

there's there's one

suta in the middle link sayings that is

incredibly powerful

it's called the six sets of six

and i had someone

read out the whole thing in german

now these people were all sitting there

and they were

you could hear a pin drop while he was

reading it

and

right after the talk got over i very

quietly said

now i want you to not

talk to each other i don't want you to

do anything

but sit

the next day two or three of the people

who had

about the same experience they met they

didn't have

any idea how deep they could go

just by listening to a dhamma talk and

it

changed their consciousness

just by listening to the doctor

so the more attentive you you

are when you're listening to dominate

um i know an awful lot of people they

like to

fidget a little bit and move their body

around but these these people

in that during that talk i mean

they didn't move the biggest movement

they had was blinking their eyes

you could feel the

force and power of that dramatic with

these people

and it changed all of them in the way

that they approached the practice

yeah that particular person

wrote a note okay saying about his

practice

that's one of them yeah okay

if you don't know it i'll read it

about his experience and

he has a really nice way with words so

it says

let's see

it was a great blessing for us to have

him here in germany

this retreat was so much better than

he mentions another one the main reason

is bunty's unique method and

it's hard work in giving every retreat

individual

advice according to their understanding

and practice

banty taught us his method meditation

method

that was new to me because so far i had

practiced

his breath meditation technique with

great results

in thailand by the way

so at first it was a bit difficult for

me to change the meditation object

but on the sixth day of the retreat i

had an unexpected breakthrough

after i had read the german version of

the six sets of six

to the retreating in the evening and

went back to my meditation cushion

my mind became very light very calm and

very happy

i didn't have to care about meditation

technique anymore at all

there was only the clear understanding

and feeling

that the buddhist instructions were

complete and perfect

the cessation of dukkha is possible we

can reach

the other shore there was

also a kind of pity or rather compassion

for those people who try to find

happiness through

sense pleasures and mental things

the suta as you know is a very powerful

one

i was completely surprised by its effect

part of it may be due to the many

repetitions

so anyway i thought he

said it beautifully yeah so

with a loving kindness

well this focuses on the heart and

putting your spiritual friend

in your art surrounding them with the

feeling of love and giving them a heart

of

and then radiating that view

one of the things with the loving

kindness meditation

i'll finish your question in just a

minute

is that right now it's being

taught as a kind of mantra

just repeating things over and over and

over and over

and the buddha wasn't interested in

mantras

when i teach loving-kindness i tell you

that the wish

that you make for your spiritual friend

you have to feel that wish

if you make a wish for their peace and

happiness

you have to feel that peace and

happiness

put that feeling in your heart surround

your friend with that

feeling of peace and happiness and then

radiate that feeling to them

now the wish can be anything that's

appropriate

in the present moment if your friend is

going through a very rough time

and you know their mind is very active

then you wish for a peaceful calm mind

an accepting mind a mind that has no

resistance to what's happening in the

present moment

so the wish can be any kind of wish you

want to make that feels right

in the moment

don't repeat the wish over and over in

your mind

say the wish one time feel the wish

keep that feeling going as long as you

can

and then when that feeling fades make

another wish

it can be the same wish or not

but it doesn't have to do with by

wrote saying something over and over and

over again

because when you do that then you start

thinking

underneath that and

that's not real meditation see when i

give you

when i take you into a retreat i want

you doing that

all the time you don't put your

attention on your feet while you're

walking you keep your attention on your

friend

on that wish keep that smile

going it's like the power of intention

of course

but you have

this added to it

mark asked if i would maybe

start mentioning things about the

practice of jhana

and what that actually is

there's a real

interesting phenomena that's been

happening in america for the last

30 35 years

and that is the

over dependence on commentary

and taking that as what the buddha is

teaching

as opposed to the actual suttas of what

the buddha is teaching

and because of that there's been some

very

deep misunderstanding about what jhana

is and what the practice is

people have the idea that jhana means

concentration concentration doesn't lead

to nibana waste of time don't do it

but that's not what the buddha said

that comes from the commentary that

divides

insight meditation on one side and

concentration practice on the other side

and the two shall never meet

i know this for a fact because i

practiced that way for 20 years before i

decided i wanted to find out more about

what the buddha said

jhana does not mean concentration

jhana means a level of your

understanding

and

because of the way the commentaries

taught

what they do was they compartmentalized

a lot of

different teachings from the buddha

but all of the buddha's teachings they

go together

it's like weaving together a cloth

and you can't take one part out without

affecting all the other parts

now i know for a fact because of the way

that i practiced

uh that

a lot of people have the idea

that the hindrances when they arise when

you're in you're

doing your practice there's something to

fight

there's something to push away there's

something to stop to run away from

because they really are

troublesome

but actually a hindrance

is your teacher

a hindrance is your best friend as it's

showing you

where your attachments are

and what is an attachment

what makes an attachment an attachment i

mean these are all common words that

everybody throws around

but what does it mean for the last

15 to well for the last 15 years

i've been working a lot with buddhist

definitions

and the way i get my ideas about what

the buddha was talking about is

by going to the suttas and seeing what

the buddha said

was

the definition

attachment always means

taking whatever arises as being

personal this is me

this is mine this is who i am it doesn't

matter whether it's

mental or physical

anytime you take anything personally

then you are caught by an attachment

and this is what happens with every one

of the hindrances

now i've i've been uh

to zen practices i've been to all

different kinds of practices

and the zen say well you just have to

drop your

drop your thinking and get clear mind

okay what does that mean

how do you do that

and you wind up developing a form of one

pointed concentration

one point in constant concentration is

this

your mind is on your object of

meditation

it gets distracted you let go of that

distraction and immediately come back to

your objective meditation

okay

when you do that enough you get into

what is called

access concentration

where the force of the concentration

becomes

strong enough that it pushes down the

hindrances and doesn't allow them to

come up

at that time

but the real trouble is

when you lose that concentration guess

who comes to dinner

you have these

that come at you and it's not

just because or

not just when you're sitting in

meditation you have hindrances coming up

all the time

if you're not able to recognize the

hindrances

and to

relax

and let go of the hindrance you're going

to get

very caught by it

and you're going to start fighting with

it and you're going to start taking it

more and more

personally and you're going to cause

yourself

more and more pain

the whole point of the buddha's practice

is to learn how to let go of the pain

let go of the suffering what is

suffering

well not getting what you want that's

suffering

getting what you don't want that's

suffering

every time you identify with a thought

or feeling or sensation in your body

and you take it personally that's

suffering

how do you let go of the suffering

well the buddha was real big on this he

said

there's a cause of suffering and the

cause of suffering is craving

now what's craving

how does it manifest

nobody okay craving

okay what's attachment

it's taking it personally well

it's no it's more than that well it is

that

but it's it's goes on a subtler level

than what you're saying

craving always manifests

as tension and tightness in your mind

and in your body

okay always anytime you feel

any tension in your mind or in your body

there is craving craving is the i like

it

i don't like it mine

but the problem is as soon as that

craving

is touched right after that you have

clinging

and the clinging or all of your thoughts

and all of your opinions and all of your

ideas

and concepts and stories about

why you don't like that feeling or why

you do like that feeling

clinging or all of all of the thoughts

about

and the clinging is where the

real big idea of this is me

this is mine this is who i am

grabs on right

after the clinging then you have your

habitual

tendency your habitual tendency

is every time this kind of feeling

arises i always act that way

now this is an impersonal process

but we make it personal when we

don't see the craving and we don't see

the clinging

and we don't see our habitual tendency

our want to make things different than

they are

so in the anapanasati

suta in the satipatana suta in the maha

sativatana there's a set of instructions

and they say if you're going to practice

mindfulness of breathing you have to

follow

these instructions i had 20 years of

having the mascara

stuff down my throat nobody ever gave me

the instructions

that says in the sutta what to do

they always gave me instructions in how

to practice mindfulness of breathing

anytime there's a distraction your mind

gets pulled to it you note that until it

goes away and immediately come back to

the breath

you're using the breath

as your main object of meditation like

there's some kind of information in the

breath

there's no information in the breath

the instructions in how to do the

mindfulness of breathing meditation

are very simple there's only four

sentences

you understand when you breathe in long

you understand when you breathe out long

you

understand when you breathe in short you

understand when you breathe out shortly

what's the key word in this is it

nostril is it nostril tip is it abdomen

or is it understand

you understand what the breath

is doing you know when it's long you

know when it's short

you know when it's fast you know when

it's slow

you know when it's fine you know when

it's course

okay you know what the breath is doing

now nowhere in there did it mention any

body part

nowhere did it mention that this is all

that you have to focus on

the next part of the instructions are

where the real instruction begins

it says you trained us you train this

way

on the in-breath you experience the

entire body

not body of breath body

physical body on the out breath

you experience the entire physical body

the next part of the instructions this

is it

it says on the in-breath

you tranquilize the bodily formation

on the out breath you tranquilize a

bodily formation

now does that sound different than what

most people have been

practicing or teaching you to practice

if you don't have this step

of relaxing on the in-breath

and on the out breath and anytime

there's a distraction

letting it go relaxing and coming back

if you don't practice like this

the end result is not the same as what

the buddha was talking about

it's that simple this

extra step that the buddha put in

is the thing that makes his kind of

meditation

different from anyone else's

and what is that extra step

how to recognize when there is craving

and

let go of the craving

so your one point of concentration your

mind is on your object to meditation

distraction let go of the distraction

come back

what are you bringing back to your

object of meditation

your attention with craving in it

so when you're practicing

this samata vipassana

meditation your mind is on your

objective meditation it gets distracted

you notice that distraction and let it

go you notice the tightness caused by

mind's attention

moving from one thing to another

and you relax when you relax right then

your mind is clear your mind doesn't

have any thoughts in it

your mind is pure why is it pure because

you don't have any craving in it

now you bring that mind back to your

objective meditation

that one extra step if you add that

into your practice will change your

entire

practice and this is not a maybe

i see it happening all the time

there are some teachers that say well

in the anapanasati suta it says

that you have to

uh you you have to feel tranquil

that's what that suta is saying

that's not what it means the pali is

saying

there is a word in pali called possum

baya

and it can be a verb it can be a noun

it can be an adjective it can be an

adverb depending

on the context that it's used

and the context is he

trains thus that means

that this word to tranquilize

is a verb it's an action verb

it's something you have to do you

tranquilize on the in-breath

you tranquilize on the out breath any

kind of distraction

let go and tranquilize and come back to

your object to meditation

you use the breath as the reminder

to tranquilize on the in-breath and

tranquilize on the outbreak

it's the reminder you're not

using the breath to focus deeply on

there's no information in the breath

where you get information

is when you start recognizing how

mind's attention moves from one thing to

another

now i was talking about the hindrances a

little while ago

this is why the hindrances are so

important

and why we don't want to fight the

hindrances when they come up

they're not the enemy

your mind is on the on your object of

meditation and everything is fine

and all of a sudden you start feeling

restless

for instance and your mind is distracted

okay so you notice the distraction and

you relax

and you come back to your object of

meditation and it bounces back again

how did that happen

now if you're you were practicing with

some

teachers they would say why did that

happen

but why is not something that we're

interested in

we're interested in how the process

works so we let go

of why that we leave that for

psychologists and therapists and that

sort of thing

and we go into how did this process work

my mind was very calm and peaceful on

the object of meditation all of a sudden

it's over here out in left field

how'd that happen

so you let it go and you relax

and you come back and as you

start to bounce back and forth with the

hindrance

you start noticing things about this

right before your mind gets really

carried away

right before your mind really gets

carried away for a period of time

you notice that there's something there

and so you relax and come back

and then when you notice that you start

letting that go and relaxing that

and coming back to your object of

meditation

always relaxing and bringing that

relaxing mind

back to your objective meditation

you purify your mind you're bringing a

pure

mind back to your object to meditation

a mind that doesn't have any craving in

it at that time

now craving is not particularly strong

but it is particularly persistent

it's always popping up

it's subtle now the tightness that i say

excuse me

the tightness that i'm talking about

that you have to learn to recognize

and relax into is subtle

and it's tightness that happens in your

head

it's in your brain

you have your your brain is like two

parts right

and you have a membrane that goes around

your brain everybody's brain as it's a

head is the same way

every time there is a distraction there

is a contraction of that membrane

you need to be able to re realize

that there is this slight tension

and when you let go of that tension in

your head

you feel an opening

and then your mind becomes calm and you

bring

that mind back to your object of

meditation

now on the in-breath you relax and on

the out breath you relax relax what

there's tensions and tightnesses in your

head that you

never knew that were there until you

start

looking at that

and we have two halves of our brain

there is another membrane that goes

between these two halves and

as you start relaxing you start feeling

little tensions and tightnesses that

start letting go

and as you do it more and more you start

going deeper

and deeper

so you're on every in-breath and on

every out breath

even though you might not feel that

there's any tension or tightness

there is some

and as you relax over and over again

it begins to

let go more and more the subtle

little things begin to relax

and let go of

one thing that i i add to the practice

that is not um

in the suttas but i found it to be

very helpful more than

a little a little helpful

and i had 20 years of vipassana practice

i went through all of the inside

knowledges i know all of that stuff very

well but i had 20 years

of watching other people do retreats

brownie really

a sour face

trying hard concentrating

although the concentration was in the

wrong way

so i got tired of that

i'm by nature i'm more of a goof-off i

guess

i like to laugh and i like to smile and

i like things to be as easy as they can

and i found out that when i smiled while

i was meditating

that there was some wonderful things

that actually happened in my mind

while you're sitting in meditation and

you smile

your mind naturally becomes lighter

when you have a lighter mind your mind

is more

observant your awareness

is quicker

now if you don't believe me hang on to

some

anger for a while and see how how sharp

your awareness

is it does doesn't

doesn't do so good

so when you start smiling

with your practice

and smile into your

of your hindrances then you start

noticing that you don't take them so

personally

and if you start noticing that this is

just part of a process

and you start having fun

with the meditation does has anybody

else

heard that expression fun in meditation

in the same sentence

and this practice gets to be fun because

as you go deeper into the practice

you start letting go of the hindrances

more quickly more and more easily and

what are you really doing

you're letting go of your attachment

of your personal belief that these

feelings that came up they're me

they're mine and that's who i am as you

let them

go there's real relief

now you you'll work with the same

hindrance for a period of time

when you let go of that hindrance the

relief

is immediate and wonderful you feel

great and right after that you have a

lot of joy arising

how many people have been told when you

have joy

don't be attached

i had that one for 20 years i know that

one

you don't have to be attached to joy any

more than you have to be attached to

pain

it's just a feeling right

painful feeling joyful feeling

same coin different sights

treat it in the same way when the joy

arises

allow it to be there relax into it come

back to your object of meditation

now the kind of joy you feel is

it will make you smile

there's such relief the first time you

you

work with a hindrance and let go of the

hindrance that it's amazing

after a period of time that joy will

fade away by itself

on the other side of the joy you feel

very

tranquil you feel

really really comfortable in your mind

and in your body

you can still have some distracting

thoughts come in

but you see them really quickly and it's

almost

without any effort you know you see it

should let it be you relax

and come smile and come back

and your mind stays on your object of

meditation

nicely with almost no effort

i just described to you the first job

i just described to you how to get to

the first job

it's easy

now what's the advantage of getting into

the genre

well when you start really studying the

suttas

i do weird things sometimes like if

i'm looking for a particular word i'll

start counting how many times i've seen

it

and i counted in the entire

uh topitica well not the entire tibetica

i didn't do it in

in the abhidhamma that's this

but there's mention of vepasana a

hundred times

and about 80 of those times the word

vipassana

is mentioned with the word samata

in the same sentence

and then i started looking at how many

times the word

jhana was being used by the buddha

and it i stopped after a few thousand

times

now what do you think the buddha talked

about

he talked about janna why did he talk

about jonah

because that's the path

that leads to nirvana

that's the path that he taught

almost everyone

the mindfulness of breathing meditation

is

is mentioned eight times

in the suit

loving-kindness meditation is mentioned

many hundreds of times

which do you think he taught most

the one he talked about most

the one he saw the most advantage for

not but he had to talk about the

mindfulness of breathing because

that's a meditation that everybody

can get benefit from

loving-kindness meditation even though

you might not like the idea

is not suitable for every kind of

personality

i won't teach

some people loving-kindness meditation

although i like to teach loving-kindness

meditation

more than i like to teach mindfulness of

breathing

but it's not for everyone

i just got back from germany and we had

20 or 25 people that were coming toward

a one one week retreat

they all had prac my practice

mindfulness of breathing

i looked at them and i said you've all

been practicing

this breathing meditation and you've

been doing it

the way of one pointed concentration

i don't want you to do that anymore i

want you to practice loving kindness

meditation

a lot of resistance in that

oh i know the breathing meditation yeah

and you've developed bad habits

and it's real hard to let go of those

bad habits

and because it's such a natural thing

that when you go deep enough all of a

sudden you're staying

on the breath and you're not relaxing

anymore

so i say okay all you folks

you get to do loving kindness meditation

you have to start over again at ground

one

and after the grumbles and

uh the somebody came to me

i just heard something

anyway by the second day i'm seeing

people smiling and they're starting to

get into their practice a little bit

and by the third day they're all

starting to radiate this wonderful

glow of loving kindness

and by the end of the retreat

almost half of the people

had not just gotten into jhana everybody

got into drama that's easy

the half of the people had become

advanced meditators

an advanced meditator is somebody that

has experienced the fourth job

now they had all of this yes

yes in a week

uh the advantage of practicing loving

kindness meditation

is that you progress in your meditation

faster with loving kindness than you do

with any other kind of meditation

it's amazing to watch

and i'm getting spoiled enough by the

students that come through if they don't

get into the genre by the third or

fourth day i'm starting to go why not

what's the matter here

a jhana is a stage of understanding

understanding what how your mind's

attention moves

from one thing to another

the hindrance is your

teacher the hindrance

is your best friend

because your hindrance when it comes up

it really grabs you

this is where my attachment is and it

yells it at you

and then you learn how that process

works i'm on my object of meditation now

i'm over here on this entrance whoa

how'd that happen

see with buddhism it's always how

how does this process work

somebody at the retreat asked me

what the buddha said you should look for

in a teacher and

what kind of teaching you should look

for

from that teacher

and he gave very clear

short directions on that he

basically said you look for someone

who knows and can understand

can un knows understands and can

explain how dependent origination works

it's that simple

now i've been talking about dependent

origination to you

i haven't told you that's what it is but

i've been talking about it

i've been talking about the four noble

truths to you i haven't told you that's

what it is

but that's what i've been talking about

dependent origination is how the process

works

you have six sense doors you have

contact

with contact as conditioned feeling

arises

feeling is painful

pleasant neither painful nor pleasant

that's all with feeling as conditioned

craving arises craving is always

tension and tightness i like it i don't

like it mine

with craving as condition clinging

arises

all of your story all of your concepts

all of your opinions

all of your really heavy identification

with these are my ideas they're my

concepts this is how it works

that can cloud the way you see things

with clinging as condition

habitual tendency arises

in in poly they call it bhava

i had uh some fairly major discussions

with both biku bodhi and

my uh

my spiritual father he's uh he was a

monk that just died not too long ago his

name was lucille

about the use of habitual

tendency rather than experience

because that's the way it's always

translated by big devotee as

experience

bhikkhu bodhi didn't like habitual

tendency usil ananda did

so i got a split decision there what am

i going to do with that i

tend more towards the

the habitual tendency because it's

easier to understand

with habitual tendency as condition you

have

birth birth of action

with birth of action as condition you

have death

you have sorrow you have lamentation you

have pain you have grief you have

despair

that's how this whole mass of suffering

comes to be

that's dependent origination i just gave

it

so the buddha said anytime you can find

a teacher that knows and

understands dependent origination then

you should go to him

see how it works and start practicing

with him practice seeing

how the dependent origination actually

works in your life

that is the key to a successful practice

and that is why these people in germany

did so well

with the meditation they

had good concentration already they

already had their practices

they've been practicing for five years

eight years twelve years like that

but when i added this extra step of let

go of the craving

let go of this tension and tightness

and i had them change from the habitual

tendency of

doing the practice this way with the

mindfulness of breathing

now you got to do it this way with a

loving kindness

well it's hard at first not used to that

at first

kind of resent the idea that i can't

stay on my breath like i'm used to

but when you start getting into your

heart

and start radiating that feeling in

into

another person

your understanding becomes very

very sharp

when i teach loving kindness meditation

of course i teach that you got to smile

how can you give something if you

haven't got it so you gotta smile

and the more you smile the more you feel

this loving kindness the easier it is to

give it away

you see when the when the back when the

buddha was talking about meditation he

wasn't talking just about sitting

he was talking about an engaged kind of

practice

that you take with you off the cushion

and carry with you all the time

what's easier than taking your smile

off of the cushion and carrying it with

you all the time

and giving it away the first part of the

meditation the buddha said

was generosity

oh generosity always means i got to dig

into my pocket for

some coin to throw in a box no

generosity is having pleasant thoughts

and giving them away

having kind speech and giving it away

having kind thoughts all the time

smiling as much as you can and give that

smile away

that's the first part of meditation

it's easy except when it's hard

the second part of the meditation is

something that an awful lot of people

they really don't like to talk about

especially in this country

you gotta practice your morality you

gotta keep your five precepts

and this doesn't mean yeah once in a

while this means

all the time

if you don't keep your precepts sitting

in meditation is a waste of time

because you're going to be attacked by

all kinds of hindrances

what causes entrances to

arise breaking the precepts

don't kill or harm living beings on

purpose

don't take anything that's not given

don't have any wrong sexual activity

the next one biggie don't tell

lies don't use

harsh speech that means cursing

don't slander slander means

trying to divide one group from another

don't gossip what is gossip

give me give me a good definition what

is god

talking about

but the gossip is making up stories that

aren't true

and telling other people as if they were

true

okay that's gossip

don't take any drugs or alcohol no this

doesn't mean medicine

and this is when i should give you the

story of my friend

in in australia

he wrote and told me he's been

practicing mindfulness of breathing

for six years and his mind is very

stable and on his breath he's practicing

absorption concentration

but he said there's something missing in

the practice

and i can't bring my practice into my

daily life there's something that's not

working

so he said he wrote to me and he said

what do you think

and i said well i'll tell you what

why don't you try practicing putting

that extra step of relaxing

on me and breath relaxing on the out

breath

wrote a brilliant thing to him telling

him this is what you ought to do

so a week later he writes back and i

said

well how's it going and he says no

difference

and i said you're not relaxing

well i kind of forget i get so deep in

my concentration i just don't do it

okay i want you to change your

meditation

i want you to do loving kindness

meditation

gave him the instructions in a loving

kindness meditation

he writes back the next day no this is

not right

my mind's moving around all over the

place there's all kinds of problems with

this this

i don't want to do this no you got to do

it

and he was kicking and screaming for a

week

oh this is too hard i can't get focused

all of this nonsense stuff

so finally i said

enough i want you to do this practice

and that means i don't want you to sit

and meditate for a full week

i don't want you to do any kind of

meditation

what i want you to do is smile

for one week

into everything and when you can't

smile i want you to laugh

that's all i told him

so a week goes by and i don't hear from

him and i'm thinking oh well

there he goes and then he writes back

and he said you know i really took to

heart what you said

and i tried it these are some of the

things that i noticed

my mindfulness has improved so much

that it's unbelievable

i'm able to see what my mind is doing in

the present moment so much more

quickly he said

always before i was walking around my

head was down

i was walking in my mental haze

going from here to there doing this or

that always in this mental haze

when i started smiling my posture

started coming up a little bit

and i started looking around a little

bit more

and something really strange happened

when i smiled at people they started

smiling back

this never happened before

and they actually started coming up

closer to me

and talking with me that never

happened before

even when i didn't feel like smiling

i smiled and gained benefit from it

my mind was more uplifted more

clear

so he has all of these advantages

of doing his daily practice

his daily activities

with a light mind see the

thing is the more you can develop

joy in your life

in your daily activities

the more you develop that the

sharper your mindfulness becomes and the

more

you see the heaviness come and start to

pull you down

how many times have you

done a whole bunch of meditation and you

get out of the meditation and somebody

comes up and they're all

excited about something and you said

leave me alone

i just got done meditating

do you notice that as a version

do you notice that dislike do you

notice how your mind closes down

well that's the opposite of what the

buddha is talking about

there's no mindfulness there because all

of a sudden your mind shut down

you're going back into your old craving

your old clinging your old habitual

tendency

your old pains your old demands that

reality

be the way you want it to be when you

want it that way

i don't want much right

when you start practicing smiling more

you start

seeing these kind of patterns and you

can start

letting them go

if you don't put a smile smile in your

practice

your progress in the meditation is

slow

when i got these germans i need to think

about it

germans smiling

i mean their faces just became radiant

it was

wonderful to walk in the meditation room

because

there was such lightness there there

wasn't this heavy

german push and you've got to do it this

way

there wasn't any of that there was a

fluid feeling there was a nice feeling

in the room

if they can do it i figure anybody can

do it

and because of that they were extremely

successful

now sometimes people

say well you want me to change my

meditation that means i have to start

all over

again you've already got a base of

practice you have a base of discipline

all i'm suggesting is adding a little

bit to it

add that relaxed step with the smile

and see how your practice goes

if you don't let go of the craving

your concentration will get deeper and

deeper and

eventually suppress the hindrances

you'll never get to experience

an unconditioned state with the

condition

of suppression

one of the things that's real important

to realize

is that while you're doing the practice

while you're letting go of this craving

you start letting go of the want to

control

the want to control is a tight mind

i want things to be the way i want them

to be

when i want them that way

and when it doesn't match your

wants how much suffering do you cause

yourself because of that

see the whole thing with the meditation

is

as you go deeper into meditation your

mind starts getting more balance

all the time now this is not

just while you're sitting

this is a practice of

life living

living with a more and more balanced

mind means that you

will be more uplifted

and happy and at ease and that's what

the buddha is teaching

so adding this extra step of relaxing

into your practice it can be easier it

can be difficult depending how long

you've been doing the practice

if you find that you want to add it in

but you keep forgetting about it

think about changing your practice

it's still the same thing the loving

kindness is still

working with letting go of the tensions

and tightnesses just like you do with

any other kind of practice

your progress is faster because your

mind is much

lighter mind is much more at

ease now one of the things that i've

been noticing and

reading the buddhist magazines and

stuff from ims and my imw

in all of these places they're really

big

on you should practice the brahma

viharas

now let's sit down and practice loving

kindness for five minutes

and compassion for five minutes and joy

for five minutes

and then equanimity for five minutes

that's not how you do in practice

loving kindness

because of the commentary you think

loving-kindness takes you to the third

jhana and that's as high as you can get

with loving-kindness

you practice compassion to the third

jhana that

that's as high as you can get with

compassion

you practice joy to the third jhana and

that's as high as you can get with joy

you practice equanimity to the fourth

jhana that's as high as you can get with

that

that is not what it says in the sudden

that's what it says in the commentaries

when i teach people loving kindness i'm

kind of a sneaky monk i don't tell

people everything that they're doing

or why and try to let them to figure it

out by themselves

when you practice loving kindness you

practice loving kindness to the fourth

genre

when you get to

experience compassion

that's the first of rupa jhana

you've heard of infinite compassion

mahayanas are real big and talking about

that

well actually it's a little bit mixed up

it's compassion in infinite space

you keep practicing more your practice

changes from

the compassion to the joy and you start

experiencing

infinite consciousness

you keep practicing more your practice

goes from infinite consciousness

to the realm of nothingness

and this is where the equanimity is

the buddha taught this more the four

brahmavi higher

viharas he taught that more than it did

mindfulness of reading

you know the kalama sutra that famous

suta that the buddha says

don't do this and don't do that it's

only

this it's only that well you only see

the first part of that suta you never

get to notice the next part of the suta

that's teaching you

the brahma viharas

the brahma biharas are very important

they will not

take you all the way to nirvana

they will take you to the realm of

nothingness

yes that's not in the suit is that

i've heard that rupert is before it's

something you focus on for example

i remember focus for example in space

now that you you don't focus on on any

of the brahma biharas they happen by

themselves

no i'm saying when he discusses he tends

to say focus

everywhere as soon as i breathe i'm not

saying about them

focus on space focus on consciousness

well he's he's not actually saying focus

he's saying

pay attention to this is what happens

when

it's 1607 page 16.

i use that a lot

but what happens once you get to the

deeper

stages of the equinimity

is that

mind will become so subtle that you

can't tell

whether it's actually there or not

and this is called neither perception or

non-perception

now you don't know you're in this state

until you get out of the state

and then you start reflecting of what

happened while you were sitting

and you'll see that there were things

that were happening

by this time it's an automatic that

you're relaxing

you're relaxing all the time anytime

there's

even the slightest little movement of

mind's attention there's a

recognizing areola

now the the the genres go like this

in the first genres or even before that

your mind is flip-flopping around

quite a bit as you go into the genres

this

the big movements stop and then it gets

to be less and less and you get to the

fourth genre

where it's not so much movement anymore

as its vibration and as you go

deeper in the genres the vibration

becomes subtler and subtler and subtler

until finally you can't tell whether

it's really moving or not

and when you come out of that state you

reflect what happened

in that state yeah this

there's still things that are happening

they're still feeling there's still some

perception but not a lot

as you keep relaxing eventually mind

stops and this is called the cessation

of perception and feeling

there's no mind's attention moving

at all

many times

if you don't know the answer is yes

now when you come out of this

cessation of perception and feeling and

you get

perception and feeling coming up again

you see the links of dependent

origination

you see it's like everything stopped

and now it's starting up again and your

awareness is sharp enough that you see

each one of the links and how they arise

and you see how they cease

and when you get to the final letting go

of

ignorance which means now you truly

understand the four noble truths

there's an oh wow that happens

you've taught yourself going from jonah

to jhana

every depth of jhana is another

understanding

of how dependent origination works

and now you see it firsthand

it just happens really quickly by itself

and that understanding causes a real

explosion to happen in your mind the

light bulb is

real big that goes off

and right after that nibana occurs

nibana occurs through your understanding

of the process of dependent origination

and that's the only way it occurs

while i was in germany there was an

intellectual

type of person that had been practicing

meditation a little bit but more

study he kept on telling me that the

weighted the

the way the sutras talk about nibana you

get to nirvana by seeing

anitra dukkha and anata

you can see anitra duke and anato

without ever seeing dependent

origination

if you see dependent origination you

always see an initiative

seeing just you know seeing just anitra

duka

does not take you straight to nibana

everything is changed

everything is a form of

unsatisfactoriness

now you you heard me talking about

vibrations and move my mind

movements and all of that there's a

certain unsatisfactoriness that

causes that arises because of that

we're always looking for that ultimate

peace and quiet and calm

because that there is always this

movement

there is some unsatisfactoriness

and everything is an impersonal

process so it's seeing everything is

impermanent

uh unsatisfactory and impersonal

but you can see those characteristics

without seeing seeing dependent

origination

but anytime you see dependent

origination you always see those

characteristics

always it's not a maybe

you really see him and you understand

so this is different and this

intellectual kept on coming up with

well in this suita it says that you only

get there by seeing anichiduka

and that's just from his

misunderstanding of

uh dependent origination

because there's a lot of sutras and i

don't mean a few i mean there's a lot of

suttas

there's 84 sutras on dependent

origination

just in one section of the samut nikaya

and it says there very plainly if you

don't see

all of the links of dependent

origination you will not

attain nibana

but if you do you will

it's that plain it's that simple

i can show it to you

i know this kind of shoots a hole in and

some things that you might have heard

from other teachers

but when you start really getting into

the sutas

and start understanding it through your

own direct experience

all doubt in what i'm saying will

disappear

and i don't want you to believe anything

i say

i really don't don't believe a word of

it

go try and see yourself

see if it works i have friends that have

been practicing meditation for 20 25

years

and they they're stuck in their

meditation

and they come and they say there's got

to be something more to this meditation

try this extra step see what happens

they come back and go on geez i had no

idea the meditation would go so deep so

quickly

it's so much deeper than anything i've

ever experienced before

and i'm talking about people and monks

that have gone into the arupa genres

and now it's fun

i'm talking about people that are

really serious about the practice but

they haven't been taught

that extra step of relaxing

and i know that there's some teachers

that they'll talk about surface relaxing

well just feel relaxed while you're

doing the practice

no that's not it you have to

intentionally purposefully

relax the tension and tightness on the

in-breath

relax the tension and tightness on the

out breath

there's a distraction let go of the

distraction

relax the tension and tightness caused

by mind's attention

moving there

bring back that mind that has no craving

in it

to your objective meditation

you know one of the things that the

buddha talked about and

monks chant whenever they get together

in

chant chant about the dhamma

they chant about how the dhamma is

immediately affected

this practice will show you that that's

right

it is immediately effective you start

feeling a sense of relief when you put

that relaxed step

into your practice

and you start progressing faster than

you ever

dreamed possible

so i've been talking for a long time

do you have any questions comments yeah

um i'm used to thinking

in terms of the four types of aria

formula

and tabby

when you're talking a bucking about the

different stages of sainthood

can become a sodapana by listening to a

dhammata

you can become a saktagami by listening

to a dominant

you can't go any deeper than that by

listening to them

i'll tell you an experience i had

there's there's one

suta in the middle link sayings that is

incredibly powerful

it's called the six sets of six

and i had someone

read out the whole thing in german

now these people were all sitting there

and they were

you could hear a pin drop while he was

reading it

and

right after the talk got over i very

quietly said

now i want you to not

talk to each other i don't want you to

do anything

but sit

the next day two or three of the people

who had

about the same experience they met they

didn't have

any idea how deep they could go

just by listening to a dhamma talk and

it

changed their consciousness

just by listening to the doctor

so the more attentive you you

are when you're listening to dominate

um i know an awful lot of people they

like to

fidget a little bit and move their body

around but these these people

in that during that talk i mean

they didn't move the biggest movement

they had was blinking their eyes

you could feel the

force and power of that dramatic with

these people

and it changed all of them in the way

that they approached the practice

yeah that particular person

wrote a note okay saying about his

practice

that's one of them yeah okay

if you don't know it i'll read it

about his experience and

he has a really nice way with words so

it says

let's see

it was a great blessing for us to have

him here in germany

this retreat was so much better than

he mentions another one the main reason

is bunty's unique method and

it's hard work in giving every retreat

individual

advice according to their understanding

and practice

banty taught us his method meditation

method

that was new to me because so far i had

practiced

his breath meditation technique with

great results

in thailand by the way

so at first it was a bit difficult for

me to change the meditation object

but on the sixth day of the retreat i

had an unexpected breakthrough

after i had read the german version of

the six sets of six

to the retreating in the evening and

went back to my meditation cushion

my mind became very light very calm and

very happy

i didn't have to care about meditation

technique anymore at all

there was only the clear understanding

and feeling

that the buddhist instructions were

complete and perfect

the cessation of dukkha is possible we

can reach

the other shore there was

also a kind of pity or rather compassion

for those people who try to find

happiness through

sense pleasures and mental things

the suta as you know is a very powerful

one

i was completely surprised by its effect

part of it may be due to the many

repetitions

so anyway i thought he

said it beautifully yeah so

with a loving kindness

well this focuses on the heart and

putting your spiritual friend

in your art surrounding them with the

feeling of love and giving them a heart

of

and then radiating that view

one of the things with the loving

kindness meditation

i'll finish your question in just a

minute

is that right now it's being

taught as a kind of mantra

just repeating things over and over and

over and over

and the buddha wasn't interested in

mantras

when i teach loving-kindness i tell you

that the wish

that you make for your spiritual friend

you have to feel that wish

if you make a wish for their peace and

happiness

you have to feel that peace and

happiness

put that feeling in your heart surround

your friend with that

feeling of peace and happiness and then

radiate that feeling to them

now the wish can be anything that's

appropriate

in the present moment if your friend is

going through a very rough time

and you know their mind is very active

then you wish for a peaceful calm mind

an accepting mind a mind that has no

resistance to what's happening in the

present moment

so the wish can be any kind of wish you

want to make that feels right

in the moment

don't repeat the wish over and over in

your mind

say the wish one time feel the wish

keep that feeling going as long as you

can

and then when that feeling fades make

another wish

it can be the same wish or not

but it doesn't have to do with by

wrote saying something over and over and

over again

because when you do that then you start

thinking

underneath that and

that's not real meditation see when i

give you

when i take you into a retreat i want

you doing that

all the time you don't put your

attention on your feet while you're

walking you keep your attention on your

friend

on that wish keep that smile

going it's like the power of intention

of course

but you have

this added to it