From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tt9yyHQEfhU

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

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at swati and

jettas grove eneth and pendicas park

there he addressed the monks thus monks

venerable sir there replied the blessed

one said this

do you know who sorry puta is

no

do you

well he was the first chief disciple

he was second to the buddha in wisdom

in other words he understood dependent

origination real well

monks sorry puta is wise sorry puta has

great wisdom

sorry puta has wide wisdom

sorry puta has joyous wisdom

sorry put has quick wisdom

sariputta has keen wisdom

sariputta has penetrative wisdom

during half a month monks sorry putta

gained insight into states one by one as

they occurred

now sorry putin's insight into states

one by one as they occurred was this

here monks quite secluded from sensual

pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states

how do you become secluded from sensual

pleasures

this isn't time to be quiet this is a

time to be answering questions

that's right

the sensual pleasure of seeing is not

there then right

you do that with all of the sense doors

if a sound occurs what do you do

you don't follow the sound and pay

attention to it you let it go and come

back to your object of meditation after

you six ours right

how do you become secluded from

unwholesome states

your turn

there's no such a thing as a wrong

answer so just throw out whatever you

think

well to become secluded from unwholesome

states means that you're staying on your

object of meditation

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the first jhana which is accompanied by

thinking and examining thought

with joy and happiness born of seclusion

and the states in the first genre the

thinking the examining thought the joy

the happiness the unification of mind

the contact feeling perception volition

and mind now the

the five aggregates that's what this is

called

whenever the five aggregates are present

the four foundations of mindfulness are

there

okay four foundations of mindfulness

body feeling

objects five five aggregates body

feeling same same

perception

that goes in with the feeling

thoughts

mind objects

and consciousness mind

so it's a different way of saying the

same thing

the

enthusiasm decision energy mindfulness

equanimity and attention

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred

known to those known to him those states

arose

known they were present known they

disappeared

he understood thus

so indeed these states not having been

come into being having been they vanish

makes sense right

regarding these states he abided

unattracted

he didn't try to hold on to him

unrepelled he didn't try to push him

away

independent detached free dissociated

with a mind rid of barriers

he saw everything as it was without

taking it personally

he understood there's an escape beyond

this

and with the cultivation of that

attainment he confirmed that there is

so what he what he's saying as you get

into the first genre you still you know

you have more stuff to do

okay

again monks

with the stilling of thinking and

examining thought sorry puta entered

upon and abided in the second jhana

which has

self-confidence and stillness of mind

without thinking and examining thought

with joy and happiness born of

collectedness

now when you get into the second jhana

if you try to verbalize the wish in your

mind

you'll start to get a headache

so

you

need to

let go of the verbalization

and just bring up that feeling

now there's five kinds of joy

three kinds of joy anybody experiences

when the conditions are right doesn't

matter whether they do any mental

training or not

the last two kinds of joy only occur

when

you do some mental training

the first kind of joy is like goosebumps

it's kind of a happy feeling it's there

for a little while it's kind of weak

but it disappears fairly quickly and you

feel kind of peaceful and calm

afterwards

the next kind of joy is like a flash of

lightning it's pretty intense but it's

only there for a short period of time

and then it disappears

the next kind of joy is like being in

in the ocean and having a wave

come over you a wave of joy and then

another wave of joy

now always after joy there is a feeling

of tranquility

with the first kind of joy it doesn't

last very long the next one it lasts a

little bit longer the next one that can

last a little longer

the last two kinds of joy that arise

only occur through meditation

the next kind of joy is called uplifting

joy

you feel really light in your body you

feel light in your mind

it's a happy feeling it has some

excitement in it this is good stuff i

like this

always after this arises your mind will

become very very calm and very peaceful

and then

you'll feel really really comfortable in

your mind and in your body

this is the way it works

this is what the buddha calls happiness

so you're able to stay on your object of

meditation without much effort at all

and you'll start to stay on your object

to meditation for a few minutes at a

time

three five minutes without without being

distracted

the last kind of joy is called

all-pervading joy

now every everyone or these these last

two kinds of joy they they happen all

over your body

but this all-pervading joy feels like

it's oozing out

of every cell in your body

it's like

taking a cup and just filling it up

and it spills over the whole thing and

there's no part of the of your body that

doesn't experience this this kind of joy

it doesn't have so much excitement in it

this is a calmer kind of joy

whoever

makes the faces of the buddha image

quite often they'll have the eyes half

open

and this is the artist trying to show

you this is one of the things that

happens when joy arises

this kind of joy the all-pervading joy

your eyes will just pop open

and you think well that's a little bit

strange

and

you close your eyes and they pop open

again

so you close your eyes and they pop open

again so you say okay you want to stay

open stay open i'm not going to mess

with you anymore

but this kind of joy is is a more calm

kind of joy

it doesn't have so much excitement in it

and this is called

the

in awakening factor of joy

i don't like to use the word

enlightenment factor because

enlightenment

doesn't mean the same thing as being

awake

if i tell you something you don't know

i've enlightened you

but when you get become awake

now you're talking about something

completely different

and the state's in the second genre uh

when you get to the second genre you

start to get confidence in yourself

you start to feel like

yeah i'm starting to understand this

this is this is good

i have students come to me and they tell

me

i hear you say the six hours and i hear

you hear you smile and yada yada yada

all the time

and now i understand it

and then after you go a little bit

deeper you come and say i thought i

understood it but now i really

understand it

so you start having more confidence that

you know what you're doing

so the doubts kind of fade away

the joy the happiness the unification of

mind now this is while you're in

the jhana that you're experiencing all

of this stuff

the contact feeling perception formation

and mind

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equinementy and attention

these were defined by him one by one as

they occurred known to him those states

arose known they were present known they

disappeared

he understood this and with the

cultivation of that attainment

he confirmed that there's still more to

do

again monks

with the fading away of joy

sariputa abided in equinimnity mindful

and fully aware

still feeling happiness with the body he

entered upon and abided in the third

jhana

on account of which noble ones announce

he has a pleasant abiding who has

equinimity and is mindful

so when you get into the the third genre

the joy fades away

you won't it's too coarse a feeling your

mind doesn't want it anymore

you start feeling really really

comfortable in your mind and in your

body

and you start having this sense strong

sense of equanimity that's balance of

mind

you hear things

that they don't make your mind shake

it's kind of like they just kind of

float on through without your

you know that it happened but you don't

uh

you don't get involved with it at all

as you begin to

relax and calm down more

and you lose tension in your mind

you lose tension in your body and that's

what you feel

your hands are like this

all of a sudden your hands will just

disappear

maybe you're all of your arms

or your shoulders or your legs

this is the way it's supposed to happen

now if you have contact

somebody comes up and they touch you

you would know that you were touched

but your mind doesn't shake

and just okay there was there was touch

there

other than that you don't really feel

your body very much

your balance of mind starts to get

stronger

your

awareness of things around you

starts to get sharper

now with the other practices and

meditation that you did

if you got into a jhana up to the third

jhana

you would not

have a body

you wouldn't know anybody would touch

you

because your mind is very one-pointedly

focused

just on one thing

when you add the relaxed step

of the six hours into your practice you

don't go as deep into the meditation

so instead of doing this with your mind

what you're starting to do is this

and improve your peripheral vision

you don't have a mind that just sticks

on one thing

you have a mind that's more aware of

everything around

but because of the equanimity there's

not a lot of shaking going on there's

not a lot of wobbling by your mind

you hear a sound you hear

the mule going by or you hear a

motorcycle going by or you hear a truck

going by you know that that that was

there

but it's like uh yeah okay so what

you have this very strong balance of

mind

and the states in the third genre the

equanimity the happiness the mindfulness

the full awareness and unification of

mind

the contact filling perception

formations in mind

the five aggregates again so you have

your mindfulness

while you're in nijana which means you

have insights come while you're in the

jhana

that's why we call this particular

practice

twim

tranquil wisdom insight meditation

we just made that up a little while ago

so

it sounds like elmer fudd

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred known to him those

states arose known they were present

known they disappeared

he

understood and with the cultivation of

that attainment he confirmed there's

still more to go

even when you get to the third genre you

still have your beginner status you're

still a rookie

but you're fast getting to the advanced

stage

again monks with the abandoning of

pleasure and pain with the previous

disappearance of joy and grief

sorry putta entered upon and abided in

the fourth jhana which has neither pain

nor pleasure

and purity of mindfulness due to

equanimity

now what happens when you're practicing

loving kindness the whole time you're

sending loving kindness from your heart

area

but

when you get to this stage

you don't feel your body

unless there's contact somebody touching

you

the feeling of loving kindness comes up

into your head

and you don't you don't try to push it

back down you just let it be there

the equinity that you feel is very much

stronger

and this is when i'll come along and

tell you now you've become an advanced

meditator

some people don't believe it when i tell

them that

but i think now they're starting to

so your equanimity becomes very strong

when you get to this stage i will change

your meditation

you'll still be doing loving kindness

but in a different way

i won't go into that right now

but you start to

realize that your mind is a lot more

controllable as long as you stay on your

object meditation you'll be able to stay

there for longer periods of time

10 minutes 15 minutes without having any

disturbance it's kind of nice

and the states in the fourth jhana the

equinimnity the neither painful nor

pleasant feeling

the mental unconcerned due to

tranquility

your mind becomes very peaceful very

calm

and you can see disturbing things coming

it's like

when you first start doing the

meditation your mind is flip-flopping

like this

okay

and as you go deeper

it doesn't move quite as much

and then when you get to the fourth

jhana instead of flip-flopping it starts

it's vibrating

and you'll see

when you're in the fourth jhana

sometimes you'll be able to see the

thoughts thought starts arising

and when it does you'll see your mind

starting to wobble

and if you notice that right then and

you six are then your mind will stay on

your object to meditation

if you don't notice it

then

you you get carried away and you get

distracted you're no longer in the

journal when you have a hindrance arise

now the thing with the hindrances is

that they are very necessary parts of

the practice

because

your mind is on your object of

meditation and the thought comes up or a

sensation or whatever it happens to be

and you're with that for a little while

and then you six are it and then you

relax and smile and come back and then

you do it again and again and again and

you're bouncing back and forth

every time you 6r

the hindrance it gets a little bit

weaker

and you're losing your attachment to the

hindrance

eventually that hindrance because you

stopped feeding it with your attention

that hindrance

just fades away by itself

what happens after that

you have a very strong sense of relief

right after that joy arises

the joy will be there for a little while

and

you've taken enough meditation retreats

you've heard this statement when joy

arises don't be attached

right

well how do you not be attached to joy

joy

and pain

same coin different sides what do you do

with pain

let go of the thoughts relax

smile come back to your object of

meditation you do the same thing with

the joy

if you try to hold on to the joy because

it feels real good

and you want it to stay that's the

fastest way to make it disappear

when you

just allow it to be there by itself

and you come back to your object of

meditation

it'll stay for longer periods of time

after the joy fades away

then

you have

a feeling of

real strong comfort

you feel at ease

your mind is very tranquil very nice you

stay on your object of meditation

your body stops bothering you so much

with pains and that sort of thing

so you really are able to see

how

the hindrances

are

your teachers

they're telling you they're showing you

where your attachment is

every time you six are those hindrances

you're letting go of your attachment

little by little by little

now when you go from one genre to the

next it doesn't happen like most people

think once you're in one genre you just

go to the next john and the next genre

no

your mindfulness slips

for whatever reason

and now you have another hindrance to

work with

but now you're starting to get some

confidence that you know what you're

doing with the hindrance so you don't

get caught for as long

and

you're able to let that go

and then you go deeper into your

practice

you go from one genre to the next

because the hindrance helped you to get

there it helped to improve your

mindfulness

it helped to show you

how mind's attention moves from one

thing to another

and this is

how you progress from one genre to the

next

so the hindrances are a very necessary

part of your practice

they're not the enemy to fight with

there's nothing to be

upset about when a hindrance comes

it's just a distraction that's all it is

what do you do with any distraction

you let it be

you relax you smile you come back to

your object to meditation stay with your

object of meditation for as long as you

can

this is right effort

it's a fancy way of saying right effort

but this is right effort

right effort is

noticing when you have an unwholesome

state arise

let go of that unwholesome state and

relax

bring up a wholesome state smile

come back to your object to meditation

stay with that wholesome state as long

as you can

that's the six r's right there

and a lot of people kind of

especially if you've been meditating for

before you think

the meditation is serious

and you got to be serious with the

meditation

and you see you go to retreats and you

see a lot of people doing this

they have these big

lines in their face

i used to go along and tap people on

lighten up

and actually some people got angry at me

for doing that so i quit

see the thing with

with

the meditation

when your

your

uh

collectedness of mind

and your mindfulness are out of balance

you can hear a sound

and it'll make you jump

okay that just means you're out of

balance a little bit

when people become attached to not

hearing sounds

guess who has an attachment

it's not a disturbance it's just a sound

it's only a disturbance when i make it a

disturbance

when we were up on the ridge there was

somebody he had

he had almost no hearing in one ear

but he come into the meditation hall

and we had a clock that ticked

he was continually taking that down and

covering it with pillows and that sort

of thing

and

he took out the batteries one time

and as soon as i walk in i see that the

clock's not there

bring it back out put it where it's

supposed to be

and he said

it really disturbs me

that sound is really disturbs me

so i'm not going to sit in the

meditation hall anymore i'm going to go

outside and sit in the forest like

there's no sounds in the forest

but in his mind that was different

one of the reasons we don't use bells

for timer or timers or anything like

this is because

you want to work with your internal

clock

and one of the things i forgot to tell

you before you go to bed

every night there's

two determinations i want you to make

one

that when you wake up in this in the

morning you're going to be smiling and

happy

okay

two you make a determination on the time

that you're going to wake up

don't always make it the same time

4 59

5

when you're able to hit that

pretty regularly

then

you've got to start on

working with determinations

they become important later on

so the hindrances

are a very necessary part of your

spiritual progress

when other meditation teachers tell you

that the hindrances you have to fight

them and you have to

to

suppress them and push them away and

push your tongue against the roof of

your mouth and grit your teeth and crush

mind with mind

to stop a hindrance from arising

they're talking about

practicing one pointed concentration

any little disturbance

that takes your mind away from that one

point

turns into a big

problem and

when i was in burma

i was doing meditation retreats

i did a two retreat there

and they had these people that were

coming in from the railroad and that

sort of thing they'd come in for one or

two days and do a retreat because their

boss told them they had to

but they did anything they could

to distract themselves or entertain

themselves

there's people that

they could belch like you i i mean i i

just sat back and i couldn't believe it

now if you're practicing one pointed

concentration any sound at all is like a

thorn in your sight it really hurts

but these guys would start walking and

they could belch with every step

and some of them they passed gas

and they they got so they were quite

quite proficient at being able to do

that

anything to distract them

and we're sitting there and i've been

there for two years you know i'm i'm

serious about this practice

and these clowns come in and they start

making all of this noise and

fumbling around and talking with each

other and doing all these things they're

not supposed to be doing

but when your mind gets to a certain

point of balance it doesn't matter

whether they're there or not

it was entertaining i would i'd

get up and start doing the walking

meditation and somebody would come along

and start belching with every step

i mean it helped me to keep my mind

light

so

sound is not your enemy

sound is only sound

you'll find out about sound as these

fans get a little bit older

and they start squeaking

anyway

as you get more and more balance in your

mind your your

mindfulness starts to get sharper

and you start seeing that your mind is

vibrating

instead of swinging from one thing to

another

and you start feeling quite comfortable

with that

but eventually

your mindfulness will become weak

and

now you have another hindrance to work

with but you you're not upset by the

hindrances anymore

it just stuff

so you have your equinement fairly

strong even though you have a hindrance

arise

so you work with it

knowing exactly what you do with it

because it's been teaching you this the

whole time

you'll start noticing that

what happens first when your mind is on

your object of meditation very lightly

is there's a feeling that arises

the feeling is either pleasant feeling

or painful feeling

or neutral feeling

but right after that neutral feeling

there's this tension or tightness that

happens in your mind

and if you don't recognize that then

your mind starts thinking about stuff

the story why when this feeling arise i

always act that way

and you get caught up in the story

the concepts the opinions the ideas the

desires

then what happens right after that is

your old habitual emotional tendency

arises

okay when this kind of feeling comes up

and it's attached to these kind of

thoughts i always act that way

now this is what happens with people

that have depression

the painful feeling arises i don't like

the painful feeling i've got a story

about the painful feeling

attached to it and then i have this

emotional

desire to make that feeling different

and make it go away

and

so what i do is i get depressed

and i try to control my feelings

with thoughts

and it doesn't work

it only makes a feeling bigger and more

more intense

so

you stay depressed for longer periods of

time

why because you're indulging in it

you're making that feeling

more painful

by

getting involved with trying to control

it

this meditation is not about control

it's about letting go of control

it's about

observing how mind's attention moves and

works

now when you start recognizing the

feeling and the craving and the clinging

and the habitual tendency

and the birth of action and

the

come on

you can do it

you see i have been teaching them

but that's how suffering arises

that's exactly

how it arises

and

when your mindfulness is sharp as soon

as a feeling

starts to arise you can 6r right then

and that feeling will fade away

and none of the other stuff happens

this is how you purify your mind

okay

this the six r's is how you practice the

cessation of suffering

and this is

this is the whole point

of

the meditation

the cessation of suffering is

nibana

there's two different kinds of nibana

one kind of nibana is a mundane kind

where you six or something let it go it

doesn't continue on

then after doing that a few hundred

thousand or a million or two million

times eventually you get to

the super mundane ibana that's the one

everybody talks about

means no

bana means fire

no more fire

one of the suit is it's called the fire

sermon the buddha talks about

everything is burning

burning with what

craving

so you're letting go of craving

completely every time you let go and

relax

so the rest of the process doesn't

happen

this is how you're teaching yourself the

links of dependent origination i just

described them to you

this is how it works

so

as you

keep practicing the six r's you're

trying to make it

into

a habitual tendency that when any kind

of disturbance or starts to arise your

mind automatically just lets it go and

relax and smiles and comes back

see it says flow it's not individual

steps

um

okay

and the states in the fourth jhana the

equinimity the need with neither painful

nor pleasant feeling

the mental unconcerned due to

tranquility

the purity of mindfulness

and the unification of mine

you still have the five aggregates

contact feeling perception for

formations in mind

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equanimity and attention

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred known to him they

arose known they were present known they

disappeared

he understood this and with the

cultivation of that attainment he

confirmed there's still more to do

you know that there's still more to do

because you you see it in yourself you

you know

now

people have this strange idea about

jhana that

once you get into jhana

every time you sit you're going to be in

that drama

well

i'm here to tell you that that's not

quite the way it works

for a long time when i would sit

for a half an hour 45 minutes my mind

would run all over the place it was

doing and i was going deep into practice

but

when you're you get in the habit of six

houring you just stick start and relax

and what your mind is doing is helping

you

for your mindfulness to go deeper

because every time you use the six hours

your mindfulness gets stronger

you start noticing more subtle little

things and you don't get attached for as

long and that sort of thing

unless you indulge in it of course of

course

you're fun to pick on

what can i say

so

not every sitting is going to be the

same

as a matter of fact every sitting is

going to be different

so it's uh

real important

to realize that

you don't know what's going to happen

next

so don't project what you think should

happen next

use your equanimity to say okay there it

is let's work with this one now

okay so there's you don't get into your

emotional attachment to things

and there's still going to be times when

you will get it attached to something

you still will have an emotional thing

come up but you won't get caught for it

as long because your equinimity will

start to take over

like the lady i was talking about last

night

she started at two weeks holding a

grudge

and before long it was a few minutes

so

it does take practice and it has to be

conscious practice

it's not just well it'll happen on its

own

you have to start noticing more how your

mind grabs on to the way

you think things should be

and how you cause yourself suffering

when things are not like that

being a monk

people were constantly wanting to give

me things

they even tried to give me socks in

indonesia for crying out loud

but they want me to have the choice as

food they want me to have the best of

everything

and they'll quite often ask me what do

you want to eat

food

well what kind of food

good food that'd be nice

but there's no real preferences

because food equals energy

and i have to have so much energy in the

day to go and do the things i need to do

that's all

so there's equanimity even in that kind

of a thing

having a desire arise

i want some ice cream i want something

sweet to eat

you can six r that instead of indulging

in it

and that desire just fades away by

itself

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred known to him those

states arose known they were present

known they disappeared

you notice every one of these genres

you're seeing impermanence because of

all these different things that come up

and every jhana has things coming up

while you're in it

so you're seeing how things are changing

all the time

again with the abandoning of pleasure

and pain with the previous disappearance

of joy and grief

oops i already did that

uh again

with the complete surmounting of

gross perceptions of form

now you're sitting and you don't feel

your body

unless there's contact

okay

it can be contact with an ant walking

that in asia you have ants

those little buggers are really tough

we used to take a chalk that had ant

poison and put it around us

and they wouldn't cross the line

that was great so they went over to the

wall up on the ceiling came down and

dive bombed

and they'd come and they'd

i didn't have a shirt on then and they

they'd land on your shoulder and you

said

what are you doing here how'd you get

here

so they're still feeling

while you're in the jhana even though

you don't have gross feelings in their

body like you're feeling your hands

right now

but it's subtle feelings that you'll

still be able to see you'll still be

able to feel

and that feeling happens at all of the

scent stores

but it's subtle feelings there has to be

contact in order for that feeling to

arise

with a previous disappearance of gross

perceptions of sensory impact

that's basically saying the same thing

aware that space is infinite sorry putta

entered upon and abided in the base of

infinite space

once you get to a certain place in your

meditation and i change your meditation

to another way of doing it

you'll be sitting radiating loving

kindness and you'll start to feel an

expansion

and the feeling of loving-kindness

changes

into a feeling of compassion i won't

tell you what that is you have to tell

me

sometimes i have to give hints

but that's okay

and

you feel like everything your your mind

is just going out and out and out and

out and there's no center point

there's no place is coming from there's

just this expansion

all directions at the same time

that is called infinite space

because there's no boundaries there's no

no stopping it just keeps going out and

out and out

but your object to meditation is

the feeling of compassion now

so it's a

real interesting state to be in and this

is called

an a rupa jhana it means immaterial

genre

jhana means a level of understanding

and the immaterial means it doesn't have

anything to do with the body now it's

just working with feeling and

and other other mental states

okay

now you naturally progress from

radiating loving kindness when you're in

your fourth journal you're doing it from

your head

and now you're radiating

compassion from from your head

everything happens from your head from

now on

the states in the base of infinite space

the perception of the base of infinite

space and unification of mind

the contact feeling perception

formations in mind you still have all of

the five aggregates

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equanimity and attention

these were

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred

known to him those states arose known

they were present known they disappeared

so you still have a lot happening even

though you're just in a mental realm

if i come up and touch you you would

still feel that

now

a lot of people a lot of teachers that

are teaching mindfulness of breathing

they will tell you

that your breath

absolutely disappears when you're in the

fourth channel

that only occurs when you're practicing

a different kind of meditation that

doesn't have the six r's in it

doesn't ever happen

when you're practicing the six hours

okay

now the

the thing with

some of these different things that he

noticed like as decision energy

mindfulness

and attention

you start

becoming more aware when you're putting

too much attention into trying to stay

on your object a meditation

and when you do that you get restless

and once you get restless

your natural inclination is to put more

energy in to overcome the restlessness

and you get even more restless

and what you have to do

is put less energy into staying on your

object to meditation you have to adjust

little bits

don't adjust all at once

or else

you'll start to get into sloth and

torpor

so you have to adjust a little bit you

have to adjust your energy every now and

then

so the equinimity starts to get stronger

in every one of the

the different genres that you get into

even in the first genre you have some

equanimity it's not real strong

but it's there you have balance of mind

when you're staying on your object to

meditation that's the way it works

your attention

gets sharper

your observation

becomes

very keen

and you remember i was telling you start

seeing your mind wobble and it wobbles

like this and before long you're carried

away

now you're going to start seeing that

wobble more easily and you six are that

knowing that there's something that's

causing that

and what is that

what causes your mind to wobble

some thoughts have come up

some feelings some memories but they're

real deep

you might not even know whatever kind of

thing caused it

but when you 6r you let it go

that's where your attachment was

now you don't have any attachment now

you stay on your object of meditation

for a longer period of time

okay

again by completely surmounting the base

of infinite space

aware that consciousness is infinite

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the base of infinite consciousness

what happens now is

at each one of the sense stores

for some people that are really attuned

to

listening to things it'll happen at the

ear but most people are

are more visual

so it happens that with the eyes

it's like watching a movie that's going

too slow

and you're seeing

the scene and a blank

scene in a blank the scene in a blank

now you're seeing

individual

consciousnesses arise and pass away

that was roughly a million

consciousnesses arise and pass away

okay so you're starting to see real

subtle stuff

now this particular

state when you get into it

this is a major teaching state

because you're seeing uh eye

consciousness it's there it flicks

it's flicking like that all the time

and you're seeing that

everything is impermanent

you're seeing different things

in each

each

flicker

it's a rising and passing away rising

and passing away

very fast but it's still you're able to

see it

and it starts to get tiresome because it

happens that all of the scent stores

and you're seeing that there is no

controller

you didn't ask it to come up you didn't

ask this to happen

but it's happening on its own because

the conditions are right for your mind

to be able to see this at that time

so you're seeing

anitra dukkha dukanata

up close in your face

you're seeing it personally so any doubt

about that

fades away

uh when you come and tell me this

oh another thing that happens with this

is

you

the feeling of

compassion changes to a feeling of joy

but this is the last kind of joy i was

talking about

and you come and you tell me that and i

say okay good

what's happening in between each one of

those pictures

put your attention on on that blank spot

see what happens

some people think that they have to try

to slow down the pictures

to see that

and you don't

you're just an impartial observer

so you you see all of these uh

consciousnesses arise and pass away

arise and pass away and now you you're

focusing on what happens in the middle

of it

and that little blank blip

that happens

as you do that more and more

then

again monks by completely surmounting

the base of infinite consciousness aware

that there is nothing

sorry putin entered upon and abided in

the base of nothingness

what happens is

you stop

seeing things outside your mind

like

your five five cents doors are outside

your mind i mean this is your eye you're

looking out you hear things and that

sort of thing

but now you start looking at what's

happening in mind

only

and i've i've had students that come and

tell me you know i've really got this

weird meditation that's happening right

there there's nothing there

i said that's good

continue everything's moving along fine

the feeling of joy changes to a feeling

of equanimity

now this is called the brahma viharas

the buddha taught the brahma viharas

more than he taught mindfulness of

breathing

he only mentions mindfulness of

breathing eight times in all of the

suttas

many hundreds of times he's teaching

loving kindness and he's teaching the

brahma viharas that way

now there's a real advantage for

teaching the lovingkindness and the

brahmaviharas this way because

your progress in the meditation is

faster with this meditation than it is

with any other meditation you can do

and your understanding gets

very deep very quickly

because

it's so much easier once you start

relaxing into it and have the loving

kindness flowing and that sort of thing

it's much easier to see when your mind

starts starts to harden up and

get caught in some kind of

conceptual nonsense

so there's a real reason why the buddha

taught loving kindness meditation

now you have insights

the whole time

while you're practicing this practice

while you're in the jaunt

you have the four foundations

that you're being able to see while

you're in the jhana

the four foundations of mindfulness are

very important

just like your hindrances are very

important

just like the five aggregates are very

important

just like the six r's are very important

i mean you can go on and on about it

but it's all different ways of saying

the same thing

smile be happy

keep your mind uplifted as much as you

can

and when you do that

you start progressing in your meditation

that's the way it works

you get serious and start thinking i

gotta try harder that's the best way to

block your practice

that's ever since you've been here i've

been telling you

make it a game

don't get serious with this stuff

it's only nonsense stuff that's coming

up anyway

so play with it have fun with it

when you were in college

or when you were in school any any grade

really

when you ran across

a subject that you really liked

you had fun with it

and because you had fun with it you

really learned it easy

well

that's what we have to do here

we have to have fun

with

how we're doing the practice

you see yourself getting serious who has

an attachment at that time

who is causing themselves suffering at

that time

and you have old

habitual tendencies you have old ways of

doing things that creep in at the

weirdest

times and you start

believing all of that stuff

and you start getting caught up in it

but

before long you six are it and you start

going ah look at what i'm doing to

myself in insight

look at how i'm causing myself pain

look at

how i don't have to do that to myself

what relief is that

you don't need to have pain you don't

have to indulge in pain

it's there whether you like it or not

you're going to have a roller coaster

ride that's the way life is there's

going to be

times when it's real happy and times

when it's real sad

what this meditation does is it takes

the high highs and the low lows away

so instead of having this

roller coaster ride up and down

in life

it starts to be waves

okay and the more you have equinimity

the smaller the waves become

and the less you're still going to get

caught by stuff

but you won't be caught as long

you'll start noticing i don't need to do

that to myself

let's let that one go

you do that by having fun

making life

a fun game

and continuing on with that

you start getting serious first thing

you need to do is laugh at how dumb your

mind is

as soon as you laugh

your perspective

changes and then you start going well

it's only this feeling

do i want to get involved with anger

no

let's let that one go no need

you feel immediate relief

that's one of the things that the buddha

is continually talking about with the

dhamma

this is immediately effective

when you're aware of what's happening

i mean it's immediate

you laugh at yourself for

getting upset about this or that

you're not upset anymore it's not you

it's only this feeling it's only these

thoughts

i don't need to don't need that one

the whole point of the buddha's teaching

is so that you can have an uplifted

happy mind all the time

that's what the buddha wanted for you

he showed you very directly how to do

that

and that's what the loving kindness is

all about

and the brahma bihar is this all about

so the feeling of joy now changes into a

very strong feeling of equinimities

and it's real easy to tell when people

are in the strong equanimity

there's nothing they said how's it going

fine

everything is fine

have any problems no everything is fine

this is real this is i mean it's

pretty amazing to watch

how people's face change

when they're practicing

the meta

your face starts to get radiant your

face starts to become very beautiful

and and

there's a glow about you

where there's not so much

heaviness

and other people

will feel attracted to you

because you have this

glow

one interesting thing about that lady

that

worked was so much with her husband

was she was like a magnet to anybody

that had any kind of

emotional problem

i mean she would just stand there being

by herself and there'd be some kind of

ceremony happening

somebody'd walk up to her and start

telling them their life story

they felt like they could trust her one

and they knew what kind of problems she

had

and

they knew that she had some kind of

answer for

it's great stuff

okay and the state's in the base of

nothingness the perception of the base

of nothingness the unification of mind

the contact feeling perception

formations and mind now you still have

the five aggregates there

while you're in the genre

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equinimity and attention

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred

known to him they rose and only

disappeared

he understood this and with the

cultivation of that attainment he

confirmed there's still more to go

again monks by completely surmounting

the base of nothingness

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the base of neither perception nor

non-perception

and he emerged mindful from that

attainment

having done so he contemplated the

states that had passed ceased and

changed

now when you get to this state what

happens is

when you get into where there's just

vibration of mind the it goes from

coarse vibration to very fine bright

vibration

to a place where you can't tell whether

it's really vibrating or not

this is neither perception or

non-perception

until you get used to it and then you

can start seeing other things in it

but

your mind is very subtle at this time

before you started feeling your mind

expanding with infinite space

now you feel like it's getting smaller

and smaller and smaller and smaller

until you can't really tell whether it's

there or not

and this is always kind of a comical

time for me because people come and say

can i sit in meditation and be asleep

and aware at the same time

yes of course you can

but what you have to do is when you get

out of that state

reflect on what happened while you were

in that state

and there are things that still happen

but it's so subtle you can't see them

while they're happening you have to come

out and reflect on it

so then you 6r

whatever it is that came up while you

were in that state

this is where you can start to see

really

subtle things before feeling arises

there's contact there's six sense doors

there's

mentality materiality there's

consciousness there's formations

you'll be able to see

all of these things when they arise

and you six-hour them and then the other

things won't arise afterwards

so

there are times that you'll be able to

see consciousness arise

there are times that you'll be able to

see formations arise

but they're really subtle

and there's it's like there are long

ways off when you get into this state

you'll be able to sit for an hour hour

and a half without having any

disturbance of mind at all

and then if a disturbance just starts to

come up

your

your practice is six hours enough

that it's automatic and

it'll fade away

so you'll be able to sit for long

periods of time

what relief is that

by the way that's as far as i can take

you into meditation i can't take you any

further

the rest is up to you

so indeed these states having been

these states not having been come into

being having been they vanished

regarding those states he abided

unattracted and repelled independent

detached free dissociated with a mind

rid of barriers

he understood there is an escape beyond

this and with the cultivation of that

attainment

he confirmed that there's still more to

do

again by completely surmounting the base

of neither perception or non-perception

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness

and his taints were destroyed by his

seeing with wisdom

what happens is you'll get to a place

where all of a sudden

everything stops

you can't plan for it to happen it

happens when the conditions are right

for it to happen

just like somebody flipped off the

lights

you won't be able to see anything

there's nothing you don't have any

feeling you don't have any perception

you don't have any consciousness at that

time

when you come out of that

you won't be in it for very long five

minutes ten minutes like that

when you come out of that state

it's like

you've erased the board so that there's

no marks on the board

okay on a chalkboard

and then you will see

how

each link of dependent origination

arises

and how each link of dependent

origination ceases

and this understanding is so strong

it's the big oh wow

you finally got it figured out

nibana occurs

what is nibana

it's an unconditioned state can't talk

about it

because all your words are conditioned

so there's no sense in talking about it

it's just a state that doesn't have any

conditions in it

and that's what

this the sutu is talking about and his

taints are destroyed by his seeing with

wisdom

now sorry puta became an arahat

he'd been practicing meditation for a

couple of weeks

he'd gone through all of these

different

stages of meditation and he was seeing

how dependent origination worked really

really well

but he had a slight attachment to

wanting to learn more

and

one day

the buddha was giving a talk to some

people it came and sorry put a picked up

a fan and started fanning him

and as he was listening to the buddha

talk sorry putter realized that the

buddha wasn't even attached to the

dhamma

and with that realization

he became an arahat

because he had that one slight

little tiny attachment

and he let it go

so

this is

how sorry puta

experienced nibana

he emerged mindful from that attainment

having done so he recalled the states

that had ceased

past and changed

so indeed these states not having been

come into being having been they

vanished

regarding those states he abided

unattracted and repelled independent

detached free dissociated

with a

mind rid of barriers

he

understood there is no escape beyond

this

and with the cultivation of that con

that attainment

he confirmed that there is not

monks rightly speaking word to be said

of anyone he has attained mastery and

perfection in noble virtue

mastery and perfection and noble

collectedness

attain mastery and perfection in noble

wisdom

attain mastery and perfection in noble

deliverance

it is of sariputa indeed that rightly

speaking

this should be said

monks rightly speaking word to be said

of anyone he is the son of the blessed

one

born of his breast born of his mouth

born of the dhamma created by the dhamma

and air in the dhamma not an air in

material things

it is of sorry putta indeed that rightly

speaking this should be said

amongst the massless wheel of dhamma is

set rolling by the tatagata and kept

rolling rightly by sariputta

that is what the blessed one said the

monks were satisfied and delighted in

the blessed one's words

the buddha had two chief disciples the

first chief disciple was sorry putta

and the second chief disciple was

moghalana

mogallana was second to the buddha in

psychic ability

they always went around together

teaching

sorry putu would teach people

how to be get to the first stage of

awakening

and then he'd give them over to

mogallana and then they would become

arabs

the hardest part is teaching

somebody to become

a sodapada

because you have to teach them

continually repeat over and over again

how the links of dependent origination

work

and

to be a teacher

there's so many people that oh i want to

teach this stuff i know i could

teaching is not simple and it's not easy

to be a teacher

you have to sincerely believe

that what you're teaching is right and

you can never get bored by saying the

same thing over and over again

how many times have you heard me repeat

myself

but there's an enthusiasm that comes

with teaching

that you know you're doing the right

thing

and the thing with teaching is that you

are always continually learning and

refining

just sometimes just

little tiny things like not too long ago

and it came into my mind that

every thought you have

is a concept

i told her that

she tried to tell me i was wrong

and then i was laughing for days i

started to examine it

and it's completely true

you know what's a concept well this is a

chair

but where's a chair

a chair is made up of a lot of different

little parts

is it the feet is it the back is it is

the seat

where is the chair

where's an automobile

it's a bunch of little parts put

together to make up this concept

all of our thoughts are the same way

and that's why

nibana is such an amazing state because

there's no more concepts

how do you explain that because you can

only talk in concepts

anyway got any questions

that just laid out the whole program for

you that's what we do here

this is what we teach

so you can only take so far and it's

just up to us

well

i can show you what neither perception

or non-perception is

you got to show yourself what the

cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness is

you can take the horse to water and tell

him it's water but you can't make him

drink he has to decide to do it

when the conditions are right

then it happens

sounds simple enough

it actually is simple

didn't say it was easy

but it is simple

it depends on your attachments it

depends on how much

stuff you're holding onto that you think

is really you

and it can get scary this meditation can

be really scary when you start realizing

there is no me

whoa your mind will just

and this has happened i've had people

call me up on the telephone they've been

really good with their meditation

and all of a sudden they realize that

there is no self

and their mind says

well i might as well die then

and they'll call me up all shook up

my mind just it made up its mind that is

i'm gonna die

i don't wanna die

i start laughing

what's funny about that

well it's just your mind

finding out that

it's lived in the fog

for how many lifetimes

believing that all of the thoughts and

all of the feelings and all of the

experiences are me

and now you're saying there is no me

and i realize there is no me and my mind

says well if you don't need me then i

might as well die

so there's some comical things that

happen and sometimes it takes a while to

talk a person out of being afraid of

their mind

making them die

can't do it

when conditions are right you'll die

but you're you're dying all the time

you're not the same person now that you

were this morning

where'd that person go

they died

the only time you're in the present

moment is when you're alive

and that's continually moving

so there's this birth death birth death

birth death birth death that's happening

all the time

why be afraid of dying you've been dying

for a whole life

right

are you the same person you were when

you were five

what happened to that five-year-old

died gone

no more

it's okay

if you stay through the spring we can

still make mud pies

catch them tomorrow yeah

show him the bubbles

we can catch the tadpoles okay

okay

go catch it

from

so what happened to the deadpool

what happens to the frog snake ate him

the snake

yeah and

then what happened to the snake hawk

picked him up and went off with him

one of the famous books that kesri

damananda wrote was

what would i just had the name of it i

can't remember

the only

real thing

that's going to happen is you're going

to die

something like that

and i i lived with him for two years at

the monastery we

he was great fun to be around

he was

78 when i when i

came to the monastery and he asked me to

come because he said he's getting old

and he wanted me to give dom and talks

he gave talks

every

friday night

and there was three to five hundred

people that came every friday night

and he wanted me to give a diamond talk

every other week

so i started doing that

but he he and i

every day

about 8 30 it was right after

having coffee and that sort of thing i'd

go visit him

and we would giggle like two little kids

for about a half an hour or 45 minutes

and then

go out and start your day i mean

that's a way to start the day and a lot

of times we're laughing and had no idea

what we're laughing about it didn't

matter

we had fun

and uh

in in asia there's a big deal with

people

predicting they look at your palm oh

you're going to be dead when you're 78

they told him

so on his 78th birthday he said i'm

supposed to be dead

and he lived to be 87.

but he was great fun to be around

he's real good

no he's sri lankan

he thought he was tall too he was five

eight

but that was a real interesting time

living there

that's when i wrote

my on upon assati book

he's the one that started

uh

giving dhamma books away

printing them up and giving them away

he's the one that started that whole

thing

it hadn't been done for a real long time

and he just said i'm gonna start doing

that

and everybody else caught on now you get

free books all over the place

you

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at swati and

jettas grove eneth and pendicas park

there he addressed the monks thus monks

venerable sir there replied the blessed

one said this

do you know who sorry puta is

no

do you

well he was the first chief disciple

he was second to the buddha in wisdom

in other words he understood dependent

origination real well

monks sorry puta is wise sorry puta has

great wisdom

sorry puta has wide wisdom

sorry puta has joyous wisdom

sorry put has quick wisdom

sariputta has keen wisdom

sariputta has penetrative wisdom

during half a month monks sorry putta

gained insight into states one by one as

they occurred

now sorry putin's insight into states

one by one as they occurred was this

here monks quite secluded from sensual

pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states

how do you become secluded from sensual

pleasures

this isn't time to be quiet this is a

time to be answering questions

that's right

the sensual pleasure of seeing is not

there then right

you do that with all of the sense doors

if a sound occurs what do you do

you don't follow the sound and pay

attention to it you let it go and come

back to your object of meditation after

you six ours right

how do you become secluded from

unwholesome states

your turn

there's no such a thing as a wrong

answer so just throw out whatever you

think

well to become secluded from unwholesome

states means that you're staying on your

object of meditation

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the first jhana which is accompanied by

thinking and examining thought

with joy and happiness born of seclusion

and the states in the first genre the

thinking the examining thought the joy

the happiness the unification of mind

the contact feeling perception volition

and mind now the

the five aggregates that's what this is

called

whenever the five aggregates are present

the four foundations of mindfulness are

there

okay four foundations of mindfulness

body feeling

objects five five aggregates body

feeling same same

perception

that goes in with the feeling

thoughts

mind objects

and consciousness mind

so it's a different way of saying the

same thing

the

enthusiasm decision energy mindfulness

equanimity and attention

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred

known to those known to him those states

arose

known they were present known they

disappeared

he understood thus

so indeed these states not having been

come into being having been they vanish

makes sense right

regarding these states he abided

unattracted

he didn't try to hold on to him

unrepelled he didn't try to push him

away

independent detached free dissociated

with a mind rid of barriers

he saw everything as it was without

taking it personally

he understood there's an escape beyond

this

and with the cultivation of that

attainment he confirmed that there is

so what he what he's saying as you get

into the first genre you still you know

you have more stuff to do

okay

again monks

with the stilling of thinking and

examining thought sorry puta entered

upon and abided in the second jhana

which has

self-confidence and stillness of mind

without thinking and examining thought

with joy and happiness born of

collectedness

now when you get into the second jhana

if you try to verbalize the wish in your

mind

you'll start to get a headache

so

you

need to

let go of the verbalization

and just bring up that feeling

now there's five kinds of joy

three kinds of joy anybody experiences

when the conditions are right doesn't

matter whether they do any mental

training or not

the last two kinds of joy only occur

when

you do some mental training

the first kind of joy is like goosebumps

it's kind of a happy feeling it's there

for a little while it's kind of weak

but it disappears fairly quickly and you

feel kind of peaceful and calm

afterwards

the next kind of joy is like a flash of

lightning it's pretty intense but it's

only there for a short period of time

and then it disappears

the next kind of joy is like being in

in the ocean and having a wave

come over you a wave of joy and then

another wave of joy

now always after joy there is a feeling

of tranquility

with the first kind of joy it doesn't

last very long the next one it lasts a

little bit longer the next one that can

last a little longer

the last two kinds of joy that arise

only occur through meditation

the next kind of joy is called uplifting

joy

you feel really light in your body you

feel light in your mind

it's a happy feeling it has some

excitement in it this is good stuff i

like this

always after this arises your mind will

become very very calm and very peaceful

and then

you'll feel really really comfortable in

your mind and in your body

this is the way it works

this is what the buddha calls happiness

so you're able to stay on your object of

meditation without much effort at all

and you'll start to stay on your object

to meditation for a few minutes at a

time

three five minutes without without being

distracted

the last kind of joy is called

all-pervading joy

now every everyone or these these last

two kinds of joy they they happen all

over your body

but this all-pervading joy feels like

it's oozing out

of every cell in your body

it's like

taking a cup and just filling it up

and it spills over the whole thing and

there's no part of the of your body that

doesn't experience this this kind of joy

it doesn't have so much excitement in it

this is a calmer kind of joy

whoever

makes the faces of the buddha image

quite often they'll have the eyes half

open

and this is the artist trying to show

you this is one of the things that

happens when joy arises

this kind of joy the all-pervading joy

your eyes will just pop open

and you think well that's a little bit

strange

and

you close your eyes and they pop open

again

so you close your eyes and they pop open

again so you say okay you want to stay

open stay open i'm not going to mess

with you anymore

but this kind of joy is is a more calm

kind of joy

it doesn't have so much excitement in it

and this is called

the

in awakening factor of joy

i don't like to use the word

enlightenment factor because

enlightenment

doesn't mean the same thing as being

awake

if i tell you something you don't know

i've enlightened you

but when you get become awake

now you're talking about something

completely different

and the state's in the second genre uh

when you get to the second genre you

start to get confidence in yourself

you start to feel like

yeah i'm starting to understand this

this is this is good

i have students come to me and they tell

me

i hear you say the six hours and i hear

you hear you smile and yada yada yada

all the time

and now i understand it

and then after you go a little bit

deeper you come and say i thought i

understood it but now i really

understand it

so you start having more confidence that

you know what you're doing

so the doubts kind of fade away

the joy the happiness the unification of

mind now this is while you're in

the jhana that you're experiencing all

of this stuff

the contact feeling perception formation

and mind

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equinementy and attention

these were defined by him one by one as

they occurred known to him those states

arose known they were present known they

disappeared

he understood this and with the

cultivation of that attainment

he confirmed that there's still more to

do

again monks

with the fading away of joy

sariputa abided in equinimnity mindful

and fully aware

still feeling happiness with the body he

entered upon and abided in the third

jhana

on account of which noble ones announce

he has a pleasant abiding who has

equinimity and is mindful

so when you get into the the third genre

the joy fades away

you won't it's too coarse a feeling your

mind doesn't want it anymore

you start feeling really really

comfortable in your mind and in your

body

and you start having this sense strong

sense of equanimity that's balance of

mind

you hear things

that they don't make your mind shake

it's kind of like they just kind of

float on through without your

you know that it happened but you don't

uh

you don't get involved with it at all

as you begin to

relax and calm down more

and you lose tension in your mind

you lose tension in your body and that's

what you feel

your hands are like this

all of a sudden your hands will just

disappear

maybe you're all of your arms

or your shoulders or your legs

this is the way it's supposed to happen

now if you have contact

somebody comes up and they touch you

you would know that you were touched

but your mind doesn't shake

and just okay there was there was touch

there

other than that you don't really feel

your body very much

your balance of mind starts to get

stronger

your

awareness of things around you

starts to get sharper

now with the other practices and

meditation that you did

if you got into a jhana up to the third

jhana

you would not

have a body

you wouldn't know anybody would touch

you

because your mind is very one-pointedly

focused

just on one thing

when you add the relaxed step

of the six hours into your practice you

don't go as deep into the meditation

so instead of doing this with your mind

what you're starting to do is this

and improve your peripheral vision

you don't have a mind that just sticks

on one thing

you have a mind that's more aware of

everything around

but because of the equanimity there's

not a lot of shaking going on there's

not a lot of wobbling by your mind

you hear a sound you hear

the mule going by or you hear a

motorcycle going by or you hear a truck

going by you know that that that was

there

but it's like uh yeah okay so what

you have this very strong balance of

mind

and the states in the third genre the

equanimity the happiness the mindfulness

the full awareness and unification of

mind

the contact filling perception

formations in mind

the five aggregates again so you have

your mindfulness

while you're in nijana which means you

have insights come while you're in the

jhana

that's why we call this particular

practice

twim

tranquil wisdom insight meditation

we just made that up a little while ago

so

it sounds like elmer fudd

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred known to him those

states arose known they were present

known they disappeared

he

understood and with the cultivation of

that attainment he confirmed there's

still more to go

even when you get to the third genre you

still have your beginner status you're

still a rookie

but you're fast getting to the advanced

stage

again monks with the abandoning of

pleasure and pain with the previous

disappearance of joy and grief

sorry putta entered upon and abided in

the fourth jhana which has neither pain

nor pleasure

and purity of mindfulness due to

equanimity

now what happens when you're practicing

loving kindness the whole time you're

sending loving kindness from your heart

area

but

when you get to this stage

you don't feel your body

unless there's contact somebody touching

you

the feeling of loving kindness comes up

into your head

and you don't you don't try to push it

back down you just let it be there

the equinity that you feel is very much

stronger

and this is when i'll come along and

tell you now you've become an advanced

meditator

some people don't believe it when i tell

them that

but i think now they're starting to

so your equanimity becomes very strong

when you get to this stage i will change

your meditation

you'll still be doing loving kindness

but in a different way

i won't go into that right now

but you start to

realize that your mind is a lot more

controllable as long as you stay on your

object meditation you'll be able to stay

there for longer periods of time

10 minutes 15 minutes without having any

disturbance it's kind of nice

and the states in the fourth jhana the

equinimnity the neither painful nor

pleasant feeling

the mental unconcerned due to

tranquility

your mind becomes very peaceful very

calm

and you can see disturbing things coming

it's like

when you first start doing the

meditation your mind is flip-flopping

like this

okay

and as you go deeper

it doesn't move quite as much

and then when you get to the fourth

jhana instead of flip-flopping it starts

it's vibrating

and you'll see

when you're in the fourth jhana

sometimes you'll be able to see the

thoughts thought starts arising

and when it does you'll see your mind

starting to wobble

and if you notice that right then and

you six are then your mind will stay on

your object to meditation

if you don't notice it

then

you you get carried away and you get

distracted you're no longer in the

journal when you have a hindrance arise

now the thing with the hindrances is

that they are very necessary parts of

the practice

because

your mind is on your object of

meditation and the thought comes up or a

sensation or whatever it happens to be

and you're with that for a little while

and then you six are it and then you

relax and smile and come back and then

you do it again and again and again and

you're bouncing back and forth

every time you 6r

the hindrance it gets a little bit

weaker

and you're losing your attachment to the

hindrance

eventually that hindrance because you

stopped feeding it with your attention

that hindrance

just fades away by itself

what happens after that

you have a very strong sense of relief

right after that joy arises

the joy will be there for a little while

and

you've taken enough meditation retreats

you've heard this statement when joy

arises don't be attached

right

well how do you not be attached to joy

joy

and pain

same coin different sides what do you do

with pain

let go of the thoughts relax

smile come back to your object of

meditation you do the same thing with

the joy

if you try to hold on to the joy because

it feels real good

and you want it to stay that's the

fastest way to make it disappear

when you

just allow it to be there by itself

and you come back to your object of

meditation

it'll stay for longer periods of time

after the joy fades away

then

you have

a feeling of

real strong comfort

you feel at ease

your mind is very tranquil very nice you

stay on your object of meditation

your body stops bothering you so much

with pains and that sort of thing

so you really are able to see

how

the hindrances

are

your teachers

they're telling you they're showing you

where your attachment is

every time you six are those hindrances

you're letting go of your attachment

little by little by little

now when you go from one genre to the

next it doesn't happen like most people

think once you're in one genre you just

go to the next john and the next genre

no

your mindfulness slips

for whatever reason

and now you have another hindrance to

work with

but now you're starting to get some

confidence that you know what you're

doing with the hindrance so you don't

get caught for as long

and

you're able to let that go

and then you go deeper into your

practice

you go from one genre to the next

because the hindrance helped you to get

there it helped to improve your

mindfulness

it helped to show you

how mind's attention moves from one

thing to another

and this is

how you progress from one genre to the

next

so the hindrances are a very necessary

part of your practice

they're not the enemy to fight with

there's nothing to be

upset about when a hindrance comes

it's just a distraction that's all it is

what do you do with any distraction

you let it be

you relax you smile you come back to

your object to meditation stay with your

object of meditation for as long as you

can

this is right effort

it's a fancy way of saying right effort

but this is right effort

right effort is

noticing when you have an unwholesome

state arise

let go of that unwholesome state and

relax

bring up a wholesome state smile

come back to your object to meditation

stay with that wholesome state as long

as you can

that's the six r's right there

and a lot of people kind of

especially if you've been meditating for

before you think

the meditation is serious

and you got to be serious with the

meditation

and you see you go to retreats and you

see a lot of people doing this

they have these big

lines in their face

i used to go along and tap people on

lighten up

and actually some people got angry at me

for doing that so i quit

see the thing with

with

the meditation

when your

your

uh

collectedness of mind

and your mindfulness are out of balance

you can hear a sound

and it'll make you jump

okay that just means you're out of

balance a little bit

when people become attached to not

hearing sounds

guess who has an attachment

it's not a disturbance it's just a sound

it's only a disturbance when i make it a

disturbance

when we were up on the ridge there was

somebody he had

he had almost no hearing in one ear

but he come into the meditation hall

and we had a clock that ticked

he was continually taking that down and

covering it with pillows and that sort

of thing

and

he took out the batteries one time

and as soon as i walk in i see that the

clock's not there

bring it back out put it where it's

supposed to be

and he said

it really disturbs me

that sound is really disturbs me

so i'm not going to sit in the

meditation hall anymore i'm going to go

outside and sit in the forest like

there's no sounds in the forest

but in his mind that was different

one of the reasons we don't use bells

for timer or timers or anything like

this is because

you want to work with your internal

clock

and one of the things i forgot to tell

you before you go to bed

every night there's

two determinations i want you to make

one

that when you wake up in this in the

morning you're going to be smiling and

happy

okay

two you make a determination on the time

that you're going to wake up

don't always make it the same time

4 59

5

when you're able to hit that

pretty regularly

then

you've got to start on

working with determinations

they become important later on

so the hindrances

are a very necessary part of your

spiritual progress

when other meditation teachers tell you

that the hindrances you have to fight

them and you have to

to

suppress them and push them away and

push your tongue against the roof of

your mouth and grit your teeth and crush

mind with mind

to stop a hindrance from arising

they're talking about

practicing one pointed concentration

any little disturbance

that takes your mind away from that one

point

turns into a big

problem and

when i was in burma

i was doing meditation retreats

i did a two retreat there

and they had these people that were

coming in from the railroad and that

sort of thing they'd come in for one or

two days and do a retreat because their

boss told them they had to

but they did anything they could

to distract themselves or entertain

themselves

there's people that

they could belch like you i i mean i i

just sat back and i couldn't believe it

now if you're practicing one pointed

concentration any sound at all is like a

thorn in your sight it really hurts

but these guys would start walking and

they could belch with every step

and some of them they passed gas

and they they got so they were quite

quite proficient at being able to do

that

anything to distract them

and we're sitting there and i've been

there for two years you know i'm i'm

serious about this practice

and these clowns come in and they start

making all of this noise and

fumbling around and talking with each

other and doing all these things they're

not supposed to be doing

but when your mind gets to a certain

point of balance it doesn't matter

whether they're there or not

it was entertaining i would i'd

get up and start doing the walking

meditation and somebody would come along

and start belching with every step

i mean it helped me to keep my mind

light

so

sound is not your enemy

sound is only sound

you'll find out about sound as these

fans get a little bit older

and they start squeaking

anyway

as you get more and more balance in your

mind your your

mindfulness starts to get sharper

and you start seeing that your mind is

vibrating

instead of swinging from one thing to

another

and you start feeling quite comfortable

with that

but eventually

your mindfulness will become weak

and

now you have another hindrance to work

with but you you're not upset by the

hindrances anymore

it just stuff

so you have your equinement fairly

strong even though you have a hindrance

arise

so you work with it

knowing exactly what you do with it

because it's been teaching you this the

whole time

you'll start noticing that

what happens first when your mind is on

your object of meditation very lightly

is there's a feeling that arises

the feeling is either pleasant feeling

or painful feeling

or neutral feeling

but right after that neutral feeling

there's this tension or tightness that

happens in your mind

and if you don't recognize that then

your mind starts thinking about stuff

the story why when this feeling arise i

always act that way

and you get caught up in the story

the concepts the opinions the ideas the

desires

then what happens right after that is

your old habitual emotional tendency

arises

okay when this kind of feeling comes up

and it's attached to these kind of

thoughts i always act that way

now this is what happens with people

that have depression

the painful feeling arises i don't like

the painful feeling i've got a story

about the painful feeling

attached to it and then i have this

emotional

desire to make that feeling different

and make it go away

and

so what i do is i get depressed

and i try to control my feelings

with thoughts

and it doesn't work

it only makes a feeling bigger and more

more intense

so

you stay depressed for longer periods of

time

why because you're indulging in it

you're making that feeling

more painful

by

getting involved with trying to control

it

this meditation is not about control

it's about letting go of control

it's about

observing how mind's attention moves and

works

now when you start recognizing the

feeling and the craving and the clinging

and the habitual tendency

and the birth of action and

the

come on

you can do it

you see i have been teaching them

but that's how suffering arises

that's exactly

how it arises

and

when your mindfulness is sharp as soon

as a feeling

starts to arise you can 6r right then

and that feeling will fade away

and none of the other stuff happens

this is how you purify your mind

okay

this the six r's is how you practice the

cessation of suffering

and this is

this is the whole point

of

the meditation

the cessation of suffering is

nibana

there's two different kinds of nibana

one kind of nibana is a mundane kind

where you six or something let it go it

doesn't continue on

then after doing that a few hundred

thousand or a million or two million

times eventually you get to

the super mundane ibana that's the one

everybody talks about

means no

bana means fire

no more fire

one of the suit is it's called the fire

sermon the buddha talks about

everything is burning

burning with what

craving

so you're letting go of craving

completely every time you let go and

relax

so the rest of the process doesn't

happen

this is how you're teaching yourself the

links of dependent origination i just

described them to you

this is how it works

so

as you

keep practicing the six r's you're

trying to make it

into

a habitual tendency that when any kind

of disturbance or starts to arise your

mind automatically just lets it go and

relax and smiles and comes back

see it says flow it's not individual

steps

um

okay

and the states in the fourth jhana the

equinimity the need with neither painful

nor pleasant feeling

the mental unconcerned due to

tranquility

the purity of mindfulness

and the unification of mine

you still have the five aggregates

contact feeling perception for

formations in mind

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equanimity and attention

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred known to him they

arose known they were present known they

disappeared

he understood this and with the

cultivation of that attainment he

confirmed there's still more to do

you know that there's still more to do

because you you see it in yourself you

you know

now

people have this strange idea about

jhana that

once you get into jhana

every time you sit you're going to be in

that drama

well

i'm here to tell you that that's not

quite the way it works

for a long time when i would sit

for a half an hour 45 minutes my mind

would run all over the place it was

doing and i was going deep into practice

but

when you're you get in the habit of six

houring you just stick start and relax

and what your mind is doing is helping

you

for your mindfulness to go deeper

because every time you use the six hours

your mindfulness gets stronger

you start noticing more subtle little

things and you don't get attached for as

long and that sort of thing

unless you indulge in it of course of

course

you're fun to pick on

what can i say

so

not every sitting is going to be the

same

as a matter of fact every sitting is

going to be different

so it's uh

real important

to realize that

you don't know what's going to happen

next

so don't project what you think should

happen next

use your equanimity to say okay there it

is let's work with this one now

okay so there's you don't get into your

emotional attachment to things

and there's still going to be times when

you will get it attached to something

you still will have an emotional thing

come up but you won't get caught for it

as long because your equinimity will

start to take over

like the lady i was talking about last

night

she started at two weeks holding a

grudge

and before long it was a few minutes

so

it does take practice and it has to be

conscious practice

it's not just well it'll happen on its

own

you have to start noticing more how your

mind grabs on to the way

you think things should be

and how you cause yourself suffering

when things are not like that

being a monk

people were constantly wanting to give

me things

they even tried to give me socks in

indonesia for crying out loud

but they want me to have the choice as

food they want me to have the best of

everything

and they'll quite often ask me what do

you want to eat

food

well what kind of food

good food that'd be nice

but there's no real preferences

because food equals energy

and i have to have so much energy in the

day to go and do the things i need to do

that's all

so there's equanimity even in that kind

of a thing

having a desire arise

i want some ice cream i want something

sweet to eat

you can six r that instead of indulging

in it

and that desire just fades away by

itself

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred known to him those

states arose known they were present

known they disappeared

you notice every one of these genres

you're seeing impermanence because of

all these different things that come up

and every jhana has things coming up

while you're in it

so you're seeing how things are changing

all the time

again with the abandoning of pleasure

and pain with the previous disappearance

of joy and grief

oops i already did that

uh again

with the complete surmounting of

gross perceptions of form

now you're sitting and you don't feel

your body

unless there's contact

okay

it can be contact with an ant walking

that in asia you have ants

those little buggers are really tough

we used to take a chalk that had ant

poison and put it around us

and they wouldn't cross the line

that was great so they went over to the

wall up on the ceiling came down and

dive bombed

and they'd come and they'd

i didn't have a shirt on then and they

they'd land on your shoulder and you

said

what are you doing here how'd you get

here

so they're still feeling

while you're in the jhana even though

you don't have gross feelings in their

body like you're feeling your hands

right now

but it's subtle feelings that you'll

still be able to see you'll still be

able to feel

and that feeling happens at all of the

scent stores

but it's subtle feelings there has to be

contact in order for that feeling to

arise

with a previous disappearance of gross

perceptions of sensory impact

that's basically saying the same thing

aware that space is infinite sorry putta

entered upon and abided in the base of

infinite space

once you get to a certain place in your

meditation and i change your meditation

to another way of doing it

you'll be sitting radiating loving

kindness and you'll start to feel an

expansion

and the feeling of loving-kindness

changes

into a feeling of compassion i won't

tell you what that is you have to tell

me

sometimes i have to give hints

but that's okay

and

you feel like everything your your mind

is just going out and out and out and

out and there's no center point

there's no place is coming from there's

just this expansion

all directions at the same time

that is called infinite space

because there's no boundaries there's no

no stopping it just keeps going out and

out and out

but your object to meditation is

the feeling of compassion now

so it's a

real interesting state to be in and this

is called

an a rupa jhana it means immaterial

genre

jhana means a level of understanding

and the immaterial means it doesn't have

anything to do with the body now it's

just working with feeling and

and other other mental states

okay

now you naturally progress from

radiating loving kindness when you're in

your fourth journal you're doing it from

your head

and now you're radiating

compassion from from your head

everything happens from your head from

now on

the states in the base of infinite space

the perception of the base of infinite

space and unification of mind

the contact feeling perception

formations in mind you still have all of

the five aggregates

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equanimity and attention

these were

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred

known to him those states arose known

they were present known they disappeared

so you still have a lot happening even

though you're just in a mental realm

if i come up and touch you you would

still feel that

now

a lot of people a lot of teachers that

are teaching mindfulness of breathing

they will tell you

that your breath

absolutely disappears when you're in the

fourth channel

that only occurs when you're practicing

a different kind of meditation that

doesn't have the six r's in it

doesn't ever happen

when you're practicing the six hours

okay

now the

the thing with

some of these different things that he

noticed like as decision energy

mindfulness

and attention

you start

becoming more aware when you're putting

too much attention into trying to stay

on your object a meditation

and when you do that you get restless

and once you get restless

your natural inclination is to put more

energy in to overcome the restlessness

and you get even more restless

and what you have to do

is put less energy into staying on your

object to meditation you have to adjust

little bits

don't adjust all at once

or else

you'll start to get into sloth and

torpor

so you have to adjust a little bit you

have to adjust your energy every now and

then

so the equinimity starts to get stronger

in every one of the

the different genres that you get into

even in the first genre you have some

equanimity it's not real strong

but it's there you have balance of mind

when you're staying on your object to

meditation that's the way it works

your attention

gets sharper

your observation

becomes

very keen

and you remember i was telling you start

seeing your mind wobble and it wobbles

like this and before long you're carried

away

now you're going to start seeing that

wobble more easily and you six are that

knowing that there's something that's

causing that

and what is that

what causes your mind to wobble

some thoughts have come up

some feelings some memories but they're

real deep

you might not even know whatever kind of

thing caused it

but when you 6r you let it go

that's where your attachment was

now you don't have any attachment now

you stay on your object of meditation

for a longer period of time

okay

again by completely surmounting the base

of infinite space

aware that consciousness is infinite

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the base of infinite consciousness

what happens now is

at each one of the sense stores

for some people that are really attuned

to

listening to things it'll happen at the

ear but most people are

are more visual

so it happens that with the eyes

it's like watching a movie that's going

too slow

and you're seeing

the scene and a blank

scene in a blank the scene in a blank

now you're seeing

individual

consciousnesses arise and pass away

that was roughly a million

consciousnesses arise and pass away

okay so you're starting to see real

subtle stuff

now this particular

state when you get into it

this is a major teaching state

because you're seeing uh eye

consciousness it's there it flicks

it's flicking like that all the time

and you're seeing that

everything is impermanent

you're seeing different things

in each

each

flicker

it's a rising and passing away rising

and passing away

very fast but it's still you're able to

see it

and it starts to get tiresome because it

happens that all of the scent stores

and you're seeing that there is no

controller

you didn't ask it to come up you didn't

ask this to happen

but it's happening on its own because

the conditions are right for your mind

to be able to see this at that time

so you're seeing

anitra dukkha dukanata

up close in your face

you're seeing it personally so any doubt

about that

fades away

uh when you come and tell me this

oh another thing that happens with this

is

you

the feeling of

compassion changes to a feeling of joy

but this is the last kind of joy i was

talking about

and you come and you tell me that and i

say okay good

what's happening in between each one of

those pictures

put your attention on on that blank spot

see what happens

some people think that they have to try

to slow down the pictures

to see that

and you don't

you're just an impartial observer

so you you see all of these uh

consciousnesses arise and pass away

arise and pass away and now you you're

focusing on what happens in the middle

of it

and that little blank blip

that happens

as you do that more and more

then

again monks by completely surmounting

the base of infinite consciousness aware

that there is nothing

sorry putin entered upon and abided in

the base of nothingness

what happens is

you stop

seeing things outside your mind

like

your five five cents doors are outside

your mind i mean this is your eye you're

looking out you hear things and that

sort of thing

but now you start looking at what's

happening in mind

only

and i've i've had students that come and

tell me you know i've really got this

weird meditation that's happening right

there there's nothing there

i said that's good

continue everything's moving along fine

the feeling of joy changes to a feeling

of equanimity

now this is called the brahma viharas

the buddha taught the brahma viharas

more than he taught mindfulness of

breathing

he only mentions mindfulness of

breathing eight times in all of the

suttas

many hundreds of times he's teaching

loving kindness and he's teaching the

brahma viharas that way

now there's a real advantage for

teaching the lovingkindness and the

brahmaviharas this way because

your progress in the meditation is

faster with this meditation than it is

with any other meditation you can do

and your understanding gets

very deep very quickly

because

it's so much easier once you start

relaxing into it and have the loving

kindness flowing and that sort of thing

it's much easier to see when your mind

starts starts to harden up and

get caught in some kind of

conceptual nonsense

so there's a real reason why the buddha

taught loving kindness meditation

now you have insights

the whole time

while you're practicing this practice

while you're in the jaunt

you have the four foundations

that you're being able to see while

you're in the jhana

the four foundations of mindfulness are

very important

just like your hindrances are very

important

just like the five aggregates are very

important

just like the six r's are very important

i mean you can go on and on about it

but it's all different ways of saying

the same thing

smile be happy

keep your mind uplifted as much as you

can

and when you do that

you start progressing in your meditation

that's the way it works

you get serious and start thinking i

gotta try harder that's the best way to

block your practice

that's ever since you've been here i've

been telling you

make it a game

don't get serious with this stuff

it's only nonsense stuff that's coming

up anyway

so play with it have fun with it

when you were in college

or when you were in school any any grade

really

when you ran across

a subject that you really liked

you had fun with it

and because you had fun with it you

really learned it easy

well

that's what we have to do here

we have to have fun

with

how we're doing the practice

you see yourself getting serious who has

an attachment at that time

who is causing themselves suffering at

that time

and you have old

habitual tendencies you have old ways of

doing things that creep in at the

weirdest

times and you start

believing all of that stuff

and you start getting caught up in it

but

before long you six are it and you start

going ah look at what i'm doing to

myself in insight

look at how i'm causing myself pain

look at

how i don't have to do that to myself

what relief is that

you don't need to have pain you don't

have to indulge in pain

it's there whether you like it or not

you're going to have a roller coaster

ride that's the way life is there's

going to be

times when it's real happy and times

when it's real sad

what this meditation does is it takes

the high highs and the low lows away

so instead of having this

roller coaster ride up and down

in life

it starts to be waves

okay and the more you have equinimity

the smaller the waves become

and the less you're still going to get

caught by stuff

but you won't be caught as long

you'll start noticing i don't need to do

that to myself

let's let that one go

you do that by having fun

making life

a fun game

and continuing on with that

you start getting serious first thing

you need to do is laugh at how dumb your

mind is

as soon as you laugh

your perspective

changes and then you start going well

it's only this feeling

do i want to get involved with anger

no

let's let that one go no need

you feel immediate relief

that's one of the things that the buddha

is continually talking about with the

dhamma

this is immediately effective

when you're aware of what's happening

i mean it's immediate

you laugh at yourself for

getting upset about this or that

you're not upset anymore it's not you

it's only this feeling it's only these

thoughts

i don't need to don't need that one

the whole point of the buddha's teaching

is so that you can have an uplifted

happy mind all the time

that's what the buddha wanted for you

he showed you very directly how to do

that

and that's what the loving kindness is

all about

and the brahma bihar is this all about

so the feeling of joy now changes into a

very strong feeling of equinimities

and it's real easy to tell when people

are in the strong equanimity

there's nothing they said how's it going

fine

everything is fine

have any problems no everything is fine

this is real this is i mean it's

pretty amazing to watch

how people's face change

when they're practicing

the meta

your face starts to get radiant your

face starts to become very beautiful

and and

there's a glow about you

where there's not so much

heaviness

and other people

will feel attracted to you

because you have this

glow

one interesting thing about that lady

that

worked was so much with her husband

was she was like a magnet to anybody

that had any kind of

emotional problem

i mean she would just stand there being

by herself and there'd be some kind of

ceremony happening

somebody'd walk up to her and start

telling them their life story

they felt like they could trust her one

and they knew what kind of problems she

had

and

they knew that she had some kind of

answer for

it's great stuff

okay and the state's in the base of

nothingness the perception of the base

of nothingness the unification of mind

the contact feeling perception

formations and mind now you still have

the five aggregates there

while you're in the genre

the enthusiasm decision energy

mindfulness equinimity and attention

these states were defined by him one by

one as they occurred

known to him they rose and only

disappeared

he understood this and with the

cultivation of that attainment he

confirmed there's still more to go

again monks by completely surmounting

the base of nothingness

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the base of neither perception nor

non-perception

and he emerged mindful from that

attainment

having done so he contemplated the

states that had passed ceased and

changed

now when you get to this state what

happens is

when you get into where there's just

vibration of mind the it goes from

coarse vibration to very fine bright

vibration

to a place where you can't tell whether

it's really vibrating or not

this is neither perception or

non-perception

until you get used to it and then you

can start seeing other things in it

but

your mind is very subtle at this time

before you started feeling your mind

expanding with infinite space

now you feel like it's getting smaller

and smaller and smaller and smaller

until you can't really tell whether it's

there or not

and this is always kind of a comical

time for me because people come and say

can i sit in meditation and be asleep

and aware at the same time

yes of course you can

but what you have to do is when you get

out of that state

reflect on what happened while you were

in that state

and there are things that still happen

but it's so subtle you can't see them

while they're happening you have to come

out and reflect on it

so then you 6r

whatever it is that came up while you

were in that state

this is where you can start to see

really

subtle things before feeling arises

there's contact there's six sense doors

there's

mentality materiality there's

consciousness there's formations

you'll be able to see

all of these things when they arise

and you six-hour them and then the other

things won't arise afterwards

so

there are times that you'll be able to

see consciousness arise

there are times that you'll be able to

see formations arise

but they're really subtle

and there's it's like there are long

ways off when you get into this state

you'll be able to sit for an hour hour

and a half without having any

disturbance of mind at all

and then if a disturbance just starts to

come up

your

your practice is six hours enough

that it's automatic and

it'll fade away

so you'll be able to sit for long

periods of time

what relief is that

by the way that's as far as i can take

you into meditation i can't take you any

further

the rest is up to you

so indeed these states having been

these states not having been come into

being having been they vanished

regarding those states he abided

unattracted and repelled independent

detached free dissociated with a mind

rid of barriers

he understood there is an escape beyond

this and with the cultivation of that

attainment

he confirmed that there's still more to

do

again by completely surmounting the base

of neither perception or non-perception

sorry puta entered upon and abided in

the cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness

and his taints were destroyed by his

seeing with wisdom

what happens is you'll get to a place

where all of a sudden

everything stops

you can't plan for it to happen it

happens when the conditions are right

for it to happen

just like somebody flipped off the

lights

you won't be able to see anything

there's nothing you don't have any

feeling you don't have any perception

you don't have any consciousness at that

time

when you come out of that

you won't be in it for very long five

minutes ten minutes like that

when you come out of that state

it's like

you've erased the board so that there's

no marks on the board

okay on a chalkboard

and then you will see

how

each link of dependent origination

arises

and how each link of dependent

origination ceases

and this understanding is so strong

it's the big oh wow

you finally got it figured out

nibana occurs

what is nibana

it's an unconditioned state can't talk

about it

because all your words are conditioned

so there's no sense in talking about it

it's just a state that doesn't have any

conditions in it

and that's what

this the sutu is talking about and his

taints are destroyed by his seeing with

wisdom

now sorry puta became an arahat

he'd been practicing meditation for a

couple of weeks

he'd gone through all of these

different

stages of meditation and he was seeing

how dependent origination worked really

really well

but he had a slight attachment to

wanting to learn more

and

one day

the buddha was giving a talk to some

people it came and sorry put a picked up

a fan and started fanning him

and as he was listening to the buddha

talk sorry putter realized that the

buddha wasn't even attached to the

dhamma

and with that realization

he became an arahat

because he had that one slight

little tiny attachment

and he let it go

so

this is

how sorry puta

experienced nibana

he emerged mindful from that attainment

having done so he recalled the states

that had ceased

past and changed

so indeed these states not having been

come into being having been they

vanished

regarding those states he abided

unattracted and repelled independent

detached free dissociated

with a

mind rid of barriers

he

understood there is no escape beyond

this

and with the cultivation of that con

that attainment

he confirmed that there is not

monks rightly speaking word to be said

of anyone he has attained mastery and

perfection in noble virtue

mastery and perfection and noble

collectedness

attain mastery and perfection in noble

wisdom

attain mastery and perfection in noble

deliverance

it is of sariputa indeed that rightly

speaking

this should be said

monks rightly speaking word to be said

of anyone he is the son of the blessed

one

born of his breast born of his mouth

born of the dhamma created by the dhamma

and air in the dhamma not an air in

material things

it is of sorry putta indeed that rightly

speaking this should be said

amongst the massless wheel of dhamma is

set rolling by the tatagata and kept

rolling rightly by sariputta

that is what the blessed one said the

monks were satisfied and delighted in

the blessed one's words

the buddha had two chief disciples the

first chief disciple was sorry putta

and the second chief disciple was

moghalana

mogallana was second to the buddha in

psychic ability

they always went around together

teaching

sorry putu would teach people

how to be get to the first stage of

awakening

and then he'd give them over to

mogallana and then they would become

arabs

the hardest part is teaching

somebody to become

a sodapada

because you have to teach them

continually repeat over and over again

how the links of dependent origination

work

and

to be a teacher

there's so many people that oh i want to

teach this stuff i know i could

teaching is not simple and it's not easy

to be a teacher

you have to sincerely believe

that what you're teaching is right and

you can never get bored by saying the

same thing over and over again

how many times have you heard me repeat

myself

but there's an enthusiasm that comes

with teaching

that you know you're doing the right

thing

and the thing with teaching is that you

are always continually learning and

refining

just sometimes just

little tiny things like not too long ago

and it came into my mind that

every thought you have

is a concept

i told her that

she tried to tell me i was wrong

and then i was laughing for days i

started to examine it

and it's completely true

you know what's a concept well this is a

chair

but where's a chair

a chair is made up of a lot of different

little parts

is it the feet is it the back is it is

the seat

where is the chair

where's an automobile

it's a bunch of little parts put

together to make up this concept

all of our thoughts are the same way

and that's why

nibana is such an amazing state because

there's no more concepts

how do you explain that because you can

only talk in concepts

anyway got any questions

that just laid out the whole program for

you that's what we do here

this is what we teach

so you can only take so far and it's

just up to us

well

i can show you what neither perception

or non-perception is

you got to show yourself what the

cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness is

you can take the horse to water and tell

him it's water but you can't make him

drink he has to decide to do it

when the conditions are right

then it happens

sounds simple enough

it actually is simple

didn't say it was easy

but it is simple

it depends on your attachments it

depends on how much

stuff you're holding onto that you think

is really you

and it can get scary this meditation can

be really scary when you start realizing

there is no me

whoa your mind will just

and this has happened i've had people

call me up on the telephone they've been

really good with their meditation

and all of a sudden they realize that

there is no self

and their mind says

well i might as well die then

and they'll call me up all shook up

my mind just it made up its mind that is

i'm gonna die

i don't wanna die

i start laughing

what's funny about that

well it's just your mind

finding out that

it's lived in the fog

for how many lifetimes

believing that all of the thoughts and

all of the feelings and all of the

experiences are me

and now you're saying there is no me

and i realize there is no me and my mind

says well if you don't need me then i

might as well die

so there's some comical things that

happen and sometimes it takes a while to

talk a person out of being afraid of

their mind

making them die

can't do it

when conditions are right you'll die

but you're you're dying all the time

you're not the same person now that you

were this morning

where'd that person go

they died

the only time you're in the present

moment is when you're alive

and that's continually moving

so there's this birth death birth death

birth death birth death that's happening

all the time

why be afraid of dying you've been dying

for a whole life

right

are you the same person you were when

you were five

what happened to that five-year-old

died gone

no more

it's okay

if you stay through the spring we can

still make mud pies

catch them tomorrow yeah

show him the bubbles

we can catch the tadpoles okay

okay

go catch it

from

so what happened to the deadpool

what happens to the frog snake ate him

the snake

yeah and

then what happened to the snake hawk

picked him up and went off with him

one of the famous books that kesri

damananda wrote was

what would i just had the name of it i

can't remember

the only

real thing

that's going to happen is you're going

to die

something like that

and i i lived with him for two years at

the monastery we

he was great fun to be around

he was

78 when i when i

came to the monastery and he asked me to

come because he said he's getting old

and he wanted me to give dom and talks

he gave talks

every

friday night

and there was three to five hundred

people that came every friday night

and he wanted me to give a diamond talk

every other week

so i started doing that

but he he and i

every day

about 8 30 it was right after

having coffee and that sort of thing i'd

go visit him

and we would giggle like two little kids

for about a half an hour or 45 minutes

and then

go out and start your day i mean

that's a way to start the day and a lot

of times we're laughing and had no idea

what we're laughing about it didn't

matter

we had fun

and uh

in in asia there's a big deal with

people

predicting they look at your palm oh

you're going to be dead when you're 78

they told him

so on his 78th birthday he said i'm

supposed to be dead

and he lived to be 87.

but he was great fun to be around

he's real good

no he's sri lankan

he thought he was tall too he was five

eight

but that was a real interesting time

living there

that's when i wrote

my on upon assati book

he's the one that started

uh

giving dhamma books away

printing them up and giving them away

he's the one that started that whole

thing

it hadn't been done for a real long time

and he just said i'm gonna start doing

that

and everybody else caught on now you get

free books all over the place

you