From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VPIiVSCvVP8

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

[Music]

so i'm going to do suit to number 55 the

many kinds of feeling

59 excuse me

um

you notice there's not an s behind it

it is feeling not feelings

so there is a mistake

in imagine hikaya when it's talking

about

the sati patana sutta because it says

feelings

and that has a tendency to make you go

off

and not really understand

that it has nothing to do with emotion

now i i give

the definition of feeling as

excuse me i'm still trying to catch up

pleasant feeling painful feeling neither

painful nor pleasant

now the thing that you really need to

understand

is that feeling is not only

talking about

physical feeling that's the way it's

described in a lot of people that are

teaching satipatana

but it's physical and it's mental

why because there's pleasant

unpleasant neutral feeling in emotion

as well as in physical

form

i know that there's some

people that are really really interested

just in the physical form of feeling

and they miss half of the boat

when they get to looking

at only physical feeling

but feeling

isn't strictly mental or physical

feeling is feeling

and that causes when the feeling arises

right after that craving arises i like

it or i don't like it

it's pleasant or it's painful

so

i want to go through this this suit

again

so that you can understand a little bit

more clearly

that this is involving all different

kinds of feeling

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at sawatee in

jettas grove and

then pendicas park

then the carpenter pancho conga

went to the venerable udayan

after paying homage to him he sat down

at one side and asked him

then rule sir how many kinds of feelings

have been stated by the blessed one

three kinds have been stated by the

blessed one

pleasant feeling painful feeling neither

painful nor pleasant feeling

these three kinds of feeling have been

stated by the blessed one

not three kinds of feeling have been

stated by the blessed one venerable

udayan

two kinds of feeling have been stated by

the blessed one

pleasant feeling and painful feeling

that's generally when i'm talking about

your meditation i'm just talking about

that i'm not talking about the neutral

feeling

until you get to having equanimity then

then

i start throwing in that kind of feeling

but i don't tell you

that it's a feeling

this neither painful nor pleasant

feeling has been stated by the blessed

one as

peaceful and sublime kind of pleasure

a second time and a third time the

venerable udayan stated his position

a second and third time the carpenter

upon chicago stated his

but the venerable odyn could not

convince the carpenter upon chicago nor

could the

carpenter pon chicago convinced

venerable ludayan

ponja conga was a

carpenter but he was like the handyman

to have around

every center has its own handyman that

takes care of things

so he was around a lot for the buddha's

talks

so he and he was very well educated

the venerable ananda heard their

conversation

then he went to the blessed one after

paying homage to him he sat down at one

side and reported to the blessed one the

entire conversation

between the venerable udayan and the

carpenter pancho conga

when he had finished the blessed one

told the venerable ananda

ananda it is actually a true

presentation

that the carpenter ponja congo would not

accept from

udayan and it was actually a true

presentation that udayan would not

accept

from the carpenter panjikonga

i've stated two kinds of feeling in one

presentation

i have stated three kinds of feeling in

another presentation

i have stated five kinds of feeling in

another

presentation five kinds of feeling

i'm gonna give it to you in pali then

english

sukkah dukkha

[Music]

that's pleasant or physical feeling

painful physical feeling

pleasant mental feeling

and painful mental feeling

and upeka is equanimity

so if if you go to this book and you

look

at the footnotes

the footnotes were taken from

a monk by the name of

buddhaghosa and he did not understand

about feelings and he starts talking

about

feeling in a much different way

and didn't understand what those five

kinds of feelings

are as a result he didn't expound

on these different kinds of feelings so

that there was clear

thought and clear understanding

and that has carried on through the

commentaries

and that's one of the reasons that

buddha goes work is somewhat suspect

with his reasoning he was for not very

good at

guessing and he didn't study the suttas

he was a pali scholar he was taking

notes from other people

and translating it into poly

so he can't be a hundred percent

the fault of the not understanding

but it has caused a lot of confusion

[Music]

over time

the subtler kinds of feeling the

mental feelings

are difficult

to recognize

because you get caught up in that

feeling and the dislike of that feeling

as

sadness fear anxiety

hatred all of these different kinds of

feeling

sneak up on you very much

now this is one of the reasons that i

want you to keep

practicing daily all the time smiling

because

that sharpens your mindfulness and you

can start to see

how your mind gets caught in these

emotional

feelings where you say something that

can hurt yourself or

someone else

and then you justify in your own mind

how you're right and they're wrong

[Music]

all of that is part of feeling

but it's not recognized

in as anything other than this is me

this is mine this is who i am

so it's real important for you to

begin keeping

your mindfulness going in your daily

activities

keep stay in a genre as long as you

possibly can

this is where your mind is pure

you don't have you can still

have painful mental feeling

but as soon as you notice that your mind

is heavy

and you're not smiling and you're

getting into

dissatisfaction and dislike

you'll notice that more quickly

and you can start using the 6rs

and let it go

everything is part of a type of

perception and when you perceive

that somebody has slighted you or you've

done something that's not so nice to

someone else

when you perceive that and then start

forgiving yourself forgiving that other

person

especially forgiving yourself for

getting

caught again in the old habit

of what you've been doing your whole

life

excuse me

so

you start developing new habits when you

let go of the perception of

uh trying to let off

dislike of what's happening to you oh i

gotta let this steam off

that in itself is funny

that you got caught and you don't even

see it yet

and then you start saying things to

other people that are hurtful

so it's really important

that you keep your smile going all the

time

keep the smile in your mind

don't criticize yourself when you forgot

just

laugh at that and start again

okay

over a few short months

people will start noticing that you

are changing

you don't get so

upset you don't get so caught

in the emotional

part of feeling

there is always as soon as feeling

arises i don't care whether it's

pleasant or painful

right after that there's the i like it

or i don't like it mine

feeling is the very

key to remember

to relax and smile

and bring that to whatever you're doing

while you're doing it

keep the smile going

okay i have stated six kinds of feeling

in another presentation

so the first five it's really talking

about

the five it's naming that

there is pleasant and unpleasant

physical there's pleasant and unpleasant

mental now it's getting

into the sense doors

the sixth sense doors

the eyes the ears the nose the tongue

body and mind

mind is the one you got to really watch

out for

because it always starts in mind

and after a few months

of catching yourself

and using the six hours of

smiling and being in a genre with your

daily activities

it will start to turn into a good habit

where you don't get caught by emotional

upsets they're still going to happen

there's still going to be times when

there's great sadness that comes

somebody in your family is hurt or

dies there's sadness there

but the thing is

that's a time for you to be particularly

alert with your mindfulness

now even though you can have sadness

from somebody dying

it doesn't mean that you're hopeless and

you can't do anything to help anybody

else around you

that's a mistake that is made

if you focus on loving kindness and

radiate that loving kindness to members

of the family that are hurt

or close friends that are really painful

because

of that that will help them overcome

their grief more quickly

that will help you

because you're not focusing on the grief

that you have

you're wishing well to other people that

you know

are suffering the same way you are

so the more you can give your love

to people that are suffering

even though it might not seem like it

does any good at

all it does

and you start

changing your world around you

and this

has a positive effect

and your life becomes easier

you're keeping your precepts without

breaking them

you're not getting into a emotional

upset because of some kind of political

nonsense that's going on

you bring people back to the present

moment

so that they don't get caught up in

their repeat thoughts of

dislike and dissatisfaction

so the six kinds of feeling

actually comes down to one

mind on the

on on the both the physical and the

mental

it comes down to your observation power

so that you can see when your mind

starts to

get caught and then go into

unhold some states

okay i have stated 18 kinds of feeling

in another presentation

what are the 18

do you know

well we're breaking down these

uh six cents doors

with pleasant

painful neither painful or pleasant

three with each of the six cents doors

that's 18.

i have stated 36 kinds of feeling in

another presentation what are the 36.

past and present

huh no oh really

18 times 2 is what

36.

i have stated 108 kinds of feeling

in another presentation i'm not going to

go to that because it takes a long time

to

describe it that is that

how the dhamma has been shown by me in

different presentations

when the dhamma has thus been shown by

me in different presentations

it may be expected of those who will not

concede

allow and accept what is well stated

and well spoken by others

they will take to quarreling brawling

and disputing

stabbing each other with verbal daggers

i always like that description verbal

daggers

i've been in a room where people started

arguing about things like this

well the buddha said this and the other

one said no the buddha didn't say that

he said this

and the buddha said both

they want to get into an argument they

get into their

emotional upset and attachment

and this causes all kinds of problems

so you don't want to argue about dhamma

about what is the right what is the

wrong

you just want to state your facts as you

know them

and then go to the suttas and see

whether you're right or not

i know in malaysia there's major groups

that they won't

this group won't have anything to do

with that group because

they're not teaching the same thing and

they're wrong

they're not practicing buddhism

they're practicing attachment

and they have tight minds they don't

recognize the importance

of being able to relax your mind

and they don't recognize the importance

of

letting go of perspectives that don't

agree with you

i've had conversations with many

different

types of buddhists

and we don't argue we don't try to

convince each other that

we're right and they're wrong we state

what we think

is correct and then

quietly listen to what they think is

correct

without fighting about it without

playing that game of

i know and you don't know

a lot of people don't see that as an

attachment

they don't see that as craving

and as a result they wind up hurting

themselves

and causing problems for other people

so the more we can let go

of that and actually

accept what somebody else says and then

go and check and see whether it's

correct or not

that is the buddha's way

okay now we're going to go into the five

chords of sensual pleasures

the sensual pleasures can be mental

or physical or both

ananda there are these five chords of

sensual pleasure

what are the five forms cognizable

by the eye that are wished for desired

agreeable and likable

connected with sensual desire and

inviting lust

sounds cognizable by the ear that are

wished for

desired agreeable and likable

connected with sensual desire fighting

lust

now these are they can be

connected with sensual desire and

inviting lust

or it can be connected with sensual

dividing

the central

desire and invite

hatred

think about that

because this is real feeling some sounds

you hear and that's so

unpleasant where does your mind go to

or if it's one of your favorite songs

where does your mind go to they still

have that i am

that attached to it

and it's that way with all of the

sensual

desires odor is cognizable by the nose

there's some smells that are really bad

you don't want to be around them

there's other smells that are really

pleasant

so this can go either way

flavor is cognizable by the tongue it's

the same with tastes

some tastes are really nice other tastes

are not

but both of them are caught in sensual

desire

they're caught in the i like it i want

it

or i don't like it i don't want it it's

still

caught by craving that's the danger of

sensual desires

and their uh

[Music]

tangibles cognizable by the body there's

pleasant feelings and there's painful

feelings

these are the five chords of sensual

pleasure

now that pleasure of joy that arises

dependent on these five

chords of sensual pleasure are called

sensual pleasure

should anyone say that's the utmost

pleasure and joy that beings experienced

i would not concede that to him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure loftier

and more sublime than that pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

here ananda quite secluded from sensual

pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states

a monk enters upon and abides in the

first

genre which is accompanied by thinking

and

examining thought a lot of people ask me

about thinking and examining thought and

what that actually is

the thinking and examining thought is

the verbal

recitation of your wish for

your

spiritual friend and towards yourself

it's the verbal recitation okay

with joy and happiness born of seclusion

this is that other kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than the

previous pleasure

should anyone say this is the utmost

pleasure

and joy that beings experienced i would

not concede that to him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure loftier

and more sublime than that pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

here ananda with the stilling of

thinking and examining

thought letting go of the verbalization

of the wish in your mind

a monk enters upon and abides in the

second genre

which has self-confidence

stillness of mind without thinking and

examining thought

with joy and happiness born of

collectedness

this is that other kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than the

previous now when you get to the second

jhana

if you stay with verbally

making a wish you'll start to get a

headache

because now you have to let go

of all that verbalization

this is a very desirable state to be

in during your daily activities but

there are

times that you have to talk to other

people

you talk to them kindly you wish them

well

and you're staying in that first journal

with the joy

and the comfort of your mind

without getting upset without

getting caught

you start to have more and more

confidence

in knowing what you're doing while

you're doing it

it's not just automatically happening

you're starting to see it more and more

clearly

and you start to have more and more

confidence

that when you're radiating loving

kindness to someone else

you're feeling that radiation

and that happiness towards someone else

you start to see a change not only in

yourself but you start to see a change

in

other people around you

and now not too long ago i was in a

restaurant

where there were two people that were

talking rather

loudly and not happy with each other

so much so that the manager came over

and told him to quiet down

but the looks on their face was

complete anger

so i saw that i was with someone else

and i said let's radiate some loving

kindness to this couple

it was amazing to watch

it wasn't two minutes before

they quieted down and they agreed to

disagree on whatever it was that they

were

arguing about and they

actually started smiling and they

started laughing so i told the person

that was with me we've done our work

here now we can go

go do something else someplace else

but just to watch the transformation of

your world around you

when you have the mindfulness to

remember

to radiate loving kindness

and send that compassion

to other people

not taking sides with other people not

getting involved in what actually the

whole problem was it doesn't matter

what matters is what you do with what

you have

right now in the present and how you

radiate loving kindness in the present

this helps you to stay in the second job

it helps you to have more

uplifting joy

and you feel lighter in your mind you

feel lighter in your body

that's the kind of vedana that the

jhanas bring

you

so it's real important for you to

understand

how you

are teaching yourself

and helping other people around you

and you're teaching them but they don't

know that you're teaching them

too many people have an idea that a

teacher means that you only talk to

people for a period of time and then go

off and do whatever you want to do

no you're your own teacher

you're teaching yourself how to

recognize when

your mind is distracted

and what to do with that distraction as

it's occurring

and that happens by your smiling

i know i harp on that a lot

but i do that for good reason

i'm trying to help you with your

mindfulness

so that you'll be able to recognize when

that smile goes away and you start

getting caught

in some other kind of

disturbance

but when you have a lesson like i just

talked about

of being able to radiate loving kindness

i didn't know these people from adam i

didn't know anything about them

i don't care loving kindness

is sending love

without looking for any kind of thing

in reserve i'll love you if you love me

no i'll love you because you're there

and i'll help your mind to become more

accepting

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

what i'm doing

i'm not going to spend time trying to

teach somebody else how to do it

they know they feel it

so try to keep it going all day

all the time no matter who you're with

so the lighter your mind can be

during the day the sharper your

mindfulness will become

and the less you'll get caught

in that identification

that this is me this is mine this is who

i

am you start developing your equanimity

that balance of mind and then eventually

you'll get into

a state of disenchantment

where you can have this happy feeling

and radiate this happy feeling

with out any attachments

to it

okay

should anyone say that this is

oops i lost my place this is the utmost

pleasure and joy that beings

experience i would not concede that to

him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than that

pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

here ananda was a fading away of joy

a monk abides in equanimity

mindful and fully aware and still

feeling happiness with the body he

enters upon and abides in the third

journal on account of which

noble ones announce he has a pleasant

abiding who has equanimity

and is mindful

so the keeping

in the third genre with your daily

activities

is a little bit more advanced than a lot

of people when they're first starting

out

but you can train yourself to have that

equanimity

that disenchantment with likes and

dislikes

the teaching yourself to

be aware that your mind can be smiling

all the time

now this doesn't say that there is

tranquility with this

but there is there is tranquility

and equanimity

and full awareness you're still aware of

everything around you you know what's

happening around you you still hear

sounds but they don't pull your

attention away

you can stay with what you're doing

while you do it

now when i was going to the hospital

every day i spent a lot of time

with both joy of the second genre

and equanimity of the third jhana

a lot of people would have very strong

physical pain

and i found by doing the

third genre the equanimity the

acceptance without

resistance of the pain

the pain became less and less for them

and they began accepting the fact that

yeah it's going to be there

so why fight it

that's one of the things that everybody

does when pain

physical pain especially but also mental

pain

when it arises i don't like it i don't

want it there i want it to stop but it

doesn't

so you have to learn how to have that

balance of mind

that accepts the fact that yes there is

painful feeling there

and when you stop fighting it when you

stop trying to

make the

feeling be the way you want it to be

then that resistance in your mind that

craving that i don't like it

begins to lessen

so there's a lot of real amazing things

that you can

do with your daily activities and being

in a jhana

it's just not

getting caught in

the likes and dislikes of a feeling

when it arises

especially mental feeling because that's

a sneaky one

that's the one we've been going around

all our lives

thinking that this dislike that

that like it's all me

and it makes everything happy

or makes things worse more

sad

but when you can smile

even when you don't feel like smiling

there's benefit to that

they're doing a lot of studies on

smiling right now

a huge amount of studies

and when you are smiling

with your eyes with your mouth with your

mind

with your heart

it changes the whole situation

it makes life a lot easier

why is that because now you're letting

go of the craving now you're saying with

a clear

mind

the six r's are amazingly

helpful and

the problem that you have is trying to

remember when you start getting caught

and that's why i'm saying if you're

in one of the genres if you practice

being in a jhana in your daily

activities you're not gonna get

caught

now what happens when you get to the

third jhana

you don't notice your body so much

and if you're just starting out with

your meditation

you're still a rookie you haven't become

an advanced meditator yet

that feeling in your heart is going to

disappear

and it's going to come up into your head

now when i send loving kindness i'm

sending it from

here

i'm not sending it from my quote heart

and my mind is much more pure at that

time

so getting into the third genre

this is that other kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than the

previous pleasure

should anyone say that this is the

utmost

joy pleasure and joy that beings

experienced

i would not concede that to him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than that

pleasure

and what is that other pleasure

here ananda with the abandoning

of pleasure and pain

with the previous disappearance of joy

and grief abandoning the pleasure and

pain means the feeling

in the body

the letting go of joy and grief you've

already let go

of the joy and

joy and grief are two signs of the same

coin

and that's where a lot of attachment is

a monk enters upon and abides in the

fourth journal which has

neither pain nor pleasure and purity of

mindfulness due to equanimity

this is where your equanimity gets very

much stronger

and you can start using other words

not necessarily equanimity but

acceptance

having a mind that's in very strong

balance somebody can come up to you and

slap you in the face

and it doesn't make you react

except maybe to say don't do that again

which has happened to me when i went to

an airport

somebody thought i was a hari krishna

and he came up and slapped me

i said why'd you do that for

he said something about hare krishna and

how they're always trying to get money

out of you

and i said well i'm not a hari krishna

i'm a buddhist

and i started talking to him a little

bit about

uh the non-violence of buddhism and that

sort of thing

and he wound up buying me a meal

so i got slapped for my meal

okay should anyone say

that this is the utmost pleasure and joy

that beings

experience i would not concede that to

him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure loftier and more sublime

than that pleasure

and what is that pleasure here ananda

with the complete surmounting

of gross perceptions of form

that means like when you're in the first

john a second genre you still feel

your hands you still feel things in your

body

when you get to this stage

you don't feel your body at all unless

you put your attention on your body

you stay with the loving kindness and

radiating loving kindness to all beings

and that's why i say a complete

surmounting

of gross perceptions of form

there's still subtle perceptions of form

that can occur

but they're mental

one time this brings me up to a story

one of my teachers he's a very

world renowned teacher

somebody asked him about the eightfold

path

and he said why do you always start

with right view

i call it harmonious perspective

and he the teacher didn't have the

answer right off the top of his head

[Music]

so he said

because that's the way the buddha

started the eightfold path

which is completely unsatisfactory

answer

you started the the off the eightfold

path

with right view because the view

that you really need to

experience is the anata

view the not self view

seeing things without any

craving in your mind at all at that time

that's right view

now there's can still be some sensations

if there is contact with your body

when you're in this realm

this realm that we're we're going into

is called

infinite space with compassion

so if you don't put your attention on

your body you're not gonna feel your

body

but if there is contact say some some

breeze comes up and you feel it

it's not gonna make your attention

waver or if there's a sound that comes

up

it's not going to take your attention to

it and

make you wonder what to do with it

you're gonna notice it but that's all

so now you're getting into the mental

realm

where everything is much more subtle

it's not gross and big like physical

feeling right now

now one of the things that

is really amazing and i had to

work hard to convince my teacher

lucille ananda that i was right

and that is you can be in a mental realm

and still be moving your body around you

can still be walking you can still be

doing things

and be in that realm

radiating compassion

but the disappearance of gross

perceptions of sensory impact

aware that space is infinite

now i put with compassion

because i teach a brahma viara's

and that this is what it says in another

suta in the samut nikaya

about infinite space

is where you experience compassion

video what are you talking about oh

videos not on

how'd that happen

sorry i didn't know that i did turned

off

so

you can be walking down the street

in infinite space just radiating the

ceiling out

and out and out and out

and radiating compassion at the same

time

and actually it's kind of fun when you

do it

but because you don't have

feeling in the body the only place you

have a feeling

is the bottom of your feet where there's

contact with walking but you don't

notice anything in between that and your

head

it's really kind of odd

it is kind of fun too

this is that other kind of pleasure

that's loftier

and more sublime than the previous

pleasure

now when you get to the fourth jhana and

you have

strong equanimity

this is where i will tell you that you

have become

an advanced meditator

and you let go of

individual people and now you start

radiating loving kindness

to all beings in the six directions

and i'll explain that more whenever you

get through that state

or to that state

should anyone say that this is the

utmost pleasure

and joy that beings experience i would

not concede

that to him

why is that because there is another

kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than that

pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

hear ananda by completely surmounting

the base of infinite space

with compassion

aware that consciousness is infinite

a monk enters upon and abides in the

base of

infinite consciousness with joy

joy is modita there's a lot of people

that have the idea that

mudita

is they call it sympathetic joy

altruistic joy and i don't really agree

with that

definition because

that's outside your mind

that's being joyful for other people if

they're successful

well that's a kind of joy yes

and it's nice to use it yes

but the kind of joy that modita is

is the all-pervading

joy it's the joy that is

a very happy feeling without any

excitement

in it at all

now infinite consciousness is really

interesting when you get to that state

because

as you're walking as you're

doing things you start noticing

consciousnesses arise and pass away you

start to notice this very fast

flickering and what you're seeing right

now because your mind has calmed down

enough

what you're seeing is individual

consciousnesses

arise and pass away

this is called birth death birth death

birth death the birth of the

consciousness

and it's fading away it's death

but this happens so fast that we don't

really

recognize it as such when you get to

infinite consciousness

you actually start being more and more

aware

that everything is

impermanent

we thought sounds and sights were were

permanent

while they were uh while they were there

but we don't realize that it's a

continual arise and pass away arise and

pass away

so now when you get to this state you

start seeing

very very clearly that there is

nothing in this world that is permanent

everything is in a state of change

also you're seeing the

unsatisfactoriness

of this because there's it's no quiet

it's just continual movement

and it gets tiresome

and you're also going to see very very

clearly that there

is no controller

this happens because conditions are

right for it

to be seen so you're seeing

anicha duka anata

close and personal and you're seeing

that it's not some kind of philosophy

i know a lot of people that are studying

the satipatthana sutra

they make a big deal out of anitra

but it's all mental it's all thinking

about

it's not actually experiencing

they experience on a very gross form

but when you get to this realm it's

very subtle and you see

the truth of it

so the next realm is

nothingness with equanimity

i'm running out of time that i should be

talking and that

i should be asking quests oops i really

am out of time

i should be asking if if you have any

questions now

but this particular suta is absolutely

brilliant understand that feeling

is more emotion more mental

than it is physical

although physical can be big it can

really be

there but the more

you start being aware

of the veda

changing from one thing to another

the more you're aware of the

unsatisfactoriness of

all of this sort of thing

continually moving around

and when you stop taking things

personally

now you're starting to get to a very

high realm of understanding

where you're seeing the dhamma

as it actually is it's not talk anymore

it's not a philosophy anymore

this is actually being able to see

exactly how this stuff

works and you're teaching yourself

to be able to recognize that

you're seeing it for yourself

so i really like this suta because of

that

now since i've been talking for a long

time

[Music]

do you have any questions it doesn't

matter whether it's on this dharma

talk or you have a

question that you want an answer to

if i possibly can help you i will

yes um yes thank you for the

talk i really liked it um and uh just

what you were saying i

i think i have felt this incessant

distress or i don't know if that's like

an it's a kind of

feeling so so i've been wondering like

how to cope

with this feeling of unsatisfactoriness

yeah yeah this is where you find out

it's really real

it's it's just a bunch of words that

people use to make themselves

try to understand actually

seeing for yourself and you're teaching

yourself that this stuff is real it's

not

a maybe

wish there was more teachers that were

actually able to see that for themselves

so that they could teach that

yeah anything else

yeah yeah i suppose i

you can ask anything no

yeah i think i i just need to meditate

more but uh

yeah i was yeah well

i i want you to have more fun too yeah

don't get so serious with it yeah i

think that's

one one thing i might have

done too much yeah

see the thing is if you try too much

try too hard you put in too much

energy too much effort and you wind up

slowing your progress

down you want to do this with a light

mind

a smiling mind

a mind that's willing not to try to make

things be the way you want them to be

but laugh and have fun with them that's

the way it actually

is

okay okay okay

thank you

any other question

uh i have two questions okay

uh first one is uh in the talk you were

saying that you practice uh

second jana or thought jana and you send

loving kindness

through your head right can you clarify

that uh

like usually we practice uh tarjana by

sending loving kindness through the

heart right

yeah but once you get into the

arupa janas you can start doing it

in any drum through the hip

that clarifies me okay yeah and

[Music]

actually my the que the reason i asked

the first

question was i felt like i tried to

radiate loving kindness through my

chest but i was feeling uncomfortable

with that

yeah and you can hurt yourself with that

do it through your head

okay okay okay and my second question is

uh it is us asking out of curiosity

uh like when we say about divine

eye or divine ear is it developed by

itself or

is there some practice well that that's

kind of uh a tricky question

because it depends there's

there's three different kinds of beings

okay

there's a being that is very

very intellectual but not very sensitive

to feeling

there's a being that is very sensitive

to feeling

but not so intellectual

and then there's a being like the buddha

that was both

he was highly intellectual and he was

highly sensitive

now a lot of people are like

the buddha not to the same degree as a

buddha

of course but they are

sensitive to feeling and their

intelligent now

it depends on their sensitivity

no sorry puta was not sensitive to

feeling at all

but he was highly intelligent

my teacher used ananda he could not

understand the instructions i give for

loving kindness

because he was so intellectual

the only thing the only way he would

teach loving kindness

was through guided meditation

and that's helpful for some people i'm

not saying that's right or wrong

but it's just that he wasn't so

sensitive to feeling

now i was living with another monk his

name was usobena

sobana means happy so and the u

is mr so he was mr happy

and he was very sensitive to feeling and

he could radiate loving kindness and i

would be outside and i would feel it

it if you're sensitive to feeling

the divine here and the divine eye will

happen

by themselves

there's no meditation that i know of

and that's not to say that i'm the

all-knowing

teacher other people might be able to

teach people how to do that but i've

never run across anybody that has

i do have students that they have the

divine eye they can see

devas and and brahmas and they they can

communicate with them

i i've told this story a few times

i was with this one lady

that she had the divine eye and divine

ear and i

asked her to

go see my mother who was in california

at the time

and i asked her what town she was in

i asked her what the street name

was that she lived on i asked her for

the address

and then i asked her what color clothing

was she wearing

and she said all the she did it

i lived on 8th avenue she said it was

it was eight

my my mother was at home i called her up

and i asked her what color her clothes

were

and it was blue she had a blue suit on

that day

i was pretty much amazed and she did

have that divine eye

and she was able to communicate with

davis

and brahmas

every now and then she'd go to a brahma

realm and ask them what kind of

meditation

are you doing the brahma realm

according to the sutas

they use as their nourishment they use

joy

so she would always ask them what kind

of meditation you're doing and they're

doing something that has to do with joy

the devaloka they eat grapes they just

appear before them

so you you go to visit one of the those

uh

developers and you see that davis

sitting around

munching on grapes thinking about this

or that or

singing and dancing and doing all kinds

of fun stuff

they do that in the devaloka not so much

in the brahmaloka

but from everybody that i've taught

i've never known anyone

to make the determination to

develop the divine ear or divine eye

it just happened for them and they're

pretty amazed when it happens and they

don't believe it at first

but the divine eye they can

see somebody on the other side of the

planet

it's like going to visit them see what

they're doing

the divine ear they can hear people

talking on the other side of the planet

which the government would love

but

also when when that starts to happen

that you you have the ability to

read minds

and i know an awful lot of people now i

want to be able to read everybody's mind

and my my thoughts on that is

why they're just as screwed up as i am

i don't need i don't need their garbage

in and garbage out

but there are

there are some people that can do that

all they all they do is point their mind

in the direction they want to go and

they can they can have that happen for

them

it does take practice

just like if you go to if if you

experience

the cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness

and then you want to do it again

after you've become an onigami

it takes practice um

started 10 minutes to try to hit it

exactly

and then extend the time until you're

sitting for

two days three days four days like that

you do have to put a limit on on the

time that you sit in the cessation

like that seven days

i've only met one one

uh teacher that could do that

that was deepama

but there are some people around that

are quite good at being able to get in

and out

they just don't have the time to

take to

do that they're laban

so they still have worldly things that

they have to do

anyway does anybody else have a question

yes i do bunty hello hello

hello uh i was wondering about

um the loss of attainment that could

happen

and lots of attainment that can happen

so there is eight stages until

full fruition or full freedom and i was

wondering

how can one lock in one stage of an

attainment because i've just never

learning how to have mastery of going in

and

out of that jhana

it takes practice but you make a

determination let's say you want to get

to the second john on

you you make a determination to be in

that

genre for a period of time

and that you don't go any higher than

that john

ante i'm specifically talking about

sotapanna

or locking in that that

attainment with morality or

that locks in pretty much by itself oh

okay and if you do happen to break

up you're going to feel

very very guilty

and you need to find a spiritual friend

and tell them that you broke the precept

and take the precepts again

okay absolutely

okay anybody else

thank you for your talk um

you were talking a little bit earlier

about sadness yeah

um is sadness a sign that we're attached

that we have some kind of attachment no

it's a sign that there's a painful

feeling that's there

and it can be that you're attached to it

most people are because they don't like

that feeling

and they indulge in the feeling and they

try to

think the feeling away

but feelings are one thing and thoughts

are something else and it doesn't work

so you wind up indulging in

the thoughts and dissatisfaction

of that sadness feeling

you're identifying with it and you're

trying to control it and only

it only makes it bigger and more intense

so if we if if we feel sad because we

lost a friend

we just allow the sadness to be there

because it's a fear you have to

allow the sadness to be there because

the truth is it's there

but don't fight with it don't try to

push it away

allow that sadness to run its course on

its own

without you trying to control it

i've had family members die

for my whole life and the sadness was

really tearing me apart

a lot of people they don't realize

that sadness is part of grief

okay grief can manifest in many ways

some people it manifests as anger

some anxiety

a lot in indulging

in the dislike of that

painful feeling

but allowing that feeling to be there

let it tear your heart out

don't take it personally

it's a feeling that is there

and it will run its course

as you soften your mind and allow it to

be there

without trying to control it

feel the sadness let it be there and

eventually it'll just run its course

right

yeah i've been around a lot of

people that have death in the family and

that's

one of the things that i tell them is

that they have to allow that feeling

that sadness to be there

if they don't allow it in two years

they're going to have some kind of major

physical problem but i also

tell people that stop indulging in that

sadness

start radiating loving kindness to other

friends

or family members that are caught up in

it

so they can let it go more quickly

see the statement that i use a lot is

you

never have to feel hopeless

or helpless

you radiate loving kindness

open up your heart and allow

that feeling for them to help them

overcome their sadness

thank you okay

okay

hello omar hello

oh yes i would like to ask you that

for developing collectedness of the mind

what would you say about the method of

the thai forest master ajahn lee

i would say that he didn't understand

what craving actually is

i know of ajahn lee

he does he didn't understand that it's a

tension

and tightness in your mind and body

he developed a kind of one pointed

concentration

and that's what he taught

one pointed concentration does not

overcome

craving

and that's why it turns into one pointed

concentration

you can get very deeply concentrated

but that does not lead you to getting

off the wheel of sansara

how do you understand what i'm saying

hello yes yes i'm here

you understand what i'm yes saying

day but a few days ago when i was trying

the method i didn't feel

there to be any one-pointed

concentration at all

and i was feeling very relaxed in the

body and

the mind actually

but you did not in intentionally

relax that's just one of the point

one of the things that happens with one

pointed concentration

you can feel very much but there's still

some tension and tightness

in your mind and in your body that you

don't notice

because you haven't practiced

recognizing it that's what the six hours

are

all about

any would you say one point

it is a one point penetration is a spot

in the body

the thing is

if you don't recognize the tension and

tightness in your mind and in your body

you'll ignore it

you have to have a sharper kind of

mindfulness

that you can see that

i know a lot of people that are very

happy with the one-pointed kinds of

concentration

and i there's nothing wrong with it

except what is the end result

the end result that i'm most interested

in

is getting off of the wheel of zanzara

a lot of people they really get hooked

on that

and one one pointed concentration can

be take many forms

but if it doesn't have that relaxed step

in it that's an

intentional that intentional relaxed

step

if it doesn't have that in it you're not

letting go of the craving

this is why the 6r's are so incredibly

important

experiences might be similar

to somebody that is letting go of the

craving

but it's not going to be exact

and you're only going to be able to go

so high

okay so in the suttas when the buddha

says i shall breathe in

experiencing the whole body so

what does that mean does it mean we feel

the body from the

top of the head to the bottom of the

feet well you know

that it's there

it's right so just a general whole body

awareness it's the next

part of the instruction that you're not

saying

tranquilize a bodily formation on the

in-breath

and on the out breath

that's the part that is missing

if you don't relax on the in-breath and

relax

on the out breath you're not letting go

of the craving

and it is subtle

and i had 20 years of doing

the kind of practice that you're talking

about

and i have experienced a lot of

tranquility and i have experienced a lot

of wonderful

different states but i was never

satisfied with the end result

because i didn't feel any real

personality

development

when i started noticing and and started

doing the tranquilizer bodily formation

on the in-breath and out breath

when i started doing that i started

noticing a lot of changes that were

happening and my

mindfulness was much sharper

now with one pointed concentration or

access concentration

you can get to a place where it

suppresses

hindrances and you think you're really

doing good

but when you get out of that

concentration state

you still have the same old

habitual attachments

to feelings there's no real personality

development

okay

yes yes one final question one day okay

well what would you say is this what

people call

the knower or the knowing

well

it depends on you personally

and the reason i'm saying that is how

are you teaching yourself with a direct

experience or are you trying to

think it and know it do you see what i'm

saying

correct experience when i was talking

about

being an infinite consciousness an awful

lot of people

they they think about

impermanent suffering and not self

without

seeing it

they they can talk about it a lot but

when they see it for themselves they

know that it's real

and that's what what i'm teaching is

is different than any of the burmese

or any of the ties that i know of

it's different from what they're

teaching just because

of that relax on the in-breath relax on

the out breath

and if you don't have that your mind

tends towards

one pointed concentration

although it might not feel like it's any

kind of special concentration

it is because eventually you'll get to a

place where

your hindrances are suppressed

and you think well this is good this is

really

nice and it is

while you're in that state but are you

able to carry that state around with you

all the time

and the answer is no you still have the

same amount of

dissatisfaction and dislike

you still have the same attachment

to lusts of one kind or

another

so

what i'm trying to show you

with this six r's

is how to change

and develop so that your mind becomes

more and more wholesome

all the time

okay

yes yes thank you okay

anything else

dante one one quick question would it be

fair to say

that the advantage of practicing meta

and the six

r's over one pointed concentration

is that we can be in jhana throughout

the day

whereas practices one pointed you can't

be in jannah throughout the day when

with your daily activities

right there there is that too but

the main difference is the relaxed step

see and i've explained this many times

in many many

talks as soon as you

relax you don't have any distraction in

your mind at that time your mind is pure

because you've let go of that craving

and to have a mind that's really bright

and really alert

and clear without any distractions

pulling it away

is amazing

and i was truly

amazed when i started doing that at

seeing how

fast my progress was in the meditation

and how easy it became

i was very very pleasantly surprised

because i was used to doing

hard meditation where there was a lot of

pain and a lot of suffering and all of a

sudden my mind is

light and alert and

uplifted oh this is nice

and that's one of the things that

happens especially with the brahma vr is

the way i'm teaching

it

thank you for clarifying okay

anybody else uh christoph here

i have a quick question uh

on a suta that explains the five

kandas

and pretty fine with almost any

all of it but in the it says here with

the arising of

name and form there's the arising of

consciousness

that is that's uh they call it namarupa

and nikubodi used name and form

in some parts of his uh

translation and in other parts he called

it

mentality materiality

it's four nations okay

so so that i can just replace name and

form with formations

yeah yeah again

okay

all right i'll do that and see how i get

how

how it makes sense then okay thank you

ardika you look like you have a question

well actually it's because that you just

said

like the mentality and materiality is

formations i thought that

formations and

well it's different thing i mean like

formation is sankara right

but sankara is a part of it can be

okay but

mentality materiality is the best

definition

for it formations is mind body

and and speech

okay

are you awake i am vantay

actually i'm wide awake okay just making

sure

i know it's like two o'clock in the

morning or three o'clock there

well i'm wide awake because i just um

i'm doing a private retreat right now

actually

oh good for you so that's why i'm pretty

wide awake right now

i can't so if you have any questions you

write to us

how to fly one thing

it's the air element that's all i'll

tell you

how to actually observe the motion

of the air

no it has to do

with movement and vibration

movement and vibrations

because well actually lately i was

reading

this book by lady sayadaw

actually he was talking about the four

elements

and it seems like the understanding of

the four elements is

not exactly as how we actually see

the elements as it is like let's say

it's like the earth

actually i thought it was like something

like the soil or something that is um

solid right but it is

soft and hard yeah soft and hard

that is actually something that i just

understand but it's actually soft and

hard

right and and the elements

the physical elements that we have are a

combination of all the elements mixed

together

in different proportions

right like the physical body is

different than a rock but it has all of

the elements in it

then how are we gonna be able to

actually

make the water solid

put it in the refrigerator where the

freezer is and

wait

uh okay one

yeah you can walk on the water here come

here

because it's freezing well

you want to walk on the water we have it

and you can even glide on it get some

skates

it's nice sounds nice

oh well how's everything going in

malaysia or indonesia

it's pretty cold right now but um

probably it's not as cold as in there

for sure what is pretty cold for you

right now

brady it's um

i think it's um still 10

degrees or 15 degrees

celsius yeah

well it's it's minus that here let's put

it that way

mhm

well actually yesterday we had snow on

the ground that's nice

and it lasted almost till afternoon

and then it was all done

just can you stand them here one thing

can you send them here

[Laughter]

well work with the elements and see if

you can do it

yourself okay

oh but i need more instructions

actually

oh well

patience that's that's it takes a while

and it depends on your sensitivity to

the elements

themselves

but i i think that i should

have a very um

like a very

a kind of ha need to have an equanimity

so that i will be able to do it

not sure i'm not gonna talk much about

doing this kind of stuff over the

uh the internet

okay so are we gonna have a friendly

session come here for ten years

and we'll work

oh you have to let go of a lot of

things the way you think they are

you have to let go and it takes a while

really does

yeah so anybody else have a question

one uh one last question on my side

and when the cessation happens the

knowledge of the past um is it possible

that the fruition doesn't happen and

the time lapse doesn't have anything to

do with fruition

to do with your memory and your

sensitivity to feelings

can you elaborate on that

ten years ago are you the same person

then that you are now

no oh that was a past lifetime wasn't it

right okay it has to do with memory

and you keep going back and back until

you start remembering past lifetimes

i've taught this to a few people

okay

so is it possible that you lose that

estate

and you don't continue practicing

or re break some precepts and you go

back to

lower our channels or

the lower genres and is it harder to go

back

no

you have to forgive

make a determination not to do it again

and then all of your ability and

going in and out of jhana will occur on

its own

very quickly it's the guilty feeling

of breaking a precept

and the when you break the precept

you have a tendency to take it person

personally i said this

i did this i made a mistake

and that's what where the attachment is

so when you

confess it to someone else

right

oh it sounds like david

damn

sounds like we lost them bonsai can you

unmute yourself

okay so somebody is

messing with the zoom

join our zoom meeting

look we can i can hear you and see you

now okay

anyway

if you want to learn about past

lifetimes

you have to have very very strong

equanimity because

there are some things that we've done in

past lifetimes that we're really not

very happy about

and we have to learn to forgive those

right and it can be freaky some of the

things that we've done

can really be bad and harmed other

people

and you have to have equanimity

and acceptance in in your

uh in your

[Music]

mind okay

so is it possible that after the uh

attaining the knowledge of the past all

these feelings comes up and

you put the meditation aside then you

need to deal with

them i have a friend

that he had a memory of the past of

killing someone and then getting stabbed

in the liver

and died

and he kept having this same

memory over and over again and he asked

me what to do

and i said now you have to practice

forgive us

you have to ask the man that you killed

before

if he would forgive you and you have to

forgive the person that stabbed and

killed you

in that lifetime now

his whole life he had had a bad liver

and as soon as he forgave that person

for

killing him in that lifetime

his liver problems went away

right so that can happen

but you need to be around a teacher

to help keep your balance with the

uh memories

it's more about strong equanimity

right now it's more about

this lifetime i mean of course before

getting to

know you and david is just a matter of

experiencing that but not

knowing that you just put it aside and

you see it

and say so the life is what it is

doesn't

everything is empty and non-self and so

what is the point of

well that's philosophy

but what we're more interested here with

this

group is the actual

experience

okay this is real

important because it goes beyond

philosophy

when you when you start seeing anichi

dukkha not

for real it changes the way you see the

world

but an awful lot of people

they're told from the very beginning

everything is impermanent everything is

suffering

and they just repeat those words over

and over again without actually seeing

them

so it's a real important thing that you

experience this

now a lot of people that come here for

retreat

in a 10-day retreat they will be able to

experience that i'm not saying everyone

but it depends on you and how how you

follow instructions

and how you teach yourself

okay right thank you okay

day i have not one one more question

sorry okay

uh is it possible to change the elements

from one to another

basic elements i

i didn't hear what is it is it possible

to change the basic elements

changing your perspective of the

elements that

and this is not

magic okay

my camera is off it doesn't say that

here

no it's not okay

uh you don't actually change the

elements the elements are the elements

that they're

they're always there is just changing

your perspective

and use of the elements that's why it

takes about 10 years to be able to

[Music]

really do do this it's not an easy thing

now you can walk through a wall if you

change your perspective of what was

there

but if you try that now you wind up with

a sore nose

right

so if there's no more questions

why don't we share some merit

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear struck fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that

we've thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty powers share

this merit of ours

may they long predict the buddha's

dispensation

so all of you have a good week

and have fun keep the smiling

going okay thank you bonsai

thank you okay

thank you david thank you david

thank you david

you

[Music]

so i'm going to do suit to number 55 the

many kinds of feeling

59 excuse me

um

you notice there's not an s behind it

it is feeling not feelings

so there is a mistake

in imagine hikaya when it's talking

about

the sati patana sutta because it says

feelings

and that has a tendency to make you go

off

and not really understand

that it has nothing to do with emotion

now i i give

the definition of feeling as

excuse me i'm still trying to catch up

pleasant feeling painful feeling neither

painful nor pleasant

now the thing that you really need to

understand

is that feeling is not only

talking about

physical feeling that's the way it's

described in a lot of people that are

teaching satipatana

but it's physical and it's mental

why because there's pleasant

unpleasant neutral feeling in emotion

as well as in physical

form

i know that there's some

people that are really really interested

just in the physical form of feeling

and they miss half of the boat

when they get to looking

at only physical feeling

but feeling

isn't strictly mental or physical

feeling is feeling

and that causes when the feeling arises

right after that craving arises i like

it or i don't like it

it's pleasant or it's painful

so

i want to go through this this suit

again

so that you can understand a little bit

more clearly

that this is involving all different

kinds of feeling

thus if i heard on one occasion the

blessed one was living at sawatee in

jettas grove and

then pendicas park

then the carpenter pancho conga

went to the venerable udayan

after paying homage to him he sat down

at one side and asked him

then rule sir how many kinds of feelings

have been stated by the blessed one

three kinds have been stated by the

blessed one

pleasant feeling painful feeling neither

painful nor pleasant feeling

these three kinds of feeling have been

stated by the blessed one

not three kinds of feeling have been

stated by the blessed one venerable

udayan

two kinds of feeling have been stated by

the blessed one

pleasant feeling and painful feeling

that's generally when i'm talking about

your meditation i'm just talking about

that i'm not talking about the neutral

feeling

until you get to having equanimity then

then

i start throwing in that kind of feeling

but i don't tell you

that it's a feeling

this neither painful nor pleasant

feeling has been stated by the blessed

one as

peaceful and sublime kind of pleasure

a second time and a third time the

venerable udayan stated his position

a second and third time the carpenter

upon chicago stated his

but the venerable odyn could not

convince the carpenter upon chicago nor

could the

carpenter pon chicago convinced

venerable ludayan

ponja conga was a

carpenter but he was like the handyman

to have around

every center has its own handyman that

takes care of things

so he was around a lot for the buddha's

talks

so he and he was very well educated

the venerable ananda heard their

conversation

then he went to the blessed one after

paying homage to him he sat down at one

side and reported to the blessed one the

entire conversation

between the venerable udayan and the

carpenter pancho conga

when he had finished the blessed one

told the venerable ananda

ananda it is actually a true

presentation

that the carpenter ponja congo would not

accept from

udayan and it was actually a true

presentation that udayan would not

accept

from the carpenter panjikonga

i've stated two kinds of feeling in one

presentation

i have stated three kinds of feeling in

another presentation

i have stated five kinds of feeling in

another

presentation five kinds of feeling

i'm gonna give it to you in pali then

english

sukkah dukkha

[Music]

that's pleasant or physical feeling

painful physical feeling

pleasant mental feeling

and painful mental feeling

and upeka is equanimity

so if if you go to this book and you

look

at the footnotes

the footnotes were taken from

a monk by the name of

buddhaghosa and he did not understand

about feelings and he starts talking

about

feeling in a much different way

and didn't understand what those five

kinds of feelings

are as a result he didn't expound

on these different kinds of feelings so

that there was clear

thought and clear understanding

and that has carried on through the

commentaries

and that's one of the reasons that

buddha goes work is somewhat suspect

with his reasoning he was for not very

good at

guessing and he didn't study the suttas

he was a pali scholar he was taking

notes from other people

and translating it into poly

so he can't be a hundred percent

the fault of the not understanding

but it has caused a lot of confusion

[Music]

over time

the subtler kinds of feeling the

mental feelings

are difficult

to recognize

because you get caught up in that

feeling and the dislike of that feeling

as

sadness fear anxiety

hatred all of these different kinds of

feeling

sneak up on you very much

now this is one of the reasons that i

want you to keep

practicing daily all the time smiling

because

that sharpens your mindfulness and you

can start to see

how your mind gets caught in these

emotional

feelings where you say something that

can hurt yourself or

someone else

and then you justify in your own mind

how you're right and they're wrong

[Music]

all of that is part of feeling

but it's not recognized

in as anything other than this is me

this is mine this is who i am

so it's real important for you to

begin keeping

your mindfulness going in your daily

activities

keep stay in a genre as long as you

possibly can

this is where your mind is pure

you don't have you can still

have painful mental feeling

but as soon as you notice that your mind

is heavy

and you're not smiling and you're

getting into

dissatisfaction and dislike

you'll notice that more quickly

and you can start using the 6rs

and let it go

everything is part of a type of

perception and when you perceive

that somebody has slighted you or you've

done something that's not so nice to

someone else

when you perceive that and then start

forgiving yourself forgiving that other

person

especially forgiving yourself for

getting

caught again in the old habit

of what you've been doing your whole

life

excuse me

so

you start developing new habits when you

let go of the perception of

uh trying to let off

dislike of what's happening to you oh i

gotta let this steam off

that in itself is funny

that you got caught and you don't even

see it yet

and then you start saying things to

other people that are hurtful

so it's really important

that you keep your smile going all the

time

keep the smile in your mind

don't criticize yourself when you forgot

just

laugh at that and start again

okay

over a few short months

people will start noticing that you

are changing

you don't get so

upset you don't get so caught

in the emotional

part of feeling

there is always as soon as feeling

arises i don't care whether it's

pleasant or painful

right after that there's the i like it

or i don't like it mine

feeling is the very

key to remember

to relax and smile

and bring that to whatever you're doing

while you're doing it

keep the smile going

okay i have stated six kinds of feeling

in another presentation

so the first five it's really talking

about

the five it's naming that

there is pleasant and unpleasant

physical there's pleasant and unpleasant

mental now it's getting

into the sense doors

the sixth sense doors

the eyes the ears the nose the tongue

body and mind

mind is the one you got to really watch

out for

because it always starts in mind

and after a few months

of catching yourself

and using the six hours of

smiling and being in a genre with your

daily activities

it will start to turn into a good habit

where you don't get caught by emotional

upsets they're still going to happen

there's still going to be times when

there's great sadness that comes

somebody in your family is hurt or

dies there's sadness there

but the thing is

that's a time for you to be particularly

alert with your mindfulness

now even though you can have sadness

from somebody dying

it doesn't mean that you're hopeless and

you can't do anything to help anybody

else around you

that's a mistake that is made

if you focus on loving kindness and

radiate that loving kindness to members

of the family that are hurt

or close friends that are really painful

because

of that that will help them overcome

their grief more quickly

that will help you

because you're not focusing on the grief

that you have

you're wishing well to other people that

you know

are suffering the same way you are

so the more you can give your love

to people that are suffering

even though it might not seem like it

does any good at

all it does

and you start

changing your world around you

and this

has a positive effect

and your life becomes easier

you're keeping your precepts without

breaking them

you're not getting into a emotional

upset because of some kind of political

nonsense that's going on

you bring people back to the present

moment

so that they don't get caught up in

their repeat thoughts of

dislike and dissatisfaction

so the six kinds of feeling

actually comes down to one

mind on the

on on the both the physical and the

mental

it comes down to your observation power

so that you can see when your mind

starts to

get caught and then go into

unhold some states

okay i have stated 18 kinds of feeling

in another presentation

what are the 18

do you know

well we're breaking down these

uh six cents doors

with pleasant

painful neither painful or pleasant

three with each of the six cents doors

that's 18.

i have stated 36 kinds of feeling in

another presentation what are the 36.

past and present

huh no oh really

18 times 2 is what

36.

i have stated 108 kinds of feeling

in another presentation i'm not going to

go to that because it takes a long time

to

describe it that is that

how the dhamma has been shown by me in

different presentations

when the dhamma has thus been shown by

me in different presentations

it may be expected of those who will not

concede

allow and accept what is well stated

and well spoken by others

they will take to quarreling brawling

and disputing

stabbing each other with verbal daggers

i always like that description verbal

daggers

i've been in a room where people started

arguing about things like this

well the buddha said this and the other

one said no the buddha didn't say that

he said this

and the buddha said both

they want to get into an argument they

get into their

emotional upset and attachment

and this causes all kinds of problems

so you don't want to argue about dhamma

about what is the right what is the

wrong

you just want to state your facts as you

know them

and then go to the suttas and see

whether you're right or not

i know in malaysia there's major groups

that they won't

this group won't have anything to do

with that group because

they're not teaching the same thing and

they're wrong

they're not practicing buddhism

they're practicing attachment

and they have tight minds they don't

recognize the importance

of being able to relax your mind

and they don't recognize the importance

of

letting go of perspectives that don't

agree with you

i've had conversations with many

different

types of buddhists

and we don't argue we don't try to

convince each other that

we're right and they're wrong we state

what we think

is correct and then

quietly listen to what they think is

correct

without fighting about it without

playing that game of

i know and you don't know

a lot of people don't see that as an

attachment

they don't see that as craving

and as a result they wind up hurting

themselves

and causing problems for other people

so the more we can let go

of that and actually

accept what somebody else says and then

go and check and see whether it's

correct or not

that is the buddha's way

okay now we're going to go into the five

chords of sensual pleasures

the sensual pleasures can be mental

or physical or both

ananda there are these five chords of

sensual pleasure

what are the five forms cognizable

by the eye that are wished for desired

agreeable and likable

connected with sensual desire and

inviting lust

sounds cognizable by the ear that are

wished for

desired agreeable and likable

connected with sensual desire fighting

lust

now these are they can be

connected with sensual desire and

inviting lust

or it can be connected with sensual

dividing

the central

desire and invite

hatred

think about that

because this is real feeling some sounds

you hear and that's so

unpleasant where does your mind go to

or if it's one of your favorite songs

where does your mind go to they still

have that i am

that attached to it

and it's that way with all of the

sensual

desires odor is cognizable by the nose

there's some smells that are really bad

you don't want to be around them

there's other smells that are really

pleasant

so this can go either way

flavor is cognizable by the tongue it's

the same with tastes

some tastes are really nice other tastes

are not

but both of them are caught in sensual

desire

they're caught in the i like it i want

it

or i don't like it i don't want it it's

still

caught by craving that's the danger of

sensual desires

and their uh

[Music]

tangibles cognizable by the body there's

pleasant feelings and there's painful

feelings

these are the five chords of sensual

pleasure

now that pleasure of joy that arises

dependent on these five

chords of sensual pleasure are called

sensual pleasure

should anyone say that's the utmost

pleasure and joy that beings experienced

i would not concede that to him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure loftier

and more sublime than that pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

here ananda quite secluded from sensual

pleasures

secluded from unwholesome states

a monk enters upon and abides in the

first

genre which is accompanied by thinking

and

examining thought a lot of people ask me

about thinking and examining thought and

what that actually is

the thinking and examining thought is

the verbal

recitation of your wish for

your

spiritual friend and towards yourself

it's the verbal recitation okay

with joy and happiness born of seclusion

this is that other kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than the

previous pleasure

should anyone say this is the utmost

pleasure

and joy that beings experienced i would

not concede that to him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure loftier

and more sublime than that pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

here ananda with the stilling of

thinking and examining

thought letting go of the verbalization

of the wish in your mind

a monk enters upon and abides in the

second genre

which has self-confidence

stillness of mind without thinking and

examining thought

with joy and happiness born of

collectedness

this is that other kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than the

previous now when you get to the second

jhana

if you stay with verbally

making a wish you'll start to get a

headache

because now you have to let go

of all that verbalization

this is a very desirable state to be

in during your daily activities but

there are

times that you have to talk to other

people

you talk to them kindly you wish them

well

and you're staying in that first journal

with the joy

and the comfort of your mind

without getting upset without

getting caught

you start to have more and more

confidence

in knowing what you're doing while

you're doing it

it's not just automatically happening

you're starting to see it more and more

clearly

and you start to have more and more

confidence

that when you're radiating loving

kindness to someone else

you're feeling that radiation

and that happiness towards someone else

you start to see a change not only in

yourself but you start to see a change

in

other people around you

and now not too long ago i was in a

restaurant

where there were two people that were

talking rather

loudly and not happy with each other

so much so that the manager came over

and told him to quiet down

but the looks on their face was

complete anger

so i saw that i was with someone else

and i said let's radiate some loving

kindness to this couple

it was amazing to watch

it wasn't two minutes before

they quieted down and they agreed to

disagree on whatever it was that they

were

arguing about and they

actually started smiling and they

started laughing so i told the person

that was with me we've done our work

here now we can go

go do something else someplace else

but just to watch the transformation of

your world around you

when you have the mindfulness to

remember

to radiate loving kindness

and send that compassion

to other people

not taking sides with other people not

getting involved in what actually the

whole problem was it doesn't matter

what matters is what you do with what

you have

right now in the present and how you

radiate loving kindness in the present

this helps you to stay in the second job

it helps you to have more

uplifting joy

and you feel lighter in your mind you

feel lighter in your body

that's the kind of vedana that the

jhanas bring

you

so it's real important for you to

understand

how you

are teaching yourself

and helping other people around you

and you're teaching them but they don't

know that you're teaching them

too many people have an idea that a

teacher means that you only talk to

people for a period of time and then go

off and do whatever you want to do

no you're your own teacher

you're teaching yourself how to

recognize when

your mind is distracted

and what to do with that distraction as

it's occurring

and that happens by your smiling

i know i harp on that a lot

but i do that for good reason

i'm trying to help you with your

mindfulness

so that you'll be able to recognize when

that smile goes away and you start

getting caught

in some other kind of

disturbance

but when you have a lesson like i just

talked about

of being able to radiate loving kindness

i didn't know these people from adam i

didn't know anything about them

i don't care loving kindness

is sending love

without looking for any kind of thing

in reserve i'll love you if you love me

no i'll love you because you're there

and i'll help your mind to become more

accepting

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

what i'm doing

i'm not going to spend time trying to

teach somebody else how to do it

they know they feel it

so try to keep it going all day

all the time no matter who you're with

so the lighter your mind can be

during the day the sharper your

mindfulness will become

and the less you'll get caught

in that identification

that this is me this is mine this is who

i

am you start developing your equanimity

that balance of mind and then eventually

you'll get into

a state of disenchantment

where you can have this happy feeling

and radiate this happy feeling

with out any attachments

to it

okay

should anyone say that this is

oops i lost my place this is the utmost

pleasure and joy that beings

experience i would not concede that to

him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than that

pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

here ananda was a fading away of joy

a monk abides in equanimity

mindful and fully aware and still

feeling happiness with the body he

enters upon and abides in the third

journal on account of which

noble ones announce he has a pleasant

abiding who has equanimity

and is mindful

so the keeping

in the third genre with your daily

activities

is a little bit more advanced than a lot

of people when they're first starting

out

but you can train yourself to have that

equanimity

that disenchantment with likes and

dislikes

the teaching yourself to

be aware that your mind can be smiling

all the time

now this doesn't say that there is

tranquility with this

but there is there is tranquility

and equanimity

and full awareness you're still aware of

everything around you you know what's

happening around you you still hear

sounds but they don't pull your

attention away

you can stay with what you're doing

while you do it

now when i was going to the hospital

every day i spent a lot of time

with both joy of the second genre

and equanimity of the third jhana

a lot of people would have very strong

physical pain

and i found by doing the

third genre the equanimity the

acceptance without

resistance of the pain

the pain became less and less for them

and they began accepting the fact that

yeah it's going to be there

so why fight it

that's one of the things that everybody

does when pain

physical pain especially but also mental

pain

when it arises i don't like it i don't

want it there i want it to stop but it

doesn't

so you have to learn how to have that

balance of mind

that accepts the fact that yes there is

painful feeling there

and when you stop fighting it when you

stop trying to

make the

feeling be the way you want it to be

then that resistance in your mind that

craving that i don't like it

begins to lessen

so there's a lot of real amazing things

that you can

do with your daily activities and being

in a jhana

it's just not

getting caught in

the likes and dislikes of a feeling

when it arises

especially mental feeling because that's

a sneaky one

that's the one we've been going around

all our lives

thinking that this dislike that

that like it's all me

and it makes everything happy

or makes things worse more

sad

but when you can smile

even when you don't feel like smiling

there's benefit to that

they're doing a lot of studies on

smiling right now

a huge amount of studies

and when you are smiling

with your eyes with your mouth with your

mind

with your heart

it changes the whole situation

it makes life a lot easier

why is that because now you're letting

go of the craving now you're saying with

a clear

mind

the six r's are amazingly

helpful and

the problem that you have is trying to

remember when you start getting caught

and that's why i'm saying if you're

in one of the genres if you practice

being in a jhana in your daily

activities you're not gonna get

caught

now what happens when you get to the

third jhana

you don't notice your body so much

and if you're just starting out with

your meditation

you're still a rookie you haven't become

an advanced meditator yet

that feeling in your heart is going to

disappear

and it's going to come up into your head

now when i send loving kindness i'm

sending it from

here

i'm not sending it from my quote heart

and my mind is much more pure at that

time

so getting into the third genre

this is that other kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than the

previous pleasure

should anyone say that this is the

utmost

joy pleasure and joy that beings

experienced

i would not concede that to him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than that

pleasure

and what is that other pleasure

here ananda with the abandoning

of pleasure and pain

with the previous disappearance of joy

and grief abandoning the pleasure and

pain means the feeling

in the body

the letting go of joy and grief you've

already let go

of the joy and

joy and grief are two signs of the same

coin

and that's where a lot of attachment is

a monk enters upon and abides in the

fourth journal which has

neither pain nor pleasure and purity of

mindfulness due to equanimity

this is where your equanimity gets very

much stronger

and you can start using other words

not necessarily equanimity but

acceptance

having a mind that's in very strong

balance somebody can come up to you and

slap you in the face

and it doesn't make you react

except maybe to say don't do that again

which has happened to me when i went to

an airport

somebody thought i was a hari krishna

and he came up and slapped me

i said why'd you do that for

he said something about hare krishna and

how they're always trying to get money

out of you

and i said well i'm not a hari krishna

i'm a buddhist

and i started talking to him a little

bit about

uh the non-violence of buddhism and that

sort of thing

and he wound up buying me a meal

so i got slapped for my meal

okay should anyone say

that this is the utmost pleasure and joy

that beings

experience i would not concede that to

him

why is that because there's another kind

of pleasure loftier and more sublime

than that pleasure

and what is that pleasure here ananda

with the complete surmounting

of gross perceptions of form

that means like when you're in the first

john a second genre you still feel

your hands you still feel things in your

body

when you get to this stage

you don't feel your body at all unless

you put your attention on your body

you stay with the loving kindness and

radiating loving kindness to all beings

and that's why i say a complete

surmounting

of gross perceptions of form

there's still subtle perceptions of form

that can occur

but they're mental

one time this brings me up to a story

one of my teachers he's a very

world renowned teacher

somebody asked him about the eightfold

path

and he said why do you always start

with right view

i call it harmonious perspective

and he the teacher didn't have the

answer right off the top of his head

[Music]

so he said

because that's the way the buddha

started the eightfold path

which is completely unsatisfactory

answer

you started the the off the eightfold

path

with right view because the view

that you really need to

experience is the anata

view the not self view

seeing things without any

craving in your mind at all at that time

that's right view

now there's can still be some sensations

if there is contact with your body

when you're in this realm

this realm that we're we're going into

is called

infinite space with compassion

so if you don't put your attention on

your body you're not gonna feel your

body

but if there is contact say some some

breeze comes up and you feel it

it's not gonna make your attention

waver or if there's a sound that comes

up

it's not going to take your attention to

it and

make you wonder what to do with it

you're gonna notice it but that's all

so now you're getting into the mental

realm

where everything is much more subtle

it's not gross and big like physical

feeling right now

now one of the things that

is really amazing and i had to

work hard to convince my teacher

lucille ananda that i was right

and that is you can be in a mental realm

and still be moving your body around you

can still be walking you can still be

doing things

and be in that realm

radiating compassion

but the disappearance of gross

perceptions of sensory impact

aware that space is infinite

now i put with compassion

because i teach a brahma viara's

and that this is what it says in another

suta in the samut nikaya

about infinite space

is where you experience compassion

video what are you talking about oh

videos not on

how'd that happen

sorry i didn't know that i did turned

off

so

you can be walking down the street

in infinite space just radiating the

ceiling out

and out and out and out

and radiating compassion at the same

time

and actually it's kind of fun when you

do it

but because you don't have

feeling in the body the only place you

have a feeling

is the bottom of your feet where there's

contact with walking but you don't

notice anything in between that and your

head

it's really kind of odd

it is kind of fun too

this is that other kind of pleasure

that's loftier

and more sublime than the previous

pleasure

now when you get to the fourth jhana and

you have

strong equanimity

this is where i will tell you that you

have become

an advanced meditator

and you let go of

individual people and now you start

radiating loving kindness

to all beings in the six directions

and i'll explain that more whenever you

get through that state

or to that state

should anyone say that this is the

utmost pleasure

and joy that beings experience i would

not concede

that to him

why is that because there is another

kind of pleasure

loftier and more sublime than that

pleasure

and what is that other kind of pleasure

hear ananda by completely surmounting

the base of infinite space

with compassion

aware that consciousness is infinite

a monk enters upon and abides in the

base of

infinite consciousness with joy

joy is modita there's a lot of people

that have the idea that

mudita

is they call it sympathetic joy

altruistic joy and i don't really agree

with that

definition because

that's outside your mind

that's being joyful for other people if

they're successful

well that's a kind of joy yes

and it's nice to use it yes

but the kind of joy that modita is

is the all-pervading

joy it's the joy that is

a very happy feeling without any

excitement

in it at all

now infinite consciousness is really

interesting when you get to that state

because

as you're walking as you're

doing things you start noticing

consciousnesses arise and pass away you

start to notice this very fast

flickering and what you're seeing right

now because your mind has calmed down

enough

what you're seeing is individual

consciousnesses

arise and pass away

this is called birth death birth death

birth death the birth of the

consciousness

and it's fading away it's death

but this happens so fast that we don't

really

recognize it as such when you get to

infinite consciousness

you actually start being more and more

aware

that everything is

impermanent

we thought sounds and sights were were

permanent

while they were uh while they were there

but we don't realize that it's a

continual arise and pass away arise and

pass away

so now when you get to this state you

start seeing

very very clearly that there is

nothing in this world that is permanent

everything is in a state of change

also you're seeing the

unsatisfactoriness

of this because there's it's no quiet

it's just continual movement

and it gets tiresome

and you're also going to see very very

clearly that there

is no controller

this happens because conditions are

right for it

to be seen so you're seeing

anicha duka anata

close and personal and you're seeing

that it's not some kind of philosophy

i know a lot of people that are studying

the satipatthana sutra

they make a big deal out of anitra

but it's all mental it's all thinking

about

it's not actually experiencing

they experience on a very gross form

but when you get to this realm it's

very subtle and you see

the truth of it

so the next realm is

nothingness with equanimity

i'm running out of time that i should be

talking and that

i should be asking quests oops i really

am out of time

i should be asking if if you have any

questions now

but this particular suta is absolutely

brilliant understand that feeling

is more emotion more mental

than it is physical

although physical can be big it can

really be

there but the more

you start being aware

of the veda

changing from one thing to another

the more you're aware of the

unsatisfactoriness of

all of this sort of thing

continually moving around

and when you stop taking things

personally

now you're starting to get to a very

high realm of understanding

where you're seeing the dhamma

as it actually is it's not talk anymore

it's not a philosophy anymore

this is actually being able to see

exactly how this stuff

works and you're teaching yourself

to be able to recognize that

you're seeing it for yourself

so i really like this suta because of

that

now since i've been talking for a long

time

[Music]

do you have any questions it doesn't

matter whether it's on this dharma

talk or you have a

question that you want an answer to

if i possibly can help you i will

yes um yes thank you for the

talk i really liked it um and uh just

what you were saying i

i think i have felt this incessant

distress or i don't know if that's like

an it's a kind of

feeling so so i've been wondering like

how to cope

with this feeling of unsatisfactoriness

yeah yeah this is where you find out

it's really real

it's it's just a bunch of words that

people use to make themselves

try to understand actually

seeing for yourself and you're teaching

yourself that this stuff is real it's

not

a maybe

wish there was more teachers that were

actually able to see that for themselves

so that they could teach that

yeah anything else

yeah yeah i suppose i

you can ask anything no

yeah i think i i just need to meditate

more but uh

yeah i was yeah well

i i want you to have more fun too yeah

don't get so serious with it yeah i

think that's

one one thing i might have

done too much yeah

see the thing is if you try too much

try too hard you put in too much

energy too much effort and you wind up

slowing your progress

down you want to do this with a light

mind

a smiling mind

a mind that's willing not to try to make

things be the way you want them to be

but laugh and have fun with them that's

the way it actually

is

okay okay okay

thank you

any other question

uh i have two questions okay

uh first one is uh in the talk you were

saying that you practice uh

second jana or thought jana and you send

loving kindness

through your head right can you clarify

that uh

like usually we practice uh tarjana by

sending loving kindness through the

heart right

yeah but once you get into the

arupa janas you can start doing it

in any drum through the hip

that clarifies me okay yeah and

[Music]

actually my the que the reason i asked

the first

question was i felt like i tried to

radiate loving kindness through my

chest but i was feeling uncomfortable

with that

yeah and you can hurt yourself with that

do it through your head

okay okay okay and my second question is

uh it is us asking out of curiosity

uh like when we say about divine

eye or divine ear is it developed by

itself or

is there some practice well that that's

kind of uh a tricky question

because it depends there's

there's three different kinds of beings

okay

there's a being that is very

very intellectual but not very sensitive

to feeling

there's a being that is very sensitive

to feeling

but not so intellectual

and then there's a being like the buddha

that was both

he was highly intellectual and he was

highly sensitive

now a lot of people are like

the buddha not to the same degree as a

buddha

of course but they are

sensitive to feeling and their

intelligent now

it depends on their sensitivity

no sorry puta was not sensitive to

feeling at all

but he was highly intelligent

my teacher used ananda he could not

understand the instructions i give for

loving kindness

because he was so intellectual

the only thing the only way he would

teach loving kindness

was through guided meditation

and that's helpful for some people i'm

not saying that's right or wrong

but it's just that he wasn't so

sensitive to feeling

now i was living with another monk his

name was usobena

sobana means happy so and the u

is mr so he was mr happy

and he was very sensitive to feeling and

he could radiate loving kindness and i

would be outside and i would feel it

it if you're sensitive to feeling

the divine here and the divine eye will

happen

by themselves

there's no meditation that i know of

and that's not to say that i'm the

all-knowing

teacher other people might be able to

teach people how to do that but i've

never run across anybody that has

i do have students that they have the

divine eye they can see

devas and and brahmas and they they can

communicate with them

i i've told this story a few times

i was with this one lady

that she had the divine eye and divine

ear and i

asked her to

go see my mother who was in california

at the time

and i asked her what town she was in

i asked her what the street name

was that she lived on i asked her for

the address

and then i asked her what color clothing

was she wearing

and she said all the she did it

i lived on 8th avenue she said it was

it was eight

my my mother was at home i called her up

and i asked her what color her clothes

were

and it was blue she had a blue suit on

that day

i was pretty much amazed and she did

have that divine eye

and she was able to communicate with

davis

and brahmas

every now and then she'd go to a brahma

realm and ask them what kind of

meditation

are you doing the brahma realm

according to the sutas

they use as their nourishment they use

joy

so she would always ask them what kind

of meditation you're doing and they're

doing something that has to do with joy

the devaloka they eat grapes they just

appear before them

so you you go to visit one of the those

uh

developers and you see that davis

sitting around

munching on grapes thinking about this

or that or

singing and dancing and doing all kinds

of fun stuff

they do that in the devaloka not so much

in the brahmaloka

but from everybody that i've taught

i've never known anyone

to make the determination to

develop the divine ear or divine eye

it just happened for them and they're

pretty amazed when it happens and they

don't believe it at first

but the divine eye they can

see somebody on the other side of the

planet

it's like going to visit them see what

they're doing

the divine ear they can hear people

talking on the other side of the planet

which the government would love

but

also when when that starts to happen

that you you have the ability to

read minds

and i know an awful lot of people now i

want to be able to read everybody's mind

and my my thoughts on that is

why they're just as screwed up as i am

i don't need i don't need their garbage

in and garbage out

but there are

there are some people that can do that

all they all they do is point their mind

in the direction they want to go and

they can they can have that happen for

them

it does take practice

just like if you go to if if you

experience

the cessation of perception feeling and

consciousness

and then you want to do it again

after you've become an onigami

it takes practice um

started 10 minutes to try to hit it

exactly

and then extend the time until you're

sitting for

two days three days four days like that

you do have to put a limit on on the

time that you sit in the cessation

like that seven days

i've only met one one

uh teacher that could do that

that was deepama

but there are some people around that

are quite good at being able to get in

and out

they just don't have the time to

take to

do that they're laban

so they still have worldly things that

they have to do

anyway does anybody else have a question

yes i do bunty hello hello

hello uh i was wondering about

um the loss of attainment that could

happen

and lots of attainment that can happen

so there is eight stages until

full fruition or full freedom and i was

wondering

how can one lock in one stage of an

attainment because i've just never

learning how to have mastery of going in

and

out of that jhana

it takes practice but you make a

determination let's say you want to get

to the second john on

you you make a determination to be in

that

genre for a period of time

and that you don't go any higher than

that john

ante i'm specifically talking about

sotapanna

or locking in that that

attainment with morality or

that locks in pretty much by itself oh

okay and if you do happen to break

up you're going to feel

very very guilty

and you need to find a spiritual friend

and tell them that you broke the precept

and take the precepts again

okay absolutely

okay anybody else

thank you for your talk um

you were talking a little bit earlier

about sadness yeah

um is sadness a sign that we're attached

that we have some kind of attachment no

it's a sign that there's a painful

feeling that's there

and it can be that you're attached to it

most people are because they don't like

that feeling

and they indulge in the feeling and they

try to

think the feeling away

but feelings are one thing and thoughts

are something else and it doesn't work

so you wind up indulging in

the thoughts and dissatisfaction

of that sadness feeling

you're identifying with it and you're

trying to control it and only

it only makes it bigger and more intense

so if we if if we feel sad because we

lost a friend

we just allow the sadness to be there

because it's a fear you have to

allow the sadness to be there because

the truth is it's there

but don't fight with it don't try to

push it away

allow that sadness to run its course on

its own

without you trying to control it

i've had family members die

for my whole life and the sadness was

really tearing me apart

a lot of people they don't realize

that sadness is part of grief

okay grief can manifest in many ways

some people it manifests as anger

some anxiety

a lot in indulging

in the dislike of that

painful feeling

but allowing that feeling to be there

let it tear your heart out

don't take it personally

it's a feeling that is there

and it will run its course

as you soften your mind and allow it to

be there

without trying to control it

feel the sadness let it be there and

eventually it'll just run its course

right

yeah i've been around a lot of

people that have death in the family and

that's

one of the things that i tell them is

that they have to allow that feeling

that sadness to be there

if they don't allow it in two years

they're going to have some kind of major

physical problem but i also

tell people that stop indulging in that

sadness

start radiating loving kindness to other

friends

or family members that are caught up in

it

so they can let it go more quickly

see the statement that i use a lot is

you

never have to feel hopeless

or helpless

you radiate loving kindness

open up your heart and allow

that feeling for them to help them

overcome their sadness

thank you okay

okay

hello omar hello

oh yes i would like to ask you that

for developing collectedness of the mind

what would you say about the method of

the thai forest master ajahn lee

i would say that he didn't understand

what craving actually is

i know of ajahn lee

he does he didn't understand that it's a

tension

and tightness in your mind and body

he developed a kind of one pointed

concentration

and that's what he taught

one pointed concentration does not

overcome

craving

and that's why it turns into one pointed

concentration

you can get very deeply concentrated

but that does not lead you to getting

off the wheel of sansara

how do you understand what i'm saying

hello yes yes i'm here

you understand what i'm yes saying

day but a few days ago when i was trying

the method i didn't feel

there to be any one-pointed

concentration at all

and i was feeling very relaxed in the

body and

the mind actually

but you did not in intentionally

relax that's just one of the point

one of the things that happens with one

pointed concentration

you can feel very much but there's still

some tension and tightness

in your mind and in your body that you

don't notice

because you haven't practiced

recognizing it that's what the six hours

are

all about

any would you say one point

it is a one point penetration is a spot

in the body

the thing is

if you don't recognize the tension and

tightness in your mind and in your body

you'll ignore it

you have to have a sharper kind of

mindfulness

that you can see that

i know a lot of people that are very

happy with the one-pointed kinds of

concentration

and i there's nothing wrong with it

except what is the end result

the end result that i'm most interested

in

is getting off of the wheel of zanzara

a lot of people they really get hooked

on that

and one one pointed concentration can

be take many forms

but if it doesn't have that relaxed step

in it that's an

intentional that intentional relaxed

step

if it doesn't have that in it you're not

letting go of the craving

this is why the 6r's are so incredibly

important

experiences might be similar

to somebody that is letting go of the

craving

but it's not going to be exact

and you're only going to be able to go

so high

okay so in the suttas when the buddha

says i shall breathe in

experiencing the whole body so

what does that mean does it mean we feel

the body from the

top of the head to the bottom of the

feet well you know

that it's there

it's right so just a general whole body

awareness it's the next

part of the instruction that you're not

saying

tranquilize a bodily formation on the

in-breath

and on the out breath

that's the part that is missing

if you don't relax on the in-breath and

relax

on the out breath you're not letting go

of the craving

and it is subtle

and i had 20 years of doing

the kind of practice that you're talking

about

and i have experienced a lot of

tranquility and i have experienced a lot

of wonderful

different states but i was never

satisfied with the end result

because i didn't feel any real

personality

development

when i started noticing and and started

doing the tranquilizer bodily formation

on the in-breath and out breath

when i started doing that i started

noticing a lot of changes that were

happening and my

mindfulness was much sharper

now with one pointed concentration or

access concentration

you can get to a place where it

suppresses

hindrances and you think you're really

doing good

but when you get out of that

concentration state

you still have the same old

habitual attachments

to feelings there's no real personality

development

okay

yes yes one final question one day okay

well what would you say is this what

people call

the knower or the knowing

well

it depends on you personally

and the reason i'm saying that is how

are you teaching yourself with a direct

experience or are you trying to

think it and know it do you see what i'm

saying

correct experience when i was talking

about

being an infinite consciousness an awful

lot of people

they they think about

impermanent suffering and not self

without

seeing it

they they can talk about it a lot but

when they see it for themselves they

know that it's real

and that's what what i'm teaching is

is different than any of the burmese

or any of the ties that i know of

it's different from what they're

teaching just because

of that relax on the in-breath relax on

the out breath

and if you don't have that your mind

tends towards

one pointed concentration

although it might not feel like it's any

kind of special concentration

it is because eventually you'll get to a

place where

your hindrances are suppressed

and you think well this is good this is

really

nice and it is

while you're in that state but are you

able to carry that state around with you

all the time

and the answer is no you still have the

same amount of

dissatisfaction and dislike

you still have the same attachment

to lusts of one kind or

another

so

what i'm trying to show you

with this six r's

is how to change

and develop so that your mind becomes

more and more wholesome

all the time

okay

yes yes thank you okay

anything else

dante one one quick question would it be

fair to say

that the advantage of practicing meta

and the six

r's over one pointed concentration

is that we can be in jhana throughout

the day

whereas practices one pointed you can't

be in jannah throughout the day when

with your daily activities

right there there is that too but

the main difference is the relaxed step

see and i've explained this many times

in many many

talks as soon as you

relax you don't have any distraction in

your mind at that time your mind is pure

because you've let go of that craving

and to have a mind that's really bright

and really alert

and clear without any distractions

pulling it away

is amazing

and i was truly

amazed when i started doing that at

seeing how

fast my progress was in the meditation

and how easy it became

i was very very pleasantly surprised

because i was used to doing

hard meditation where there was a lot of

pain and a lot of suffering and all of a

sudden my mind is

light and alert and

uplifted oh this is nice

and that's one of the things that

happens especially with the brahma vr is

the way i'm teaching

it

thank you for clarifying okay

anybody else uh christoph here

i have a quick question uh

on a suta that explains the five

kandas

and pretty fine with almost any

all of it but in the it says here with

the arising of

name and form there's the arising of

consciousness

that is that's uh they call it namarupa

and nikubodi used name and form

in some parts of his uh

translation and in other parts he called

it

mentality materiality

it's four nations okay

so so that i can just replace name and

form with formations

yeah yeah again

okay

all right i'll do that and see how i get

how

how it makes sense then okay thank you

ardika you look like you have a question

well actually it's because that you just

said

like the mentality and materiality is

formations i thought that

formations and

well it's different thing i mean like

formation is sankara right

but sankara is a part of it can be

okay but

mentality materiality is the best

definition

for it formations is mind body

and and speech

okay

are you awake i am vantay

actually i'm wide awake okay just making

sure

i know it's like two o'clock in the

morning or three o'clock there

well i'm wide awake because i just um

i'm doing a private retreat right now

actually

oh good for you so that's why i'm pretty

wide awake right now

i can't so if you have any questions you

write to us

how to fly one thing

it's the air element that's all i'll

tell you

how to actually observe the motion

of the air

no it has to do

with movement and vibration

movement and vibrations

because well actually lately i was

reading

this book by lady sayadaw

actually he was talking about the four

elements

and it seems like the understanding of

the four elements is

not exactly as how we actually see

the elements as it is like let's say

it's like the earth

actually i thought it was like something

like the soil or something that is um

solid right but it is

soft and hard yeah soft and hard

that is actually something that i just

understand but it's actually soft and

hard

right and and the elements

the physical elements that we have are a

combination of all the elements mixed

together

in different proportions

right like the physical body is

different than a rock but it has all of

the elements in it

then how are we gonna be able to

actually

make the water solid

put it in the refrigerator where the

freezer is and

wait

uh okay one

yeah you can walk on the water here come

here

because it's freezing well

you want to walk on the water we have it

and you can even glide on it get some

skates

it's nice sounds nice

oh well how's everything going in

malaysia or indonesia

it's pretty cold right now but um

probably it's not as cold as in there

for sure what is pretty cold for you

right now

brady it's um

i think it's um still 10

degrees or 15 degrees

celsius yeah

well it's it's minus that here let's put

it that way

mhm

well actually yesterday we had snow on

the ground that's nice

and it lasted almost till afternoon

and then it was all done

just can you stand them here one thing

can you send them here

[Laughter]

well work with the elements and see if

you can do it

yourself okay

oh but i need more instructions

actually

oh well

patience that's that's it takes a while

and it depends on your sensitivity to

the elements

themselves

but i i think that i should

have a very um

like a very

a kind of ha need to have an equanimity

so that i will be able to do it

not sure i'm not gonna talk much about

doing this kind of stuff over the

uh the internet

okay so are we gonna have a friendly

session come here for ten years

and we'll work

oh you have to let go of a lot of

things the way you think they are

you have to let go and it takes a while

really does

yeah so anybody else have a question

one uh one last question on my side

and when the cessation happens the

knowledge of the past um is it possible

that the fruition doesn't happen and

the time lapse doesn't have anything to

do with fruition

to do with your memory and your

sensitivity to feelings

can you elaborate on that

ten years ago are you the same person

then that you are now

no oh that was a past lifetime wasn't it

right okay it has to do with memory

and you keep going back and back until

you start remembering past lifetimes

i've taught this to a few people

okay

so is it possible that you lose that

estate

and you don't continue practicing

or re break some precepts and you go

back to

lower our channels or

the lower genres and is it harder to go

back

no

you have to forgive

make a determination not to do it again

and then all of your ability and

going in and out of jhana will occur on

its own

very quickly it's the guilty feeling

of breaking a precept

and the when you break the precept

you have a tendency to take it person

personally i said this

i did this i made a mistake

and that's what where the attachment is

so when you

confess it to someone else

right

oh it sounds like david

damn

sounds like we lost them bonsai can you

unmute yourself

okay so somebody is

messing with the zoom

join our zoom meeting

look we can i can hear you and see you

now okay

anyway

if you want to learn about past

lifetimes

you have to have very very strong

equanimity because

there are some things that we've done in

past lifetimes that we're really not

very happy about

and we have to learn to forgive those

right and it can be freaky some of the

things that we've done

can really be bad and harmed other

people

and you have to have equanimity

and acceptance in in your

uh in your

[Music]

mind okay

so is it possible that after the uh

attaining the knowledge of the past all

these feelings comes up and

you put the meditation aside then you

need to deal with

them i have a friend

that he had a memory of the past of

killing someone and then getting stabbed

in the liver

and died

and he kept having this same

memory over and over again and he asked

me what to do

and i said now you have to practice

forgive us

you have to ask the man that you killed

before

if he would forgive you and you have to

forgive the person that stabbed and

killed you

in that lifetime now

his whole life he had had a bad liver

and as soon as he forgave that person

for

killing him in that lifetime

his liver problems went away

right so that can happen

but you need to be around a teacher

to help keep your balance with the

uh memories

it's more about strong equanimity

right now it's more about

this lifetime i mean of course before

getting to

know you and david is just a matter of

experiencing that but not

knowing that you just put it aside and

you see it

and say so the life is what it is

doesn't

everything is empty and non-self and so

what is the point of

well that's philosophy

but what we're more interested here with

this

group is the actual

experience

okay this is real

important because it goes beyond

philosophy

when you when you start seeing anichi

dukkha not

for real it changes the way you see the

world

but an awful lot of people

they're told from the very beginning

everything is impermanent everything is

suffering

and they just repeat those words over

and over again without actually seeing

them

so it's a real important thing that you

experience this

now a lot of people that come here for

retreat

in a 10-day retreat they will be able to

experience that i'm not saying everyone

but it depends on you and how how you

follow instructions

and how you teach yourself

okay right thank you okay

day i have not one one more question

sorry okay

uh is it possible to change the elements

from one to another

basic elements i

i didn't hear what is it is it possible

to change the basic elements

changing your perspective of the

elements that

and this is not

magic okay

my camera is off it doesn't say that

here

no it's not okay

uh you don't actually change the

elements the elements are the elements

that they're

they're always there is just changing

your perspective

and use of the elements that's why it

takes about 10 years to be able to

[Music]

really do do this it's not an easy thing

now you can walk through a wall if you

change your perspective of what was

there

but if you try that now you wind up with

a sore nose

right

so if there's no more questions

why don't we share some merit

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear struck fearless be

may the grieving shed all grief and may

all beings find relief

may all beings share this merit that

we've thus

acquired for the acquisition of all

kinds of happiness

beings inhabiting space and earth

devas and nagas of mighty powers share

this merit of ours

may they long predict the buddha's

dispensation

so all of you have a good week

and have fun keep the smiling

going okay thank you bonsai

thank you okay

thank you david thank you david

thank you david

you