Roots Of Suffering

Everything has a cause, and that cause has a cause. Like following a string of dominos, Dependent Origination traces suffering to its roots. This talk shows how to recognize and work with these links. It’s the Buddha’s core teaching.

Transcript

Back at it again.

So tonight we're going to go into the belly of the beast,

Go right to the core of the Buddha's teachings,

Which is dependent origination.

Padakasamupada.

Everyone know how to say that?

Sounds like a bhanga riff?

Padakasamupada.

It's a triplet,

A couplet in the tune.

Padadada dada dada.

Padakasamupada.

Padakasamupada.

Padakasamupada.

Okay.

All together now.

Yes,

We had to put together a few words with different rhythms and then we could have a whole,

You know,

Ensemble going here and we'll call it Pali rather than music.

So the Buddha said,

One who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma,

That is the whole of his teachings.

One who sees the Dhamma sees dependent origination.

So this is it.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

I wasn't sure if I was picking up the look.

Maybe you were just… So hopefully this won't go too long tonight,

But because of the importance and richness and a little bit of the complexity,

We may go a little bit longer tonight.

But we'll see.

We'll see.

Be warned.

Dependent origination means everything is dependent on something else for its origination.

That's what it means.

Or more simply,

Everything has a cause and that cause has a cause and the cause of that cause has a cause.

So I oftentimes visualize dependent origination as a bunch of dominoes that are standing on their end.

You know,

When you hit over one and it knocks down the next and the next and the next and the next.

As illustrated on your,

Okay,

Only in dependent origination,

It's important to note that the first domino to go over is like really,

Really,

Really tiny and very hard to see.

And each domino knocks over one that's slightly larger than it.

So by the time you get to the end,

You get the whole catastrophe.

You know,

Grief,

Pain,

Lamentation,

Sorrow,

Despair,

The whole catastrophe.

Bummer of all varieties.

Nature is made of,

Is put together in lots of these strings of causation that all put into matrix in which everything is directly or indirectly dependent on everything else.

So they're all over the place.

But the Buddha was interested in just a very specific class of these causal series,

Ones that lead to suffering.

That was his major concern.

So what he did was he reverse engineered his suffering.

He just looked at it very,

Very carefully until he could see how it works.

And he saw that his suffering was always preceded by some kind of action.

And the action could be external,

You know,

As in a physical action or verbal action,

Or it could be internal,

You know,

Identification or resistance or something.

But there was some type of,

In Buddhism action can refer to strictly internal event.

So the suffering was preceded by an internal event.

That internal event was,

In turn,

Arose out of what we call habitual tendencies,

Which are just our collection of habitual patterns which had been stimulated by a thought.

And the thought had been stimulated by some kind of tightening and so on back down this causal stream.

So we'll unpack all that a little bit more.

So he reverse engineered the process leading to his own suffering.

Usually we reverse engineer something.

We reverse engineer a widget so we can build our own widget,

Maybe even a better one.

But I don't think the Buddha was ever interested in helping us create our own misery.

We seem to be pretty good at that already.

He wanted to reverse engineer it so he could figure out how to stop it,

You know,

How to keep one of those dominoes from falling over or take one out of the line or spread them all out so they don't hit each other or do something so he could somehow just unplug the whole series and get it to stop.

And he did it.

He did it.

It worked.

It solved his problem.

But it doesn't solve ours,

Unfortunately.

We have to reverse engineer our own suffering.

He really can't do it for us.

And the reason that we have,

One of the reasons,

One of the many reasons we have to do it ourselves is that suffering is subjective.

Suffering is internal.

There may be external events in that causal chain but ultimately dukkha suffering is something that we experience inside.

So the Buddha's description actually is just an approximation.

Each of our experiences will be a little bit different.

So to solve our problem we have to understand the workings of our own angst and dissatisfaction to a degree that no one else can quite tell us.

So we have to do it ourselves.

However,

If we look openly,

Clearly,

Kindly at our own internal experience everything we need to learn is actually right there.

It's writ large.

But ultimately to unplug our own suffering we have to reverse engineer it ourselves.

So what I would like to do tonight is we're going to begin and play a little game here and get some practice on reverse engineering.

And then we will look at some models of dependent origination.

So what I would like to do is we'll take an event that is a collective event and we'll see if we can reverse engineer it.

So what I would like to do is to reverse engineer the dependent origins of Donald Trump becoming our president.

Okay?

I can see some groans.

This is a great example to use because it's highly charged for a lot of us.

We have really strong feelings about it and when there's a lot of charge on it,

You know,

Our thinking can get disturbed by our own opinions and ideas and beliefs about what's right and wrong and all the rest of it.

And our own suffering is really highly charged.

To be able to do it in a calm setting is like easy.

But our own suffering can be so charged that we get completely thrown by what we like and dislike and want and our stubborn ideas about what's right and wrong and all the rest of that.

So this will be a great one to do even if some of you come at this with a little bit of trepidation.

And I will,

Pardon?

Not at all.

Okay.

Rare to go.

You weren't the only one I saw.

So what we're not going to do is we're not going to debate the value or the harm of Donald Trump being our president.

That's for another place.

The only question is what are the dependent origins?

What were the causes and conditions?

What was a causal chain that led to him becoming our president?

And to facilitate all this,

Somebody is just going to write these up there as we go up.

So what I would invite you to do to begin with is just sort of name what you believe were some of the contributing causes.

And we will just list them up here.

We're not going to debate them.

We'll just list them.

17 people in the primaries.

17 people in the Republican primaries.

Poor white folk feeling disenfranchised.

Okay.

I may abbreviate some of these just for space.

So disenfranchised,

Poor,

Yeah.

Racism.

Name recognition.

Very wealthy.

Outsider.

Comey's letter.

Who was that?

Comey's letter.

Comey's letter?

James Comey's letter to Congress.

Economic disparity.

Economic disparity.

Inciting violence.

Inciting violence.

And the angle that goes with it.

Anger.

Yeah.

Taxation.

Internet.

Media.

The Russians.

Russian interference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bill Clinton's presidency.

Bill Clinton's presidency.

Sexism.

Big bang.

The universe didn't exist.

We wouldn't have a problem.

You know,

I do think.

.

.

Okay,

We're done.

Some of these comments are describing people's feelings about Trump that are not necessarily the causes of him being elected.

So what I want to do is we're going to start,

We're going to put them all up there and then we're going to take some of this apart a little bit and what you're talking about is important and that's one of the things we're going to look at.

So.

If you're talking about the chain events,

The last chain event is he got elected.

The last in the chain events is him being elected?

Okay.

Okay.

So,

Yeah,

We'll put that up there.

Distrust in the media.

Too much trust in media.

Fake news.

Loss of many people.

Manuf.

.

.

Fact.

.

.

I mean industries.

Loss of manufacturing industry.

Trump's understanding of how to work the ground or masses.

So how could we do that quickly?

Trump's.

.

.

Campaign.

Trump's campaign.

Campaign style.

Yeah.

Which covers a lot of stuff.

We'll just get something that captures it.

Globalization.

No,

This is okay,

But if you have some more,

Let's get them up there,

But we don't necessarily have to get everything up there.

Pardon?

Divisiveness.

As a citizen of another country,

This does feel really voted.

I mean,

This is very simplistic,

But I would just say nominated,

Campaign,

Voted,

Elected.

Okay,

You're putting on.

.

.

Okay.

Nomination.

Yeah.

Electoral college.

Fear.

Fear.

Despair.

Hillary Clinton.

Yeah.

We all don't have to agree on these.

What I just want to do is get as much stuff up there and then we're going to do a little bit of analyzing and take this apart.

Fundamentalism.

Okay.

You didn't capture Hillary.

Twitter.

A lack of interest in American voting.

So low vote.

I'm trying to get it simple.

So low vote participation.

Low turnout,

Low vote turnout.

Excuse poll numbers.

Excuse poll numbers.

Right.

Two Democratic presidencies right before this election.

Okay.

Two previous Democratic presidents.

Okay.

This is enough for us to work with.

If another one comes up,

They say we really missed,

We'll put it up there.

Distrust.

Distrust.

Distrust in our leaders.

So to unpack this,

A couple of things.

So we want to see if we can sort of create some causal chains out of this.

Okay.

Good luck.

That first of all,

That the causal chains are not always linear.

Right.

You can have one line of events that breaks up into multiple events and you can also have multiple events that converge down to one and you can also have circular events.

So this doesn't necessarily have to be linear.

But the most important thing in separating this out and for all purposes of where we're going is to make a distinction between what,

And I've played around to try to find the right language for this,

To make the distinction between triggers and root causes.

A difference between something that sparks an event and something which is an essential ingredient without which it wouldn't be there.

Does opinion factor into that analysis?

Sure.

If we can put opinion up there.

I mean,

Should it?

Or should it not?

I'm not,

Should opinion figure into?

Yes.

The whole process of what we're doing,

Actually,

Of determining what the cause is,

Is it fact or opinion?

Okay.

That's my question.

I'm still not quite getting it.

So separation of fact and opinion could be a factor in all of this,

Or you're saying that our process,

If we can see the difference between fact and opinion.

I think she's talking about our discussion,

Whatever we are coming up with,

Has our opinions built into it.

Okay.

Let me just say this right up front.

We are not going to solve or analyze what really happened.

Okay?

But what I want to do is for us to kind of wade into it,

Because you're right.

Ours are going to just be partially educated opinions and guesses at all this.

So this is an exercise in looking at finding causal relationships.

And one of the difficulties in sorting that out is that we do have strong opinions and that can distort how we look at it.

So that's one of the reasons I wanted something that was really charged,

Because the Buddha asked us to look at things objectively and impersonally.

And there's a lot of places we can do that,

But things that are very near,

You know,

Things that are really charged,

The word that won the day yesterday,

Things that are really charged can get distorted really quickly.

So we're actually not going to send this to Washington and say,

Here's the fix.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

Causes and triggers.

Ananda once asked the Buddha,

He said,

Venerable sir,

In what way can a monk be called skilled independent origination?

Let's just kind of get into yours.

Doesn't the Buddha say you have to experience things yourself?

I'll read what he said.

Sorry.

Yes,

He did say that.

Yeah.

Skilled independent origination.

And what he said was,

When this exists,

That comes to be.

When this arises,

That arises.

When this does not exist,

That does not come to be.

When this ceases,

That ceases.

Now,

I don't know about you,

But when I first read this,

You know,

It's like,

You know,

It looks like a bunch of tautologies or something.

It's like,

What's it all talking about?

But you look at it really closely,

And this is the example I think of.

If you have a match,

And I throw a lot of match into a field of dry grass,

You have a huge fire.

So what's the cause from the Buddha's perspective of that fire?

You.

Me.

Okay.

The match.

The match?

So pardon?

The fire on the match and me throwing it?

Dry grass.

Dry grass.

Yes.

So you notice what he says here.

When this ceases,

That ceases.

So I'm to blame legally and when you use the meaning of the English word for cause,

I caused it.

But that's not what he means by causation because once the fire is going,

Once I've thrown the match,

You can take me and the match out of there and the fire continues.

So what he was really interested in is how do we alleviate suffering.

So he was looking for things which if they are removed from it,

It stops.

Oxygen.

Yeah,

The fuel.

The fuel.

Okay,

So to alleviate suffering,

We really have to remove the,

My other word for it is the essential ingredients,

Something without which it would not exist.

The triggers are not enough.

And so I think it's really important to look at this because I mean I'm coming to think even the word cause may not be a very good translation because for this to be effective in our practice,

It's not just what triggered it but what something if removed,

It would not be there.

Is it fuel that you use?

Or fuel or?

Yeah,

Fuel would be more generic terms or dry grass fuel.

The condition of the grass is dry.

No the condition of the grass is the fact that it's dry.

Yeah,

So if you want to cease the fire,

If you want to get rid of the fire,

You either remove the fuel or you remove the dryness.

So if you wet it down,

It would stop.

I think in other places he uses nutrition.

Yes,

Yeah.

Nutriment.

Nutriment.

Yeah,

He's.

Would gestalt be better?

Gestalt?

I don't quite get that.

Everything,

Almost all the elements together.

All the elements together.

Yeah,

So I think what he was looking for,

So you could say all the elements together contributed to it,

But what are one or two key ones that if it's pulled out,

The whole thing collapses.

I mean if we want to relieve our suffering,

That's the only thing that makes any difference,

Right?

And so that's what he's looking for.

So what I'd like to do is go back through this and maybe we'll circle triggers with red and essential ingredients,

You know,

Root causes,

Things without which it would never have happened.

Okay?

And again,

These are going to be opinions and ideas,

Etc.

We don't know if they're exactly right,

But this is an exercise to see if we can actually sort out the difference and it will be imperfectly implemented by all of us,

By everyone except for me.

We can all say that,

Right?

Well,

It wasn't a lie,

Then.

So,

Yeah,

So killing Trump.

Or if he hadn't been born.

Never being born.

Never being born.

Okay.

What if his parents had been nice to him?

Ultimately,

If people didn't vote for him,

They wouldn't be present.

Okay?

So eventually we're going to put these into causal chains.

So the first thing we want to do.

.

.

I forgot.

She didn't forget.

She just didn't hear it.

If it wasn't a problem,

It wouldn't be a problem.

Okay.

So the red is a trigger and the blue is an underlying cause.

Would you say that the red is opinion and the blue is fact?

Could you say that?

No.

You're not going there.

No,

I'm not going there.

Yeah.

Because we may have disagreements on here.

So,

For example,

I would say that without the effects of globalization,

For me,

It looks like one of the sort of deep root ingredients without which there would not have been the dissatisfaction.

And it's not the globalization itself,

But how it's been handled.

So we get the income disparity and stuff that creates a lot of the other conditions we talked about.

Well,

Economic disparity is one that I would circle in.

What do we use in green?

Okay.

And believe me,

You don't have to agree with this.

All I just want to do is see if we can kind of get the reasoning by how different people may arrive at these.

Green means an essential ingredient.

For him being elected.

Yes,

For him being elected.

What is red and green again?

Red is a trigger,

Is a match.

Green is the grass.

Maybe it ought to be yellow-green.

I see that he ran again with so many people,

So many that had the same ideas,

That he always had 35%.

He had more than anyone.

And as it dwindled down,

He continued to have his larger amount.

And I do think it's a big variable.

Had there been five people,

It would have been very different from my perspective.

Okay.

So 17 people in the primary.

So,

So,

So,

So,

So Mariam puts it in green,

I would put it in red.

Okay.

So we'll put both.

So red is that it was,

It was a trigger,

But not necessarily a necessary ingredient.

You don't mean necessary.

I mean essential,

Essential ingredient.

Because it's necessary.

Yeah.

Election was essential.

Pardon?

Election was essential.

Well,

It's not a trigger.

It's green,

Doesn't it?

Yeah,

It's a green.

It's a green one.

It's an obvious green one.

It's a little bad.

Well,

We'll just start all over and we'll do it without the red red.

No.

As a parallel,

I mean,

Had,

Had Hitler been accepted to art school,

Things might have been very different.

Sure.

That's,

That's,

That's one of these.

So,

So there was a moment in time when,

When he was so ridiculed by President Obama at one of the news gatherings that a number of people,

And I am one of them,

Who feels that he decided he was going to show him up.

I'm going to run for president.

Had that not happened,

Unfortunately,

Had our dear President Obama had not said,

Showed what a buffoon this guy was,

Then I'm sorry if somebody feels,

Doesn't feel that way.

He might not have run.

So we're going to get into the core.

What triggered his wish to be president?

Okay.

It's a,

That,

That,

So,

So that's,

That's helpful.

So that's a key trigger.

So we put that in red.

It was,

It was major.

Yeah,

It was a major trigger.

So.

I meant,

He ran for,

He ran for president.

No.

Okay.

So,

So,

So just to be clear,

What I,

What I don't want to do is,

Is,

Is debate the merits of the,

Of the various arguments.

We're just actually trying to sort out,

So Mary makes a strong case for Obama's opinions.

Obama's opinions being a trigger.

Yep.

Yeah.

So that goes into red.

I'm not confused about,

Like,

A basic classification.

So when we suffer,

There are episodes,

It seems like,

Like,

And it seems like sometimes an episode comes to an end,

Like,

And then I had a itchy bug bite today and it doesn't itch anymore.

I don't think it's going to itch again.

But when any bug bites me,

I'll have another itchy bug bite.

Okay.

I think it's a trigger.

But it's not,

It's not something that's,

The biting is not something that's ongoing and you could even talk about removing it or not.

So actually,

Actually what I want to do is I want to see if we can stick with this.

I can't do this unless I understand this question.

Because I don't,

Like,

There's a time component,

Right,

To,

Like,

A fire burning and using up fuel.

Yes.

And the fuel's there throughout.

But the thing that triggered it,

Like,

Is not there throughout.

It's just there,

It possibly just there at the beginning.

Right.

So,

Like,

Almost all of these things on the list seem to,

Like,

Not be there.

Like,

The vote for the election.

So what I would like you to do is we would like to get your opinions about triggers and causes.

So the election,

Why is it green?

Because there was one election at one time.

It's not an ongoing,

Like,

Great democracy that,

Like,

Continues to elect or unelect Trump.

It's in green because some people felt that it's an essential ingredient.

You don't have to agree with that.

Because we're.

.

.

One election.

Yeah.

We're not going to come up with a definitive analysis about what happened.

It's not about what happened.

It's about the structure of,

Like,

There being an ongoing thing.

And there clearly isn't an ongoing election.

There was one election for Trump.

So that's the difference between dependent resolution in this example.

This example covers only one event.

Entering into.

.

.

It's not Donald Trump is getting elected every second.

It's just that he got elected once.

I want you to humor me.

I want to,

Like,

Get something out of doing this.

I'm not understanding something that's crucial.

Okay.

So what I would invite you to do is actually sit with your questions for a few minutes.

And your question.

.

.

Give me your question.

In the example of suffering,

Suffering in terms of your time,

You're talking about the difference between something that triggers it that might just be good at the beginning and a fuel that's needed throughout for it to continue.

Okay.

It seems like that was the difference between the essential.

.

.

So this is a question we're going to come back to.

So these are issues that I think we're going to work at as we go along.

And if we stop the whole process,

We might be here all night.

So I want you to make sure that we've got it here so we'll be sure to address it.

Okay?

Can I add a clarification?

Sure.

Are we now going from suffering to birth of action?

Is that what we're doing at one place?

No.

No.

What we're doing is looking at a causal chain.

So are we.

.

.

Are you.

.

.

Are we going to go all the way up the chain?

Or just how many parts are we doing?

There are zillions of causal chains.

The ones you have there are two models of causal changes.

Causal chains.

So we're looking at a different causal chain.

This is what we're looking at as not dependent origination.

Okay.

Because we ended up with Donald Trump being president,

For some people that's something to celebrate,

For other people it's a source of Dukkha.

So we don't have to take this apart completely but just want a few more ideas about triggers versus essential ingredients.

I think the disenchantment is one of the.

.

.

What's the other one?

The disenchantment being an essential ingredient.

Yeah.

A root thing.

Okay.

Oh,

Disenfranchised.

Yeah,

Circle that one for me.

I guess we didn't.

.

.

No,

That's a green one.

All right,

Here we go.

So we'll just take the clock and wind it back about,

You know,

And just pretend to go through it again.

Just put dis E and then.

.

.

So let me just ask you this.

Do you kind of have the idea what we're after?

Not from this example.

I'll say that.

Okay.

Intellectually,

Rationally,

But from this example I'm not following.

Okay.

Is this a red disenchantment?

That's a green.

I don't even like the election I've heard at a point in time,

Right?

So how can you compare it to an ongoing time period?

Question we're going to return to.

That's why I don't understand what we're doing.

I don't understand this as an example.

Okay.

It's like,

What if it were like,

How does Donald Trump continue to be president into the future?

That would make a little more sense.

Sit with it.

Okay.

I don't know what you're saying.

Okay.

So let's just drift to the side a little bit.

And next time I do this,

Maybe I'll use a different example.

But part of what this illustrates at least is when you look at something highly charged,

It can go all over the place.

It wasn't what I was planning,

But it is certainly what we managed to do.

So we'll go back to your example of the bytes.

Let me give a simpler one.

Somebody comes in and insults me.

Doug,

You're doing a lousy Dharma talk.

What the heck are you doing this for?

And I get all upset,

And they stomp out,

And I sit here grumbling about it.

You say what?

Stomp out,

And I just sit here grumbling about it.

So what are some of the triggers,

And what are some essential ingredients?

Trigger is the insult.

The trigger is the insult.

The essential ingredient is your ego.

You've got Donald Trump signed up.

Yeah.

So without my ego or without my irritability,

Etc.

,

Somebody says,

Doug,

You're doing a lousy Dharma talk,

And I'm saying,

Well,

Okay,

Okay.

Somebody says,

Doug,

You're a jerk,

And I think,

Yeah,

You're probably right.

Sometimes I am.

So that's important.

But if I have some investment in it,

Then.

.

.

I think we'd say reactivity before ego.

I don't know.

That would be my favorite.

Okay.

Yeah.

Reactivity,

Ego,

All that sort of stuff.

Taking it personal.

Taking it personally.

But it also,

Past historical experience,

That is probably tied in to the personal structure.

Right.

In some way,

Intensity is tied into it because somebody could say,

Doug,

You're doing a lousy Dharma talk,

And they could scream it at you versus just say it like I just said it.

It would have a totally different response from you.

Yeah.

So there's an intensity,

But it sort of gets to what we were talking about last night,

Too,

Is actually the depth of my equanimity.

So the deeper,

The larger the container,

The more equanimity that I have around it.

The more somebody can be charged about it,

And it just doesn't bother me that much.

Well,

And also,

How much do you value that other person's opinion in general?

Okay.

Yes.

So the equanimity seems interesting because in the planet of origination,

It's like the dominoes,

Right?

They're all falling.

Like if somehow you gather more equanimity,

Like at first you're feeling,

You're grumbling about it,

And then equanimity,

You get in contact with more equanimity,

Right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What I like to think of is expand them so the dominoes get further and further apart so one falls over and it just doesn't hit anything else.

Yeah,

You add something.

But according to DO,

Like,

Well,

The only way to analyze that chain is something needs to be removed or some causal link to it.

Right.

Equanimity is severing something somewhere.

Yeah,

But you can analyze it that way.

What's a severing?

You could use a severing so that somehow the causal chain is broken.

It's severed.

The thing I talk about in Buddha's Map is the flow of the river and if you,

You know,

Divert the water out of the river,

Then the suffering stops.

So Upadana probably is not arising anymore because we were not there.

What is not?

Upadana.

Oh,

Upadana?

No.

Yeah.

And so what we were talking about last night is if at the level of Upadana,

If the little bit of very small amount of tension that's in that is relaxed,

Then it doesn't trigger Kanha,

Chanda,

And go on up further.

The question about the intensity seems to be very relevant,

Right?

The intensity with somebody who's communicated their dissatisfaction and also the balance that you bring in yourself.

Right.

Maybe you don't have a lot of balance,

But the emotional attachment is not very vague or the intensity that's right.

You can step over it very quickly versus if you have strong energy,

Then you're able to have more of this negative energy towards you,

Right?

Right.

Yes.

So I was wondering,

Like,

Since everything happens in the present moment so fast,

Like,

What distinguishes this,

Like,

Charge,

So to speak,

This,

Like,

Huge amount of negative energy that comes your way versus,

Like,

Something that doesn't have a lot of charge?

So what distinguishes between?

Yeah,

Maybe I should think about it.

Like,

The charge is,

Like,

Charge and equanimity are very closely related.

That's the salt and the container.

Like,

If there's a lot of charge and a lot of equanimity,

Then it kind of dissolves.

If there's a lot of charge and not a lot of equanimity.

Then I see that.

What I try to understand is,

Like,

How that works over time because when a feeling arises,

Does the feeling have a certain amount of intensity that comes up for you?

That's what we were talking about last night.

I think that it's a non- Yeah,

There's a certain amount of tension in each of the lengths of dependent origination.

And it's the tension that carries it forward.

And so if the tension is relaxed,

Then the domino doesn't fall over,

Then the flow of the river stops,

Whatever metaphor,

And it breaks that and you're fine.

And that's what we're looking for,

Is how to break the chain of events.

And I'm thinking maybe I'm just going to move forward with this and we'll go pick up the next part of it.

Do you have a kind of a fuzzy relationship to all this anyway?

So,

The most important part about all this is that what the Buddha meant by causation is not quite what the word cause is in English.

And to just go back,

It's the difference between the match and the dry grass.

And then you need causal links up to what lit the match,

Causal links to what dried out the grass in the first place.

And he's always interested in the essential elements,

Which if removed,

The whole thing shuts down.

I think sometimes,

Like from my experience,

One of the phrases that is used in the sutras is also the dependent co-arising.

It's not first aid then the,

But kind of it seems to arise dependent on each other,

But simultaneously there's a co-arising of phenomena as well.

So it's not just a linear simple experience,

Right?

A lot of things happen.

There are loops.

There are loops.

I think it was backwaters.

Right.

And so,

Like I contained briefly,

When you say,

You know,

It's not A and B then C.

It's like stuff happens and a lot of those things happen.

What I had hoped we would get to here,

But I think it's going to be too complicated,

Was to start to point to some of the causal relationships between these.

But we got caught up in separating all this stuff to the point that I don't think it's actually going to be worth it to try to do that,

But if you can get it conceptually.

But this is exactly the sort of complexity we run into and why dependent origination can be so difficult,

Because it's laid out oftentimes as a ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch one,

Two,

Three.

And as soon as you get into any real examples,

There's not just a single line,

But there are backwaters.

There are things that arise together,

Things that influence each other,

Et cetera.

But the core element,

What Buddha was talking about in terms of what is,

Means to be wise and dependent origination is,

When this exists,

That comes to be.

When this arises,

That arises.

When this does not exist,

That does not exist.

When this ceases,

That ceases.

What he was talking about,

About links,

Have all those four elements.

Okay.

What did I unleash here?

Oh my goodness.

So,

And basically what I'm saying is that we have to reverse engineer our own experience,

Because it's a little different for each of us how it works.

But we're all human,

And there are some general patterns in dependent origination that seem to apply to all of us,

And we understand some of those general patterns that can help us kind of see our own particular manifestation of it.

So one of the models is called the Twelve Lengths of Dependent Origination.

It's probably one of the most familiar ones.

It is on your sheet on the right-hand side,

Taken from the Majna Nikaya,

Number 115.

And those are,

That's one of the classical models.

I'm not going to walk through all of that,

But for those who are familiar with it,

I just wanted you to have it for a frame of reference.

This model,

The Twelve Lengths of Dependent Origination,

Was actually recorded about two or three hundred years after the Buddha died.

And prior to that time,

It was transmitted orally from monk to monk,

From generation to generation.

And as it was being transmitted,

As it was being passed along,

It got codified,

You know,

To make it easier to memorize,

And to kind of simplify it.

But a lot of the codification can make it really difficult to actually see what it actually means.

So what I would like to share with you is an earlier model of dependent origination.

It comes from a collection of suttas called the Atakavagga,

Which scholars believe is probably the oldest collection of suttas,

Many of them of which were probably recorded during the Buddha's life,

Including the one that I want to read to you,

Probably early on in his ministry.

There's some qualities to it.

In these very early suttas,

There's no Lord Buddha,

There's no Blessed One,

There's no Tathagata,

There's just a wanderer,

They call him a wanderer,

Sometimes a surgodama.

There's no Sangha.

There are no groups of monks around him.

It took a number of years for those to gather,

So this seems to be prior to that.

But he's clearly charismatic and deeply respected,

And you can see in this,

What's really lovely to go through is you can see it,

You almost feel it,

Him struggling to find language to describe what he's experienced,

Which there really isn't quite the language for.

So in these early suttas,

There is no twelve links,

There's no eightfold path,

There's no four noble truths,

There's no seven awakening factors,

There's no three characteristics,

There's no number of anything.

Mostly it's just informal dialogue.

The eleventh verse of the Atakavagga,

The Atakavagga,

For those who are interested in looking this up,

You can find it,

It's in a larger collection of suttas called the Sutta-nipata.

It's the fourth book of the Sutta-nipata,

And it contains,

What is it,

Fourteen verses I think?

Maybe it was sixteen,

But it's a small collection of relatively short suttas.

And verse number eleven is the earliest recording we have of the Buddha speaking about dependent origination.

And the word padaka-sama-pada is not used there at all.

So you will find this,

I gave you the whole sutta,

It's on the back of this page,

So I would like to read it to you because,

You know there's problems with all the text,

There's corruptions in all of the text,

But this is like as close as we can get to the source material and I don't know,

It touches me somehow.

Where do disputes and quarrels come from?

In sorrow,

Grief,

And selfishness,

And the pride,

Arrogance,

Insults,

And lies that come with them.

Why do they happen?

Please tell me.

So you notice right there that Dukkha's suffering is described as quarrels and disputes.

Rather than aging,

Deaths,

Lamentation,

Pain,

Grief,

And despair,

The more formulaic version that came later.

But the idea is very much the same,

It's just that the imagery is more grounded in everyday life.

So the Buddha answers,

Disputes and quarrels come from what we hold dear.

Disputes and quarrels come from what we hold dear.

Sorrow,

Grief,

And selfishness,

Pride,

Arrogance,

And slander come with them.

When we argue,

We speak spitefully.

Selfishness is yoked to quarrels and disputes.

So he's saying here that the suffering comes from what we hold dear,

Where there's piyā,

Rather than upadana,

The clinging that shows up in the later sūtas.

So you can see it's the same idea,

Except it's a little less moralistic.

So we hold our children dear,

And they are potentially a source of greatest suffering for us.

But we would not blame somebody for holding their children dear.

So clinging upadana has a slightly moralistic tone.

Well,

You're clinging,

You're bad or something,

But you hold your children dear.

So the Buddha is not passing any judgment on all this stuff.

He's just trying to describe how it is.

This is how it works without getting caught up in right or wrong or good or bad.

So the questioner asks,

Where does endearing come from?

Why do we feel longing and greed and go with it?

What creates hopes and aspirations?

And the Buddha responds,

Endearing comes from desire.

And I'll just note here,

The word here is chanda.

It's not tanha.

Endearing comes from desire.

We want things.

Greed is part of the worldly life.

It causes hopes and aspirations for the future.

I'm confused about the use of the word chanda because I thought that chanda was supposed to express wholesome qualities.

Okay,

Great question.

Here's the issue.

There are three to five hundred years between the recording of the Atacabhāga,

At least two hundred until the Majjhana Gaya was written down and they were tinkering it for another couple hundred years.

So just imagine reading a sixteenth century English description of inner states.

Just the English language has really changed a lot.

So as we look at this,

It could be that he's purposely talking about wholesome states.

It could be that the meaning of the word chanda has actually evolved over time.

There could be all kinds of possible variations in there and frankly we just can't know for sure.

We just can't know for sure.

But part of what I like about it is it does loosen it up a little bit because it takes it away from morality.

And the truth of the matter is that even wholesome desires have to go.

Eventually.

Do you have that on mic?

No,

I was whispering to her.

Oh,

So maybe we can turn off the air condition so the fans is going.

There's ambient rambling.

This was a private conversation.

Chanda,

It's very personal.

It's sweet.

Thank you for that though.

Yes,

We ought to bring that down.

And frankly to me the distinction between,

Well this is just my stuff,

The distinction between chanda and tanha feels to me to be like a later addition,

As a later distinction.

And particularly as the Brahmin influence came in,

It tries to push it into the moral framework.

So where does desire chanda come from?

What about preferences,

Anger,

Lies,

Doubt and all states the wanderer talks about.

So the wandering Buddha responds,

Desire again chanda comes from what we call pleasing and displeasing.

Likewise when people see how things come and go,

They form preferences accordingly.

Anger,

Lies,

Doubt and confusion follow.

We're bound by the duality of pleasing and unpleasing.

If you doubt this,

Train yourself to know it.

You'll understand when you've seen what the states are like.

I just love that.

He says,

You know,

If this doesn't make sense to you,

Train yourself to look inside and see it for yourself.

Don't take my word for it.

Just look inside and check it out yourself.

And the words here,

Pleasing and unpleasing,

Become feeling tone vedna in the later text.

Again it's the same idea but it's a slightly different language.

Where does the feeling of pleasing and unpleasing come from?

When are these states absent?

What makes them come and go,

Please tell me?

The Buddha responds,

Pleasing and unpleasing come from sense impressions,

Pasa.

Without sense impressions they don't occur.

The same happens with coming and going.

They come from sense impressions.

So sense impressions,

Pasa,

Is often translated as contact.

It means raw sensation as we talked about it other times.

So it arises out of raw sensation.

Where in this world do sense impressions come from?

Why do we grasp things?

What must be absent for selfishness to fade?

What needs to be gone for sense impressions to disappear?

Buddha responds,

Mind-body depends on sense impressions.

Grasping things comes from calling to mind.

When there is no desire,

There is no sense of self.

When mind-body is gone,

There are no sense impressions.

In other words,

If you want to get rid of sense impressions and the selfishness and desire that come with it,

Just get rid of the mind-body.

Oops.

I actually,

I think a nicer way,

I think what he's trying to convey there is he's saying this tendency towards grasping in a sense of self,

They just arise out of the mind-body itself.

We don't do it.

It just comes out of it.

There is no self that creates these.

They just sort of mechanical come out of our biology.

What do we have to do for the mind-body to disappear sense impressions,

For happiness and unhappiness to cease?

Please tell us.

Tell us please.

We really want to know.

The Buddha,

Neither perceiving,

Misperceiving nor non perceiving.

In this state,

Mind-body vanishes from awareness.

Conceptualizing is where the problem starts.

Conceptualizing is also the cause of obsessive thinking.

So perception as we know involves conceptualizing,

Putting a label on something.

So as the mind-body gets deeply relaxed,

This conceptualizing and this categorizing ceases.

So just remember in dependent origination the dominoes get smaller and smaller as we go up the causal lengths.

And so we're up into very,

Very small dominoes at this point,

Very,

Very faint impressions.

But as you go up through the jhanas,

You'll experience this.

You'll know it directly if you haven't already.

Question.

Whatever we have asked,

You've revealed to us another question please.

Do all the wise men say this is the highest purity or is there something higher?

In other words,

Is neither perception or non-perception,

Is that the highest we can go?

And the Buddha answers,

Some wise men say this is the highest and some speak of a state where nothing remains.

A genuine sage knows how everything is conditioned.

A genuine sage knows how everything is conditioned.

Understanding conditioning,

He is free and content.

Knowing better,

He does not dispute.

The wise do not keep becoming.

Not becoming here means enlightened.

So notice it's not,

He's not saying getting rid of conditioning.

He says understanding conditioning,

Seeing it clearly for what it is.

So what is it that they don't dispute?

Anything.

They don't dispute their opinions.

He's saying that if someone knows something better,

They don't dispute it.

What it means is if you are really confident and settled and experienced directly,

Some sense that you have,

And somebody says,

Well I don't believe that,

You say okay.

So the implication of this is that there is nothing but a stream of conditioned phenomena.

There is no self that is entangled in this,

There is no self essence that is entangled in this stream of phenomena.

That it just arises reflexively,

If you will,

The sense of self arises reflexively out of this mind-body system,

But there is nothing that does it.

And if there is no self,

If we are not identified with the self,

Then there is no self to suffer,

There is no suffering without the identification.

And please,

If you can hear this,

This is not a theological claim,

It's not a philosophical statement,

It's not a metaphysical manifesto,

It's just an experience.

And hence there is nothing to dispute.

You know,

This is what I experience.

And you say,

Well no,

You don't experience,

Well no,

It's just what I experience,

You have something else,

Okay.

This doesn't refer to like I understand how the Buddhist path works,

I don't get to ask these questions anymore,

I've seen it before myself.

That's right.

Yeah.

So,

And in a lot of the texts it talks about,

You know,

Particularly with stream entry,

That you see really clearly how things operate.

And one of the phrases that's used is they become independent in the Dhamma.

In other words,

It's through their direct experience,

They,

You know,

People know,

It doesn't mean they're fully enlightened,

But they know what they have to do.

And somebody can argue with them about it,

But they know it so deeply,

You know,

There's nothing to dispute.

This is older than other human beings.

This is,

Let me read what Lee Brazington says about this.

If you're really interested in looking at this,

Look it up on his website.

He has this wonderful thing where he's taken this whole sutta and has a table and is listed verse by verse about eight or nine different translations of it.

So you can actually see it.

It's,

You know,

If you feel geeky about this stuff,

It's,

It doesn't get any better than that.

So Lee Brazington,

Who is a scholar of this stuff with a very rich and very mature practice,

And he says,

These verses,

Rather than feeling like a record of an actual conversation,

I have the feeling of being intentionally composed.

The questions are just too perfect.

Each set of questions have in a single answer,

But this does not detract at all from the significance of the sutta.

It is clearly well thought out discourse describing a series of necessary conditions.

Oh,

He uses that phrase,

Necessary conditions.

This is dependent origination in its earliest form.

It would seem that any explanation of dependent origination ought to harmonize with this early description if the later description is going to be accurate.

This is as close as we can get to the gold standard for understanding the Buddha's original thinking about dependent origination.

It says original thinking,

It's not,

It may have evolved some over the series of his ministry.

This is,

This is where it all begins.

And,

And given what the Buddha says,

Understanding his early thinking on dependent origination is a requirement for awakening.

So,

Do you want to unpack this one a little bit?

I just have a question about,

It seems that this thinking just demands living in the present moment,

And which makes sense to me,

But when I look at,

You know,

Buddhism and the history of Buddhism,

There's so much talk about rebirth and past lives.

It's,

It's,

They seem like opposing forces.

There's a lot of discussion about the past and the past causing the future,

But this,

This essence seems to be very much about the present moment,

And all of that really doesn't matter at all.

I think that's accurate.

When the Buddha actually talks about karma,

Etc.

,

He says very clearly that the understanding of karma,

He says don't use it for trying to figure out what happened in the past.

It just,

It doesn't help.

But it's more seen that,

Like for example,

If you get angry at people,

They'll probably blow back at you.

So,

If you see that,

You'll probably want to work on your anger.

But to try to figure out all the causes and conditions,

I mean,

We kind of experience this here,

To try to figure out all the causes and conditions that lead to a single event,

It's actually so complex it'll drive you nuts.

He calls it its vexing.

So,

Understanding the causal events of a single action is what are those things that's called imponderable,

And I think we just had a demonstration of that.

Limited value.

This is a half a year course,

I think.

I mean,

Just to do one paragraph to really penetrate it,

It seems like we're really,

Really,

I mean,

I'm thrilled.

I love it,

But I don't really fully get it.

Okay.

So,

I want to be mindful of the time.

There's a couple different things we could do.

One is actually go back and just unpack these a little bit.

You know,

It is dense.

And another thing that we can do is I could talk you through quickly how all this stuff appears in your actual practice.

Because this practice that we're doing,

I mean,

The Buddha said,

You know,

This is the most important thing and he designed a practice that reveals dependent origination.

Looks like you'll want to do that one first.

Do you want to unpack some of these or is there?

I'd like to do,

Can we talk about our practice and then the other one will stay to unpack the nitty gritty,

Unpack the nitty gritty?

Sure.

Because I want to unpack the nitty gritty.

Well,

And we can also get back and talk about some of the implications without actually unpacking some of the details.

So,

You're sitting there meditating.

And it's very peaceful.

So,

This is your object of meditation.

This is your awareness.

Your awareness is just resting solidly on your object.

Ah,

Sweet.

And you're sitting there and then you think,

Oh,

God,

I really blew it.

There was,

Why did I do it?

Oh,

I was meditating.

So,

You're sitting there,

It's peaceful quiet.

Suddenly there's a whole stream of thoughts.

So,

What do you do?

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile,

Return to the object of meditation.

But I did blow it.

We were doing so well and I don't know why.

Oh,

Okay.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile.

Oh,

I blew it.

And this time you actually catch it like with the first words.

Like,

You know,

You've gone through enough that it becomes familiar.

So,

This phrase,

Oh,

I blew it.

And you catch it right then.

You recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile,

Come back.

I blew it.

Oh,

Recognize.

And so you notice,

It starts to become real clear to you.

There's a huge charge,

You know,

Around this phrase,

I blew it.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax.

I blew it.

Oh,

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile,

Return.

And then what you feel is the charge.

You can feel the mind starts to tighten.

And actually before,

So you recognize that even before the words come to mind.

So,

You know,

So you sit down,

It's very peaceful and you just notice this charge comes in.

And so you recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Re-smile,

Before the word even emerges in your mind.

You see that?

And you feel a little bit of the charge.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile.

Ah.

And then what happens is the mind,

It just starts,

Even before the charge comes up,

There's like a little wobble.

And so you see that wobble and before it,

It develops in a full charge.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Re-smile.

And all the time this is going on,

What starts to happen is that the space between the times you got pulled away gets longer and longer.

And the speed and ease in which you recover,

You know,

Gets shorter and shorter and shorter.

So you just sit in there and it's perfectly quiet.

And there's just a little bit like a vibration.

And you just,

And you see right there,

You recognize,

Release.

Well,

At this point they're all rolled together.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Re-smile.

Ah.

Ah.

And then you slide into Nibbana.

Yeah.

Just like that.

So do you see the links in there?

So,

You know,

I blew it,

You know,

This,

All that stuff,

Those habitual tendencies,

Those are all the stories and on and on and on and on.

And they're triggered,

You know,

The first conceptual thing right there is,

You know,

I blew it,

There's a word that sort of identifies it,

Which triggers all those.

You catch that and relax it and all the stories don't come out.

And underneath that there's a charge,

There's a tension,

There's a tightness,

There's the tanha or chanda,

Whichever language you want to use.

And if you notice the charge,

You know,

Before,

Just right at that point of recognize and release,

The rest don't come up.

So you're seeing that one.

And I guess I left one out because there is,

And sometimes you'll pass through a lot of these,

But,

You know,

It can be very peaceful and it just kind of feels slightly unpleasant.

There's just a,

And it's not about anything in particular because this is pre-verbal,

But you'll be sitting there and there's just this sort of vague feeling of uncomfortableness.

And then rather than let it flower out into this whole big forest of stuff,

You just sixar at that part,

You know,

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

And you're just cutting into it.

And you'll notice in this,

Again,

So what do all those things in my experience have to do with,

You know,

This more or less formal description of what's there.

And there's really a very clearly,

You know,

A relationship to it.

But when you experience it directly,

It's not at all what it looks like when you're just thinking about it before you've experienced it.

It's a good question.

I think it depends on temperament and how you learn.

And if you're a person who gets,

You know,

Intellectually tied into,

You know,

Trying to figure out philosophically,

You know,

How all this stuff,

You know,

Fits together in,

You know,

In tight language,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

It probably gets in the way.

If you can just take it as a general sense of something,

Then what happens is you may hear it and not hold onto it too tightly and then you'll notice there are things that are changing in your practice.

So this is part of what happened to me.

You know,

I could see things are starting to change in my practice and then I thought,

Oh my God,

The Buddha talked about this 2,

600 years ago,

You know,

That maybe I really am on his path.

And that,

You know,

That for me was kind of an inspiration and encouragement.

How did the guy know about this stuff?

You know,

What you just explained sounds like putting a lot of focus on the jhanas.

I mean,

Really what difference does it make that you put a label on where you are in your practice?

Emphasis on that.

So it's a great question and it's,

And I think it really is a matter of temperament.

So the question about,

You know,

How much emphasis to put on the jhanas.

And for some people,

Recognizing where you are on the path can be an inspiration.

The flip side of it is it can bring up comparing mind.

You know,

You can get into evaluating and nobody here has an inner critic,

But for those who have inner critics,

You know,

It can trigger that.

And so traditionally,

You know,

How this is handled is very little of it is actually explained.

The reason I wrote Buddha's Map,

Though,

Was I was going into jhanas and I was trying to figure out what it was and nobody would talk about it.

And then when I finally actually figured out what it was,

I realized if I had known some of this stuff 10 or 15 years earlier,

It would have helped me reorient my practice.

And I may have cut,

You know,

Who knows,

Taken up 15 years of it could have moved along.

But one of the reasons I like the Thai forest style is it does have the individual interview,

So there's a much greater chance to actually see how the person is relating to this and help sort it out in a way that's useful because all of us are going to respond to it differently.

And it just as you talked about in the bhāma jīr,

It's always been from the jhanas or the rūta,

But isn't it true that some people just experience it out in the world?

Sure.

Yeah.

So.

.

.

Sorry,

Sorry,

Pūta had stream entry listening to the Buddha give a dhamma talk.

He wasn't meditating.

And if I remember right,

Bhante was saying that often someone has nirodha or I guess he doesn't use that.

He doesn't use the word nirodha.

Yeah.

Well,

They have the thing after each other and then they come out and like go for a walk or they keep breakfast or something.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I invented the phrase winking out just to cover a whole range of phenomena that didn't sound like Pali so it was a way of reference.

Where I am with this stuff,

My whole interest in this stuff I can see is shifting.

And because I think the jhanas and that map and stuff is very helpful,

But if it's overemphasized and I think how people experience them varies a tremendous amount.

And I've also seen many,

Many people who have gotten stream entry and have gone up to that stuff and have it all fall apart.

And so I think there can be genuine experiences of very deep states that don't stabilize and I think that we're a little more prone that way in the West because we have these kind of curious inquisitive minds that can go way out without stabilizing.

It's like wow,

What was that?

Well,

I wonder what's on TV tonight.

And other cultures that are more devotional.

I think I put this in Buddha's Map.

It was Sokni Rinpoche was asked the difference between his eastern and his western students.

He's a Tibetan Rinpoche,

He's done a lot of teaching in the United States and he says that his westerners get it more quickly.

And he says but they don't stabilize.

And his Tibetan students they move very slowly but once they get someplace they don't slide back.

And so just watch your comparing minds.

So the first thing that comes up is which is better or which is worse,

Right?

You just see that?

It doesn't make any difference,

You know.

Our path is what some of us,

I mean I just,

I had to make peace with the fact,

So I talk about four different kinds of paths.

There is the long and slow path.

There's the long and fast path.

No,

I'm sorry,

It's the long and difficult path.

There's the long and easy path.

There's the short and difficult path.

And there's the one we all want which is the short and easy path.

You know,

We don't get to choose.

We really don't get to choose.

You know,

It's actually something that's more about our nature.

And I just happen to be one of those who does the long and difficult path.

And I bemoaned that for a while and then I realized that it only makes any difference whether you're pointed in the right direction.

And moving.

And so I find even,

You know,

Even in teaching these retreats,

I mean I still do talk about the jhanas and that sort of stuff.

But what I'm really most interested in is people's own deepest experience,

You know,

Where they are,

What that unfolding is and wanting to hold these maps really loosely.

And I would just throw one other thing in here which I don't want to get into tonight but just to name it is that the stages of consciousness,

The complexities of consciousness,

By consciousness what I hear is how we interpret information and assign meaning to it.

I think I talked about this a little bit the other night.

Five-year-old,

A 15-year-old and a 50-year-old walk down the street,

See the same sights,

Same sounds.

They're in a completely different world because how they process that information is different.

How the average person in the 21st century in developed countries particularly process information is the average person is vastly more complex than in the Buddha's time.

And that's just been,

It's not a value judgment.

I think there's just been enough analysis and research to say that's true.

So there are some paths and methodologies that are available to us that weren't there during the Buddha's time.

And I think the main one that I think about is this whole bit of expansion,

You know,

And allowing yourself to expand.

Most of us are a lot closer to a kind of consciousness called transcendent where we get glimpses of it.

In the Buddha's time there wasn't that much of it.

So you see when he was talking about amnata you get these suttas where he's just sort of pounded into people.

Sensation is not the self.

Vedana is not the self.

Kṛṣṇa is not the self.

It's on and on down through all these causal sequences.

And it worked.

I mean he was amazingly successful at it but I think there are multiple routes for us.

So I'm just really interested in how this stuff unfolds for us.

I'm just really interested in how this unfolds.

Want to get feeling really intimate?

Yes,

Thank you for reminding me.

My voice just,

You know,

I might as well be talking into a pillow.

So let me just,

I want to just name a couple more implications of all this and then if there are those who don't want to unpack this a little bit further.

Before you go on,

I have wondered,

Well,

In all of these situations,

How they work with a bunch of people in the entered environment Go ahead,

You guys chat.

I'm just gonna practice.

And I'm sold to where I'm used to that.

Yeah,

Yeah,

You get a dunce cap.

Oh.

Oh.

Yeah,

We'll put a point on it.

So did you understand what I was talking about in this?

That's what he means by knowing dependent origination.

It's not an intellectual formulation.

It's actually seen how this stuff arises.

And this is what I was trying to get across in the beginning,

That how this appears,

How our own suffering appears to each of us is gonna be a little bit different.

And if we get too hooked into an academic map,

It's not gonna work.

Really have to,

As you are wisely doing,

Is looking at your own experience.

And I will just,

I was thinking about this as I was going down to the interviews this afternoon.

What's most important,

What's most helpful in all this,

For dependent origination,

For all the rest of this,

Is a kind of relaxed,

Maybe enthusiastic,

Maybe not,

But a relaxed,

Deep interest in seeing how this machine,

This body,

Mind,

Energetic machine,

Works.

And if you're more interested in that than getting someplace,

That's what you need.

That's all that's really needed.

And so if you're striving to get someplace,

It all begins to get in the way.

And so to the extent that dependent origination can give you some clues about where to look for a little bit and to recognize what's going on and appreciate the value of it,

It's helpful.

To the extent that it makes you think,

Oh,

This is not for me,

This is weird,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

You know,

It's not helpful and you're better off just forgetting about it.

As a personal side note,

I've always been very interested in somebody who just does this exercise and nothing else,

No reading.

I ended up doing some things.

That'd be great to say to you.

It's the end of the action.

It ends up in the same place.

Yeah,

It's the.

Everything unfolds in a similar fashion.

Somebody who's reading their throat and trying to understand the practice.

Or just somebody who's merely following the start.

You know,

The success.

I'm in control.

I didn't hear all that.

I just heard the word control comes through it.

Nobody here has any control issues,

I know.

I used to find on these stent talks and on dependent imagination the most boring experience that I ever had in my life.

I got nothing out of it.

I would sit with them year after year and thought this is nothing to do with my experience at all.

This version of it for me is the most open and well-to-me and relevant.

Yeah,

And.

I should.

We'll edit that out of the tape.

The shift in tone from this to the later text is actually quite typical.

That particularly I look at the quarrels,

Disputes,

Et cetera.

Quarrels and disputes as opposed to jhara-marana.

Aging,

Death,

Pain,

Grief,

Sorrow,

Despair.

The quarrels and disputes just sound like you're talking about everyday stuff.

And the aging,

Death,

Lamentation,

Pain,

Grief,

And despair sounds like a setup for a graduate philosophy seminar discussion.

And some of it actually takes that on.

Understanding that being passed through these patriarchal monk cultures.

Another thing that I will say happened is that,

I will tell you all of it anyway,

Just a quick little aside.

I'm Unitarian Universalist minister.

There are certain minimal requirements and education,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

And before you can be fully ordained and acknowledged,

You go before this board and it's tested,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

And there's a reading list that you're supposed to have mastered.

Now,

When I went through and I was ordained about 40 years ago,

Whenever it was,

There was a list of about 12 books.

The people who are on the board sort of rotate through every couple of years.

There's a new people come in.

So somebody comes in and says,

Oh,

They added this book.

Okay,

So they added that one too.

And this one.

Nobody feels like they can take any books off.

So I feel really sorry for the theological students come through.

They don't count the number of books that they describe it in terms of feet.

You know,

If you stack them up.

You know.

And I think the same thing happened with this.

You know,

What the Buddha was looking at was really quite simple.

And then you have,

You know,

One of his top students was Sariputta who had this incredible intellectual gift,

This capacity to articulate this stuff in very,

Very refined terms.

And so there were people like that come along and say,

Oh,

Well,

To be like a Buddha,

Maybe you have to be like Sariputta too.

His cousin,

Mogulana,

Was,

You know,

A master of what we call psychic stuff.

I mean,

His intuitive sense.

It was really remarkable.

And so,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

He's an arahant so maybe I ever better have that.

And so as he went down,

It looked like the requirements got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

And so it sounded like impossible.

But what the Buddha was talking about was actually really pretty simple and more accessible,

You know,

Than we think.

You don't have to have that kind of intellect.

You don't have to have all those powers.

You just have to really see and get that this system here is obeying natural laws and that any degree of personalization is just missing the point.

You know.

It's actually about that simple.

But it's to really,

Really,

Really get it.

And so this practice is designed to actually peel that all back.

They can see it.

Just a couple quick things.

I just wanna check my notes.

So part of it is this business of that the links get bigger and bigger so the further you go,

The subtler and subtler they are.

So what happens,

And a lot of you know this,

That as your practice goes deeper,

What you're looking at gets subtler and subtler and subtler.

And so the links that you're looking for,

The essential ingredients get actually quite subtle.

So it's not the obvious ones.

It's the subtle ones and the essential ones.

So one of my models of dependent origination are the Russian dolls,

Right?

That within habitual tendencies,

We're talking about inside that is tanha.

Inside tanha is vedna.

You know,

Inside,

They're all in there.

Because in dependent origination,

It sounds like you're looking for something that happened in the past.

But if your mind is racing on,

You say it started by all this tension.

And the tension is an essential ingredient.

It may have set it off,

But it's an essential ingredient.

And so it's still there in the moment.

It may be a lot subtler than the noise of all the thoughts.

But the tension is there in the moment.

You don't have to search for it in the past.

All right.

We no longer exist in a binary world.

It's both.

I mean,

It can be on and off.

I mean,

The state varies.

And it's something like the Buddha got that way back when.

And we,

In our binary thinking,

Keep trying to formulate rather than just accepting.

Yeah,

Well,

Traditional literal consciousness,

Which was the highest consciousness that was generally available at his time,

Has a lot of black and white thinking that's very literal.

If you look at what the Buddha said about all this stuff,

He was clearly not binary.

He was clearly not literal.

He was at least rational,

If not postmodern,

Probably way out there.

Yeah.

Enough.

All that we need for freedom,

All that you need for freedom,

All that I need for freedom,

All that you need for freedom,

Is actually available right now in your experience at this very moment.

It's the tension that distracts us and pulls us away from seeing.

As the tension is relaxed,

The awareness gets clearer and clearer and clearer until you just see how it is,

And it's simple.

You know,

People,

You know,

With stream entry and these other states,

The most remarkable thing about it is,

What's the big deal?

It seems like a huge deal approaching it.

But if we can relax back into our experience and trust it,

Not what we think about it,

Letting go of all those stories about thinking about it,

But just seeing in an open way,

Subtler and subtler dimensions,

Then it just unfolds.

It just unfolds.

Oh,

I guess I can tell you this.

I'll say it.

I was one of,

I wasn't the first,

But I was one of the first of Banti's western students to get stream entry.

And there was another guy at Dhammasukha,

Was an advanced student of his.

And so the fact I got in stream entry got whispered around a little bit.

I'm not supposed to talk about it.

Monks aren't supposed to talk about it.

So I'm not a monk.

And so this guy came to me and said,

So what did you do?

So what was the difference?

And I said,

You know,

It really wasn't anything.

I just sort of relaxed back into it.

And I think,

And two days later,

He got stream entry.

And I think what happened was,

He looked at me and said,

Well,

If Doug got there,

It can't be such a big deal.

You know?

And he relaxed a little bit and it opened.

It was just like that.

You know,

I'd like to take credit for him to getting there,

But if it was,

If it's just saying that,

You know,

Even a recovering,

Slightly obsessive,

Compulsive,

Depressive,

You know,

Can get there,

Then anybody can.

So shall we practice?

And I will hang around a little bit.

If there are some that want to unpack some of the nuances of this,

I would be glad to do that with you.

If that doesn't feel relevant to where your practice is now,

That's fine.

If it's some later date,

You become interested in this,

Send me an email,

I'll send you my notes.

But for now,

Just appreciating the incredible gift of the Sangha,

Of attainment doesn't make any difference,

You know,

In the Sangha.

It's just the sincerity of the practice.

So the incredible gift of people who are,

All of you here,

Are just willing to stay with it,

True,

Thick and thin,

And just keep opening up and seeing what's there with heart,

With kindness.

And so just kind of out of gratitude,

Just sending around to all of us here,

You know,

May your awareness unfold,

May you know that unshakable depth of contentment,

May you know the freedom that's already here.

And then sending out to the 12-step women downhill from us,

To the brothers,

To the staff,

To the voles and bobcats,

And then sending out beyond all those around the planet,

And then out into the universe.

May all beings everywhere,

No expansiveness,

No clarity,

No kindness,

No ease,

No luminous stillness,

May all beings be free.

May it be so.

Blessed be.

Please continue.

Your childhood friend,

Are you still in the picture?

Is he still alive?

Last time I was in touch with him he was,

But that was probably over 50 years ago.

Do you ever ponder yet,

Wondering what he's up to?

No.

Maybe I should,

But the reality is I don't.

So are you here to go a little bit further with this?

Yeah.

Yeah,

Okay.

So I'll just walk through the links,

Starting with pastas,

Starting with sense impressions,

Out of the sutta-nipata,

Out of the.

.

.

Oh no,

I'm fine,

I'm fine.

I'm very tired and my energy's good.

I'm really fine.

So raw sensation,

You all know what raw sensation is,

We've talked about it.

It's uninterpreted,

Unadorned,

Sense impressions that have not been labeled.

You hear a sort of rumbling sound and before you figure out whether it's traffic or the trees or the pond or something,

There's just the sound.

And it's usually described as contact,

Which is contact between the sensory signal like light,

Sensory organ like the eye,

And it's sensory awareness like seeing.

And that very quickly gives rise to pleasing and unpleasing,

Satama asatay.

And remember that it's like Vedana.

It's just a light on the dashboard.

It's just a signal.

It's not a fire alarm.

It's nothing.

It has very,

Very little charge to it.

And the nature of those signals can be painful and they can be pleasant and they can be this sort of fogginess that's neither painful nor pleasant but is kind of a signal that you may need a little more information.

And there's a speculation about possibility of some kind of contact,

Connection need with other people.

Pain,

Pleasure,

Lack of clarity get a lot of bad press in spiritual circles.

But without those signals,

Frankly we'd walk in front of buses and get bitten by dogs and all kinds of stuff.

So we need the signals.

And also if the Vedana,

The pleasing,

Unpleasing,

If that wasn't there,

The only other option would be for the mind to sort through this incredible torrent of data that's running through us all the time and try to figure out which is important and unimportant.

So we can be thankful for Vedana.

It just signals something that needs attention and the rest can slip away.

And then what happens is the signal is so laid back.

The signal is so laid back that it's possible to just ignore it.

So theoretically we can back into a stove or overlook a rattlesnake by the path or something like that.

So there's a backup system.

So if there's this faint signal and it's something that really needs attention,

Then there's this backup system that really energizes the system and really jacks up our motivation.

So if the signal is about safety,

Then the jacked up signal is hatred,

Anger,

So there's kind of primitive aversion.

If it's about a need satisfaction,

Then the signals are desire,

Liking,

Sweetness.

If it's really strong,

It gets into lust,

Greed,

All those.

If the signal is about something that needs more information and we're not doing that,

Then you could get this feeling of boredom,

Et cetera,

That sort of thickness of mind.

Up to this point,

There are no words,

No concepts.

These are just felt signals.

So what we have at this point is a signal.

Well,

There's a sensation and there's the signal.

Maybe you need to do something about it,

And if you haven't,

Then there's this charge to do something about it,

But at this point we don't know what it is we're supposed to do something about.

So the next thing that happens is the Upadana or in the early text it's called Pia,

This endearing.

And in both of those,

What happens is the mind,

As I said before,

Kind of shrink wraps and gathers around this thing and tells us what it is we need to do something about.

And it's actually in this place where it starts to grab hold that a sense of self begins to form,

Because at that point it starts off just as a phenomena where there's,

Let's say,

Aversion.

So there's this feeling of pushing something away which gives rise to the sense that there's something out there to be pushed away and there's something in here to push it away.

So you get that first beginning of a sense of self.

Are there something that's sweet,

You know,

That there feels some attraction to,

Which very rapidly gives rise to the sense there's an object out there and there's a me that's attracted to it.

So it just arises right out of that.

Which one are you talking about right now?

Oh,

This is Upadana or Empia.

And you'll notice on the two of these that in the Sutta-nipata,

In the very early text,

It goes right straight from that naming and that identifying and labeling right straight up to suffering.

The later text,

Break it down a little bit more.

So you have something that you need to deal with,

But you don't necessarily have a plan at that point.

So the plan arises up out of habitual tendencies.

And as I look at this,

I guess I really like the early text a lot more because the habitual tendencies are already there.

So habitual tendencies are just our predisposition,

Our conditioning,

Our beliefs,

Our ideas,

Et cetera.

And what happens is the labeling of Pia or Upadana gets thrown into habitual tendencies and they start thinking about it and a plan is formed.

And this all may be done unconsciously or may be done very consciously,

But there's an action plan that's formed.

And then if we act on it,

Then there's the possibility of suffering.

Could you just give a little bit more than just a birth of action which precedes habitual tendencies?

What's that all about?

Well,

That doesn't exist in the early one,

The birth of action,

Which seems like a very definitive moment.

Well,

What I would say,

So I think this is what was going on in this,

Is that the bhava and the jati,

The habitual tendencies of birth of action,

Once you get to clinging and once you get to endearing,

If you start to move with those,

They just happen.

So they're actually embedded.

They're just not separated out in there.

And I think part of the reason for that is the scholarly thing that came in over the years where these monks began to say,

Oh,

There actually are these intermediary steps.

Some of them are a little questionable to me because bhava,

Habitual tendencies,

Is actually different than the other links because habitual tendencies,

They're there.

They're already there.

They get triggered.

So they're essential ingredient,

But they're there,

But they don't arise out of it.

But from the Buddha's perspective,

If he's just interested in freedom and if these things are gonna happen automatically,

What you need to do to get free is to actually relax the upadana,

The clinging or the endearing.

And once you do that,

Then the suffering doesn't come out of it.

And the intervening in between steps,

They're not important because they'll just kind of run out anyway and whether or not you're gonna identify them.

And if we really got microscopic,

We could probably break some of these down into more and more steps.

But this originally was not intended as a treatise on metaphysics.

It was really a practical explanation of how to practice.

And so what you have in the early stuff is actually what's most relevant to actually practice.

You don't have to worry about the plan you came.

Once the mind is clamped down and decided it needs to do something about that,

That's all you need to know.

Whether you're gonna go here or there or something else is all the same.

So it sounds that at this time,

Back when this was happening,

The detachment was probably considered something positive to happen.

That's why,

And maybe that's why the monastic orders came about because the more detached you could be,

The more likely,

Well,

The assumption is that you would suffer less,

Which isn't true,

But- Well,

Yeah.

It's in the nature of the being.

And there's a language issue in that because this passion is not being invested in it,

But being interested.

And detachment has that sense of I don't care.

And the Buddha was saying,

No,

We really have to know what's going on.

And paying attention to what's going on is very,

Very important.

But if you are betting on a horse,

If you want a particular outcome,

Actually it's in the monotheistic traditions,

It's actually stated really clearly in phrases like,

You do the best you can and dedicate the fruits of your labor to God.

So you do what you can,

And the result of it is none of your business.

In Buddhism,

We don't have that kind of language,

That kind of theological structure behind it,

But it's that attitude.

That your job is to pay attention and what comes out of it.

It's really not any of your business personally,

But it's really,

Really helpful to know what's going on there so you can understand.

And once you see how it operates,

It's just,

As you see how it operates,

That you know if you do something that's gonna be painful,

You just see it really clearly almost before you act,

And it just becomes more and more difficult to act on it.

Do you know the little thing about the cop and the thief?

Cop and the thief.

So this is an Utejaniism.

He says there's this little town,

And there's a thief in the town,

And there's one cop.

It's a good cop.

And he says as long as the cop knows who the thief is,

There's really no problem,

Right?

So the thief goes off and does his thing.

Well,

The cop is on it,

Right?

So he's not gonna get very far,

Right?

But if you don't have a cop,

Or if the cop doesn't care,

Or the cop is not paying attention,

Then you get a problem.

And so when there's awareness,

When you see what you're doing,

You have a sense of what's gonna happen from that,

You don't need a bunch of rules.

You can say,

Oh,

This is gonna be painful,

And you just know what to do about it.

But if you don't see it clearly,

And you don't see the consequences that are coming,

Then you get into trouble.

So the dispassion,

In the sense of not personalizing,

Is really,

Really important.

But with the one caveat,

It's important to pay attention to what's going on.

So you don't,

You know,

Ignorance and confusion and delusion,

Delusion can come from just bad information.

You know,

It's not necessarily,

You know,

Psychosis or something like that.

Bad information is bad information,

So pay attention.

Question.

So subjectively in the practice,

Or in day-to-day life,

The experiences come off as personal.

There is,

For example,

If there is in practice when I'm paying attention to the object of meditation,

And the mind goes away,

It,

I mean,

Usually my response is that I should have paid attention,

Or I should have got it before it went away.

Right.

Well,

And so what I would suggest is that your actual experience is that the attention went away.

I need to do something about it is added on top of that.

That's not something you experience directly.

That's an interpretation.

Okay.

So my sense of it is that,

Let me put it this way,

Ego has two very different meanings.

The way Freud used the term was ego was a decision-making locus,

And he actually did not use the word ego.

What he used was the German word self.

You know,

When it was translated in English,

It just seemed too ordinary,

So they gave it Latin to elevate it,

But he was really,

Freud was really a phenomenologist who was looking at that.

So there's this decision-making locus.

So I think of that as,

You know,

You're driving down,

You're going to this party,

You're really excited to get there,

You're driving down the road,

You have to cross the railroad track,

There's a train coming to you,

Rush across or do you stop and wait for the train to go by?

That's an ego decision.

You're kind of sorting out your needs and reality in what you do.

And for young children,

Developing a sense of self is a way of creating a much more efficient decision-maker.

You know,

If I'm a good boy,

Then I know that I walk in a house,

I'm not supposed to let the screen slam,

Wipe the mud off my feet,

You know,

All these different things.

I don't have to remember all these things,

I'm a good boy,

It all comes with it.

So you develop,

In particular,

You develop a healthy sense of self.

So you have ego as a sense of self,

And you have ego as a decision-maker.

Two different meanings of the word ego.

So early on in life,

Having a healthy sense of self is deeply aligned with having a good decision-maker.

As we go older and older and older,

Our wellbeing becomes more and more dependent on a wider and wider circle of people.

So if I'm just taking care of my needs and ignore everybody else's,

That's gonna blow back on me eventually.

So the circle of caring gets wider and wider and wider.

And so the sense of an individual self,

Particularly given the spiritual maturity,

Sense of individual self begins to wane for the sake of making clearer and clearer decisions.

Does that make sense?

Can you repeat the last part?

So as the circle goes wider and wider?

Your circle of caring,

You know,

Who's important?

If I am concerned with my wellbeing and I treat you like dirt,

Well,

I'm gonna feel terrible and when I'm in trouble,

You're probably not gonna be terribly available.

So it's in my enlightened self-interest,

You know,

To help support a large,

Caring,

Fair community.

And so the sense of an individual self,

It's still there in practical purposes.

You know,

These are my shoes and that,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

But in terms of how you function in the world,

As you mature spiritually,

It just takes larger and larger and larger circles of people into account.

So early on,

Making good decisions about taking care of yourself depends on developing a stronger and stronger,

Healthy sense of self.

And then once you have that sense of self,

Then it needs to wane in favor of a.

.

.

Decision.

Yeah,

The decision-making function gets clear and clear as it goes away.

So why did I get into that?

What was your first question?

Oh.

In practice,

I think you were talking about,

I was asking the question that when my mind goes away,

I blame myself for it.

Right.

And then you were saying that that interpretation is after the fact.

Right,

Yeah,

That gets layered on top of it.

And you know,

And the healing of that is that what you wanna get,

And many of us have,

You know,

Damaged sense of self,

Is that you actually wanna cultivate and do what you need to develop a healthy sense of self,

And then you can lose it.

But to talk about getting rid of sense of self when there's a lot of self-hatred in there just sounds like squashing down on self-denial and that just more pain.

So I think it was Roger Wallace who first said it,

And he regrets it now,

But I think he was absolutely right.

He said,

You have to have a healthy self before you can get rid of it.

You have to send it,

It doesn't matter.

Pardon?

It doesn't matter.

You're strong,

You know it.

Right,

Right,

Right,

Right.

And that's,

And that.

There's nothing to prove,

But.

That's right,

That's right,

That's right.

And that's a place where,

You know,

Somebody says,

You know,

Liz,

You're a terrible person,

Why'd you do all that stuff?

And you look inside and say,

Well,

You know,

You're probably right,

I have done some terrible things,

But,

You know,

What's interesting?

You know,

It's not a.

But if you have a strong ego you have to defend,

Then you end up using a lot of energy at that.

Okay.

Yeah,

You're welcome,

You're welcome.

Thanks for your patience with me.

I have a stupid question that's gonna show my ignorance.

Good,

Good.

I have a stupid apology that I haven't heard before.

What is stream entry?

Oh,

It's the first stage of enlightenment.

Okay,

So that's like way up there.

Yeah,

It's.

It's reserved for,

I mean,

Reserved for.

How should I put this?

I mean,

It's the highest level of.

No,

It's not the highest level.

It's the beginning of the higher levels.

And the important thing about stream entry,

It's not a stupid question,

Is it does sound esoteric and far away.

But it's not.

And the Buddha was talking about something that really is accessible.

It really is.

So if I had to place it on a scale just so that I know where it is,

Would that be beyond the eighth?

I'll give you a chart tomorrow with all of it.

Yeah,

So the eighth jhana is sort of the launching platform.

And so how you practice when you're eighth jhana is what the practice is from there on.

And then it just unfolds from there.

Oh,

There was one.

So this is the extra prize for hanging around.

And the people.

Reviews

Thank you, thank you! You have a way of making it clear and personal!