Disenchantment

As spiritual maturity grows, one grows disenchanted with suffering. Disenchantment is one of the stages of Progress of Insight in Theravada Buddhism on the way to Awakening. Recorded at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, March Monthlong Retreat on 3/16/2017.

Transcript

I have the good fortune to speak with you tonight about disenchantment.

I didn't hear any cheers in the audience announcing the topic.

Wait,

It's not what you think.

So,

Disenchantment,

Nibbida.

Nibbida,

Actually,

Nibbida.

The poly word for those who like poly words.

N-I-B-B-I-D-A.

So,

Nibbida can be described as disenchantment,

Disengagement,

Dispassion,

Or losing attachment to something.

So,

The word might seem to have negative connotations,

But actually it's a wholesome movement of the mind and part of the journey towards awakening.

So,

It's actually a good thing and it's my task to share how it is actually a wholesome movement tonight through my talk.

So,

First I'd like to spend some time together to understand what we actually mean by the word.

So,

The word in Pali,

Nibbida,

It's derived from the prefix,

Nis,

N-I-S,

Which means without.

And then attached to the verbal root,

Vindati,

Which means to find.

So,

Most literally,

The word nibbida means without finding,

Without finding.

There is a story in the text that is useful in illustrating the meaning of this important term.

We'll get to the disenchantment in English in a moment.

So,

The story is that a dog stumbles upon a bone,

Which has been exposed to the elements for many,

Many months.

So,

Basically it's been bleached and it has absolutely no flesh or marrow.

It's a pretty bleached piece of bone.

So,

The dog picks it up,

It keeps gnawing on it with a lot of passion.

It just keeps gnawing and expecting flesh and nutriment and it keeps going at it,

Going at it.

And it takes a while until the dog realizes that he is not finding,

Quote,

Not finding what he is looking for.

The satisfaction he is looking for in the bone and he throws it away.

So,

It's not that the bone in itself,

It's just a piece of bone,

You know,

It's just a bone,

It's a perfectly fine bone.

There is nothing bad or intrinsically disgusting about the bone.

It's just that the dog has this raging desire for meat,

Which is just not getting satisfied with this bone.

So,

The dog is enchanted by the prospect of gratification.

But the truth is that the bone just cannot provide it.

It's just simply that.

So,

Let's consider now the word enchantment,

The opposite of disenchantment in English.

So,

Enchantment,

If we look in the dictionary,

We find the state of being under a spell.

Enchantment.

And there are all these stories,

These fairy tales,

When we were young we were told fairy tales where there were these spells and enchantments placed on this character or that character or a forest or this and that.

And in all these stories,

It's a good thing when the character wakes up and loses that spell,

Wakes up from that spell and loses that enchantment.

In fact,

The fairy tales with spells and enchantments,

It's interesting,

They were quite awful.

Some time ago,

A few years ago,

I saw a play in Berkeley by Mary Zimmerman and it was about fairy tales.

And for the first time as an adult,

I got to really see how scary these fairy tales were.

Pretty,

Pretty awful and scary with all these spells and awful things happening.

So,

Through that play,

I lost my enchantment with fairy tales which I had as a kid.

I loved them.

I didn't quite realize how scary they were.

So,

The word disenchantment,

The definition of it is the state of being rid of or free from enchantment or illusion.

It's to be freed from illusion or false belief.

It also means to undeceive.

So,

With that,

There's a sense that there is this false belief,

There is this illusion that we get freed from through this enchantment.

So,

It's actually wholesome,

It's a lovely thing that can happen.

So,

An enchantment we have probably all felt at some point in our lives that we can relate to probably was when we fell in love at first.

Or started to have a big crush on someone.

It kind of reminds me of that popular song in the 1980s by Sting,

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.

Are you familiar with that song?

I think that's the perfect song of enchantment,

Right?

Every little thing he or she does is magic,

So completely enchanted.

And then,

It's kind of interesting because for some weeks or months that's what happens to us.

Anyone not experience that?

For weeks or months you're in euphoria,

Every time you think of the person you get a rush of delight,

Of joy.

Which,

By the way,

Is similar to gambling or drug addiction,

That's dopamine,

It turns out.

It's the feel-good hormone,

One of the hormones that are responsible for falling in love.

And then comes the norepinephrine,

Which like dopamine makes you feel good,

But it also makes you feel completely infatuated and obsessed.

It's basically our brain's way of saying,

Keep going,

Don't let up,

Keep going.

And then,

What happens is that the limbic reward system,

Which is lighting up like a Christmas tree,

Which by the way research shows is the same as if you're addicted to cocaine,

Being in love is actually similar to being addicted to cocaine,

It turns out.

So the limbic reward system is getting all this reward from the beloved,

Their phone call and conversation,

Seeing them.

And then the amygdala,

Which is the key in making judgment calls,

It takes a little nap,

It just goes offline.

Which is responsible for our judgment being completely clouded,

And as friends and family are pointing out the red flags,

We're all totally googly in love and totally enchanted.

And we see our beloved through rose-colored glasses.

So that's enchantment,

Right?

We've all experienced that.

And then in some cases it goes on for a few weeks,

A few months,

And then we kind of wake up and we don't know what all the fuss was about.

Like,

Oh my goodness,

We're not a match at all,

What was I thinking?

You're like,

Ah!

So that's lack of enchantment.

So it's not that there's something inherently wrong with the person,

It's just you were not seeing clearly,

Because you were completely enchanted,

Completely enchanted thanks to all those hormones in the brain that made you wear these rose-colored glasses.

So guess what?

We all wear rose-colored glasses,

Evolutionarily,

Because we seek satisfaction where it can't be found.

And philosophers and scientists talk about this also,

It's not just in Buddhism.

I came across,

I'll share with you the first paragraph of this article that said,

Is consciousness an illusion?

This was,

Just to give credit,

This was in the New York Review of Books by Thomas Nagel,

And it's a review of a book written by Daniel Dennett,

The well-known philosopher.

So the first paragraph starts,

For 50 years the philosopher Daniel Dennett has been engaged in a grand project of this enchantment of the human world,

Using science to free us from what he deems illusions,

Illusions that are difficult to dislodge because they are so natural.

In his book From Bacteria to Bach and Back,

His 18th book,

Dennett presents a valuable and typically lucid synthesis of his world view.

Though it is supported by reams of scientific data,

He acknowledges that much of what he says is conjectural rather than proven,

Either empirically or philosophically.

So philosophers can wax philosophy about this illusion and this grand project of disenchantment,

Trying to dislodge our attachment to this illusion.

But actually,

The Buddha was the very first phenomenologist and philosopher,

Scientist supreme,

Who really invited us to see the Dharma for ourselves as a first person investigation,

That we can do this,

We can actually see with our own senses,

With clear mindfulness,

We can see that,

We can see this illusion,

We can see the illusion of consciousness,

The illusion of the five aggregates,

We can see them.

And again,

As it has been said over and over,

And I will repeat,

This seeing,

This clear seeing,

Is not something heady that we engage in.

We don't see detached from the top of the tower up here,

But it's done through our entire being,

With our heart,

Our mind,

The entire body,

We see these truths as they arise.

So this disenchantment,

This engagement,

This passion,

It naturally arises from seeing things just as they are,

From seeing the three characteristics,

The marks of existence,

As relating to the five aggregates.

When we see impermanence,

As Dara beautifully talked about,

When we see arising and passing away,

Everything arises and passes away quickly,

There is no permanency,

No solidity in this world really,

It keeps changing.

You know,

We work so hard,

We work so hard,

Say on retreat,

To get all the conditions right,

You know,

We have the right cushion,

And the right this,

And the right that,

And it changes,

It keeps changing,

Keeps changing to see the river of change.

Sometimes seeing this impermanence can show up to us in our practice as phenomena just doesn't stop,

It just doesn't stop,

It just doesn't stop,

It just keeps coming and going and coming and going and coming and going,

Coming and going somewhere,

It just doesn't stop.

It can feel like that,

It can feel like instability when we see it,

It can feel like everything is disappearing,

It can feel like there is nothing to hang on to,

Nothing to hang on to,

It all disappears,

It all passes.

What's the point to reach for the next moment,

For the next aggregates,

Because they are going to pass also,

So it can arise like that,

It can be seen like that,

The disenchantment,

Lack of enchantment.

It can also be seen through when we see dukkha and satisfactoriness,

That there is no inherent satisfaction in the aggregates,

Because they keep changing,

Actually,

Anicca impermanence is directly related to dukkha,

Because when something keeps changing and changing and changing,

By definition it cannot be satisfying,

It can't be,

Because we can't kind of hold on to it and let it keep it fixed.

And as Philip talked about last night,

Treated us to a treatise on not-self,

Anatta,

It's the unreliability of this body,

Of this mind,

Of this process,

It's uncontrollable,

We can't really control it.

Were you able to control your moods today,

Anyone?

Control your thoughts,

Control your body,

Tell it not to be tired or sick or whatever happened.

Also,

Ungovernability,

That's another way anatta could be seen,

It's not governable,

We can't govern the senses,

Can't govern your thoughts,

You know,

They come and go,

Thoughts arise.

And as Philip said,

Seeing that there is no there there,

There is no there there.

So when the mind sees the three marks of existence with the eye of wisdom,

It naturally,

It naturally loses its enchantment with them,

It starts to turn away,

It starts to naturally turn away,

And the stance of non-attachment arises.

And I like Bikubodi's words,

He usually nails it with his choice of words,

He says,

Nibbida signifies in short,

The serene dignified,

I love these words,

The serene and dignified withdrawal from phenomena which supervenes when the illusion of their permanence,

Pleasure and selfhood has been shattered,

This is great,

Has been shattered by the light of correct knowledge and vision of things as they are.

So this reorienting,

This disengagement that naturally happens when we see things as they really really are.

Although it's part of spiritual maturity,

It may also come with some unsettling difficult emotions.

There could be a feeling of estrangement from what has been our familiar experience.

There's a feeling that,

There could be a feeling that,

Oh we've been duped all along,

We've put all our eggs in this basket and wait,

This is,

It's not what we thought,

It just really all goes away,

There's complete impermanence and it doesn't belong to us and it's not satisfactory.

Wow,

Nobody told me,

I remember feeling that way at some point in my practice.

It felt like I had been duped,

Not intentionally by anyone but by evolution,

Evolution had duped me to see things in a particular way.

So this feeling,

This reorienting that happens,

It can come with at first a sense of disappointment,

It can bring up some sense of mourning or sadness,

While we see that what we were attached to doesn't satisfy us anymore and we haven't quite quite landed on the other side in the safe refuge.

So there could be a stage for some people that it has even been termed the dark night of the practice.

And again,

It's not a problem,

It's not a bad thing,

It's part of the spiritual maturity that I'll be speaking more about.

And also a sense of boredom can come up with what was previously satisfying but it's no longer satisfying,

So there could be a lack of interest.

Ajahn Chah puts it beautifully,

This turning away comes from the sense of disenchantment and dispassion that arises as the natural result of seeing the way things are.

It's not a turning away that comes from ordinary worldly moods such as fear,

Revulsion or other unwholesome qualities like envy or aversion.

It's not coming from the same root of attachment as those defiled mental states.

This is turning away that has a spiritual quality to it and has a different effect on the mind than the normal moods of boredom and weariness.

So the state of reorienting,

It can take little time or it can take little longer to mature through.

So until this restabilization is established and we have landed safely on the other side,

It can feel like a state of limbo a little bit as we are letting go of the familiar way of seeing things.

And we are not quite established in the new way,

It's kind of like taking a leap mid-air and if you take a snapshot in that moment,

You have left the ground but haven't quite landed yet and that could be just a snapshot or a little longer for some.

This stage of practice,

It's important to have guidance,

Reassurance and have courage to continue and have faith that many,

Many other practitioners have gone through this stage.

And you will too,

You can too.

And to take refuge,

To take refuge,

To take refuge.

In this maturing,

In this spiritual maturing,

Spiritual maturity that bergens,

It's really an act of not putting our faith in what is not satisfying anymore.

Though one thing to be clear about is that this disenchantment is not with any aversion.

It doesn't come with a sense of aversion to the world,

It's just being disenchanted,

Seeing it clearly,

Just like the example of being in love.

When you're enchanted,

There's gold dust everywhere,

But when you become disenchanted,

You just see the person as they are.

You see their beauty,

You see their faults,

You are very clear headed and that's disenchantment.

You can see the world clearly,

You don't look for satisfaction where it's not to be had,

You don't take things personally anymore.

When they're not personal,

You don't expect your body to behave or get upset when you get sick because it just does,

It's not yours.

So it's actually what you let go of more and more,

What you let go of is suffering,

This disenchantment,

This really disenchantment with suffering.

That's the crux of it,

Which I will talk about more in a moment.

But what I also wanted to say is that this engagement,

This passion,

It doesn't have any aversion to the world,

It's just a clear saying to the world,

Towards the world.

So there is the relative level,

There's the relative and then there is the absolute.

So in the relative level,

We all exist,

We're human beings,

We're sitting here in this room together,

There's no denying that.

So not to deny and have aversion towards this relative reality that we live in.

And there's also the ultimate,

The ultimate reality where things are as they are and we can clearly see arising and passing away and the not-self.

And both of these,

Both of these realities,

The ultimate,

Actually it's not absolute,

It's ultimate,

I misspoke,

The ultimate and the relative,

They're both important in our practice.

We don't privilege necessarily one over the other.

And as they say,

Before enlightenment,

Chop wood carry water,

After enlightenment,

Chop wood carry water.

We still stay in the world,

There is this relative level that we continue to live in.

So don't try to make that mistake and try to be overly spiritual and have complete dispassion towards the world and don't like it,

I want to get away from it,

I want to live in the ultimate.

But it doesn't work that way,

It doesn't work that way,

We clearly see the way things are so that we can have freedom,

So that we can live in this relative world with more freedom in the way we are,

In the way we love,

In the way we act in the world,

In the way that we don't attach,

In the way we don't cause harm to ourselves and to others by taking things so personally.

So again,

Another example to really bring up this idea that there is no aversion towards the world is think of when you were a child and you had toys,

When you played with toys,

Whatever they were,

And then you became older and matured,

It wasn't that you hated the toys,

There was no aversion towards them,

It was just that you outgrew the toys.

I was actually thinking about this example and I was trying to make it personal and I didn't quite have too clear of a memory of playing with too many dolls and toys,

But one memory came,

Which is my enchantment with math problems,

Doing math problems,

When I was in my early teens,

I think I was 12 years old or so,

And this memory that came up for me was,

So I was born and raised in Tehran,

Iran,

And I have this memory of being in early teens and we were driving,

Making the long drive,

The summer vacation,

Driving up to the Caspian Sea,

And I was sitting in the back of the car with my math problems and I was just happily doing these math problems,

I was fascinated with trigonometry and pre-catalysts and algebra,

And I was completely enchanted,

There were all these beautiful landscapes going by,

No,

I was solving my math problems,

I was completely enchanted,

Completely,

And I grew out of that phase,

And it's not that I hate or despise math problems,

It's just they're not as enchanting anymore,

So there's not that enchantment with doing them,

Instead of looking outside and enjoying nature.

So we can see that if we think back in our lives,

Actually,

There are many cases where we have ourselves experience this enchantment,

Perhaps some relationships fell away that we became dispassionate about,

Or maybe some of our habits changed,

Maybe the way we dress or people we spend time with,

It's not uncommon for people to,

For example,

Lose their taste for going to bars and things like that,

When they start practicing more,

So,

Just losing enthusiasm for them,

So,

Really,

Nipida,

This enchantment,

Is an act of wisdom,

Which takes effect in its own time,

You can't really force it,

And you can't really want it,

It unfolds naturally when the time is right,

When the insights deepen,

So the goal of this talk is not so much to create an enchantment with disenchantment,

Or another thing to want as spiritual materialism on your way,

On your journey,

But just to have you be exposed to it,

Just to have you be exposed to it,

So that if it arises for you,

Either in daily life or in practice,

You recognize it,

You value it,

You bow to it,

You honor it,

As part of spiritual maturity of this path.

So disenchantment,

Disenchantment is not for its own sake,

Disenchantment really is for the sake of being disenchanted with suffering,

That's the point of it,

The Buddha taught one thing and one thing only,

Suffering and the end of suffering,

And disenchantment is no exception,

Disenchantment with suffering,

And if you remember one thing from the talk,

I invite you to remember this,

The idea of this becoming disenchanted with our suffering,

And what does that mean?

You know we often are so fascinated with our own story,

My story,

My point of view,

My argument,

My history,

My emotion,

My suffering,

My pain,

My pleasure,

My,

My,

My,

Have you noticed how self referential we are as human beings?

It's fascinating.

Our stories,

Our narration,

Our point of view,

At some point,

You know,

They can become tiresome,

Again not with aversion,

But they can,

We can lose steam of kind of feeding them more and more and more,

They just don't provide any more satisfaction,

And we just cannot soldier on with them anymore.

So in daily life,

This can happen when our mind loses its passion,

And seeing some patterns that cause pain.

There was some time ago,

And I was in this situation of some conflict and a lot of misunderstandings with someone actually close to me,

And some time ago,

So my mind would just pick up the story,

It would pick up my point of view,

And would pick up how I was right,

And how I would become self righteous in my mind,

Of course I wasn't talking with this person,

It was just all in my mind,

And I would get angry,

And I would go on and on and on,

And I would notice and I would drop it,

And then my mind would pick it up,

And it would go on and on,

And all this angry energy,

And all this arguing,

And going over all the misunderstandings over and over again,

Over again,

Would drop it,

And I would pick it up a little bit later,

Maybe a day later,

I would just go over,

Just exhausting,

Exhausting my story,

My point of view,

I'm right,

I'm right,

I'm right,

And at some point,

My mind just got tired of it,

It just became disenchanted,

It just didn't want to do it anymore,

It was exhausting,

My thoughts would go there,

And this person and this story would come up,

And my mind just didn't have any interest,

It had grown disenchanted with riling itself up,

So that was an interesting turning point,

And I've seen that in other cases,

When the mind just gets disenchanted,

Gets just uninterested in doing the same thing it was doing,

And it was causing itself a lot of pain,

A lot of harm,

A lot of suffering,

So becoming disenchanted with suffering.

Another way that we can sometimes experience this disenchantment also,

Is when we are sick,

And we don't have our full vigor and energy to engage passionately the same way we usually do,

And it's interesting because for the past few days I hadn't been feeling well,

And I haven't been in the hall much as you've noticed,

And it's interesting to notice that my mind just didn't have too much energy to get engaged,

There was kind of natural disenchantment,

So when you're sick actually,

Especially when you're sick on retreat,

It's the perfect opportunity to experiment with this natural lack of enchantment that can arise,

Because the mind is just not that interested,

It's just too much work to go on that train of thought,

And go on that,

And that emotion,

It's just like,

Just not interested,

I don't want to go there.

Have you noticed that,

Anyone who's been sick?

Yeah,

Great,

Nice.

So one actually practice note that is sometimes given to people,

Especially if there's over-efforting in the practice,

Is to practice as if you were sick.

Seriously,

Practice like a sick person.

What would a sick person practice like,

What would that be like?

A state of mind,

A state of body,

Just kind of 60% effort,

Not 100%,

Just 60%,

Very gentle,

Relaxed,

Spacious,

Can't get bothered with that,

Okay,

I stay here,

Right here,

Right now,

It's just,

Really try it,

If you're sick,

I can't say I'm happy for you,

But you'll have the perfect opportunity to really experiment with this on this retreat,

With this virus that has been going on,

And you might already have experience with it,

And oh yeah,

You can recognize your own experience,

What I'm talking about.

From Ajahn Chai again,

If you clearly see the truth of these things through meditation practice,

Then suffering becomes unwound,

Like a screw or a bolt,

When the bolt is unwound,

It withdraws,

The mind unwinds in the same way,

Letting go,

Withdrawing from the obsession with good and evil,

Possessions,

Praise and status,

Happiness and suffering.

If we don't know the truth of these things,

It's like tightening the screw all the time,

It gets tighter and tighter until it's crushing you,

And you suffer over everything.

When you know how things are,

Then you unwind the screw,

In Dhamma language,

We call the arising of Nipida,

We call this the arising of Nipida,

This enchantment,

You become weary of things and lay down the fascination with them.

If you unwind in this way,

You will find peace.

So this lack of enchantment or disenchantment,

Nipida,

Can also happen with what we sometimes get enchanted with on the path to practice,

Called the Dharma Delights.

So these Dharma Delights are also known as the Ten Corruptions of Insight.

And as I share the list with you,

You will recognize some familiar and some factors that we have talked about,

Like bliss and rapture and equanimity,

And you'll go,

What?

How can these be corruptions of insight?

Just a few talks ago you were telling us about rapture and bliss and faith,

And like what's up?

What's up with that?

Well,

It's not so much that they are bad in and of themselves,

But the way we can relate to them,

If we want more of them,

Etc.

,

Etc.

,

That's how they become corruptions of insight.

So I'll give you the list first,

And I'll talk about how our relationship to them,

Our unwise relationship,

Can make these good Dharma Delights into corruptions of insight.

Ready for the list,

Top ten?

Okay.

The first one is illumination.

It's the experience of brilliant light that accompanies initial experience of insight.

Knowledge is the second one,

Which is mindfulness begins to seem all-seeing,

All-knowing,

And the knowledge it produces is understood as the product of insight.

Again,

In and of itself this is not bad at all.

It depends on how we relate to it,

Which I'll talk more about.

Third one,

Faith.

The practitioner experiencing the power of practice wishes to share the truth with everyone.

You want to go home and proselytize and convert everyone you know,

You must meditate,

You must count on a one-month retreat with me.

You want to give Dharma talks,

You know,

All of that.

Fourth one,

Rapturous delight.

Practice produces joyous physical sensations such as tremors,

Goosebumps,

Trills,

And we've told you all about them.

Philip did in his talk.

Calmness,

The mind appears serene,

Undisturbed,

And tranquil.

Bliss,

The practitioner experiences a profound,

Unshakable happiness.

Again,

On and off its own,

It's not a problem.

Next one,

Energy.

The practitioner's energy becomes even and vigorous,

Enabling more disciplined practice.

That's when you can sit for hours and hours and hours and hours.

Equanimity,

The mind regards all things with equal neutrality without effort.

It sounds pretty good to me,

Right?

Actually,

It is pretty good if one doesn't attach to it and relate to it with lack of wisdom.

Two more,

Number eight,

Number nine,

Attachment.

The meditator experiencing all these things enjoys the calm joy insight produces within.

And number ten,

Assurance.

The practitioner enjoying illumination,

Knowledge,

Faith,

Rapture,

Calm,

Bliss,

Energy,

And equanimity.

Noticing and experiencing insight with ease believes they have achieved perfect insight.

You're done.

You're enlightened.

There's no more work to do.

It all seems perfect.

So,

Some of these Dharma,

Some of these corruptions of insight,

It's clear that they are corruptions because you think you're done,

For example,

With assurance.

It's like,

Okay,

This is it.

It's so lovely and it's so easeful and there's so much bliss and energy and equanimity that I'm done.

This is it.

But some of them,

For example,

With equanimity,

Seemed a little more confusing.

So,

The way of getting caught,

One is wanting more,

Wanting more of them.

You sit because you want more.

You want more of the bliss.

You want more of equanimity.

You want more.

You want more.

It's that wanting.

I think it was a student of Joseph Goldstein who told him,

And I think he's shared it in many of his talk,

That there's nothing like a good sit to ruin your day.

Because then you want more good sits the rest of your day and that wanting can come up.

Another way to get caught is pride,

Mana,

Pride,

Taking pride in what just arises.

It's not yours.

It's just the conditions enable rapture to arise,

Bliss to arise.

It's not yours.

You're taking pride like,

Oh,

My practice is so cool.

That sense of pride,

That's when notice if that's coming in.

Another way of getting caught is through ditty or view,

That,

Oh,

It's my mind,

It's my practice,

It's all about me and what this state says,

It's about me that I'm special.

That's just,

That's what it says.

And it's this delusion of self that's perpetuated instead of these dharma delights being on the path to free you from delusion,

Grasping them is actually increasing the delusion of selfhood.

So each of these are the products of deepening inside practice but they are not the goals of inside practice,

They are not the goal.

They are just what happened,

They are what arises along the path to practice.

They will arise and they will pass away just like anything else,

Just like an emotion,

Just like a thought.

These dharma delights also arise and pass away.

So when we attach importance to them and we allow them to solidify by attaching meaning to their occurrence,

That's what corrupts the practitioner's insight and it obstructs true insight because of that attachment.

Attaching meaning,

Attaching importance.

So they're corruptions not for what they are but rather for what the practitioners believe them to be at times and how we relate to them,

How we might relate to them unskillfully.

So again they are not the path,

They are what arise along the path and they are to be noticed like any other phenomena with no more and no less importance.

So notice in your practice if there is enchantment,

If there is attachment to these dharma delights,

It can be very subtle at times and they do,

They can corrupt inside,

They do corrupt inside.

And you really need to be honest with yourself,

Really be honest with yourself.

So as I said earlier and I want to emphasize it again,

This outflow,

This natural outflow,

This disenchantment,

It's not an act of will,

You can't decide to become disenchanted.

You can't will it,

You can't want it,

It unfolds naturally when the time is right,

When the inside is clear.

The inside into the three characteristics,

Seeing things as they are.

And I wanted to bring in another sutta actually which relates to the Upanishad sutta which we have been drawing upon to share the Liberative Dependent Arising.

And I want to actually first remind you of the first part of the Upanishad sutta because it has that natural outflow,

Really keep that in mind that all of these factors that we have been talking about,

They flow naturally one after another.

So in the Upanishad sutta,

Just as practitioners,

When rain descends heavily upon some mountain top,

The water flows down along the slope and fills the clefts,

Gullies and creeks.

These being filled,

Fill up the pools.

These being filled,

Fill up the ponds.

These being filled,

Fill up the streams.

These being filled,

Fill up the rivers.

And the rivers being filled,

Fill up the great ocean.

I love that imagery,

Just the naturalness of the rain going down the mountain top and just naturally one pool flows to the other,

Fills the other,

Etc.

Etc.

So all of these flow on their own.

You can try to fill the great ocean on your own,

It just happens naturally.

And it's not an act of will,

None of this is an act of will.

Otherwise how could we be free from this illusion of selfhood?

It's not an act of will,

It all unfolds on its own.

We just put the conditions in place.

We just show up.

We just show up.

We show up over and over again with as much faith and consistency as we can.

We show up with mindfulness and everything else flows.

When we have mindfulness,

We show up with right view.

Things flow.

So I wanted to share with you a little bit of the Chaitanya Sutta,

An act of will,

Which actually has a lot of similarity with the Upanisha Sutta.

Some differences,

The starting point is different,

But the ending point is the same.

It's like poetry.

So it starts with,

For a person endowed with virtue,

Consummate in virtue,

There is no need for an act of will.

May freedom from remorse arise in me.

It is in the nature of things that freedom from remorse arises in a person endowed with virtue,

Consummate in virtue.

For a person free from remorse,

There is no need for an act of will.

May joy arise in me.

It is in the nature of things that joy arises in a person free from remorse.

For a joyful person,

There is no need for an act of will.

May rapture arise in me.

It is the natural,

It is the nature of things that rapture arises in a joyful person.

For a rapturous person,

There is no need for an act of will.

May my body be serene.

It is the nature of things that a rapturous person grows serene in body.

For a person serene in body,

There is no need for an act of will.

May I experience pleasure.

It is the nature of things that a person serene in body experiences pleasure.

For a person experiencing pleasure,

There is no need for an act of will.

May my mind grow concentrated.

It is in the nature of things that the mind of a person experiencing pleasure grows concentrated.

For a person whose mind is concentrated,

There is no need for an act of will.

May I know and see things as they actually are.

It is in the nature of things that a person whose mind is concentrated knows and sees things as they actually are.

For a person who knows and sees things as they actually are,

There is no need for an act of will.

May I feel this enchantment.

It is in the nature of things that a person who knows and sees things as they actually are feels this enchanted.

For a person who feels this enchantment,

There is no need for an act of will.

May I grow dispassionate.

It is the nature of things that a person who feels this enchantment grows dispassionate.

For a dispassionate person,

There is no need for an act of will.

May I realize the knowledge and vision of release.

It is in the nature of things that a dispassionate person realizes the knowledge and vision of release.

Let's just sit together for a moment.

From the Dhammapada,

All created things are impermanent.

Seeing this with insight,

One becomes disenchanted with suffering.

This is the path to purity.

All created things are suffering.

Seeing this with insight,

One becomes disenchanted with suffering.

This is the path to purity.

All things are not self.

Seeing this with insight,

One becomes disenchanted with suffering.

This is the path to purity.

May we all,

May all beings become disenchanted with suffering.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Reviews

Thanks for sharing knowledge and wisdom.

Very good.

Enlightening, reassuring 🙏

Grateful for this inspiring and profound teaching 💚