This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 3 was part of a daily 30 -minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability  

This is a very interesting understanding that you’re having. This is one way of understanding it.

If you notice, in your day-to-day life, when you’re thinking about things, or you’re having memories; if you are, let’s say, in a bad mood, or if you are in a state of mind which is unwholesome, and you think back about things that were not so wholesome, you have a certain perception of it.

But then you cultivate Loving-kindness and Compassion, and you think back of those things again, you’re going to have a different perception of that. It could be anything as simple as a relationship you had with a friend, a family member, or whatever it was. If you are in a bad mood, you’ll start to think about that memory, and you see it in a way that is unwholesome. But when you cultivate Loving-kindness and Compassion and you think about that memory again, then you are more compassionate and understanding and say: well, maybe they weren’t feeling so well and that’s why they behaved this way. Or maybe they were unhealthy or not fully there, fully present, you know, you sort of have an understanding mind set of whatever that memory was. That’s one way of looking at it.

So, looking at the repulsive and seeing the unrepulsive in that, or looking at the unrepulsive and seeing the repulsive in that, is also a more advanced way of playing around with your aggregate of Perception. Meaning, you are able to see what is repulsive to others and change our mind set about that and see the unrepulsive in that. It’s a practice of changing your Perception, it’s an intentional practice of being able to exercise your perception, so that the mind is so malleable that it develops a very strong sense of Equanimity. Whether something is repulsive or unrepulsive, it doesn’t matter. It just is able to stay in an equanimous state, without attaching to the unrepulsive or averting from the repulsive.

This is a conscious exercise, a conscious kind of meditation practice that certain monks will do, or certain practitioners, in order to make their perceptions malleable.

But I’m saying, on the practical level, you can see it for yourself, you can reflect on your own mind and see that the very same memories that you have, will have different feeling tones, a different sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness, based on the moods that you have, the mind sets, and your perceptions will change, based on that.

You can make it a conscious exercise, if you wanted to, but that starts to happen on its own, when you start cultivating Loving-kindness and Compassion. When you start getting into places, situations and interacting with people, which may be repulsive and what I mean by that, difficult or that could create aversion in the mind, because you have cultivated Loving-kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity, in those ‘repulsive’ states, it’s easy for you to see the good in that. It’s easy for you to then be able to let go of what might be difficult, let go of the aversion that might be arising from the difficult.

Conversely, when you are in a pleasant state of mind, or you come to places, situations or deal with people who are pleasant, but then you start to attach a sense of self to it and then create craving for yourself, by attaching and wanting more of it; by understanding and using Equanimity, and seeing the impersonal and impermanent nature and the suffering aspect of what is arising, what would generally be unrepulsive, you don’t necessarily consider repulsive, but you don’t attach any sense of desire to it.

[Reads from a chat in the video call: yes, exactly; that’s how Metta destroys ill will, it just fades away, replaced by Loving-kindness, that’s right.]

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 3 was part of a daily 30 -minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability  

This is a very interesting understanding that you’re having. This is one way of understanding it.

If you notice, in your day-to-day life, when you’re thinking about things, or you’re having memories; if you are, let’s say, in a bad mood, or if you are in a state of mind which is unwholesome, and you think back about things that were not so wholesome, you have a certain perception of it.

But then you cultivate Loving-kindness and Compassion, and you think back of those things again, you’re going to have a different perception of that. It could be anything as simple as a relationship you had with a friend, a family member, or whatever it was. If you are in a bad mood, you’ll start to think about that memory, and you see it in a way that is unwholesome. But when you cultivate Loving-kindness and Compassion and you think about that memory again, then you are more compassionate and understanding and say: well, maybe they weren’t feeling so well and that’s why they behaved this way. Or maybe they were unhealthy or not fully there, fully present, you know, you sort of have an understanding mind set of whatever that memory was. That’s one way of looking at it.

So, looking at the repulsive and seeing the unrepulsive in that, or looking at the unrepulsive and seeing the repulsive in that, is also a more advanced way of playing around with your aggregate of Perception. Meaning, you are able to see what is repulsive to others and change our mind set about that and see the unrepulsive in that. It’s a practice of changing your Perception, it’s an intentional practice of being able to exercise your perception, so that the mind is so malleable that it develops a very strong sense of Equanimity. Whether something is repulsive or unrepulsive, it doesn’t matter. It just is able to stay in an equanimous state, without attaching to the unrepulsive or averting from the repulsive.

This is a conscious exercise, a conscious kind of meditation practice that certain monks will do, or certain practitioners, in order to make their perceptions malleable.

But I’m saying, on the practical level, you can see it for yourself, you can reflect on your own mind and see that the very same memories that you have, will have different feeling tones, a different sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness, based on the moods that you have, the mind sets, and your perceptions will change, based on that.

You can make it a conscious exercise, if you wanted to, but that starts to happen on its own, when you start cultivating Loving-kindness and Compassion. When you start getting into places, situations and interacting with people, which may be repulsive and what I mean by that, difficult or that could create aversion in the mind, because you have cultivated Loving-kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity, in those ‘repulsive’ states, it’s easy for you to see the good in that. It’s easy for you to then be able to let go of what might be difficult, let go of the aversion that might be arising from the difficult.

Conversely, when you are in a pleasant state of mind, or you come to places, situations or deal with people who are pleasant, but then you start to attach a sense of self to it and then create craving for yourself, by attaching and wanting more of it; by understanding and using Equanimity, and seeing the impersonal and impermanent nature and the suffering aspect of what is arising, what would generally be unrepulsive, you don’t necessarily consider repulsive, but you don’t attach any sense of desire to it.

[Reads from a chat in the video call: yes, exactly; that’s how Metta destroys ill will, it just fades away, replaced by Loving-kindness, that’s right.]

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 3 was part of a daily 30 -minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability  

Essentially, Equanimity goes as far as Perception, any of the Brahma Viharas go as far as Perception. Once you get into the territory of Neither-perception-nor-non-perception, it gets a little subtler than that, and the subtler part of that is the tranquil mind. It’s not necessarily tranquility as an object, but it’s more the still mind itself, the still awareness of mind itself. And though it is not explicitly mentioned in the suttas, it is mentioned in some ways as the luminous mind, the radiant mind. This is the mind that is starting to become void of coarser and subtler Formations and finally the Defilements. What you’re doing is, as you get deeper and deeper into each level of Awakening, you’ll find a difference in the quality of that quiet mind. It becomes closer and closer to the luminous mind that the Buddha talks about.

[person who asked the question]

Did the Buddha say you can attain Nibbana in these other realms as well, or was it just in Neither-perception-nor-non-perception? Considering the fact that these other sects ask about what the differences are with what the Buddha is teaching; do you think the Buddha was hinting at that you can attain Nibbana through the Loving-kindness practice, through the jhanas, and that stops at Equanimity?

[Delson]

[Reads out loud from chat: You can attain Nibbana in every jhana and Brahma Vihara and nods]. What Nibbana really results from so to speak – because Nibbana is unconditioned – is the removal of all conditions. Because you’re using this as the starting point. Even the jhanas, even the Cessation of Perception and Feeling is fabricated. It’s still related to Formations. It’s still related to certain causes and conditions and factors for those to be present. Whereas Nibbana is all about non-grasping, all about letting go completely. So, you can attain Nibbana even from the first jhana onwards. It’s not that you need to go all the way to Cessation. It’s a matter of having an understanding to the point that you let go, that you don’t grasp at all. And by not grasping, that’s when the mind is so quiet, that it is able to see with wisdom. It’s able to understand with wisdom, let’s go and experiences Nibbana.

Watch it here

Discernment occurs as a result of Wise Attention (Yoniso Manasikara), which sees without involvement.

The Perception of this is understanding.

Dependent on this discernment, through the Attention faculty, a Mind Consciousness arises.

The mental object here is Freedom of the Mind itself.

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 7 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability

(Question is referring to MN 148, the Chachakka Sutta.)

Thoughts are part of the mind. The mind is part of the six sense bases, so thoughts should be considered to be one of the six senses, one of the six feelings, if you will. That means that it is arisen due to dependent origination. At the level of contact, so if you have contact with something, you might have a thought about it. That thought arises through the process of perception, where the contact activated a formation that could create a consciousness, that then drives forward the idea of that thought. That’s the perceiving aspect of the thought, that it recognizes for example that’s what it is. Or if you’re having thoughts about the past, that can also happen due to contact with one of the five physical senses, or due to reflection and thinking. This is again initiated by the process of formations. Even thoughts of the future are initiated from within, meaning through the process of formations. All thoughts, whether they’re of the present moment, the present condition, or past, or future are arisen through formations. And those formations are conditioned by the contact that arises.

If you have a feeling, or there is a contact, which creates multi-sensory experiences. Let’s say you smell a fragrance, and it reminds you of something that happened in your past. The experience of that smell then activates the formations, that continue to create the perception that’s rooted in the memory. And then that creates mental proliferation in the way of reflecting on that smell, then that thought leads to another thought, and that thought leads to another thought and so on and so forth. So, all these thoughts can arise after contact. It’s only after contact the thought would arise. The contact can be through any of  the five physical senses,  or through mental objects in the mind as well.

 [Follow up question]

Can contacts from the five senses cause more thoughts to arise?

 It has been the experience of some people where there’s a lot of sounds in the background and it starts to create different kinds of thoughts about it. And then that can create more and more thoughts. But that depends upon the person’s awareness or their mindfulness. So as soon as they recognize that they’re starting to sway away and get carried away with their thoughts, as soon as they see that mental proliferation is arising, then they can recognize it and let it go. So, it is possible that the multi-sensory experiences, the different experiences of the five physical senses can create multiple thoughts as well.

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 5 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability

Yes, volition and Saṅkhāra are different. Sometimes the translations will, for whatever reason, say that Saṅkhāra are volitional activities, or volitional formations, or sometimes even equated to intention. But the Pali translation of volition, or what is intention, is cetanā.

The five factors of mentality, in mentality-materiality, are feeling, perception, intention, contact, and attention. Through the faculty of feeling – and that is the six sense bases-, the process of feeling occurs. Through the faculty of perception – that is memory and recognition -, the process of perception and recognition occurs. Through the process of intention, this is how the formations flow through the consciousness. So, the consciousness carries forward those formations, and then is lodged into the faculty of intention, which creates the intention behind acting, behind behaving, behind speaking, and behind thinking or reflecting.

And then you have what is the process of contact, which is happening through the faculty of contact, within mentality. The process of contact is the stimulation that occurs when the outside world meets with the six sense bases. This happens through the faculty of contact and mentality. Attention, manasikara, is what you’re using for mindfulness, to be able to collect the mind towards an object and unify it around it. Attention doesn’t control but is able to perceive and understand whether to take any of these other four factors of mentality, and their processes, as permanent or impermanent, impersonal or personal, or worth holding on to or not worth holding on to.

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 3 was part of a daily 30 -minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability  

This is a very interesting understanding that you’re having. This is one way of understanding it.

If you notice, in your day-to-day life, when you’re thinking about things, or you’re having memories; if you are, let’s say, in a bad mood, or if you are in a state of mind which is unwholesome, and you think back about things that were not so wholesome, you have a certain perception of it.

But then you cultivate Loving-kindness and Compassion, and you think back of those things again, you’re going to have a different perception of that. It could be anything as simple as a relationship you had with a friend, a family member, or whatever it was. If you are in a bad mood, you’ll start to think about that memory, and you see it in a way that is unwholesome. But when you cultivate Loving-kindness and Compassion and you think about that memory again, then you are more compassionate and understanding and say: well, maybe they weren’t feeling so well and that’s why they behaved this way. Or maybe they were unhealthy or not fully there, fully present, you know, you sort of have an understanding mind set of whatever that memory was. That’s one way of looking at it.

So, looking at the repulsive and seeing the unrepulsive in that, or looking at the unrepulsive and seeing the repulsive in that, is also a more advanced way of playing around with your aggregate of Perception. Meaning, you are able to see what is repulsive to others and change our mind set about that and see the unrepulsive in that. It’s a practice of changing your Perception, it’s an intentional practice of being able to exercise your perception, so that the mind is so malleable that it develops a very strong sense of Equanimity. Whether something is repulsive or unrepulsive, it doesn’t matter. It just is able to stay in an equanimous state, without attaching to the unrepulsive or averting from the repulsive.

This is a conscious exercise, a conscious kind of meditation practice that certain monks will do, or certain practitioners, in order to make their perceptions malleable.

But I’m saying, on the practical level, you can see it for yourself, you can reflect on your own mind and see that the very same memories that you have, will have different feeling tones, a different sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness, based on the moods that you have, the mind sets, and your perceptions will change, based on that.

You can make it a conscious exercise, if you wanted to, but that starts to happen on its own, when you start cultivating Loving-kindness and Compassion. When you start getting into places, situations and interacting with people, which may be repulsive and what I mean by that, difficult or that could create aversion in the mind, because you have cultivated Loving-kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity, in those ‘repulsive’ states, it’s easy for you to see the good in that. It’s easy for you to then be able to let go of what might be difficult, let go of the aversion that might be arising from the difficult.

Conversely, when you are in a pleasant state of mind, or you come to places, situations or deal with people who are pleasant, but then you start to attach a sense of self to it and then create craving for yourself, by attaching and wanting more of it; by understanding and using Equanimity, and seeing the impersonal and impermanent nature and the suffering aspect of what is arising, what would generally be unrepulsive, you don’t necessarily consider repulsive, but you don’t attach any sense of desire to it.

[Reads from a chat in the video call: yes, exactly; that’s how Metta destroys ill will, it just fades away, replaced by Loving-kindness, that’s right.]

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 3 was part of a daily 30 -minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability  

Essentially, Equanimity goes as far as Perception, any of the Brahma Viharas go as far as Perception. Once you get into the territory of Neither-perception-nor-non-perception, it gets a little subtler than that, and the subtler part of that is the tranquil mind. It’s not necessarily tranquility as an object, but it’s more the still mind itself, the still awareness of mind itself. And though it is not explicitly mentioned in the suttas, it is mentioned in some ways as the luminous mind, the radiant mind. This is the mind that is starting to become void of coarser and subtler Formations and finally the Defilements. What you’re doing is, as you get deeper and deeper into each level of Awakening, you’ll find a difference in the quality of that quiet mind. It becomes closer and closer to the luminous mind that the Buddha talks about.

[person who asked the question]

Did the Buddha say you can attain Nibbana in these other realms as well, or was it just in Neither-perception-nor-non-perception? Considering the fact that these other sects ask about what the differences are with what the Buddha is teaching; do you think the Buddha was hinting at that you can attain Nibbana through the Loving-kindness practice, through the jhanas, and that stops at Equanimity?

[Delson]

[Reads out loud from chat: You can attain Nibbana in every jhana and Brahma Vihara and nods]. What Nibbana really results from so to speak – because Nibbana is unconditioned – is the removal of all conditions. Because you’re using this as the starting point. Even the jhanas, even the Cessation of Perception and Feeling is fabricated. It’s still related to Formations. It’s still related to certain causes and conditions and factors for those to be present. Whereas Nibbana is all about non-grasping, all about letting go completely. So, you can attain Nibbana even from the first jhana onwards. It’s not that you need to go all the way to Cessation. It’s a matter of having an understanding to the point that you let go, that you don’t grasp at all. And by not grasping, that’s when the mind is so quiet, that it is able to see with wisdom. It’s able to understand with wisdom, let’s go and experiences Nibbana.

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 5 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability

Feeling itself is dependent upon contact, right. Feeling means the sensory experiences that you’re having, and the mind experiencing the mental objects. The mind and the sixth sense base – which are the five physical senses, and the mind – are rooted within the mentality and materiality. Mentality-materiality make up your mind and your body. This is one way of looking at it. The five physical senses – which are your sense faculties, the sense organs: e.g., your photo-receptors in your eye, the auditory nerves in your ear, the olfactory nerves, all of those different kinds of things – are all rooted within mentality and materiality. That’s why the sixth sense base is conditioned by, or dependent upon, mentality-materiality.

It’s only through the sixth sense base that contact can be made with the outside world, as it were. What we experience in the way of the sixth sense base, is the world. This is what the Buddha calls the ‘all’ or’ the world’. Which is to say that there is no one objective reality. Everything that we see as reality, is through our own individual sixth sense base. And because that is dependent upon those sixth sense bases, the contact that arises is dependent upon that. When there’s contact with the outside world, with the sixth sense bases – photons hitting the photo-receptors; sound waves hitting the auditory nerves; olfactory molecules hitting the nose; flavor molecules hitting the tongue, and so on and so forth -, these are all dependent upon contact. This hitting that I’m talking about is for example the sound waves making contact with, or stimulating, the auditory nerves. In that process, the experience of interpreting these sound waves – which are just waves in the air – as sound through the auditory nerves, is the feeling. It’s the bare sensation. Applying to that bare sensation the idea of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral – or neither painful nor pleasant – is the beginning of the perception aspect of the mind. So, the feeling is the sensory aspect, it’s the sensory experience of the mind. It’s after the contact is made, after the stimulation is made, you have the arising of the feeling. Perception is the naming aspect of what is being experienced, through recognizing what it is. As an example, that I often use; when you see the color blue, you immediately know it’s blue. Because you have recognized that it is blue through the Formations that created the memory. And that happens through having learned through your elders, through your parents, in a book, or whatever. It is that this is the color blue and now you always recognize it as the color blue, through the conceptual perception of it. So, perception begins at naming what that feeling is, and it continues on to conceptual or mental proliferation, which then can cause craving if taken personal. And if not, it’s basically stopped right there and then.

Mentality-materiality in more detail

The simple way of understanding mentality-materiality is that the materiality is this body. It’s essentially the form, it’s the four elements that make up this body. In modern scientific context you would say, it’s the four states of matter that make up this body. The solid molecules or atoms, the liquid atoms, the gaseous atoms, and the plasma atoms, which make up this body. that’s materiality. Mentality is what happens through the experience in the mind. You can say it’s stored in the brain, or however you want to put it, but it’s the experiences that you’re having in the way of the five factors of mentality:

1. You have the faculty for feeling, which is your sixth sense bases, your five physical senses and the mind itself.
2. The faculty for Perception, so you’re able to recognize through the process of memory, knowledge, and learning, what you are seeing, or what you are experiencing or cognizing.
3. Then you have intention, which is through which the Formations are basically acting. When the Formations arise, that consciousness drives forward those Formations into the faculty of intention, creating the idea of saying a word for speaking, for doing an action, or for thinking and reflecting and feeling.
4.   Then you have the faculty for contact, which is actually really the nervous system, if you will, which takes in that sensory information. It has the sensory input and creates the experience through that contact. It’s the bare contact between the photo-receptors and the photons for example.
5. And then you have attention, which is what you’re doing when you’re applying mindfulness and that’s how the consciousness flows through attention. When you use your attention, you’re applying mindfulness in meditation. Attention really is to be able to understand and to let go of – through correct, proper attention -, the personalizing aspect of the other four factors of mentality.

So, that’s how you should see mentality-materiality. It’s all one thing; it’s the mind and the body. The materiality is just this body, it’s just the different four elements that make up the body. And mentality is all that is basically making you speak, making you think, making you act, making you feel, making you experience things.

Watch it here

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 5 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability

The yogic concept of manas is mind. Buddhi is intellect, chitta in this case is consciousness, and ahamkara is the I-making, it’s the ego.

  Whereas vedana is feeling, sanna is perception, Saṅkhāra is more related to formations, and viññāṇa is consciousness.

So, there’s a difference between citta in the Sanskrit which translates to awareness, or consciousness, and viññāṇa in Pali. Viññāṇa, in Pali and Sanskrit, means the consciousness that divides. Meaning, it’s a consciousness that’s divided by the six sense bases. It’s a consciousness dependent upon the six sense bases. 

So, you can’t really equate them in the same way, because number one the philosophies behind yoga, and the yoga sutras, are different, than the philosophies behind the Buddha Dhamma. Even though they might use very similar or synonymous words, that might seem like they have the same meaning, in the context within each philosophy, they will have a different application. 

[Question]

Can you please explain that dividing consciousness?

[Answer]

Viññāṇa means, first of all: ñāṇa means knowledge. And vi is what is the dividing knowledge. It’s the knowledge of the sensory experiences. An easier way to understand it is cognition. That which cognizes, is consciousness, that’s always what’s said in the suttas. Cognition is the process of bare awareness of the object, or of the sensory experience, or of the six sense bases. This is viññāṇa.

 Citta, in the context of yoga, is more about the overarching consciousness that’s related to an eternal sense of the word, eternal sense of consciousness.

In the Buddhist context, consciousness is the consciousness that is dependent upon the six sense bases, and the experience of the six sense bases. There is also citta in Pali, in the Buddhist terminology and context, which I translate as mindset. I mean, there is citta which is very fast, and it’s really equated to the process of thinking, or the process of thought. But i see citta also as being a mindset, which is to say, a collection of thoughts. Mindsets can arise in a moment and disappear in a moment, or it can be there for lifetimes. It doesn’t matter .

Watch it here

Short overview of The twelve links of Dependent Origination:

Ignorance – Not understanding the Four Noble Truths

Formations – verbal, mental and physical

Consciousness

Mentality-Materiality

Six Sense Base

Contact

Feeling

Craving

Clinging

Being / Habitual Tendencies

Birth

Aging and Death – the entire mass of suffering

Dependent Origination in ordinary people

With Ignorance as condition, the Formations that arise are already fettered with craving and sense of self. With these Formations as condition, Consciousness that arises, is taken to be “mine” and then the six Sense base is also taken to be “mine.”

The Mentality-Materiality link is where concepts take hold, and one is then identifying the sense of self with those concepts, checking through the self and other, or the world. The world is made to be experienced through the senses, with Mentality-Materiality as the operating system.

When anything is experienced through the six Senses, Contact arises. When Contact arises, Feeling and sense Consciousness arise. Now, even before the Craving of “I am”, one has already considered self in the Senses, Contact, Feeling and Consciousness. Thus, this produces a painful or pleasurable feeling to “me”.

 Going back to the Feeling; this identification of that Feeling is Craving.

 The Clinging aspect is where self has now taken complete hold. Here, one “owns” the feeling and will not let it go. This is an instinctual grasping, that causes one to become fully established in the sense of self. It is a result of a deep sense of survival, from where the illusory sense of Craving for Existence arises.

Bhava [Being; Becoming; Habitual Tendencies] is the establishment in that illusion. It is the storing up of experiences that stick to a mis-perceived sense of self. It is the sense of comfort that exists for, and in, the delusion of self. Here, Kamma ripens.

For example, one eats chocolate ice cream. One craves it by identifying with it, by liking it. It pleases “me”. Now, one has grasped onto that Feeling and made chocolate ice cream a part of the self, of an identity. Here, if one is given anything other than chocolate ice cream, one is not fully satisfied as the self would see it. This is Bhava. These are the Habitual Tendencies where self has taken hold, and is then Born through an action, words or thought, causing suffering to the self. 

 Bhava is the reactionary aspect of self that causes Kamma.

Dependent Origination in a fully Awakened being

With Ignorance destroyed, no tainted Formations arise. Consciousness occurs without Craving or self. Nama-rūpa [Mentality-Materiality] has become reformatted as it were, to use the OS analogy. Here, the Senses are pure. When then the Feeling arises, it is taken to be an occurrence, and not belonging to a self. Thus, Craving cannot occur. Craving gone, how can one Cling? When one doesn’t Cling, how could any self become established? With no reaction occurring in Bhava, Kamma cannot stick. Suffering cannot take hold.

The pure Mind of the Arahant

In such a mind, there is pure occurring. Pure action, void of self. Tendencies have been rooted out, because Ignorance has been uprooted. This whole mass of suffering has been seen, and its machinery has been seen. How then can one continue to see self, or permanence in anything?  Here, Bhava can no longer have an establishment. Hence, there is the birthless. Hence, there is the deathless. Hence, there is the Unconditioned, Nibbana.

This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 5 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability

Feeling itself is dependent upon contact, right. Feeling means the sensory experiences that you’re having, and the mind experiencing the mental objects. The mind and the sixth sense base – which are the five physical senses, and the mind – are rooted within the mentality and materiality. Mentality-materiality make up your mind and your body. This is one way of looking at it. The five physical senses – which are your sense faculties, the sense organs: e.g., your photo-receptors in your eye, the auditory nerves in your ear, the olfactory nerves, all of those different kinds of things – are all rooted within mentality and materiality. That’s why the sixth sense base is conditioned by, or dependent upon, mentality-materiality.

It’s only through the sixth sense base that contact can be made with the outside world, as it were. What we experience in the way of the sixth sense base, is the world. This is what the Buddha calls the ‘all’ or’ the world’. Which is to say that there is no one objective reality. Everything that we see as reality, is through our own individual sixth sense base. And because that is dependent upon those sixth sense bases, the contact that arises is dependent upon that. When there’s contact with the outside world, with the sixth sense bases – photons hitting the photo-receptors; sound waves hitting the auditory nerves; olfactory molecules hitting the nose; flavor molecules hitting the tongue, and so on and so forth -, these are all dependent upon contact. This hitting that I’m talking about is for example the sound waves making contact with, or stimulating, the auditory nerves. In that process, the experience of interpreting these sound waves – which are just waves in the air – as sound through the auditory nerves, is the feeling. It’s the bare sensation. Applying to that bare sensation the idea of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral – or neither painful nor pleasant – is the beginning of the perception aspect of the mind. So, the feeling is the sensory aspect, it’s the sensory experience of the mind. It’s after the contact is made, after the stimulation is made, you have the arising of the feeling. Perception is the naming aspect of what is being experienced, through recognizing what it is. As an example, that I often use; when you see the color blue, you immediately know it’s blue. Because you have recognized that it is blue through the Formations that created the memory. And that happens through having learned through your elders, through your parents, in a book, or whatever. It is that this is the color blue and now you always recognize it as the color blue, through the conceptual perception of it. So, perception begins at naming what that feeling is, and it continues on to conceptual or mental proliferation, which then can cause craving if taken personal. And if not, it’s basically stopped right there and then.

Mentality-materiality in more detail

The simple way of understanding mentality-materiality is that the materiality is this body. It’s essentially the form, it’s the four elements that make up this body. In modern scientific context you would say, it’s the four states of matter that make up this body. The solid molecules or atoms, the liquid atoms, the gaseous atoms, and the plasma atoms, which make up this body. that’s materiality. Mentality is what happens through the experience in the mind. You can say it’s stored in the brain, or however you want to put it, but it’s the experiences that you’re having in the way of the five factors of mentality:

1. You have the faculty for feeling, which is your sixth sense bases, your five physical senses and the mind itself.
2. The faculty for Perception, so you’re able to recognize through the process of memory, knowledge, and learning, what you are seeing, or what you are experiencing or cognizing.
3. Then you have intention, which is through which the Formations are basically acting. When the Formations arise, that consciousness drives forward those Formations into the faculty of intention, creating the idea of saying a word for speaking, for doing an action, or for thinking and reflecting and feeling.
4.   Then you have the faculty for contact, which is actually really the nervous system, if you will, which takes in that sensory information. It has the sensory input and creates the experience through that contact. It’s the bare contact between the photo-receptors and the photons for example.
5. And then you have attention, which is what you’re doing when you’re applying mindfulness and that’s how the consciousness flows through attention. When you use your attention, you’re applying mindfulness in meditation. Attention really is to be able to understand and to let go of – through correct, proper attention -, the personalizing aspect of the other four factors of mentality.

So, that’s how you should see mentality-materiality. It’s all one thing; it’s the mind and the body. The materiality is just this body, it’s just the different four elements that make up the body. And mentality is all that is basically making you speak, making you think, making you act, making you feel, making you experience things.

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This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 1 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.

Slightly edited to improve readability

The process of Feeling is such that Perception and cognition follow it right after. In the case of the links of Dependent Origination, when you have Feeling, the feeling itself when the Buddha describes it – and this is how I view it – before the bare sensation or the bare feeling that arises, it is just that; Feeling. But as soon as you apply onto it the concept of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral – or neither painful nor pleasant – that naming, that understanding of it, is the Perception that’s tied to the Feeling.

In the case of the links of Dependent Origination, as you have Contact and Feeling, you recognize the Perception that is in the Feeling. Meaning, you recognize through the perception, whether that feeling is painful or pleasant. If you take that to be personal, and if you start to attach to it, that’s when the Craving arises.

Perception can lead to two; it can either lead to more mental proliferation, in the way of Craving, Clinging and so on, by taking it personal – and taking it personal is another kind of perception that arises. Or you can have Wise Perception, or the attention rooted in reality – in Pali that’s yoniso manasikara – which is to say; you see through that Feeling, you see the Emptiness of that feeling. You see the not-self aspect, the impermanent aspect and you see it’s not worth holding on to. Therefore, that whole process is Perception in and of itself. It’s inherent within the Feeling when you name it.

In the chat is mentioned a very good point; Feeling can condition Craving or from Feeling can arise insight, or Wisdom. That’s a very good observation, two roads from Feeling.  

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