 Excellent. We're live. Thank you for joining Dama Rato. Glad to be here. We're very grateful to be featuring you on the show. It's been fun seeing your content. The Supra Mandane Dama. It's been awesome. Yeah. Looking forward to continuing to playfully unpack the Dama and in service to all of our fellow viewers that are aiming to decrease their suffering and increase their happiness and well-being and peace. Well, instead of increasing and decreasing, just in this moment, you just throw it out. There's no fixation on getting rid of suffering or on increasing happiness. You just throw both concepts out. You just throw it out, right? That's what is, that's the meaning of the Supra Mandane. And possibly the way to talk about it is by starting with the Pali. The word Supra Mandane that we have been using comes from the Pali word loka-tara. And loka-tara of the world, loka and tara, means to be above the world. Basically what we mean by loka-tara there is to be above the conceptualized world or the world that we think exists. But there's a real world that exists and the real world is the world of our senses. The world we can see, the world we can touch, the world we can bite, the world we can hear. That kind of stuff is all the world is to it. And yet in our educational system, when we were children, we were given maps and globes and a list of countries' names and things like that that became a conceptualized world. And so when we're talking about loka-tara, we're not talking about being above reality. We're talking about being above our conceptualized world, a world that really doesn't exist except between the years. All those fluctuations of mind. Oh man, concepts, ideas, good, bad, the identity. And the idea is just to come out of all of that and to be in reality, be in the real world of our senses. And that way, that's the super mundane. But this also is used in the sense of three kinds of views when the Buddha describes the eight-fold noble path in the Sutta 117 and the Majamanakaya. He brings about it in the sense of talking about it in three ways. There are three kinds of views of the world. There is the wrong view, the right view, that is an ordinary right view, and there is the super mundane right view, or the loka-tara, the one that's above the world. This is also called a noble. Am I frozen on your end? You're frozen on my end. Okay, I'm trying to figure out what the issue is. Let's see here. Let me see if I can join from my laptop. I don't know what the issue is. I haven't had this type of a problem before. Of course it's coming right at the good time of our intro. Let me see if I can join here from my laptop. We had just gotten started talking about where the word super mundane comes from and why we use it. In the Sutta called the Great Forty, number 117 in the Majamanakaya, Buddha does a very, very detailed but noble description of the Eight-fold Noble Path. And there he starts with view and talks about there is wrong view and there is right view. And basically wrong view is the mentality of the child that says I can get away with it. I can do anything I want to do and get away with it. Just grabbing an attachment for my mic. Okay, so getting away with it is basically the wrong view. And the wrong view is basically based upon the freedom to do what we want to do. And what we want, anything that we want that we can't have is the definition of suffering or the definition of dukkha. And actually the word dukkha is badly translated into suffering. A better word we could use would be just dissatisfying. So when you want something, that means you're dissatisfied without it. And the wrong view is that I can just go get what I want and be satisfied and it doesn't matter the consequences. But ordinary right view says no, you can't get away with it. And we're going to hire cops and get an army and I have guards and if that doesn't work then we'll get a priest or two. And we're going to make sure that you know that no matter what you can't get away with it. This is basically religion. It's ordinary right view which is saying you can't get away with it. And so they have laws of commas, heavens and hells and all kinds of stuff to convince the one of wrong view that you can't get away with it. And then there is the third kind of view, the super mundane view, the right noble view, which is that you don't know whether you can get away with it or not but you need to do a thorough investigation. You need to find out really what's going on. We need to stop coming to conclusions and concepts and thoughts that we know whether we can get away with it or not and really take a look, transcend this I know and I don't know into not sure let's just take another look. So that's the foundation of the super mundane is to come away from our attachments to our conceptualized world so that we can draw back and take a closer look. So that's the definition of the word super mundane which actually is just a little guitar. And in the process of doing that one needs to let go of what we were talking about that is the things that we want and whether we can get away from it or not or get away with it and just allow things to be the way that they really are in reality, the senses that we can see, touch, taste, smell by that kind of stuff. That's real. An example of that is nightly Seattle nor Vladimir Putin are real, they're merely concepts. For some people Seattle is real because they're in Seattle and they can see it, there they are, but most Seattle is not real. So what is real is what is worthy of being investigated so that we can see really what's going on. And this is a major teaching of the Buddha is this quality of not only investigating, but continually investigating in the sense of investigate and then investigate again and then later investigate again. Glad to see you getting all comfy there. Okay, so we won't pass too much time describing the experience that was apparently being had over here but the main computer froze and shut off and had a temporary laptop fix and now the main computer is back on and I have heard bits and pieces of what you were sharing and there was a lot of profundity that you were unpacking along the way and I would like to resume at a place where I felt like I was still hearing what you were saying which was that the active mind that is constantly fluctuating in discursive thinking from idea to idea to concept to concept is always separating by name and form and shape and so there's never the stopping of those fluctuations of mind to be able to feel what is underlying everything and then there's a perpetual investigation into well self inquiry who am I also inquiry into what exists when there is not this discursive thinking what is left and reality, yeah cool so if you want to pick it up from there I would love to continue playing there and then we'll see if we can get to some of what you were saying in these last couple of minutes as I was switching technology Okay, let's put it this way then over a period of 2,500 years since the time of the Buddha there has been a number of episodes that have brought about some changes and you can actually see how those things evolved an example of that is the concept of metta and the Brahma Maharas was an old concept before the Buddha and that that got kind of tacked on as part of his teaching and that the concept then of may all beings be happy is what within about 500 years evolved into the Bodhisattva ideal of I've got to wait at the door of enlightenment until all beings be enlightened and then I can be enlightened too now that's obviously ridiculous it's obviously ridiculous because it's almost as ridiculous as the Mormons baptizing people who are already dead so the Bodhisattva ideal is ridiculous in the way that if one has no role models in other words there are no enlightened beings then how are all the other beings going to know what enlightenment is and in fact that's the problem with the western Buddhism is none of the people in the west have even a clue about what enlightenment actually is they've got concepts about it and those concepts are normally based in the culture that they were raised in and there's a lot of Christian influence to it so this time evolved through the Bodhisattva period into later the Tantric period and that Tantric period basically talks about it in the sense of being at one with all of reality and that becoming all of reality or being one with reality means that you're part of the show which means that you are the show and this is where heavy-duty mystical magical thinking was brought into Buddhism into the teachings of the Buddha and so it has gone through evolutions of development and that you can talk about that development was that it evolved from freedom from religion into a religion that was the evolution of teachings of the Buddha over the past 2500 years is it evolved from a response or an action or freedom from religion into being a religion but not exactly basically what happened was is that a religion grew up around the original teachings almost in the way of making a protection so everything that people hear about Buddhism in the West is the Buddhism, the religion of Buddhism that grew up around the real teachings of the Buddha almost like a protection think of it as a gilded box that's highly, highly jeweled and very specialized and everybody wants that box but nobody's open to the box to find out what's in it and the real teachings of the Buddha is inside the box not the box itself but the issue is that everybody loves the box because the interior of the box is not very interesting to most people in fact you can say, you can go so far to say that the inside of the box is empty but there's a very practical way of doing that in the sense that we do have to open the box to recognize that the box is merely a container that the religion of Buddhism is merely a religion and that we could go so far also is to say then that religion is the answer that people have to barbarism or let us say when children are born if they are raised without any rights, rules, rituals or anything then we will not be able to have a society we'll just have a bunch of barbarians and so society has been brought about by having some order and some rules these rules then have to have an order to them and so as I was saying originally the ordinary right view says you can't get away with it we're going to have some rules here and if you break those rules you're going to get punished so we talk about it then and this is actually the law of karma now the law of karma exists in every religion in some religions they call it a god I call it the karma machine now what is the karma machine or what do people think of karma is that if you do right you'll get good results and if you do wrong you'll get bad results this is actually the teachings that were common in the time of the Buddha and that's what religion is all about in the sense that if you do good you'll get into heaven and if you do bad you'll go to hell but in some religions there's an escape clause it's called mercy or grace or something it's a get out of hell free card a lot of people think that oh if I get my get out of hell free card now I can go back and do wrong and get away with it that's called hypocrisy and religions are filled with hypocrisy when they have that issue of you can get away with it because you can get forgiveness but the noble dharma the super mundane dharma comes out of all of those concepts of heavens and hells and future results of current actions and so the Buddha actually was not against comma in the sense that there are some good actions that do lead to good results if you're thirsty and you drink water you are quenched with your thirst that's a very good example of good action giving good results if however the bottle is full of arsenic and you drink that then you will have different results that's a bad action drinking arsenic giving bad results if we understand it that way then we can understand that there is a causal link between the results and the action that most of religions will have a non-causal link it's just because you did that later you're going to get punished without looking at how that action is linked to the result and so the Buddha talks about it also in the sense that fire requires a fuel that's the cause and effect relationship right there what fire do you know of that has no fuel you know of a fire that burns without any fuel at all I'll give you an example of one who where people think that the fuel exists or the fire exists without a fuel and that is reincarnation reincarnation means that this person dies now and then pops up later what's the causal link between the two there is no causal link that's the issue we cannot see one and so the real teaching of the Buddha is much more about causality causality the cause and effect in fact there are several words in it in Pali one of Idi apapajayata which is general causality and then there is another word that they talk about that is translated as dependent origination those are actually just two Pali words that mean something in the Pali but when you translate them separately it gives you silliness okay dependent origination the actual Pali is patichusamupada or in the Thai language it's patichusamupada so patichusamupada actually is talking about the cause and effect that happens in the mind and there are a number of causes that happen in sequence of events that happen in the mind and that that sequence of events if it is ignorant we're not watching what we're doing if we live by concepts then that conceptualized thinking is going to wind us into the position of wanting something that we don't have which brings us on to the four modes of clinging that will then take us or we can be then reborn into a woeful state so these woeful states happen moment by moment in the mind they're not some woeful state that happens way off into the future everything has a causal link and wanting something that you don't have for instance will lead to the causal link of becoming a hungry ghost the preta right the hungry ghost somebody who wants something and wants something they go around haunting their whole environment every face they go they keep wanting things and wanting things and this is called the preta, the hungry ghost the one that I see most often in the western world is people are reborn as animals what is being reborn as an animal means if we're not talking about bugs and insects or even reptiles we're talking about trapped animals horses bulls trapped animals that have to do what they're told to do donkeys I remember seeing the donkey in India one time where the donkey was tied to a large looked like a small four six inch tree that was cut down it's a long pole about 30 feet long and one end was tied to the donkey and the other was tied to a millstone and the donkey went around this big circle over and over again while the guy put sugar cane stalks in his mill and out came sugar cane juice and he sold it for 10 rupees a glass it was warm it was out in the hot sun but it was something to drink I mean that's all you had then guess how much of that sugar cane juice the donkey gets the donkey's doing all the work and the donkey don't get no juice guess what IBM and Microsoft and Google and a lot of these companies have a lot of donkeys working for them and all of that juice comes in in the form of corporate earnings and the donkey don't get none this is how our lives are lived that the corporate crowd keeps the poor poor it keeps them thirsty you want that donkey thirsty keep him working and so this is how the life of most of us in the West live our lives we live our lives doing what we're told to do going along to get along and we don't like it that's why we call it work we call it job nobody calls it I'm going to play today at the office well I have to cause it's not played not enjoying it he's working and not only is he working but he already is resentful because he knows he's not going to get paid all that he's worth but some portion is going to be kept by the company like most of it so here we are living our lives in woeful states of going along to get along doing what we're told to do and that we got used to resenting it the trick is why don't we do what we want to do for fun and profit that's the question we go around doing what we're told to do and resenting it when we can in fact go around doing what we like to do and loving it that's the real teaching of the Buddha right there is that we get ourselves into a woeful state because of the concepts conceptualized thoughts but if the donkey who is walking around that treadmill path that he's got is actually enjoying his scenery paying attention to the people who were getting his sugarcane juice the donkey may even ask him don't you like my juice maybe they'll start petting him and he'll have a good day but most donkeys just go around the path over and over and over again drudgery oh poor me I'll have a pity party I got to do my work and I'm not going to get paid so it's the attitude of us donkeys they keep doing what we're told to do not enjoying our lives and it's all just a matter of attitude basically what we mean by attitude here is the poly word is Sama Sankapa and it's a feature of the cold noble path but not only right you to open our eyes and look and pay attention to see what's going on but the next item is this is that we have to remember to pay attention we have to remember to look at what we're doing and that memory then is the most important skill to be developed that's called the skill of Sati to wake up wakey wakey Sati is very close to the word boating or bode just to wake up and we can actually use that and contraposition to what we would normally think of as daydreaming and most of us go around daydreaming all the time what does that mean living in a conceptualized world daydreaming and we could come out of that daydream and be in reality if we can remember to wake up and look at what's going on but often when we wake up and look at what's going on we recognize that oh now that I'm waking up I recognize I was in conceptual thoughts and most of the conceptualized thinking is actually critical thinking critical thinking means I like this I don't like that this is good this is bad let's improve this this house is okay but I need a bigger house I need a tower I need to name Trump on it I need this, that and the other thing and so our conceptualizations keep us in suffering because we want things over and over again we either want to make an improvement or we want to destroy so you can actually see that conceptualized thinking of criticism or critical thinking actually is the source for the second noble truth the cause of suffering what is the cause of suffering? greed, ill will and delusion what we mean by that is delusion is the critical thoughts of this is good and I want it or this is bad and I don't I'm just putting the teaching of the Buddha in a more westernized language so that we can understand that it's in the mind that causes this stuff that greed is a concept of critical thinking and we can't when we recognize that critical thinking we can come out of it and start having nurturing thoughts instead that when we were very little babies when we were ten infants every one of us got a great deal of loving care if we were nurtured any child who was not nurtured probably will not survive and if he does survive he'll survive with very heavy psychological problems but most all of us are nurtured when we're infants and that nurturing stays in here until about the age of four, five or six and that's when we're given the ABCs at the one, two, three and we're told to go to school to pick up our clothes and put your cell phone down and do your homework et cetera et cetera and that's when the child is introduced into the critical world of our society and criticism becomes the predominant and nurturing takes the back seat sometimes it's even left out at the back end and so what actual the practice of Banna Panasati would be would be taking these parts of the eight-fold and oval path this ability to wake up to pay attention to what the mind is doing to recognize that much of the thoughts are critical thoughts and we can come out of those critical thoughts and start nurturing and having nurturing thoughts instead to nurture ourselves and by doing so we're removing unholy thoughts of wanting things wanting improvements and coming into the realization through nurturing that everything is actually okay and look around the room the room that you're in is safe there's no crocodiles there's no alligators there's no cops coming in no swat team no problems at all and yet many people will have thoughts that lead to fear but the reality is there's nothing to fear right now almost always that's true almost always the things that we are afraid of because we remember tragic situations in the past and then we plan for those tragic situations in the future where right now is okay that's another way of looking at it in the sense of the low guitar to be above the world means that if we are in reality then we're out of the concepts reality is what's happening right now and right now through the senses it's quite nice this next breath is a really nice breath the breeze is a really nice breeze everything is okay right now in the present moment well let's look at it in the sense of this present moment here and now here is the reality then you can say well how big is my reality well it's as far as I can see I can see out to the end of the road or out to the end of the drive and then I can see a little bit of the road and then I don't see any more because of all of the trees and what not which means that things that are beyond my sight are really not in reality I can remember I've been down that road but now when I go down that road in my mind I'm not in reality actually going down the road I'm in conceptualized mind you see and so if we learn to live in reality reality right here right now is safe so now that we've defined what is here we can also look at now because anything that's in the past is gone it's dead it doesn't exist and everything is in the future it's yet to be and it probably won't be when it does come the way that we thought that we wanted it to be when we were thinking about it in concepts in the past so the whole teaching that the Buddha uses to come into the present moment coming out of the conceptualized mind and just be here now and only have input that's real input rather than mental input that's why the Buddha talks about it in the case of six senses we have eyes, ears, tongue nose and touch then we have that sixth sense which is thinking now not all thinking is talking thinking there is other kind of thinking going on one kind of way of spending thinking is in the senses if you're actually looking at something that's happening you're not doing a whole lot of thinking about it you think about it after you look at it while you're actually watching something the mind moments that we spend is actually in senses another way that we can spend mind moments is in actually feelings which is actually part of our senses anyway now we're feeling senses but most of the time we spend in not in reality we spend in mental concepts thinking and so when we have those thoughts we generally have thoughts about the past and about the future if we think about the past normally the things that we remember are the tragedies we don't remember the really good things there's a lot of really good stuff happening and we don't pay much attention to it we only kind of pay attention to tragedies an example would be that little Billy is drawing with crayons on the wall in his bedroom and his mom comes in and instead of looking at what he's doing she freaks out about the wall and the paint and landlords and all of this kind of stuff and punishes him for writing on the wall he'll remember that she could have taken a different tact she could have said my this drawing is wonderful and marvelous I'm going to go get you a paint set but she didn't and he could have been a Rembrandt but now that he's had that tragic situation of writing on the wall and having to clean it and being punished and all of that kind of stuff he winds up not being a very good artist he doesn't use his hands much he makes that kind of decision when he is really early and then he doesn't develop the motor skills that he needs so these are the kind of tragedies that happen throughout childhood one after another after another that put together how we conceive things and how we look at it so that when we're adults we begin to remember the things that happened in the past and we're always going to wind up remembering something bad that happened because we paid attention to what was bad was happening we were paying much attention to all of the good stuff this is actually instinctual behavior we are actually wired that way it's called the self-preservation instinct that when the organism is in danger then... that ties so perfectly with dependent origination the self-preservation instinct because that's the very first link is ignorance or knowledge and that very first link is that self-preservation instinct is are you totally okay with no self with anata and if you're totally okay with emptiness if you're totally okay with infinity if you're totally okay with no self with anata then you have only right action emerges perpetually because you're always coming from oneness you're always coming from love you're always coming from no self you're coming from reality if you can remember but remember we've already been wired to our habit systems and we were not raised by buddhas we were raised by families who perpetuate the family's problem so all the dukkha that comes with the family is passed on to the child many many examples of that one of them is that they know that a child who is raised in a household that is prone for domestic violence when that child grows up and is living in another household as an adult that household too will be prone to domestic violence train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he'll do what he's told that's the hurting instinct again or going along to get along or being a member of the pack this is how we basically we operate as human beings is that we follow the herd in fact that hurting instinct is part of the self preservation instinct in the sense that those in the middle of the herd if you've got a herd of willful bees and you've got lions around then the ones in the middle of the herd the safest and the stragglers are in danger of being lunch so that's our hurting instinct and we do that as children we pick up on that and go along to get along because we're looking for safety security from that self preservation instinct and I must also say that it's mislabeled that the guys who came up with the terminology for self preservation instinct would have been more corrupt if they had said organism preservation instinct because it's actually the organism that's being perpetuated and when I mean that organism I'm talking about the body the feelings, the mind and the objects of the mind the psychipatana the psychipatana, the human body the form and all of its feelings are real and so that organism there does not necessarily have a self or a center or a soul but it does have that instinct for preservation so whenever the mind perceives danger the self preservation instinct is going to come up get in gear and try to protect the self from danger and often that danger doesn't exist it's not real or we create it through the perception of the danger several examples of that the 14 year old boy is walking down the hall in high school and around the corner he sees the bully and his two friends coming down the hall and he sees the bully and he freezes he's afraid of the bully naturally the bully is going to pick on him the other way to handle that is he sees the bully coming around the corner with his two friends he can go in one of two directions either in the direction the bully is going now he's ahead of him or he can take off in the opposite direction and pass the bully right by if the bully says something he can say I'm gonna hurry now I gotta go, bye but no because he was afraid he stood there and he got bullied more than likely that's gonna happen the second time now he's in the habit of getting bullied and he didn't have to get bullied at all he doesn't have to hit the bully he can just take a hike so this is how we learn that we often create our dangers through the perceptions of fear and we pick up these perceptions of fears because we find as children so much to be afraid of and we continue along as adults being afraid of this, that and the other thing in fact that's what society is really all about humans have built a society in order to take us out of the jungle we build cities for safety and yet all of these all these jungle humans come into the city and when they come into the city for safety they bring their jungle with them that's why they call it a concrete jungle the humans have made the jungle and we make it with our fear we see jungle when in fact there's no jungle there if we would pay attention and look at things reality wise in this present moment we can recognize no we're safe here, no problem and so this is what we need to actually practice this is the practice of out upon a sati then is to take this right view this right sati to wake up and the right effort to change the kind of thinking that we have from critical thinking into nurturing thinking which means that the kind of thoughts we have are nurturing thoughts they're wholesome thoughts completely wholesome thoughts thoughts about everything's alright everything is okay not a worry in the world everything's alright everything is fine nothing to do, no place to go this spring comes and the grass grows by itself boom this is wholesome thinking and we need to practice that so that we can get ourselves into the very shape that you're in right now wouldn't you like, wouldn't you have a marvelous life if you run around in the position that you're in right now so getting ourselves into that state is something that's quite valuable to do over and over and over again we work to get the mind in a really really good state and once we get good at getting the mind into a good state we begin to gain confidence I can do this I can come into this state of well-being then that's what brings on that fourth element of the eight pole noble path Sama Sankapa right attitude the attitude of a winner I can do this but in fact the Buddha says that the first knowledge or the first wisdom on the path which means the first step of the noble path a lot of people talk about that especially in the stream entry what's the stream entry well the first step of getting on the path is the knowledge that no matter what happens no matter how instructed the mind gets the student can throw those thoughts out of the mind and see things as they really are to come to the present moment when you know that you can do that no matter what that's the first step of the path you have that confidence the confidence that I can handle this whatever comes by I can handle it now this eye that I'm using is merely a linguistic convenience that we don't have to say I can handle it it's an attitude we're talking about a can do attitude that in fact in some cultures you've heard it talked about in the sense of hold my beer have you ever heard that expression hold my beer which means I'm going to go take care of this situation I can handle this so this is the way that we have with the attitude of the can do attitude the can do means that no matter what kind of pity party no matter what kind of anger what kind of feelings that I have I can change those feelings I can come out of that and bring the mind back into a really really big state so this is the practice of Anapanasati is over and over and over again remembering to wake up to take a look throw the unwholesome thoughts out of the mind and then take a power what do they call it a victory lap that's the word right have that victory lap have that I got it kind of feeling got this one can do so that's the attitude and when we get those four things together the right view right sati waking up right effort and for the beginner there's going to be some effort but later it gets really easy especially when the attitude gets really strong and with right attitude together that brings about what is called right unification of mind the right unification of mind means now the mind is together now the mind is whole it may not stay that way but right now it's good to go it's fit for work it's ready for the job this right unification of mind in the Pali is called samā area samāti now the word samāti actually in this case is meaning that we're gathering the factors together this is not concentration concentration is actually removing factors that are needed my example is frozen concentrated orange juice does anybody drink frozen concentrated orange juice no they take the water out of it and freeze it for transportation purposes but when you get the orange juice home what do you do you make it samāti by putting the water back in it you make it whole and complete so concentrated orange juice is not samāti orange juice and yet so many people are trying to practice a meditation to build up concentration which is basically just working too hard this is actually a piece of cake this is the easiest thing in the world it's not hard to do just cheer up that's all you have to do lighten up let go but we have to remember to let go we have to remember to brighten up we have to remember to clad in the mind to make it bright and when we brighten the mind and we do that over and over and over again we get the idea that we can do this no matter what I can handle anything so that's it that's all there is to it actually we can say then there's two skills to learn one is the skill of learning to get into this marvelous state and then the second skill is to maintain that marvelous state to be on guard to make sure that unwholesome thoughts are not coming back into the mind so the teachings of the Buddha is actually quite simple but you can see that it's been a huge, huge religion has been built around it a case actually the real teaching of the Buddha is quite dangerous I mean if everybody had the attitude that we were talking about right now the GDP would fall apart if everybody were satisfied if I don't need anything I don't want anything I don't go shopping nobody goes shopping nobody buys anything because we're content and comfortable with what we have a whole lot of people have already been up two, three, four putting you to work they're going to be unhappy if you quit and just hang out and enjoy your life they want you to go back to work they want to make some money off of you alright so that's dangerous that actually happened Buddhism was wiped out in India took them a couple of hundred years killed about a hundred million people but the Brahmins and the Moguls together they got the job done they wiped it out guess what? no they didn't no they didn't what happens if you have a handful of Jell-O and you squeeze it really tight it takes out all over the place well that's what happened to Buddhism it just leaked out all over the place Thailand, Burma Sri Lanka, Nepal Tibet, China Korea, Japan Cambodia, Vietnam I think it covers them all now and so it was dispersed but it was also dispersed in a way now so that it became kind of secret in the time of the Buddha it was absolutely open but it became kind of secret there's another reason to keep it secret and that is that if someone who holds wrong view and then takes on the ordinary right view thinking that I can't get away with it because I'll go to hell or the cops will stop me or something like that when he's introduced to a super mundane right view the possibility of them falling back into wrong view is very high so we have to introduce right noble view and the right noble dharma in a way that it invites people to come out of their magical thinking into the real reality rather than coming out of their magical thinking and then start doing harm that they didn't do because of their magical thinking so these are the dangers and for that reason the teachings came to the point of that the student had to ask the right question to the right teacher at the right time for that student to get the dharma other than that all he's going to get is Buddhist religion many monks were ordained as monks and never learned the real teachings of the Buddha but all throughout history there has been that noble dharma that has been hidden away and I know for sure that it's been hidden away in places that I've known of especially Laos, Burma, excuse me Laos, Cambodia and Thailand because I've spent quite a lot of time with monks in those three traditions and each one of those traditions has the noble teaching of the dharma without having the connections with the others basically what I'm saying is that one time when I first was introduced to Bikubudodasa I thought very highly of him as if he were the only one who really knew the dharma later on I found out that oh no the early history of Bikubudodasa was how he connected up with the other nobles and what happened was that back in the 1930s after he had been a monk for about ten years he was in Bangkok studying Pali very deep into the Pali studies and he was invited to give public talks and he started giving public talks and he started teaching the noble dharma some of the people in the audience didn't like what he was saying because they had ordinary view and so they made some complaints and it wound up him being brought up on the charges of trying to break apart the sangha to destroy it this is in the Pali is called Sangha De Sessa which meant that in Bangkok there was a huge trial and Bikubudodasa had to defend it and he had the Pali and the suttas to defend himself with but unbeknownst to him he had some friends on that as part of the judge board but in fact the Sangha De Sessa requires twenty monks we're talking about herding cats we have nine supreme court justices well for the monks it's twenty they seem to need twenty monks to do all kinds of things to have an ordination or to have a consecration of a temple to make a place at Wat and other things like this what happened in that trial was is that there was an immense literature search brought about and the conclusion was and the trial ended with Bikubudodasa was teaching the wrong thing the right things he was teaching the absolute right dharma to the wrong people that the Sangha wanted to keep the actual real teachings of the Buddha within the Sangha and Bikubudodasa didn't want to do that he wanted to let the real teachings of the Buddha out into the public and he's been doing that ever since well as I said he had some friends some friends in really really high places like in the royal family and in the top group of monks there's nobles in Thailand and so he was introduced to these nobles and actually one of them became his teacher formally that man was Bikubudagosa Jharn who was actually the Samdat Sangharaj the top monk in all of Thailand and was on that panel on that board of the Sangha De Sasa that's where he met Bikubudodasa and so basically now the new question is Bikubudodasa going to be allowed to continue to open the real teachings of the Buddha and let it out are we going to keep it secret within the Sangha within the order of monks the answer is right here Ajahn Po has basically given me the instructions of the order let's go out on to the internet and give the super-maintained Dhamma just let the cat out of the bag Westerners deserve the real teaching of the Buddha just like the Thais do that the Westerners have only the Buddhist religion and the Thais have for many many centuries had both sides of it both the enter the real teachings of the Buddha and actually the real teaching of the Buddha make monks who are really really high quality human beings nobles, honorable people and because of that they generally become the habits of the various temples and what's in Thailand and for that reason the nobility of the teaching of the Buddha has been spread around Thailand and so it's time to bring this noble Dhamma out of Thailand and vows because I know in fact I've got a lot of stories about this I don't want to waste everybody's time but it's really interesting how it takes one to know one how nobles actually talk with each other so that it's easy to know and so it's time that the noble Dhamma come to the West and the best medium is with internet so thank you very much for having this opportunity to at least make a brief introduction to the actual teachings of the Buddha including how the April Noble Path and eventually how Anapanasanti brings this state of mind this bright happy joyful unconcerned state of mind can be brought about and enjoyed by all but we have to come out of that enlightenment because enlightenment way up there for most people an example of that is the word nibbana in the time of the Buddha nibbana had two uses one was that's what you do to food it's also done with animals okay have you ever had a hot pizza in the oven you don't eat it then it's too hot to eat you have to let it nibbana you have to let it cool off and when it gets just the right temperature it's delicious if it's too cold or it's too hot then it's not delicious anymore so also animals like a dog dogs bark and bark and bark they're territorial but the dog can be nibbana so that it doesn't bark so much the dogs can be trained when a dog when a dog is not wild anymore when he's just a domesticated house pet it's nibbana that's the way that we want to use the word okay so anytime you're chilling out that's nibbana just chill cool off enjoy your life at least enjoy the moment that's what nibbana means means to chill and so now let's give a working definition something that can be used for the word enlightenment because it's got an actual value to it when you understand how to use the word you see the word enlightenment actually was part of the french revolution the 1700s the age of enlightenment which was actually the dawning of the age of science and that's an important point the word has some value and so let's look at enlightenment in the sense that the primary word in it is light well we have daylight we have turned the lights on we have the idea that we can see things and know things better with light so by enlightenment the first kind then is enlightenment which is knowledge to gain knowledge to be able to see things correctly to look observe note and to see this is the first kind of enlightenment the second kind of enlightenment is not heavy to lighten up so if your mind is bright if it's lightened up you're making a look at what's going on in that moment you're enlightened in fact the zen talk about it all the time in the sense that the new zen student is working very hard wanting something out of his meditation and he's wanting to become enlightened and the old master says you're already enlightened why do you want anything that you don't have that kind of enlightenment is nothing but a concept and most people have a concept of enlightenment being enlightened that's enlightenment that's all there is to it beautiful there was so much there that was yummy delicious and there were many points of simplifying to the masses that are critical and there were moments to come in and play but you were in flow on great trajectory covering many different insightful areas and it was quite nice so let's revisit yeah let's revisit so I'm going to ask the question what is looking through your eyes what do you say I don't understand the question what what is looking through your eyes I don't understand the question are you talking about an observer what or who is looking through your eyes possibly the easiest way for people to understand that is to talk a bit about psychology and psychology when they get it right they're just merely rediscovering what the Buddha has already taught so within neuroscience we talk about the brain in regions there's a lot of different bits and pieces in those regions but primarily the regions are the anterior cortex the temporal cortex and the frontal lobe the frontal cortex these are the three parts of the brain Sigmund Freud used that information with his ego super ego and id but most people really never did figure out what Freud was on about but one of his students changed the language into parent, adult and child and that makes it fairly easy to understand so the most primitive part of the brain that which is taking care of they call it the reptilian brain because it's shaped like the brain of an alligator and in fact everything that you can do that an alligator can do is done with that reptilian brain walking around breathing, blinking eyes, chewing food wagging our tail, heart beats all of that kind of stuff is done by the reptilian brain cause anything that a reptile can do that we can do we do the same part of the brain that they do which is a whole lot of stuff that reptiles can't do that dogs can do like communication I mean the only thing that alligators can do is either get out of each other's way or confront each other but dogs have all kinds of communication systems and so the communication systems that human have use that same part of the brain which we could actually refer to then as the parent or the superego and that's where all of our old past memories are stored as well as all of our language and things and now we get to the third part the question that you ask which is the frontal lobe the part of our brain the human brain that allows us to make connections the observer the part that can do mathematics 2 plus 2 equals 4 and then we see 2 plus 2 equals 4 again and again and again and again and we can see those patterns it's the observer and that observing part of the brain actually takes the most energy it's the new kid on the block only humans have it even chimpanzees don't have that part of the brain there's a lot of reasons why that they think of why that came about but basically you could say that it's because of cooked food that once we got fire and started cooking food then a lot of the work that we had to do with wall food is done by the fire itself so that we can get much more nourishment out of the food that we need as well as the fact that we don't have to have those huge jaw muscles that baboons have to chew it so when the muscles get smaller that means that now we can use that highly developed baboon neck area for our own language this is how that happened when we cooked food we have this huge huge super computer up front this is what does the observing but guess what that part of the brain is often not in use why? because it does take a lot of work that in fact in many cases the reptilian brain or the child is in charge that all night long you continue to breathe all night long the heart continues to beat why does that happen? it happens because of this reptilian brain so the reptilian brain tends to be the boss but now there's the other part of the brain called the superego or the temporal cortex or what is also called the mammal brain the mammal part of the brain is all of our learned and stored behavior so if we are having a dialogue a critical dialogue let us say the guy is watching television he's watching in fact he's watching YouTube and the thought comes you ought to be meditating that thought you ought to meditate is coming out of the superego out of the parent ego state he's heard it before you ought to do this you should do that he's moved all of the language that comes from this temporal cortex or mammalian brain actually is words that we've heard from our parents that's why Byrne calls it the parent ego state that's all the shoulds, woulds, coulds ought to be the way things ought to be the rights, rules, rituals all of that kind of stuff now the guy is watching video watching YouTube and the thought comes you should be meditating that thought comes out of that critical mind that parent ego state and the child is the object of that and the child inside says no I don't want to go meditate right now I want to watch a video and while he's having that dialogue several things are happening but watching the video is not one of them feeling marvelous and good is not one of them because the child is being told something to do that he doesn't want to do and the parent is not getting what it wants because the child is not obeying orders and so we're a crowd inside most people don't even know about this dialogue why? because they're not watching because the frontal cortex the part that ought to be watching this kind of stuff is not paying any attention so basically sati means to wake up or to put the frontal cortex into gear to give us some energy one of the ways of giving us some energy is by taking a deep breath this is why the Buddha talks about it as anapanasati in breathing and out breathing and to be mindful of this in the sense of when we say sati or mindfulness of breathing what we're really meaning is is that we have to take control of the breathing if we do not control the breathing then the mind will just wander right away from it because the mind's got no skin in the game it's got no attachment to it so when you say watch the breath people don't watch it very long and the mind wanders away but if you start to control the breath it will go on long that long deep in breathing will actually help put the mind in gear it'll give us the oxygen it needs and also the long deep out breath will help rid the body of carbon dioxide and so breathing is a major part of one's right effort to take the effort to actually start breathing well and by doing so we're paying attention to the breathing which means that on the in breath remember to take a long deep in breath and on the out breath remember to take a long deep out breath so every breath that you take on an in and out cycle means that you have two points of sati that's the skill that we want to develop is to develop the breath develop the remembering to be in the present moment you're in this present moment the way that you can be in this present moment is by having that frontal cortex this part of the brain in operation get it working get it going and when it's working and going then it can start paying attention to all of these critical thoughts that are coming out of the parent ego state out of the mammalian brain pay attention to it and not only that but we can see how the child reacts to it so if watching the video watching YouTube and the thought comes you ought to be meditating and the guy is there for it he'll hear that thought and says yeah boy let's do that and so we take a deep breath and then the answer is I am meditating but that takes waking up you wake up to actually take that deep breath and be meditating right now you don't have to turn the TV off or the YouTube off and then go sit down to meditate you can take a meditation breath moment right now because you remembered to but that also answers your question about what is the observer the observer is at which we're wanting to put into gear so that you can actually start observing that's right Noble you see the right Noble view is actually viewing from the frontal cortex ordinary right view has already defined what is right and is not doing anymore he's just repeating concepts but right Noble view is to really look use that frontal cortex open your eyes your mind's eye and pay attention to what's going on and one of the things that you begin to see is that hey you can feel the way you want to feel all our lives we spent our whole life talking ourselves into feeling bad because of that parent ego state and our own minds plus the language of the parents and teachers and all that we had when we were kids and so that's the normal world that we live in is in a dialogue between the parent and the child and the parent and the child but when we wake up that means now we're putting that frontal cortex into gear and the frontal cortex now becomes the boss and the boss is going to tell the the the talking mind the verbal part the super ego the parent to stop being critical being a critical parent start nurturing instead and so we begin to nurture ourselves there there now everything's okay not a worry in the world there are no dangers there's no alligators there's no crocodiles everything is okay no place to go nothing to do the spring comes and the grass goes all by itself you don't have to do anything everything's okay now that's a better meditation than sitting in front of the YouTube saying you want to meditate not now I don't want to but you ought to go meditate so in that regard the parent is confused because he thinks that meditation means you've got to go do something real meditation means that you can stop doing right now yippee great so let's do a recap on some of the core essence so what we can one of the ways that we can simply express what is being communicated is that there's what appears to be this sun which is all and then there appears to be clouds and the whole game is to cut through the clouds and remember oneself as the sun as the all and the core essence of how to cut through clouds has a lot of its roots in dependent origination and has a lot of its roots in anapanasati so when you become aware of discursive thinking from concept to idea to separate form to separate person to separate shape to separate perception or sensation or object or experience etc you recognize that all of that is appearing and disappearing but what remains is something that's indescribable and that does not have identity there is not an atlas character that atlas character has been a dream of the intelligence in its play with itself and so now we're really at the core essence which is turning inward on one's own source of perception itself going all the way to one's source of perception and wondering self inquiry who am I what is this that is perceiving and also perceiving sporadic discursive thought or is this perceiving from the heart or as you indicated in neuroscience prefrontally is this perceiving from love is this perceiving from wholeness is this perceiving from unity from non-separation from emptiness and from infinity and in doing that inquiry perpetually through those clouds you remember yourself as this one infinite sun and you see that everywhere that becomes your reality that becomes this radiant enlightenment and then all that's left is just to serve creation honorably, lovingly in a non-attached way to maximize prosperity abundance, playfulness architectures that serve the prosperity of all and this is the essence in a small recap of what we've been sharing and it's really nice because a lot of what Damarato speaks about here is also available and I'll pull it up so that our audience can see it's available right here on his channel and the links in the bio below also if you would like to go and click and look through but the YouTube channel has lots and lots of content on it and lots of just simple explanations of what we've been discussing and he's also very open to fielding inquiry as well so people can just reach out and they can hop on a Skype call that's right Damarato, yeah great and that info is in the leave in the about section you can find some of the contact information and every video that has the description will have a link in the description okay let's go back and visit a couple of things that you said the first thing to visit is you use the word perception and within the context of patichu salmon there is actually a specific definition form and that you're using it something a little bit differently and so I would point that out but let's get back to the point about the sun and the clouds and that you mentioned that everything is arising and passing away everything is arising and passing away that a thought does not last very long only about a tenth of a second maybe a fifth of a second something like that but then it comes again things arise and they pass away they arise and they pass away they arise and they pass away a lot of us have the idea that our lives are DC to where in fact our lives are AC everything is up and down everything arises and passes away each cloud that comes passes away on its own but guess what the sun also arises and passes away everything is temporary so you there's no sun there's no anything that's permanent everything is temporary which means that everything is in motion everything is in flux and the whole concept of self especially from this issue of the Christian ideal of the soul is something that's really permanent this is so permanent that we talk about it in the sense of everlasting or eternalism but in fact everything is temporary everything is temporary something is new I don't know what that is but it's something new is that a back scratcher yeah it's this massager it's so good okay please continue you were on a great point okay well this point about Anitra everything is in flux basically the way that our the anatomy works is that it's hard to pay attention to the things that are not moving and see things that are moving for instance you can look at something or you can just look and have what we call gazing so let us say that you were gazing on the floor and all you kind to see is generalized floor but if you see an ant or a tick or some small animal crawling on the floor then that tick will get your attention because we see the movement alright generally then when we see something happen that catches our attention and it brings up perhaps doubts curiosities uncertainties what is that is it dangerous and when we have the thought that it might be dangerous that's when the selfishness comes in trying to protect the organism from the tick or getting bit by the ant or whatever and so basically what we're looking at here is that we have this trilokina or the three characteristics anicha, duke or anata is not a sequence of events but it's rather a choice that we have the choice is that whenever any event happens when everything happens in the sense of a change that we can either choose to be selfish or not about it if we choose to be selfish then that's going to lead to duke it may in fact in the ant's life will step on it or something and so anicha means that it's an opportunity whenever we see something change the opportunity is either duke or anata or in other words when we see something change we can say to ourselves or that ant is not my ant or that tick is not my tick not my business not my problem if we say that that tick on the floor that I just saw calling is my tick now that's the selfishness that's going to lead to duke if there is no selfishness then I'm not going to be okay I'm okay but if I claim that that tick is my tick or that I feel danger because of that tick on the floor then more than likely the tick's going to get killed why? because I'm trying to protect myself from the danger of getting bit by that tick but when it's not my tick I got no problem some people will get so upset with ticks that they go around killing ticks but all the time it becomes their business of doing nothing but going around killing ticks or ants or whatever your thing is so in fact the ticks are not dangerous when we recognize that things that change are not dangerous then we don't have to be selfish about it and if we're not selfish then there's no duke this is what is the teaching of the trilokina when anisha happens and something changes you've got a choice are you going to be selfish about it and try to own it or are you going to just leave it alone not yours, not mine none of my business the spring comes and the grass goes all by itself not my grass so vikabuddha does had a phrase like that that he says that this is a very common phrase in the sutras that we do as I me or mine that in fact is really hard to cling to something without a concept of I me and mine that does the clinging you can think of it like this notice that the arm and now if this arm is clinging to it if I'm clinging here that means that the arm clinging has to have a cling or to it that's the part of the actual creation of the self is that which comes into play in order to do the clinging if we're not clinging then there's no self another way of saying this is that the self is the bucket in which we carry our dukkha if there is no bucket then we're not going to be carrying much dukkha the bigger the self the bigger the dukkha the bigger the bucket the bigger area we have for carrying a bunch of suffering in a bunch of dukkha so this is the way to understand the true loka now is that you've got a choice you're either going to be selfish and have dukkha or you can be out of it not your business no fixation on anything that arises including the person the costume decrease the surface area for attack by emptying out your bucket of self all of your and throwing out the bucket the bucket's unnecessary the only reason we have that bucket there is because we think we need it for protection from dangers and when there is no danger there's nothing to be afraid of this is why the Buddha is really big on fearlessness if we're not afraid then we don't need the protection so just remembering that really you've got no problem everything is alright everything's okay no place to go nothing to do everything's alright everything's fine no place to go nothing to do and so all then we have left to do is just merely relax so instead of thinking about a cloud and the sun and getting the clouds out of the way so that you can be the sun a better thing a better way to look at it is I don't care about clouds I'm too busy having fun and when I have thoughts of not having fun I can see those and I can throw them out and say never mind then there's the patterns of conditioning that emerge while the claim of I'm just having fun and then they're suffering and so the turn to cut through said egoic solidity is inevitable because the drill sergeant of awakening comes and that's suffering dukkha well turn in and another one of is just not wanting to be the void not wanting to be shunyata not wanting to be emptiness and we're in our society we're taught to be something yeah this is it this is probably the biggest thing is that the promulgation of the individuated expression which is fine and it's also beautiful because it's cool to paint what you're resonating with to make music with what you're resonating with to investigate some sort of science to make a regenerative energy system for the planet you know cool stuff cool stuff but do you know who you are do you know what you are first and foremost does it even matter that's in fact one of the questions that the Buddha says is irrelevant not only is it irrelevant but it is dark that he talks about it in suta number two in the Saba Asava suta in the sense of what is worth paying attention to and who am I and what was I in the past and what I will become and all of those kind of questions wind up giving us a bunch of issues to solve I say I'm this and I'm not that but I want to be that now I've got work to do to go do that and all of these kind of stuff and not only that but here's a really big important point and that is just that every human being is a moving target today you can write down all of the characteristics of who you are and then tomorrow you go and do the same thing and over time you'll see that that list changes that in fact by the time you get to the end of the list you may want to go scratch out some of the items on the front of the list and change it because you're constantly changing sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don't so you can't define who you are because you're in the constant state of flux so asking yourself questions about who am I is bound to become confusing a much better thing to pay attention to would be and it's stated like this in the suttas things that are worthy of your attention would be this is suffering this is the cause of suffering this is what is black do not be suffering and this is the path that leads to the end of suffering now that whole thing is talked about in the sense of this present moment this is duke up by observing and seeing instead of asking myself questions who am I look at the question of where is the duke up where is the dissatisfactions what are the causes of my dissatisfactions the causes are my critical thoughts what are my critical thoughts about who am I and when I stop that critical thinking and recognizing having critical thinking about who am I is just duke I can stop and relax and pay attention to the four noble truths in great detail and really looking at them especially in the sense of the way that I've been talking about the 8th whole noble path that we come up with the position of personality view we get over who am I we're no longer concerned with who am I who am I is not important and that we often identify ourselves as who am I with the language of society we identify with our just to be clear when I say who am I I'm talking about Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry that's all I'm talking about I'm not talking about what is this individual's goals in the world and needs for fixation and needs for cravings and likes and dislikes I'm talking about the moth turning inward onto the flame and dissolving I don't recommend that I don't recommend flowers moths associating with the fire at all they ought to go stay in the dark and stay safe those fires are dangerous for moths yeah well that's what we're talking about piercing through the clouds to recognize yourself as the sun and if we're not able to simultaneously be non-dualistic while also being dualistic then that's also a spiritual flavor that society has taken on that is not simultaneous and so it really needs its simultaneity we need to both be able to see that this is already an absolute free ineffable perfection eternal and yet also simultaneously see that if there isn't a rising of some sort of pattern of conditioning of I feel unworthy and I need to do this or that whatever that there is some sort of turn to cut through those clouds of conditioning and to feel more whole and to feel like you already are it and so this is just the simultaneity there but not with a capital I just this is it that is a pretty big it and we're a really small piece of it but at least we fit in at least we're comfortable if we don't have to fit into society we have to fit into reality and society doesn't fit into reality very well that in fact it's most people use society to define who they are that I'm only me in relationship to something else like I'm an engineer or I'm a garbage collector or I'm a doctor or something like that so we can often define ourselves with our profession or we define ourselves with our hobby or we define ourselves with our political interest but without any of those kind of concepts it's really hard to define who you are and it's not even a relevant thing anyway what's relevant according to the teachings of the Buddha is dukkha dukkha naroda now a lot of people think of dukkha dukkha naroda as a long term goal takes years and years and years they see it like this and in fact as a meditator they practice dukkha dukkha dukkha I see dukkha I'm examining dukkha I can see dukkha dukkha dukkha and that's not a dukkha that's just a bug so the real point is is that when we see dukkha dukkha naroda we can see it immediately if we can see the dukkha we can sight-cept it an example of that is the farmer who is going to go see his cows on the other side of the pasture if he keeps his eye on those cows and knows where he's going when he sees those cows to make sure that they're there and he's got his goal planned and he goes right to them when he gets there he's going to be covered in shit cow shit cow pies because he's not watching where he's going he's too interested in his target real dukkha dukkha naroda means watch every step and if you see a cow pie don't step in it right now that's dukkha so when we take that analogy out of the cow pasture and put it into the mind and recognize that there's all kinds of cow pies to step in past, future this place over there that place over yonder everywhere is different but all of them are cow pies to step in or we can choose to be careful about what boss we have so that we can always step on solid, clean ground these are the wholesome thoughts so you can say that the pasture is covered with cow pies but not every inch of land is covered with cow pie they're just all over the place so you can also think of your mind that way that there's plenty of wholesome thoughts to have but there's also plenty of unwholesome thoughts to avoid one step at a time one thought at a time this is really the teaching of the Buddha is dukkha naroda right now do it right now don't say oh if I meditate for 10,000 hours then the common machine will come in with a shakti pot and make me happy no your happiness is right here right now your dukkha naroda is right now not 10, 15 years 100,000 hours of meditation from now is right this very minute that's the teaching dukkha naroda right here, right now we remove the personality view when we do that when we recognize that who I am and the definitions of who I am is completely irrelevant what's relevant is am I enjoying this moment no matter what kind of clothes I'm wearing or mental clothes I'm wearing so not concerned with who I am just concerned with this very moment is a pleasant moment just awake presence just eternity awake presence well as often as you like as often as you can remember our society has words built into it as I said comes out of the history that leaves us with words like always or all the time this is bound to get into that critical parent thinking that you ought to be doing it all the time rather than nurturing like oh I'm glad you did it now so all the time is actually a danger word we should put that on our don't do list and stop talking about doing it all the time and just do it when you remember to do it that's the skill that we're developing sati and when that sati becomes the skill that is unremitting what do I mean by unremitting means like this that this is a drum and this is a mallet for the drum is this the way to beat a drum watch what we're doing get it on the screen and then this is the way that most people play their drum not very musical is it but at least I'm playing it all the time sati is not like that sati is much more like this that sati unremitting like the energizer bunny beat beat beat beat come back come back ok like anapanasati mindful of this in breath be mindful that this is a long in breath be mindful that this is a long out breath in this present moment be here now remember to be here now that's the real teaching of the Buddha and we don't do it with the idea of all the time because if you say you gotta do it all the time and then you don't do it all the time you'll feel bad some of the time but if you practice correctly then every time you remember you wind up feeling really good but I remember to wake up to gladden up but many people will have the idea that when they do wake up then they feel bad because they were already feeling bad before they woke up and when they do wake up they wake up to the point only to say oh I'm not watching the breath then pour me my mind is a monkey mind I can't think right and so people go right down into the into the garbage into the sewer when they had just a little bit of sati but we need to have a big amount of sati not just to sati to wake up and then continue feeling bad but to wake up completely and to come out of it and to gladden the mind and to be here now fully awake can you wake up completely that's the sati and it's a skill again to be developed over and over again you practice but you can do it over and over again because you've got a breath just in and out and in and out over and over and over again but if you thought that we were breathing all the time that means that you're breathing and breathing and breathing and breathing how long is this in breath going to be if you continue to breathing forever and ever no we're not going to do that we're going to have this in and out and up and down and back and forth because that's reality everything is in flux and so your mindfulness will also be in flux develop it so that it keeps coming back it keeps coming back it keeps coming back but don't make it stay there because that's hard to do that's the skill a different kind of skill to develop so that's my little blurb about always and forever and all day long kind of like since we're at the time of the Olympics it's kind of like the Olympics of consciousness with these contemplative fitness athletes that are able to sustain said awake presence for 24 hours a day and that's but they but even Olympic champions don't do it 24 hours a day they need to do it the the girl who's going to twirl through the year and land on her feet she only needs that mindfulness when she's getting ready to run when she's jumping when she's twirling and when she's landing after she does her Olympic thing she can go home and have a pity party a pity party yeah and then if a pity party is the way that creation wants to express itself then go for it as whatever appearance a solid quantum is so beauty yeah really seems like this boiling down to this eternal presence without an actual identity without a preferences not eternal and nature remember and nature everything nothing is eternal nothing is except source pardon except source or the emptiness the dharmakaya that which comprehends everything it's a bit magical thinking isn't it you don't even need any of that there's nothing eternal that in fact anything that was eternal you could call that with eternal kind of language an example of something eternal would be a soul or a self in the teaching of the buddhi you've heard about Anicha Dukha Anata another way that's a little more complex that they talk about it and that is Anicha Sabha Sankara Dukha Sabha Dhamma Anata now what does that mean and why is there a change to it Sankara actually means compounded things things that are stuck together like oxygen and hydrogen are stuck together to make water but that hydrogen and that oxygen can be separated they are not permanently and forever attached together they're not eternal the same thing is true then with all kinds of things that everything that is comes together will fall apart everything that Anicha will change everything that is a change to the point of coming together will then change to fall apart everything that arises will pass away Dhammarato and this is exactly why we're at the subject now which is the question that I asked you about what is looking that which looks that very source through all of the Anicha through all of it that which comprehends all of the impermanence let's change that from all you're doing a whole lot of superlatives let's go back to that which can on occasion see this duke rather than that which sees all duke because there's nothing that sees all of it there's only you who can see this one and so that gives back then to the point that I was going in the all comprehends itself the all comprehends itself and the all is both absolute flame of Anicha of impermanence I don't know about the all the all that you're talking about as a concept hmm well there's a little bit more of it in direct experience than concept but direct experience has to do with how good you feel how good you feel is a way that you feel and maybe the thoughts that you were having made you feel that way but that doesn't mean the thoughts that you were having that made you feel that way the thoughts are real they're just thoughts so you can have thoughts about the all and feel really good about the all but then when you have thoughts about all minus something then you can have different feelings that in fact here's the point that we can come to with this and that is that feelings are not associated or caused by the all feelings are caused by thoughts that they're interrelated and so you can have thoughts about all and feel a certain way and say that's the all but you can have thoughts about an ice cream sundae feel that same way and start a religion around ice cream sundae let's hone in on exactly the essence of what is being played with because it's fascinating so that which comprehends infinite creation that is source that is not a concept wait a minute let's go back say that first line again that which comprehends infinity there is no infinity infinity is a concept well this is beautiful that there is something that we've explored that we that we feel there is something to play with because infinity is a direct realization it's not a concept no it's only a concept and the direct realization that you're talking about is free of the concept but what you really like what you really want is that feeling that wahaa that wow that some people have that feeling when they have the thought of merging with the all it's not a wahaa or a wow at all it's actually very equanimous it's just knowing oneself as the very empty infinitude that this is and knowing oneself as that and not as the character that's appearing on this stage and that's what is meant by this question and are you satisfied with that or not of course I am it's beautiful alright well now let's start looking then at the satisfaction and stop looking at the source it just is it's not something that gives me elation it's just something that is and when you recognize yourself as that which is and isn't that which is nothing being everything that is the end game that's what appears to be the end game and that's just what is if you get that end game and you still feel lousy and have a pity party then what's the point of having that end game there's no feeling lousy or a pity party well it's just the it's just when you're in the shower and you're you are feeling the awake presence in the shower and then for a moment you go into discursive thought and then you return back to the awake presence it's just what's it's just what's appearing there's no judgment there's no hatred there's no ill will against oneself that's it it's just that you can't do that without having concepts of the all the all is optional in there well yeah so there's like an I there's an idea you can't do it without having thoughts of the all and other people can in fact get themselves and go really really good state and they don't have to think about the all at all yeah but when you live inside of your skin you're always going to have conditioning is without a doubt when you live inside of your skin even if you tag your life as awake presence but living inside of your skin you're never going to identify as the universe and you're never gonna identify as emptiness because you're stuck inside of your skin why would I want to identify with the universe that's just a conceptualization and for most people emptiness is a conceptualization that I can just sit here and do nothing and that's empty now I'll give you an example don't want to let it last too long because we're on screen here but there's you don't need an all to be empty that kind of almost contradictory in our language so so this this is infinity expressing itself I just there's no other way that I've been able to express that statement here's here's actually an issue the definition of words is an issue between the two of us because I have actually I work really hard to make sure that we define the words correctly and you're using the word infinity in a way that I understand mathematically I'm been in too much mathematics it's just pure it's just pure potentiality is another way to say it okay potentiality is one thing but infinity doesn't exist doesn't exist anywhere for instance grains of sand is finite it's a large number but it's finite how about the number of galaxies is very large but it's finite there's only so many of them it may take you forever and forever and forever is another word to find it but the end of it and count all the galaxies but there's only a certain number of them there we just don't know what that is there's also the theory of large numbers really where the word in the idea of infinity came from was from division by zero yeah that's the nature of reality is that that's the nature of reality is something that is infinite that which is infinite that's the nature it doesn't exist that it's a beautiful concept and we do not need the concept of infinity to feel really good and a lot of people will have the concept of infinity and feel really bad about it some will feel confused some will feel angry so it's not the concept of infinity or even thoughts about infinity that make you feel really good so you think if it's not infinite that means that you think there's an end to impermanence um the Buddha had four imponderables one of the imponderables is how did things get started another imponderable and I don't know why they use the word imponderable I think what he's talking about is it's not worth thinking about but one imponderable and in fact the one that you're asking about is what are the results of actions and the Buddha says that that's not ponderable in other words you will not figure out what's the end of things or what are the results another imponderable is what is the human mind capable of what will go and the fourth imponderable is what happens after one dies most specifically what happens to a Buddha after the Buddha dies what happens the answer to that is not only do we not know but we don't even care the imponderables are imponderable not because we can't figure it out it's because it's not worth a question that's kind of irrelevant it's not really worth figuring out who cares what's going to happen way off into the future the question is can you enjoy this present moment who cares about how things got started way back in the past because what what assists oneself with enjoyment of being awake and being present is knowing their true nature as infinity as emptiness that's what this is you can be completely awake and not have that concept of the thought yeah it's really difficult you're probably not awake after viewing enough patterns though of behavior and action conditioning the less that one has bathed in emptiness and infinity the more conditioning is present which means there's more discursive thinking which means there's more unworthiness which means there's more separation and so this game of recognizing oneself as this boundless infinite intelligence which is what this is and that it will eternally be means that there's no end to impermanence which is what I was trying to point at and so if you think that there is an end to impermanence that would be something that's finite and impermanence also go hand in hand let's go this way there are six answers to every yes and no question yes and no questions have six answers one answer would be yes it's true another answer would be no it's not true another answer would be it's neither one it's not A it's not B it's C the other possibility is that it's both okay so we've gotten four let's use an example of you've got black on one side and white on the other why don't we just use the example of infinity infinity or permanence and impermanence because that's what we're talking about actually we've gotten four and that is let's forget about those four and go to number five number five is I don't know and number six is that it's irrelevant to this present moment it's irrelevant so five is mystery five is mystery and six is irrelevance cool so all of these play into the equation which is infinite finite permanent mystery and irrelevant they all play into the equation alright and so that's it it's irrelevant I don't care what's going to happen after that the only thing that's interesting is right now yeah this dance way off into the future is a concept it's not here this dance right now that's right wife is not a march it's a waltz this is it this is all we've got let's just have a ball who cares about whether things are infinite or not that's not my job not my business beautiful but I understand that a lot of religious stuff is trying to be talked about through concepts in fact I can't even talk to you without using concepts but we have to know the distinction between what is conceptualized and what is real and it's really hard for me to talk about real that I talk about it in concepts to invite the people my friends to experience the direct reality without needing concepts about alls and infinities and forgiveness and becoming one with all make me one with all and all I got was a hot dog good hot dog enjoy it enjoy the hot dog who needs the all you know that joke don't you the joke is that the delinoma went to the UN and while he was there he saw a hot dog vendor out on the streets of New York and he walks up to the hot dog vendor and says make me one with everything and all he got was a hot dog whee but the delinoma knows how to enjoy a hot dog wow so coming out of our concepts that we talked about very early in our talk coming out of the concepts means coming out of the past and out of the future and for you infinity is something off into the future it's not right here now I don't have an infinity I've got I've got a flashlight I've got a stick but I don't have any infinity here you're like the Grand Theft Auto character that's inside of the finite game that can't prove that it's a PS5 playing infinite games but I don't care those things are irrelevant just like other things are irrelevant one thing is completely irrelevant is does God exist or not you are you are it and it's an emptiness being infinity that's what it is that's the concept also the question is if I have that concept do I feel like that or do I have that concept and want to feel like that it's just play precisely precisely and if we understand that it's play then we can play if we under if we think that these concepts are not toys to play with but are real things then we want them and now we wanting things that we don't have like make me one with everything is a plea that says I am not good enough right now and if you make me one with everything then I will be good enough and actually all we have to do is change the attitude oh I'm good enough now I don't need to be one with everything you're already everything appearing like a character yeah you're already everything you got you're already everything you need all you have to do is just enjoy your life be happy don't worry be happy or like who's in say you're already enlightened you don't have to warn anything you're okay this is so fun if you let it be a lot of people can be here and argue and get hot under the collar and be angry and all of that kind of stuff then there's no equanimity then there's no equanimity there's no awake presence well that's because they want they want their concepts and so you're just recognizing that it's a concept that's all it is just the dance just the play it's so nice everything is alright everything is fine woo see that's probably the essence of the yeah like you pointed out several times it's just what is is already the dance it's already the play it's already perfection and breathe enjoy your hot dog dance a bit yep yep and if you feel separation if you feel this malevolence is arising just inquire into awake presence into oneness just inquire into wholeness rather than separation just be here now the childlike innocence be here now everything is alright and you can have that childlike innocence when you're telling yourselves nurturing thoughts everything is alright everything is fine you're a good boy everything is good congratulations on taking this breath beautiful beautiful thank you thank you so sweet I look forward to potentially more explorations together really nice I enjoy this has been a lot of fun good to hear good to hear and thanks everyone yeah everything is good everything is alright everything is perfect as it is amen amen amen yeah thanks everyone April's too yeah April's too hey women thanks guys thanks for tuning in we know you've got many of you have been watching for the entirety of the stream we're really grateful for you guys thank you for watching we would love for you to leave a comment below with your thoughts on the episode let us know how you feel like the video if it brought you value subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet also share the video with other people that you feel like this would positively influence and go and subscribe also to Damarato's channel the links in the bio below Scott lots of great content on there very fun playful super mundane damma of course yes yes yeah above it all just above it all yes in a way we're you you've got infinity that's big stuff but I'm even above that I'm above I'm just this lotus flower lotus flower exactly I'm too a lotus flower I've just got a couple petals gone what did you say sometimes we feel like we're nuts and sometimes we don't sometimes we feel like a nut sometimes we don't watch closely man ooh great yeah wholeness and separation wholeness don't feel like a nut separation we feel nuts oh great okay beautiful thank you again I'll end the studio but you and I stay in the room and I'll just end the stream okay okay alright