134: Retreat Dhamma Talk 29: Powerful Mental Development & Seven Factors of Enlightenment

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SPEAKER_01 0:26

Sama Samba Dasama Retreat Series Dhamma Talk Nabut 29. We were discussing about Bhavanabala. What does it mean by powerful and strong? Mental culture means. Okay, we went through in details. First of all, what is bhavana? What is mental development? And secondly, what is bhavanabala? What does it mean by strong and powerful mental development? So when you achieve the state of bhavanabala, everything's starting to change. Everything's starting to change. Your actions change. Okay. Your habits change. Your attitudes change. Your character change. Everything changes. You don't have to think I'm going to change this way or I'm going to change that way. It doesn't work that way. It's simply when you have developed your mindset or mental state to this powerful and strong mental culture starters. Your character changes. Your behavior changes. Your observation becomes very powerful. Your observation has no gaps and no breaks. Your observation becomes quite easy. You do not miss any objects. One after the other, you are quite aware of it. You're afraid that you might miss an object. And because of that, what happened? You even pay more attention. Because whenever you are concerned about something, what do you do? You pay more attention. And the same thing. Because of that, you pay more attention all these series of mental states. Up to the point of samadhi, they become even more powerful. It is more like a snowball effect. And in here, you said we say that we are afraid or we are concerned that we might miss an object while we are observing. And in a scriptural term that is called hiri and utapa. Hiri and Utapa. Okay, by definition why it's what is hiri? It is a shame that you might do unwholesome thing. Asham of doing unwholesome thing. Utapa. It's afraid of the consequences if you do that unwholesome thing. That's by definition. Hiri and Utapa. And in here, your mindsets come to the point of you become ashamed that you might miss an object. You become afraid. If I miss an object, whatever the consequences follow, you are afraid of that. Your mindset simply change. You begin to see that missing an object, observing an object that is arising. If you miss it, if you are not mindful, this is something unwholesome. This is something not good. Automatically the mindset changes. Just being not mindful, just being missing an object of observation, you become concerned about it, you become afraid of it. Hiri and Udapa arise. In detail, in general, you become ashamed and afraid of not being mindful. Nobody is trying to play guilt trip on you. You simply feel that way. Hearing that mutapa. So that is what it means by starting to your character change, your habit change, your behavior change, the mindset, the attitude starting to change. And you observe, you observe these objects with great care and attention. Your effort, because of the concern, even effort increased. You are not trying to increase effort. Because of the concern, you pay more attention, that means your effort increased, your concentration increased. And because of these changes, what happened? You won't talk the detail about one piece at a time. But one thing that drastically change is you become more patient. Things that bother you doesn't bother you much anymore. Thing that bothers you does not bother you anymore. In other words, whenever those things that bothers you arises, you come face to face with it, you have patience and tolerance. Patience and tolerance. Up to the point, some people might be putting you down. Some people might be bad-mouthing you. Right in your face, even with that, your mind is very fast. You can analyze the whole situation, what kind of hurts and harms, what kind of benefits and benefits. Other than being that person is bad-mouthing and or disagreeing and putting you down, other than that, there's nothing happened. Because of that, you don't say anything. That's a patient. That patients lead to that kind of thing. You can take more criticism, even if people are unfailing, putting you down. You just look at it with a smile and move on. Ah, okay, so be it. His or her old ignorance. You move on. And some people even began to see to the point of, oh, not once, not twice. It has been for quite a bit of an extended period of time, constantly. Well, this guy is timid, he's coward, he doesn't know how to defend himself. Sometimes it's very obvious thing you are not, but they are trying to spin and they are trying to fault you, which is not your fault, blame you, that is not your blame to be. But you don't because of that, people think you are a pushover. Okay? You are timid, you're a coward. That is the perception of other people. But the person himself know whether it is or it is not. But watch those people. Whenever a situation comes down, if there is a hurt and harm involved, the real hurt and real harm, especially to the environment, to other people involved, he will say they will step in and they will protect and they will realign it. But if it is simply just for the self-fame and name and self-pride, they don't really care. They can put down as much as they want. That's a patience. So as soon as you see patience, another word, another word comes automatically. Forgiveness. Forgiveness arises. Without forgiveness, if you are patient, it's just you're biting your tongue. And in here is forgiveness arises. So there is no mental obstacle in that person's mind. That's what it means by changes happen. These are the two Dharma worth mentioning about, among other things. First thing is hiri and uttap. Moral dread and moral shame. Moral shame and moral fear. Unwholesome nature. Another one is patience, along with forgiveness. Automatically your personality change. People who haven't seen you for a long time, they will observe right away. People who you are with, if they are observant, if they are mindful, they will know. If not, seems like everyday saying together, you don't. But regardless, you do know. These are the changes. That is to the point of practicing to become bhavana blood. In other words, what? What is bhavana blood? If you want to express in a different way. The five controlling mental faculties. Okay. Sadha, fate, warya, effort, sati, mindfulness, samadhi, concentration, and pinya, wisdom. They are not ordinary anymore. They themselves have they have the power to control. Power to control. That's why controlling faculty. But control not in a sense of ego control. Control in a sense of to avoid evil or unwholesome. To open up the path of wholesome and goodness. That channeling, that directional control, that kind of control. We all have it, we all practice it, but when you practice to the point of this strong and powerful mental development stage, all these become a bala, strong and powerful. Sadhabala, satibala, samadhi bala, binyabala. So that is another way of or expanding or explaining what Bawanabala means. They come to a certain stage. And in here, of course, one of the things that comes along with it, these are the character change, but we mentioned about some sort of unique and special. Okay, special experiences. One experiences worthwhile mentioning because it also expands the understanding of the word mindfulness. When you practice it, suddenly when you are at that level, you have the experience. Let's say something that it happened when you are three years ago, or three years old, four years old. When you are very young, not in your real memory bank, or something that's a long time ago. These comes right into your memory. You recall them, you remember them. When you're very young, sometimes you might go even to the stage of one year old. More than that, some people they remember things of past lives. Suddenly, some of the past life events flesh us up. Not every little detail, something that is significant in your development as a human being. You recall past life events, past life. These things automatically happen. And when it happens, you are not daydreaming, you are not in a dazed mode. It is like as if right here you are looking at somebody with the open sight, with the bright light, you see something distinctly and clearly with full reality and realization. That kind of remembering. That kind of remembering experience you will experience when you get to that level. These are the changes, these are the experience. And when you remember that, we said about mindfulness. Mindfulness, if you remember the definition, it's remembering. One of the definitions, remembering. And we have explained that before, what remembering means. Because whenever you observe something, you experience that object. You wouldn't know what that experience is, what that object is. If you haven't encountered that object before, if you have no exposure to that object and the concept before. That was the baseline. And now you see you remember the object. It is not the same object, not remembering what has happened, but you are already familiar with the object. That's mean remembering. That's mean. One of the qualities of mindfulness, sati. The point we are making is your sati, mindfulness is so strong you can remember even crossover when you're very young or in other lives, crossover events of lives. To that point, your mindfulness, your remembering power becomes strong. And these are all at Bhavanabala. And we have already talked about it last week. This is not the end, or this is not near the end. We are always talking about Nibbana as a goal objective, talking about the end of all physical and mental suffering as the goal, the objective. That is the final goal. And this is far away from that. Even far away from that, it is very, very unique and distinct. And this is actually the first significant important phase of your practice. That's what it is. Just the first significant phase of your practice. And the teachers put it in a scriptural term, what face is. And there are some students they misunderstood. They don't understand. You are on the path means you are on the mega. I'm a Sotapana, I'm Sagadagami, and I'm the noble person, I'm the noble Ariya. They think that's what the teacher tells you. No. The key thing is you are on the path. On the path is you have been climbed up from the village, from the mountains up there. And then finally you come to the highway. And the highway, you know, you can take that and then you can go back to the big city. On the path means you are on this highway now. Once you got there, you wouldn't detour around. Until unless you purposely decide it. You are so powerful, you are there. And if you have persistence, if you have persistence, you will reach the final destination. But this is the first significant station in your journey. So in here, people like that, what happens is this kind of experience, strong faith, strong effort, strong mindfulness, strong concentration, and the way you know the object is very sharp and quick. That itself is very satisfying. Really, really satisfying. You feel like you are like a hero, a superman. You are in a total mode of inspiration. You are bold, brave, and courageous. That is the way. That feeling alone is very, very satisfying and powerful. Feels like you can do anything. Feels like you can do anything. Whenever you are doing, the whole world is marching with you, walking with you. You see, let's just have an example. You're watching a parade. Thousands and thousands of people just marching in synchronized form. Left, right, left, right, left, right. Thousands of people in unison. At that moment, you're watching automatically. How do you feel? You automatically move along with that energy and power of thousands of people marching. You automatically feel that you are uplifted into the zone and feel. That kind of feeling arises when you reach that. You feel very powerful, very strong. That is on this aspects. Another aspect is we mentioned to you about there are many special events, special experience, unique experience. You experience this. This unique experience by itself is not much of a giving to the insight and the wisdom much. But one of the things this does is these unique experiences are so powerful and precise. It has it makes an imprint in your mind, imprint in your brain, you remember them and it carries with you. That experience you can recall anytime. Those are the unique experiences. And these experiences always directing to the inside, always directing to the inside, and explaining what the nature of the mind and matter is. Okay? Kama guna. The sense desire, the pleasure of sense desire. Desire through our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, touch. Every day what we consider very powerful. Okay? Sensuality. These are the ones that we give prime example to these things. And these things, majority of the people, they like it, they love it. Not only that they like it and love it, they can't resist it when a certain situation comes in. You just collapse. Can't resist. Some are got whole by that graps of the last and sex. Upadana. They're so very powerful. These are a powerful sense object that gripped our mind, that gripped our consciousness, and we live with it every day. But suddenly now, this is the first stage, the first stage of the power of mental culture. These experiences are so strong and so good and so different and superior than this sensuality and sexuality. You do not have much interest in this sensuality and sexuality anymore. Because these experience, again I emphasize, these are just the first station, the first real significant growth. These are so powerful, you lose interest, you lose passion and sexuality and sensuality, but you are more interested in these. So your passion drops, your attachment to the sense desire dropped. Before you have to guard yourself, you have to reframe yourself, you have to restrain yourself while you are practicing in the earlier part. Now is you just don't have passion anymore. You know it is there, you know, it's more like a a twy that a kid has about five, six years sitting at the corner collecting dust. They look at it, they move on. They are going to the new little bike. Just like that. It changes detachment to the sense desire starting to develop significantly. That only in the first stage, needless to say, about the near the end. Okay, 11th stage. 11th stage is the power of equanimity. Sankharupaka jnana. If you got to that stage, you don't even need to tell. But some people they might think I am in this stage, I am in that stage, I am Sankarupaka jnana stage, stage of aquanimity, almost going to become a ariya. They might have that perception in their mind. If that's the case, ask yourself, are you quite detached from the sense desire? Are you grappling and struggling with the sense desire? Ask yourself, that will give you the correct answer. Nobody need to tell you, you will know yourself. That is the power of Bawanabala. Those are the changes that it's making. So when you have these things, what happened? What happened is your sati, mindfulness. Mindfulness is very sharp. What does it mean by sharp is you do not miss any object. You see one object after the other, one object after the other. Continuously. With clear, with clarity. You don't miss anything. And then just like when you say sharp mean, not like normal mindfulness. We are all mindful. But this mindfulness is to give an example is yes, let's say you are standing and gazing at the ocean, quiet, so, and somebody comes from behind. Take a little blade of grass and touch your neck. You know the sensitivity of that situation. You distinctly know, sharply know the touch of the grass plate on your neck. That kind of sharpness of mindfulness. That kind of mindfulness develop on every object that you are observing. Not a normal mindfulness anymore. It is the powerful, powerful mindfulness. And you know singularly, you know collectively, you know many in all aspects. And then when you are aware of these objects too, what happens is you know them in their own nature. What does it mean by in their own nature is everything you look at it, you see everything with a view of Nama and Rupa. You are not in a confused state. This is rupa, this is matter, this is aspect of physicality, this is Nama, this is the mind that knows that object. That kind of clear sense arises in you most of the time. Whenever you are doing whatever you are doing, that kind of clarity, nama and rupa, nama and rupa, mind and body, mind and body, separateness of the mind and body in your observation is very distinct. Okay, not like once and a blue moon comes here or once another with a higher frequency, you know them. And also the interrelationship, okay, because of this intention, this happened, because of that intention, that happened, because of that kind of a physical condition, a certain intention developed. Because of that intention developed, a certain has been done. That relationship to whatever you are doing, you have a sense of the connection of that causality, cause and effect, cause and effect. That is very sharp. You know those things. And also the arising and passing away is very distinct. The objects come in and the object disappear, comes in, disappear, awareness, the perspective, awareness coming of the object, disappear. That appearing and disappearing frequency is very strong. In other words, you have a sharpness to those things. Whatever arises with clarity and they passed away. These kind of things are very clear. And it is happening in a higher frequency at this moment. And that is called Dhamma Visaya. See, Dhamma is Dhamma, Dhamma is all physical phenomena and all mental phenomena. Visiya is investigation. It's called Dhamma Visayah. Investigation of all physical phenomena and mental phenomena are very strong. The first one is very strong mindfulness sati. Second one is dhamcia. Very strong. To be able to do all these things, okay, to be able to be very sharp, aware of everything and their intricate nature, their connections, moment to moment you are quite aware of it. Why is that? Because you are applying, okay, because you are applying that powerful, powerful effort or exertion. Because of the powerful effort or exertion, you have this kind of powerful mindfulness and you have this powerful investigation of Dharma. So everything always go back to that effort or exertion. Powerful effort or exertion. That is the main primary driving engine. You have these things. And then when you are having these things, what happens? What happens is joy arises. Everything is sharp and strong. You see every Nama and Rupa, mind and matter, in their own true natures and in their own working intricately. And because of that, automatically joy arises in you. It's very joyful, very nice. Okay. Both physically and mentally you can experience it. You can experience both physical and mental. Joy arises. And along with those joys, the things that we mentioned, unique experience, special experiences, those things come in. They compound it. They are a part of the this joyful experience. Your body is very light. You feel like you're floating in the air. You have no stress, no strain in your body. Everything seems to be just exactly perfect. From sitting to standing, everything just flows like a floating feather. And when you standing to you sit, you just melt in, and at the first touch, you are already there. You don't have to readjust anything. Everything, every movement is in a perfection, that kind of experience. And these experiences are the one that is giving you joy or rupture. And that is in Pali we call PT. Pity. These things come in. And after these things come in, of course you're observing, you don't miss a beat, keep on observing. And then suddenly these joys and rupture, they are far superior than the sensuality and sexuality. But still we call it this is the gross, a gross nature of experience. And that physical, mental joys and rupture starting to subside. Starting to subside. And when they subside, what happens is the body and the mind becomes calm and settled. The body becomes calm, the mind becomes calm. That rupture stage, why stage? There's a certain degree of excitement and vibration. Let's call it vibration, excitement and vibration. You can feel it, but that vibration, that excitement starting to die down, the mind and the body becomes calm. And in this stage, when we say the mind and body, we are not referring to the physical body anymore. The body means the mental body. Vedana is a mind, Vedana feeling, sannya, sinkara. In other words, all the mental states. That collective mental state is called the body, the mental body, not the physical body. And the mind is the consciousness itself. The mental factors become calm and the consciousness or vijnana becomes calm. Calm, quiet, and still. And that experience is called in Pali Pasiti, tranquility. Tranquility is superior than the joy you experience. The joy is grosser compared to tranquility. Tranquility is very subtle. You just sink in. When you got to the states of this tranquility, see, everything should be quiet. There is no vibration, there is no movement in the mind. And if the mind is very quiet and tranquil, you can tell the body will not make a twitch. Because you already understood the relationship with between mind and body. The body functions according to the mindset. The minds become calm, and that is tranquility or pacity. And after that, once you receive the pacity, the minds go deeper and deeper. It stays in the object. So quiet, it can be with every object, but without rushing, without in a hurry, without grabling, without putting effort, exerting effort. You just go in. So what happened was the mind become, whenever the object comes in, it sink into it, it sink into it. The mind sinks into it. When the mind sinks into that, what happened is the mind is become still, quiet. And that is called samadhi concentration. You go to the point of this concentration. And then when you have the concentration, you are with every object observing. But sharpness and alertness is there. It is not like the samadha concentration. And here is sharpness and alertness and awareness is always there of multi-objects, not on a singular object. And that is samadhi concentration. Stage by stage. If you look at it, what is the first one? Mindfulness. And then with the mindfulness, you are investigating the Dharma. And because of these experiences, petit rupture arises. And after the petit, what arises? Tranquility arises. Tranquility based, and you go into concentration. At the point of concentration, nothing disturbs you. Nothing means what are the things that disturb us? Very simple. Mental defilements. Loba, dosha and moha, greed, anger, and delusion. That's the one that is always disturbing and rocking and creating chaos in the mind. At the point of samadhi, they are not there. They cannot disturb the mind anymore. Samadhi. And then when the samadhi goes in, eventually the mind comes to a state of balance. The mind comes to a state of balance. That state of balance is what? It's always referring back to the five controlling mental faculties. At the beginning, you are trying to develop these five, but are they in a state of balance? And what is said, we need to be in a state of balance. Your faith and your wisdom or insight or intelligence need to be in a state of balance. Your effort and your concentration need to be in a state of balance. And mindfulness has to be supremely sharp. That's a state of balance. So in this state of equanimity, in Pali is called upeka. You achieve the state. And that is upaka. So these are the stages by stages that goes in there. While you have this bhavana. What are those things? Mindfulness, sati. And all these things. Number one, mindfulness, sati. Number two, investigation of Dhamma, Dhamma Visaya. And then three, effort, four, rupture. Five, tranquility, six, concentration, seven, equanimity. Those are the seven dharma. Seven factors of dharma. A dharma at this stage they call it sambojanga. Factors of enlightenment. So those sevens are seven factors of enlightenment. It's right there with you. Don't think you are enlightened. But at this first level of your growth at the Bhava Nabala, you are experiencing and you are tasting the flavor of seven factors of enlightenment. That's what you are experiencing. Seven factors of enlightenment. A lot of them are with you. You are with them. So in other words, when you have this bhava nabala, strong and powerful mental culture, you have this seven factors of enlightenment. Or when you have these seven factors of enlightenments with you for the first time, you are in the strong and powerful mental development stage. Vice versa. But in here in our practice, Satipatthana Vipassana, we don't have to individually practice these seven factors of enlightenment. Some of the things they say, oh, practice concentration or practice rupture or practice this, practice equanimity. You don't have to think about anything. We are just simply explaining through your experience what you will experience. Everything's come from experience. It doesn't say in the scriptural book this way. If you practice, this will definitely come. What you need to do is simply practice full foundation of mindfulness. Observe the body, mindfulness of the body, observe the feeling, mindfulness of the feeling. And observe what? Mindfulness of the mind. Observe the minds. And then mindfulness of the Dharma. Full foundation of mindfulness. You simply observe these full foundations of mindfulness. Whatever is arising at the present moment. But of course, if you remember last Dhamma talk, you have to go through the three phases. Initial phase, you have to overcome. Second phase, difficult phase or obstacle, the field of obstacle, you have to overcome it. And the final, the final leg is called persistent phase. If you're running a marathon 32 miles, the last miles you are just barely hanging in. The only one that reached the goal is the one with persistent effort. With conviction and persistent effort, reach the goal. To put in a term that we hear so often, you have to apply three levels of effort, initial effort, boosting effort, and liberating effort. Use any words you like, whichever works with you. And when you apply that kind of exertion to your observation of full foundation of mindfulness, and when you reach the powerful state of mental development, you have these seven factors of enlightenment. It is beautiful flavor, nice to experience. A connection of the mental development and factors of enlightenment. One and the same, they are not exactly the same, but you practice, you will know. So may all of you be able to practice full foundation of mindfulness with urgent effort, and may you be able to experience the flavor of the seven factors of enlightenment as soon as possible.