160: Retreat Dhamma Talk 55: Rounds (Vatta) of Mental Defilements, Kamma & Rebirth

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Retreat series, Dhamma Tak number fifty-five. In the last Dhamma talk, we present we presented uh two lines from the Padisasamputta, which is Pasa Pichya Vidana, conditioned by mental contact, feeling arises. And then vidana pitiya dana, condition by feeling, craving arises. A part of that it is discussed in the last Dhamma talk. But I like to go through a little bit more on it, presented in a different with different words. What is pasa? In English it's called mental contact. Mental contact means there's a living being or human. You, me, I. When we are there, there's always something happening in our life. What it is is we are always interfacing with the objects from outside. What are the outside objects? Form, size, shape, color. Or sound. Or smell. Or taste. And then tangible object. Those are the external objects. And they always come and strike. The form strike your eyes, sounds strike your ears, smell strike your nose, taste with the tongue, and tangible object with your body. And also, of course, all your thoughts and imagination or memories, recalls, strike your mind. It's always happening. Anytime, every time, all the time. And whenever those, let's say, let's use eyes, the eyes and the object are in a straight line. Straight line. You see. At that moment, as soon as those are in a straight line, and when you see, there's a seeing happen. Seeing happen. Seeing happen because the objects in a straight line with your eyes or retina, and there's attention. And seeing happen at that moment, we call it seeing seeing. What it really means is seeing consciousness arises. So when the external object, rupa or material, internal object, retna, rupa, internal material object, and knowing. If those three come together, the condition is those three must be together at the same moment, at the same point. At that moment, pasat mental contact happens. So you can call it external object striking element. Internal object as a receiving element. And then this seeing consciousness. Striking element, receiving element, and igniting element. When something strikes, when a rock strikes another rock, there's a spark happen, ignited. Just like that. So striking element, receiving element, and igniting element. When those three elements come together, that point or that moment, that state is called pasa, mental content. So these corresponding consciousness, now basically seeing consciousness, hearing consciousness, smelling consciousness, they do their own function. You can call it consciousness, or you can call it knowing, or you can call it simple ordinary awareness of the object. These things always happen all the time, all the time, all the time. One after the other, one after the other, non-stop. And that process, that process is called Dhamma of Continuous Act. Basically continuous effect, but we use the word in front dhamma, a phenomenon or process of continuous affair. That pasha, arising of the consciousness, is called continuous affair. And this continuous fact, the first one in a life, in a person's life, the first one in a person's life is the rebirth consciousness. Rebirth consciousness, which arises at the point of conception, not when you are born. As soon as you are conceived in the womb, the point of conception, the first consciousness or rebirth consciousness arises. And thereafter, all these consciousness arises. They are called resultant consciousness. Resultant consciousness arises. In Pali is called vipaka chitta. And it continuously arises, arise, arises till you die. And that is called continuous effect. And whenever the fashap come in, whenever there is a pasha, suddenly another new Dhamma is born. Or another new Dhamma arises. What is that new Dharma? The new Dhamma is Vidana, feeling arises. All these things, objects, rupa, knowing, nama, nama, rupa, and all these eye bases, ear bases, hands bases, salayatana, and then the contact and then the feeling. They are called continuous affect, the mark of continuous affair. And all these things what we talk like now it sounds like theory, but you can actually know them through continuous observation. Okay? Continuous observation or continuous noting or continuous unbroken mindfulness. Through that you can come to know yourself. So these three dharma, what are they? Contact pasha. And then knowing, and then the feeling. Contact, knowing, and feeling. These three are the most obvious mental factors or dhamma among all the Nama Dhamma. Namadham is everything and anything that the mind and mental factors operation called Nama Dhamma. Among all those things, these three are the most obvious contact pasa. And then respected corresponding consciousness or knowing, and then the feeling. So that's why these three become the key points or key factors to observe. Obvious. We must observe what is obvious. These are the Dhamma, which is most obvious among all the Namadhamma. Namadham, mental phenomena, mental processes. And you must observe them in such a way you know it or you see it, you feel it in sequence. There's the external object, internal object, there's knowing, pasa, and then Vedana, feeling. Must do that way. Because if you don't know, if you don't know this process as it occurs, as it is happening at the present moment, at that moment another dhamma arises. That dhamma is called awajya ignorance. If you don't know, this series of processes, when it is happening as it is happening, another dhamma arises. That dhamma is called away. So this ignorance or not knowing of this system, this little program, this little process, what we mentioned. That process, if you don't know, automatically what does it do? It creates a thirst and hunger. Thirst and hunger. Or craving. Craving for that little process. You begin to develop thirst and hunger and craving for that process. If you don't know what it really is, and repeated exposure to it, the cravings grows and grows and grows, and it comes into the point of becoming grasping. Craving is called in Pali Dana, grasping in Pali is called Ubadhana. Basically, big strong craving. It arises what is called wrong perception. Wrong perception of the process. How do you see it? You begin to identify with I. I like it. I want it. I don't like it. I don't want it. I hate it. I want to own it. That is the perception of that process. You come to know, you come to believe as I. Why? Because you don't truly understand the real nature of that process. And that process you identified it as I. And Pali, that's called Atta, self or a soul. So not knowing the process, you don't know this process. There's a word for it, another word. Not knowing the process is called Moha. English, delusion and illusion. Simply. And when you don't know what happened, you have a thirst and hunger for the feelings. Especially for the pleasant feelings. And thirst and hunger for the pleasant feeling is called loba in Pali. English straight direct translation is greed, delusion and greed. And also, suddenly, what happened? You have a craving, you have a greed for that pleasant feeling. And suddenly you begin to feel afraid or worry about losing that little pleasant feeling. That being worried about losing that little pleasant feeling is called dosa. So basically, just from that, from that ignorance, a wija, what do they arise? Moha, delusion, loba, greed, or hunger, and then dosa, afraid, scared, worry, angry. These three arises. And then not only these three, because these are in operation now. And this operation, angry, I hate it, I love it. It's always with I hate, I love, not simply anger itself, not even joy itself. It is with I. So suddenly you got attached to this feeling and then suddenly you identify that process as I. And this loba dosa moha. Collectively, in Pali, it is called kilisa, mental defilement, because it defiles the mind. Kilisa. And the nature of kilisa is it's always impure, dirty. It's simple. But also it can produce burning feeling. Suffering. It can produce suffering. It produces stress, simply put it. Stress. That is what mental defilement does to one. Loha dosa moha. Why is it? Because we don't know the process as it is. And it is quite difficult to know the process as it is because the way the mind works, the speed of the mind is incomprehensible. We can't comprehend it. Just in general put it, rough figure. A consciousness arise and passed away. That span or lifespan of a consciousness is more than 17 billion of a second. More than 17 billion of a second. So in other words, in one second, more than 17 billion consciousness arises and passes away. That's the speed they are operating. So it is very difficult for us to understand the process. Now we know how this Lobadosa Moha Kilisa come into, and we call it that call kilisa. And then because of this kilisa or conditioned by kilisa, or put it plainly, because you want it, you don't want it, you hate it, you love it. If you do with the personal level. Simply put, in a realm where the suffering is excessive and constant. Suffering is excessive and constant. That's what the product of bad karma. And here we now know rebirth. You are reborn. Whenever you were reborn, what happened? Why this rebirth happened? Because of the ignorance about the nature of mind and matter and that process. You don't know this mind and matter operates in a system called process. And then what happens? You have this not knowing the true nature. When you don't know the true nature of mind and matter, you start doing things. A craving and na arises, aversion, dosa arises, they arise again. In other words, this loba, dosa and moha, mental defilements, it creates actions. And then these actions create rebirth. And the rebirth is come with the ignorance, and then the whole things go on and on again. This causal relationship. This causal relationship never ends. Kilesa, condition, karma. Kama, condition, rebirth. Rebirth with ignorance, you go into the same loop again and again and again. That's how we keep going round and round, spinning round and round in sansara. Sansara means endless cycle of birth and death. We go there round and round. And this cycle, cycle produced by kilesa, kama and rebirth. And that cycle, there's a word they call it. Just like Lobad Dosa Moha, we call it Kilesa, Mendal Definement. And this rounds of Kilesa, Kama and Rebirth. It's called Vudda. V-A-T-T-A. Vudda. In English it's translated as round, R-O-U-N-D, round. So this endless driven, endless rebirth is driven by the unbroken change of cause and effect of these three rounds. What are the three rounds? Rounds of kilesa, rounds of mental defilement, rounds of karma, rounds of action, or rounds of rebirth, or rounds of weepaka, rebirth, rounds and rounds, resultant. Rebirth is a result, so technically it's called weepaka, resultant. But for pure easy communication, I use the word rebirth. Proper words called we baka, resultant. Result of the past action. And what is it? That result is in a simple word, it's called rebirth. So this unbroken change of the cause and effect of the three rounds go and on and on. And how this life happened. Die, born again, die, born again, die, born again. This is how Buddhists see the birth or coming of life. Rebirth or coming of life. So it's a process, it's a system that's going on. From the Buddhist point of view, you and me, human beings, or all living beings for that matter, are not created by any powerful beings, any supreme being. They are not created by it. It is simply a phenomenon, it's a process that is going on and on and on and on. And if we don't know it, we just think we're born and we die, and we're born and we die. I, I, I. But if you observe it, if you observe it, you can see, you can understand that change of cause and effect. But one must intently, continuously observe the present moment. Whatever is happening at the present moment, one must observe it. If you observe it, one can understand this process. Not from theory, not from book, not from lectures, but you have to direct. Experience it. So this round or wutta, what is this round of wutta? It is the continuous process of or continuous change of cause and effect. That is called wutta or round. And if you want to really understand this change of cause and effect, you need to study dependent origination called Patisa Samupada Sutta Discourses on the dependent origination. The Buddha explained with twelve parts of linking one to the other how this endless life and death going on. But in here we are not going to deal that in such detail. By explaining these three wutta, three rounds, we can understand it. In fact, we already have a certain idea how it is operating. If you look at it, this kilisa, loba, dosa, and moha, it is endlessly going on. Just look at your life. There's something or the other, there's a want and don't want. Sometimes you're not certain about it, you are not sure about it. These things are going on and on and on. That means kilisa, mental defilement is going on and on. That means it is going round and round and round. Kilesa is going round and round. It's a round by itself. It's constantly in operation, constantly walking. That's what a round is. Kilesa is walking all the time. And because of the kilesa, what happened? Kilesa, you can call it loba dosa or moha, or you can call it in a different way. Awija. Awija is what? Ignorance. Dana. Dana is craving and upadana is grasping. You can call it ignorance, craving, and grasping. When you crave for something, when you like it, that's one thing. When you're afraid, that's become dosa. So we don't in here use the word dosa, but simply craving. Craving for things you like and craving. Not to be with things that you don't like. That's dosa. So basically, kilesa is aweja, nadna, and upadana. Ignorance, craving and grasping. And that is spinning round and round. And because of that, those are always poking and poking and poking at you. Lobar is poking at you, greed is poking at you, dosap, anger is poking at you. Because of the poking, you start dancing. They are like a puppet master, and you are a puppet. You start doing things. Good things, bad things, wicked things, helpful things, all these things. And these are what? Kama actions. And actions are non-stop too. So karma itself is the realm itself. Endlessly operating. That's why it is called karma wutta. Kama rounds. That's why it's called killesa wutta. Kilesa round. Rounds of mental defilements. Rounds of karma. Going on and on. And then when you do all these things, what happened? In all actions, in all causes. Actions are causes. And the result is called we baka. Translated resultant. Or products that comes out. Resultant, we baka. This vi baka is what? We explained it at the beginning. It's called continuous effect. Vipaka is the continuous effects produced by the actions of past life. What are these continuous effects? You remember? Vi bhaka. If you want to talk it in terms of the Padisasamupada. Vinyana, your consciousness, your mind and matter, your body and consciousness. And then your sixth sense base, eye-based, ear-based, and so on. And then the mental contact. And then the feeling. They are automatically, they are going on and on and on. It's a programmed. Program. Programmed by the past life actions. And it's go on. And they are all effects. That's why it's said continuous effect. They go in a series just like the way it explained, and then another one and another one and another one and another one keep on rising as effects. That's called continuous effect. So those are the three wuttaks or three rounds. Kirisa wutta, rounds of mental defilement. Kama wutta, rounds of actions. Vipaka wutta, rounds of rebirth. Rounds of rebirth. Three wuttax is going on. You can explain cycle of life and death with these three rounds. We call it life. Okay. Your life, my life. What is your life? My life. It is our mind and body. When we have a mind and body, we call it I am alive. This is my life. That's what life is. So this nama and rupa or this life is the resultant result of what? It caused or conditioned by karma, the past actions. And then these actions, what conditioned them, what caused them? It's conditioned and caused by kirisa, mental definements. That's how it's connected through the change of cause and effect. Your life is conditioned or produced by the actions of past life. And those actions are conditioned and produced by mental defilements. And another thing that we always need to know is whenever all past and present lives, whatever rebirth, whatever rebirth you have in any existence, it's always have associated, let's call it a base element. A base element is called owja. It's always associated with ya. So this is trying to see the same thing. The three rounds approach it in a different way so that we have a little better understanding. So life, we have life now. And if you don't observe your life, you won't know the truth. If you don't observe your life, you won't understand what your life is about. But life, let's go to a little bit more detail what life means. What do we call life? In our life, what do we do? I can summarize in six points what we do. It covers everything. Everything that we see, seeing consciousness, everything that we hear, hearing consciousness, everything we smell, smelling consciousness, everything we taste. Taste consciousness. We touch, touch consciousness, and we think thought consciousness. Those six are the six components. When those six components combine together we call it life. So what we do is, these six components, if we do not observe these six components of life, we would never truly understand what life is. But automatically, if you just keep it under that condition, we began to believe. We began to believe that life is great, life is pleasant, life is fantastic. Even there's a moments of many, many moments of suffering. We never talk about suffering, we swept the suffering under the rug and only talk about how great, how successful, how pleasant. That is the face we put up. So we believe life is pleasant and we presented life as pleasant. And why do we do that? The season is we don't understand the truth or the true nature of the process of mind and matter. We are totally ignorant about it. So ignorance. And then what happens? The change goes on, kilisa arises, then karma arises, then rebirth arises, and endlessly going on and on. It's in a circle. It doesn't have an escape group, one after the other, it is a loop going on. That's what happened. And in here, we keep talking about these three realms, but also some people might have already seen it. We should note that it's called supporting cause. Supporting cause is playing a role in there. This supporting cause feeds feeds this killesa to grow and to grow and grow and make it powerful so that it would never burn out or stop. There's a supporting element. And that supporting element in Pali is called Kama Sukha. Kama Sukha. Kama Sukha is sense pleasure. The pleasure you get out of seeing beautiful things, hearing beautiful sounds, and so on. Sense pleasure is the supporting element. And what is this tense pleasure? Sense pleasure is the combination of two factors. One is the sense desire, desire for senses. That's the one aspect by itself. And another one is karma wudu. Tense object. Only when you have the tense object with the sense desire, then sense pleasure arises. Even though there's the sense object, if you don't desire, sense pleasure doesn't arise. That's why sense pleasure is composed of these two parts. Sense desire and sense object. And the reason for this group of kilisa or craving or grasping. So we don't see faults in the sense pleasure. We think sense pleasures are great, fantastic. It makes up happy. Sense pleasure. We don't see any false in that. And because of that we desire for it, and because of that, our kilisa grows and grows and grows. Our craving grows and grows and grows endlessly. So in here we keep talking about this group of kilisa. Because this craving for kilisa, craving for sense pleasure. Once a person perceived that sense pleasure is great, good and dandy, it makes me happy. It doesn't stop there. You want more and you want more and you want more and more and more. That means at that moment it becomes grasping upadhana. More and more. And the more you grasp with all these sense pleasure, automatically because of the ignorance, you say, I, I want it, I want to have it, I want to own it, I want to possess it, I want to maintain it, I want to defend it, I, I, I, I. The wrong view of atta or I or it or ego arises. That's a change. It's cause and effect, very simply explained through cause and effect. So intensity of this dhna craving, it varies. Varies based on the, simply put, based on the power of the sense objects. Some sense objects they can move you a little bit, some sense objects they can move you a lot, some sense objects they will drive you crazy to the point of obsession. Depending on the nature of the sense object and also your personal weakness. Whenever your weakness is being touched, you're gone. A certain object, a certain condition can really touch you, you are weak, and at that moment, whatever your determination and willpower is gone, washed away. So that is how the intensity of dhna or craving works, based on the nature of the sense object and the personal weaknesses. But to put it in a different way, more technical way, what really it is, what is it? You might have heard the word jetana, volition. And the Buddha said in one word, karma is jetana. Kama is jitana. And technically speaking, it is jitana, volition is karma. But this volition, jitana, it has a various degree, it's a various strength. Let's say sometime you want to give. Just a meal will be enough. Sound like, oh no. What about next? Then you may have to, not only that you go and feed the person who needs food only once, you make sure you have a lunch and dinner and for the next day. That's a different jitana, stronger jitana, and then later, no, no, no, no. You go to the store and okay, I'm going to pay you for 30 days. Whenever this guy comes, give him this hamburger every day. That is you have a stronger jitana, stronger volition. Variation changes. So there's a variation in the strength of this volition jitana. And this causes, those are the key reasons it causes the variation and the intensity of craving. You have craving, your craving also varies according to the strength of jitana. Craving. So in here we're going to put this craving into a certain framework. These are the words that we put in so that we can clearly communicate it. But in Pali, it's just one word, jitana, volition, that changes everything. But in here, just for communication purpose, we'll put a lot of words in. Craving. Craving is one craving is called process craving. Process craving is simple thing. Simple thing. Let's say there's an apple on the table. You want to eat it. You want to eat. As soon as you want to eat it, of course. Oh, I take it and eat it, finish. That's one way of explaining, and which this is the common way of eating this. There's an apple. I took it and ate it. Great. But if you observe that process of that eating the apple, first of all, you have to lift your hand. And then stretch your hand. You don't lift your hand until unless you want to lift. You don't stretch your hand until unless you want to stretch. Just see. You lift it and say, I don't want to stretch. Your hands will not move. Your hands will not stretch. Stretch your hand. And then you want to grab the apple and you grab the apple. You want to bend your hand so the apple gets close to you. When you want it, it's bend. And then you want to rub it and clean it, and then rubbing and cleaning happen. And then you lift it up. You want to eat it. You want to open your mouth, the mouth opens. You want to bite it, you bite it. See? This is called process. Little segment of things that you need to carry out. They are separate on their own. Everything is separate. It's one at a time, one department at a time. Lifting department, pushing department, grabbing department, eating department. And in there there is a common, command, command. Stretch it, bend it, grab it. There's a comment. And right after the comment, there's an action. Stretching, bending, grabbing, chewing. And that is a process or all these little things that you need to do, and each one is has their own command and actions. In other words, wanting to, or craving, and then action. Or the words we use called intention. Intention to stretch, stretching. Intention to bend, bending, intention, intention, intention. So that is something that goes on that is called process craving. Or there's an intention. That intention will create manners and behaviors and the actions. So that is one level of craving, but that craving must be strong enough. That command must be strong enough for things to do to stretch, to bend, to grab, to eat. If the command is not strong, it wouldn't happen. So that's one level of craving, it's called process craving. And another one, another one is let's say we already said something. I want to eat the apple. I want to eat the apple. Because of that, I want to eat the apple, those processes happen. This I want to eat the apple, let's call it wanting mind. The first one is called intending mind. Intending mind has one level of power of craving. What is wanting mind? In general, let's say all the routine activities you do every day. Wanting to eat, wanting to sleep, wanting to have a shower, wanting to go for a walk, wanting to cook, wanting to clean, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting. That is the another level of craving. Wanting. We will defined it. And with wanting mind. The first one is intending mind. This one is wanting mind stronger. And the next one coming in. I will use the word grasping mind. Grasping mind means it's a lot stronger. When you have the grasping mind, you cling onto the object or the idea or the situation. You cling and you got attached to it. Grasping mind. In other words, your craving power is very strong. Craving power, level of power of craving is very strong. Because you are totally attached to it, you become obsessed to it. And when you become attached and obsessed and clinging to something or someone, what do you do? You start doing things, doing things in a very significant way, very obvious way, which means you begin to do wholesome things and unwholesome things. And when you do those things, what are you doing? You are creating good and bad karma. So that is another level of craving, karma forming, level or strength of craving, which we call it grasping. In Pali it's called Upadana, separate. It is the karmic forming, life-producing. So in here, we act all these things, we do all these things. Why? Because we believe karma sukkha, these sense pleasures are fantastic and great. It makes us happy, it makes us secure, it is beneficial and good. But let's suppose, let's suppose, if we know this sense pleasure is faulty, imperfect, and dangerous to us, what do you think we will do? We will start chasing after it. But we must know or we must see that it is faulty, imperfect, and dangerous. As soon as you do that, you will stop chasing after that craving, that pleasure, the sixth sense pleasure. Simple logic, simple cause and effect. So if one fails to observe these feelings vidana, with full foundation of mindfulness, if you fail to observe with full foundation of mindfulness, about the characteristics of the feeling, about the functions of the feelings, and about the manifestation of the feelings. Just to put an example, dukkha vidana. Painful, unpleasant feeling. That feeling can really make your mind withered, make your mind weak, and it will torture your mind, these feelings. And let's say sukkha widana, pleasant feeling. What? What does that do? That sukkha feeling, whenever that pleasant feeling arises, it freshens. It freshens all the mental association that arises with it. It freshens, it might make it more even joyful and brighter. That is the function of sukha wedana. So those things when you start observing, you begin to see. And then there's the word called sanya. Sanya is perception. Perception about this feeling. How do you perceive it? Oh pleasant feeling, great, fantastic, good. Makes me happy. Unpleasant feeling, no good. It's miserable. Those are the perceptions we have. All of us have the same thing. So that's a perception we have. But that perception could be changed. That perception could be changed if you practice this full foundation of mindfulness and got insight into this feeling. You got wisdom and insight into the feeling. Once you have insight and wisdom into these pleasant and unpleasant feelings, your perception about feeling with not changes. It can be changed. But you must walk hard enough to have insight into the accura process, actual nature. And if you know the true natures of this feeling, you will erase the wrong understanding about this feeling. That's what will happen. And if you know the truth, and if you see the fault, what happens? Automatically craving is gone. Because you know the truth and you know the faulty nature, you know the danger of the sense pleasure. At that moment you have no craving for the sense pleasure anymore. That means you have no attachment to the sense pleasure, which means also means you will never grasp. You will never cling to this sense pleasure anymore. All that you see is you see the truth and you know they're false. Experientially, not intellectually. And at that moment what happens if you have no grasping. Who is grasping? I am grasping. If there is no grasping, I is gone. There's no more I, no more grasping, no more I. So with correct mindfulness, if you can apply correct, precise mindfulness, with no break or no gap, sense pleasure have no chance, have no chance to manifest into craving or grasping or into wrong view. If you practice correct, precise mindfulness with no break and no gap, sense pleasure has no chance to manifest itself into craving, grasping and wrong view. And at that stage, at that moment, it is called we wutta. Not wudda, we wutta. Basically, there's no more rounds, no more work, no more wudda. That means the chains of cause and effect is broken. That means no more rebirth, no more suffering. So may all of you be able to practice full foundation of mindfulness precisely and correctly. May you be able to break the change of wada rounds as soon as possible.