Transcription
Okey-doke. So today I want to talk about the third jhāna. And remember what we were saying: the pacing of the teachings will almost certainly not be the pacing of your practice. And if it is, we actually don't want that. You might cross over -- your optimal pacing of practice for this retreat may intersect the trajectory of the pacing of the teachings at one point, but it shouldn't more than that, because you're going at your optimum pace for marination, for mastery.
Okay, so the third jhāna. What does the Buddha say about the third jhāna? If you get a hold of the texts of the Pali Canon (it's about a shelf-load full of volumes), I don't know if anyone's counted how many times he talks about jhāna in there, but it's a lot. It's really, really a lot -- so much so that they barely print it again. They just say "as before, as before, as before." Just to give you a sense -- it suggests, maybe, how much priority he put on the jhānas in his way of teaching. That doesn't mean everyone needs to learn the jhānas. I mean, some people think that. One of my teachers said, "If there's no jhāna, there's no liberation." I'm not sure I agree. I would tend not to agree. But it does seem, looking at the Buddha, there are, I think, two suttas where he really talks about mindfulness. So, in I don't know how many suttas in the whole Pali Canon -- does anyone know? Roughly? A thousand? I'm not sure. So two of those thousand (let's say it's a thousand) are about mindfulness, one of which you'll be very familiar with, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta.[1] And then there's a lot, a lot, a lot of suttas on jhāna practice. We've kind of inherited a sense of a norm that probably doesn't actually, historically, reflect the kinds of practice that certainly the monastics were doing.
Anyway, so here he is speaking about the jhānas again, speaking to a group of monks. And so he's just gone through the first and second jhāna, and then he says:
And furthermore, with the fading of pīti [with the fading of rapture], he [the monk practising] remains in equanimity, mindful and alert, and physically sensitive to sukha. He enters and remains in the third jhāna, and of him, the noble ones [the enlightened ones] declare: "Equanimous and mindful, he has a pleasurable abiding." And the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the sukha divested of pīti [with the pīti removed, filtered out, gone from it, with happiness divested of pīti], so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with sukha divested of pīti.[2]
And then, a really (to me) very gorgeous, appealing simile:
Just as in a pond of blue, white, and red lotuses, there may be some of the blue, white, or red lotuses which, born and growing in the water, stay immersed in the water and flourish without standing up out of the water, so that they are permeated and pervaded, suffused and filled with cool water from their roots to their tips. And nothing of those blue, white, or red lotuses would be unpervaded with cool water. Even so, the monk [or just so, the monk] permeates this very body with the sukha divested of rapture. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded with sukha divested of rapture.
Okay, so when we come to talk about jhāna factors, I couldn't find the sutta. It's possible that there are times where the Buddha actually says the first jhāna has five factors, the second jhāna has three factors, the third jhāna has two factors, etc. But I couldn't find it.[3] Most people agree that the third jhāna has only two jhāna factors: sukha and ekaggatā.[4] But this text I've just read from the Buddha says all this other business, right? So it says, "With the fading of pīti, he remains in equanimity, mindful and alert." 'Mindful' is sati. 'Equanimity,' upekkhā in Pali -- you probably know those words. The 'alert' -- the actual word is sampajāna, which some people translate as 'clearly comprehending.' It goes a lot with the sort of mindfulness language, and it's very prevalent in the mindfulness sutta. So you've got these other elements or aspects that clearly the Buddha's pointing to, but they don't qualify as jhāna factors.
I think, once you practise third jhāna (we'll see something similar in the fourth jhāna), there's something a little bit misleading about the Buddha's description. So it's not at all the case that there isn't mindfulness and alertness and equanimity in the third jhāna; there absolutely is. But the primary nimitta is sukha without pīti, or is actually sukha, pure sukha, if you like. Now, pure sukha, sukha without pīti, is actually quite a rare thing for a human being. Mostly, even in non-jhānic states, we experience happiness with a bit of [pīti] -- certainly when we're laughing or giggling or whatever, it's got that kind of upwell to it. It's got, let's say, proto-jhānic factors of pīti and sukha in it. It's quite rare to have happiness without pīti. I use the word, and I think what's more accurate, speaking from an experiential point of view, is that the primary nimitta of the third jhāna is peacefulness. And that peacefulness is almost unbelievably lovely. It is warm. It's tender. It's very, very refined.
If you're in any doubt -- "Have I reached the next jhāna?" -- wherever you've been, one way of knowing is: is it more refined than the jhāna that you've come from? You may have moved from something where the dominant element in the citta is happiness, to a state where the dominant element in the citta is something like peacefulness. But if that peacefulness is not a total quantum leap in refinement, then it's unlikely that you've moved from the second to the third jhāna. That's one thing to look for. And remember what I said: actually, what's happening, the whole spectrum of the jhānas, is there's this increasing refinement as we develop through the jhānas. That's, in a way -- well, let's just say, one of the key elements. [8:56]
So there's something very lovely. There's a warmth. There's a real tenderness. It's got heart qualities in it, in a very soft, undramatic way -- well, it might be dramatic when you first enter it, in terms of, it really is breathtaking. But the way those qualities pervade the space is not dramatic, in terms of the heart qualities. There's an increase in refinement. It's a very refined state. Really, I would say, it's very beautiful. There's something, again, almost breathtakingly beautiful about it. It feels very healing. There's something about that space, and bathing oneself, and dissolving body and heart and mind in that space, that just feels naturally, organically healing, again, in a very sort of undramatic, quiet, but very powerful way, in terms of healing the heart, etc. There's love in it. There's mettā in it -- let's say that. There's mettā in it organically; you don't have to make that happen. And all these qualities are just part of the radiant glow of that space, of that jhānic territory. So yes, there's mindfulness; yes, there's alertness; and yes, there's equanimity. But we would expect mindfulness and alertness in any jhāna. Here they may be upgraded quite a bit to what most people -- unless you've really gotten into a momentum on a mindfulness retreat. And really, there's quite a lot of mindfulness and alertness.
And yes, there's equanimity. But let's come back to that one at the end, because most people who haven't experienced, let's say, the third and fourth jhāna -- what one will understand by the word 'equanimity,' based either on one's daily life or on meditation practice, insight meditation practices, we're really talking about a different level here, a different flavour. That's why I said it can be a little misleading if we focus on the other words right now. There is equanimity; I'll come back to that.
So in my experience, and part of the way I teach this, that's the third jhāna, all that loveliness. I would actually break it down into three levels, so that the third jhāna itself has three levels. And I did read a text somewhere (I think it was in the Visuddhimagga) a passage saying different jhānas break into three levels or two levels or something. But I don't recall it actually describing what those levels are. I don't know whether this division that I'm making now based on experience and teaching experience, whether that corresponds to the Visuddhimagga -- I don't personally really mind either way. I just find this very helpful, and a lot of other people do. So there are three levels:
(1) The first level (following the Buddha's lovely simile of this gorgeous cool pond in a hot climate), near the 'top,' as we say, because there's a descent through the jhānas; one feels them that way. The first level is characterized, actually -- if I had to put an English word to it, it would be like 'contentment' or 'satisfaction,' or perhaps something like 'fulfilment,' but that's a more complicated word, I think. So something like 'contentment' and 'satisfaction.' But again, the kind, the level of contentment, the fullness, the degree of contentment and satisfaction at the beginning of the third jhāna is unlikely to be something that we've experienced in daily life. It's really of a different order there.
(2) The second level, the middle level, is the peacefulness comes to dominate. But in a way, it feels like my peacefulness. I'm peaceful. This space here is peaceful. It's not that I'm thinking, "Oh, mine, mine," and I'm hanging on to it in any way.
(3) It's just, one partly sees that only in contrast when one's gone to the deeper level, the third level, which kind of feels more like a realm of peacefulness. One's in a realm. One's in a vast space, or one has a sense (that's a better way to put it) of a space of peacefulness, a vast space pervaded by peacefulness, a world of peacefulness. So at this point, it really is (and I'll come back to this) like, "I've entered a different world here," as opposed to first jhāna, second jhāna -- something extraordinary is happening in my body, in my citta, in my consciousness, in my energy body. Here, at times it can feel like I've really entered a different world.
So those are the three levels that I would demarcate and encourage people to find. But the order in which they'll be revealed to you may not be one, two, three. In other words, you may find yourself first in the middle one or the third one, or whatever. No rush. In time, they will all become apparent, and we want them to all become familiar. And just as we have mastery with regard to a jhāna, I can go there directly or whatever, you can also navigate within a jhāna. So if you wanted to, you can go from the fourth jhāna to the most superficial level of the third jhāna, that contentment, or whatever. You can just jump to wherever. No rush with that. It's part of the mastery. It's part of really knowing them. It will emerge just from everything that we've been doing: sitting with it, walking with it, being in it, but keeping the sensitivity, the antennae tuned, alive, alert, subtly discriminating, noticing, and enjoying. And these things will get revealed.
So how does one access, how does one enter the third jhāna?
(1) One way is to just be in the second jhāna with the happiness, but really drink it. Really drink and drink and drink that happiness. Drink and drink and enjoy that drinking. We have a thirst we don't even recognize, and in a way, we need to slake that thirst. Just drink and drink and enjoy. And at a certain point, one may realize, "Oh, the most prominent emotion has changed. It's actually gone from happiness to this satisfaction, to this contentment." Why? Because I've drunk enough. I've actually satisfied that thirst. And sometimes at first, one may not realize that shift, if it goes to that level. It may, as I said, jump to a deeper level. But one way of moving here from the second to the third jhāna is just to really drink that happiness, and really, really enjoy it, and really open to it -- all the things we've been saying. I need to really tune to it, really stay with it, and take it in, and bathe in it, and enjoy it or drink it.
(2) A second possibility, though, is that (as we've mentioned a couple of times in here; it's come up in questions) the happiness of the second jhāna has a range to it. And at the deep end, it's actually more subtle. Technically speaking, it's got more pīti in it, and at the deep end of the second jhāna, it's got less pīti in it. The pīti is drained out. That's why the happiness there is more serene. That corresponds with the Buddha's description. But in a way, there's a way of understanding the second jhāna as a kind of transition jhāna: pīti and sukha in the first jhāna with a lot of pīti dominating, less and less pīti all the way through the second jhāna, until the pīti is drained out, and you're just left with this purified sukha. So that's one way of understanding it. There's a kind of spectrum of less and less pīti, and correspondingly, there's a spectrum of more and more subtlized happiness. So you can either drink your fill with the happiness, or go with this, ride the spectrum down into more and more subtlety. Eventually, like all the other jhānas, if we're talking about mastery, you can just summon it. You don't need to go from the second jhāna; you don't need to do anything; you just remember the third jhāna and call it back by a subtle intention.
If one is going through the letting the happiness get more and more subtle, absolutely, totally crucial that the attention needs to get increasing subtle with it, and that you need to get really into it. Again, if it's like subtle pīti, subtle happiness, it doesn't need to be strong for me to totally relish it and totally enjoy it and totally get into it. So if the attention is not fully, maximally subtle, and if I'm not fully, maximally enjoying it, what I will end up with is a state of peacefulness, or what I perhaps will end up with is, either I'll get lost or fall asleep, or a kind of state of peacefulness that is actually slightly dull, slightly insensitive. And the peacefulness will not be so alluring and so magical in that way. But even these words 'dull' and 'insensitive' -- again, to most people they mean something quite gross. At this level, we're also talking about really subtle dullness, really subtle insensitivity. So compared to our normal state of consciousness, they're not gross, obvious defects. But if I'm taking that second method of going down in terms of the subtlety of the happiness, I absolutely have to really be on my toes with the attention, really subtlizing the attention, really getting into it, really making sure I'm opening, enjoying, penetrating, all the rest of it. So there's a slide, but where that slide takes us to depends very much on how, what the mind is doing and what the relationship with it is.
So what that all implies to me is, the safest best, actually, is the first way: just drink that happiness. Drink it and drink it and drink it and drink it and open to it. Slake your thirst. This kind of -- I don't know what we'd call it -- a satellite non-jhānic state of equanimity or peacefulness, as we've mentioned several times in here, it can be likely that one goes there because of the habitual tracks and momentum of one's previous insight meditation practice. We talked about this, right? If you practise mindfulness, and once that gets going, you're basically practising a kind of 'let go, let go, let go, let go,' and as I'll come back to at the end today, that will take you into some or other state of equanimity. It's a very okay state. Relatively speaking, it's a skilful state. But it's unlikely that it's the third jhāna, if that's just, "Oh, I recognize this place from before, a kind of quiet place I've got to sometimes on retreats before," whatever it is, peaceful. It seems to match: "Well, there's peacefulness. There's mindfulness. There's equanimity. There's alertness," etc. But it's unlikely to be that. I mean, it might be, but it's unlikely.[5]
So again, what this partly implies to me is, maybe safest to go with the first one: drink, drink, drink, drink the happiness. And see if you can keep it at a certain bandwidth, where it's really, you know, this is obvious happiness, and it's something quite strong. It may be possible that that kind of non-jhānic equanimity, peacefulness state can get kind of nudged, manoeuvred into a jhānic state like the third jhāna, if you hang out there. So this is the kind of state I remember from my insight retreats, and if I hang out there -- but really, the attention has to be really, really alive, really subtle, and really maximizing the enjoyment, really trying to find what's most pleasurable in here -- it may be possible for some people that then that sort of more familiar insight state of equanimity, with very careful work/play, becomes the third jhāna. But it will likely, it will probably be much more likeable and much clearer -- experiences of the third jhāna -- if they go through the second jhāna in either of the ways I was talking about, but more likely that drinking one. So you'll more likely end up in what's definitely jhāna territory rather than a sort of relatively skilful, or only a sort of relatively skilful peace or equanimity.
So like I said, in relation to differentiating this third jhāna from those relatively peaceful sort of states that we might know, of equanimity or peace to a certain a degree -- what we might call sort of 'satellite states,' maybe -- the third jhāna, again, is breathtakingly touching. There's something that touches the being, impresses on the body, the heart, the soul very, very, profoundly. It's really very touching. As I said, beautiful, a beauty there -- it's very beautiful, really an extraordinary state. [24:16] And it really does impress on the whole being. So yes, there's differentiation between states -- and remember when I said I'll contradict myself many times -- and sometimes we don't need to worry so much about "Am I in it? Am I out? Where exactly is the boundary?" Instead, just work and play with this care, which gets very fine now, the work and play. But it's still SASSIE, still SASSIE at this level. And rather than "Am I in? Am I out?", just keep playing with the SASSIE, and let your work and play be also quite subtle, and intense, but in this very subtle, very gentle way. So I actually have to learn that about how to work intensely without being too crude and too heavy-handed and too pressured.
I can't remember -- I thought it was in the Pali Canon, something the Buddha said, but it might be in the Visuddhimagga. There's a simile of a desert traveller, someone who's been walking for days and days across a desert, going from somewhere to somewhere, and they're parched with thirst, and they're weary, and they're dirty, and sand is everywhere, and staggering along. And then in the distance, they see (or you know, someone tells them) an oasis. And that relief and glee and excitement, even, that they feel -- that corresponds to the first jhāna. It's not a mirage; it's an actual oasis. And the second jhāna, in this simile, is they reach the oasis. And they flop down by the side of it on their hands and knees, and they just drink and drink and drink that cool water. And their thirst, which has built up over wandering -- the desert is saṃsāra, basically[6] -- and their thirst begins to be slaked. They need to drink a lot. They're pretty dehydrated. They need to drink and drink and drink. And the third jhāna -- at a certain point, they just decide, "I'm just going to get in." [laughs] And they just immerse themselves into this beautiful, cool, spring-fed pond, with lotuses there, and they just dunk themselves, and they wash their body, and they submerge themselves, and they drink some more, and all that. And that's the third jhāna.[7]
So like I said, or like I pointed to, the ordinary usage in English of words like 'happiness' and 'peacefulness' and 'equanimity' -- it doesn't really capture the kind of degree, and depth, and beauty, and impact, or the whole other level that we're talking about here with jhānic factors and jhānic words, and certainly when you get the third jhāna, that's the case.
Okay, so a little bit about working in the third jhāna. As I mentioned, the third level, to me, feels like a sense of a realm, of a much wider, perhaps a vaster space, even. But this is quite important: the focus within that sense of "I'm in a whole other world here," the primary focus needs to still be the whole body space, the energy body space. So you can still be aware, "I'm really in this other realm," but the jhāna will only stabilize and deepen, and it will only get its maximal fruits, if the primary focus is on the whole body space -- actually a bit bigger. So it might be as much as 2 feet in front of you, even, or whatever -- that sort of space around the energy body. And you work with the same -- you might work with these two modes of attention, the narrow, focused, penetrating, or the wide, open receiving, abandoning, surrendering. Or you might find others: wrapping around, dissolving into, all kinds. But basically, the focus is the energy body, and moving gently in a very unhurried way, playing with these different modes of attention. That's what's going to consolidate it, allow it to get deeper, etc.
So in the third level, this sense of that realm, that sort of vaster realm is still there, but it's not the primary focus. Yet we can still be touched by it, allow ourselves to have a sense of the appreciation of that lovely space, that larger, lovely space. Appreciate it, be touched by it and its kind of otherworldly sense, and the sense of really visiting another realm, of being admitted into another, more blessed realm, in a way. So if I say the primary focus is with the whole body and the energy body, it doesn't mean that I'm still not aware of this realm, and I can't still feel the beauty of that, and the loveliness of that. And one can kind of invite or imagine bringing in, or just bring in that sense of peacefulness from the bigger space, or just allow it in, open the energy body space to it. So in some way or another, all that lovely, lovely peacefulness from that space -- you bring it into the energy body if you need to.
Sometimes (and I think this came up; someone asked a question, so it's come up earlier, but I'll say it again), what happens -- this should only be the kind of thing that happens, and that you're playing with, after you've had quite a lot of experience with the third jhāna. Sometimes what happens is, it hasn't quite settled yet. It's not quite consolidated. I'm not quite into it yet, though I've had many experiences before of it. And all I can find, then, is a filament, the barest, subtlest sort of magical thread, very, very faint, very subtle, that has the taste of that peacefulness. And I all can find is one. And maybe it's one place in my body. Now, body might be body: say, "Oh, it's in my belly," or whatever. Or remember when I said, when I say 'whole body,' it means the space, right? I said that, defining at the beginning? So again, here, it's not necessarily, I'm not correlating it with any part of my anatomy. It's just somewhere in this space. But it feels like it's connected with my body.
Usually things feel like they start getting lower down. The centre of the attention starts getting lower down. Maybe even the place where initially, in this case, the peacefulness is stronger is lower down the body. That's common, but there are always exceptions. And eventually, obviously, we want the whole space to be filled with that peacefulness. But sometimes what happens, a lot of experience, and this session -- it's not quite going so well. But it's fine. I can tell I just need to play a little bit, and all I can find is this one really, really subtle thread. And I start to follow that. I'm tuning to it, and I'm just enjoying that thread and attuning the attention to it, and finding the beauty in it. And just that relationship with that thread, so to speak, that filament of it, starts to allow the whole thing to spread, starts to the allow the peacefulness, the fabric of that filament, of that thread to spread throughout the whole space, often by itself. So you know, you can still do the spreading stuff, of course, but often, you'll find it just spreads by itself at this point.
Now, I don't know if I said it in relation to the second jhāna, but something similar can happen with the second jhāna, if you've had a lot of experience with the second jhāna, really clear experience of the second, a lot, in and out, many times. And then sometimes, again, it's sort of, "Oh, today's not quite -- kind of got into it or it's there, but it's really not strong. It's kind of in boundary territory, in borderline territory." Again, sometimes it might be a trickle, that I'm drinking from a trickle, just a little trickle from a fountain. But I'm drinking it, and I'm really enjoying it. And again, if I don't get into that, "Oh, it was better yesterday," or whatever, and I'm just really drinking, then that trickle -- I follow that trickle, I tune to its qualities, I enjoy it -- all the same things -- and it can build from there.
[inaudible question from yogi] Well, in a way it's true for the first, because of how we've been talking about the two possibilities of pīti arising, that one of them is like the ember, and glowing. So in a way, it's true. Yeah.
Okay. Sometimes what happens, again, with quite a bit of experience with the third jhāna already, one of the things -- remember, like I said, when you encounter a new territory, a new jhānic territory, or a new level of consciousness, whatever you want to call it, a new state of consciousness, the first few experiences are often like a dam bursting. And it's just like everything is perfect, and "Wow," and there's no effort involved, or very little effort. After a while, then it's like, "Oh." Then certain subtle work, subtle play is obviously needed. It's not that one's gone backwards. This is just the natural maturation of things. If one is not noticing subtle work and play, I would say I'm not sure that one is practising what the Buddha would call Right Concentration, because there isn't that degree of sensitive, subtle discernment to actually notice, "Oh, I see. That's different," or this thing or that thing.
One of the things that one can notice after a while -- it can happen sometimes -- is that it's almost like there's a mental aspect of this lovely peacefulness, this gorgeous peacefulness. And there's, so to speak, a physical aspect of this gorgeous peacefulness -- in other words, felt in the energy body. And they can become separated. Sometimes, the mental and the physical peacefulness can become separated. We want them integrated. We want the whole thing. The whole, let's say, clearly jhānic experience has integrated all these elements. So we want them integrated. It could be that you've practised, really, a fair amount with the third jhāna, in and out, and you've really got used to it. And then you start to notice this sometimes; occasionally you start to notice this. It could be, either of those comes first -- like I'm experiencing a mental peacefulness that I recognize from the third jhāna, but not the bodily. Or the other way around. So it could be either, but they're not integrated. And one is present, one is not -- absent.
The breath can really help to integrate them -- or I suppose the mettā, at that point, but the breath particularly, if you've been doing breath practice especially. There's a way that the mind can follow the breath -- not just follow it with attention, but the way the breath is tells us how the mind is. The way someone's breath is ... you know this at a very gross level. So the mind and breath are quite related. Bringing the breath back in, if you've been working with the breath, can be quite helpful at integrating the mental and the physical.
So that's why this relationship between breath and mind -- mostly we're taught not to manipulate the breath in meditation, right? You just watch it. But how my breath is at any moment does reflect how my mind is at any moment. So in a way, the mind is shaping the breath. But also, like so many things, if the causality seems to work one way, often it works the other way too. If I shape the breath, I can affect my mind. That's why, when we started with this really longest breath, and with the energy body, and really long breaths, because we often need more energy. And then that's why the Ānāpānasati Sutta starts with breathing in long -- you know, this turner, whatever that person was doing -- and then breathing in short. To me, it's deliberate, because the manipulation of the breath manipulates the mind, which, if you're trying settle the mind, is what you're trying to do anyway. So you actually settle the mind, shape the mind through playing gently, subtly, responsively with the breath. Anyway, breath integrates, or is a bridge, or straddles body and mind. And so at this point, if the mental peacefulness is there, but the bodily peacefulness is not, or vice versa, bringing the breath back in can help. [It's] one of the things that can help integrate that.
But really, with these rūpa-jhānas, with these first four jhānas, I would say: body, body, body, body, body. It's maybe more likely for people to feel like they're experiencing a mental peacefulness, and there really isn't the sense of that peacefulness pervading the body, like to that degree. So as I said, there may be a thread or just a place in the energy body. It's just a location in this space of the energy body. It may be very, very subtle, and tuning to that, focusing on it, following it, enjoying it, etc.
Or it may be there's a sense of, "Here's this realm." It may be I've already got a sense of the third level, but it's still not integrated and settled. And I want to kind of immerse the body in that realm, immerse the body in the peacefulness. But I have to get the body involved. So always, you hear in the Buddha's description, in each short paragraph, he says it twice, about the getting the whole body involved: no spot untouched, pervading, suffusing, etc., over and over again: body, body, body, with these form jhānas.[8] So I really have to make sure I work to get the body sense filled like that, and really involved and really pervaded, etc., so I can immerse my body in this space of peacefulness. I can dissolve my body out, so to speak. I dissolve my energy body out into that peacefulness. Or I dissolve the peacefulness into the body -- all these things.
But so much has to do with tuning again. It's really, again, what's happening in each jhāna is not that we're paying attention to and keeping our mind fixed on one small location in space. We're tuning to a certain frequency, and the frequency that we're tuning to in the third jhāna is very, very refined. So it's really about tuning, at this point, tuning to that radio station that has that really otherworldly, transcendently peaceful music. And I just want to learn to tune there, and really that fine-tuning, and then pay attention, attune, and let things amplify from there.
Experientially, the third jhāna is -- I suppose we could say there's a quantum jump in stillness from the first to the second jhāna, and then there's a whole other quantum jump in stillness from the second to the third. So it's a very still state. And sometimes people's initial descriptions when they first enter it, in an interview, they're describing it, and say, "Oh, it was really still." It is very still compared to what most human beings will ever have remotely come near experiencing. Yet there is actually a very subtle, gentle movement in it, or it's possible that there are very, very subtle, gentle movements within it. So if the breath is your base practice, it's almost as if you'd forgotten about the breath, and then it's almost like it can re-emerge at this point, but just really, really faint echoes of the breath. It's like one is almost not sure: "Is that the breath? Or is that me just imagining a very subtle breath?"
In a way, it doesn't matter, but there can be this very gentle breath or very faint echoes of the breath, whatever it is. And they carry this very subtle, gentle movement that's somehow there within the stillness. It doesn't in any way disturb the stillness, this movement. So it's almost like the very gentle movement is somehow integrated into the stillness without disturbing it, it feels. The movement itself, this very gentle movement, seems itself to express stillness, which in English is a contradiction in words. But there's something very beautiful about the movement, so it seems to really manifest or express this lovely stillness. The image I have -- I think I've shared it with a few of you -- one image you might think of for this, and that might even be helpful, a tiny tincture, at certain points: imagine a kind of lagoon or a pond, and under the water -- so it's fairly deep water -- there are a few long strands of underwater seaweed, or something like that. And they're just -- you know how they sway sometimes, really, really gently and slowly? There may be some kind of movement in the experience that's akin to that. And that may be with the breath or something else, but ... I'll just put that out, yeah.
Like I said, if the breath has been your base practice, then it may re-emerge at this point, and be reincorporated. I've given all my attention to pīti and happiness, and now it's almost like, after all that commotion and excitement and bubbliness of all that, the breath starts to, "Oh, I can notice it again, and I can reincorporate it." But it's very subtle, very delicate. And again, the breath is peacefulness. It has become peacefulness. Just as the body has become peacefulness, the breath has become peacefulness. This movement of the seaweed at that point -- I don't know if you can get the sense from the image. It's like the very movement is peaceful. It expresses peace, expresses a kind of stillness.
If we think, again, about jhāna factors, and think of them as kind of cooking ingredients -- cooking or alchemy, dependent on what you prefer as a metaphor. So jhāna factors as cooking or alchemy ingredients, and let's think backward from the Buddha's sort of definitions. The first jhāna has pīti and sukha, and pīti is the prominent one. The second jhāna, as I said, has actually got this range. Sukha and pīti are both there, but through the range of the second jhāna, the pīti is getting slowly filtered out. I said that before, but that's a way of understanding what's happening in the second jhāna. The third jhāna has sukha without pīti. It's completely filtered out.
But what that also means is that sometimes it's possible -- here I am in the third jhāna, and if I want to go to the second jhāna, I can just take some pīti from the shelf, and just pour it in a little bit. And dependent on how much I pour in, stir, I will end up in a different place in the second jhāna, right? Does that make sense? So again, to me, this is actually part of the art, part of the possible range of the art involved in this kind of thing. I'm actually titrating jhāna factors in ways that can build, and build where I want to go, or open up where I want to go. If I add a little pīti, I'm going to end up in the deep end of the second jhāna. If I add a lot of pīti, I'm going to end up in the shallow end of the second jhāna, where things are more bubbly, etc.
I'll repeat this when we talk about the fourth jhāna. But similar thing at the fourth jhāna: if I'm in the fourth jhāna and I add sukha -- because in the fourth jhāna, the sukha has gone as well. So third jhāna, the pīti goes; fourth jhāna, the sukha goes. We'll come back to this. If I'm in the fourth jhāna and I add sukha, I will end up in the third jhāna. So there's a whole kind of -- whatever you call it -- alchemy or cooking possibilities, mixing ingredients, etc., that becomes possible.
[48:50] And after a time in the third jhāna (you may not notice it quite early on in your openings to the third jhāna), if the senses are open in the third jhāna -- in other words, you're still hearing the birds or whatever it is, or other sounds, or even sounds that we wouldn't usually think of as pleasant, even sounds that we would usually think of as unpleasant -- so let's say that the hearing is open. And remember, the Buddha is actually very, very clear in his words that it is not necessary for the senses to close in the first four jhānas. So if the senses are open, you're still hearing, which is very normal, then what one notices at a certain point is that all phenomena, all these sounds have (if we're taking sound as an example), they begin to be perceived as if they have one taste. There's something we notice pervading not just the so-called intrapsychic space in the jhāna, but also the world outside, so to speak, the world of the senses. So they have this one taste, the sounds. Even an 'ugly' sound, like someone drilling somewhere, or a lawnmower, or whatever it is, begins to have this -- everything has this one taste, and the taste is of this beautiful, profound peacefulness. So the taste starts to spread, and basically, a kind of cosmic, deep okayness, like very deep okayness, spreads throughout the cosmos. And everything in the cosmos seems to have that same taste.
So that's an experience one can have, one probably will and should have as part of the ripening of the third jhāna. That's an experience one can have in formal meditation. And then, one gets up out of the meditation, goes to informal practice, goes for a walk, just hangs out, has a cup of tea, and one should begin to notice what I call the 'after-effects' on perception. To me, this is a really, really important concept. It came up -- I think Wah asked the other day, and someone else also wrote a report in a note. The after-effects on perception of -- in this case we're talking about jhānas, but of a particular jhāna. I've got up, I'm not practising formally any more; I'm just walking around on the lawn, or gone for a walk or whatever, and I pay attention. If I'm still relatively open, relatively sensitive, relatively present, etc., I will begin to notice. It starts, it probably starts here most clearly -- in other words, at the third jhāna -- and will get more and more obvious, and in a way, more and more significant, and more and more powerful in its effects as we go more and more through the jhānas, particularly the formless jhānas. But one notices, in the after-effects on perception, that the world, and the nature of things, and the fabric of the cosmos are imbued with that peacefulness, that gorgeous, delicious, almost mystical peacefulness, as if that is the nature of things -- peace is the nature of things, peace is the fabric of the cosmos.
This is pointing to what is probably the most significant thing in the Dharma. We have to pick it up though. We have to make the connections, and we have to see it and understand it, and see it many, many times through this kind of experience, through other related kinds of insight experience. But it's pointing to the dependent arising of perception. The world -- how the world appears to me, the very world that I live in -- is dependent on how I look at it. We say everyone's living in the same world. Well, we are, but we also aren't. Dependent arising -- the world is empty of being this way or that way ultimately. Any one thing is empty of being this way or that way ultimately. And one way -- and I think one of the most powerful ways, and one of the ways I like to emphasize in teaching -- is seeing that, through playing with perception and seeing the effects of this way of looking on the perception of self, other, world, time, everything. And then playing with that way of looking and seeing the effects on perception of self, other, world, time, phenomena, etc. And then another way of perceiving, another way of perceiving. And actually, one can integrate the whole of the Dharma into that exploration, or even sum up the whole of the Dharma as that exploration. It's the most significant thing, Dharmically, I would say.
So even something like generosity: we don't tend to think of that as playing with perception. But if you practise generosity and you pay attention, and sometimes you practise a really radical generosity, and see what happens to the perception of self, of other, of world -- the whole of the Dharma, all the qualities that the Buddha's pointing to can be seen to be integrated into a certain movement of exploration, which is this exploration of dependent arising through playing with perception. The appearance of the world, the whole world, depends on how I'm looking at any moment.
So we could also say that's a teaching about karma*.* Where am I reborn? Do you understand that? Do you understand how that makes sense? So another way of saying all this is a teaching on karma. Let's take two things. If I practise -- let's take two pairs: kindness or unkindness, and generosity or stinginess. And I practise those things. I practise stinginess to different degrees, and I notice the effect on how my self feels -- not that I'm judging myself, so much, but just: how does my self feel? How does my energy body feel? How does my self feel more solid, more contracted? How does the world feel? Do I feel connected with the world? Or does the world feel somehow separate? Do I feel a kind of oneness, or do I feel a separation? All these things.
Same thing with kindness. I practise unkindness or kindness, or I practise generosity. Basically, what you'll realize, what you'll come to realize if you pay careful attention to these things, really go for it as a practice, is that the world I actually perceive that I live in can either be -- you know, if I practise a lot of unkindness and a lot of stinginess, I will perceive the world as a hostile place, more and more -- a cold, barren, hostile place. I have to keep looking over my shoulder. There won't be a sense that the world is a lovely place full of love and warmth, and actually, somehow we're all one despite the appearances of separateness. The energy body will feel brittle, and hard, and separate, and cold, and all the rest of it.
These are just everyday examples outside of meditation. What happens in meditation is, you're taking some of those kinds of things and just cranking them up to a whole other level of power, where the effects on perception of self, other, world, and all that just become way more powerfully obvious. So as I said, one way of understanding it: what actually holds everything in the Dharma together is that -- that exploration. We will return to this, just because it's so important. And as I said, it's even more important when we get to the formless jhānas. But shifts in perception with different ways of looking, what we call the dependent arising of perception, the dependent arising of the world, the dependent arising of the self -- I need to see that loads of times, and let it really impress on the citta. It's through repetition, but also, again, through extending the degree of range of ways of looking -- how many, and also how powerful they are.
So yeah, we can think of that also as a teaching about karma. I practise this, I do this, or I think this repeatedly, or I view the world repeatedly, and I will end up being reborn -- I don't mean a thousand years from now; I mean now, and ten minutes from now, whatever -- I will end up being reborn in a world that's coloured a certain way. And if I practise kindness, generosity, and all the other lovely, really good stuff, I'm reborn in a world. And we say, "Well, it's the same world," but actually it's very, very different. I'll talk about it again. We need to see that so many times, and see it over so many different kinds of ways of looking, and really make the connection. I have to put this whole idea, I have to, in a way, load it in as a cartridge, as the whole way I'm seeing practice, and then follow through with it, and then see what it does. If I don't do that, it won't impress so deeply. And I have to do that many, many times through a range of different, variously powerful practice, and a range of kinds of practice -- until we get it, and the heart, the citta gets something really deeply, and it's profoundly liberating, and there's a mystical beauty and wonder that comes from that, from the kind of insight that comes from that. It's, I would say, an insight of a whole other level.
[59:42] Going back to something I said before, there are three things we can extract out here, and then relate them to insight.
(1) Experientially, I can have -- one can have -- in the third jhāna this sense of 'one taste.' Either in the meditation, or outside, everything has this one taste. And so, there is actually less duality once one opens repeatedly to that experience. There's less duality between the jhāna and a not-jhāna, or meditation and the rest of the world, or even the jhānic realm and the rest of the world. One sees that actually, that's the nature of the whole world. So there's less duality between a place I need to get to and the rest of the world, because all of it has this one taste of peacefulness. So that's a certain opening and perception that we can have that's very fruitful. We could call it (let's just stick the label on it for now) 'non-dualistic,' between jhāna and the world, let's say -- the jhānic realm and the worldly realm.
(2) But sometimes, we can have a much more dualistic sense of the jhānas. They are, and there's a passage (I think it's in the Majjhima Nikāya; there's certainly more than one passage) where the Buddha describes each jhāna as an 'escape.' Nissaraṇa is the Pali. So they're realms of escape. This lovely, gorgeous realm of peacefulness is a realm of escape from the world. And he's actually describing, Sāriputta, and meditating (I think it's Sāriputta), and he says, "Actually, there's a better escape than the first jhāna: the second jhāna. That's a better escape than the first jhāna." Then in the second jhāna, after a certain time, you realize: "Oh, there's a better escape. The third jhāna is a better escape from the world than the second jhāna," etc., all the way through.[9]
Nissaraṇa -- now, it's true that word can mean other things. It can mean things like just a sort of 'result' or when something 'issues' in something else, like a result. Or it can mean a 'flowing out.' But also nis- is a prefix that means 'out' or 'outside' or 'going out.' And saraṇa is word you may know: saraṇaṃ. Buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.[10] What does that mean? 'Refuge' or 'shelter.' So a jhāna as a refuge outside, outside of the world. And experientially, again, to me there is very much that thrust in the Buddha's teachings.
Again, in the context of really looking at the Pali Canon, and noticing how much he talks about jhāna, how much he talks about not being reborn, etc. (let's not go there right now), it can also mean 'leaving behind,' but there's a case for, he's really saying: there's this escape from the world. And there are other escapes from the world: the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth jhānas, etc. You could say, they're also an escape, then, from the non-peacefulness that characterizes the world. They're an escape from the non-sukha that characterizes the body as it's usually experienced, and the mind as it's usually experienced, and the world as it's usually experienced. It's quite a dualistic teaching, and it points the way, or paves the way, even -- each jhāna is a step of or a further escape -- it paves the way for the total escape of the arahant, not to be reborn into this world.
So we've got this non-dualistic teaching, or this kind of non-dualistic teaching: everything's all one taste -- world and meditation. And then we've got this kind of dualistic teaching: meditation or jhāna as escape from the world. And what I would like to stress is, actually, that we can have both of those as experiences, and they're both very valid, and we shouldn't make a duality between duality and non-duality. [laughter] To me, that's really, really important, because some of the most entrenched, unbudgeable, dualistic-thinking people I've met call themselves 'non-dualists'! [laughter] To me, that's actually really, really important. So as experiences, both of these are blessings, that we can enter this realm. You know, I've been very sick and in a lot of pain, and just to be able to go into a realm where there's none of that, there's no discomfort -- you know, it's really a blessing, really a gift. But one can also have the other view: everything becomes that. So they're just views. They're just views that we can move between.
(3) What's the deeper view? What's deeper than these two views is this third thing that we were talking about: dependent arising. Because dependent arising, when I really understand that, it legitimizes, and it opens the door for all kinds of different views. One can view dualistically, and one can view (so-called) non-dualistically. One understands: this or that perception arises dependent -- it's empty, and that gives me freedom. There's no perception of anything that is not empty. Since all perceptions are empty, in a way, there's not a hierarchy. There's not an intrinsic hierarchy. There's a hierarchy dependent on what I might want at any time. I might want to reduce suffering, but then, okay, which way of reducing suffering right now helps the best? The hierarchy is not intrinsic. It's not, so to speak, ontologically intrinsic. But it might be practically, and one might hierarchize practically, so to speak. So a realm of escape, in this case, from the usual realm, which is non-peacefulness and non-sukha. That's the world, you know? And that's the world as we know it.
How does this peacefulness arise? How does it arise? Peacefulness arises from the quietening, from the attenuating of the push and pull of the citta in relationship to phenomena. We push away what we don't like. I prefer this thing to that thing, so I push that one away and/or pull this one towards me. Or I prefer this one, and I don't want it to go away, so I keep pulling on it, so it won't go away. Now, we all know that happens at an extremely gross level. We literally -- "Don't leave me," and pulling someone, or whatever it is, or literally pushing someone or something away. But the amazing thing is it happens more subtly as well, and more subtly and more subtly, and we can trace that investigation into more and more subtleness. Peacefulness arises from attenuating the degree of push and pull. And the degree of peacefulness will correspond to just how much push and pull we let go of.
Equanimity also, which is a kind of peacefulness (we'll come back to that), arises from lessening the push and pull, in the moment. I'm talking about meditation now; I'm not talking about ways of living -- I'm going to leave that. Equanimity also, which is a kind of peacefulness, arises from an attenuation of the mind's habitual, moment-to-moment push and pull with experience.
So practically speaking, the question arises: how do we attenuate? Does everyone know what 'attenuate' means? Reduce. How do we reduce, how do we dampen the push and pull? If dampening the push and pull gives such profound rewards, then I want to know, how do I dampen the push and pull? Well, in a way, drinking from the second jhāna, drinking and drinking and drinking, as I described earlier, until satisfaction arises -- in a way, that's dampening the push and pull, because satisfaction implies that I don't need to push and pull. If I'm satisfied, I don't need to change what's there. I don't need to pull this thing towards me. I don't need to push this thing away. I don't need to hang on to it. I'm just satisfied.
So drinking the second jhāna is (I don't know if this is official) the proximal cause of the third jhāna, of the equanimity that the Buddha's talking about in the third jhāna, that degree of equanimity. The equanimity that the Buddha's talking about in the third jhāna (this is a little side note now) -- it's related to that kind of peacefulness, and the sense of being in a realm that's just free of disturbance and kind of undisturbable, or that the one taste has spread everywhere, and then it's just undisturbable. 'Undisturbable' is another word for equanimity. Or 'imperturbable' -- the Buddha sometimes uses that word: 'not perturbable.'
(1) But one way that we might attenuate the push and pull is through just drinking and drinking from the second jhāna.
(2) Another way, or actually a whole set of ways, is by deliberately practising attenuating the push and pull. And actually, almost any insight way of looking -- what I call 'insight ways of looking' -- is basically doing that. And if it doesn't do that, it doesn't qualify for the name 'insight way of looking.' So there are loads of them, and some of them, it's very obvious that's what I'm doing. For instance (some of you will know this), if I'm working with what I call the second dukkha method, I'm actually feeling into the sense of pushing away or grabbing on or holding on. I'm feeling in, in the energy body, in the mind, in the subtle awareness, to any sense of contraction, push and pull, and then I'm relaxing it. And then I'm noticing another one and relaxing it, noticing another one, relaxing it. So it's very obvious that in a deliberate and sustained way, that's exactly what we're doing. And if we just keep doing that, a profound, lovely peacefulness will open up, because the push and pull is being attenuated.
But something else, something like practising the view of anattā, of seeing phenomena as not-self, or practising the view of seeing phenomena as impermanent (anicca), it's not often immediately obvious to people that that's what we're doing, that when we see things as impermanent -- moment to moment, arising and passing -- effectively what we're doing (as well as, obviously, seeing impermanence) -- the result, in the moment, of seeing the impermanence (not ten years later, but in the moment; not even a month later; in the moment), the result should be that because we see everything's flowing so fast, we just let go. We don't even have to think, "Oh, it's impermanent. Therefore I should let go, because I don't want to suffer a sense of loss." It just happens automatically. It's like if you, I don't know, try and (probably a poor analogy coming up) imagine sand just pouring and pouring. There's loads of the sand, and you just are trying to catch it in a net that's completely the wrong size meshing, and it just falls. It just keeps falling through. If you keep trying to catch it in the net, you haven't realized it's just impossible. So I don't have to think about that: "Oh, maybe it's the holes are too big." It's obvious. Similar thing: when we're practising impermanence, effectively what we're doing, and I really mean in the effect of what we're doing, is that we are attenuating the push and pull. And the same with anattā practice -- actually, the same with any of what I would call insight ways of looking. It's a deliberate, moment-to-moment, sustained attenuating of the push and pull with all phenomena, or just a certain set of phenomena that you've pre-circumscribed. So that's the second way.
(3) A third way is also going back to this other element we've already pinpointed: the 'one taste.' If everything has one taste as its most salient characteristic, I don't need [to push and pull] -- it's all the same. It's like, I'm not going to choose this molecule of water over that molecule of water to drink. It's all just water. And so, what's my reason for push and pull? So I'm not talking about living your life that way. That would be utterly, utterly stupid. But actually, some people then get the idea that Buddhists are supposed to sort of have that attitude to everything. Anyway, I'm talking about a meditation practice that one does for a period of time, for the sake of seeing what the results are, because (A) it's opening up a beautiful resource and space, but (B) it's going to tell me something about emptiness and dependent arising, which is the most liberating insight or range or realm of insight that I can have. But if I, in some way or other, practise perceiving things -- in the Mahāyāna, they say 'with equality.' There's equality. Everything is the same somehow. Either everything has the taste of love, or it has the taste of this peacefulness. But everything is that. Then just that perception -- there's no differentiation. There's nothing to hook, [not] any reason to push this away and pull that. So that's another way. That's what one might practise in meditation.
But in a way, most of that -- those second and third, the deliberately practising the attenuation of push and pull, and the sort of 'one taste' -- in a way, they're sort of more insight practices. Primarily on this retreat, if we talk about how does the push-pull get attenuated so that the peacefulness can arise, it's primarily through the second jhāna and the satisfaction that comes there.
Okay, so same deal with the third jhāna, with mastery and everything; we've been talking about that -- the different elements of mastery, which you already know, and the issues of pacing, like: when is it the right time for me to play with trying some of that? When is it premature? Am I being too heavy with it? Or can I keep it very light and very much like a game?
Now, we've expanded our possibilities for leapfrog and ping-pong. You can jump, let's say you've been in the third jhāna, and you can jump to the first, and then the third, and first -- that's ping-pong: first, third, first, third. But it's also leapfrog. So it's a leapfrog ping-pong. Do you see? [laughter] Or you know, three, one, three, one, three, two, to ... I don't know. But you get the idea. You start to move in any permutation and combination, just at the end of sittings, for fun. You're exercising the malleability of ways of looking, and it's an element of mastery. So including going out of any jhāna at all, and you just, "Let's just go back to a kind of normal consciousness," and then jump from there to the second or the third, or whatever it is. So these are little games you can have in the last five or ten minutes, if there are the batteries left, if there's energy left.
Okay, so let's stop there and have a bit of quiet together.
Of the two suttas about mindfulness that Rob alludes to, the first is the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta at MN 10. As for the second, it's not clear which sutta Rob had in mind, but possible candidates include DN 22, MN 118, and MN 119. ↩︎
E.g. AN 5:28. The simile of the lotuses below can be found in the same sutta. ↩︎
At MN 43, Ven. Sāriputta describes the first jhāna as possessing five factors. He does not, however, offer similar descriptions for the remaining jhānas. The idea that the second jhāna has three factors while the third factor has two factors is not found in the suttas. ↩︎
E.g. in Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga, tr. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli (Onalaska, WA: Pariyatti, 1999), 89. ↩︎
This statement is clarified in Rob Burbea, "Q & A, and Short Talk" (29 Dec. 2019), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/60887/, accessed 24 Feb. 2020: "I said something like, 'Experiences of deep equanimity or fairly deep equanimity that come from insight meditation are often not actually the third or fourth jhāna, where there's the equanimity kind of coming in such a strong and beautiful way.' However, experiences like some of you know, the kind of group of practices that I call the 'vastness of awareness,' as you get into that, there is a real mystical sense of wonder. It is very beautiful. There is a sense of sacredness there. It does really touch you, etc., and it is an experience of deep equanimity. However, those kinds of opening, what I call the practices of vastness of awareness, has a range of depths to it. So it's something that one can open up just a little bit, and may not yet have that kind of almost divinity to it, and sacredness to it, and sense of almost the ultimate. For example, one level of depth is just all phenomena seem to emerge out of that vastness and disappear back in it. It's like the womb or the source of everything. And that very seeing, it's a bit like when we talked about the nāda sound, and how can you use it in an insight way -- it's just a backdrop. Everything comes out of that, fades back into it. That level of seeing is very, very fruitful for the equanimity, etc. It begins to have a kind of mystical flavour to the whole thing and divine flavour to the whole thing. As you practise more with the vastness of awareness, and it goes even deeper, there's a sense where everything has one substance, and that substance is awareness; everything is awareness. Now we're really moving into a mystical sense of things, and that will have a lot of beauty. So when I said people who have just done insight, who have just opened to equanimity through insight practice, I didn't really mean that, because, if by insight practice you just mean, 'I'm just watching, just watching, just being mindful, just being mindful,' and kind of letting go with that general encouragement to just watch and let go, that won't take you to these deep ends of vastness of awareness. You actually have to kind of direct it, do something more deliberate, and actually change the practice slightly so that it goes there. Someone just reported they got a bit confused by that, so I hope that helps. In other words, we make the vastness of awareness a practice in itself that's slightly different than regular insight practice. We'd have to change a few things in order for it to really go to these really lovely, deeper levels." ↩︎
This statement is clarified in Rob Burbea, "Q & A, and Short Talk" (29 Dec. 2019), https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/60887/, accessed 24 Feb. 2020: "In that simile about the wanderer through the desert, and I said the desert represents saṃsāra -- actually, that can't be right, because that would imply that the jhānas are nirvāṇa -- or maybe; I don't know, because maybe it's an oasis in a desert. Anyway, maybe the desert represents life run by the hindrances; I don't know. Maybe it represents saṃsāra, and the oasis is not the end of the desert, it's just a little, and you've still got to go further. Maybe. So either one." ↩︎
Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification, 142: "If a man exhausted in a desert saw or heard about a pond on the edge of a wood, he would have [pīti]; if he went into the wood's shade and used the water, he would have [sukha]." Also, the Dhammasaṅganī (another Pali commentarial work) contains an expanded version of the simile; for a translation of the relevant passage, see Henepola Gunaratana, "The Abandoning of the Hindrances," in The Jhanas in Theravada Buddhist Meditation, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratana/wheel351.html#ch3.1, accessed 20 Feb. 2020. ↩︎
E.g. AN 5:28. ↩︎
E.g. MN 111. ↩︎
Buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi: "I go to the Buddha for refuge." ↩︎
