Next question...
How is mentality / materiality the condition for consciousness? (Dependant arising.)
What's the difference between mentality and consciousness?
Sometimes these words get sort of really messed up.
It's Nāma Rūpa. It's... they call mentality, materiality.
What nāma rūpa really is, is the objects of consciousness.
It's what you are conscious of...
Consciousness is like the screen...
and nāma rūpa is actually what's on the screen.
and the important thing is, If there is no consciousness,
then there's nothing actually on the screen... there is no nāma rūpa.
If there is no nāma rūpa there is no consciousness.
In other words, when all this nāma rūpa finishes, so does consciousness.
Your mind stops...
So what actually happens in meditation
this whole process is stopping the nāma rūpa
the nāma rūpa gets very, very still.
And so the consciousness which knows it starts to disappear.
This is how we meditate.
This is a deep part....
When you first close your eyes what do you see?
a blackness behind your eyelids
but that doesn't move... that is still...
that nāma rūpa is so still
that after a while, eye consciousness stops. It ceases...
Because the nāma rūpa of eye consciousness
is necessary to keep the consciousness there.
If there is nothing to see...
The consciousness turns off.
Eye consciousness ceases...
when nothing is happening.
So... you know you are not tasting anything,
you are not sucking a sweet when meditating
so there is no taste the taste is the same...
the taste of your saliva... because that doesn't change
the sense of taste turns off.
As long as people didn't eat too many beans this morning
there's no change in the smell in this room
Which means... that after a while the sense of smell turns off.
Now you are left with the two difficult ones...
The sight, smell and taste are easy to turn off,
the hard ones are sound and physical feeling.
The sound, you just have to try and live in a quiet place
and after a while because the sound isn't changing
it turns off... you can't hear anything anymore.
Just like when you've got the fans or the air-con going,
after a while you can't hear it anymore
because it's constant, because it doesn't change... because it's still.
If nāma rūpa doesn't change
it's corresponding consciousness turns off.
The body... and that's the hard one
So what do we do with the body? First of all we sit still
we don't move... so because we don't move,
the legs disappear, the arms disappear, the head disappears,
but you know what's left moving?
Your Breath!
That's why the breath happens whether you seek for it or not
but everything else finishes, the breath is the thing which is moving.
So the job in meditation is to watch the breath
and calm it down... and calm it down
until you get to the stage...
where the in-breath and the out-breath are just about the same...
you can't make any distinction,
because you can't make any distinction between the in and out breath
it's so even... and nothing is changing and the breath disappears.
As it's supposed to... because nothing is happening
so the nāma rūpa corresponding to physical sense consciousness stops...
So the consciousness stops.
The two are dependent on each other.
If sense consciousness got nothing to be conscious of...
then the consciousness stops.
You've turned off the five sense consciousnesses.
NOW... you've got to turn off the sixth consciousness
and that's what actually happens in the Jhānas.
What's happening there... the objects of the mind
start become more and more still
and different layers of the mind consciousness stop.
And when you get to the arūpas that's when the mind really starts to disappear.
Infinite space...
I quite like "unmeasured space".
What's happening there... very similar to present moment awareness
In present moment awareness... there is no time at all
you are squashed between the past and the future,
it's this moment of time called 'now',
but when you get in there it's like you've got all the time in the world.
At last you are free... the Timelessness.
That idea of no time... and time about to disappear
is what is meant by "when space starts to vanish".
In the first arūpa the consciousness starts to vanish,
that's the infinite or rather unmeasured consciousness
of the second arūpa state.
And then, when that vanishes, there is nothing left.
That's the third arūpa where you are aware of nothing
because there's nothing to be aware of
the awareness starts to vanish
but before it vanishes... there is no more perception
you can perceive there is no perception
that's why it's called neither perception nor non-perception.
Your mind is fading away... it's almost gone
and it does go.
At last... the sixth sense of mind has ceased
because nāma rūpa, it's objects,
are necessary for the consciousness to exist.
When the objects vanish... so does the consciousness.
there is nothing left... there is no one there
Joy at Last to know there is no one here.
i've been trying to find myself for years and I realised there is no one there
that's why i could never find me.
Once you realise that, you are free at last.
I can tell bad jokes... there's no one to blame
it's not my fault... no one in here