Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 20)

0:04 So, yesterday we had one day for the close application of mindfulness to the body. So it had very much to do with touch. And today we'll move on and have one day for the close application of mindfulness to feelings. And so when you come back and people ask how the retreat was, you can say it was very touchy-feely. Report an error in the passage at 0:04 Highlight the passage at 0:04

0:26 Yesterday it was touchy and today it will be feely. Report an error in the passage at 0:26 Highlight the passage at 0:26

0:33 So, but of course, feelings are a laughing matter, but they're also a crying matter. They are not material at all, but we do care about our feelings an enormous amount, and we always do. Whether we're dreaming, we prefer to have nice dreams rather than nightmares, even though nothing's really happening, apart from just events taking place in our own minds, which have no substance, no essence to them. Report an error in the passage at 0:33 Highlight the passage at 0:33

0:56 So just a very brief prelude to going into the meditation, just to highlight, Why feelings in this context are given their own category? Because after all, feelings are mental processes, and the third close application of mindfulness is to the mind. So why not just drop them into that bucket and have only three close applications of mindfulness? Body, mind, and then if you like, everything else or everything in its entirety. Report an error in the passage at 0:56 Highlight the passage at 0:56

1:25 And likewise, for those of you who have studied Buddhism, you'll know that there are five skandhas, five aggregates, that are very carefully analyzed in Buddhist. Vipassanā practice, the body, and then discernment or recognition, feelings, and then mental factors, which includes a whole big basket of mental factors, and then consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:25 Highlight the passage at 1:25

1:44 But once again, in both of these cases, the five skandhas, feelings gets its own little basket, just feelings alone, even though they are mental factors, together with 51 others. And here among the four applications of mindfulness, they get their own little category. And I think there's kind of very obviously a very good reason for that. Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

2:03 And that is that they are so enormously important for all sentient beings. They define us as sentient beings, that is our experience of feelings, define us as sentient beings. Now, feelings in this context, the Buddhist context, the Sanskrit and Pāli term is Vedanā. And although we speak of many types of feelings, and the word has a very rich and multifaceted set of meanings in English, here in this context, it's important to recognize feelings as a very primitive. Report an error in the passage at 2:03 Highlight the passage at 2:03

2:33 Very basic meaning. And that is simply feelings in this context are referring simply to pleasure, pain and indifference. Report an error in the passage at 2:33 Highlight the passage at 2:33

2:42 Now we know there are many other feelings. We say, how does your knee feel? I feel warm, hard, any more questions? And that's the feeling in my knee. It's an ordinary knee. You know, it's a bit squishy, but it's got a lot of bone and cartilage in there. That's what it feels like. Fine, but that's not the meaning here, right? And then I'm feeling... Report an error in the passage at 2:42 Highlight the passage at 2:42

3:00 I'm feeling quite surprised. I feel quite surprised at what you said. That's also perfectly good English. But we're not referring to that either. And so the word feeling has multiple facets in English, as it does in other European languages. But here it's just really raw and primitive, very basic, that we share with earthworms and cockroaches and bats and turtles. And that is all Sinjit beings in the Buddhist understanding, animal, human and otherwise. Report an error in the passage at 3:00 Highlight the passage at 3:00

3:26 We all have this basic sense of feeling pleasure. Or discomfort, pain. Or a third one, which often we don't regard as a feeling, we may regard as an absence of feeling, is neutral feeling, a feeling of indifference. So just as the Indians, it seems, invented the number zero, which other people thought, no, that's an absence of a number. The Indians said, no, no, zero is a number. Report an error in the passage at 3:26 Highlight the passage at 3:26

3:52 And of course we all consider zero to be a number nowadays, but not always. Likewise, many people would regard, if you're having a neutral feeling, say, but then you're not having any feelings. No positive feeling, no negative feeling, then no feeling. And the bodhicitta says, no, no, no, that's not correct. Report an error in the passage at 3:52 Highlight the passage at 3:52

4:10 You can have a neutral feeling, and that is a feeling, it's just a neutral one, right in the middle, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And so, simply put, we have feelings that arise in the body, we all know that, obviously, and then related to the body. Report an error in the passage at 4:10 Highlight the passage at 4:10

4:27 Feelings that are conjoined with our visual perception. We see something and we experience pleasure in the visual perception of it. And likewise for sounds. Some sounds we find pleasant, others unpleasant, others neutral. Smells the same thing, tastes the same thing. And then of course touch. And so we have the modes of feeling, pleasure, pain and indifference by way of our five sensory modalities. Report an error in the passage at 4:27 Highlight the passage at 4:27

4:52 So these are let's say physical feelings. And then, of course, we also know there are mental feelings. And these are so quite obvious and just simply the mental sense of satisfaction, pleasure. We have this broad bandwidth of words, satisfaction, pleasure, delight, euphoria, contentment and so forth. And then we have neutral. Report an error in the passage at 4:52 Highlight the passage at 4:52

5:12 I'm just feeling okay. What's up? Nothing particular. It's quite neutral. But that's also a feeling. And then that broad bandwidth from the most mild of malaise. Just a kind of feeling a little bit off to anguish. So big bandwidth. And this is what we have in common with all sentient beings. And one of the words for sentient being in Tibetan, the primary word is semchen, which means a mind-haver or one who is sentient. But another one is doa. Report an error in the passage at 5:12 Highlight the passage at 5:12

5:45 And doa simply means one who is in motion. So somebody just pointed out to me that The fundamental criterion differentiating plants from animals is that animals move and plants don't. It was Tony Steele when he drove me out here. But of course it's not entirely true because coral are said to be animals and they don't move. And then some plants seem to be somewhat mobile as well. Report an error in the passage at 5:45 Highlight the passage at 5:45

6:08 In any case, the point I'm getting at here is that clearly we are mobile creatures with our bipeds. And when we set ourselves into motion of any kind, Moving our hands, moving our mouths, and then of course moving the body here and there, extending limbs and so forth. By and large, what's the incentive, the impetus behind our movement? Report an error in the passage at 6:08 Highlight the passage at 6:08

6:33 It's all about feeling. We want to avoid a certain type of feeling, we move away. Or we want a type of feeling, then we move toward. Or feeling nothing threatening and nothing attractive, we stay put. So it is absolutely core. Report an error in the passage at 6:33 Highlight the passage at 6:33

6:53 And it's moreover, when it comes to feelings, among the various phenomena that arise in the mind and the body, this is the one that is so intimate, so close to us, that the overwhelming habit is to simply identify with them. How are you? I feel terrible today. My stomach feels bad. I've got a splitting headache. I feel really awful. Report an error in the passage at 6:53 Highlight the passage at 6:53

7:17 Or I feel great. I've just come from the spa. I had a nice workout. Had a really healthy breakfast. I feel terrific. How are you? I, I, I. And it can be very physical. That is when we're especially focusing on and identifying with the body. And of course it can be mental. How are you? I'm just delighted. I got this great news today. I was so anticipating and it came out just like I hoped for. Or the opposite. Report an error in the passage at 7:17 Highlight the passage at 7:17

7:41 And so just whenever feelings arise, whether they're purely psychological, whether they're somatic, whether they're related to the other four of the five senses, The sense of identifying with the feelings is enormously strong. And that makes us enormously vulnerable. And so here we're walking a slender line, that is a middle way here. Report an error in the passage at 7:41 Highlight the passage at 7:41

8:06 And that is the Buddhist response is not recoil, dissociate, pull back, escape from, anesthetize yourself from the big bad world, the big bad world of your body, the big bad world of the environment, or the big bad world of your mind. It's not that. It's not an escape mechanism. If you want an escape mechanism, you can go to drugs. They work very well. You can go to work. That can really anesthetize. Just lose yourself in work or lose yourself in entertainment. Report an error in the passage at 8:06 Highlight the passage at 8:06

8:34 So if we're looking for escape mechanisms, nobody does that better than the modern world, especially with this whole array of legal and illegal drugs we have. So escape mechanisms, we've already covered that one. And in India, classical India, they also had escape mechanisms. And that was by the very deep development of Samādhi. And that was charted territory, very well charted territory, before the Buddha ever came along. Report an error in the passage at 8:34 Highlight the passage at 8:34

8:58 It was almost certainly thousands of years old. Two, three thousand years old. The practice of Samādhi. It was one of the great contributions to global humanity by India. India gets a credit for that one. Not China, the Mayans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews. India really came up with that one. And it's so old. It was old by the time the Buddha came along. It was already a very ripe, mature, sophisticated, polished discipline. Report an error in the passage at 8:58 Highlight the passage at 8:58

9:25 One can call it a mental technology or contemplative technology of achieving incredibly rarefied states of samādhi. That's a whole topic there. I find it utterly fascinating. But it's one that our modern society really hasn't picked up on, even though it's just so obvious. Think India, think Samādhi. That was one of their major contributions. But for that whole 20th century in which the importance of attention was highlighted by William James and others, we made really no progress at all in developing methods for refining attention. Report an error in the passage at 9:25 Highlight the passage at 9:25

9:58 There was India just on the other side of the globe where many of them speak English and a lot of publications and simply oblivious that what we're completely lacking in India is just in spades. But coming back to the theme of escape, Long before the Buddha, then methods of refinement where one withdraws the attention, very deliberately, selective attention, just like the question of hearing the tap-tap sound or hearing the sound of traffic and so forth, or then having other stimuli factors coming in that kind of compete for one's attention. Report an error in the passage at 9:58 Highlight the passage at 9:58

10:30 Well, it's just going into override and saying, I know there are all these attractions or these poles on my attention, but I'm going to start working out in the Samādhi gym. And I'm going to simply train myself so I can focus without distraction, without being pulled away by the power of intention and then using very skillful means, relaxation, stillness, clarity and develop stability. Report an error in the passage at 10:30 Highlight the passage at 10:30

10:53 And how I'll do this is first of all withdraw my attention from the sensory fields and just to the body, for example, in mindfulness of breathing. That means I've blocked off most of the world. I've isolated myself from most of the world. And then as we will be exploring different samādhi methods over the next few days, we have just three and a half now, then one can even further withdraw, very selectively. Report an error in the passage at 10:53 Highlight the passage at 10:53

11:16 And that is just, yeah, very selectively. And then say, okay, now I'm no longer interested in the body, I'm going to focus just on the mind. And that is the thoughts, the images, memories, desires, everything comes up. I'm going to be focusing on that. And sensory stimuli coming in? Very well, but I'm not giving you any attention. Report an error in the passage at 11:16 Highlight the passage at 11:16

11:36 I'm going to focus only on the mind. And then one can withdraw even from the mind and go right into just the nature of awareness and not even be concerned with or attentive to thoughts, images, memories and so forth. Say, well, I'm not really interested right now, thanks very much. I'm just going to go into just being aware of being aware. Rarified, like distilled water with no coloration, no flavor, no nothing. Report an error in the passage at 11:36 Highlight the passage at 11:36

11:58 But that's just water. That's just H2O. And that's it. It's just clear consciousness. And then going into that, then one can go, one can, using that as kind of like a little wormhole or a portal into another dimension, and I mean that quite literally, you can slip right away from this so-called desire realm into a form realm. Report an error in the passage at 11:58 Highlight the passage at 11:58

12:19 This is all charted, very detailed, very elaborate, replicated thousands of times before the Buddha, slip right into another whole dimension of reality called the form realm. And then you can go sattra and sattra, more and more withdrawal. First jhāna, second, third, fourth. Getting more and more rarefied. And then you can slip into another dimension called the formless realm. Now you're really gone. It's not Nirvāṇa, but it's easily mistaken for Nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 12:19 Highlight the passage at 12:19

12:44 And then there are multiple samadhis in that. It's called boundless consciousness. You're not omniscient, but just to have a sense of just utterly boundless awareness. And then you go subtler than that into just boundless space. It was space first and then consciousness. Boundless space. And then you withdraw from that into boundless consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:02 Withdraw from that, you go into a state of sheer... Vacuity, sheer nothingness. And then you withdraw from that, you think, that must be the end. No, there's something more beyond it. Neither perception nor non-perception. It's called the pinnacle of saṃsāra. And all of that was charted before the Buddha. It's amazing. We had our strengths in the West. Report an error in the passage at 13:02 Highlight the passage at 13:02

13:22 The Jews had their strengths, the Greeks with all their reasoning and all of that. But in terms of samādhi, the Indians had that in spades. And that was the first thing the Buddha did. You know why well, yeah Report an error in the passage at 13:22 Highlight the passage at 13:22

13:32 In terms of his quest for liberation, the first thing he did was find first one and then two Samādhi masters. And he being the prodigy that he was, just an absolutely brilliant meditation prodigy, within a matter of a very short time, we don't know whether it was days or weeks, but very short, he rose right to the level, he achieved the same level of Samādhi, that sphere of nothingness, way up in the formless realm. Report an error in the passage at 13:32 Highlight the passage at 13:32

13:55 He achieved that. Blew away his teacher. Just amazed him, said, gosh. It took all the rest of us so long and he nailed it in a couple of weeks or something. And he invited the Gautama, this young 29-year-old man who just left a nice luxurious life as a prince. He said, come and teach with me. We'll be like Lama Isha and Lama Zopa, arm in arm. Come with me. I mean, you've matched me. Congratulations. So there's no jealousy, no haughtiness. Report an error in the passage at 13:55 Highlight the passage at 13:55

14:21 Just congratulations, dude. Let's teach together. But what Gautama found was that even though he had... Dissociated, I mean, really a very deep withdrawal. And you can stay there for days, weeks at a time and just come out for a cup of tea and then go back in again. But he thought when he came out, when he came out of Samādhi, the problems were still there. Report an error in the passage at 14:21 Highlight the passage at 14:21

14:44 That's what he saw. Whereas Tisha thought that was moksha, that was liberation. And the Gautama said, thanks, but no thanks, but I really appreciate it. And he found another Samādhi master who'd gone even further. So there's neither perception nor non-perception. The highest state of samādhi within saṃsāra. Lickety-split, he achieved that as well. The same thing happened. Report an error in the passage at 14:44 Highlight the passage at 14:44

15:05 Come with me, bud. Let's teach together. We'll be a dynamic duo. You know, Robin and Batman. You know, and once again he found when he came out, nothing had fundamentally changed. It was simply this droll, kind of like a rubber band, just stretched and after a while it just flicks back again. And when you come back, He saw that he was still fundamentally as vulnerable as ever. So no moksha. His teacher thought it was moksha. He said, no, I don't think so. And then he went off on six years of, like Thomas Edison trying to create a light bulb, just six years of trying one austerity after another, pranayama techniques, this technique, fasting techniques, one after another of mind over matter, just exerting his will and trying to conquer saṃsāra by the sheer, there's the mudrā, by the sheer power of will. Report an error in the passage at 15:05 Highlight the passage at 15:05

15:55 And that was a very common practice. It's common in Christianity, you know, the austerities and fasting and so forth, mind over matter. And he was extremely good at it. He was awesome. His five companions thought he was a cat's meow. And then finding that just didn't work either. That didn't work either. Report an error in the passage at 15:55 Highlight the passage at 15:55

16:14 It was just depleting him. And there was no deep liberation. So he really gave it a good shot, you know. First with Samādhi, and then the state-of-the-art techniques that people have this era, these wide array. It was really a very free-thinking society. It was not monolithic. Hinduism has never been monolithic. It's never had a church that could suppress thought and get everybody to line up and threaten them with how they diverge or excommunication and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 16:14 Highlight the passage at 16:14

16:41 If you've ever been to India, trying to get all the Indians to agree on one thing is like herding cats. It's hopeless, and it's always been hopeless. Report an error in the passage at 16:41 Highlight the passage at 16:41

16:51 And so there have always been many, many schools of Hinduism and then the non-orthodox, the Jainas and there were atheists and there were agnostics and there were skeptics. India has always been just a potpourri of all kinds of thoughts. Even when the Muslims came in and they have a pretty monolithic kind of approach, they couldn't tame them either. Report an error in the passage at 16:51 Highlight the passage at 16:51

17:11 Still those Indians say, I don't think so, I don't think so. And so there it is. So that's a little bit of background. But the Buddha's approach then is not... Simply samādhi. And it's not doping ourselves. It's the notion of religion being the opium of the people. Well, there's a lot of truth to that. Many people turn to religion and take it kind of as an opium, a kind of way to dull the senses and live in a fantasy land and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 17:11 Highlight the passage at 17:11

17:35 Marx was right to a certain extent. It often happens that religion can be the opium of the masses. My retort to that, though, is scientific materialism is the datura of the intellectuals. Report an error in the passage at 17:35 Highlight the passage at 17:35

17:52 That's the word. It's my little offering to humanity. I'll give Marx a high five. Report an error in the passage at 17:52 Highlight the passage at 17:52

18:03 So I said that would be a brief preamble. Now you know completely everybody will believe me whenever I say that. I always mean it and I'm always being honest, but it never turns out to be the case. But at least it's predictable, right? So where are we going to go now? is in a way replicate a practice we did earlier, we did it only once, and that's kind of this tour of the senses, you remember that, where we just settle down, mindfulness of breathing, then we bring the awareness to the visual, the auditory, olfactory, probably not much, taste not much, but then we come to the tactile, much, a lot of stuff happening there. Report an error in the passage at 18:03 Highlight the passage at 18:03

18:38 But instead of simply bringing this bare attention to it and simply observing the phenomena that are arising to us, which is valuable. Instead of that, we're now going to be focusing on feelings. So we use that as the baseline. So the shamatha is the baseline, shamatha is the platform for venturing into Vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 18:38 Highlight the passage at 18:38

18:58 But this time, and I won't say much more about it because I'll do it in a guided meditation, this time as we're bringing our attention, the mindfulness to the visual field, the auditory and then going quickly through the gustatory and olfactory to the tactile. And what we'll be really attending to closely, this close application of mindfulness, is the feelings that arise in our experience of the visual, the auditory and the tactile. Report an error in the passage at 18:58 Highlight the passage at 18:58

19:26 A final point on this is that as I gaze at Chukit's robes, for example, these lovely, I love the color of Tibetan Buddhist robes, the maroon, the burgundy, but as I gaze on the color of the robes, I find that color, I find it very pleasant. I like that color. And then it's very easy to say, well, that's a very nice color. That, and I point my finger, that's an attractive color. As if it's that attractiveness, the pleasure that I experience is in that fabric or in that color. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:59 And likewise, sounds. Oh, I love that song. That's a great song. And having a sense that the pleasure is in the song itself. Play it again. Play it again. Oh, play it again. Because I want that pleasure to come into me. And we know likewise for tactile, it's the same thing, that it's very, very easy to, it's called now reification. It's one of those overlays on reality. Report an error in the passage at 19:59 Highlight the passage at 19:59

20:24 That we see something, a beautiful piece of art, it's music, it's tactile sensation, it's fragrance, it's an incense, it's food. Oh, bring some more of that food, that food, that food. I point to it, that food is delicious. That food is just a little pile of joy. I just have to put it in my mouth and wow. Report an error in the passage at 20:24 Highlight the passage at 20:24

20:43 I got some joy. I just came in with the food. It was kind of like a joy train, you know, as if the pleasure is in the object itself. Well, it never is. At least that's a Buddhist hypothesis. The pleasure itself is not in the object. It never is. Of course, if it were, then everybody would pick it up. Everybody would love burgundy. Everybody would love peaches or mangoes or peanuts or everybody would hate, you know, something else. Report an error in the passage at 20:43 Highlight the passage at 20:43

21:09 I don't care for the taste of wine. I just don't care for it. But that means that wine doesn't taste good. Therefore, everybody who likes wine, you're all deluded. Because I know it doesn't taste good. I checked it out. I've checked out different types of wine. They all taste bad. And so if you disagree, well, you're wrong because I've tasted it. I know this for a fact. Wine tastes cruddy. It's sour grape juice. It went off, for heaven's sakes. Report an error in the passage at 21:09 Highlight the passage at 21:09

21:30 What part of stale grape juice don't you understand? Report an error in the passage at 21:30 Highlight the passage at 21:30

21:35 And I'm telling you the truth. That is what it tastes like. Except for, of course, we know that that's been a flagrant case of... The pleasure is in the mode of apprehension, it's not in the object, otherwise we'd all like and hate the same thing. But it ever so often feels that way. But how can you like that? That's disgusting. Why don't you like that? It's fantastic. And so to start understanding this, to examining it, examining it. Report an error in the passage at 21:35 Highlight the passage at 21:35

22:02 The general mode is when something makes us unhappy, makes us happy, gives us pleasure, gives us displeasure. We want to avoid it, or we want to hasten after it, and that sets us in motion. That makes us sentient beings. We're sentient beings and then we're on the move. We're on the move, especially in the desire realm. What looks good? Oh, let's get going. And then we're off on our merry chase to find that which will give us pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 22:02 Highlight the passage at 22:02

22:28 As if the pleasure's out there and we're off away from that because that's a terrible place or that's a terrible person or that's a terrible restaurant, etc., etc. That's a bad place and we're trying to get away from that. And all in the midst of that. Failing to recognize that the feelings are really entirely in the mode of apprehension and they're not in the optic, as much as appearance would suggest otherwise. Report an error in the passage at 22:28 Highlight the passage at 22:28

22:52 So, let's have some fun. Today's the day for feeling. Let's get into it. Report an error in the passage at 22:52 Highlight the passage at 22:52

· · · silence, 1 minute

24:00 We enter into this practice in the pursuit of well-being, greater meaning, fulfillment, genuine happiness. Report an error in the passage at 24:00 Highlight the passage at 24:00

24:11 Therefore, as we seek our own happiness, we may do so in the spirit of loving-kindness. Nothing selfish about it. It's realistic. Report an error in the passage at 24:11 Highlight the passage at 24:11

24:20 Loving kindness is a good place to start by developing loving kindness for ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 24:20 Highlight the passage at 24:20

24:28 So with this wish, this aspiration to find a greater sense of well-being, greater freedom from suffering, Report an error in the passage at 24:28 Highlight the passage at 24:28

24:38 let's settle the body, speech and mind in the natural states, relaxed, still and vigilant, and calm the turbulence of the conceptual mind for a little while with mindfulness of breathing. Report an error in the passage at 24:38 Highlight the passage at 24:38

· · · silence, 4 minutes

29:07 For a little while, let the eyes be open, Report an error in the passage at 29:07 Highlight the passage at 29:07

29:15 quietly attending to the visual appearances that arise to our awareness. But now with a special interest, is anything in your field of vision pleasing to you, attractive or unattractive? Report an error in the passage at 29:15 Highlight the passage at 29:15

29:35 Or the subtlest feeling, the most difficult one to discern is a feeling of neutrality, but it too is a feeling. Report an error in the passage at 29:35 Highlight the passage at 29:35

29:46 Closely apply your mindfulness to the feelings that arise in conjunction with your visual perceptions of this and that. And Report an error in the passage at 29:46 Highlight the passage at 29:46

· · · silence, 1 minute

31:07 let's close the eyes and Report an error in the passage at 31:07 Highlight the passage at 31:07

31:13 turn the attention to the auditory field. Not a whole lot to hear right now, but listen closely. Does anything strike you as pleasant or unpleasant or only neutral? Report an error in the passage at 31:13 Highlight the passage at 31:13

· · · silence, 1 minute

31:58 Now let's skip right through the olfactory and the gustatory. Not much content right now, but you can save that for mealtime. Observing closely the feelings that arise as you smell the food, as you taste the food, rather than simply focusing on the food, closely apply your mindfulness to the feelings that arise. Report an error in the passage at 31:58 Highlight the passage at 31:58

32:22 As you smell it, you taste it, you feel the texture of the food. That's a note for later. But now let's turn the attention to this very rich field, three-dimensional field of the body. Report an error in the passage at 32:22 Highlight the passage at 32:22

32:45 Let's start with the baseline of the tactile sensations arising within this field. The tactile sensations of earth, any sensations of solidity and firmness, of water, Report an error in the passage at 32:45 Highlight the passage at 32:45

32:57 that is moisture, of fire, the whole gradient from cold to heat, and finally the air element, any sensations at all of motion, motion in place as in vibration, tingling. Emotion through space. Attend closely to the field and observe these various elements arising and passing from the space of the body and dissolving back into that space. Report an error in the passage at 32:57 Highlight the passage at 32:57

· · · silence, 1 minute

34:57 In terms of the bare tactile sensations presenting themselves to your tactile perception or awareness, can you detect any tactile or somatic sensations other than those corresponding to earth, water, fire, air? Or is that inclusive? Check closely. Are there just four elements in terms of this first-person physics? Or can you discern something else arising objectively within the space of the body? Report an error in the passage at 34:57 Highlight the passage at 34:57

· · · silence, 1 minute

36:55 And then let's turn to feelings, closely applying mindfulness to the mode in which we apprehend these tactile sensations. Report an error in the passage at 36:55 Highlight the passage at 36:55

37:08 Although it may seem the sensations themselves objectively are by their very nature pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. As with visual impressions, sounds and so on, check more closely, examine, Report an error in the passage at 37:08 Highlight the passage at 37:08

37:28 to see whether it's in fact true that the pleasure, the displeasure, the indifference are not in the object. They are in the way we are apprehending the object. Report an error in the passage at 37:28 Highlight the passage at 37:28

· · · silence, 1 minute

39:09 Tactical sensations themselves, the pleasure, displeasure, indifference, by way of which, or by means of which, apprehend those sensations. And when a feeling arises, such as displeasure, it very naturally gives rise to desire. Desire that may trigger intention. Intention triggers movement. Report an error in the passage at 39:09 Highlight the passage at 39:09

39:41 So if you feel any impulse to move any part of your body, Report an error in the passage at 39:41 Highlight the passage at 39:41

39:49 observe the feeling, most likely a feeling of discomfort, that triggered that desire. And rather than simply carrying through with the desire, examine the feeling that triggered it. Report an error in the passage at 39:49 Highlight the passage at 39:49

· · · silence, 1 minute

41:18 The whole point here is to observe, to closely examine the arising and passing of feelings instead of simply identifying with them. While attending to the object that we're experiencing with a certain feeling. Let the feelings themselves become the object of your attention so that you do not dissociate from them or withdraw from them. Report an error in the passage at 41:18 Highlight the passage at 41:18

41:48 You simply don't grasp onto and identify with them. By examining them closely, you may gain insight into their nature, which will not happen when we're simply identifying with them and focusing on the objects that seem to arouse or catalyze the feeling. Report an error in the passage at 41:48 Highlight the passage at 41:48

· · · silence, 1 minute

43:03 The carrier. But this practice of Vipassanā can still be your mindfulness of the in and out breathing, something continuous, something to, in a manner of speaking, hold on to, point of reference, while Report an error in the passage at 43:03 Highlight the passage at 43:03

43:27 continuously sustaining that mindfulness of the sensations of the in and out breathing, and keep alert to the arising of feelings in the body, and examine them closely when they arrive. Report an error in the passage at 43:27 Highlight the passage at 43:27