This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video The Way to the Far Shore Pārāyanavagga: Sutta Nipāta Book Five with Leigh Brasington (2 of 2). It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The Way to the Far Shore Pārāyanavagga: Sutta Nipāta Book Five (2 of 2) - Leigh Brasington

The following talk was given by Leigh Brasington at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on March 03, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

The Way to the Far Shore Pārāyanavagga: Sutta Nipāta Book Five (2 of 2)

So, the way to the far shore. In the chat, there's a link to a page which is the page that you see on the screen. There's something about the sutta numbers you should know if you aren't familiar: there are two ways of numbering the suttas from Book Five of the Sutta Nipāta—the zero-relative and the one-relative. I'm using the zero-relative because, well, as a mathematician, that makes sense to me. I sort of want the first sutta to be number one; that just seems to make more sense than the first sutta being number two.

You might want to familiarize yourself with this because we'll be looking at the Pali as well as the English, and we will look at the Pali from someone who's numbering them the "wrong" way. Also on here, the speakers have various ways they call the Buddha. They refer to him as the Blessed One, the Great Seer, the Sakyan, Good Sir, whatever. I collected all of those and put them in here. I won't go over them now, but it's kind of interesting to look at. I have information on the translation, and this page basically tells you an easy way to find the Pali and the suttas.

The most important part is the summaries, because that's what we're going to be looking at. Where we left off last week was the next one: the Questions of Kappa. To get the Pali here so that when I double-click something it gives me the meaning, you click on "Views" and then "English" (or Spanish or Portuguese or whatever), and then "Line by line."

The Questions of Kappa

Okay, so we can start in with the Questions of Kappa:

"For those overwhelmed by old age and death, stuck midstream as a terrifying flood arises, tell me an island, Good Sir. Explain to me an island so that this may not occur again."

So, the image of saṃsāra¹ being a flood that overwhelms people is quite common in the suttas, and it shows up in multiple places here. You're in the stream, the flood is rising—where is an island you can escape to? An island is a very common simile for Nibbāna². There's a fantastic book called The Island by Ajahn Amaro and Ajahn Pasanno on Nibbāna. It is a free download, highly recommended if you're interested in reading about what the suttas have to say about Nibbāna.

Kappa is saying, "Yeah, saṃsāra is a problem, how can I escape?" The Buddha's reply uses the word dīpa³. Dīpa means either island or lamp. The famous saying from the Buddha towards the end of his life, "Be a dīpa unto yourself," is a pun: be an island unto yourself, or be a lamp unto yourself. I suspect both are meant. Here, given this is a flood, I'm pretty sure it refers to an island.

The Buddha replies:

"For those overwhelmed by old age and death, stuck midstream as a terrifying flood arises, I shall tell you an island. Having nothing, taking nothing, this is the island of no return. No return to the flood."

We often use the phrase "a point of no return" like it sounds like, "Oh, this is it, we're stuck." Well, yeah, you want to be stuck on the island that's free from the flood! That's what it's referring to here.

It is translated as "extinguishment," but the word you might be familiar with is Nibbāna—the ending of old age and death. So, "having nothing, taking nothing"—this is renunciation. As a monastic, you really can get down to having nothing, taking nothing—three robes and a bowl. But as lay people (and I can tell pretty easily that everybody here is lay people just by your haircuts and your dress), we're going to need more than just three robes and a bowl. But we do need to come to terms with our possessions.

We need to ignore what the culture is telling us. The culture basically is saying, "If you've got a problem, buy this, it's on sale." Whereas what the Buddha is saying is, well, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. We want to try and get to a place where we're using our possessions in a way that supports us being alive, but we're not lost in them. George Carlin has a great routine on "stuff." It's on YouTube. After we finish up today, you might want to go to YouTube and plug in "George Carlin Stuff" and watch his routine, because he really captures how we in Western civilization are overwhelmed by our stuff.

Ayya Khema⁴ said that every six months or so you should go through all of your possessions and anything that you haven't used or worn, give it away. Just unburden yourself. So, this particular paragraph, "having nothing, taking nothing," for lay people means come to terms with your possessions. Practice renunciation. You don't need a new car every year. You don't need every version of the iPhone.

I could go on about renunciation, but I won't. It is an important part of the path, and it goes against culture. You're not going to get any support for it from the culture.

The text continues:

"Those who have fully understood this, mindful, are extinguished in this very life. They don't fall under Māra's⁵ sway, nor are they his lackeys."

Māra, of course, is the devil or the angel of death. To overcome old age and death—Māra—then practice renunciation is what is being said here. When you're looking at the world not in terms of "what can I acquire," but in terms of "what's the minimum I need for my support," now you're beginning to see the world in a way that's much more closely aligned with Nibbāna. Remember that dukkha⁶ arises because of craving and clinging. What are we craving? To get stuff. What are we clinging to? The stuff we've already got. If you're not dealing with getting and having, well, now you're not falling into saṃsāra. You're not falling into dukkha. This is Nibbāna.

Q&A: Dictionaries and Translations

Claralynn: Hi Leigh. It's more of a comment than a question, and it's just for anyone who does want to follow along with the Pali now or later. The definitions that come up at the bottom, those are automatically generated. So they're not always correct. They're usually good, but every once in a while if you get one that doesn't fit, that's because the computer guessed wrong.

Leigh: Right. Yeah, this is AI, but the "I" is not that great, but it's definitely artificial.

Victoria: Thanks Leigh. This was actually a question for Claralynn and for you about the AI situation. Do you know if AI is programmed in such a way as to give preference to more likely translations first, or is it totally randomized?

Leigh: Somebody wrote a little piece of HTML code, and when I double-click a word, it goes and looks in the database and points to whatever it has, and then it displays what's there. It has nothing to do with the context at all. It's just what's there.

Claralynn: Can I add something to that? If you go to the Pali-English Dictionary (PED), you'll see that references are given for different definitions. The language that you find in this collection of old suttas may be different from language in later suttas, which may be different from language in the commentaries. The references that the PED gives you reflect the different meanings in the different periods and strata of texts. None of that is captured usually with the AI.

Leigh: If you are not familiar with the Pali-English Dictionary, I have a free-to-download version of it for your computer. Or, you can find it online. It's much easier to deal with if you have an internet connection, but if you don't, it's really nice to still have the dictionary available.

The Questions of Jatukaṇṇī

Okay, moving on:

"Hearing of a hero with no desires for sensual pleasures, who has passed over the flood, I've come with a question for that desireless one. Tell me the state of peace, O natural visionary. Tell me this, Blessed One, as it really is."

So, "you are not entangled in sensual desire and have passed over the flood to the far shore. Tell me the state of peace." We hear the mythology that the Buddha left home because he saw an old person, a sick person, a dead person, and a renunciate. But that's mythology. The story does appear in the suttas, but for a previous Buddha in the long discourse number 14 (Mahāpadāna Sutta), which is obviously a mythological discourse.

In Sutta Nipāta 4.15 (Attadaṇḍasutta), he indicates he left home because he was seeking peace. He was from the Sakyans, which is a warrior culture. Think of where the Buddha grew up as a macho culture where people are always quarreling. He wasn't into quarreling, and he was seeking some peace. That's why he left home. One of the things that was disturbing, of course, is old age, sickness, and death, and definitely he was looking for some way to deal with that.

The questioner recognizes that he's going to know something about the state of peace.

"For having mastered sensual pleasures, the Blessed One proceeds as the blazing sun shines on the earth. May you, of vast wisdom, explain the teaching to me, of little wisdom, so that I may understand the giving up of birth and old age here."

The translation says "rebirth," but it's just "birth" (jāti). People have their immortality projects, including translators, and so there is a tendency to stick "rebirth" in there as a support for their immortality project when the Pali actually just says "birth." So old age and birth, right here. Since you understand sensual desires, you've mastered them, please explain this to me.

"With sensual desires dispelled, seeing renunciation as sanctuary, don't be taking up or putting down anything at all."

Don't get lost in acquiring or rejecting. Don't get lost in the first two hindrances: sensual desire and aversion.

"Let what came before wither away, and after, let there be nothing. If you don't grasp at the middle, you will live in peace."

The "before" is usually thought of as the past. The "after" is the future. And the "middle" is the present.

"One rid of greed for the whole realm of name and form has no defilements by which they might fall under the sway of death."

"Name and form"—this is nāmarūpa⁷. It's a very interesting phrase. It doesn't seem to be always used the same way in the suttas. Often in dependent origination, it's talked about as mind and body, or mentality and materiality. But it also seems to have a sense of concept and manifestation. So if I say to you "cell phone," that's a concept. You know what I'm talking about. But if I wave this box in front of your face, that's a manifestation. So "cell phone" is nāma (name/concept), and this box here in my hand is the rūpa (form/manifestation).

Basically, the whole world is a world of concepts and manifestations. Actually, there's a manifestation, and then we put a concept on it. You get something through your senses—that's when it's manifesting—and then you attach a concept to it. When one is rid of greed for the whole realm of name and form, one has no defilements by which they might fall under the sway of death. In other words, there's no craving or clinging. And if there's no craving or clinging, there's no dukkha. And this is what is meant by Nibbāna.

Q&A: Texts and Nāmarūpa

Bindu: Hi Leigh. Can you please reiterate the two suttas that you mentioned at the beginning about the Bodhisattva leaving his family or clan to seek peace, rather than the traditional one?

Leigh: Yeah, one is Sutta Nipāta 4.15 (Attadaṇḍasutta), where he says he left home seeking peace. And in the long discourses at Dīgha Nikāya 14, there's the mythological story of the previous Buddha, Vipassī, who went out and saw old age, sickness, and death. To get the complete picture, Majjhima Nikāya 26 (Ariyapariyesana Sutta) is a story of the Buddha's awakening. In there, he says that he sought some way to overcome old age, sickness, and death and found it. It's clear he was looking for a way to overcome old age, sickness, and death, as well as looking for peace. The two are kind of synonymous; if you're not troubled by old age, sickness, and death, that's peaceful.

Chuck: This is maybe too complex a question, but in Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda's The Nibbāna Sermons, he says that nāmarūpa has a special importance in dependent origination, and he uses the simile of a vortex. So it's not so much a looping chain, it's more that you get caught in this quagmire of nāmarūpa. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Leigh: I have not read the Nibbāna Sermons fully, though they are certainly recommended. The one thing I would say about dependent origination: don't take the twelve links as a single description of anything. Think of it as a mnemonic device for remembering a collection of necessary conditions, rather than an explanation of any single thing within that collection. There are bits and pieces that are strung together over longer periods of time. If you want more detail on that, you can download my free book on dependent origination and emptiness.

Anita: I wondered if you could talk more about nāmarūpa. Are you saying any other time he uses nāmarūpa, it means concept and manifestation, or are there other contexts in which he uses it?

Leigh: It's used in different ways depending on the context. Sometimes it's very clearly mind and body (e.g., Dīgha Nikāya 15). Other places, it's more like manifestation and concept. Nāmarūpa is a phrase that I am still working on. You come across a phrase in the Pali, and you look at it, and it doesn't quite fit everywhere. Occasionally you find something that clicks. Saṅkhāra⁸ is a great example. Lots of places it's translated "karmic formations," "mental activities"—what the heck is it? And then "fabrications" from Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, or "concoctions" from Santikaro, and suddenly, "Oh, they're talking about things that are made." But I haven't gotten it to go "click" for nāmarūpa.

I don't think it's possible because over the period of time that the suttas were composed, it was used in multiple ways depending on the context. Just like the word dhamma: sometimes it means mind objects, sometimes phenomena, sometimes doctrine, sometimes the Buddha's teachings. You have to figure it out from the context. There is no one right way to translate it.

Maya: In my own practice, when I look at the qualities that make up individuality (attention, contact, intention, perception, feeling) as nāma, and the four elements as rūpa, they are together. When I go to nāmarūpa in practice, I notice the sense of self arising and making conditionality kick in. But when I notice that the sense of self is doing it, that footing goes away, the defilement goes away, and concentration rises up. How do you look at it?

Leigh: The way you describe it is very useful, and in many contexts, that is what's going on. But in other contexts, it's actually being used differently. For this particular sentence we read ("One rid of greed for the whole realm of name and form..."), the way I'm going to practice with it is to pay attention to my greed. When do I want something? It's greed for anything in the world. I'm only going to take the nāmarūpa part as "anything in the world," and I'm going to practice mostly with the greed on this. When greed arises, I try and notice it, and that's what I practice with.

The Questions of Bhadrāvudha

Okay, the next one. This guy clearly liked epithets.

"I beseech the shelter-giver, the craving-cutter, the imperturbable, the delight-leaver, the flood-crosser, the freed, the formulation-leaver, the intelligent... different people have gathered from across the nations wishing to hear your word, O Hero."

What was the question? He had lots of epithets in there, but basically: teach us Dhamma.

"Dispel all craving for attachments, above, below, all around, between. For whatever a person grasps in the world, Māra pursues them right there."

This is the Second Noble Truth. It's not given as the Second Noble Truth, but this is it. Don't do the craving thing, because that's how Māra pursues you.

"So let a mindful mendicant (bhikkhu) who understands not grasp at anything in the world, observing that in clinging to attachments, these people cling to the domain of death."

This is a very flowery teaching on the Second Noble Truth. Dukkha arises dependent on craving or clinging. If you don't have it and you want it, that's craving. If you got it and don't want to let go of it, that's clinging. The Third Noble Truth is: if you don't want dukkha, don't do the craving and clinging.

The word translated as "attachments" is usually upadhi⁹. Upadhi is all the accoutrements of your lifestyle—your iPhone, your car, your favorite sweater. "So let a practitioner who understands not grasp at anything in the world, observing that in clinging to upadhi (the accoutrements of your lifestyle), these people cling to the domain of death."

Q&A: Grasping and Upadhi

Victor: I just wanted to clarify—you refer to the accoutrements of our life and the sensual things we can grasp. It seems to me that renunciation for those things is relatively easy compared to renunciation for our habits, our views and opinions, and our very sense of self. I think the teaching is that we need to abandon grasping to all of those factors as well.

Leigh: You're exactly right. I think the word upadhi tends to refer to the accoutrements of one's lifestyle, but anything you're grasping at—"I'm a Dhamma teacher," "I'm an American"—anything like that is a source of dukkha. We can grasp at anything. The one that's the biggest problem, as you say, is the sense of self, because craving and clinging require a craver and a clinger. If there's nobody who wants to get it, there's no craving. If we can uproot that sense of self, then there's nobody there to do the craving and clinging. No craving and clinging, no dukkha.

Claralynn: Both of those are actually reflected in this verse. We have upadhi in a verb form, so it's saying give up taking up these accoutrements. But then we've got ādāna, and that is pointing to grasping more generally—being entangled in grasping.

Victoria: We have this pervasive phenomenon in the modern world of people Clinging on to dukkha. They know it's dukkha, and they cling to it. Is there evidence of that back in the suttas, of people who are mired in dukkha and want to stay there?

Leigh: Yes, this is mentioned in the suttas. I don't have a reference offhand, but this idea that someone has something that is not helpful for them but they won't let it go is definitely there. Sometimes people cling to something, and they do see it as dukkha, but they won't let it go. Here, people don't understand that it's dukkha, I think, is what is being pointed to.

The Questions of Udaya

"For the meditator rid of hopes, who has completed the task, is free of defilements, and has gone beyond all things, I've come seeking with a question: tell me the liberation by awakening, the smashing of ignorance."

"Completed the task" is the victory cry of the arahants: "One knows this is the end of birth, what had to be done has been done, there's nothing further to do here."

He's asking, what is the liberation by awakening, the smashing of ignorance, and the way to get there?

"The giving up of both sensual desires and displeasures, the dispelling of dullness, and the prevention of remorse."

I'm going to throw a phrase out there for you: the Five Hindrances (nīvaraṇa)¹⁰. You see four of the hindrances right there. Sensual desire. Aversion (displeasures). Dullness (sloth and torpor). Remorse (restlessness and remorse). This appears to be a very early teaching on the hindrances, and the hindrances are what's necessary to overcome in order to enter the jhānas¹¹.

The text starts with "For the meditator..." The word jhāyī literally means the practitioner of meditation, or the jhāna practitioner. Claralynn pointed out that there is a great pun in the Pali here. The word for hindrance is nīvaraṇa (with a long 'i'), and the word used here for prevention is nivāraṇa (with a short 'i' and long 'a'). It's a wonderful wordplay.

The Buddha continues:

"With mindfulness fully purified by equanimity, with the investigation of principles that lead the way... this I declare is liberation by enlightenment, the smashing of ignorance."

"Mindfulness fully purified by equanimity" is exactly the description of the Fourth Jhāna. With a mind that is fully concentrated and has equanimity, one investigates the principles that lead the way, understanding what's really going on. This is very similar to what we find in the Gradual Training. You abandon the hindrances, practice the jhānas up to the fourth, and then with a mind concentrated, clear, and bright, you direct it to investigating reality (insight or vipassanā). This sutta could be thought of as the granddaddy of the Gradual Training.

The questioner continues:

"What fetters the world? How can we examine that? With the giving up of what is Nibbāna spoken of?"

The Buddha replies:

"Delight fetters the world. We examine by means of thought. With the giving up of craving, Nibbāna is spoken of."

Think about the things you're entangled in—it's because they're delightful. We can explore this by thinking and pondering (vitakka and vicāra) about what's going on. Giving up craving brings us right back to the Second Noble Truth.

"For one living mindfully, how does consciousness cease?"

The Buddha replies:

"Not taking pleasure in feeling (vedanā) internally and externally. For one living mindfully, that's how consciousness comes to an end."

Consciousness coming to an end is mentioned in the verses at the end of Dīgha Nikāya 11 (Kevaṭṭa Sutta). This is the story about the monk who goes up through the various heavens wanting to know where the four elements cease without remainder. He gets to Brahmā, who says, "I don't know, ask the Buddha." The Buddha says, "You put the question wrong. It's 'Where do the four elements no footing find? Where do high and low, long and short, beautiful and ugly come to an end? And where does name and form (nāmarūpa) come to an end?'"

And the answer is: with consciousness that is signless, limitless, and all-illuminating (viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ).

What is signless? You all know this is a cell phone. Why? Because of the signs: it's a screen, it's a rectangle, it's thin, it's got buttons on the side. Consciousness that is signless is consciousness that's not taking the sensory input and conceptualizing it. It's just taking in the sensory input.

If you're familiar with the advice to Bāhiya: "In the seeing, there will only be seeing; in hearing, only hearing; in sensing, only sensing; in cognizing, only cognizing... there's no you in that, no you in this, no you in between. Just this is the end of dukkha."

Can you experience the world prior to conceptualizing your experience? That's how divided, concept-bound consciousness ceases. Don't get lost in seeking pleasure externally through your senses or internally through your mind. Live mindfully.

The Questions of Posāla

This next one is a very cryptic sutta. I don't think it's talking about the seventh jhāna.

"To the one who points out the past, the unmoved one who has cut off doubt, who is perfect in everything, I have come in need of a question. For the one for whom perception of form has ended, who on the inside and outside is seeing there is nothing whatsoever, I ask about his knowledge: how is such a one led further?"

Last week we had a sutta that some people thought was referring to the seventh jhāna. Well, guess what, they think this one is the seventh jhāna too, because it says "seeing there is nothing whatsoever." I'm saying no, this is "no-thingness."

The Buddha answers:

"All the stations of consciousness the Realized One knows..."

The "stations of consciousness" are talked about in great detail in Dīgha Nikāya 15 (Mahānidāna Sutta). There are seven of them, the highest one being the realm of nothingness (the seventh jhāna). So people take this to mean the seventh jhāna. I'm not buying it.

Claralynn brought up a brilliant point: "stations of consciousness" can just be read as "places where consciousness lands and labels things." Not progressive meditative stages, but literally where your consciousness lands on an object and says "dog" or "computer." It's the process of landing on concepts.

The Buddha continues:

"Having known the origin of no-thingness, and that enjoyment is a fetter, knowing deeply that it is so, and then having insight into this, this is real knowledge for him, the Brahman who is accomplished."

I think what the Buddha is saying here is about the cessation of divided knowing. Viññāṇa is literally "divided knowing." When you stop chopping up the holistic universe into a bunch of bits and pieces, you stop "thing-ifying" the universe and experience it "raw."

We don't experience the real universe; we only experience our senses. You've never seen anything ever except neurological activity in your visual cortex. We have to interact with the world by taking the holistic universe and dividing it up into bits and pieces: "this is a person," "this is glasses," "this is a curtain." If someone can get to the point where they're not fooled by their "thing-ifying" and directly understand what this means, one then sees the matter clearly.

Mostly we're entangled in our concepts. Think about all of the political division in the world today. What are people arguing about? Concepts. When is a human being a human being? Does life start at conception? That's a concept. Does it start at birth? That's a concept. People are arguing about their concepts. You can't argue about reality because without your concepts you can't actually express what you think reality is.

The trick is not to get rid of concepts; the trick is to not be fooled by your conceptualizing.

The Questions of Mogharāja

This is my favorite of all the suttas we're going to talk about. The word Mogharāja can mean "king of foolishness" or "king of emptiness/vainness."

"Twice I've asked the Sakyan, but you haven't answered me, O Clear-Eyed One. I have heard that the divine seer answers when questioned a third time."

This shows up multiple times in the suttas. You ask the Buddha something and he doesn't answer until you ask him three times.

"Regarding this world, the other world, and the realm of Brahmā with its gods... how should one look upon the world so the king of death won't see you?"

That's an interesting question. How should I view the federal government so the IRS cannot see me? Why would viewing something differently keep you from dying? But the Buddha has a brilliant answer:

"Look upon the world as empty (suññatā)¹², ever mindful (sadā sato). Having uprooted the view of self, you may thus cross over death. That's how to look upon the world so the king of death won't see you."

What does it mean to view the world as empty? In Saṃyutta Nikāya 35.85, Ānanda asks: "Empty is the world, empty is the world. In what way, Venerable Sir, is it said 'empty is the world'?" The Buddha replies: "It is because it is empty of self and of what belongs to a self."

The eye is empty of self and what belongs to a self. Sights are empty of self. Eye-consciousness is empty of self. Eye-contact is empty of self. Whatever feeling (vedanā) arises with eye-contact as condition—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—that too is empty of self. And the same for the other senses: ear and sounds, nose and smells, tongue and tastes, body and tangibles, mind and mind-objects.

So viewing the world as empty means looking at your sense organs and their objects—the physical world out there and your internal processing—and seeing they are empty of self.

The Buddha talks about how we process our sensory input in the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta (The Honeyball Sutta, MN 18). There is the object, there is the organ, and there is sense consciousness. Those three coming together is contact (phassa). That's followed by feeling (vedanā). The feeling is not under your control. The first time it comes under your control is at saññā—the perception or conceptualization step. That's where we say, "It's my cell phone, it's my clock." We put the self in there as part of our concept.

We need to see that the self is something we're projecting on top of the sensory input. If we don't give birth to a self, we don't give birth to the craver or the clinger. This is the deathless.

The Questions of Piṅgiya

"I am old, feeble, and pallid. My eyes are unclear, my hearing faint. Don't let me perish while still confused. Explain the teaching so that I may understand the giving up of birth and old age here."

The Buddha answers:

"Seeing them harmed on account of forms, on account of forms these negligent folks are afflicted. Therefore, being diligent, give up form so as not to be reborn."

Seeing people attached to materiality, "thing-ifying" the world, and getting attached. Give up craving so as not to give birth to yourself as the owner of form.

"In these ten directions, there is nothing at all in the world you've not seen, heard, thought, or cognized. Explain the teaching so that I may understand the giving up of birth and old age here."

The Buddha replies:

"Observing people sunk in craving, tormented, mired in old age... therefore, being diligent, give up craving so as not to be reborn."

The advice is simple, but hard to do: don't get lost in the world of forms, don't get attached, don't do the craving and clinging thing. "Seen, heard, thought, or cognized" is a very common framing from the Upanishads, which is also used in the Bāhiya Sutta ("seen, heard, sensed, cognized").

Conclusion and General Q&A

Claralynn: I wanted to note that in Piṅgiya's question, the word he uses is jāti (birth). But the answer the Buddha gives at the very end uses the word apunabbhavāya—no further becoming. Bhava can be existence, but it also has the broader sense of becoming. Anything you want to become—someone who is rich, someone who has less gray hair. It breaks it open beyond just an afterlife to any kind of becoming.

Victoria: That makes so much sense! If you give up the self and just live moment to moment, then the whole issue of rebirth or life after death just evaporates because all we have is now. The desire for rebirth is like the desire for immortality, the desire for a second chance.

Barton: When you were talking about concepts and dependent origination, I kept thinking about quantum physics. Is there overlap there?

Leigh: Yes, there's a lot of stuff in modern science that can be very helpful for understanding what the Buddha is talking about. Carlo Rovelli's book Helgoland points out that things arise dependent on other things. Seeing the interconnected nature of things in physics helps apply those same principles to our minds and the external world. Science isn't talking about pleasant and unpleasant vedanā and clinging, but the foundational principle of dependent origination—that everything exists only in relation to other things—is the same.

Maya: In concentration practice (jhāna), I really notice there's no sense of self, senses are bare, and there's a non-duality happening. Are we practicing a gradual "unbecoming" from conditionality?

Leigh: What we're trying to do with our meditation is get a mind that's quiet enough (concentration), so that when we start examining reality (insight), we see what's actually happening. We start seeing there's no self found in any of this. If we get deep enough, we realize that we are the ones dividing up the holistic universe into bits and pieces. We want to go far enough in that direction so it leaves us in a place where we have a deep enough understanding that we don't do the craving and clinging, and therefore we escape dukkha.

Alex: A technical question about translations. Why are we using older dictionary technology? Neural translation models (AI) are getting very good for low-resource languages like Pali.

Leigh: AI is getting better, but it's not quite there yet for Pali. If you ask current AI about jhānas, it confuses Vipassanā jhānas, Visuddhimagga jhānas, and Sutta jhānas. It doesn't know what it's talking about yet because it hasn't been properly fine-tuned on the specific contexts of the early texts. Right now, this work is mostly done by dedicated individuals in their spare time, like Bhikkhu Sujato and others at SuttaCentral.

Claralynn: To add to that, translating Pali isn't just a cognitive, top-down process. Ayya Khema used to say, "The translators didn't meditate, and the meditators didn't translate." We need more people who can translate and have deep meditation practices, because you have to dig deep into your own practice to understand what these words actually mean experientially.

Leigh: That is so true. What you get from me is based on reading a bunch of translations, filtered through my own practice and my experiential understanding of what is being pointed to.