I think we started in the Kamadhatu and we said that from a Kamadhatu situation of having good karma, you can go here to bad karma in the Kamadhatu. You can go to good karma in the Kamadhatu. You can go to bad karma in the Kamadhatu. You can go to undefiled neutral. You can go to defiled neutral in the Kamadhatu. You can go to Undefiled Neutral Nakama Datu. You can go to Kushala of the Rupa Datu. You can go to... You can't go to Akushala of the Rupa Datu. Why? What? There is none. You can go to... Can you go to Defiled Neutral of the Rupa Datu? Yes. And why? How? If a person in the Kamadhatu dies and is reborn.

[01:09]

If you die in the Kamadhatu, you're reborn in the reproductive. You're reborn in this nivritta, avyaputta. And why is that? Birth consciousness is always. OK. And anivritta, I mean, . Well, I shouldn't skip over that. That's not quite the whole story on this one. He said birth consciousness is always defiled. But a little bit more explanation of that would be that the birth consciousness is defiled. That's true, right? But the birth consciousness is not the consciousness we're talking about, is it?

[02:11]

Now we're talking about here, right? We're talking about coming from kushala. Coming from Kusula. He said, birth consciousness is always defiled. That's true. But is this right here birth consciousness? What? No, it's not birth consciousness. This is being located in the rupa dhatu. in a defiled neutral state. Now, if you die in the Kamadhatu and you are reborn in the Rupa Dhatu, what it says, I can just say here, maybe it doesn't say why,

[03:30]

It says, the ascetic who enters into absorption, nāstasa, nivṛtta, when a person who dies in the Kamadhatu with a good mind passes into the intermediate existence in the Rūpadhatu. Okay? So you die in the Kamadhatu and you pass into intermediate existence in the Rūpadhatu. And it says that if you ... In Karka, in Chapter 3 there, Karka 38, it says that, if among the passions there is one that does not defile the mind of rebirth,

[04:33]

But the rebirth takes place through the person. That's not it. Anyway, when you die, what happens is, of course, do your disgust with incarnation. I was talking about this this weekend, that one of the reasons why you take on a body, why one is wise to take on a body is by getting a body, you get something which has a lot of muscle tone. especially if you get a human body rather than a mollusc body or something. And by getting that tone, which is also sometimes called definition, you put some definition to some of your thinking which you couldn't do otherwise, which is one of the reasons why wise bodhisattvas choose to be human beings. When you die, either before you die or at least after you decide to die, give rise to death consciousness, you lose the definition in your body, the definition your body gives you.

[05:36]

And even though you're in a good state of mind when you die, your good state of mind becomes, in a sense, loses its definition, because your body loses definition, and things get pretty fuzzy. Therefore, when you're born in the Rupa Dattu, in this case, intermediate existence, as a result of this death consciousness, which follows a good state, death consciousness is also undefiled neutral. I think. I don't know. I have to check that. Anyway, all the passions of your life will be able to... Not all the passions of your life, but if you have had passions in your life, and most people have, they'll be able to express themselves. And your effort, which is good karma... will no longer be able to have the kind of definition to interfere with him. So he'll be undefiled neutral, even though you're born in a situation which is pretty good, namely Rupadhatu.

[06:42]

Strictly speaking, it sounds like one of two things. Either death consciousness can be good, and then now death consciousness is followed by intermediate existence, which is defiled and neutral. Or they kind of skipped death consciousness in this little explanation here. So let's assume For now, that is one of those two. And if they're being straightforward with us in this treatment, I would assume that death consciousness can be good. That the moment of dying, the consciousness can be good, even while you're deciding, well, I want to die. So it is possible, perhaps, then, to have death consciousness be good.

[08:10]

Because you see, this is immediate succession here that we have here. We have had no examples of an intermediate state of existence, which would be required in the case of good, what we call purva-kala-bhava, which is ordinary existence within a destiny, then followed by death consciousness, and then by the state which we're supposed to be talking about following it. So let's assume, then, that death consciousness is good in this case. As you die, a person dies in death consciousness, in the Kamadhatu, with a good mind. As you die, marana bhava or marana citta is good. But marana citta still coexists with the body. Now, you lose the body, it becomes goes flat and gets flaccid and gooey when you leave it.

[09:18]

And so you have trouble continuing your good effort. So you go into undefiled neutral. But you also, from there, if you go into the rupa dhatu, you also have trouble getting in much trouble. So it's neutral, but it's defiled. Because now there's no way for your good efforts at the moment of death, or maybe several moments before that, there's no way for them to perpetuate themselves. Now this is not me. that everybody who dies goes to rupadattu, intermediate realm, defiled neutral, okay? Please don't think that. What it means is that that could happen. All right? What are some other possibilities?

[10:23]

Stay in the kamadattu. Stay in the kamadattu, yes. Kamadattu what? Kamadhatu, what realm or what gati? Intermediate existence is a kind of a gati. It's not really a gati. You know what a gati is? Destiny. It's a kind of destiny, but not really. It's really the destiny between destinies. That's why it's called middle destiny or in-between destiny. So if he says you can stay in the Kamadhatu, so then I say, and what destiny would you be in? Where would you be in terms of destinies? In destiny, destiny language, where would you be? It's... What? No? What? You just... You weren't listening very closely.

[11:29]

I mean, maybe it's too simple for you to think of the answer. You'd be in intermediate existence. Okay? In either case you go to intermediate existence. So you're in the Kamadhatu and you die with a good mind. That's it. Okay? And then you're going to go to intermediate existence. Either way. But you can go to intermediate existence in Kamadhatu. As a matter of fact, most people will. I don't know what the statistics are, but that's my impression. Most people will go to intermediate existence in kamadhatu, which makes it easier to do funeral ceremonies, by the way. Because if they go to the rupadhatu, especially if they go to the second rupadhatu, they can't understand English anymore. So it's kind of hard to talk to them.

[12:30]

Push and go. They don't have ears, but... What? Yeah, there's some interpreters, but the interpreters don't have ears either. Interpreters are saying, think the interpreters are thinking, you know. Red. Blue. Kind of cheerleaders, you know, with different colors. Yes? If at the moment of death you are in a good state of consciousness and then you go into intermediate existence, it can be that because of past bad karma or defiled activity, the intermediate existence common dot two will be defiled neutral also.

[13:35]

But it could also be undefiled neutral. However, destinies are supposed to be undefiled neutral. So if intermediate existence looks like, I'll have to check this, but I think intermediate looks like it has to be undefiled neutral and defiled neutral. It has to allow both of those. So it says you go from the kushala of the Kamadhatu to the four kinds of minds of the Kamadhatu. One of the kinds of minds of the Kamadhatu is a defiled neutral. And that could be human destiny, Kamadhatu. For example, a very common defiled neutral state is what? It's one of our favorite states.

[14:37]

Depression. Okay. That's another one. One of our favorite defiled neutral states in the Kamadhatu, which we have various nicknames for, like depression. Anxiety. I didn't know about anxiety. It's getting a little too active. I can see someone driving down the street anxiously at high speed, running over people or something, which is not what we call undefiled neutral. Well, the common cold. Uh, extreme pain. When you're in the middle of extreme pain, uh, but you're, well, maybe I shouldn't say extreme pain, you know, just say you're in the middle of some mild form of nauseation, of pain, and you're sort of bitching about it at the same time.

[15:55]

But you're just sort of basically just sort of laying in bed sick. That's, that's what I'm talking about. But you're not being good about it. You're being kind of nasty about it. Or you're enjoying it and glad that you're not at work. So it's a rather common state. You're not just laid out in your sickness, but there's some agitation or something in the midst of it. you can't really say that it's active karma, you know, you can't really say, well, this person's really being disrespectful of themselves and they're also not being decorous because the world's saying, the world's not taking them away to prison or throwing rocks at them, they're just saying, well, they're sick, you know. They don't look that good, it's true, but we call them sick and we leave them there. As a matter of fact, we come and tend to them, which is kind of like, uh,

[17:01]

You do this neutral kind of karma and you get, you know, people do kind of nice things for you, so it's not exactly bad. But at the same time, you can't really appreciate the things they're doing for you so well. They're giving you orange juice and stuff, but it doesn't taste too good. Matter of fact, you might not even be able to drink it. So it's not, it's pretty unclear whether this kind of activity called being sick doesn't seem to lead necessarily to great situations. However, neutral states, both defiled and undefiled, although they don't project karma directly and clearly, they do allow karma. So you can come right out of sickness and do something quite good or something quite bad. As a matter of fact, oftentimes you're doing something quite bad, like you're drinking too much or something like that, eating too much or whatever, and then you get sick. And when you're sick, you don't usually eat too much or sleep too much or whatever too much or too little.

[18:09]

And then as you become well again, you can immediately start doing that thing which got you sick. So it can be bad or unfortunate activity, unwholesome activity, then this neutral, defiled neutral, immediately followed by more of the same. But as you know also, you can be doing bad, going to this undefiled neutral, called sickness from the bad or the unfortunate and right after that you can produce a quite a good state of mind which is a mind that learned probably from the pattern saying yeah i did that and now here i am and then you produce quite a good state of mind Also, I don't know what the statistics are on that, whether that's more common, which is more common for people that have just been sick due to unfortunate or unwholesome karma, whether most of the time they do something good after they're sick for a while or whether they go right back.

[19:14]

I know a lot of people do go right back. For example, alcoholism is a pattern that we call the pattern of drinking too much, being sick, and then as soon as they're capable of of drinking again and drinking again. As a matter of fact, sometimes they don't even wait until they're well to drink. That's another pattern. And drug addiction and overeating, or people who overeat are sometimes sick all the time. Also, depression. You depress yourself into sickness and then you, as soon as you're well enough to be depressed again, you get depressed. and so on. But then a lot of other people do it the other way and sickness seems to be an inspiration and people oftentimes have excellent states of mind right after they're sick. Because sickness is actually a very nice, you see, because you're seeing how karma works when you're sick and you're somewhat oftentimes reposed and concentrated or, you know, not running around.

[20:17]

You can sit there and watch this pattern. You actually learn a lot from being sick oftentimes. And learning like that is not karma, you see. To have insight into how it was that you did such and such and now you're sick, that insight is not karmic. It doesn't do anything. But in fact, when you come out of that, you can produce, if you wish, you can produce good karmic states. You can also produce states that are whatever karma, but anyway are practice. So sickness is a nice learning situation. Okay? So, that was a long thing about this one, which I almost let go by with birth consciousness is always defiled. I'm glad I didn't. That's not the reason why this is undefiled neutral. And then this one? Can't do this one, right? Huh?

[21:19]

And the reason why you can't do this is because Hey, you know what I did? I drew too many. Too many, because, I mean, I drew them in, and they never happened, right? I drew these in, and they never happened. These two. Okay, so rupa dot do what? Did you say the reason why you can't go from comma dot to good to root dot to under file neutral? Yeah. And then Janet brought up the point, does that mean that under file neutral? We know that destinies are under file neutral, but does that mean that under file neutral is always a destiny? That's the only thing it can be. And I couldn't think of anything other than that. So this is it. I don't know what was put in there. Maybe like this. Means you can't go there. This doesn't make sense, you know, right?

[22:22]

And therefore, this doesn't make sense. Once again, what are these K's here? The K under R and the K under AR? What are those situations like? What? Yes, they're wholesome. And what type of wholesome activity are they? What? They're . As a matter of fact, they're what we call full trance. of that level is attained here and here. What?

[23:29]

Well, you say automatically, but I would say not automatically. I could say it might happen in a sense accidentally, but accidentally in a sense that you may not be in your mind saying, I want to do rupadhatu, full trance. You may not say that. You may not say, I would like to do rupadhatu, full trance. I would like to attain that trance. And yet, you wouldn't know that what you're doing is that. In other words, you'd get on a certain compulsive trip in your meditation. You start following your breathing very, very, very closely, for example. Very high definition on your breathing.

[24:29]

And you just would keep doing that, and that would be that. And as you reach sort of the culmination of that kind of ability, if you didn't do anything else about it, and you didn't wish to do any other practice than that, that kind of compulsion would project you into the rupadattu. But in fact, Zen life is such that it's somewhat unlikely. But particularly if you went away on a retreat by yourself, and you had a lot of food there, or food was brought to you, you didn't have much social contact, and you weren't reading texts and being reminded of Buddhism, you might get off on a kind of yogic sport aspect of what you see.

[25:34]

You'd say you're doing Zazen, and you think of yourself as a Mahayana bodhisattva, But, you know, Mahayana bodhisattvas play golf sometimes. And they also sometimes, if they're doing meditation, they might get kind of sporty about it and really try to do something really fully and thereby accidentally or unintentionally find themselves doing this trance. Or maybe not even know that they're doing it, but anyway they'd be doing it. they would, well, you would know it, actually. You'd find it, you'd be in a different realm. And this realm would be characterized by, you know, very high definition. Things would be, in the ordinary sense, things would be extremely clear.

[26:38]

Namely, the thing you're meditating on would be extremely clear. You would have a real sense of, a very sort of ultimate sense of definition. It would be an excellent place to do sewing or something like that. Anyway, some high definition type of activity you'd be very good at. In that sense, you might notice that you're in the rupa datta, or that you're in someplace quite different than where you've been before. What? A lot of the sutras, the Mahayana sutras, seem to encourage practicing the trances. Is that solely just the development of concentration? I think I mentioned before that you have to be able to do, in order to do some of the more subtle Mahayana meditations, insight meditations, you have to have the level of concentration, you have to have what we call the potential to enter the trance.

[28:06]

which is called anagama, the potential state. You could, if you wished, just stay on the trance thing and go into a trance. And it's already to do that. You can do the trances. But you can also, instead of doing the trances, go right into insight meditations. But it turns out that to do the trances and to progress up the trance ladder, you still have to do some kind of insight in order to dislodge yourself in the various levels and move up to the next. And at some point bodhisattvas probably should visit these realms because actually even arhats are supposed to visit these realms. You're supposed to clear up you're supposed to be able to exercise your insight even in different realms. So for the arhat path you're supposed in a sense they have a sort of a miniature what do you call it a miniature or

[29:08]

pure or in some sense I would maybe call in a sense like a pure or very heavenly version of the bodhisattva path. Namely, they check out their insight in other realms other than the kamadhatu. The arhats do. The Aryans do. They expand their their insight into these other realms. Whereas the bodhisattva, having attained the level of insight which the arhats attain by this kind of expansion of their insight, takes his insight in among lower realms, impure realms. So what the arhats have done is they've had some experience with impure realms when they didn't have insight. And now they've come out of those impure realms and are now developing concentration and insight.

[30:13]

And they have left behind these impure realms. And by leaving behind the impure realms, they are now developing better and better concentration and better and better insight. And as I mentioned also, insight helps the concentration and the concentration helps the insight. They pull each other up. When the arhat finishes that mutual escalation between the insight and the concentration, they are an arhat, and they finish their work. The bodhisattva, after attaining that level of development, would then plunge into some other activity, some other realm. Arhats, however, by the way that they think, they feel that they can't plunge into another realm. So bodhisattvas should be able to do that.

[31:15]

They should also be able to go into trance as not even as arhats or Aryans, but as goal-seeking yogis. But it turns out that that probably is pretty well taken care of by doing the arhat path, because the arhats have also transcended that. Because to go up the realms as an arhat or as an Aryan, you naturally have to overcome attachment to desires or the pleasure of meditation. So you will take care of the goal-seeking yogi attachments along the way, quite naturally. And that's basically what the Aryans are doing, is they have insight in the Kamadhatu, and that's how they got to be Aryans, because they understood the truth of suffering and so on. But then again, they understood it under very advantageous circumstances, namely the kamadattu, where suffering is easily ascertained.

[32:22]

Now can they verify the truth of suffering in these states where a lot of people can't find any suffering? In other words, can they understand that the highest quality pleasures available in existence are also suffering. Now, I was talking to some people last night who know these people in Mill Valley who they described as luminous beings. So if you go in their house, I mean, they're both just really light and lovely and just bright, shining people. They're kind of ascetic. And they have this house. They make films of nature. and uh you know four hours opening and things like that or they made a movie much about light hitting various things you know light hitting moss light hitting waves light hitting leaves leaves light hitting bird feathers you know and he said you walk around the house and everything in their house is some kind of found object you know a bird's nest

[33:38]

a pelican skull, you know, whatever. But sort of set in such a way that you're just sort of, it just sort of shines at you, you know. The whole house is just one kind of celebration of light and freedom and so on. And I told him that this sounds like what we call Kamadhatu heaven. You know those heavens in the Kamadhatu that I mentioned? We'll study them in Chapter 3. There's anyway heavens in Kamadhatu. and some of these people have attained those heavens, and it sounds like they're into good karma, but non-yogic good karma. And you can attain heavens non-yogically in Kamadhatu. Well, by non-yogically, I mean non-dhyanically. Actually, to do good karma is a kind of yoga. It's called karma yoga, or good works. And by that, you can attain heavens in...

[34:40]

in accommodative. In other words, still five senses, still, you know, pelican skulls and light that comes off in regular colors and conglomerate gross forms, but very, very nice. I mean, having a little Mozart playing in your house, you hardly need to turn on the record player. That kind of thing. So, uh, These people are into that kind of realm, it sounds like to me. But even better than that are these realms that one gets into by virtue of these trances. And then, not only that, but if you let the trance fall through on itself, it projects you into a literal heaven, a retributive heaven. And the better you get at the trances and the more concentrated you are, the higher quality of your karma, in a sense, the higher the projection, and the more lofty and free the retribution, until finally you're just floating and you're just... I mean, talk about lack of suffering.

[35:53]

You can hardly imagine it, you know. It's called neither perception nor non-perception. I mean, you can hardly perceive the idea of suffering. Now, the arhats, We put down our hots, but our hots are able to go into these realms and still say, this is still suffering, folks. Why is it suffering? I mean, I can see why you might think this is freedom, because you can barely come up with an idea of anything, good or bad, but still this stuff is created. Still this stuff is due to causes and conditions. It's not really total liberation. They keep clear on that point. So arhats are pretty sharp cookies that they can do that. And bodhisattvas should be able to do that too. And in order to do that, that particular one, which is at the top of the Arupadatta, you have to be able to meditate and to get yourself into that kind of experience.

[36:56]

So bodhisattvas are encouraged to be able to go up there, in a sense, and free those arhats who think that that was the end. And you can see how you might think that that was the end. Because if you're not fooled by those states... See, some people get up there somehow and they're fooled by it. They think, this is it, right? What do you call the end? What? What's the result of the people who get into that state and think that it's... Well, anyway, the asamnikas, they think this is it, this is nirvana. I mean, it's great anyway. The arhats don't fall for that. That's how good they are. But still they think that's it, that not falling for it is nirvana. And it is actually nirvana, except that you have vows which say you're not done, which save you from finishing it off.

[38:01]

But it just, that is nirvana. In a sense, not falling for that, there's nothing higher not to get attached to, if you can follow that kind of language. Of all the things not to get attached to, that's the most difficult thing to put aside. It's the most tempting worldly delicacy. Anyway, that's why bodhisattvas should go to those states, and that's why the Prajnaparamita Sutra says, Go through those things, do those things, but through non-attachment, through non-apprehension. So now you're looking in the Rūpa-dattu, from Rūpa-dattu, wholesome. Entering the Rūpa-dattu from Rūpa-dattu, anupāpiti, or Okay, in a rupa-dhatu you cannot enter into kamma-dhatu wholesome.

[39:09]

You can only enter into akushala and defiled neutral. So you want to talk about that? We could skip over there to that section, I don't mind. See, what you do is you flip over to Karaka... Seventy, which one? Sixty rupadhatu. Where is our rupadhatu? Oh, there it is. Sixty-nine, seventy. Sixty-nine C, seventy B. So it says, as for the minds of the arupadhatu, anivrta-avyakrta as above, As for kusala, nine minds, the kusala, after six, okay?

[40:11]

So it explains that if you look at Haripadattu, it says after the kusala there can arise nine minds, okay? Nine minds are One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. After the... So you're in the formless realm. Someone's in the formless realm. And after the formless realm, you can go to the Kamadhatu, unwholesome, and the Kamadhatu, neutral. And you can go to Rupa Dhatu, wholesome, and Rupa Dhatu, defiled neutral. And... You can go to Arupadhatu, all three, and you can go to the pure states. You can go to Arhat or some other Aryan from there.

[41:20]

So if you look at that last point, you see that from any good state in the world, in any of the three realms, you can go into either the stream winner and so on up to the arhat. Okay, so now your question is, how do you go from the... from the arupadattu, wholesome, or whatever, to an unwholesome state, nakamadattu? Well, it seems like also in the . Either an unwholesome or defiled neutral. So what do you think about that, anybody, or you? That doesn't make sense to you? Is that why you fired up? I wondered why there were higher stakes. Okay.

[42:35]

What do you think, folks? Looks dangerous, doesn't it? It doesn't say something in here about the way that the ascetic comes out of the trance to be irritated by something. Yeah, what does it say? You don't have to find it. We don't need the book because we already have the answer. All you have to do is make a reason for why. So what do you think? You can find it if you want, but what do you think? Yes? Well, unhappy, that's not bad karma. He wants it back. He wants it back. That's bad karma. You don't get in the... From just simply wanting to be in the Arupadatta, you don't get there.

[43:37]

You get there from meditation, but it's got nothing to do with wanting to be in the Arupadatta. In fact, that's the way... If you want to be there, the way you are, the way you express your want, should be without wanting. The way you express it is by thinking of infinity as space. That's the way somebody who really wants it, who wants to actually get there, that's the way they will think. If you think, I want to go to the Agrodottu, you just stay right there in the Kamadottu unwholesome. It's a very good stay. Just stay on the beach wishing for formlessness. Thinking of what you want. That's what it means to want something. You think you don't have it, and you think of it. That's like an ice cream cone. You think you don't have an ice cream cone, and you think of it. That's called wanting an ice cream cone. Say, there's an ice cream cone, and I don't have it. That's called wanting an ice cream cone. That's called desire for an ice cream cone. I am separate from something which I'm not creating. Or you could say, I now have something which I don't want.

[44:43]

That's another kind of thing we can do. So now you're not, you got into this high state by doing this meditation, and now you're not in it. You're in the kamadhatra. You want to get back into it, but not the way you got into it, but you just say, I want to go back. And that's called unwholesome karma. It's just plain old ordinary selfishness and stupidity. Now it doesn't, maybe nobody ever did that in the history of the universe. That somebody came right out of the rupadattu, out of the rupadattu and fell right back in the kamadattu and said, said that. Maybe they're always wise enough after going there to say, if I want that, I'd better not say so. On the other hand, you notice that you can go from the arupadattu wholesome, you can go to the rupadattu wholesome.

[45:47]

OK? Notice that? You can go from arupadattu down to rupadattu wholesome. Now, if you go to rupadattu wholesome, You can go from rupadattu, wholesome, back to the kamadattu. So the problem is if you take the direct route right from the rupadattu, anywhere in it, straight back to the kamadattu, it looks like you're in trouble. That's trouble. And it's not that you're in trouble. You make trouble. You're not in trouble. You're sort of in trouble. You can be in trouble, too, because you can be in defiled neutral. That could be trouble. You're not really clearly making trouble, but you might be in trouble. As a matter of fact, you might be. For example, you might come out of the rupa dhatu, come out of the formless realm, go back into the realm of desire, and instantly get sick, be depressed. Or you could instantly be depressed,

[46:50]

Sort of. And then instead of just sort of being depressed, you get depressed and at the same time angry. As he was saying, as Jonathan was saying, irritated. Coming out of the formless realm back into this realm, you can imagine being rather irritated. All these physical tensions. Got to hold the body up all the time. Just food. And then the seats aren't necessarily perfectly comfortable. It's just kind of a hassle. And there you were floating in your pinkery, no form bugging you at all, just thinking away. Even the heavenly music wasn't bopping against your eardrums. What? He used to work in a travel bureau. Okay, but also notice that you can go quite safely in a more gentle descent. Come down. Instead of directly from no form to heavy, gross form of kamadhatu, come down into the nice meadows of the rupadhatu.

[48:04]

And you can do that safely. It is possible to make that transition. Then from there, you can come back down into kamadhatu. So you just have to come down gently, because it's going to be too much of a shock just to come right back a quarter inch. Yes? Well, yeah, right. I mean, the thing that projected you in the state lasts a certain amount of time, and these transits only last seven days at most. So there's various theories, but anyway, let's say seven days. They last a short period of time. They're unusual for human beings to hang out in those spaces, the trance. Now, the heaven, you can stay longer. The heaven which results from the trance, you can stay longer sometimes once you become one of those devas. But the length of time, once again, I'm not sure exactly about whose time it is.

[49:10]

It may be your time there, but when you come back to earth, it may not be that long. Anyway, they have a certain projective lifespan, and when they end, you naturally... You always go back to kamadhatu if you're still living within your lifespan. The kamadhatu is kind of center of gravity. See, most of you... But you could say, well, it's center of gravity by virtue of your karma. Your main karma in this life, as a human being, your main karma is for the kamadhatu, because that's where human beings... are. That's where human destiny is. So the main thrust of this whole birth choice is kamadhatu. So you could either say that that's why it's the center of gravity, and so it always pulls you back. You always get pulled back from these higher states to kamadhatu. Or you can just say that, yeah, so that's your karma that's pulling you back. It's coming to fruition again and has been temporarily interrupted

[50:13]

or heightened or something by this intensive activity of trance. You've pumped up your, you've knocked your karma way up high for a little while, but that wears out and it comes flat back down to kamadhatu, hopefully human realm. That's actually what it's saying. It comes back to stay in human realm. So you can either say that just return to where you were before, basically, or your main state, or that the karma brings you back down I don't know which, I think a little of both maybe, not one side or the other, that it's just deterioration of the action, or that it's just the fruition of the karma previously that brings you back. Okay? Now, undefiled neutral, from formless realm back to kamadhatu, undefiled neutral, I mean defiled neutral, Also, to make the transition in one step, this means you come back, but maybe you're just sort of knocked down by it, and you're not actively angry.

[51:22]

You're just sort of in pain. And you're kind of upset about it, but you're just confused, maybe. Oh, how did this happen? Something like that. Well, a tree fell in your forest or something, and the loud noise brought you back to Kamadagya. That's what could happen. You're not in a forest, though. You don't hear that stuff. You don't hear it at all. That's not karma in Buddhism, trees falling down. But your reaction to it. Yeah, but you wouldn't hear it. That's the point. When you hear it, then you come back. So you come back. There you are on the Rupa Dhatu. And all of a sudden, you find yourself sitting in a forest. And then a tree falls. How obnoxious. That might be something that would kick off the . So it's just when you cease the effort to be in the Rupa Dhatu that you end up falling back in the Rupa Dhatu?

[52:30]

Or what would be the catalyst? Some, I guess that's what Richard was asking. Maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe you can only stay in the heaven for seven days of our time, but you could stay in the, you could keep making the effort as long as you want, just to do the trance. Well, neuroticismopathy is on the last surface. Yeah. Neuroticismopathy. Well, I think that you just, you could, you stop doing it. I think that's basically it. But, but not in a, not in some different way than the way of coming down gradually through the rupada. I mean, in the sutras they often talk about coming down each run. And going, and you go up each run. Yeah. But, Apparently here it's saying you can jump down. You can't jump up. Even though you can go up so fast after a while that it's almost like jumping.

[53:38]

Compared to the way you first went up, later it's almost like jumping up to the top and skipping the intermediate steps. So it's like you're leaping over the intermediate steps, but actually just gotten very fast at them. Like the way you can put together syllables after a while, almost not even saying them when you learn how to speak a language well or play an instrument well. It's almost like you skip over the parts you had to learn in order to make the sound. The same kind of skill level can be applied to these trances. But coming down, it looks like it's saying you actually jump all the way back down. You just sort of stop dead and then fall back, which looks like a Yoli error in a way. Because you can't... Oh, well... Anyway, one gets sick of it. It's very pleasant, but one still gets bored eventually. It's still effort, and you're getting a kick out of it, but it runs its course.

[54:43]

And you give it up, and it can come back down. Somehow it makes sense that you could go from a defiled neutral, Arupyudattu, to I mean, that's easier to imagine. But to go, to have in one moment a kusala arugidapya, and in the next moment, a kusala kamadhatya. To have a good moment. In other words, you're doing the triumphs. Here you are. You're very highly concentrated, and you're thinking of the infinity of space. And the next moment, you think, in the next moment, you're in the kamadhatya. and that you're angry that you're an accommodator. It's hard to think of that? It may be hard to think of it, but if you do think of it, that's what they're talking about. So it's saying, you can do that.

[55:46]

It's saying, this chart's saying that. It's saying, there you are doing this trance. And in the next moment, you can think, you can think, infinity of space. You're very concentrated. Infinity of space. And then you can say, damn table. You can do that. But it's obviously your decision to, even though you're angry at it, it's your decision to. That's right. It's your decision. Dump down. That's right. That's the whole point of Buddhism. Even though this world is your decision, even though you made it right now, you act like somebody else made it. You say, even though you made this book, you act like somebody else is going to take it away from you. Even though you made this book and you decided to have it, you say, I don't want it anymore. Well, it's kind of like forgetting who made the thing. You made the whole thing. You don't have to say you want it or don't want it. It's irrelevant. You created it.

[56:48]

So to start wanting and not wanting what you've already made is not necessary. It's already gone and you're making another thing. It's just extra to get angry at what you've already got or to want what you've already got. That also is what you want to do. That's another creation on top of creation. But somehow we can also choose not to see that We can choose not to see that not wanting something we have is another creation. You have something, that which you create. Plus, you can also create the not wanting the thing you already have. And you can also decide, I'm not going to understand that I created the not wanting the thing I don't have, plus the thing I have. The not wanting the thing I have, plus the thing I have. I created all that pattern. That's my thought. That's my thinking. That's my karma. And we can decide not to see that. But we can also decide to see it, which is called the path.

[57:52]

But in either case, consciousness sees it. Consciousness always is impressed by the situation. But in one case, it says, Hey. In the other case, it says, Huh. Or, But this is exactly the same sound somehow. There's no mark of difference. But it says, anyway, you can do that. In other words, once you're in the wholesome state of the arupadattu, you can go more than just one place. You can go more than just upward or a gentle step down. You can take big steps down, too, it's saying. Now, some people may say, you can't think that way. But once again, it's just a matter if you want to limit the ability of karma somehow. Maybe the important distinction is that you can go, or one important distinction is you can go to Akushla from Arividhatu, but you can't from the path.

[59:00]

It's saying here that, you see, that the Aryans, once you're in the Aryan state, up here, you know, They won't let you go from any of the Aryan states into any wholesome, unwholesome, defiled neutral, or undefiled neutral even. They'll only let you go back to more good once you're on the path. And that's what I was mentioning before. Once you enter the path, you lock yourself out of stuff. In other words, the path is a type of thinking that won't let you think other ways, according to this. And that's why the bodhisattva should follow the path to see what it's like to put on a kind of thinking that limits the thinking in this way. Other people have other forms of limits. Like they only think, they're thinking bad, they think, I can only think bad. So they think bad after [...] bad. Why?

[60:02]

Because that's what they do. And because they do that, they get very good at it, and that's all they want to do is what they're good at. So they just stay in this bad rut for a really long time. And then they get sick, and then they get bad. They go... They're in an undefiled neutral environment, okay? So actually what you have is undefiled neutral, bad, [...] defiled neutral, undefiled neutral, bad, [...] undefiled neutral, undefiled neutral, bad, [...] Undefiled, neutral. [...] Bad, bad. That kind of... Some people live like that. Mostly, whatever they... Mostly they do bad. That's what they decided that they can do. But the way the arhat thinks, or the Aryan thinks, they think, I can't go in states of woe anymore. And I can't do unwholesome karma anymore. They just can't do it. Because of the way that they... the karma that they've been doing. You have a certain kind of karma that gets you on the path.

[61:07]

When you're on the path, you're not really doing karma anymore. It can't be bad. That's the kind of path this is. It's conceivable. Bodhisattvas are not limited by this rule. They can go from the path into unwholesome states. Not this path, but when they finish this path, afterwards they can go into unwholesome states. But for them, although they don't become a field of merit because they really don't attain this asaiksha state, they don't really grasp it, at the same time, they attain a much more lofty understanding, which is called the acceptance that dharma has failed to exist. And if you see that dharma has failed to exist, when you go into an unwholesome state, it doesn't even happen. So it's a different kind of unwholesomeness than for an arhat.

[62:11]

Arhats still think that dharma has come up. And they never find themselves in situations where dharma has come up unfortunately. So looking at the chart some more, you see that you can go from kamadhatu, wholesome, to directly to the path. And you also see that you can go from being an aryan, but not an arhat, to being an arhat. But it doesn't say that you can go from being an arhat to being a non-arhat. But that's a debate. There's some debate in the Avadharma-kosha, Chapter 6, about that.

[63:13]

Some people say you can go from being an arhat. Arhats can slip back to being non-arhats. Some debate about that. But this chart, anyway, is saying you can't go from arhat to non-arhat. Yes? We're not going from neutral to path. Neutral to path? Yes, it can. I mean, just like Oswald said, don't be . I'll shake you. You'll break your leg. Mm-hmm. Well, the person who is a stream winner is still within the human destiny.

[64:14]

What they don't seem to be saying that, in a way. It looks like they're saying, that when you enter the path, you never again really enter your human destiny as a destiny, which is undefiled neutral. You stop being human, according to this way of doing the chart, which is If you see that, then you can also see that if you don't go there, then a broken leg will also not be a broken leg in the sense of being defiled neutral or undefiled neutral.

[65:17]

What about the story of Pluto? So how can that be? What about the story of Buddha stepping his toe and telling his disciples that it was retribution? I think he did repeat this. Right. And I think in Chapter 4, I guess I didn't talk to you about this, I think I did, but in Chapter 4 it points out that there's several kinds of karma. One kind of karma will be retributed immediately. one kind in this life, one kind in the next life, and one kind later, some number of lives later. Now, if an arhat, like the Buddha, the first arhat, had committed karmas, the type of karmas which are attributed in the next life or later lives, then if they're going to be arhats, and therefore this is their last life, they won't incarnate again.

[66:29]

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