All paths and not paths arises. Then one can move on now to... From now on the insight will be very quick. Insights will go up very quickly. who said ten stages of insight can be achieved very quickly. But there is a period, this is also another period of up and down, up and down period of practice. Sometimes a meditator comes to a very high state of insight and then sometimes comes down to the lowest.

[01:05]

A meditator may have to do this to experience these vicissitudes of practice for a certain time. I call it the period of gaining strength. and acknowledging weaknesses in order to jump. So we have to know our strengths, our weaknesses. It's very good preparation for jumping. Because after that we have to jump. There's no other way. Then this is also a natural process. Coming to the third stage of insight, we will say that at this stage, the character, personality, and consciousness begin to change radically because of insight.

[02:20]

We can say that it changes because of insight, not because of experience. This is different from the calm meditation. Calm meditation emphasizes experience. And then inside meditation emphasizes the seeing, the understanding, the clarity of perceiving, intuitive knowledge. the seeing with the eye of wisdom. So the people, if they come to the third state of insight, they can say that meditation changes their life. They feel that what is essential for life, what is not. When that comes automatically, without being told,

[03:27]

And because it is radical change, so that a person will not drop back or slip back. So now the fourth state of insight is insight into the arising and passing away of things. That is considered the steady state of insight. One can see anything in the light of arising and passing away, so that continuity is broken up from moment to moment because of arising and passing away. And after seeing that, consciousness drops the arising, but pays attention to only the passing away, the dissolution.

[04:41]

And because of seeing dissolution of the process, there is a feeling of of being frightened, being scared, because, oh, things do not exist. They dissolve, they dissolve. So this frightfulness arises. It's not very strong, not very strong fear. And after being frightened of seeing the solution, and then there is a perception of danger, the danger of being in the conditioned life, the life which is

[06:00]

unfree, which is in the state of slavery. So then the seeing of danger arises. As you can see, after seeing the danger, it's like a man seeing four poisonous snakes. And he ran away, he runs away from the snakes. And then he enters the empty village. He also, he wants to get something, some help from the village or to escape from the snakes. But he finds that the village is empty. So he runs on and on. And suddenly he comes across a very vast ocean, a vast dress of water.

[07:15]

And there is no boat, there is no bridge to cross over. And he clearly sees the danger of standing on this bank, on this shore of life. So he thinks, he always thinks of crossing over the ocean, the stresses of water. But he didn't have any means available. And then he thinks to himself, that the only thing to do is to make a raft. So he made a raft of the grasses and the branches, and then he crossed over the ocean and got to the other shore. And that is a simile, a metaphor.

[08:17]

The seeing of danger. You can say seeing of danger, after that we can imagine that insight into wishing or wanting to be free, to be free from danger arises. Really before coming to this insight into wanting to be free, surely that we also have another kind of insight of feeling disgusted because things are dangerous. So the feeling of aversion and disgust arises.

[09:22]

Not that the insight into wanting to be free, wanting to be liberated comes. And then there is insight into re-reviewing, reviewing all the experiences from the beginning up to that point. To have a very strong reflection on what had happened up to this point. this strong reflection will operate for a certain time. So after reflecting strongly and clearly, and then there is insight into equanimity. So nothing is important, nothing is unimportant.

[10:26]

So things are as they are. Pain or pleasure, sorrow or joy, Any dualistic things have very little meaning in the way that all the dualistic things become equal to the consciousness in this state of insight. There is no... fear of pain, there is no anticipation in pleasure or happiness. So the mind becomes completely equal and equanimous. But the perception, the seeing of any process is very clear. One can see anything coming one after the other clearly, precisely.

[11:33]

That's why equanimity is more important than detachment. Detachment may bring about the attitude of not wanting to look at something unpleasant. But with equanimity you can look at the unpleasant things without being disturbed. And this state of mind is different from the mind with detachment. Normally meditators stay with this state for quite a long time because it is pleasant in a way. And thus they don't really want to go on. And there is possibility of getting stuck in this stage because of pleasantness, because of evilness of the consciousness.

[12:38]

So there must be a teacher guiding in order to see how to proceed after that Now when one understands how to proceed, one will arrive at another stage of insight, insight into adaption. So now it is, that's why I said that it is kind of jumping after this. Not very big jump, but it's jumping in order to adapt all the stages of insight achieved to the higher states of insight and consciousness.

[13:45]

Or we were to adapt this to the past consciousness, the enlightened consciousness. So at this stage, a meditator is collecting all the past knowledge, past factors. All the factors pertaining to enlightenment, to awakening, will be collected and they must be put together adapting themselves to the enlightened consciousness. And the understanding, particularly the understanding of foldable truths, is very clear at this stage of insight. After that,

[14:50]

one will come to the next stage of insight, insight of adoption. So after adapting oneself and consciousness to the enlightened consciousness, one will come to the state of adopting That's why this adopting is transcending the normal and supernormal consciousness, leaving all the lower classes of consciousness behind. And then one will hold on to nirvana.

[15:53]

And the path consciousness arises, as I explained before. When the path consciousness arises, one is in the stream of nirvana. For nirvana, sotā. Sotā is stream. So in a way, nirvana is flowing smoothly and deeply in the depths of our being. But without enlightened consciousness, we cannot see it or we cannot enter this stream. We cannot win the stream of nirvana. So this is really the process of realizing nirvana. That's why with enlightened consciousness only, nirvana can be realized.

[17:04]

In fact, in Theravada Buddhism, we don't talk about attaining nirvana really, but only the books talk about attaining, achieving, But in Pali literature, they use the word realizing. Realizing. Making it clear. Satchikātapa, making it clear. Making it clear with your pure, luminous, enlightened consciousness. not with your thinking, your thought. Nirmala cannot be thought about. It cannot even be dreamed of. So we cannot dream of nirvana. It's beyond the senses. It's beyond the normal and supernormal consciousness. But it can be realized by transcendental consciousness.

[18:08]

When we come to that, we have freedom and liberation. So we say that in Theravada Buddhism, the enlightenment has four degrees in a way. The first degree is is called the stream-winner. And the second degree is called once-returner. The third is never-returner. And the fourth is arahant. So the fourth is the deepest one, the last one. But surely when one comes to the state of stream-winning,

[19:15]

one can be completely sure that one will not fall down. There is no coming back. There is only going further, further, in order to complete all the degrees of enlightenment. So now we look into the qualities of the stream-winner. Normally we consider the person who will achieve the stream winning by seeing to the three factors. If the three factors are removed by the person, it means the stream winning is achieved.

[20:19]

These three factors refer to self-illusion, skeptical doubt. The doubt about reality does not exist. And the attachment to drawn full rituals and ceremonies as the means for achieving enlightenment. There is no attachment to rituals and ceremonies. This is emphasized because during the time of the Buddha, many people believed in the certain way that by practicing ritual and ceremony they will, only, they will come to liberation.

[21:36]

So the Buddha gave this, the Buddha takes this as a fetter. So what a ritual ceremony as we do as a form of devotion following our practice is continuity of spirit of meditation. And that this is not considered as wrongful rituals and ceremonies. And this, if a person is free from the three factors, unless he has no doubt about reality, he has no illusion about self, he has no wrong belief, wrong idea about self, what is self, what is not self.

[22:51]

And then This person is called the stream-winner. Then for the second class of enlightened person is called once-returning. This is in connection with the teaching of karma and rebirth. it means that this person will be born once again in order to complete full enlightenment. Or in another way, we can say that this person has to make great effort once again in order to complete the other two stages. But for the third person,

[23:55]

at the third level, which is called the never-returner. So this person will, if that person didn't achieve full enlightenment in that lifetime, he or she will not come back to the human world, but will be born in the world of purity. and then achieve full enlightenment there. Then for Arhat, which is the fully enlightened person, is the person who lives in this life. So that means Arhat's achievement has been achieved in his lifetime. So they also consider some the factors are concerned with the people who achieve enlightenment.

[25:15]

Then for the second person, he has the same quality as the first person. but he can reduce more sense desire and anger or resentment, ill will. Can reduce them to the low degree, keep them under control. For the third degree of person between the sense desire and ill will, that person is free. from sense desire and ill will. Which means he will not be dominated by sense desire or ill will anymore. Yes. Freedom. Then the arahant is also free from the attachment to the consciousness or to the experiences through the jhana of form.

[26:27]

poor stage of jhana, of form, and attachment to the experiences of the formless jhanas. And it's free from I-conceit. It means that the ego will be completely destroyed at the stage of Arahatship. And he is free from restlessness. And he is completely free from ignorance. So he has full wisdom, complete wisdom. So they say that the way to gain enlightenment is the way of intuitive wisdom. can see the seeing, the seeing, the understanding all the time from the beginning.

[27:33]

So this way of meditation does not emphasize the experience or the changes of consciousness. But the change of consciousness does occur at a certain stage of insight So the seeing, the seeing things as they are is emphasized because that is insight into reality. When there is seeing of things as they are, there is liberation because the person becomes free because of seeing and understanding with no doubt, without perplexity, And then all the difficulty or problem, particularly psychological problem, will dissolve into the light of understanding.

[28:43]

So the thing is to understand, to see clearly, without having any distortion or perversion. So that the perversion, three perversions I talked about in the first day, are completely out of way. The perversion of perception, the perversion of views, and the perversion of thought. So then thinking and viewing and perceiving are completely pure, without being distorted, perverted. But with the unenlightened consciousness, sometimes we are distorted by perception. The reality can be distorted by our perceptions, our thoughts and our views.

[29:48]

so that we have to establish awareness of perception, thought and views in order to see whether they are pure, they are right or they are impure or wrong. So awareness is the key and awareness is the tool for digging into ourselves And for opening the doors to creation, the doors to enlightenment. When we have the key and we have the tool, we can dig and we can unlock. We can unlock the doors. We can see the connection between insight and purification.

[31:27]

If you notice, I may revise it again, that when we have the insight into the distinction between mind and body, or mental and physical processes, there is purity of views, cittivisuti. And also during the way of being aware, being alert and awake to the process or the object, we have...

[32:00]

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