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Hello everyone Welcome And those of you who are greeting on Chat thank you it's very nice those of You who are not Those on chat are doing it for all of You I would like to thank You so So the insight Pentad The focus being on The inside part of it how inside works And one of the important Places to have insight to really see Clearly Is the difference between What we know what what for example what We have insight about what we know And how we know So there's what we know and there's how We know And many things that we though what we Know many things And what I'd like to suggest uh for this For today That uh to have more attention to Something that's often uh not noticed Often when we focus in meditation on What we can know like the it's usually Something tangible something that we can The senses can take in that we can in The present moment something we can know Because it's a rising or it's occurring In the present so breathing Body
Sensations feelings thoughts sounds Sensations And um But one of the things that are very very Important is insight deepens Is to be aware a little bit of what is Absent And uh and certain kinds of things that Are absent uh we can feel when we know Recognize their absence there might be a Short period of time where we can Recognize the relief Of it not being there So for example before we rush headlong Into mindfulness of breathing and body Here We might take a little bit of time to Notice That if there's any relief That you might evoke Sitting in your meditation posture Maybe you don't have to there's things You don't you're not doing and Responsibilities you put down for these 30 minutes And and things that you don't have to Address Things that don't are not present right Now For you and it's just not so nice not to Have them here And um and so Um And so the absence of them
Can have a little bit of a nice effect I Thought this is good And to feel that goodness to feel that Oh this it maybe allows for a different Kind of relaxation to happen A different kind of settling in And then we can take one step further And that is uh in the knowing of the Relief Is that knowing Pleasant or unpleasant Does that knowing carry with it some of The characteristics of the relief There's that knowing I feel spacious or at ease is it Or is it in a hurry ready to go on to The next thing and Is it kind of pouncing or is it pulling Back or Filled with some kind of Desires or aversions or doubts about What's going on And how simple can The Knowing be To keep the knowing super simple There's what is known and then the Knowing So simple that direct knowing of what's Here or sometimes what's not here The relief of the what's not here That the The Knowing is so simple That it's welcomed there's a good Feeling it's It's appreciated to know this way So there's a knowing And what is known so assuming a
Meditation posture And gently closing your eyes And And take a few moments now to feel If there's any relief Of just being here in this way Maybe identifying two or three things That Are not present Maybe the regular part of your life and Not they're not here in the moment As you're sitting here And that's maybe part of the goodness of Being here And if you feel some relief of being Here What's it like to know that relief The simplest Clearest kind of knowing of absence Of relief Without commentary without Judgments just knowing the relief Knowing the absence of whatever Is normally present Especially the absence of the stress That you might carry The preoccupations that you normally Carry The impact that life events might have Normally To feel the relief And then also to recognize A simple way of knowing that In that Simplicity of knowing
Knowing that it has no stress Within it There you will find The path to Freedom Stay close To knowing In a way that feels Relieving That feels releasing No matter what you know It's how you know That you'll find the path to liberation Foreign Whatever degree of calm or subtleness That you might have Can you know that calmly and said and Subtly settled away Can you know whatever is happening from A calm and subtled place So that there is qualities of freedom In the knowing Maybe some quality of knowing Which is not something you do But the kind of knowing that arises By itself When we're present Thank you Sometimes mindfulness practice Is to bring ourselves to be so present And available for our experience That knowing Arises on its own And it can be Challenging to do this
Because this way of being present Can feel vulnerable But to be present in a relaxed and full Way So that knowing Can be at ease relaxed Maybe knowing the relief Of not asserting ourselves or Defending ourselves or Judging and commentary about ourselves Just present Knowing the freedom Of how we know And when we allow ourselves to be this Fully present for others Without defensiveness or assertiveness Just fully present and available To know them with a relaxed open Awareness relaxed easy knowing Maybe something like kindness Good will Will well up inside Will vibrate well Radiate Maybe there's a good will Love a care compassion It's not a doing But an arising When we're fully present open presence To what is Kind of a good will Which is expressed In these sentiments May others
Be happy May others Be safe May others be peaceful May others be free And may this good will that I feel May it be known by others May others know That they're held in Good Will Fight friendliness kindness And may we know each other that way May all beings be happy [Music] Thank you So we come to the last Fifth and last Talk on the insight pentad And these are the Five qualities including Insight that That flow together that rise together Not as something that's constructed or Made to happen but something that um Conditions each other or one leads to The other awakens to the other Triggers the other And um You know many people would think that it Would ends with Liberation the fourth of These Insight pentats five qualities And um shouldn't that be enough Liberation But the Liberation itself uh is a Condition for the arising of a fifth Quality And that's the knowledge that one is
Liberated knowledge that the mind is Liberated And um There are people who have some degree of You know realization Liberation Something that really sets them free And they kind of know that they've had Something significant But they don't really know it they don't Understand what's happened And this knowing of it is to understand Something profound about it And uh and uh as uh so many times for The Buddha it's uh uh it's a know Something specific It's not some generalized vague idea of What Liberation is what freedom is Because some people will have some Profound feeling of peace or calm or Some letting go that happens that feels So relieving and releasing But they don't understand what they've Let go of they don't understand what They've opened up into and you know What's really this experience like And without knowing that it's hard to Find the PATH there again it's hard to Know what this path is really about then Some people will have some kind of Wonderful experience of peace And and think well that's the point and Kind of try to get back there but they Don't understand the conditions that led To it and they don't understand what it
Is at the particular that that was Experienced or came along with that Piece so they know kind of what they're Working towards what it's about what the Kind of the Um the the uh the North Star is that They're kind of working for And um So I want to read to you what I started Talking about yesterday uh the Buddha uh Gives a list of 17 specific Psychological States That can be known They can know that they're there these Are painful States and we can know when We're free of them when they're absent And seeing that specificity of it or This is this was afflictive this was Painful and now wow it's no longer there It's been released This is a part of the insights and it's Also part of Liberation that shows the Kind of circular nature of it the spiral Perhaps And so as we Experienced some real Clear sense of The falling away the ceasing Of say hate And really experience ourselves take Time to know that this is the absence of Hate not just know that it's peaceful But really no this is the absence of Hate then we start getting the
Information about what hate is about and The alternative that we become Increasingly disenchanted With hate we've increasingly Um uh it's up to start the underlying Tendency to hate which is uh starts to Fade away and then there's a again a Qualitatively different way of releasing Hate And then we know we've released it and Then that's a kind of an Insight that The whole thing can develop further and Further So I want to read this list of 17 Specific States That the Buddha talks about that one Could know their present and we could Know when they're absent and for the Buddha this is very significant It's in a discourse called the simile of The cloth in the middle length Discourses Um The the list is Um Covetous covetousness Unethical greed Ill will Anger Resentment Contempt Insolence Envy avarice deceit fraud obstacy Rivalry conceit
Arrogance vanity and carelessness And uh Or negligence so some of these Translations to English might not be Exactly what there is in Pali so you Know we can maybe find other words that Are a little bit a little bit more Meaningful for us But uh The idea is that if a person when we Practice we can know that these they're Called afflictive because they hurt to Have these present one can know that They're there And feel the pain and um and it's Possible that they can be let go of Either we let go of them or somehow they Fade away they disappear they're not There And if we know that they're there first Really no wow And sometimes you know this uh this is Bad news to know that I have contempt But in the Dharma you want to know that So-called bad news in an open Non-reactive way it's really important To feel to know the states of mind that Are afflictive that are causing pain and Not to pretty them up or deny them or Ignore them oh this is I'm living with You know Contempt with their resentment with Greed And then because we know something about
Knowing that's there the clarity of that Then allows the mindfulness the Awareness practice to make room for it To fade away for us to be disinterested And for it to fade away that won't Happen if we ignore it and haven't Really admitted to ourselves or these Are there So here we find the example that Buddha Being you know in modern terms Psychological about the discussions of The path he's very specific about Psychological states that are being Addressed So this is what we we can know And then we can know when they're let go Of when they're absent And that knowing of their absent in this Text If there's a way of knowing it which is Inspiring It's inspiring to know it's possible to Be free of these things even if it's Temporarily to have the experience of The Mind wow I've been with this for my lifetime with This for decades for a long time and I Had no idea how there can be a Qualitative experience a good quality Experience of it not being there So this allowing shelves to know that We're liberated and really recognize That where the absence the freedom of Something
That can give birth to an inspiration And to confidence The Buddha calls it a verified Confidence It's uh we have or verified Faith it's Verified because we know for ourselves That this is possible it's And even if some of these states come Back the confidence is there the trust Is there that this is valuable this is a Direction to go this is important And then the Buddha in this text goes on To say that this confidence and Inspiration this is possible This is the Catalyst for the gladness Pentad the five qualities I talked about Last week that also have this natural Flow to them that when there's Inspiration there's gladness when There's gladness there can and we're Present for it and allow for the Practice and practice with it in the Context of it that uh morphs or changes Into joy that changes into a Tranquility Physical tranquility and peace and that Can open up into a kind of a deep subtle Feeling of happiness or contentment That is a foundation for becoming Unified for samadhi And that's unification of samadhi that Has that Focus that clarity Then uh Begins the insight pentad The insight
Disenchantment fading away Liberation And then today knowledge of Liberation Knowing it So as I said before they kind of go to Spiral they support each other and move On and on and how Liberation is of some Kind even if it's very temporary of Particular mental States so this is Something we can identify and know for Ourselves Um otherwise you know some people have Such a vague idea of what enlightenment Is or freedom is that you know it's just Always kind of a Mythic event it's kind Of like maybe not so relevant for me and It's good for the you know the you know For the great meditators who go live in Caves but what about my life in everyday Life here where I'm dealing with you Know getting the kids to school and The work and All kinds of things But uh by naming the psychological States the Buddha is kind of maybe Making it really Irrelevant this is What's important here And then he goes on in this text this Phenomenal text it talks about this Natural flow of arising he talks about From the inspiration comes the gladness Pentad and from that the samadhi the the Unification gives rise to Loving-kindness to Metta And so the whole meta and then the
Brahma viharas are all part of this Natural flow this it's almost like these This is an almost like inherent Qualities within the or capacities or Potentials Within That um can be set free that can be open To be allowed to flow through us So there's not something that's Constructed or made to happen or Engineered but something that we allow For And that's the underlying theme of these Uh two pentats gladness pentat and the Insight pentad is that there are natural Forces within us that can be Unleashed And open up where we We Roll Along to What we open up to these wonderful States of of deepening practice Um And um So it's insight Insight to what is Insight to what is no longer there Inside the absence of afflictive states That have bothered us for a long time And the absence of those afflictive States might give us a possibility to Become more aware of how we know how We're aware something So that how we're aware is not Afflictive so how aware doesn't partake Or share with some of the greed or the Ill will aversion that's contempt to Resentment that might
Be with us but which influences how we Know And so to begin finding a knowing which Is freeing and knowing which has Qualities of freedom and ease and peace And then using that To a way of knowing to know to practice Mindfulness to be aware And so that the very Act of knowing is Part of the path of freedom is where we Find the freedom and allows us to go Seek more and more clearly what's have What's um So uh The um So Insight in the inside pentad then uh May Your mindfulness practice Lead to Insight and may the insight Open this world up of the Dharma Moving through you So thank you very much and I look Forward to seeing you or being with you Again on Monday
