See number three, performing the function according to the law of nature, that is the cause. number four, the effect will be accordingly. So when our friend asked about this question about the meaning of Dhamma. In general, dharma means thing and it can maintain itself. Why it can maintain itself? Because it always like this. It sounds or it seems like it does not care at all what people would think about the law of nature. It will always manifest itself like this, impermanent, not endurable, and not self. It shows the truth. This is the truth of life and the truth of nature. So it can maintain itself. This is the meaning of maintain itself. It doesn't depend on anything. It will manifest like this all the time, all the time.

And this morning, we are going to talk about the Dharma continue on the topic of dharma. Yesterday, I mentioned that if we learn about Dharma, try to understand Dhamma, until we get into Dharma and practice our life accordingly, we shall certainly be able to live without being beaten, that is to live beyond problems or dukkha, or to live without problems or dukkha. So this morning, we are going to talk about paticca-samuppada , or dependent origination.  Dependent origination is the essence of Buddhism, or the essence of our dharma. It is the Dhamma that Prince Siddhartha discovered on the night of his enlightenment, and after this discovery, he has become Buddha, which means he could discover this Truth from his own experience or from his own practice. And he practice, try to search for  the truth from the nature, he studied from the nature he did not study from anything. Just try to investigate into the nature, nature around us and nature in us. In us means this body and the mind, or the immaterial heart, just study about the happenings of all the things in this nature all the time. And then he discovered about this truth. And if we would like to ask, what is dependent origination of paticca-samuppada , what does it mean?  It means that, or it is the details of demonstration to show to all people to learn about the dukkha, D, U, K, K, H, A dukkha, which means suffering. To learn about the word dukkha, what is dukkha. What does dukkha means? And how does it arise? What depends upon what and dukkha arise? This is one thing that we shall learn from dependent origination. What depends upon what and dukkha arise, and the second point is what depends upon what and dukkha disappears or ceases or extinguish what depends upon what and dukkha distinguishes, or ceases, or quench because it is the problem of dukkha that all human beings have to confront, and it has caused happiness. It has caused a burden to the heart. It makes life becomes very difficult, and so it gives about the dukkha that we need to learn to solve it properly, until we are able to get rid of it. This illustration illustrated by the Tibetan artist, so you may see the ring or the wheel of dependent origination. And please count if you count from the top, notice that there are 12 conditions, altogether begins from the right. The right top, anybody can't see the picture. If you can't see, please move. There are some space here. Please move to see so you can get the picture clear.

On the top right begins with the word ignorance or awitcha. First of all, let me explain the meaning of each word of each condition so we shall understand it right when it moves from one to another. We need to understand the meaning of each condition first, the first one, ignorance or awitcha. awitcha comes from the word witcha. Witchā means knowledge or light or wisdom.  And so when we put a or a in front of witchā, awitcha, it means not or no no knowledge, no light, no wisdom. So it means dark, darkness. The Mind, which is covered with a awitcha or ignorance, is supposed to be very dark, very cloudy. It can't see things clear, it just like seeing things through the smokes or through the clouds. So it can be blur and it can be twisted so awitcha  means the state of the mind which does not know or does not have the knowledge of the thing that It ought to know.  Please notice this, doesn't have the knowledge of the thing that it ought to know. Like all my friends here, I can't say that you don't know anything. You know so many things. You have been graduated from college, from university, you have experiences in your work, you have position, you have family, you have travel all around. You have lots of experience. You know many things, but still, I don't know, but some of our friends may don't have the knowledge of the thing of which we ought to know.  Like myself, about 20 years ago, I Should say my heart or my mind, just covered with ignorance and awitcha so full of awitcha and ignorance, even though I was rather successful in my work, I had a degree from University, I considered myself intelligent, but still I did not realize it. During that time, I was very proud of myself for being intelligent, recognized by some people, some groups, some communities, because I didn't know anything about the word dharma. So I just thought that what happens to me that makes the heart pushing and pulling like that? It's just common things, because it happens to everybody. I didn't realize that I have wasted much of my time by letting the heart be pushing and pulling, bumping up and down, swaying back and forth, or sometimes circling around like this all the time. I just think this is very common, ordinary things can happen to anybody, because I never stop to think that during the time of those happenings in the mind of bumping or swaying or pushing and falling, I was very frustrated. I was very disappointed, and sometimes even though I felt very heart ache about that, I should know that during that time I was sick. I was sick even though I looked very healthy indeed, outside, very healthy physically, but in at heart, I was sick because the heart was not energetic. It was inert. And sometimes, it seemed like paralyzed.  Just did not want to move, did not want to do anything, just sitting there or lying down looking at the ceiling. Does this happen to you? My friends? Ever happens to you or not at all. Of course, we did.

We have that kind of happenings to us, and this is the truth. And we just think, Oh, it doesn't matter anybody just like that. We have never thought, Why? Why do we must let life be like that? Is it worth? Is it worth of letting it be like that, in spite of being educated person, having experiences and being healthy, wealthy, dignified in some certain points or some certain extent, by just wasting time on that, why don't learn how to get rid of that undesirable happenings? I have never thought about that. And when I heard anybody say, such as his Venerable ajahn buddhadasa, the founder of Suan Mokh, he always said in his preaching or his teaching, oh, ignorant people, stupid people. I can't stand that. I can't stand to listen, to hear that. Why? Because I consider myself intelligent. How can I accept to be called foolish or stupid or ignorant? I can't stand that until I feel, Oh, this is too much, too much to let the heart be sung or drowned in sufferings or dukkha. It's not worth of having. It's not worth of the success in life. And when we say success, it is in the sense of worldly success, success in work, being promoted to higher position, earning more money, be recognized by community, but still inside at the heart, always fighting, fighting with the pushing and pulling all the time, that's not worth. Until one day we begin to feel it's not worth to let life struggling like that. So just turning around, there might be something that will help us to pull the mind out of that of the situation, terrible situation. So coming to learn about Dhamma, to find the cause of the fighting in the heart. What is the cause of the fighting in the heart after I have studied it and searching for the cost of it, nothing more than the attachment. The attachment or the clinging to the self, because I want it to be like this, as I think is good, as I think is right. I always want thing to be the way I want. It is very difficult to listen to other people’s criticism. We cannot take it easily, and so after we begin to learn about this knowledge, the knowledge of the self, the knowledge of the clinging to the self, the knowledge of the not self, which is the law of nature.

And in fact, it is this thing that we ought to learn, or we ought to know, because after we have known and convinced with the truth, it is the way to solve this problem, or it will become our solution to solve the problems of life, so awitcha or ignorance means the state of the mind which does not know or does not have the knowledge of the thing which it ought to know. Know so many things in life, but does not know how to get rid of dukkha or problems. That is the thing that every human being ought to know, whether you can agree or not, just try to think carefully. Is it this that we want to know, this that we want to get rid of it, to overcome it, problems of life. We want to lead life smoothly, harmoniously and happily, truly happily. So awitcha or ignorance, means the state of the mind which doesn't have the knowledge of the thing of which it ought to know. And then the second condition, sankhara, or mental formation, it means the all kinds of thought, all kinds of thinking, coming to the mind, and it has caused the mental formation that is the characteristic of thinking and thinking and thinking on and on and on until it becomes endless thought. And of course, most of the thinking is nonsense, it’s nonsense thought. The mind has become to think more than necessary to think. What is necessary to think, to think about the work, to set plan about life, or to think about the plan for education or the plan for family, such as that. We agree that is necessary to think, but after we have finished to set the plan, whether it's the plan of life or the plan of work or the plan of family, stop stop thinking. Leave the plan there. No need to carry the plan all around and get worried whether it's possible. This plan is possible or it’s not. Is there anybody to support the plan? Make the plan successful? This is more than necessary thinking. After we have done the plan very carefully and mindfully, just leave it there so it won't become mental formation or sankhara. Sankara means concocting the thinking in different ways.  The thought of the thinking becomes so scattered, floating around, on and on and on never come to an end. That's mental formation. Why? Why mental formation has become like this? Because of awitcha or ignorance that stands at the top of the life or in the heart, so it makes the heart or the mind begins to think on and on and on and think this is good. This is the way that the intelligent people to think. And then the third condition is consciousness of viññāṇa. Consciousness or viññāṇa means the acknowledging of the things whatever happened, to acknowledge it, get to know it.

And then after that, namarupa, body mind. You know that life consists of body, mind. This is body. We all know body. The body is the thing that we can see and we can touch, the body from here to foot.  Life consists of body-mind, it cannot consist only body. It needs to have the mind. And it supposes that the mind supposed to be the commander of life, body supposed to be the servant. The other way to say, body is merely the instrument of the mind. The body is merely instrument of the mind. Whatever we speak, the mouth, the tongue performs its functions, and so the speech has come. But who commands the speech? Who masters the speech is the mind, because the mind wants to speak, and wants to speak in that way, and it makes this body as this instrument to perform that function. So body mind has to work together, so it will become life or make life.  The body without the mind is just not different from the rock or the stone.  It cannot move, it cannot feel.

It cannot show any feeling at all without the mind.  And at the same time, if there is only the mind, without the body, the mind cannot do anything, cannot demonstrate, cannot display any kind of desire or any kind of want, because there is Nobody which will be the instrument to perform the function as the mind wants. So life consists of body mind, and these two has to work together. But we take it as one, body mind becomes singular as one. We cannot separate it. If we separate it, then there is no life. Life cannot exist. Life there exists only when it consists of body-mind. And then the fifth condition, sense organs. You may look at this chart sense organs. There are six inner sense organs. As some of my friends know, sense organs is the organ of the body which is the means to accept the contact to the mind, the first one, first innocence organ, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. So there are six inner organs and these six inner sense organs has its pair, and its pair we call sense objects or outer sense organs. Sense object or outer sense organs. There are also six form or sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought, please try to remember this. This is very important, very important indeed, this sense organs, because it is the thing that will cause dukkha or seizes dukkha. It concerns on this sense organs of the ability to know how to deal with it. 

So please remember the form or the sight to the eyes, the sound to the ears, the smell to the nose, the taste to the tongue, the touch to the body and the thought to the mind. So these sense organs, and then the sixth condition is the contact, or phassa. And on this chart, will show what is the contact? How does it arise? And this is very important point. It is the point that all people who would like to escape from problems or dukkha or want to live beyond dukkha or problems need to know about the phassa or contact and be able to be wise and mindful in time when the contact or phassa arises, which means be able to deal with the contact properly and rightly, and then dukkha or problems cannot arise. So please try to understand what is the contact for phassa, the contact will arise when the three things or three factors work together. Three things or three factors work together, the first one in the sense organs, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, either one meet or concoct with its pair, sight or form, sounds, smell, taste, touch, but the pair meets, and then the consciousness of the inner sense organ functions. Then, contact arises. For instance, the eye, the flesh eyes, sees the form, the form of the very cute, puffy with very fluffy hair look very pretty, very nice. The eyes see the form of the cute puppy, and then the consciousness of the eyes functions at first. At first the eye sees the form or the sight of the thing, and maybe just seeing and passing right away did not pay much attention into it, but as soon as the consciousness of the eye functions and then it brings the memory or the knowledge. Ah, the puppy, that's the contact. Get to know the thing, but it is, notice it, but it is. Ah, that's the puppy. The puppy is the contact, because the three things or the three factors work together already, the eye in the sense organs, the site of form of the sense organ and the eye consciousness functions, and so the puppy is the contact. This is the contact. What is the contact?  That is the thing that can concocting to the mind by coming through the eye, through the ear, through the nose, through the tongue, through the body and through the mind. This is the contact. Then please ask yourself, how does it arise? Try to get the answer, how does the contact arise one minute. Take a good deep breath. Breathe comfortably so the mind becomes clear, good, right and then think carefully.  How does the contact arise? What is the contact? How does it arise? So now I do hope that all my friends have your answer, what is the contact and how does it arise? You all know. Now coming to the seventh condition, vedana or feeling, feeling of vedana, it means the feeling of always in either way, the pair of opposite liking or disliking, loving - hating, gaining - losing. See anytime, any moment that the feeling of vedana arising in the mind, it always cause two ways. Always two ways, either way, negative or positive, pleasing - displeasing, satisfying - dissatisfying, either way, all the time. Good? Is it good? Liking, up, up, up, disliking, down, down, down, good?. Of course not. If the mind has to work up and down, up and down, up and down all the time, please think, does it have a rest? Does the mind have a rest? No, not at all. The mind has to work all the time. Do you know that?  For the body, the body has the chance to rest, by sitting, by sleeping, by just enjoying oneself freely, that is the rest of the body.

But for the mind, very seldom indeed, to have a rest, even though we go to sleep in the comfortable bed, big mattress, but just lying, rolling all around, very wide awake, cannot sleep, and then turn into sleep, having a bad dream, screaming out. That is the sign showing that the mind never has a rest at all. And what's the cause that makes the mind cannot rest. We talked about that yesterday. It’s because of thinking, the flow of thoughts coming all the time, on and on, endless thinking, and we cannot stop it. And what is the thought coming to study about this chart. Do you know what is the thought? What is the thought? Could you see? What is the thought?  The thought is the contact? Is it ? It’s the contact directly to the mind, directly to the mind, even though there's no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch at all. We are in the room, that room because we are ready to go to bed, to get a good sleep, no outside contact. But still in the mind, we cannot get rid of the thinking. Cannot get rid of the memory in the past. Some are good, very good impression. Some bad, very suffering, but just cannot get rid of it, or sometimes the worrying and concerning of the future that has not come yet. What will it be? I really cannot predict about tomorrow, what will happen? See, just lie in there, supposed to sleep and cannot sleep, continue to think on and on and on and on. That's the cause, and that cause is the contact that makes life become disrepair and the mind never have a rest. That's why, even though looking out, outside, very healthy physically, but inside, very terrible, very ill health of the mind, we all know this if we notice it so carefully. So this is the contact.

How does contact arise? That's the mind in the sense organs. That's the thought same object or other sense organs. And the mind consciousness functions so it performs the contact. The contact already arises. And the mind is so full of ignorance or awitcha, it doesn't have the knowledge of the thing of which it ought to know. So it just think that good thinking is the sign of intelligent people. It means that human beings is wonderful, superb than other kinds of creatures. So it needs to think on and on and on. In fact, never see the bad effect of the nonsense thought or nonsense thinking. So after the contact, turns to be the feeling, see, because of the contact and when feeling of vedana arises either good or bad, either way, not on the middle, either good or bad, liking - disliking, expecting - not expecting, either way all the time, negative or positive. So feeling is very terrible. Feeling or vedana. It is this kind of feeling that cause life miserable, whether it's true or not, if we just sit, relaxed, cool and calm during that moment, is there any feeling of vedana in the mind?, when the mind feel cool and calm and clear, any feeling of vedana?  No, you have that experience. Just think, think back. We have that experience during that time the mind is clear, cool, calm, no vedana. How it's like when we taste or when we have a glimpse of that, wonderful. We can say it's wonderful when the mind is clear, cool, calm is wonderful because no disturbing happens in the mind at all. It's very wonderful because it seems void, void from clinging, from craving, nothing comes to stir the mind. It seems the mind is very free, very independent. It's it seems like it's liberated already. So that's wonderful of the mind when it's so smooth and normal, see. But anytime when vedana or feeling arising in the mind, it just makes the mind turn all around and life becomes problems because of vedana. That's why, in the third chapter, in the second chapter of anapanasati, we have to work on vedana Just to get to know what is vedana, what is its influence, or what is the influence of vedana, that it can work in people's life. It's very dangerous indeed to let vedana occur the mind or capture the mind. That's why we ought to know about the contact, what it is and how does it arise. Because it is the thing that will condition across vedana. And when vedana arises, it will bring the memory. It will bring the sankhara, or mental formation all along when there is the feeling, it cannot stop that. And so after we turn on the eighth condition is desire, desire, or tanha, you know desire. Desire is the wanting, but it is ignorant wanting, not wise wanting. It is ignorant wanting. When we call ignorant wanting, it means it’s the wanting for the self or the selfish want. The other way to say the selfish want, just wanting the way I want, just wanting the thing to belong to me, wanting to process this, to process that all the time. So that's why it causes problems or process dukkha. So desire or tanha is the ignorant want, the want for the self, the selfish want, and after that it is upadana, the nineth condition, upadana, or attachment. What is attachment? It is the feeling of clinging to sticking to something. So this attachment arising from the desire. So it depends upon what kind of desire, and the desires arising from vedana or feeling. So it depends which kind of vedana, suppose the vedana is positive, liking pleasing. So the desire want to get, want to get, want to get, want to pull it to belong to me. And there is the feeling of greed, the work of greed, lobha in that, see, and so the desire, want to get, want to bring it, to pull it to belong to me. And then it's conditions, upadana , or attachment, to get it, to get it. I must get it. I must get it because I like it. But if the feeling of vedana is negative, disliking, displeasing, dissatisfying, so the desire wants to get it away, get rid of it. Take it away. Don't bring it near me. See to push back, to push it away. And it’s conditions, attachment or upadana. I must get rid of it. I must get rid of it. That is the feeling of clinging or attaching. And then after that the tenth conditions, bhava or becoming or existing, which means the becoming or the feeling of being or having. Being or having, being of what, having, of what it arising from the attachment of upadana, if the attachment is I want, I want, so the becoming or existing. It is of being the I want, the I want. I want to be the rich person. There is the feeling of being the rich one or I want to be a charming lady. Being the charming lady arising that kind of feeling in the mind. So it conditions from the upadana and then the eleventh condition, Jati or birth, when the mind is occupied with the feeling of having of being, it cannot stop just that. It's just getting planted and growing stronger and stronger and stronger in the mind, until at last, it has become the feeling of the Self in broom, of the self in broom. And that is the other way to say is the Jati or the birth of the ego.

Ego is the concept so fully in the mind. Ego is the concept so fully in the mind. And then everything turns to be the last condition. dukkha dukkha dukkha dukkha. Problems all the time, because everything just concerned me, me and mine, me and mine, me and mine. Want everything to be the way of the me and the mind, the me and the mind all the time. And everybody just has the feeling of the me and the mind, the me and the mind. So the me and the mind of everybody just come out and fight with each other. You may see the picture is here, the self and the self, the two geckos, is here or there. Yes, that's it. That's it. That's the picture showing about the fighting of the ego and the ego, or the self and the self, illustrated by Emmanuel Sherman, also the American artist, not the Thai, not the Buddhist. So that's why Dharma is very universal. It doesn't belong to any race, any religion or any nationality at all, it is very universal. Any heart that is open through the Dharma can take it, can study it, and can make use of it for the benefit of life. So you see the fighting, the fighting of the self and the self, the two.Gekko turns its head to face each other, and you may notice the way it's facing, not to chat friendly, but ready to fight. And Emmanuel Sherman used the gecko to illustrate the feeling of the Self, or the attachment of the self when it happens in the mind of the people. You know why? Why he used the gecko or illustrated the gecko to represent or to display the feeling of attachment. You know why? You know the special quality of the gecko, the reason you know it has very sticky feet. If you don't believe it, try to catch it. When you see it cling to the wall, you try to pull it out from the wall. You have to use all your strength to pull it. Very strong, very sticky feet indeed. You see, it would not let it go so easily, just like the feeling of attachment to the self, when one's arising in the mind, it cannot let it go. You all know that. We know that is the most difficult thing to get rid of how intelligent we are. Intelligence only cannot get rid of the attachment it has to combine with wisdom, insight wisdom that we are trying to develop by studying dhamma and practicing dhamma, that is the way to develop wisdom, so it will support each other and make life become balancing. So, you know, when we see the fighting between the ego of the fever, it's ugly thing to see, very ugly indeed to see that kind of sight, very indecent.  You know that.  But we forget, when we are in the mood of attaching to the self or ego so strong, we forget how ugly it is. We just be in the same position and do the same thing. We have fought a lot too, and it's very ugly. It's not nice to look at. And so Emanuel Sherman also illustrate the broom in the picture. Could you imagine? What is reason to illustrate the broom in this picture for what?  When do we want to use the broom? When?

When we want to clean the floor, when we want to clean the ground, so we use the we use the broom. Why do we want to clean? Because the ground or the floor is very dirty, so we want to clean it, and we use the broom. So Emmanuel Sherman wants to tell his human friends that when the mind is occupied with the feeling of the attaching, or attachment to the self or the ego, selfishness that is so urly and also very, very dirty indeed, even though the mind doesn't have the form, doesn't have the color, doesn't have the smell, but it can be as dirty as well as the material thing, and this kind of dirty is very dangerous. Why is dangerous? Because we cannot see it, we cannot see it with this flesh eyes. So it makes us feel very misunderstanding and mistake it as clean, clean mind, good mind, good heart. In fact, it’s not. Many, many times it mixed with greed, lust, anger, aversion or delusion, being deceived all the time and never realize it. So anytime that we feel the mind becomes dirty, because this kind of clinging or attaching of the self learn to use the broom. And it must be the special broom that is the Dhamma broom, what would be the Dhamma room to sweep out this kind of dirtiness, law of nature. This is what I want to tell my friend as a friend, law of nature. Study more of the law of cause and effect and the law of three common characteristics, nothing is steady, nothing is permanent. Changing, changing, changing for what to cling to it. When we can't keep it, we can't maintain it. We have to let it go, whether we like it or not, we can't this is the law of nature. Nobody can bribe the nature. Nobody can bribe the nature. The Nature never care, never care to anybody, never play favorite. So the law of nature is very judge and fair, judge and fair to every people. So learn to use the Dharma broom to sweep away the dirtiness of the mind. And the most dirtiness of the mind is the attachment to the self, because it has caused all kinds of dukkha, and the view of life turns on and on and on and on, and it will move very quickly, quickly, quicker and quicker, faster and faster according to the degree of the dukkha happens in The mind. That's why the mind never have a rest, never has a rest at all, because it has been pushed all around, all around by the ignorance as the captain of the wier. Ignorance or awitcha as the captain of the weir. So first of all, to study dependent origination, I should like to ask my friend to study the meaning of each condition of it. If we understand it well, we will see the relations the interdependent relations among all these 12 conditions clearly. I should like to stop my talk now. We have not finished yet. We have much things to continue to go on, but I want to stop now giving time to my friends to revise or review all of these things that we have just said this morning for yourself, so you will see whether you can understand it right and clear or not. If not, you are welcome to ask. I'll be here until 11 o'clock, but this time is for your own study. If there is any question, you are welcome. If you want to take a break a few minutes and return to make a quiet study, please do.  There are papers here.