Tonight we come to Ādittapariyāya Sutta (Burning …). The Buddha taught this to the former dreadlocks ascetics, presenting his analysis of the human being as constituted by six sense fields. These are the sensitivities of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind, and their corresponding sense objects.

The six sense fields are the counterpart of the five aggregates, which were presented to the five companions in his first teaching. While the aggregates are predominantly mental (four of the five are mental), the sense fields are predominantly physical (five of the six are physical). While the aggregates construct a self primarily through cognition, culminating in our sense of narrative unity, the sense fields construct a self primarily through feeling, culminating in our sense of sensual unity. The teaching of the sense fields are centred on drivenness (taṇhā) and the dis-ease (dukkha).
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This morning we review the nature of the practice, applying it to the circumstances we presently find ourselves in — the final full day of this retreat.
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Tonight we follow the Buddha from Bārāṇasī back to the area where he practised before his awakening, the Nerañjarā River near Gayā. First, at Bārāṇasī, the Buddha awakens Yasa, the son of a rich banker. This is the first time the Buddha awakens a lay person, proving the dharma can be understood by the laity as well as by professional ascetics; and the first time the Buddha gives a “graduated discourse,” which becomes the basic template of his teaching method. Yet this is not counted as the third teaching. Why not?

After his successes in Bārāṇasī the Buddha goes alone to visit Uruvelā Kassapa, the important head of an order of dreadlocks ascetics. He spends at least a month performing miracles to convert Kassapa and his followers. Why was Kassapa so important? Finally the Buddha leads the newly converted ascetics to Gayāsisa, near Gayā, to give them the third teaching, Ādittapariyāya Sutta (Burning …).
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This morning we are looking at how we can track the state of our citta. Citta is a key technical term used by the Buddha. It could be translated as “mind,” “heart,” “heart-mind,” or even “soul,” in the non-theological sense of that word. In the context of our practice, citta represents our inner state; how we are, at this time. It is intimately connected to the body, and is in a state of constant change. While the state of our citta may be quite subtle, often we are moved to contemplate it when we find ourselves disturbed by emotion. Here we discuss using emotion as a meditation object.
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We continue with Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), seeing not-self (anattā) as a practice rather than as a doctrine. This practice revolves around the fundamental turning point of nibbidā, “disenchantment.” From disenchantment comes liberation, through the “just-this-ness” (tathatā) of experience.
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Our addiction to thinking creates a major barrier to settling into samādhi, “unification” or “concentration.” Often we try to push thought away, or simply endure it as an unpleasant fact of life. But the essence of this practice, according to Mahāsī Sayādaw, is to note, or be deliberately aware of, whatever is predominant in any of the six sense fields, now. If thinking is currently predominant, then thinking should be our meditation object.

How can we become objective spectators of our subjective mental processes? This morning we conduct some experiments in using the thought-stream as a meditation object, and discuss the results.
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We come to Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), where the Buddha presents the five aggregates associated with clinging and reveals their real nature. The five aggregates are one of the two main ways in which the Buddha analyses the nature of the human being. They represent what we cling to to create our sense of who we are and what the world is.

We look at the Buddha’s description of how we construct our identity through the three movements of: craving (taṇhā), the drive to possess; conceit (māna), our fundamental sense of separation and identity; and view (diṭṭhi), the completed concept we have of ourselves-within-our-world. We consider how the Buddha's understanding of not-self (anattā) plays out in his understanding of life-after-life. If there is, fundamentally, no-one here, then who moves from one life to another?
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This morning we move onto the third satipaṭṭhāna, that of vedanā, usually translated “feeling.” We explore what we mean by feeling, and try to come to an understanding of what the Buddha means by “vedanā.” Vedanā can be seen as the affective aspect of experience, the capacity of any given experience to move us in some way — to provoke a response. For the Buddha, feeling and response are inextricably linked. To understand what we do, we must understand what — and how — we feel.
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We continue with Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Turning the dharma wheel), completing our examination of the four truths by looking at the Buddha's conception of truth, found in Cankī Sutta (MN 95). When the Buddha speaks about “truth,” what does he mean? A proposition? Something to believe? Or is he speaking of something else?
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This morning we experiment with breathing as our meditation object. We learn to experience breathing as air element (vayo dhātu) — the movements within the body associated with inhalation and exhalation — and cultivate a sense of detail and precision in tracking these movements.
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Continuing with Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Turning the dharma wheel), we examine the four truths, and in particular how they show the Buddha's understanding of pleasure and pain. The truths provide the fundamental structure of the teaching. We see dukkha presented as the pain arising from our delusion and drivenness. Then we look at how Siddhartha, before he became Buddha, turned his practice around through a spontaneous memory from his childhood which stimulated the arising of a fundamental question: “Why am I afraid of pleasure?” The practice requires pleasure — but what kind of pleasure?
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The foundation of satipaṭṭhāna (establishing mindfulness) is the tracking (anupassanā), or contemplation, of our experience of body. As we remain present to physical experience over time, we learn to drop beneath our concepts of body to its direct, sensual impact. What we normally take to be “my body” becomes, as we go deeper, different manifestations of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water.
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Tonight we begin our examination of Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Turning the dharma wheel), the Buddha's first recorded teaching, delivered to his five ascetic companions. He has found a strategy to communicate the dharma, which he calls the "middle way" (majjhimā paṭipadā). What is the middle way, and how does the Buddha communicate it? And what does "turning the wheel" refer to?

We also preview the four truths, how their basic structure reveals the Buddha’s dynamic vision of dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda).
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Today we introduce the method of meditation we are practising during this retreat. Yesterday morning we just brought a sense of open curiosity to the examination of mind/body experience. This morning we are applying system to this investigation, stimulating what the Buddha calls yoniso manasikāra, “appropriate attention.” We do this through the meditation method created by Mahāsī Sayādaw of Burma (1904-1982), which is structured by his division of experience into primary and secondary object, along with the fundamental activities of noting, naming and noticing.
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Tonight we look at the Buddha's activities during the weeks immediately after his awakening. We see him as a powerful shaman, and how he wrestled with the question of whether or not he should attempt to communicate his awakening. It took the intervention of Brahmā Sahampati to persuade him to teach. Why was the Buddha so reluctant? And what does his reluctance tell us about the dharma he wanted to teach — and about himself?
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