What is the nature of the knowledge of the mind of cessation?

A group of AI researchers came to MAPLE to speak with Forall. We introduced ourselves, showed them around the property, and invited them to introduce themselves over lunch. A group of us met with them to discuss their work. Then in the evening Forall gave a talk addressing the questions they had raised by email and in the preceding meetings.

There were many questions after the talk, and at certain times Forall invited us to address the questions before he gave his answer. The very last question asked by our visitors was about the nature of clinging itself, and about the nature of the knowledge of the mind of cessation. The question was asked as follows: “A central piece of your approach is the skillful creation of models that can help with the dropping of models. The core mechanism at hand here is clinging, and the end of clinging, and you spoke about the insight that one can have into what that really is, and how cessation can give rise to a knowing that stably prevents clinging from arising in the future. You said that this can be true whilst maintaining the ability to build models. So my question is: what really is this clinging? And what is the nature of the knowing that arises through cessation?”

Forall answered as follows. He began by recounting a related question asked a few days prior. “Recently we celebrated the Buddha’s birthday, and we had people come in from outside, and we gave a presentation on what we’re doing. One of our neighbors from down the hill heard that some AI people are coming to visit, and she said ‘aren’t you worried they will AI you?’. She meant, ‘It’s great that you’ve developed this clear mind, but these people — AI people — are the most selfish and narrow-minded people who have ever lived, so don’t you think that their clinging to their worldview is going to be so strong that they’ll get you to cling as well?’ I answered her question directly and categorically. I said: no, they can’t do that. I’m not saying that nobody can be AI’ed in this way. On the contrary, most people in the AI field are controlled by this harmful clinging, and most humans are controlled by this harmful clinging. It has become more harmful over the centuries. I’m not saying there’s no danger. As you know, there is an enormous danger. Clinging to views is arguably the most harmful thing that has ever happened on Earth. But there is such a thing as a sufficiently deep insight such that no view can trick us into clinging.”

“I hope that we are deeply encouraged by this, and also deeply humbled by this. We should enter into practice and be honest with ourselves about how much clinging is there, and to clearly identify what it is. This is very challenging. I trained in Asia for ten years, and then further elsewhere, and it was many many years before I was able to answer this question. I remember the day when a deep question about the term ‘attachment to self’ came up. I’d been hearing that ‘attachment to self’ is the big problem for a long time, and I realized for the first time that I had no idea what they were talking about. I didn’t know what those words referred to. I looked around for attachment to self and I couldn’t find it anywhere. What is attachment to self? Where is attachment to self? How is attachment to self? I knew that they emphasized it so much that they must be talking about something important. After an enormous struggle, it eventually became clear what is meant by ‘attachment to self’, in the same way that when you hold this glass of water, it is completely clear what is being referred by ‘this glass of water’. If someone says ‘well what is it?’ then you can say ‘this is it, see’. It finally became clear like that.”

He continued: “Then what is it? The first thing to say is that there are many different types of it. You can cling to all kinds of things. Clinging could be said to be a kind of resistance or a kind of conflict, and that conflict produces the sense of separation. But even prior to that there is already the absolutely tangible knowledge— as when you feel pain in your body — you can identify this act, this doing. It can be represented as a hindrance to the flow in your body and the stopping in a perspective in your mind. You obstruct death, you obstruct change, you obstruct the impermanence of your body, you obstruct the groundlessness of your mind — these happen together; they are different ways of talking about the same thing. You immediately see how the perception and behavior that come out of that are the advent of delusion and suffering. You can actually see that the moment clinging is brought into any mental act or bodily phenomenon, what comes out of it is not only suffering but also is delusion. It can be directly known in that way.

“Therefore, it becomes distasteful. So then this would be the nature of knowing born of clinging. The nature of the other is, well, I’ll take you through it.

“As you move into this distastefulness, and before realizing liberation, you move into the liminal zone of samadhi. Significantly at that time, because the act of separation isn’t active, there is a unification of experience. The process of cutting things apart and then saying what things are, or saying what things are in order to cut things apart — that process functions less and less. Because of that, the variety of phenomena functions less and less. Because of that, the experience of inside and outside dissolves. You can’t tell if something is near or far. To us now that wall is far away, my skin is closer, and somehow what’s inside my skin is even closer. That goes away and you stop having the sense of where things are. You then stop having the experience that there is any kind of directionality to time whatsoever. Usually people have a strange experience of time moving from past to future, then future to past, then a constant present, but the constant present is still a kind of time and even that vanishes, and then there is the cessation of any kind of time whatsoever. Because of that there is the cessation of any kind of conceptualization, so there is no way to perceive at all. Due to that there isn’t a way to determine good and bad — there is no way to determine what you want or don’t want.”

“To move through this next stage properly, it is essential to have the skill of joy. If you haven’t experienced the things that I’ve described as bliss, as endless impossible joy, then this can hurt you, because you will resist and turn it back into something about you. But with joy, you can let go into ease.”

“You discover with this release — to return to your point that everything you have tried to do to “benefit the world”, “learn things”, “be a good person”, has quietly been selfish. It’s been a willingness to kill everyone for my benefit. It’s that level of tragedy. All of the perceptions I’ve ever had, all of the conclusions I’ve ever come to, have been subtly but invariably directed towards myself. You experience an absolute revulsion, to the whole thing. I’m about to use a certain word, which is the correct word, but know that it refers to the most joyful experience you’ve had up to this point: You see that the whole thing was sick. Just pure sick. Again, it can be shattering to see in this way, so you need the joy and the revulsion. If you do, then you say ‘here goes … in that case … here goes’. To say that is an immediate sense of freedom that is bigger than the whole universe. It really is: it not only encompasses, it surpasses the whole universe. And then there is complete and absolute cessation of everything, and that’s it’s quality.”

After this, the residents and guests went to the zendo for evening sitting. Once evening practice was finished, while we were still sitting in the zendo, Forall completed the answer:

“This is the practice that leads us to the mind of cessation, as was discussed earlier. The question asked was: what is the nature of the knowledge of this mind? The nature of the knowledge of the mind of cessation is unmistaken. This knowledge — the way it engages and functions — is without mistake. We have the opportunity to explore this as we continue to practice, entering the full scope of awakening and responsibility.”