From Tea Time Chat with Tahn Pamutto, February 25, 2026
Question: What about those deva’s who love to create? How do they get that way?
Tahn Pamutto: There is one aspect of Samādhi that is very important: the third Noble truth, the realization of cessation, is something that we have to do. It’s something that we have to apply our minds to. It doesn’t happen automatically; things are always ceasing. All throughout the day, some of our worst suffering ceases and we don’t notice it.
We notice when it’s there. We notice when we’re suffering, when we’re angry, when we’re obsessed. It shows up in our mind. But when we’re not suffering, we don’t think, “Oh look, I’m not obsessed. I’m not angry right now.” It doesn’t occur to us. We have to train ourselves to notice when we’re not suffering.
As you develop your samādhi, things will cease and you’ll get to this place where things are quiet and, and your mind is energetic and pliable and creative and bright. You’ll be saying, “This is wonderful.” But if you don’t turn that thought around, that’s all you get. Later on, you’ll be thinking, “Why was that so nice? Now things really suck. It was way better when I was in samādhi. Why was that?”
If you turn your mind around when you get to these peaceful and blissful and unattached states, you can ask, “What has ceased?” Often what you discover is the thing that ceased was something that you otherwise thought was “you”.
We are so used to verbal formations, creating perceptions, creating stories, creating narratives. We perceive things from a perspective, it’s just second nature. We don’t know how to not do it. We sit down in a quiet place and our mind is just yada yada yada. It’ll pull something up from our childhood and it’ll yada yada yada about that. It’s just doing what it does.
But when you get to a level of samādhi where the chattering is gone, you realize the yada yada yada itself is just a verbal formation. The mind was doing that thing it’s programmed to do, but under certain conditions it ceases. When that thing is not present, you find that there still is a mental experience. Your mental experience was not dependent on that thing.
This is a great platform for contemplation. Your mind is free of hindrances, it’s pliable, it’s bright, it’s malleable. Now let’s drop in this idea: all things aren’t permanent. Let’s drop in this idea: all things are not self. Let’s drop in the idea of samsāra and the dangers of repeated existence. See how the mind, when it’s not held down by all of your mundane mental processes, is powerful. You’re able to really take it and go interesting places with it.
And this is also a good way to start to understand the devas.
A lot of things are essential for you to be a functional member of society, a good human being, with emotions and opinions and responsibilities for paying your taxes and taking out the trash. If those all cease, all of these good adjusted human things that you do, what are you? What will you find? It’s hard to describe; the mind is still there.
“What could I be in this state?”
A lot of deva rebirths were not necessarily from their merit. They didn’t become “a deva who delights in creation” because they gave a bunch of offerings and were reborn as a deva who delights in creation. They get to be that level because they delighted in creation. They spent their days in the mental realm, creating these vast narratives and universes and kind of fleshing them out. Then they pass away and their mind is freed from the shackles of corporeal existence. “Let’s just keep doing that. That was way more fun, way more engaging. No need to worry about that other stuff.” They just keep doing what they’ve been doing. There’s a place for that.
As practitioners, we can get to that mind state where the mind is able to just create mental objects. Hopefully, you’ve also got rid of some of the craving. And you recognize this is a great platform for contemplation. And you find that once you let go of all the things that you thought you had to be, you have a lot more freedom, a lot more opportunity.