Dealing With Difficulties

0:01 Oh, cheese. The recording is in progress. Anybody like cheese? Anybody? Oh, quite a lot of likes. Anybody dislike cheese? Only one. Wow. Now, what about, oh, two. What about kimchi? Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:27 Quite a lot of, four or five likes. Report an error in the passage at 0:27 Highlight the passage at 0:27

0:34 Six or more, maybe. Any dislikes? I find the smell somewhat overpowering in the monastery kitchen. I'm not always sure that it is kimchi, but I think it is. But it turns out that actually kimchi is one of these things that's really healthy for you. It's fermented food, and people absolutely really like it. And it's also, of course, a very lush Korean delicacy. Report an error in the passage at 0:34 Highlight the passage at 0:34

1:10 So in that sense, perhaps it's a bit culturally dependent as well. And the last one is durian fruit. What about durians? Who's up for... Oh, we've got one in Indonesia who's up for durians. We've got strong no there. Any other no's? Yes, quite a lot. And again, the point is, how many people who voted no actually have tasted durian? Report an error in the passage at 1:10 Highlight the passage at 1:10

1:44 Because it's actually really nice. It just smells disgusting. So the point is here that there are some principles we can draw about these feelings, pleasant or unpleasant. It's not fixed. It's all conditioned. It depends what we're conditioned on. If we've been brought up in a country where durians, we all eat durians, we'll tend to like durians, the same with kimchi and cheese. Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

2:14 But it's subjective. Just because one person likes one of these smells and not everybody liked ice cream, it doesn't mean everybody likes ice cream. They feel a pleasant feeling when they think of ice cream. And the last point is it's very subject to context. It depends on the context. So the cup of coffee might be greater for breakfast, but maybe it's not so good in the evening. Report an error in the passage at 2:14 Highlight the passage at 2:14

2:47 So there we are. So we can change our perceptions. And I was trying to suggest that we may not like durian fruit. The smell of it, but actually it actually tastes quite nice. And so once you know that and you know kimchi is healthy, you may actually decide that it's actually not so bad after all. So it's not fixed. And by changing our perceptions, we see things differently and we see other aspects of the object, whatever it may be. Report an error in the passage at 2:47 Highlight the passage at 2:47

3:23 So now returning to more mainstream. Mainstream ideas I want to look at right intention, right motivation. And I'm going to do it in this book here, which was published last year on Ajahn's 74th birthday. It's the word of the Buddha. And it's his translation of the classic book by, if anybody can pronounce it, anyway. Report an error in the passage at 3:23 Highlight the passage at 3:23

3:54 But anyway. It's a well-known book which lists the essential points about Buddhism, including the Eightfold Noble Path and the Four Noble Truths and a few other things. And so let's see how Ajahn Brahm has translated right motivation. It goes like this, part of it anyway. What now is right motivation? Actions of body, speech and mind arising from a motive of renunciation arising from a motive of kindness or arising from a motive of gentleness this is called right motivation what are wrong motivations there are motivations of desire concerning the world of the five senses of aversion of cruelty and there are other forms of wrong motivation, but I just wanted to go that far. Report an error in the passage at 3:54 Highlight the passage at 3:54

5:04 So let's look a bit now about the inclination of the mind to sensual desire. And this now comes from, and we're ready for the first quote, it comes from, please, Gloria, if you could put up the first page of the thing. This quote here is basically the most important thing in this talk, particularly the bit in italics. Report an error in the passage at 5:04 Highlight the passage at 5:04

5:37 And for the audio recording, I'll read it out. Bhikkhus, whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his or her mind. Report an error in the passage at 5:37 Highlight the passage at 5:37

5:52 Bhikkhus, whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind. If he frequently thinks and ponders upon thoughts of renunciation, he has abandoned the thought of sensual desire to cultivate the thought of renunciation. And then his mind inclines to thoughts of renunciation. And the Buddha goes on to say this is a way of steadying the mind and eventually clearing the mind and paving the way for samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 5:52 Highlight the passage at 5:52

6:25 But the key thing I want to bring out here is that It's really, really important that we don't actually indulge without understanding sensual desire, without understanding that it hangs around in the mind. It's the same with aversive thoughts too. If we indulge in aversive thoughts, oh, it doesn't matter, no one knows what I'm thinking. Report an error in the passage at 6:25 Highlight the passage at 6:25

6:54 The thing is, it stays in the mind, and it stays in the mind, and then we find... Oh, it's come up again. And the reason for this is that we think we know, we think we're in control, but we're not. It's just cause and effect. It depends on the conditions, on the context. And so it's quite important, very important in fact, to practice renunciation so that our mind is pure. Report an error in the passage at 6:54 Highlight the passage at 6:54

7:29 We need to keep it clean. In other words, Good sīla. It really has a direct effect over the longer term. So now moving to the next slide. Report an error in the passage at 7:29 Highlight the passage at 7:29

7:46 This is from Majin Nakaya 20. And I'm also going to read, tell you a little bit about where this comes from. In that this is from... from, uh, Sutta called Dealing with Difficult Thoughts, I think is the correct term. And it's basically this part, this quote is come from Ajahn Brahm's The Word of the Buddha, but it's part of actually right effort. Report an error in the passage at 7:46 Highlight the passage at 7:46

8:25 effort uh samavayama or right endeavor as adjan calls it and right endeavor in fact has four components for right endeavor And I'm mainly going to talk about the F endeavor to abandon. Here we have it here. And this is what happens. And by the way, we We'd really practice this when we find we have quite a lot of sort of say unpleasant thoughts and aversive thoughts or sensual thoughts and so on. Report an error in the passage at 8:25 Highlight the passage at 8:25

9:10 We don't you know if it's just one off then basically hopefully that's that but if this sort of is a recurring thing. In meditation, we so often find we have these thoughts that just come up and come up. Then we need to apply right effort, the endeavor to abandon here. So when you are mindful of some object and there arises in you afflicting unwholesome motivations connected with desire, aversion, delusion, then, and there are five methods here. Report an error in the passage at 9:10 Highlight the passage at 9:10

9:46 And the first one is, you should give attention to some other object that generates wholesome mind states. Thus, unwholesome states are abandoned and subside. With their disappearance, your mind becomes internally steady, settled, unified, and still. And the word still is actually Ajahn's translation for samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 9:46 Highlight the passage at 9:46

10:11 And just as a little aside here, on Ajahn's recording of his Sutta class for Majima Nikaya 20. He gives a very good explanation as to why still is a good translation for samādhi and concentrated is not a good translation because concentrated has notions of willpower but stillness has no notions of willpower. Report an error in the passage at 10:11 Highlight the passage at 10:11

10:41 So going back to this we're giving attention We're giving attention to states that are wholesome. And what are states that are wholesome? Well, we got that out of the first little quote. Report an error in the passage at 10:41 Highlight the passage at 10:41

10:59 They are basically a motive of renunciation, a rising motive of kindness, or a rising motive of gentleness, and so on. And so... If we have thoughts and we think, oh, this person doesn't really load the dishwasher very effectively, we could do it so much more quickly. You know, if every time you look at the dishwasher, you think, oh, it could be done so much more quickly, then why not try turning the perception of this around? Report an error in the passage at 10:59 Highlight the passage at 10:59

11:33 Why not try turning the perception around to something like, isn't it wonderful that they're volunteering to do some washing up? Report an error in the passage at 11:33 Highlight the passage at 11:33

11:43 They're trying so hard to clean, make sure the plates really are clean. Maybe that's why they're taking a bit longer instead of, oh, you're taking too much time. Report an error in the passage at 11:43 Highlight the passage at 11:43

11:55 There's another, we can also use mettā and compassion. We can say things like, yes, you've been having a hard day today. I know you're a bit short with me, but I know you've been working very hard. You had a hard day. So, you know, it's great that you've been working so hard, but I forgive you. These are kind thoughts with the right sort of motivation. And there are other things we can do. Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:34 How often are we self-critical? We often beat ourselves up and say we're so useless and stuff. and There, we could actually use mettā to give ourselves kindness. This is a very good example, actually, of giving attention to some other object that generates wholesome mind space. Instead of beating ourselves up, we can catch it quickly with the vedanā, and we can give ourselves mettā. Report an error in the passage at 12:34 Highlight the passage at 12:34

13:12 Okay. There's also, actually... Ajahn Brahm, when talking about forgiveness, talks about having, if you need to tell someone that they're really not in line, to put it politely, he also says you should do it with a sandwich and you should start off by giving them lots of kind and wholesome encouragement and stating good things and wholesome things about it. Report an error in the passage at 13:12 Highlight the passage at 13:12

13:46 Their behaviour and then go into the thing you feel needs a little bit of criticism and then afterwards go back to giving more of the kind stuff. Report an error in the passage at 13:46 Highlight the passage at 13:46

13:58 And in fact, actually, if one does this, maybe if the thought about the unkind, about the thing that is so we feel deserves to be criticised. If that thought comes up, maybe it'll come wrapped in your nice, kind, wholesome things and this unpleasant thought will become a pleasant thought. Report an error in the passage at 13:58 Highlight the passage at 13:58

14:22 Okay, let's move on to the next one. You should examine the danger in these unwholesome motives. Well, it's very useful to think about what does happen if we continue to think of people as very negative or we feel that where we work is so awful. And we must, because in the end, you know, in the end we just talk ourselves out of the place. Maybe that isn't actually the most appropriate thing. Report an error in the passage at 14:22 Highlight the passage at 14:22

14:55 Or we actually may also find one of the dangers of this is that we don't get calm. And that gives us pain. And there's also, of course, the karmic thing. If you really give someone a totally unwarranted dressing down, it's quite likely there will be a karmic cost for this. Report an error in the passage at 14:55 Highlight the passage at 14:55

15:24 For example, I might have remorse later. So these things are very much worth examining. The next one is to try to ignore these unwholesome motives and not to give attention to them. And this can be quite successful, actually. For example, if you have sensual thoughts towards some attractive individual, when they appear in your view, you can just close your eyes or turn your head the other way. Report an error in the passage at 15:24 Highlight the passage at 15:24

16:01 And this actually does work. You can also ignore things by finding something else to think about. Or you can just say to yourself, it's not important. This is my meditation time, for example, and there's no need to think about my tax return right now. Report an error in the passage at 16:01 Highlight the passage at 16:01

16:24 The next one is giving attention to the stilling of the causes of these motives. And here, the Buddha encourages us to look more deeply into why it is that we're thinking about this a lot. And Report an error in the passage at 16:24 Highlight the passage at 16:24

16:41 I'm going to return to that in a moment, but the Buddha does talk about, we can, for example, if we're rushing somewhere, we might say, why am I walking so fast? Maybe you can walk a bit more slowly. And actually, he then goes on to talk about, well, why am I walking? Why don't I sit? Why am I sitting? Why don't I lie down? Report an error in the passage at 16:41 Highlight the passage at 16:41

17:06 And this sort of reflection can calm us down and bring us to a better place. And then lastly, this whole business, which is quite funny, but actually very much a last resort. You clench your teeth with your tongue pressed against the roof of your mouth and you beat down, constrain and crush any such afflicting, unwholesome motives. Report an error in the passage at 17:06 Highlight the passage at 17:06

17:32 With the disappearance of them, your mind becomes internally steady, settled, unified, and still. Well, actually, Ajahn says it's got a lot of willpower. It's a bit raw and horrible. He doesn't really recommend this from his talk, but one of the monks actually said occasionally this can be useful instead of getting angry about something. Report an error in the passage at 17:32 Highlight the passage at 17:32

18:00 I just want to expand in the last few moments about the number four, giving attention to stilling the causes of these motives. So we can go back to the Zoom picture now. It's the end of that slide. Thank you. And basically, a lot of what's going on is that we find, if we look carefully enough and honestly enough, that we've got ourself involved here. Report an error in the passage at 18:00 Highlight the passage at 18:00

18:30 A lot of this stuff comes down to how does this affect me? I don't like whatever this is, and it's my view that they're wrong. And the thing is, whose view really is it? It's just something that's arisen. It's arisen out of the circumstances that this is the case. But consider that you might be in a... Report an error in the passage at 18:30 Highlight the passage at 18:30

19:01 Let's call it a discussion with someone about where to build a wall. And one person wants it in one place and you want it in another place. And the point is that both people think that they're right. I'm right. I know this is the best place for the wall. And the other person thinks the same way. I'm right. This is where the self-view is so destructive. Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:34 With such disagreements, the last thought I really want to leave you with, just past half past seven, is that actually this is just dukkha. And so it takes us right to the first noble truth. There is suffering. There is dukkha. And what we have here is we have some very useful methods for helping to deal with this. Report an error in the passage at 19:34 Highlight the passage at 19:34

20:03 And that's all I had to say. Thank you for listening. Report an error in the passage at 20:03 Highlight the passage at 20:03

20:13 um should we go to meditation now whatever you wish okay so we will do um will you do guided meditation or we just meditate half an hour uh i'll do a little bit of guiding okay yeah that would be great thank you um you've probably gathered from what i said at the beginning that the guiding is going to be around And. Report an error in the passage at 20:13 Highlight the passage at 20:13

20:40 Mainly about mettā, but you're free to do whatever you want, but I'm going to speak for a short time and then let you just go free form. And Gloria, it's now by my clock, 32 minutes past the hour. What time do we go to now? Eight o 'clock? Yes. Yes. Okay. So it'll be about a 28 minute guided meditation. Report an error in the passage at 20:40 Highlight the passage at 20:40

21:11 So the first thing we do is we get comfortable wherever we're sitting or whether we're lying or if we're standing, doing standing meditation if we're a bit sleepy. Report an error in the passage at 21:11 Highlight the passage at 21:11

21:27 And we get comfortable in the chair or whatever. I'm going to call it a chair because I'm sitting in a chair. And we have our feet perhaps on the ground. or on a cushion and we can start by paying attention to our feet and thanking them for all hard work they do carrying our weight around and transporting us from one place to another and they've done this through most of our lives if they're still active still working properly and if they're not well they've done great service in the past Report an error in the passage at 21:27 Highlight the passage at 21:27

22:14 So we can be grateful to our feet and we can also try now to relax them, look for the tension in them and relax them. Report an error in the passage at 22:14 Highlight the passage at 22:14

22:27 And we may find a little bit of pain in our ankles and we try to relax that. And if the pain persists a little, we can perhaps look a bit more closely at the pain and see whether really it's as permanent as perhaps we think it is. Report an error in the passage at 22:27 Highlight the passage at 22:27

22:50 The pain can be our teacher and now we move up we've got the calves we can relax those and the knees and the thighs up to the pelvis and to our tummies our bellies all Report an error in the passage at 22:50 Highlight the passage at 22:50

23:21 the way through the thorax and lungs and everything and we can then Relax our shoulders a bit and our arms and twiddle our fingers so they're relaxed a bit. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:38 And now we pay attention to relaxing our minds a bit. So one way is to do three, a deep breath in, a long breath in through the nose and then let it out slowly through the mouth. We do that three times. Report an error in the passage at 23:38 Highlight the passage at 23:38

· · · silence, 1 minute

24:48 And now we're hopefully a little bit more relaxed, there's a bit more letting go going on, and it may be helpful to turn our thoughts to thoughts of loving kindness. Report an error in the passage at 24:48 Highlight the passage at 24:48

25:05 And one of the images the Buddha gave was of a cow and the calf, cow's calf, and the attention the cow gave the calf. Report an error in the passage at 25:05 Highlight the passage at 25:05

25:25 it nourishment, letting it feed. and making sure that it's safe. Report an error in the passage at 25:25 Highlight the passage at 25:25

25:39 and being kind to it. Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

25:45 And if the cow is one image, but we might also think of lambs, little lambs and their mothers, the ewes. Report an error in the passage at 25:45 Highlight the passage at 25:45

26:01 Kindness that they show and how they run to their mother when there's the right noise. There's Report an error in the passage at 26:01 Highlight the passage at 26:01

26:11 lots of tail wagging because everybody's happy. Report an error in the passage at 26:11 Highlight the passage at 26:11

26:19 Or maybe it's feeding a little kangaroo that got hurt in a road accident and its mother's died. And we have a bottle and we're feeding the kangaroo with the bottle. And it's eagerly sucking up the milk before we know where we are. The whole bottle's been taken and it's got its nourishment and now the little kangaroo in our arms can have a good sleep. Report an error in the passage at 26:19 Highlight the passage at 26:19

26:53 Our Report an error in the passage at 26:53 Highlight the passage at 26:53

26:58 job is not to sleep but our job is to be kind to ourselves and imagine ourselves being nourished and kept safe and secure and Report an error in the passage at 26:58 Highlight the passage at 26:58

27:16 just keep nourishing ourselves and when we if we find we want to move on We can nourish others in our minds, send them goodwill. So let's be kind to ourselves. May Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:41 I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering. Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

· · · silence, 6 minutes

33:29 If you find your attention wandering, gently bring it back to your meditation object, your mettā, the sense of kindness and safety and peacefulness and calmness and be kind to ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 33:29 Highlight the passage at 33:29

33:50 Wishing them well, wishing them happiness, wishing them health. Report an error in the passage at 33:50 Highlight the passage at 33:50

· · · silence, 12 minutes

45:40 Okay, in the last few moments, few minutes of meditation, it's always helpful to look back on the meditation we've just done and consider what worked well and Report an error in the passage at 45:40 Highlight the passage at 45:40

46:02 what didn't work. And Report an error in the passage at 46:02 Highlight the passage at 46:02

46:10 also ask, how did you feel before? And how do you feel now? And why? And Report an error in the passage at 46:10 Highlight the passage at 46:10

46:52 then when you're ready, you can open your eyes gently and become aware of what's in the room around. Report an error in the passage at 46:52 Highlight the passage at 46:52