Automated transcript, estimated accuracy about 92% for this source; report an error.
Words the recogniser was unsure of are underlined with dots. Use “Report an error” beside any passage to tell us what the teacher actually says.
Key passages
The teacher's own words, quoted from the transcript below and chosen automatically as representative.
- 4:04
Now, in Buddhist teaching, there's the form of desire called ganha, which is... It's just that, where you just depend on the greed that any human being has to attain and achieve and become something. So you arouse in them various desires to become something, to become better, to become the best, to have lots of money, to become famous, to have a big name,
- 6:32
An inner zeal, an interest that is something very good to encourage. Something that is encouraged in children will allow them to go in a direction that is wholesome and wise. It allows them to develop themselves as beautiful human beings rather than just clever and greedy or dropouts, those that can't compete and just hate themselves for not being able to fit into the competitive system.
- 8:52
there is this longing to know, aspiration to know the truth. And in Buddhist terms, the truth then is the dharma, the truth of the way it is. Not some abstracted truth or philosophical truth that is so subtle or so abstract that it couldn't possibly mean much to, say, a young child.
- 37:20
And so in education, the suggestions to a child's mind, what would seem to be more very skillful and helpful to a developing child would be to encourage them in their aspirations and longings to know the truth. When we, of course in our own life, how we live our lives, it's going to have a very powerful effect on our children also. Because what we say, isn't it, what we say, children tend to remember and believe. So when we speak to our children or teach, then what we say to them is to be considered.
- 58:35
In Buddhist values, one of the most important virtues is unlimited generosity, generosity, being able to share, limited morality, morality that puts limitations on conduct and speech, guidelines. Then there's the renunciation, willing to give up personal convenience. Privacy and privilege for the welfare of others.
Transcript
0:02 I want to welcome you to Amaravati this afternoon. And Report an error in the passage at 0:02
0:18 today's subject is something on teaching children. Some of you have had much more experience in this than I have, not having had any children. So I'm not trying to assume, make assumptions about how to bring up children or teach them, but just give reflections from My own experience of Report an error in the passage at 0:18
0:50 how the mind works so that one can take into account, say, when we're with our children, what is going to be a benefit, what is going to really help and assist them throughout their lives, because education is something that sometimes we think in too narrow a way. You think of preparing maybe for only a certain phase of our life, the time that we're young and active, and oftentimes the later part of life is not taken into account in the Western world. Report an error in the passage at 0:50
1:42 We think that that is something to be educated for. But yet a proper education, according to what It would be of value to all of us, or to any human being, would be a way of looking at life as a totality, as a whole, from birth to death. Report an error in the passage at 1:42
2:11 Much of our values in Western materialism are just emphasizing the active side of life, the youthful side. Report an error in the passage at 2:11
2:30 So much of our values are based on competitive attitude, I think, where our modern education tends to be competitive, where we consider success as having won something, having achieved something and attained something in competition with someone else. Report an error in the passage at 2:30
2:56 Cooperative values, they are, have not been greatly emphasized in the Western world. Modern capitalism, for one thing, depends on competition, outwitting somebody else, being better or more clever than somebody else. Cooperative values sometimes are even despised because it sounds as if we have this idea that if we don't have very egotistical goals to work for, that we wouldn't do anything. Report an error in the passage at 2:56
3:40 Some people think if you don't dangle carrots in front of animals, they would never do anything. You have to always make promises and try to arouse that which is greedy in them in order for them to do something. Report an error in the passage at 3:40
4:04 Now, in Buddhist teaching, there's the form of desire called ganha, which is... It's just that, where you just depend on the greed that any human being has to attain and achieve and become something. So you arouse in them various desires to become something, to become better, to become the best, to have lots of money, to become famous, to have a big name, name to have lots of material uh things to have a a big A big car, a nice house, to just be better than somebody else. So that this emphasis on desire, on arousing and creating desire in the minds of human beings, Report an error in the passage at 4:04
5:03 and the results of that is what we find today, a tendency toward, say, depression and... When we don't, when we can't, when we're not in the running, when we're never the winner, when we never can really get what we want or get the recognition or the prize. Report an error in the passage at 5:03
5:32 Now there's also another word in Pāli language which is a way of talking about, say, something very wholesome. It's wholesome in... Report an error in the passage at 5:32
5:48 In relating to each other and towards children is to arouse, say, something which is zeal and confidence, enthusiasm for what is truly good, what is beautiful, what is true. And this isn't desire to become something, to be better than somebody else. It's not egotistical. It doesn't tend to develop this selfish, Egotistical sense. This word called chanda means that in the minds of all human beings there's this potential for wanting to know the truth. Report an error in the passage at 5:48
6:32 An inner zeal, an interest that is something very good to encourage. Something that is encouraged in children will allow them to go in a direction that is wholesome and wise. It allows them to develop themselves as beautiful human beings rather than just clever and greedy or dropouts, those that can't compete and just hate themselves for not being able to fit into the competitive system. Report an error in the passage at 6:32
7:11 Uttanda doesn't have this, it's not for comparing oneself. We're not saying who's better than who. And praising and giving our attention to the best. Nor is it in regards to feeling sorry for people who can't compete, not patronizing. But in our lives, there is this true interest and zeal and enthusiasm that can be aroused toward knowing the truth. Report an error in the passage at 7:11
7:53 This is also a religious, kind of religious instinct, a religious intention that we have. Report an error in the passage at 7:53
8:04 We can't say this is desire. We can maybe call it aspiration. Report an error in the passage at 8:04
8:13 We can call it zeal in its good hand. It allows us to put effort into what we're doing. If we don't have this chanda, then... Then we can't, we're just maybe doing things because out of fear of being punished or losing out or for lesser things, for lesser goals. But with chanda, then we put effort into what we're doing, how we're living, because Report an error in the passage at 8:13
8:52 there is this longing to know, aspiration to know the truth. And in Buddhist terms, the truth then is the dharma, the truth of the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 8:52
9:05 Not some abstracted truth or philosophical truth that is so subtle or so abstract that it couldn't possibly mean much to, say, a young child. But truth in this Buddhist sense of dharma is something that we open to in our lives. Whatever age we are, we encourage to be Brave and have the confidence and trust to open and look and observe. Report an error in the passage at 9:05
9:47 And of course, if we're going to try to do this for our children, it's something we must do ourselves. Children are great to kind of have a great intuition about hypocrisy, don't they? They know very well when we're telling them to do something that we aren't doing. Because then there's only a bitterness and resentment. Report an error in the passage at 9:47
10:13 resentment Report an error in the passage at 10:13
10:16 And disillusionment. There's nothing more disillusioning, isn't there, than being given good advice and told what we should become and do in our lives by people who are not doing it. Report an error in the passage at 10:16
10:34 We all feel contempt for the hypocrites. And we can sense it, can't we? We have oftentimes, because there's so much of it, we oftentimes become quite cynical about it. Report an error in the passage at 10:34
10:49 I remember going through a phase of my life and thinking, there really aren't any good people left in the world. They're all hypocrites. Report an error in the passage at 10:49
11:00 They say one thing, but they do another. Report an error in the passage at 11:00
11:21 Now just reflecting on a child's mind, this is a reflection from my own experience, to realize that the mind itself, I'm using the word mind here not for conditions that are instilled into it, and more or less the pure mind that a child is born with where it has not been conditioned yet to think of itself as a male or female or English or French or good or bad or clever or stupid or anything else. Report an error in the passage at 11:21
12:04 When we're born we don't have that. A newborn baby's mind is just Pure, it's unconditioned. It has no conditions in it. It operates according to the instinctual nature of its body. Report an error in the passage at 12:04
12:24 So it cries and it does the kind of natural things that convey its needs and its dependency and its helplessness. And that's instinctual from just the nature of the body itself and the condition of having to survive. Because human babies are helpless for a long, long time, aren't they? They're not like calves. You've seen a calf being born. Report an error in the passage at 12:24
12:57 As soon as it's born, it stands on its leg. Human babies take a year or so to be able to stand up straight. So the human child has a very slow developing physical constitution. Report an error in the passage at 12:57
13:20 And is totally dependent upon the mother and father and the relatives around. Totally and completely dependent because it can in no way take care of itself for quite a few years. It's quite incapable of looking after itself. Report an error in the passage at 13:20
13:41 The mind then is not a personal, it doesn't have a personality as such. It doesn't think of itself in personal terms. Its needs, its demands are just natural demands and needs of any baby. Report an error in the passage at 13:41
14:03 And it has its own individual karma, as we say in the Buddhist jargon, of, you know, two babies are exactly alike. But the mind, say the purity of mind is exactly the same, even though maybe the karmic formations, the appearance or the tendencies might be different. So it's Report an error in the passage at 14:03
14:33 important to reflect on the fact that birth in the human form, birth as a human baby, this means that this being is now separate, having to live its life in a separate form from the time it's born out of the womb of the mother to its death. That is what we call a lifetime. As a separate individual being. And over that span of time, from birth to death, will be all kinds of experiences which will affect the mind itself. Report an error in the passage at 14:33
15:20 So if the experiences are from wisdom and they're from right view and understanding and understanding of truth and the way of the dharma, then that Then that being is much more capable of coping with the infinite variety of human experience in all its forms, from the best to the worst, than if it's just conditioned with ignorance, fear, and desire. Report an error in the passage at 15:20
15:50 If a child is just, if that's all that ever is implanted and suggested into its mind, then it's going to suffer a lot more and be able to quite... Maybe not be able to cope properly or very well with the experiences of life in the human form. Because as we know, we can't make life what we want it, even though we would like to make life safe and secure and healthy and happy and beautiful and pleasant for our children. Report an error in the passage at 15:50
16:23 We would like to give them the best and make sure that they have the best that life has to offer. We are also very much aware That being born implies that we're also very much that have the great potential of experiencing the worst as well as the best. Report an error in the passage at 16:23
16:48 And then to be frightened of this, to be frightened and overprotective and then this instills in the mind of a child growing up a lot of fear rather than the sense of having the confidence to To really grow with life and learn from it and work with it in whatever way it happens to be experienced. Report an error in the passage at 16:48
17:20 Now, as Buddhists, we're not trying to, we're not asking for, say, the best. We're not trying to say, if I become a Buddhist, will you promise me that I'll be happy and I'll be successful and make lots of money and get everything I want? Report an error in the passage at 17:20
17:42 In the States, sometimes you can hear these evangelists promising you everything if you convert. Make lots of money because God wants you to have everything you want, so that if you convert, you're going to get everything you want. That's not the way of a Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 17:42
18:06 We're not trying to get everything we want, but the appeal and the attraction and the profundity of the Buddhist teaching is a teaching of the way things are, so that... When we understand how it is, when we understand dharma, then we are quite fearless in our experiences of life. We can cope with and adapt to and respond to that which comes to us during this lifetime, Report an error in the passage at 18:06
18:40 which means that we are quite prepared for the worst. We're not demanding the best. Now this way of speaking is a reflection, a way of... Maybe thinking of influencing the minds of children in a way that would be wholesome and meaningful and helpful to them. Report an error in the passage at 18:40
19:07 Because with competitive values, when we say, who's better than who? My child gets better grades than your child, or this is a good child and that is a bad child. And when we compare and create children in our minds, Then this, of course, affects the minds of the children listening. They know. They pick it up. Report an error in the passage at 19:07
19:37 I can remember all kinds of suffering and anguishing experiences as a child from just feeling that I wasn't good enough or I was inferior to other children because of so many comparisons. say, Report an error in the passage at 19:37
19:59 That were being made in the way that one tended to do it oneself. One was very much conditioned to compare oneself with somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 19:59
20:13 The values of a materialist society. What? Who could do things better than who? Who had the most money? Who had the best? Who was the success? Report an error in the passage at 20:13
20:39 And in my background, I fortunately had, very fortunately had religious parents who were Very good Christians, so that they provided me with something much more than just the barren values of Western materialism. Report an error in the passage at 20:39
20:56 But in spite of that, the values of Western materialism were really the kind of exaggerated values in childhood. This is what one tended to pick up on more than anything else. Sometimes the Christian values seemed a bit foolish. Report an error in the passage at 20:56
21:18 In comparison to, say, the dominant suggestion from a very materialistic time. So the mind would get very confused in regards to religion as being something that was slightly off for maybe old-fashioned parents. But the really with it modern young man would be much more prone towards the materialist. Scientific, rational. Report an error in the passage at 21:18
21:51 Now, let's reflect on what rational thought is. It's conditioned into the mind, isn't it? We come from a time where we see truth as something external, that something before it can be called true. We have to prove it and see it and have several others be able to see it. It has to have definite form and it has to have qualified people verify it. Report an error in the passage at 21:51
22:20 So truth has to be It has to be given to us by someone else. We're told what is true or what is real. And our trust, complete trust and confidence in rational thinking, logic, reason, was highly exaggerated so that any real feeling and sensitivity was sometimes dismissed or suppressed or denied by this Total confidence and trust in the materialist world, that which was external, that which you could touch and see and feel with your hands, see with your eyes. Report an error in the passage at 22:20
23:19 Then the way that one tended to compare oneself with others was what one looked like, because that's something you could see, whether one was as attractive as somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 23:19
23:33 The prettiest girl or the handsomest boy or who was the most charming or the most clever, who had the highest IQ, who had the most talent when it came to music or art or science. A Report an error in the passage at 23:33
23:58 series of glamorous images were imposed into the mind, which we would have, say, heroes, heroines, images of Report an error in the passage at 23:58
24:25 to, or maybe we were told that we were so bad and stupid we couldn't possibly hope to ever be like that. long as you're holding up images becoming images to children then of course it, what the The identity, whether one is capable of ever achieving that position, or maybe if there's some level of confidence in cleverness, there's this ambition to achieve and attain it. Report an error in the passage at 24:25
25:00 And in some, there may be the feeling that they could never do that. They've started off already with a lot of inferior conditions so that they couldn't possibly hope to become the successful... Report an error in the passage at 25:00
25:16 ...glamorous person that is considered the ideal. Report an error in the passage at 25:16
25:32 I remember growing up in a Christian family where Jesus Christ was, of course, considered the finest and ultimate in human, but he was also more than human, we were told. He wasn't just human, he was... Report an error in the passage at 25:32
25:57 More than human, he was divine. And so this left me as a child with a feeling that Jesus Christ was somebody that I found very difficult to relate to. Because even though he suffered on the cross and suffered humiliation and ostracism and pain, he wasn't really human anyway. Report an error in the passage at 25:57
26:21 He knew his father was God, so it didn't really make much difference what they did to him. Report an error in the passage at 26:21
26:29 So I found Jesus Christ very difficult. I couldn't relate to that as something I should try to become like because it seemed, you know, you couldn't possibly ever become like that because he was too special. Report an error in the passage at 26:29
26:47 Mother was a virgin, father was God. Report an error in the passage at 26:47
26:52 And I knew that my mother and father were not like that. So that left me with, let's say, wondering about, What to aim for. My father was a businessman. Should I become like that? Or in America it was the baseball player. Become the successful baseball star or film star. Report an error in the passage at 26:52
27:28 Or all the heroic images of strength and manliness that were held up to young boys of my generation. And none of those images I remember were Images that would help you, say, through a lifetime. They were maybe inspiring images for a certain time of life. But the actual images of what was really considered the priority and what was really exalted was nothing that really didn't offer a young boy very much. Report an error in the passage at 27:28
28:13 It wasn't anything that one could really aspire to other than, say, making money, becoming a successful sport athlete or film star or politician. Report an error in the passage at 28:13
28:28 Because Jesus Christ was so exalted and so special, there was no hope that you could ever become like that. That was never even a possible suggestion in my background. There was not a possibility. Report an error in the passage at 28:28
28:47 In a proper Buddhist culture, in comparison, in a Buddhist civilization, the emphasis, the priority, or what is exalted as the finest form for a human being to live under in a lifetime is a Buddhist monk. Report an error in the passage at 28:47
29:12 And this, say, in a country like Thailand, is It's such that even the king of Thailand, the king and queen, the most exalted human ranks in the society must pay their respect to the Buddhist monk. Report an error in the passage at 29:12
29:35 And the Buddhist monk can be from any level, can be just from the lowest class to the highest. The class is not a determining factor. Because what is... admitted, say, in a Buddhist society is that the finest thing that a human being could ever hope to achieve or attain or realize in a lifetime is enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 29:35
30:05 That there's this potential and possibility for all human beings to be enlightened beings. It wasn't just the Buddha in India 2,500 years ago that did it and no one else can do it. Because Buddha was such a special ...type of human being, so exalted beyond the ordinary that all we can do is worship Buddha without any hope of our own enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 30:05
30:36 And that, even though sometimes corrupt forms of Buddhism are such, because oftentimes the human mind tends to want to worship something. That they think is so much higher than themselves. And that's all the further. They don't want to put forth the effort. They don't have the confidence. They don't even have the right understanding to try in their own lifetime to be enlightened. So they worship somebody who is. Or somebody who was. Report an error in the passage at 30:36
31:16 But the real significance of the Buddhist teaching lies in the fact that it is a teaching for the here and now. It's not a teaching Well, where we're supposed to adore and worship a sage of the past. But to internalize that very teaching of dharma, this is what we're doing in meditation, by looking and investigating dharma as we're living our lives, then we begin to understand what enlightenment is. Report an error in the passage at 31:16
31:49 That enlightenment is the human ability to see things as they are. That we are not just helplessly ignorant, blinded victims in this universal system without even a chance or a hope of understanding it or knowing the truth. Report an error in the passage at 31:49
32:11 So this word chanda is the most significant word to contemplate because it's not desire to know the truth. Because in the Pāli word dhanha, which is translated as desire, that comes from ignorance. Out of ignorance and wrong understanding and not seeing things properly, we aim for lesser things than enlightenment. Wanting to become the baseball player is a desire. Report an error in the passage at 32:11
32:44 Maybe it has something in common with the aspiration towards enlightenment, but it's aiming at something lesser, isn't it? Something that is not really going to be fulfilling, even if it's achieved. Even if one does become exactly that, it's not an enlightened state, I'm sure. I mean, I've not known baseball stars, but they certainly have not impressed me as being enlightened beings. Report an error in the passage at 32:44
33:26 The desire to have lots of money, to have wealth and power. We can say, well, that might also be a corruption of that chanda, that aspiration to know the truth. And be enlightened. Because in some ways we're longing for the security and the power and the privilege. Report an error in the passage at 33:26
33:54 We think of in this mysterious universe that we're living in and all its uncertainties. If we have lots of money and power we can feel more certain maybe about things. And if you're just living from hand to mouth and you don't have enough money. and no power Report an error in the passage at 33:54
34:16 There's much more to fear much more danger around those instances than if we had all this security. tremendous security and wealth and power and position, Report an error in the passage at 34:16
34:36 people with wealth, power, and position are not secure either. Report an error in the passage at 34:36
34:42 you have a lot of money, then you always... You have to think about what to do with it, where to keep it, and about all the other people that want it. Report an error in the passage at 34:42
34:53 People find out you're a millionaire, and you find a lot of people hanging around you, because wealth attracts, and not always because it's for good dharma reasons. Report an error in the passage at 34:53
35:15 Greed. Report an error in the passage at 35:15
35:20 So worldly wealth and position and power and all these as ends in themselves can only be unsatisfying to us. Even though we can imagine that we'd feel very safe if we had a billion pounds in the bank right now. We may also have a lot more kind of worries than we would even say than if we're on the dole. Because having all that much wealth is also going to create that much Report an error in the passage at 35:20
35:53 That much worry becomes obsessive to the mind. So Report an error in the passage at 35:53
36:06 the worldly goals, as ends in themselves, are unsatisfactory to us. Even if we should achieve them all within this lifetime, it will not be satisfying. We'll still feel anxiety and fear and suspicion and desire. We'll still operate, even when we get every desire fulfilled. we'll still have more desire. Report an error in the passage at 36:06
36:32 Because desire is like that. Desire is what we create onto life when we don't understand it, when we're just reacting to it out of ignorance, out of fear. And chanda isn't that. It's not desire, because it's not from ignorance, but it's aspiration, or it's the longing in the human mind for the truth. Report an error in the passage at 36:32
37:00 We want to know the truth. Report an error in the passage at 37:00
37:05 And the truth is something to be open to, to be trusted, to sacrifice all kinds of things in order to know the truth. Report an error in the passage at 37:05
37:20 And so in education, the suggestions to a child's mind, what would seem to be more very skillful and helpful to a developing child would be to encourage them in their aspirations and longings to know the truth. Report an error in the passage at 37:20
37:47 When we, of course in our own life, how we live our lives, it's going to have a very powerful effect on our children also. Report an error in the passage at 37:47
37:57 Because what we say, isn't it, what we say, children tend to remember and believe. So when we speak to our children or teach, then what we say to them is to be considered. Report an error in the passage at 37:57
38:15 Is it going to help them? Is it going to... Encourage them towards their aspiration and longing for truth. Is it going to help them to have a confidence in themselves that they need? Report an error in the passage at 38:15
38:31 Because they are innocent. Their minds are innocent so that anything can be put into their mind, good or bad. An innocent mind is like that. It's not wise, so it can't tell what is true and what is not true. It doesn't have enough experience. Report an error in the passage at 38:31
38:54 It hasn't contemplated life. It's still been very much in the conditioning process of just growing up and being dependent and depending on the parents, the brothers and sisters, relatives, peers, teachers, and all those that influence us during our growing years. Report an error in the passage at 38:54
39:39 Now in training and in teaching, we need to know limitation, don't we? We need to know, Limits, how far we can go in any situation. If we don't know limitation, if we have no limits, or the limits are just according to the mood on what we do, what we say, how we act. Report an error in the passage at 39:39
40:11 And it's not the limitations out of anger and aversion and fear, but it's wisely considered, like moral limitations need to be considered. Report an error in the passage at 40:11
40:24 What are... If we don't have moral limitations, in the past, say, 30 years, it's been a very idealistic time where we've had the ideal that we're free to do anything with no limits, no boundaries. Report an error in the passage at 40:24
40:46 Just follow your heart. Follow any old impulse. You're free to do anything now. And so the... The altruistic notion of freedom in some ways has denied us the understanding of limitation. Because we can look at any form of limitation as something that is impinging on our freedom. Report an error in the passage at 40:46
41:20 But if we don't reflect and understand limitation, then we can't ever really be free. We just become caught, enslaved by our desire. Because freedom is a... is not a way Freedom cannot be just following desire, but freedom to realize the truth. Freedom to aspire towards what is truly skillful and wholesome. Report an error in the passage at 41:20
41:54 Have the freedom to develop one's abilities for that, rather than the freedom to just follow desire. Because freedom to follow desire means that we become enslaved. Report an error in the passage at 41:54
42:11 We become enslaved to our fears, enslaved to greed, enslaved to hatred and anger. Report an error in the passage at 42:11
42:33 So Report an error in the passage at 42:33
42:47 I'm contrasting, say, discipline and limitation with the altruistic notion of freedom, because in the past few years this freedom has been the emphasis rather than discipline. And what is the result of that? Report an error in the passage at 42:47
43:06 ...is that we have very confused society right now, isn't it? Although in America, here in Europe, and so forth, society isn't. People tend to be confused. They don't understand how to live in harmony with the truth because they've not been really properly trained to know limitation. Now, limitation is... Report an error in the passage at 43:06
43:34 It's quite natural. I mean, just being born, isn't it? It means that we're limited now within a form, a human form. You have to learn how to live within the limits of your human body. Report an error in the passage at 43:34
43:50 Now that takes reflection. To say, in education, to try to encourage children to recognize the limits that they're under just by having a human body, an earthbound planetary body with its... Feelings of pleasure and pain. Report an error in the passage at 43:50
44:13 Rather than saying you're just free, you're free, you're living in a free country and you can do what you want. And then, of course, when you're young, because of the energy that you have and the ambitions and desires that you can have in your mind, one can easily just exploit the human body to where it becomes very sick and weak and unhealthy later on. Report an error in the passage at 44:13
44:43 So that reflection on dharma allows us to see that just being born is a limitation that we're under from birth to death. And when we can begin to understand that this limitation isn't something that is denying us freedom, but something that maybe helps us to concentrate our attention on what is truly important and useful and beneficial. Report an error in the passage at 44:43
45:10 For example, in meditation, when you're... You're putting more limitations on your mind, say, when you're doing a certain type of meditation, say, when you're watching the breath, aren't you? You're training yourself to be conscious within the limits of the inhalation and exhalation of your body. Report an error in the passage at 45:10
45:32 And so that is putting a limitation on consciousness to where you begin to feel a sense of calm rather than distraction. The mind comes together. You feel composed. You feel tranquil. It's a very pleasant, blissful feeling to have a peaceful and composed mind. Of course, it is difficult at first if your mind has never been trained to do that. Report an error in the passage at 45:32
46:00 It wants to wander, just following any old impulse, doesn't it? The way we're conditioned to think and just go from one thought, wandering from one thought to another the whole day, to put your thinking process into a ...into such a small limitation as the inhalation and exhalation from your nostrils seems like an almost impossible task. Report an error in the passage at 46:00
46:33 But through training, then you develop this ability to, say, abide within very narrow limits, but which, rather than being aggravating and unpleasant... are very peaceful, very pleasant. It's a very pleasant experience. Report an error in the passage at 46:33
46:56 The idea that we're free to do anything we want. Now, desire can take any form. If we're just free to follow desires, then a lot of desires that go through our minds are very selfish, unkind, mean, can Report an error in the passage at 46:56
47:23 even be brutal, violent. Report an error in the passage at 47:23
47:28 perverted kind of desires can go through our minds. if we feel free to follow them, then, of course, we tend to do all kinds of things that cause misery to ourselves and to others, that disrupt and confuse and cause pain, misery to our family, to our society. When we Report an error in the passage at 47:28
47:54 are encouraged to say, do good, and refrain from doing evil. This is the basic formula for morality. Do good and refrain from doing evil. That's putting your ability to act into limits, isn't it? You're putting limitations on your ability to act with bodily action, with speech. So you're putting, say, your ability to act, physically act and to speak within The limitation of what we call sīla or morality. So that you're not free to just follow any old impulse that goes through your mind. Report an error in the passage at 47:54
48:41 Even though impulses will go through the mind that are certainly immoral, you have decided to stay within the limits of morality as the form for your life. Report an error in the passage at 48:41
49:00 So that's a limitation. limitation moral moral Using moral precepts is a limitation. But instead of depriving you of happiness and making your life dreary and dull, to do good and refrain from doing evil with bodily action and with speech, one finds a sense of peace and confidence and self-respect. Report an error in the passage at 49:00
49:30 Because morality, sīla, has that influence on the mind. When we live, Within the moral restraints, we begin to feel respect for ourselves. People respect us. We begin to feel a calm and a confidence that we don't have if we have no moral restraints. If we don't have any moral restraints whatsoever, we just follow impulses and desires, then we begin to hate ourselves after a while because we do so many mean and foolish and... Report an error in the passage at 49:30
50:08 Ridiculous things. And one can't respect, you can't respect yourself if you're doing foolish, selfish, unkind actions or using your speech to just hurt or harm or just for foolishness, silliness. Report an error in the passage at 50:08
50:32 And this is one of learning how important self-respect is. You can't respect yourself by thinking that you have the right to do anything you want. Report an error in the passage at 50:32
50:47 Even though on one level that's very idealistic, to be free to do what one wants, to live in a country where there are no limits placed on you, and in a family where they just give you free reign to do whatever you want. It sounds nice, doesn't it? In one way. Because limitation always at first has a kind of, it is friction, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 50:47
51:13 Because like a small child is always trying to find out its limits. Report an error in the passage at 51:13
51:20 It starts doing this and then it'll do something more and it'll keep pressing you till you finally have to say no. Now if you say no all the time and you just try to beat it up and stop it from doing anything, then you get a very miserable, frightened type of human being. Report an error in the passage at 51:20
51:44 That's one extreme. Or the other extreme is never saying no and just letting it follow and let it do whatever it wants. It becomes a nuisance to everybody and it doesn't have any self-respect. It's just demanding and pushing and doesn't understand how to relate to anyone. It doesn't understand how to live with other beings other than just pushing you to get what it wants. Report an error in the passage at 51:44
52:19 And when you don't, then it just reacts in a very unpleasant way. Report an error in the passage at 52:19
52:30 So with discipline, discipline isn't an end in itself. It's not like trying to condition a child into a rigid form just to make it obedient so we can stand living with it and so it'll do what we want and not cause us any problems. That is not the way of dharma. But in learning how to allow a discipline to be reflected on in order to understand. Report an error in the passage at 52:30
52:59 How far one can go. The rights that other people have. The responsibilities that we have in our lives towards ourselves and towards our families, towards our friends, towards our teachers. Report an error in the passage at 52:59
53:25 Because in the way of dharma then, we find great peace and joy and confidence in life when we know and understand the way it is. How to live. How to live, say, in a marriage. It takes wisdom, doesn't it, to be married, learning how to understand and know, how to relate in a generous and kind way with each other. Report an error in the passage at 53:25
54:02 That takes wisdom, not idealism, freedom, I'm free to do what I want. I didn't marry you to become your slave. To Report an error in the passage at 54:02
54:19 have a family. And to be able to learn from that family life and grow with it, not only for children, but also with parents, because it's a mutual process of learning. Report an error in the passage at 54:19
54:40 Then to, say, be able to understand life as a whole process from birth to death. This is dharma. To see that we need what our education in the West very much lacks now. is the understanding of age and the value of age. How much money the government spends on schools and on youth and on nurseries and on delivering babies and on all this, babies and youth and all this are the obsession of the time. Report an error in the passage at 54:40
55:24 Spend a lot of money on education, Report an error in the passage at 55:24
55:30 nursery schools, but then on the aged, They're just beginning to realize that that is equally important. In the past few years, I think that in Britain you've heard, one can now hear, say people talking about taking an interest in the aging process of the human, of the citizens in this country and in their dying. Report an error in the passage at 55:30
56:01 Now for a Buddhist, birth and death are the two most significant, two of the most significant experiences. Aren't they? The birth and the death. So that death is as equally important as birth in the Buddhist sense of dharma. But yet in our own cultural values, death sometimes is just dismissed as something. Report an error in the passage at 56:01
56:25 Don't talk about it. It's not nice. Let's talk about birth. Let's talk about children. Education. We can have our children educated so they can be successors in the world. Get jobs, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 56:25
56:58 process of birth to death and examining it. Report an error in the passage at 56:58
57:04 this, to me, is what education really should be. Report an error in the passage at 57:04
57:11 know, would like to see, and what sometimes I feel is very much, what I know is very much needed, there, is, is this type of attitude in education to really consider how to educate children in a way that is preparing them for life as a human being from birth to death. Report an error in the passage at 57:11
57:38 How to understand and relate to this process of being encapsulated and born in a separate form for a lifetime and what that really implies. How to try to open their mind To what they're actually having to bear with, the way life actually is. Report an error in the passage at 57:38
58:01 And by doing that, then of course the confidence and the trust that can come from understanding and the ability to endure and bear with the vicissitudes of life through that whole process from youth to middle age, old age and death. Report an error in the passage at 58:01
58:33 Limitation. In Buddhist values, one of the most important virtues is unlimited generosity, generosity, being able to share, limited morality, morality that puts limitations on conduct and speech, guidelines. Report an error in the passage at 58:33
59:03 Then there's the renunciation, willing to give up personal convenience. Privacy and privilege for the welfare of others. Report an error in the passage at 59:03
59:18 And these are, say, in a proper Buddhist society, these are very much exalted virtues that are inculcated into the minds of children. Report an error in the passage at 59:18
59:33 The dana, or the generosity, is considered the most important virtue, really, in a Buddhist country. Report an error in the passage at 59:33
59:47 Sri Lanka or Thailand, you can see that that's where dharma or generosity is something that is very much probably the most important virtue in their society. Almost all of the people start from the earliest age towards some form of generosity and sharing. In Thailand, you can even see Mothers or fathers taking little infants and putting something in their hand and guiding them to drop it into the monk's arms bowl, even when they're only a few days old. Report an error in the passage at 59:47
1:00:32 They start very young, which is a skillful thing to do. That is a skillful way of training a child, because the result is that children learn to be generous. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:32
1:00:48 And I remember my own background. I never thought of myself as really stingy or mean or selfish. But I was never encouraged to really share. This is yours. These are your toys. This is your room. These are your clothes. This is your food. Your sweets. This is mine. And so some other child came along and looked longingly at my sweets. It's mine. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:48
1:01:29 Generosity. Then dharma gives joy to life. To be able to share one's possessions, one's wealth, one's good things with others is an experience of joy. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:29
1:01:43 So that is justifiably a priority in our lives, in training children, is training them towards generosity and sharing, giving. Then towards moral restraint. So that they know their limits. They feel confident within the limits. They respect the limits and they respect other people. They respect themselves and they respect the rights of others. They don't think that they have all the rights and no one else does. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:43
1:02:18 Because they understand through their own experience of life. They can tell the confidence they get from moral restraint. And the joy they have in their life from sharing and giving. And these are much more important than reading and writing, actually. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:18
1:02:41 Because this is preparing you for a whole lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:41
1:02:46 Reading and writing after a while doesn't matter. You get older, you don't want to have to read very much and write. Much more, say, the aging process. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:46
1:03:00 One wants to more abide in the peace and the emptiness of mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:00
1:03:10 In the aging process is a time for wisdom, calm, moving toward what is to prepare us for death. So that when the death moment comes, we are prepared and open and receptive to it rather than frightened and resentful and bitter. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:10
1:03:34 And that's just as important as birth. Birth and death are of equal importance. And that point in between. The enlightenment. So this is the Vaisakha Puja time where we celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha. All in one day. We celebrated that last Wednesday, full moon in May. And Report an error in the passage at 1:03:34
1:04:01 many of you probably wonder, why do Buddhists have everything so neatly packaged? Why do we have this neat little package where the Buddha was born on the full moon of May, he was enlightened on the full moon of May and he died on the full moon of May. It's just impossible to our sense of history and statistics and facts. But as a reflection, to have all three of those in one celebration, because this is an important contemplation, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 1:04:01
1:04:38 We've all been born, and we're all going to die, and we all have the potential for enlightenment. Between birth and death is enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:38
1:04:50 So then, enlightenment, It is the emphasis of the Buddhists, the ability of the human being, human individual, the being to awaken to dharma, to truth. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:50
1:05:09 So I'll end my Sunday afternoon talk on this note and open the rest of the time up for any questions. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:09
· · · silence, 1 minute
1:06:00 Lorna? Report an error in the passage at 1:06:00
1:06:05 that experience in this is complicated. It's not something that's been taught Report an error in the passage at 1:06:05
1:06:16 you can get things out of the device and focus on, gets to you. or a lot of people would like to Report an error in the passage at 1:06:16
1:06:51 well the this is that like only on the one tends to oftentimes see the the world is a kind of jungle where you don't get any you have to pay for everything and you you're going to You're not going to get something for nothing. And this attitude that it's, you know, you've got to look out for yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:51
1:07:21 God takes care of those who take care of themselves. And these kind of values are instilled in us, in me also, understand that. That you have to look after yourself and don't worry about anyone else. The idea of being self-sufficient is very strong, isn't it? An independent, say, in the Western value system. To be a self-sufficient person, one who isn't depending on anyone, doesn't owe anyone anything, and is independent. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:21
1:07:58 You can take care of yourself and you're not leaning on anyone. And that's, say, the values of modern materialistic society. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:58
1:08:16 Well, in one way, those are kind of ultimate values. They're ideals of being independent and free and self-sufficient. They're very altruistic. But where the Buddhist meditation helps is to begin to observe how things are and how things work rather than comparing everything with altruistic ideas. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:16
1:08:47 Because one thing, when you're attached to even those values of being free, independent, and self-sufficient, is that the attachment to those values tends to make one into a very isolated, alienated kind of person. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:47
1:09:09 Say, in community life, my experience with monastic community life is, say, I find much more enjoyable than When I was a self-sufficient, independent person that didn't owe anyone anything. Because I remember, before I ordained, very much being like that, thinking of myself as a, I don't have any debts, I don't owe anyone anything, I can take care of myself, I don't need anybody. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:09
1:09:41 And then feeling a tremendous anguish and loneliness all the time. Because in one way, I thought I was quite successful, but the result of it was that one had developed the wrong view about oneself. I didn't have an understanding of my duties and responsibilities towards others. The mind had been too inverted into my own successful existence. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:41
1:10:16 Ordaining as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. When I really contemplated what I ordained and then I suddenly started thinking about what am I doing? Because it's almost the reverse. You're a beggar. Rather than independent, self-sufficient, you're totally dependent as a Buddhist monk. You have to walk around with an alms bowl. You have no money. You have to depend on what people offer you. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:16
1:10:47 You're not independent anymore. You're very dependent. You're not self-sufficient. You have to depend on other kind-hearted people to take care of you. You're not free. You're bound by all these rules and limitations of monastic discipline. You can't just follow your impulses and do what you feel like anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:47
1:11:11 What have I got myself into? I must be mad becoming a Buddhist monk. But the paradox of the situation lies in that within that restraint and discipline and trust in the generosity of others and in the communal system where you share, like in monastic Buddhist monasteries. Everything is shared. It's very communistic. As you can see here at Amaravati, the food is all kind of trying to distribute everything evenly and everything is your personal possessions are almost all the same. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:11
1:11:59 Each monk has his alms bowl and robes and they aren't that much different from, you know, one has a gold alms bowl and one has a cheap plastic one. We all have about the same quality. Everything is kind of distributed evenly, like communism should be. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:59
1:12:24 But it allows us not to think a lot about ourselves and to make my happiness in my life the priority, because in the saṅgha, or the community, The community is the important thing rather than the individual. The individual is willing to sacrifice for the community. And I find that a much more joyful expression of life than when I was demanding all kinds of rights and privileges from the community or from the society. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:24
1:13:06 I remember because I was a graduate student in Berkeley, California in the early 60s then they That was a time where university students were making endless demands on the society. Some of them justifiable, some of them ridiculous. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:06
1:13:30 It was a time where you just endlessly made demands on the university, on the society you're in. Criticize it endlessly and make demands on it. And that had a kind of excitement to it, I admit. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:30
1:13:49 And you were going to see that justice was, there was justice and you were not going to put up with this unfairness any longer and you're going to make it work and force the government to do this and all that. But when I remember being caught into that kind of thinking, it was not, it was not really, it was not a beautiful way of thinking. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:49
1:14:15 It wasn't peaceful. It wasn't, It didn't bring happiness or joy into my life. And it was exciting, admittedly. It tended to have a certain amount of excitement. And because you felt you were somebody who's not going to put up with anything other than the best, so making demands on the side to give you the best. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:15
1:14:38 And morality wasn't really a consideration. Morality was even in the early 60s. And especially in Berkeley, California, was absolutely considered a ridiculous thing to even suggest. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:38
1:14:59 He didn't even dare breathe the word in public because it was a time to be really immoral. You're free to be immoral. And so that this... Now, just recognizing how this affected the mind was that I became, at that time, very depressed, Suggest. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:59
1:15:21 And confused from that way of thinking. And I can see I found my life and that was one reason why I went to Asia. Because I found living like that a very confusing way. Life just seemed to be getting increasingly more difficult and confusing for me. And a lot of depression and self-aversion. A lot of self-hatred. I felt a lot of anger toward myself. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:21
1:15:54 So that when I went and ordained in a monastery in Thailand, it was almost reversed. Suddenly I was living in almost the reverse way of having to conform very much to a moral standard, to restraint, to sharing everything, to not asking for any individual rights or privileges. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:54
1:16:25 Not expecting, living always from one day to the next on alms food. But I found that actual experience much more peaceful and joyful than, I mean, that was, you know, as one began to surrender to that limitation, rather than resist it and fight it, then one began to feel a sense of calm. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:25
1:16:56 And then a sense of joy and self-respect. So this is just from my own experience of life that I see that living as a Buddhist monk in Thailand did give me a strong ability to understand how to relate skillfully to other people, which I'd never really learned before. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:56
1:17:25 It taught me the importance of sharing. And not thinking of holding on to things for myself. Because that was very much in Thai social values, sharing is very much a part of their way. The idea of sharing is very much something that they take for granted, in fact, which is something that in America we didn't take for granted. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:25
1:17:58 Then oftentimes we see that it's, This idea of look after yourself, nobody else will care about you. And in one way, that's maybe the law of the jungle. In the jungle, in the animal kingdom and so forth, you really have to look after yourself because you can't depend on, say, the animals to make agreements, moral agreements, non-violence. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:58
1:18:28 When you just go out in the woods here and you see a rabbit, You know, it's frightened, isn't it? It sees you and it runs because it doesn't know that you're a Buddhist who's just taken the first moral precept, banadi bata. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:28
1:18:45 And if you told it, you say, you don't run, you know, I'm all right, I've taken the first precept this morning, it still wouldn't understand. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:45
1:18:55 Why? Because the animal kingdom is survival of the fittest. And you have to be able to run fast and you have to... And when you leave your little rabbit hole, you have to make sure, be careful, you have to be very mindful to see there's no foxes or dangerous beings around because you know that a fox has not taken the first precept and that they're totally incapable of keeping the first precept. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:55
1:19:32 But the human... We can live very much in that realm of survival of the fittest, but we can also transcend it. And this is like what human civilization has attempted to do in its own way, isn't it? Almost every, from the tribal level to modern society, is an attempt to agree on laws and limitations for The massive people for the citizens of a country. And now we tend to, the moral aspect isn't the priority. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:32
1:20:15 It's more or less legal rights that we've become attached to. So we don't feel so morally responsible as we have rights made by law. And this makes our society a selfish one. We tend to rather, we don't, Have that. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:15
Related talks
Talk by Ajahn Sumedho. Original at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ajahn-sumedho-dhamma-talks. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Talks of Ajahn Sumedho, archived on Internet Archive. More from Amaravati