The Heart of Religion (1989)

0:01 So now I give this opportunity for any of you to ask questions, or if you want me to elaborate on something. Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:15 Yes? I'd be grateful if you expand on what you mean by the heart. You said you didn't mean the pumping organ, but it's a word that's used many times to mean perhaps different things. I wonder if you mean... Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:38 do with the consciousness or motivation or concern for other people Report an error in the passage at 0:38 Highlight the passage at 0:38

0:48 maybe some of these things in something else Report an error in the passage at 0:48 Highlight the passage at 0:48

0:53 symbolic in which the word heart can be used to mean all these things having to elaborate what they all mean. Could I be grateful if you would expand on what you mean by heart? Maybe that's what would be the only impression that would last. Report an error in the passage at 0:53 Highlight the passage at 0:53

1:12 Well, the word mind, when we talk about mind, it tends to be, oftentimes, it conveys intelligence, or it doesn't convey, say, love, compassion, or feeling, or whatever, where the word heart is always the English word that you want to talk about Like being good-hearted, or she has a good heart, a golden heart, or heartfelt, or sweetheart, or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 1:12 Highlight the passage at 1:12

1:53 That implies a whole different thing than, say, a good mind or a good heart. They mean quite different things. But actually the mind in Buddhist terms isn't, oftentimes in the West we think of the intelligence as the brain, the brain as being, or the mind as being in the brain. Or this is how we tend to perceive ourselves, as a good mind or a good head, a good brain. Report an error in the passage at 1:53 Highlight the passage at 1:53

2:33 You can say somebody has a good heart but they don't have a good brain. She has a good heart but she doesn't have a very good mind or whatever ways of using these two words. Report an error in the passage at 2:33 Highlight the passage at 2:33

2:46 But religion is very much dealing with the experience of the heart because it's the intuitive heartfelt ability of a human being. If you're too much caught Up with conditioned intelligence, then your sensitivity diminishes and your ability to intuit or feel life is blocked off. Like in this being bound to ideas and ideals, idealists can be very insensitive to the way things are right now. Report an error in the passage at 2:46 Highlight the passage at 2:46

3:36 You're planning so much for the perfect society. After the revolution, that you're not, you have no feeling, you have no heart for the present moment, the way it is now, the feelings that are with you and with the people around you at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

3:59 The intuitive knowledge, some people are very intuitive, they're very much aware. aware Through intuition, but maybe not have any way of expressing it in, say, with having the perceptions or the ability to express it in concepts or symbols. So that there's the, say, the intuitive function of mind, which relates always to the present, and which if we take personally... Report an error in the passage at 3:59 Highlight the passage at 3:59

4:38 We can misinterpret, like taking it from the I am, the condition I am a person, I am a man, and so forth. Then one interprets the intuitive knowledge of this present moment on a very personal level, like one can get it quite wrong. Even though the intuition is maybe accurate enough, the tendency to interpret the intuition comes from Ignorance and conceit rather than from wisdom. So the point of the Buddha is to align intelligence and conditioned intelligence or ability to think and use concepts, precepts, precepts to align it with the intuition. Report an error in the passage at 4:38 Highlight the passage at 4:38

5:35 So like insight meditation is very much an intuitive developing reflection and intuition. And so to do that, your attention more is placed here, in your body in fact. Because if you bring attention more just to this part of your own physical body, then... Your tendency to be caught up in just conceptual proliferations will fall away and you're more willing to be receptive to the feelings and the expressions and the energies of this moment as is. Report an error in the passage at 5:35 Highlight the passage at 5:35

6:22 But if you're still caught up with a delusion of self, then you interpret. You can interpret that kind of sensitivity in a totally illusory way. Report an error in the passage at 6:22 Highlight the passage at 6:22

6:47 I've found just being able to concentrate my attention here, just bring my attention to this part of my body, because I like to think. I find it easier to go up into thought and the conceptual proliferation of the mind is very highly conditioned in me. So the training of bringing attention here and I've noticed like I first really noticed this when I was in Thailand and During the, say when we were in the monastery in Thailand, we had to pass out the food. Usually they would, the food would be offered, and then certain monks would have to pass out all this food. Report an error in the passage at 6:47 Highlight the passage at 6:47

7:51 So everybody gets equal amounts of this food, a very kind of communal system. So there may be 50 monks, 60 monks sometimes, and one of my duties would be to try to Report an error in the passage at 7:51 Highlight the passage at 7:51

8:06 so that the last month would get same as the first month well didn't like doing this at all because I used to get so worried about you know if I'd run out of food and then the last few months wouldn't get any then I'd imagine their thoughts that were going in their mind Report an error in the passage at 8:06 Highlight the passage at 8:06

8:26 me not being a responsible food distributor and so that this was a great I mean, this was a really painful torture for me to every day, because you have one meal a day, to have to first, before you eat it, have to pass it out. And my mind would tend to think in very negative ways about it and worry, and then imagine that when I didn't do a perfect job that all the other ones that didn't get the same would be angry with me. Report an error in the passage at 8:26 Highlight the passage at 8:26

9:04 Then one day I just decided to bring my attention to here while passing out the food. And so I did. I started just looking at my heart, you know, inner. I had to keep aware of where the food is and all the alms bowls. But I managed to distribute this food without it being suffering because I was more with the actual... Report an error in the passage at 9:04 Highlight the passage at 9:04

9:31 Movement and action of what I was doing without creating or imagining anything in my head about it and by staying more just with the actual the action of passing out food and not making a problem about it and centering my attention with my with this part of myself I found a kind of peacefulness afterward. Report an error in the passage at 9:31 Highlight the passage at 9:31

9:59 It's a real Being contented and at ease rather than imagining the worst. And that was, I had, through that experience I really, even though this had been said to me many times, you know, or implied in so many ways, never really had done it before until, and that's when I remember actually trying that out and realizing, you know, that that was very, just quite, and just quite simple enough practice. Report an error in the passage at 9:59 Highlight the passage at 9:59

10:35 Because I used to get too abstract, like the heart means, and you go into kind of, into descriptions of the heart, and it's not the physical heart, but it's, and you're still coming from the head. And then I thought, well, they must mean actually, you know, to bring your attention here. Because the body, being the way it is, if you bring attention to various parts of it, you get, you know, it has different messages to offer. Report an error in the passage at 10:35 Highlight the passage at 10:35

11:04 So, So if you say the heartfelt experience or say the critical, when I felt angry and critical, then I'd be up here all the time. Because this ability to discern and discriminate seems to do with the brain. So you're very much saying that, you know, this is better than that. That's not any good and that's the best. Report an error in the passage at 11:04 Highlight the passage at 11:04

11:35 That monk's better than that one. And this discernment, discriminative function was developed and the ideal of love and that was very much admired. Report an error in the passage at 11:35 Highlight the passage at 11:35

11:56 But the actual how can you really love anyone if you're You know, discriminating. And you're creating maybe an ideal to love, but it's only an ideal. It's not really loving. It's merely maybe a lovable ideal. So that the movement toward the heart then is, it tends to stop the conceptual proliferation and the The discriminative function doesn't operate, but there's still intuitive sensitivity operating. It doesn't like you become just kind of lost in a mush of overwhelming love that, you know, still there's a sensitivity and an intuitive intelligence there that you... Report an error in the passage at 11:56 Highlight the passage at 11:56

13:04 That was maybe ignored or not noticed or understood before when your identity was so much with discriminative intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 13:04 Highlight the passage at 13:04

13:17 But then in the religious path, they work together because you need both to discern and you need to unite. You need unity, unicity, and you need separation. Report an error in the passage at 13:17 Highlight the passage at 13:17

13:37 I mean, it's not like one, you're not taking sides, one against the other, but you're realizing the union, the union of the male and the female, or the ultimate, Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

13:57 the conditioned and the unconditioned, or whatever terms or symbols you want to use. And that's what I mean when... And I'm saying that the religious path then is at that point of where things cease, where the condition ceases and the unconditioned. So that's a realization that can't be just adhered to with discriminative thought, but has to be realized in the heart. Report an error in the passage at 13:57 Highlight the passage at 13:57

14:33 Because even the danger, like say with... Modern Christianity, for example, is because they tend to personify God so much and give God attributes, like Trinitarian attributes, that the actual union with God almost is destroyed and made impossible as an experience. Because they've They've conditioned, they've made God into an object. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So God remains too much an attribute, a personal attribute, or whether you call it Father or Son or Spirit or whatever, still you're giving God attributes. Report an error in the passage at 14:33 Highlight the passage at 14:33

15:36 And so that realization of the conditioned ceasing and the unconditioned is almost you know you can't you There's no path then, as long as you believe and attach to an object. And that's like all attributes are objects. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

15:59 So as God as a father, or God as a son, or God as a spirit, is still an attribute, is still an object, and you're still assuming, Report an error in the passage at 15:59 Highlight the passage at 15:59

16:16 That you are somebody, and then there's the idea of union with the object, but it never happens, you see, as long as you're caught in the belief and seeking union with an object, a permanent realization or permanent enlightenment experience with an object. So that the unconditioned is never an object. Report an error in the passage at 16:16 Highlight the passage at 16:16

16:55 It's not an object, but it's where you have to give up that desire for union with an object, and where the pure subject, and then beyond that is a real... To go that far with words, then there's a realization. It's a realization of the conditioned ceasing, the unconditioned, in Buddhist terms, or union with God in Christian terms. Report an error in the passage at 16:55 Highlight the passage at 16:55

17:35 And that you can only do through the heart. You can't do it in all the words and write books about it like theologians do. It doesn't mean anything. Still, it might be clever enough. As a theory and as an idea, but the realization, each one of us has to, you know, has to do it for ourselves. We have to do it, realize it ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 17:35 Highlight the passage at 17:35

18:07 Like the, sometimes Buddhism comes across as cold surgery, or, I mean, sometimes if you look at the way Buddhism is presented, it looks so kind of Annihilating and hard, you know, say in a religion like Christianity, more emphasis on compassion and love, these more heartfelt expressions. Report an error in the passage at 18:07 Highlight the passage at 18:07

18:44 But Buddhism doesn't lack compassion or love. It's not like, oh, it's just impermanent, it's not self. Love is just desire. Not a put-down of the noble heart of a human being as just impermanent and not self, but it's a realization. Report an error in the passage at 18:44 Highlight the passage at 18:44

19:08 Like the Four Noble Truths point very accurately to that realization. And then, if there's that realization, then there's certainly no, the heart is quite. You know, pure to love and respond to the experience of living in appropriate, suitable ways. Well, Report an error in the passage at 19:08 Highlight the passage at 19:08

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20:08 selfishness can mean, it can mean just like thinking of me and what I want, you know, as a kind of generally used in English. He's just a selfish person. He's very immature and doesn't care about anyone else. But also it means, it means just the view of, the basic wrong view of I am as an ultimate position to take on everything. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:41 It's interesting to see, you know, like, in both Christianity and Buddhism you have Jesus saying, I am the way, the truth and the life. You have Buddha saying, after his enlightenment, I am the all enlightened one. See, but this is, This I am is not from a selfish delusion, you see. It's a convention. But people hearing that tend to be selfish and deluded. Report an error in the passage at 20:41 Highlight the passage at 20:41

21:12 So they, like you can see with like Christianity, so much of it today, they'll say, you know, like I remember going home to California and my sister inviting a couple of priests over to talk to me. Report an error in the passage at 21:12 Highlight the passage at 21:12

21:29 And I showed them the Buddha Comes to Sussex video. And after it, they said, they looked at me and they said, well, all right. But after all, Jesus did say, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and there is no other. And then suddenly I felt like an iron curtain had just dropped. Like there is nothing more to say. Report an error in the passage at 21:29 Highlight the passage at 21:29

21:59 They had completely slammed the door in my face after that. And it was because they were interpreting that from an ego. You know, I am me, Jesus Christ, I'm the way, the truth, the life. It's me. It's what I am. But I am can also be an ultimate statement of truth. But when the Buddha actually taught, Report an error in the passage at 21:59 Highlight the passage at 21:59

22:31 His first sermon to the five disciples, he used, there is suffering, and there is the end of suffering, which is a very skillful use of language. And the reason why he used that was because if he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, then most people cannot understand that as an ultimate teaching. Report an error in the passage at 22:31 Highlight the passage at 22:31

22:59 They see it always, well, he thinks he's the way, the truth, and the life. He's that man there. We have to believe in that man because he said so. Or, oh, he's just deluded. He thinks he's the way, the truth, and the life. You should have seen him a few years ago. Report an error in the passage at 22:59 Highlight the passage at 22:59

23:21 And so it's not, it tends to be a, you know, it puts people in a position of believing or denying. Now, if I said, I am the All-Enlightened One, you'd either be forced to believe me or to deny it, or just doubt it. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:47 I'm the All-Enlightened One. Then that, to you, your force, I'm pushing you into a position of either blindly believing it, what I say, or having to deny it. It's crazy. But if I teach there is suffering, you know, it's a reflection. There's no way that that says that I'm referring to I am it all as on the ego plane. Report an error in the passage at 23:47 Highlight the passage at 23:47

24:18 But it's a noble truth. There is suffering. I mean, people suffer. There is. And there is an end of suffering. So that is why the Buddha established the teaching around suffering rather than around An ultimate statement that tends to be in itself deluding to people, even though there's no delusion in the statement itself. Report an error in the passage at 24:18 Highlight the passage at 24:18

24:46 Human being, humanity at this time cannot understand it. It doesn't help, it is of no help to anyone to say that. Because you can see so many Christians are stuck with You know, you meet Christians who really want to be quite tolerant and open to other religions, but then they say, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Report an error in the passage at 24:46 Highlight the passage at 24:46

25:18 That means only through Jesus, only through the sacraments, only this way. The rest is all just a false religion. Oh, well, I mean, there are certain good things about Buddhism, yes. Peaceful and... We don't deny the goodness of it, but it is not. They go into that kind of heavy-handed denial of another religion because they still interpret that statement of Jesus' if he ever said it, from an egotistical position. Report an error in the passage at 25:18 Highlight the passage at 25:18

26:00 And then in There is suffering and there is the end of suffering. I'm not saying I'm suffering and I don't want to suffer anymore. I'm saying there is. And that encourages you to look at suffering, at your own experience. So then that's a finger pointing at your heart rather than an expression which makes you assume that That this person here is the way, the truth and the life. Report an error in the passage at 26:00 Highlight the passage at 26:00

26:41 I find that I really appreciate just the way the Buddha used language in the Pāli Canon that we have. It's quite, it's very skillful when you're really examining your heart through meditation. You can see he was trying to establish a teaching with as little amount of ability to delude yourself with it as possible. Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

27:08 And he did very well actually. Still Buddhists tend to get deluded but it's not because it's just because they don't understand or don't bother to try to understand the Four Noble Truths. Report an error in the passage at 27:08 Highlight the passage at 27:08

27:25 Or they think they understand it because somehow they it's often times referred to as basic Buddhism as a kind of beginner's practice of suffering. Yes. Now let's get into something more interesting, like, I will not take final nibbāna till the last blade of grass is enlightened, or something very high-minded, which is very inspiring, but the suffering and the under-suffering doesn't inspire the mind, nothing like it really makes you, gets you high, but its aim is to get you to look and open. Report an error in the passage at 27:25 Highlight the passage at 27:25

28:08 Your heart and reflect on suffering and the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 28:08 Highlight the passage at 28:08

28:26 and bad. don't really need to accept good and bad aspects of both yourself and other people. To my mind there's a lot of the problems in everyday life involve opinions about certain things. forced to make judgements about the right way of living. Do you not accept there are certain situations where you need to make... Report an error in the passage at 28:26 Highlight the passage at 28:26

28:57 Because the ability to discriminate, that's a very great gift, but it's not, you see, so like discriminative intelligence is a great gift that we have. But if it's coming from the wrong place, then it tends towards grumbling, complaining, depression, despair. I mean, you end up... Just feeling very negative about everything, if you're attached to discriminative intelligence. But non-attachment means that you can discriminate without being deluded by the qualities. Report an error in the passage at 28:57 Highlight the passage at 28:57

29:42 So that you're, say, like when you're, say, good and bad, if you're coming from a view of yourself as a person, then Then good and bad are judgments you make and become very personal judgments, like I'm good or I'm bad. And then the assumption one makes is that you can make the assumption that there's something kind of basically bad about you, yourself. Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

30:14 Or you can worry, you can think there's something maybe wrong with me. On a permanent basis or some kind of latent flaws or evils that are lurking way down deep inside that might come out if I'm not just on my guard every moment. So then we become frightened by anything that comes into our mind that may be evil. Report an error in the passage at 30:14 Highlight the passage at 30:14

30:45 Because the mind will, you can have good and evil impulses go through your mind. You can't, you know, you can't just have good ones. You've also got to accept the fact that we have evil ones too. But the discernment isn't judging, you know, I'm good or I'm evil, but recognizing good and evil is discernment and then choosing to do the good and refraining from doing the evil with action and speech. Report an error in the passage at 30:45 Highlight the passage at 30:45

31:19 So like the... Foundation for the holy life is always to, is that determination to do good through action and speech and refrain from doing evil. But as dharma, good and evil arise and cease. So as you develop the path, in Buddhist terms, then good and evil both are the experience of good and evil. Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:54 They both cease and that point of cessation is the realization. So I mean it's in that way even evil is no longer seen as a threat. It's through wisdom and understanding that we don't you know if we feel frightened of evil and then every time an evil impulse comes to us then we react we tend to suppress it. Report an error in the passage at 31:54 Highlight the passage at 31:54

32:23 And react badly to it. So it never really ceases. We just suppress and build up a tendency of attachment to that. Because what you hate, you're attached to. Or what you're frightened of, you're attached to. What you're frightened of, or what you dislike, or what you hate is a kind of attachment. But if you can see it as what arises ceases, then Then the evil impulses that might arise in your mind will cease there. And at the end there's no attachment. But it's dharma rather than I'm an evil person for thinking those kind of things. Report an error in the passage at 32:23 Highlight the passage at 32:23

33:07 This is the what we mean the way out of suffering. I remember being very confused when I was a young man because of that not knowing how to deal with evil or foolish or unwholesome mental states and feeling terribly guilty or anxious about it because it was always interpreted as something wrong with me and it shouldn't be there. Report an error in the passage at 33:07 Highlight the passage at 33:07

33:40 And with Buddhism, it was such a relief because then I thought, oh, nothing really wrong, it's being able to see it for what it is. The relief not to think there's something wrong with you. What's wrong with me? More Report an error in the passage at 33:40 Highlight the passage at 33:40

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34:29 questions? Report an error in the passage at 34:29 Highlight the passage at 34:29

34:35 I think there's tea? Something like that? Four o 'clock? Report an error in the passage at 34:35 Highlight the passage at 34:35

34:47 How did an English Buddhist say? Report an error in the passage at 34:47 Highlight the passage at 34:47

34:56 We did it with tutors, didn't we? Report an error in the passage at 34:56 Highlight the passage at 34:56

35:24 to learn some conceptualized things. Report an error in the passage at 35:24 Highlight the passage at 35:24

35:28 this from the high end. Are they just in a quiet school, or are they just sort of like that? they just tend to be that kind? Well, it can acquire me because we have that. That's why the reflective ability is important. Report an error in the passage at 35:28 Highlight the passage at 35:28

35:51 Because then you can harmonize the discriminative intelligence and the intuitive and Report an error in the passage at 35:51 Highlight the passage at 35:51

36:03 the instinctual. So you have much more, you have a harmony rather than a conflict with these different levels or energies. Report an error in the passage at 36:03 Highlight the passage at 36:03

36:18 Like if you're with instinctual intelligence, one is one thing in the human being, you have it, just like the animal kingdom, but it's oftentimes despised or taken in the wrong way. Like sexual feelings and impulses are made very personal in the modern society. It's always It's always taken in a very personal way, when it's a common instinctual kind of energy, common to all human beings. Report an error in the passage at 36:18 Highlight the passage at 36:18

36:58 But yet, the tendency of modern Western world is to make something a personal problem about sexual energies. Report an error in the passage at 36:58 Highlight the passage at 36:58

37:09 Mind, sex drive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And of course there's books, enormous kind of popular books based on this assumption that it's That it's something personal. Well, actually it's a natural, instinctual function, energy that comes through this kind of form. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:37 So either it's made into something more, you think of it, you kind of exalt it as being, you know. The whole purpose of our life, or you can despise it, think it's low and it's dirty. So that's always from the self position, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 37:37 Highlight the passage at 37:37

37:59 It's the true union and the ultimate of life, is the sexual union. Or you can just think it's all just dirty and low and animalistic. Report an error in the passage at 37:59 Highlight the passage at 37:59

38:12 Because that's always from a view of it being mine. And judging it. But in the knowing of it for what it is, you see that it's permanent. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:30 And it's what it is, but it's not a self. You're not creating a personal world around it. And so it doesn't even be a problem. But if, like in the life of celibacy, for example, where you've chosen to live celibate, Then, you know, if celibacy still comes from identity with a personality, then it doesn't work. Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

39:02 It just is a suppressive thing. You're just suppressing your feelings or your drives. But celibacy as a convention for reflection works very well because you can actually understand the nature of celibacy of instinctual energy without identifying with it and creating anything other than recognizing it for what it is. Report an error in the passage at 39:02 Highlight the passage at 39:02

39:35 This is a strange position we're in as human beings is that we're animals and yet we're also divine. We're angels and we're animals all at the same time. Report an error in the passage at 39:35 Highlight the passage at 39:35

39:49 We're deities and we're animals and we're humans and we've got all levels. But the human, or humanity, the precious gift of humanity lies in this reflective ability of the mind. Because there's the end of suffering there. In this form, there can be the realization, enlightenment, and the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 39:49 Highlight the passage at 39:49

40:17 Where, on just the instinctual plane, if one is attached and identified on that level, There's no way to see the end of it or know the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 40:17 Highlight the passage at 40:17

40:39 So that's why in the Buddhist world the human birth is regarded so highly. It's a good fortune. It's a great gift to us to be human. And this I appreciate because I see that that's That this is, in this, with all its faults and problems of being human, it's also the way out of, it's through this particular experience that there is the end of suffering, then enlightenment, wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 40:39 Highlight the passage at 40:39

41:19 The Report an error in the passage at 41:19 Highlight the passage at 41:19

41:26 observation of suffering, suffering Report an error in the passage at 41:26 Highlight the passage at 41:26

41:39 is still there. Report an error in the passage at 41:39 Highlight the passage at 41:39

41:43 Well, let's say the word suffering I use for what we create out of ignorance. There's still sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 41:43 Highlight the passage at 41:43

41:54 But your body is going to be sensitive, so it's going to feel, as long as it's alive, it's going to feel pleasure and pain or heat and cold. And your eyes are still going to see beauty and ugliness and all that. But you're not creating suffering onto it. It's like, say, experiment with physical pain. I'm suffering because of the pain. Report an error in the passage at 41:54 Highlight the passage at 41:54

42:22 pain in my knee and then you know that's how it seems that's the common attitude this pain in my I can't stand it. I don't want it. But then, if you actually go to concentrate on the sensation of pain, and the mental aversion and proliferation stops at that moment, There'll still be the sensation, but there'll not be the suffering. There's a difference. Then the suffering comes when, oh, I hate it, I don't want it, when is it going to go? Report an error in the passage at 42:22 Highlight the passage at 42:22

43:00 I can't stand it. Then you're suffering again. But when you're actually with life, with the flow of life, there's no suffering. When there's mindfulness, there's no suffering in mindfulness. But when there's heedlessness, then we... Even when there's no pain, we can worry about having pain that we don't have yet. Report an error in the passage at 43:00 Highlight the passage at 43:00

43:28 And so we can suffer great suffering even when there's no physical sensation yet, but we might get one later. And that's suffering too. Report an error in the passage at 43:28 Highlight the passage at 43:28

44:01 Right, there's restlessness. Well, as you're more and more mindful, then the body is a very restless condition. And the dullness and sleepiness and all of these states, the feeling of loss, like when somebody you love dies. Report an error in the passage at 44:01 Highlight the passage at 44:01

44:32 But you're accepting the feeling without creating suffering onto it. Which means you still feel. But you're not creating anything out of ignorance onto the feeling. Like my mother died a few months ago. There is still the feeling there. I wasn't insensitive. I didn't feel anything about it. But there was... Report an error in the passage at 44:32 Highlight the passage at 44:32

45:05 There is no suffering in regards to the feeling. It's that way. And it's dharma rather than me feeling grief or thinking I shouldn't be feeling grief. I should be beyond grief. But there is a definite feeling. Somebody you love dies. And just to know that. but it also can be seen as an object and accepted for what it is, is our sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 45:05 Highlight the passage at 45:05

45:46 mean, there's nothing wrong with sensitivity. This is what we, know, the things that we learn from, from the experience of consciousness and sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 45:46 Highlight the passage at 45:46

46:03 Sensitivity, are you meaning the Report an error in the passage at 46:03 Highlight the passage at 46:03

46:10 same thing? Report an error in the passage at 46:10 Highlight the passage at 46:10

46:15 One can be mindful of sensitivity, of feeling, of the way things are, just the way, just can be mindful of, say you feel uncertain about something, Report an error in the passage at 46:15 Highlight the passage at 46:15

46:38 and just a vague uncertainty kind of hanging in your mind, and you can observe that, you can be mindful of that. And that means that where if you heedless, then you tend to just react. Report an error in the passage at 46:38 Highlight the passage at 46:38

47:18 Well, mindless sati and sampacanya, these words refer to the ability to reflect. Like sati actually means to be mindful, so that the mind is open and receptive. Report an error in the passage at 47:18 Highlight the passage at 47:18

47:41 It's not... fixed on an object. I mean, it's not lost in absorption, Report an error in the passage at 47:41 Highlight the passage at 47:41

47:50 then we reflect comprehension of the way it is, we can, like Dhamma teachings or reflective teachings of suffering, the arising, the cessation of the path, just skillful ways of on experience that we have. Report an error in the passage at 47:50 Highlight the passage at 47:50

48:12 www.muslimcentral.com Insight, investigation, and this is through mindfulness. When the experience of unity comes to concentration, because the mind becomes one, unitive in concentration, and then mindfulness is is Report an error in the passage at 48:12 Highlight the passage at 48:12

48:49 Where, say, we can, then the mind is receptive, so then the ability to discern and reflect through mindfulness is there. So you have, and as you're mindful, and more continuously mindful, then there's also a balance between energy, Effort and concentration, so that no longer are you just absorbing or uniting with an object, but there's a sense of perfect balance. Report an error in the passage at 48:49 Highlight the passage at 48:49

49:31 In the Eightfold Path of Sama-Vayamos, Sama-Sati, Sama-Samādhi, those three are like a balance, a perfect balance and call of the heart. Report an error in the passage at 49:31 Highlight the passage at 49:31

49:52 Which doesn't imply you're absorbed into an object anymore. The same with concentration practice, samatha, you absorb into maybe an object. You choose one thing and sustain your attention on it to unite with it. There's a unity there. But that kind of unity is impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 49:52 Highlight the passage at 49:52

50:24 be as a life Report an error in the passage at 50:24 Highlight the passage at 50:24

50:29 Well, just like Buddha, the word Buddha, it's a refuge, implies that the knowing, the ability to know with wisdom. So like this form, it's a way, this is an experience of knowing, being born as a human being and conscious. I mean, we're now living in a realm of knowing things. We can know them rightly or wrongly. Report an error in the passage at 50:29 Highlight the passage at 50:29

51:05 But the consciousness itself is a kind of knowing. Being born as a conscious being. The subject, object. And that feeling of alienation that comes from identifying yourself with the body and the conditions of mind. Report an error in the passage at 51:05 Highlight the passage at 51:05

51:31 And you feel more and more alienated and frightened by life, threatened by life. Because you're knowing things but not from wisdom but from ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 51:31 Highlight the passage at 51:31

51:44 And you believe in the delusions or the illusory world as reality. And then Buddha is really the word for knowing things as they are. Report an error in the passage at 51:44 Highlight the passage at 51:44

52:01 And Buddha is, you can make Buddha images because it looks like human beings, because Buddha is, it can be, you know, Buddha isn't an abstract knowledge. Report an error in the passage at 52:01 Highlight the passage at 52:01

52:18 It's, you have Buddhas, you've had living Buddhas. We take refuge in Buddha, but not in trying to become a Buddha as a person. But taking refuge in that ability that Buddha represents as a way of knowing things as they are. If you contemplate, like your life is really, the human being is the experience of knowing. Report an error in the passage at 52:18 Highlight the passage at 52:18

52:51 And the ego, I mean, if we come from a personal self-view, then we interpret all of life's experiences very personally. Which can be, get everything all wrong, you know, because as a personality you're always, you know, there's always a fear, a threat. You can be hurt or brutalized by somebody else as a person. As knowing, there's no way, I mean, your body can be brutalized or your things can be taken away from you, but there's no suffering in it if there's the, you know, The refuge in Buddha. Doesn't mean you like it, but it doesn't mean you're going to make a problem about it either. Report an error in the passage at 52:51 Highlight the passage at 52:51

53:47 So Report an error in the passage at 53:47 Highlight the passage at 53:47

54:00 I invite you all to have some tea. Report an error in the passage at 54:00 Highlight the passage at 54:00