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- 2:03
And this word spirit, Latin word, spiritual, meaning the breath, and the breath of life, and breathing. This is what living is, isn't it? The living force. When the body stops breathing, then we say the body's dead.
- 4:42
When we try to put our whole attention on the beautiful and the efficient, convenient, comfortable, on the material plane. But materialism, of course, is the death of the spirit. To try to find your spirit in material things only kills it. You become depressed. Because some of the most depressed people
- 13:10
Buddhist meditation we contemplate the breath. One of the kind of most usual common forms for teaching, methods of teaching meditation is the meditation on the breath. We call anapanathati. Opening the one's mind to observing the inhalation and exhalation of this body for what it is.
- 16:07
Ah, say, breathing is neither particularly, doesn't, ah, normal breathing anyway isn't something that, that is, ah, say, absolutely fantastic and as soon as you become aware of an inhalation you just feel so wonderful that all you want to do is watch your breath the rest of your life. Nor is the breathing painful or unpleasant. It tends to be much more of a neutral. It has a neutral quality to it. It's neither absolutely fantastic nor is it horrible or painful. It's as it is.
- 32:24
It's pointing to something very obvious and existential, something common to every human being, every being in fact. The human experience of suffering, the dukkha. This is the first noble truth, an existential truth rather than a metaphysical truth. And this is where people of other religions find Buddhism baffling because they tend to oftentimes interpret this as some kind of metaphysical truth or doctrine when it's not.
Transcript
0:00 In no attempt to try to tell you what you should think or feel or do about anything whatsoever. Report an error in the passage at 0:00
0:09 And this is the, I think sometimes a bit confusing for people who don't really understand the spirit of the Buddha because religion in the mind of so many people is very dogmatic teachings that you believe in, that you accept. That you don't question or you're not supposed to question or doubt or even contemplate. Sometimes people's view of religion is from that, a very doctrinal imposition into the mind. Report an error in the passage at 0:09
0:46 But the Buddhist perspective uses to full capacity our ability as human beings to contemplate our own existence and the way things are, the natural. natural we call the Dhamma, or the way things really are as we experience. Report an error in the passage at 0:46
1:08 This is to be reflected on and contemplated. So it's... That the Buddha's teachings are directed at pointing, direct pointing at the way things are. Look at this. Well, look at that. Have you ever thought of it this way? Have you ever contemplated like this? Have you ever really looked at it from this angle or from this perspective? And so today's title is The Way of the Spirit. Report an error in the passage at 1:08
2:03 And this word spirit, Latin word, spiritual, meaning the breath, and the breath of life, and breathing. This is what living is, isn't it? The living force. When the body stops breathing, then we say the body's dead. Report an error in the passage at 2:03
2:26 So a spirit is a living force, and it also conveys something that isn't material. You can't find a spirit as an object. You can't qualify or quantify it in any way. It's a bit of a mystery to us, the spirit of life or our own spirit or the spiritual life. Report an error in the passage at 2:26
2:52 But the spirit also conveys this energy and vital force and life. And this is what we're all engaged in at this time. All of us sitting here are breathing. Report an error in the passage at 2:52
3:10 We're alive. and breathing so Report an error in the passage at 3:10
3:17 this is the life of the spirit now when we the spirit itself uh say is is something that rises up when when we say you lose your spirit it means that you you no longer rise up in any way to life's experiences when you're depressed isn't it when depression is where the spirit of even though your body's breathing uh mentally You've lost all hope or anything that inspires, that uplifts your heart in any way. So depression is where the spirit, your spirit has been suppressed or forgotten, where you just sink down into a dreary drone of negativity, despair, hopeless thoughts and anguished feelings. Report an error in the passage at 3:17
4:15 And there's a lot of depression in affluent Europe and America, surprisingly, isn't there, in these countries that have tried to make life so very, very convenient and with so many luxuries and to live a life where ugliness and hunger and all of this are at the minimum, where we can... When we try to put our whole attention on the beautiful and the efficient, convenient, comfortable, on the material plane. Report an error in the passage at 4:15
4:53 But materialism, of course, is the death of the spirit. To try to find your spirit in material things only kills it. You become depressed. Because some of the most depressed people are not the poverty stricken hungry ones some of the richest ones Report an error in the passage at 4:53
5:21 have everything, and their spirit has been lost, but they have all the beauty, the convenience, the comfort. For the spiritual Report an error in the passage at 5:21
5:38 life, you see, when we talk about developing or living the spiritual life, this is a very European expression, the spiritual life, and this is... Where our human spirit rises up. There's that longing, isn't it? Some aspiration. The aspiration and inspiration of our mind rises up. It doesn't sink down into the pits of hell, but it rises up. And it rises up to where? To something higher. Report an error in the passage at 5:38
6:13 To something, say, what we might consider perfect or ideal. A longing for true peacefulness or truth and beauty, love, compassion, joy, all of these inspire the mind. When we want to inspire ourselves, we can't talk about the gloom-doom of the pollution and the ozone hole and the nuclear warheads. Report an error in the passage at 6:13
6:51 Or the wars that go on, the terrorism that goes on on this planet. If we talk about that, what happens? Your spirit sinks down into despair. Now we inspire the mind not through dwelling on what's wrong or what's dangerous or bad or unwholesome or unfair or corrupt in the world, but that which lifts our spirit upwards, such as, say, just love, the concept of love. Report an error in the passage at 6:51
7:21 When it isn't just applied to kind of just sensual gratification, but altruistic love, the love that a human might feel for something or someone higher than oneself. It isn't based on just desire and greed for pleasure. So altruistic love or to realize the ultimate truth or to become one with God. Or whatever way one puts it or phrases this, this aspiration, one can develop a whole series of inspired sayings and teachings around just this. Report an error in the passage at 7:21
8:06 And if we think in this way, we feel it's inspiration. So the spirit, it rises up in us. We have hope. We realize there's something more than just the material realm, just eating, sleeping, and getting by as just a material being or an animal on a planet. We sense that there's something much more, don't we? We intuit. In our heart, in our minds, we have this intuitive sense that there's something more to all this than just... Report an error in the passage at 8:06
8:47 It's not me having to survive as an animal just to get something to eat and procreate and sleep and survive as a separate being or as a species. Report an error in the passage at 8:47
9:03 Sometimes I think modern attitudes based on materialistic views and materialistic science tend to try to Convey that, that there's nothing beyond, this is all there is. Just this life, live it for yourself, get what you can. Report an error in the passage at 9:03
9:28 And some people, they want to believe that, and so that's their philosophy of life that they pursue. But there's also many of us who would find that a very depressing, uninspired way to live, if I personally would. I've never felt inspired by that teaching. I found that depressing and meaningless. And if life offered nothing, then just me as a separate being surviving until I die in order to get enough food and sleep and procreate the species, then what's the point of it? Report an error in the passage at 9:28
10:08 It doesn't seem to me to have any meaning or purpose or any value to it. Report an error in the passage at 10:08
10:17 Because there's also that intuition that senses something beyond just the instinctual realm of our animal inheritance. Report an error in the passage at 10:17
10:32 And so this is what, when we contemplate our humanity, we begin to realize that the idea of a human being, a human being is a thinking being. What separates us from the animal kingdom? The body is a very animalistic body. We have a lot in common with the animal world, with the dogs and cats and with our pets. Report an error in the passage at 10:32
11:00 We can identify in many ways with ducks and chickens, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, because there's a lot in common with the animal kingdom that we share. On the instinctual realm and the emotional plane. But on the spiritual life, the life and the holy life, and that which inspires and rises up, this is where we outsore our animal relatives. Report an error in the passage at 11:00
11:36 And this has been common, this is the common human experience to humankind from the very primitive times to the present one. Because in all tribes and... From the Stone Age up to the present modern civilization, there has been this aspiration, this human aspiration, toward what we say the divine, or the transcendent. Report an error in the passage at 11:36
12:12 Modern Marxism, communism, tend to play this down as being just a kind of a backward stage of human development, hoping that modern... Society will throw away these religious aspirations and just be settled down with a communist economy and political system which is supposed to make everyone happy, but it doesn't. Report an error in the passage at 12:12
12:41 No matter how good the economy might be or the political system, it's not enough either. There's not one has lost any hope. That getting the right prime minister for Britain is going to really solve all my problems and make me happy. In Report an error in the passage at 12:41
13:10 Buddhist meditation we contemplate the breath. One of the kind of most usual common forms for teaching, methods of teaching meditation is the meditation on the breath. We call anapanathati. Report an error in the passage at 13:10
13:32 Opening the one's mind to observing the inhalation and exhalation of this body for what it is. Whatever the inhalation is or the exhalation is now. The breathing. Breathing for us is something that happens whether we think about it or not. When we're asleep we breathe. If we're crazy we're still breathing. If we're healthy. Report an error in the passage at 13:32
14:04 And breathing is something that we all have in common, but which we may not even bother to notice unless it becomes very painful or very unpleasant. But just the normal, ordinary breathing of our body, generally, I think, most human beings would not bother to pay attention unless they were asked to. So in kind of beginner's meditation, you're always saying, now look at your breath. Watch the breath. Report an error in the passage at 14:04
14:33 Notice how there's this inhalation and then the exhalation. This pattern of life, isn't it? The arising and the ceasing. And this basic pattern of the breath, the inhalation and the exhalation, the arising and the falling of the breath, of the body breathing in and breathing out. Report an error in the passage at 14:33
15:01 This basic pattern is a pattern that we find common to all. sensory Report an error in the passage at 15:01
15:10 it's physical or mental. Everything has a beginning and What arises ceases. What is subject to arising is subject to ceasing. And this is to be noted. The noting, the noticing, the mindfulness of this. ...pattern that is so basic and so simple and so ordinary that unless one pointed it out, one said, look at this. Report an error in the passage at 15:10
15:44 Have you ever really contemplated just the breathing of your body? We probably would never even think of doing this. Something that is so close and so ordinary, something we do, the body does, that we may not pay any attention to it at all. Report an error in the passage at 15:44
16:03 The breathing is neither... Ah, say, breathing is neither particularly, doesn't, ah, normal breathing anyway isn't something that, that is, ah, say, absolutely fantastic and as soon as you become aware of an inhalation you just feel so wonderful that all you want to do is watch your breath the rest of your life. Report an error in the passage at 16:03
16:28 Nor is the breathing painful or unpleasant. It tends to be much more of a neutral. It has a neutral quality to it. It's neither absolutely fantastic nor is it horrible or painful. It's as it is. And because it is neutral, it's not extreme in our values of what is exciting or what is depressing. Then the breathing, normal breathing of our body, we tend to regard as boring. Because I think one of the big problems in meditation... Report an error in the passage at 16:28
17:10 With mindfulness of the breath is dealing with boredom because it does the same thing over and over again. It arises and ceases, inhalation and exhalation. And if you're asked to do this for even five minutes, you can feel very, very bored by it. Well, what, so what? I'd like something, what is this supposed to mean? What does, what does, what does, who cares? Report an error in the passage at 17:10
17:37 You know, that's obvious. One thing Report an error in the passage at 17:37
18:13 that I've found through this practice is That being with the normal breathing of this body, if I let go and am not caught up, say, with the restlessness of the body or the emotional state that might occur during this time, if I let all of that go, I begin to feel a sense of calm and peace and unity, oneness, wholeness, serenity. Report an error in the passage at 18:13
18:48 With just breathing, just being with the breath of this body. So then, one sees that the normal rhythms, the natural rhythms of our bodies are quite common to our mind. And this is an important thing to contemplate. Because now we live in an age where the mind is continually excited or stimulated with external objects, with modern technology. Report an error in the passage at 18:48
19:20 With computers, with television, with newspapers and radios and all of that, fast cars, motorways, London traffic, lots of people and availability of sensual pleasure just whenever you want with supermarkets and everything just at your beck and call where you can... Get what you want. Get some kind of lovely sense experience very quickly without even having to wait for even half an hour. Report an error in the passage at 19:20
20:01 Supermarkets now everywhere. You can just drive off to the supermarket to get your favorite food or department store. Report an error in the passage at 20:01
20:16 And what does this do to a mind? But it creates this tremendous worry, anxious feeling. Report an error in the passage at 20:16
20:26 In modern humanity, the word stress is such a common word now. I hear it all the time. I feel people say stress and the kind of hiss of the English word stress permeates the air. When people come here to Amaravati, they say, oh, how peaceful it is. And maybe for us, maybe it's a busy day like this, and we say, peaceful? Report an error in the passage at 20:26
20:51 Today's been a very busy day. Well, I suppose if you live in a society where there's a lot of stress, then even the busiest bed on our body might be peaceful for you. Report an error in the passage at 20:51
21:07 So just glutting our senses with fast and exciting impingement, the result of that is anxiety, worry, extreme restlessness, hyperactivity, inability to concentrate the mind. Notice with children now, how English children do not concentrate their minds very well anymore. At the summer camp this year, we had a group of Thai children who lived in a community called Pestalozzi village in West Sussex. Report an error in the passage at 21:07
21:55 And they're brought up in a kind of atmosphere where they learn to concentrate their minds. And all the English parents were very impressed because they were admiring the behavior, the composure of these children because the English children were all over the place and looking for the next distraction. Report an error in the passage at 21:55
22:17 Very hyperactive, bright children, yes. Beautiful children, but... Constantly excited and looking for distraction and not capable of sustaining their attention on anything for very long, having to go from one thing to another very quickly, where we notice these Taichungas brought up in this Pestalozzi community were much more able to put their attention onto something and sustain it. Report an error in the passage at 22:17
22:50 In art or painting, things like this, they were quite capable of ...of putting their attention and holding it there for a considerably longer period of time than the European children. And this is not a racist problem, but it is pointing to the problems of a modern society where the level of distraction is very high and even encouraged, where children are Constantly distracted with television and I think even now they have computer toys and things that move very fast and there's so many ways of just wanting more and more and better and new forms of distraction. Report an error in the passage at 22:50
23:42 So we're developing a population of people who need to be distracted continuously. and a tremendous restlessness and then of course that is what stress is isn't it that's when we say we feel stress it's because of this the mind it will not settle down it cannot concentrate we cannot find any any any place of just being at ease and abiding in contentment and peacefulness and yet if we contemplate our own breath Report an error in the passage at 23:42
24:24 That's something you don't have to go out and buy your breath, do you? You don't have to wait to get to the supermarket in your Jaguar. Report an error in the passage at 24:24
24:36 It's just right here and now the breathing of a human body is this way. And as we put our attention and train ourselves to concentrate, sustain our attention on this breath, we begin to have a sense of peace and well-being and the mind composes, collects. Report an error in the passage at 24:36
24:56 ...composes itself on the breath and the tendency towards restlessness and wandering will fall away and we begin to appreciate the bliss of a concentrated mind, a human mind that's concentrated, it's composed, it's not running all over the place, it's not stressful. Report an error in the passage at 24:56
25:24 Just the practice of Ānāpānasati or mindfulness of the breath is one way, say, of helping people with heart problems or anxiety or restless hyperactivity. Report an error in the passage at 25:24
25:42 Just being able to pay attention to the breathing of our body. Now contemplate this, that we are provided as human beings with really about everything we need. Report an error in the passage at 25:42
25:58 And yet the greed and the desire and the ambition and all this that we have in our lives in modern materialist society, we tend to ignore our natural inheritance and our spiritual aspiration for running after all these other things which will only disappoint us and make us feel stressful anyway. Report an error in the passage at 25:58
26:26 And then many people resort to all kinds of drugs, dreadful drugs with side effects. They just kind of make them dopey and dull. And that, of course, is the death of the spirit, the human spirit, isn't it? When you just make yourself dull and dopey and spiritless just to get away from the feeling of being under stress. Report an error in the passage at 26:26
27:04 The good sign that I see in my life here in England for the past 11 years is the amount of people that are aware of it. It's not like I'm saying something totally new to you, is it? Suddenly there's a total new discovery to you. You're all here because you have a sense for that. That is what Amaravati, what I hope it means to people is Amaravati. Report an error in the passage at 27:04
27:41 What I hope it means to people is a place where you can look to as a physical location. You can come to be encouraged and to get some kind of support, friendly support and inspiration for your spiritual life. Report an error in the passage at 27:41
28:06 And to reaffirm that this is possible, that you're not being a silly fool. That your aspiration for something higher or better or divine or pure or perfect is not being a foolish, superstitious, old-fashioned kind of human being. But this is what humanity's great gift is, is that we have this aspiration. We cannot be content with just our instinctual nature or with the material world. Report an error in the passage at 28:06
28:43 And this is very obvious as we see in say Western Europe as the standard of living rises and yet the human discontentment increases. Report an error in the passage at 28:43
29:02 This is not our real home in other words. This is not really, we're not meant to live on this planet in these wars forever. That this is a transition, this is a journey that Report an error in the passage at 29:02
29:21 we are all involved in, the living, experiencing life, consciousness and feeling, the sensitivity within a separate form such as the human body, having been born, having to live a lifetime in this state to the death of this body. What does it mean? What is its message? What is its purpose? Report an error in the passage at 29:21
29:52 Now, if there was no purpose or meaning, or it was just an empty, totally meaningless experience, just a cosmic joke, or some accident in nature, and that nature had nothing more to it than just, it was some kind of mindless energy that just operated mechanistically. Report an error in the passage at 29:52
30:23 But then if that were the case, Why would we feel the way we do? Why would there be any compassion in the human heart at all? Why would we bother to be kind to each other in any way or go out of our way towards any kind of self-sacrifice or have any aspiration for anything higher than just the next bit of food or the next instinctual experience? Report an error in the passage at 30:23
30:58 And this is because we can, we have a sense or a spirit, an aspiration, an intuition, something that contacts, something that is ineffable, that can't be qualified, can't be stated. And when we do, when we try to name it or describe it or give it attributes, we end up misrepresenting it. Report an error in the passage at 30:58
31:31 And this is why the Buddha, in his teaching, this is the mysterious, the mystery of the Buddha, is that he, Gautama the Buddha, would never make statements about it. He didn't establish a kind of metaphysical doctrinal position that he operated from. And this is contrary to most religious teachers, because most of religions... Report an error in the passage at 31:31
32:02 establishes a metaphysical doctrine first. Report an error in the passage at 32:02
32:11 But when we talk about the Buddhist first sermon, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths, it's very obviously not a metaphysical doctrine, is it? It's pointing to something very obvious and existential, something common to every human being, every being in fact. The human experience of suffering, the dukkha. This is the first noble truth, an existential truth rather than a metaphysical truth. Report an error in the passage at 32:11
32:52 And this is where people of other religions find Buddhism baffling because they tend to oftentimes interpret this as some kind of metaphysical truth or doctrine when it's not. It's an existential experience. Report an error in the passage at 32:52
33:11 And this suffering is the suffering that every human being has, whether it's the Queen of England, Mrs. Thatcher, Trump at Charing Cross Bridge, or wherever, from the richest to the poorest in any part of the world, male or female, suffering is something we all experience. And it's not the suffering of injustice or poverty or... Report an error in the passage at 33:11
33:39 In particular, but it's the suffering of ignorance. And so this is, this ignorance is what the Buddha said is the whole cause of human suffering. This not knowing the truth, this not having penetrated these four noble truths, human beings are then caught in the illusions of the conditioning process, the view, the attachment and the view. Report an error in the passage at 33:39
34:10 from that attachment of being a personality of being a separate alienated person that is subject to old age sickness and death separation from the love despair depression grief and sorrow and Report an error in the passage at 34:10
34:34 so the Buddha then taught the way out of suffering that I teach suffering and the end of suffering and so the metaphysical Report an error in the passage at 34:34
34:45 Truth is only realized on the second one, the end of suffering. But you notice how it's phrased. Suffering, there is suffering, and there is the end of suffering. And this is a very kind of turnabout, I think, in a philosophical approach or in metaphysics, because we're used to having the metaphysical statement first, grasping that. Report an error in the passage at 34:45
35:22 And because of that, grasping, sometimes we overlook the existential problem of this ignorance, this basic ignorance, this heedlessness, this attachment to the material world or to the body or to the mental conditions, the conditions of your mind as you identify with your views, your opinions, your memories, your feelings, your thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 35:22
35:53 And create a self-illusion. I am this, I am that. And when you have this illusion, then there's always the judgments, isn't there? I should, you should, I shouldn't feel like this, I shouldn't feel like that, you shouldn't be like that. And because of that, then we have the grief, despair, anguish, sorrow. Report an error in the passage at 35:53
36:25 And all the rest of it as a kind of haunting theme in human experience. And if you just contemplate even the cheapest melodramas on the television, what are they about? Report an error in the passage at 36:25
36:42 Anguish and despair. Separation from the loved. Having to be with the unloved. Report an error in the passage at 36:42
36:55 That's what melodrama is. Melodrama is quite accurate actually in describing Despair. Report an error in the passage at 36:55
37:01 The human problem of exaggerating all these niggly little things, fears and desires, into great dramatic experiences. Does she really love me or does she really love him? Suddenly, that is the question of the week. Tune in next week to find out. Report an error in the passage at 37:01
37:29 That's a melodrama. These Report an error in the passage at 37:29
37:48 words then, aspiration and... Inspiration, the spirit, these are words to contemplate in your lives, in daily life. To really, rather than just using them in a perfunctory way, to really use them for what is your spirit anyway. Not to identify it in some kind of personal, egotistical way, but that in you which rises up to life. Report an error in the passage at 37:48
38:19 That isn't caught in just selfish, complaining, grumbling, pettiness, or blaming others, or the niggling, miserable kind of furies of the mind that can just take us over, make us grumbling, complaining. But beyond that also is the human, is this sense of a spirit rising up beyond, transcending, getting beyond. Report an error in the passage at 38:19
38:49 Just the level of just the worries and problems, the melodramas of our daily lives. End Report an error in the passage at 38:49
39:08 of suffering then is a realization. The Buddha made it very clear that you have to realize it yourself. Nobody can realize something for you. Like the Buddha realized this truth, but he couldn't realize the truth for everyone. He could point to them. In the teachings that he left to us, they are pointing, they're pointers. They say, look at this, look at that. Report an error in the passage at 39:08
39:41 They're not saying, I've done it all for you. I realize the Four Noble Truths, you don't have to do it. And even though, that would be rather nice if somebody could do it for you. I must admit, I'm quite lazy by nature. And I do, and I used to wish somebody would do it for me, because... I didn't feel quite adequate or up to it. I thought maybe it was beyond my ability to do that. Report an error in the passage at 39:41
40:14 And also it meant that I'd have to give up something. I'd have to maybe learn how to not just follow these impulses or just live a life of reaction. That I'd have to maybe compose myself. And contain myself and restrain myself in some way. And so that's what monastic life is all about. If you're wondering, why do we become monks and nuns? It's because it offers a convention of restraint. Report an error in the passage at 40:14
40:52 It's very helpful if you use problems. Report an error in the passage at 40:52
41:08 We have to live under a certain discipline where it says you can't do this and you can't do that. And so we try not to do those things that we're not supposed to according to this discipline, which is restraint, isn't it? We have to restrain ourselves. It doesn't mean we love discipline and that we never want to do anything that's not allowed because so many of the very attractive appealing things are not allowed to us. Report an error in the passage at 41:08
41:35 The really fun things of life we can't do. Report an error in the passage at 41:35
41:44 But it is a... A restraint and that restraint is helpful toward allowing this to recognize this spiritual force or this aspiration or in Buddhist terms this saddha or this faith and this wisdom. Now Buddhist terminology is quite different and what I've been using is English. Report an error in the passage at 41:44
42:16 terms that are very much connected to Judaism and Christianity. English is a language that developed from Latin, Greek, and the Judeo-Christian convention. But trying to relate just the spirit of Buddha, what Buddha really is in the English language. If I was to use two Buddhist terms, some of you might not really understand it that well, because the whole Buddhist approach is a psychological one that sometimes Westerners find misunderstanding, cannot fully appreciate until you actually practice with that, with the Buddhist conventions themselves. Report an error in the passage at 42:16
43:19 I remember I was brought up as a Christian in America, and I had some very happy memories of Christianity. It's not that my Christian family or experience was a negative, horrible one, because there were many very beautiful times and experiences in the Christian part of my life. Report an error in the passage at 43:19
43:49 When I started practicing Buddhist meditation, I found that much of the Christian teaching, I began to understand where I didn't really understand it before. Because somehow I was, rather than just being a Christian out of a cultural conditioning process, even though that did have an effect, an imprint on my mind, I didn't really understand it until I began to explore my own mind and this is where Buddhist meditation has its significance to us in the modern world is that it is a very precise and very accurate investigation of the human mind but it's a very different way of looking at the mind and at oneself than say Western Western ways of thinking, Western psychology, Western religion. Report an error in the passage at 43:49
45:00 And because it is such a different approach, I think it has, it's something that really we find, Western people find very helpful because it's being able to look at ourselves in a way that we've never even, we would never have thought of or considered. And the Buddha said to look, investigate, contemplate like this. In the Western world and in Christianity, Judaism and Christianity were very much conditioned to believe in a personified deity, in a god, a patriarchal god, and in a soul, a personal soul. Report an error in the passage at 45:00
45:50 Whether you're an atheist or you're... You're an anti-Christian or an agnostic or a devout Christian or a Jew or whatever. Still, this is very much a part of a cultural quality, isn't it? It's not that we want to even believe that God is a person, is a patriarch or anything, but it's very much a perception that is a part of a cultural... Report an error in the passage at 45:50
46:23 And so with Western Buddhism sometimes you get tremendous reactions and rejections for Christianity. One thing I've noticed with a lot of English Buddhists is that they have very strong aversion to Christianity. Report an error in the passage at 46:23
46:44 And they definitely want to prove that Christianity has got it all wrong. There's no God, no soul, nothing. Buddha said so. Report an error in the passage at 46:44
47:03 But that's not what Buddha was teaching. It wasn't a negation or a denial of anything, but an investigation, a reflection on what it is to breathe, to be alive, to be conscious, to feel. And this aspiration, this human aspiration, this longing, this willingness to sacrifice, to renounce, to restrain ourselves, Report an error in the passage at 47:03
47:44 willingness to do that for something higher, something that isn't immediate, that we may not realize immediately. Report an error in the passage at 47:44
47:56 one of the... Defilement, one of the problems or obstacles in the religious path is the belief that enlightenment is a long ways away and that I am so ignorant and stupid and hopeless that it will take years before I can ever hope to even get an inkling of it and maybe many more lifetimes because I've done so many bad things and I'm such a difficult character. Report an error in the passage at 47:56
48:30 I have so many problems that it will be maybe 10,000 more lifetimes at least before I can be an enlightened being. This attitude is quite strong, a tendency to regard the possibility for enlightenment as something very remote and distant. Report an error in the passage at 48:30
48:54 And this is very much from a sense of self view, a strong sense of me as being somebody who is has so many problems, is so coarse or so thick or so difficult or has done so many bad things in the past that I'm going to have to pay for it by really struggling as a monk, torturing myself to purify myself so that in the future sometime maybe I might get an inkling of this truth. Report an error in the passage at 48:54
49:30 And even that we begin to see is an illusion of the mind. As I said, the Buddhist teaching is a direct pointing at truth. So, in one way it is instant enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 49:30
49:47 It's seeing things instantly, in this instant. This is the way it is, without adding, without any delusion, without any kind of reaction, but a full... Composed recognition of this is the truth of the way it is here and now. And to be able to fully appreciate that then one has to be willing to restrain, to let go, to contain, to compose, to concentrate, to bring together rather than to just seek distractions and go here, go there till we feel this terrible stress. Report an error in the passage at 49:47
50:33 and anxiety and then have to take drugs that make us dull and stupid. This Report an error in the passage at 50:33
50:52 is, as I said before, this is for your contemplation what I've said today and I think it's what I found so wonderful about my own personal experience with Buddhism was that it It gave me the freedom to explore and investigate life. And this I really appreciate because I didn't feel that before. I didn't feel that there was a kind of possibility for that or that maybe that was a misguided approach. Report an error in the passage at 50:52
51:37 Maybe I should just believe what the priest said and shut up and just stay with that rather than try to find out anything beyond that or what that really... really meant in itself. Report an error in the passage at 51:37
51:53 with the practice of Buddhist meditation, it was Thailand where I ordained the under-realized. What does it mean to you? were giving me an opportunity. Report an error in the passage at 51:53
52:20 We really regard this place, Amaravati or Chithurst, or the branch monastery here in England, as places that you can look to to get encouragement for your spiritual aspirations. Report an error in the passage at 52:20
52:37 We're trying to establish occasions, Report an error in the passage at 52:37
52:44 give occasions, opportunities for meditation. For listening to dharma, for practicing, for reflecting, for developing and encouraging this spiritual longing in you all. Report an error in the passage at 52:44
53:06 On the 20th of August, I think it's a Saturday, 20th of August, we're having a Report an error in the passage at 53:06
53:23 day here where the... This Global Cooperation for a Better World project, which is a worldwide initiative for the United Nations. We're having a workshop here with the Global Cooperation people in England. And this is an interesting idea in which, and I happen to be a patron of this. Report an error in the passage at 53:23
53:57 I appreciate it. I realize it's a very good thing to do, to encourage people to learn how to visualize something in their mind. If we want a better world to live in, say for ourselves and for our relatives and friends or countrymen or all beings on the planet, then it's important to... To use our ability to visualize that and to be able to bring that vision into full consciousness and then to learn how to make it practical rather than just an ideal that we don't bother to do because it's so high. Report an error in the passage at 53:57
54:49 We can't apply anything practical. In our daily lives. But this vision of a better world also has to be brought down to the practical aspects of how we can start living this vision in a very practical way in daily life. Report an error in the passage at 54:49
55:08 And so during the day this will take place as workshop. And then in the evening we're having a peace vigil which you're all invited to. You can come to the global cooperation workshop. And the peace vigil. Or you can come to just the global cooperation workshop. Report an error in the passage at 55:08
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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