Apearence vs Reality

0:00 So I welcome everybody this afternoon. This is an opportunity to contemplate life, reflect on it. It's your life. So what I talk about, what I reflect on is the way things are. This is the best definition of the Pāli word dharma, reality or the truth of the way it is. Which is to be reflected upon, to be observed, rather than defined by somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:39 So this afternoon, I see that this is an encouragement to observe, to be the observer, the knower, awakened, aware of feeling of heat and cold, pleasure, pain, of pressure, physical pressure, emotional. emotional experience. Report an error in the passage at 0:39 Highlight the passage at 0:39

1:02 Experiences, pleasurable, painful, exciting, boring, whatever. And this sense of knowing, of being aware, the awakened consciousness, consciousness with awakened attention in the here and now. So it's very simple. In fact, it's ultimate simplicity. But we're not very simple. And we're very complicated. Report an error in the passage at 1:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02

1:34 At least I am. Report an error in the passage at 1:34 Highlight the passage at 1:34

1:45 Now just the subject, appearance in reality, this is an interesting one because the word reality or the real is we think we know what the real world is. Report an error in the passage at 1:45 Highlight the passage at 1:45

2:03 We have this assumption that it is What everybody agrees is the world and what we are conditioned to experience in it. How we perceive it through our cultural conditioning, through our own attitudes and tendencies. Report an error in the passage at 2:03 Highlight the passage at 2:03

2:28 And then how things appear and the difference between how things appear and the reality. This is for reflection. To contemplate this. Because, you know, these are just words, but they're pointing at a way of observing, maybe of looking at yourself or life around you in a different way than just the habitual tendencies that we tend to conceive ourselves or experience life through our habits and our emotions and our prejudices, fears and attitudes, opinions. Report an error in the passage at 2:28 Highlight the passage at 2:28

3:10 So I think many of us were attracted to Buddhism because it's this kind of invitation to investigate life, to come to terms with it, not just be kind of caught in the conditioning that we've experienced, or just feeling, you know, getting negative or disillusioned or depressed by the experiences we have as we grow up and grow old. Report an error in the passage at 3:10 Highlight the passage at 3:10

3:41 And this we see in a country like this, which is, you know, an affluent country. Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

3:51 We've had, you know, compared to so much of the world's population, very privileged lives in terms of government security and material benefits, comforts, opportunities that, of course, you know, when you hear country. Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

4:10 About other places on this planet, other countries, what people have to put up with is pretty difficult, you know, with poverty, with wars, with all kinds of difficulties. Report an error in the passage at 4:10 Highlight the passage at 4:10

4:23 So here in Britain, we've had, during this time, say, my lifetime, you know, I can't complain about the externals. I can complain if I want to. Report an error in the passage at 4:23 Highlight the passage at 4:23

4:39 But in terms of life as I've experienced it, the external part, the material part, the family, the society, the opportunities, and that for doing what I want for education, for travel, for having luxuries and wealth and things like this, have been you know fairly Open and obvious. But the complicated part of our humanity is our personality. And it's this sense of ourself that becomes very apparent. Report an error in the passage at 4:39 Highlight the passage at 4:39

5:24 If you're not just living on a level of survival, if your basic needs in life are not being met, you need food, shelter, clothes, and something to wear, medicine for your ailments, then our life has much more immediate Report an error in the passage at 5:24 Highlight the passage at 5:24

5:48 But in our life, in an affluent society, we have a lot of time. We can take a lot for granted. And we aren't just living on the edge of survival. Most of us with, you know, the... National health system and the dole and the other things, opportunities for being taken care of when we are, when we lose our jobs or our health. Report an error in the passage at 5:48 Highlight the passage at 5:48

6:20 But so many people at this very time, you know, don't have such opportunities. And sometimes they're even sometimes more alert and aware than we tend to be because they're actually living on the edge of survival. If you're living in the edge of survival, it's the survival mechanisms that are operating. Then you learn how to survive. Report an error in the passage at 6:20 Highlight the passage at 6:20

6:47 But in affluent societies, such as here or in Europe or America, we can take a lot for granted. We can become very complicated, neurotic people. And we can make endless problems about. Our lives about each other, about the world we live in. And because we are conditioned to see the world from distorted perceptions. Report an error in the passage at 6:47 Highlight the passage at 6:47

7:21 Now this is, just to get to the basic roots of it all, say at this very moment when we're sitting here in this sala, we're all experiencing consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 7:21 Highlight the passage at 7:21

7:37 You know, consciousness is the common factor that we all share at this very moment. Each one of us is a conscious being. Report an error in the passage at 7:37 Highlight the passage at 7:37

7:48 And consciousness is natural. It's not culturally conditioned. It's not personal. It's not my consciousness and yours. Or, you know, if I start claiming it, my consciousness is different from yours. What I really mean is my personality or my feelings or my... Views or opinions are different from yours. But actually, just pointing to what we're experiencing beyond the conditioning process that is natural. Report an error in the passage at 7:48 Highlight the passage at 7:48

8:20 When we're born, when a baby's born, it has a human body and it's conscious. These are what we call natural conditions. They aren't created out of ignorance or out of... Report an error in the passage at 8:20 Highlight the passage at 8:20

8:36 You know, out of cultural prejudices or biases or anything, they're just natural conditions to this realm, planet Earth and the solar system we live in. Report an error in the passage at 8:36 Highlight the passage at 8:36

8:48 So putting this in a context of non-self, we acquire this sense of our separateness and our personality and our identities after we're born. We're not born with an ego or a perception of being... English or French, Thai or anything like that, that is inculcated in us after we're born. So we have a sense of ourself as a separate being, identified with our bodies, with the appearance of it, with the age of it, with the gender of it, with the color of it, and on and on like that. Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:30 And then we have different ethnic backgrounds, different... Classes, races and so forth that are conditioned after we're born. Now just pointing to the natural conditions that we don't create, that human beings don't create the body or the consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:54 It's like the trees or the mountains or the seas. These are just natural conditions. Report an error in the passage at 9:54 Highlight the passage at 9:54

10:05 emphasis Emphasizing this, but we're experiencing consciousness which is from a particular form, the human form that we have, the body. Report an error in the passage at 10:05 Highlight the passage at 10:05

10:19 So like I'm sitting here and so I see you over there. It's like you're all separate. You know, I'm here, you're there. And therefore we're separate persons, separate people. Report an error in the passage at 10:19 Highlight the passage at 10:19

10:35 uh... Then we can project, I can project onto you, you know, all kinds of things, attraction, aversion, prejudice, cultural attitudes, fears and desires and whatnot that I can create. But getting to the basic reality of this moment is the consciousness is the same. So consciousness then is unitive, it's not divisive. Report an error in the passage at 10:35 Highlight the passage at 10:35

11:05 The body is divided, isn't it? My body's here, your body's there. So when we identify with the body as our world, as our reality, then we're always seeing the world from a very mortal condition, the human body we have, and we're always seeing it as separate. You know, you're somebody else. And so you come and go in my life, but I have to always live with myself. Report an error in the passage at 11:05 Highlight the passage at 11:05

11:38 You know, so this is, you know, throughout my life until the body dies, I have to, you know, when I leave here, I have to go back to my kuti. Report an error in the passage at 11:38 Highlight the passage at 11:38

11:48 And you go back to your homes. But I have to live with myself for the... Which Report an error in the passage at 11:48 Highlight the passage at 11:48

12:00 is sometimes rather difficult. So, especially when the self... It does get very complicated. Report an error in the passage at 12:00 Highlight the passage at 12:00

12:14 Now, this also... Contemplate the realm, this realm that our bodies are experiencing. This is a sensitive realm. It's about feeling. You know, so we, you know, the human bodies, all conditioned phenomena, it's about feeling. Consciousness is, you know, it supports feeling through these various forms. Report an error in the passage at 12:14 Highlight the passage at 12:14

12:45 So the forms, you know, we can feel hot or cold, hungry, full. We can feel happy or sad, pleasure, pain, healthy or sickly, indifferent. We can be high or low or jealous or frightened or angry, greedy, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 12:45 Highlight the passage at 12:45

13:08 And then the human bodies we have are total, you know, they're... They were incarcerated in a lifetime within a sensitive form. So it's just the way it is. Not complaining, just pointing to the fact that this is the way life is. This is the reality of this situation. And if you, you know, then we tend to think life should be peaceful and healthy and happy and good. Report an error in the passage at 13:08 Highlight the passage at 13:08

13:37 But that's not the way this realm operates. Sometimes, you know, it goes from one extreme to the other. Much of our life is neither particularly happy or sad. It's just ordinary. So when the Buddha was pointing to dharma, or reality itself, now I like, you know, as the years pass by, this word dharma is a Pāli word, and it's, you know, it's a word that quite have the same, know, you can't really find a really good English equivalent for Dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

14:21 So we take the word itself and use it in the English context. Or, you know, as I get more insight and understand more... Dhamma is reality itself. It's the real. Dhamma is reality here and now. And then the And then we awaken to reality. It's mindfulness. So this is what the whole emphasis of Buddhist meditation is on mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 14:21 Highlight the passage at 14:21

14:53 Awakening to reality. Not to reality as it's defined by culture or personal attitudes or by religion even. Buddha never tried to define reality. Report an error in the passage at 14:53 Highlight the passage at 14:53

15:09 Or tell you what you should believe is real. The whole aim of the Buddha's teaching is pointing to reality. So it's a kind of emphasis on wake up and see, kind of encouragement. Just wake up and look, observe the reality. You don't have to, if I define it, then you'll probably look for something else. Ajahn Sumedho told me reality is this. Report an error in the passage at 15:09 Highlight the passage at 15:09

15:36 And I spent a lifetime looking for what he described. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

15:44 So that doesn't work. So this is like the Buddha is, you know, these words, in this tradition, it's a very skillful tradition, this Pāli Theravāda tradition. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

16:07 Because it is, It is an expedient means. It's taking language, the ability to think, taking words, and using them for pointing, for giving us a perspective on something, for not just telling us what we should be or how we should live or what we should do, but the emphasis on awakened attention to life, here and now. Report an error in the passage at 16:07 Highlight the passage at 16:07

16:38 The deathless reality. Ultimate reality. We put it in terms like ultimate reality. Or the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 16:38 Highlight the passage at 16:38

16:50 Now that deathless reality is beyond thought, isn't it? You can have the words, but try to conceive, try to imagine deathless reality. Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50

17:04 You know, I can't. Mine goes blank every time. And then... time. Report an error in the passage at 17:04 Highlight the passage at 17:04

17:13 And then we say, well, there's a deathless reality, it's maybe a kind of vibration, energy, and then we start wanting to think of it in terms of energy or vibration, or maybe it's a god or a deity, a creator force. When do we get into complicating it all? So then these are... Ways that people try to contact it or awaken to it or recognize it. And religions give various ways of doing that. Report an error in the passage at 17:13 Highlight the passage at 17:13

17:48 But this style is definitely the Theravāda polytrinity which refrains, restrains itself from trying to tell you anything. But it's an encouragement to wake up and look. Report an error in the passage at 17:48 Highlight the passage at 17:48

18:11 Because, you know, this is your opportunity as a human individual to understand, to recognize the ultimate reality here and now. Now, the condition that we're experiencing, everything that we experience through the senses is called conditioned phenomena. It's phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 18:11 Highlight the passage at 18:11

18:38 You know, through seeing or hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking, emotions, everything that we experience in consciousness is phenomena or conditions. Report an error in the passage at 18:38 Highlight the passage at 18:38

18:56 And these conditions are, you know, some are beautiful, ugly, good, bad, right, wrong. They have all different kind of qualities. qualities Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:07 Different aspects, complicated, simple, good, bad, heaven and hell. And this realm is about that. We're experiencing pleasure and pain, heaven and hell, success and failure, praise and blame. Report an error in the passage at 19:07 Highlight the passage at 19:07

19:27 And to the average person, the average individual, time is our reality. Time is reality. Report an error in the passage at 19:27 Highlight the passage at 19:27

19:38 But Buddha pointed to the timeless, timeless reality. So this is another thing that rather is worthy, worth investigating in yourself. You know, like your body is a time-bound condition. So you get born, you grow up, you get old and die. That's what the body is supposed to do. Because it's a phenomenon. And because it was born, then it will die. Report an error in the passage at 19:38 Highlight the passage at 19:38

20:09 And so this is the pattern of conditioned phenomena. Then taking the word phenomena and then taking it to the noumena. The noumena is where phenomena arises and ceases, begins and ends. Now these are words, I think they're probably Greek. Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:34 Of Greek origin, noumena phenomena. But they're interesting to use because they're ordinary enough in the English language. But noumena then isn't personal. It's not about my noumena and your noumena. I mean, we can misuse language like that if we want, but it's not understanding what these words actually mean. Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

21:04 So the word phenomena or conditions, conditions, phenomena, the born, the created, the formed, all that begins and ends, arises, ceases, this is about time. Report an error in the passage at 21:04 Highlight the passage at 21:04

21:20 So the world that we live in believes in time. Now this is the first day of August. I had to change my calendars. I've got, people give me the most beautiful calendars every new year. And they're so beautiful I have a hard time giving them away or getting rid of them because they don't make just ordinary sloppy boring old calendars these days. Report an error in the passage at 21:20 Highlight the passage at 21:20

21:44 People go out of their way and make kind of works of art. So every beginning of the month I have to go through my kuti changing the calendars around July to August. So that's what I was doing this morning. The busy life I had. Report an error in the passage at 21:44 Highlight the passage at 21:44

22:10 And then we also have British summertime, you know. Another complicated thing. And then, you know, then we have, we're living in, you know, way far north, northern hemisphere, where the days are getting shorter and nights are longer. This is about time. This is kalikadamma. This is the way things are. This is about phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 22:10 Highlight the passage at 22:10

22:38 Birth and death arising and ceasing. And this whole realm that we're experiencing through the body is about birth and death and feeling and change. Report an error in the passage at 22:38 Highlight the passage at 22:38

22:51 So contemplate that. This is just the way it is. It's not saying it's... We're not making any criticism or judgment. It's just noticing. Now if you really pay attention, you really begin to see it. There's nothing... That you experience through your senses, through your body, through the mind, that it has any permanency whatsoever. Report an error in the passage at 22:51 Highlight the passage at 22:51

23:19 And then we live in this realm where we have very little control over it, how much happiness and health and fairness and justice and rights and all this we have. Because, you know, the conditions are dependent on other conditions. You know, the alignment of the planets in the sky, the sun and the moon, who knows what's out there in that vast universe that's affecting us at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 23:19 Highlight the passage at 23:19

23:49 All kinds of possibilities in the infinite planetary system, stars and maybe beings, energies, forces. Report an error in the passage at 23:49 Highlight the passage at 23:49

24:00 Then just on the planetary level, the changing of the seasons, the day and night, and then the aging of the body. And so we have to deal with, I just had my 76th birthday, so you have to look at this body now as a 76-year-old body. Report an error in the passage at 24:00 Highlight the passage at 24:00

24:23 And that's time, isn't it? The body's about time. And then we believe, if I believe I'm... The body, then, I'm a 76-year-old man. Report an error in the passage at 24:23 Highlight the passage at 24:23

24:37 Fair enough. That's the way the conventional world thinks and believes. I'm not criticizing, but just pointing out. Is that what we really are? An aging physical body? Or that which is aware of age? Of the thinking, I'm 76, or I'm this body. Report an error in the passage at 24:37 Highlight the passage at 24:37

25:04 So this is where the emphasis of the Buddha on mindfulness. Now this is really unique to Buddhism. This is what is unique to this particular religion, is the Buddha's emphasis on mindfulness. Because it's such an alien word. In our society, you know, to be mindful usually means to be mindful of something, like be mindful when you get off this stand, or be mindful when you cross the street, or things like this. Report an error in the passage at 25:04 Highlight the passage at 25:04

25:48 So we recognize it as kind of being mindful of something, of danger, or some condition around. But when the Buddha is using the word mindfulness, Or sati sampacanya, the Pāli word for it. It's not just being aware of something, an object, but it's open state of attention. Mindfulness then allows us to recognize reality, to realize, to be the numina itself. Report an error in the passage at 25:48 Highlight the passage at 25:48

26:28 You know, rather than this person, this... This physical body, these emotions, these thoughts, opinions, fears, habits that we tend to see, always define ourselves, judge ourselves according to the conditions we're experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 26:28 Highlight the passage at 26:28

26:46 Now when you think of yourself as a person, it's usually through identity with your physical body, isn't it? And then you identify with your feelings and your memories. Report an error in the passage at 26:46 Highlight the passage at 26:46

26:59 And as you define yourself through... Through my memories, my life, my body, my thoughts, they're all different than somebody else's. You know, with all the people in this room, we're all conscious, but each one has their own particular perception at this moment. You know, what you're thinking or feeling at this moment isn't going to be exactly what I'm thinking or feeling at this moment. So when we... Report an error in the passage at 26:59 Highlight the passage at 26:59

27:36 If we are habituated, identified with changing conditions, then we always feel some dis-ease or something's missing in our lives, there's a lack of something. Report an error in the passage at 27:36 Highlight the passage at 27:36

27:50 And so we think if we just had more money or met the right person or could get rid of the illness or not grow old or live in a perfect society where everything is perfect. Report an error in the passage at 27:50 Highlight the passage at 27:50

28:08 But, you know, then we think that we have to find something or get something we don't have rather than awaken. So this simple act of mindfulness, it's an imminent kind of attentiveness in the present that includes everything at this moment. You know, whatever it is, you know, physical, emotional, thoughts, memories, pleasant, painful, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 28:08 Highlight the passage at 28:08

28:40 It's not mindfulness and wisdom they combine. Mindfulness with wisdom means then we, when we're mindful and we begin to recognize the value of mindfulness and cultivate it, then our discerning abilities improve. Report an error in the passage at 28:40 Highlight the passage at 28:40

28:57 Wisdom is being able to discern the real from the unreal. Discernment isn't, it's not saying the real's better than the unreal. Report an error in the passage at 28:57 Highlight the passage at 28:57

29:10 It's just able to see this, reality is this, this is the appearance. And so, you know, practicing like this for many years now, I've had, you know, I put it to the test. You know, this is, over 40 years as a Buddhist monk, so, you know, how I practice then is discerning the real. Report an error in the passage at 29:10 Highlight the passage at 29:10

29:43 Knowing the real is the real and the unreal, not to, you know, unreal isn't, you know, a denying of anything, but it's a way of looking at the body, at the emotions or the feelings or the thoughts or the memories or the sense of myself as a separate personality. Report an error in the passage at 29:43 Highlight the passage at 29:43

30:04 My own conditioning, you know, from my own cultural background perceptions. What's right and wrong, good and bad, and, you know, the kind of package that I got from my parents and the place I was born and grew up is like this. So this is like this mindfulness then brings us to, is the gate to this numinon, this pure awareness, deathless, conscious point here and now. Report an error in the passage at 30:04 Highlight the passage at 30:04

30:43 And it's beyond thought. If you're trying to figure it out. And so, thinking is a time-bound condition. You can't trust thinking, really. It can maybe, if you use it rightly, thinking can be a tool to use. But as an end in itself, you'll get yourself, your brain in a twist if you try to figure Buddhism out. Report an error in the passage at 30:43 Highlight the passage at 30:43

31:19 Ajahn Chah, when somebody asks me about it, he says, if you think about it, you'll go crazy. Now Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:37 this is, you know, when I would say the ego, the sense of myself as a person, as a physical being, as this monk, and then that is what we call conventional reality. Report an error in the passage at 31:37 Highlight the passage at 31:37

31:56 Like Ajahn Chah would always use these words, conventional reality and ultimate reality. So like samut satya in Thai, samut, well it's Pāli words, but they use them in Thai. Samut means conventional reality. It's okay, you know, we can think tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and yesterday and I've got to meet this person or go to the doctor and things like this. Report an error in the passage at 31:56 Highlight the passage at 31:56

32:24 It's conventional reality. It's not... It doesn't mean that we give up. We just become a kind of zombie living in the state of ultimate reality where we don't feel or notice anything. But our relationship to conventional reality has changed from grasping it and identifying with it, being caught and victimized by the habits and conditioning that we've had. Report an error in the passage at 32:24 Highlight the passage at 32:24

32:55 To understanding it, seeing it for what it is, discerning it, it's like this. So discernment is the knowing, is a direct conscious knowing of reality and the phenomena that arises and ceases. Report an error in the passage at 32:55 Highlight the passage at 32:55

33:16 And of course the physical body has its lifespan to live, but throughout the day and night we have to deal with emotional Emotional experiences, thinking and memories, and pain, we hear, and this is the information age, so we're always aware. You know, Report an error in the passage at 33:16 Highlight the passage at 33:16

33:46 you listen to the news or read the newspapers or... all the things that are going wrong in the world. Report an error in the passage at 33:46 Highlight the passage at 33:46

34:32 like this, and then the terrible Report an error in the passage at 34:32 Highlight the passage at 34:32

34:43 floods and nobody would know about it, but the Chinese living there. now we know what goes on in Kyrgyzstan. Report an error in the passage at 34:43 Highlight the passage at 34:43

34:58 And Darfur. ever heard of Darfur? Places like this. Because now, you know, the media present us with all the catastrophes, the corruption, the scandals, the problems, the wars that are existing at this time on planet Earth. Report an error in the passage at 34:58 Highlight the passage at 34:58

35:26 And then we hear all the gossip from the neighbors and on and on like that. We have our own personal Problems in life are relationships to family and workplace and so forth. So this is the realm of conditioned phenomena. It's like this. It's a complicated, ongoing irritation that we have to bear with. Report an error in the passage at 35:26 Highlight the passage at 35:26

35:58 It's just the way it is. So it's this awakened awareness. Awareness it. That changes our relationship to this realm, the sense realm, the feeling realm. It's not a denial or a rejection but changing from being blindly grasping, helplessly caught into these changing conditions, not knowing what's happening or what to do about it, just a kind of helpless victim of circumstances, to being aware. Report an error in the passage at 35:58 Highlight the passage at 35:58

36:36 change as we have to experience individually through our human forms. Report an error in the passage at 36:36 Highlight the passage at 36:36

36:44 I find, you know, I can bear that. Report an error in the passage at 36:44 Highlight the passage at 36:44

37:09 You know, you're trying to adapt to tropical weather and different lifestyle and everything. So you feel, you think sometimes your mind says, I can't stand it. I can't stand it. It's too much. And then my emotions would start believing, I can't stand it. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:32 But then I start noticing that I actually can stand it. And I'm standing it. At the very moment, my mind says, I can't stand it. That's quite an insight. So this is how you begin to observe yourself. Notice this is not critical. I'm not criticizing, like saying, I should be able to stand it, but I can't. Report an error in the passage at 37:32 Highlight the passage at 37:32

38:04 Then the ego forms around. Insight. Report an error in the passage at 38:04 Highlight the passage at 38:04

38:07 I should be better than what I am right now. But it's not about trying to make yourself better as a person, but seeing the nature of phenomena. And that which is aware of phenomena is anumana. It's not, you know, it has, once you begin to recognize it or discern, then you find your refuge in this awareness. Report an error in the passage at 38:07 Highlight the passage at 38:07

38:37 It's a stable, it's a still point. It's what they call a gupa, unshakable still point that we begin to recognize while these changing conditions operate according to the way they are. Report an error in the passage at 38:37 Highlight the passage at 38:37

38:59 Now this is quite wonderful, isn't it? And to me, you know, when I started out with Buddha's teaching, it was all up in the head at first, and so I... I doubted it and wasn't quite sure about it. But it did, and something in me did relate to it as something worthy, at least to try to understand. Report an error in the passage at 38:59 Highlight the passage at 38:59

39:23 And so, you know, over the years, having opportunities to practice, you know, this has been an opportunity to really break through a lot of the fears and the habit patterns that... Copyright © 2020, Report an error in the passage at 39:23 Highlight the passage at 39:23

39:52 New Thinking Allowed Foundation to see, to discern, to have a confidence in discerning reality, you know, it's not Report an error in the passage at 39:52 Highlight the passage at 39:52

40:09 Contemplate yourself as a separate person. It's always through your thinking. I'm this person here. You're that person there. I'm a man. You're a woman. I'm this and you're that. And it goes on into the thinking that thinking is divisive. Thinking is a useful condition, but it's very limited because it is a critical function of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 40:09 Highlight the passage at 40:09

40:41 You know, we think this is bigger and this is smaller, this is better and that's worse, this is heaven, this is hell, this is right and this is wrong. Report an error in the passage at 40:41 Highlight the passage at 40:41

40:53 So the thinking process, we're all educated to think. You know, modern education is about thinking, about reason, being reasonable, logical, analytical, scientific, sensible. Report an error in the passage at 40:53 Highlight the passage at 40:53

41:13 But also, to put thinking in its proper place, it's for criticizing, for comparing one thing with another. And of course, conditions are different, so some are going to be bigger than others. Smaller and better or worse or right and wrong, good or bad. Fair enough, we're not trying to say all conditions are exactly the same. Report an error in the passage at 41:13 Highlight the passage at 41:13

41:37 name you know they're They're all, because that's the lie, they're not the same. Conditions are all that is different. Condition phenomena is about difference, about change. Report an error in the passage at 41:37 Highlight the passage at 41:37

41:53 And then that which is aware, so this is the, this word aware or mindful, sati sampatanya. Report an error in the passage at 41:53 Highlight the passage at 41:53

42:05 This is the, this is the occasion that we have to abide in a natural, Non-state. Now that doesn't make much sense. Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:22 Natural non-state. Think about that. Report an error in the passage at 42:22 Highlight the passage at 42:22

42:33 But the natural non-state, then I put that as the unborn, uncreated, unformed, unconditioned, the deathless, the noumena. Report an error in the passage at 42:33 Highlight the passage at 42:33

42:48 And it's through consciousness that we recognize, that we discern. because of consciousness that discernment is possible. Report an error in the passage at 42:48 Highlight the passage at 42:48

43:04 Now the animal kingdom, say the... that can reflect in this way. This is what the Buddha did. reflected on the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 43:04 Highlight the passage at 43:04

43:21 the animal kingdom, say the... Just the mammalian kingdom that we live with, the dogs and cats that we love or hate, the rats and the birds and whatnot. The birds aren't mammals, though. I do have some scientific knowledge. But they're all conscious. Consciousness is the same, whether it's a bird or a rat or your pet cat. Report an error in the passage at 43:21 Highlight the passage at 43:21

43:56 whatever. It's the consciousness. Now, this is, I'm not telling you, this is for reflection. Consciousness, we're all experiencing the same consciousness, but the forms are different, like the species. Why do cats always look like cats? Why do dogs and birds have woodpeckers and have robins and swallows? Report an error in the passage at 43:56 Highlight the passage at 43:56

44:24 Why can't they just be all... Why can't they change forms? A swallow become an eagle? Report an error in the passage at 44:24 Highlight the passage at 44:24

44:33 And in fantasy and fairy tales they can, but in terms of the reality that we're observing, there's so many different phenomenal forms or species. Now what is special about the human one then? Because we aren't that much different, are we, from... Report an error in the passage at 44:33 Highlight the passage at 44:33

44:57 Chimpanzees or gorillas, monkeys, I mean, you know, we have, some people would find this very offensive, but actually, you know, with the mammalian kingdom, you know, dogs and cats, why do the English love dogs so much? Report an error in the passage at 44:57 Highlight the passage at 44:57

45:20 What is it that they love their dogs? Because dogs have similar emotions to humans. Don't they? You know, they can be very affectionate or very angry. You can hurt their feelings. If you talk bad to them, they look hurt. You know, I experimented. I had a dog once where I'd say the most awful things in a sweet, melodic voice. Report an error in the passage at 45:20 Highlight the passage at 45:20

45:53 And the dog picked up on the melodic voice, not on the words. Report an error in the passage at 45:53 Highlight the passage at 45:53

46:04 That's sensitivity, isn't it? They're happy when they, you know, and so, and they eat, you know, and sleep, procreate the species. Report an error in the passage at 46:04 Highlight the passage at 46:04

46:15 Similar, it's not that much different from us. But a dog, at least the dogs I've known, they don't, they aren't very self-reflective. Report an error in the passage at 46:15 Highlight the passage at 46:15

46:27 Now humans, sometimes, not all humans seem to lack Sometimes not very self-reflective either, but this is the point of the Buddha's teaching, is to awaken, to be able to use this gift that we have in this human form. Report an error in the passage at 46:27 Highlight the passage at 46:27

46:54 And so it's a gift. In Thailand, for example, they're always telling me what a precious thing it is to be born as a human being. Report an error in the passage at 46:54 Highlight the passage at 46:54

47:06 And I was much more cynical in those days when I first went to live in Thailand. I don't see, you know, I think it's a curse, being human. You know, you have the memory, you have the sensitive and your feelings, people just look at you cross-eyed and you feel something. You know, you look at a dog cross-eyed, it doesn't feel anything. It doesn't seem to. Report an error in the passage at 47:06 Highlight the passage at 47:06

47:34 So, but then, you know, in the Buddhist world, they're pointing to this, this is what Buddha really means, this word. Meaning, it can be a human individual awakened to reality. It's not a kind of God living out in space or anything like that. So you can have Buddha images, you can make Buddha rūpas, you know, kind of in their iconic forms, human style. Because this is what we're all capable of. Report an error in the passage at 47:34 Highlight the passage at 47:34

48:10 Not to become a Buddha, you know, some kind of personal wish to become a Buddha, but to this awareness, awakened in the present moment to Dhamma. Buddha is aware of Dhamma, knows the So in this tradition, when we have this tradition of taking the three refuges in Buddhadhamma Saṅgha, Report an error in the passage at 48:10 Highlight the passage at 48:10

48:43 So this is what it's all about. It's taking refuge in awareness, in reality, in virtue, so that our lives as human beings, we're taking responsibility for living in a virtuous way, for doing our actions as human individuals. We can use our bodies, To harm or divide or kill others, or we can use our physical forms, the remainder of our lives, for goodness, for compassion, caring, helping, supporting, doing good in the world. Report an error in the passage at 48:43 Highlight the passage at 48:43

49:35 Practicing. Supatipanno is one who practices the dhamma, who lives by the dhamma. So these refuges then, contemplate, these refuges are, a refuge is a safe place. You can seek a refuge for safety, isn't it? Because there's danger, and we all want a refuge to get out of the danger. So then, this to me, over the years, just this simple chant that we do, so ordinary, part of, like those of you who come from Buddhist backgrounds, from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, whatever, this is part of your culture. Report an error in the passage at 49:35 Highlight the passage at 49:35

50:14 It can be just Bhutan Zarnangacami, just without really knowing the profundity of that. But a meditator, when you start practicing and investigating Dhamma, then you see that Bhutan Zarnangacami is just like a beautiful thing to think. You remind yourself to be mindful, because we forget. The world impinges on us, our karma ripens. Report an error in the passage at 50:14 Highlight the passage at 50:14

50:47 Things happen and then we react. We get carried away maybe with anger or jealousy or fear, desires. But then, you know, then this Bhutanternangacchami is a reminder, you know, starting right here and now to remind here and now the timeless reality, the perfect noumena, consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 50:47 Highlight the passage at 50:47

51:19 And this is what we call bhavana, or cultivating this way. Now this is like in vipassanā meditation. There's a lot of interest now in this word vipassanā, which is a Pāli word, which means insight into dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 51:19 Highlight the passage at 51:19

51:44 So it's having insight knowledge of having... Direct knowledge of reality. And then cultivating that. Because we live in a society that is deluded. So we have to live within the conditions of this society we're in. Report an error in the passage at 51:44 Highlight the passage at 51:44

52:10 And of course it triggers off our various tendencies, our fears and desires and jealousies. Emotion, anger and resentment and so forth. That's just the way things are. But our relationship now has changed from, you know, from trying to stop or change or control toward trusting in Bhutan Sarnangacami, in awareness here and now. Report an error in the passage at 52:10 Highlight the passage at 52:10

52:46 So, you know, your real trust then is that you find this refuge, you recognize it, and then you... Then you cultivate it. Like in monastic forms like this, it's about cultivating this kind of awareness. This is what the whole purpose of monasticism is to use this kind of traditional form for awareness, for cultivating the path. Report an error in the passage at 52:46 Highlight the passage at 52:46

53:23 So it has its... You know, it is a form that has its boundaries. We have discipline. It's not about, you know, each one of us kind of picking and choosing. We learn, it's a tradition, so we learn to just live within the structures of this particular form. And then the point is to observe how we react to it. Report an error in the passage at 53:23 Highlight the passage at 53:23

53:56 And so that, because we, you know, any kind of restraint, You can't do what you want, or go where you want to go, or say what you want to say, or you're a celibate, and you're in some kind of traditional form that is very different from your own cultural expectations of life, and it brings up all kinds of frustrations and criticisms, and we get attached, we get repelled, we get critical, but all this is... Report an error in the passage at 53:56 Highlight the passage at 53:56

54:29 Grist for the mill, it's the path we observe. Our refuge is in this knowing, it's like this. Report an error in the passage at 54:29 Highlight the passage at 54:29

54:42 So then it's cultivating the path. At first you have to know the path to cultivate it. It's not an airy-fairy path, it's not like some kind of abstract thing that's dependent on conditions, on any other conditions. It's just a matter of recognizing it. Report an error in the passage at 54:42 Highlight the passage at 54:42

55:36 one is directly experiencing through your Report an error in the passage at 55:36 Highlight the passage at 55:36

55:44 through but you're seeing it from consciousness consciousness Report an error in the passage at 55:44 Highlight the passage at 55:44

55:54 than experiencing life, interpreting your life, always from the distortions of conditioned phenomena. like the suffering that people talk about, that is the first noble truth the Buddha pointed to, is the suffering we create through our... Our unawakened habituation and grasping of conditions, of phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 55:54 Highlight the passage at 55:54

56:20 So we interpret experience always through a distortion of something. Like the ego, the sense of me, Ajahn Sumedho, and the sense of myself as a separate person. Report an error in the passage at 56:20 Highlight the passage at 56:20

56:38 If I interpret life always from this perception, I'm distorting reality. I experience always, I feel like this, and I want this, and I don't like that, and the ego has its own complicated neurotic scenarios to present. But the awareness is the awareness of the ego. Report an error in the passage at 56:38 Highlight the passage at 56:38

57:08 So the ego then is recognized, it's not rejected or criticized. You know, I found in my own practice over these years, the ego will go on saying, I can't stand this, but I know what that is. That thing in me that says, I've had enough, I can't stand it. I know that. There's a knowing. And, you know, you have different, at my age, you know, You don't have the energy, the resilience. When I went to North America last May, I left for Canada and the United States two months. Report an error in the passage at 57:08 Highlight the passage at 57:08

58:00 And before that, I was in Portugal for two weeks, climbing up old castle walls, ramparts, going here and there. I came right back here and gave a 10-day retreat here at Amaravati. And one day off, then I flew off to North America. I was exhausted. Report an error in the passage at 58:00 Highlight the passage at 58:00

58:23 Because, you know, I used to be able to do things like that when I was younger. But, you know, fatigue, physical fatigue and so forth, this is just the way the body is. This is part of age. Now, seeing it in terms of the ego, or from discerning it, is different, isn't it? From the ego, then it's, oh, so tired, exhausted. Report an error in the passage at 58:23 Highlight the passage at 58:23

58:49 Or, it's like this. You know, so you're certainly aware of feelings of being tired, exhausted, but you're not lost in it. It's just this time, the conditions, having... I've been through all these different things and then, you know, being so active, then your body feels like this. Where if it's, oh, I feel like this, I'm so exhausted, you know, I can't do things like I used to. Report an error in the passage at 58:49 Highlight the passage at 58:49

59:24 Then I'm living in a community where everybody's considerably younger than I am. So they see me more like, you know, some of the monks treat me like I'm getting senile. Report an error in the passage at 59:24 Highlight the passage at 59:24

59:44 I keep waiting for the signs. Report an error in the passage at 59:44 Highlight the passage at 59:44

59:49 I'm more meticulous now than I ever was. I build something on my robe and I hope nobody notices. You think, oh, he's going gaga. Report an error in the passage at 59:49 Highlight the passage at 59:49

1:00:04 And then you have, the memory's not quite so good. And then you think, oh, I've got Alzheimer's. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:15 That's the ego, isn't it? The ego does that. Worrying about what people, they're all thinking I'm getting too old or I'm getting dementia, senility. And of course this is, you know, we create these words and identify with these concepts or fear them. But there's also at the same time a knowing of this. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:15 Highlight the passage at 1:00:15

1:00:44 No longer giving it, you know, experiencing life through these perceptions. You know, if I give them, if I cling to these perceptions, then I suffer from changing conditions, from aging and worrying what other people think of me. Or what I think they think of me. And then if I see it in this way of discerning, there's no suffering in it. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:44 Highlight the passage at 1:00:44

1:01:18 So anyway, the tea has arrived. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:18 Highlight the passage at 1:01:18

1:01:25 Yom Lada is always trustworthy. She's been doing this for years. I never say, you've got to do the tea. She naturally takes it on. Anyway, I want to invite you all for a cup of tea, and then maybe 20 minutes, if you're so inclined, we could have discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:25 Highlight the passage at 1:01:25