Awakening to the Real

0:00 From different perspectives, looking at something, at myself, at the assumptions, opinions, emotions that I'm having, to look at them in a different way than just see them in highly personal, either judged as good or bad, right or wrong, or ignored, repressed, or denied. denied. So this is the top Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:30 The title of this talk is Awakening to the Real. And I found that this word awakening is something that is the very essence of the Buddhist teaching. It's about waking up in a way that isn't just, you know, being conscious from a condition level, but awakening to reality, which is here and now. And each one of us is experiencing it, but we don't notice because as we are conditioned, we experience reality through the conditioning of the mind, through the emotions, through the cultural attitudes, cultural prejudice, religious views, or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 0:30 Highlight the passage at 0:30

1:21 We tend to interpret our experience and see life always through these biases. Some are good, some are... Not very good. Some are absolutely horrible. Some are all right. They vary according to different qualities. But the whole conditioning process needs to be looked at, not in terms of criticizing it, but of recognizing it. Report an error in the passage at 1:21 Highlight the passage at 1:21

1:48 So this is what we call awakening to reality. And in this tradition, the Pāli Theravāda tradition, of course, Reality is the word we use, dharma. Dharma is a Sanskrit word, and dharma in the Pāli. So when we translate Pāli into English, oftentimes dharma becomes a kind of, it gets interpreted into kind of maybe Western attitudes or definitions. Report an error in the passage at 1:48 Highlight the passage at 1:48

2:23 But as you practice meditation, you begin to understand what it really means, The real in a direct way, not reality as we're conditioned to regard it. For example, you oftentimes hear the phrase, the real world. And sometimes in these monasteries here at Amaravati or Chitras, people accuse us of not living in the real world because we don't live in the world they live in. Report an error in the passage at 2:23 Highlight the passage at 2:23

3:01 So the world that they assume we live in here at a monastery is not reality. So I challenge that. What is reality? And what is the real world? So rather than defining it and trying to tell you what I think or how you should feel about it, it's more an encouragement to begin to recognize the value and the opportunity. Report an error in the passage at 3:01 Highlight the passage at 3:01

3:31 And the ability that each one of us has to awaken, to be mindful in other words. So then this brings the word mindfulness into this situation which is a word that is increasingly used. I hear it not only in Buddhist meditation circles but in psychotherapy and psychology and so forth because Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

3:58 Even though this is an English word and we all assume we understand it, yet it's never played a very major role in our cultural attitudes or the way we experience life. Report an error in the passage at 3:58 Highlight the passage at 3:58

4:15 Just noticing how much of the conditioning process, cultural conditioning, is based on identification with a particular ethnic group, religious group. With your class, your race, your position, profession, your parents' profession, your political party, and your tendencies, your sexual attitudes, all these things tend to create this sense of a self, and then we experience the reality of the real. Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:56 Through these distortions, unquestioningly, we can get offended, upset, angry, annoyed by not being politically correct. Now is the time where this sense of being politically correct is imperative in modern society, not to offend anybody in any way whatsoever. whatsoever. So... You have to give a public talk at all and manage to get through the whole thing without offending anyone. Report an error in the passage at 4:56 Highlight the passage at 4:56

5:37 That's success at being politically correct. Instead of making something important about my feelings and my attitudes and people shouldn't offend me in any way. It's much better, you learn much more by looking at what offends you, at the fears or identities or assumptions that you make about yourself in the society, in the world that we live in. Report an error in the passage at 5:37 Highlight the passage at 5:37

6:12 This is very interesting, I found, because I trained in Thailand, which is a very different type of society than the States. Report an error in the passage at 6:12 Highlight the passage at 6:12

6:25 And the state has changed a lot, so I haven't lived there for 45 years. But as it was 45 years ago on the West Coast, moving into a Thai forest monastery, of course it was a challenge because all the assumptions, even the language, the food, the climate, the expectations, the attitudes were so different from... Report an error in the passage at 6:25 Highlight the passage at 6:25

6:54 the particular conditioning I had. And so the kind of genius of Ajahn Chah, Lungpho Chah, was that even before He was a kind of brilliant guide getting me to look at my own feelings. Because it's so easy when you're adjusting to another culture, you're trying to learn somebody's language, and you're kind of learning to realign yourself to a different society, and then a monastic one at that. Report an error in the passage at 6:54 Highlight the passage at 6:54

7:36 It's so easy to misunderstand or to feel offended or... By things that, you know, the way they act or they react to you. You can easily, I could easily become paranoid, even though nobody was threatening me. I could imagine all kinds of slights and offenses and that that people might be making towards me as the only Western person in the Saṅgha at that time. Report an error in the passage at 7:36 Highlight the passage at 7:36

8:07 But Ajahn Chah was very good at getting me to look at this, this feeling, this sense of myself and my, I always thought Report an error in the passage at 8:07 Highlight the passage at 8:07

8:36 of myself as a kind of liberal nice guy. And then we knew it. And then when you're beginning to look at yourself, you realize that there's a lot that isn't very nice or liberal, but it is what it is. And this is what Lungpho Chal wanted us to see, see conditions as conditions. Report an error in the passage at 8:36 Highlight the passage at 8:36

8:59 Now they reflect on the use of the critical mind. How do you criticize yourself? Others or the society or the world you live in. It's through thinking, isn't it? We're conditioned to, with language, with discriminative thinking, thought is all about values, qualities, quantities. So you have good and bad, right and wrong, heaven and hell, bigger and smaller, what is right, what is wrong. Report an error in the passage at 8:59 Highlight the passage at 8:59

9:35 And so this all depends on language. phenomena is what we're experiencing now through the body and through the senses. we're living in a realm that's sensitive and conditioned and that we don't understand it. We don't know where we are in it. We just maybe adopt the cultural attitudes that we get from our parents and from our social background. Report an error in the passage at 9:35 Highlight the passage at 9:35

10:08 we can accept this unquestioningly because as a child, as a baby, you more or less depend on getting your messages from your mother, first your mother and then father. Report an error in the passage at 10:08 Highlight the passage at 10:08

10:24 and so forth. you find out, you know, you're a human individual, human entity, a very sensitive form, in a sensitive realm. Report an error in the passage at 10:24 Highlight the passage at 10:24

10:39 I'll contemplate that. It is the fact, just of being a one human entity that has to live a lifetime, maybe, say, up to a hundred years at the most. Some get a few years beyond that. But we get our conditioning early in life, from the time we're born, and we're kind of conditioned to see ourselves, to identify, to... Report an error in the passage at 10:39 Highlight the passage at 10:39

11:08 To hold views and opinions. And if we start questioning any of this, then we're considered difficult, heretical problems. Report an error in the passage at 11:08 Highlight the passage at 11:08

11:23 We get punished. So we more or less learn how to survive in a society by going along with it in order to get the rewards for obeying the rules. and getting the approval because we know if we don't then we get the punishment and the ostracism and the pain of exclusion so it's the conditioned realm is like this it's about rewards and punishment now this is all about you know the thinking process so conditioned phenomena is You know, in Buddhist terms, it's what is born and dies, what arises and ceases. All conditions are impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 11:23 Highlight the passage at 11:23

12:09 So in vipassanā meditation, this word vipassanā, in the Pāli word, means looking into or insights meditation. It's investigating, not through Buddhist ideas or Buddhist doctrines, but through direct awareness. By observing, in other words, awakening to reality. Report an error in the passage at 12:09 Highlight the passage at 12:09

12:38 So this is a unique quality of the Buddhist path, is that it doesn't have any real doctrines that you have to believe in. And the teachings, like the Four Noble Truths, are expedient means to use to break through the illusions we create the unreal world the unreal worlds that we So the Buddha takes the first noble truth as the truth of suffering because this is a common experience that every human being that has ever lived is living now and well in the future can recognize. Report an error in the passage at 12:38 Highlight the passage at 12:38

13:25 It's not esoteric, subtle or anything like that. And it's easy to observe. We suffer. And this suffering then is a common characteristic of all conditioned phenomena, whether it's good, bad, right, wrong, heaven, hell. Report an error in the passage at 13:25 Highlight the passage at 13:25

13:46 In Buddhism, even heaven is dukkha, is suffering. That sounds like, you know, that sounds like some people think that Buddhism is an annihilationist tea chain. But what the Buddha's pointing at is not to kind of say that everything's miserable and horrible, but that all conditions are changing. You can't find any real refuge, any permanent happiness, any real security in any condition whatsoever. Now heaven, in Western terms, as I learned it from my Christian background, was a kind of eternal happiness. Report an error in the passage at 13:46 Highlight the passage at 13:46

14:27 happiness uh... So it was an ideal that if I behaved myself and did what the Lord wanted, then I would be rewarded by living with God for eternity. Now that is a construction of the human mind, isn't it? I mean, you know, whether it's true or false or whatever, but it is words, it's about self, it's about eternity, which is a concept that we can't define. Report an error in the passage at 14:27 Highlight the passage at 14:27

15:12 You know, it's beyond time. Or it's, what is eternity? And of course it leaves most of us in a state of, well, I'd like to be happy. For more information visit www .osho.com The physical sensations you're having, you're experiencing in the body in the present time. Sitting, standing, walking, lying down, the four basic postures that we use for the day and night are recommended to be mindful of, to be aware of the body as it exists in the present. Report an error in the passage at 15:12 Highlight the passage at 15:12

16:17 Not comparing it to some ideal. Report an error in the passage at 16:17 Highlight the passage at 16:17

16:33 or whatever, it's like this. So this awareness then is our ability to observe, to awaken to, say, the nature of the body in the present moment, of this body that we call our own. Awakening to it. What do we do when we awaken to the body is begin to just notice it in an objective way, not compare it to ideals of how we would like it to be or just try to ignore it or force it to conform to what we want, but to trust yourself just to awaken, to be observant, be the observer of the body as you're experiencing in this present moment. Report an error in the passage at 16:33 Highlight the passage at 16:33

17:21 Well, that's quite, for me, that was quite a revelation. Never thought of doing that before. I practiced, I learned yoga long before I started Buddhist meditation, but it was always this yoga of trying to, you know, for vanity, for making oneself more fit and attractive and so forth. And you... So it was full of conditioned ideas that... Report an error in the passage at 17:21 Highlight the passage at 17:21

17:50 That either I created or are views I had from others. But this is simple, and this was not a criticism of yoga, but it's the way I happen to experience it. Because yoga actually does, you know, the whole point of it is mindfulness. But the message I got was it was to make you fit and stay young. So, well, that was the beginning. It had an attractive... Report an error in the passage at 17:50 Highlight the passage at 17:50

18:34 I started meditating, this word mindfulness became increasingly more important, and it wasn't, we weren't cultivating mindfulness to attain anything, but to be the observer of. The things that were going on, the feelings, the desires, the physical sensations, what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, the whole sensitive realm that we experience continuously in this form. Report an error in the passage at 18:34 Highlight the passage at 18:34

19:09 And then we reflect on the reality of being human. What is, you know, you have this word human being, but what do we mean by that? And of course we, you know, in the past when I was, you know, back in the 30s, in the 20s and 30s, there were all these kind of racist views, you know, about superior races, the white race was supposed to be the Aryan pure race, and the Jews were... Report an error in the passage at 19:09 Highlight the passage at 19:09

19:47 They had all these different kind of racist views that were quite, not in my particular family, they weren't prone towards that, but in the society, like in Nazi Germany and in America also. There's a lot of racism to always elevate the white race above the rest. Or being brought up as a Christian, it was where Christians are, somehow better than the other religions. then in the Christian religion, then I was an Anglican, and I was told that it's better than all the other Christians. Report an error in the passage at 19:47 Highlight the passage at 19:47

20:30 notice that what I have is supposed to be the best, that's the message I got. You couldn't settle for second rate. Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

20:45 be second or second-class citizen or to not be the best was taken very personally. Report an error in the passage at 20:45 Highlight the passage at 20:45

20:56 still is, in fact. But... This is how the ego is formed, the sense of your self-worth. It was the sense of me wanting to be the king, maybe, to be at the top. Report an error in the passage at 20:56 Highlight the passage at 20:56

22:17 Or they'd be the king or the queen, the best. Now this is all thinking, isn't it? The thinking mind. You can observe your own thinking. You can be mindful of thinking. And this is very important to contemplate, you know, that we are so attached to thinking that we have, maybe we're attached to ideals. Report an error in the passage at 22:17 Highlight the passage at 22:17

22:46 The highest form, the highest minded, the purest, the superlative thoughts that we can create in our mind, you know, about how things should be. And so then we, if we do that, what happens? We're attached to some very refined, high-minded ideal and then the realities of our life are measured accordingly. Report an error in the passage at 22:46 Highlight the passage at 22:46

23:10 And of course one can only... Find fault with the world, with oneself, with people one lives with because no condition is ideal. Report an error in the passage at 23:10 Highlight the passage at 23:10

23:25 You can't sustain something, any condition whatsoever as being the best for eternity. You can conceive the idea of it with words but the reality of it is that That it changes. And so this is where the Buddha emphasized this reflection on impermanence, on anicca. Anicca is the Pāli word for impermanence. That which observes anicca is awakened consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 23:25 Highlight the passage at 23:25

23:59 Now we're all conscious individual entities. Consciousness is not culturally conditioned. Report an error in the passage at 23:59 Highlight the passage at 23:59

24:24 entities, and then how we experience, when we condition, that we experience consciousness through the distortions of the conditions. Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

24:38 We suffer. Why there's suffering is the first noble truth. Because whatever we see and experience in our lives is seen through some kind of distortion. Report an error in the passage at 24:38 Highlight the passage at 24:38

24:54 Some, you know, are more refined and better than others, but whatever the condition is in the present, you know, it can't stay that way. It's not going to remain something beautiful, can't remain that beautiful for eternity. So in this, even though we know this, this is a rather matter-of-fact statement, a truism, but it's also to be investigated that this conditioned phenomena, this realm that we're living in is about conditioned phenomena, about sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 24:54 Highlight the passage at 24:54

25:33 And we awaken to it, observing it rather than identifying, trying to control it, ignoring it, denying it, criticizing it, you know, whatever, what our reaction to the conditioning that we're experiencing might be. The encouragement of the Buddha was to awaken to it. It's like this. So this reflection is like this, or the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

26:02 The use of language not as definitions, I'm not telling you how it is, but it's like pointing. Whatever you're feeling now is like this. You're starting to observe feeling, maybe in the present, not to think that you should feel anything, but to be the knower, that feelings, a physical feeling is like this, or emotional. Report an error in the passage at 26:02 Highlight the passage at 26:02

26:31 The feeling of the present is like this. Now that which knows the feeling, that which is aware of the feeling, that's pure consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

26:44 So mindfulness is actually, as the Buddha called it, the gate to the deathless, the entrance to that pure consciousness where we begin to recognize it. It's here all the time, but we don't recognize it because we're conditioned to always get caught in our thoughts, views, opinions, emotions, reactions to sensory stimulation. Report an error in the passage at 26:44 Highlight the passage at 26:44

27:19 Now, when I first started meditating and began to see what the aim was, I had this feeling of, I had insight, what they call insights into reality quite early. But it seemed overwhelming because emotionally at that time I was, it seemed like the real world was definitely me, my ego, my feelings and the, you know, that life is just a very kind of ongoing irritation. Report an error in the passage at 27:19 Highlight the passage at 27:19

27:58 I became aware by the age of 30 that life generally is about being irritated endlessly. So I thought, you know, what can you do about it? And of course the Buddha pointed out that this is the way it is, having a physical form, senses, this is a sense realm. Report an error in the passage at 27:58 Highlight the passage at 27:58

28:29 We're not supposed to find permanent security and happiness in the conditioned realm because it can't provide that for that desire. Report an error in the passage at 28:29 Highlight the passage at 28:29

28:43 What the Buddha does then is gives us a skillful means to use to investigate experience in the present. So this is the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth is the truth that we suffer. The Second is about the cause or the origins of suffering. Thank you for listening. the cessation of suffering, so suffering is not permanent. Report an error in the passage at 28:43 Highlight the passage at 28:43

29:16 then the way to live within this form, within this human form. which we how to not create suffering about the irritating irritations that we have through our and minds for the rest of our lives. Report an error in the passage at 29:16 Highlight the passage at 29:16

29:39 Now that's quite a challenge. Not, you know, because we're constantly irritated as we get older, as many of you were, the physical body gets increasingly less supple and has problems. Report an error in the passage at 29:39 Highlight the passage at 29:39

29:58 And then the suffering then is, you know, we can think the body is the cause of suffering or we begin to see resenting. Not wanting it to be like, that's what, that's the suffering we create. That's about the first noble truth. If we identify with the body and then we, you know, our identity, our vanity, sense of our individual self is the way we interpret life, then we complain or we fear or whatever as the body becomes older. Report an error in the passage at 29:58 Highlight the passage at 29:58

30:34 painful, and then the... Report an error in the passage at 30:34 Highlight the passage at 30:34

31:02 the body, then that reality of death, sense of death is very personal. How many of you have had very kind of frightening experiences of just contemplating the fear of death? What happens when we die? Where do we go? Is there nothing? Is it just annihilation? Or is there, you know, do we go to heaven or hell? Or do we get reincarnated? Report an error in the passage at 31:02 Highlight the passage at 31:02

31:36 And so there's all these speculations about what happens when we die. Try to imagine not having a body and Report an error in the passage at 31:36 Highlight the passage at 31:36

31:48 not being anybody. Try to imagine that. Imagine that you're dead. Report an error in the passage at 31:48 Highlight the passage at 31:48

32:01 And these are ways of experimenting with your mind, beginning to just notice that rather than just dismissing death for the future, I don't want to look at that, Or, you know, maybe I believe in oblivion. When you're dead, you're dead. There's nothing left. Goodbye, cruel world forevermore. But then you don't really know. And then others would rather go to that heaven where everything's happy and beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 32:01 Highlight the passage at 32:01

32:39 In fact, Michael Jackson, who died a couple of weeks ago, is interviewed when he was alive. Report an error in the passage at 32:39 Highlight the passage at 32:39

32:49 Because he was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. Now, Jehovah's Witness's idea of heaven is just that. It's a kind of, it's like Switzerland in the springtime. Report an error in the passage at 32:49 Highlight the passage at 32:49

33:04 Everything is pretty and clean and everybody's happy. And lions and lambs are being friendly, playing chess with each other. You know, so you get, they're kind of beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 33:04 Highlight the passage at 33:04

33:21 Lovely kind of pictures of youth, beauty. There's no warts, no swine flu, no AIDS, nothing in Jehovah's Witness heaven. But only a few chosen can go to these places, by the way. We can laugh at this, but the fact is nobody really knows. And then, you know, they turn a place where everything is beautiful Report an error in the passage at 33:21 Highlight the passage at 33:21

33:52 We're happy forever. It's kind of like a childish heaven. You know, I remember as a child, when I'd hurt myself, I'd think, why is there pain? I'd like to live in a world where there isn't any physical pain and no broccoli or Brussels sprouts, cod Report an error in the passage at 33:52 Highlight the passage at 33:52

34:23 liver oil. My mother used to make me take that. Why can't... Why didn't God create a world where there's no cod liver oil and no pain? And so, you know, you can imagine, you know, this. But the realities of this realm is, this is a sense realm. And so, just affirm this. This is the way it's supposed to be. It's sensitive. Having a human body is the experience of sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 34:23 Highlight the passage at 34:23

34:56 And the human forms, we're all very sensitive forms from birth to death. That's why it's irritating. You know, because we're constantly being irritated in some way or another. We're used to it, so we're looking for a kind of place where the irritations are not really that much and we don't notice them. Report an error in the passage at 34:56 Highlight the passage at 34:56

35:20 But when you really awaken, you begin to see that this is a sensitive realm. The physical bodies we have, the ability to see, trying to control sight so you only see the pleasing and the beautiful, or sound, only hearing the beautiful harmonious sounds or fragrant odors and delicious food and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 35:20 Highlight the passage at 35:20

35:46 This is an ideal world, like a heaven, where there's only perfume and good food. Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Report an error in the passage at 35:46 Highlight the passage at 35:46

36:23 then when... You can't be happy all the time, but when the conditions for happiness arise, then we feel this sense of happiness, which we like. Report an error in the passage at 36:23 Highlight the passage at 36:23

36:35 Unhappiness, we don't like. But when the conditions are arranged in such a way we're experiencing unhappiness, we can observe both happiness is like this, unhappiness is like this. So this is the gate to the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 36:35 Highlight the passage at 36:35

36:56 The entrance to recognition of pure consciousness, which allows things, which is not judgmental, not critical. Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:09 Pure consciousness doesn't say one thing is better than another. We say that. And human individuals, we have our own biases and preferences and habits. Sometimes we think, this is really the best and you might not agree with me at all. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:29 And so it's a matter of personal conditioning, personal taste, one's karma, one's cultural condition, all these conditions affect this moment and how we interpret it, if it's likable or not. Report an error in the passage at 37:29 Highlight the passage at 37:29

37:50 Now that which observes liking and disliking is not conditioned. Report an error in the passage at 37:50 Highlight the passage at 37:50

37:58 One condition can't observe another. But that which observes conditions, then that is what we call the unconditioned. And so that the entrance to the unconditioned or pure consciousness, you can call it that, is the ability that human individuals have to be awake and aware in the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 37:58 Highlight the passage at 37:58

38:30 So you can kind of appreciate the profundity of the Buddha's teaching, because this is an ancient teaching, this is not modern, new age kind of discovery. It's from way back in time, in India, 2,552 years ago, that this particular teaching, the Buddha gave this particular teaching of the Four Noble Truths. Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

39:01 And so because it is based on reality, because it's about reality, then it isn't about, it isn't archaeological or something about ancient Indian culture or Indian religion. It's about reality that all humans experience, whether culturally you experience it, you interpret your experience through particular cultural attitudes or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 39:01 Highlight the passage at 39:01

39:31 Those are not ultimately real. The reality is consciousness that we as human individuals experiencing the limitation of a human body and Report an error in the passage at 39:31 Highlight the passage at 39:31

39:50 consciousness that we experience through this physical body and the ignorance of ...reality of dharma that tends to create a false world, the unreal for us, into our warlike identities, racial prejudices, fears, class identities, gender identities, all these things, all these identities come out of ignorance, not understanding. Report an error in the passage at 39:50 Highlight the passage at 39:50

40:24 Some are not saying that they're bad or they shouldn't be, but we're beginning to put them in perspective. We're beginning to see them in a different way than we tend to interpret those conditions if we're not awake, if we're just operating from habit, from the momentum of our conditioning, our own emotional attachments. Report an error in the passage at 40:24 Highlight the passage at 40:24

40:52 Cultural biases and so forth, we're caught in the momentum of this conditioning process. To awaken to that then is what the Buddha encouraged. It's not about annihilating or condemning, because that's conditioning again, but recognizing, discerning. Now this teaching has a profound effect, as many of you know. Report an error in the passage at 40:52 Highlight the passage at 40:52

41:25 It's not just an intellectual theoretical game, even though it's quite good on that level, intellectually it's very pleasing, but it's also practical. Apply it to make it work for you in your daily life. And so this is what the monasticism is about, Buddhist monasticism. It's a particular... particular of living based on renunciation, on letting go of most of the things that the world thinks are absolutely necessary for happiness. Report an error in the passage at 41:25 Highlight the passage at 41:25

42:10 so, you know, like celibates, you give up kind of rights to indulge in sexual pleasures. Report an error in the passage at 42:10 Highlight the passage at 42:10

42:26 We can't have money or purchase things, so we depend on the goodwill of other people. So for an American, this is quite a renunciation, because I was brought up almost the total reverse of that. Don't be dependent. Don't be someone who depends on anyone. Be independent. Assert yourself. These are the values of my generation. Report an error in the passage at 42:26 Highlight the passage at 42:26

42:56 Self-assertion, proving yourself that you're a winner, that you can do it, that you can become President of the United States, no matter what humble beginnings you might have. Like Abraham Lincoln. That's what they always held, Abraham Lincoln. From a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky, he became the President of the United States. Report an error in the passage at 42:56 Highlight the passage at 42:56

43:20 So that's the role model. I don't know if it still is or not, but that was... For my generation. So that, you know, it's certainly noble and one doesn't disparage Abraham Lincoln. But in terms of what that does to your mind, how you see yourself in the society, you know, the way the values of a society are about getting the highest office, being the most important, being the winner, the star. Report an error in the passage at 43:20 Highlight the passage at 43:20

43:52 And then most of us can never achieve such. a position, so we settle for lesser than that, but out of necessity not because we feel we can't actually do that The self-view that we have then is one based on envy, jealousy, comparison. Report an error in the passage at 43:52 Highlight the passage at 43:52

44:18 So we can see a tendency to always want to, somebody who is a winner, somebody who is a star. A celebrity or admired in that way, a king or queen or president, prime minister, there's always a tendency to want to knock them down, to make fun of them, to disparage them, because that's what happens to the conditioned personality. Report an error in the passage at 44:18 Highlight the passage at 44:18

44:48 Envy, we can think of how the prime minister... of Great Britain should be. We can all create the perfect prime minister in the mind, but no prime minister is perfect. And so we can see... Report an error in the passage at 44:48 Highlight the passage at 44:48

45:18 find pleasure in the failures or faults of others. Because we don't know anything else but the sense of oneself as a quality, as some kind of, on a rating scale of good, better, best, bad, worse, worse. Report an error in the passage at 45:18 Highlight the passage at 45:18

45:38 Now when we are mindful, then that's the way out of that trap. We're in the state of pure consciousness, which is not personal. It's not that I have more than you do or that I'm more advanced or more fully conscious than you are. And if I start claiming that, you should tell me, you know. It's codswallop. So just contemplate that this invitation of the Buddha isn't made for, you know, the winners or the best. Report an error in the passage at 45:38 Highlight the passage at 45:38

46:25 But for, as they said, those with only a little dust in their eyes, those that question are beginning to want to know, understand beyond just the trivial explanations that we get through our education, through our society. Report an error in the passage at 46:25 Highlight the passage at 46:25

46:45 So this is a knowledge we have, you know, it's called insight knowledge. So it's not knowing about anything. It's not being a... Buddhist scholar or knowing all about Buddhism, but it's awakening to the real, to Dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 46:45 Highlight the passage at 46:45

47:07 Buddha never taught Buddhism. He wasn't a Buddhist and he didn't teach Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 47:07 Highlight the passage at 47:07

47:20 He taught dharma. What he did was he didn't even teach, he was pointing. He was encouraging us to awaken and to Do the real, awakening to the real. Report an error in the passage at 47:20 Highlight the passage at 47:20

47:38 And that's why it doesn't, you know, Buddhism doesn't have, or Theravāda Buddhism can become very doctrinaire, just like anything, any convention can be used in an unmindful way. It's not that the convention is wrong, it's just that being misused. But when you... Report an error in the passage at 47:38 Highlight the passage at 47:38

48:06 Start practicing or the meditation or what we call bati-bata, putting this teaching into practice, doing it not from trying to attain or achieve anything, but beginning to recognize within you the value of awareness. The awareness is something natural to us. It's not a refined state that depends on conditions supporting it. Report an error in the passage at 48:06 Highlight the passage at 48:06

48:36 It's just... So ordinary, so real that we don't notice because our attention tends to be drawn out to the more extreme conditions. We want to have a life of romance, adventure, excitement, distraction. You know, the whole modern society gives us endless fascinating distractions of conditioned phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 48:36 Highlight the passage at 48:36

49:05 With the modern technology, it's even more so than ever before. And, you know, you can just push a few buttons and you're in a different realm immediately. And so we seek, you know, maybe heaven or excitement, adventures through the technology. Report an error in the passage at 49:05 Highlight the passage at 49:05

49:29 So meditation then, notice that we're not using technology. We're learning to just... Observe simple things again like sitting, still, standing, walking, lying down, the breath, the inhaling, exhaling of the breath of your own body. You're awakening to the emotional qualities you're experiencing in the present, whether you're happy or unhappy or confident or unconfident, whether you're angry or greedy. Report an error in the passage at 49:29 Highlight the passage at 49:29

50:03 greedy or confused or deluded You begin to observe the ego as an object rather than operating from the ego. The unawakened human being always operates, the ego is the subject. So it's all about me, how I look, my position, me and mine. And when I experience life through my ego, then I do suffer. Report an error in the passage at 50:03 Highlight the passage at 50:03

50:34 I experience a lot of suffering because ego is a condition that I acquired this sense of my self-worth in a society where it was based on competition and one's worth was depending so much on success and getting what you want. And I think that Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34

51:16 ego. So even when you're at the top, you know, you're the winner, you can't hold that position. know, you have the moment of or joy or exhilaration when everybody is... It's telling you you're the best, but you can't sustain it. What is sustainable through all these varying changes is the awareness of them. Report an error in the passage at 51:16 Highlight the passage at 51:16

51:46 So then that is the pure consciousness knowing the conditions, discerning them. It's not defining them, judging them. Report an error in the passage at 51:46 Highlight the passage at 51:46

52:01 Ignoring them, it's being fully aware and receiving them, recognizing they are what they are. At this moment, whatever you're feeling is the way it is. You shouldn't feel that way. If you're feeling something that I don't like, I say, you shouldn't feel that, you're wrong. But how can you, you know, that's, the feeling arises, we don't particularly seek it, it just happens. Report an error in the passage at 52:01 Highlight the passage at 52:01

52:32 But we can be aware of it and that's the point is to recognize the power of that awareness and then to cultivate that awareness in our daily lives to develop that because it's self-sustaining. We don't create it. It's not dependent on conditions supporting it. It's recognizable but you can't define it. Report an error in the passage at 52:32 Highlight the passage at 52:32

53:02 You can't. Hold it out as an object, but you can recognize, you can know the unconditioned, but you can't define it or describe it. So the wheel is here and now, and then that simple awakened attention in the present, beginning to just, because we're not used to this, then we're looking for something. Report an error in the passage at 53:02 Highlight the passage at 53:02

53:35 So the attitude I... I try to encourage people meditating is to not try to get anything or get rid of anything, but just recognize kind of in a relaxed, attentive state. It's like this. One can observe the posture, the breath, the mood, emotional state you're in at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 53:35 Highlight the passage at 53:35

54:06 Things that are impinging on your senses, the sounds or sights, smells, tastes, touch, the memories that arise. People find when they start meditating, then they're no longer trying to control their minds. Then unresolved memories, emotions start arising into consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 54:06 Highlight the passage at 54:06

54:32 It can be frightening. Some people get very frightened of that because they think there's something going wrong. It's just learning to let go so that what you have rejected, denied, suppressed, can rise in consciousness. When you allow it to be what it is, then it goes away. So in psychotherapy, modern psychotherapy, at least some of it, is very much oriented towards this, towards this awareness. Report an error in the passage at 54:32 Highlight the passage at 54:32

55:08 Allowing maybe anger or fears that maybe somebody's been suppressing their lifetime into consciousness. But what we need is the encouragement to be patient, allowing it to be what it is, and then your relationship to it is observing rather than identifying. If that fear, that irrational fear is mine, Or it is what it is, if such a state is present in my mind at this time, which it isn't, but imagine that, say, an irrational fear came up into my mind. Report an error in the passage at 55:08 Highlight the passage at 55:08

55:54 Now, out of the cultural conditioning and the personality, I would say, oh, fear, you know, I would run back to it, run away maybe. Report an error in the passage at 55:54 Highlight the passage at 55:54

56:08 You know, distract myself away from anything frightening. Or, with mindfulness, then it is what it is. And having this encouragement, like in this value of monasticism, is that it gives you a kind of conventional form in which, you know, if you begin to use it properly, helps you to sustain a kind of patient endurance. Report an error in the passage at 56:08 Highlight the passage at 56:08

56:36 with maybe the greatest fears or unpleasant things of your life in which you never could with before. Report an error in the passage at 56:36 Highlight the passage at 56:36

56:51 it's not about trying to become anything but you I like the Report an error in the passage at 56:51 Highlight the passage at 56:51

57:13 title. I chose this title myself. I usually don't. I let somebody else make up the titles, but I'm getting so enthusiastic about this. Report an error in the passage at 57:13 Highlight the passage at 57:13

57:32 I had to make so many titles up for talks like Buddhism Today, Buddhism in the West, how Report an error in the passage at 57:32 Highlight the passage at 57:32

57:46 to deal with stress, and so forth. I've used up all that style, that kind of title. Then I could get very kind of, you know, Four Noble Truths and Reflection on the Dependent Origination and give you very kind of orthodox Buddhist titles. Or, you know, Awakening to the Real. Now these are the words that really mean something to me at this moment because I see that, you know, as you cultivate this, as you begin to recognize, And trust yourself. It's a matter of trusting yourself more than just believing in what I say or the scriptures. But not trust your emotions or your habits or your ego, but that in yourself that is aware. Report an error in the passage at 57:46 Highlight the passage at 57:46

58:45 I get to recognize it. It's very simple, but very elusive because the ego will start doubting and creating problems around it immediately. And this is where the... The emphasis is patient and willingness and to investigate, to see how you get distracted or when you are still, what happens, you know, the kind of maybe repressed emotions start coming up. Report an error in the passage at 58:45 Highlight the passage at 58:45

59:16 And, you know, most of us, when we started meditating, wanted tranquility. I did. I wanted to just get in a nice tranquil state and let the world go by and not notice. Report an error in the passage at 59:16 Highlight the passage at 59:16

59:32 I wanted to just, you know, like being on a drug or something, just sit down, go into a beautiful, tranquil state, and the self would drop away. I'd just be in a state of bliss forever. But, you know, it doesn't take long before you realize you can't do that. You can certainly refine conscious moments. Report an error in the passage at 59:32 Highlight the passage at 59:32

1:00:00 And through controlling conditions and through certain meditation techniques. But the real insight comes through investigating. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:00 Highlight the passage at 1:00:00

1:00:10 And so more and more we begin to accept the limitation of humanity, of being human, not resent it, not ignore it, not exaggerate its importance, but learning to awaken, to use this lifetime. This moment for learning, to understand in a profound way, to recognize, to awaken to reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:10 Highlight the passage at 1:00:10

1:00:40 So it's now tea time. Yom Kunlada always does this. I never have to ask her. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:40 Highlight the passage at 1:00:40

1:00:54 So it's very, very generous. She's made refreshments. So I invite you to... Partake in the refreshments and then about 20 minutes, if you are so inclined, we can have a discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:54 Highlight the passage at 1:00:54