Brahma Viharas (1978)

0:01 The definition for sati, you know, the part of what the sati is, whether they're mindfulness or entire, they call it krama, look, which means to reflect on. The Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:23 path of liberation is through awareness. If you're suffering, it's because of a lack of awareness. You're not aware. Report an error in the passage at 0:23 Highlight the passage at 0:23

0:38 All beings suffer because they get lost in all the changing phenomena around them. In them, inside them, outside them. The Report an error in the passage at 0:38 Highlight the passage at 0:38

0:55 Buddha said this is why people suffer, all beings suffer, because they identify with birth and death, with old age, with sickness. They identify with things that are changing. So Report an error in the passage at 0:55 Highlight the passage at 0:55

1:19 in order to stop that habitual identifying with all the changing phenomena, you stop and just watch. Report an error in the passage at 1:19 Highlight the passage at 1:19

1:30 You learn to be aware of a changing phenomena just by watching it and no longer attaching to it or rejecting it, but just observing it. Patiently sitting, walking, standing, lying down. What Report an error in the passage at 1:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30

1:50 do I mean by changing phenomena? What do we mean by that? Sankara is another Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

1:59 Pāli word which stands for compounded things. Report an error in the passage at 1:59 Highlight the passage at 1:59

2:06 Meaning our own bodies and minds, all our thoughts, feelings. Opinions, views, sensations, memories, imagination, expectation and hope. Everything that we think is me is mine. The thoughts we have, all the things we love, all the things we hate, all Report an error in the passage at 2:06 Highlight the passage at 2:06

2:35 that is good and all that is evil, all Report an error in the passage at 2:35 Highlight the passage at 2:35

2:42 that can be perceived through the senses and all that is conceived. We watch this. This is a beginning exercise, a mental exercise, which if you develop in your daily life, you will reap a very fine reward, result from it. So I recommend doing it every day, whether you come here or not. Do it in your home, 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening. Report an error in the passage at 2:42 Highlight the passage at 2:42

3:16 Do as I described, as I led you in this past hour. Observe the breath. Concentrate your full attention on Report an error in the passage at 3:16 Highlight the passage at 3:16

3:32 the breath. Hold that attention from the beginning to the end. Report an error in the passage at 3:32 Highlight the passage at 3:32

3:41 Then start reflecting after the mind is calmed down. Jita developed that practice. When the mind becomes calm, just reflect, how do I feel? And before you start the sati or the mindfulness of breathing, first ask yourself, how do I feel? Do I feel like a mess? Confused? Your mind absolute chaos, or your mind dull and boring, or your mind peaceful and lovely. Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

4:15 Allow it to be just as it is and observe it. What is my mood? What do I really feel like? You don't know what you feel like, that's good enough. You don't know what you feel like. Then with deliberation, follow the breath. Training the mind to stay with the breath. Then at the end of the 15 minutes, stop and reflect. How do I feel? And observe. Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:38 Doesn't matter how you feel, you've got tranquility or you're nervous, uptight, or whatever, observe it. If Report an error in the passage at 4:38 Highlight the passage at 4:38

4:50 you're dull, you're sleepy, worried, discouraged, elated, ecstatic, stand back and just watch. Report an error in the passage at 4:50 Highlight the passage at 4:50

5:05 Then the real practice of what they call insight vipassanā, observing, mindfully observing and reflecting on all these changing phenomena, one's moods, feelings, sensations. Sensation, Report an error in the passage at 5:05 Highlight the passage at 5:05

5:20 Thoughts, consciousness, learn to reflect. Let things be as they are. Do not spend your time trying to change yourself and make yourself into what you think you should be. Report an error in the passage at 5:20 Highlight the passage at 5:20

5:36 But just observe what there is now, whether you like it or dislike it, good, bad or indifferent. Just be one who observes patiently that which is in the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 5:36 Highlight the passage at 5:36

5:50 And this is the path of liberation. Through awareness, you'll understand everything. Through heedlessness, you'll have to be born and die a million more, a billion more lifetimes, probably, at least. It's a way of talking. You've got to figure that one out. Don't bother. The way of saying, if you attach to ignorance and identify with ignorance, then you'll suffer with ignorance all the time. Report an error in the passage at 5:50 Highlight the passage at 5:50

6:22 You'll be ignorant. But Report an error in the passage at 6:22 Highlight the passage at 6:22

6:32 when you let go of ignorance, then there's wisdom. You don't attach to wisdom. You can't attach to wisdom. It's impossible. Because you are wise. Report an error in the passage at 6:32 Highlight the passage at 6:32

6:44 There is wisdom already. The only reason why you think you are is because you identify with all that is ignorant, changing, imperfect. You say, this is me. This imperfect body is me. Can Report an error in the passage at 6:44 Highlight the passage at 6:44

7:03 any of us say our bodies are perfect? Look at them. They're subject to change. They degenerate. They get old. They get sick. There's old age and death. Report an error in the passage at 7:03 Highlight the passage at 7:03

7:15 And yet we so strongly cling to the body as if it's me, mine. So we have to suffer when we cling to things like the body and suffer with it. Try to keep it healthy and decorate it so it looks attractive. And fool ourselves into thinking that we're this attractive and healthy being. But then it always changes. As healthy as one can get, one can also become that unhealthy. As beautiful as one may... Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

7:46 Try to become physically, one can be that ugly. So Report an error in the passage at 7:46 Highlight the passage at 7:46

7:55 if we attach to the body, this changing formation, the body, we're going to get pulled around in its change. That means we're attached into ignorance. We're identifying with that which is ignorant, that which is not wise. Report an error in the passage at 7:55 Highlight the passage at 7:55

8:18 So we let go. We detach. We don't attach to it. It's still there, it doesn't make it go away, but we know exactly what it is, we reflect on it, we observe it. What is the nature of the body? Is it me, is it mine, is this my soul, is this my eternal soul, that which is eternal, perfect and whole? Ask yourself questions like that. Report an error in the passage at 8:18 Highlight the passage at 8:18

8:47 Can you answer those questions? Can anybody say their body is eternal, perfect? Report an error in the passage at 8:47 Highlight the passage at 8:47

8:58 Views, opinions, memories, identities. Identifications, identities of all sorts. Report an error in the passage at 8:58 Highlight the passage at 8:58

9:09 Consciousness through the senses, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the eye. Pleasure and pain with the body. You keep asking yourself, observing, watching, investigating, reflecting on. And this is the wise one. Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:30 So while you begin to know so well the nature of the universe, you're no longer attached to it. You're balanced. The wise one. So have faith and trust in that which is wise. You say, I'm wise? That's just another thought. If you try to find wisdom, you'll not find it. You be wise. And this is what Buddhist meditation is. Being wise. We sit here, we're being wise when we're observing. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

10:06 When we're standing back and looking, reflecting on the Report an error in the passage at 10:06 Highlight the passage at 10:06

10:25 difference between grabbing hold of, trying to grab hold of, and non-attachment. Letting things be as they are. Letting yourself be as you are. The thoughts that come, the high thoughts or the low thoughts. Just noting the thought and the nature of thought is a change. There are no such things as permanent thinking, permanent thought, permanent evil, permanent good. Report an error in the passage at 10:25 Highlight the passage at 10:25

10:58 There are no such things. These things come and go, change. They arise out of ignorance and go back. Can you find out where your thoughts really come from? What is the ultimate beginning of everything? You can't. But you can see the beginning and the ending of all that is ignorant. Watch. Report an error in the passage at 10:58 Highlight the passage at 10:58

11:25 If you assume your body was born, now getting old, it will die. But your thoughts, your feelings, your sensations are being born and dying all the time. They're beginning and ending. You can see that. You can watch that, you can observe, you can reflect on it. Every one of us here is capable of that kind of reflection. We have that ability. Human beings are beings who have the ability to reflect on themselves. Report an error in the passage at 11:25 Highlight the passage at 11:25

11:58 Buddhism is a religion the Buddha established for human beings, intelligent beings, beings that can reflect, that can understand. The Report an error in the passage at 11:58 Highlight the passage at 11:58

12:13 cat cannot do that. It cannot reflect on itself. We do that, most of us do that all our lives. Most human beings aren't really much higher than a cat or a dog, maybe a little more intelligent, but they perform and live their lives in the same way as an animal, because they never reflect on themselves. Report an error in the passage at 12:13 Highlight the passage at 12:13

12:44 They never ask themselves, who am I? Why was I born? How should I live my life? What is life all about? How do I get out of the suffering that I'm in? This is the point of meditation. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:03 We all are capable of doing it, not one of us is incapable. This is the grandness of being born as a human being. And even luckier, more fortunate, is the fact that we're born at a time in which we can listen to dharma, listen to the teachings of Buddha. Listening to the teachings of wise men. Sometimes, there have been ages where places in the world where people never get, they never see wise people, never have wise teachers, never hear the dharma, never heard of Buddhism, never heard of anything, never had the chance to see or investigate or practice in the religious way or spiritual way. Report an error in the passage at 13:03 Highlight the passage at 13:03

13:52 But all of us here obviously do have this good fortune. We're living at a time and a place where religious values are beginning to become Report an error in the passage at 13:52 Highlight the passage at 13:52

14:09 available to us all. How Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:25 we live our lives is up to us. We each can live it foolishly or wisely. That's up to you. If you start reflecting on yourself, investigating yourself, you'll not have any inclination to live your life foolishly anymore. Report an error in the passage at 14:25 Highlight the passage at 14:25

14:46 It's only... That kind of ignorance that makes people foolish. They don't know. They've never bothered to stop and look. They're afraid. They're afraid of themselves. They're afraid of what they might find. They don't believe. They doubt. They don't want to be bothered. They still have great desires to attain worldly happiness, become rich and famous. Report an error in the passage at 14:46 Highlight the passage at 14:46

15:15 But there are those who see the emptiness in all that and realize that those kind of goals are not any better than... Just another animal existence. Report an error in the passage at 15:15 Highlight the passage at 15:15

15:32 Identification with all the ignorant, changing things in the universe. So through this reflection and observation, we put ourselves in what we call the position of the Bhutto, the one who knows, the aware one, the one who's not deluded. In Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

16:08 our lives, though, we live in a society. We live with others. Some people see Vipassanā, Buddhist meditation is strictly a selfish endeavor, where we investigate ourselves and don't care about anybody else. This is a way of talking, of getting people instead of always to identify with things outside themselves. Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

16:37 I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm an Englishman, I'm an American, I'm this class, I'm that class, I'm from this part of the country, or I'm whatever. I like this and I don't like that. If they stop that kind of Report an error in the passage at 16:37 Highlight the passage at 16:37

16:54 Discriminating, making preferences, choosing, selecting, following one's likes and dislikes, and just watch the whole process. Report an error in the passage at 16:54 Highlight the passage at 16:54

17:10 But one of the things that's most necessary in our practice is to develop what we call the paramita of loving kindness, mettā. Report an error in the passage at 17:10 Highlight the passage at 17:10

17:23 And this, of course, we directed ourselves first. I think that in Christianity they say, love thy neighbor as thyself. In Buddhism it's the same. If we don't love ourselves at all... Report an error in the passage at 17:23 Highlight the passage at 17:23

17:40 That means we are identifying with all the ignorant things and don't have any awareness of ourselves. If we're busy disparaging ourselves, guilt-ridden, self-hatred, it's because we've never bothered to reflect on ourselves and observe. We're just caught in emotional and mental traps without having ever reflected on their true nature. Report an error in the passage at 17:40 Highlight the passage at 17:40

18:11 With awareness of yourself you begin to love yourself. Report an error in the passage at 18:11 Highlight the passage at 18:11

18:18 This doesn't mean vanity or egotism, means respecting. consideration for one's self, for this being, learning how to use this body and this mind in a wise and useful way for your own benefit and for the benefit of the society you're living Self-Respect respect, respect yourself, you will respect others, will be able to help, Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:55 People you live with, the society you live in, the country that you're a member of, Report an error in the passage at 18:55 Highlight the passage at 18:55

19:04 radiates outward from your own heart. When this loving kindness is established, self-respect, contentment, then Report an error in the passage at 19:04 Highlight the passage at 19:04

19:19 you can radiate that outward. That's how you relate with all the beings around you. With hatred and discrimination, aversion, we always see the faults with everybody around us and ourselves. Picking apart everybody. This one is this way, that one is that way, I'm this way. Things shouldn't be as they are. The world shouldn't be as it is. Report an error in the passage at 19:19 Highlight the passage at 19:19

19:50 But with loving kindness we know. It doesn't mean we don't know the faults and the flaws in the universe. It's just that we aren't clinging to them. We don't identify. We don't indulge. Waste of time to do that. Report an error in the passage at 19:50 Highlight the passage at 19:50

20:08 The ugliness, the grossness of ourselves, we don't We don't say, oh, I'm a gross, ugly person because I have gross, ugly thoughts. We just know that grossness and ugliness has changed. It's not me, it's not mine. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:32 So we have respect for this being, radiating outward to all beings, being considerate, sensitive, helpful, cooperative, not just indulging in selfish whims and fancies, but totally disregarding of how it might affect them. The other people are living with us or around us, taking into consideration, living our lives so that we're useful and helpful, sensitive. Report an error in the passage at 20:32 Highlight the passage at 20:32

21:06 So Report an error in the passage at 21:06 Highlight the passage at 21:06

21:13 when people say, oh, you Buddhist monks, you live your life selfishly and have left the world because Report an error in the passage at 21:13 Highlight the passage at 21:13

21:24 they don't understand. They think that by going out and trying to change the world through one's own wrong views is helping the world. Report an error in the passage at 21:24 Highlight the passage at 21:24

21:38 The world can only be helped by one helping oneself, setting oneself straight, understanding to awareness the nature of your own body and mind. In that way you're setting the universe right, because that will radiate outward and affect the universe. None of us really understand how much power we have. Report an error in the passage at 21:38 Highlight the passage at 21:38

22:04 We're all so limited with these small little selves, conceptions clinging to Wrong views of ourselves, saying we're this way, that way, identifying with all the mean, nasty little things, with all our fears and worries, hopes and desires. Of course, we're limited by that. When we limit ourselves to that which is minute, when we think we are a very limited thing, that's what we are. Report an error in the passage at 22:04 Highlight the passage at 22:04

22:34 We've created ourselves into an animal, into a limited form, into a cripple, into this or that. When we let go, then we find out there's no limitations. Our heart is as grand as the universe. There are no limits, no boundaries. Love is boundless, not Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

23:00 reserved for just that person, that group. But the mettā, the love of a wise man, is boundless. No limits, no boundaries. Our Report an error in the passage at 23:00 Highlight the passage at 23:00

23:22 hearts can be boundless. If we liberate ourselves from attachment to all the bound and limited conditions, then that takes awareness. So Report an error in the passage at 23:22 Highlight the passage at 23:22

23:35 reflect on what I've said. Report an error in the passage at 23:35 Highlight the passage at 23:35

23:42 Practice. Develop this skill, the Ānāpānasati mindfulness of breathing. Live your lives in a way in which you can reflect on them. Report an error in the passage at 23:42 Highlight the passage at 23:42

23:54 Keep asking yourself, who am I? What am I doing? How should I live my life? Don't try to answer that as some kind of pat answer, but just allow yourself not to know. Remind yourself all the time. Report an error in the passage at 23:54 Highlight the passage at 23:54

24:13 Bring awareness into your daily life, into what you're doing, what you're saying, the work you're performing, what you're thinking. Why do I think like that? Are these silly thoughts really me? Ask yourself questions like that. What are these silly thoughts? Report an error in the passage at 24:13 Highlight the passage at 24:13

24:37 Listen to that nagging, moaning thing inside yourself that's always saying, you shouldn't do that. You're a horrible person. You're hopeless. You're lazy, good for nothing. Report an error in the passage at 24:37 Highlight the passage at 24:37

24:55 That self-disparaging thing. Report an error in the passage at 24:55 Highlight the passage at 24:55

25:00 Listen to it patiently and just observe it. Don't believe it. Don't identify with it. It comes and it goes. It changes. Then you're always in the position of the wise one. And that's the only way to get beyond. Report an error in the passage at 25:00 Highlight the passage at 25:00