Self And Awareness

0:05 Well, it's the first Sunday talk and I just rushed back from a wedding blessing. Report an error in the passage at 0:05 Highlight the passage at 0:05

0:22 That's why I'm late. These things, you keep saying you have to leave before one o 'clock. We didn't leave until 1.30. Report an error in the passage at 0:22 Highlight the passage at 0:22

0:47 And so today is a chance, this afternoon, to... Contemplate and reflect. Anything I say is for contemplation. You don't have to believe. I'm not trying to convert you or convince you of anything. But the whole point of the Buddhist teaching is awakening the human individual, not to just be caught in the conditioning of your mind. Report an error in the passage at 0:47 Highlight the passage at 0:47

1:33 essence and message and importance of the Buddha's teaching. Because it's always the present, the experience is always now, isn't it? The future is... is always tomorrow and the past is always yesterday and whatever's happening whatever experience we're having we're having it now and this is very important even though this is an obvious truth we forget this and we oftentimes dismiss now for always aiming at some kind of goal in the future trying to hope that what we do now will be able to Get something, be repaid or get some kind of blessing or success, some desired experience in the future, or we're worried that we won't get it. Report an error in the passage at 1:33 Highlight the passage at 1:33

2:31 We'll lose out, everything will fall apart because the future is uncertain and unknown. And when you're young, you give a lot of importance to the future. When you get old, the future isn't so important. What? Death. Increasing restriction, old age, more wrinkles, and senility, and then death. When you're young, you don't think of that. You think hope, expectation, all the good things are going to happen in the future. Report an error in the passage at 2:31 Highlight the passage at 2:31

3:16 But in reality... The way it is, every experience is always now, whatever it might be, good or bad, or whether you're young or old, now is the only thing that we can ever know directly. Report an error in the passage at 3:16 Highlight the passage at 3:16

3:36 And so this knowing is what the Buddha was emphasizing, this awakening the mind, wake up now. Because even though... Everybody might think they're awake right now. Nobody looks like they've fallen asleep. Yet whether you're really awake or not is something else. Whether you're caught in your own thinking, your own views, your prejudices, your emotional habits, and that is something else. Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

4:12 You get stuck, you get bound, you get trapped into the conditioning of your mind. And you notice that especially as you get older, like when you're young, you're not so conditioned. So like young children have a lot of spontaneity and that kind of brightness because the world is new when they're discovering things in the present. Report an error in the passage at 4:12 Highlight the passage at 4:12

4:42 Children, young children, don't really have very strong perceptions about the past or the future. You get that later as you get... Report an error in the passage at 4:42 Highlight the passage at 4:42

5:17 as we get older, then we, you know, if we don't do anything to To renew ourselves in any way or to awaken ourselves, we get more and more kind of sunk in the ruts of the conditions we've acquired. Report an error in the passage at 5:17 Highlight the passage at 5:17

5:33 So you end up, you know, you see a lot of old people just saying the same thing over and over again. You know, when I, when I was... Because they remember the past and they keep thinking about... In the way that they're conditioned to think because they don't know how to do anything else. They've not liberated their mind from those habits. Report an error in the passage at 5:33 Highlight the passage at 5:33

6:04 So with Buddhist meditation, it's this liberating oneself from the conditioning that you've acquired. Not only the bad habits or the bad conditioning, but even the good conditioning towards this realization of here and now. The purity of being where life is always as it is and we can respond and relate to the present moment always much more spontaneously and appropriately when we're not clouded over, distorted through biases or habits that we project onto the present. Report an error in the passage at 6:04 Highlight the passage at 6:04

6:51 So the... The title of today's talk is Self and Non-Self because the way the Buddha approached the subject of the self is very interesting. Report an error in the passage at 6:51 Highlight the passage at 6:51

7:09 Western people especially oftentimes don't understand the concept of anattā or non-self because we're very much a society that emphasizes the importance of a self. Self-realization, self-help, self-awareness, self-righteousness and rights and privileges and emphasis on oneself is very much an almost obsession of the modern world. Report an error in the passage at 7:09 Highlight the passage at 7:09

7:52 You see it happening even in traditional Buddhist countries like Thailand, Sri Lanka. They become more and more caught up in Western thought or in modern science or psychology. They become increasingly more obsessed with themselves as personalities. Report an error in the passage at 7:52 Highlight the passage at 7:52

8:17 And so the Buddha was not making a categorical Rejection of the self by saying there's no self is something that as a kind of proclamation that we have to accept. But it is a statement which to reflect upon. Well, what is the self? What is self anyway? What do we mean? Because we think we understand the word maybe. We think we know who we are or we understand in terms of western. Report an error in the passage at 8:17 Highlight the passage at 8:17

8:52 western thinking, like the ego, Freudian concept, and sense of oneself as a Self-Enlightenment Even in Buddhism we use self-enlightenment, which oftentimes sounds to Western mind like, I can do it all by myself, I don't need a teacher, I don't need God, I don't need anybody, I can do it all by myself, self-enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 8:52 Highlight the passage at 8:52

9:21 I'm not one of those foolish people that go around looking for teachers and gurus and depend upon other people because I'm going to do it all by myself. And that which is that sense of a self is not anattā, you know, I'm going to do it all by myself. But self-realization, self-enlightenment is the realization of not-self. Report an error in the passage at 9:21 Highlight the passage at 9:21

9:52 So this is something to contemplate. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

9:58 Now, in the Buddhist approach to meditation, he emphasizes the investigation of experience in the present. So rather than operating from an idea that there's no self and you've got to prove this, you're actually not trying to prove that there isn't any self or that you don't have any self. Report an error in the passage at 9:58 Highlight the passage at 9:58

10:25 That's not the point, but to really contemplate what you regard as self, what is self, what is personality. Report an error in the passage at 10:25 Highlight the passage at 10:25

10:37 So this takes the willingness to kind of look at the present moment, look at yourself, at the body in the present, or what you're feeling, the mood of the emotional state you're in, or the... the conditions that you're experiencing right now. It's not to criticize anything that's happening right now, good or bad, but to notice, to change your relationship to the present moment from trying to become something that you feel you're not to beginning to really look at what you really think you are. Report an error in the passage at 10:37 Highlight the passage at 10:37

11:23 And the views, the opinions, the emotional habits that you're feeling right now, whatever they might be, being able to accept and to notice, to observe rather than to criticize or make judgments about them. Report an error in the passage at 11:23 Highlight the passage at 11:23

11:45 We've become very judgmental and critical people through modern education. education, we We're very much aware of what's wrong with ourselves. Most people I know anyway are very much aware of their faults or what they perceive as their faults and what's wrong. And it's easy to become very much aware of what's wrong with the people you live with, with the society you live in. Report an error in the passage at 11:45 Highlight the passage at 11:45

12:23 And here in England, isn't it, it's very common just to dwell on what's wrong, what we don't like about this society or this country or the present government. And so we're very good at this. In fact, most of the mass media are the critics of the society, you know, trying to tell you that they're doing it all wrong. Report an error in the passage at 12:23 Highlight the passage at 12:23

12:48 Or there's somebody trying to defend the government or defend themselves in justify their faults or what they think is wrong. And so this creates a strong sense of oneself as being basically always feel threatened on the personal level, because we can see so many imperfections, faults, and weaknesses in ourselves that we know other people are aware of and could easily uh... Report an error in the passage at 12:48 Highlight the passage at 12:48

13:21 condemns us. for criticize Report an error in the passage at 13:21 Highlight the passage at 13:21

13:26 I remember one time when I was about five, six years as a monk in Thailand, and there were these bhikkhus, western people gathering around Ajahn Chah. And at that time, and he sent us all off to a branch monastery with me in charge of these six monks, western monks. And I dreaded this because with Thai monasteries, I'd become quite happily accommodated to the Thai ways. Report an error in the passage at 13:26 Highlight the passage at 13:26

14:11 And one thing Thai society doesn't do is it kind of doesn't confront you directly. So Thai society is very polite and it tries not to push you in a corner or make you look stupid in front of other people, you see. And I quite like this because it made me feel quite safe to be in a society where people smile a lot and they don't kind of corner you and confront you with your faults. Report an error in the passage at 14:11 Highlight the passage at 14:11

14:45 But I knew that these monks that I was in charge of were very aggressive, modern, 70s-type men who were into confrontations and things like this. So anyway, they insisted on having a meeting one day of confrontation. And I nearly collapsed when I thought about this. This was the most terrifying thing because... Report an error in the passage at 14:45 Highlight the passage at 14:45

15:15 I was so frightened of being criticized because I could see so much wrong with myself. I was so much aware of my weaknesses and inadequacies that I was just hoping they didn't notice it as much as I did. And I was afraid that they would, you know, that they would have... You know, have a lot of terrible things to say or things maybe that I didn't even notice. So I remember going into a panic before this meeting took place and fortunately they didn't really have that many criticisms to make. Report an error in the passage at 15:15 Highlight the passage at 15:15

16:01 They didn't know me that well. But I was relieved. But I remember vividly now how much panic, it was real panic I felt about... Going to a meeting where I knew it was possible to put myself in a position where I would be the object of criticism. Report an error in the passage at 16:01 Highlight the passage at 16:01

16:26 Well, it was interesting. Why would I... Am I that bad? Have I got that many faults? But it isn't that rational. It's a kind of feeling, a fear. When you don't really know yourself very well and you're... You've got this fear that there's all kinds of things, terrible things that might be latent energies. Report an error in the passage at 16:26 Highlight the passage at 16:26

16:54 In modern psychology, I used to take psychology when I was in university, I used to talk about kind of underlying latent forces. Report an error in the passage at 16:54 Highlight the passage at 16:54

17:04 And that makes you kind of wonder what's underlying, what's lying there inside me. What kind of horrific, you can't imagine it being good. You always think of something really bad, you know, that might just kind of explode out, some monstrous thing. And because it's unknown, you know, it becomes even more frightening. You don't know what might be uncovered by these confrontations and that this terrible force might be unleashed. Report an error in the passage at 17:04 Highlight the passage at 17:04

17:39 And I might do something terrible. This is what fears about me as a person. But when I would revert back to my American conditioning, this is the kind of reactions I have. But when I put it in terms of dharma, then things seem to be in a perspective that I could handle them. Because... In terms of dhamma, whatever arises ceases. So you're contemplating, like in insight meditation, the movement of experience, that whatever it is, whether it's good or bad, whether it's refined or coarse, Report an error in the passage at 17:39 Highlight the passage at 17:39

18:27 no matter what it is a way of looking at things that it isn't threatening to you as a person. Because impermanence isn't passing a judgment on anything, is it? It's a characteristic of conditioned phenomena, all conditioned phenomena has or shares, whether it's course, whether it's mountains, or rock of Gibraltar, or a thought. Report an error in the passage at 18:27 Highlight the passage at 18:27

18:55 Something that flickers or something that has a slow kind of rising and falling quality to it, but you're no longer interested really in how fast it moves, but the very fact that it moves, that nothing's ever the same, that it changes. And that it's anattā, it's not self. Report an error in the passage at 18:55 Highlight the passage at 18:55

19:22 Because the biggest fear was of finding something really bad and permanent about yourself, something that was incurable, something that was permanently damaged, something that was permanently bad or inadequate or weak. Because I remember having this fear, growing up with this fear that there was something basically wrong with me, something... Report an error in the passage at 19:22 Highlight the passage at 19:22

19:52 that that that wasn't that didn't have all my screws screwed in properly or something that there is something something that might be basically off you know that uh and once you found that out you know you you know it would be it would mean that that you then your greatest fears would be proved that you were some kind of inferior inadequate Report an error in the passage at 19:52 Highlight the passage at 19:52

20:27 American society, my generation is a very competitive society, so you're very much always trying to prove that you're the best. Report an error in the passage at 20:27 Highlight the passage at 20:27

20:37 And so this sense of being the best is very important, being a winner, someone who's in control, someone who's on top. Someone who is the best. These kind of models are held up as things that you should aim for, that if you had anything going for you, you've got to try to be the best. And then that very attitude makes you feel it might be the opposite, that you might discover that you're really the worst. Report an error in the passage at 20:37 Highlight the passage at 20:37

21:15 Well, in terms of meditation, mindfulness... Contemplation, reflection, we're beginning to look at this very feeling of a self, that I am somebody or I am the best or the worst or I should be, I've got to do something now in order to become this winner or this successful person in the future. And then thinking about all the mistakes I've made in the past as you get older, I remember I remember reaching the ripe old age of 30 years and looking back and thinking how many foolish things Report an error in the passage at 21:15 Highlight the passage at 21:15

22:19 Thinking about my, of just bringing up and exaggerating the mistakes that I'd made in the past. Report an error in the passage at 22:19 Highlight the passage at 22:19

22:31 In meditation I began to really look at this, I began to wonder why do I emphasize what I've done wrong so much? Like Ajahn Chah is very good at getting us to contemplate in this way. Why do you give so much attention to what you've done wrong in life? Why, what have you done right? And then I could see just that question of what have I done right in life, I could easily dismiss. Well, that's not important. Report an error in the passage at 22:31 Highlight the passage at 22:31

23:03 I haven't done all that much. Or just kind of flick it aside as if that was, that most of my life had been a series of things I'd done wrong. I mean, actually, when I began to examine my past, I began to realize that majority of the time I'm, Basically good, want to do good. You know, mistakes, one makes mistakes and one gets caught up in passions and in various emotional states. Report an error in the passage at 23:03 Highlight the passage at 23:03

23:35 But the intention, basic intention was good. And a longing to be good, an aspiration, intention. To do, to not be cruel, not to be stingy or mean-hearted, not to be unkind to others. Report an error in the passage at 23:35 Highlight the passage at 23:35

24:00 And yet the habit tendency was to take anything unkind I ever did and make that into a, you know, really hold on to that as proof that this is what I am. Report an error in the passage at 24:00 Highlight the passage at 24:00

24:17 Why do we do this? Report an error in the passage at 24:17 Highlight the passage at 24:17

24:24 In Thailand, for example, they would oftentimes encourage us to contemplate our own goodness. What is good about me? And I found I could be much more aware of what was bad about me than what is good. Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

24:47 In living a life of a monastic for many years, you're actually putting yourself in a vehicle which is based on restraint and morality. Report an error in the passage at 24:47 Highlight the passage at 24:47

24:59 I can say that the past 32 years, the amount of bad things I've done have been relatively minimal because of the kind of fact that I just don't have opportunities to be bad in the monotheism. Report an error in the passage at 24:59 Highlight the passage at 24:59

25:22 The margins for action and speech are much narrower and you don't have the whole intention of the life is towards this. Report an error in the passage at 25:22 Highlight the passage at 25:22

26:04 even in monastic life You know, I don't think you get away with all that much by becoming a monk or a nun, but you're really confronted with a lot of your personality, which is oftentimes very childish and can be quite mean-hearted and can be self-centered and vain. And these kind of conditions certainly arise in one's consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 26:04 Highlight the passage at 26:04

26:35 But this is the point of the meditation is to begin to recognize these conditions no longer in terms of critical criticizing them or seeing them as personal defects but in seeing them in terms of their changingness. To be able to see that vanity or fear or jealousy or childish emotions or mean-heartedness are If you really look at them, you really observe, they have no kind of substance, they have no core, they have no essence. Report an error in the passage at 26:35 Highlight the passage at 26:35

27:16 They're very ephemeral and they're very changing. When you look at them for what they are in the present, rather than in terms of personal problems, you're changing from interpreting experience, Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:36 From the personality to what we call the dhamma, the way it is, the conditions that one is experiencing now, or whatever they are, are changing. And as you pay attention, as you awaken to that changingness, you see, you're developing a part of yourself that oftentimes you've overlooked. You've never developed. Report an error in the passage at 27:36 Highlight the passage at 27:36

28:06 And in modern society is almost dismissed or isn't even recognized as anything worth bothering with. What is modern education all about but acquiring knowledge, learning about things, learning how to think, how to reason, how to use, how to develop intelligent thought patterns and connections and creative ideas and So modern education does promote this sense of a self, being able to think, to be rational, to be reasonable. Report an error in the passage at 28:06 Highlight the passage at 28:06

28:47 But in terms of experience, we don't know what we are feeling and what we are thinking a lot of the time, especially feeling, on the feeling level. We can easily overlook Report an error in the passage at 28:47 Highlight the passage at 28:47

29:02 Things like loneliness or sadness or resentments or fear, anxiety, restlessness. The state of just not feeling good, of just feeling kind of a sense of confusion and dissatisfaction with life can be dismissed, can be just ignored. Report an error in the passage at 29:02 Highlight the passage at 29:02

29:35 Doing something, distracting the mind, seeking something to do, to just get away from this kind of misery. Report an error in the passage at 29:35 Highlight the passage at 29:35

29:44 So, in meditation, then, what we are doing is we're beginning to really observe what being lonely is as experience. Feeling of resentment, what that is like as experience in the present, if that's what you're having, or anger, or obvious... More obvious emotions like anger or greed. But also there's those emotions like resentments. We accumulate a lot in life, don't we? Report an error in the passage at 29:44 Highlight the passage at 29:44

30:17 There's a lot to resent. All human beings have a lot to resent because life hasn't always been fair to us. We always have, you know, there's been all of it. I've had a fairly fortunate life. I can still find a lot to resent in it, if I want, because it always hasn't, you know, I've experienced things where things are not right, they're not fair, where I've been abused, where I've been misunderstood, and it shouldn't be like that. Report an error in the passage at 30:17 Highlight the passage at 30:17

30:51 And I resent it. And that resentment one can also dismiss by distracting the mind. So in terms of Awakening the mind, then we're awakening too these feelings. We're not trying to pass any kind of judgment about I am someone with a lot of repressed anger or resentment, but we're beginning to notice. Report an error in the passage at 30:51 Highlight the passage at 30:51

31:21 Resenting is like this. What does it feel like? When you feel you've been misunderstood, you've been treated unfairly, what does it feel like as... As a feeling rather than as making it into a personal problem. That sense of just awareness around that feeling of suffering and being ill at ease that comes through, allowing the feeling of resentment into consciousness and accepting it without trying to do anything with it, but accept it and let it be what it is. Report an error in the passage at 31:21 Highlight the passage at 31:21

32:03 So this is the challenge, say, of meditation, which is developing an intuitive awareness of the way things are. Loneliness, that's an interesting one. I used to be, I remember, frightened of being left alone. And when I grew up, you know, I always needed to be, I sometimes liked to be alone. And I've always enjoyed being alone, but there's also at the same time a fear of being left alone. Report an error in the passage at 32:03 Highlight the passage at 32:03

32:43 And this would, you know, so you find yourself always trying to distract yourself from this feeling, trying to, you know, have an active social life and try to know a lot of people that you could always call on to to get rid of this feeling of loneliness then Report an error in the passage at 32:43 Highlight the passage at 32:43

33:07 in meditation began to really look at this feeling of loneliness or aloneness as a feeling rather than seeing it as a personal problem that you know the tendency to say to judge myself why what's wrong with me that i fear being alone that's one way of looking at it or loneliness is like this Report an error in the passage at 33:07 Highlight the passage at 33:07

33:35 And as I began to look at that as experience in the present, I realized that it was all right. Loneliness wasn't anything to dread or to fear. Once I could accept it as it really is. And the more I could accept loneliness as experience, The less I needed to distract myself by just using other people to get rid of that feeling. And so then I began to enjoy being with other people because I didn't need to use them anymore. Report an error in the passage at 33:35 Highlight the passage at 33:35

34:18 I began to be able to enjoy them for what they are and using them to make me feel like I'm not lonely. So in this awakened mind, you're actually learning how to resolve a lot of your karmic tendencies, fears and desires. And then people think, well, if I have no personality, if there's no person, there's no self, I'll be just a kind of nobody, just a kind of dull thing just sitting there. Report an error in the passage at 34:18 Highlight the passage at 34:18

34:55 No longer interesting. Nobody will want to talk to me because I don't have anything to say. I'm just a boring nobody. And that's a great fear of not having a personality that can sparkle and radiate, charismatic and all that. Report an error in the passage at 34:55 Highlight the passage at 34:55

35:18 Because that is very much an idea that we... We think without that we're nothing, and the fear of being nothing can be terrifying. But as you examine and get to embrace nothingness, loneliness, non-self, rather Report an error in the passage at 35:18 Highlight the passage at 35:18

35:44 than thinking into a kind of void of just unconscious dreariness or whatever, a kind of zombie-like, Report an error in the passage at 35:44 Highlight the passage at 35:44

36:00 find a sense of peace and joy arising quite spontaneously from the mind, because the mind, when it's not cluttered, when it's not influenced and distorted through thought and emotion, it's pure radiance. Report an error in the passage at 36:00 Highlight the passage at 36:00

36:22 purity, it's intelligence. And it's not personal. It's not like mine is a person. It's not like in my head or me, one of my personality traits. This pure intelligence doesn't have anything to do with my IQ or my educational qualifications or it doesn't have anything to do with being a man or a monk. or with being American or anything else. All these things are conditioned identities but they're no longer what we seek to interpret experience because we trust. Report an error in the passage at 36:22 Highlight the passage at 36:22

37:08 We have this trust and faith in the purity of our very being. So this purity is with us all the time. You know, it's not something you'll ever lose. Even the most Atrocious criminal and serial killer is two natures still pure. No matter what you do or how bad you are, you can't ever destroy or get away from that purity. Report an error in the passage at 37:08 Highlight the passage at 37:08

37:47 But we manage to forget about it. So it's a matter of remembering it. Like meditation, when we talk about mindfulness, Sati and Sampatanya, these Pāli words, mindfulness, awareness, panya, wisdom. It's the awakened mind which is to remember what the true nature of things is. It's this purity, this pure state that we can realize and remember through just merely waking up, by listening, by paying attention. Report an error in the passage at 37:47 Highlight the passage at 37:47

38:27 Now, It's not something you develop and get after many hard and difficult years of meditation. And then after 30, 40 years of sitting on a zafu, you'll get it maybe. But you might not either. Report an error in the passage at 38:27 Highlight the passage at 38:27

38:48 Not like that. That's how we tend to think, isn't it? About... Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Get enlightened. Or maybe at least I'll be reborn in a better state in the next life. Or maybe once you're dead, you're dead. Report an error in the passage at 38:48 Highlight the passage at 38:48

39:36 I'm a lover of complete oblivion. I'd have been reborn again. It's not attractive. Report an error in the passage at 39:36 Highlight the passage at 39:36

39:47 But that's not the way it is because enlightenment, say, isn't a matter of time. It's a matter of... Your willingness to be that way and your trusting, and your humility to always keep reminding yourself because we do forget. Report an error in the passage at 39:47 Highlight the passage at 39:47

40:15 So we get people like the practice meditation oftentimes feel a lot of despair with it because they put in a lot of effort and then the results sometimes is very disappointing. Because basically they're starting out from the idea of doing something in order to become something. As long as that illusion is your modus operandi, the basis of your practice, I'm going to meditate in order to purify myself and become enlightened in the future. Report an error in the passage at 40:15 Highlight the passage at 40:15

40:50 As long as you never question that, and that's what you... Report an error in the passage at 40:50 Highlight the passage at 40:50

40:57 meditation frustrating and disappointing because even when you do achieve you'll lose them. Whatever you think you've achieved, you'll lose it. so it's not like you achieve anything through meditation. You learn to awaken to the reality in the present. And you begin to trust in your own ability to do that. Report an error in the passage at 40:57 Highlight the passage at 40:57

41:28 you're beginning to see through the conditioned self that you that are. you identify with as your personality, as who you really are, that begins to fall away and you no longer believe in it and no longer have any interest in using that as your So, in terms of... Report an error in the passage at 41:28 Highlight the passage at 41:28

41:54 Meditation, we take refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Saṅgha, this traditional formula that we have in Theravāda Buddhism, taking refuge in the Buddha, refuge in the Dhamma, refuge in the Saṅgha. This is what it means, is the awakened now, the awakened one now, the awakened mind, which is, you know, your mind, awake, seeing the Dhamma now, practicing. Report an error in the passage at 41:54 Highlight the passage at 41:54

42:20 And being responsible for your life, learning to really develop, to be patient, to keep remembering the dharma, to keep reminding yourself, until that is a very natural state, that state of purity and bliss is not created, it's not something dependent upon conditions. conditions, refined conditions that support it. Report an error in the passage at 42:20 Highlight the passage at 42:20

42:53 natural, it's the true nature, it's what you really are, you're remembering that, and the more you remember it, the more you let go of the conditions that create, that make your life the experience. So then non-self, Anattā is liberation from the delusions of self, from all the conditioned self that you have. Report an error in the passage at 42:53 Highlight the passage at 42:53

43:28 Like when you're born, isn't it, like a baby doesn't really have a self, doesn't think of itself. We acquire that. A baby doesn't think of itself as a boy or a girl or being English or being... Report an error in the passage at 43:28 Highlight the passage at 43:28

43:50 These are ideas we get on, isn't it? You're a boy, she's a girl, and then you start noticing the difference. So it's a condition, conditioning, social conditioning, that we acquire our personalities, the sense of our worth, who we are, identities, class we identify with, with, is what what race, nationality, Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:31 sides are christian irish and sorry and but the and and both Both sides, their minds are absolutely, the pure nature of their mind is absolute purity. And yet they're fighting around, what are they fighting about? Report an error in the passage at 44:31 Highlight the passage at 44:31

44:59 About relationship to Britain or Ireland or ideas that they have about being British or being Irish or Protestant or Catholic. These are acquired identities. This isn't... What you get through being born, or this is not from wisdom, this is cultural conditioning that you get after you're born. Report an error in the passage at 44:59 Highlight the passage at 44:59

45:26 So in Buddhism you're returning to the purity of being, which is even before you were born. So even though the physical body is born, that purity has nothing to do with being born. In a physical body. So you're beginning to rediscover that. Like they call it our real home. Where we feel we belong. Where we're at ease. And it's not because our real home is England or Ireland or any place like that. Report an error in the passage at 45:26 Highlight the passage at 45:26

46:09 It's none of those places. We don't really belong here in England. I mean, when you read the history... of humanity the past six thousand years it is atrocious all about everybody moving into everybody else's place and taking it over and dominating and bullying and exploiting and enslaving others and there's no race no ethnic group that doesn't have a lot of blood on their hands none of us have any right to point the finger at anyone else And say that we've never done that, that our group, our ethnic group, our race or our country has never stooped to do anything that mean. Report an error in the passage at 46:09 Highlight the passage at 46:09

46:59 But we're quite capable of evil actions, aren't we? All of us, we have that potential. We're capable of committing atrocity, of the most horrific act, Report an error in the passage at 46:59 Highlight the passage at 46:59

47:28 the mind to truth and to the Dhamma, then under conditions we would find ourselves maybe doing brutal things. Report an error in the passage at 47:28 Highlight the passage at 47:28

47:39 many, you know, people condemn brutality in others? And then I look at my life. I've never really lived in a situation where I've ever needed to use brutality in any way. I somehow managed to slide through this life. I was too young for the Second World War, and I just happened to get in on the very end of the Korean War and got all the benefits, all the benefits that you get from being a... Report an error in the passage at 47:39 Highlight the passage at 47:39

48:18 In the Navy, I got all the benefits for the Korean War, but didn't have to do any of the dirty work. I was too old for the Vietnam War, and now I'm much too old for any war they're going to think up now, besides being a Buddhist monk. I managed to slide through. I'm quite proud of myself. I'm a really lucky man, because I've slid through 64 years now without getting caught in anything all that bad. Report an error in the passage at 48:18 Highlight the passage at 48:18

48:50 I was born in the depression years of the 30s, and then the Second World War, then the Cold War, and then the Korean War, and then the Vietnam War, and then the Gulf War, and on and on. One thing after another, there's always this... Report an error in the passage at 48:50 Highlight the passage at 48:50

49:49 were caught in battlefields and in the thick of fire and fear and ignorance and youth of stuck out into a battlefield at the age of 18 or 19 and not knowing what's happening or why you're there. How can you blame them for anything, any atrocities they might commit? I couldn't now. Because I don't know what I would have done then. Because I never had that opportunity, that occasion, that experience in my life. Report an error in the passage at 49:49 Highlight the passage at 49:49

50:33 So you begin to recognize that compassion is necessary. Mercy and compassion, kindness is one way that we can choose to use as human beings. Because we're no longer seeking to punish or blame and persecute anybody or any group because we're labeling them as bad, but we're beginning to recognize the potential in all of us for good and bad action and how dependent that is upon the conditions we're experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 50:33 Highlight the passage at 50:33

51:12 Here Report an error in the passage at 51:12 Highlight the passage at 51:12

51:18 in monasteries, for example, in this... I became a Buddhist monk over 32 years ago. And so, and in that, and just by becoming a Buddhist monk, I found out, you know, that so many good things seem to gather around me, just being a monk. Report an error in the passage at 51:18 Highlight the passage at 51:18

51:45 In Thailand, for example, when I became a monk, then all kinds of doors opened up and all kinds of opportunities and And surprising events and even miracles would take place in my life. And then living in Thailand, living here in the UK for the past 22 years, you know, it's because of the quality of life and that I tend to draw the better side of life to me, both in Thailand and here in England. Report an error in the passage at 51:45 Highlight the passage at 51:45

52:21 I kind of marvel in, you know, living here in England for 22 years. And I've never really experienced the really bad side of this country. The dark side of the English, you know. It's hardly ever touched me. Because generally this life tends to draw the goodness from people. And I can see that making a commitment towards a kind of moral life and Report an error in the passage at 52:21 Highlight the passage at 52:21

52:56 well-intentioned and kind, that it tends to create an atmosphere where people tend to be that way. And so this is, you can realize, we do, we aren't just helpless victims anymore, but we begin to recognize we have choices. We have the freedom to choose what we want to do. And the real freedom is the freedom to be awake. Because we can't always choose, you know, if you're invalided, if you're quadriplegic or something, you can't choose to go on a holiday to Greece whenever you feel like. Report an error in the passage at 52:56 Highlight the passage at 52:56

53:38 But you can choose to be awake, to waken, to be aware. Or you can just choose to sit. Report an error in the passage at 53:38 Highlight the passage at 53:38

53:50 distract your mind and and this is where the it's important to recognize that that that the more we realize that we have a choice that we're not just helpless victims of circumstances or no matter how unfortunate uh our physical state might be or uh how uh all the the horrible experiences And on fair conditions we've had in the past, none of this is an obstruction to awareness towards enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 53:50 Highlight the passage at 53:50

54:28 The obstruction is our unwillingness or our refusal or our commitment to our delusions. That is the only obstruction. So it's important to recognize that Report an error in the passage at 54:28 Highlight the passage at 54:28

54:49 have because this is human it's not just not just select group of of special uh people of elite group of of special beings like ourselves but you know how many people will awaken i don't know more important to recognize that potential in each other even in the most uh Report an error in the passage at 54:49 Highlight the passage at 54:49

55:15 Seemingly a horrible human being, to recognize that potential, to begin to remind them of their humanity as something that's very good, a blessing, rather than reaffirming the sense of them being hopelessly bad and hopeless cases and, you know, trying to... Report an error in the passage at 55:15 Highlight the passage at 55:15

55:45 Put them away and dismiss them because we just want to get rid and deny that side of life. When Report an error in the passage at 55:45 Highlight the passage at 55:45

55:58 we look at the goodness of humanity, when we start remembering the goodness of humanity, then we begin to develop a sense that all human beings are basically good. And even the bad ones are good. Report an error in the passage at 55:58 Highlight the passage at 55:58

56:19 And they have that potential. Nobody, or very few people, I imagine, are really totally bad. I went to a prison once in Dorset, to the Verne, one time. And the governor there invited me in for a conversation. And he said, it's very rare that you get a really evil prisoner. Report an error in the passage at 56:19 Highlight the passage at 56:19

56:44 You know, some man who's really malicious and evil. He said, they're rare. Most of these prisoners here are just like fairly young men who just made a lot of mistakes and got caught. Report an error in the passage at 56:44 Highlight the passage at 56:44

57:04 I love him for drug peddling and things like this. But he said, once in a while you will get a man who is evil and seemingly, you know, I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 57:04 Highlight the passage at 57:04

57:22 Absolutely evil, but they're rare. Report an error in the passage at 57:22 Highlight the passage at 57:22

57:29 So then this is a way of contemplating humanity then as a gift and as something that is an opportunity rather than seeing it in terms of being a curse or just taking it for granted, just not really appreciating. Who you are or what opportunities you do have. Because maybe on a personal level you feel yourself a failure or not good enough or see yourself through habitual emotional patterns that you tend to believe in or believe as reality. Report an error in the passage at 57:29 Highlight the passage at 57:29

58:15 But this in terms of awakening the mind. Why are you here? What do you really want from life? What is enlightenment anyway? And why would you bother to come to Amaravati on a Sunday afternoon in the rain? Why? Did you come here to do something bad or Report an error in the passage at 58:15 Highlight the passage at 58:15

58:43 what? Then you begin to recognize this longing, this aspiration. and and and And begin to really feel that in your heart, the sense of your own worth and goodness and opportunity for being a completely awakened and enlightened human being, because it is our right, it is within our heritage as human beings to aspire to this and to realize this truth. Report an error in the passage at 58:43 Highlight the passage at 58:43

59:23 That's enough for the formal talk this afternoon, and I'll end it here. And as you can see over on the survey, there's tea awaiting you all, tea and coffee. So I invite you all to have a cup of tea or what's ever going over there. Report an error in the passage at 59:23 Highlight the passage at 59:23