Self And Awareness - Q and A (1998)

0:02 And then if you have any questions, that Report an error in the passage at 0:02 Highlight the passage at 0:02

0:19 makes your mind go quite silent, doesn't it? It stops your thought process. Do you have any questions? And my mind does that just suddenly. Report an error in the passage at 0:19 Highlight the passage at 0:19

0:34 I Report an error in the passage at 0:34 Highlight the passage at 0:34

0:50 was brought up as a Christian. My parents were very devout Anglicans, Episcopalians in the States. And so I was brought up in the Episcopal Church, and I have very happy memories of it. It wasn't like an unpleasant... I don't have bad memories of Christianity, or not many, but faith never arose in that religion. Report an error in the passage at 0:50 Highlight the passage at 0:50

1:30 It's a funny one, because... I realized that the kind of Christianity I was taught was, it never developed beyond a kind of childlike Christianity. Report an error in the passage at 1:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30

1:47 And so, not that, and I began to, you know, I discovered a more mature Christianity when I became a Buddhist. The kind of Christianity that I actually remember was basically Report an error in the passage at 1:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47

2:36 But then also, being brought up as a Christian, being culturally conditioned through Christianity, I've found that the sense of a self, of being permanently tainted, is there. Like it's interesting, when you've lived in, like living in Thailand, where I lived for ten years, which is Buddhist, Report an error in the passage at 2:36 Highlight the passage at 2:36

3:06 And then living here in England, 22 years, you realize that Europeans, like all of us who are conditioned through Judaism or Christianity, we all have a sense of being like fallen creation. And even if we don't believe that, intellectually, culturally, it's there, underlying our civilization. And in... Report an error in the passage at 3:06 Highlight the passage at 3:06

3:36 And then in Asian Buddhist countries like India or Thailand, Sri Lanka, because their basic view isn't one of fallen but of ignorance. Like our true nature is pure and the only thing that separates it from us is ignorance. And once we wake up then... So we don't have that sense of a kind of permanently damaged... Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

4:04 Like with Christianity, I got the impression that we, due to Adam and Eve's sin, we're paying the price for what they did how many thousand years ago. And that just used to make me angry when I got older, I think. That's because of the... Why should we all have, especially in the Second World War, I remember, you know, growing up during that time and... Report an error in the passage at 4:04 Highlight the passage at 4:04

4:36 And after the war, when the war ended, then Life magazine started printing all these photographs, horrible photographs of the concentration camps, of all these Jews left in mass graves. And they were horrific photos. And I was about 11 or 12 and just feeling so horrified by that, that I couldn't imagine. Report an error in the passage at 4:36 Highlight the passage at 4:36

5:07 God could have allowed that to happen the terms of my, you know, the way I thought then. And imagine how, know, that human beings could be that or that bad could get away with it, or that God would allow that. Report an error in the passage at 5:07 Highlight the passage at 5:07

5:31 the... that You know, because the logic then was very much based on God, you know, loving us and God being separate and all this. And that even though we had sinned, that was, I mean, what Adam and Eve did seemed relatively minor compared to what people do now, you know. so they... Report an error in the passage at 5:31 Highlight the passage at 5:31

6:05 The logic doesn't hold because it is a legend, a way of talking that we don't really think like that anymore. Report an error in the passage at 6:05 Highlight the passage at 6:05

6:17 But then in Buddhist practice, coming from a Christian background, cultural background, I felt very attuned to Buddhism when I first heard it. It was like, they Report an error in the passage at 6:17 Highlight the passage at 6:17

6:36 When I was 21, I read the first Buddhist book. And, you know, the first time I ever really... I'd heard of Buddhism, but I didn't really... wasn't interested in it before. But at 21 I was, and I just understood it very intuitively. You know, something in my heart really responded to that approach to the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 6:36 Highlight the passage at 6:36

6:59 And that was also because... Like good and evil, to me, in the Christian background, we're fighting against each other all the time. And in Buddhism, good and evil are conditions that if you have one, you've got the other. They're complementary and they're impermanent. So you can somehow look at good and evil in terms of what it really is, rather than thinking... Report an error in the passage at 6:59 Highlight the passage at 6:59

7:34 How could a good God create anything evil? You know, and work from there, from a very dualistic position. And Buddhism, then I can, I mean, not that I have any, I can, you know, I understand evil and that, you know, it's not something that, blaming God for, because there's evil in the world, but one sees now how through this awakened state of mind, Evil has no power over you. Evil has power over you when you are ignorant and you just follow things blindly and you don't really awaken and look and understand yourself or the forces affecting you. Report an error in the passage at 7:34 Highlight the passage at 7:34

8:19 So this is where the Buddha's teachings, awakened mind, really resonated. And then... From my own experience over 32 years of practice, you realize this purity is natural state. It's not like created or separate. And so it's a matter of recognizing it and being able to trust it. Because in terms of our emotional habits, Report an error in the passage at 8:19 Highlight the passage at 8:19

9:06 Emotionally I'm conditioned for greed, hatred and delusion, not for purity. So I emotionally can get caught up in those kind of stronger feelings. But as you keep developing more the trust in that purity, in that awakened state, Then it'll never let you down. You really begin to recognize how to resolve your own emotional habits, how to free yourself from bad habits. Report an error in the passage at 9:06 Highlight the passage at 9:06

9:46 Just like self-consciousness, for example. I used to be extremely self-conscious. You know, so, and being in the position I'm in, where I'm a leader, and where everybody looks at me, it would kind of emphasize this sense of a kind of paranoia, of thinking, you know, just, what are you all thinking? You're all looking at me, what are you thinking? And somebody gives me a dirty look, you know, I wonder what I've said that upset them, and things like this, or... Report an error in the passage at 9:46 Highlight the passage at 9:46

10:29 Or if, you know, after a talk I could then think, oh, my mind would easily think of things that I shouldn't have said or that weren't politically correct or things I should have said that I didn't say. And so I could then suffer from this sense of myself and what I, you know, my foolishness or my lack of Ability to really, you know, say what really needs to be said and this criticalness. Then I decided I wasn't going to do that anymore. Report an error in the passage at 10:29 Highlight the passage at 10:29

11:05 I was going to trust more in this stillness and in this silence of my mind and just rest in that more and more until I feel completely relaxed in that state so that now when I give a talk the mind goes right into that stillness. I trained it to do that now. Report an error in the passage at 11:05 Highlight the passage at 11:05

11:28 So it doesn't give this sense of I shouldn't have said that or I should have said this or the way that it used to make a problem about public speaking or whatever. And this is an example of how to train, how to develop. And it's not like suppressing either. It's not because it's not through negativity. Report an error in the passage at 11:28 Highlight the passage at 11:28

11:58 But through wisdom, you see, there's no point in thinking about yourself and what you should and shouldn't have said and on and on like that. It doesn't produce any good result. It just makes you unnecessarily miserable and it doesn't help you to do anything any better. So you might as well just stop it because there's no value in it. So trusting in that, in this... Report an error in the passage at 11:58 Highlight the passage at 11:58

12:25 I found how to resolve those habits that oftentimes made life needlessly unpleasant for myself. And also in so many ways you can do that, of just learning how to resolve your karmic tendencies in a skillful way. Report an error in the passage at 12:25 Highlight the passage at 12:25

12:48 And then more and more you begin to trust in the purity of your very being. You realize that's something that will never let you down. No matter what happens on the worldly level, they can't harm that. You can't destroy that. Only you can decide to get caught up in the world. And that's what you've chosen. But it's still there any time, you know, like the Christian one. Report an error in the passage at 12:48 Highlight the passage at 12:48

13:18 Knock on the door and it shall be opened. Things like that suddenly come, begin to make sense, you know, like, I'm here, you know, and it's just a matter of recognizing that, remembering that. Report an error in the passage at 13:18 Highlight the passage at 13:18

13:35 And then also, like, to your own sense of your inadequacy or self-criticism, It doesn't do any good, you know. I've not seen that that is something useful or brings any good result. I mean, be aware of, you know, there's a level of shame that's healthy, hiri otappa and things like that, where you're aware of what you do wrong and then you can learn. Report an error in the passage at 13:35 Highlight the passage at 13:35

14:11 But that kind of wallowing in a sense of not being worthy enough or good enough, that, I've stopped doing, I don't do that anymore. Self-pity I don't have anymore. Things like this, through this practice, just seeing that I can stop doing that, I have a choice, I know how to stop doing it, and I know how to use my mind now in a more skillful way. Report an error in the passage at 14:11 Highlight the passage at 14:11

14:43 Like I can develop awareness of the goodness of humanity. Report an error in the passage at 14:43 Highlight the passage at 14:43

14:51 I remember I was in Darjeeling last April and I was in this tea garden on a retreat and they had a television in this guest house that I was staying in. I was the only one in the beautiful guest house and the manager of the tea estate had tuned this television to BBC World. Report an error in the passage at 14:51 Highlight the passage at 14:51

15:20 I could turn on the television anytime and find out what was happening in the world. I was just noticing they had this the BBC World News They had, actually, I could see this rubbish heap that they used for the pyre for Pol Pot, burned him on some old tires and a bunch of rubbish. Report an error in the passage at 15:20 Highlight the passage at 15:20

16:06 And everybody was probably happy that he was dead. And, you know, he goes down in the history books along with Hitler and Stalin. So, I mean, he's a monster. He's, you know, in terms of my own perception, he's a monster. And so, recognizing that I perceive him as a monster, and then I thought, everybody perceives him as a monster at this time, you know, this miserable funeral, and this is on worldwide television. Report an error in the passage at 16:06 Highlight the passage at 16:06

16:46 And then I kept thinking, but there was also... Probably good things that he did. And I just tried to get myself to bring into my consciousness his goodness. Report an error in the passage at 16:46 Highlight the passage at 16:46

17:06 And I found emotionally very resistant to that. Because emotionally I wanted to punish the guy. I wanted him to pay for his badness. But I didn't respect that either, that desire to punish. And also to recognize that in everybody the goodness that we all have. And I thought everybody else is seeing him as a monster and thinking of him only in the badness of his life. Report an error in the passage at 17:06 Highlight the passage at 17:06

17:40 And I'll try to be at least one person who isn't doing that. And I found after a while I could feel a sense of joy in... Report an error in the passage at 17:40 Highlight the passage at 17:40

17:52 In remembering and in compassion. Because instead of just labeling a monster and dismissing him as good riddance to bad rubbish, I could actually see, you know, feel the compassion for a man that had lived a very unskillful life and had so much going for him, really, being a Cambodian who's a Buddhist and has, you know, so many... Report an error in the passage at 17:52 Highlight the passage at 17:52

18:22 You know, he had opportunities to become a monk, all kinds of things that were, that a lot of, you know, most people in the world don't have. And he missed out on it and became a monster. And one felt, you know, could feel a sadness for him, you know, feel compassion rather than just blot him out with hatred and desire to Punish him. And that's the purity of the mind, because even the monsters, that purity isn't separate from them. Report an error in the passage at 18:22 Highlight the passage at 18:22

19:02 But the more, like evil actions, the more you commit yourself to selfish and evil actions, the more it absorbs your consciousness. So you forget all about the purity. So that's where the awakeness... Awakening is suddenly, you're awakening to the original purity, to the essential purity of your being now. It's not, it'll never fail you. Report an error in the passage at 19:02 Highlight the passage at 19:02

19:30 It's just a matter of trusting it more. And not believing all these worldly things. Because the world is a very pessimistic time now and everything looks kind of bad in a way. You know, there's so much bad news and Well, overpopulation, pollution, and so many things wrong, and corruption, and sleazy governments, and scandals, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 19:30 Highlight the passage at 19:30

20:02 You can, you know, if you fill your mind, conscious moments with what's wrong, then you just get depressed by it. So this is why, if you just fill your conscious experience with your faults, your weaknesses, But if you start thinking in more positive ways, not just being sentimentally nice, but really recognizing the goodness of being human, and start pointing that out to other people, Because we do forget it. And we are convinced, aren't we, that humanity is pretty selfish and stupid and vain and easily corrupted and all that. Report an error in the passage at 20:02 Highlight the passage at 20:02

21:05 And you can't trust any of them. And it's easy to get cynical and bitter. And that's an easy one to do at this time. So this is like going against that, towards looking at life In terms of our, because when you think of just how many mothers taking care of their children selflessly, just simple acts like that, you know, just feeding the dog, just something, that's a kind act, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 21:05 Highlight the passage at 21:05

21:41 You love the dog, you want the dog to have something to eat, or these people go out and feed the pigeons in the public parks. Report an error in the passage at 21:41 Highlight the passage at 21:41

21:52 I mean, you know, there's so many billions of these acts going on every moment, you know, of some goodness and kindness of human beings everywhere, all over this planet. That's one way of contemplating. Report an error in the passage at 21:52 Highlight the passage at 21:52

22:13 It doesn't have to be like great, you can't expect everybody to be like Mother Teresa, but just simple acts, you know, like helping the... Report an error in the passage at 22:13 Highlight the passage at 22:13

22:25 The neighbor, helping the old lady across the street. Report an error in the passage at 22:25 Highlight the passage at 22:25

22:39 Miles? You're talking about some... Report an error in the passage at 22:39 Highlight the passage at 22:39

23:05 Well, like therapies. I mean, interesting, because therapy and meditation are getting very close, actually. In fact, some monk was telling me that the word therapy comes from the word Theravāda. Report an error in the passage at 23:05 Highlight the passage at 23:05

23:34 Theravāda. Report an error in the passage at 23:34 Highlight the passage at 23:34

23:40 But with so much therapy, though, it is basically around self. It isn't aiming at a transcendent realization. And so it tends to stop there. I see a lot of people who get too interested in therapy get obsessed about themselves. They're too interested in themselves. And oftentimes that just tends to go on and on and on into an endless obsession about yourself. Report an error in the passage at 23:40 Highlight the passage at 23:40

24:26 And where, say, anattā really allows the release of that obsession around yourself. And that's where you have this refuge in Buddha-dhamma-saṅgha, rather than in a therapy or in a therapist or a monk. Or you're aiming at a transcendent, universal realization rather than just trying to straighten yourself out, get rid of your problems, or get rid of your immature emotional habits and things like that. Report an error in the passage at 24:26 Highlight the passage at 24:26

25:11 Even though in the process those things are relinquished, but the goal is... a fulfillment of your humanity rather than making yourself a better personality or a better adjusted person. Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:33 some they are lucky that they are so neurotic. You have different people that have, some people have no faith in any spiritual goal. So for them, therapy is it. That's what they want. And they don't have any interest beyond that. Well, that's fine too. I'm not criticizing that. But then there are others that have a very strong spiritual aspiration and sense of transcendence. Report an error in the passage at 25:33 Highlight the passage at 25:33

26:16 And that's what... That's particularly what I'm interested in. I'm not interested in straightening myself out as a personality, but in freeing myself from the conditions that separate me from that realization. Report an error in the passage at 26:16 Highlight the passage at 26:16

26:41 And so that's what I teach. That's the emphasis I make. And then you go to other monks and they'll have more sense of you have to work on yourself and that kind of approach, you know, which is because that's what they see is what they're doing, working on themselves as personalities. Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

27:18 And it's just some people don't have any spiritual aspiration or it's so weak or they don't really... Don't really value it if they do have it. Because there is a lot of, you know, in the world there's a lot of... When you get interested in yourself as a person, it just seems to go on and on and on. And so it doesn't seem to end. Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

27:51 It doesn't seem to resolve itself, that I've noticed. Because you're basically starting from... Assumption, this personality is real and it's me and I've got to do something with it. Where with a spiritual path, your refuge is in this awareness and Buddha and Dhamma Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 27:51 Highlight the passage at 27:51

28:20 And so your aspiration is there and even that sense of yourself, you're beginning to recognize as a conditioning of the mind that I'm... You know, I'm a basket case and I've got to do something to make myself normal human being and function in the society. I mean, you know, that may not even be false, but if that's what you're grasping, then you might be able to make yourself, you know, a better, normal, more reasonable person, but you still not get beyond the... Report an error in the passage at 28:20 Highlight the passage at 28:20

28:59 You'll never, you won't, you still suffer a lot because basically the problem has not been, has only been kind of relieved a bit, but not solved, not resolved. Report an error in the passage at 28:59 Highlight the passage at 28:59

29:24 Yeah, I do. I mean, like there are different, different, I Report an error in the passage at 29:24 Highlight the passage at 29:24

29:39 mean, you meet people who are basically quite pure. Who don't seem to need any religious structures. And, you know, it's a matter of karma, really. Report an error in the passage at 29:39 Highlight the passage at 29:39

29:56 But religion is, you know, I found, I needed religion. I needed a structure to work with. Because I wasn't all that pure. Report an error in the passage at 29:56 Highlight the passage at 29:56

30:10 I mean, I wasn't that clever either. I needed some... good. Report an error in the passage at 30:10 Highlight the passage at 30:10

30:16 needed some. Some help from a tradition. Report an error in the passage at 30:16 Highlight the passage at 30:16

30:30 Yeah, well that's the danger, is that it's, you know, that's why any of those statements, you can't say, you know, you don't need, like Krishnamurti was always good at saying you don't need religion, all religions are a waste of time. You make categorical judgments against religion. I never liked that because it tended to come from a bias rather than from a reflective mind. Report an error in the passage at 30:30 Highlight the passage at 30:30

31:07 He obviously had a thing against religion. So he just dismissed it and just categorically Report an error in the passage at 31:07 Highlight the passage at 31:07

31:29 said they were all worthless and of no value. And even though Religion, you know, you can find many cases where you could prove that. You could go to churches or temples and see all kinds of stupid things going on and stupid people, you know, righteously expounding boring old things from the Bible and whatnot and say, see, there are religions like that. Report an error in the passage at 31:29 Highlight the passage at 31:29

31:59 It's a total waste of time. But also you can find people who use the religion well. In any of the religions. Like Theravāda Buddhism, it can be used well or it can be used stupidly. In itself, it's a convention. And how you use that convention, whether you use it well or not well, determines. The convention is how you decide to use it. Report an error in the passage at 31:59 Highlight the passage at 31:59

32:41 Where the ignorant mind is always pointing out, saying that something's wrong out there. You know, and always saying that what's wrong with the world is due to this political system or this country or this person or whatever, rather than seeing that really the real cause of suffering isn't Pol Pot, isn't Hitler, isn't Stalin, it's... Report an error in the passage at 32:41 Highlight the passage at 32:41

33:12 Me? I create, you know, actually Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin have never really done anything to me directly. I never met any of them. And they've never, you know, put me in a prison camp or killed my mother and father or anything. But I have, in my own mind, created all kinds of silly delusions. Report an error in the passage at 33:12 Highlight the passage at 33:12

33:40 No, I think, you Who's made me suffer the most? I can't think of anybody that I know of that has been as relentlessly critical of me as I am. Report an error in the passage at 33:40 Highlight the passage at 33:40

33:52 Even the worst enemy has never been as bad to me as I have been to myself. Report an error in the passage at 33:52 Highlight the passage at 33:52

34:03 It's because I have to be with this being all the time. And if it's always criticizing and... and complaining and worrying. I'm creating that. See, I don't have to do that. Report an error in the passage at 34:03 Highlight the passage at 34:03

34:18 Then conventions like Buddhism, what Buddhism has done, because it is such a, I found it such a true and profound teaching in itself, that I really feel a lot of gratitude to the Buddha. The original Buddha. Because I think it's a marvelous thing that he realized this 2,541 years ago. And I'm able to benefit from it 2,541 years later in a country like this. Report an error in the passage at 34:18 Highlight the passage at 34:18

35:03 He never mentioned England at all. He Report an error in the passage at 35:03 Highlight the passage at 35:03

35:13 didn't even know there was a place called Great Britain. Report an error in the passage at 35:13 Highlight the passage at 35:13

35:20 But the fact is that he did have the skill to establish a convention and a tradition that could survive. And that's quite a brilliant thing. I can't think of any other convention that we can trace back 2,500 years. Report an error in the passage at 35:20 Highlight the passage at 35:20

35:50 And it still works. It's still pure. thing to Report an error in the passage at 35:50 Highlight the passage at 35:50

35:54 It's not, even through all that time, it's never, the actual teaching has never been destroyed or distorted. Report an error in the passage at 35:54 Highlight the passage at 35:54

36:06 It gets, the worst things that happen is it gets cluttered. You know, Buddhism gets cluttered with a lot of other stuff around it. But then in Thailand, you had these teachers like Lungpho Cha and Buddha Dasa. And they were very much, you know, this is what the Buddha taught, this is Thai tradition, this is superstition, this is animism, this is Brahmanism. Report an error in the passage at 36:06 Highlight the passage at 36:06

36:39 They were making everything very clear to the Thais, you know, what is the pure teaching. And that's why, like in Thailand, you have a very, those monks had such a profound effect on the intelligentsia there. That you do in Thailand is very clear. What is actually the dharma, the teaching? What is Thai tradition? What is Thai superstition? Even though Thai Buddhism can include all kinds of other things, you also have within the society very wise teachers who make very clear what it really is. Report an error in the passage at 36:39 Highlight the passage at 36:39

37:30 And this is, I think, why we were attracted to Ajahn Chah, so many Western people, because it was, you know, the purity of the teaching. It was so clear. He made sense out of being a monk. It all seemed a good thing to do. It all made, you know, you wanted to do it. You could see the value of it and all that, because there are not many Buddhist monks. Report an error in the passage at 37:30 Highlight the passage at 37:30

37:57 Asian Buddhist monks have been able to inspire Western men to live a monastic life for very long. Report an error in the passage at 37:57 Highlight the passage at 37:57

38:31 Well, like how I experience it is from my own practice, I can see that parts of me emotionally never grew up, that you kind of get stuck emotionally. Report an error in the passage at 38:31 Highlight the passage at 38:31

38:48 And physically you grow up, intellectually you develop but emotionally I found in many ways I was still very incredibly immature and the way I would handle situations or just states of mind that would come up you know when you're 30 years old and you're still pouting when you can't get your way things like that and Report an error in the passage at 38:48 Highlight the passage at 38:48

39:25 So you, you know, and you feel, and you try not to, you know, you're trying to not let other people know you're doing this. You develop a kind of facade, a kind of presence that you think, you know, kind of makes you look mature. But internally, you know, you find, I began to realize just how, you know, like, like, Like temper tantrums, even though I wouldn't have them like I did as a child, I could have them internally. And I'd get my feelings hurt too easily. Report an error in the passage at 39:25 Highlight the passage at 39:25

40:10 You know, I could be upset by little things. And I'd get incredibly jealous. And I'd get... All these kind of emotions were just, you know, at the age of 30 were so, you know, they were just like they were when I was 14 years old. Report an error in the passage at 40:10 Highlight the passage at 40:10

40:36 And vanity, you know, the feeling of vanity and all these things seemed to come from a previous, you know, I began to see on one level I... well. Report an error in the passage at 40:36 Highlight the passage at 40:36

40:53 I had emotion as still like a teenager, like an adolescent. So, and of course, you know, like I'd been married and try all these things, you know, and nothing worked because there is not enough emotional maturity to grow. And there was just a lot of ideas, romantic ideas, but they didn't, they die quickly and you're stuck with, you know, just... Report an error in the passage at 40:53 Highlight the passage at 40:53

41:28 And then in the monastic life, I began to notice these, just through that, like with Ajahn Chah, the way he taught. And I could see these emotions coming up in monastic life, like in the monastery, when I couldn't get my way and I'd feel like pouting or just feeling really angry with everybody because they... Report an error in the passage at 41:28 Highlight the passage at 41:28

41:54 I couldn't get what I wanted. He had a way of getting me to look at this, not as an analysis, but as an experience in the present. And I really appreciated that, because suddenly I began to see a way, before I just get stuck with this feeling of despair, that I'm a hopeless case, that I'm stuck and there's no hope for me. Report an error in the passage at 41:54 Highlight the passage at 41:54

42:18 Then as the meditation began to develop, I began to realize I could, you know, it was quite... There is a way to develop. When I was in university as an undergraduate, I took psychology courses. And at the University of Washington in Seattle in those days, they were very famous for what is called behavioral psychology in the 50s. Report an error in the passage at 42:18 Highlight the passage at 42:18

42:44 And the impression they gave is that your characters form by the time you're seven or eight. And that there's nothing much you can do about it after that. And you're just more or less stuck with what you got during those early years. And that was really depressing, because when I was 30, I kept thinking, I've got to live 30 more years with this? Report an error in the passage at 42:44 Highlight the passage at 42:44

43:16 I thought suicide would be better. I even thought becoming a drug addict. I just blot myself out. be better than going through life like this then then there was like like uh uh faith in buddhism and a lot of and that was the the light at the end of the tunnel for me Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:53 I mean, my age love to... with cars and golf clubs. Report an error in the passage at 43:53 Highlight the passage at 43:53

44:09 find young, young ladies. Report an error in the passage at 44:09 Highlight the passage at 44:09

44:15 At 65, you know, you still can have a mind of a 15-year-old boy. Report an error in the passage at 44:15 Highlight the passage at 44:15

44:24 My Report an error in the passage at 44:24 Highlight the passage at 44:24

44:34 grandmother, my grandmother died at 75, and I don't think she ever, she had the mind of about a 16-year-old girl. And she, 75 years old, my grandmother still was incredibly vain, and she used to... Where a lot of makeup and her eyes were so bad that the rouge would get up here and the lipstick would be... Report an error in the passage at 44:34 Highlight the passage at 44:34

45:05 She got to look grotesque, you know. She wanted to be glamorous. And still was boy crazy. Like a 16-year-old girl, you know. Boy crazy. It's like she never... Ajahn that been married three or four times Report an error in the passage at 45:05 Highlight the passage at 45:05

46:01 Yeah, yeah, because they're... Like, I look at my own parents and I see, you know, like I've had so many options and opportunities that my own parents never had for working on myself, for therapy, for education, for travel, for self-fulfillment. All these things were, I mean, my parents never talked like that. They were, they had more a sense of duty. Report an error in the passage at 46:01 Highlight the passage at 46:01

46:32 And that they never thought of self-fulfillment as being anything that they demanded or expected. And so they, you know, in their own way, they did, you know, I thought they, you know, I look back and I really respect them. And I think my mother, she seemed to grow and mature with age. My father didn't. Report an error in the passage at 46:32 Highlight the passage at 46:32

47:10 He got increasingly more childish. It's Report an error in the passage at 47:10 Highlight the passage at 47:10

47:33 like to develop a trust in your ability to accept what you're feeling, no matter how horrible it is. And for me, I have to use words like embrace it, because I have such a strong aversion and resistance to a lot of these emotions. And so... The immediate reaction is to, you know, get out of here feeling. So because of that strong reaction with me, then I developed embracing and accepting, which is to counterbalance the other habit. Report an error in the passage at 47:33 Highlight the passage at 47:33

48:17 And I found that very helpful because then suddenly it changes my relationship to what I'm feeling, where the habit is to These feelings I don't like and I want to get rid of them. I don't want to be bothered with a lot of them because they seem so stupid and I don't want to have to be bothered with all these silly things. Report an error in the passage at 48:17 Highlight the passage at 48:17

48:43 So there's this kind of dismissal of emotion. And so this sense of embracing them and accepting them without judging, I found that helps me a lot to... And then that really, how that works for me is that when I do that, then these kind of emotions, I can actually see them, you know, feel them in my body and in my mind. Report an error in the passage at 48:43 Highlight the passage at 48:43

49:17 And I found out they're quite bearable, you know, and that as I embrace them and accept them, then I'm aware of their... Report an error in the passage at 49:17 Highlight the passage at 49:17

49:57 Childish emotions or negative emotional things, you don't mind it anymore because you know how to use it in a skillful way. Report an error in the passage at 49:57 Highlight the passage at 49:57

50:09 Where before I used to think, oh no, not this again, or oh, here it comes, and I thought, is this ever going to stop, you know, when will it go away? And you develop a whole negative reaction to certain emotions that... And that was the real suffering, was that resistance, denial, rejection. Because I found the actual emotion is quite all right. Report an error in the passage at 50:09 Highlight the passage at 50:09

50:41 No problem. Not mine. It is what it is. Report an error in the passage at 50:41 Highlight the passage at 50:41

· · · silence, 1 minute

51:28 Well, right. Well, it's like people that say, I never talk about anyone behind their back. Usually it kind of seeps out through the cracks. Report an error in the passage at 51:28 Highlight the passage at 51:28

51:47 And, you know, so you find yourself kind of somebody, mention somebody that you're really having a problem with and you don't want to say anything about them, but you find just your whole manner is sour, you know, and everybody knows. Nose. Report an error in the passage at 51:47 Highlight the passage at 51:47

52:15 Well, I don't, on a general rule, I don't, you know, I wouldn't recommend the guy around talking to people about people behind their back, but sometimes it does help to be able to talk to somebody about what you're feeling, you know. And that's another important thing of training ourselves to listen. Like if I'm living in a Buddhist monastic community, to learn how to listen to the people here. Report an error in the passage at 52:15 Highlight the passage at 52:15

52:45 And... And use myself as a listener rather than as someone who solves their problems or someone who gives advice or someone who judges them. Because I think it's very helpful if you have somebody who will listen and you know is not making judgments about you, but is just a good friend who listens. Because one thing why we feel we have to keep everything in is that we... Report an error in the passage at 52:45 Highlight the passage at 52:45

53:17 We feel if we talk about it to anybody, people will not understand us and they'll judge us or they'll give us unwanted advice and things like this. Sometimes when you can just talk to somebody and they'll just listen, you can see, you know, it helps you to see what you're doing. Like a therapist, oftentimes that's what therapy moms do. You pay a therapist to talk to them and tell them how much you hate this person. Report an error in the passage at 53:17 Highlight the passage at 53:17

53:47 And that kind of, and the therapist just, you know, just listen. Report an error in the passage at 53:47 Highlight the passage at 53:47

53:58 And that oftentimes people can see, you know, what they're doing once they can kind of make it conscious without feeling guilty about it or being put down by somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 53:58 Highlight the passage at 53:58

54:12 Like it's, isn't it, like if I say, oh, that person, you know, really, Listen. Report an error in the passage at 54:12 Highlight the passage at 54:12

54:20 He upsets me and he never, you know, he's always doing things to criticize me and I hate his guts. I'd like to punch him in the nose and then you say, Ajahn Sumedho, a good monk, would not punch anyone in the nose. I know that. Report an error in the passage at 54:20 Highlight the passage at 54:20

54:45 It's not like advice, but sometimes those kind of basic feelings, It helps us to see what we're doing, if we can express them in some way, rather than be judged by them. Report an error in the passage at 54:45 Highlight the passage at 54:45

55:03 I've tried to, over the past few years, living in a community like this, just try to train myself to just listen and just let people be able to say what they're feeling and support them in just listening. Not that I agree with them. Ajahn They're not asking me to agree with them. Report an error in the passage at 55:03 Highlight the passage at 55:03

55:55 I'd avoid situations because I felt, you know, I'd get angry. So you tend to avoid those kind of situations that might make you angry. So you become one who manipulates, you know, your way of moving in life, the kind of circumspect ways of doing things to protect yourself. Report an error in the passage at 55:55 Highlight the passage at 55:55

56:40 Now listen to the silence. Report an error in the passage at 56:40 Highlight the passage at 56:40

56:44 So Report an error in the passage at 56:44 Highlight the passage at 56:44

56:58 I think that's enough for today. Report an error in the passage at 56:58 Highlight the passage at 56:58