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The teacher's own words, quoted from the transcript below and chosen automatically as representative.
- 1:12
the word mind, when we talk about mind, it tends to be, oftentimes, conveying intelligence, or it doesn't convey, say, love, compassion, or feeling, or whatever, where the word heart, is always the English word that you want to talk about like being good-hearted or she has a good heart, a golden heart or heartfelt or sweetheart or whatever then that implies a kind of a whole different thing than say a good mind or a good heart mean quite different things.
- 5:33
So like insight meditation is very much an intuitive developing reflection and intuition. And so to do that, your attention more is placed here, in your body in fact. Because if you bring attention more just to this part of your own physical body, then your tendency to be caught up in just conceptual proliferations, more willing to be receptive to the feelings and the expressions and the of this moment as is.
- 8:45
to think in very negative ways about it and worry, and then imagine that when I didn't do a perfect job that all the other ones that didn't get the same would be with me. one day I just decided to bring my attention to here while passing out the food, and I did. I started just looking at my heart, know, inner. the food is and all the alms bowls, but managed to distribute this food without it being suffering because I was more with the actual movement and action of what I was doing without you're not creating
- 13:27
separation and division, I mean it's not like one, not taking sides, one against the other, but you're realizing the union, union of the And that's what I mean when... the ultimate, the conditioned and the unconditioned, or the, however, whatever terms or symbols you want to use. And that's what I mean when...
- 14:10
So that's a realization that can't be just adhered to with discriminative thought, but has to be realized in the heart. Because even the danger, like say with...
Transcript
0:01 But now I give this opportunity for any of you to ask questions or if you want me to elaborate on something. Report an error in the passage at 0:01
0:14 Yes? I'd be grateful if you might expand on what you mean by the heart. You said that you didn't mean the pumping of it. But it's a word that's used many times to mean perhaps different things. I wonder if... if you mean... Report an error in the passage at 0:14
0:38 do with consciousness or motivation or concern for other people it may be some of these things or something else. I suspect that maybe a symbolic sense of which the word heart can be used to mean all these things without having to elaborate what they all mean, without forgetting what you would expand and what you mean by it. Report an error in the passage at 0:38
1:05 Maybe that's what they don't mean. Well, Report an error in the passage at 1:05
1:12 the word mind, when we talk about mind, it tends to be, oftentimes, conveying intelligence, or it doesn't convey, say, love, compassion, or feeling, or whatever, where the word heart, is always the English word that you want to talk about like being good-hearted or she has a good heart, a golden heart or heartfelt or sweetheart or whatever then that implies a kind of a whole different thing than say a good mind or a good heart mean quite different things. Report an error in the passage at 1:12
2:07 But actually the mind in Buddhist terms isn't, often times in the West we think of the intelligence as the brain, the brain as being, or the mind as being in the brain. Or this is how we tend to perceive ourselves, as a good mind or a good head, good brain. Report an error in the passage at 2:07
2:32 You can say somebody has a good heart but they don't have a good brain. Or she has a good heart but she doesn't have a very good mind or whatever ways of using these two words. Report an error in the passage at 2:32
2:45 But religion is very much dealing with the experience of the heart because it's the intuitive, heartfelt ability of a human being. If you're too much caught up with conditioned intelligence, then your sensitivity diminishes and your ability to intuit or feel life is blocked off. Like in this being bound to ideas and ideals, idealists can be very insensitive to the way things are right now. Report an error in the passage at 2:45
3:35 You know, you're planning so much for the perfect society after the revolution that you're not, you have no feeling, you have no heart for the present moment, the way it is now, the feelings that are with you and with the people around you at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 3:35
3:58 The intuitive knowledge is, some people are very intuitive, they're very much ...aware through intuition, but maybe not have any way of expressing it in, say, with having the perceptions or the ability to express it in concepts or symbols. So that there's the intuitive function of mind, which relates always to the present, and which if we take personally... Report an error in the passage at 3:58
4:37 We can misinterpret, like taking it from the I am, the condition I am a person, I am a man, and so forth. Then one interprets the intuitive knowledge of this present moment on a very personal level, like one can get it quite wrong. Even though the intuition is maybe accurate enough, the tendency to interpret the intuition comes from ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 4:37
5:08 So the point of the Buddha is to align intelligence and conditioned intelligence, or ability to think and use concepts, precepts, percepts, to align it with the intuition. So like insight meditation is very much an intuitive developing reflection and intuition. And so to do that, your attention more is placed here, in your body in fact. Report an error in the passage at 5:08
5:48 Because if you bring attention more just to this part of your own physical body, then your tendency to be caught up in just conceptual proliferations, Report an error in the passage at 5:48
6:07 more willing to be receptive to the feelings and the expressions and the of this moment as is. But if you're still up with a delusion of self, then you can interpret that kind of sensitivity in a totally illusory way. Report an error in the passage at 6:07
6:47 found just being able to concentrate my attention here, bring my attention to this part of my body. to, it's not easy, because I like to think, find it easier to go up into thought the conceptual proliferation. Report an error in the passage at 6:47
7:12 So the training of bringing attention here and I've noticed like I first really noticed this when I was in Thailand and during the say when we were in the monastery in Thailand we had to pass out the food usually they would Report an error in the passage at 7:12
7:42 The food would be offered, and then certain monks would have to pass out all this food, so everybody gets equal amounts of this food, a very kind of communal system. So there may be 50 monks, 60 monks sometimes, and one of my duties would be to try to pass out all this food and get it right, so that the last monk would get the same as the first monk. Report an error in the passage at 7:42
8:09 I didn't like doing this at all because I used to get so worried about, you know, if I'd run out of food and then the last few months wouldn't get any, then I'd imagine their thoughts that were going in their mind about me not being a responsible food distributor. And so this was a great, I mean this was a really painful... Report an error in the passage at 8:09
8:45 to think in very negative ways about it and worry, and then imagine that when I didn't do a perfect job that all the other ones that didn't get the same would be with me. Report an error in the passage at 8:45
9:00 one day I just decided to bring my attention to here while passing out the food, and I did. I started just looking at my heart, know, inner. Report an error in the passage at 9:00
9:13 the food is and all the alms bowls, but managed to distribute this food without it being suffering because I was more with the actual movement and action of what I was doing without you're not creating or imagining anything in my head about it and by staying more just with the actual the action of passing out food and not making a problem about it and centering my attention with my with this part of myself I found a kind of peacefulness afterward as a real being contented and at ease rather than Imagining the worst. And that was, I had, through that experience I really, even though this had been said to me many times, you know, implied in so many ways, never really had done it before. Report an error in the passage at 9:13
10:16 And that's when I remember actually trying that out and realizing, you know, that that was very, just quite simple enough practice. Report an error in the passage at 10:16
10:30 Because I used to get too abstract, like the heart means, and you go into kind of, into descriptions of the heart, and it's not the physical heart, but it's, and you're still coming from the head. So then, I thought, well, they must mean, actually, you know, to bring your attention here. Because the body, I mean, the way it is, if you bring attention to various parts of it, you get, you know, it has different messages to offer. Report an error in the passage at 10:30
10:58 So, if you, Ajahn Sumedho says, That one's better than that one and this discernment, discriminative function was developed and the ideal of love and that was very much, you know, admired. But the actual, how could you really love anyone if you're If you're discriminating you're Report an error in the passage at 10:58
12:29 The discriminative function doesn't operate, but there's still intuitive sensitivity operating. It doesn't like you become just kind of lost in a mush of overwhelming love that, you know, still there's a sensitivity and an intuitive intelligence there that you... That was maybe ignored or not noticed or understood before when your identity was so much with discriminative intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 12:29
13:10 But then in the religious path they work together because you need both to discern and you need to unite. You need unity, unicity and you need separation. separation and division, I mean it's not like one, not taking sides, one against the other, but you're realizing the union, union of the And that's what I mean when... Report an error in the passage at 13:10
13:49 the ultimate, the conditioned and the unconditioned, or the, however, whatever terms or symbols you want to use. And that's what I mean when... And I think that the religious path then is at that point of where things cease, where the condition ceases and the unconditioned. So that's a realization that can't be just adhered to with discriminative thought, but has to be realized in the heart. Report an error in the passage at 13:49
14:25 Because even the danger, like say with... Modern Christianity, for example, is because they tend to personify God so much and give God attributes, like Trinitarian attributes, Report an error in the passage at 14:25
14:49 that the actual union with God almost is destroyed and made impossible as an experience. Because they've... They've conditioned, they've made God into an object. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So God remains too much an attribute, a personal attribute, or whether you call it Father or Son or Spirit or whatever, still you're giving God attributes. Report an error in the passage at 14:49
15:28 And so that realization of the condition ceasing and the unconditioned It's almost, you know, you can't, there's no path then, as long as you believe and attach to an object. Report an error in the passage at 15:28
15:45 And that's like all attributes are objects. So as God as a father, or God as a son, or God as a spirit, is still an attribute, is still an object, and you're still assuming, Report an error in the passage at 15:45
16:07 That you are somebody, and then there's the idea of union with the object, but it never happens, as long as you're caught in the belief and seeking union with an object, a permanent realization or permanent enlightenment experience with an object. So that the unconditioned is never an object. Report an error in the passage at 16:07
16:46 It's not an object, but it's where you have to give up that desire for union with an object, and where the pure subject, and then beyond that, to go that far with words, then there's a realization. It's a realization of the conditioned ceasing and the unconditioned in Buddhist terms or union with God in Christian terms. Report an error in the passage at 16:46
17:25 And that you can only do through the heart. You can't do it and you know all the words and write books about it like theologians do but it doesn't mean anything and still it might be clever enough as a theory and as an idea but the realization Each one of us has to, you know, has to do it for ourselves. We have to do it, realize it ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 17:25
17:56 Like sometimes Buddhism comes across as cold surgery, or, I mean, sometimes if you look at the way Buddhism is presented, it looks so kind of annihilating and hard. Report an error in the passage at 17:56
18:19 Where, say, in a religion like Christianity, more emphasis on compassion and love, these more heartfelt expressions, but Buddhism doesn't lack compassion or love. It's not like, oh, it's just impermanent, it's not self. Love is just desire and not a put-down of the noble. Heart of a human being is just impermanent and not self. But it's a realization. Like the Four Noble Truths point very accurately to that realization. Report an error in the passage at 18:19
19:04 And then, if there's that realization, then there's certainly no, the heart is quite, you know, pure to love and respond to the experience of living. appropriate, suitable ways. Report an error in the passage at 19:04
· · · silence, 1 minute
19:55 Well, selfishness can mean, it can mean just like thinking of me and what I want, you know, as a kind of generally used in English. He's just a selfish person and he's very immature and doesn't care about anyone else. But also it means, it can mean just the view of, the basic wrong view of I am as an ultimate position to take on everything. Report an error in the passage at 19:55
20:27 It's interesting to see, you know, like in both Christianity and Buddhism you have Jesus saying, I am the way, the truth and the life. You have Buddha saying, after his enlightenment, I am the all enlightened one. But this I am is not from a selfish delusion. It's a convention. Report an error in the passage at 20:27
20:55 People hearing that tend to be selfish and deluded. So they, like you can see with, like Christianity, so much of it today, they'll say, you know, like I remember going home to California and my sister inviting a couple of priests over to talk to me. Report an error in the passage at 20:55
21:15 And I showed them the Buddha Comes to Sussex video. And afterward they said, they looked at me and they said, Well, all right, but after all, Jesus did say, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and there is no other. And then suddenly I felt like an iron curtain had just dropped, like there's nothing more to say. Report an error in the passage at 21:15
21:44 They had completely slammed the door in my face after that. And it was because they were interpreting that from an ego. You know, I am me, Jesus Christ, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. It's me. It's what I am. But I am can also be an ultimate statement of truth. But when the Buddha actually taught his first sermon to the five disciples, he used there is suffering and there is the end of suffering, which is a very skillful use of language. Report an error in the passage at 21:44
22:29 The reason why I use that was because if he said, I am the way, the truth and the life, then both people cannot understand that as an ultimate teaching. Report an error in the passage at 22:29
22:43 They see it always, well, he thinks he's the way, the truth and the life. He's that man there. We have to believe in that man because he said so. Or, oh, he's just deluded. He thinks he's the way, the truth and the life. You should have seen him a few years ago. Report an error in the passage at 22:43
23:05 And so it's not, it tends to be a, you know, it puts you, puts people in a position of believing or denying. Now, if I said, I am the all enlightened one, you'd either be forced to believe me or to deny it, you know, or just doubt it. ago. Report an error in the passage at 23:05
23:31 I'm the all enlightened one. Then that to you, your force, I'm pushing you into a position of either blindly believing it, what I say, or having to deny it. It's crazy. But if I teach there is suffering, you know, it's a reflection. There's no way that that says that I'm referring to I am it all as... Report an error in the passage at 23:31
23:59 On the ego plane. But it's a noble truth. There is suffering. I mean, people suffer. There is. And there is an end of suffering. So that is why the Buddha established the teaching around suffering rather than around an ultimate statement that tends to be in itself deluding to people even though there's no delusion in the statement itself. Report an error in the passage at 23:59
24:29 Human being, humanity at this time is not, cannot understand it. It doesn't help, it is of no help to anyone to say that. Because you can see so many Christians are stuck with, you know, you meet Christians who really want to be quite tolerant and open to other religions, but then they say... Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. That means only through Jesus, only through the sacraments, only this way. The rest is all just a false religion. Report an error in the passage at 24:29
25:10 I mean, there are certain good things about Buddhism, yes. Peaceful and unviolent. We don't deny the goodness of it, but it is not... They go into that kind of heavy-handed denial of another religion. Report an error in the passage at 25:10
25:29 Because they attach, they still interpret that statement of Jesus' if he ever said it, from an egotistical position. And then in there is suffering and there is the end of suffering, that's not saying, I'm not saying I'm suffering and I don't want to suffer anymore. I'm saying there is. And that encourages you to look at what I find that Report an error in the passage at 25:29
26:24 I really appreciate just the way the Buddha used language in the Pāli Canon that we have. It's quite, it's very skillful when you're really examining your heart through meditation. You can see he was trying to establish a teaching with as little amount of ability to delude yourself with it as possible. Report an error in the passage at 26:24
26:48 And he did very well actually. Still Buddhists tend to get deluded, but it's not because, it's just because they don't understand or don't bother. To try to understand the Four Noble Truths. Or they think they understand it because somehow they... It's often times referred to as basic Buddhism as a kind of beginner's practice of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 26:48
27:17 Now let's get into something more interesting. I will not take final nibbāna till the last blade of grass is enlightened. Something very high-minded. it. Report an error in the passage at 27:17
27:32 Which is very inspiring, but the suffering and the end of suffering doesn't inspire the mind. It really gets you high, but its aim is to get you to look and open your heart and reflect on suffering and the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 27:32
28:04 between good and bad. spoke about the need to accept good and bad aspects of both yourself and other people. But to my mind, there's a lot of the problems in everyday life involve opinions about certain things. always forced to make about the right way of living. Report an error in the passage at 28:04
28:29 you not accept the right sort of situation the grace of when God you you need did to to? me. Thank you. Because the ability to discriminate, that's a very great gift. Report an error in the passage at 28:29
28:44 But it's not, it's like discriminative intelligence is a great gift that we have. But if it's coming from the wrong place then it tends towards grumbling, complaining, depression, despair. I mean you end up just feeling very negative about everything if you're attached to discriminative intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 28:44
29:10 But non-attachment means that you can discriminate. without being deluded by the qualities. So that you say, like when you say good and bad, if you're coming from a view of yourself as a person, then good and bad are judgments you make and become very personal judgments, like I'm good or I'm bad. And then the assumption one makes is that you're You can make the assumption that there's something kind of basically bad about you, yourself. Report an error in the passage at 29:10
29:52 Or you can worry, you can think there's something maybe wrong with me, or kind of on a permanent basis, or some kind of latent flaws or evils that are lurking way down deep inside that might come out if I'm not just on my guard every moment. So then we become frightened by anything that comes into our mind that may be evil. Because the mind will, you can have good and evil impulses go through your mind. Report an error in the passage at 29:52
30:28 You can't just have good ones. You've also got to accept the fact that we have evil ones too. But the discernment isn't judging, you know, I'm good or I'm evil. But recognizing good and evil is discernment and then choosing to do the good and refraining from doing the evil with action and speech. Like the foundation for the holy life is always to, is that determination to do good through action and speech and refrain from doing evil. Report an error in the passage at 30:28
31:10 But as dharma, good and evil arise and cease. So, As you develop the path, in Buddhist terms, then good and evil both are, the experience of good and evil, they both cease, and that point of cessation is the realization. So, I mean, in that way, even evil is no longer seen as a threat. It's through wisdom and understanding that we don't... Report an error in the passage at 31:10
31:46 If we feel frightened of evil, and then every time an evil impulse comes to us, then we react, we tend to suppress it, and react badly to it. So it never really ceases, we just suppress and build up a tendency of attachment to that. Because what you hate, you're attached to. But what you're frightened of, you... Report an error in the passage at 31:46
32:13 You're attached to what you're frightened of or what you dislike or what you hate is a kind of attachment. But if you can see it as what arises ceases then the evil impulses that might arise in your mind will cease there. And at the end there's no attachment. But it's dhamma rather than I'm an evil person for thinking those kind of things. This is the Report an error in the passage at 32:13
32:43 What we mean, the way out of suffering. I remember being very confused when I was a young man because of that, not knowing how to deal with evil or foolish or unwholesome mental states and feeling terribly guilty or anxious about it because it was always interpreted as something wrong with me and it shouldn't be there. Report an error in the passage at 32:43
33:14 And with Buddhism, and I came up with Buddhism, it was such a relief because then I, you know, I thought, oh, nothing really wrong. It's been able to see it for what it is. The relief not to think there's something wrong with you or wrong with me. Any Report an error in the passage at 33:14
· · · silence, 1 minute
34:01 more questions? Report an error in the passage at 34:01
34:07 I think there's tea, something like that, four o 'clock. Report an error in the passage at 34:07
34:19 Happy to English Buddhist day. Report an error in the passage at 34:19
34:28 We did it at the church university, didn't we? Report an error in the passage at 34:28
34:46 Some people have they operate intuitively, they are not able to kind of visualize conceptualized things. Report an error in the passage at 34:46
34:59 Well, Report an error in the passage at 34:59
35:11 they can acquire, because you have that. it just an acquired skill or are they just sort to act? Report an error in the passage at 35:11
35:17 That's why the reflective ability is important because then you can harmonize the discriminative intelligence and the intuitive and Report an error in the passage at 35:17
35:33 the instinctual. So you have much more you have a harmony rather than a conflict with these different levels or energies. Report an error in the passage at 35:33
35:48 Like if you're with instinctual intelligence one is on Like in the human being, you have it, just like the animal kingdom, but it's oftentimes despised or taken in the wrong way. Like sexual feelings and impulses are made very personal in the modern society. It's always taken in a very personal way, when it's a common instinctual kind of energy. Report an error in the passage at 35:48
36:25 Common to all human beings. But yet the tendency of modern western world is to make something a personal problem about sexual energies. Report an error in the passage at 36:25
36:38 Mind, sex drive, blah blah blah blah blah. And of course there's books, enormous kind of popular books based on this assumption that it's something personal. Well actually it's the natural, instinctual. spatial function, energy that comes through this kind of form. Report an error in the passage at 36:38
37:07 either it's made into something more, you think of it, you kind of exalt it as being, you know, the whole purpose of our life, or you can despise it, think it's low and it's dirty. Report an error in the passage at 37:07
37:23 That's always from the self position, isn't it? It's the true union and the ultimate of life is the sexual union. Or you can just think it's all just dirty and low and animalistic. Report an error in the passage at 37:23
37:40 Because that's always from a view of it being mine and judging it. But in the knowing of it for what it is, you see that it's permanent. Report an error in the passage at 37:40
37:58 It's what it is, but it's not a self. You're not creating a personal world around it. And so it doesn't even be a problem. But if, like in the life of celibacy, for example, where you've chosen to live celibate, then if celibacy still comes from identity with a personality, then it doesn't work. It just is a suppressive thing. You're just suppressing your feelings or your drives. Report an error in the passage at 37:58
38:36 But celibacy as a convention for reflection then works very well because you can actually understand the nature of instinctual energy without identifying with it and creating anything other than recognizing it for what it is. Report an error in the passage at 38:36
39:02 This is a strange position we're in as human beings. We're animals and yet we're also divine. We're angels and we're animals all at the same time. Report an error in the passage at 39:02
39:15 We're deities and we're animals and we're humans. We've got all levels. But the human, our humanity, the precious gift of humanity lies in this reflective ability of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 39:15
39:33 Because there's the end of suffering there. In this form, there can be the realization, enlightenment of the end of suffering. Where on just the instinctual plane, if one is attached and identified on that level, there's no way to see the end of it or know the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 39:33
40:05 So that's why in the Buddhist world the human birth is regarded so highly. It's a good fortune. It's a great gift to us to be human. And this I appreciate because I see that this is with all its faults and problems of being human it's also The way out is through this particular experience that there is the end of suffering, enlightenment, wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 40:05
40:44 The Report an error in the passage at 40:44
40:51 word Report an error in the passage at 40:51
41:06 suffering I use for what we create out of ignorance. There's still sensitivity, but your body is going to be sensitive, so it's going to feel, as long as it's alive, it's going to feel pleasure and pain. or and cold and your eyes are still going to beauty and ugliness and all of that but there's no no you're not creating suffering onto it like experiment with Report an error in the passage at 41:06
41:56 I can't stand it. I don't want it. But then, if you actually go to concentrate on the sensation of pain, and the mental aversion and proliferation stops at that moment, there will still be the sensation, but there will not be the suffering. There's a difference. Then the suffering comes when, oh, I hate it, I don't want it, when is it going to go? I can't stand it. Report an error in the passage at 41:56
42:26 Then you're suffering again. But when you're actually with life, with the flow of life, there's no suffering. When there's mindfulness, there's no suffering in mindfulness. But when there's heedlessness, even when there's no pain, we can worry about having pain that we don't have yet. And so we can suffer. Report an error in the passage at 42:26
42:55 Great suffering even when there's no physical sensation. Yeah, but we might get one later. That's suffering too. Report an error in the passage at 42:55
43:13 Right, Report an error in the passage at 43:13
43:24 there's restlessness. you say you would be able to make the suffering too? That's You should watch it. not to have agitation. no physical problem. Report an error in the passage at 43:24
43:26 Well, as you're more and more mindful, then the body is a very restless condition. And the dullness and sleepiness and all of these states, the feeling of loss, like when somebody you love dies. But you're... You're accepting the feeling without creating suffering onto it. Which means you still feel. But you're not creating anything out of ignorance onto the feeling. Like my mother died a few months ago. Report an error in the passage at 43:26
44:14 There's still the feeling there. I wasn't insensitive. I didn't feel anything about it. There is no suffering in regards to the feeling. It's that way. And it's dharma rather than me feeling grief or thinking I shouldn't be feeling grief. I should be beyond grief. But there is a definite feeling. Somebody you love dies. Report an error in the passage at 44:14
44:52 And just to know that. But it also can be seen as an object and accepted for what it is, which is our sensitivity. I mean, there's nothing wrong with sensitivity. This is what we, you know, the things that we learn from, from the experience of consciousness and sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 44:52
45:23 are you thinking we are mindfulness? Report an error in the passage at 45:23
45:32 Well, like, one can be mindful of sensitivity, of feeling, of the way things are, just the way, like, just can be mindful of, like, say you feel uncertain about something, Report an error in the passage at 45:32
45:57 and just a vague... uncertainty kind of hanging in your mind, and you can observe that, you can be mindful of that. that means that if you... Report an error in the passage at 45:57
46:13 heedless then you tend to just react Report an error in the passage at 46:13
46:37 Mind is sati and sampacanya, these words refer to the ability to reflect. Like sati actually means to be mindful. full So that the mind is open and receptive. It's not fixed on an object. I mean it's not lost in absorption. Mindful. And then we reflect clear comprehension of the way it is. Like we can, like dharma teachings or reflective teachings of suffering, the arising, the cessation of the path are just skillful ways of Reflecting on experience that we have, so that you're using insight, investigation, and this is through mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 46:37
47:41 When the experience of unity comes to concentration, because the mind becomes one and unitive in concentration. And then mindfulness is where, say, the mind is receptive, so then the ability to discern and reflect through mindfulness is there. So you have, and as you're mindful, more continuously mindful, then there's also, A balance between energy, effort, and concentration. So no longer are you just absorbing or uniting with an object, but there's a sense of perfect balance. Report an error in the passage at 47:41
48:45 In the Eightfold Path of Samā, Vāyāmo, Samāsati, Samāsamāti, those three are like a balance, a perfect balance and calm. Of the heart. Report an error in the passage at 48:45
49:05 Which doesn't imply you're absorbed into an object anymore. The same with concentration practice, samatha, you're absorbed into maybe an object. You choose one thing and sustain your attention on it to unite with it. There's a unity there. But that kind of unity is impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 49:05
49:40 Well, just like Buddha, The word Buddha, it's a refuge, implies that the knowing, the ability to know with wisdom. So, like this form, it's a way, this is an experience of knowing, being born as a human being and conscious. I mean, we're now living in a realm of knowing things. We can know them rightly or wrongly. You know, we can Report an error in the passage at 49:40
50:16 But the consciousness itself is a kind of knowing, being born as a conscious being, the subject, object, and that feeling of alienation that comes from identifying yourself with the body and the conditions of mind. And you feel more and more alienated and frightened by life, threatened by life. Report an error in the passage at 50:16
50:47 Because you're knowing things but not from wisdom but from ignorance. And you believe in the delusions or the illusory world as reality. And then Buddha is really the word for knowing things as they are. And Buddha is, you can make Buddha images because it looks like human beings because Buddha isn't an abstract knowledge. You have Buddhas, you've had living Buddhas. Report an error in the passage at 50:47
51:30 We take refuge in Buddha, but not in trying to become a Buddha as a person, but taking refuge in that ability that Buddha represents as a way of knowing things as they are. Report an error in the passage at 51:30
51:47 And you contemplate on life. This is the experience, like your life is really, the human being is the experience of knowing. And the ego, I mean, if we come from a personal self-view, then we interpret all of life's experiences very personally, which can get everything all wrong. Report an error in the passage at 51:47
52:13 Because as a personality, there's always a fear, a threat. Report an error in the passage at 52:13
52:21 You can be hurt or brutalized by somebody else as a person. As knowing, there's no way, I mean, your body can be brutalized or your things can be taken away from you, but there's no suffering in it if there's the refuge in Buddha. It doesn't mean you like it, but it doesn't mean you're going to make a problem about it either. Report an error in the passage at 52:21
53:04 So I invite you all to have some tea. Report an error in the passage at 53:04
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Talk by Ajahn Sumedho. Original at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ajahn-sumedho-dhamma-talks. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Talks of Ajahn Sumedho, archived on Internet Archive. More from Amaravati