How to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you

0:01 So, let's see, what is today's... How Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:13 to keep your head when all about are losing theirs and blaming it on you. And Report an error in the passage at 0:13 Highlight the passage at 0:13

0:25 Venerable Tanavaya had this, this is a poem by Rudyard Kipling, first line of the poem. I think this is a subject that we'd all like to be able to... Report an error in the passage at 0:25 Highlight the passage at 0:25

0:47 We investigate because we live in a society that sometimes seems like it's losing its head. And the kind of insanity of the human mind is quite distressing to see, you know, life in the kind of stressful and rapid changes that we experienced in these past 30, 40 years. Report an error in the passage at 0:47 Highlight the passage at 0:47

1:22 And today we had some Sri Lankan bhikkhus visiting and establishing a new place in Letchworth. So I was talking with one of the gentlemen about stress and this was a layman and he was saying how much he felt that there was less stress in London than in Sri Lanka. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

1:53 And so I thought, that's interesting, never thought of it like that. I always thought of Sri Lanka as the serene paradise and London as the stressed out western city. Report an error in the passage at 1:53 Highlight the passage at 1:53

2:12 But this is, you know, when people are really interested in meditation, and this is, say, in the past 40, 50 years, there's been such a noticeable increase in... Report an error in the passage at 2:12 Highlight the passage at 2:12

2:55 We had a lot of ideas. We were idealistic, I remember, and a lot of hope for the future in terms of setting all the wrongs to right and having the perfect social, economic, political system according to how things should be and into an idealistic view of life of what should be. Report an error in the passage at 2:55 Highlight the passage at 2:55

3:25 I remember going to ordain in Thailand and by that time I was over 30, so I was disillusioned with that. I was kind of becoming a cynical, a cynic toward life because that's the reverse of being idealistic. You suddenly see that, you know, you see it all, all your ideas being shattered and your hopes and expectations of life being... Report an error in the passage at 3:25 Highlight the passage at 3:25

4:07 it was very easy to blame, you know, I remember in university we were very good at blaming parents or government or like this for everything that was wrong this was... Report an error in the passage at 4:07 Highlight the passage at 4:07

4:24 This also seemed to have a kind of, you know, we actually believed that there were people you could accuse who should have been what they were not. And then entering the monastery, one had this idea of entering a life based on, you know, where everybody is, on a spiritual path. And there's this kind of A sense of moral integrity and spiritual development that were very appealing to think one was moving into that realm and committing oneself to a lifestyle that offered this sense of moral integrity and the pursuit of a spiritual goal. Report an error in the passage at 4:24 Highlight the passage at 4:24

5:19 And so then entering a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, in northeast Thailand, One started living the life of a Buddhist monk and then the direction was changed from looking outward and blaming or expecting the external conditions to live up to my standards or my principles or blaming people that I was living with because they weren't doing what I thought they should be doing. Report an error in the passage at 5:19 Highlight the passage at 5:19

5:57 To this investigation of one's own mental state. And I found this a very useful way of using my mind. Report an error in the passage at 5:57 Highlight the passage at 5:57

6:13 And so like Lumpo Cha, the teacher in Thailand, he was very good at this, at getting us to, both his Western disciples and his Thai ones, to get to look at where the problem really is. And so we began to do this. And I remember, you know, feeling sometimes very frustrated by the life because, of course, the monastic life is based on discipline and restraint. Report an error in the passage at 6:13 Highlight the passage at 6:13

6:48 And this means that, you know, you can't do what you want anymore. And it also means conforming. And I was brought up as to be a non-conformist. The ideal that I had in my youth was to not be a conformist. In fact, I remember detesting conformity and looking down on people who I thought were conformists and had this pride in being kind of my own person and not just being another cipher in a In a pattern and to assert myself, these kind of arrogant attitudes of self-perception were then challenged in the life where the external, the world around, was based on a very kind of high level of conforming. Report an error in the passage at 6:48 Highlight the passage at 6:48

7:51 So like just the matter of shaving the head and Wearing a robe and having to follow precepts in almost every detail of one's life, from the way you walk to the way you ate to everything else, just like the way I walked from the United States, was not an appropriate way to walk according to Thai Buddhist monasticism. Report an error in the passage at 7:51 Highlight the passage at 7:51

8:23 You're supposed to walk in a way that doesn't look aggressive and threatening. Of course, American men, we all try to make ourselves look aggressive and threatening. I remember being frustrated by this continually because if you've lived in a society where you feel, you know, my life is my own business, none of your business, And I can do what I want. Then you're living in a society where everything I do is everybody's business. It's a reflection for one's own conditioning. Report an error in the passage at 8:23 Highlight the passage at 8:23

9:10 Learning to conform then was just the external, what was expected externally in regards to action and speech. So you have this very elaborate monastic discipline. That you train yourself with. And the idea is to surrender. To kind of give up your own kind of ways of doing things and so forth. Even developing speech patterns that are more subtle and less aggressive and more considerate. Report an error in the passage at 9:10 Highlight the passage at 9:10

9:48 For example, the American style is one of confrontation. confrontation where Where you say, well, do you like it or don't you? And you put somebody up against the wall and they have to say yes or no. Report an error in the passage at 9:48 Highlight the passage at 9:48

10:09 You're very direct and you don't consider what you're doing to somebody. You just want a very immediate answer in a positive or negative way. Report an error in the passage at 10:09 Highlight the passage at 10:09

10:23 So this was the style. say, of Americans. They still like that, I think. but in Buddhist training according to the Vinaya You talk in a way that you don't, you know, you're not putting anybody up against the wall. You're kind of talking in a way that is gentle and considerate. But not kind of dishonest or weak, but learning to use language more skillfully to communicate, but not to use it in any aggressive way. Report an error in the passage at 10:23 Highlight the passage at 10:23

11:10 So one of the things, one used to think, like this still happens here in England when some of the rules around speech that monks have, like we're not supposed to... Report an error in the passage at 11:10 Highlight the passage at 11:10

11:24 you say in In monasticism, we're supposed to ask permission to eat fruit that has live seeds in it, and then what they call this making allowable, so that the layperson, we ask them, will you make this allowable? The layperson kind of cuts the fruit, just makes a little cut in the fruit, say like an orange or... Report an error in the passage at 11:24 Highlight the passage at 11:24

11:49 Something where you might damage the seeds if you eat it and then that makes it allowable for us to eat. Well then to a Western mind that sounds like hypocrisy. Like we're asking the lay people to do something not very nice in order to let us eat this fruit. That's how the Western mind interprets it. They see it as or we want to Something cut in the garden, we say, would you make this allowable, rather than cut this vine down, you know. Report an error in the passage at 11:49 Highlight the passage at 11:49

12:28 We're forbidden to kind of give direct orders in this way, so that it's how this works, if both parties agree to it, it's a way of talking that is relatively non... You know, not aggressive and considerate. And this is a training rule for monks. It's not like a moral position that one's taking, like eating oranges and crushing the seeds with your teeth is some kind of immoral act. Report an error in the passage at 12:28 Highlight the passage at 12:28

13:01 But it is that lay people do, but monks wouldn't think of it. Unless lay people, you know, go through this ceremony, it can be, you know, superstition. Or it can be... A way of training, the way of speech to avoid even using aggressive words. Report an error in the passage at 13:01 Highlight the passage at 13:01

13:25 So then nowadays when lay people want to learn how to do this, they say, shall I stab the orange now? And then its kind of purpose is lost. Report an error in the passage at 13:25 Highlight the passage at 13:25

13:51 But these can be seen as much ado about nothing, and they aren't terribly important, actually. But just to give you an inkling of the kind of quality that the Buddha did expect of bhikkhus, bhikkhunis, say, in India 2,500 years ago, was even our speech was not supposed to use violent terms. or give orders in a way that is, you know, not give an order but to allow somebody to do something for us. Report an error in the passage at 13:51 Highlight the passage at 13:51

14:31 This is a kind of a whole new way of thinking and reasoning and a kind of refinement that is very hard to explain in modern life because it doesn't You know, too many people, they see monks in a particular way, as if we are putting ourselves in some superior position to the lay community. Report an error in the passage at 14:31 Highlight the passage at 14:31

15:07 But yet, when you actually kind of investigate the Vinaya, the discipline of a monk, then you begin to see it's a way of training oneself, of reflecting, so you can see your... Your habits, your cultural habits, your emotional habits that arise, like any form of restraint, always brings up feelings of kind of rebelliousness. Report an error in the passage at 15:07 Highlight the passage at 15:07

15:36 Say, if you've not had to live a restrained life, you come from a kind of hedonistic background, then the feeling oftentimes has been suffocated. I remember the first few years in the monastery in Thailand just feeling suffocated by this discipline, like it was pushing me down or pressing down on me, because according to my emotional habits were based on following feeling, you know, kind of impulsive, follow impulses, having no sense of, you know, Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

16:26 Sumedho the main purpose of it then is to... Report an error in the passage at 16:26 Highlight the passage at 16:26

16:54 When I first came to live in England, the English Saṅgha Trust had a lot of internal problems and used to have acrimonious meetings where a lot of unpleasant things were said, accusations made, and this, of course, was exactly what I most did not want to be involved with, was in these kind of situations, you know, and living in monastic... Report an error in the passage at 16:54 Highlight the passage at 16:54

17:23 In monasteries for years, then this was not how we did things. So suddenly I was in the middle of all this kind of battlefield. When everyone else was losing their head, what should I do? And of course you find that you are inclined to favor one side over the other. There's usually one group that you find more appealing or you feel more... Report an error in the passage at 17:23 Highlight the passage at 17:23

17:52 So then this was how to reflect on this mental state in the midst of an acrimonious quarrel was my challenge. And of course at first the feeling was to try to just grin and bear it, kind of stiff upper lip, you know, just Sit through it, grit your teeth and just hope that the meeting doesn't last very long. Report an error in the passage at 17:52 Highlight the passage at 17:52

18:31 Or drink a lot of water so you have to get up and go to the loo. Report an error in the passage at 18:31 Highlight the passage at 18:31

18:40 But those are not all that skillful in terms of dealing with... They're kind of like backing out, kind of evading the problem. Report an error in the passage at 18:40 Highlight the passage at 18:40

18:52 And so I remember years ago when I was... Samanera, a novice, I spent this year in Nong Khai, in one of the provinces in Thailand, where I was very much on my own for a year. And I experienced these periods of great bliss, because of the lack of... Report an error in the passage at 18:52 Highlight the passage at 18:52

19:39 these these moments of great uh you know where this incredible peacefulness would would come and uh all the kind of emotional... Report an error in the passage at 19:39 Highlight the passage at 19:39

19:54 Habits and the kind of worries and negative states that used to get stirred up through, say, conversations or relationship with others or through social pressures or through having duties or people expecting things from me and all this. When you're alone and nobody's expecting anything and you don't stimulate your mind, And you get through the base, you know, the first few months are rather hard because you're emotionally not equipped to handle peace or tranquility. Report an error in the passage at 19:54 Highlight the passage at 19:54

20:34 You know, so you're finding, you know, all kinds of things, obsessive thoughts and emotions arising and then after a while they all start diminishing and fading out and then you experience this stillness and this silence. Well, I noticed in this, when the mind would go into this state, then it wasn't a cultivated state, it would just happen. Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

20:59 It wasn't like a kind of hypnotic trance of any sort. It was quite a natural state that just seemed to come when there was no kind of stimulation or where the emotional... Report an error in the passage at 20:59 Highlight the passage at 20:59

21:21 and so then there was this state of tranquility and I began to hear this what I hold as cosmic sound of silence and like a background hum and I noticed this that you know I kept contemplating well all things are impermanent everything is a Nietzsche According to the instructions of Vipassanā teachers, so I kept thinking that, well, this cosmic hum is something that's anicca, but it kept, you know, I realized that the anicca part was my own attention to it, that I could begin to... Report an error in the passage at 21:21 Highlight the passage at 21:21

22:06 You know, when I paid attention, it was always there. But to keep the attention there was something else because the mind got easily distracted into thinking or seeking distractions through doing things. And then, of course, you wouldn't notice. So I had this conundrum, this kind of koan of really contemplating this cosmic... Report an error in the passage at 22:06 Highlight the passage at 22:06

22:36 Hum, in order to just see what happened. And I noticed that when, you know, that I'd lose it when I would be stirred up emotionally. Report an error in the passage at 22:36 Highlight the passage at 22:36

22:49 So the story about me going to the immigration office to get my visa extended. I was in one of these states of great tranquility when I went. And they had an immigration... Nong Khai was an immigration point in Thailand. It was where you cross over into Laos to go to Vien Chan. So I had to get a visa to... You know, you had to extend visas all the time because in those days it was very difficult to stay in Thailand for a very long period. Report an error in the passage at 22:49 Highlight the passage at 22:49

23:25 So they'd give you three months and then they'd... And the head monk of the province had arranged for me to kind of extend it in Nong Khai rather than having to go to Bangkok. When I was having to extend the visa, I went to, you know, I was in this very blissful state. And I remember walking through the town of Nong Khai in a state of bliss and feeling just this tremendous kind of compassion and sense of, you know, I could see I was very kind of, In a state of heightened awareness so I could see the suffering of the people around me in a way that I'd never noticed before. And then walking into this immigration office, I didn't realize that they weren't actually supposed to extend visas for foreigners at this office. Report an error in the passage at 23:25 Highlight the passage at 23:25

24:18 But under the pressure put by the head monk, They felt they were kind of pushed into doing it. So they were full of resentment. At least when I walked in, I felt this wall of resentment. And it really, you know, like an iron curtain dropped right down in front of me. And they went through the procedures of extending the visa, but in a way that I felt shattered. Report an error in the passage at 24:18 Highlight the passage at 24:18

24:48 By the hostility or the resentment, the negativity that I was experiencing in this heightened state. And so it really upset me and I rushed back to the monastery. And I remember just thinking, well, what can I do? If my tranquility is so easily shattered, will I have to spend the rest of my life just living alone? Report an error in the passage at 24:48 Highlight the passage at 24:48

25:17 Because... You know, maybe I shouldn't, I should just stay in a little hut the rest of my life where I can experience bliss and have as little to do with the crazy world around me as possible. And that seemed, you know, at that time I actually liked the idea and I had kind of ideas of staying in this little hut the rest of my life. Report an error in the passage at 25:17 Highlight the passage at 25:17

25:47 And living this, and just dealing with the society in just the most perfunctory way, but shutting everything out so that I would prolong this state of tranquility and bliss as much as I could. Report an error in the passage at 25:47 Highlight the passage at 25:47

26:06 But then, intuitively I knew this couldn't be the way that the Buddha was teaching, because... I thought, surely the Buddha was not, you know, he was teaching a way of liberation, not a way of just, you know, of just calming the mind down, but a way of liberating the mind so that you're not dependent on conditions supporting, say, refined states of consciousness or your tranquility, because these things are so easily... Report an error in the passage at 26:06 Highlight the passage at 26:06

26:42 I mean, if you develop, the more refined you are, the more aesthetic and refined your tastes become, the more kind of high culture you attune yourself to, you'll find you'll suffer a lot more. Report an error in the passage at 26:42 Highlight the passage at 26:42

26:59 Because the coarseness, then coarseness becomes even more unbearable. If you're preferring the extremity of refinement, then... You'll find that the world around you is not going to support that. You have to put enormous amounts of control on your life in order to sustain these refined states because the world that we live in is not a world that is refined. Report an error in the passage at 26:59 Highlight the passage at 26:59

27:33 Nature is not refined. It includes refinement but also coarseness. And so then going back to this sound of silence, I could go back to that, but I would identify it with a particular situation. Report an error in the passage at 27:33 Highlight the passage at 27:33

27:56 So my mind would connect it only to living in a very quiet place without any distractions, without any obligations. Where I could just settle into a state of this bliss and due to, say, sensory deprivation. Report an error in the passage at 27:56 Highlight the passage at 27:56

28:20 So then the following year I became a bhikkhu in Nong Khai and the teacher sent me, the head monk sent me to stay with Lungphat Chah. Report an error in the passage at 28:20 Highlight the passage at 28:20

28:31 Lungphat Chah's approach was very much being mindful of the present moment. Whatever that included. And so the actual practices of meditation where you could sit alone and get a high level of concentration were very minimal. It was very much learning to work together with other monks, relationship with the lay people, going on alms round. Report an error in the passage at 28:31 Highlight the passage at 28:31

29:04 We had to make our robes. We had to learn how to sew and make robes. We had to dye our robes. They used always these natural dyes, the jackfruit dye, which is quite a process to make this dye to get this kind of color. And so making your robes and dyeing them and then all these rules and precepts around monastic life, monastic discipline, was not particularly something that I was all that interested in. Report an error in the passage at 29:04 Highlight the passage at 29:04

29:40 I was very much a kind of, you know, a samādhi freak, as they say. Report an error in the passage at 29:40 Highlight the passage at 29:40

29:50 So, this is the jargon that comes into the world, a samādhi freak. And so I, you know, I kind of did all this because of the, this is what you're supposed to be doing at this monastery. Report an error in the passage at 29:50 Highlight the passage at 29:50

30:06 And I trained myself into the life of a one of the Report an error in the passage at 30:06 Highlight the passage at 30:06

30:10 forest monk and I quite like the lifestyle itself had a certain kind of nobility and dignity to it which I really appreciated and as I began to understand the language better and understand what Ajahn Chah was teaching of course I began to see a kind of more profound profound way of looking at life than I had really understood, say, in my year of isolation. Even though the year of isolation I experienced a lot of refinement of, you know, The wisdom was not necessarily a part of it because I still was very much dependent on being a samādhi freak to get that. Report an error in the passage at 30:10 Highlight the passage at 30:10

31:07 So then I would, you know, living in a community where you have to relate all the time in, you know, and you have relationships of junior to senior. And of course I was a very junior monk then, so I had duties to perform as a junior monk. And, you know, I had to learn how to do what I was supposed to do in relationships. Report an error in the passage at 31:07 Highlight the passage at 31:07

31:35 To those senior to me. Well, that was quite interesting because that would bring up all kinds of arrogant habits. And if you're American, you're brought up to think, I'm nobody's servant. You know, get it yourself. You can wash your own bowl. Why do you need me? That kind of thing. Report an error in the passage at 31:35 Highlight the passage at 31:35

32:08 And so I would, you know, this was my American. It was very much reflected in the fact of having to serve somebody else. And of course in American ideals, to be a servant is demeaning. You're lowering yourself. You can't respect yourself if you're a servant. You can only respect yourself if you assert your independence and do not allow yourself to be under anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 32:08 Highlight the passage at 32:08

32:42 That was the idealism of egalitarian American thought. Well, in this was, learning duties was, I began to reflect on this, how much suffering I created around having to do things for others that I didn't want to be bothered with. I couldn't see why they couldn't do them themselves. And just by reflecting, beginning to notice this, how much suffering I created around things that really if I just did my duties, I wouldn't suffer. Report an error in the passage at 32:42 Highlight the passage at 32:42

33:27 It's not like they're demanding that much from you or they're expecting... You know, you're not a slave or anything, but you're, you know, you're, but I could really, you know, hold this in my mind and kind of, it would simmer or I would, you know, I'd be, you know, feeling resentful and I'd be into this state of resentment about something that really wasn't, you know, was a good thing to do actually when you put it in the right context. Report an error in the passage at 33:27 Highlight the passage at 33:27

34:00 And the amount of suffering I created around something that needn't be suffering at all if you just did it. So then I began to see it wasn't that I created so much suffering around feeling of not wanting to be bothered and not wanting to feeling that I shouldn't or that Or even I'd start feeling in some ways that I'm, you know, kind of, I'm better educated than these monks. Or, you know, you get into these really, these kind of bit nasty, arrogant feelings about, you know, your social background and things like that. Report an error in the passage at 34:00 Highlight the passage at 34:00

34:43 And by reflecting on this, I could see the suffering that I was creating around. Because like in Vinaya, like in monastic saṅgha, you... It's based on seniority. It's a hierarchy of seniority rather than on, say, social position. So, I mean, you know, ideally in a monastic saṅgha, if you're from the royal family or you're from a peasant farmer family, you lose your status in whatever way when you become a bhikkhu. Report an error in the passage at 34:43 Highlight the passage at 34:43

35:21 So it's, you know, in some ways it's... More egalitarian than anything I ever saw in the United States. Because, you know, the duties, the sense of responsibility and duty that we have to each other isn't based on kind of personal positions or titles that one has or class differences or anything like that, but on just the fact that this monk Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:58 did, or I ordained before that one. so this was a way of reflecting that made it, that took away the kind of loaded personal Report an error in the passage at 35:58 Highlight the passage at 35:58

36:11 feelings that would come when you start looking at, you know, I'm better educated or I, you know, things like this that you can, that can, always create problems and and feelings. feelings of You know, that are unnecessary problems. In a community, you're trying to simplify the life to where you learn how to live with each other in a respectful way based on a fair system that doesn't allow privilege. Report an error in the passage at 36:11 Highlight the passage at 36:11

36:48 If you're from a wealthy family, then you have more privileges than someone from a poor family. Also, Luang Por Chah was very determined that because I was the only Westerner in the monastery for about four years, you know, and he was quite determined that I shouldn't have special privileges. And this was hard to do because I was special, you know, the only Westerner in a very conservative part of Thailand where, you know, people were kind of overwhelmed when they see this. Report an error in the passage at 36:48 Highlight the passage at 36:48

37:26 Big American in a robe, you know, and he's at the end of a line of monks. And their whole perception of Americans was very much that time on Elvis Presley films. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

37:47 I remember they asked me, why did you become a monk, you know? They obviously thought we all just sang songs and danced and had a good time. Raced around in sport cars and because they had a big American Air Force base there also at the time. It was the Vietnam War where these big American air bases were very kind of obvious in parts of Thailand. Report an error in the passage at 37:47 Highlight the passage at 37:47

38:21 Where I lived there was a huge American Air Force base. Report an error in the passage at 38:21 Highlight the passage at 38:21

38:28 But the whole point of it is to reflect. And so I started just, you know, learning about being aware of my own feelings. I could see that, you know, thinking of myself as not being arrogant. You know, I considered myself a person who was not arrogant. And that was kind of an arrogance. Because I began just to, living within this... Report an error in the passage at 38:28 Highlight the passage at 38:28

39:24 I lived in Thailand. Thailand with Luang Por Chah for about 10 years and learned an enormous amount of, you know, all kinds of things about monastic life, about meditation, about myself. But during that time I didn't really, I kind of forgot about the sound of silence and didn't really register. Report an error in the passage at 39:24 Highlight the passage at 39:24

39:58 And I just kind of forgot. I was into just developing a life as a Buddhist monk training and learning how to fit into that system. Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:14 And I learned, I had like three or four years before Westerners started coming to U-Born. So I became quite, I felt quite at ease, quite... I was happy within the Thai system. And I learned to adjust and to live within it. And I was respected and I felt quite happy just living with Thai Buddhist monks. And I didn't have any desire to live with Westerners. Report an error in the passage at 40:14 Highlight the passage at 40:14

40:51 But then, like fate, they always present you with what you don't want. So then Westerners started coming. Report an error in the passage at 40:51 Highlight the passage at 40:51

40:59 And word got around that I could speak Thai. So then, you know, the problem with Westerners at the time was they'd come to Thailand looking for meditation teachers and hardly any Thai monks could speak English. So there's always this problem of where to send them. So, you know, where could they go and learn meditation from somebody who spoke English? So then they discovered me in Ubon and I became a translator for Ajahn Chah. Report an error in the passage at 40:59 Highlight the passage at 40:59

41:30 Well, that was, I felt kind of, you know, resentful of that because I didn't particularly like being a translator. And then these Westerners, they were all, you know, full of doubts and, you know, the hippie trail it was in those days. And they'd all, you know, they're talking about all their drug experiences and they talk in ways that really shocked me, like how they take all these different combinations of drugs at once to kind of, maybe like to blow up your consciousness or, I mean, a kind of hyperbole of destructive terms talking about what they're trying to do to their minds and see the result. Report an error in the passage at 41:30 Highlight the passage at 41:30

42:17 And so this was... This was quite, you know, because of this I didn't quite know how to, you know, what the full extent of that would be. Report an error in the passage at 42:17 Highlight the passage at 42:17

42:33 But anyway, I managed to learn to live with that and I became the, we established the Wat Pa Nanachat, the international monastery. The last two years I was in Thailand and that led to coming to the UK. Report an error in the passage at 42:33 Highlight the passage at 42:33

42:52 Well, coming to the UK in 1977, then that was with this problem with the trust and the living in a different climate, different society, you know, living with people who were not particularly Buddhist or whose attitudes were very different. Report an error in the passage at 42:52 Highlight the passage at 42:52

43:17 And then living in London. The first two years we lived in London, in Hampstead. So we have kind of occasional opportunities to go and live in Oxford at the Oakland Buddhist Center, which was very nice. But most of our time was spent in London on a busy street on Haverstock Hill. And so this was... Report an error in the passage at 43:17 Highlight the passage at 43:17

43:42 was, this was, You know, living in a huge city like London and living with people that were not trained in Vinaya, who were not culturally attuned to Buddhism yet and all the problems that arose. How to keep from losing your head when everyone else is losing theirs? So then one, you know, this was the conundrum was what, how to do it? Report an error in the passage at 43:42 Highlight the passage at 43:42

44:14 What should I do? Report an error in the passage at 44:14 Highlight the passage at 44:14

44:18 that didn't work, you know, avoid the situation, I could have, you know, the strong desire to return to Thailand arose, I'm going to go back to Thailand, but I didn't do that, then to learn from this situation? So then one afternoon I was walking down Haverstock Hill, suddenly I... Report an error in the passage at 44:18 Highlight the passage at 44:18

44:45 I started hearing this cosmic hum. It kind of like suddenly just came at me out of thin air and I remembered. So I started developing awareness around this and so when I go to these meetings I'd really put myself into this presence of this cosmic hum, sound of silence and I could keep centered within the I found this quite interesting challenge, how to stay in this state of attention, stillness, which does not deny or exclude. Report an error in the passage at 44:45 Highlight the passage at 44:45

45:30 It's not like running away or it's not taking sides. It's not grin and bear it, stiff upper lip. It's a pure presence and a willingness to be. In the present and to observe the way it is. And that includes both the external, what other people are doing, and the way one is feeling. Because this is an intuitive use of the mind. There's mindfulness. Sati Sampatanya in Pāli. Report an error in the passage at 45:30 Highlight the passage at 45:30

46:07 So notice, like when you're coming from a personal position, then you're... You've already decided I am this personality and I'm like this and you're like that and then this is a divisive way of using your mind. You're dividing up, you're separating out. Me, you, I'm a monk, you're a lay person. I agree with this group but I don't agree with that group and on and on like that. Report an error in the passage at 46:07 Highlight the passage at 46:07

46:39 So on a personal level that was... You know, but on an intuitive level, then I could see that. You know, how my personality, the sense of myself as a person, I could get perspective on that. The sense of me as a separate personality. And the way I would see others in terms of perceiving them as being like this or like that. Report an error in the passage at 46:39 Highlight the passage at 46:39

47:07 The way I could form opinions about this person. This way and that one is that way and I like this one but I don't like that one. So in this state of attentive, intuitive awareness, this would embrace the whole moment and all that was included, all that's present. Report an error in the passage at 47:07 Highlight the passage at 47:07

47:31 So this became very interesting for me because I could see how I began to get some real perspective on On how, you know, on just how my personality would react in these situations where there was kind of unpleasant things being said or arguments taking place. I could listen to both sides much better because I wasn't taking sides. It didn't stop me from listening and understanding what they were saying but it put me in a relationship of a witness rather than someone who who was you know taking sides and then then getting caught up with I found this was, then I could bear with even the acrimonious meetings much better because I wasn't caught in my aversion or my feelings of being threatened. Report an error in the passage at 47:31 Highlight the passage at 47:31

48:38 I could witness those things. I could begin to see how Report an error in the passage at 48:38 Highlight the passage at 48:38

49:07 carrying this through, developing this, especially in my life in Report an error in the passage at 49:07 Highlight the passage at 49:07

49:20 I remember... Report an error in the passage at 49:20 Highlight the passage at 49:20

49:24 the UK people felt that it would be a great strain on us because that we'd have to go back Report an error in the passage at 49:24 Highlight the passage at 49:24

49:46 and all they you know all of this that I felt you know that these were people many people felt well you should send them back recharging send them back to Thailand to get their batteries recharged Because they'll wear down in England. They can't recharge here. You've got to get back to the place where you can do that. But by this time, I didn't particularly agree with this. Report an error in the passage at 49:46 Highlight the passage at 49:46

50:15 Because I began to see that the Buddha's path of liberation couldn't depend on being in Thailand. And what kind of liberation was that? You know, if you had to be in a particular place all the time. Or, you know, I'd been in India also, where the Buddha was enlightened. I went to Bodh Gaya. And I kept thinking, maybe I should stay in Bodh Gaya. Report an error in the passage at 50:15 Highlight the passage at 50:15

50:45 But India also had different problems to face. And so it became clear that the path the Buddha was pointing to was... yeah. Report an error in the passage at 50:45 Highlight the passage at 50:45

51:00 Here was this, wasn't a place. So then applying that to my life here in the UK. I've been here, this is my 24th year now, of practice within this society. Report an error in the passage at 51:00 Highlight the passage at 51:00

51:27 So, you know, and even though I do go back to Thailand quite often, at least once a year, it's not to recharge. It's not that I feel that I can't do it here, but it's because of just the invitation, the way life tends to flow and the conditions that arise. I mean, I do still have great fondness and, you know, enormous gratitude. Report an error in the passage at 51:27 Highlight the passage at 51:27

51:57 had the opportunity to become a monk and had the training and all the support in the first 11 years was incredible of support and encouragement from everybody I met in Thailand. Report an error in the passage at 51:57 Highlight the passage at 51:57

52:20 always resonated as something that I... Report an error in the passage at 52:20 Highlight the passage at 52:20

52:34 developed because learning to trust in this in learning to reflect on what you're actually feeling in the moments of your life. learning to not get caught up in the madness of the people around you or the society you're in. And sometimes, you know, I've not always been successful at this. You know, sometimes I have gone mad with the rest. But I know better, actually. It's not that I don't know any better. Report an error in the passage at 52:34 Highlight the passage at 52:34

53:14 Sometimes there are certain weak points that have not... actually. Report an error in the passage at 53:14 Highlight the passage at 53:14

53:24 That the intimidations can take over. But then that also is part of the practice, isn't it? Like I've really noticed where I lose it in this life. Where I do forget. Where I do fall apart. Where I do get carried away. And just beginning to notice that rather than seeing it in terms of a critical mind like the tendency of my super ego is to There you go again. You shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have gone along with that. Report an error in the passage at 53:24 Highlight the passage at 53:24

54:02 And then the old nagging tyrant starts pecking away. That's the habit tendency. But the trust lies not in believing in any of that, but in Report an error in the passage at 54:02 Highlight the passage at 54:02

54:22 Surrendering or relaxing into this stillness, this ever-present stillness, as I experience as a cosmic hub. Then I find that is like something that you can totally surrender to, relax into. Report an error in the passage at 54:22 Highlight the passage at 54:22

54:46 And it sustains itself. It's not like a creation of my mind. It's not a refined creation that I'm making up that's dependent on conditions being quiet and peaceful. But it's present even in the middle of an acrimonious argument, in noisy traffic, in waiting in queues, waiting in traffic jams, attending boring meetings. Report an error in the passage at 54:46 Highlight the passage at 54:46

55:15 Going to boring conferences and all the rest. It's always present. Eating or you're bathing or you're walking from one place to another. Or whether you're in Britain or in Thailand it doesn't make any difference. It's the same. Report an error in the passage at 55:15 Highlight the passage at 55:15

55:41 So then this allows a sense of composure and presence in the midst of a A mad world. And there was one Mahāyāna symbol I used to really love. It has this picture of this lotus, which is a beautiful flower, delicate flower, and it's blooming in the midst of an inferno. There's an incredible fire around it, an incredible inferno all around it, but the The lotus is blooming and then the line is a lotus that blooms in the midst of an inferno is indestructible. Report an error in the passage at 55:41 Highlight the passage at 55:41

56:28 So now I relate this lotus to this stillness because a stillness is indestructible if you trust it. And the inferno can be, you know, the world, you know, the mad world that we live in. And so it's going around doing its thing, you know. Well, sometimes it's more bearable than at other times. Sometimes, you know, life can be quite pleasant or it can be, you know, really disappointing or confusing or all kinds of variations on feelings of love and hate, like and dislike. Report an error in the passage at 56:28 Highlight the passage at 56:28

57:12 But the refuge is in this stillness, in this lotus-like stillness rather than in the... reacting to the inferno staying in this still point T.S. Eliot calls it the still point of the moving world and then to see it as the eye of the storm because Report an error in the passage at 57:12 Highlight the passage at 57:12

57:37 like a storm if you get into the eye of the storm it's tranquil you know and all around it's stormy so these are the kind of Similes one can use, but don't see it as a metaphor or a simile or as an ideal, but as a reality. To know this reality yourself is what meditation really is about. To awaken. So when you, like the Buddha's teaching is about awakening. Report an error in the passage at 57:37 Highlight the passage at 57:37

58:16 And so the word Buddha itself means awakened. You know, it's a very direct kind of religion because all it says is wake up, you know, waken. It's not given a lot of things to believe in, you know, like all kinds of metaphysical doctrines and things that you have to hold on to. But its directness lies in this sense, this... Report an error in the passage at 58:16 Highlight the passage at 58:16

58:50 encouragement to wake up. So waking up then in the midst of the mad world, in the moving world, in the inferno, in the acrimonious committee meeting, in the problems of daily life, in community life, in family life, in your office, in the factory, in the university, you know, none of these things are obstructions. Report an error in the passage at 58:50 Highlight the passage at 58:50

59:22 You know, what you're having to bear with in terms of your lifestyle if you begin to awaken. I mean, if you trust in awakeness. And so when people ask me, I remember somebody asked me for an interview at one time, they said, could you describe the kind of essence of Buddhism in a sentence? Report an error in the passage at 59:22 Highlight the passage at 59:22

59:52 And I said, I can do it with one word. Report an error in the passage at 59:52 Highlight the passage at 59:52

59:57 That word is awaken. Report an error in the passage at 59:57 Highlight the passage at 59:57

1:00:05 So now, Kulana has assembled the tea. Kulana has, over the many years, been this silent person behind the scenes that always provides the tea. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:05 Highlight the passage at 1:00:05

1:00:21 And you can always count on her. I thought she deserved some... it. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:21 Highlight the passage at 1:00:21

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:00:28 Bring attention to the fact that she's been doing this for years. And I really appreciate it because now this is all ready. We can have a cup of tea and then in about 20 minutes or so, those who wish to stay, we can have further discussion on this subject. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:28 Highlight the passage at 1:00:28