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- 0:17
You have to know what personality is. Like I would define personality as the thoughts you have about yourself as a person. this time, at the personality of the woman. Like being a person, what type you think you are, and the attitudes you have, the thoughts you have about your worth or lack of it, about what you regard you can do and can't do, and these are what we create a personality around.
- 5:16
And this you can actually witness to. You begin to see that this personality is not that it's wrong or you shouldn't have any personality but you're seeing it for what it is. Then it has no power. It doesn't have the gravity to kind of delude and hold you into an inadequate reaction to it.
- 9:19
To reflect on just what being human is. What is the idea of being a human being? What do we mean by that? We sometimes use it as an excuse for being weak, justifying our weaknesses. We say something stupid and then we say, well, you know, I'm only human.
- 28:55
The reason why the Buddha, you know, the caste system of India was such that you had vegetarian, like Brahman and the higher castes were vegetarian and the lower castes, outcastes, would eat meat and therefore the alms mendicant, the bhikkhu, would be one who would have to receive whatever. We're forbidden to just to be in a caste of any sort. When you become a vicar you give up any class or hereditary rights or titles or caste positions.
- 47:23
So it's just, you know, that's why it's not self. If it were yourself, you wouldn't be able to do that. But because it is not self, then... We start looking at it and treating it in a respectful way, where if it's ours then we would be able to do whatever we wanted with it and get away with it. Because it's not so, it means that we need to understand it and respect it for what it is. And I noticed just in my own experiments is that when I've done this meditation on...
Transcript
0:01 Are there any questions? Report an error in the passage at 0:01
0:07 Through the investigation of it. You have to know what personality is. Like I would define personality as the thoughts you have about yourself as a person. this time, at the personality of the woman. Report an error in the passage at 0:07
0:34 Like being a person, what type you think you are, and the attitudes you have, the thoughts you have about your worth or lack of it, about what you regard you can do and can't do, and these are what we create a personality around. Being a man or a woman, we create a person. About the gender of the body. Or we create, you know, like if we're a professional person, we can create our personality around being a doctor or a nurse or a teacher. Report an error in the passage at 0:34
1:17 These things have their value too. It's not that they're wrong. But it's to recognize their limitation rather than to believe that they're actually real, a kind of permanent. That's where the suffering comes from, is the assumption that this is, that I'm kind of permanently this way. I mean, we all have, you know, we react and respond to life in various ways. Report an error in the passage at 1:17
1:46 But then the tendency of the, you see, like we have a retentive memory, we can hold memories and believe in our memories. Like, we make assumptions that I am, I am a permanent Buddhist monk all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:46
2:04 Since I was ordained as a Buddhist monk, I am a kind of ongoing, permanent Buddhist monk from that time onward to this. That's how it seems as a perception. But actually what I'm pointing to is that a Buddhist monk is something, the idea of being I am a Buddhist monk is something that depends upon certain conditions. Report an error in the passage at 2:04
2:30 Not that I take off the robe and And become a layperson behind your back. I mean, on the mental plane, the attitude of I am a Buddhist monk is something that arises and ceases according to other conditions. Report an error in the passage at 2:30
2:47 But one can make the assumption that, you know, have a perception of what a Buddhist monk should be and that I should be like this. Then we tend to feel sometimes worthless because we can't Report an error in the passage at 2:47
3:29 suffering comes from identity with gender if There are ideals of what men should be, say, an ideal of what manhood is, and the perfect male, say, of my childhood, say, what was regarded as what you should be. Then if you didn't feel identified, that you couldn't be that way, then there is a sense of inadequacy. Report an error in the passage at 3:29
4:00 and Report an error in the passage at 4:00
4:03 Self-aversion to the fact that you couldn't be what you thought you should be. I assume that applies also to women. Just on the level of being a woman, the role models and ideals that various societies have for what women should be. Report an error in the passage at 4:03
4:24 And then that carries on through professional life or whatever roles we have to have as husband, wife. Mother, father and so forth, these can be great forms of suffering for us. Like you hear mothers saying, I wish I could be a better mother. Because you can imagine the perfect mother as a kind of saintly being. And then the actual experience of having to live and raise children and be constantly there and do all the things is, you don't feel always like, The ideal mother. There's a lot of kind of self-criticism in regards to that. Report an error in the passage at 4:24
5:16 And this you can actually witness to. You begin to see that this personality is not that it's wrong or you shouldn't have any personality but you're seeing it for what it is. Then it has no power. It doesn't have the gravity to kind of delude and hold you into an inadequate reaction to it. Report an error in the passage at 5:16
5:44 these things change like I say being abbot of a monastery there's one that came about I'm the abbot and I'm the important one here. Abbots are this way. And then I could apply that to every situation. Wherever I go, I have to be the abbot. So I could go home, visit my family, and they say, my mother and father aren't alive anymore, but they didn't see me as the abbot when I was home. Report an error in the passage at 5:44
6:21 I never could get my mother to see me as the abbot. Obviously, you know, so... that's how it is. honestly, honestly, Something that was only appropriate to a particular time and place. It didn't apply in your parents' home. Or, say, in a monastery. If I go and help, say, paint the retreat center, I can't very well be abbot while I'm painting the retreat. Report an error in the passage at 6:21
6:58 I have to be an ordinary painting bhikkhu. You can't go around trying to To be in charge of something that you can't do very well. You more or less have to be one of the laborers there. So then because of that you see that you're not burdened with being in the position you're in because you recognize its validity only is according to conditions where it's appropriate. Report an error in the passage at 6:58
7:26 But it's not a fixed view in your mind. You don't feel that you have to maintain the image. And be that under all conditions, which is burdensome. If you feel that way, then it becomes a burdensome position to be in. It's the same applies to, say, junior monks or novices. One can assume, I am just a junior nun. Report an error in the passage at 7:26
8:00 And then that becomes a kind of excuse. You know, you can't expect me to do that. I'm only a junior nun. And the kind of fixed position that one is identified with. And then as they tend towards seniority, then there's this idea, now I'm a senior nun. And then senior nuns have to act like what? They act like maybe senior monks. You know, it becomes a problem of identity. Report an error in the passage at 8:00
8:29 Of junior, senior. But when you're When you reflect on it, then you begin to take yourself out of it, the sense of it, I am this, I'm a senior monk. You're taking that out of the condition. So it is what it is, and it's appropriate only when the conditions for that allow it to be. And that's through mindfulness that you know that. And through ignorance we tend to, you know, adopt a position and try to that on every situation and then we end up making a mess of everything. Report an error in the passage at 8:29
9:19 To reflect on just what being human is. What is the idea of being a human being? What do we mean by that? We sometimes use it as an excuse for being weak, justifying our weaknesses. We say something stupid and then we say, well, you know, I'm only human. Report an error in the passage at 9:19
9:44 We can see it as merely a kind of being human is just being weak and not very mindful and very fallible and all that. Or we can begin to say in the Buddha Dharma you're looking at human not as a justification for weakness but as an honorable state to be in to be born into as a human being because You have this reflective mind now. You have the occasion for enlightenment. You have this potential by just being born into the human realm, in the human body, with the human karma. Report an error in the passage at 9:44
10:28 You're seeing it as something to treasure, not to justify human weaknesses, but to see that the potential for enlightenment is ours now. It's possible for us within the human realm. So then you're raising up the human state instead of being just a kind of weak condition into a rather noble birth. Like a human being also is, we have free will to choose. We can choose between good and bad. Report an error in the passage at 10:28
11:10 We can choose. To do things that are good or bad, say, on the moral level, we can choose to be moral or immoral. Say, if we were just conditioned beings, we wouldn't have the choice. That's why you can't condemn a cat for killing a mouse, because it's not a moral issue for them. Report an error in the passage at 11:10
11:36 They can't help it. It's their nature. They can't see it as being bad, or that they shouldn't do it. But we can actually, like we can think, killing a mouse, like me killing a mouse, I can think, I can contemplate that. I can justify, I find good reasons to kill mice, you know, they're destructive, nasty little creatures or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 11:36
12:02 Or I can justify the killing, or I can actually choose not to kill them. I don't have to kill them as soon as I see a mouse aimed like a cat does, but I can choose not to. To leave it, to allow it to live, you see. And so that we have a mind where we can choose the good, to do the good. Report an error in the passage at 12:02
12:28 This is like what we do, we choose to, we're making a conscious choice now of to do good and refrain from doing bad with bodily action and speech. Report an error in the passage at 12:28
12:42 And this is like where we, some human beings yet don't realize they have a choice, they're just merely reacting. ...to everything, like a cat or a dog. They don't know how to choose. They don't realize they can. Report an error in the passage at 12:42
13:00 They're just caught in maybe fears and desires without being able to stand back and look. But now what we're doing here is we're standing back looking at this. Because we can still want to kill. Report an error in the passage at 13:00
13:18 Harm or steal or do bad things, it doesn't mean that we never have those kind of desires or impulses, but we've chosen not to do that, not to act like that. Report an error in the passage at 13:18
13:34 So the human form is a moral form. In Thailand, they don't consider you completely human unless you're keeping the five precepts. Report an error in the passage at 13:34
13:47 They think anything less than the five precepts makes you subhuman. So you're not quite up to it. So this is merely an idea. It's a good reflection, because by keeping the five moral precepts then in a Thai value system, that makes you completely human. Report an error in the passage at 13:47
14:07 Which is a good point to make, because to keep the five moral precepts, the Panchasila, means that you've chosen to do that. So you're using your ability, your will, to will the good. good as a way of living and acting in the society. Report an error in the passage at 14:07
14:28 to me is like taking the human state and honoring it, rather than using it as an excuse for weakness. The Report an error in the passage at 14:28
14:57 health, good for your health. In this day and age, people are very conscious of trying to achieve health. I want to have some reflection. Report an error in the passage at 14:57
15:12 Right, that's a good question. Because we come across that a lot. Because People in meditation are oftentimes very obsessed about diets and vegetarianism and all these kind of issues that people are very much aware of now. Twenty-five years ago, there wasn't that much. There weren't very few people interested in, say, vegetarianism or in certain kind of... Report an error in the passage at 15:12
15:49 Special dietary customs. Now, the tendency now is to be so, to have very strong views about things in regards to what you need for your health. Report an error in the passage at 15:49
16:09 So, and I've been through this myself. Years ago, before I was a monk, when I was in university, I became a health food fanatic. Report an error in the passage at 16:09
16:21 This was... When this was very unusual for anyone that young, when I went into the health food stores in San Francisco, there was me and a lot of old ladies. I was young then, 25 years younger. And I became a health food fanatic. Then I used to feel utter content. I'd go home and visit my parents and they'd be eating. Report an error in the passage at 16:21
16:54 What I considered unhealthy food and I would, you know, be quite heavy on them. They should be eating blackstrap molasses and wheat germ bread and taking Report an error in the passage at 16:54
17:10 lecithin. That was the big thing then. Lecithin. High protein. But one thing it did give me was I had quite good health then and it certainly made me start Looking at food in a different way. So I didn't see it as anything bad. But the thing that I became aware of was that it became obsessive. And that wasn't healthy. Where the mind was too concerned, making too much of a problem about food, and it tended to dominate your mind and make a problem out of things. Report an error in the passage at 17:10
17:57 Then there's an alms mendicant. Report an error in the passage at 17:57
18:29 And I'm also very healthy now living on Ong's food. Because there isn't a worry and you're not creating strong mental conditions around food anymore. I just feel grateful. I feel like today when all the Sri Lankan people came to offer this food. You feel grateful. You feel a joy. They would spend so much time making Preparing such nice food and bringing it here just for us. This is not a small community. This kind of generosity and the care and intention was to me more important, more fulfilling, more nourishing than whether the food had all the proper vitamins. Report an error in the passage at 18:29
19:29 This I don't know, but it was certainly, I felt fulfilled, I felt filled and nourished by the food because it was a beautiful offering. Report an error in the passage at 19:29
19:43 And I think that to me that's why the Buddha emphasized all food rather than say vegetarianism or dietary things because so much of, you know, is really very mental thing. Like I find, Report an error in the passage at 19:43
20:02 Because I've lived in famine times in Thailand where one was malnourished. I've had malnutrition in that terrible flood one year in a part of Thailand I lived in and we didn't get enough to eat for several months. And so I had malnutrition. But I didn't really mind malnutrition. Report an error in the passage at 20:02
20:32 Because the mind was all right. I could cope with the inconvenience and unpleasantness of malnutrition. It was much easier to cope with that than with a kind of worried, anxious mind. So I decided to trust that my faith and confidence in the Dhamma has made it so that I just trust that what I'm eating is Report an error in the passage at 20:32
21:03 What is nourishing? Yes? Report an error in the passage at 21:03
21:10 Well that Report an error in the passage at 21:10
21:39 is, you know, it's always encouraged to Can I ask you to elaborate, as an ombudsman again, Report an error in the passage at 21:39
21:30 of ethical aspects about the householders. in terms of things like Report an error in the passage at 21:30
21:43 Like the householders too choose to do the good and refrain from doing bad things or encouraging cruelty or brutality in any way. So I mean if one is a household where you can buy your own things or get your own food then you have a choice you can make in what you choose to eat and if you feel like say for instance that That various forms of food are gained through being brutal and insensitive to animals. Report an error in the passage at 21:43
22:23 It's a very noble thing to refrain from taking that, choosing something else. But then the thing that I would advise not to get involved in is making it into a kind of fanatic cause. Report an error in the passage at 22:23
22:43 And not to make that the kind of obsession of your mind. To recognize that we can't, you know, we can be so caught up in an idealism that we make it almost impossible for us to survive. Report an error in the passage at 22:43
23:00 Like if you take, you know, take diet like vegetarianism to its logical conclusion, after a while you can't even eat a vegetable because you're disrupting the life of a cabbage. Report an error in the passage at 23:00
23:14 uh... And they hear them and they pull them out by the roots there. People have heard them scream in pain or something. So I mean that one could, you know, eventually not eat anything. So if you take it to a logical... This is where in with mindfulness wisdom you're setting the limits on what you're doing. Report an error in the passage at 23:14
23:40 Like say with vegetarianism to put the limits on so that you're not making it too impossible or too difficult for yourself or your family or friends or community to live with you. I mean, if you're too idealistic, too high-minded, then oftentimes you create enormous conflicts that cause even more problems than eating a battery chicken egg. Report an error in the passage at 23:40
24:13 Egg. Report an error in the passage at 24:13
24:17 This is where, rather than being caught in too rigid an idealism, to also use wisdom and sensitivity to the people you're living with. Report an error in the passage at 24:17
24:35 I mean, I would, if I were to choose, I would be a vegetarian. If I could choose my diet, if I could buy my own food and Report an error in the passage at 24:35
24:51 Then I would definitely be a vegetarian. But because I'm an odds mendicant, I change that to where I accept whatever is given. Is this ability to choose a blessing or a curse? Well, if you choose, you know, in a way, not in an obsessed way, your choices are not kind of fixed. Report an error in the passage at 24:51
25:25 I mean, if you become a vegetarian as such, as a fixed identity, then you tend to, you can be very arrogant and look down on people that eat meat. Report an error in the passage at 25:25
25:41 I mean, I remember one time a Hare Krishna man came to, when we lived in London, came into the Bihara in London. And it was amusing because he was going on about flesh eaters. And he said, I just left my wife. I couldn't stand to live with her anymore because she's a flesh eater. And he went on like this, going on about eating meat as absolutely despicable and flesh eaters in his pejorative terms. Report an error in the passage at 25:41
26:21 And so then we... At that time we went out on the alms round and we left him in the vihara. This was on a Sunday morning and while we were away some Thai people came with food and they brought all kinds of meat. Report an error in the passage at 26:21
26:48 So the Thai people had come into the vihara and And this Hare Krishna chant was, you know, I hadn't really said it, I hadn't proclaimed myself as being anything by that time, I just kind of avoid the subject, you know. And usually, you know, we would be vegetarian, but I think this was his just dessert, was that that particular day we had more meat than we ever had. Report an error in the passage at 26:48
27:20 And when he saw that, he just laughed in total disgust. we saw flesh Buddhist monks. Report an error in the passage at 27:20
27:32 In one way you could appreciate the idea of vegetarianism and not eating meat from many points of view of kindness and respect for animal kingdom. Also, it's supposed to be healthier to be vegetarian. There's many reasons to be vegetarian, both very practical ...personal reasons for your health and also for respect for life. So it's a big praise. Report an error in the passage at 27:32
28:07 I would praise vegetarianism. But as an Oz mendicant, I praise receiving whatever food is offered because to me that is what the Buddha intended. Report an error in the passage at 28:07
28:25 And my trust in the fact that what people put into my alms bowl is alms food. It's no longer meat or vegetables. It's food given to the saṅgha. Therefore it's respected as an offering rather than seen as meat or vegetables or whatever in that way. That's how I try to look at it. Because you... The reason why the Buddha, you know, the caste system of India was such that you had vegetarian, like Brahman and the higher castes were vegetarian and the lower castes, outcastes, would eat meat and therefore the alms mendicant, the bhikkhu, would be one who would have to receive whatever. Report an error in the passage at 28:25
29:24 We're forbidden to just to be in a caste of any sort. When you become a vicar you give up any class or hereditary rights or titles or caste positions. And this means that then the idea is that you go and you accept whatever you don't just go to the wealthy Brahmins. If the lowest outcast person has a moment in his mind where he wants to offer you something, some food, then you accept it. You don't say, no, you're not, you're too low, I can't accept your food, or I don't eat meat. Report an error in the passage at 29:24
30:09 You're wanting to give that person the opportunity for doing something good. Like a function of a bhikkhu in a society is you're actually giving that occasion to somebody to To do a good act, an act of giving, giving to a religious person is considered a very meritorious thing. I remember in Thailand where sometimes in the villages there were always pious people who would come to the monasteries and give food and support. Report an error in the passage at 30:09
30:52 The monks in the monastery. Then there are always those in the village who go near the monastery and oftentimes men who tend to maybe drink too much and gamble and they get too intimidated by going to the monastery. But so the bhikkhus go into the villages. Then you see a lot of usually men who you'd never see in the monastery. Report an error in the passage at 30:52
31:20 And sometimes they actually come out looking a bit bleary-eyed, like they had a bit too much to drink the night before. But they're often taking their rice baskets and offering food, putting food into your bowl. You see, so then I began to see that you're actually, what the Buddha intended was that you go out into the community and then you can actually even get some of these less pious. Report an error in the passage at 31:20
31:48 More degenerate types, one moment that day at least, they've done something generous, a good action. And so then you wouldn't want to deny them that opportunity. Report an error in the passage at 31:48
32:02 So like the bhikkhu can accept from criminal, from prostitute, from the lowest outcast. If at that moment they want to make an offering, you're not supposed to say, you know, you're not good enough to give me food. Report an error in the passage at 32:02
32:27 The only thing you're supposed to refuse is if you know they've killed an animal for you, and then you're not supposed to take it. Report an error in the passage at 32:27
32:40 Like if they say, I killed this chicken and made a special chicken curry just for you this morning, Venerable Sumedho. Sorry about that. Report an error in the passage at 32:40
33:08 This is a problem. Report an error in the passage at 33:08
33:17 Because we can't eat usually. I mean, people want to give us more than we can eat. So, you have to, usually you try to, this is an ongoing problem with us. Like you get on a festival day here, that. Report an error in the passage at 33:17
33:14 Because in the... Report an error in the passage at 33:14
33:36 And you get, you know, everybody wants to give you something, so you, you know, you're staggering back to where you're going to eat this alms bowl filled, piled high, and you really can't, you know, by that time you've lost your appetite anyway. Report an error in the passage at 33:36
33:59 So we have tried in the past year to try to, like, ha, ha, ha. Report an error in the passage at 33:59
34:07 like at Chithurst and here sometimes we, like, people come and offer the food and we'll have a monk accept all the food so that actual food has been accepted by the Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 34:07
34:21 then we all go instead of people putting food in our arms, well the food has already been accepted by the monks then we can more or less go and take what we That works out very well for us. But a lot of the lay people really love to put it right into the alms bowl. You know, there's this conflict between being thrifty and practical and being devotional. Report an error in the passage at 34:21
34:53 In Thailand, we would go on, sometimes they'd take us into the town in coaches on special days and then like a whole town. would out and they'd fill up arms balls, then some men would come along with big baskets and we'd dump the arms ball, all the contents of the arms ball into this basket. And also in a Thai monastery you're feeding a lot of Like the nuns usually don't go on alms rounds, so usually the monks try to get enough so that there's enough food for the nuns. Report an error in the passage at 34:53
35:50 And so you're not just feeding one person. And then in Thailand, what food that is, the Thai people in the northeast think it's very good if they eat what's left out of a monk's alms bowl. The English haven't taken to yet. Report an error in the passage at 35:50
36:15 In Northeast Thailand they think it's very auspicious. If I still have food in my alms bowl and can't eat it then give it to them and they'll be absolutely over the moon about that. Very awesome. And also the food that is left over is often times you have Report an error in the passage at 36:15
36:38 other beings like animals, dogs and that to feed. nothing is wasted, actually, like in a Thai monastery. Here we often take the leftover food help the pigs on the children's farm, things like that. Report an error in the passage at 36:38
37:01 not wasted. Report an error in the passage at 37:01
37:04 don't think there's any real wastage. Report an error in the passage at 37:04
37:09 It's trying to, there's this, you know, giving the opportunity for people to get the joy of actually giving. And then that Report an error in the passage at 37:09
37:20 is, in a country where food is not really a problem, where people aren't starving to death, it's not, you know, you can't really, and where there's an abundance of food, you have to look at it differently. I Report an error in the passage at 37:20
37:46 remember in a health diet, Change, you know, fashions change. You know, 25 years ago it was high protein. Now I think they think too much protein gives you cancer. Report an error in the passage at 37:46
38:04 You know, you can't really trust it. You don't quite know what is the next, you know, what they're going to find out in regards to food. To me, I just wouldn't I think mentally your mind affects very much your physical body. A wholesome mental attitude tends to bring good health to the body. Because you hear about somebody who lives to 120 years old, what's your secret for a long life? Report an error in the passage at 38:04
38:52 And they say, no, I drank drank all the whiskey in the day. Report an error in the passage at 38:52
39:02 ate McDonald's hamburgers and potato chips. Report an error in the passage at 39:02
39:12 So Report an error in the passage at 39:12
39:23 ultimately, is this something to do with love attachment to the body itself, ultimately? diet? Yeah, I mean, yeah, taking to salt and... Right. ...life of the body or whatever. It's about learning how to respect the body without becoming obsessed with it. Like I found, sometimes, when I, my first years among, I didn't really take very good care of the body. Report an error in the passage at 39:23
39:58 I tended to disrespect it. So that, Report an error in the passage at 39:58
40:06 The result was that I had a lot of illness, unnecessary illness to deal with, and pain, because I've been a kind of mentally oriented person. I always found physical things not very interesting and not wanting, not giving, like not taking care of the body. It would, you know, I would get Report an error in the passage at 40:06
40:40 A lot of illnesses, diseases, these things. So then I've learned just more to how to balance it, how to exercise it, how to regard it in my mind. Report an error in the passage at 40:40
40:56 Because actually your body is in meditation, in Gayanapasana meditation, you're contemplating the body as an object. And as you're aware, as you put your body into consciousness more, that's a very healthy thing for it. Your physical body, when it's accepted consciously, will become a much healthier, happier formation. Report an error in the passage at 40:56
41:32 That's why you can see the body's really not you, because it's really a being in its own right. If you treat it properly, it tends to, just like a cat, if you love the cat and you feed it and take care of it and respect it, it becomes a very nice animal. Report an error in the passage at 41:32
41:59 If you kick it and beat it and starve it, it becomes a nasty, wretched little creature. And the same with your own body. Report an error in the passage at 41:59
42:11 care of it and respect it and honour it, then becomes pleasant to live with. It's not a horrible, creature to have to live with. Report an error in the passage at 42:11
42:26 it responds to kindness and respect like a cat I remember we lived in Hampstead in London we this cat Doris Doris the cat and she And at that time I hadn't had pets for years, and so I would tend to pick this cat up and kind of maul it about and play with it, then let it down and go off. And, you know, I thought that was being kind. I began to notice this cat was avoiding me. And honestly, it developed great distaste to me. Report an error in the passage at 42:26
43:08 I was quite hurt. I thought, you know, I really love this cat. I want this cat. To love me. I want it to love me back. So, then I thought, well, you know, I'm not really respecting. I mean, I just, I see it and I don't bother to, you know, try to look at it as a being that you respect. I just, isn't that cute? Grab it, maul it about and throw it down. You know, somebody did that to me. I would want to be around them very much myself. Report an error in the passage at 43:08
43:43 So then I decided to change my tactics. I started, instead of doing that, you know, to show some measure of respect and sensitivity. And Doris the cat responded very nicely, like being... The cat's not just a dumb, stupid animal, you know, it's a sensitive being, so it responds to respect and kindness, just like you do, you know, it's not... Report an error in the passage at 43:43
44:37 you know, it's not beautiful, you see, underneath this is blood, and, and, uh... Mucous and pus and there's excrement in the body and urine and if you go in there's bones and there's bone marrow and there's kidneys and spleen and all these guts and it's, you know, you start thinking you get this ugly kind of picture of blood and guts and unpleasant things. Report an error in the passage at 44:37
45:05 Well that is one form of meditation actually that leads to dispassion because often times we We're veins, or we think of ourselves, and we want to always look attractive, and just want to have an attractive quality, and that's vanity, a superficial vanity, where when we look deeper and begin to investigate the nature of the body, its attractiveness isn't there. Report an error in the passage at 45:05
45:34 When you're contemplating your liver, vanity doesn't arise. rise but Then it can go too far in a kind of negation of the body as if it were bad or ugly or nasty thing, which is an extreme again, because the point of a supra-practice is towards dispassion rather than passion. So you don't want to kind of negate the body and think of it as a terrible, nasty, ugly thing, a kind of permanent perception of it, because the body is both Report an error in the passage at 45:34
46:26 mettā to your own body too, you always start out with mettā practice with may I be well so that your sense of well-being towards your own human body Report an error in the passage at 46:26
46:40 Concentrating on parts of your body mentally, like putting, say, your right hand into consciousness, consciousness of the right hand, or parts of your body like you're feeling pain or tension, if you put those into, you concentrate on them, they are conscious, they become, they enter your consciousness, and that's a healing process. Report an error in the passage at 46:40
47:07 It helps to relieve tensions and to heal things that are wrong in the body by meditating, concentrating your attention on just the body itself or a part or a piece of it. Report an error in the passage at 47:07
47:23 So it's just, you know, that's why it's not self. If it were yourself, you wouldn't be able to do that. But because it is not self, then... We start looking at it and treating it in a respectful way, where if it's ours then we would be able to do whatever we wanted with it and get away with it. Because it's not so, it means that we need to understand it and respect it for what it is. And I noticed just in my own experiments is that when I've done this meditation on... Report an error in the passage at 47:23
48:01 Bringing the body into consciousness. The body feels very relaxed. It will start what might have been tense or painful in the body. These tensions and unpleasant feelings will start going out. After a meditation on your own body you feel a sense that your body will feel quite relaxed and peaceful. But sometimes you see people Meditating, they're like this, they're trying to concentrate from up here and they're just suppressing the body so they get these terrible stiff bodies and this kind of strained look and it just looks like they're absolutely miserable and the body must feel terrible to be just pressured and suppressed like that. Report an error in the passage at 48:01
48:55 And usually they do something to cause all kinds of problems like their knees or or whatever. They were just forcing and willfully forcing the body and doing things it can't really stand or up with. So wisdom, mindfulness wisdom, you're learning how to live with a human body, how to relax it, how to make it happy, how to... Report an error in the passage at 48:55
49:34 need for nourishment and rest, all these things are taken into account not to just beat it down and it and it into the dust because that's asceticism that kind of asceticism is not bring no can not bring any good effect it only brings harm sickness Could you Report an error in the passage at 49:34
50:07 say something about what it is that is doing the contemplating? Report an error in the passage at 50:07
50:12 Well, that's the being a conscious being. This subject-object is the apparent result of birth. So what you can say is that when there's mindfulness, then there's wisdom, pure intelligence. It's not a personal thing anymore. It's not a personality or a personal attainment. But mindfulness is the path to the deathless. It's through the mind being receptive, mindful, that then there is a realization of deathless. Report an error in the passage at 50:12
51:03 It's a transcendent knowing rather than a personal attainment. So it's not like there's somebody or something that's operating through. More and more you realize that this is like a recepting formation, a receiving formation and it's a conscious formation and therefore it operates according to natural laws and when there's mindfulness then it's the kind of universal. Report an error in the passage at 51:03
51:45 Truth, wisdom, intelligence, you're in touch with that. There's this kind of union or communion or oneness with transcendent truth, which is a way of knowing, wise knowing, rather than a personal attainment. You see, where it goes off, it becomes wrong and misguided when we claim it on a personal level. Report an error in the passage at 51:45
52:15 Like I've achieved something as a personality. Because that's not what's really happening. On a personality level, you can't achieve anything worthwhile. You get conditioned and go around maybe in various kind of habitual patterns as a person. And then through mindfulness, the personality, individuality, All these things are transcended. They're no longer the affecting condition because the mindfulness is aware of them as impermanent and not self and no longer grasping or creating anything onto it. Report an error in the passage at 52:15
53:05 So you feel more, you sense, you intuit a oneness or it's like beyond, it's ineffable kind of. ...of realization where words fail. Because words are still conditions and tend to create division in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 53:05
53:36 That's why in the Zayin Dhamma you say... ...dharma is to be experienced individually by the wife. It can't be described or it can't be given to you from an external. Like if you believe in God as some kind of external force that's giving you something, you're still caught in this dualistic relationship. Report an error in the passage at 53:36
54:08 You see that the Buddha was very much trying to transcend, get beyond that tendency to create a dualism through language. Report an error in the passage at 54:08
54:18 So he was very much silent on those issues. You know, the Buddhist silences are famous, or notorious, whatever. But the Buddhist silence, his silences spoke louder than metaphysical doctrine, because these were, the silence is where... You know, when you're mindful, then there's an awareness in silence, a silent awareness. Where as soon as you try to label something, there's a desire to have a name for everything. Report an error in the passage at 54:18
55:01 So that's a kind of desire, a Bhavan Dhanha problem, where you want to have it pinned to something, to a name. And that's a subtle defilement of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 55:01
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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