All Suffering is Born of Desire (1995)

0:00 So again, I welcome everyone to this afternoon's contemplation. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:11 You can see the changes taking place as the courtyard of Amaravati is transformed into a worksite. And in a few months you'll see a temple rising up out of that mess. Hopefully. Report an error in the passage at 0:11 Highlight the passage at 0:11

0:46 So this subject for today is All Suffering is Born Out of Desire and of course this is a very Buddhist terminology because I think one of the things that draws us to the Buddhist teaching is his kind of direct approach to everything. Report an error in the passage at 0:46 Highlight the passage at 0:46

1:11 The teaching is for Contemplation for investigation. And we're developing the awakened state of mind. Mindfulness is the means, the emphasis. It's like turning on the light, bringing in the light into your conscious experience. So it's words like awakenness. Report an error in the passage at 1:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11

1:47 Alertness, attentiveness, these words are very significant in the Buddhist path. And words like believing in things and metaphysical doctrinal approaches or creation theories, all these were never really the approach the Buddha made to the spiritual. Ajahn Sumedho talks about his journey, because his insight was turning on the light, switching it on, so you can see the truth of the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47

2:33 And of course I find this, at first one can understand the theory and the words, but at first one is so used to living in the dark, so used to the momentum of habit, the tedium of desires. Report an error in the passage at 2:33 Highlight the passage at 2:33

2:51 And the way that we are conditioned to perceive and react to life, that even though one part of you might awaken or respond to this teaching, the momentum of habit is very strong. So we find ourselves always kind of falling back into the old attitudes, the old habits that we have, that we've already acquired. Report an error in the passage at 2:51 Highlight the passage at 2:51

3:21 And so the path, the way to change from a merely conditioned creature that's following the force of habit and impulses and reactiveness to the pleasure and pain, attraction and repulsion of the sense world, we're learning to trust in the simple, Ability we all have to just pay attention, to listen, to open the mind up to its receptive state. Report an error in the passage at 3:21 Highlight the passage at 3:21

4:02 It's like the Buddha says, wake up, pay attention, observe how things really are. Don't just go around thinking that things are the way you think they are, but how are they? What is the natural laws, the way things really are, in terms of our own direct experience? And so each one of us must awaken. It's a self-awakening that we're doing. Report an error in the passage at 4:02 Highlight the passage at 4:02

4:41 One can kind of yell at you, wake up! But that's a warning. But it's you that has to do it, isn't it? One can't wake up for somebody else. I also like to contemplate just the experience of being a human entity. Report an error in the passage at 4:41 Highlight the passage at 4:41

5:05 And many of my reflections have been on that, just having been born in a human body, having to live a lifetime as a conscious human being is the continuous experience of irritation, Of things impinging, touching, interfering, attacking, annoying, sometimes pleasing. But all the sensory world that we are experiencing is generally, when you see it for what it really is, is the experience of agitation or irritation. Report an error in the passage at 5:05 Highlight the passage at 5:05

5:51 So this is just the way it is. We're not... This isn't a condemnation of the sense realm or human experience or anything else. It's pointing to what we have to, you know, why life is the way it is, why we can't really find a real refuge or a sense of real peace in the conditioned realm because it's just not, that's not the way the conditioned realm is. Report an error in the passage at 5:51 Highlight the passage at 5:51

6:20 It's changing, it's arising, ceasing. It can be very strong and then very weak. It's very uncertain what is going to happen. Report an error in the passage at 6:20 Highlight the passage at 6:20

6:35 And so the sense realm, the conditioned realm, the mortal realm, that is what we feel so much and continuously, relentlessly it goes on, is not our refuge, is not the Buddha, the Dhamma Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 6:35 Highlight the passage at 6:35

6:55 It is what it is, we'll say that. Some of it's very nice, it has beauty, it has grace, it has refinement, but it also has ugliness and coarseness. It has all kinds of lovely virtues, but also human experience is the experience of brutality, as we are aware of, how brutal, how horrible human beings can be to each other or to other creatures. Report an error in the passage at 6:55 Highlight the passage at 6:55

7:31 And so the aim of the Buddhist teaching is not to attach or identify or reject the sense world, but to learn how to recognize it, how to learn from it, how to bear with it, how to endure it. And those, of course, to do that we need to develop virtuous qualities, like patience, to be patient with it, because... Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

8:02 Generally, we're not. When we want something, we usually want it right away. We don't want to have to wait. Modern materialist, capitalist thinking is very much based on getting things instantly. The credit card mentality, the push button, make a wish and it appears, has been the great gift of this present century, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 8:02 Highlight the passage at 8:02

8:32 We can get what we want quite, sometimes very quickly, and not have to wait. Like my parents, I remember, they were telling me how long they had to wait to get things. Report an error in the passage at 8:32 Highlight the passage at 8:32

8:46 When they got their first washing machine, or their first fridge, they just couldn't, when the latest thing came out, going down and purchasing it, they had to wait and save, and life was much more, they... Report an error in the passage at 8:46 Highlight the passage at 8:46

9:14 so, in many ways, we can reminisce about the old days where people had to develop virtues in order to survive, but also learning how to develop in modern society, isn't it, with the traffic jams, all the inconveniences the irritations of modern technology. Thus, we've managed to destroy and Report an error in the passage at 9:14 Highlight the passage at 9:14

9:47 allergies and illnesses I don't remember ever hearing of. 50 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 9:47 Highlight the passage at 9:47

10:01 we ever learn our lesson? we ever really wake up, humans en masse? Report an error in the passage at 10:01 Highlight the passage at 10:01

10:11 With the increasing world's population and all the problems that we hear about and experience, sometimes one feels a sense of despair or pessimism because we can see how difficult it is to change, how difficult it is to really let go of the conditioning of the mind and how... Report an error in the passage at 10:11 Highlight the passage at 10:11

10:42 Even though we might be sincere, what that really means in the long run is the experience of total relinquishment, where enlightened being is a total letting go. It's not just letting go of some thing, but it's a total relinquishment, abandonment, freedom from the conditioned and the momentum of habit. Report an error in the passage at 10:42 Highlight the passage at 10:42

11:11 And that might sound all right theoretically, but when it comes to the actual experience, the actual letting go, we find how difficult it really is to let go of something you really like. Report an error in the passage at 11:11 Highlight the passage at 11:11

11:25 Not so difficult to let go of things you don't like. We're glad to get rid of them, but there's much of this world, this sensory world, that we really love, very attached to, and we don't want to let go of it. Report an error in the passage at 11:25 Highlight the passage at 11:25

11:42 So this is where we'd like to let go of the dark side and keep the light side. Report an error in the passage at 11:42 Highlight the passage at 11:42

11:54 But the investigation the Buddha emphasized was on seeing the nature of desire and how suffering is the result of attachment to desire. So this is, we're not just coming from a kind of statement saying you should let go of everything and then... And let it go at that. It's not just making some kind of categorical imperative and then leaving you with that. Report an error in the passage at 11:54 Highlight the passage at 11:54

12:30 But it's pointing to the actual causes of suffering. And so with meditation we're investigating, we're looking into the causes. What are the causes? That which is the origin of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 12:30 Highlight the passage at 12:30

12:46 Or this sense of something's not right, something is, there's a feeling in the sense world, in the conditioned realm, that there's something wrong. And I've noticed this. Even when everything seems right, there still seems to be something wrong. And as long as one's attention and attachment and obsessions are with the conditioning, That sense of something's wrong, something's not right yet, is even when the mind's very peaceful and calm, there's still this underlying kind of anxiety or restless feeling. Report an error in the passage at 12:46 Highlight the passage at 12:46

13:38 And so then, That is to be recognized as we're still turned toward the world, we're still attached, we're still holding on to conditioning of some sort. And as long as our direction is towards the world, and that's all we see, that's all we know, that's all we are aware of, then there'll always be that sense of something wrong, something more to do. Report an error in the passage at 13:38 Highlight the passage at 13:38

14:10 Something you haven't done yet, something you've got to do that will pursue you through your life. So the aim isn't to just establish a pleasant or refined state of mind in consciousness or to live in a refined material realm, but to let go of all conditioning. In order to realize the unconditioned or the realization of nibbāna or the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 14:10 Highlight the passage at 14:10

14:51 And so this, of course, is something that we have to, we use words for this and we can understand it theoretically. But how do we realize that? How do we realize the deathless? What is it? Or how can one realize the deathless or nibbāna? And of course this, when you think about it, you... It sounds almost impossible. Report an error in the passage at 14:51 Highlight the passage at 14:51

15:22 In Buddhist countries even, the word Nirvāṇa gets exalted, gets placed in a kind of high realm of achievement or attainment. Because the thinking mind, when we try to think about it, it sounds so refined or so far away from us. Report an error in the passage at 15:22 Highlight the passage at 15:22

15:46 And when we see ourselves only from the conditioning of the mind, the attitudes and the assumptions that we acquire through our cultural and social conditioning, our education and so forth, when we try to think of it in that way, then nibbāna sounds impossible. And so I've heard monks even say that, of course, nowadays there are no Arahants. You can't realize nibbāna. Report an error in the passage at 15:46 Highlight the passage at 15:46

16:14 That was at an age gone by and they dismiss it because they've not realized it. They merely have maybe analyzed it or theorized about it. And it does seem impossible from that level of human experience and conscious experience. Report an error in the passage at 16:14 Highlight the passage at 16:14

16:39 So it's obviously not something that you realize through thought. But through mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 16:39 Highlight the passage at 16:39

16:51 The cause then of suffering is attachment to desire. It's not even desire. It's attachment to desire. Report an error in the passage at 16:51 Highlight the passage at 16:51

17:03 So then we can say we shouldn't have any desires. But this is a desire realm. We live in a realm where desires are part of our experience. We all have desires. So I mean this is like saying we shouldn't breathe or we shouldn't The Buddha didn't Report an error in the passage at 17:03 Highlight the passage at 17:03

17:46 say get rid of desire as a command, but understand no desire. As desire, know it for what it is. And so to really contemplate and recognize and understand desire, you need to look at the desires you have. You have to acknowledge them. Desire is like this. It feels like this. It's something you can observe. Report an error in the passage at 17:46 Highlight the passage at 17:46

18:16 It's a mental condition. It isn't what you are. Desire is not you, but it's something that arises and ceases. And so it's a mental object. It's something you can see as an object, know as an object. Report an error in the passage at 18:16 Highlight the passage at 18:16

18:37 And so this is what we mean by mindfulness, sati and panya, is that we begin to contemplate and look, investigate, look into desire, just to feel it, to actually... Let desire be what it is so we can observe and witness and contemplate it when it's present. So I'll say gama-dhanha or sensual desire is one of the easiest ones to deal with. It's very obvious. You know, seeing something beautiful, you have desire to have it. Report an error in the passage at 18:37 Highlight the passage at 18:37

19:22 Modern materialism is based on this gama-dhanha. A lot of it is... To make things so attractive that you want them immediately. I know looking in the advertisements and the way here in Britain, the way people present things is to make them just so kind of interesting and attractive and fascinating that you immediately want them. Report an error in the passage at 19:22 Highlight the passage at 19:22

19:54 You feel a desire to have them because they're something in you. A vow, that desire, comes through eye consciousness. And so this is exploited endlessly in advertising. Report an error in the passage at 19:54 Highlight the passage at 19:54

20:10 Also, the bawa dana, or the desire for becoming. And this is exploited. So that you want to become something. You want to become something that you think you're not. You want to... You think of yourself maybe through your faults, or through negative perceptions, and you want to become something else, something better, something that you can imagine would be better to be than what you think you are. Report an error in the passage at 20:10 Highlight the passage at 20:10

20:42 And then vipo dhanah, or the desire to get rid of the things you don't like or don't want, desire for annihilation, desire to destroy the ugly, the painful, the... The unwanted experiences of the senses and the mind. But there's that which observes too. If we were desire, if that was our true nature, we would never be able to see it. Because one desire can't see itself. Desire is not reflective. Report an error in the passage at 20:42 Highlight the passage at 20:42

21:19 One desire can't look at another desire. So that it's not... It just changes. One desire triggers off another desire. But there's that in all of us which can observe desire. That's mindfulness, where you're switching on the light from the dark room where you're just caught in the momentum of habits, desires, reacting to the beautiful and the ugly, the praise and the blame, success and failure. Report an error in the passage at 21:19 Highlight the passage at 21:19

21:51 This is a helpless victim of life. Because that's what sometimes it seems, doesn't it? Like we're just caught in a mouth drum. Things just happen and we just, you know, sometimes life just seems to have periods where everything goes wrong. Report an error in the passage at 21:51 Highlight the passage at 21:51

22:08 Or sometimes it has periods of great affluence and success. And then suddenly it'll seem like so many unpleasant things can happen all at once. And if we have no perspective on it, then we are... We're either happy when it's going well and we're utterly shattered when it's going wrong. And we feel helpless in this storm, this kind of tornado that can hit us. Report an error in the passage at 22:08 Highlight the passage at 22:08

22:39 And we feel like a helpless victim in a system we have no choice, no control, no ability to change. We can see in our own lifetime as we begin to know more about How life was in countries like Russia under the old communist system, where people had to live in a kind of continuous fear, where tyranny depends on keeping you frightened, making you anxious and paranoid, because then you can have control over people. Report an error in the passage at 22:39 Highlight the passage at 22:39

23:19 If you make them frightened of you, you have a lot of power to manipulate and make them do what you want. So tyrannical systems, as they exist, like in Iraq, you can see the way that Saddam Hussein can survive. It's through terrorizing everyone, so nobody dares, always frightened, that even if you think a thought, that somebody might be reading it. Report an error in the passage at 23:19 Highlight the passage at 23:19

23:54 And here in Britain, I mean, we don't have, we're very fortunate because we don't have that kind of society. We're a pretty tolerant and pretty easy-going country. But still, we can create endless problems of suffering and feeling a victim of life, even when there's nothing particularly wrong with anything. Report an error in the passage at 23:54 Highlight the passage at 23:54

24:24 Except that we don't know the way of non-suffering. So even in the realms of success and abundance and praise and good health and all the rest, along with that comes the fear of losing it. And that's another very powerful realization is when you know that when you have success, you also have failure. Because when you're attached to the idea of being successful, Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

24:55 And you're not reflective, you're not looking at the cause of suffering and realizing the way of non-suffering, then even when you are, when you reach the pinnacle of success, along with that is the fear of losing it. They go hand in hand, two sides of the same coin. When you're having a marvelous relationship with somebody, getting on wonderfully and simpatico with the... Report an error in the passage at 24:55 Highlight the passage at 24:55

25:26 Great love, respect, and looking forward to a lifetime of mutual cooperation, love, and fulfillment. There's also the same moment of fear that it's all going to fall apart, isn't there? Because, I mean, even if somebody could die, somebody could change their mind, human beings are quite easily changeable. Report an error in the passage at 25:26 Highlight the passage at 25:26

25:53 They'll love you today, and tomorrow they can hate you. Report an error in the passage at 25:53 Highlight the passage at 25:53

26:00 And you know that. You can't expect this life, this realm, to be a place where it's very secure and everything is going to be protective and supportive to you as an individual person. Report an error in the passage at 26:00 Highlight the passage at 26:00

26:21 Admittedly, we try to do the best we can under the conditions in a country like this. It's certainly got more advantages than, say, most people, but... Still, even at its best, it has this sense that it can fall apart, there's something wrong with it. Because there is. This is not the place where we can really depend on it, because it is a changing, uncertain, insecure realm is its nature. Report an error in the passage at 26:21 Highlight the passage at 26:21

26:54 That's the way it is. And so when we... And we kind of sense that, intuitively know that, but also hope for... It's a difficult one to admit because so many people nowadays have no real faith in anything other than material things or another person or a kind of, you know, having your own home and having a secure relationship and that's their refuge. Report an error in the passage at 26:54 Highlight the passage at 26:54

27:23 This isn't an age where people's spiritual... In the deathless or in God or something beyond just this realm is strong. We give so much emphasis to material security and emotional relationships with others. Report an error in the passage at 27:23 Highlight the passage at 27:23

27:50 I find just in my own experience a really strong growth in real trust and faith in the Dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 27:50 Highlight the passage at 27:50

28:04 After all, I've been a monk now nearly 30 years. 40 years ago, I became a Buddhist. 40 years. I was 21. In Japan, I had my first kind of experience with the feeling of rising of faith in Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 28:04 Highlight the passage at 28:04

28:25 And so, in 40 years, the rising of faith maybe was just a kind of, it sparked off an interest. It wasn't like I was overwhelmed in a kind of, you know, it was more of something kind of touched me at that age, innocent age. I was fairly innocent at 21. I wasn't a worn-out drug addict, like so many are now. Report an error in the passage at 28:25 Highlight the passage at 28:25

28:57 I was fairly innocent at 21. So this kind of faith, And it was more like interest, a real interest and hope that this particular teaching of the Buddha was something that really I wanted to pursue, I wanted to follow, I wanted to know more about it. So that was the arising, the beginning point, the triggering off of the journey. And so 40 years later, you see, one feels that A very profound sense of faith. And it's not because of my life have just been going on and on in a very successful way. Report an error in the passage at 28:57 Highlight the passage at 28:57

29:51 My faith has just grown and grown and grown without any great sense of despair or dark valleys or whatever sense of hopelessness. The faith and the interest was, say, the trigger, set me going, and then from that, of course, I've had to endure all kinds of ups and downs, successes, failures, sense of great hope and flourishing, sense of great failure and disappointment in regards to myself, in regards to Buddhism, in regards to The people that I live with and everything else. Report an error in the passage at 29:51 Highlight the passage at 29:51

30:42 But the emphasis that the Buddha made was on this mindless or intuitive awareness, this ability to watch and listen, observe, reflect, so that this was made very clear in the beginning, the very basic teachings of the Buddha is to see the impermanent nature of conditioning. Report an error in the passage at 30:42 Highlight the passage at 30:42

31:04 And so that includes everything, both despair and hope. Success and failure and feeling good and absolutely inspired over everything about Buddhism or feeling it was hopeless, I don't believe in it, Buddhism has failed me kind of feelings. Report an error in the passage at 31:04 Highlight the passage at 31:04

31:25 One observes that all these kind of thoughts, feelings, moods that one experiences are impermanent. They're not to be grasped, not to be believed. And of course this was hard at first because one was so convinced, what one felt, how you felt in your emotional, the power of your emotion could make you, kind of take you over sometimes, so you actually believed what you were thinking, what you were feeling was true. Report an error in the passage at 31:25 Highlight the passage at 31:25

31:58 But there is something also observing that, this sense of outside that particular emotional There was something, there was an awareness that was cool, that wasn't caught, wasn't overwhelmed in the power of the emotional storm. Report an error in the passage at 31:58 Highlight the passage at 31:58

32:28 And when we, in Christianity I was brought up, we were taught when I was a child about guardian angels. And of course as I got older and I kind of got very critical of Christianity and found out Santa Claus wasn't true and all the rest, The Great Disillusionments as I, in teens, I turned kind of averse to the whole Christian, Christianity itself. Report an error in the passage at 32:28 Highlight the passage at 32:28

32:57 of course guardian angels also are a bit, you know, like for children, make you feel good. But actually looking back, I wouldn't feel that there's, you know, you don't know what it is. We wouldn't call it a guardian angel or whatever. there is is a... You know, that which knows, that which protects and guides, that sometimes consciously you're not aware of it in any real way. Report an error in the passage at 32:57 Highlight the passage at 32:57

33:25 You know, it's not like you're really tuned into it all the time, but you find yourself somehow getting out of situations that are very harmful, that could be very harmful to you, or ways of just having a sense. To not go too far, not do things that are too bad, and ways of guiding you toward that which is truly good. Report an error in the passage at 33:25 Highlight the passage at 33:25

33:58 And through my life, especially as I made a more conscious effort to develop Buddhist meditation and moral commitment, then this sense, this power seemed to be very strong, very real. It's like the powers of goodness are protecting, guiding. You're not just a kind of helpless alien person trying to just make it on your own in some kind of way. Report an error in the passage at 33:58 Highlight the passage at 33:58

34:33 Even though you might emotionally feel like that at times. You can feel pretty much isolated and like you're just trying to Get by, survive as best you can as an individual creature. But actually, on reflection, and as I let go of this conditioned sense of self, me and mine, then more and more that seems the reality. Report an error in the passage at 34:33 Highlight the passage at 34:33

35:04 The true Dhamma, or the Buddha Dhamma Saṅgha, however you want to formulate that, that which is... They're beyond the emotional habits, beyond the personal views. Report an error in the passage at 35:04 Highlight the passage at 35:04

35:25 So mindfulness then is like tuning in to this. It's letting go of the habits, the habitual ways of thinking, the emotional habits that we have. It's not rejection, it's not making value judgments against, for or against. It's merely recognizing ...their limitation, what they are in terms of dharma, and resting or relaxing into an aware, a receptive awareness, Report an error in the passage at 35:25 Highlight the passage at 35:25

35:55 and then using that to investigate the condition of your mind and body in terms of dharma rather than in terms of self or vanity or emotional habits. Report an error in the passage at 35:55 Highlight the passage at 35:55

36:15 And so the Buddha... Ajahn Sumedho said that suffering is the result of attachment to desire. Report an error in the passage at 36:15 Highlight the passage at 36:15

36:26 And so desire is to be understood, and then once you understand that desire is like fire, if you grasp it, it burns you. Report an error in the passage at 36:26 Highlight the passage at 36:26

36:37 If you don't grasp it, then like fire, it disappears. Once its kind of fuel is burned up, it's gone. Where did it go? It just goes, doesn't it? When the fuel's gone, there's no more fire. So you don't have to rush around trying to make it go, put it out. But in just recognizing it, knowing it for what it is, then it burns up. Report an error in the passage at 36:37 Highlight the passage at 36:37

37:06 And when there's no fire burning, then there's what? What is there when the desire has ceased, the cessation of desire? And so we're aware when their desire is present. There's a knowing, isn't there? An intuitive knowing of desire when it has arisen, its presence, and its cessation, and its absence. Report an error in the passage at 37:06 Highlight the passage at 37:06

37:38 And so this is what mindfulness is, the ability to pay attention to the process of arising and ceasing. Report an error in the passage at 37:38 Highlight the passage at 37:38

37:50 It's a sustained awaken-ness, awareness of... Suffering, the rising of suffering, and then its cessation, and then the absence of suffering, or the realization of non-suffering, which is the Eightfold Path. Report an error in the passage at 37:50 Highlight the passage at 37:50

38:13 So then we ask ourselves, is, you know, even though we, like the Buddha, was, after his enlightenment, he still seemed to suffer physically. Report an error in the passage at 38:13 Highlight the passage at 38:13

38:25 You know, he would still have illnesses or backaches or... People could get spread gossip. Disciples could be very stubborn and difficult and had to set up this whole Vinaya discipline rules to try to contain the wild behavior of unmanageable and recalcitrant monks and nuns. Report an error in the passage at 38:25 Highlight the passage at 38:25

38:54 That's frustrating, isn't it? You'd like when you think you just want everybody to be good, work hard, do their best. Be cooperative, pitch in, not complain, get enlightened. I think that would be a nice world to live in, wouldn't it? But as much as, say, here at Amaravati or the other monasteries, I mean, generally people, that's what they're trying to do, but we still manage to irritate the heck out of each other. Report an error in the passage at 38:54 Highlight the passage at 38:54

39:28 Why is that? I mean, we're all good people trying our best. Because we have so many, you know, we have so much karmic experience, habits, reactions, that we need to use, to learn from in our life. So the suffering is, is there to learn from. It's not something we're trying to just, you know, get away from because we don't like it. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

40:01 But we're learning to recognize it, to understand it. To be able to let go of the causes, so that the suffering that we're experiencing ceases, and realizing the cessation of suffering, then we have a clear insight into the path, the Eightfold Path, or the way of non-suffering. Report an error in the passage at 40:01 Highlight the passage at 40:01

40:25 And that we have to realize for ourselves. It's something that you need to know yourself, because if speaking like this is about as clear as you can get, Report an error in the passage at 40:25 Highlight the passage at 40:25

40:36 And then words and descriptions and so forth can only go this far. And then the real practice is with you, awakening, your awakening, your wisdom, your developing the wisdom to see and know things as they are. Report an error in the passage at 40:36 Highlight the passage at 40:36

41:00 And it's very clear, like in the Buddhist teaching, the difference between just the natural, Unsatisfactoriness of the sense world and the fact that it changes all the time, which is the way it is. That's not the suffering that we get rid of. We learn from that. We learn how to endure, how to bear with the changingness and the transience and impermanence of the body, the sensory objects, the emotions. Report an error in the passage at 41:00 Highlight the passage at 41:00

41:39 But the inside of an enlightened mind is seeing that we don't have to create suffering around it. We don't, there's things can still, unpleasant things still happen to us, but we don't, we know, we're increasingly more skilled at not creating suffering about what's happening. Report an error in the passage at 41:39 Highlight the passage at 41:39

42:02 And this is a very powerful realization. Because before, I mean, when I first started, My spiritual journey was, all I wanted to do was not suffer. I wanted to find a way that I could live in a state of bliss. Because I didn't want to suffer. I wanted to live my life in a kind of blissful state. And I thought Buddhist meditation might, you know, once you get the samādhi and all that, then you just live in this kind of blissful realm. Report an error in the passage at 42:02 Highlight the passage at 42:02

42:38 It was the kind of hope, the kind of desire to... To avoid, get out of unpleasantness. And I remember in the early years how my, you know, I really tried very hard to avoid anything that might bring unpleasant, bring problems to me. Not want to have commitments. Avoid emotional relationships. Trying to, I found living alone preferable than living with a group because It was easier to live with me than with others. For me, I could live with myself, and I wasn't as much suffering as living with other people. Report an error in the passage at 42:38 Highlight the passage at 42:38

43:28 And so there was a real kind of selfishness at first, a desire to protect myself and manipulate conditions for my own peace of mind and benefit. Report an error in the passage at 43:28 Highlight the passage at 43:28

43:42 But that also, when you're mindful, you begin to see through that. You see how much suffering you create. How enraged I could get when somebody would disrupt my little havens, my little nests of tranquility, my little gardens of Eden, paradises. Report an error in the passage at 43:42 Highlight the passage at 43:42

44:06 I set myself up and try to protect it from any outside disturbance. How inevitably something would come. Some unwanted, unpleasant thing would attack, and then you'd feel totally outraged. Report an error in the passage at 44:06 Highlight the passage at 44:06