Love and Beauty (1994)

0:00 It's of love and beauty reflected Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:06 on these two experiences of life and also of these are common enough words they used in practically all pop songs and can mean the most banal things or can be taken to a kind of spiritual profundity. Report an error in the passage at 0:06 Highlight the passage at 0:06

0:35 This is This is what the human mind can do. We can trivialize anything, making the most sacred, profound things into just trivia, or we can bring them to, just through our own reflective capacity and intelligence, realize what they actually are in terms of ultimate experience as a human individual. Report an error in the passage at 0:35 Highlight the passage at 0:35

1:14 I think one thing that attracts many of us to Buddha Dhamma is that it does encourage us to contemplate and to look more deeply and not just be caught up in the conditioning of the mind or the superficiality and artificialness that we can kind of become or we can... Report an error in the passage at 1:14 Highlight the passage at 1:14

1:47 look into or try to understand things and get beyond just the superficial interpretations, then, just see life only in terms of sentiments and Report an error in the passage at 1:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47

2:05 of course something in us is never fulfilled, we merely live on the surface, the appearances, It's more like a cosmetic existence. Report an error in the passage at 2:05 Highlight the passage at 2:05

2:21 Beauty is something that we can, in terms of Buddhadharma, we can see beauty as that which tempts and lures us. As we say, we can see it as temptation. That's one way of looking at it, of relating to what is beautiful. Something that will arouse desire, arouse greed, will make us want to To grasp it, to have it for ourselves. So that's one way of relating to beauty is by seeing it only in terms of it tantalizing or creating desire in our minds to possess what is beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 2:21 Highlight the passage at 2:21

3:11 But that is, of course, just the surface of the mind, the conditioned mind that is, say, That doesn't go very deep. It's what is quite natural in terms of reactiveness. Because on the level of just reaction, beauty is the attractive force. Report an error in the passage at 3:11 Highlight the passage at 3:11

3:31 So when we come across it through sight or sound, smell, taste or touch, or even thought itself, then we can easily just want more. We want to have it. We want to possess it. Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

3:52 I want to grasp it. And then the opposite, say, ugliness or repulsiveness is, of course, the reaction to that is to destroy it, to get rid of it, to run away. Report an error in the passage at 3:52 Highlight the passage at 3:52

4:07 But beauty is also a symbol for ultimate reality and for, it's a spiritual reminder. Report an error in the passage at 4:07 Highlight the passage at 4:07

4:22 When we live on this planet, there are so many beautiful things on this planet that we see just on the level of vision. As on a summer's day in Amaravati or in the various scenes of the year, just visual consciousness gives us many kind of beautiful sights that we perceive through our eyes. Report an error in the passage at 4:22 Highlight the passage at 4:22

4:51 And then of course how we respond to that beauty can be just the reactive, addictive tendencies of the mind to just want to get it, to hold it, to capture it, to possess. Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

5:09 But as we see the pain and the suffering that we create by the desire to grasp and hold the beautiful and to make it ours, we begin to... Stop. Report an error in the passage at 5:09 Highlight the passage at 5:09

5:24 Or we no longer feel inclined to want to follow such tendencies or habits, emotional habits, when we are willing to let the beautiful be that, just what it is, the experience of beauty in the moment, the as-is-ness, the such-ness, and also the reminder, that which takes us to beyond just the beautiful form itself. Report an error in the passage at 5:24 Highlight the passage at 5:24

5:52 To see that which is beautiful as that which reminds us of the deathless or the ultimate release from the changing conditions that we are so deluded by, so overwhelmed by our own bodies, by our own emotions, our own mental conditioning. Report an error in the passage at 5:52 Highlight the passage at 5:52

6:52 this might. Sound like we're just playing games with our mind, but actually this leads us to, say, maybe an uplifting of the spirit, if we're not being cynical about it and not just doing it as a game. But as we allow our minds to, say, move toward the best or the ultimate, the most beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 6:52 Highlight the passage at 6:52

7:26 Perfect beauty. Report an error in the passage at 7:26 Highlight the passage at 7:26

7:33 And then just the fact that we can imagine such a possibility. Or when we see something, we see something that is truly beautiful, how our emotional response to it, what is that like? If we can just accept it and appreciate it and be grateful for it. Or, what do we usually do now? We want to take a picture of it. We immediately... Report an error in the passage at 7:33 Highlight the passage at 7:33

8:04 Get out our camera and want to snap a picture, try to capture it on a film, and then the film comes out. It's only a kind of minor thing, even if it is a good photograph, because the desire to hold and to grasp is so strong that sometimes we don't allow ourselves just to accept the fleetingness of a beautiful moment. Report an error in the passage at 8:04 Highlight the passage at 8:04

8:33 and appreciate it in the fact that it is just that and that there's no need to add to it or try to get anything out of it for ourselves or to keep anything of it not Report an error in the passage at 8:33 Highlight the passage at 8:33

8:48 even have to remember it because in its own right it is the reminder that which tells us that the state The ultimate reality is truly beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:11 Or that this universe and this realm, this experience that we're all involved in, its true nature is beauty, is beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 9:11 Highlight the passage at 9:11

9:25 And not just in terms of form or color, but its nature as such. That we have the ability to perceive or to experience and objectify the beautiful. Now Report an error in the passage at 9:25 Highlight the passage at 9:25

9:52 the deluded mind is the mind that when it sees beauty then it just reacts. A reaction is different than a response. I use the word response as a skillful... A way of dealing with, say, such a thing as beauty, or ugliness, or right and wrong, or pleasure and pain. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:21 A response is done mindfully, and it's done with awareness and with wisdom, where a reaction is merely like a condition, like the Pavlovian dog, the habit tendencies. We can be merely reactive creatures. Like the dog, we just get conditioned to salivate when the bell rings. Even when there's no food around, nothing to create salivation, we become conditioned to do these kind of things out of context because this is a reaction that we've developed. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

11:03 So just to say the unreflective human being that just reacts to beauty tends to see it... Just merely as something you want to get. You see the flower, you pick it. You see a beautiful woman. You develop a fantasy life around her. Or you want to touch her or grab her. Or you see a beautiful sunset. You feel a desire to hold on to it. Report an error in the passage at 11:03 Highlight the passage at 11:03

11:37 To try to capture it. And I've noticed this, I used to have this kind of, I used to notice a kind of painful feeling in my mind when I was looking at like beautiful scenery. Because there was, along with this, the tendency to want to hold on to it in some way, even though you know it was impossible to do so. There's no way you can kind of hold on to scenery that you're passing through. Report an error in the passage at 11:37 Highlight the passage at 11:37

12:06 But still, there's this kind of desire, and this desire is trying to keep it, trying to hold it, trying to get it, cling to it in some way. Of course, you can't do it, so you end up feeling exhausted, wondering why you came back from a sightseeing tour totally exhausted, because all the time you're looking at things, and some part of you is always trying to hold on. Report an error in the passage at 12:06 Highlight the passage at 12:06

12:37 I'm afraid you were going to miss out on something. Couldn't get enough of it. I remember when I first went to Switzerland, they kept taking me on tours, sightseeing tours. And Switzerland's so beautiful, everything you look at is beautiful. And you spend the day, they'd drive me around in a car, I'd be looking like this, trying to hold on, keep everything in sight. Report an error in the passage at 12:37 Highlight the passage at 12:37

13:04 Afraid I might miss out on something. A quaint little... Shalai or a mountain peak, only to come back to my room totally exhausted. I don't know why I go on these sightseeing trips. They're a pain to come back tired. Report an error in the passage at 13:04 Highlight the passage at 13:04

13:36 But as we begin to recognize the problem and the cause of suffering, then we can let go of that cause. And then beauty is what speaks to us in its profundity. And we can appreciate it without trying to possess. Report an error in the passage at 13:36 Highlight the passage at 13:36

13:56 And its absence is no longer something that we're going to be upset by the absence of beauty, because we're neither trying to hold it, keep it, make it permanent, nor are we always trying to find it and seek it again. Because as we learn to let go of the causes of suffering, then our mind is open to the flow of life. Report an error in the passage at 13:56 Highlight the passage at 13:56

14:25 The way life actually is. So beauty and ugliness, they teach us important lessons. Report an error in the passage at 14:25 Highlight the passage at 14:25

14:36 Pleasure and pain, right and wrong, these dualisms, the extremities of the conditioned realm can teach us about the way things are. And as we open our heart and our mind to receive these lessons, Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

15:00 What's happened to my... There. Report an error in the passage at 15:00 Highlight the passage at 15:00

15:22 See, Report an error in the passage at 15:22 Highlight the passage at 15:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

15:54 these are deliberately planned pauses. Report an error in the passage at 15:54 Highlight the passage at 15:54

· · · silence, 1 minute

16:30 Now we can... You can stop contemplating my beauty for a moment. The Report an error in the passage at 16:30 Highlight the passage at 16:30

16:47 other subject of love is a word that is very meaningful to us. It's a word that inspires. And it's used for all kinds of things. Report an error in the passage at 16:47 Highlight the passage at 16:47

17:04 And yet we can relate to it as something that is the greatest kind of human experience possible. We can see it in its function as unitive, that which unites, as non-discriminative. When there's love in the heart, then one isn't caught up with clinging to views of critical views or negative views. Thank Report an error in the passage at 17:04 Highlight the passage at 17:04

17:38 you very much. interpretations. When we talk about loving fish and chips. love this and that and love Elvis Presley. Report an error in the passage at 17:38 Highlight the passage at 17:38

18:02 it can mean just a form of greed, just wanting something. Report an error in the passage at 18:02 Highlight the passage at 18:02

18:09 We can see it in its absolute form or its universal or its spiritual aspect. Report an error in the passage at 18:09 Highlight the passage at 18:09

18:22 Now the word itself probably has its roots in probably some form of word meaning greed. From what I've gleaned, its original meaning was maybe more kind of wanting something. Report an error in the passage at 18:22 Highlight the passage at 18:22

18:43 Liking something. But as it's generally used in religious terminology, like when the Christians talk about Christian love, it isn't greed, is it? It's on the level of, say, what we would call mettā, or loving kindness. Because this experience of love is what holds things together. It's the cohesive force in the universe. If there was no love in the universe, I think everything would fall apart. This is just a reflection. Report an error in the passage at 18:43 Highlight the passage at 18:43

19:25 I'm not trying to prove this as a scientist. But just as the experience of life, when there is no love, when we do not feel love for anything, when our life is mainly based on fault-finding, criticisms, seeing what's wrong, wrong obsession with negative things, then it's like. We're no longer radiant beings. We get an ugly appearance. Report an error in the passage at 19:25 Highlight the passage at 19:25

20:01 Our faces become ugly masks of criticism and distaste and disgust. And then that very appearance tends to create aversion in others because That which is ugly and conveys negativity and disgust and aversion makes us want to say we're not attracted to it. We feel repelled by it. So someone who has a loving countenance is a very attractive person, a beautiful presence. Report an error in the passage at 20:01 Highlight the passage at 20:01

20:46 We feel it is just a natural reaction to a loving heart is that we feel attracted to it. We want to go towards it. Then to someone who's filled with hatred and anger, we want to get away, run away, go the opposite direction. That's just the natural reaction to, say, beauty and ugliness or love and hate. Report an error in the passage at 20:46 Highlight the passage at 20:46

21:18 Love also means, it's more banal meaning, is around seeing what we love we want to... We want to hold on to, we want to keep. So that comes from the desire mind, the sense that if we feel this experience of love toward this particular person, then we have the feeling that if we possess them, we own them, then we would have that experience all the time. Report an error in the passage at 21:18 Highlight the passage at 21:18

21:54 Because they make us feel so happy now that if we could really... Report an error in the passage at 21:54 Highlight the passage at 21:54

22:10 possess something means that you no longer can enjoy even that which is you once loved because you're no longer allowing yourself to relate to it in the right way. Report an error in the passage at 22:10 Highlight the passage at 22:10

22:29 So we have these, we've all had these experiences in our lives where we fall in love with somebody and then we try to possess them and they resist it and then we're broken hearted. Report an error in the passage at 22:29 Highlight the passage at 22:29

22:47 Pop songs are all about that. I think most of us have had that kind of suffering in our lives. Isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 22:47 Highlight the passage at 22:47

22:59 It's the ignorance of youth. When we're young, we don't know any better. So when we feel this kind of attraction towards somebody, then we want to get hold of them, grasp them. We get jealous. We get possessive. And those kind of mental states, of course, make us no longer attractive to the other person. Report an error in the passage at 22:59 Highlight the passage at 22:59

23:24 We become ugly and difficult and obnoxious. Report an error in the passage at 23:24 Highlight the passage at 23:24

23:33 So the spiritual goal of love then is to free ourselves from these kind of reactions, negative, unwholesome reactions to that which is beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

23:52 So that our lives are not, we are learning from these experiences and we can therefore change our way of relating. To the world, to the beings, to the things, to the bodies we have, to the experience of life. As we go along, we are willing to learn from our mistakes. Report an error in the passage at 23:52 Highlight the passage at 23:52

24:18 And in order to do that, we need to know, we need to remind ourselves, to remember that love is something that we can't, it's not something that we can kind of... make ourselves feel It's when we really trust and open ourselves and recognize that the objects that we might love are merely remembrances or reminders of the ultimate experience, where Report an error in the passage at 24:18 Highlight the passage at 24:18

24:57 we feel, say, love that is not personal anymore, not bound into the perceptions of self-interest. interest condition, conditionality. As Report an error in the passage at 24:57 Highlight the passage at 24:57

25:19 a Buddhist monk, it's interesting to see what is the love, the great love of a Buddhist monk. Is this a time for confessions? Report an error in the passage at 25:19 Highlight the passage at 25:19

25:40 And from just the experience of this Buddhist monk sitting here, I would say that for me, the love of my life has been the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 25:40 Highlight the passage at 25:40

25:55 And this has... This has been more powerful than, say, any kind of attraction to any individual being or anything, earthly thing. Report an error in the passage at 25:55 Highlight the passage at 25:55

26:07 But it's something that is cultivated too. It didn't just happen that way. It wasn't that I was born with this ability. But it is through the power of meditation and reflection and through the... Report an error in the passage at 26:07 Highlight the passage at 26:07

26:27 Put it into practice, the Buddhist teachings, that this kind of love developed. One can call it faith. It's a form of faith, but it is also a commitment. One wants, when you love something, then you commit yourself to it. You want to serve. You want to be the servant. Report an error in the passage at 26:27 Highlight the passage at 26:27

26:55 It's interesting when one of the things that, one of the, this, this, Picture over here on the left of Buddha Dasa, Bhikkhu who died last year in Thailand. He called himself Buddha Dasa, servant of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 26:55 Highlight the passage at 26:55

27:12 And in Thailand, there is one American monk there that loved to translate it as slave of the Buddha. He said Buddha Dasa is sometimes used for slave in Thai, or it can mean servant. Report an error in the passage at 27:12 Highlight the passage at 27:12

27:31 And then... Here in England, sometimes people don't like to be considered a servant of anyone, not to mention a slave. So we don't use the slave interpretation. They say, we are the slaves of the Buddha, which sounds sick. Report an error in the passage at 27:31 Highlight the passage at 27:31

27:53 Servant is getting... People don't like to think of themselves as servants either. But I do. I like to... I think that's a position that I respect. To see if I contemplate my position, I think of myself as a servant of the Buddha rather than, well, I'm a people that many Western Buddhists don't even want to be considered Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 27:53 Highlight the passage at 27:53

28:22 We practice meditation or we are meditators and we use Buddhist meditation techniques, but they don't feel any love maybe for the Buddha or the Dhamma or the Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 28:22 Highlight the passage at 28:22

28:42 Also, this love can be realized towards an individual, such as the teacher, Ajahn Chah, towards another human being. But this love was a love based on gratitude for the teaching, for the kindness, for the compassion that he showed me, accepting me, recalcitrant, difficult American that I was. And having to put up with some of my ways and clumsiness for years and so forth and yet there was always this willingness to support, help and encourage me. Report an error in the passage at 28:42 Highlight the passage at 28:42

29:30 So when one looked back over the years of living with such a teacher then this sense of gratitude developed. Gratitude is a kind of ...of love. It comes from the heart. But to develop this, one needs to remember the good things of one's life. The love of one's parents. When I think back of my, you know, the good things that my parents have done for me. Report an error in the passage at 29:30 Highlight the passage at 29:30

30:09 The kind of efforts they put into helping me and supporting me. And taking care of me, loving me as a child, protecting me. Then this feeling of gratitude arises. Report an error in the passage at 30:09 Highlight the passage at 30:09

30:28 Thinking in terms of being a member of the Saṅgha, or those who practice the teachings of the Buddha. Then one feels this love of all those people who have helped me over the years. The lay people who... Put food in the alms bowl, all the people that helped me to, the civil servants in the Thai civil service that gave me residence visas and let me stay in the country and all the other generous acts and encouragement one received from various lay groups, lay people or the members of the monastic song itself. Report an error in the passage at 30:28 Highlight the passage at 30:28

31:18 So this is thinking in a positive way in terms of the beauty that one has experienced in life from other human beings, or from the Buddha, or by really noting the beauty that surrounds one in one's daily life. Report an error in the passage at 31:18 Highlight the passage at 31:18

31:41 Now I noticed in... The tendency of my mind was not to feel like this but to be one who was more aware of what was wrong. I remember I used to wake up in the morning with this feeling of dread all the time. What's going to happen today? Meaning that I was expecting something bad might happen today. Report an error in the passage at 31:41 Highlight the passage at 31:41

32:08 Or I think of difficulties that I might have to face or decisions I might have to make. or scenes and situations that would put me on the spot or cause me some unpleasant feelings and a feeling of just not wanting to participate in life sometimes. Report an error in the passage at 32:08 Highlight the passage at 32:08

32:31 Remember, as a young person wanting to find a way of life which I could avoid responsibility and which these kind of experiences would be at the minimum where I would say, Report an error in the passage at 32:31 Highlight the passage at 32:31

32:48 Not be in a place where I'd have to be making decisions or be put on the spot or be in difficult scenes or involved in complex ways with other people and situations. Report an error in the passage at 32:48 Highlight the passage at 32:48

33:10 So there was, say, when I found myself in a situation where I was involved and had to come forth in various ways and take risks and make mistakes and be blamed and be involved in this human realm, this society. Report an error in the passage at 33:10 Highlight the passage at 33:10

33:31 the mind would, I mean, I'd wake up in the morning and think, oh, another. I can hardly wait to die. When is this going to be over with? There's a kind of grumbling. Report an error in the passage at 33:31 Highlight the passage at 33:31

33:49 Oh, another problem. Oh, here comes another one. Looking at people as just an endless series of problems, seeing it only in terms of it's going to inconvenience me or I'm going to be put on the spot or I'm in a position where I could be blamed for something. One didn't want to be blamed or criticized. Report an error in the passage at 33:49 Highlight the passage at 33:49

34:18 So noting these tendencies, these kind of emotional tendencies. And this negativeness towards life, I realized that I didn't really notice the beauty of my life because these negative reactions tended to dominate my conscious experience. They tend to kind of hang around you in your mind. They kind of go along with you. Wherever you go, they kind of accompany you. Report an error in the passage at 34:18 Highlight the passage at 34:18

34:50 And you can even go on a holiday and take them on your holiday if you want. And it goes on and on like that. Say, when one was a child, you didn't have that problem. You were more with the things as they happened. More happiness when there was happy conditions and unhappiness when there was unhappy conditions. Report an error in the passage at 34:50 Highlight the passage at 34:50

35:14 But there wasn't the sense of... The ego hadn't become kind of solidified and fixed and habituated towards, say, worry, anxiety, resentment. Report an error in the passage at 35:14 Highlight the passage at 35:14

35:33 So then the practice of meditation was quite a revelation because it says here and now be with the present. And of course at first this meant being with some of these negative states because one was so easily producing these negative states that at first these negative states seemed to be what was present. Report an error in the passage at 35:33 Highlight the passage at 35:33

35:57 And so you learned how to say bear them. ...recognize them, but they are impermanent. And as we begin to let go of the causes that produce this negativity, then we are, say, aware of the beauty and the blessings that surround us. Report an error in the passage at 35:57 Highlight the passage at 35:57

36:18 And I remember waking one morning in my Kuti meditation hut and feeling, and this morning, particular morning, I had this, instead of being negative... Or feeling, oh, not another day, I wonder what's going to happen today, kind of feeling. I woke up and I had this sense of like I was in, like one of these space travelers. Report an error in the passage at 36:18 Highlight the passage at 36:18

36:43 I wasn't on any, I could just kind of float in the air. There was this feeling of I could flop this way and I wouldn't hurt myself, or I could flop that way. His whole kind of blessedness, sanctity was surrounding me. And I could just kind of relax and just let go of everything. And whatever way I happened to fall, it would be all right. I wouldn't be hurt. And it was such a pleasure to wake up and feel like this. Report an error in the passage at 36:43 Highlight the passage at 36:43

37:17 This was quite wonderful because usually waking up involved the other. So this was like a sign. One has these signs as one meditates of some kind of change that will take place or has taken place. Report an error in the passage at 37:17 Highlight the passage at 37:17

37:43 And then, of course, more and more one became aware of things, just flashes of things, and just the way the sunlight. You didn't have to go to Switzerland and look at majestic mountain scenery. I remember going once to the Grand Canyon. Somebody took me on an airplane flight through the Grand Canyon. Fantastic experience. Going on this little airplane as it flew right into the canyon. Report an error in the passage at 37:43 Highlight the passage at 37:43

38:12 See all these magnificent colors and marvelous, majestic scenery of the Grand Canyon. Before, one would maybe go to... I want to see the beauty of some absolutely fantastic place, where the travel brochures, what they advise you to admire and see, and everybody says it's fantastic and marvelous. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:42 But after this experience, then one began to see that around one, not in terms of fantastic scenery, but the beauty that is surrounding us in ways that sometimes we aren't aware of or we don't notice. Because of our tendency to be obsessed with the negative conditions. Report an error in the passage at 38:42 Highlight the passage at 38:42

39:08 And so then because of this, the way of life or the movement of one's life was much more joyful. And one didn't feel a need to kind of go anyplace or do anything because one's daily life was enough. There is enough. Blessedness and beauty and goodness in just daily life, that one didn't feel a need to go and look for it in some other place or through some more extreme experience. Report an error in the passage at 39:08 Highlight the passage at 39:08

39:53 But of course the human condition tends to forget. This is where we develop means to keep remembering. That's why we keep saying here and now. Be mindful here now. We get bored with this kind of advice. Or we kind of think of it as somebody's just saying the same thing over and over again. But what we're really doing is reminding or remembering because we forget. It's easy to fall right back into the old... Report an error in the passage at 39:53 Highlight the passage at 39:53

40:48 easy to just, when some unpleasant or unwanted situation arises, then of course it's easy to just go into worry and negativity and anxiety about it, because that is how the mind is conditioned. Generally it has that tendency, that's what habit is, it's what we're used to. Report an error in the passage at 40:48 Highlight the passage at 40:48

41:13 So this is where the faith in the Dhamma, the love of the Buddha Dhamma Saṅgha, the great love is cultivated, is remembered, not cultivated as a kind of artificial thing, but a reminder of it. Report an error in the passage at 41:13 Highlight the passage at 41:13

41:41 And willing to keep reminding yourself of it, to keep, say, bearing with and enduring the unpleasant experience of life, but letting it go, letting it be what it is, but allowing it to go, and to be able to fill the mind with, say, beauty. Because we can. We can create beauty in our mind. We can respond to the ugly, to the unpleasant in a beautiful way. Report an error in the passage at 41:41 Highlight the passage at 41:41

42:31 The mind, say, of a human being has this ability to create. It's a mind that can look at things from different angles. We can say that the results of good meditation practice is we find a very flexible mind. It's malleable. We're not kind of fixed. We're not holding on to one particular view, one position on life, one thing. Report an error in the passage at 42:31 Highlight the passage at 42:31

42:59 And this is what I think people get confused when they talk about religion, because usually what we perceive religion as being is as a commitment to a particular viewpoint, a particular doctrine, a particular convention. Report an error in the passage at 42:59 Highlight the passage at 42:59

43:18 So we do find that even though Report an error in the passage at 43:18 Highlight the passage at 43:18

43:49 know, so-and-so is a Buddhist, and she... I always respected Buddhism, but, you know, now she's... She's really, she's so bitter and so critical of everything else that, you know, I've lost all faith in Buddhism because she, I mean, she's been a Buddhist for years now, and look at her. Report an error in the passage at 43:49 Highlight the passage at 43:49

44:18 Narrow-minded, bigoted, full of resentment and bitterness. I remember when I was president of the Buddhist Society. Things that used to happen there. People would say, I didn't think Buddhists would act like this. Because we perceive a Buddhist as maybe a kind of Buddha, somebody who is absolutely perfect and never goes off the track. Report an error in the passage at 44:18 Highlight the passage at 44:18

44:50 He's already there permanently enlightened and doesn't have any bad habits to overwhelm them. Report an error in the passage at 44:50 Highlight the passage at 44:50

45:00 But also, as Buddhists, we can get very attached to views and opinions about Buddhism or schools or sects or techniques. And this attachment, of course, is the problem, is where the suffering is. Because we might be attached to something very beautiful, but then, of course, what happens? We don't become beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 45:00 Highlight the passage at 45:00

45:30 We can become prejudiced. Bias. Narrow-minded. Not because of the convention, but because of attachment to it. So this we need to contemplate and learn how to, say, not attach, but to be open to things, to be able to use a convention for reflection, as a tool to reflect from, as a guide. Report an error in the passage at 45:30 Highlight the passage at 45:30

46:06 As a remembrance, as a reminder, rather than as a position that one is taking and one is identified with. And this seems to me to be the challenge of our age, isn't it? Where humanity, we really, this kind of mind is possible, but it's not highly developed yet in human beings in general. Generally human beings, are very fixed very attached to to political views or ethnic views or prejudices or opinions and Report an error in the passage at 46:06 Highlight the passage at 46:06

46:54 we can see that some of the those opinions and views are maybe even quite good or right or beautiful but still the attachment creates this this ugliness this pain this dukkha because when there's attachment then the love Report an error in the passage at 46:54 Highlight the passage at 46:54

47:13 That love only Report an error in the passage at 47:13 Highlight the passage at 47:13

47:29 operates through non-attachment. When there's attachment, then the love is gone. And therefore, the beauty that we're attached to is corrupted, or we're corrupted by the attachment to it. Report an error in the passage at 47:29 Highlight the passage at 47:29

47:49 So this is for contemplation and consideration for you. The love, say, in your life, in the beauty of your life, and not to see it in terms of a lack of it, but begin to, say, notice it more, rather than think that there's something missing, or that you've got to find it. It's not a matter of finding it somewhere else, but in recognizing it, realizing it. Report an error in the passage at 47:49 Highlight the passage at 47:49

48:36 One thing, one of the great obstructions, of course, is pride. This is something we all have to deal with, is pride and conceit. This is an attachment, a view of ourselves, a kind of wanting to be right. or to Report an error in the passage at 48:36 Highlight the passage at 48:36

49:10 To hold ourselves in some special position in a relationship to this universe and to this society, the Report an error in the passage at 49:10 Highlight the passage at 49:10

49:22 sense of oneself, the ego, and the attachment to that, of course, is destructive of this love and this beauty, or it precludes it. Report an error in the passage at 49:22 Highlight the passage at 49:22

49:56 Pride is, I think it's hard even to admit it sometimes, because... They can have a kind of pride thinking that you're not proud. Report an error in the passage at 49:56 Highlight the passage at 49:56

50:20 We can be quite convinced that we're not proud. We can always recognize the feeling when we feel in regards to our own self-importance and our attachment to things or to positions or to people or to ideas. Report an error in the passage at 50:20 Highlight the passage at 50:20

50:51 is not to destroy this but to recognize it. And this is very important to say end this talk with is that the way to relate to love and beauty through freeing yourselves from that which destroys or that which prevents or prevents Report an error in the passage at 50:51 Highlight the passage at 50:51

51:17 you from experiencing these things It is through this attachment and the force of habit. And so the aim is not to try to annihilate or destroy this, but to recognize it. Because as we awaken the mind to the habitual tendencies, not to criticize them or to make any kind of value judgment about that we shouldn't be like this or shouldn't have them. Report an error in the passage at 51:17 Highlight the passage at 51:17

51:52 The aim is to just recognize them, to know them, to see them, and to experience the result of those attachments. Then we have the insight. We have the insight knowledge to let go of the causes. So we're not just creating a kind of viewpoint that we should get rid of pride or that we shouldn't be proud because that's still the same problem, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 51:52 Highlight the passage at 51:52

52:23 We can be proud that we're so humble and that we're so willing to recognize our own pride. And this goes on and on like this. It just gets more and more confusing until you realize it's not a matter of approval or disapproval but of recognition and of seeing the result of attachment to the conditions, to the habits. Report an error in the passage at 52:23 Highlight the passage at 52:23

52:55 And then to trust, like waking up in the kuti, in this feeling of, whatever way I fall, you know, I'm all right. There's this blessedness surrounding me, this safety net. Because, and so I don't have to, I'm not in the jungle anymore. I'm not just an animal just trying to survive in a jungle, survival of the fittest. Report an error in the passage at 52:55 Highlight the passage at 52:55

53:23 And around the next bush is something going to, some animal is going to kill me or harm me. Report an error in the passage at 53:23 Highlight the passage at 53:23

53:34 So it's out of the jungle, which is the symbol for the realm of fear, where there is nothing to trust and you've just got to be always alert and ready for the next possible horrible thing that can hurt you or harm you or kill you, to this realization. Report an error in the passage at 53:34 Highlight the passage at 53:34

53:59 That's based on faith, trust, and then this willingness to relax and watch and learn. Because still, the habit tendencies will arise, but now we're looking at them. We're no longer in the jungle, endangered by these conditions, by these savage creatures. Report an error in the passage at 53:59 Highlight the passage at 53:59

54:25 We can see them in terms of they come and they go, they arise and they cease. We're no longer taking the position that we are a victim or possible object of that kind of activity because what we call it transcendent or it's reflecting, we're seeing it in terms of its characteristic of impermanence. Report an error in the passage at 54:25 Highlight the passage at 54:25

54:58 The religious path, the religious conventions help us, if used properly, used rightly, will help us to remind us of that. Report an error in the passage at 54:58 Highlight the passage at 54:58

55:08 So in our daily life we find that we are surrounded by that which is blessed, that which is beautiful and good. Love is something that isn't a kind of emotion that we experience. Report an error in the passage at 55:08 Highlight the passage at 55:08

55:31 But it's a way of relating. Report an error in the passage at 55:31 Highlight the passage at 55:31

55:37 And instead of it being something that increases our sense of separation through our wanting to hold on and cling to the object of love, we are that itself. Report an error in the passage at 55:37 Highlight the passage at 55:37

55:53 That's our nature. And therefore, it's not a matter of clinging, but of trusting. Report an error in the passage at 55:53 Highlight the passage at 55:53

56:03 So I want to offer this as your Sunday afternoon... August the 7th reflection and take away this theme of love and beauty and use it just to see what, just to remind yourself of, say, to not, when you do get caught up into the stress, difficulties, complexities of modern life, take time to just stop. Report an error in the passage at 56:03 Highlight the passage at 56:03

56:40 And rest and have faith in that, in the Buddha Dhamma Saṅgha, or in that which is ultimately true and real, which isn't this or that thing, but Report an error in the passage at 56:40 Highlight the passage at 56:40

56:57 which is your true nature and which you can realize as you do relax and notice and awaken to the flow of your own conscious experience. Report an error in the passage at 56:57 Highlight the passage at 56:57

57:13 So I think now it's time for tea, and I want to invite you all to have a cup of tea, and in about 15 minutes I will ring the bell or do something to draw your attention. If you have any questions, you are invited to ask them for discussion at that time. Report an error in the passage at 57:13 Highlight the passage at 57:13

57:39 Yeah, that's okay. Report an error in the passage at 57:39 Highlight the passage at 57:39

57:46 Well, it would be, say, if you are obsessed by those photographs. Or every time you look at them, you're going to come to some kind of obsessive emotion. But, I mean, it's not that I'm against photography. I wasn't criticizing photography, but just pointing out the tendency of the modern person to want to fix everything. Report an error in the passage at 57:46 Highlight the passage at 57:46

58:19 And, of course, the modern technology kind of accommodates that desire. They've got marvelous cameras now that can zoom in on this or that and do all kinds of things. But I find that in the long run, it's really the memory. Report an error in the passage at 58:19 Highlight the passage at 58:19

58:56 One isn't so eager to remember things as... memory or the Report an error in the passage at 58:56 Highlight the passage at 58:56

59:02 I appreciate the way things are. I had this before, about four years ago, three years ago, I met Father B. Griffith in Berkeley, California. And he was staying in a Korean Zen center in Berkeley. And I happened to be in that area at the time, so I went to see him. And he was laying in a kind of bed. He looked very cheerful and he was telling me about his stroke. And he said the previous year he'd had this stroke and that he'd lost a lot of his memory. Report an error in the passage at 59:02 Highlight the passage at 59:02

59:43 And then he said, what a glorious thing it was. Because he said before he could remember so many things, now he'd forgotten it all and he was much happier. Report an error in the passage at 59:43 Highlight the passage at 59:43

1:00:04 So, I mean, he had a way of... I've seen right in the moment, you see, that it's all right, you know, where, say, if he resented, he'd think, oh, I'm all down, my memory's gone, and then he would feel bitter and threatened by it. I was impressed that he had the wisdom to see that it was, in a way, a kind of blessing. You know, he must have, you know, a very old... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:32 He was a very intelligent, intellectual person and must have accumulated an enormous amount of information in his lifetime. And having that buzzing around in your head in your 85 or 90 was a relief to get kind of let it go. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:32 Highlight the passage at 1:00:32

1:00:54 But Report an error in the passage at 1:00:54 Highlight the passage at 1:00:54

1:00:57 he would seem to be, you know, really appreciative of the present, of the present moment, his own. religious, spiritual path had brought him to that. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:57 Highlight the passage at 1:00:57

1:01:19 Go ahead. I Report an error in the passage at 1:01:19 Highlight the passage at 1:01:19

1:01:42 think so. I mean, like, I've, it was, and Report an error in the passage at 1:01:42 Highlight the passage at 1:01:42

1:01:57 it varies. I mean, it's something you can't kind of, I mean, like you can, you can intellectually, you know, understand it. But as an actual feeling from the heart, one just, I think it comes through the result of meditation, as you realize the good result of it, your love of that, of the Dhamma, and of gratitude, appreciation. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:57 Highlight the passage at 1:01:57

1:02:33 And I noticed that, like some people, I mean, I've just, you know, over the years, being a monk for so long and having... I've trained monks and seen the results that it's also very individual. It's something you can't kind of transfer to somebody else because I can maybe inspire somebody else, but that's not it. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:33 Highlight the passage at 1:02:33

1:03:05 Inspiration kind of maybe gets them going or gets them interested, but the real thing has to come from the heart itself. And, uh... Report an error in the passage at 1:03:05 Highlight the passage at 1:03:05

1:03:21 And it's something that you have to realize for yourself. And some people seem to have to realize that through other people. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:21 Highlight the passage at 1:03:21

1:03:32 I didn't have a tremendous respect and gratitude to Ajahn Chah. But I think mainly there was just a real love. I mean, from the first time I heard of Buddhism, there was a strong feeling of recognition. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:32 Highlight the passage at 1:03:32

1:04:00 I don't think too many... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:00 Highlight the passage at 1:04:00

1:04:22 even though I've tried to look it Report an error in the passage at 1:04:22 Highlight the passage at 1:04:22

1:04:31 much on Buddhism in English. So you're more or less, take the subject of Eastern religions and Vedanta and all that, and which I liked and appreciated, but it didn't have the same Report an error in the passage at 1:04:31 Highlight the passage at 1:04:31

1:04:51 it is. Previous life, karma, I don't know. But other people can, you know, not feel anything towards Buddhism. Like trying to tell my mother about Buddhism was, you know, like trying to describe life on Mars or something. She just couldn't relate to it. It didn't inspire, didn't have the slightest interest in words like nibbāna or... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:51 Highlight the passage at 1:04:51

1:05:25 Buddha or anything like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:25 Highlight the passage at 1:05:25

1:05:39 I don't think she was. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:39 Highlight the passage at 1:05:39

1:05:50 Well, that's, you know, that's a possibility. Because, I mean, it is, you say, I wasn't in a situation where Buddhism was much of an alternative. In Seattle, Washington in the 1950s, there weren't, there wasn't like, you know, one had much of a, you know, I was a brought up in a very kind of middle-class was basically Christian. it's quite, know, in terms of congruity, it's incongruous to the kind of... Report an error in the passage at 1:05:50 Highlight the passage at 1:05:50

1:06:36 Whose thing Report an error in the passage at 1:06:36 Highlight the passage at 1:06:36

1:06:42 was it? Report an error in the passage at 1:06:42 Highlight the passage at 1:06:42

1:07:08 I think it's, if it's merely a concept, well, then it is sentimental then. But it's usually... The concept takes you to more on the intuitive level. Like I would call it dharma, just as giving it some name or some way of relating to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:08 Highlight the passage at 1:07:08

1:07:32 But, I mean, a Christian would say God, maybe. But it's from the heart. It's not just a sentiment, a nice idea that you like. Because it comes from here. And this is where, you know, one feels that the words are not terribly important. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:32 Highlight the passage at 1:07:32

1:07:58 It's not, you know, whether you're going to argue about God or Dharma, that to me is missing the point. Because they're just words, they're sounds. But they're pointing to something, to what is ultimately real, to reality itself. And that you know on an intuitive level. And the intellectual perceptions are merely ways of helping you to remember or to let go of the attachments that block it off, that obstruct you from that realization. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:58 Highlight the passage at 1:07:58

1:08:48 So I was quite... I'm quite pleased with myself. Last April I went to this intermonastic conference in Italy and is at the San Silvestro Benedictine Monastery near Fabriano and it was one of these magnificent old monasteries like in the name of the rose, you know, kind of like a maze of buildings. marble corridors and grand architecture and then they have this meeting with maybe a hundred or so there were a few Buddhists but most of them were Benedictines and Franciscans and just noting how I could talk about God without feeling any Report an error in the passage at 1:08:48 Highlight the passage at 1:08:48

1:09:52 And feel confident in knowing what I was talking about rather than, well I used to feel, that word used to bother me a lot. Because I never liked the Christian view of God that I was brought up with. I never liked that. That didn't, that didn't, that just left me in a state of doubt. The kind of attitude and views of God that I was brought up with. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:52 Highlight the passage at 1:09:52

1:10:24 In my family, in the church. And so, because of the nature of the mind, then the word God itself would always bring back those kind of perceptions, those kind of memories, the kind of smugness and sanctimoniousness of those people. And God is a kind of father up in the sky that is always watching you. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:24 Highlight the passage at 1:10:24

1:10:54 kind of thing. And how you're always, all your, whenever you do something wrong, it hurts him. You're always feeling guilty. And it's kind of a, you know, it's a child's God, a child's view of God. So God was not evolved for me other than as a child's view of God. And my mother, I mean, she believed in a child's view of God, really, and the way she talked, anyway, was very much like. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:54 Highlight the passage at 1:10:54

1:11:26 He loves me, or I hope he loves me, and things like this. But then through Buddhist meditation, one had a kind of intuition, even then, I remember, an intuition that God wasn't that way, that that wasn't really God, that child's view. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:26 Highlight the passage at 1:11:26

1:11:54 And so I remember telling my sister once that, That when she was disturbed by my becoming a Buddhist, and I said, well, I think I have more faith in God than you do, because I don't feel that, I feel this is a good thing to do, and it's not something that would be, that God would despise. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:54 Highlight the passage at 1:11:54

1:12:21 Where my sister was very upset, feeling that I was going off the track, leaving the fold, that I would end up in hell or someplace like this. And so there's this sense of God as his group, and you had to kind of conform and do and follow and obey, and then we all would end up in the same nice place with that God forever. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:21 Highlight the passage at 1:12:21

1:12:44 And we just couldn't relate to that as being real or true. But in terms of dharma, Report an error in the passage at 1:12:44 Highlight the passage at 1:12:44

1:12:58 Something in us, isn't it? There's something in each one of us. Try to recognize that in you. Not the questioning mind, not the self-view, not the critic, not the intellect, but there's something that is intuitive and awake. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:58 Highlight the passage at 1:12:58

1:13:25 And that brings you to Amaravati on Sunday afternoons. That makes you sit on a meditation retreat for 10 days with sore knees. And that keeps you going in some way. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:25 Highlight the passage at 1:13:25

1:13:41 You know, no matter how your mind might get caught in doubt and disappointment, despair around maybe your own spiritual, what you think you are as a spiritual success, don't believe it. Don't believe that kind of... Report an error in the passage at 1:13:41 Highlight the passage at 1:13:41

1:14:00 That's a conditioning of the mind, doesn't it? But in that, it's like trusting in no thing. And it's interesting to think of, like the Roman Catholics now, there's this God is no thing in some of the theologians. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:00 Highlight the passage at 1:14:00

1:14:25 And then this vicar that was kicked out of his parish down in Sussex recently, Anthony Freeman, poor guy. And he wasn't saying he didn't believe in God as that. He's questioning. He's questioning. He's looking. He's not just kind of snap to and say, Do you believe in God? Yes, sir. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:25 Highlight the passage at 1:14:25

1:14:54 Sometimes Report an error in the passage at 1:14:54 Highlight the passage at 1:14:54

1:14:59 you think that's what they want, don't you? Do you believe in God? Yes, sir. You click your heels. Right, Report an error in the passage at 1:14:59 Highlight the passage at 1:14:59

1:15:25 that's the actual literal interpretation of the word religio, the Latin. It means like binding. So like a religion is like a bond. You're binding yourself to maybe a convention that is Report an error in the passage at 1:15:25 Highlight the passage at 1:15:25

1:15:50 It's a vehicle or a convention that takes you back or to the ultimate realization. But it's not binding yourself to a convention as a personal position. But it's, or one can see it as like a vehicle. Like they call them the yanas in Pāli, the Mahāyāna, Hinayana, Vajrayana. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:50 Highlight the passage at 1:15:50

1:16:17 And a yana is a vehicle. And a Hinayana is a small one. Mahāyāna is a big one. But it's still, it's going to the same place. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:17 Highlight the passage at 1:16:17

1:16:35 But then the ego can get confused over, well, should I be in the big one or the little one? Report an error in the passage at 1:16:35 Highlight the passage at 1:16:35

1:16:56 Slave of ego. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:56 Highlight the passage at 1:16:56

1:17:01 We become enslaved, don't we? Enslaved of the ego. Or pride. Pride is a kind of slavery. We become enslaved. go. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:01 Highlight the passage at 1:17:01

1:17:12 slaved To our pride. It's a real slavery when you really look at it and see it. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:12 Highlight the passage at 1:17:12

1:17:25 Where a servant is like a servant of the Buddha, servant of the dharma, servant of the saṅgha. You think of, you know, what a lovely thing to be able to serve something and to give service rather than seeing it as demeaning you. You know, I'm not anyone's servant. servant you know then The conceit of I'm not going to be a servant to anybody is another conceit. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:25 Highlight the passage at 1:17:25

1:18:13 Because when we, those kind of attitudes, if I'm nobody's servant, it's always, we don't know who we are. We don't want to think of ourselves in a kind of demeaning position. We like to think of ourselves as equal. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:13 Highlight the passage at 1:18:13

1:18:31 I'm just as good as anyone else. And maybe we don't like to think I'm better than everyone else. I mean, there's a few people that like to think that. But even though, you know, sometimes we do feel that way, generally when we speak, we would never say that. I'm better than everyone else. Especially here in England. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:31 Highlight the passage at 1:18:31

1:18:57 But we're all the same. I'm just as good as anyone. Or there's a fear that we might be inferior, that I might not be as good as. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:57 Highlight the passage at 1:18:57

1:19:13 And so you can see this operating. I mean, I've noticed in my own way I tend to react to things. Sometimes there is a conceit and that kind of feeling of superiority in certain situations. And other times one feels very There's a feeling of insecurity and inferiority, and rarely is there a real feeling of equality, that you're actually emotionally feeling everybody's just the same. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:13 Highlight the passage at 1:19:13

1:19:48 But I notice the emotional reactions tend to shift, and usually the tendency, I noticed in my own mind, is to have the feeling of inferiority, insecurity, not knowing. You know, feeling ill at ease or threatened by somebody else. But these kind of emotional reactions are, you know, I used to. What I used to do is try to just suppress them. And then, but the result wasn't. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:48 Highlight the passage at 1:19:48

1:20:34 It still seemed to feed the problem. It didn't diminish it. But it was through total acceptance of those feelings, just recognizing them, not making anything around them. It's the way it is, this moment, it's this way. And then you're also, like I use the sound of silence and the breath, to bring attention to that which has nothing to do with the sense of yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:34 Highlight the passage at 1:20:34

1:21:12 And that helps to say, let go of the perceptions of yourself. It's not a repressive way. I mean, if you're doing it only to avoid or get rid of, then it doesn't work. But if it's done through mindfulness, wisdom, then it works very well. So then you're aware very much of the emptiness of the mind. The spaciousness of mind in which you learn not to create yourself. And Report an error in the passage at 1:21:12 Highlight the passage at 1:21:12

1:21:54 then the emotional reactions can be accepted and resolved in the present. One feels able to do that. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:54 Highlight the passage at 1:21:54

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:22:59 this is a... Report an error in the passage at 1:22:59 Highlight the passage at 1:22:59

1:23:04 The problem always is that we tend to, when it's directed at somebody else and then it's returned, it's so kind of marvelous that it's hard to keep it in perspective. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:04 Highlight the passage at 1:23:04

1:23:27 Where it's unrequited, then the suffering helps us to keep, maybe want to put it in perspective. But where it's required, then... Then it's irresistible, unless you have a greater love, you see, so that, like, not towards another person, but maybe, like, towards the dhamma. But in that relationship between two people is also, there is a, you know, when it doesn't get involved in Self-views, then there's a purity there. You know, it's pure. But then it easily goes into demands and, I mean, the emotions tend to, immature emotions tend to easily take over. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:27 Highlight the passage at 1:23:27

1:24:33 And it's highly, in the Western world, we've exalted this kind of, you know, just the legends of... The romantic legends of European civilization makes romance into an all-spiritual path. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:33 Highlight the passage at 1:24:33

1:25:00 I read Joseph Campbell's books, Creative Mythology. He kind of talks about the legends of Tristan and Isolde and Heloise and Abelard. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:00 Highlight the passage at 1:25:00

1:25:18 The romantic legends. And it's interesting to see that these legends are... They're never successful. They always end up in death. Not in consummation. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:18 Highlight the passage at 1:25:18

1:25:42 So when somebody... So, you know, the romance drops as soon as they get married and have to deal with cooking and... Report an error in the passage at 1:25:42 Highlight the passage at 1:25:42

1:25:57 But Report an error in the passage at 1:25:57 Highlight the passage at 1:25:57

1:26:06 it is interesting kind of human experience. And that kind of love as a path can be very attractive and very exalted, very much so. But in, say, in monasticism, you... Report an error in the passage at 1:26:06 Highlight the passage at 1:26:06

1:26:41 It's interesting within Christian monasticism, like with nuns, they try to, the brides of Jesus, and yet you talk to some Christian nuns, they really feel that, and they oftentimes get very disappointed, because maybe when they enter the convent, that's quite a strong sentiment in their mind, but the realization of that can be very disappointing, because maybe emotionally they aren't, Report an error in the passage at 1:26:41 Highlight the passage at 1:26:41

1:27:10 There's still maybe girls looking for the romantic high, where in the actual, with meditation practice, you're freeing the emotions from the conditioned, from the immature conditioning of them, and the expectations and demands of, or the emotional kind of... Static problems that a person can have, you're releasing them, you're releasing those obstructions. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:10 Highlight the passage at 1:27:10

1:27:49 And the thing is that the human mind is, like we can realize a universal. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:49 Highlight the passage at 1:27:49

1:28:03 So say the human side of you is conditioned into thinking, thoughts, concepts. Emotional reactions, that's the conditioning of the mind, those are mental conditions. But underline it, or the background or the underlying reality is pure and blissful, luminous mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:03 Highlight the passage at 1:28:03

1:28:31 And so the... The concepts, the conventions we have are, say, like with the Four Noble Truths teaching, that is to get us to contemplate the nature of suffering so that we see the end of it in the mind and we're letting go. Rather than just being caught up with reacting to suffering of any sort, we're actually letting ourselves suffer to see. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:31 Highlight the passage at 1:28:31

1:29:03 To see its pattern and then the cessation of it. And then through that, the realization of the cessation or the non-attachment to the conditions or the unconditioned, realizing the unconditioned or the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:03 Highlight the passage at 1:29:03

1:29:30 And that's, say, then you're... That isn't a personal thing, and that's not dependent on your brain or your viewpoint on things. It's where you realize the universal, the one, rather than being bound into the conditioning of your mind and emotions. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:30 Highlight the passage at 1:29:30

1:30:09 So the freedom, the liberation, salvation, All these words, enlightenment, if it's real enlightenment or salvation or liberation, freedom, then that's where the point is and the realization. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:09 Highlight the passage at 1:30:09

1:30:34 Then the sense of I am somebody who was born and I will die, that is merely conventional thinking. It's no longer we build our self-view from those perceptions. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:34 Highlight the passage at 1:30:34

1:30:50 Because you find, and I find now just a sense of I was born and I will die, even though that's conventional language. It doesn't have the same impact it did when you actually believed in yourself as somebody, a person who was actually born and who in the future will die. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:50 Highlight the passage at 1:30:50

1:31:12 Because that's not really how it is. That's conventional reality and that's how people think, but that's not how it really is. Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:12 Highlight the passage at 1:31:12

1:31:38 Well, it's a word that means everything and no thing. It's a marvelous word. The way it is, the law of nature, the laws of nature, or the natural way. But nature is another word in English that we don't take to its ultimate. Because we think she's natural, meaning she's... Report an error in the passage at 1:31:38 Highlight the passage at 1:31:38

1:32:11 We can see it as a kind of, you know, let's be natural, a kind of just be loose or free. Or we see nature oftentimes as something external to us. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:11 Highlight the passage at 1:32:11

1:32:24 That's how I was brought up, to see nature as you go out and contemplate nature. You go out and look at trees, they're natural. That's nature. I remember feeling quite surprised when I realized my body was nature. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:24 Highlight the passage at 1:32:24

1:32:40 Because the cultural conditioning was nature is out there. You go and look at it. But you're not a part of it. You're separate from it. And I thought maybe this was just my problem. But then I talked to people. It's just a very general way of perceiving. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:40 Highlight the passage at 1:32:40

1:33:04 And now, of course, people say... Following generations, there's much more awareness around nature and a feeling a part of it and one with it. Let's say for my generation, and I remember feeling that very alienated and separate from it and quite surprised to realize that this was all part of it. Well, it's dhamma. And then dhamma also includes everything from the conditions, all conditions, Report an error in the passage at 1:33:04 Highlight the passage at 1:33:04

1:33:43 To the unconditioned. Sankhata, asankhata, dharma. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:43 Highlight the passage at 1:33:43