Mind and the Universe (1987)

0:00 I want to welcome you to Amrabati this afternoon. The title of this talk is The Mind in the Universe. Giving titles to talk, they make them sound kind of pretentious. I feel a bit embarrassed. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:32 Speaking on such a grand subject as The Mind in the Universe, one simple human being. But this is a reflection. Report an error in the passage at 0:32 Highlight the passage at 0:32

0:47 As I've said many times before, these talks are reflections from my mind and just an offering to be shared. Because I've always found it very helpful in life to hear various ways of looking at something. Report an error in the passage at 0:47 Highlight the passage at 0:47

1:18 Oftentimes we get stuck in a particular way of thinking. Report an error in the passage at 1:18 Highlight the passage at 1:18

1:27 therefore, it... we don't have any way, any way out. We can contemplate our own existence as human beings. Report an error in the passage at 1:27 Highlight the passage at 1:27

2:00 Only sensitive formations, but also intelligent ones that can contemplate. We can think about ourselves. We can think about ourselves in the wrong way, which oftentimes we do, or in a right way. And this is the main point, the emphasis the Buddha made in his teaching was thinking in the right way. Because we are thinking beings. In fact, the word man itself probably can be traced to the original Sanskrit word of mano, which means thinking, the mind, the ability to think, a thinking being. Report an error in the passage at 2:00 Highlight the passage at 2:00

2:50 Now man is generally interpreted in modern terms as male, doesn't it? Mankind and women feel left out. Report an error in the passage at 2:50 Highlight the passage at 2:50

3:04 In its original sense, it didn't mean particularly men or males, but it probably meant a being that thinks. And this ability to think, we can think in the wrong way, which is, say, when we are depressed and neurotic and frightened, and all of these signs are the signs of thinking in the wrong way about ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 3:04 Highlight the passage at 3:04

3:36 Once we start thinking in the right way, then the fears, anxieties, neurotic problems in that can dissolve, can disappear. Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

3:51 So the important thing in the Buddhist teaching was to establish this thinking from the right position. Now, say, wrong thinking, now this is a reflection, is from my... is the view of being a self that is kind of permanently separated, as Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

4:19 if I am this, there's just this person here somehow cast forth into a universe and conditioned by it, a rather helpless victim of circumstances. Report an error in the passage at 4:19 Highlight the passage at 4:19

4:35 How many times have you yourself thought or heard other people Comment of what did I do to deserve this? Why me? Why do these things have to happen to me? What have I done? Why do I feel so lonely and alienated and lost or depressed? And these are very common human experiences, the feeling of isolation, separation, alienation, loneliness, being lost in a universal system that It doesn't seem to care about us. It seems impersonal and in many ways unloving and unjust and unfair. Report an error in the passage at 4:35 Highlight the passage at 4:35

5:19 And when we're judging our own life's experiences from the position of a permanent or absolutized separation, and then of course the result is fear, anxiety, and our thoughts will... How we perceive the world will be fraught with that attitude of fear and anxiety. Because in one way it's even justified. Report an error in the passage at 5:19 Highlight the passage at 5:19

5:53 We are sensitive beings that are vulnerable. We can be hurt. Just on the physical plane, just having a body like these bodies here in this room, they all can experience the most horrendous pain. And physical discomfort, as we all know, and we're all frightened that they might get worse, we might get some terrible disease, or we might be maimed or scarred. Report an error in the passage at 5:53 Highlight the passage at 5:53

6:25 These are all possibilities that we realize. This is what might happen to us. So in one way, just being born in such a form in the human state, And the ability to think about ourselves, if we think in the wrong way, then our thoughts take us to this anxiety and worry. Report an error in the passage at 6:25 Highlight the passage at 6:25

6:52 Because what we've attached to, what we depend on, what we like can easily be changed to something that we don't like. What we love, we can be separated from immediately, at any time. Report an error in the passage at 6:52 Highlight the passage at 6:52

7:12 And so in the human realm there can be just a realm of anxiety and fear, worry, and all this from the position of taking it very, very personally, as if this is all that I am. I'm this body. I'm this person, personality, according to the way I've been conditioned, my life, the family I was born into, the education or lack of it, the class. Report an error in the passage at 7:12 Highlight the passage at 7:12

7:44 The class I was born into, the nationality, race, all these things we can identify with, Report an error in the passage at 7:44 Highlight the passage at 7:44

7:54 with our ability to do things or inability to do things, all the suggestions we have through our life of whether we are good or clever or stupid or bad or worthless or better than someone or worse than someone. Report an error in the passage at 7:54 Highlight the passage at 7:54

8:17 These we can attach to, all these views, opinions, ideas, suggestions that come to us through the conditioning process from birth to death. Report an error in the passage at 8:17 Highlight the passage at 8:17

8:31 Now because we can conceive ourselves as being something, then we can attach to that conception and hold that through a lifetime. So if we get the conception wrong, then we have to live a whole lifetime thinking about ourselves in the wrong way. And that can be very painful. Many people do that. They start out or in their lives somehow they get the wrong idea about themselves and they grasp that view for a lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 8:31 Highlight the passage at 8:31

9:07 And they operate from that position. So we tend to react to life. We can be hurt very easily by others just by what other people say about us. Report an error in the passage at 9:07 Highlight the passage at 9:07

9:24 Because if this is what I am, this is all that I am, then if somebody doesn't like it, then that somehow can be a threat to me. If you say, I don't like the way you look, then I'm hurt, I've been wounded. Report an error in the passage at 9:24 Highlight the passage at 9:24

9:47 Many people, we feel envious and jealous because some people seem to have everything. They're born... into the right families and their privileged situations with opportunities for getting everything they want, having really good educations and attractive appearance. Report an error in the passage at 9:47 Highlight the passage at 9:47

10:13 And then we can go, why did they? Why do they have everything and I don't have? Why was I born in this? If one feels that one was somehow at a disadvantage. One can envy the wealthy, the privileged, and spend a whole lifetime hating or resenting, feeling jealous of those who seem to have more privilege or more wealth than we do. Report an error in the passage at 10:13 Highlight the passage at 10:13

10:46 Envy and jealousy are common human problems all over the world. Report an error in the passage at 10:46 Highlight the passage at 10:46

10:53 Now, because we can think about ourselves, if we couldn't think about ourselves, then we wouldn't feel jealous, would we? Jealousy, definitely. It comes from the ability to think about ourselves. What did he do to deserve all those privileges? Why can't I have the same? Report an error in the passage at 10:53 Highlight the passage at 10:53

11:25 Contemplating, say, the mind, in this word mind sometimes is a rather loose term. It can mean almost anything in the English language. In Buddhism, we would... Designate, say, between mental formations, Report an error in the passage at 11:25 Highlight the passage at 11:25

11:48 we'd say mental formations, the conditions of the mind that arise and cease, such as the feelings and the ability to perceive and conceive, sensory consciousness, or conditions, mental conditions that change, arise and cease. Report an error in the passage at 11:48 Highlight the passage at 11:48

12:13 The universe... Then is everything that we can perceive and conceive of. We can see the universe in a more scientific way, as an object, like we can contemplate the universe, looking out into a starry night, the universe, as if it were something out there separate from us. Report an error in the passage at 12:13 Highlight the passage at 12:13

12:42 Or we might perceive the universe as ourselves somehow being a part of that universe. But one thing that I found rather, now that I look back at my own, the way I used to perceive myself in the universe, I never, I didn't really perceive myself as really a part of the universe. Somehow the universe has this, in my mind, when I was, before I started meditation, as something separate from me. And even nature itself somehow One saw nature but didn't fear really that one was a part or belonged to the whole system or the whole natural way. Now that was, I don't know about you, but that's very much how I perceive the universe as being somehow separated from nature, from the universe. Report an error in the passage at 12:42 Highlight the passage at 12:42

13:41 And that separation was of course always a source of suffering because it left one feeling somehow out of tune, out of touch. If all we have in our lifetime is just the conditioned perceptions of ourselves, just Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

14:05 the unquestioned conditioning that one gets through having been born into the particular circumstances that one finds oneself in, if that's all there is, then, of course, it is a rather pathetic life in which... Which we never really understand, never really awaken to the mystery, the vastness, the wonder. Report an error in the passage at 14:05 Highlight the passage at 14:05

14:38 All we can do is just try to live a life to protect ourselves, try to be as comfortable as possible, live only for, say, the welfare of this particular body, and maybe try to find some place where it is less vulnerable. Report an error in the passage at 14:38 Highlight the passage at 14:38

15:01 We can spend our whole lifetime just trying to live in a safe place and not be hurt by anyone. A fear of going out and being hurt and being wounded, of being with the unknown, the unpredictable, the mysterious. Report an error in the passage at 15:01 Highlight the passage at 15:01

15:24 So the mind and the universe, the mind is the universe. When you contemplate this, your mind, the mind is the universe. In the sense that it's everything. You can't conceive anything beyond your mind. You can have thoughts and ideas, but actually the conceptibility to conceive is a mental formation. Report an error in the passage at 15:24 Highlight the passage at 15:24

16:03 So in one way, what I'm saying is that we are the subject in this very subjective position from being born in this formation, in the human... And we are the subject for a lifetime in this relationship of subject to object. Report an error in the passage at 16:03 Highlight the passage at 16:03

16:30 Now this means that we're conscious in this relationship of subject to object. This is what consciousness is. It's the ability to be as a subject to know an object. The knower and the known. And that's consciousness. So we are conscious beings for a lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 16:30 Highlight the passage at 16:30

16:58 Now, if we don't contemplate this peculiar and strange phenomenon ourselves, it is strange to me. I've been always bewildered by myself. It always seems a bit odd to be a human being. Report an error in the passage at 16:58 Highlight the passage at 16:58

17:29 Now, the awakening of a human mind to itself, and this is what I regard as the whole purpose in teaching of the Buddha, was to awaken. The human being to themselves, to their own existence, to the way things are, as we can actually witness, observe in this subject-object consciousness for a lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 17:29 Highlight the passage at 17:29

18:03 Now the subject, if we get the subject wrong, then we tend to perceive the objective, the object, taking it all very personally, forming fixed views, opinions. Report an error in the passage at 18:03 Highlight the passage at 18:03

18:19 This is like prejudices and biases. They're all the human function of mind where you're grasping an idea and applying it to everything. So if somebody is bad, if you perceive somebody, some other person as bad, then you see them as bad in a kind of continuous way. Whenever that person's name or appearance arises in your consciousness, The association of bad goes along with it, no matter if they're good. Report an error in the passage at 18:19 Highlight the passage at 18:19

18:54 Because the grasping of a view is somehow, it doesn't change, does it? A viewpoint, a perception and a view is the way it is for a lifetime. If you grasp it, it's going to always be just that way. Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:19 So we can make ourselves very, very insensitive by our grasping views and opinions about ourselves, about others, about whatever. We lose sensitivity, and therefore we're not awake. We are merely conditioned. We're reacting only. We're conditioned to perceive various other conditions as good, bad, right, wrong, in a kind of absolute fixed way. Report an error in the passage at 19:19 Highlight the passage at 19:19

19:53 And we can live our lives always from just reacting. If somebody we perceive as bad, and their name is mentioned, even if they are canonized in the Catholic Church for their saintliness, if we're determined to grasp the perception of them as bad, then no matter what happens, we just associate bad. That is a blindness, isn't it? We do that, say, with racial prejudices. Report an error in the passage at 19:53 Highlight the passage at 19:53

20:25 People don't contemplate and see that race itself is a perception of the mind. So they form opinions about one race being better than another, or classes, or men and women, nations, religions. An Report an error in the passage at 20:25 Highlight the passage at 20:25

20:54 example from my own life is my parents were very devout Episcopalians. Which is the Anglican Church in America. And very high church. They called themselves Anglo-Catholics. And they were very devout, very strong in their Anglo-Catholicism. And the one Christian group that they thought was totally misguided, totally wrong, were the Christian scientists. Report an error in the passage at 20:54 Highlight the passage at 20:54

21:29 So I remember as a child, my parents were quite tolerant actually, but Christian science was their blind spot. So as soon as... Anything was labeled Christian science, suddenly everything went silent and you felt something, you know, it was really something very bad. Report an error in the passage at 21:29 Highlight the passage at 21:29

21:50 So that was the conditioning from childhood. Now I didn't even question that. I never found any interest in Christian science. I never had any opportunity to investigate it or anything else. Even though I rebelled against Christianity when I was about 18 years old, this prejudice, this kind of unquestioned bias, was still there, unresolved. Report an error in the passage at 21:50 Highlight the passage at 21:50

22:20 Until in my monastic life in Thailand, I heard a tape. Somebody said, listen to this tape, there's really interesting talk. So I did, and I listened. That sounds similar to Buddhism in some ways. I found out it was a Christian science. Report an error in the passage at 22:20 Highlight the passage at 22:20

22:43 So I thought, oh, if somebody had said, do you want to listen to a tape on Christian science, I probably would have said no. Report an error in the passage at 22:43 Highlight the passage at 22:43

23:06 In Yeats' poem, Sailing to Byzantium, Monuments of Unaging Intellect, we use it in this term, Monuments of Unaging Intellect, we have grasped these monuments, ideas. They never age, even though we age. What we grasp when we're young, when we're five years old, when we're 90, we can still, the view is still as it was. Report an error in the passage at 23:06 Highlight the passage at 23:06

23:38 It can still be just the same. It doesn't age. Report an error in the passage at 23:38 Highlight the passage at 23:38

23:46 But the universe is, if we start examining and watching, we see that everything is changing. That there's no kind of permanency in any of the conditions, whether they're mental or physical, corporal, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 23:46 Highlight the passage at 23:46

24:11 Whatever it is, it's changing. Even the monuments of unaging intellect are changing, but we don't notice. Maybe we haven't perceived the limitation of our ability. We haven't really examined the... The nature of thought itself. We're just caught into thinking. But this we can also do, is to contemplate thought. Report an error in the passage at 24:11 Highlight the passage at 24:11

24:41 Because thought arises and ceases. How long can you hold a thought in your mind? Thinking, in fact, is very impermanent, isn't it? It moves so quickly. We have to think one thought after another. We're conditioned to think with... With association, so we just think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think. And if we start from, and if you lose control over, say, if we consider ourselves educated, rational and reasonable people, then we try to think in that kind of way, in a rational way. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:28 Irrational thoughts can be rather frightening to us, can't they? If you start this association, Where it goes irrational, without control, then we call ourselves schizophrenics or out of control, people that have just lost control, so that just something will impinge on us and the mind will just associate without any kind of rational, reasonable, sensible control over it. Report an error in the passage at 25:28 Highlight the passage at 25:28

26:01 And that can be very, very, hallucinations, isn't it? Hallucinations, we can't fit. We say when we're conditioned to be reasonable, then we try to hold our thinking within the bonds and limitations of reason, what we consider rational, logical, allowable within the culture that we live in. Report an error in the passage at 26:01 Highlight the passage at 26:01

26:30 But thoughts, whether they're rational, intelligent, accurate, true or false or irrational or whatever, We can begin to contemplate thought itself as impermanent, as something that comes and goes in our mind. Report an error in the passage at 26:30 Highlight the passage at 26:30

26:52 We can contemplate the thoughts we have about ourselves, both the sensible ones, the rational thoughts, intelligent thoughts about ourselves, or the irrational, stupid thoughts we have about ourselves. But we're contemplating it As it is, as thought that arises and ceases, rather than, say, trying to think about thinking or analyze the motivations for our thoughts, because that tends to reinforce this sense of an isolated, separate self. Report an error in the passage at 26:52 Highlight the passage at 26:52

27:34 Now getting back to the subject, subjective experience, being the subject for this life, Each one of us now, just think of it, that you have to live your whole lifespan within the body that you have and feel whatever happens, whatever impinges on your body and mind. Report an error in the passage at 27:34 Highlight the passage at 27:34

28:01 There's the subject, isn't it, that knows that. Now the ability to perceive and conceive, if we interpret all that impinges on the subject from A kind of absolutizing of the subject, of me as a body, me with these qualities, me as a personality, then everything is interpreted from that. Everything is personal. We take everything personally. So the personality is a condition, is a condition that we have. Report an error in the passage at 28:01 Highlight the passage at 28:01

28:47 It's not ultimately true or real. It's not the real subject. Personality then is an object. To be investigated. What is personality? Report an error in the passage at 28:47 Highlight the passage at 28:47

29:01 And what I mean by personality are the views, opinions, memories, and all that that are conditioned into the mind from our experience of life. Report an error in the passage at 29:01 Highlight the passage at 29:01

29:16 So a personality is, if we regard the subject as personality, then of course we are. We can get elated or depressed. We can feel successful or feel like failures or that we're good or bad or become neurotic, frightened, anxious about everything or arrogant, conceited and proud because the personality can take any form. Report an error in the passage at 29:16 Highlight the passage at 29:16

29:50 Personality changes according to conditions. Report an error in the passage at 29:50 Highlight the passage at 29:50

29:59 And we live in a culture that very much emphasizes personality as being oneself. To have a personality, to be a person, to have rights as a person, to be a man or a woman, to belong to a group, a class, a family, a nation, a club. Report an error in the passage at 29:59 Highlight the passage at 29:59

30:25 All these can be taken very personally. Even what is impersonal, just the natural functions of our bodies, just the... The natural functions of a human body, they have nothing to do with personality. We make personal. Report an error in the passage at 30:25 Highlight the passage at 30:25

30:45 We're embarrassed by some of them. We don't like to be identified with the functions of the body unless they're nice or pleasant. Report an error in the passage at 30:45 Highlight the passage at 30:45

31:01 Last month there was a man who came here who asked to die here at Amaravati. He's turning 80. And he had a terminal cancer. So a year ago, he asked if he could come here. I think he suspected then he wasn't going to live very much longer. But he wanted to die in the monastery. So when the doctor told him that he would only have a few weeks left, then he asked to come here. Report an error in the passage at 31:01 Highlight the passage at 31:01

31:38 So he, uh, came. came here to die. And so this dying process is something that is natural, that isn't personal, but yet one could see how easily it is to make it personal. Fortunately, this man was a wise person, so he could, a wise being rather, so he could reflect on it, observe the dying process. Report an error in the passage at 31:38 Highlight the passage at 31:38

32:10 But how many people regard just Getting old, the aging process of the body, and the sicknesses and pain in a very personal way. Just its natural drive, its hunger. Report an error in the passage at 32:10 Highlight the passage at 32:10

32:25 Sexuality is taken all very personally, isn't it? Interpreted always from a personality. Report an error in the passage at 32:25 Highlight the passage at 32:25

32:36 So even the most instinctual, unpersonal, impersonal functions of the human body. ...are interpreted in this very personal way, judged, aren't they? Being good or bad or allowable or unwanted, refined or coarse. Report an error in the passage at 32:36 Highlight the passage at 32:36

33:04 Now when we contemplate more and more, we're taking the totally subjective position of just pure awareness rather than going to what is truly subjective where the awareness of these conditions. are seen as conditioned rather than judged and reacted to from the view of being personal. Report an error in the passage at 33:04 Highlight the passage at 33:04

33:36 So the Buddha emphasized the practice of mindfulness because being mindful, to be mindful we have to give up attachment. We have to look and be awake to the way things are without judgment. Report an error in the passage at 33:36 Highlight the passage at 33:36

34:01 If we're mindful, then we're not judging something. We're just observing it. We're witnessing it. We're watching. We're awake to it. We're awake. We're not reacting. The reacting ability to our conditioned reactions are very much taken, I mean, they're natural enough to react to pain and to praise and to criticism. Report an error in the passage at 34:01 Highlight the passage at 34:01

34:25 It's certainly natural. It's not unnatural. But the human being also can observe reactions because we're not just helpless creatures caught in reactions to the sensory stimulation. Report an error in the passage at 34:25 Highlight the passage at 34:25

34:48 Now, sensual beings, most of them are. They're like the animal kingdom, very much caught in reacting to the conditions that they're experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 34:48 Highlight the passage at 34:48

35:02 And we share that. We can be just that. Animals that react so that if we're feeling good, we're happy. If we're not feeling so good, we're unhappy. People praise us. We feel it's made our day. People criticize us. It's ruined our life. We inherit a million pounds and we're on top of the world and we lose a million pounds and we're down in the pits of hell. Report an error in the passage at 35:02 Highlight the passage at 35:02

35:32 And so those are natural reactions, aren't they? Certainly. ...natural enough and taken personally. The thing of inheriting a million pounds from the personality position. Report an error in the passage at 35:32 Highlight the passage at 35:32

35:50 I've just inherited a million pounds. Report an error in the passage at 35:50 Highlight the passage at 35:50

35:57 And somehow that, you know, I'm trying to impress people. I'm now not just a poverty-stricken maverick. Somebody with a million pounds is important. If you hear somebody is a millionaire... They're on a different level in our minds than if they aren't. Or a title, isn't it? If you say, Sir and Lord and Lady and Prince and Princess and Countess, that makes them slightly out of the ordinary. Report an error in the passage at 35:57 Highlight the passage at 35:57

36:31 They're not just Mr. and Mrs. Report an error in the passage at 36:31 Highlight the passage at 36:31

36:38 So the personality view is very dependent. Then if I lost it, some swindler came, I just inherited this million pounds, and then some swindler came and took it away, Report an error in the passage at 36:38 Highlight the passage at 36:38

36:53 And then I think, well, I'm not going to tell them. They'll think I'm stupid. I think that's the mate of Bhikkhu. He's hopeless. He's supposed to be wise and all that. That swindler is an obvious cheat. Anyone would have seen to him, but I won't tell, even though I'm sitting here suffering from losing. Report an error in the passage at 36:53 Highlight the passage at 36:53

37:17 I'm now a failure, aren't I? So that's the personality view. It interprets things like that, always from the sense of me, whether if I'm successful, then... By taking it personally, that any success that comes to this being is personal. Any failure that this being experiences is personal. Any praise is taken personally, or any criticism. It's very difficult to be criticized, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 37:17 Highlight the passage at 37:17

37:53 It's so unpleasant. Somebody wants to say you're not doing it right, you're doing it all wrong. You shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that. But it's much more pleasant when they say how wonderful you're doing everything and how much you're really loved and needed and wanted. That's very pleasant. The other, you know, you're ruining everything. You're a blight to the society. Report an error in the passage at 37:53 Highlight the passage at 37:53

38:23 Now from the, so taken from the personal position, there's going to be Pleasure with praise and anguish with criticism. Now from the awakened mind, then the pleasure and pain, praise and blame are seen. Report an error in the passage at 38:23 Highlight the passage at 38:23

38:47 From the awakened state, from the subject, the awakened subject, which is aware rather than a person. Now to know this, to be able to be aware, is our ability to just... To awaken in the moment, in this moment now, just to be alert, attentive, and reflective. Because mindfulness is coupled with wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 38:47 Highlight the passage at 38:47

39:18 Wisdom is using our ability to contemplate the way things are. And so when we contemplate the teachings of the Buddha, it's not trying to analyze Buddha's teachings from the critical... Report an error in the passage at 39:18 Highlight the passage at 39:18

39:37 But taking the teachings of the Buddha to contemplate, experience. Because the teachings of the Buddha are teachings about the way things are. They're not doctrines telling us how things are in their absolute way. But skillful means that the Buddha used to help us to watch and observe. Guidelines or suggestions to the mind that help us to look and observe how things actually are. Report an error in the passage at 39:37 Highlight the passage at 39:37

40:19 Now, as the awakened human being, the awakened mind or the reflective mind, where there's mindfulness and wisdom, is not personal anymore. It's not mine or yours. It doesn't have a name. It's not a man or woman. All the personal attachments and conditions cease in it. You see the cessation, the ending of personality. But there's still the pure awareness and ability to wisely reflect on the way things are in this sensory realm, the realm of pain, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 40:19 Highlight the passage at 40:19

41:02 Being sensitive means that we are experiencing pain, pain and pleasure. When we're taking it personally, then we want pleasure without pain. Report an error in the passage at 41:02 Highlight the passage at 41:02

41:20 When the mind, when there's awaken, when there's awakenness, then pain and pleasure are just the way things are. They're not, we're not choosing. We're not picking and choosing. I want only the beautiful and I don't want to experience any of the ugly. I want only the pleasure and none of the pain of life. Report an error in the passage at 41:20 Highlight the passage at 41:20

41:49 From the awakened mind then with wisdom, reflecting with wisdom, then pain and pleasure are ...of equal value as seen for what they are. And that is being sensitive. So what is sensitivity? The senses operate always in that dualistic way, don't they? Your eyes can see beauty and ugliness. Eyes aren't conditioned to not see ugliness. Just having eyes, sensual organs like the eyes, means that whatever passes in front of them... Report an error in the passage at 41:49 Highlight the passage at 41:49

42:29 We're going to see, we're going to be conscious, if it's the most beautiful or the most hideous. That applies to all the sense organs, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body. With the ability to perceive and conceive, we can remember, don't we, our memories, all about either the more extreme experiences of life, such as the successes or the failures. Report an error in the passage at 42:29 Highlight the passage at 42:29

43:02 We don't tend to remember for very long the ordinary things. We remember, say, ten years ago, something really extreme that happened, but what we had for lunch, July 26, 1978, we wouldn't remember. Unless it was maybe poison or something absolutely delicious that we can't forget. But if it was just the ordinary diet, just ordinary. Report an error in the passage at 43:02 Highlight the passage at 43:02

43:37 We don't remember. Report an error in the passage at 43:37 Highlight the passage at 43:37

43:43 The awakened mind then is responsive to sensitivity. The awakened mind is not shutting out sensitivity or is it just reacting out of habit and conditioning. It is responsive. For example, when you are awake, when there is awakeness and wisdom, then you find suitable responses to the experiences you're having. One can reflect and respond. Report an error in the passage at 43:43 Highlight the passage at 43:43

44:46 Spontaneity that is only possible when the mind is not reacting. Because reactions are just a kind of impulsivity, isn't it? Following impulses that we're getting. But the spontaneity comes from the purity of... Awakeness, mindfulness, wisdom. And it has nothing to do with being a person anymore or being a type or a character or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 44:46 Highlight the passage at 44:46

45:19 It is the ability of any being who is awake to respond appropriately to what is happening. Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

45:32 Now, say the universe is, say, contrast the universe with just this. This formation here. And so when you think about yourself as a person, it's rather frightening because the universe seems vast, endless. In our ability to perceive it, the perceptions we have of the universe as an object, it goes on. We talk about light years and times, eons of time and vast distances that we just can't imagine. Report an error in the passage at 45:32 Highlight the passage at 45:32

46:11 They're just so... Billions and billions of miles and so forth. And billion just means a lot in our mind, doesn't it? Report an error in the passage at 46:11 Highlight the passage at 46:11

46:26 It means that it's very far away. And then scientists talk about stars being near, and they're still billions of miles away. Report an error in the passage at 46:26 Highlight the passage at 46:26

46:38 These distances, in the position we're in, within this sensual form, within this... Lifespan as a human being means that we must, that the universe can be reflected on only from the directness, from the actual impingement we're getting from it. Report an error in the passage at 46:38 Highlight the passage at 46:38

47:05 We can speculate about being influenced by the planets and forces from outer space and all that. And it's certainly possible. You don't see how, you know, like, People will say, oh, you know, astrology is just hocus pocus. How could Pluto be affecting my life? Report an error in the passage at 47:05 Highlight the passage at 47:05

47:31 But why couldn't it be affecting us? Because we're all in the same universal system. It seems fully possible that everything's affecting everything. That seems to me to be the most, you know, summing it all up, that everything's affecting everything. Report an error in the passage at 47:31 Highlight the passage at 47:31

47:53 Exclude Pluto or Neptune from that. But I don't know how or exactly in what way, or maybe I'm influencing Pluto. It's possible too. Report an error in the passage at 47:53 Highlight the passage at 47:53

48:10 And we're all influencing each other. I mean, it gets too complicated, doesn't it? So that one can reflect that everything's affecting everything, which gives us a sense of the totality, the universality. The wholeness of a universal system that we're very much involved with and we can witness to in this way as a human being. Report an error in the passage at 48:10 Highlight the passage at 48:10

48:37 And so we have to accept the limitation. This is with awakeness and wisdom. Then we can realize the limitation that we have in this form as a separate individual being for a lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 48:37 Highlight the passage at 48:37

48:57 And the universe we contemplate then is the universe of the mind as we can observe it with its pleasure and pain, its beauty and ugliness. Report an error in the passage at 48:57 Highlight the passage at 48:57

49:11 Because we can realize that the whole universe is about sensitivity and forces and powers and energy and beginning and ending and birth and death. Report an error in the passage at 49:11 Highlight the passage at 49:11

49:29 Expansion and contraction in whatever vast forms and powerful forms they might arise in or in just the seemingly insignificant negligible forms that we can experience such as breathing or feeling of the body or just the pain we're having at this moment or just the feeling of anguish or sadness that we might be aware of at this time. Report an error in the passage at 49:29 Highlight the passage at 49:29

49:56 Or the desire to get something we don't have, or the desire to get rid of something we have that we don't like. So in the human realm, it's a humbling, it humbles us. We can't solve the problem of existence from trying to understand it from the universal position of God. The macrocosmic view. Report an error in the passage at 49:56 Highlight the passage at 49:56

50:35 What we can do is observe it from the microcosm, this mind, the way it is. Even if it seems incredibly personal or whatever, whether it's intelligent or stupid or rational or irrational. Report an error in the passage at 50:35 Highlight the passage at 50:35

50:54 Notice that we're observing rather than judging. Report an error in the passage at 50:54 Highlight the passage at 50:54

51:01 Witnessing rather than whatever it is. No longer analyzing whether it's This we should keep or this we should get rid of. We can observe that tendency in ourselves, can't we, to grasp and reject, to be attracted and be repelled. And that's what I mean by contemplating the microcosm, is the ability to just witness, too, the forces that we're experiencing within our own minds at this time. Report an error in the passage at 51:01 Highlight the passage at 51:01

51:34 In meditation, we do that. As much as we can to just be aware, more and more aware of just the force of attraction and repulsion of the desire to become something or desire to get rid of something. Report an error in the passage at 51:34 Highlight the passage at 51:34

51:54 We observe just the tendency to suppress and annihilate and get rid of and the tendency to try to become something all the time. There's such a strong desire in people's minds to become something else. Report an error in the passage at 51:54 Highlight the passage at 51:54

52:12 To always be seeking something, looking for something, the next thing, the next event, waiting for the next thing, wanting to become something else. Because one isn't established in being with the way things are, one is caught up in this desire to become something. So even the personality view is always, we're never content with The more you're attached to personality views and blinded by them, then you're always going to be hurt, threatened, because everything, praise and blame, are always taken personally. Report an error in the passage at 52:12 Highlight the passage at 52:12

53:00 Success and failure are always personal. Pleasure and pain are personal. Getting old and getting sick and dying are personal. Everything is personal. Everything is painful. Report an error in the passage at 53:00 Highlight the passage at 53:00

53:17 But when seen from the awakened mind, then things are as they are. Report an error in the passage at 53:17 Highlight the passage at 53:17

53:26 And that is the way out of suffering, is through that awakened, awakeness, wisdom, Report an error in the passage at 53:26 Highlight the passage at 53:26

53:40 witnessing, observing, whatever, for this lifetime, whatever it is. Suddenly one feels a sense of trust. Besides you, I feel tremendous trust now, confidence, in what we call the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 53:40 Highlight the passage at 53:40

53:59 Because It certainly is no longer important what happens to me, to this creature here. It doesn't seem terribly important. It's not a worry. Report an error in the passage at 53:59 Highlight the passage at 53:59

54:11 Whatever, the best, the worst, the praise, the blame, success, failure, good health, bad health, cancer, leukemia, whatever, or robust good health till the age of 95 in a peaceful death. As I sit down in meditation, just whatever it is, one feels confident that it's all right the way it is. One sees it as dharma rather than interpreting it as giving it a personal quality. Report an error in the passage at 54:11 Highlight the passage at 54:11

55:01 So in Buddhism, we often talk about fearlessness, courage and fearlessness. And that's when... When you realize there's nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, then there is fearlessness. We're frightened and we do cowardly things because it's always from the personal view, isn't it? I'm going to suffer. What I love is going to be taken away from me. I'll lose my health. I'll be indigent. I'll feel pain. Report an error in the passage at 55:01 Highlight the passage at 55:01

55:35 Nobody will love me. I'll be left alone. Life will be horrible. Mean. Lost, alone, unloved, in pain, hungry, old and sick. Poor me. That's a lot to be frightened of, isn't it? But when seen as dharma, then even the worst is bearable. You realize this is a transition that we're involved in. This is not a permanent person or position. It's a transition. Report an error in the passage at 55:35 Highlight the passage at 55:35

56:12 That the transition from birth to death within the human form and the opportunity that a human being has is to awaken between those two points, between birth and death. Report an error in the passage at 56:12 Highlight the passage at 56:12

56:27 And in the awakened mind, then, of course, there is no fear. There's knowing, there's clarity, and it's not personal, it's not mine. It's not yours. Where everything ends and ceases. And what remains is... Clarity, intelligence, brightness, Report an error in the passage at 56:27 Highlight the passage at 56:27

56:56 just call that the true subject. Some people say, then what is my true nature? Well, don't take this personally, but Report an error in the passage at 56:56 Highlight the passage at 56:56

57:10 if you want to know your true nature, it's peaceful, intelligent, calm, bright, deathless. Report an error in the passage at 57:10 Highlight the passage at 57:10

57:27 If you want to know what is not your true nature, it's your personality. Report an error in the passage at 57:27 Highlight the passage at 57:27

57:33 So I offer this for your reflection for this Sunday afternoon. And then I'll open the rest of the time up for any questions. Report an error in the passage at 57:33 Highlight the passage at 57:33

58:10 Well, that's where we have to keep reminding ourselves. Because mindfulness is like the ability to recollect. The force of habits is so strong. It's easy just to be pulled into habitual behavior. Report an error in the passage at 58:10 Highlight the passage at 58:10

58:32 So that's where we use skillful means, like meditation or religion. religions. Symbols can be used skillfully just to determine more the things around you to be that which awakens you rather than reinforce itself. Report an error in the passage at 58:32 Highlight the passage at 58:32

58:56 Just in, say, this particular country, you can, like I use churches as symbols for that. There's a lot of churches. And it just determines certain things, ways that are around us that we can, say, help us to recollect, to bring ourselves into the present. Report an error in the passage at 58:56 Highlight the passage at 58:56

59:25 In a Buddhist monastery, you always have Buddha images or religious symbols around. And you have monks and nuns. The form of a monk and nun reminds you. The discipline of a monk is a continuous reminder. Report an error in the passage at 59:25 Highlight the passage at 59:25

59:48 Until, say, in the modern society, everything is aimed at deluding you. Modern capitalism tends to want to delude you and continually convince you that you're somebody who should have something that you don't have yet. Or that you're not... Report an error in the passage at 59:48 Highlight the passage at 59:48

1:00:28 our society is very deluding. not a society that helps, awaken, but it's much us. But rather than blame the society for that, we can... Learn how to use the conditions within, around us for awakening, for reminding, for recollecting. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:28 Highlight the passage at 1:00:28

1:01:02 That's why, like Amaravati and Sunday talks and meditation retreats, they're trying to give more occasions for people to spend more time contemplating, encouraging them to do that. Because with, say, with lay people, That's how monks can help. Monks and nuns can help in the society, is giving occasion. I used to think, what can I do to help people as a Buddhist monk? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:02 Highlight the passage at 1:01:02

1:01:41 Well, I can give occasions. I can give Sunday talks or teach retreats or be available or give public talks or go to Buddhist groups and things like this. This is a way of giving, making occasions possible for people to recollect. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:41 Highlight the passage at 1:01:41

1:02:32 Well, this is where we have to give up conception. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:32 Highlight the passage at 1:02:32

1:02:45 Buddha used the word nibbāna, which really means non-grasping, because as Report an error in the passage at 1:02:45 Highlight the passage at 1:02:45

1:03:02 a... When there's mindfulness and non-grasping, then there is calm. There's a sense of non-attachment, so you're not getting excited, because to get excited you have to be attached to something. There's clarity. There's intelligence, intuitive, sensitivity, which isn't... Which, and then, so that one begins to trust in this. It's not personal, so there's nothing you can attach to. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:02 Highlight the passage at 1:03:02

1:03:47 You have to be that way. You have to open yourself and trust in that. In just the awakeness and being in the moment. And that, of course, the desire mind is very much always trying to become that. With people learning meditation, they're always trying to become calm. Become peaceful. If they feel, oh, I'm too nervous, too excited, I've got to become tranquil. Become concentrated. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:47 Highlight the passage at 1:03:47

1:04:17 Become this. Become that. And that's very much the self-view still operating. And most people don't trust, don't have the faith yet or the confidence to just let go of things and be with the world. Death Report an error in the passage at 1:04:17 Highlight the passage at 1:04:17

1:04:49 is just the end of what was born. It's just the end, and the body is not self. It's something that's born, the sensitive formation, and then it lives its span of time. And then dies. But that's just the body. No. There's nobody being born or dying. It's just conditions arising and ceasing. From the personality view, we'd say he was born and he died. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:49 Highlight the passage at 1:04:49

1:05:41 That's a person. From the dharma, from the reflection on dharma, then there's the birth and death of a human body. And the arising and ceasing of ...mental formations during that lifetime. So that, I mean, all of us are going to experience emotions and memories, thoughts and that, that we interpret as personal. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:41 Highlight the passage at 1:05:41

1:06:09 But actually they are just conditions that arise and cease. They are born and die all the time. We're actually, they talk about dying all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:09 Highlight the passage at 1:06:09

1:06:22 So that as we... As we let things die or end according to their nature, then by the time the body is ready to die, then we let it die according to its nature. So there's just the natural flow. But there's not the sense of personal, there's no personal additions to it. Well, Report an error in the passage at 1:06:22 Highlight the passage at 1:06:22

1:06:48 they say that this is where you have to give up conception. This is where the faith is necessary. Because we can't conceive beyond it, because the conception itself is so limited. That's why, say, in the perfect metaphysical pattern is in the conditioned arising, conditioned relating to the unconditioned, or the mortal to the immortal. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:48 Highlight the passage at 1:06:48

1:07:26 Where, say, the materialist view is always always, always a... Dealing with the mortal and the conditioned as kind of ultimately real, as ultimate truth. Religion is always aiming at the immortal, pointing to immortality. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:26 Highlight the passage at 1:07:26

1:07:45 But if you just conceive immortality, you have the problems that religions have, is that you make conceptions out of, you make images, mortal images, you can call them immortal. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:45 Highlight the passage at 1:07:45

1:08:03 Which is a delusion. So that the actual meditation side of a religion, or the contemplative side, is the actual witnessing of how these relate. Because as you can observe in your mind, just through meditation, the conditions arise and cease. And if you allow mental formations to cease, if you're aware of their cessation, what's left is what we call the empty. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:03 Highlight the passage at 1:08:03

1:08:34 Empty mind or the unconditioned. It's not, there's nothing, you're allowing things to arise and cease in the mind rather than just going from one thought to another thought, just reactions and getting caught up in the conditions. Thinking, of course, will always, it goes from one thought to another. So we give up thinking, observe thought and it ceases. Feeling ceases. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:34 Highlight the passage at 1:08:34

1:09:05 Memory ceases, and then what is left when there's no grasping and nothing arising is clarity through mindfulness and reflectiveness, light. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:05 Highlight the passage at 1:09:05

1:09:27 And that is, I mean, as a human being, we have to accept that for the lifetime of this body, we have all this impingement on it. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:27 Highlight the passage at 1:09:27

1:09:42 This total sensitivity that we are in a separate form and consciousness, sensory consciousness. This means that we must, as practice, be very patient with it because I think that this birth as a human being involves extraordinary patience. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:42 Highlight the passage at 1:09:42

1:10:07 It's so important to be patient with things because... Because there is intelligence, oftentimes we become impatient, especially the irritations of sense, the coarse irritations of the sense world, the grossness of it. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:07 Highlight the passage at 1:10:07

1:10:26 We can become very irritated by it. A lot of it is just so boring and dreary. But in that acceptance of it, of that which is boring and dreary, then there is no longer aversion. It's patient, acceptance, embracing of everything, rather than this reaction of, I can't bear this coarse condition anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:26 Highlight the passage at 1:10:26

1:11:05 is how one retains. For example, if you like, there's somebody who would be very good at setting up an institution or business or something. There's somebody else who's very good at looking after people. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:05 Highlight the passage at 1:11:05

1:11:36 Well, then there's character, which I would, and tendencies and talents in that. Now, do you try and keep, or do you not fight that identity of, for example, being very good at setting up something? Do you just use that set up something good, or do you say, how awful that I won't keep making cups of tea? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:36 Highlight the passage at 1:11:36

1:11:35 Do you see what I mean? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:35 Highlight the passage at 1:11:35

1:11:46 But then they're more or less can be used skillfully rather than to reinforce personal. Like if you're good at making tea, then if you take it personally, it can be a source of frustration for you if somebody doesn't appreciate it or whatever. But if it's just a natural character of talent you've developed and it's no longer personal, then It's an offering. You make offerings. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:46 Highlight the passage at 1:11:46

1:12:22 Then a lot of our abilities and talents are, you know, we can offer to others. And then it's not going to be a source of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:22 Highlight the passage at 1:12:22

1:12:37 Because we're all so different. But we don't, like in the monastery, you have some people who are good at organizing, other people are good at particular details, some people have visions, grand ideas, other people... I have no grand vision, but they are very good at figuring out how many rolls of toilet paper you need. But you need them all, don't you? Report an error in the passage at 1:12:37 Highlight the passage at 1:12:37

1:13:06 I mean, if everybody was visionary, nobody could count. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:06 Highlight the passage at 1:13:06

1:13:28 Yes, I mean, in community life, I mean, I'm really grateful for the variety because I'm really quite limited in so many, If they expect me to do everything, it would be horrendous. But because we each can kind of help each other, support each other, you get a harmonious community, Report an error in the passage at 1:13:28 Highlight the passage at 1:13:28

1:13:58 complementary. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:58 Highlight the passage at 1:13:58

1:14:08 Creativity really is from the empty mind. Most of what we call creativity now, that word is used a lot, but it tends to be just kind of egotistical. Recreation. You're recreating things rather than creating. And so it lacks that profundity of creativity. It might be clever or it might be unusual or new, but it's seemingly new, but it's not just a recreation of something. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:08 Highlight the passage at 1:14:08

1:14:47 But the creativity to me is... Report an error in the passage at 1:14:47 Highlight the passage at 1:14:47

1:14:54 It can't come from an egotistical desire for praise or to emphasize oneself as a separate being. Because what was truly creative, like in religious art, when it used to be art was not, artists would never sign their paintings or sculptures. They were done for the love of truth and God. And it wasn't done for personal praise. And anything that has a universal quality to it, a sense of universality, it's not from the ego anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:54 Highlight the passage at 1:14:54

1:15:46 Look how clever I am. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:46 Highlight the passage at 1:15:46

1:15:51 This is where art students have come. There was an art college in Farnham, down in Surrey. They used to come to Chitter, some of the art students. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:51 Highlight the passage at 1:15:51

1:16:05 And I used to talk about this. I could see that it was getting touchy, sensitive for them, because there's a lot of ego involvement in being talented. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:05 Highlight the passage at 1:16:05

1:16:23 This is, yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:16:23 Highlight the passage at 1:16:23

1:16:49 Yes. Well, this is where we, when we awaken, like the Buddha emphasized the truth of suffering, because... We do suffer a lot. Suffering is a common human experience. Everybody has the experience of suffering. So that in looking at the pain, looking at the anguish, we're no longer just reacting to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:49 Highlight the passage at 1:16:49

1:17:23 We tend to react to things and then if it's painful, then we feel aversion to it and we don't want it. But if we If we go to the actual pain itself, just like physical pain, if you go to the very sensation of it, then you'll find you're not averse to it, that the mind is quite sensitive and capable of accepting the sensation without creating aversion, mental aversion onto it. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:23 Highlight the passage at 1:17:23

1:17:52 Same with say mental anguish or despair. If you go more towards, when you feel suddenly depressed or despairing or anguished by something or hurt, if you go to the actual feeling of anguish, then you'll find you're not reacting to it anymore. You're not trying to get rid of it or just take it personally. You can bear the actual feeling of despair. And then it ceases. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:52 Highlight the passage at 1:17:52

1:18:24 Where, when we're just reactive without mindfulness, Then we tend to just suppress. If it's painful, we try to get rid of it as quickly as possible. If it's despairing, then we try to find some kind of hope or inspiration. Or we just wallow in our own depression or despair. In this way, we just create a lifetime of reactions. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:24 Highlight the passage at 1:18:24

1:18:55 reactions, to Free the mind from just the conditioned reaction we reflect on, on the actual pain, the actual anguish that we're experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:55 Highlight the passage at 1:18:55

1:19:15 Mindfulness or awareness or sense of separate being within the anguish or within the pain. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:15 Highlight the passage at 1:19:15

1:19:26 That's the idea of the personal. Poor me or the... Right. Yes. I've listened a lot to that in myself, the talks and cries and weeps and wails and complains and grumbles. And I would develop a practice around listening to it because in monastic life we were always encouraged to just observe this. The way that we'd emotionally react to things that we didn't like. So I'd listen to the conditioning of my mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:26 Highlight the passage at 1:19:26

1:20:16 And it was very unpleasant, actually. Silly, a lot of it. It was just like a little boy, a spoiled little child, whining away. But by listening to it and accepting it, it ceased. The tendency to... Report an error in the passage at 1:20:16 Highlight the passage at 1:20:16

1:20:35 That tendency would start fading out. Now, if I judged it and said, I shouldn't feel like this, this is bad, then I'd suppress it. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:35 Highlight the passage at 1:20:35

1:20:49 And then it would come up again, because suppression just reinforces that. Even though you're right in that that's not a very nice way to feel and to think, if you're whining and crying and feeling sorry for yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:49 Highlight the passage at 1:20:49

1:21:05 This intelligent, mature human being that you're trying to be says, you shouldn't be thinking, you're stupid for feeling like that, and then you squash it, smash it, push it away, kill it. But then the thing, it starts all over again. It's only when I accepted that, without judgment, that the thing could cease, that the condition started going away, and then the tendency. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:05 Highlight the passage at 1:21:05

1:21:35 One would respond much more to life in a mature and wholesome way. But the problem I see with most people is that, like in Britain, people like to, they want to be mature and sensible and fair and have these ideas, and so they tend to suppress these immature feelings and emotions. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:35 Highlight the passage at 1:21:35

1:22:07 Judge them as stupid. And I'm really hopeless. I'm no good because of these stupid feelings I'm having. And that will always create this conflict in the mind. Right. It just reinforces the whole thing. And then when people are dying, all of this comes up anyway. And they've got to face it when they're dying. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:07 Highlight the passage at 1:22:07

1:22:37 All these things that you've suppressed in your lifetime come up. But if you take care of it before you die, then what would there be to come up? Yes, but awareness and willing and understanding of the process. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:37 Highlight the passage at 1:22:37

1:23:01 This is like what I mean by we lose our sensitivity by attaching to these ideas. Like just trying to be reasonable. About everything. Sounds like a good idea. Everybody says, yes, well, we should be reasonable. And that's a good thing to be. But by attaching to that ideal, then we reject, we refuse and annihilate unreasonableness. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:01 Highlight the passage at 1:23:01

1:23:38 Now, we need to know both. Some things are reasonable, some things are unreasonable. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:38 Highlight the passage at 1:23:38

1:23:45 If we attach to beauty, then we reject the ugly. And we refuse to look at anything ugly. When only anything ugly starts getting into the conscious state, we look at something beautiful. And so we're never prepared for pain or ugliness because we're always rejecting it. And, of course, it seems right to want beauty and be reasonable and fair and just. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:45 Highlight the passage at 1:23:45

1:24:16 And these ideals are, if in the perspective, seen in the right way, then they're beautiful reminders and something to aim at, but not something to grasp. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:16 Highlight the passage at 1:24:16

1:24:32 Because the grasping, then you're always judging yourself. If I have an ideal of being a fair and just person, And that's what I've got to be. Then, whenever I'm not feeling fair and just, I hate myself. I'm a terrible person. Because I'm measuring myself with a very high standard, personally. I should be fair and just all the time. Permanently fair and just. And anything less than that means that I'm not any good. Then it becomes one's making a personal judgment. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:32 Highlight the passage at 1:24:32

1:25:07 It's a monument, like these Buddha images. That Buddha image has been standing, holding its hand like that for years now. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:07 Highlight the passage at 1:25:07

1:25:24 And no matter what goes on here, wouldn't it be nice to be like that? But then your human condition, this is just all sensitive. The whole human form is just all totally sensitive condition. Where that image isn't, doesn't feel anything, doesn't get cold, doesn't get hot, doesn't feel cold, at least doesn't ever say anything. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:24 Highlight the passage at 1:25:24

1:26:03 It's the attachment. Attachment is the problem. Because forms that are, I mean, the conventions of life can be, we can use them skillfully, or we can use, at the beginning of the talk about thinking in the right way. Once we see things clearly from wisdom, then our thoughts follow that we're thinking in the right way. But if we're thinking from ignorance, then it does arise. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:03 Highlight the passage at 1:26:03

1:26:42 And so if everything is, if I believe I am this person here, this being, then everything is, all my thoughts will come from that angle. And it will, of course, bring a lot of suffering. To me and to the rest of you. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:42 Highlight the passage at 1:26:42

1:27:15 Yes. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:15 Highlight the passage at 1:27:15

1:27:19 Very important. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:19 Highlight the passage at 1:27:19

1:27:23 Because, I mean, how, like going to sleep, you Report an error in the passage at 1:27:23 Highlight the passage at 1:27:23

1:27:32 know, like we develop habits of sleep where, you know, I'm tired and I just crash down onto my bed and try to annihilate myself to not, to fall asleep and not have to think or remember anything. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:32 Highlight the passage at 1:27:32

1:27:51 Then as we say, Sleep mindfully, then the whole idea of rest is no longer taken as an escape from anything, but just as something that is good to do for health reasons, and then the posture, and going to sleep mindfully so that you can be with the breath, or just observe the way the mind will... And then you find that you can be aware even asleep, like if you set your mind to get up at four in the morning. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:51 Highlight the passage at 1:27:51

1:28:36 You get up at four in the morning. And I've noticed this works even when you're changing time zones. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:36 Highlight the passage at 1:28:36

1:28:49 And you're not kind of in a sleep where you're totally heedless. You know, just lost in heedless sleeping, but is very restful. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:49 Highlight the passage at 1:28:49