Asking yourself questions (1978)

0:00 Ask yourself the question, what is the nature of existence? Where is the universe? Who am I? Why was I born? How should I live my life? What happens when I die? Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:19 These Report an error in the passage at 0:19 Highlight the passage at 0:19

0:27 are the ultimate questions. The Report an error in the passage at 0:27 Highlight the passage at 0:27

0:36 answers, all Report an error in the passage at 0:36 Highlight the passage at 0:36

0:44 we can know is that in the present moment, we Report an error in the passage at 0:44 Highlight the passage at 0:44

0:53 get an answer to the question, who am I? Report an error in the passage at 0:53 Highlight the passage at 0:53

0:59 I am Sumedho Bhikkhu. We see that as a conceptualization. Report an error in the passage at 0:59 Highlight the passage at 0:59

1:13 It's anicca to kanata. You can see the movement of the mind. You say, who am I? And the answer comes, I am Sumedho Bhikkhu. Why Report an error in the passage at 1:13 Highlight the passage at 1:13

1:37 was I born? Report an error in the passage at 1:37 Highlight the passage at 1:37

1:42 I was born to be in harmony with the ultimate truth, to be one with nature, or whatever, whatever clever answers you can think of to the ultimate question. Report an error in the passage at 1:42 Highlight the passage at 1:42

2:06 But seeing that the nature of existence as it really is, when we talk about sankharas or compounded things or phenomena, they're all compounded things, all sankharas are impermanent. They're imperfect, they're not self. They're not me, they're not mine. They're anicca tukkanata. All Report an error in the passage at 2:06 Highlight the passage at 2:06

2:36 compounded things, what do we mean by that? Report an error in the passage at 2:36 Highlight the passage at 2:36

2:44 All things that begin and end, arise and fall, come and go. go, born and die. Report an error in the passage at 2:44 Highlight the passage at 2:44

3:00 as our Report an error in the passage at 3:00 Highlight the passage at 3:00

3:08 everybody's body is saṅkhāra. When we look at our own body with our physical eye, eye consciousness is a sankara. Report an error in the passage at 3:08 Highlight the passage at 3:08

3:24 The eye, organ of the eye is a sankara. And the body that we see with the eye is a sankara. And if we look at somebody else's body, it's a sankara. Report an error in the passage at 3:24 Highlight the passage at 3:24

3:38 Consciousness, these are all compounded things. Consciousness is Sankara. Memory, perception, conception, all thoughts, good and evil, high and low, passive and active, all the heavenly realms and all the hellish ones, all Report an error in the passage at 3:38 Highlight the passage at 3:38

4:10 the concepts we have. England is a Sankara. France, Russia, America, these are all Sankaras. Report an error in the passage at 4:10 Highlight the passage at 4:10

4:23 Male and female. Young and old. Report an error in the passage at 4:23 Highlight the passage at 4:23

4:32 Viradhammo is a sankara. Report an error in the passage at 4:32 Highlight the passage at 4:32

4:38 We're all sankaras. Report an error in the passage at 4:38 Highlight the passage at 4:38

4:43 All compounded. We are all born and all die. Begin and end. Come and go. Arise and fall. So Report an error in the passage at 4:43 Highlight the passage at 4:43

4:59 when we recognize the significance of this and understand sankaras, carrying it to its furthest extremes, all the stars and the skies, When you look up at night and see the stars and the moon, the eye that sees, the consciousness that arises, the objects themselves, the stars, the moon, space, all sankharas. Report an error in the passage at 4:59 Highlight the passage at 4:59

5:40 So by knowing one saṅkhāra, we can know the nature of all sankharas. And we know that this body is the Nitya Tukanata and the conditions that come and go, the thoughts, Perceptions, feelings, sensations, consciousness, all these are sankharas. They have the characteristics of anicca tukamata. Report an error in the passage at 5:40 Highlight the passage at 5:40

6:17 Then we understand that the whole universe is a saṅkhāra. Concepts about the universe are sankharas. Report an error in the passage at 6:17 Highlight the passage at 6:17

6:29 Concepts about anything and everything, knowing, not knowing, sense, nonsense, sanity, insanity. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

7:02 The ultimate questions are sankharas. It Report an error in the passage at 7:02 Highlight the passage at 7:02

7:17 leaves us nothing to depend on. We see things just as they are. Knowing the nature of one compounded thing, we know the nature of all compounded things. Report an error in the passage at 7:17 Highlight the passage at 7:17

7:31 Like knowing one grain of sand, we can know what a million grains of sand are like. So in our practice of meditation, we observe this particular thing that we have with us. Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

7:48 This microcosmic universe we call body and mind, nama rūpa. Report an error in the passage at 7:48 Highlight the passage at 7:48

7:56 And through seeing that we can get beyond it. We Report an error in the passage at 7:56 Highlight the passage at 7:56

8:11 think of the universe as something outside, out there, like a scientist, as an object. That's another sankara. That's a thought, conception, memories, Report an error in the passage at 8:11 Highlight the passage at 8:11

8:37 all the memories we have, all the perceptions we have, they're sankaras. Report an error in the passage at 8:37 Highlight the passage at 8:37

8:48 Keep going on like this. Seeing everything just in this way, a simplification of all the complexities. Seeing everything and nothing as Anicca to Karnata. Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:08 Seeing your own conceptions about meditation, about Buddhism, about practice, about methods, about yourself, about the people you live with. Where Report an error in the passage at 9:08 Highlight the passage at 9:08

9:32 is your mother right now? In Report an error in the passage at 9:32 Highlight the passage at 9:32

9:39 that very doubt, that very image, That very memory, perception that comes is a sankara. It's not your mother. Report an error in the passage at 9:39 Highlight the passage at 9:39

10:00 Then you go home and you look right directly at your mother with your physical eye. You say, ah, that's Report an error in the passage at 10:00 Highlight the passage at 10:00

10:12 my mother. You're my mother. But it's also a sankara. It's consciousness of a physical object. Report an error in the passage at 10:12 Highlight the passage at 10:12

10:23 It's impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 10:23 Highlight the passage at 10:23

10:28 And your concept of mother. And then you study, mother means this, that. Mother did this. Mother was this way, that way. On and on like this, memories of history, of past experience, pleasant, unpleasant. And so we create mothers in our minds out of all these perceptions, imaginations. In Report an error in the passage at 10:28 Highlight the passage at 10:28

11:03 actuality, all it is are the five khandhas and their natural state of changing. We Report an error in the passage at 11:03 Highlight the passage at 11:03

11:15 take all this complexity out of the universe by seeing it in a simple way. Report an error in the passage at 11:15 Highlight the passage at 11:15

11:23 When we see the universe as a simple thing, then suddenly it doesn't seem so hopeless. Report an error in the passage at 11:23 Highlight the passage at 11:23

11:40 Are there any exceptions to this rule? Can we find anything that isn't a sankara? Report an error in the passage at 11:40 Highlight the passage at 11:40

11:48 Think. Think of something that isn't a sankara. It's not compounded. All Report an error in the passage at 11:48 Highlight the passage at 11:48

12:00 the theories and all the thoughts and all the concepts that you might form, those are sankaras. So you begin to see the limitations of conceptualization. All Report an error in the passage at 12:00 Highlight the passage at 12:00

12:18 thinking, All thought is not profound. They say, profound thoughts, great intellects, profound thoughts, usually mean complex theories about existence that nobody else can understand, Report an error in the passage at 12:18 Highlight the passage at 12:18

12:39 making us try to think that they're somehow profound indeed. But they're only thought. Even the most profound, complex theory or philosophy of life is only a superficial thing. It's a saṅkhāra. It begins and ends. It has no real substance, no inner core. In Report an error in the passage at 12:39 Highlight the passage at 12:39

13:30 this way we can empty out accumulations of years of conceptualization, bias, prejudice, opinion, fear, worry, doubt, all our hang-ups, neuroses. Report an error in the passage at 13:30 Highlight the passage at 13:30

13:42 We can just see rather than as deep-seated problems that wait for years of psychoanalysis to be able to shed, we can see as Report an error in the passage at 13:42 Highlight the passage at 13:42

13:57 Superficial Report an error in the passage at 13:57 Highlight the passage at 13:57

14:01 clouds, phantoms, soap bubbles, things of no real importance, that have no real essence, surface, are Report an error in the passage at 14:01 Highlight the passage at 14:01

14:21 most sacred and cherished images of ourselves as being a deep, sensitive person, gifted or whatever. If we like ourselves, if we don't like ourselves, we think of ourselves as negative images of hopelessly Incapable failures that can't do anything right. These are both sankharas, superficial, of no real importance, have no essence, no core. Report an error in the passage at 14:21 Highlight the passage at 14:21

15:05 Though you see people suffering, you look around you, look at people in their state of agony, their state of anguish and despair, and you see it's only because they're ignorant that they're suffering. Report an error in the passage at 15:05 Highlight the passage at 15:05

15:23 Because they're superficial, they identify with the surface, with the floating clouds, the phantoms, the mists. They Report an error in the passage at 15:23 Highlight the passage at 15:23

15:41 clutch it, foam, the bubble, people Report an error in the passage at 15:41 Highlight the passage at 15:41

15:56 taking themselves seriously. All their desires, wonderful, well-analyzed conceptions of themselves, their problems, and they go endlessly on about how they're this way because of this and that way because of that. Report an error in the passage at 15:56 Highlight the passage at 15:56

16:32 But in the state of awareness, what is there? A passing cloud, a sankara just floating by, one needn't attach to it, one needn't reject it. It's like the clouds in the sky, you can watch them float by without getting involved in their movement. The same with all your thoughts, views, opinions, the body you have. Report an error in the passage at 16:32 Highlight the passage at 16:32

17:06 Consciousness comes and goes to the I, the... ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, the mind, changing. Report an error in the passage at 17:06 Highlight the passage at 17:06

17:21 through this practice of seeing things just as they are, you become non-attached you are one who does not attach to any of these unimportant sankharas. Being Report an error in the passage at 17:21 Highlight the passage at 17:21

17:42 wise means that you know the nature of ignorance and you're not identified with it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 17:42 Highlight the passage at 17:42

17:51 There's no more doubt. Is this ignorant thing my real soul? Is this great fear, this great ultimate terror, this great profound whatever it is that you think is your ultimate real self? It's only a conception. Report an error in the passage at 17:51 Highlight the passage at 17:51

18:15 It's a Sankara floating by. Well, Report an error in the passage at 18:15 Highlight the passage at 18:15

18:29 how do you explain human suffering? What Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

18:35 about all the people that have been murdered or brutally treated? Victims of circumstances, all kinds of human misery one can see around oneself. One can remember all kinds of things that have happened in the past. Report an error in the passage at 18:35 Highlight the passage at 18:35

18:54 Wars, persecutions. These are also sankaras. It Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:07 moves on and on and on, changing, sometimes high, sometimes low. Good and bad, war and peace. But with awareness we get beyond these dualisms. Report an error in the passage at 19:07 Highlight the passage at 19:07

19:22 Mindfulness. is the path to immortality and that you can't conceive immortality and the moment you try to conceive it you're creating another concept another silk bubble another phantom arises in your mind but Report an error in the passage at 19:22 Highlight the passage at 19:22

19:54 if you can just watch that movement with a calm composed mind heart then you're being wise right now Report an error in the passage at 19:54 Highlight the passage at 19:54

20:12 The minute you indulge in your doubts, your joys, your fears, then you're going to get pulled back into the saṃsāra and suffer some kind of disappointment, despair, anguish, lamentation, sorrow. The Report an error in the passage at 20:12 Highlight the passage at 20:12

20:44 question, you mean, my mother's only a thought bubble. You're trying to say that my mother doesn't really exist. And that's a thinking, Report an error in the passage at 20:44 Highlight the passage at 20:44

21:04 conceptualization. Report an error in the passage at 21:04 Highlight the passage at 21:04

21:12 but surely how can you just dismiss the whole universe as a soap bubble and that's doubting not being sure feeling angry worried or fearful feeling aversion whatever you want to call it so Report an error in the passage at 21:12 Highlight the passage at 21:12

21:40 that one brings this awareness or is aware in the present moment from one moment to the next we'd like some maybe some comforting answers about the explain that well our mothers really do exist in that in this sense but in another they don't and get on into intellectual explanations of mothers and the universe and whatnot and that's just thinking again trying to make ourselves understand Report an error in the passage at 21:40 Highlight the passage at 21:40

22:23 and feel comfortable because we want to understand through our symbols Rather than let go of all symbolization and dwell in that state of unbounded, unrestricted freedom, balance, sanctity. Report an error in the passage at 22:23 Highlight the passage at 22:23

22:44 We cherish certain concepts about the universe, about mothers and fathers, about ourselves, about husbands and wives, the nature of existence. Report an error in the passage at 22:44 Highlight the passage at 22:44

22:56 And when those concepts are threatened, somebody says, it's only a delusion, we feel upset. Feeling upset is a sankara. Fear, doubt, just keep that constant, constant reflection, looking at closely, rather than trying to figure out and rationalize, justify, explain. Report an error in the passage at 22:56 Highlight the passage at 22:56

23:29 Doubting, uncertainty is a sankara. Certainty is a sankara. Report an error in the passage at 23:29 Highlight the passage at 23:29

· · · silence, 1 minute

24:08 -dee-pa-no-ba-da-ba Report an error in the passage at 24:08 Highlight the passage at 24:08