Embracing the Lovely

0:03 Welcome, and I was wondering if anybody would be here because of the obstacle course, repairing the road, the bridge. So Report an error in the passage at 0:03 Highlight the passage at 0:03

0:26 this afternoon we have this opportunity to reflect, contemplate what you're hearing. In fact, to emphasize the kind of essence of the... Buddha's teaching is this awakeness, this awakened mind. Report an error in the passage at 0:26 Highlight the passage at 0:26

0:50 And I think this is an excellent word to sum up what the Buddha really taught and what he's really doing is to awaken the individual human being to the true nature of things. Report an error in the passage at 0:50 Highlight the passage at 0:50

1:16 And this is an intuitive Realization, so the more you think about it, the more you kind of not recognize it. I mean, if you think about everything, after a while you just get confused more and more by your own thoughts, even incredibly clever, you still wind yourself up and miss the point. So that the awakened state is Report an error in the passage at 1:16 Highlight the passage at 1:16

1:50 It's a very simple one. It's being in the state of pure attention, pure presence. What's that? And you try to figure it out. So it's an imminent act rather than something that you find. You know, it's not, how can you, you know, you're pointing to it rather than trying to get people to find something. Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

2:23 That describes something and then hope that they find it. Report an error in the passage at 2:23 Highlight the passage at 2:23

2:30 Then the theme of today's is embracing the lovely. Report an error in the passage at 2:30 Highlight the passage at 2:30

2:38 Of course, we all like to embrace the lovely. Report an error in the passage at 2:38 Highlight the passage at 2:38

2:46 I don't know if that's why so many are here. Report an error in the passage at 2:46 Highlight the passage at 2:46

2:52 Next week's the opposite. I wonder who'll be there. lovely Report an error in the passage at 2:52 Highlight the passage at 2:52

2:58 But the word embracing is, you know, I found this word increasingly significant in my own practice because of the nature of my own kind of way of thinking is to try to get rid of and resist what I don't like. And even in, like even being a Buddhist monk where you're living a A life of restraint, simplicity, it can be seen as renunciation, oftentimes described as renunciate, or discipline. Report an error in the passage at 2:58 Highlight the passage at 2:58

3:44 We have this denial of discipline and so forth. This often gives the impression or sets off the kind of attitudes of getting rid of something or denying something. Report an error in the passage at 3:44 Highlight the passage at 3:44

4:22 pushed out of consciousness or not, know, to be let go of or not to be caught in the trap temptation or pleasure. are attitudes that come easily to the attitude of renunciation. There's an image of one of the popular images of a monk, isn't it? It's a kind of sour-faced, miserable miserable-looking-looking monk. wretch. Report an error in the passage at 4:22 Highlight the passage at 4:22

4:50 So, and also in the terms of the Report an error in the passage at 4:50 Highlight the passage at 4:50

5:04 The practice itself, like investigating the Buddha's essential teaching of the Four Noble Truths, I had tremendous insights in the early years through the letting go, using the concept of letting go, an attitude of letting go of things, which also easily gets interpreted as kind of rejection or getting rid of. Report an error in the passage at 5:04 Highlight the passage at 5:04

5:33 I use this as a kind of mantra for several years, letting go, because of the tendency to always attach to everything, to be obsessed or attached. Report an error in the passage at 5:33 Highlight the passage at 5:33

5:47 And that is a valid insight of letting go, but it easily goes into getting rid of, throwing away. And the question would often come to me by others when I was teaching, using this concept of letting go, Then people would say, well, I can't let go of my, you know, I love my children. I can't let them go. And so the idea of letting go is easily, no matter how many times I'd say, I don't mean getting rid of it. Report an error in the passage at 5:47 Highlight the passage at 5:47

6:27 People still hear that. No matter how much I emphasize, that's not what I meant. But letting go was letting things be what they are rather than letting things go doesn't mean a judgment, a value judgment against or a denial or rejection, but it means letting things be what they are because things go naturally. Report an error in the passage at 6:27 Highlight the passage at 6:27

6:54 I mean, one is, say, the awakened mind. When there's this awakeness, then you're with the flow of life because things... Come and go, rise and cease according to their nature. And this tendency to always want to interfere, to control that we have. We're so kind of obsessed with trying to control and get rid of what we don't like and try to hold on desperately to what we do. Report an error in the passage at 6:54 Highlight the passage at 6:54

7:25 Then, of course, this whole habit tendency we're awakening to rather than trying to get rid of habit to try to, say, ourselves for being one who's attached or obsessed, the awakened state is recognizing this very obsession. You know, it's willing to observe, to admit, allow. Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

8:01 doing, even the bad habits or the good habits that we do. So Report an error in the passage at 8:01 Highlight the passage at 8:01

8:10 then this word embracing became significant after a while because they have a strong tendency to resist, to push away and try to get rid of. Then this attitude of embracing seemed a more useful term to me in terms of my own practice. Because embracing is a... It includes everything, isn't it? When we use the word embrace, usually it doesn't convey any sense of discrimination or even judgment, except a kind of accepting the whole of something. Report an error in the passage at 8:10 Highlight the passage at 8:10

8:53 Like when you embrace somebody, you're accepting the whole of them, aren't you? Even their warts or their whatever. Report an error in the passage at 8:53 Highlight the passage at 8:53

9:04 You're actually... You're not just embracing what, you know, the parts that you like, the whole being. And this is something I found a very useful way of reflecting. Report an error in the passage at 9:04 Highlight the passage at 9:04

9:27 Being a monk, of course, the life is due to this life of discipline or renunciation. There's also a kind of, you know, this tendency of, like we're supposed to not kind of gaze at things and keep our eyes down. And we've got all these kind of precepts about how to behave. You know, because we're looking at people and gazing into their eyes. Report an error in the passage at 9:27 Highlight the passage at 9:27

10:02 And we're supposed to have this kind of demeanor of which... It conveys restraint and like we're looking within rather than just looking around at everything, seeking kind of delight through distraction. But inevitably, I mean, that's one, you know, the restraint does help like for composing. When one meditates, when we practice meditation, the idea is to compose the mind. Report an error in the passage at 10:02 Highlight the passage at 10:02

10:40 So on a meditation retreat, the kind of basic instructions are towards composing, bringing together things in the present so that you're not sitting in a meditation hall kind of looking at everybody and we're not talking, we keep the silence, so we're not chatting at each other or discussing worldly problems or anything like that. Report an error in the passage at 10:40 Highlight the passage at 10:40

11:08 So the idea of composing, of being awake and with the present in terms of what's actually happening now, that's the closest, which is right here, which is your own body and your own mind. What is the way it is in terms of the conditions that you can actually observe at this present moment. So if you're kind of looking around... Report an error in the passage at 11:08 Highlight the passage at 11:08

11:37 admiring everything and then we tend to, we don't do that. I remember, you know, sightseeing one time and just, you know, in Switzerland where it's such a beautiful country, you always, you know, look at that, look at that, look at that. And your mind's just going from one thing to the next and then at the end of the day totally exhausted. Report an error in the passage at 11:37 Highlight the passage at 11:37

12:04 Why am I so tired? I've been sitting in a car all day. But always going out and trying to, you know, kind of hold to the beauty of something that you see externally is quite exhausting. Report an error in the passage at 12:04 Highlight the passage at 12:04

12:25 I'm sure most of you have had that experience of sitting in a comfortable Mercedes Benz, spending the day, you know, Rolls Royce then. Report an error in the passage at 12:25 Highlight the passage at 12:25

12:58 Then, Composing the mind, bringing the attention in so that you're just observing the basic conditions that are operating at this moment. We observe like the posture of the body, which is something that is so kind of uninteresting, isn't it? Unless we're doing some kind of wonderful posturing. But if we're just sitting, like in a meditation retreat, you know it's Report an error in the passage at 12:58 Highlight the passage at 12:58

13:29 You're not even trying to have perfect posture. You're not trying to get them to say you have to have the perfect lotus posture and back perfectly like this and have some ideal of some sitting posture that you should all aim to try to emulate and get as some achievement. But the awakening just to the act of sitting. Report an error in the passage at 13:29 Highlight the passage at 13:29

13:56 And even if you're not sitting very well, just awaken to that, you know, awaken the mind to the way it is rather than trying to always make yourself into something, you know, to fit into some idea that you have is what you should be or what a good posture should be. So then it's like awakening to the posture of the body. Report an error in the passage at 13:56 Highlight the passage at 13:56

14:23 Means that you're looking at your body in a different way. It's an intuitive embracing of the body that we're doing rather than trying to make our body have some kind of posture that we imagine is the ideal posture. We can look at somebody, I remember somebody telling me going on a meditation retreat they saw Young man sitting in the meditation hall in kind of perfect, full lotus posture. You know, it looked so absolutely perfect and erect and completely, you know, just the ideal. Report an error in the passage at 14:23 Highlight the passage at 14:23

15:08 And then thinking, that's what I should be doing. I should be able to sit like that. Report an error in the passage at 15:08 Highlight the passage at 15:08

15:19 And so we can do that. We can spend the whole meditation retreat trying to live up to this idea. Then, you know, you sometimes wonder what's going on in that person's head. You find out. Report an error in the passage at 15:19 Highlight the passage at 15:19

15:36 I've got the posture perfect, but the mental state is not exactly all that great. I remember we had a monk years ago in Thailand, a young American man who used to sit incredibly still, just like a Buddha Rūpa. We used to imagine that he was highly advanced, and we found out he was crazy. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

16:08 But that's not to put down good posture. But the point is, is awakening to the way it is, rather than to try to, you know, live your life always in trying to live up to high standards or ideals, you know, that you can create. Because we're quite, you know, we're oftentimes very critical. Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

16:35 The meaning to ourselves because, you know, we can't be as good as we imagine we should be, whether physically or emotionally, intellectually. So we can always see ourselves in terms of never being good enough or being inferior because we can. All of us are quite capable of creating an ideal, which is, of course, perfect. An ideal has a, you know, you can... Report an error in the passage at 16:35 Highlight the passage at 16:35

17:04 It's a static form. It's something that you can make with your mind as an intellectual abstraction or as a mental image that's perfect. But it is, you know, that and then try to mold oneself into that ideal. Report an error in the passage at 17:04 Highlight the passage at 17:04

17:27 You're inevitably going to fail because it's an impossible thing to do. So you learn that through awakening. To the way things are. It's the ideal of becoming a good bhikkhu, Buddhist monk. Report an error in the passage at 17:27 Highlight the passage at 17:27

17:47 It's, you know, we have these, in the scriptures, we have these ideals of what good monks are like. And of course they are ideals. They're compassionate, kind, dependable. They're strict. They never break the rules. They're always on time, always sensitive, mindful, developing with diligence, on and on. Report an error in the passage at 17:47 Highlight the passage at 17:47

18:19 Never have bad thoughts, never think a dirty thought or anything. They're just kind of absolutely, you know, marvelous creation of a monk that is ideal. And then when you're sitting in a tropical forest, Report an error in the passage at 18:19 Highlight the passage at 18:19

18:39 You know, with the heat and mosquitoes and murderous thoughts in your mind. You can only feel inferior, you know, according to this idea. Report an error in the passage at 18:39 Highlight the passage at 18:39

18:56 But embracing is that, isn't it? It's like learning, allowing even the murderous thoughts to be conscious. But that's next week, the bad one. Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:10 I won't have anything to talk about next week. So the Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:21 posture, the breath, and even the state of mind that one has, like with awakeness, you're actually noticing what kind of mental state you're in, whether you're happy or sad or you're confused or you're clear or you're inspired or you're depressed. can. Report an error in the passage at 19:21 Highlight the passage at 19:21

· · · silence, 1 minute

19:46 You're bored or you're fed up or you're angry or jealous or frightened. We're not saying that. We're not giving you any instruction on how you should feel at any moment, but encouraging this awakening to the way you are feeling, just as an emotional state, an emotional quality. Report an error in the passage at 19:46 Highlight the passage at 19:46

20:08 So what is this actually doing? It's very interesting. It's easy to say this, but sometimes awakening to... To what one's actually feeling emotionally. Because I found that for myself, the emotional life is something that I've tended to reject in a way, push aside. And by endlessly trying to make myself into, say, fit an ideal, trying to get calm, trying to be concentrated, composed. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:48 And trying to get in the terms of the jargon of our tradition, get samādhi, as they say. And so when you go to Thailand and you hear that instantly, get samādhi kind of thing, suddenly, no, I don't really like that term. Because it gives this impression that you've got to get something. And that is one of the basic... Report an error in the passage at 20:48 Highlight the passage at 20:48

21:17 problems that we have is always thinking we've got to get something we don't have and the way we are now we don't notice enough except we might be critical if we're not feeling all that good and we might think how can I get rid of my depression or how can I get rid of my anger or how can I get rid of my self-consciousness things like this so that I can get It's a samādhi. And then the advice is, well, concentrate your attention on your breath. They give instructions, which is bringing attention to the present. Report an error in the passage at 21:17 Highlight the passage at 21:17

21:59 But it also can be another form of excluding, isn't it? Of just trying to reject your emotional world or existence of the present by going to something that isn't emotional, like, say, your breath. Report an error in the passage at 21:59 Highlight the passage at 21:59

22:19 In meditation, we're actually learning to awake, to start right from the position of awakening. Rather than seeing awakeness as the inevitable or the hoped-for goal, the good result of practicing diligently, we're actually learning to awaken, to start, to the very beginning, the very... Here and now of awakeness. And so this is like, one of the words that we describe the dharma is this direct reality. Report an error in the passage at 22:19 Highlight the passage at 22:19

23:02 It's called uju patipanno, here and now, direct. And so this directness is, it's not direct, it's immediate, it's imminent, it's right now. This awakeness is not a samādhi that you get through practice, through doing something, to get something that you don't have. But it's learning to trust in the simple, imminent act of paying attention, but in a broad spectrum, in an intuitive, attentive way, rather than paying attention to something as an object. Report an error in the passage at 23:02 Highlight the passage at 23:02

23:52 Like I say, pay attention to maybe something that's going on over there, but at the time I kind of withdraw my attention from everything else. So this awakened intuitive awareness is just a simple imminent act of awakening, of opening or embracing the present moment with all that is now, whether it's good or bad, right or wrong. Report an error in the passage at 23:52 Highlight the passage at 23:52

24:22 Beautiful or ugly, pleasurable or painful. Report an error in the passage at 24:22 Highlight the passage at 24:22

24:34 So this is, even though this might sound very simple, and you really can't be more simple than that, it's quite difficult for us to trust that, because the thinking mind, we're so identified, so attached, so lost into, I find Report an error in the passage at 24:34 Highlight the passage at 24:34

25:11 like using the word emotion and habits very significant because when you kind of contemplate emotional habits you realize they are habits that you're conditioned Emotionally, like from the beginning when you're a baby, when you're just beginning to learn and experience life and so forth, then you develop emotional habits that can be operative till you die at 120. Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:55 So that's a long time, isn't it, to be a baby? Imagine living all that time and then dying, you know. crying and weeping and wailing. Report an error in the passage at 25:55 Highlight the passage at 25:55

26:15 you can't get your way. Report an error in the passage at 26:15 Highlight the passage at 26:15

26:19 So emotional emotions in the terms of that kind of energy that we feel about not like wanting something we don't have, not getting what we want. want uh feeling of anger of feeling angry and wanting to get rid of or destroy or or fear uh worry anxiety in modern society isn't it the stress is the big thing everybody's stressed out is an emotion of feeling stressed of being kind of overwhelmed by so many things things and and Report an error in the passage at 26:19 Highlight the passage at 26:19

27:07 So many things to do. So that our emotional life is now, stress seems to sum up a good percentage of what people are feeling now emotionally. Report an error in the passage at 27:07 Highlight the passage at 27:07

27:21 Which is, you know, it's not a word that I remember using all that much, say, 50 years ago. And where now you hear it all the time. Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:35 Well, why? What is it that... What is it that we do that is so stressful? And of course, also recognize that modern life is stressful in itself because we do have the ability now for immediate distraction. The ideals of being patient and content. Now these are monastic ideas. When I first became a monk, Ajahn Chah said, you know, to be patient. Because that was something I didn't have much of when I became a monk in Thailand. Report an error in the passage at 27:35 Highlight the passage at 27:35

28:18 I was American and we're not known for patience or contentment. Society's not like that. Imagine Al Gore or George Bush preaching patience and contentment. I wouldn't stand a chance. Report an error in the passage at 28:18 Highlight the passage at 28:18

28:44 No taxes or lower. If you elect me, within four years you're going to get everything you want. You know, you'll get elected. Because people don't like to wait for things or, you know, they want something, they want to get it now. Report an error in the passage at 28:44 Highlight the passage at 28:44

29:04 Or being content with what you do have. The whole capitalist system is based on envy, isn't it? On being discontented with, even if you've got the latest model. Report an error in the passage at 29:04 Highlight the passage at 29:04

29:19 till the the next one comes and then you feel discontented the the newest one is new and you're not know feel immediately like it's better than the one you have, where contentment is not demanding the best, is it? It's not saying, before I can be content I have to have the very best, but it's being content with life in terms of its goodness and its beauty and its simplicity. Report an error in the passage at 29:19 Highlight the passage at 29:19

29:49 So in the monastic system I found the Buddhist monk, the style of the Buddhist monk was a very good reflection for that because it is based on being content with very basic allowances. Report an error in the passage at 29:49 Highlight the passage at 29:49

30:10 So it's, you know, being content with just the robe that you have or things that, you know, your life is limited in terms of what you can distract yourself with. You can't go to shows and play games and all these dance and sing and dress up and go out to dinner and all these kind of things. So you have to learn to be content with With very simple things. Well, that takes a reflection. It's a reflective mind. We can just see how discontentment is an emotion that we're conditioned with. Report an error in the passage at 30:10 Highlight the passage at 30:10

30:52 It's a habit. Report an error in the passage at 30:52 Highlight the passage at 30:52

30:57 And in Thailand, where we lived, say, in the early days of my monastic life, it was very basic. The lifestyle was so kind of, you know, primitive. Compared to what I was used to at home in America, life was just very, very basic with just living in a very simple way with hardly anything. And then learning to watch the discontentment the way the mind would. Report an error in the passage at 30:57 Highlight the passage at 30:57

31:35 You know, be discontented with the robe. Because if you have an emotional habit of being discontented, even wherever you are, you're going to find something to be discontented about because it's a habit. Report an error in the passage at 31:35 Highlight the passage at 31:35

31:53 So just notice that, how even when you get everything you want, you still can be discontented because the emotion will still operate. If you don't notice it, if you don't know what it is, just, you know, you'll find, know, like having your house redecorated and you get all the colors right and a nice carpet that's the carpet you've always wanted and the and the upholstery. Report an error in the passage at 31:53 Highlight the passage at 31:53

32:26 So then, Report an error in the passage at 32:26 Highlight the passage at 32:26

32:35 I mean, in, done, and then notice something to be discontented. Report an error in the passage at 32:35 Highlight the passage at 32:35

32:42 Ajahn Report an error in the passage at 32:42 Highlight the passage at 32:42

33:15 Judging yourself, I shouldn't be. If I were a good monk, I'd be content. And then you're kind of getting into the preaching kind of bossy mode of behavior, you know, where you tyrannize yourself. I shouldn't be like this. But whatever discontentment you're experiencing, feeling discontented is like this. Report an error in the passage at 33:15 Highlight the passage at 33:15

33:45 So that is awakening to the present. These emotions then are of just wanting, of restlessness, endless distracting yourself because you don't know what to do next. We learn how to awaken, to begin to notice these things rather than to pass judgment on them. So the intuitive awareness is non-critical. It's not embracing. It doesn't mean we don't notice it. Report an error in the passage at 33:45 Highlight the passage at 33:45

34:20 We don't notice that something might be very bad, but the intuitive ability is to embrace the totality of it, which gives us perspective, which allows us to look at something for what it is rather than to just be caught in the habitual reactions that we might have towards something bad. Report an error in the passage at 34:20 Highlight the passage at 34:20

34:50 Like with emotional habits that I'll have to do that next week about embracing the unlovely. Embracing the lovely, for example. Report an error in the passage at 34:50 Highlight the passage at 34:50

35:01 So much more easy talking about the unlovely. Report an error in the passage at 35:01 Highlight the passage at 35:01

35:08 I was talking about the dark side the other day, somebody and I, and how some people get very distressed when they... When they start meditating because they see so many kind of ugly and nasty things that come up in their consciousness and they get frightened by it and they don't like it and they just get frightened because they don't want to have to look at something that they don't like or they're frightened of. Report an error in the passage at 35:08 Highlight the passage at 35:08

35:41 I always enjoyed that. I just found my dark side incredibly interesting. Report an error in the passage at 35:41 Highlight the passage at 35:41

35:52 I'm not particularly afraid of that. Report an error in the passage at 35:52 Highlight the passage at 35:52

35:58 The lovely side, though, how to embrace that. Report an error in the passage at 35:58 Highlight the passage at 35:58

36:05 Like from my own background, I'm from a kind of, I'm quite British, actually, even though I'm an American. What I mean by this is that I'm from a kind of Anglo background in the United States, so the values are very similar. And it's, you know, everything tends to be understated and to admit that you have any virtues or you have any beauty in your character at all is like bragging, boasting, which is totally unacceptable. Report an error in the passage at 36:05 Highlight the passage at 36:05

36:51 You know, I find, so I feel quite at home here in Britain with it. Any sign of boasting that you're good at anything whatsoever. Report an error in the passage at 36:51 Highlight the passage at 36:51

37:01 is unacceptable. So everything has to be understated and put in a minimalist context. So I can see how because of that, that is an emotional habit also. To almost dismiss my own goodness, my own beauty, my own loveliness, even to say my own loveliness makes me feel embarrassed right now. Report an error in the passage at 37:01 Highlight the passage at 37:01

37:33 I feel a tinge of embarrassment by even saying that. But just beginning to embrace that has been quite, I've had to put forth the effort to do so because I'm much more, it's much easier for me to be critical, to talk about my faults or my weaknesses or my dark side is much more interesting. Report an error in the passage at 37:33 Highlight the passage at 37:33

38:05 We'll go into that next week. Report an error in the passage at 38:05 Highlight the passage at 38:05

38:12 I'm sure you'll all be here next week. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:20 But my loveliness is that whole idea tends to, like even being a monk, like I've always, you know, from childhood I was brought up as a Christian, and so I was, you know, had good kind of moral... background and a sense of the sacred and kindliness and goodness and all that has been very much instilled as ideals and encouraged in behavioral patterns early childhood. Report an error in the passage at 38:20 Highlight the passage at 38:20

39:00 And yet, I was thirty-two at the time. At 32, I couldn't see anything lovely about myself. All I could see was all the bad things. I was very much aware of, I felt like a failure. I felt I wasn't good enough. There was too many faults, too many weaknesses. And I wanted to get rid of all that so I could attain this enlightenment that I so longed for. Report an error in the passage at 39:00 Highlight the passage at 39:00

39:38 In this, in the, in the, how I interpreted the Buddhist teaching. So, so the tendency was to, to see, to see practice as a way of getting rid of things, getting rid of anger, getting rid of lust, getting rid of, of jealousy and fear and anxiety. Report an error in the passage at 39:38 Highlight the passage at 39:38

40:02 And so the, the, the attention was always drawn towards that. And, And it wasn't like this was what was being taught actually to me through the teaching in Thailand, but this is what I tended to, how I tended, what the things I tended to hear were not about my loveliness, but about my weakness, my faults, my unloveliness. Report an error in the passage at 40:02 Highlight the passage at 40:02

40:28 And the loveliness tended to, I just tended to dismiss or ignore or, you know, just feel embarrassed, I mean, thinking that even admitting it would be like Would it be like inflating my ego? I might think that I'm actually somebody worthwhile. That might go to my head. I might get a swollen head by thinking that thought. And therefore, I better not ignore the lovely and give my attention to my obsession with the unlovely. Report an error in the passage at 40:28 Highlight the passage at 40:28

41:09 But one thing that in Thai culture, for example, you do have this sense of what beauty is in terms of behavior, like generosity and kind of cooperation, patience, and all these virtues are highly regarded. And in the monastery, of course, the patience and contentment, even though I could... admire them as ideals. Report an error in the passage at 41:09 Highlight the passage at 41:09

41:51 a very important place in the monastic life because I couldn't have survived being a Buddhist monk in Thailand if I hadn't developed, put forth the effort to be patient with it Because if the... The whole emotional nature was primed to be impatient. I want to get enlightened. I want to get enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 41:51 Highlight the passage at 41:51

42:17 I can't be bothered doing this. What those monks are doing, they're wasting their time and I'm going to really practice and I'm going to really get my samādhi and a kind of arrogant attitude also. You know, looking at the other monks and thinking they're not really serious like I am because they look like they're doing nothing sometimes. Report an error in the passage at 42:17 Highlight the passage at 42:17

42:42 But I'm always busy, you know. This was... So Report an error in the passage at 42:42 Highlight the passage at 42:42

42:51 Lungpho Cha then said, Tomato, he said, you have to develop patience. He said, what should I be practicing? He said, practice patience. Report an error in the passage at 42:51 Highlight the passage at 42:51

43:05 And so those first few years, it was a perfect setup for patients because I couldn't understand anything that was happening anyway. And Report an error in the passage at 43:05 Highlight the passage at 43:05

43:18 then living in a tropical jungle, you know, so many irritants, you know, the hot, sweaty climate and all the insects, you know, you just get so irritated. Report an error in the passage at 43:18 Highlight the passage at 43:18

43:36 and frustrated by the things that crawl over you all the time, the things that attack you. So it's a chance to develop patience. Report an error in the passage at 43:36 Highlight the passage at 43:36

43:50 So I did, I took that quite seriously as a practice. And contentment. This was learning to, this helped just taking those ideals of patience and contentment. Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:09 Rather than kind of beating myself up because I wasn't patient enough or I was too discontented, the actual attitude of embracing, of being fully aware, totally accepting and observing the way it is, I could observe my impatience. I could begin to observe how I tended to, how I created that just out of, It's a habit of just living, being conditioned and primed for that kind of reaction. But then, getting back to embracing the lovely, I had to start thinking about what is lovely about myself. Report an error in the passage at 44:09 Highlight the passage at 44:09

44:59 Because this was a practice also Luang Por Chah encouraged. encouraged A lot. And in Thailand, in Buddhist countries, I think all Buddhist countries, the idea of merit-making, for example, like today we have this incredible dharma at the mealtime where so many people came and offered food and requisites. Report an error in the passage at 44:59 Highlight the passage at 44:59

45:24 So this act of making merit, of giving something, of giving something of yours away to somebody else. This attitude of generosity is a virtue that is, I think, one of the foremost virtues in Buddhist countries. Report an error in the passage at 45:24 Highlight the passage at 45:24

45:47 The attitude of generosity or dharma, as they say. And this was in the Jataka stories, the ten previous lives of the Bodhisattva before he became the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 45:47 Highlight the passage at 45:47

46:09 The last life before becoming the Buddha, he developed this dhana, this barami or this virtuousness of generosity in this Jataka story called Prince Vaisantara. Now it's very interesting for Westerners to read Prince Vaisantara because they think it's the most stupid story in the world. Report an error in the passage at 46:09 Highlight the passage at 46:09

46:40 You can't trust what you're thinking or feeling. It's changing and it changes according to conditions. But what you can trust, that you can always trust, no matter what's happening to you or what's going on or wherever you are, is this awareness, this awakened awareness. Report an error in the passage at 46:40 Highlight the passage at 46:40

47:03 As you begin to trust it and rest with it and appreciate it, then, of course, You begin to understand because wisdom comes from that. The paññā or the wisdom will move in that state of awareness, will become conscious experience for you. Report an error in the passage at 47:03 Highlight the passage at 47:03

47:29 So it's now the tea time and next week we'll do the unlovely. Report an error in the passage at 47:29 Highlight the passage at 47:29