Futility of Results

0:00 So I want to welcome you here on Amaravati this afternoon for Report an error in the passage at 0:00

0:13 another opportunity to contemplate and consider the dharma. And Report an error in the passage at 0:13

0:29 when we, the importance of this endeavor lies in the fact that we are learning to cultivate a way of Thinking that we're changing from just the old habit patterns, things that we take for granted, just the cultural conditioning process and the habitual mundane use of the English language, to use it in a way that is reflective. Report an error in the passage at 0:29

1:07 It helps us to bring into conscious experience the way things are, rather than just be caught up in the... In the habit patterns of our speech and the compulsiveness of language habits. Report an error in the passage at 1:07

1:27 One of the great miracles of our human state is that we have evolved this language ability, ability to communicate, create sounds and then to perceive things in certain ways, have names and labels and able to describe. All kinds of our experiences and in order to communicate what we are experiencing as individual beings or as members of a society. Report an error in the passage at 1:27

2:03 And in spite of all this miracle that we find ourselves with, it tends to turn on us and become a kind of incessant inner chattering and almost non-stop. Report an error in the passage at 2:03

2:21 Kind of nattering and criticism goes on in the mind. Complaining, the looking at things and wishing things were better or that things could be different or that things shouldn't be the way they are, either oneself or someone else or the society, the world. Report an error in the passage at 2:21

2:45 Our ability to speak then turns on us and becomes something that ...plagues our conscious experience of life because so much of this is the result of not understanding dharma or the way things are, the natural laws, the natural flow of life, conscious experience itself. When we have merely been programmed, conditioned by culture or education, whatever, then... Report an error in the passage at 2:45

3:19 We tend to develop reactions to life that sometimes are totally inadequate and unsuitable and lead to lack of ability to communicate or to convey anything real or of value to ourselves, not to mention someone else. Report an error in the passage at 3:19

3:45 The sense of being a person, for one thing, the I am, Report an error in the passage at 3:45

3:55 is very much related to the idea of being a personality. They may be at one time, or at a time when people were maybe less egotistical or less limited in their view of themselves, when their identities were more related, I think, to religious goals or spiritual... Report an error in the passage at 3:55

4:24 realization or metaphysical ideas, then I am does have its value as a concept, such as in the Hindu system of I am that, or in the Christian one, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and these kind of enigmatic sayings of realized beings. Report an error in the passage at 4:24

4:55 can be, are now interpreted in this, in the way, in its course way of being an ego. One of the great obstacles, I think, in a Christian-Buddhist dialogue is that the Christianity, the church does interpret I am the way, the truth, and the life as a statement made by a human being, by a person. Rather than, say, an ultimate statement made from a purity of being that was not a person but is the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 4:55

5:37 Because one thing we have to admit in our own experience of life is that we must learn from where we are, from what we are, from the experiences that we have of life. We can't learn from... From what somebody else is experiencing, we can maybe get ideas of how to cope with difficult problems or difficult situations. Report an error in the passage at 5:37

6:06 It's like it's so easy to advise someone who's going through an emotional crisis and tell them what they should do, but when you find yourself in an emotional crisis, it's very different, isn't it, than when somebody else is. Why is that? that? Report an error in the passage at 6:06

6:24 Good advice comes very easily, doesn't it? When you're not the one that's having the problem. Marriage counselors and therapists and all that give excellent advice on how to deal with difficult relationships, but sometimes completely fail at their own. Report an error in the passage at 6:24

6:46 I used to be a marriage counselor, and Report an error in the passage at 6:46

6:55 I was married at the time. I wish I could have followed my advice. Report an error in the passage at 6:55

7:05 That's when I realized that it had to come from someplace else rather than just having a clever mind and ability to say things. Because the actual experience of life, the actual feeling of life, and the conscious, Report an error in the passage at 7:05

7:36 The experiences through consciousness, it's not the same in theory as it is in the reality of a situation. And therefore the reflections on dharma, the contemplation of dharma, prepares us for all the possible experiences that we can have as a human being. From the very best to the very worst. As Report an error in the passage at 7:36

8:14 a personality, then the personality is very much based on the identity of oneself with one's appearance, one's body, one's particular character tendencies, habit tendencies, the conditioning of the mind, being man or woman, Report an error in the passage at 8:14

8:40 Young or old, being white or black, being Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, atheist, being upper class or middle class, working class, or whatever identities one has, one has assumed these identities, and these are conventions, conventional identities, yes, but with the assumption that they are what I am, then it always leads to this A sense of being under threat, of being vulnerable. There's a lot to worry about, a lot to be concerned about on the level of being a human body, a conscious being and a personality. Report an error in the passage at 8:40

9:30 So life as a personality is fraught with all possibilities of misery and misfortune, unhappiness, despair. As all of us know, even in the midst of abundance or success, there's also the kind of worry that goes along with that. What will happen to me if I lose it all? What if it's taken away? What if the one I love dies? Report an error in the passage at 9:30

10:02 Or what will happen to me if I lose all my money, if I put all my wealth in the BCCI? What's going to happen to me? We realize the possibilities of misfortune and humiliation. Report an error in the passage at 10:02

10:21 Now, as dharma experiences, misfortune and humiliation are things to be reflected upon because they are a part of human experience, aren't they? From Adam and Eve up to the present time, men and women have been involved with these, With this experience of being successful and being failures and having good health and bigger and then losing it, of being an interesting, fascinating person and being praised and adored to being despised and rejected. Report an error in the passage at 10:21

11:06 We know that this is just a part of a human experience of life. The personality says, I want only the best. I want the good side only. Happiness and success, praise, good health. Report an error in the passage at 11:06

11:25 Just pray to God, please give me only that side. Please, if I could get enough money, if I could make sure that everything is going to be all right, then that somehow gives me some sense of security. For the future, because the future holds all of the possibilities for success and failure. Report an error in the passage at 11:25

11:53 But then inevitably we have recessions and we have unemployment problems and increase of population and refugees and immigrants and we have families, we have all kinds of of things. Say, contingencies that we experience that we cannot predict or account for at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 11:53

12:25 Say, bad health. We could be having very vigorous and good health at one time and then suddenly lose it or be in an accident or have something go wrong, house burn down or whatever. These are all possibilities of misfortune. But as dharma teachings, then we incorporate all that into our willingness to learn from life. Report an error in the passage at 12:25

12:56 And this is important when we totally accept the whole range of possibilities within our human experience before anything happens. I advise you to do it before anything. Don't wait till you find out you have terminal cancer. And you've been made redundant. Report an error in the passage at 12:56

13:20 I mean, you can wait till then if you want, but what I've been trying to do is to get the groundwork done before the tragedies strike, because then the tragedies or the misfortunes, the unpleasant side of life, then can even be welcomed, because it's always a test of our strength, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 13:20

13:47 To be able to live through, say, something that is quite unpleasant, not to get caught in depression and self-pity and blaming others, but to be able to really make it work for you, really investigate the feeling of having failed or things going in a way that you didn't like or injustices or unfairnesses or being blamed for something you haven't done. Report an error in the passage at 13:47

14:18 All these can be forms of dharma reflections that give us incredible strength and wisdom, where we can become just life's victims very easily. The other way, if we don't do this, then we end up crying and whining and saying, life is not fair, what have I done to deserve this boo-hoo? Report an error in the passage at 14:18

14:49 And even though maybe you haven't done anything to deserve it, And maybe life should be some other way, yet life is like this at this time, and therefore we have the ability, the wisdom, the capability to look at it straight on and use these opportunities as periods of strengthening ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 14:49

15:19 I found in every kind of misfortune of my life Report an error in the passage at 15:19

15:27 Possibilities for strengthening myself. Report an error in the passage at 15:27

15:32 And this, I think, is, you know, and when I look back now over my life, I feel even gratitude for those occasions. Well, at the time, of course, the thoughts did arise. What have I done to deserve this? It's not fair. Don't think that I haven't had mind filled with those kind of thoughts. But those are not the thoughts that I want to cultivate or follow or believe in because they only take you to depression and to suicide and to just making one's life miserable. Report an error in the passage at 15:32

16:11 Not only is it miserable on the level of maybe being blamed for something you haven't done or all your treasures being removed from you or your loved ones being taken away from you, But you also have made yourself miserable. Your mind becomes miserable. So you've compounded the misery. Report an error in the passage at 16:11

16:37 So what the Buddha was suggesting in his teachings was a way of dealing with life, the flow of life, in which we learn from our karma, from the way life happens to us, what we have to learn, the kind of character we have. Report an error in the passage at 16:37

16:57 Now sometimes we don't have the character we would like. We can always imagine ourselves having a character that is much nicer than the one we have. We can always imagine ourselves being better looking than the appearance we have. We can always think that if our parents had been wise sages, enlightened beings, instead of ...of ordinary people who make mistakes, then they wouldn't have made all those mistakes in raising me. And therefore, if I'd had perfect parents, then I wouldn't have unhappiness now. Report an error in the passage at 16:57

17:38 Or we can think that if I'd gone to Oxford or Cambridge, or if I'd had the opportunities to get a better education or meet the right people, then... Everything would have worked out. But because, then I'm stuck in this realm of where it's not fair. Why do those people get all the privileges and I don't? That's the life's victim, the crybabies and the beings that will just end up in that way, in that state of mind, feeling somehow life has done them wrong. Report an error in the passage at 17:38

18:24 And it shouldn't be that way. But for spiritual development, that's why the spiritual life or religion is such an important part of human experience because that lifts us out of that realm. On the worldly level, maybe that's true. Maybe it is unfair. Maybe life shouldn't be this way. Maybe there's a lot of inequalities and preferences made to various people because they know Report an error in the passage at 18:24

18:57 people look down on it if you're working class or you don't have the right accent or you're an American or you're a woman or you're from a minority or something like this. Maybe this is definitely unfair and not right. it's no obstacle to spiritual development. Report an error in the passage at 18:57

19:22 the Navy, it's an obstacle to... The ambitious goals and desires you have for worldly success, but for spiritual development, it's not an obstacle. And this we have to remind ourselves, that what is important is being a respected, popular, successful, admired figure in the society, in the world. Is that really worthy of a lifetime of effort? Report an error in the passage at 19:22

19:53 Is that the goal that we should aim at, to make it in the society, to be number one? Is that a goal that we should really aim at? Report an error in the passage at 19:53

20:06 And of course people can, many people do aim at that goal, to be the best, to get the prize, to be the winner, to have the name, to make the fortune, the self-made man and woman, the first... Female Prime Minister of Britain. You could see the hopes of being the first of this or whatever are very tantalizing to the ego. Report an error in the passage at 20:06

20:35 I'm not just an ordinary bloke. I'm not just, you know, even though I was brought up under kind of ordinary circumstances and not from a particularly posh or special family. Yet, I'm going to prove that I'm really made of the right stuff and I'm going to get there and, you know, show the rest of the world that, you know, I'm not just a boring, ordinary type of person. Report an error in the passage at 20:35

21:00 I'm a special person. And this is, of course, the ego, isn't it? I am a special person. I don't want to be ordinary. Report an error in the passage at 21:00

21:13 In the reflections on dharma, then, we can actually begin to witness this. Or maybe you've already decided you're just too ordinary and common a type of being to even try, so you've given up. You just, you know, get a job at the factory, get your pay packet, and then retire. Maybe you have a holiday in Greece. Report an error in the passage at 21:13

21:40 Maybe the best you can expect from life. At least there's a measure of, you know, kind of fatalistic resignation to... To mediocrity there. But that's not the middle way either. And not the middle way of the Buddha. So, then there's the criminal mind, isn't it? That if you meet criminals, they don't want to be ordinary either. They think, I'm going to be the criminal that will succeed. Report an error in the passage at 21:40

22:12 Nobody will ever catch me. There's a kind of conceit, a kind of blindness in a mind that that thinks that it can get away with breaking the laws of the land or the moral laws of human conduct. Report an error in the passage at 22:12

22:33 There's all possibilities on the plane of the ego to delude yourself. But in the reflection on dharma, we begin to see these as conditioning of the mind, the I am, I'm just an ordinary bloke, or I'm a special person. Or I'm going to be the one that gets away. I'm going to commit the perfect crime. Or I'll write the great American novel. Or I will be the first American Arahant, or whatever it is. Report an error in the passage at 22:33

23:08 These are... Or how do I dare think that I could ever attain such an exalted state? Little old me from Seattle, Washington. Imagine an Arahant ever coming from Seattle, Washington. It would be preposterous. Maybe New York City. The Report an error in the passage at 23:08

23:44 Buddha, when he said, after his enlightenment and he told somebody that he was enlightened, I am the enlightened one, that way of talking obviously leads to, is a problem because People interpret that phrasing always as an ego. Report an error in the passage at 23:44

24:12 And therefore, in Christianity, I am the way, the truth, and the life becomes interpreted by the church itself as a Jesus, as a personality claiming to be the way, the truth, and the life, rather than a transcendent statement that isn't personal, that is beyond personality, beyond the conditioned realm. Report an error in the passage at 24:12

24:37 Because this I am can mean either an egotistical person, me as an individual human being, or it can also be a transcendent I am, which is universal I am. But that takes a great deal of spiritual practice and reflection to be able to really understand that. So we hear, People claiming that they are enlightened or they are attained or special beings or avatars or messiahs or mitreyas, so many people claiming to have special powers and be special messengers and special this or the sage or the prophet of the age or the Aquarian age saviour. Report an error in the passage at 24:37

25:39 These are very kind of glamorous, terms to attach to I am. I am a glamorous new age saviour. Report an error in the passage at 25:39

25:54 It certainly sounds like the ultimate in ego, doesn't it? Report an error in the passage at 25:54

26:05 You can only giggle if you hear somebody talking like that. Notice that in the dharma teachings, this phraseology is not used. Report an error in the passage at 26:05

26:23 Now the subject ha, ha, Report an error in the passage at 26:23

26:25 The talk today is on the futility of results. I don't quite know what that means. But the idea of attainment and achievement, gain and becoming, is very much the position of an ego. Report an error in the passage at 26:25

26:55 So many of us... You talk to members of the community here, people who've been monks or nuns for quite a few years, and sometimes you politely ask, well, what have you realized or attained? And usually they look a bit like they're going to disappoint you because you're expecting them to say, oh, you know, I've realized stream entry or I've attained this or that. Report an error in the passage at 26:55

27:22 And they say, well, I... Well, you know, I'm a little more patient than I used to be, and it doesn't come out, you know, kind of like if you spent ten years as a monk or a nun, that you've actually done very much, because in the worldly sense, you can, you know, you can get a degree, you can get a PhD in ten years, you can make a name for yourself, you can really get somewhere, a real go-getter. Report an error in the passage at 27:22

27:53 With maybe all kinds of accolades and prizes and recognition by the authorities and the experts. But ten years as a monk or a nun, what have you achieved or attained during those ten years? Have you realized the Four Noble Truths? There are three aspects and twelve stages of insight. All this and then you... Report an error in the passage at 27:53

28:20 Then suddenly the conversation ceases. Report an error in the passage at 28:20

28:28 Because none of that way of thinking doesn't work for dharma at all. Attainment, achievement. Like I hear so many people saying it, to attain nibbāna, which is really like, you know, it's contradicting itself. You don't attain nibbāna. You realize nibbāna. Report an error in the passage at 28:28

28:56 You can attain something, you know, like get a university degree or you can go to a Buddhist university in Thailand or Sri Lanka. You can go to University of Wisconsin where they give you a PhD in Buddhology. You can go study at Oxford on a kind of Sanskrit and Pāli. Report an error in the passage at 28:56

29:23 Ph.D. from Oxford, something like that would be a sense of attaining or achieving, becoming, you know, some kind of politician or film star, or something is an attainment, or just getting a promotion in your profession, your job. Report an error in the passage at 29:23

29:47 Attainment is that way. It's getting something, going up and up, achieving progress, is the... Is the world leaving? It's based on desire, ambition, proving yourself. You have to put forth the effort and you can attain and achieve through moral means or you can do it through immoral means, through corruption or paying people off or doing all kinds of things. Report an error in the passage at 29:47

30:16 But attainment is a word that we use for worldly experience. Realization of nibbāna would mean that to realize something means that you already have it, but you don't know it. So when you wake up, then you realize, oh, I have that all along. You don't get it, because you already have it. But you've just forgotten about it, or you don't know you have it. Report an error in the passage at 30:16

30:47 So you live your life trying to maybe become a superstar or a... Report an error in the passage at 30:47

31:10 Prime minister or president to get something that you don't have yet. Report an error in the passage at 31:10

31:19 Realization of nibbāna then is, to use the word realization, is a more accurate way of expressing dharma. Realizing the truth. Isn't you attain truth, is it? You don't get the truth. The truth is always here and now. It's never, it's not that it's not here and it's somewhere else. It's here. Right now. And so it's a matter of realizing truth rather than of getting it or attaining it. Report an error in the passage at 31:19

31:54 Now this is where we must really consider the use of our language, how to express things in ways that are more accurate in the expressions of dharma or the way life really is. Now when we talk about getting results, Report an error in the passage at 31:54

32:16 In our practice, we do something, say the idea of there's the means we use and the result from the means that we use. So in the teaching of karma, law of karma, the teaching is if you do good, then you get a good result. If you do bad, you get a bad result. If you use a good means, then you get If you use a bad means, you get a bad result. It's very logical, isn't it? So then the worldly mind will come up with, well, I know this millionaire, fabulously wealthy man, and he is really happy. Report an error in the passage at 32:16

33:03 He has so many houses and Rolls Royces and a very glamorous wife, and he can just go here and there, does what he wants. But he's made that money by... Hook and by crook, by corruption, by all kinds of evil ways. He's been able to delude and deceive people in every way. And he's used all the bad means. And yet, look, he has a good result. That's the worldly mind, isn't it? They see the good result as the houses, the cars, the... Report an error in the passage at 33:03

33:41 All the good things of life that people think, if I live a good life, and I do good, that means, you know, I'm not going to be able to get all those houses and cars like that man has, because if he'd been good, he wouldn't have had all that. He would have, you know, probably not been able to attain all those wonderful things. So it's not true. Law of karma is not true, is it? Report an error in the passage at 33:41

34:07 If you do bad, you get a good result, and if you do good, you get a bad result. If you're looking at it in worldly terms, if you look upon having a big house and a Rolls Royce as a good result, well, I don't, you see, I don't consider that a good result. I would consider a result, a good result, is peace of mind, of self-respect, of having a good heart, of being able to love and serve others. Report an error in the passage at 34:07

34:43 And to be able to hear the dharma and to practice, to be able to understand dharma, to keep the moral precepts, and to respect and love the good, the true and the beautiful. That I consider a good result. I don't consider wealth, fame, popularity as a good result. Report an error in the passage at 34:43

35:14 It's a result of what you've done, but it's not necessarily what one considers good because in the midst of all that abundance is a mind that is filled with regret, paranoia, remorse, fear, anger, resentment, all these negative states. If you've had to use immoral means, then... Then you know, you have to remember, you have to live with the memories and the result of that being able to remember. Report an error in the passage at 35:14

36:01 So that the idea of doing something to get a good result, also, I'm going to think, for example, I'm going to give a lot of money to the monastery so that I can make a lot of merit. So that in the next lifetime I will be reborn in a better state. Now, European people don't tend to think like that, but in Asia they do. Report an error in the passage at 36:01

36:34 They tend to think that if you give lots of money, build a temple, then in your next life you will be reborn in a much better state than this one. Hopefully like a devada or some beautiful creature in the... In a celestial realm. Sounds very nice. But still, there is this sense of me and mine, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 36:34

37:02 The sense of I want to, I'm doing something now in order to get a result in the future. So the means and the result are still based on the illusion of time. The next life. Maybe you're not even expecting a good result in this life to get kind of deva-like Or celestial accommodations in this life. Maybe you know there's not much hope in this life, so you're counting on the next one. Report an error in the passage at 37:02

37:34 But the actual dharma experience of the means and the result is that the means and the result are really the same thing. If you use a good means, that is the good result. It's immediate. For example, if you... If you use the right means, the good means, to do anything, then the result is immediate. You have an immediate sense of having done what is right. Report an error in the passage at 37:34

38:10 Whether anyone else knows it or not is not the slightest, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. It doesn't matter whether anyone will ever know or you're acknowledged for it. The fact is that you know. And when you know, then there's a respect, a joy, positive feeling. ...generated in your mind toward yourself, toward the world that you live in. Report an error in the passage at 38:10

38:37 So that is a good result, and it's because of the good means, the good result of the same thing. Report an error in the passage at 38:37

38:50 Everyone can still carry that into a time span, such as I'm putting forth good roots now so that in the future I will have a lot more happiness or peace of mind. Which also works. For example, say, ordaining as a monk 25 years ago, I planted good roots then in action and speech and in practice of meditation, which I'm definitely benefiting from this life, say, over a 25-year span, is the result of that way of living is a very good result. But actually the good result has been kind of ongoing from the original intention to live this life. Report an error in the passage at 38:50

39:51 But one's conditioned mind, one's old habit patterns and obsessive thoughts and tendencies, character tendencies have been kind of Report an error in the passage at 39:51

40:07 Diminished and faded out to where one feels a more continuous sense of well-being, trust and faith, positive feeling, self-respect, gratitude, love for other beings, and that is just a natural result. Report an error in the passage at 40:07

40:28 And that's more of a continuous feeling where, say, before, due to the, when I first started this life, The force of habit was still, you know, overwhelming. So no matter how many good means you used, the tendency was to always think it wasn't good enough or, you know, the self-doubt or the self-criticism would come in or you're just trying to, you know, the kind of inner tyrant, that thing that nags away and will always find fault with anything you do. Report an error in the passage at 40:28

41:00 That hangs around, you know, quite a bit. No matter how many good means you might use, the entertainment is going to say it's not good enough, you're just selfish, you're not, you know, and you always try to take the worst possible interpretation. So therefore, you can't trust that personality view that tends to, that has been conditioned, like the Pavlovian dog, to just go on, you know, no matter what you do. Report an error in the passage at 41:00

41:31 The inner tyrant is going to say it's not good enough or you don't fool yourself. Who do you think you are? And these kind of self-depreciating tendencies that come from the conditioned mind. Report an error in the passage at 41:31

41:54 One has to remind oneself continuously nowhere to go, nothing to do. Report an error in the passage at 41:54

42:04 And then the conditioned mind will think nowhere to go, nothing to do. You're just going to sit here and do nothing the rest of your life? You expect to just sit here in this chair and do nothing the rest of your life? Could you imagine anyone sitting here the rest of their lives doing nothing? Life isn't like that, is it? You know, certain things that happen that make us move and go places and do things. Report an error in the passage at 42:04

42:40 But it's no longer taken from the sense of the I must, I have to, I should, I've got to kind of self-views. Report an error in the passage at 42:40

42:54 In meditation, meditation can be just another compulsive thing you have to do. Many of us have had to work through that where I've got to sit. How many hours do you sit a day? Well, I try to sit about six, seven hours a day at least. And today I only got five in because, you know, the workmaster made me go out and carry in the chairs. And I didn't have my time for sitting. Report an error in the passage at 42:54

43:25 And I've got to sit, otherwise I just can't hold myself together. And that is where meditation becomes a compulsive habit. I've got to have my, you know, my fix. Report an error in the passage at 43:25

43:44 Meditation junkies, they're called. Report an error in the passage at 43:44

43:49 I've got to have my fix, otherwise I can't manage life. Well, meditation can even sink into that kind of mental pattern. I've got to meditate, or I should meditate more than I do, or I don't meditate enough, or I should sit more. Sitting is the big thing with the Western world. Vipassanā has become the religion of sitters. You talk to people in Vipassanā circuits in America and they say they go to Sri Lanka not to bow to the Bodhi tree or the temple of the tooth and candy. Report an error in the passage at 43:49

44:34 They go to Sri Lanka to sit in some place. The idea of sitting in Burma. Sitting here, sitting there. Because this gives you a sense of doing something, of meditating. You're not just sitting, doing nothing. You're sitting, practicing meditation. So that makes it compulsive, doesn't it? The more you sit and meditate, the more you'll get something in return. Report an error in the passage at 44:34

45:08 The idea that if you do more and more, you'll get more and more as a result. You'll get a better result. So some people become very selfish, very obsessed with the idea of sitting in meditation retreats and courses and time and space to get somewhere in your practice, to develop your samādhi, to really attain and achieve something from what we call meditation, insight into dharma. And this very Obsessiveness sometimes is not really seen. Many times people believe in it so much, and they're even encouraged by teachers to do it that way, that they never see it. Report an error in the passage at 45:08

46:01 They're programmed and encouraged to go and become an obsessed meditator. And Report an error in the passage at 46:01

46:15 that brings a certain amount of discipline, maybe, and calm, because sitting is certainly... Watching your breath is more skillful, I would say more useful and skillful as a practice than sitting watching some moronic television program or just sitting there kind of thinking terrible thoughts or worrying about everything. Report an error in the passage at 46:15

46:40 Certainly much better to sit and meditate even in a compulsive way. But it will not liberate. It's not the way to liberation. It will not, the result will will be disappointing. Because what you're doing has become another thing you have to do in order to become something, to attain something in the future. Report an error in the passage at 46:40

47:07 This idea of enlightenment in the future. If I practice so many hours a day, so many years, then that means I should attain something in the future. I should get the degree, get the Sotāpanna certificate. Get some kind of, you know, verification that I have, you know, that I put in all this hard work and that I'm now capable of teaching dharma. Report an error in the passage at 47:07

47:31 I'll become a dharma teacher, become a meditation master. This is very common now in people wanting to become meditation masters and dharma teachers because they, you know, to get some kind of reward for all the hard work you've done. But that is still, A worldly goal, isn't it? To become a meditation teacher, a dharma master, is the same as becoming anything. Report an error in the passage at 47:31

48:02 It's still in the world, and therefore it is not going to be satisfactory. Still, you're going to have a sense of futility, disappointment, discontentment, even if you become a successful, highly praised dharma teacher. Report an error in the passage at 48:02

48:29 Living in a community, I've been... Contemplating the Saṅgha life, say, as a monk, where, you know, here in England, I've been in England 14 years, so, and living with monks and nuns in a community, where, you know, when you're living with other people for a long period of time, it's very different than when you're teaching a retreat. You know, like, next month I'll teach a retreat here at Amaravati. Report an error in the passage at 48:29

49:05 And then people come. We live together for ten days in the retreat center. And, you know, you put them on the eight precepts immediately. Tell them to put them on noble silence so they can't say anything. And you write the schedule out yourself. So you've got them under complete control. Report an error in the passage at 49:05

49:36 They think that I know everything. So then... So then, you know, they just listen and try to... So you're in this position of controlling and dominating and setting up, making the decisions for them and saying kind of wise things and giving talks and so forth and telling them to look at their minds and the reactions to life and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 49:36

50:01 It goes for ten days and then ten days they leave and... Maybe we see each other occasionally throughout the year. Or not even see, something you never see again. But living in a community means that you, you know, you can't, people see you at your best and at your worst. Like marriage, I mean, the romantic dating beginning is everybody's looking good and the hair always looks nice and the smile is there. Report an error in the passage at 50:01

50:36 I remember when my sister, when she was, You know, a teenager, she's two years older, and Saturday night she'd have a date. And she'd spend all Saturday fixing herself up, hideous curlers, and looked absolutely horrendous. Report an error in the passage at 50:36

50:59 And now she's seeing all this, this awful creature hanging around the house. And then when it came time for that, For the young man to come, you know, suddenly out comes this radiant beauty. And she's standing there looking like she looks like that all the time. And I used to get furious thinking if he only could have seen her an hour ago. Report an error in the passage at 50:59

51:39 So like a date is one thing, but living together is different, isn't it? It's where you see the flaws, the other side, the dark side. Report an error in the passage at 51:39

51:52 The not-so-nice side, the unglamorous side. But this is where we need to look, isn't it? Not that this is any more real than the glamorous side, but it is what we don't want to see, usually, in ourselves and in each other. And in community life, when you're actually living together, then you begin to see. Report an error in the passage at 51:52

52:22 How life is, how difficult it is, how painful it really is, how much lack of self-confidence or self-criticism or worry and feelings of being offended and the personal despair people have, which oftentimes they don't show in their more kind of outward Expressions that come on at the appropriate time. So that the community life, say, is meditation itself. Report an error in the passage at 52:22

53:07 I like to consider marriage as a meditation or anything that you're doing, a way of reflecting, not to put it into terms of criticism and how it should or shouldn't be. But being able to learn from it, to accept the flaws, the defects, the sadness even of life itself. Report an error in the passage at 53:07

53:38 Life has a certain pathos to it, doesn't it? It's quite a sad experience in many ways because we definitely get old and we have to watch, say, our parents. We all have to watch our parents who were once the heroes of our life. The gods of our early childhood get sometimes very weak and incapable and confused as they get older. Report an error in the passage at 53:38

54:09 We see ourselves, we see all around us the sadness of life. It's like this news about the massacre in Arizona of seven monks, Buddhist monks, Thai monks, which is... Report an error in the passage at 54:09

54:28 ...murdered in cold blood. No obvious reason. That's terribly sad, isn't it? It makes you want to... Inside you feel a sense of great sadness when you hear, especially somebody like that, Buddhist monks representing harmlessness. You know, men that have made themselves harmless, that have not become, you know, not like gangs or... Report an error in the passage at 54:28

54:55 Footballers or men that present themselves in an aggressive way, but men who've actually given up those tendencies, those attitudes, and then they're brutally murdered in cold blood. There's something really sad about that kind of news. It's sad, isn't it, to hear about all the kind of starvation and malnutrition. Report an error in the passage at 54:55

55:27 Child abuse and all the things that we must hear that gets reported. We have to hear not only about what happens here in Britain, but every country in the world now. International news keeps us informed about child abuse in Bangladesh, where before we didn't have to know about child abuse in Bangladesh. Report an error in the passage at 55:27

55:50 We didn't even have to know about it in England. But now all the whole, you know, Everything is coming out. Everything is open to the public, the mass media. Report an error in the passage at 55:50

56:09 And so we're more aware of the sadness or the unfairness or the cruelness of our human state. And just the ordinary flow of life, isn't it? So much poetry is about the loss of youth, that which was once Vibrant and beautiful, now old and faded, about the romantic dreams of youth, having been the great disappointments that one has in life as you live it more and more. Report an error in the passage at 56:09

56:58 So pathos and sadness is also part of human experience, but that also is dharma for us. This realm that we're living in is also a joyous realm. And the joys come not through seeking happiness, but through understanding dharma. And through our own ability to work and serve, to learn and understand dharma, to free the mind from the bondage of ignorance, and to not be. Report an error in the passage at 56:58

57:36 ...kind of helpless victims of our cultural conditioning or our character tendencies or our karma. And so this is a transcendent path, meaning transcending birth and death to a realization of ultimate truth, ultimate reality. This is what we... And put it in a much more humble way, in the Buddhist way, of realization of nibbāna, which means the... Report an error in the passage at 57:36

58:05 Realization of non-attachment to the mortal realm. So that, in the Buddhist terms, Buddhist terminology, you must recognize, is always, is more like, is very suitable for the English, because it's always a bit of an understatement. Report an error in the passage at 58:05

58:32 So when we talk about attaining nirvāṇa, that's more American, isn't it? Get out there and attain nirvāṇa. Or realization of nibbāna, I mean, attaining nibbāna makes it sound, exalting nibbāna to this, nibbāna is, you know, a name, you know, a kind of old, like paradise or heaven, nibbāna. I had moments of nibbāna, just absolutely, you know, out of my mind. It was so wonderful. And, you know, it was real nibbāna. Report an error in the passage at 58:32

59:09 But that is nirvāṇa. It's used accurately. It is a realization of non-attachment. So it's rather modest, isn't it? It's not fantastic. It's not special. But it is a realization of the way things are here and now. And that's a modest realization. So it's not like you've attained or achieved anything great. You've realized the natural way of things. Report an error in the passage at 59:09

59:40 For one moment, maybe, you've freed your mind from all its being caught helplessly in the conditioning of it to realize the unconditioned. So I offer this for your reflection this afternoon, and then we can have a break, a short break, and then all these who are so inclined are welcome to come back, and we can have further discussion. Report an error in the passage at 59:40