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- 1:38
The fact that it does emphasize where significant words are, like the most famous significant word is nibbāna or nirvāṇa, which gets translated into pop jargon by being kind of maybe wonderful or heavenly. Somebody showed me some wool the other day named nirvāṇa. It's used, you know, for... In Perth, Australia, there's a woman's hair salon named Nirvāṇa.
- 5:31
Then in Theravāda, they emphasize anattā, or no-self, which is also a term that oftentimes gets overused and becomes a kind of atheistic belief. The Theravadan Buddhists can grasp. I've heard people say, we believe in anattā or no self, which is not what the Buddha meant. It's not a position one takes, but it also is a realization. Through meditation, you're actually looking and observing how things are.
- 12:15
They're like anattā is a negation of self. Nirvāṇa means, you know, actually it means the realization of non-attachment. It doesn't tell you what it really is. It's not a description of something, but it's a denying of a common... Habit that we have, which is attachment.
- 32:34
And when you ask why, they don't know why. But it's an underlying kind of emotional attitude they've picked up. Well, in terms of emptiness and selflessness, then we begin to recognize these attitudes as conditions of the mind rather than the conditions that we're grasping and we no longer, we begin to let them go. Rather than just being caught and influenced by these until we die, we begin to see a way of...
- 49:35
Because the conditioned realm is not a sustainable state. It doesn't have anything that lasts in it. So the... The time-bound conditions are seen as just that, and we begin to break our identity, let go of our identity with the time-bound conditions of the body, the thoughts, the emotions, the habits of the mind.
Transcript
0:01 I want to welcome everyone here this afternoon, and Report an error in the passage at 0:01
0:12 the subject for today is emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 0:12
0:21 There's a special interest Report an error in the passage at 0:21
0:29 to people at this time, because it's a time of abundance, and we begin to realize the futility and the meaninglessness of so many things. things. think if you could stop camera for a while. Report an error in the passage at 0:29
0:51 all right. It gets to have a lot of cameras focused on you. think I'm a Korean War veteran, so I get nervous. Report an error in the passage at 0:51
1:05 they have things aimed at me all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:05
1:31 I that... The hallmark really of Buddhism is... The fact that it does emphasize where significant words are, like the most famous significant word is nibbāna or nirvāṇa, which gets translated into pop jargon by being kind of maybe wonderful or heavenly. Somebody showed me some wool the other day named nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 1:31
2:10 It's used, you know, for... In Perth, Australia, there's a woman's hair salon named Nirvāṇa. I'm sure this doesn't mean emptiness, or maybe it's a place for shaving women's heads. I don't know. I assume that it really meant to imply they kind of, you know, the best, the most beautiful. And so heaven and hell... Report an error in the passage at 2:10
2:40 the kind of polarization of conditionality where heaven symbolizes the very best that you can possibly think of on the conditioned plane and is the absolute worst of you can imagine in terms of pain, misery, disgusting conditions, horrible conditions. Nibbāna is It means the letting go or the non-attachment to the extreme. So Report an error in the passage at 2:40
3:19 it's not a state of refined bliss and extreme happiness, but it's a different kind of experience where you realize letting go and non-attachment. Report an error in the passage at 3:19
3:41 Before we realize that, then our experience of life is just through attachment. We're just attached and we experience life through our ideas, our views, the sense of our self, our cultural attitudes and social conditioning, our fears and desires. The average person that has not realized Nibbāna then experiences life through Through the conditions that they acquire, that they attach to. And the realization of nibbāna is the realization of non-attachment to the conditions. Report an error in the passage at 3:41
4:27 It's a subtle realization. And a realization isn't a created thing. You don't create conditions refined and... And subtle and beautiful conditions for nibbāna. It's not that. It's not dependent on the conditions of the present moment, but the response to the conditions of the moment. Report an error in the passage at 4:27
5:00 So in, say, a person with horrible pain, terrible diseases, in the midst of the battlefield, Report an error in the passage at 5:00
5:13 All the conditions are absolutely rotten, but they could still realize nibbāna. Report an error in the passage at 5:13
5:31 Then in Theravāda, they emphasize anattā, or no-self, which is also a term that oftentimes gets overused and becomes a kind of atheistic belief. The Theravadan Buddhists can grasp. I've heard people say, we believe in anattā or no self, which is not what the Buddha meant. It's not a position one takes, but it also is a realization. Through meditation, you're actually looking and observing how things are. Report an error in the passage at 5:31
6:21 And through that investigation of... What you usually regard as yourself, you realize it's not yourself. Because our self, our personalities, and our ego is very much conditioned by identification with your body, with gender, with your male or female, with what you look like, color of your hair, color of your eyes, the shape of your nose, the complexion you have. Report an error in the passage at 6:21
6:50 And so we identify with, With our bodies, with our face especially, and then we say, I am a man, I am a white man, I am an old man or a young man or whatever, but when we look into these perceptions of self, we realize they're just conditions of the mind. That this body is a condition in nature. It's not like my personal possession. This physical body operates according to the laws of nature. Report an error in the passage at 6:50
7:34 It doesn't operate according to the way I want it to, unless what I want is in line with nature's ways. So you can see that modern life is an attempt to try to... to... Report an error in the passage at 7:34
7:53 Control the body, make it, because we're so strongly identified with it, make it do what we want, make it look what we think it should look like and be happy or miserable according to what it looks like and the praise or the blame that it receives. Report an error in the passage at 7:53
8:13 Interesting just to observe the force of will what Olympic athletes can make their bodies do, isn't it? Incredible. Well, just an act of will, you can make your body do incredible things in terms of human experience. Report an error in the passage at 8:13
8:36 I even heard like singers or opera singers who can visualize in their mind high notes and will themselves to reach incredibly high pitches that are beyond their ordinary range just through an act of will. And so the human mind, we're very willful creatures and we can imagine extremes that are beyond, say, the limits of our own physical abilities. Report an error in the passage at 8:36
9:10 And we can make ourselves do those sometimes. But then in the long run, it's not sustainable, is it? You can't sustain that kind of extremity that's very brief. Report an error in the passage at 9:10
9:23 Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media Ltd.'s express consent. We create our endless suffering around all these things that we're attached to, which is what our personality comes from. We consider ourselves, whether we're as good as somebody else, whether superior or inferior or the same. Endless projections and anxieties we have about ourselves as a physical being. Report an error in the passage at 9:23
10:24 Then our emotions and Views and opinions, the way we attach to these create a sense of a person. I am a unique personality. But on investigation, it doesn't hold up when you really, and this you must do yourself, you must find out. Report an error in the passage at 10:24
10:44 Not asking you to believe in anattā. But it is a word that encourages us to look at all the things we assume we are. are. The views, the opinions, the it is, the conditioning of your mind, your own body. Report an error in the passage at 10:44
11:07 whether you can find anything that you can regard as an eternal, ongoing, unmitigated self lasts through lifetimes or eternity. Report an error in the passage at 11:07
11:30 then Shunyata, or emptiness, is also in Theravāda, it's mentioned a lot, but in Mahāyāna, the Madhyamika teachings and so forth, and Zen, of course, various forms of Zen Buddhism emphasize emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 11:30
11:57 Then there's nothingness, and then there's desirelessness, and cessation. So these words are very significant in Buddhism. And they're negations of things, aren't they? They're like anattā is a negation of self. Nirvāṇa means, you know, actually it means the realization of non-attachment. It doesn't tell you what it really is. It's not a description of something, but it's a denying of a common... Report an error in the passage at 11:57
12:37 Habit that we have, which is attachment. Report an error in the passage at 12:37
12:43 Sunyata doesn't say whether emptiness is good or bad or anything. It's just empty. It's like space, like nothing. And so when we try to conceive, try to just attach to these ideas of no-self, emptiness, nibbāna, nirodha, desirelessness, we end up... Through just holding on to the views that we form around these words, what happens is we become annihilationists. Report an error in the passage at 12:43
13:19 So you meet Buddhists who believe there's no God, no self, there's no meaning, there's no soul. And their view is one of a very... You know, it's based on the intellect, on grasping the ideas of anattā and nirodha and nibbāna and sunyata. Report an error in the passage at 13:19
13:47 So the logic, when you logically deduct from that, then it's annihilationism or nihilism. You end up with a, you know, you're saying it's meaningless, there's nothing, it's just totally empty. And then that ends up as a position you take and grasp that position, which is what the Buddha was trying to point to as the cause of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 13:47
14:13 Whether you believe we have a soul, believe in God, believe in eternal heaven, and believe in... I mean, if you're going to believe in things, it's better to believe in the positive side. It makes you happy at least. So the... Believe in a loving God and heaven, eternal heaven. These are very inspiring and beautiful beliefs. Report an error in the passage at 14:13
14:47 And then the other, no God, no self, tends to come across as a really, you know, sour grapes approach to life. And, you know, a real put-down of everything. Report an error in the passage at 14:47
15:01 So those are the two extremes. the extreme, the Buddha, the... He's pointing to the middle way between what he called which is the eternalist view and which is the annihilationist view. And so it's just very important to recognize these two extreme views in terms of our thoughts, opinions that we have, assumptions that we make about ourselves and the universe. Report an error in the passage at 15:01
15:36 That we live in, that we're experiencing now. Report an error in the passage at 15:36
15:43 And so the emptiness, the realization of emptiness, or anattā, is done not through trying to grasp the idea, but through the actual realization of it. The reality, the direct knowing of the simple experience of non-attachment. In Report an error in the passage at 15:43
16:17 the Buddhist monastic form, for example, The bhikkhu, bhikkhuni, it's a form that tends to encourage this realization. The attempt to like shave the head and the eyebrows, the beard, the mustache, all the kind of highly, the signs that convey you are a man or a woman. On the level of what your face and your appearance are removed. You notice that Siladars, they shave their head and eyebrows, their beards and mustaches. Report an error in the passage at 16:17
17:02 So do we. And so we all, you know, you can still tell male and female, but there's no emphasis on that, not to promote. That sense of identification with gender. Or the robe, the kind of shapeless robe that covers the body does not conform to the lines in a way that exaggerate the female or male form. Report an error in the passage at 17:02
17:36 Things like this. The color itself is an unattractive color. Isn't it? It's not... It's not this color they don't use in fashion. Hardly ever. And when they do, it doesn't last very long. People don't like this color very much. So it's a kind of mucky color. And it doesn't arouse a kind of sexual interest and convey a sense of, look at me, how attractive I am. Report an error in the passage at 17:36
18:15 These are just conventional ways of contemplating, of reflecting our own sense of ourselves as a male, as a female, as being attractive or unattractive or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 18:15
18:31 It isn't a denial or a rejection of femininity or masculinity, but it's a mirror for that, because those are very strong identities. Report an error in the passage at 18:31
18:53 Then the discipline and the whole structure is based on reflecting, observing your own kind of egotistical obsessions with yourself and the selfish attitudes because you're living in community. Your selfishness is reflected a lot in communal life. Like in a community, everybody has to kind of work together. Report an error in the passage at 18:53
19:20 We have to help each other. And a really selfish person stands out like a sore thumb in a monastic community. Well, they might go barely unnoticed if they, you know, and they're living in their own flat in London. And then nobody might know that they're selfish at all. And they might not even know. You really find out when you join a monastic community how selfish you are. Report an error in the passage at 19:20
19:51 So the sense of self is brought up into consciousness. Now, we are conscious beings. Consciousness is a function. We don't identify from the ego the personality with consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 19:51
20:13 The personality is around our feelings and our opinions, isn't it? You create yourself out of views and opinions and your feelings, what you like, what you don't like. like, your view about yourself and the world and the cultural attitudes and the fashions of the day and all this can give us a sense of our self-worth as a person. Report an error in the passage at 20:13
20:49 I've said this several times before, but it's to use an example of A mere reflection for a sense of self was myself being American, conditioned in a way where the self is very strong. Report an error in the passage at 20:49
21:14 Identities are very much with being an individual. My generation and social background in the States was one based on... Be asserting yourself as an individual. Your value was your individuality, not your class, not your race, not your anything other than the sense of your self-importance as an individual compared to others. Report an error in the passage at 21:14
21:46 It's a very competitive system. So you have a, even though it's an egalitarian idealistic society, It's also very competitive. So even though on one level you're saying we're all equal, we're all the same, there's no class, everybody's equal here, men, women, all races, and on the ideal level that's proclaimed as the way it should be. Report an error in the passage at 21:46
22:13 But in the realities of life we're always trying to prove we're better than somebody else, or you're feeling inferior. If you're not better, then you tend to see... It's hard to sustain an ongoing view of yourself as equal when it gets highly personal, isn't it? It becomes, you're better than I am, or I'm not as good as you are, I'm better than you are. You're much more stupid than I am, or I'm much more stupid than you are. Report an error in the passage at 22:13
22:50 And so this sense of individuality What was my cultural conditioning? Highly developed sense of a unique self-importance. Report an error in the passage at 22:50
23:07 And because of that, there was a lack of ease in life because this was such a basic underlying assumption. It wasn't like given to me in a direct way. It was assumed through parents, through the whole social system, educational system. That influences you from the day you're born. So it's not like you're given this and saying this as a truth, but it's an attitude that affects you and that you pick up without your even knowing it. Report an error in the passage at 23:07
23:41 And then I began to see in my life as a monk a sense of, even in monasticism in a Thai monastery, for example, this sense of always comparing myself with the other monks. I'm better than they are, they're better than I am. It's insidious. Report an error in the passage at 23:41
24:02 We had to learn to chant this padimoka discipline, which is 227 rules in Pāli. And you had to, before the fifth year as a monk, you were supposed to memorize this whole thing, be able to recite it without looking at the text. Report an error in the passage at 24:02
24:27 And so I found myself wanting to recite the Patimokkha, you know, like faster and better than the Thai monks. Even though, idealistically, I could see that this was wrong and this was stupid, yet this was such an ingrained way of relating to life, you know. Report an error in the passage at 24:27
24:49 Whatever you're doing, you feel it's underlying even unconscious motivation to be the best, to try to do it better than somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 24:49
25:01 And so I began to see this because Ajahn Chah was very good at making us look at these conceited attitudes, oftentimes these assumptions we were making that we weren't even aware of, especially if we're operating pretty much on our own terms. When you're living in... In monastic community, it mirrors the sense of your self-importance, your conceit, your cultural assumptions. Report an error in the passage at 25:01
25:39 I noticed that I liked living in Asia better than I did in America. Why is that? Why did I prefer Asia? In America, we had everything. Freedom, equality. Report an error in the passage at 25:39
25:59 we you know come Comfortable living conditions and efficiency and all the rest, and yet one felt somehow more at ease, more at home in an Asian country. I lived in, for example, in Malaysia for several years and in Thailand for many years and in India. I can say all these countries, I felt there was something in me that felt... Report an error in the passage at 25:59
26:30 At ease, even though I was an obvious foreigner in these countries. You know, physically I was a giant compared to the Thai monks. You know, there's pictures of me, you know, with Thai monks. And here is a huge white man and these little brown men. Report an error in the passage at 26:30
26:51 I obviously was a foreigner and an alien, but yet psychologically there was an acceptance of life. I found, especially in the Buddhist countries, that this didn't bring out this sense of your competitive feelings or the sense that you had to prove yourself. You had to always prove your worth. That wasn't the issue. Like in Buddhist monastery in Thailand, it wasn't the idea of I had to prove that I had to prove myself at this monastery. Report an error in the passage at 26:51
27:31 It was a convention set up in order to reflect that very sense of ego and self-concern, selfishness. Report an error in the passage at 27:31
27:48 And so in, like in India, I remember one time seeing some, in Calcutta, a woman, a whole family had been sleeping in a bus shelter. Homeless people out on the pavements. A young woman and her husband and several babies. And early in the morning I walked by and this woman smiled at me. A nice kind of innocent, friendly smile. And I had this insight at that time because my American conditioning said, how can a woman that has to sleep out on the street, how Report an error in the passage at 27:48
28:37 can she smile like that? She should be miserable looking. You know, because I think for an egotistical person like myself, sleeping out on the streets would make me feel miserable and like I was a really horrible person because I had no worth. I was a homeless person, poor, poverty stricken. I had no rights. I was a failure. It would bring up all this kind of sense of myself, being like thrown out onto the streets, having to survive in a bus shelter for the night. Report an error in the passage at 28:37
29:11 But there was none of that in this woman's face. It was a friendly, bright greeting. It wasn't asking for anything. Report an error in the passage at 29:11
29:23 And then I had this insight. In India, there is this sense of everybody belongs, no matter what the state condition you're in, whether you're a leper, you don't have any fingers on your hands and your nose is gone, or you're a Maharaja or whatever, even if you're a... A Westerner, European, foreigner, somehow the question of having to prove yourself isn't basic there. Report an error in the passage at 29:23
29:51 It isn't an underlying attitude. So that in India, even though you can be quite shocked by some of the poverty and the things that you see there, because we don't allow that to be seen in our own country. We try to, all those kind of people you hide away because they're shameful, they're disgusting, they make you feel bad. Report an error in the passage at 29:51
30:24 It shouldn't be that way and we have all these attitudes where in India it's accepted. It has its bad side, it may be accepting it too much but also it has its good side in the sense that That it's a truth. Everyone has a right to exist, no matter what their condition is. A leper has just as much right to the street as I do. Report an error in the passage at 30:24
30:53 Or they have as much right to live and breathe and be a human being and survive on this planet as I do. Report an error in the passage at 30:53
31:05 And so I could see that the American conditioning was that... Even though I could accept that as an intellectual position, emotionally I felt I had to prove that I was worthy. My whole life had been an attempt to try to prove to myself that I had a right to be here. And so this is just a reflection from my own experience of life and how the various... Report an error in the passage at 31:05
31:40 These experiences do reflect, bring up into consciousness these oftentimes underlying unstated attitudes that give us a lot of suffering, where we feel alien, we feel unloved, unwanted, rejected, even though to most people's eyes we're loved, we're accepted, we're respectable, we're successful in so many ways, and yet underline all worldly success. Report an error in the passage at 31:40
32:09 Good health, physical beauty, and that can be a feeling that we're worthless. And I see this a lot in people here in the monastery. Report an error in the passage at 32:09
32:21 People that are virtuous, intelligent, good-looking, everything, can feel they're absolutely worthless. And when you ask why, they don't know why. But it's an underlying kind of emotional attitude they've picked up. Well, in terms of emptiness and selflessness, then we begin to recognize these attitudes as conditions of the mind rather than the conditions that we're grasping and we no longer, we begin to let them go. Report an error in the passage at 32:21
33:03 Rather than just being caught and influenced by these until we die, we begin to see a way of... Relinquishing, renouncing those useless attitudes so that we do realize emptiness. We do realize selflessness, non-grasping, cessation. So Report an error in the passage at 33:03
33:41 when we contemplate emptiness, for example, we also, we're beginning to realize eternity or infinity or timelessness. Report an error in the passage at 33:41
34:02 Now, the conditioned mind is very much time-bound. Everything that we're attached to, identified with, is a time-bound condition. The body, obviously, gets old. Everything's changing. The seasons change, the day and night. In this continuous process of change going on, your experiences of life, sometimes you're happy, you're sad, you're... Report an error in the passage at 34:02
34:33 feel like a failure. The whole conditioned realm is in this forever changing. and ending experience through the senses and through the mind but contemplate to realize and to recognize Report an error in the passage at 34:33
34:55 Eternity, Report an error in the passage at 34:55
35:07 then this is, say, When you think about it, it's not logical, isn't it? You're not trying to make a case for eternity, but to recognize it. So the mindfulness, the way of paying attention in the present, this awareness in the present, we begin to realize the deathless or the timeless, infinity, Report an error in the passage at 35:07
35:43 unmeasurability. Report an error in the passage at 35:43
35:50 Because even though this is with us, we don't notice. We're so caught up in our views and opinions that come from attachment to thoughts, ideas, reason and logic, modern science or ethnic cultural attitudes or certain religious fundamental attitudes or philosophies. Or whatever, these influence how we interpret our experience of life. So, say in the Western mode, speaking from my own experience, then these were very much things you just dismissed. Report an error in the passage at 35:50
36:33 Eternity and infinity were, or immortality. These words were what you, you know, this happens when you die. It's kind of put off to when you die. Report an error in the passage at 36:33
36:47 As they were brought up in the Christian family. So the idea of eternity, infinity, immortality, deathlessness. Deathlessness was never a word. I never heard that used at all until I became a Buddhist. Immortality was one. But immortality in English means more like having a physical body, being a person forever and ever. Report an error in the passage at 36:47
36:59 that these are good Report an error in the passage at 36:59
37:18 For eternity is time that goes on forever and ever. And so you realize that time is something that can be contemplated in the present. Report an error in the passage at 37:18
37:42 But if you're already coming from the attitude that when I die then I'll go to heaven, if I've been good and done all the right things and God doesn't disagree, Report an error in the passage at 37:42
37:53 Then I'll go to heaven for eternity. That sounds, you know, on the level of pleasant perceptions, it can sound very nice. Report an error in the passage at 37:53
38:04 Remember when I was a little boy, before television or anything, we used to go to the movies on Saturday afternoons in Seattle. So I loved the movies. And this was what I lived for every Saturday afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 38:04
38:27 Put up with going to school and all the rest because Saturday afternoon was when life really became interesting. You go to the movies. Report an error in the passage at 38:27
38:38 I remember asking my mother, I said, you know, you talk about heaven and all that in the afterlife. I said, do they have movies in heaven? Report an error in the passage at 38:38
38:51 And my mother said, no, I don't think they do. And I thought, well, I don't want to go there then. We're a child, isn't it? Heaven is... Report an error in the passage at 38:51
39:03 In Seattle, in these beautiful cinema halls, movie theaters, palatial places, you know, for a child, with gilded balustrades and all kinds of silk hangings and whatnot, grand, grand movie theaters in the 1940s in a place like Seattle. It was like you go in and you can be entertained, thrilled. See all these wonderful things for that period of time. That's heaven. Report an error in the passage at 39:03
39:44 Now I think if they show movies in heaven, I wouldn't want to go there. Report an error in the passage at 39:44
40:09 But I think the most difficult realization is the present moment. Because what influences us in the present is usually emotional, physical. And it's habitual. So we have to deal with these habits always in the present. And these habits are always the habits are things that are always taking us into the past or the future. Report an error in the passage at 40:09
40:46 Like to sustain awareness in the present moment. It's not easy to do unless you're really interested in something that's going on where you can kind of That holds your attention. But if there's nothing holding your attention in the present, what happens? Your mind wanders all over the place. Like with meditation, isn't it? You're teaching meditation to people and you're trying to encourage them to stay awake and be fully present, fully awake and aware in the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 40:46
41:28 And that's one of the most difficult things that people have been asked to do because they're not programmed for that. In fact, it is an actual deprogramming of the habit tendencies. That's why it can seem so difficult at first because you're actually, by doing that, you're learning how to remove. All the heavy programming that you've acquired in your life. Report an error in the passage at 41:28
42:06 And because we tend to look at it in terms of worldly values, it doesn't look like it's worth anything. I remember people saying, what a waste of time meditation is, watching your belly button. Report an error in the passage at 42:06
42:22 Yogis in India, they just sit and meditate on their navels. We used to laugh. I remember as children, we used to think that was hilarious. Report an error in the passage at 42:22
42:31 All the useless and stupid things to do with your life is sit around under a tree and meditate on your navel. Report an error in the passage at 42:31
42:43 Your breath isn't, you know, navel or breath. But when you're contemplating, when you're developing that state of awareness, a sustained attentiveness in the present, then you begin to see it's something very worthwhile developing. Report an error in the passage at 42:43
43:09 and values it's useless and your time could be studying or... a night course. Report an error in the passage at 43:09
43:24 the television or playing golf to sit around watching your breath or contemplating your navel in terms of training the mind, because that's what we have in our societies, don't train us. Don't encourage that kind of mental development. And so our minds tend to just accumulate. We become creatures of habit. Report an error in the passage at 43:24
43:52 We get overburdened with ideas and thoughts. We become obsessed with ourselves and our worth or worthlessness. And we endlessly create problems around ourselves and the people we're living with and the places we're in. Report an error in the passage at 43:52
44:08 Because there's always something wrong, always something inadequate about myself or somebody else or the situation. Report an error in the passage at 44:08
44:18 And then wherever you are, in your own house, whoever you're living with, there's always something wrong with it. Report an error in the passage at 44:18
44:28 Remember when we moved to Chithurst years ago in 79. Chithurst house was this derelict house. And the first time I'd ever really been able to see what a, you know, at one time it was a really... Finally made house. They built in the early 1860s. And because it was in such a derelict state, we had to kind of strip a lot of it and take the plaster and dry rot. Report an error in the passage at 44:28
44:58 And I began to observe that this house in the beginning, back in 1860, had all the very best materials in it. Made of stone, thick joists and beams and beautiful joinery and the windows. Doors and everything was, you know, Victorian technology was very interesting. I've never seen anything like that. Report an error in the passage at 44:58
45:22 How they, you know, how they collected rainwater and slate tanks in the attics and a whole lot. It's fascinating to observe. And I contemplated, here is a house built in 1860, stone house. Stone has a sense of eternity, doesn't it? It's not like in Seattle. We all have wooden houses. Report an error in the passage at 45:22
45:44 Wooden houses don't have that sense of lasting forever. Stone, to me, meant that, you know, it was a hard substance that would last forever. And yet, by 1979, that house was ready to cave in. And they even observed that the stone was crumbling. There were wasps and different kinds of insects that burrow into sandstone, and part of it would just come off in chunks. Report an error in the passage at 45:44
46:14 chunks and and then the the only this dry rot the the wooden structures inside under the plaster between the bricks and so forth there's this hideous thing called dry rot it crept in it's like some awful ugly monster that it can send its spores even through brick and stonework as soon Report an error in the passage at 46:14
46:38 go right, send it right through these impenetrable Subdance is like stone and brick. Report an error in the passage at 46:38
46:49 It's like an invincible evil force, dry rot. We had this sense of this. Even Ajahn Sujito, with his artistic temperament, drew a picture of the dry rot deva, he called it. And it was the most ugly, ugly kind of creature. And then in the cellar, In the basement of Chitter's house were all these huge, hideous flowers of dry rot, fungi, flowers, and they were the most ghastly looking things, disgusting kind of thing, and yet this kind of seeming thing that didn't have much substance to it could actually seep through, go through stone and brick to any wooden... Report an error in the passage at 46:49
47:44 Peace underneath the plaster in that house and destroy it, completely destroy the wood. So then, you know, I keep thinking that these are, you know, you build a house, you know, the people that built Chittenden's house in 1860, we're going to build this fine house, elegant style, high ceilings and arch doorways and all the rest, and then we'll have this beautiful house to live in. Report an error in the passage at 47:44
48:14 But then you read the history of Chitner's Tao. They didn't live in it very long. They had to sell it and went. Pretty soon, by 1979, the roof was caving in, the floor was falling into the cellar, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 48:14
48:29 And so you contemplated how, you know, how impermanent, and once you do something, you get it to its peak, like this temple, and it'll be built up. Report an error in the passage at 48:29
48:41 It'll be finished. And then what will it do? It'll decay. That's just the law of nature. It'll reach its peak, and the moment, it reaches its peak, it's finished, you say, this is it, no more has to be done, and we've built it in a way that is a low maintenance. Report an error in the passage at 48:41
49:03 We don't like to work. We don't want to spend our life taking care of a temple. Low maintenance, we build up, and then it'll sustain itself in that perfect state. Report an error in the passage at 49:03
49:18 Immediately it starts decaying. So I mean this is just, the conditioned world is like this. You have to keep always having to clean, to prop it up, to renew, to refurbish, to repair. Because the conditioned realm is not a sustainable state. It doesn't have anything that lasts in it. Report an error in the passage at 49:18
49:48 So the... The time-bound conditions are seen as just that, and we begin to break our identity, let go of our identity with the time-bound conditions of the body, the thoughts, the emotions, the habits of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 49:48
50:11 It doesn't mean we're in a state of denial or rejection, but you see something, you really see it and know it for what it is. then you, you, it's, it's. It's profound kind of insightful knowing the truth. It's not just adopting a Buddhist attitude towards the conditioned realm. We're not asking you to do that, just to form some kind of Buddhist idea about the world and operate from that, but to penetrate into the way things are for that direct kind of wisdom and knowledge and understanding. Report an error in the passage at 50:11
50:50 In which you can let go of the sense of yourself and let go of the world and not try to hang on, hold on, identify the world and try to sustain something that you can't sustain. Because in terms of this realization, then you can. When you realize the non-grasping, the deathless, we begin to get a sense for the measureless, the infinite, the timeless, the eternal. Report an error in the passage at 50:50
51:40 And it's not a blank, it's not annihilation, it's not a rejection of the world or the conditions of the world or the body or anything. Report an error in the passage at 51:40
51:51 But it is an understanding and seeing things. As they are in context, in time, in place, in seeing it as it really is, rather than through a filter of greed or hatred or delusion. Report an error in the passage at 51:51
52:17 And this is the potential that we all have as human beings. Report an error in the passage at 52:17
52:28 This is possible for us. We can do this. This isn't just a theory. intellectual theory that that sounds great but it is something that we we can do we don't have we don't need even special equipment you don't need a computer don't need a microscope or telescope any electronic equipment or you don't even need to be educated you can be illiterate because Report an error in the passage at 52:28
53:10 you've got it all here the what you're looking at is The way it is, the body, this body, the way your mind is, no matter what way your mind is, no matter how intelligent your thoughts or how stupid your thoughts might be is not the issue anymore. It's using wisdom rather than trying to figure it out intelligently with reason and logic. Report an error in the passage at 53:10
53:44 It's intuitive. It's an opening the mind to the universe rather than trying to fit the universe into the little perceptions that you've acquired through your education. Report an error in the passage at 53:44
54:00 And that's one of the kind of images of the foolish creatures where you're trying to interpret the universe in terms of very mediocre Report an error in the passage at 54:00
54:18 Perceptions, concepts, trying to understand everything through just a dualistic logic. Report an error in the passage at 54:18
54:29 Because if you do that, then you end up with either eternalism, where Report an error in the passage at 54:29
54:38 you want to be a positive thinker, or you're annihilationists. Those are the two extremes. Or you can be a fence-sitter. I don't really know. Report an error in the passage at 54:38
54:57 Not bother to think about the future in terms of, except maybe your next holiday or your next job or your next partner or something. Report an error in the passage at 54:57
55:10 One can just get so mesmerized and involved with the things around one, with the objects, the conditions. And in the modern life, we have an unlimited supply of distractions. Report an error in the passage at 55:10
55:26 In the wintertime, you know, and you think, here in Britain, probably in the wintertime, say a hundred years or so ago, people didn't really have much to do. It's too cold to go outside. You stayed in. You learned how to knit, crochet, embroider, work out crossword puzzles, do things, entertain each other. Report an error in the passage at 55:26
55:52 People used to read to each other. Now we can, you know, we can... In the wintertime we go on holiday, we've got television, we've got all ways of just distracting ourselves from having to look at anything very closely or having to work through boredom, having Report an error in the passage at 55:52
56:18 to sit still and having to just bear with. An overactive mind, an obsessive emotional habits and so forth. Because we can always just drift around, go on to the next thing. So this is one reason why meditation has become increasingly regarded, respected in Britain. Report an error in the passage at 56:18
56:46 There's a much more interest now in meditation, in people willing to train themselves to sit still. And to awaken and observe because they see that even though people come here on a weekend for a weekend retreat, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, to sit still, watch their breath and contemplate their navels. Report an error in the passage at 56:46
57:21 They could be out having a good time. Report an error in the passage at 57:21
57:26 They'll sit there with their knees aching, their backs aching, their minds going berserk. Report an error in the passage at 57:26
57:35 And then thank you at the end of it. Thank Report an error in the passage at 57:35
57:46 you, Ajahn Sumedho. Report an error in the passage at 57:46
57:51 But also there's something in us that realizes that this is something we need to learn how to do, to learn how to be still, how to listen to the silence, how to relax inwardly, how to be aware, sustain attention in the present. I'm trying to hold our attention to something exciting or interesting. And this is a different way of training and different way of using the mind than say anything that has been developed so far in the West. Report an error in the passage at 57:51
58:33 Because intuitively we know this is what we need to do. Because we know in a country like this where we can pretty much get what we want in terms of material things. And we can go to televisions and we can have, you know, movies 24 hours a day. They have these cable channels and so forth. You know, if I was still seven or eight years old. Report an error in the passage at 58:33
59:12 But you outgrow that, you know. Heaven, you know, you get tired of too many movies. Too much excitement is boring. You have to keep boosting it up with drugs now, ecstasy and all these other things, in ways that are tempting to create, you know, just the most exciting thing you can ever experience. Report an error in the passage at 59:12
59:42 And yet, what does it do? It gets you into a high state, but then you drop, isn't it? I hear people that do that, and they drop into a depressed state very quickly. Report an error in the passage at 59:42
1:00:07 sustainable state in the present isn't dependent on things being interesting or pleasant or or beautiful pleasing to you but Report an error in the passage at 1:00:07
1:00:21 You begin to awaken to the deathless reality in Report an error in the passage at 1:00:21
1:00:31 which you're no longer, you can break your identity, your attachment to the death-bound conditions of your body and conditions of your mind. So that's what liberation is, ultimate freedom, nibbāna. Oftentimes they say the highest happiness is nibbāna. And then we think, oh, nibbāna is probably higher than ecstasy. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:31
1:01:00 But to realize nirvāṇa means that you have to let go of ecstasy or heroin or any of those. And Report an error in the passage at 1:01:00
1:01:15 even let go of just boredom and restlessness and all the things that come up when you're sitting in a meditation hall and then things will come up into consciousness like anger and resentment and a lot of ugly, nasty emotions will suddenly kind of rise up. into consciousness in a meditation. But you're learning, rather than to fight and resist, you're learning how to relinquish, let go of those conditions. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:15
1:01:50 As I said before, it's a deprogramming of the mind. You're learning to free your mind, liberate your mind from the negative habits you've acquired, the emotional patterns that one gets stuck with in life. More and more through meditating the right way and developing the right attitude, then these are liberated from you through conscious awareness of them. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:50
1:02:20 Rather than judging them as personal problems, you're looking at them in terms of conditions ceasing. You're letting them go. So at first that's why some of you, you find your beginning meditation somewhat... Report an error in the passage at 1:02:20
1:02:40 Even after several years, sometimes nothing really, the real repressed negativity doesn't arise with some people until several years later, and then it all kind of explodes up. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:40
1:02:56 I used to have such blissful states, now as soon as I sit down, my mind goes crazy. That's fine. It is the beginning of seeing it. Relating to that craziness or that ugliness in a way that you're liberating your mind rather than conditioning it with fear or resentment, resistance. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:56
1:03:25 So this is where the emptiness, non-attachment, we realize this. And we let go of our thinking mind, our logical mind. It doesn't mean we deny it or... But we're no longer dependent on the extremes of the conditioned realm. Our identity has been broken. We're freed from the bondage to desire and to fear. So I offer this as a reflection for you this Sunday afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:25
1:04:00 We can have a break. Obviously the survey, they're setting up a tea for us. You're invited to have tea. And then in 20 minutes or so, For those who are interested, we can reassemble and I will open up the remaining time for questions. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:00
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Talk by Ajahn Sumedho. Original at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ajahn-sumedho-dhamma-talks. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Talks of Ajahn Sumedho, archived on Internet Archive. More from Amaravati