The Miracle of Consciousness

0:00 Interesting, somebody gave me the Sunday edition of the Observer. One of the articles is called The Curse of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:14 I haven't read it yet, but it's a strange combination of words. Report an error in the passage at 0:14 Highlight the passage at 0:14

0:23 Because one doesn't connect the Buddha with cursing of any sort. Report an error in the passage at 0:23 Highlight the passage at 0:23

0:34 Then in the same newspaper, there's some kind of modern rock band called Nirvāṇa. Report an error in the passage at 0:34 Highlight the passage at 0:34

0:49 You'll find Buddha and Navali in the Sunday Observer. In Report an error in the passage at 0:49 Highlight the passage at 0:49

1:10 one way it shows that here in Britain now we have the newspapers, the media like to bring up, use words or use sensational subjects, trying to create interest through sensationalism. Report an error in the passage at 1:10 Highlight the passage at 1:10

1:42 Because the human mind is one that easily kind of stimulated by shocking news items or certain words, certain concepts, intrigue, interest or excite our consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:42 Highlight the passage at 1:42

2:04 Have you ever contemplated the miracle of your own consciousness, of what that really is? Because we are conscious, we... Report an error in the passage at 2:04 Highlight the passage at 2:04

2:15 really, maybe we don't really understand it or appreciate it. Report an error in the passage at 2:15 Highlight the passage at 2:15

2:22 it for what it is. Sometimes we'd like to be unconscious when we would like to get out of the state of consciousness in which we are having to experience things that we find very... Report an error in the passage at 2:22 Highlight the passage at 2:22

2:58 reflective meditation. Meditation, contemplation, which I speak a lot about, is to me the very heart of Buddha's teaching because he was using this ability to inform ourselves of the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 2:58 Highlight the passage at 2:58

3:19 The human state, the human form, the human karma. What does this really mean? We talk about it and we can... We can question it, or we can believe it or disbelieve it, but yet these things are very much what we are. We're human beings. We're conscious. We have memories of things, of what we've done in the past. We remember the events, usually the extreme events of our past, the good times and the bad times. Report an error in the passage at 3:19 Highlight the passage at 3:19

3:55 We have to live in this state of sensitivity for a lifetime. From birth to death, this form, this human form, is exposed to the things around, that which touch upon it, impinge it, and affect it. It can be both physical, it can be visual, sound, smell, taste, mental. Just a word can send us into a state of anger or... Report an error in the passage at 3:55 Highlight the passage at 3:55

4:32 Or we can see things. When we hear about all the atrocities in Bosnia and the pathetic state of affairs of human beings living in Sarajevo. I mean, just hearing the news or seeing photographs in a newspaper, that reaches us in this conscious state, doesn't it? And it affects our minds. Report an error in the passage at 4:32 Highlight the passage at 4:32

5:02 Sometimes we give it a lot of attention. We feel it ourselves. After a while we can just get jaded by it. We just say, oh, not another article on Bosnia and dismiss it. Because maybe we don't want to feel that experience. We want to not feel the horror or know about the brutality and the atrocity that's going on. Report an error in the passage at 5:02 Highlight the passage at 5:02

5:30 Mass media gives us every opportunity to experience. From all over the planet, usually the bad things that are going on, the wars and the scandals of the human realm are usually reported assiduously in the newspapers or on the television. Report an error in the passage at 5:30 Highlight the passage at 5:30

5:56 Once in a while you get an inspiring program about the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa thrown in almost by accident. More likely to get the corrupt life story of some member of the mafia or some president or prime minister that's done something wrong. Report an error in the passage at 5:56 Highlight the passage at 5:56

6:26 And yet, our lives, we tend to seek this out. We tend to, you know, want to find maybe this excites the mind and stimulates our life. How much of your life is really just routine? And not very exciting or interesting. Daily life of most of us is just the ordinary functions of just getting up in the morning and eating one's breakfast and doing all the things, getting ready for work and going to work and working and coming back. Report an error in the passage at 6:26 Highlight the passage at 6:26

7:07 All these kind of ordinary... The experiences of daily life can be just matters of routine, things that one just does but not really conscious of anymore. We can so easily go into a state of just going through the motions of life and not really awaken to what we're doing or appreciate, even just a simple act of getting dressed or preparing breakfast. Report an error in the passage at 7:07 Highlight the passage at 7:07

7:42 In a community like this, when you have a... You depend on people kind of pitching in and helping out various maintenance projects of a community. Just like washing the dishes. Report an error in the passage at 7:42 Highlight the passage at 7:42

8:00 One can just see who's going to wash the dishes this morning and then just the perception of washing the dishes can affect the mind in a negative way. I did it yesterday. Report an error in the passage at 8:00 Highlight the passage at 8:00

8:18 Why do I always have to do it? Or it can be, you know, we can make it into something that is unpleasant. Report an error in the passage at 8:18 Highlight the passage at 8:18

8:40 But when you contemplate it, actually the act of washing the dishes is not really, it's quite all right. It's the mental state that is the problem. And that most of what we do in life is all right in itself. It's neither particularly maybe exciting, interesting or pleasurable in itself, nor is it painful. Report an error in the passage at 8:40 Highlight the passage at 8:40

9:01 and miserable. I like to use washing the dishes because I actually quite like washing the dishes. But I didn't always like washing the dishes. When I was a child and my mother said, you have to wash the dishes, I would, why do I always have to wash the dishes? And when somebody tells you to do it and you'd rather be doing something else and somehow it becomes a terrible thing in itself. Report an error in the passage at 9:01 Highlight the passage at 9:01

9:33 But as an actual, but as an act, something that one is doing and fully with, it's quite all right. It's quite pleasant. I find it a quite pleasant thing to be doing. Report an error in the passage at 9:33 Highlight the passage at 9:33

9:48 So much of our life is like that, isn't it? We create this sense of aversion or just habitual, maybe negative reactions to things, not wanting to be bothered, not wanting to have to do something. Report an error in the passage at 9:48 Highlight the passage at 9:48

10:05 Not because there's anything unpleasant about having to do it, it's just a resistance, a sense of not wanting to do, not wanting to have to do something. Report an error in the passage at 10:05 Highlight the passage at 10:05

10:18 And so we create a lot of misery in our life that has nothing to do with the actual things that are impinging on us or that we're doing, but the mental attitude we have toward them. So we begin to study this and contemplate this in our own lives. It's really very skillful to contemplate what in your life really is, you know, really unpleasant and really painful, really unfair. Report an error in the passage at 10:18 Highlight the passage at 10:18

10:53 And what is just something that one does that is just neither particularly pleasant or particularly unpleasant. And this is where the Buddha encouraged us to put our attention more in the place of neutrality, to that part of our lives that we tend to ignore and not see, rather than always seeking extremity, a kind of interesting, fascinating experiences, the kind of peak moments that we remember and we'd like to have again, or fearing. Report an error in the passage at 10:53 Highlight the passage at 10:53

11:44 mind can easily, when your life is very much inclined towards extremity, like wanting pleasure and happiness, or a lot of pleasure, a lot of happiness, a lot of excitement, interesting things to be doing, fascinating lifestyle. Just that emphasis on the extremity makes us even more frightened, more resistant, more anxious about its opposite, of boredom, of not having anything to do, not being appreciated, not being loved, not having excitement in one's life. Report an error in the passage at 11:44 Highlight the passage at 11:44

12:30 And so that the mind easily just becomes very reactive and we're caught in a kind of perpetual searching for some kind of extreme activities. Report an error in the passage at 12:30 Highlight the passage at 12:30

12:45 And in that we're quite unconscious of the way life actually is as an experience. We can just go through the motions of getting up in the morning and doing everything in a kind of half-hearted, half-conscious way. Not fully with state of mind and drifting just through kind of automatic ways of getting through the day and looking forward, anticipating maybe the night at the theater or the dinner in the restaurant or looking forward to the holiday time. Report an error in the passage at 12:45 Highlight the passage at 12:45

13:22 And yet the very kind of main part of our life is unnoticed. Now this Report an error in the passage at 13:22 Highlight the passage at 13:22

13:36 is just bringing this up for your own consideration. I'm speaking from my own meditations on my own life, so I'm just sharing it, saying this is how everybody is. Report an error in the passage at 13:36 Highlight the passage at 13:36

14:00 Now consciousness, we use this word in translating it from the Pāli word vijnana. Report an error in the passage at 14:00 Highlight the passage at 14:00

14:14 And of course it is the underlined state of being, where we're born, we have a physical form, and the time that we're born then we're conscious of things. It means that there's this subject-object experience. So when we're conscious, then we're always the subject of what... of what on our senses. Report an error in the passage at 14:14 Highlight the passage at 14:14

14:51 we have this sense of, there's always this, in the conscious experience, there's always this feeling of separation. Report an error in the passage at 14:51 Highlight the passage at 14:51

14:59 the sense conscious experience, like what you see, you, like, for example, right now, if you're looking at me, you see me as something separate from you, and that's I-consciousness, isn't it? that's the way it seems in the way that we interpret the experience. Report an error in the passage at 14:59 Highlight the passage at 14:59

15:19 me looking at you. I'm sitting here and my eyes are looking at your form and so there's this feeling of subject-object and separateness in that experience. That's the way things seem to be. The world out there is something that comes to you, touches upon, impinges upon you. Report an error in the passage at 15:19 Highlight the passage at 15:19

16:19 arouses the reaction wanting to run away or get rid of. And the sense world is built on this dualism, isn't it, of the extremities of pleasure and pain, and blame, happiness and suffering. This sensual experience is the experience of the extremes and that we can We can also, because we have a mind that can think, we have language and we have a retentive memory, then we can also hold on to views that affect how we relate to the world. Report an error in the passage at 16:19 Highlight the passage at 16:19

17:12 We can see things through a veil of prejudices. biases or preconditions, considerations. We can look at somebody from the gossip we've heard about them. We can, what other people have said about them, we can, when we see that person, we tend to project onto that visual image maybe all the assumptions and biases and And prejudices that we've acquired around that particular name, that particular subject. Report an error in the passage at 17:12 Highlight the passage at 17:12

17:58 And so what we tend to do is the actual visual image of that person comes in through eye consciousness and then it triggers off this proliferating tendency. He's this way, he did this, he did that, and so forth. And then we... We tend to not really, say, be with the person. We're merely reacting to a perception of that person. I think it's very important to be able to see this because so much of the misery we create is around just this kind of habit. Report an error in the passage at 17:58 Highlight the passage at 17:58

18:36 I imagine if you're living in Yugoslavia that that's, you know, one has a whole cultural ethnic conditioning. That when you hear somebody's a Serb or a Croat, that it triggers off a whole proliferation of likes and dislikes and ethnic prejudices. So no longer are you actually, you're no longer seeing the person for what he or she is. You're projecting onto that person maybe a whole ethnic attitude of bias and hatred and resentment. Report an error in the passage at 18:36 Highlight the passage at 18:36

19:10 And that's why One can kill, one can torture, one can brutalize other people because of this kind of way we delude ourselves. We're not seeing things as they really are. We're merely reacting to the way the mind's been conditioned to perceive. Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:34 How many of you have had experiences like that where you've maybe been brought up with some kind of prejudice, racial or religious prejudice, ethnic prejudice? Report an error in the passage at 19:34 Highlight the passage at 19:34

19:47 And then you meet somebody from that group that you were conditioned to be prejudiced against, and you talk to them as a human being, you get to know them, and you think, hmm, that's strange, they're quite all right. Report an error in the passage at 19:47 Highlight the passage at 19:47

20:03 A surprise, isn't it? Because, you know, you perceive them in one way, through prejudice, and then the actual experience is you find out they're a human being, just like yourself. Right. Report an error in the passage at 20:03 Highlight the passage at 20:03

20:18 Buddhist medicine, Meditation, notice so much of it is reminding ourselves of our common humanity. Like in Buddhist teachings, he wasn't proclaiming the differences between men and women and different ethnic groups and tribes and trying to say one is better or superior or anything like this. He wasn't trying to create prejudices in our minds about anything, about religions or about... Report an error in the passage at 20:18 Highlight the passage at 20:18

20:51 Races or ethnic groups, other people, but encourage us to observe the way our minds actually work so that we can get outside this terrible habit we have that breeds the bearing of grudges, jealousies, resentments, bitterness, prejudice, and Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

21:21 then of course it goes into persecution and it goes into... All kinds of what we see in the modern world. Endless violence that ethnic identities promote. Attachment to a particular ethnic group or a religious group. Like reading some of the letters in the newspapers about Bosnia. Some people see it as a religious war in Bosnia. Report an error in the passage at 21:21 Highlight the passage at 21:21

21:55 I would say religion has nothing to do with it. And this is just ethnic prejudice. Nobody's fighting over Islam or Christianity. Report an error in the passage at 21:55 Highlight the passage at 21:55

22:08 It has nothing to do with the religion trying to kind of convert or fight over doctrinal beliefs, is it? It's political, it's ethnic prejudice. Even the people are all the same ethnic. group actually they're all the same uh they're all the croats and serbs and bosnian muslims are all the same actually kind of serbian type people they're not like you know like not even as different as scots and english but it Report an error in the passage at 22:08 Highlight the passage at 22:08

22:53 shows how how the mind because our mind can form an opinion and we attach to that opinion then we project that opinion onto the person the place The thing, the world that we experience. And of course that means we're not living our lives in a full way. Our lives tend to be just reactions to stimulation. Report an error in the passage at 22:53 Highlight the passage at 22:53

23:18 And that's why the Buddha would compare it to death. He says people who are not awake, fully awake, are like they're already dead. Even though you're breathing and conscious, you're like a dead person. Because your life is merely a reaction to things. You're not with the flow of life. You're not participating in it in the way that a human being can. Report an error in the passage at 23:18 Highlight the passage at 23:18

23:51 You're merely operating from a set of habits. Like one of these little wind-up toys, you know, like little soldier, you wind up and set going. And it goes, pom, pom, pom, pom, pom, until it runs against the wall. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:10 Sometimes in a crisis we wake up, isn't it? When life pushes us and we have to rise up and have to move out of maybe just the momentum of our conditioning, then suddenly wonderful things can happen. Report an error in the passage at 24:10 Highlight the passage at 24:10

24:27 Surprising things. But yet we're always afraid of that experience. So much of our, say, middle class or western affluence tends to make us kind of Moral cowards in a way, kind of pusillanimous beings where we want to make sure everything is just going to be okay and I'm not going to suffer too much. Report an error in the passage at 24:27 Highlight the passage at 24:27

25:10 Actually, I'm quite grateful for the convenience and comfort and security of a country like Britain. I mean, I enjoy living here. I'm not complaining. I'm not trying to think. I'm not saying it should be some other way. Report an error in the passage at 25:10 Highlight the passage at 25:10

25:27 But what I'm trying to do is to reflect on the effect of just taking it for granted, of just living in a system without awakening yourself to life and really participating, really understanding and learning from life's experience of consciousness. Because it's easy here now, isn't it? At least it has been, just to kind of ride along in the system. You survive in Britain quite all right and you can get by without putting much effort. Report an error in the passage at 25:27 Highlight the passage at 25:27

26:07 The system will take care of you and you can ride along in it, get through it, without having to really do anything or feel anything very much. Report an error in the passage at 26:07 Highlight the passage at 26:07

26:24 Now that's not, I'm not criticizing the system itself. I'm saying that it's something that you can't expect the system, you can't expect the government to kind of awaken you. That's not the duty of the government. Report an error in the passage at 26:24 Highlight the passage at 26:24

26:43 But that's our, that's our part, that's our duty really, to awaken ourselves. And in the terms of dhamma, then this is what we're doing. We're awakening our minds. We're beginning to question, to look into that which is close, that which is near. What is consciousness anyway? Who am I? What is my real nature, myself, if I have a self? Am I really my thoughts or my feelings? Report an error in the passage at 26:43 Highlight the passage at 26:43

27:21 Am I really this body? Is this all I am? Is this human body? And these are the questions we begin to awaken, not to take a position, but to say, Bring into conscious experience a kind of openness and receptivity to where revelation is possible, where truth reveals itself to us. Because in talking in this way, when the mind is receptive and open, then there is a revelation possible. Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:57 Somehow insight happens. Things that you... profound insights... In a lot of beginning meditation practices, it's the attempt to try to create the conditions where we can trust, where we feel we can just relax and open up. Report an error in the passage at 27:57 Highlight the passage at 27:57

28:24 We aren't forced in just the habitual defenses and habitual tendencies. Where we feel we can just let go and relax and open to life and be willing to feel it and willing to participate in it. Sometimes the image of Buddhism in the West is like a religion in which you deny the world and you leave it. Report an error in the passage at 28:24 Highlight the passage at 28:24

28:55 Because we get accused of this quite often. You're not living in the real world. You're escaping responsibilities. You're not participating in life. It's how it might seem. The images themselves can give that sense. It's like the Buddha image. If you just look at it without really understanding that particular form, you can see it as merely an image of a human being who left the society and got enlightened by leaving it, sitting under a tree. Report an error in the passage at 28:55 Highlight the passage at 28:55

29:33 And then we have this great image of contemplating one's navel. I don't think there's anything in the sutras that said the Buddha contemplated his navel. Report an error in the passage at 29:33 Highlight the passage at 29:33

29:43 Maybe he did. It's a good object of contemplation, I'm sure. Report an error in the passage at 29:43 Highlight the passage at 29:43

29:53 But we think contemplating your navel or your breath is a waste of time because it's more important to read up on the causes of war in Bosnia or to be... Caught in that search for happiness and excitement, caught Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:16 up into the saṃsāra or the realm of delusion and conflict and stimulation. Report an error in the passage at 30:16 Highlight the passage at 30:16

30:29 But in developing meditation around the way things are, we start with the obvious, like the breath and the body, the posture, the feeling, just the... Report an error in the passage at 30:29 Highlight the passage at 30:29

30:45 breath, in and out, the exhalation, inhalation, exhalation that's going on. this is bringing attention to the obvious, to that which we don't notice unless it's some kind of extreme condition. Report an error in the passage at 30:45 Highlight the passage at 30:45

31:03 don't really notice our bodies until they start hurting usually we're looking at them in terms of just like vanity or just to see how, you know, We look good or not, or with a critical eye or a vein, an eye of vanity, but we don't actually say accept the body in the moment and really feel the body and let it be what it is. Report an error in the passage at 31:03 Highlight the passage at 31:03

31:31 We tend to react to it. When there's pain, then we react to the pain. When we feel discomfort, then we react to the discomfort that we're in, trying to get rid of it. Report an error in the passage at 31:31 Highlight the passage at 31:31

31:44 When we get any pleasure through the body any kind of pleasurable sensation we want to have more of them. We'd like to do things to increase the pleasure and live a life where we reduce all possibilities of discomfort and pain. Report an error in the passage at 31:44 Highlight the passage at 31:44

32:02 And so in turning to the way things are it's like when you open your mind to the body to the sensation, to the pain To the posture, to the breath. In that very kind of willingness to accept it the way it is, you find you're transcending it. You're actually freeing yourself from being just reactive and bound out of ignorance to the feelings, sensations of the human body you have. Report an error in the passage at 32:02 Highlight the passage at 32:02

32:42 It's like when you really open yourself totally to life. To all of it, then you're no longer afraid of it. Report an error in the passage at 32:42 Highlight the passage at 32:42

32:56 It's like a paradox, because we can imagine that there's so many things to be afraid of in life, so much to hurt us, to make life unbearable. We can imagine it, even when it's not around. We can, you know, so much of our fear and anxiety come from all possibilities that aren't... And so we become cowardly and frightened, defensive in our lives. Report an error in the passage at 32:56 Highlight the passage at 32:56

33:31 And in that, then we have to try to control, try to manipulate the world around us. And in that control and manipulation, we create more anxiety. And so we find that life is an endless source of worry. Report an error in the passage at 33:31 Highlight the passage at 33:31

33:51 I think modern life is just the thing that makes it quite unpleasant for most people is the tendency to just worry, worry, worry about it. Report an error in the passage at 33:51 Highlight the passage at 33:51

34:06 There's a lot to worry about when you think of it. Report an error in the passage at 34:06 Highlight the passage at 34:06

34:13 Certainly, I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about, but this habit of worrying comes from not understanding things as they are so that... How you perceive them, what you imagine them to be is the cause of these worries. Report an error in the passage at 34:13 Highlight the passage at 34:13

34:40 Then in the spiritual development, say, or in the practice of meditation, instead of worrying about it all, we go right to the worry, to the pain, to the posture, to the breath, to the mood, to the anxiety. Like you're taking it all in, you're embracing it. you're willing to accept Report an error in the passage at 34:40 Highlight the passage at 34:40

35:10 willing to do that, then you'll find that you don't suffer from it. getting outside the realm of suffering, not by running away out of fear desire to hide away from pain, but by embracing it understanding it. this is what the Buddha was teaching in the Four Noble Truths, the first truth. Suffering is to understand it, not to get rid of it, but to understand it. Report an error in the passage at 35:10 Highlight the passage at 35:10

35:44 Training one's consciousness then is the development of the Buddhist path. Because this lifetime, how many years do we all have to live, it's a variable. Report an error in the passage at 35:44 Highlight the passage at 35:44

35:58 And it could be a short life or a long life in terms of years. But what's really important is the quality rather than the length. Report an error in the passage at 35:58 Highlight the passage at 35:58

36:11 Sometimes, I think in the old days, people treasured living a long time. I think nowadays people settle for an earlier death. Report an error in the passage at 36:11 Highlight the passage at 36:11

36:28 It's not so nice to be old anymore. At one time, when society had more respect for old age, it's probably pleasant to live to a ripe old age. Report an error in the passage at 36:28 Highlight the passage at 36:28

36:45 But now we can see, you know, that... That is not so pleasant because the society doesn't, it's changed. It no longer respects old age. And it tends to, everything seems to be centered around the more youthful aspect of existence. The tastes, the fads, the fashions, what is praise, what is... Report an error in the passage at 36:45 Highlight the passage at 36:45

37:17 ...gets the attention is what is youthful. So Report an error in the passage at 37:17 Highlight the passage at 37:17

37:27 that the aging process tends to be something that we take quite personally. And then because of that we don't appreciate what's actually happening to us. Report an error in the passage at 37:27 Highlight the passage at 37:27

37:44 Now contemplate, it's the aging process, what it's like. You think, well it's, you know, you get... More pain and you can't do the things you used to do and your memory's not as good as it was and you lose your kind of attractiveness and it all sounds pretty grim in terms of what you've lost. But what have you gained through the aging process? Report an error in the passage at 37:44 Highlight the passage at 37:44

38:20 Well, one thing that I see is that in aging process you don't have all the energy you used to have. I think that's good, at least for a monk. Report an error in the passage at 38:20 Highlight the passage at 38:20

38:35 I've noticed the young monks, they have all this energy to wear off every day, and I don't have those problems. So it's easier to sit still and be calm because I'm not dealing with a lot of youthful energy anymore, which is a relief rather than a sense of loss. It's a kind of, what a relief not to have to do all that again and again and again. Report an error in the passage at 38:35 Highlight the passage at 38:35

39:01 I remember a couple of years ago I met Father Bede Griffith, the Catholic monk in Berkeley in California. And I went to see him. He was staying at a Zen center, at a Korean Zen center in Berkeley. And he's the one who started an ashram in India. Report an error in the passage at 39:01 Highlight the passage at 39:01

39:23 Catholic monastery, Catholic ashram, but more kind of integrated into the Indian culture. So it wasn't just a kind of European Catholicism he was imposing. He was trying to kind of integrate Catholicism so it had more kind of, is more sympathetic to the culture that he was actually living in. And he was quite a grand old monk. He died, I think, about a couple of months ago. Report an error in the passage at 39:23 Highlight the passage at 39:23

39:52 In India. But anyway, he was telling me that the previous year he had a stroke. And he was looking very happy and he said, he said, I had the most wonderful gift given to me. He said, I had this stroke. Interesting way of looking at it, isn't it? And he said, you know, it's such a relief because he said, I've lost so much of my memory. Report an error in the passage at 39:52 Highlight the passage at 39:52

40:25 And then he said, you know, I used to be, you know, he was very learned, a very kind of intellectual person and very intelligent. I mean, he no doubt had, you know, a fantastic memory and knew a lot about a lot. But he looked very peaceful and he said, now, he said, it's all, you know, it doesn't matter and he just enjoys just the breath and just the consciousness of being. Report an error in the passage at 40:25 Highlight the passage at 40:25

40:52 I looked perfectly happy, perfectly at peace. He was kind of resting on a bed, and he was quite elderly, and obviously needed to rest a lot. But he had certainly a joyful aura. All around him was a kind of joyfulness. He looked beautiful, in fact. White beard, looked very kind of patriarchal. Report an error in the passage at 40:52 Highlight the passage at 40:52

41:22 Very elegant looking man. And he had this joyful mind and was feeling quite happy with having lost all his learning. Well, maybe, he obviously hadn't lost all of it, but it wasn't like it used to be. And he said it was so much more peaceful without it. Report an error in the passage at 41:22 Highlight the passage at 41:22

41:45 That's taking what might be, I mean, if you invested your whole life in being one who knows a lot about everything and then you lose it, you can only feel Frightened and angry about it. You know, life is really terrible, and if your identity and your self-image is based on you being a sharp intellectual person who has their, you know, knows a lot, and then you lose it, then you only feel maybe frightened and resentful of the loss. Report an error in the passage at 41:45 Highlight the passage at 41:45

42:19 Well, obviously, Father B. Griffith didn't feel that way at all. Because he was recognizing that his mind, within his mind, it was a relief in a way to not have to think about those things anymore. To just be conscious, be with the moment, is bliss, is peace. Report an error in the passage at 42:19 Highlight the passage at 42:19

42:43 Now that's quite an important thing for us to realize, that really there's nothing we have to do but awaken. Report an error in the passage at 42:43 Highlight the passage at 42:43

42:57 And that awakened state is we need to trust. We have to have faith or trust or confidence to be able to do that. Because if we don't have something to trust in, then we tend to feel very... And we're solely convinced that our identity is with the body and with our abilities or talents, our personality and all that. Report an error in the passage at 42:57 Highlight the passage at 42:57

43:25 Then when these things change, These things go off, and when they're no longer what they used to be, then we have no refuge. We only feel frightened by the changes, by the disruptions, by the loss of that which we've become very attached to. Report an error in the passage at 43:25 Highlight the passage at 43:25

43:46 But when we have faith or confidence in what? Well, Father B. Griffiths no doubt had faith in God or in ultimate reality. Or in the absolute. But it wasn't, I'm sure it wasn't the blind kind of belief in something called God or faith or the absolute, but through meditation, coming to terms with the conditions that he was experiencing, there was that realization. Report an error in the passage at 43:46 Highlight the passage at 43:46

44:20 So that in this experience of consciousness, we're able to realize the unconditioned or the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 44:20 Highlight the passage at 44:20

44:34 Realization of immortality, deathlessness, realization of truth, or absolute, or in the Buddhist term, not in the Sunday Observer type of nirvāṇa, but in nirvāṇa, is Report an error in the passage at 44:34 Highlight the passage at 44:34

44:55 not a rock band. And this rock band, they call it, I don't understand modern fashions very well, they call it a grunge. Report an error in the passage at 44:55 Highlight the passage at 44:55

45:07 And these rock musicians are the grungiest. Looking, what musicians I have ever seen. They really make your stomach turn. Report an error in the passage at 45:07 Highlight the passage at 45:07

45:19 They are truly ugly. At least the photos in the Observer. Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

45:30 I'm sure they're not as ugly as they look, but they've done everything to make themselves ugly. And been successful. Report an error in the passage at 45:30 Highlight the passage at 45:30

45:43 And Report an error in the passage at 45:43 Highlight the passage at 45:43

45:48 they're from Seattle, too. Successful. Report an error in the passage at 45:48 Highlight the passage at 45:48

46:01 Nice to know Seattle is getting famous for something at last. In Report an error in the passage at 46:01 Highlight the passage at 46:01

46:17 the Buddhist, every religion has their particular formula, you know, their conventions that you, you know, that you, ways of expression or ways of pointing at ultimate reality. Report an error in the passage at 46:17 Highlight the passage at 46:17

46:36 And this also can be greatly misunderstood because the way the symbols the expressions can be quite different we tend to assume that the ultimate goal of religions is very different because we give so much importance to the symbol the symbolic forms, the doctrines conventional religions I remember Report an error in the passage at 46:36 Highlight the passage at 46:36

47:14 reading Report an error in the passage at 47:14 Highlight the passage at 47:14

47:22 an article about a An Russian Orthodox priest that said that Buddhism was totally opposed to Christianity. Report an error in the passage at 47:22 Highlight the passage at 47:22

47:34 Totally opposed. Christianity was a religion based on God and Buddhism was an atheistic religion. This is the way it might appear if you're following a kind of logical mind. Report an error in the passage at 47:34 Highlight the passage at 47:34

47:57 That kind of grasps terminology too much and sees that a belief in God as something totally different than non-belief in God and seeing that those are just at opposition to each other. But what we're doing in reflective meditation In contemplation of the way things are, we're not trying to believe or disbelieve anymore. With the Buddha's teachings, it's not based on grasping a belief, but in reflecting and observing and having insight, realization of the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 47:57 Highlight the passage at 47:57

48:48 So when the Buddha was asked by the philosophers of his time whether... There was a god or not, or what happened to the Buddha when he died, or what happens to the Tathāgata, what the Buddha called himself when he died, and would there be anything left? These kind of metaphysical questions the Buddha would remain silent, Report an error in the passage at 48:48 Highlight the passage at 48:48

49:14 wouldn't answer. Report an error in the passage at 49:14 Highlight the passage at 49:14

49:18 And so the intellectuals would then say, or the academics would say, well, he doesn't know because he can't answer the question. But then the silence might be the answer, isn't it? Next month we're having this interfaith monastic conference here at Amaravati. A lot of good response to it, especially the majority of the participants will be Christians, Christian monks and nuns, mostly Roman Catholics coming to interfaith. Report an error in the passage at 49:18 Highlight the passage at 49:18

49:59 ...monastic seminar. And contemplating this, more and more you find when you go to a Catholic monastery, you find more and more talk about silence and then a meditation in silence. Silence is something that is beginning to be appreciated. Because we're... Report an error in the passage at 49:59 Highlight the passage at 49:59

50:28 We realize that the convention, just on the level of language or religious formulas or particular cultural conditioning or religious conditioning, you can go on endlessly talking about Christian concept of God and Buddhist concept of nirvāṇa and go and write poems, really lengthy treatises on On Theravāda and Buddhism and the concept of nirvāṇa and Christianity and the reality of God and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 50:28 Highlight the passage at 50:28

51:04 There's so much of this and yet it goes on and on and on. It ends up just a seemingly endless proliferation of the mind. But when you go into the silence, then there seems to be a sense of oneness and unity. Report an error in the passage at 51:04 Highlight the passage at 51:04

51:27 Of harmony. And when we learn to sit in silence with each other, rather than just endlessly kind of zap each other with interesting conversation or quarrels or arguments, trying Report an error in the passage at 51:27 Highlight the passage at 51:27

51:44 to convert each other, trying to intimidate each other, you know, I mean, that has its place too. But I mean, that does, at the end of the day, What good has it really done? It oftentimes confirmed your prejudices or made you doubt maybe what you're doing. If you get a very strong person in whatever religion that's totally convinced that their religion is right and yours is wrong, sometimes you start wavering. Report an error in the passage at 51:44 Highlight the passage at 51:44

52:23 It's sometimes difficult to go against somebody who's totally confident. Report an error in the passage at 52:23 Highlight the passage at 52:23

52:32 But this confidence I'm talking about isn't confidence of affirmation or belief, but a confidence through realization. And that realization of truth is more and more is in silence. Like watching your breath, being aware of your body as it is. You're doing that in the silence of a moment. You're going toward a silent place within you where you can just watch and observe. Report an error in the passage at 52:32 Highlight the passage at 52:32

53:00 You don't have to prove. You're not trying to prove. Or defend any position, you're suddenly that sense of just taking notice of the way it is. And at first, we find it difficult to do that because we're conditioned to be kind of very active and do things. We feel ill at ease in just being, just breathing and being conscious. What am I supposed to do next, we say? Report an error in the passage at 53:00 Highlight the passage at 53:00

53:29 You know, I'm just supposed to sit here and breathe for an hour? Report an error in the passage at 53:29 Highlight the passage at 53:29

53:35 And then we talk about, well, notice the feeling. Well, I don't see any feelings. Report an error in the passage at 53:35 Highlight the passage at 53:35

53:44 Because if our life is one of always kind of outgoing seeking, then we don't know how things are. We're always creating new things. We're always trying to find something interesting, something distracting, going from one thing to the next. Feelings. Report an error in the passage at 53:44 Highlight the passage at 53:44

54:08 Where in meditation you're sitting and you get bored with it. It is boring to watch your breath. But then you begin to feel, you're willing to feel bored rather than just react to being bored. Report an error in the passage at 54:08 Highlight the passage at 54:08

54:23 And when you're willing to feel boredom, then it seems to drop away. Or maybe things will, sometimes in the... In meditation, maybe anger will start arising. Maybe suppressed anger will start coming. You find yourself getting angry. You start thinking about something and you feel really angry in a meditation hall. Report an error in the passage at 54:23 Highlight the passage at 54:23

54:51 Not because anyone there has made you angry. It's just being there and then not having the ability to distract yourself with things. Suddenly maybe the suppressive holding It doesn't work anymore and suddenly it all starts coming into your consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 54:51 Highlight the passage at 54:51

55:15 So then you think, oh, I can't meditate because all I do is get angry when I meditate. Report an error in the passage at 55:15 Highlight the passage at 55:15

55:23 Don't believe that. That's not true. If you've suppressed your anger, then when it starts coming up, that's a good thing. It's like a relief of the mind. Because when you're allowing... These emotions into your consciousness, you can let them go. You're resolving those problems in your mind. So sometimes in meditation, even though we would like it to be full of bliss and peace, this kind of sit down and go into a state of utter bliss for an hour is what we all really like. Report an error in the passage at 55:23 Highlight the passage at 55:23

56:05 Really nice. But that doesn't happen very much. At least in the beginning. And then these other states start coming up. But then that's good too. That's why we show an acceptance of these emotions that are rising, that are coming into consciousness in the moment. It's non-judgmental. It's accepting. It's willing to let them be what they are. And that is... Report an error in the passage at 56:05 Highlight the passage at 56:05

56:41 Like a more intuitive acceptance. It's a, say, the word intuition is where you're, it's non-critical. You're not saying how it should be or you're not condemning yourself for feeling angry. You're merely acknowledging it's this way and accepting it whatever way it feels. No matter how unpleasant a feeling it might be, we still accept that. Report an error in the passage at 56:41 Highlight the passage at 56:41

57:11 That actually is the way to resolve those emotions. Report an error in the passage at 57:11 Highlight the passage at 57:11

57:17 And it works a wonderful effect on your life because this way you become more confident and learn how to resolve emotional problems you have rather than just kind of hold them back or distract yourself or spend lots of money on a psychiatrist. Report an error in the passage at 57:17 Highlight the passage at 57:17

57:46 Because you begin to realize that you have the ability and the wisdom and that possibility to resolve your own karma, to let what arises, to let it cease. Report an error in the passage at 57:46 Highlight the passage at 57:46

58:04 And that's done consciously. It's not trying to kind of just push it aside and get rid of it, but it's willingness to be fully conscious of it when it's present. So that's like the miracle of consciousness. This state we're in is, as an experience, is full of fear. It's a frightening realm we're in because there is so much pain in it, so much possible suffering. Report an error in the passage at 58:04 Highlight the passage at 58:04

58:40 is is is uh... Report an error in the passage at 58:40 Highlight the passage at 58:40

58:45 We know that. We're in a very sensitive and vulnerable state for a lifetime. And therefore, when we take it personally, it is a frightening experience. Putting it in the context of what it really is, as conditions rising and ceasing, and our refuge is no longer in the body or in the conditioned realm or the opinions and views that we're... Report an error in the passage at 58:45 Highlight the passage at 58:45

59:13 That we've attached to. We're letting go. So then our confidence comes through our realization of the deathless reality. Or realization of nibbāna. That Report an error in the passage at 59:13 Highlight the passage at 59:13

59:39 is significant. I think that the Buddha taught this 2,500 years ago. Not modern psychology. It's not like a recent discovery. Report an error in the passage at 59:39 Highlight the passage at 59:39

59:51 The latest thing from California. Report an error in the passage at 59:51 Highlight the passage at 59:51

1:00:01 It's an ancient teaching, but it also has great significance, I think, to the modern problem. Because it is, as you can see, the Buddha did teach in a very psychological way. He taught about the nature of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:01 Highlight the passage at 1:00:01

1:00:24 And I think this is why many of us have been attracted to Buddhism at this time. That's what we tended to be, that's our kind of modern education is around psychology. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:24 Highlight the passage at 1:00:24

1:00:42 We talk about ourselves, we think of ourselves in psychological terms. It comes very easy for us at this time. At another time, we didn't think of ourselves in psychological terms, more in terms of maybe mythological terminologies, the Report an error in the passage at 1:00:42 Highlight the passage at 1:00:42

1:01:11 old ways of the old religions that tend to speak in the language of myth, of the anthropomorphic Report an error in the passage at 1:01:11 Highlight the passage at 1:01:11

1:01:32 forms of way of talking about emotions in terms of gods or deities or powers that be. And that's what we call mythological language. We talk about the pantheon of the Greek gods and we can now begin to see the psychology that's behind all that. The different Greek goddesses and gods and the Olympic, Mount Olympus and the various... Report an error in the passage at 1:01:32 Highlight the passage at 1:01:32

1:02:02 Forms of Dionysius and Apollo and Orpheus and what these are in psychological terms. Now you read books. Modern writers are publishing a lot of literature about the significance of these various mythological heroes or gods or deities or forms. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02:02

1:02:31 Because now we begin to see that there's more to it than just a fairy tale or an exciting legend in itself. That the history of humanity really is a continuous attempt, an effort to try to understand ourselves and our existence and the forces that affect us and the mysteries that we very much feel. Surrounding us and the fear that we all have in anxiety and the sense of mystery that pervades this whole universal system as far as an individual human being is concerned. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:31 Highlight the passage at 1:02:31

1:03:21 But even though one can try to find the Zeus or Apollo within one's mind, that tends to not quite ring as true to me as... The more just the kind of psychological terms of looking at various forms of greed, hatred and delusion and emotional immaturity and fears and doubts and worries. These kind of words seem more, you know, like I can realize those states within my mind. I can relate to that without having to kind of anthropomorphize it or make it into some kind of of uh figure one one one is looking at it because the mind that they the cultural conditioning has been very much one based on respect for I find the Buddha Dhamma, of course, fits into that quite easily. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:21 Highlight the passage at 1:03:21

1:04:29 Because Buddha means the knowing, the pure, the pure. intelligence pure wisdom and knowing things as they are even though it is personified it's anthropomorphized into Buddha can be was a historical figure we Buddhists tend to believe or assume that there is actually a prophet called Gautama the Buddha but Report an error in the passage at 1:04:29 Highlight the passage at 1:04:29

1:05:02 even that doesn't necessarily have to be true if suddenly they came and proved that there wasn't It was all made up by somebody else. It still works. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:02 Highlight the passage at 1:05:02

1:05:17 It's not terribly important whether Gautama Buddha actually lived or not as far as I'm concerned because teaching works. And that's the important thing. You don't have to have historical accuracy as long as the actual teaching does what it says it can do. It works. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:17 Highlight the passage at 1:05:17

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:05:48 I notice modern psychologists now and people are this movement called transpersonal psychology and it's getting closer, it's getting very Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:48 Highlight the passage at 1:05:48

1:06:12 And the Buddha did say, you don't have to call it Buddhist because it is true, you know, it's to be discovered, it's not... Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:12 Highlight the passage at 1:06:12

1:06:21 What we refer to Buddhism per se is a convention that was developed at that time. And so it has its own kind of expressions and words and its own jargon in fact. But it's merely a convention to... To awaken the mind. So whatever awakens, you see, the awakening of the human individual is an important thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:21 Highlight the passage at 1:06:21

1:07:00 The more people that awake, awaken, then we can understand each other because our minds are receptive to each other. I'm not trying to convert you or convince you that my particular way of thinking is right and yours is wrong and that you have to agree with me. What I feel now is that one is willing to listen and discuss and oftentimes what seems to be vast differences aren't really that much different. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:00 Highlight the passage at 1:07:00

1:07:29 When we begin to listen Listen and not just take. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:29 Highlight the passage at 1:07:29

1:07:40 beyond just maybe the reactiveness we might be feeling. And we begin to pick up on Report an error in the passage at 1:07:40 Highlight the passage at 1:07:40

1:07:49 Maybe there's a lot more in common than one had ever assumed or what seems apparent if you're just going along judging by the surface or the surface image of any religious tradition. So Report an error in the passage at 1:07:49 Highlight the passage at 1:07:49

1:08:19 now it's time to end the formal lecture, formal discussion, or talk, not discussion. And then... We have a 15-minute break, and for those of you who have the inclination to stay on, we can have a discussion in 15 minutes. I think they've prepared tea, so I'll invite you to help yourself to some tea. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:19 Highlight the passage at 1:08:19