Automated transcript, estimated accuracy about 92% for this source; report an error.
Words the recogniser was unsure of are underlined with dots. Use “Report an error” beside any passage to tell us what the teacher actually says.
Key passages
The teacher's own words, quoted from the transcript below and chosen automatically as representative.
- 2:02
like joy for me is a very natural relationship to the beautiful and the good that I experience. No, I mean, you know, you're living in, you know, so much of what one experiences in daily life is quite beautiful and good. And so I have a lot of joy. But that often, but the joy, say before I've...
- 3:06
I like that poem by William Blake. He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy, but he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sunrise. I used to kind of like bind the joy, and then it's like destroying your life. You're always holding on to happiness, and then in the process of holding, you're destroying it all the time. Now you get cynical and bitter by doing that, because you're always grasping at it, and whatever you grasp, then it changes.
- 4:27
It's like, say, you know, you find suddenly your mind just so half joyful over just the things that, you know, the sun or the flowers and things, just simple things, you know, are surrounding us in daily life, bring us a lot of joy. But if we're caught up in our, in worry and anxiety and self-disparagement, then Even though it's still around us, we don't notice it. It doesn't resonate. Or if we do, we make problems about it, and then we experience despair.
- 36:01
Oh, she's gone forever. I start, you know, if I start thinking about it, then I can indulge in that feeling, or I can just say, well, that's life, stiff upper lip, gone, goodbye, get on with your life, and dismiss it. So, or, that alone, I find that ability to admit and to... Hold that feeling and experience it completely allows that grief to resolve itself.
- 43:35
Because then your refuge is in the amattadhamma rather than in your emotional state or your memories or your physical body. It's not what you are, not your refuge anymore, not a refuge. It's like this mindfulness,
Transcript
0:00 You can ask me any questions, or we can have a dialogue. We could just sit here quietly. Report an error in the passage at 0:00
0:15 Joseph? I think you better ask Geshe, Tashi. But I think, you know, like, I mean, they all have their, everything has its advantages and disadvantages. So when they come in young, oftentimes they still have, you know, a lot of, Report an error in the passage at 0:15
0:40 The world still is something they haven't experienced, a lot of things that you can't do in monastic life. I think when I came, because I was over 30, I had no more illusions about the world being something that I had any real questions or doubts about. So I've never had problems. With staying in the monastic life, you know, it's always, I've never wanted to leave it. But also, you have to, you know, being, your karma ripens as you get older. Report an error in the passage at 0:40
1:29 So many monks, you know, like Asian monks do look pretty happy, but it doesn't mean that they're always that happy as they look. Report an error in the passage at 1:29
1:42 Well, Report an error in the passage at 1:42
2:02 like joy for me is a very natural relationship to the beautiful and the good that I experience. No, I mean, you know, you're living in, you know, so much of what one experiences in daily life is quite beautiful and good. And so I have a lot of joy. But that often, but the joy, say before I've... As I grew older, say in childhood, I found, I don't know about a joyful childhood, but as I became very self-conscious and obsessed with myself as a person, then I, that joyfulness seemed to go. Report an error in the passage at 2:02
2:44 And then there was this kind of, you know, worry, angst that seemed to be more my common experience than joy. And then through the meditation, now there's a lot of joy, because it's like in... I like that poem by William Blake. He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy, but he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sunrise. Report an error in the passage at 2:44
3:26 I used to kind of like bind the joy, and then it's like destroying your life. You're always holding on to happiness, and then in the process of holding, you're destroying it all the time. Now you get cynical and bitter by doing that, because you're always grasping at it, and whatever you grasp, then it changes. Report an error in the passage at 3:26
3:52 Well, joy, once you grasp it, it... It's no longer joyful because that destroys the experience, the grasping does. Like Blake's poem, kiss the joy as it flies. That was quite an insight for me. I realized that you're not trying to hold on to it or seek it. You're not trying to be happy anymore or find happiness or joy as experience. Report an error in the passage at 3:52
4:19 It just naturally is quite normal as a human to experience that. It's like, say, you know, you find suddenly your mind just so half joyful over just the things that, you know, the sun or the flowers and things, just simple things, you know, are surrounding us in daily life, bring us a lot of joy. Report an error in the passage at 4:19
4:49 But if we're caught up in our, in worry and anxiety and self-disparagement, then Even though it's still around us, we don't notice it. It doesn't resonate. Or if we do, we make problems about it, and then we experience despair. Report an error in the passage at 4:49
5:35 That's the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 5:35
5:41 Well, you know, you could say somebody created it, or you don't know why. You don't know how it all came about. But the fact that it's here, you know, and that this is what it does, you know, you're mindful, then you can be aware of it. You know, you're aware of the beauty without trying to grasp it. Report an error in the passage at 5:41
6:11 And so then it, you know, then it changes. Like, say, the clouds come and the flowers fade and that, but you're not, you don't feel... You know, you appreciate more the cycle than the peak moments. Where before, I would always be aiming to live at the peaks of life, the peak moments, the kind of the best. Report an error in the passage at 6:11
6:42 And so the aim, say, the intention was always to get to the peak, to have the peak moment, peak experiences. Report an error in the passage at 6:42
7:01 thing so it know you're always feeling this sense of loss again so you you get what you want you know and achieved it you've reached the top and then it Report an error in the passage at 7:01
7:13 there's something disappointing in it because your whole... Report an error in the passage at 7:13
7:19 The experience has been trying to reach that, and so when you reach it, you can't even enjoy it. The peak moment can't be really enjoyed, because then the mind goes on looking for something else. But with mindfulness, then you stop operating out of that kind of compulsion. And always seeking the peaks of life to being with the flow of experience. So even the unpleasant things of life are endurable and bearable. Report an error in the passage at 7:19
7:57 And a lot of things in life that before you dismiss, you find are quite beautiful. For example, when I first came to live in the UK in 1977, Report an error in the passage at 7:57
8:14 I always liked living in sunny climates. And so as soon as I was able to, I moved to California to live in the sunny California. And then I lived in Hawaii and I lived in Borneo and I lived in Thailand and in India. And I'd always be seeking these sunny climates. And then I found myself in England. Report an error in the passage at 8:14
8:43 And at first I, you know, and I arrived in May of 1977 and it was a really cold and bleak May and I felt cold all the time. I mean, physically I quite liked it because my constitution thrives in this kind of climate where I was obviously, you know, in the tropics, I wasn't, physically I wasn't very well. Report an error in the passage at 8:43
9:12 But I did find, like, Gray weather, rain, and cold would create negative states for me. I'd start complaining about it and thinking in negative ways and just trying to seek warmth all the time. But then I contemplated what I was doing, so I started opening up to bleakness and cold. Report an error in the passage at 9:12
9:42 And things like this. And suddenly I found a different way of looking at it. And I found all those things that I kind of complained about or dismissed were quite peaceful. And like the English winters here in Amarwati. It gets very bleak up here. But to me that is very peaceful because my mind is in the bleakness, the grayness. Report an error in the passage at 9:42
10:26 negative thoughts about it, it's very conducive towards and calm. Report an error in the passage at 10:26
10:35 I could go out and walk out in the in the wintertime. Just letting my mind be with the subdued quality, the calm, the silence of the wintertime, and feel, you know, it enhances, it helps the mind. Where if I start complaining, then I'm creating a problem about it. And if I don't do that, then the actual experience is I've discovered the peace. Report an error in the passage at 10:35
11:11 Peacefulness of things like cold, bleakness, grayness, subdued colors. You look at the trunks of the trees, all the leaves have gone, and then you look at the trunks of the trees, and the colors are there, but they're all subdued and quiet, not loud and stimulating. And then you look at those kind of subdued colors on the trees, you know, and they're quite beautiful in themselves. But it's easy to ignore them because they're not like vibrant red or bilious pink or anything. Report an error in the passage at 11:11
12:00 My life before would just have ignored that and said, I don't like wintertime and just dismissed wintertime. But in this openness of the mind, then you're... You're also expanding. So your experience of life isn't always held within a few narrow perceptual expressions, but it seems to go in towards infinity and unlimited, immeasurableness. Report an error in the passage at 12:00
12:45 Also, yes, it's like doing good things. without any selfish... Report an error in the passage at 12:45
13:02 for return for anything in return is joy you find like joyful people are know like you know love to they serve they help but it's not in order to to gain Amen. Report an error in the passage at 13:02
13:18 you take the joy out of doing good work. Report an error in the passage at 13:18
13:24 And I've noticed, you know, like people will. I met some people who lived very good lives. And, you know, they said, you know, I've given lots of money to the church. I've devoted hours of my life to helping the disabled. I've done this for this person, done that for taking care of my mother, my father, my grandmother. Report an error in the passage at 13:24
13:51 I helped the whales and the sharks. I've done everything for my children. children and sacrificed myself so that my children would have all didn't have, look at me now, you know, just left alone out in the cold, nobody loves me. Report an error in the passage at 13:51
14:14 so, you know, you think, you know, then your mind realizes that there's a demand for some gratitude or something in return that statement. Report an error in the passage at 14:14
14:28 know, so that... Now that person just thinks, I've done all this and I should be rewarded for it, and I'm not being rewarded. So it's, you know, they kind of set yourself up for misery. But if you, you know, I find, if I do good things and I expect, and I even want somebody to say thank you, that destroys something, you know. Report an error in the passage at 14:28
14:55 Because you're, if they don't say thank you, then you feel... feel like you've not been given your proper due, the actual, when you investigate, just selfless giving is joyful in itself, it's its own reward, it's not, need reward you, because... Report an error in the passage at 14:55
15:16 doing it it's immediate so you find joyful people are those that just kind of have that immediacy and joy because they find the joy in the act itself Report an error in the passage at 15:16
15:31 the act in order to be rewarded with happiness. Report an error in the passage at 15:31
15:43 that is more, you have to, that's intuitive also to, know. Report an error in the passage at 15:43
15:55 so many different factors affecting every moment really this is where you have to you know If you, you know, like with meditation, you're getting to know yourself, and you learn through trial and error. You know, even with mindfulness, you're still learning through, not that you do everything right because you're mindful, but you're willing to learn from the what you do. Report an error in the passage at 15:55
16:29 And sometimes you do it wrong, and then you learn that that's not probably the best way to do it. so you can change. Report an error in the passage at 16:29
16:40 I feel very much that this intuitive awareness, people don't trust it. Report an error in the passage at 16:40
16:53 Many of us, I can see in myself a kind of longing for an external force to direct me because on the personal level there's too much... Report an error in the passage at 16:53
17:07 ...doubt about myself as a person to think that I should know, I can really know clearly what's the best thing for me to do. So I would find, you know, like I want to find somebody, an authority or a teacher or a guide or a guru, somebody out there or God or some, you know, who could, you know... Confirm, you do this, and then you do that, and then you're on the right track. Report an error in the passage at 17:07
17:37 And I could see, and Lungpho Cha was brilliant with this, with me, with this, because, you know, I lived with him for ten years, and I found, you know, I kept wanting him to kind of say, oh, now, Sumedho, you have, you've reached this stage, and, you know, wanting all the time to get confirmation that I'm doing everything all right, and that I'm now... Report an error in the passage at 17:37
18:13 anything, you know, he'd keep laughing at me every time I'd kind of try to some kind of confirmation, and sometimes make fun of me, so I to realize, you know, that was... What he was actually saying is, how do you expect me to know? You're the one that can know. You're the one that is experiencing things. And he kept kind of forcing me to take responsibility for my life and figure it out for myself, rather than getting hooked onto him and then him kind of telling me what to do next. Report an error in the passage at 18:13
18:58 And because of that, I developed a kind of confidence in myself because I realized in some ways he trusted me more than I did. Report an error in the passage at 18:58
19:09 And that was very inspiring to me to realize that I really contemplated that he actually had more confidence and trust in me than I actually had myself. And so I thought, well, you know, that helps that he has that trust. And that's the kind of confirmation I needed, really. Report an error in the passage at 19:09
19:31 So, and then it isn't that I've done everything after that in the right way or haven't made any mistakes, but I do try to learn. Report an error in the passage at 19:31
19:46 I don't always make the best decisions or right decisions on every issue, but I'm willing to learn from it, even from the mistakes. Report an error in the passage at 19:46
19:59 But this intuitive awareness is something I now trust a lot because I really see it's what I can trust as a real refuge. It's not something dependent on conditions being any certain way. It doesn't mean that life has to be, you know, everything going well or everybody in harmony or I'm feeling good or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 19:59
20:28 It's something that works no matter what, even if I'm sick and everything's falling apart. The intuition still is something that I can trust, in which I can not make a problem about the things that are happening. It gives me perspective. It allows me to get perspective. and develop virtues like patience with things that I'm usually impatient with or gives me a more expansive mind in a mind that used to be very fixed and could only accept this much you know it had to be like this or I couldn't accept it and then with the intuitive awareness it's like it's opening out like that almost to where there's no boundaries you feel I feel this expansiveness rather than narrowing feeling with my mind. Report an error in the passage at 20:28
21:42 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 21:42
21:50 Well, that's where, you know, if you want it to disappear, then it... That's where your attitude is one of if it stays forever, that's okay. Report an error in the passage at 21:50
22:05 It's not like I'll accept you if you'll go away. Report an error in the passage at 22:05
22:11 But also, like emotions are, like I find, you know, there's so many like emotions that I've dismissed, like say stupidity, dullness, kind of childishness, kind of, you know, like immature feelings. Report an error in the passage at 22:11
22:52 you know when you grow up you have those emotions but you kind of hide them them Report an error in the passage at 22:52
23:05 so, and, and then, cause you, you know, you think, well. Even though you're feeling this emotion, you have disgust for it. You think it's weak and bad and you want to get rid of it. You don't want anyone to know that you're feeling like this. What's a big man like you sulking for? You think, I don't sulk. Report an error in the passage at 23:05
23:35 But sometimes that emotion, you know, it's not. I have an emotion that I haven't experienced in my adult life, and I try to hide it. Usually I try to, you know, something I would reject. And then in the meditation, a lot of these rejected emotions started coming in as I became more confident in how to deal with emotional experience, and I began to let them in. Report an error in the passage at 23:35
24:13 And I could see, you know, because my father, he died at 90, and he wasn't a reflective person at all. He was, you know, his mind wasn't kind of into contemplation or accessing his emotions in any way. So he, the last 10 years of his life, he went through the whole range of the most childish emotions to see a man, you know, who was your father. Report an error in the passage at 24:13
24:46 He'd been a very confident, kind of successful man in, you know, being in control and in charge and being the, I'll take care of you and I'm, you know, I can take care of myself kind of man. And then suddenly, you know, crying all the time, sulking when he couldn't get his way, throwing little tantrums and feeling sorry for himself. Report an error in the passage at 24:46
25:10 And just all the time, just these very... Childish emotions surfacing in the last few years of his life. And I contemplated, realized that he'd never really, you know, he didn't never, those things had been kind of unresolved all his life. Then in the last stages of his life where he lost control of the world, then he couldn't, you know, operate with the same delusions he had before. Report an error in the passage at 25:10
25:42 Suddenly all this stuff comes up. Then I, because of that, I really, you know, I determined I was going to try to work this out before I get to 80. Report an error in the passage at 25:42
25:57 Because I realized, you know, how the opportunity that I have that my father didn't have. You know, I've had many more, you know, opportunities for this kind of development. He never had much of an opportunity for development. His generation, you know, towards, say, psychology or towards getting to know yourself. Report an error in the passage at 25:57
26:24 It was all, you know, this is what a man is and you act like this and this is what a woman is and she should be like that and the mother's like this and the father's like that and the son should be like this and the daughter should be like that. It's all a neat package of roles that you act out in life. Report an error in the passage at 26:24
26:51 of Western you know, Western... We did not have, very much option or alternatives other than to go along with the system. Now it's everything, you know. You can challenge every role, every convention in the system. And that also has its bad side in the sense that people can just spend their lives being obsessed with their feelings, just being totally indulgent in what I feel and what happened to me and endlessly complaining the fact that they didn't get enough love or they weren't... Report an error in the passage at 26:51
27:44 You know, the way people do is, you know, can be so obsessed with themselves that that is the opposite extreme of the other. You know, it's just becoming too self-important. But in a religious path, where your aim is this realizing the truth and a transcendent reality, then... Then you can always, you know, you have perspective to deal with your personal conditioning and your emotions. Report an error in the passage at 27:44
28:20 So it's like, I know now I can have these, I mean, I'm quite willing to have these childish, immature emotional experiences because I see it as my path, not to identify with it anymore, but to accept it and to let it... Resolve itself rather than me coming from the position of me trying to get rid of it. Because the refuge is in this awareness rather than in some sense of me trying to become this normal man, this ideal, this model of what men should be. Report an error in the passage at 28:20
29:06 That doesn't ring true for me. But this refuge in transcendent awareness is something I trust implicitly now because it does allow for one to work through what they say in Buddhist terms, one's karma. So these sulking feelings or things like being hurt. Somebody said something that hurt me. uh... And then you can think, I feel hurt. They shouldn't be talking like that to me. I can accept those kind of feelings now, rather than wallowing in that feeling or feeling guilty about it. Report an error in the passage at 29:06
29:55 It's like you have a vehicle now in which you can really work with your life in an honest and accurate way. And emotions are, I think for many of us, the greatest challenge. Report an error in the passage at 29:55
30:13 Because they're the most embarrassing. I find so many of my emotions quite embarrassing. I like to look dignified and like to give... And emotions are not always very dignified, are they? Report an error in the passage at 30:13
30:40 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 30:40
30:45 Bereavement. Report an error in the passage at 30:45
30:50 That's one of the... Report an error in the passage at 30:50
30:56 That's one of the emotions that I've really examined, because in the past decade, so many people close to me have died. My parents, my teachers, friends, and just in this past month, we've had a series of deaths of people I know here, Buddhist people. Report an error in the passage at 30:56
31:29 And death is a contemplation that the Buddha used to contemplate that experience of when somebody dies, or even encouraged looking at corpses, or going to places where they're like graveyards. And places where people have died or where they burn or bury people. Because death is something that we haven't experienced yet, physical death. Report an error in the passage at 31:29
32:16 And so it leaves this state of, for me, it's like the mind goes into this state where it's quite empty. I don't know what happens when you die, when you're dead, in terms of my own experience of it. I mean, I've heard people say what happens and all that, but we're talking now about direct awareness, direct knowing. Report an error in the passage at 32:16
32:47 So I know that I don't know and that not knowing. Death is like the word itself. ...leaves my mind in a kind of empty place. When somebody's dead, you know, she's dead now. There's a kind of gap in my consciousness. That's how I can explain it. Like there's an empty place now because I don't know what that is. And so we do try to make out that, you know, like when my mother died, My mother was a Roman Catholic, so they had a Catholic funeral. And so I went to the Catholic funeral and the priest said, now Helen Jackman is in heaven with the Lord. Report an error in the passage at 32:47
33:48 And so it was very inspiring, actually, and it made you feel good, because they were all kind of nice images. My mother now released from an old body that was falling apart and she's in a very happy place. She always wanted to be with the Lord anyway. And now she was, the priest was saying she was there. Report an error in the passage at 33:48
34:10 And it all made you feel good, you know, not to deny that. But the fact was I didn't know, you know, I didn't know. What I had to admit was I didn't know that. Report an error in the passage at 34:10
34:28 I mean, I could believe or disbelieve it. So this is how in Buddhist meditation you're not denying those things or taking sides, but in fact you're admitting what you can actually, you're knowing what you can know and what you don't know. And that I find very peaceful. The sense of loss of a loved one is, you know, somebody that... Report an error in the passage at 34:28
34:59 That you love a lot and then they're gone. That it feels like this. And so it's what you might call grief or sorrow and loss. Report an error in the passage at 34:59
35:12 But those are just words and they're pointing to the actual emotion. So then I go, I drop the words and look at the actual feeling of loss. And it feels like this. And I find that I can accept that feeling. As a feeling, it's not depressing, and it feels like, if you want to call it something, call it grief, but it's not, I don't even consider it suffering. Report an error in the passage at 35:12
35:46 It is like this, and it's a natural kind of emotion, but it becomes suffering when I make a problem about it. So I start thinking, Oh, she's gone forever. I start, you know, if I start thinking about it, then I can indulge in that feeling, or I can just say, well, that's life, stiff upper lip, gone, goodbye, get on with your life, and dismiss it. Report an error in the passage at 35:46
36:21 So, or, that alone, I find that ability to admit and to... Hold that feeling and experience it completely allows that grief to resolve itself. And you find that it leads towards a peacefulness of the mind rather than fear or depression or negativity. Like dealing with death, I don't find death depressing. Report an error in the passage at 36:21
37:01 I don't find, I mean, we've had several people die here at Amaravati, have come here intentionally to die at Amaravati. And every time, you know, it's not depressing. It's rather, in some ways, you'd say it's almost inspiring. Report an error in the passage at 37:01
37:22 So you change. And yet people who are afraid of death find it depressing. They'll say... They just feel that somebody dying is just depressing and they just can't cope with it, so they tend to run away. But if you're actually with it, and I've talked to other people who've said this, the monks and nuns that have done this, they find it calming. Report an error in the passage at 37:22
37:55 And even sometimes when somebody's dying very mindfully They're able to share their death with you. They're telling you what's happening. And you're able to kind of meditate together on it. It's quite joyful. Like when Amina died, that was a real, that was quite a joyful experience. It wasn't depressing. I mean, one felt the sadness. You were in joy, happy that she died. Report an error in the passage at 37:55
38:32 But the actual experience wasn't, because she died so well, then it was quite a joyful experience. But then there is a sadness, a natural sadness, but that's not depressing either. That's quite peaceful. And it's those things, that kind of pathos of life, where all that is mine... Beloved and pleasing will become otherwise, will become separated from me. That's a very sad reflection. We chant this in the morning. Report an error in the passage at 38:32
39:10 All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise, will become separated from me. And then, you know, in the worldly mind, that's a rather sad thing to think. But yet it's true. We know that. Report an error in the passage at 39:10
39:30 And the sadness of knowing that who we love will die or will separate. But that sadness is not depressing either. And that sadness also encourages us to look more deeply into life than just try to get superficial thrills out of trying to be happy and turn on yourself to... To just very superficial ways of arousing some kind of happiness all the time. Because there's nothing more pathetic than a human being who just lived solely to be happy all the time. Report an error in the passage at 39:30
40:23 It's Report an error in the passage at 40:23
40:28 very sad. Report an error in the passage at 40:28
40:37 Probably, but I haven't met any. Report an error in the passage at 40:37
40:43 And also, like Ajahn Chah was... His approach to meditation was to see death in the present. So it's like the ending in death. Death is a very charged word. It has a high impact on your consciousness. But say the ending of something is quite ordinary. We all know something's going to end. Say the end of something is... Report an error in the passage at 40:43
41:14 is Isn't so highly, isn't such an impact, you know, it's not so strong. So in terms of, like I would contemplate just the mental changes within me, you know, the arising of an emotion and the end of it or the beginning of a thought and the end of it. And so you're always, in the examination of the Four Noble Truths, you're observing the ending of things. Report an error in the passage at 41:14
42:14 From the cessation of mental phenomena in my mind, that really the body is all that dies, you know. It's not like, you know, just like your personality comes and goes, is born and dies all the time throughout the day. One moment you're like this, you're this person, next moment you're another kind of person, changing, born and dying, born and dying. Report an error in the passage at 42:14
42:45 Beginning and ending according to emotional experience. Report an error in the passage at 42:45
42:51 But if you're, when you take this refuge and this awareness in the Buddha, knowing the dharma, then that is actually deathless. Report an error in the passage at 42:51
43:05 It's not personal anymore. And it's not something that is born and dies. experience, and then Report an error in the passage at 43:05
43:15 It's not conditioned by the world or through ignorance. So it's, you know, you can see what the Buddha meant by the deathless truth or amattadhamma. Report an error in the passage at 43:15
43:35 Because then your refuge is in the amattadhamma rather than in your emotional state or your memories or your physical body. Report an error in the passage at 43:35
43:49 It's not what you are, not your refuge anymore, not a refuge. Report an error in the passage at 43:49
44:02 It's like this mindfulness, Report an error in the passage at 44:02
44:13 the path to the deathless, mindfulness or this intuitive awareness or the ability to pay attention in the present, a simple act, this listening where the mind is opening in a receptive state. That you can trust. You can't trust your emotions because they are conditioned by ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 44:13
44:44 But you can learn from your emotions that they are impermanent, they're not self. So that's where this mindfulness is willing to embrace what you're feeling without judging. Like if you are having bereavement and then you're And then in that intuitive awareness, you're willing to let the crying or grief or feeling of loss or emotions that do arise, like guilt or sorrow or whatever, you're not judging it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 44:44
45:30 You're not saying you shouldn't be feeling this. Or making any problem about it, but you're totally willing to experience those emotional states. Then you're actually letting that grief go and you're resolving it. So it's not like pressing anymore. You're not dismissing and you're not caught in an identity with it where you would indulge in it. Report an error in the passage at 45:30
46:05 You're actually learning from it. So in that... Then you feel a sense of relief and bliss when you can let go of grief like that, which isn't making it go, but accepting it. And even the kind of emotions that are triggered off from that feeling itself, you accept the whole lot. Report an error in the passage at 46:05
46:36 And then you can, it will naturally cease. Report an error in the passage at 46:36
46:42 And then you're not holding anything back and that your mind is then prepared to deal with life as you have to experience it rather than being caught in anxiety, fears, and unresolved emotional blockages. And life also has, you know, so many little hooks on it that you really... You have to, you know, being mindful is, once you're heedless, then you're easily caught on these hooks. And so, you know, like being a senior monk here, being the spiritual director of this monastery and all that, these kind of worldly Report an error in the passage at 46:42
47:37 positions, they bring up such ideas as being responsible. I am responsible for this. And that seems like a good quality to be, you know, they praise people, you know, he's a very responsible spiritual director. Report an error in the passage at 47:37
48:01 You know, they're very high-minded identities that are praised by the world. But once you, if you don't, But then you can see the suffering that comes from that. On a personal level, when I start feeling I'm responsible, then I feel burdened by all this. Immediately. I start worrying about it. I'm responsible for Amaravati and then suddenly something goes wrong. Report an error in the passage at 48:01
48:34 I'm responsible. This monk disrobes. I'm responsible for that. This nun has a nervous breakdown. I'm responsible for that. I mean, you're really setting yourself up. Report an error in the passage at 48:34
48:52 It's really, you know, you set yourself and you think, I don't want to be responsible. I'm going to leave. I'm going to become a hermit. I'm going to go off to my cave. I don't want to be responsible for any nuns or monks or anyone else, you know, if they're going to do things like that. Report an error in the passage at 48:52
49:09 And so it, you know, it's a burden. But if you, but then with awareness, you can see the, the, the, That you don't identify with that. And I can really be responsible if I'm not attached to the idea of it. It's not that I'm irresponsible, but then responsibility is coming from wisdom rather than from an idea that I am responsible for all this. Report an error in the passage at 49:09
49:44 Because once you operate on that level of I am responsible, then... It does, it becomes, you know, I can see why people don't want to be the spiritual director of Amaravati. Why? They don't want to become abbot of this monastery. Why? They don't want to be the senior nun. Why? They don't want to be the this and that. Because, you know, if you're responsible for this, that means you get blamed too when it doesn't work. Report an error in the passage at 49:44
50:29 worth. And so it leads to a lot of anguish and bitterness and disillusionment. you're even doing the most noble acts this basic ignorance of am. I'm responsible for this, or this is mine. But in investigating that whole feeling, I began to observe that. I'd say to myself, you're responsible for Amaravati. Then I'd kind of watch the feeling of that. What's it like to be this person who's responsible for this place? Report an error in the passage at 50:29
51:14 I could see just that whole... That whole thing, to gather me and Amaravati and that identity as being suffering, it frightens me. It seems too much. It seems too many factors I can't control. It's too big. There's too many people. There's too many strong personalities. There's too many unknown factors. I can't do it. Report an error in the passage at 51:14
51:51 So then you think, I want a nice little monastery where I can control. A nice little cottage in the country with a couple of monks that I get on with that agree with me. Report an error in the passage at 51:51
52:15 No, that's not it either, because when that happens also there's a lot of suffering. The suffering isn't due to the size of the people. Your attitude, your ignorance around it. So then, having seen the, observed the suffering that comes from me being responsible, then I stop that. I don't have to create that image anymore. And trusting in this awareness, I find that I am much more capable of doing what needs to be done here without making it into a personal burden. Report an error in the passage at 52:15
52:58 So it's quite joyful. I feel quite a lot of joy here because it isn't personal. It's not me trying to do everything right and make everything right and then feeling when people start complaining that I'm responsible. But it's just the joy of making such an opportunity available to people and that people are interested. Report an error in the passage at 52:58
53:28 Not to demand that they, you know, not to, you know, the personal approach always is a kind of demand that, you know, I've done this, you should do that. I'm responsible and you should respect that I am responsible and therefore conduct yourself in a way that doesn't make me feel disappointed or disillusioned. Report an error in the passage at 53:28
53:55 I think that is... Emotional blackmail, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 53:55
54:02 So just by investigating it, you know, you see the suffering of even being a good person doing good things. You know, you meet so many good people who have been so disappointed and disillusioned by their very good intentions and good acts. Because of the basic illusion around being a person that's doing good acts or doing good things and is responsible for it. Report an error in the passage at 54:02
54:48 So I think that's enough for this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 54:48
Related talks
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