Stress & its Cessation (1993)

0:00 To say it shouldn't have happened, but this has happened. So we are experiencing the result of, say, our own cleverness and our own desire for ease, for comfort, for security, because Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:19 life is a stressful experience. Report an error in the passage at 0:19 Highlight the passage at 0:19

0:28 With the Buddha's teaching, of course, he made this very clear that the very nature of life is... is dukkha or unsatisfactoriness or that which we feel we can't bear. Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

0:48 Dukkha has this meaning that it is something we have a feeling we can't put up with it, we can't bear it, we can't stand it. Report an error in the passage at 0:48 Highlight the passage at 0:48

0:58 And this I think is something that is basic to our experience of life until we start... Contemplating it and learning how to cope with it, how to deal with, say, just the loss of loved ones or the disappointments of life or just the aging process of a human body, what we all experience before it gets into really very tragic or unusual or extreme forms of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 0:58 Highlight the passage at 0:58

1:41 We can see like what's happening in Bosnia is an extreme where humanity's gone mad and where there's a level of brutality and where atrocity is just part of a daily life and where everyone has to see and witness what most of us hopefully will never have to see or witness in our lives at all because humanity gone mad is... Report an error in the passage at 1:41 Highlight the passage at 1:41

2:12 is of course one of the things we're most frightened that this might happen. The Second World War and all the kind of news that we get, the information, the mass media, inform us of all the madness of our human brothers and sisters around the world. And of course we might also be very much involved in certain things that are provoking such activities. Report an error in the passage at 2:12 Highlight the passage at 2:12

2:46 In contemplating it in terms of dharma, we try to put it in a context of non-extremity first. Because when we look at the extremities of human experience, it tends to overwhelm us. When we think of all the worst possible things that could happen, or all that's really bad in the world, or all that's really wrong with ourselves, or wrong with our families or wrong with our society then we get depressed we we we take the extreme Report an error in the passage at 2:46 Highlight the passage at 2:46

3:27 add them all up into one big depressing feeling Report an error in the passage at 3:27 Highlight the passage at 3:27

3:34 if you just fill your mind with negative you just think of it, it's going to, I'm getting old and I have diseases and my friends are dying. The British economy is falling apart and society is all these kind of horrible things that you read about in the newspapers and on and on like this. If you just make a list of it and keep dwelling on it and worrying about it then of course one gets stuck in a mental depression because the mind has just been so completely overwhelmed by the extremities and possibilities of extreme misery. Report an error in the passage at 3:34 Highlight the passage at 3:34

4:22 the other tendency is to go to the opposite extreme of just trying to think life should be on the other, on just happiness and bliss and ecstasy and just full of beauty and truth and goodness as a kind of constant diet. Life should be fair, life should be just, everybody should be kind to each other. should be eternal springtime. Report an error in the passage at 4:22 Highlight the passage at 4:22

4:48 time. We should have sunny days and the right temperature all the time. And we shouldn't have to feel insecure or frightened or stressed or worried by anything. So we can create a kind of image of a utopian or idealized life made on the extremes of our ability to perceive things at their peak moments, at their best. Report an error in the passage at 4:48 Highlight the passage at 4:48

5:17 So then that... that is that life isn't like that either so then we feel disappointed or upset by just little things rather than the extreme negative side the fact that it rains today or the fact that the cat died Report an error in the passage at 5:17 Highlight the passage at 5:17

5:41 can get really terribly upset over just little things that happen to us because we have... They informed our conscious experience with how life should be at its peak moment, at its very best. So the Buddha, in his wisdom, pointed to the way things are in their ordinariness before Report an error in the passage at 5:41 Highlight the passage at 5:41

6:07 they go to being extremely peaceful or miserable or beautiful or ugly, happy or miserable. And this middle realm is what we... We tend to ignore, and yet most of our lives is experienced in those conditions. Most of our lives, I'm thinking of my own, most of it has been neither particularly absolutely fantastically wonderful nor horrible. Report an error in the passage at 6:07 Highlight the passage at 6:07

6:45 It's been just like this, sitting, standing, walking, lying down, getting up in the morning, going to bed at night. Walking from here to there, putting on your clothes, taking them off, taking a bath, and all kinds of daily activities that have no extreme quality. Report an error in the passage at 6:45 Highlight the passage at 6:45

7:14 They are what they are, but they're not consciously accepted. They tend to be just perfunctorily done and without any real... Awareness or appreciation of, say, the middle ground in our human experience. As one can be eating a meal, you know, we contemplate our food when we, in monastic meditations, we contemplate just what eating is all about. Report an error in the passage at 7:14 Highlight the passage at 7:14

7:48 So, of course, the tradition that we're from, from northeast Thailand, you get the food in your alms bowl, it all goes in. And you can see yourself in Thailand, for example, where when I was first ordained, I wasn't so equanimous about food. So it could arouse a lot of emotion and passion in my mind. You'd see somebody putting in something that you didn't like or you didn't want, and you could feel a certain kind of anger or aversion arise. Report an error in the passage at 7:48 Highlight the passage at 7:48

8:28 You see somebody put something in your bowl that you really like, and then you realize that you might have to give it up. And there are kinds of ways you could really, you know, the mind would just be so influenced and reactive to just what you saw going into your arms bowl. And then the aim was to be aware of this, to resolve these tendencies, not to follow them or suppress them, but to note them, which takes you to Report an error in the passage at 8:28 Highlight the passage at 8:28

9:09 moon about it nor terribly upset if it's not exactly what you want. Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:16 a way of training the mind and noticing just that really when one is very attached to food, flavors, delicious things to eat, That really you only taste the things a little bit and then you don't really notice what you're eating that much. You can just start eating in the first few bites to have some kind of maybe flavor and then after a while you're just chewing, masticating food, swallowing it, you know, one spoonful after another and it's gone. Report an error in the passage at 9:16 Highlight the passage at 9:16

9:46 The actual experience is neither particularly, you know, wonderful or horrible. It's just what it is. Report an error in the passage at 9:46 Highlight the passage at 9:46

9:57 Walking from one place to the next or Or just doing household chores or whatever. These kind of activities we can develop aversion to. Not because it's anything painful or unpleasant or anything that we can't bear. It's just that we maybe would rather be doing something else. We can think of something more interesting, more exciting, pleasing to us than doing the dishes. Report an error in the passage at 9:57 Highlight the passage at 9:57

10:28 We're dusting the furniture. And so we create a lot of mental stress in our minds over the fact that we don't want to do something, even though in itself it's not something really unpleasant. It's just maybe not as interesting or as pleasing to do as something else we can imagine. So bringing attention to this, we're not trying to... Report an error in the passage at 10:28 Highlight the passage at 10:28

10:57 To make judgments, pass judgments on it, but begin to notice that life is like this and that when we understand how our mind tends to react to things, then we can stop those kind of heedless habitual reactions and begin to feel a sense of groundedness and centeredness in just the way things are, just the posture of the body, of just being able to sit or be with the sitting. Report an error in the passage at 10:57 Highlight the passage at 10:57

11:55 If you really listen to your mind, it will go on and say, I can't take any more of this. I've had enough, then we can. I've noticed this in myself. Time and time again the emotions will say, I can't stand any more of this. But then I always can stand more of it. I don't believe it. Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:17 You can't believe your mind. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

12:38 Now the present situation is something that we need to contemplate. I think that can be quite worrying for most of us because we can see that it. Report an error in the passage at 12:38 Highlight the passage at 12:38

· · · silence, 1 minute

12:54 Humanity is, you know, there's more people living on this planet than there's ever been and it's increasing, you know, and it increases very rapidly. Some of the statistics you read in the newspapers are really daunting when they talk about how many, you know, millions of people are born every year and it's an ongoing You know, more people are born and then there's just, it keeps increasing and increasing, snowballing, to where we can imagine that in, you know, in 50 more years, it's going to be just, you know, border to border people. Report an error in the passage at 12:54 Highlight the passage at 12:54

13:41 You're going to see nothing but human beings from one edge of Britain to the other, from the north to the south, just kind of stacked up against each other. Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

13:56 The mind can create a perception like that. If you go to India, for example, now, it's very hard to be any place where there isn't anyone. There's so many people now in India that wherever you go, there seems to be people around you. India, of course, has an enormous population, probably a billion by the turn of the century. Report an error in the passage at 13:56 Highlight the passage at 13:56

14:29 And we can see this as maybe a problem for people in India. We can dismiss it as something that we hope won't be, you know, in our lives won't be too much of a problem. But we also recognize that the signs of, you know, the collapse of the ecosystem and that, these are warnings to us of just our human greed, our human Report an error in the passage at 14:29 Highlight the passage at 14:29

15:01 we've never channeled, we've never learned to develop our humanity in a way for the welfare of all human beings. We've just really come out of the age where we've maybe been interested only in our own group, our own nation of people, own class of people, or our own ethnic group, our own tribe. And well, or maybe just for ourselves alone. We can oftentimes just be interested only in our own particular comfort and ease without relating our lives to anyone else. Report an error in the passage at 15:01 Highlight the passage at 15:01

15:40 But the human mind is capable of changing the perceptions. We can inform ourselves, we can educate ourselves, we can cultivate, we can develop. And this is a... Report an error in the passage at 15:40 Highlight the passage at 15:40

15:57 What is one of our great gifts as human beings? We can be planetary polluters, pests, that which is destroying the ecosystem on the planet. We can look at it in those kind of draconian terms where we think we might have to just maybe start exterminating or trying to get rid of a certain amount of people. Report an error in the passage at 15:57 Highlight the passage at 15:57

16:21 They talk about euthanasia as a way of... Getting rid of people after they hit 60. I Report an error in the passage at 16:21 Highlight the passage at 16:21

16:33 only have a year left. Report an error in the passage at 16:33 Highlight the passage at 16:33

16:38 These Report an error in the passage at 16:38 Highlight the passage at 16:38

16:43 kind of hard methods of, you know, we have to control the population in a way to support our own particular position and our own desires within society. Report an error in the passage at 16:43 Highlight the passage at 16:43

17:02 But of course the karmic result of such activities is horrendous. One realizes that... There's no way by killing, destroying life and the conceit and arrogance of a human mind that thinks they're the one that can decide who has the right to live on this planet and who doesn't really deserve to live any longer on this planet. Report an error in the passage at 17:02 Highlight the passage at 17:02

17:28 That kind of thinking is more terrifying than any population pressures we might be experiencing. Because we all have the right to be here. It's not that there's any question of that, that some people have more right to be on this planet than others. And then let's regard to creatures also, isn't it? The animal world, the insect life, the whole lot. We can try to manipulate it to our own convenience, but then we pay a price. Report an error in the passage at 17:28 Highlight the passage at 17:28

18:02 We're realizing by our own... Conceit and arrogance and lack of compassion that we create the tensions, the stress that we're now experiencing. So Report an error in the passage at 18:02 Highlight the passage at 18:02

18:19 one can be cynical and critical and be even anti-human. We can be for dolphins and against humans. For cats and dogs and against humans. Because cats and dogs are easier, I think, to live with than humans. Report an error in the passage at 18:19 Highlight the passage at 18:19

18:43 Dolphins certainly are. I've never lived with a dolphin, but they look like very nice creatures. And I wouldn't mind living with them, actually. Report an error in the passage at 18:43 Highlight the passage at 18:43

18:56 And I'm sure they're a lot easier to live with than Buddhist monks and nuns. Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:04 But I don't think that that is the answer to the problem, taking sides with the dolphins against the humans, but in learning how to live as a human being. Report an error in the passage at 19:04 Highlight the passage at 19:04

19:19 In the sense of real humanity, lifting up the word human to an aspiration, to a level that we can rise up to as men and women, as human beings, that would encourage us towards say these activities of accepting responsibility for our lives, of cultivating ways that we I can live in harmony with our own physical state, with the natural conditions, with the environment, because we can do this. Report an error in the passage at 19:19 Highlight the passage at 19:19

20:00 We have this potential. We aren't just helpless, hopeless idiots that have no possibility of change or seeing things in any other way. We have minds that can be influenced and changed. Report an error in the passage at 20:00 Highlight the passage at 20:00

20:19 But they need to be influenced and changed in ways of truth, in ways that are connected with ultimate reality, in Buddhist terms, with dharma, not with just some idea that some clever person thinks up, because we've been through that one before. We've seen the disasters that we've created over just being attached to somebody's brilliant idea, and then it doesn't really work. Report an error in the passage at 20:19 Highlight the passage at 20:19

20:49 You see, the result of communism, isn't it? It was a brilliant idea, it didn't work. But it wasn't, Soviet communism wasn't established around natural laws or an understanding of dharma or the way things are. It was built around a human idealism of how things should be, of how a kind of quasi-evolution theories and attitudes of the... Report an error in the passage at 20:49 Highlight the passage at 20:49

21:19 Past century and this century that maybe were inspiring to Western humanity. But actually when applied, when we take idealism and just try to impose it on people, the very fact of our force, our imposition, our projections of ideas onto masses of people makes it into a tyrannical experience. Report an error in the passage at 21:19 Highlight the passage at 21:19

22:03 insensitive and cruel to somebody else just through being attached to high-minded ideas being against who destroy the environment fishermen who kill whales Those people who are taking drugs and selling drugs and committing crimes, we can take very self-righteous positions and in the process be very cruel, very insensitive, and commit very cruel acts through our attachment to our own high-mindedness or righteous views. Report an error in the passage at 22:03 Highlight the passage at 22:03

22:58 So what can we do? How can we change our lives or move in a direction that is for the benefit and welfare of all humanity and for all sentient beings? Report an error in the passage at 22:58 Highlight the passage at 22:58

23:12 And this, of course, is one of the very appealing things about the Buddhist teaching is that the whole idea is to live in a way that is for the welfare of all sentient beings. Like being a Buddhist monk, every day we say, may our life be of benefit to all sentient beings. The aspiration is that our very existence as monks or nuns is, at least we're trying, we're trying to live our lives in a way that is of benefit to all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 23:12 Highlight the passage at 23:12

23:48 Now that's a perception of the mind, isn't it? Now we can say, well, is that really possible? Can my... one... A person's existence, Ajahn Sumedho, is his breathing the air and living on this planet at this moment. How is that a benefit to all sentient beings? What about the dolphins? What about the whales? What about the seals and the sea lions and the destruction of the Amazonian jungle? Report an error in the passage at 23:48 Highlight the passage at 23:48

24:19 Ajahn Sumedho is not doing anything about that. He just sits on sunny afternoons talking about things. Report an error in the passage at 24:19 Highlight the passage at 24:19

24:28 What are you doing, Sumedho, about the... The destruction of the environment. What are you doing for the famine in the third world or the social injustices that exist or the war in Bosnia? We can think of maybe I'm not doing anything. Maybe I'm just sitting here in a nice place, Hertfordshire and Amrabati and a fairly pleasant lifestyle and it's all right. Report an error in the passage at 24:28 Highlight the passage at 24:28

25:01 I'm all right. Or is it not so much the fact that we can't all just kind of rush over to Sarajevo at this moment, can we, and say, please stop this, even though that might be very effective because everybody's willing to do it. Report an error in the passage at 25:01 Highlight the passage at 25:01

25:25 But also one realizes that just by our significant attempts to live our lives more, it Report an error in the passage at 25:25 Highlight the passage at 25:25

25:37 In harmony, more selflessly in daily life. This is a blessing to all sentient beings. At least this is how I prefer to think in this way. I think that just my aspiration, my spiritual aspiration is of benefit to all sentient beings. My commitment to trying to live in a way that isn't destructive of the environment. Report an error in the passage at 25:37 Highlight the passage at 25:37

26:05 environment. Attempt to live a life that isn't condemning or persecuting or blaming other people or other groups or other countries or other societies for what's wrong. Report an error in the passage at 26:05 Highlight the passage at 26:05

26:26 That this I see is of benefit to all sentient beings. And just the fact that in my mind I can actually find that inspiring aspiration. It inspires my mind when I think that. When I reflect on that every day, it kind of, it uplifts my mind at that moment. Report an error in the passage at 26:26 Highlight the passage at 26:26

26:51 So this is one way of recollecting, of remembering our human state. Maybe we can't do anything in an extreme way for the welfare of all sentient beings at this moment. What can we do in a direct way to help the people in Bosnia or to the famine in the Sudan or whatever? What can we do? Report an error in the passage at 26:51 Highlight the passage at 26:51

27:14 You know, in a direct and personal way, most of us at this moment can't really do much of anything in that way, but we can in our own hearts remember our own potential for spiritual realization and appreciate our own Aspiration, that which inspires our lives to try to live in a better way, be less selfish, more sensitive, more considerate, more giving, less self-centered, more all-embracing. Report an error in the passage at 27:14 Highlight the passage at 27:14

27:57 Now this also helps us to relieve stress because stress comes from just the tensions of the negative mental states that we create in our mind. Report an error in the passage at 27:57 Highlight the passage at 27:57

28:14 For example, just this morning, and I woke up four o 'clock this morning, and I just noticed, I observed, say, what my mood was, which was I tended to wake up and there was this sense of, it wasn't clear exactly what the mood was, but I noticed that the thoughts that tended to arise most easily were negative ones. Report an error in the passage at 28:14 Highlight the passage at 28:14

28:40 I just observed that. It seemed like that which seemed to come into my conscious most quickly was, ...was kind of worrisome thoughts or complaining thoughts of looking at something and always in a negative way. Report an error in the passage at 28:40 Highlight the passage at 28:40

28:59 Now, when I could see that and I observed that, then one can, you know, you can at least realize that the kind of what's influencing your consciousness at this time, the kind of... general mood of the mind tends to. Report an error in the passage at 28:59 Highlight the passage at 28:59

29:20 to be this way, and that the thoughts that arise tend to be thoughts around complaining or worrying. Report an error in the passage at 29:20 Highlight the passage at 29:20

29:29 by acknowledging that, by accepting that, rather than making a problem about it, in not following, in not letting the mind drift into these negative states, more and more the mind began to concentrate. And when I came to the morning chant, Chanting at five and the mind went into a much more concentrated state where it was equanimous and not negative. Report an error in the passage at 29:29 Highlight the passage at 29:29

30:00 And that was through observing, witnessing, and accepting what you're experiencing. It doesn't mean approving, but accepting is like letting it be what it is, not thinking, I shouldn't be like this, but just noting. Report an error in the passage at 30:00 Highlight the passage at 30:00

30:19 Then your active side, doing things that tend to, say, lift the mind out of that state where it easily drifts into worry or complaining. Report an error in the passage at 30:19 Highlight the passage at 30:19

30:34 For one thing, like in monastic life you do have, like morning chanting, you have every morning meditation, so that this helps to do that. You've got these conventions which help to To bring your attention to the way you're feeling and the kind of mood you're in, and also through the meditation techniques and through just the reflection on dharma, of course you can. Report an error in the passage at 30:34 Highlight the passage at 30:34

31:04 You begin to be much more skilled and aware of how to not be caught or stuck in these unpleasant, negative mental states. Report an error in the passage at 31:04 Highlight the passage at 31:04

31:19 And it's not suppressing. Because it's not judging, isn't it? It's merely, like I look at the act of suppressing as a reaction to something, being averse, being negative about my own negativity and trying to stop it as an act of will. And then that tends to not work very much. It tends to kind of maybe temporarily relieve the pressure and then it seems to get worse. Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:47 So that the way of dealing with, say, just stress, Emotional, mental stress or even physical stress is not to ignore it or judge it or try to get rid of it, but to acknowledge it. Report an error in the passage at 31:47 Highlight the passage at 31:47

32:07 So this way, how your mind works, you can observe it, you can listen, you're willing to feel it, you're willing to be with it, with the stress that you're feeling, with the negative emotional stress With the physical discomfort or pain, you're willing to, you make a determination. You remind yourself that this is something you can bear. Even though your emotion is saying, I can't stand this, this is terrible, you can. Report an error in the passage at 32:07 Highlight the passage at 32:07

32:43 And you begin to, rather than just gritting your teeth and standing, you're almost open to it. You kind of embrace it. You even embrace it in a kind of loving way. I found that sometimes a helpful way of thinking. Because when you kind of see the possibility of opening to something you don't like in a totally accepting way is quite a wonderful thing to be able to do. Report an error in the passage at 32:43 Highlight the passage at 32:43

33:22 Because usually the mind doesn't want to open to it, it wants to get rid of it. Report an error in the passage at 33:22 Highlight the passage at 33:22

33:35 Now that attitude of embracing, accepting things as they are, I'm putting it in much more positive terms, like embracing. When you embrace something, it means you willingly go to it, you accept it for what it is, without saying, I like only this much. You're kind of taking on the whole thing, the good and the bad, embracing the whole of it. Report an error in the passage at 33:35 Highlight the passage at 33:35

34:11 conscious experience we can actually embrace the universe. can accept the totality of it. Report an error in the passage at 34:11 Highlight the passage at 34:11

34:28 it's certainly inspiring enough to say things like this, but as an actual, something that one does, speaking, what do we do? Report an error in the passage at 34:28 Highlight the passage at 34:28

34:41 of course this is what, when we come to the word mindfulness, Report an error in the passage at 34:41 Highlight the passage at 34:41

34:49 ability of every moment to just be aware of it for what it is. as a personal thing or as a universal. Report an error in the passage at 34:49 Highlight the passage at 34:49

34:59 we are so much caught up in our own personal own sense of our own, ourself as Report an error in the passage at 34:59 Highlight the passage at 34:59

35:16 More and more we feel a connection to the whole of it, to the whole universe. That consciousness isn't just no longer me and mine and me as a kind of permanent, totally separated entity in a vast universe that is out there separate from me. But when the illusion and the conviction of me and mine is relinquished, then that pure awareness of the mind, what is that? Report an error in the passage at 35:16 Highlight the passage at 35:16

35:47 You can't fix it in saying that is Ajahn Sumedho's consciousness. Because suddenly you're not putting it in terms of a personal perception. It's just what it is. Report an error in the passage at 35:47 Highlight the passage at 35:47

36:07 And that, of course, to tune into that, we have to relax. We have to accept the universe, which is, we have to embrace it. And that means everything in it. Because the universe isn't... We aren't going to like everything in the universe. There's a lot of unlikable things in the universe. As far as we, you know, as far as our own experience of them go, they're quite unpleasant or horrible or painful. Report an error in the passage at 36:07 Highlight the passage at 36:07

36:37 On a personal level, just on reactiveness, on the sensitivity, isn't it? Then we get frightened by our sensitivity, by the universe we're in, because it's so vast and so threatening. It's so mysterious as a person. As this person here, I'm this person, and I look around and say, oh, there's people out there. How do I know what's in those people's minds? I'm sitting here, you know, the center of this meeting, talking into this microphone. Report an error in the passage at 36:37 Highlight the passage at 36:37

37:04 How do I know that there's not somebody here that's going to shoot me in the head? You know, if I have a tendency towards paranoia. Report an error in the passage at 37:04 Highlight the passage at 37:04

37:17 Fortunately, being a Buddhist monk, paranoia tends to fade out because you're not doing things that create a sense of this. Report an error in the passage at 37:17 Highlight the passage at 37:17

37:27 To try to get rid of you. Imagine if I spent my life kind of cheating people and taking advantage of them and being very selfish and then find myself in a position, a public position. It would be easy to feel paranoid because I've been involved myself in maybe destroying people and if I've done it then one tends to think other people are going to have that same kind of reaction to me. Report an error in the passage at 37:27 Highlight the passage at 37:27

37:58 We tend to project our lives as a self. When we're caught in our own personalities, in our own identity with our karma, we tend to think everybody else is the same. Report an error in the passage at 37:58 Highlight the passage at 37:58

38:13 So in this way of letting go and embracing the universe, we're realizing a unity, a oneness that is true. It's not just a sentimental idea, a nice... High-minded altruistic ideal, but it is, it's the way things are. It's dharma. And because we have room for everything. We have room for the people who want to shoot me. Room for the good and the bad, the devils, the demons, the angels, the devas, the ordinary human beings, the whales and the dolphins, the polluters, the criminals, the drug addicts, the aberrants. Report an error in the passage at 38:13 Highlight the passage at 38:13

39:01 A whole lot. They all belong in the totality. And we embrace the totality. Then we feel a oneness with it. We're no longer threatened by it. Because we can relax with it. We can feel at ease. Because we're no longer stuck in the perceptions of ourself as being just this body, this sensitive form, this little personality. Report an error in the passage at 39:01 Highlight the passage at 39:01

39:35 Now this of course is a is what people often refer to as a mystical experience. But then that tends to make it sound too difficult or too special. When we try to exalt this into some very highly attained experience of very specially gifted people, then the average person thinks, well, he's a very special person, and I'm just ordinary, kind of confused, neurotic. Report an error in the passage at 39:35 Highlight the passage at 39:35

40:09 I couldn't possibly. I haven't had any mystical experiences. We can easily put ourselves down as not having the talent or the capability. Report an error in the passage at 40:09 Highlight the passage at 40:09

40:22 Then we compare ourselves maybe with people who we exalt. We put them on a pedestal and say they're special. But remember at the beginning of this talk I was talking not going to extremities but beginning to be more aware and accepting of Report an error in the passage at 40:22 Highlight the passage at 40:22

40:53 moments of life, now, the posture of the body, beginning to use your own physical body, accepting it for what it is right now. Report an error in the passage at 40:53 Highlight the passage at 40:53

41:03 its whatever it is, whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable, sitting or sitting uncomfortably, whether you're feeling Particularly good and energetic and healthy or feeling weak and sickly or if it's just nothing, neither particularly pleasant or unpleasant, just this way. Just that ability to say it's this way, to look at it, to observe, to begin to just know what doesn't seem worth noticing. Report an error in the passage at 41:03 Highlight the passage at 41:03

41:40 Because in worldly terms, just noticing what sitting is doesn't seem worth doing. You went to Amaravati today and you just noticed you were sitting. She's crazy. Report an error in the passage at 41:40 Highlight the passage at 41:40

41:58 You said, I went up to Amaravati and I had a really fantastic ecstatic experience of oneness with the whole universe. I want to go with you next time. Report an error in the passage at 41:58 Highlight the passage at 41:58

42:12 Watching your breath or sitting or walking doesn't sound like anything worth doing. Why go to Amaravati to do that? Report an error in the passage at 42:12 Highlight the passage at 42:12

42:25 The thing is, we don't tend to do it where we are. Sometimes we have to come to a place, you know, Amaravati you can look at as an extreme, but it is a particular place whose aim and function is to remind you, to kind of encourage and kind of keep helping you to remember the way things are, Report an error in the passage at 42:25 Highlight the passage at 42:25

42:49 because we usually get carried away with our habits, our fears, our desires, in our own Life situations. For example, it's much easier to meditate in a meditation hall than Report an error in the passage at 42:49 Highlight the passage at 42:49

43:15 to meditate in your own house. Why is that? Some people, you know, in the past have said, I want to have big houses. They say, I'd like Venerable Sumedho for you to lead a retreat in my house. And so we invite some people and we go to this nice house. And the owner of the house spends all the time, you know, trying to You know, it's her house or his house and they just can't, they don't have time to sit and meditate because they're the owners of the house. Report an error in the passage at 43:15 Highlight the passage at 43:15

43:50 And wherever they look, they think this is my house and I've got to do this and this needs done. When you're in somebody else's house, that doesn't happen. It's none of your business. So like the retreat center over here, it's a great gift to people in that they can go there and it's not theirs. And so they don't have to... Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:08 They don't have to be responsible for it. They can just be there. The things around, they look, it's not, this isn't mine. This furniture, this toilet, this room, this bed, this carpet, these curtains, all this is not mine. You aren't really concerned about it because it's not yours. As soon as you start thinking this is mine, then it becomes a problem, doesn't it? Report an error in the passage at 44:08 Highlight the passage at 44:08

44:39 This is my house. I've got to pay the bills. I'm responsible. I've got to pay the electricity bill. And the mind starts bringing up all the things that are connected with what belongs to me. Report an error in the passage at 44:39 Highlight the passage at 44:39

44:56 So Amaravati is a place that I've taken on that responsibility. It's my place, which Report an error in the passage at 44:56 Highlight the passage at 44:56

45:08 I develop mindfulness around, hopefully. Report an error in the passage at 45:08 Highlight the passage at 45:08

45:14 Not that I think of it as my place, but I'm the one that's responsible for it. So one has to deal with that side of life. It's not to ignore it, certainly not to try to get out of anything or ignore responsibility, but to put it in a context where it isn't a source of obsessive worry and suffering for us. Report an error in the passage at 45:14 Highlight the passage at 45:14

45:43 So sometimes it's really nice to go to somebody else's monastery that isn't, you're not responsible for at all. Go over to Switzerland, see Ajahn Thir Dhammo, and he's responsible for all this, it's none of my business. Report an error in the passage at 45:43 Highlight the passage at 45:43

46:03 Go down to Ajahn Sajitho, you know, he just says, well, Venable Sumedho, Ajahn Sumedho, would you like maybe a few days out in the Hammerwood? I say, yes. You can go out there because you know Ajahn Sumedho is responsible for Chitthirst. So Report an error in the passage at 46:03 Highlight the passage at 46:03

46:29 this feeling responsible on a personal level is a source of stress, isn't it? Why do we want to? We don't want to get committed to things and people and situations because so much of it is. It creates this sense of I am responsible for this. That feeling is a stressful feeling. It can be a source of endless worry and concern. So we find much of our lives we're trying to get out of things, trying to avoid commitments or get involved with certain things because we don't want that kind of stress in our lives. Report an error in the passage at 46:29 Highlight the passage at 46:29

47:11 We can't cope with it. We can't stand it. Having children, I imagine, is a great experience of this, being responsible. Because talking to mothers whose children have already grown up, they still feel responsible, even when their sons and daughters are 50 years old. Report an error in the passage at 47:11 Highlight the passage at 47:11

47:40 It's addictive. Hard to break the addiction. But it can be broken, not through being irresponsible or suppressing, but through understanding and embracing, accepting the totality. Try to keep that much more as a concept, as a perception that you remember. When you feel stressed or feel concerned or worried or just fed up with things, just try to remind yourself to embrace the feeling. Report an error in the passage at 47:40 Highlight the passage at 47:40

48:22 It doesn't mean you like the feeling, but you take it, you accept it for what it is. And even though you may not be able to do it very well at first, as you keep reminding yourself, it gets easier and easier. When you see the relief that you get from it, when you experience more and more the sense of just fine, it's okay, I'm all right. Report an error in the passage at 48:22 Highlight the passage at 48:22

48:49 And it's a kind of relief when you realize your potential for acceptance. For embracing the whole universe in the moment, that's everything in it, and especially what you're feeling, which may be something that you find very unpleasant. Report an error in the passage at 48:49 Highlight the passage at 48:49

49:25 It's also a way of relaxing with it. Now, in the stress of the ages, we forgot how to relax, really relax. We tend to maybe... Relax in a certain way, like just kind of flopping about or just falling apart or drinking too much or just sleeping too much. Relax is a kind of almost laxity of just crashing out heedlessly, which sometimes we have to do that because of the stress and tensions of life. Report an error in the passage at 49:25 Highlight the passage at 49:25

50:11 There's a more skillful way to relax than crashing out. Report an error in the passage at 50:11 Highlight the passage at 50:11

50:21 It's through this embracing, this kind of opening to life, willing to feel, really realizing that you have the capability to feel life and not be frightened by it. That the sensitivity that you have isn't something to be frightened of. It's something to treasure, something to respect. Report an error in the passage at 50:21 Highlight the passage at 50:21

50:48 That the human form that you have, the human body that you have right now, is to be respected, accepted for what it is. You don't have to do this, but if you want to relax with it, then accept it for what it is. Report an error in the passage at 50:48 Highlight the passage at 50:48

51:07 It may not be what you want, but it's... What it is, any moment of the day, it is what it is. And to remember that and to accept it, embrace it in this way of a kind of psychic embracing, then there's a sense of relief rather than the sense that something's wrong with it and you've got to do something and make it or change it. Report an error in the passage at 51:07 Highlight the passage at 51:07

51:38 or control it in some way. Report an error in the passage at 51:38 Highlight the passage at 51:38

51:52 change, you've got all these faults and weaknesses and you've got to get rid of them and then of course the stress increases. Report an error in the passage at 51:52 Highlight the passage at 51:52

52:03 Because if you think of all your faults and weaknesses, And how much, you know, how hard it is to get rid of them. You feel despair, isn't it? At least I find that. When I think of all the faults and weaknesses that I've got to get rid of and suddenly I can't do it. All you want to do is go out to the pub, which I never do, of course. Report an error in the passage at 52:03 Highlight the passage at 52:03

52:32 I've never, never... I'm one of the few people in this country probably that... has only existed here as a Buddhist monk. I was born as a Buddhist monk in Britain. Report an error in the passage at 52:32 Highlight the passage at 52:32

53:09 That's interesting too, in modern psychology. I think psychotherapies are much more talking like this now also. I mean, you can see that this is a kind of awakening process that's taking place. Report an error in the passage at 53:09 Highlight the passage at 53:09

53:31 If we are going to live together on this planet in the future in any decent, civilized or responsible way, it seems to me the only way to do it would be to really understand ourselves and to get beyond just the identities of a person as a separate entity and a personality as a man or a woman or ethnic or... Report an error in the passage at 53:31 Highlight the passage at 53:31

54:02 National identity or sexual identity or whatever, these kind of things are not, those kind of attachments do create divisions and conflict all the time when we're fixed and attached to a particular identity. Report an error in the passage at 54:02 Highlight the passage at 54:02

54:20 But as we leave our minds from being anything in particular, just being that which is aware and able to accept. Report an error in the passage at 54:20 Highlight the passage at 54:20

54:46 each other in this society in a way that isn't just selfish and insensitive and blind. we realize a common ground, we appreciate. I appreciate the right to be and the right to exist, the right to the presence of all conditions, whatever they might be. So then our response to life is increasingly more suitable and appropriate. Report an error in the passage at 54:46 Highlight the passage at 54:46

55:23 One thing we realize is when we accept ourselves and embrace the universe, then we don't feel so alienated and lonely. And when we're not so frightened and lonely, then we're not so quick to be antagonistic or arrogant towards others. Why are we arrogant or antagonistic or quarrelsome or jealous of other peoples? Because we're frightened by life. Report an error in the passage at 55:23 Highlight the passage at 55:23

55:59 It terrifies us. We're so frightened. Report an error in the passage at 55:59 Highlight the passage at 55:59

56:13 might be taken away from us, or there's so much to worry about as a personality, a separate individual, it is, you know, it's worrisome, it's frightening, it's terrifying. Report an error in the passage at 56:13 Highlight the passage at 56:13

56:29 when that is resolved through this right understanding, Then our responses to each other are based on compassion or loving kindness. We have a joyfulness in our hearts that comes from that basic purity of being that doesn't come from our own person. It's not a personal achievement or a personal talent that any particular individual has. It's the natural result of that realization. Report an error in the passage at 56:29 Highlight the passage at 56:29

57:06 It's the way things are. So when we experience that, when we experience compassion, kindness, joyousness, lovingness from other beings, it helps us to trust more in our own humanity. When we see it being done, when we experience it from others, we realize that we can also be that way, that we have that common human karma. Report an error in the passage at 57:06 Highlight the passage at 57:06

57:41 And that our humanity isn't just a survival of the fittest, selfish, get what you can, look after yourself, I've got mine, I don't care about you, kind of cynicism of the modern time. It's not like I'm all right, I don't care about you. That falls away. And we're not seeing humanity in terms of its selfishness or its meanness of heart or its arrogance. Report an error in the passage at 57:41 Highlight the passage at 57:41

58:12 All the things that we can see and when we start criticizing and fault finding humanity in general, you can make lists of all the horrors, atrocities, dreadful things, dreadful character tendencies of human beings and come out with the idea that it would be better to just blow the whole planet up because Report an error in the passage at 58:12 Highlight the passage at 58:12

58:35 human beings are just hopeless, selfish, arrogant, untrustworthy creatures. Report an error in the passage at 58:35 Highlight the passage at 58:35

58:47 But that might be one side of our human potential. But that's not the totality of it. So in Buddhist terms, being a human being is a noble thing. It's not mean. We might say, I'm only human, which means to justify maybe kind of weaknesses. Report an error in the passage at 58:47 Highlight the passage at 58:47

59:10 You know, I kind of cheated on my taxes. I'm only human. A way we can bring the idea of being human is to justify mediocrity or sleazy behavior. Report an error in the passage at 59:10 Highlight the passage at 59:10

59:30 But I don't want to put the perception of humanity on that level. I think we need to lift it up a bit. We need to see the common aspiration of the human heart and try to bring that back into conscious. Realization of humanity. And of course, we need to do that with ourselves first before we expect anyone else to be doing it. We're not being kind of naive and foolishly optimistic. Report an error in the passage at 59:30 Highlight the passage at 59:30

1:00:04 We're recognizing this is the potential we have. We need, like in society here in Britain, what is depressing about modern society at this time is that There's nothing to aspire to. They're the young people. Even going to universities is pretty depressing. There's nothing much to look forward to that I can see in just the average terms of future, to aim for in the future among young people in Europe. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:45 It looks pretty grim right now. so it Because we don't, we've forgotten what we're here for, what we're all here for, and the potential nobility of our humanity, which is common to all human beings, not just British or Europeans. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:45 Highlight the passage at 1:00:45

1:01:11 It's the common aspiration of all humanity that we're pointing to, which is the... Ultimate realization, freedom, selflessness, free from all ignorance. And this, I think, is an aspiration all human beings, no matter where they are, would agree upon. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:11 Highlight the passage at 1:01:11

1:01:37 So cynics might say, of course, you're being very naive and very optimistic. But I'm not. I know that it's not easy to do, but we can do it. But we need to be reminded. We need to do it ourselves. We need to be living examples of that for others before anyone will believe us. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:37 Highlight the passage at 1:01:37

1:02:06 So it's not looking at John Major and say, you do that for Britain. Maybe we'll do that. Each one of us should do that for Britain and for ourselves and for our own families. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:06 Highlight the passage at 1:02:06

1:02:23 So it's now... Time to end the formal talk and have a 15-minute break, which I think tea, as usual, is made available. And about 15 minutes from now, those of you who are still here, feel free to come back and we can have further discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:23 Highlight the passage at 1:02:23