Waking Up (1999)

0:01 So if it's getting crowded back there, there's plenty of room up front. Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:08 On the floor, that is. So Report an error in the passage at 0:08 Highlight the passage at 0:08

0:20 I want to welcome everybody to... I'm about to hear this afternoon, the Sunday afternoon talk on waking up. Report an error in the passage at 0:20 Highlight the passage at 0:20

0:40 This might put you to sleep. So Report an error in the passage at 0:40 Highlight the passage at 0:40

1:07 the... In religious terms, the... An unenlightened, unawakened person, one who is merely kind of conditioned and kind of programmed by their culture and social habits. And we can all see it in ourselves how we are victims of our cultural conditioning, our class identities, our generation. Generation, these things, we have certain attitudes and that we make. Report an error in the passage at 1:07 Highlight the passage at 1:07

1:58 if we never wake up the Dhamma or to the truth of the way it is, then these kind of biases, these perceptions tend to be how we experience life. Report an error in the passage at 1:58 Highlight the passage at 1:58

2:13 so our life is oftentimes quite... ...severely distorted through all kinds of fears and desires and momentum of habit that take away the joy and oftentimes leave our minds in a state of worry or anxiety, fear. These are the kind of mental states that are so common even in a society like this one, which is relatively secure and safe. Report an error in the passage at 2:13 Highlight the passage at 2:13

2:46 We are living on a basic level of survival, like they are in Turkey at this moment, just trying to exist as an individual. But our lives have tremendous sense of security and stability on the conventional level. And yet, how many of you really suffer from anxiety, worry, feelings of insecurity, fear of death? Report an error in the passage at 2:46 Highlight the passage at 2:46

3:18 Fear of the unknown and these mental states that are the result of not understanding the dharma so that our lives in spite of all the positive and good things that we might experience or might have are often times very much influenced by negative emotions. Report an error in the passage at 3:18 Highlight the passage at 3:18

3:45 And of course negative emotions are always... If one can maintain a level of positive, think positively, you find your life much happier. Because just thinking in a positive way makes one feel a lot more happy. So I remember when I was a boy growing up in the United States, one of the best sellers was called The Power of Positive Thinking. Report an error in the passage at 3:45 Highlight the passage at 3:45

4:18 Some of you can remember. And it was... It was, you know, I think back in the 50s, written by a Christian preacher, American Christian preacher, and he was promoting this tendency to think positively, which does have a power in it that oftentimes the cynical mind can dismiss. Report an error in the passage at 4:18 Highlight the passage at 4:18

4:47 I notice sometimes comparing, say, living here in Europe or in the United States, there seems to be a higher level of cynicism in England than in the United States, at least the United States that I lived in 40 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 4:47 Highlight the passage at 4:47

5:11 Because the tendency to look at life through what's wrong, through what we don't like. Holding images of ourselves that are always based on faults, on what's wrong. And this is such a kind of strong habit. Even though I was brought up in a fairly positive situation, I can see so much of my thinking about myself is around what's wrong with me, what I do wrong, or whether I'm good enough. Report an error in the passage at 5:11 Highlight the passage at 5:11

5:49 If you are capable enough, or intelligent enough, or attractive enough, or whatever, then there's always this sense of anxiety about oneself. Because the self-view is one of the basic problems that what we identify with is very much a conditioning of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 5:49 Highlight the passage at 5:49

6:13 We're identified with things that are basically unstable. And such as just the physical body is so subject to change or sudden change, to disease, to sickness, to accidents, to death, and the inevitable aging process that we all have to experience. So that this identity, of course, one naturally is going to suffer from anxiety. Report an error in the passage at 6:13 Highlight the passage at 6:13

6:47 about just one's physical state. So the identity, this strong personal identity with the body is one of the basic delusions that most human beings have about themselves. I am this physical body. Or this is what I look like. Or we have standards of what physical beauty are for men and for women. And so we compare ourselves maybe to ideals. Report an error in the passage at 6:47 Highlight the passage at 6:47

7:19 You read modern journals and newspapers about the ideal for young women now is kind of anorexic, emaciated fashion models, where the idea is to almost disappear and have absolutely no shape whatsoever. And so this is an ideal. Then the realities of one's physical... We might only make us very critical and feel very uneasy about how we look. Report an error in the passage at 7:19 Highlight the passage at 7:19

7:59 These are all conditioned mental states. These are attitudes and habits of the mind that we can suffer from and even do very destructive things to ourselves over what we think we look like. like or who we are. Report an error in the passage at 7:59 Highlight the passage at 7:59

8:23 Then we live, say, the Western world very much based on ideals of how things should be. So we suffer a lot from our idealism. We can imagine how life should be and we can create kind of positive images of a perfect partner or a perfect family. Perfect woman, perfect man, perfect society. And then the realities of life, we can only feel there's something wrong because the daily life, the way life is, is not an ideal. Report an error in the passage at 8:23 Highlight the passage at 8:23

9:13 It's not, it doesn't, it is seldom ever can we do, hardly any of us really feel that life has ever reached that kind of... Report an error in the passage at 9:13 Highlight the passage at 9:13

9:36 Insecurity, there's something, there's this feeling, isn't there, there's something wrong, really. even though it might seem all right now, we know it will go wrong later. There's anxiety because there's the unknown, the future holds this potential for all kinds of... Imagine pain and humiliation and loss and misery. That is possible in anybody's life. I just, you know, in the news of the earthquake in Turkey, just imagine how all those people the day before the earthquake were probably planning their lives out. Report an error in the passage at 9:36 Highlight the passage at 9:36

10:15 You know, how they were going to spend the next week or the next month. or young students planning their careers and people getting married or planning to get married and on and on like this and then suddenly due to out of thin air almost this earthquake was not even forecast I don't think there's no prediction of it so just out of nothing suddenly the ground underneath you quakes and your whole Life is suddenly, you have a ten-story apartment house collapse on top of you. That is one of the most horrendous possibilities, and yet that just happened, what, five days ago. Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

11:09 I think there's nothing more terrifying than an earthquake, because where do you go? You know, there's no place to go, really, because the very foundation that we really... Report an error in the passage at 11:09 Highlight the passage at 11:09

11:27 put our feet onto this ground, and it's going to carry us, and it's going to, you know, it offers a stability we need to feel safe by having this kind of solid earth under our feet. Report an error in the passage at 11:27 Highlight the passage at 11:27

11:44 yet it even can quake and destroy everything or maybe a whole life's worth our whole life or our So Report an error in the passage at 11:44 Highlight the passage at 11:44

11:59 this realm is like this. It has this experience of pleasure and pain, of good fortune, of misfortune, of happiness and suffering. Report an error in the passage at 11:59 Highlight the passage at 11:59

12:16 This planet is extremely beautiful, nature-wise. It has an elegance and a beauty and a marvelous nature. quality to it, and yet we're very good at destroying it, polluting it, of just being in the midst of great beauty. Report an error in the passage at 12:16 Highlight the passage at 12:16

12:59 beautiful mountain ranges, or or lakes, Report an error in the passage at 12:59 Highlight the passage at 12:59

13:06 and yet so caught up in my own feelings of anxiety that just the actual experience of joy, of beauty, is never really taken in because of the mental state that blinds me from it. Because the only thing that separates me is a mental state, not anything else. It's a mind-created state that I create out of habit, not out of intention. Report an error in the passage at 13:06 Highlight the passage at 13:06

13:38 These states are not, most of them are not intentionally created, but they're the forces of habit, momentum of habit and memory. Memory of experience, memory of the past or... more projections into the future. Report an error in the passage at 13:38 Highlight the passage at 13:38

13:58 so we can in the midst of great beauty a kind of perfection in itself and not even Report an error in the passage at 13:58 Highlight the passage at 13:58

14:24 proliferations of the mind that take over conscious experience and can hang around even when life is going quite well, even when there isn't any particular problem or obstruction or thing to worry about in the future. Report an error in the passage at 14:24 Highlight the passage at 14:24

14:46 This is the suffering. And people ask me, why did you become a monk, Ajahn Sumedho? And I say, of course, it's because of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 14:46 Highlight the passage at 14:46

14:56 And Buddhism, of course, addresses this condition very directly. And they say, well, what was wrong? Why did you suffer? It wasn't anything like poverty or any great... I've never felt like disadvantaged or... I mean, I've had enough of a kind of worldly experience to have had... I kind of experienced the unfairness of situations and the aggravations of family life, community life and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 14:56 Highlight the passage at 14:56

15:32 But I can't say that I could blame my suffering on parents or on anything, but it was the suffering that I created that I didn't even want. I don't want this suffering, but it operates. It seems to have its own momentum. And the more I try to resist it, And get rid of it, the worse it got, the worse it would become. So just trying to kind of run away from it all, trying to do that, just trying to say, stiff upper lip, put a smile on my face, think positively. Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

16:13 Let a smile be your umbrella. Remember all those songs back in the 40s? Positively. Report an error in the passage at 16:13 Highlight the passage at 16:13

16:22 They're supposed to cheer you up. And they were very good-hearted. You know, don't make a problem about life. Just get out there and enjoy it. Have a good time. Life is meant to be a wonderful experience. And yet, I could, you know, that's what people would say, but I wasn't experiencing it that way. Report an error in the passage at 16:22 Highlight the passage at 16:22

16:51 So it is, it was something that I could see was, I knew by the time I was 30 that I couldn't kind of remedy it just by trying to be positive, but I had to look much more closely. Of course, the attraction to Buddha Dhamma was already there. And the using suffering as a kind of key to the problem awakened to suffering. Report an error in the passage at 16:51 Highlight the passage at 16:51

17:25 Now that was quite a profound insight. Because up till then, my whole way of dealing with suffering was to run away from it, try to get rid of it. And the more I did that, the more it seemed to pursue me, the stronger these negative forces would get, as long as I kept resisting or trying to avoid or get rid of them. Report an error in the passage at 17:25 Highlight the passage at 17:25

17:53 So a kind of despair arises, doesn't it? You feel a kind of despair with your life because you're... You're trying your best, you think you're doing your best to live a proper life, and yet the result is still this anxiety, this worry, this critical mind that oftentimes just natters on endlessly about everything, what's wrong with everything. Report an error in the passage at 17:53 Highlight the passage at 17:53

18:25 So, going to Thailand... And finding a teacher, because I knew I needed somebody to kind of direct me, because even though I kind of understood the teaching on the theoretical level, to really look at suffering, what do you have to do? Report an error in the passage at 18:25 Highlight the passage at 18:25

18:52 And then the first noble truth, the statement is there is suffering, and the second aspect of that truth is suffering. To understand it. And so this is the awakening of the mind. You kind of, when you first begin to recognize suffering as experience, because some people aren't even aware that they're suffering. Report an error in the passage at 18:52 Highlight the passage at 18:52

19:13 And there are some people that look quite miserable and say, do you suffer? And they'll say, no. Always surprise me. I never suffer. there. Report an error in the passage at 19:13 Highlight the passage at 19:13

19:26 Because maybe they can't admit it. They're too fixed in how they see experience. And to admit that you suffer, sometimes that's too unbearable to even consider. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:45 And yet that's an awakening moment. That's something in us awakens when we admit that we're suffering. And we're not going to blame it on somebody. It isn't awakened when you start blaming it on somebody. I'm suffering because of you. If you were a better person, I wouldn't suffer. I'm suffering because of marriages, you see. Report an error in the passage at 19:45 Highlight the passage at 19:45

20:12 I'm suffering because of my wife. She's caught the cause, or my husband. We can always... It's interesting, this earthquake in Turkey, how... Quickly, they want to blame it on somebody. Who can you blame an earthquake on? You can blame it on God. God, how can you do this to me? If you really loved me, you wouldn't allow an earthquake. But that's not it. It is not to seek the cause of suffering as some external thing, even though somebody might be actually persecuting you and treating you badly. Report an error in the passage at 20:12 Highlight the passage at 20:12

20:54 But now we're looking much more deeply than just the superficial version of somebody has it in for me and is making my life miserable. We're looking at the suffering I create around that experience. Report an error in the passage at 20:54 Highlight the passage at 20:54

21:12 So, just in, and this is an awakening moment. We suddenly awaken to truth. And we're waking up, even though we might think we're very... With it kind of people, you know, we're really alert and intelligent and we feel that we're very much a modern personality that is with the times and yet still not be awake. Report an error in the passage at 21:12 Highlight the passage at 21:12

21:41 Because this awakeness isn't like having your eyes open and just operating from your habits and experiencing life through... reactivity, but it is an awakening that goes very deep. You're suddenly awakening to the truth, the way it is, to Dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 21:41 Highlight the passage at 21:41

22:03 in Buddhist terms, then, there's this refuge... Buddha is the awakened one. this word, muda, is a very beautiful word. It's a very significant word because it... Report an error in the passage at 22:03 Highlight the passage at 22:03

22:21 We think of it maybe as a person's name, the Buddha, and we think of a Buddha image or the sage, Gautama, Buddha. But it's not meant to be a personal name. It is the awakened state of being. It's the awakened one, that which is awake. And that awakeness is... Something that isn't, say, beyond our ability. It's not like we depend on the Lord Buddha, the Shakyamuni Buddha, to do our work for us, to awaken us. Report an error in the passage at 22:21 Highlight the passage at 22:21

23:05 Not like we're asking some force out in the universe called Buddha energy to suddenly come and kind of zap us and say, wake up. Report an error in the passage at 23:05 Highlight the passage at 23:05

23:16 But it's like we awaken. We merely become... More alert and attentive. We open our minds to the present moment. So this is waking up into the present. It's not something that you can plan for in the future. It's something you do now. I'll wake up tomorrow. I'll put it off. I'll put off enlightenment until I'm older. Young people tend to do this. Report an error in the passage at 23:16 Highlight the passage at 23:16

23:52 I'll wait until I'm... tomorrow. Report an error in the passage at 23:52 Highlight the passage at 23:52

23:55 When I've had all the fun. Report an error in the passage at 23:55 Highlight the passage at 23:55

24:09 Because we can still, the delusions we have when we're young, because some of them are very attractive, exciting, isn't it? The world when you're young is much more exciting than when you're my age. It doesn't look very exciting anymore. I remember when I was 20, how promising everything seemed. How exciting life appeared and how much I was expecting from it. To enjoy it, to learn, to really experience life fully and fulfill all my desires. Report an error in the passage at 24:09 Highlight the passage at 24:09

24:50 Ten years later at 30, what a disappointment. Even though I'd managed to do a lot of the things that I had, you know, traveling and all the rest. Education, profession, still the awakening hadn't occurred yet. I'd just acquired a heavier habit. I'd become kind of world-weary. Report an error in the passage at 24:50 Highlight the passage at 24:50

25:24 Life had, I'd experienced these excitements and these kind of pleasurable things. And with a lot of, also with a lot of unhappiness and disappointment. Report an error in the passage at 25:24 Highlight the passage at 25:24

25:38 But you could see, I could see very clearly that just pursuing life just for the pleasure that you get through the excitement of the sensory world or the intellectual world, just that alone was very changing and unstable. Report an error in the passage at 25:38 Highlight the passage at 25:38

26:02 And the more... You kind of pursued it and the more kind of bored one became. The more you sought fulfillment, the more kind of bored and weary you became of life. So that you could understand. I remember when I was living in California in the early 60s in Berkeley where there was so much. Emphasis on experiencing the pleasure of life. And the drugs were beginning. It was just beginning to come onto the west coast. Report an error in the passage at 26:02 Highlight the passage at 26:02

26:42 For people to smoke marijuana or LSD was the thing everybody was talking about. When I was a graduate student, you'd hear these, have you ever taken LSD? I don't think, is that any? Report an error in the passage at 26:42 Highlight the passage at 26:42

27:04 Sounded like somebody's initials. Kept thinking of LBJ. Report an error in the passage at 27:04 Highlight the passage at 27:04

27:14 But LSD was also a kind of promise, wasn't it? Aldous Huxley had written a book on doors of perception, on using these various psychedelic... Mushrooms and everything, it sounded like once you kind of had these hallucinating experiences, you would achieve a kind of wisdom and knowledge and awakened state of mind that you felt you were missing, that you didn't have in the present. Report an error in the passage at 27:14 Highlight the passage at 27:14

27:49 So I remember how eager everybody was, that was in 1962-63, to experiment with drugs that before, I don't remember we're really much of a problem. I was in the military for four years and I don't remember anybody mentioning any of these drugs. But yet suddenly the kind of possibilities for extending, expanding conscious experience, enjoying increasing amounts of pleasure and exciting mental states increased from the rather boring I ordained Report an error in the passage at 27:49 Highlight the passage at 27:49

28:52 as a monk in 1966 and I remember reading about all this. Living in Thailand, in northeast Thailand, where there was seldom you'd get any kind of news in English, but when it started drifting in, you'd hear these kind of fantastic stories of the drug culture and the flower children and all this. And during this time, I was going through this monastic life, which was all based on Renunciation and restraint, which was the opposite of what everybody was doing. Everybody, not everybody, but probably almost everybody in Berkeley, California. Report an error in the passage at 28:52 Highlight the passage at 28:52

29:46 Because something in me had awakened to the fact that just following all these desires would just lead to some kind of addiction. I could see that the more kind of... pleasure I expected from life and the more pleasure I had then I kept wanting more of it it was just an you know trying to to increase it to make it even more pleasurable so one becomes an addict isn't it addicted to pleasure pleasure is addiction and excitement isn't it anything exciting is addictive we'd like that feeling where we This feeling takes us away from those kind of anxious, worried states of mind, the dreariness of life, the banality of it all, when we can excite the mind with some kind of substance. Report an error in the passage at 29:46 Highlight the passage at 29:46

30:48 That puts us in a different realm, a hallucinogenic state. So these are very tempting, these are great temptations to... I feel Report an error in the passage at 30:48 Highlight the passage at 30:48

31:18 very fortunate that I had this faith and this confidence in the teaching of the Lord Buddha because this was very much what I was inclined toward. And going into A monastery, it was a life very much, if you could say, it was incredibly boring. Because there was very little excitement in a Thai forest monastery. Report an error in the passage at 31:18 Highlight the passage at 31:18

31:55 Most exciting things would be, it heightened the excitement, like getting a piece of cake in your alms bowl, something like that. Report an error in the passage at 31:55 Highlight the passage at 31:55

32:10 Because the... Where we lived, the people were poor, so you seldom got anything very sweet. Report an error in the passage at 32:10 Highlight the passage at 32:10

32:22 So, I mean, you wouldn't find getting excited about things that before wouldn't have excited me in the least. So you realize how dependent it is. So, in one way, renunciation, asceticism even, has a certain pleasurable aspect to it. It heightens life through denying, through resisting. team restraint. Report an error in the passage at 32:22 Highlight the passage at 32:22

32:51 that's not it. It's not a life-denying teaching that the Buddha us. It's not to deny or to resist, but to understand, awaken to the way things So, Report an error in the passage at 32:51 Highlight the passage at 32:51

· · · silence, 1 minute

33:50 it's open forum for questions. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 33:50 Highlight the passage at 33:50

34:27 ha, ha. Report an error in the passage at 34:27 Highlight the passage at 34:27

34:34 That's an exciting subject. Report an error in the passage at 34:34 Highlight the passage at 34:34

34:46 Monastics are celibate, so that's another kind of instinctual drive. The physical body is a sexual body, so it's very much... ha, ha, ha, Report an error in the passage at 34:46 Highlight the passage at 34:46

35:15 monastic life we relinquish that sexuality to live, without intentional activities. And people wonder why, what the point of that is. But what it does is it Report an error in the passage at 35:15 Highlight the passage at 35:15

35:36 we're developing this awareness Then we're aware of these kind of desires and these energies. Some people think of celibacy as just repressing your sexual drive and just denying it. But that is not a very healthy way of living, just to deny. Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

36:06 Push away, but it's to understand it. So that it acts like celibacy acts as a kind of mirror for that kind of energy, sexual desire. We can actually kind of integrate that into, say, our daily life, and rather than just, say, use it for sexual engagement, Because this is something that we don't do. It also helps you to understand it, the power of those energies and the whole kind of excitement and it's one of the most compelling kind of energies that we have. Report an error in the passage at 36:06 Highlight the passage at 36:06

36:57 So it's very strong, very compelling, very exciting. And you can see in modern society they use it a lot just to, you know, to excite people. Have sexual images and anything like that. People get very excited. I remember in the Navy I was a medic and We were out at sea for like two weeks at a time and my duty was to instruct them on things like first aid and venereal diseases and things like this and health. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

37:39 And so I'd have these classes where I'd talk about first aid and health and nobody was interested. But the minute it came around to venereal disease and sex, everybody was fascinated. Report an error in the passage at 37:39 Highlight the passage at 37:39

37:56 It is an exciting aspect of our life. But it also can be misused in the fact that we can see it becomes addictive. We just use it just for physical pleasure or we misuse it for just exploiting other people for our own pleasure. And then the results just lead to all kinds of complicated problems. And like in the monastic life, because of its celibacy, it's much more peaceful, because like sexual experience is very exciting, kind of energized, exciting. Report an error in the passage at 37:56 Highlight the passage at 37:56

38:50 exciting experience, but celibacy is very peaceful. Report an error in the passage at 38:50 Highlight the passage at 38:50

39:01 So this is, it's, you know, if you needed, like with food, you have to eat food, otherwise you die. So when the Buddha established his monastic order, he allowed us to eat. Report an error in the passage at 39:01 Highlight the passage at 39:01

39:21 I don't know. So that is, but then we only eat at certain allowable times, we can't just eat whenever we feel like it. So like you have the alms round and food, and then that also is used for meditation, so we're aware of the power of the excitement of food. And the taste and things like this. So you're contemplating these as experience more and more, so you're understanding. Report an error in the passage at 39:21 Highlight the passage at 39:21

40:00 And the aim then is to realize. The more you begin to recognize or realize the... The value of this awareness, then your tendency to seek distraction through eating, through sex, through other things, is no longer necessary and is no longer even very attractive. Report an error in the passage at 40:00 Highlight the passage at 40:00

40:32 Because the kind of peace you have through mindfulness and awareness and understanding of dharma is It's really what they call the highest happiness. It's not a happiness like, it's not really, that's not a very good term, highest happiness. It's not like a high. But it's a kind of peacefulness and a centeredness and a completeness that you feel more and more. Report an error in the passage at 40:32 Highlight the passage at 40:32

41:05 Being a monk for so long that this This way of life is very natural to me, like 33 years now as a monk. So celibacy is just very natural to me. At first it was a challenge because one wasn't used to celibacy or restraint in those ways. And so it was at first quite, seemingly quite It was quite a challenge and quite difficult, but actually it was a lot easier than I thought. I was surprised it wasn't all that difficult. Report an error in the passage at 41:05 Highlight the passage at 41:05

41:50 But then the monastic life of renunciation, where you're kind of simplifying everything down to very kind of simple lifestyle, Report an error in the passage at 41:50 Highlight the passage at 41:50

42:06 Where you just don't really need very much and you don't want anything. And then this leads to a very peaceful state of mind and a stillness of the mind. The mind isn't caught in this kind of excitement and in this kind of searching, looking, controlling, manipulating experience. Report an error in the passage at 42:06 Highlight the passage at 42:06

42:33 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 42:33 Highlight the passage at 42:33

42:50 Yes, I mean the monastic... This form helps, you know, it's a convention that helps, and its whole aim is to promote this awareness. Report an error in the passage at 42:50 Highlight the passage at 42:50

43:04 But there are a lot of monks that aren't very aware. It's not like it is an end in itself. itself, the, the, The thing with the value of a traditional monastic tradition is that it does carry something through from one generation to the next. So when you look at the history of Theravāda Buddhism, it's through the monastic line really that the scriptures were actually recorded in books. Report an error in the passage at 43:04 Highlight the passage at 43:04

43:52 And then even though when you look at Buddhist history it has certain cyclical patterns where it flourishes and then it kind of almost disappears and then it arises again. And it will have its cycles of development and destruction just like everything else. But it does manage to survive. So when you look, this is probably one of the oldest Report an error in the passage at 43:52 Highlight the passage at 43:52

44:21 Monastic orders still existent. I think the Jains and the Buddhists, you know, these are very, kind of, can trace their roots back to, say, India 500 years before Christ. I mean, it is, you can see that it does provide a kind of continuity that would be, Say, when you get kind of charismatic enlightened masters, oftentimes their teachings are, you know, they're teaching the same thing, but because they don't establish a convention to carry it onward, it disappears when the master dies. Report an error in the passage at 44:21 Highlight the passage at 44:21

45:06 And so this is just how I see it anyway, that the Buddha was a kind of genius at establishing not only an enlightened teaching, but a... A conventional form, a container for that, that carries it through generations. And it's, according to our tradition, supposed to last 5,000 years, this particular teaching. Report an error in the passage at 45:06 Highlight the passage at 45:06

45:37 And it's 2,542 according to the Buddhist year. So we've still got a few years left. Report an error in the passage at 45:37 Highlight the passage at 45:37

45:59 Well, it's not necessary. I mean, enlightenment is something, you know, an imminent act of awareness and understanding. So it's not dependent on a convention. But just to explain how a convention can support that, can give that, can carry that experience and help. Because like when you first have insights, you... Report an error in the passage at 45:59 Highlight the passage at 45:59

46:31 Like I found in my own case, I had a lot of insight the first year when I was a samanera. I had a lot of insight into dhamma, but the habit, I had so many bad habits. So I'd have these insights, but the worldly habits were very strong. And so it was so, you know, hard Report an error in the passage at 46:31 Highlight the passage at 46:31

47:11 to... Not be just thrown back into the old habits. And so I found, I particularly chose a very strict monastery to live in, like Ajahn Chah's monastery, because I knew I needed something that would, I needed to learn how to kind of, learn how to restrain myself, how to How to limit experience. Because my tendency was to... I didn't have very many boundaries for action or speech. It was just, you know, kind of this free idea of freedom. Report an error in the passage at 47:11 Highlight the passage at 47:11

47:52 So I deliberately chose a very strict... one of the strictest monasteries in Thailand. Because I wanted to... I knew I needed to learn from being contained and how to kind of... Work within a smaller area than just having this kind of dispersed feeling. And so I went to Ajahn Chah the second year and stayed with him for about ten years. Report an error in the passage at 47:52 Highlight the passage at 47:52

48:25 And that was very helpful in kind of learning to compose and keep me from being scattered all over the place, containing me. Well, not everybody's like that. Report an error in the passage at 48:25 Highlight the passage at 48:25

48:39 I'm very grateful to have that opportunity because I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't become a monk. I can only speculate. But I do find I found the monastic form something that helped me to be more aware and kept me out of doing things that were just reinforcing these habits I had. Report an error in the passage at 48:39 Highlight the passage at 48:39

49:08 But in terms of the, you know, enlightenment isn't dependent on the convention, on your determination to awaken and the wisdom that you use and how you develop your life, how you take responsibility for your life, you know, to live in a more Report an error in the passage at 49:08 Highlight the passage at 49:08

49:41 So your active side of life is not causing harm to yourself or others, or taking responsibility for what you say, what you speak, so that you're not saying things and using speech in a way that tends to just reinforce bad habits or cause or deceive other people. Report an error in the passage at 49:41 Highlight the passage at 49:41

50:11 you're learning to, it's like maturing really, where you're learning to take responsibility for what you do, how you live. Report an error in the passage at 50:11 Highlight the passage at 50:11

50:23 focus your life on what is good really be quite fearless in your willingness to To accept and learn from the conditions that you do have. So we have, you know, like they talk a lot now about the dark side of the human psyche, these kind of Jungian terminologies, because it's strange how that the dark side of our psyche has oftentimes never, you know, used to be almost ignored. Report an error in the passage at 50:23 Highlight the passage at 50:23

51:06 And now it's suddenly a source of a lot of attention because it obviously is, it's there, but we don't understand it. Like I remember as a child feeling, you know, having some, you know, wanting to be a good person. And then remember one time being on some public transport and on a bus and I must have been about, I was about eight or so, eight or nine years old, and having these terrible thoughts, maniacal thoughts go through my mind. And I was so appalled that I could actually think like that, that it actually frightened me. Report an error in the passage at 51:06 Highlight the passage at 51:06

51:54 I thought, if you're good, how could you have bad thoughts? So then the logic is, I must be bad, because only bad people would have thoughts like that. And then being brought up in the kind of cultural background that I'm from, it was affirmed that if you're good, you would have good thoughts. So there's a kind of logic there. And so one didn't know why one was having these other things. Report an error in the passage at 51:54 Highlight the passage at 51:54

52:28 And so the thing that really attracted me to Buddhism... was that it's this mindfulness where you're actually observing how things are rather than just trying to control your mind. And so like the bad thoughts then are a part of the experience. You're seeing them in terms of their... Report an error in the passage at 52:28 Highlight the passage at 52:28

52:57 self, and that these energies and this dark or shadowy side of the human mind is a part of the path, rather than there's something wrong with you for having them. And then the idea of being responsible for what we do, so we're actually taking responsibility not to act on these kind kind of... of dark energy. Report an error in the passage at 52:57 Highlight the passage at 52:57

53:28 follow them with action or speech, but to be willing to acknowledge their presence and see them in terms of what they really are, as just impermanent conditions are the way they are in the present, rather than as personal defects, flaws. So this takes a strong... Report an error in the passage at 53:28 Highlight the passage at 53:28

54:01 the confidence to do that. So to your question, it's not like you have to become a monk or a nun, but it's atta, deepa, appa, atta, sarana. It's refuge, be a refuge unto yourself. Report an error in the passage at 54:01 Highlight the passage at 54:01

54:26 But you have to be careful with that so it's not taking refuge in your ego. But in that purity of your mind, that awakened awareness in the present, that you can trust. What you think, your emotional state, you can't trust. It'll change and it can mislead you and it comes out of habit and ignorance. But that... Report an error in the passage at 54:26 Highlight the passage at 54:26

54:54 Pure state of attention right now, that is something that you can really trust in if you begin to recognize that as your refuge. Yes? Report an error in the passage at 54:54 Highlight the passage at 54:54

· · · silence, 1 minute

55:40 Right, because this is the... Buddhism has this lovely ability to... Because recognize where it's coming from, it's... Report an error in the passage at 55:40 Highlight the passage at 55:40

55:58 Like anattā, or no self, is not a... Sometimes people see it as a doctrinal position. The Buddhists believe there's no self, there's no soul, there's no God. And some people interpret Buddhism as a kind of doctrine of denial. But that's not what the Buddha was intending. He wasn't denying, but he was reflecting on things. Report an error in the passage at 55:58 Highlight the passage at 55:58

56:26 So I've heard people say, if you're a Buddhist, you have to believe in no-self, which is not true. You're not supposed to go around believing in doctrines, but you're using this concept of no-self, like anattā. It helps you to bring into your consciousness all the identities you do have. Like, there's the habits of your mind, the assumptions you have about yourself. I am this kind of person, and I'm a good person or bad person, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 56:26 Highlight the passage at 56:26

57:03 Just identity with your body, just being identified as a woman or female, or just being English or whatever. These things are conditions of the mind. They're kind of, you got them after... You were born, and they're culturally programmed. You have certain assumptions and attitudes about being a woman, about what class you belong to, your ethnic background. Report an error in the passage at 57:03 Highlight the passage at 57:03

57:32 This is acquired kind of... Report an error in the passage at 57:32 Highlight the passage at 57:32

57:46 attitudes and your emotional habits and then that that is not a personal state it's not like mine in the sense of me as a As a monk, or me as a man, or me as an abbot of a monastery, this pure state of awareness, you can't claim it, there's no need to claim it on a personal level, because you're actually getting beyond the conditioning of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 57:46 Highlight the passage at 57:46

58:15 That's why it's a realization rather than a position. You're awakening the mind to the reality. Rather than trying to seek a definition of yourself in any way, through language or through perception. Report an error in the passage at 58:15 Highlight the passage at 58:15

59:02 Emotionally, you would feel like that, you see. Because, say, your emotional habits are based on the personality or sense of being somebody, having definitions of who I am. So I found that at first this is very threatening emotionally because I found in the early years just some kind of real terror like I was going to dissolve into a void of nothingness or a black hole. Report an error in the passage at 59:02 Highlight the passage at 59:02

59:37 You didn't know who you were or if you let go of self. You didn't know. You had nothing left, you know, and it could be terrifying. But then what happens is that you keep, in the meditation, if you're meditating rightly, you're trusting more in this attentive state. So you're actually allowing these emotions of fear and terror to be liberated and that sense of darkness. Report an error in the passage at 59:37 Highlight the passage at 59:37

1:00:13 And meaninglessness or no direction or nothingness as an emotion, those become liberated from the mind. And what's left is a sense of confidence in just simple awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:13 Highlight the passage at 1:00:13

1:00:36 And then you don't have to... It's beyond name, so you don't have to claim it as being mine. So the Buddha, it's kind of brilliant the way he kind of leads you into that. And then the realization is up to you, you know. It has to, that awakened state, you can't... That's why the Buddha tried to avoid kind of metaphysical positions like... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:36 Highlight the passage at 1:00:36

1:01:09 The Ātman, the absolute self, he would avoid using metaphysical terms and metaphysical doctrines because his approach is very kind of starting from an existential reality of suffering rather than a metaphysical doctrine. You're starting from the ground up, from just pain in the body and feeling lonely, to taking what is kind of ordinary human suffering, making that a noble truth, then leading you through that, through mindfulness, into this realization of ultimate reality or deathless. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:09 Highlight the passage at 1:01:09

1:02:02 He would use, like in the scriptures you have terms like amata-dhamma or deathless truth. There's this brilliant statement, I think in the Udana, that says about, you know, there is the unborn, uncreated, unconditioned, unoriginated. And so he's using negations of things. Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media Ltd.'s express consent. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02:02

1:02:56 But then he says there is the unborn, uncreated, unconditioned, unoriginated. And if there was not the unborn, uncreated, unconditioned, unoriginated, there would be no escape from the born, the created, the conditioned, the originated. But because there is the unborn, uncreated, Report an error in the passage at 1:02:56 Highlight the passage at 1:02:56

1:03:23 Unoriginated, unconditioned, there is an escape. Well, that to me is one of the most perfect metaphysical statements. You know, it's rather like a formula, but it's pointing to a reality that, you know, and the relationship of the conditioned to the unconditioned. And that... Report an error in the passage at 1:03:23 Highlight the passage at 1:03:23

1:03:52 The born to the unborn and the created to the uncreated. So it's not like a nihilistic teaching where you're trying to just get rid of the born, the created, the originated out of aversion and denial. But it's recognizing the relationship. So when you're actually... Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji meditation, insight meditation, then you're beginning to recognize how they relate in terms of direct experience. it's through the, like the noble truth, you see the causes of suffering and the end of suffering is the third noble truth, cessation of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:52 Highlight the passage at 1:03:52

1:04:36 Then you're beginning to really tune in or realize that the deathless or the The realization isn't like a belief. It's like tasting honey. After you taste it, you know what it is. You don't have to doubt about whether it's sweet or not. And that's why oftentimes Buddhism is very confusing to people. Because when we look at religion, we're used to more theistic approaches which start... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:36 Highlight the passage at 1:04:36

1:05:11 From metaphysical doctrine, like I believe in God, starting from the top. And that's how we see religion. Like Christians oftentimes criticize Buddhism, saying it's not a religion because you don't have any God. Because to many people, you have to believe in God to be a religion. And then they think, we don't believe in God, so we're not a religion. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:11 Highlight the passage at 1:05:11

1:05:39 But it's interesting the dialogue that's taking place between the Roman Catholics and the Buddhists these days, because there's a lot of interest in this, because as people are beginning to, like in Christianity, like in some of the Roman Catholic monks and nuns, as they're kind of As their spiritual realizations are stronger, unless they're not so bound into church doctrine, then they're also realizing the profundity of Buddhist meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:39 Highlight the passage at 1:05:39

1:06:18 So you get that it's something that speaks to you because it's addressing... In a very direct way, the actual experience of say awakening the mind of realization or of salvation or religious or spiritual insight. And this is where, because of the Buddhist approach, it comes from almost the opposite end of the rest of the religions. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:18 Highlight the passage at 1:06:18

1:06:48 Religions, this is how I see it, they start quite high up. And Buddhism starts at the bottom. It starts with suffering. And through investigating suffering, you realize the ultimate reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:48 Highlight the passage at 1:06:48

1:07:07 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:07 Highlight the passage at 1:07:07

1:07:20 Well, since I haven't died, I can't really speak from experience. But what we do is... Report an error in the passage at 1:07:20 Highlight the passage at 1:07:20

1:07:36 Is that you're, through mindfulness, you see, like being born into a human body, is that you're actually, like we're in a state of consciousness, we're a conscious entity in the universe. So our position, say, in the universe that we experience is through consciousness, which depends on on a form of some sort, like having a body. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:36 Highlight the passage at 1:07:36

1:08:10 so we experience through this consciousness. We experience the things, what we see, hear, smell, taste. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:10 Highlight the passage at 1:08:10

1:08:35 But then what happens is that we tend to identify with the body and we, out of ignorance, not understanding things, we form all kinds of wrong views about ourselves and the world that we live in, so that we have a whole kind of mind filled with deluded views. And that everybody agrees to, you know, so everybody agrees that these delusions are normal and are called reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:35 Highlight the passage at 1:08:35

1:09:10 But as you awaken, then you're using your consciousness now through a wisdom, through using wisdom rather than through conditioning. And so like the Buddha is awakening the mind to To where this wisdom can operate. And then you begin to recognize the death and the death, that which dies and the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:10 Highlight the passage at 1:09:10

1:09:38 You have an insight into deathlessness while your body is still alive, you see. And so then you begin to extrapolate from that, that really when it comes for the body to die, that's all that dies, because you've already, you've seen, you've realized the deathless reality before the body dies. So then when it's time for this condition to pack up and die, then that's what happens. But it's not seen in terms of, I'm dying, or, you know, it doesn't have all that, Intensity of delusion or an attachment that one would have if you'd never really investigated experience and really had those insights. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:38 Highlight the passage at 1:09:38

1:10:30 So it's like die before you die. And the sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet, it says, death once dead, there's no more dying then. You see it even in poetry, this sense of... Die before you die. And Ajahn Chah was very good at saying, kind of shocking people to say, people, you know, kind of Western people come to the monastery and he said, did you come here to die? Report an error in the passage at 1:10:30 Highlight the passage at 1:10:30

1:11:04 They look horrified. I don't have to be translating this. And, you know, because people never contemplate that. They think, no, I came here to find peace. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:04 Highlight the passage at 1:11:04

1:11:20 I don't know if I want to come here to die, but then in terms of death, you're looking like in the Four Noble Truths, as you begin to recognize cessation, just like thoughts and feelings, as you let go and stop controlling things out of fear and ignorance, then you begin to realize the ending of things. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:20 Highlight the passage at 1:11:20

1:11:45 As experience, and when things end, when conditions end, and you're fully conscious and aware of that, that's peaceful. It's not like oblivion. You don't kind of, you know, you're not unconscious. But you're realizing the peace of non-attachment, of not being just running around trying to... unconscious and Report an error in the passage at 1:11:45 Highlight the passage at 1:11:45

1:12:14 out of fear and ignorance, just getting caught up in your habits anymore. So in Thailand, when somebody dies, they call the monks, and they chant this very simple chant, usually over the corpse of the person that's died. in Thailand. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:14 Highlight the passage at 1:12:14

1:12:35 he's trying. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:35 Highlight the passage at 1:12:35

1:12:44 And it's taught in Pāli language. And then what it means is just reflecting on the way it is. You're saying all conditions are impermanent. What arises passes away and in the passing is peace. So you're realizing that when you really let go of everything and you let things move according to their nature and you're no longer just clutching and holding and resisting and manipulating Report an error in the passage at 1:12:44 Highlight the passage at 1:12:44

1:13:13 Then you begin to recognize what real peace is, stillness, and that is experience of deathlessness, the realization of deathlessness. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:13 Highlight the passage at 1:13:13

1:13:26 So it's like dying before you die. So the aim, say, of Buddhists is to die before you die. But then what's left after everything dies is peace, and it's intelligent. Like it's not a kind of sterile peacefulness, you know, or an unconscious kind of deadness. It's a fullness and a peacefulness that seems more like completion and balance rather than annihilation or oblivion. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:26 Highlight the passage at 1:13:26

1:14:09 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:14:09 Highlight the passage at 1:14:09

1:14:25 Well, this is like, it's just pointing to the... The danger of this realm, you know, like the... I mean, we can speculate on the law of karma, like people do say it's the karma, it's a way of kind of accepting the inevitable. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:25 Highlight the passage at 1:14:25

1:14:49 But also it can be just a way of avoiding really contemplating what's happened. Like in terms of, say, my own... It's inevitable. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:49 Highlight the passage at 1:14:49

1:14:59 own practice, just recognizing I mean, to me, that is a very powerful perception of what's happened in Turkey. You know, say over 40,000, I mean, died. And it's, you know, I've never heard of any catastrophe where so many died at one time. And so that is, you know, incredibly... Report an error in the passage at 1:14:59 Highlight the passage at 1:14:59

1:15:31 Powerful perception of, and it comes out of nowhere, you know, it seems like it just happened, you know, without any warning. So it does kind of convey how, you know, not to delay this awakened mind, like sometimes you think, oh, you know, I have plenty of time left, I'm still young and life is open and I can... Report an error in the passage at 1:15:31 Highlight the passage at 1:15:31

1:15:59 Take it more seriously when I get a little older. But these kind of catastrophes really make you aware that maybe, you know, you shouldn't postpone it. There's an urgency to this awakeness. Because the thing is that these things, this realm is a dangerous realm. realm, it's fraught with these possibilities and these contingencies and when we can delude ourselves thinking it happens Report an error in the passage at 1:15:59 Highlight the passage at 1:15:59

1:16:39 but not to me and then suddenly it's happening to you and then you're not prepared for it but in reflective awareness you're seeing that this is, you're more capable of dealing with the tragedy because you're not, it's, you're You recognize that this realm that we're in is dangerous, and you're not kind of soothing yourself, thinking, well, I'm perfectly safe, and it only happens in other places, but not to me. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:39 Highlight the passage at 1:16:39

1:17:11 And then suddenly you find it happening to you. I remember a few years ago, I was flying from Bangkok to Ubon in the northeast of Thailand. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:11 Highlight the passage at 1:17:11

1:17:27 I often wondered what would happen if, you know, if, because I've done a lot of flying, what would happen if the plane was going to crash? What would be my immediate response? So, anyway, the plane took off from the Bangkok airport, and we were just reaching, you know, where the stewardesses were beginning to bring out the little breakfast trays, and then suddenly the airplane goes... Report an error in the passage at 1:17:27 Highlight the passage at 1:17:27

1:17:59 And one side starts falling over this way, you know, like an engine stopped. And the whole plane tilted like this. And I noticed the stewardess turned completely white. And everybody just went in, you know, it was a terribly frightening experience. And I was quite pleased with myself because actually I was quite at peace with it, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:59 Highlight the passage at 1:17:59

1:18:29 And obviously it didn't crash, because I'm still here, but it, I mean, it didn't manage to get it back into the Bangkok airport. But I was, you know, through my practice of meditation, I realized how, you know, the mind now moves much more toward this awareness than, say, just a panicked state. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:29 Highlight the passage at 1:18:29

1:18:52 And I wasn't, I was reading the Bangkok Post at the time, and I thought, I'm not going to die reading the Bangkok Post. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:52 Highlight the passage at 1:18:52

1:19:09 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:19:09 Highlight the passage at 1:19:09

1:19:19 Well, like we're all in this together, you see. It's that nature doesn't, you know, it doesn't pick and choose particularly. If you're there, then you're the ones that, you know, whoever there at that place are the ones that get killed. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:19 Highlight the passage at 1:19:19

1:19:42 You know, it's like children are, you know, they are innocent, and they're, you know, it's not like a punishment for them, but this is the way it is, that nature is like this, it's unpredictable, it's uncertain, it's nothing you can trust, it's not going to be fair, like earthquakes aren't just going to happen where, you know, where the... Report an error in the passage at 1:19:42 Highlight the passage at 1:19:42

1:20:12 swallowed up by the earth like they do in some legends but where the earth swallows up often times it's quite good people or innocent children that get caught and you can see in the wars like Rwanda and places like that so many of the people that were slaughtered were like children Report an error in the passage at 1:20:12 Highlight the passage at 1:20:12

1:20:32 that were not, like women, old people, people that weren't involved in the war or the slaughter, kind of just because they happened to be there, in the where that's happening. So, this is where it's important not to trust even in how good you are or to get a false confidence in the fact that everything seems all right and safe, but to develop a sense of, say, giving importance to your spiritual development now rather than getting kind of Report an error in the passage at 1:20:32 Highlight the passage at 1:20:32

1:21:11 ...mullified by the seeming security and safeness that it seems to have at this time. So like monastics, we reflect a lot on impermanence and on the, you know, how... Report an error in the passage at 1:21:11 Highlight the passage at 1:21:11

1:21:36 What we can be most attached to can be taken away from us. We have this one reflection, all that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise, will become separated from me. And I remember when I first heard that, I thought, boy, that's a depressing reflection. Reflection. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:36 Highlight the passage at 1:21:36

1:21:55 What kind of monastic order have I joined? All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise, will become separated from me. But that's the truth. That's what happens. The older you get, the more you actually see that and realize that. In the past decade, for example, parents have died, my teachers have died, friends have died. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:55 Highlight the passage at 1:21:55

1:22:25 So many, so many, it seemed like up to about 50, 24 of my grandmother died. And that, I remember that. But after that, there didn't seem to be any great problems around that. And then in the past decade, it's been definitely a sense of loss of the loved. But I'm prepared for that. I feel quite fortunate that all that happened when I could actually reflect and understand it, where it didn't happen at an age where it would have just been traumatic without any possible way of understanding why. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:25 Highlight the passage at 1:22:25

1:23:27 I was reading the statistics like the world population now they say is 6 billion and 6 billion people on the planet. And when I was born, that was 1934, there was 2.2 billion. So in just 65 years, that's more than tripled. And so they're enormous. Human population now in India now has reached a billion people in India. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:27 Highlight the passage at 1:23:27

1:24:13 And they say by the middle of the next century there'll be more Indians than Chinese. You know, when you think about all these people, you know, how... Chinese. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:13 Highlight the passage at 1:24:13

1:24:31 You know, and how ill-prepared we are for living together. And so, you know, it's rather frightening because, you know, we've seen these genocides, just these endless kind of ethnic hatreds of people that really have quite a lot in common. You know, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, a place like that, these kind of... Report an error in the passage at 1:24:31 Highlight the passage at 1:24:31

1:25:01 They butcher each other over perceptions of being Muslim or Albanian or Serb or whatever. And then you wonder, well, what's going to happen with six billion people in the mid-century, next century? It's going to be probably double that or triple that. And it's rather frightening because you see that we're actually not... Report an error in the passage at 1:25:01 Highlight the passage at 1:25:01

1:25:32 The human mind, as it is right now, is very kind of still very tribal, very primitive in how it perceives itself. And so we can revert, like atavistic behavior, we can revert very quickly back to kind of a barbarity that we think we're beyond because we think maybe we're civilized or something. But we're not really civilized, we're not really developed yet till we have this awakened state. Like in this awakened, when you awaken the human mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:32 Highlight the passage at 1:25:32

1:26:11 Then we have a context for all these ethnic differences, racial differences and that. We have a way of looking at conventional reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:11 Highlight the passage at 1:26:11

1:26:23 Then it comes through compassion and wisdom rather than through cultural biases and prejudices and hatreds that go back 500,000 years over something that happened. Yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:26:23 Highlight the passage at 1:26:23

1:26:48 Do you want me to come back? I Report an error in the passage at 1:26:48 Highlight the passage at 1:26:48

1:27:01 better not ask that question. She might say yes. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:01 Highlight the passage at 1:27:01

1:27:14 Well, I wouldn't see it like that so much as just a kind of trust in the... I see the goodness of this universe, of the dhamma that we all share. So I trust in that, and I trust that what happens will be... I mean, I feel the more we awaken ourselves... Then we are actually promoting, like from the empty mind comes this compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:14 Highlight the passage at 1:27:14

1:27:53 You know, you see that you're no longer obsessed with just your ego and yourself and limited to that reality, but you're understanding on a much deeper level. And from that empty mind, rather than just being a kind of blank indifference, There's a genuine love, compassion that comes from there, and it's natural to our minds. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:53 Highlight the passage at 1:27:53

1:28:24 So, you know, like realized people, human beings, then you feel that from them, that there is a loving quality. They're not just kind of blank zombies, but there is definite compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:24 Highlight the passage at 1:28:24

1:28:42 And care and willingness to help and do what we can for other sentient beings. So with Buddhism, the idea you're always sharing the blessings of your life with others so that the life itself isn't becoming just inverted into just the salvation for yourself as an attitude. But more how you're realizing how interconnected we are. We're really, you know, this term is also a new age term, interconnectedness. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:42 Highlight the passage at 1:28:42

1:29:21 But it describes a reality that oftentimes we've not fully recognized because we get so isolated in our egos. We feel very separate, very individual, very kind of lonely and isolated when you're just... Bound into the limitations of a conditioned self-view. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:21 Highlight the passage at 1:29:21

1:29:53 Yeah, wisdom is always available. It's just opening to that wisdom. That's what you do when you're awakening the mind. Then the wisdom, it's not like it ever is absent. It's just not recognized. You're not giving wisdom a channel to work through if you're bound into the ego. You see, so when you let go of the ego and all the kind of delusions about yourself, then wisdom operates through these human forms. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:53 Highlight the passage at 1:29:53

1:30:28 Wisdom, compassion. Yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:30:28 Highlight the passage at 1:30:28

1:30:48 Well, it's like the unknown, you know, like going into, like what you don't know can be frightening. There's tremendous investment in trying to know everything. Like us, our culture, isn't it? We're very much, we want to have answers for every question. We feel really uneasy, really unhappy and ill at ease when we're left in a state of unsurity. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:48 Highlight the passage at 1:30:48

1:31:20 Or we don't like the darkness, to be in the dark. We have electricity. And when the electricity doesn't work, we can go into a state of fear because... We're used to having things where we can... I remember living in Thailand. We'd go out living in the forest. You're sitting out at night in this forest and it's black. You can't see anything. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:20 Highlight the passage at 1:31:20

1:31:52 You can't even see a hand in front of your eyes. It's so dark. And you're sitting out in this darkness. And suddenly you feel terrified because it's so black and you don't know what's there. And then you start imagining, you hear rustle of leaves and you think, oh, it's a tiger, it's a snake. You can imagine it's a ghost. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:52 Highlight the passage at 1:31:52

1:32:17 Who knows what it is? And you can wind yourself up into a real state of hysteria over the possibilities. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:17 Highlight the passage at 1:32:17

1:32:39 and then you have this mosquito net that you hang from these, you hang the umbrellas from the tree, you put this mosquito net around them, so, and the mosquito net goes down to the ground, a thin little net, and you go inside your mosquito net, you light a candle. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:39 Highlight the passage at 1:32:39

1:32:58 And you're sitting there and you can see everything in the mosquito net. And you don't feel frightened anymore. You've got this little circle. You've got this little circle. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:58 Highlight the passage at 1:32:58

1:33:12 But you can see everything. You can see where everything is in this place. This contains space. And so that terror goes away because it... And yet... No more say, I mean, if any snake or tiger's around, it's certainly not going to let mosquito net stop him. But actual, or ghost, you know, but the, the, it's the, it's the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:12 Highlight the passage at 1:33:12

1:33:41 I noticed that, and to contemplate, you know, how, how that darkness terrifies, and, and how, you know, the black hole, of going into, into the black hole, or, Or eternal hell, or something, the unknown, the uncertain, always has this, brings up terror. So in working with that, you can, just by recognizing that more and more, by letting that fear, that terror be more conscious and really understand it better, then... Report an error in the passage at 1:33:41 Highlight the passage at 1:33:41