Breathing Spirit Into Form – Q and A

0:00 Any questions to ask? Anything you want me to just talk about further? Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:13 We've been just discussing form. We're all in a form. We're all in a form. Do you think it's possible to do it my way to just say I can be a spiritual person and I don't need any form to help me at all. I can do it by myself. Well it's Report an error in the passage at 0:13 Highlight the passage at 0:13

0:36 That's usually based on overestimation of... In one way it's true, I mean, because we have to do it by ourselves, really. But it's being able to use the things that are available. It's like if you wanted to go to Edinburgh and there is a nice... car outside just waiting to go and said I'm not going to use that I'm going to invent my own car. I'm going to do it all by myself. Well, you might, you know, before you die you might get to Edinburgh or you might not. Report an error in the passage at 0:36 Highlight the passage at 0:36

1:29 Because your emphasis is on the vehicle, too much on making your own vehicle rather than using what's available. not? Report an error in the passage at 1:29 Highlight the passage at 1:29

1:39 So, to me, not the point of the vehicle is not the important issue, it's being able to get to the place, you know, to get to the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 1:39 Highlight the passage at 1:39

1:55 So that's why, I mean, I feel such gratitude toward the Buddha, toward the Gautama Buddha, because he left, you know, he left me a very nice car to ride in. Report an error in the passage at 1:55 Highlight the passage at 1:55

2:10 That I would probably never have been able to invent if it had been left up to me. Report an error in the passage at 2:10 Highlight the passage at 2:10

2:20 But if you don't have it, then you have to invent one of your own. You know, that's also... But sometimes that idea can be very deluding because then it's like ignoring what the real issue is. It's to realize the truth rather than to make too much of the vehicle. I want to invent a completely unique vehicle in my own way that usually comes from a strong sense of self and therefore you end up with maybe a unique vehicle that won't go anywhere. Report an error in the passage at 2:20 Highlight the passage at 2:20

3:03 Build Report an error in the passage at 3:03 Highlight the passage at 3:03

3:12 something that might look very nice but can't even move. Report an error in the passage at 3:12 Highlight the passage at 3:12

3:22 I've heard That Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:33 it's learning to use what we have, what is available. Because, I mean, if you're in a place where there's no other thing, then one just has to, say, trust in intuitive awareness and things like that. Report an error in the passage at 3:33 Highlight the passage at 3:33

3:55 In a society like ours where we... Where the intuitive functions of mind tend to be dismissed or misunderstood because the personality view is so strong in the Western mind, very much attached to ideals. And so we tend to judge everything from ideals, judge ourselves, judge other people, the society. Always it's compared to an ideal and therefore we tend to end up with a very critical mind all the time because the way life is is never ideal. Report an error in the passage at 3:55 Highlight the passage at 3:55

4:46 An ideal is fixed and therefore it's unchanging where life is an experience of sensitivity is forever in the flux and change. So we end up feeling just negative and threatened towards ourselves and others and everything involved from the fact that our society is based on ideas rather than on understanding natural laws. Report an error in the passage at 4:46 Highlight the passage at 4:46

5:15 Like Buddha-dharma is the understanding of natural law, the laws of nature, the way things are. And they're not ideals for anything. So that once you Report an error in the passage at 5:15 Highlight the passage at 5:15

5:32 Tune into the natural law or the way of things and that takes your intuitive mind to do that, not your idealistic one. Because the idealistic one tends to create artificial ideas that can just pop out of your head, that are not based on anything according to the natural law. Like a Buddha is an ideal Report an error in the passage at 5:32 Highlight the passage at 5:32

6:05 Isn't it? It can be idealistic or it can be like I've been suggesting in taking refuge in Buddha as very realistic, realizing Buddha rather than just idealizing a Buddha. Like you make an idol of Buddha, you present, you make Buddha into this perfect form out of some maybe gold, some valuable, beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 6:05 Highlight the passage at 6:05

6:33 material like gold, you make a golden Buddha image with the most beautiful faith and form. That's an ideal, idealized Buddha. That's not a realized Buddha, you see. So the emphasis is on realization rather than on idealizing. But just notice how, say, Western society is very idealistic. Report an error in the passage at 6:33 Highlight the passage at 6:33

7:03 We have, even though we don't think we are, we are. We don't tend to have any, to be very practical in the way we deal with life. Report an error in the passage at 7:03 Highlight the passage at 7:03

7:19 We're not realistic enough. We don't realize natural things, natural forces. Just like, say, marriage can be idealized and then it... It keeps you out of touch with realization of the natural forces affecting a man and a woman in a relationship. So you're idealizing a marriage saying men and women are equal, they're the same, they should have this perfect relationship of mutual sharing and loving each other. Report an error in the passage at 7:19 Highlight the passage at 7:19

7:54 It should be a marriage where there's total trust and perfect equality and fairness. And where you work together, help each other, support each other, live with each other, take care of each other, and all these ideals that we can think of are the perfect relationship on an idealistic plane. And the realities of a man and woman living together are not ideals. You have to deal with... Report an error in the passage at 7:54 Highlight the passage at 7:54

8:30 With feelings and emotions, they're never ideal. They bring up things in each other. You know, you find you're jealous or you feel resentful or bitter towards somebody you're married to. And that's not ideal. That's not, you know, sharing and giving and supporting and loving each other and being totally equal and all that. Report an error in the passage at 8:30 Highlight the passage at 8:30

9:01 Or how it should be, but then the reality, realistically speaking, you know, you might be, you know, sparking off, you know, all kinds of things, resentments and fears and anxieties and jealousies and all that in each other that you'd never take into account from the ideal position of how it should be. Report an error in the passage at 9:01 Highlight the passage at 9:01

9:24 And that's where you need the dhamma teachings to be able to To work through all the emotional ups and downs that a human being has. Even though one doesn't want to be frightened or jealous or feeling bitter, one would like to be the ideal man or woman. Report an error in the passage at 9:24 Highlight the passage at 9:24

9:52 As an ideal, most of us would like to be this perfect being. But then... We have to accept just the fact that our emotional nature is like this, and it's not a kind of fatalistic defense of immaturity, but it's the willingness to bear with all kinds of unresolved feelings and emotions in our lives till we let them go. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:24 Then more and more the realization becomes more like the ideal. But if you're just trying to jump into the ideal, then you can't, I mean, because you just end up feeling terribly disappointed, either blaming yourself as kind of hopeless case, or blaming the other person, saying it's your fault, you were, you're not what I, I didn't, if I didn't know what you really like, I'd never have married you. Report an error in the passage at 10:24 Highlight the passage at 10:24

10:57 You've disappointed me. Report an error in the passage at 10:57 Highlight the passage at 10:57

11:02 There's two, you know, one goes, blames oneself for somebody else. And, you know, it's true, sometimes, I mean, we can be really insensitive to each other, or I can be insensitive to somebody who may be very sensitive to me. Sometimes one finds oneself very callous. But it's only through our... Report an error in the passage at 11:02 Highlight the passage at 11:02

11:55 is value of, say, taking precepts, becoming a monk or nun. And all of this lies in the fact that it does, there's pressure on you to stay in it, when oftentimes you want to get out. Where if you hadn't committed yourself to a form, it'd be easy to get out. If you make the form, if you don't emphasize the form very much, and talk about the ideal, then when you get fed up with this, and you get... Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:30 Bored and disillusioned with the form and the people in it, it's easy to justify leaving it. I just do it on my own. I don't need you here. I'm going to do it on my own. You're blocking my... You're kind of in my way. And it might even look like that. Sometimes. It might even be that way sometimes. But then the commitment to a form, Report an error in the passage at 12:30 Highlight the passage at 12:30

13:01 It's not so easy to get out of it, so you kind of bear with. You learn how to surrender and how to be more patient, how to be more forgiving. All these kind of virtues develop from that. But if you're too kind of independent and can control things for your own benefit too much, then... We tend to avoid a lot of unpleasantness by just not having to face things that say dependency involving dependency or having to put up with things because we're committed. Report an error in the passage at 13:01 Highlight the passage at 13:01

13:52 And if we weren't committed we wouldn't have to put up with them. I'm fed up with this, I'm going off. We make it difficult to leave the monastic life. People can leave, not like it's bondage, but you try to make it difficult. Report an error in the passage at 13:52 Highlight the passage at 13:52

14:12 So then people aren't so just kind of flippant about it and just being, you know, just not valuing it or just, you know, the minute they get a little bit disillusioned, want to get out. Report an error in the passage at 14:12 Highlight the passage at 14:12

14:34 And the result is that I find that, like here in England, that Monastic communities are maturing in themselves. There's a growing kind of maturity as a community. You can sense it here at Amar Bhatti Chitras that as a community of people there's a stronger kind of quality of unity and commitment and wisdom that is very nice, very pleasing. Report an error in the passage at 14:34 Highlight the passage at 14:34

15:12 I find it very pleasing to live in these communities now, where it wasn't always so pleasing. Sometimes one would rather be living by oneself than with all these people and all their problems. goodness. Report an error in the passage at 15:12 Highlight the passage at 15:12

15:57 lives perhaps in a forest in Thailand that's on the close to nature. Report an error in the passage at 15:57 Highlight the passage at 15:57

16:10 Well, you can't really say, because there's advantages and disadvantages in every situation. Like, in some ways, there's advantages and disadvantages in being a Westerner, or being Thai, there's advantages and there's disadvantages. You can't really say one has more advantages than disadvantages. Report an error in the passage at 16:10 Highlight the passage at 16:10

16:43 But it's really, like I see, it's really using what you have. Like I see in Thailand, even though you have a whole country that's Buddhist, you have a culture that's based on Buddhist teachings. You know, the whole Thai kind of cultural attitude is very Buddhist. And you have very good teachers and good monasteries. Report an error in the passage at 16:43 Highlight the passage at 16:43

17:16 It's a country that has very good enlightened teachers and good monasteries, and yet how many Thai people actually realize that? Report an error in the passage at 17:16 Highlight the passage at 17:16

17:32 It's surprising how few really, really, really appreciate that. Because they've got it all there, but oftentimes they'd rather come over to Europe and make money. Report an error in the passage at 17:32 Highlight the passage at 17:32

17:49 By a Rolls Royce or anything. Report an error in the passage at 17:49 Highlight the passage at 17:49

17:56 Or, say, here in England, for example, because, I mean, being a kind of misfit, being someone on the fringe of the society, being a Buddhist monk, here you're an oddball. You're a bit of a buffoon. This is what I was alluding to. Right. And you don't have very many places to go. Like in Thailand, there's monasteries all over the place. Report an error in the passage at 17:56 Highlight the passage at 17:56

18:30 Forest monasteries, town monasteries, big ones, little ones, little tiny places, forests, caves, all kinds of things where lay people around are willing to support monks wherever you go. There's no problem. Here you don't know. People don't, you know. People look at you as being odd or strange. Many people do. But there are certain advantages to that. The fact that you're not taking anything for granted in this life. Report an error in the passage at 18:30 Highlight the passage at 18:30

19:10 You're more or less having to live more on faith. And that's very good as a religious practice because you're... And you're not kind of being praised by the society in general. Oftentimes you're being condemned or being criticized. Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:33 I think Britain's a pretty tolerant place. It's certainly not, you know, one doesn't feel mistreated at all here. But if I were in Thailand, there'd be so much admiration and so much support in every way for me that... Report an error in the passage at 19:33 Highlight the passage at 19:33

19:52 That can be a disadvantage. Report an error in the passage at 19:52 Highlight the passage at 19:52

19:58 Here you have to really want to be. One is a monk because one really loves the dharma, not because you're getting a lot of perks out of the life. Disadvantage. Report an error in the passage at 19:58 Highlight the passage at 19:58

20:21 Westerners who've had Report an error in the passage at 20:21 Highlight the passage at 20:21

20:30 realizing the Dharma, think, and having had everything, still there's this sense of dissatisfaction, like the Buddha himself. Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

20:41 in countries, people still want the... Well, there's hope that maybe if you have a car that you'll find real happiness. Like I noticed when I lived in Thailand, there was a monk, Thai monk, whose father had become quite he was from a poor kind of rice farming family in northeast Thailand but his father had moved to another area and had started making money and they bought a car and they started getting some you know material wealth and I remember this monk actually always on the verge of disrobing I mean he actually didn't disrobe but It was so tempting to, as his family became increasingly well off, he was tempted to leave because he'd only, when he was a layman, he'd only known the kind of, you know, level of kind of just being poor, not having opportunity to have these things, and then suddenly his family is flourishing and they're able to afford, and it's very attractive, very tempting. Report an error in the passage at 20:41 Highlight the passage at 20:41

22:03 Where, say, I was thinking in my own case, you know, I wouldn't find that attractive, you know, because I've already had it. And it's not like that I'm somehow more advanced or better, you know, or sincere than he was. It was that I've already had those things. I know how meaningless they are. And so that if somebody offered me a Rolls Royce, I'll give you a Rolls Royce if you'll disrobe. Report an error in the passage at 22:03 Highlight the passage at 22:03

22:29 I wouldn't be... You know, in a way what I want, I don't even want a Rolls Royce or any car, but yet if I'd never had one, never opportunity, you know, that might be a strong temptation. Report an error in the passage at 22:29 Highlight the passage at 22:29

22:49 You know, I've never been wealthy, but I've always had, I've always been in a position of being able to get enough of everything to know that if I was extremely wealthy, I wouldn't feel any better. know what I'm saying yet. Report an error in the passage at 22:49 Highlight the passage at 22:49

23:04 It's quite obvious that like in, say, middle class life, it's quite obvious that, you know, if you do find yourself being able to get everything you want, you still can be quite miserable when you're getting everything you want. You get everything you want and you're miserable at the same time. So you think, well, why? I suppose it takes a certain amount of economic liberation before you can have these thoughts, really. Report an error in the passage at 23:04 Highlight the passage at 23:04

23:33 Couldn't exist in total poverty. Well, some do. Like in Thailand, you find some wisdom in people, you know, not in everyone, but like in some of the monks who were, you know, not tempted at all. Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

23:51 It's just they have a kind of, their ability to reflect is good and wise. Even though they might be from poor backgrounds, they can see the futility of it quite easily. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:06 There are those kind of people in every society. Report an error in the passage at 24:06 Highlight the passage at 24:06

24:12 For me, it's always been, I don't know what I would have been like if I'd been from a very poor family, but I do realize, I mean, it became quite apparent to me at an early age that wealth was not really where it's at, where one wants to put one's emphasis. Report an error in the passage at 24:12 Highlight the passage at 24:12

24:39 the same thing relation to South Africa at the time. Report an error in the passage at 24:39 Highlight the passage at 24:39

24:49 Any of the black. And in political rights. When I was in India in 1974, I was in India for five months and a lot of the untouchable caste Indians have converted to Buddhism and through the Dr. Ambedkar and millions of them. And they were having mass conversions, this was in 1974, of people in the lowest castes of Hinduism becoming Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 24:49 Highlight the passage at 24:49

25:36 And so I was very sympathetic, you know, because being an American, you always have a strong sympathy for the underdog or the underprivileged. So this terrible caste system of Indians, just pickable. These poor people have been, Oppressed by those nasty old Brahmins. And now they're Buddhists and now they can, you know, now is their opportunity. Well then, I went into, you know, I went into that quite, you know, I was quite, very sympathetic and even was thinking of devoting my life to living and helping these people. Report an error in the passage at 25:36 Highlight the passage at 25:36

26:16 But then, after getting to know them, I realized they were after all the things That I had already, like civil rights and all that, and they're totally meaningless to me. You know, just, I mean, when I talked about the Four Noble Truths, it just didn't make, didn't seem, there was no resonance in there. Report an error in the passage at 26:16 Highlight the passage at 26:16

26:45 You know, and I talk about suffering and the end of suffering as a mental, as through the mind. It didn't resound in their minds at all. I couldn't see where they could pick up on it because there is too much interest in getting rid of the suffering that they have as a member of a society through political rights and equal opportunities and all of that. Report an error in the passage at 26:45 Highlight the passage at 26:45

27:13 And I don't blame them. I mean, that's perfectly understandable. But I personally didn't feel interested in it. You know, because I felt what I'd learned was really much more important. And then I thought, then I thought that, then I realized that probably the countries that were most open to the Four Noble Truths would be countries like this one. Report an error in the passage at 27:13 Highlight the passage at 27:13

27:41 Where they have all their rights and everything. Still miserable. miserable. Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

27:56 I think if you think, you know, once you have all your rights, there's some kind of magic process that's going to make you happy. It's not true. Report an error in the passage at 27:56 Highlight the passage at 27:56

28:32 But among those people, there were those that, you know, among those Buddhists in India that I was talking about, there were always a few that were interested in the Four Noble Truths. You know, it's not always a generalization that could be misleading, because there were. I met some. Some of those people were really Buddhists for the right reasons, not just to get out of a caste system, but to transcend suffering. Report an error in the passage at 28:32 Highlight the passage at 28:32

29:09 But when you're converting masses of people, it tends to be on a lower level. If masses of British people suddenly converted to Buddhism, I'd be suspected of being it. Not all of them. That's for the right reason. I Report an error in the passage at 29:09 Highlight the passage at 29:09

29:39 was reading about the Portuguese in India, in Goa. They had all these long plays and Francis Xavier was singing in Goa. And the Portuguese used to have mass conversions of Indians to Christianity. But it was through all kinds of not very nice pressures. They'd send reports back to Portugal about thousands upon thousands of heathen being converted. Report an error in the passage at 29:39 Highlight the passage at 29:39

30:24 It all looked good in the records, but the actual thing was not very nice at all. Report an error in the passage at 30:24 Highlight the passage at 30:24

30:35 Yes, Ceylon was the same. I'm doing it like this. Report an error in the passage at 30:35 Highlight the passage at 30:35

30:29 on. Report an error in the passage at 30:29 Highlight the passage at 30:29

30:49 two groups there, they started fighting, and story goes that it's the Sinhanese who protected the Portuguese from the Dapes. Well, Report an error in the passage at 30:49 Highlight the passage at 30:49

31:19 like when you recite the, you know, the kind of, some of the horrors of Christianity in history, you know, you can feel really negative about it. full woman, they better not be misused. Report an error in the passage at 31:19 Highlight the passage at 31:19

31:37 Because you're looking at all the things that they did wrong. In actual, when you're looking at the teachings of Jesus, Christ, those are very beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 31:37 Highlight the passage at 31:37

31:49 One really respects that. But then, oftentimes, one takes something like a teaching of love and compassion and using it as a kind of bludgeon, which is not what, you know, love and compassion are, Report an error in the passage at 31:49 Highlight the passage at 31:49

32:13 You know, that can't be forced. I can't make you feel love and compassion. You will feel love and compassion, Catherine. Report an error in the passage at 32:13 Highlight the passage at 32:13

32:23 Then I'm tyrannizing you. I'm taking some beautiful concept, but I'm hitting you with it rather than being that in which you would tend to want to, which would arouse similar qualities in yourself. Report an error in the passage at 32:23 Highlight the passage at 32:23

32:43 So that's why, I mean, you know, like communism, that's a very kind of noble idea. The ideal of communism is quite noble, very idealistic. But then it's taken as a kind of, it's forced on people and it becomes tyranny. People are oppressed by idealism. Report an error in the passage at 32:43 Highlight the passage at 32:43

33:07 So ideals can be very oppressive. Like, if you look at idealistic people, they tend to be They're tyrants, aren't they? Because they're always oppressing you with their judgments. Report an error in the passage at 33:07 Highlight the passage at 33:07

33:23 You should be more loving. You should be more this way. And maybe they're right, you know. Maybe what they're saying is right. But it's always, it's an insensitive pressure pushed on you by an outer force. And so you can only feel like you're being oppressed and tyrannized by it. Report an error in the passage at 33:23 Highlight the passage at 33:23

33:47 most altruistic people can be really insensitive tyrants. it confuses people because they think, well, there's, know, they meet. and yet you're feeling like you're being squashed by them so get confused between the ideals they're saying, believing in and the actual they're coming You know, influencing you is quite different. There's a gap. They're talking about love, but the meanings they use are pressure. Report an error in the passage at 33:47 Highlight the passage at 33:47

34:27 Now love is something that can be aroused in people through example, but not through pressure. I can't make you love me. It's impossible to force somebody to love me. But I can make myself worthy of love, you see, then it's the people, when one is worthy of love, then that arouses that feeling in someone else. Report an error in the passage at 34:27 Highlight the passage at 34:27

35:05 But if I'm coming from a commanding position, then I'm making it impossible for you. I'm making it really impossible for you to do that. This is so universal and human. I Report an error in the passage at 35:05 Highlight the passage at 35:05

35:28 just wonder what it is. it? I mean, not just about but Islam. Report an error in the passage at 35:28 Highlight the passage at 35:28

· · · silence, 1 minute

35:59 I mean, I think if you look at Buddhist history, they've got some pretty shoddy examples. Report an error in the passage at 35:59 Highlight the passage at 35:59

36:14 Because it's... But generally it doesn't... Because it's not based on... The whole purpose of Buddhist teachings to... don't know what I'm saying. Report an error in the passage at 36:14 Highlight the passage at 36:14

36:32 Learn to reflect and develop a reflective mind. And the Buddha established it in a way that it never, like ideally Buddhism should never be a political force. You see where religion often times gets oppressive is when it gets political power. You notice like Islam is highly political religion. Report an error in the passage at 36:32 Highlight the passage at 36:32

36:59 Now it's very, it's very political. And it has power, like in Iran. If you notice, Christianity gets better and better where it loses its political power. Report an error in the passage at 36:59 Highlight the passage at 36:59

37:14 Like, say, Roman Catholicism in Britain is very nice, very good. It has no political power at all. Or if you go to Catholic countries where it has power, it tends to go downhill a bit. Because political power is Report an error in the passage at 37:14 Highlight the passage at 37:14

37:36 Very dangerous for religion. But, I mean, where religion needs to emphasize, influence politics is through morality. You know, through encouraging moral behavior among political parties. Not taking sides on left or right issues, but on moral means. Then it's exerting a proper influence on But as soon as a religion becomes aligned with a political party or political position then it tends to use that for the wrong means, wrong ends. Report an error in the passage at 37:36 Highlight the passage at 37:36

38:23 Use that means for the wrong ends. Because power is a very corruptive political power. So in Buddhist monks we're not supposed to Take political stance at all. But we can't take moral. We can definitely point out moral positions to political parties. Report an error in the passage at 38:23 Highlight the passage at 38:23

38:56 Any religion, though, that becomes established tends to, when it becomes an established religion, tends towards being corrupted by that. So you find in Buddhist countries a lot of corruption in the Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 38:56 Highlight the passage at 38:56

39:17 Because it becomes, people go into the religion for the wrong reasons, for status, for education, for influence, because of, like you can increase your, if you're from a kind of backward part of the country, you can get an education or you can improve yourself in the worldly way, like being a member of the religion. Report an error in the passage at 39:17 Highlight the passage at 39:17

39:46 Well, then the real purity of the religion diminishes in its form, tends to draw a lot of people into it for the wrong reasons. Report an error in the passage at 39:46 Highlight the passage at 39:46

39:58 Here in Britain, that's why I think the advantages of being a Buddhist monk in this country is because you don't gain any worldly advantages from it. Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:10 You know, you're not a kind of... Report an error in the passage at 40:10 Highlight the passage at 40:10

40:15 It's not an established religion in this country. It's a bit of an anachronism in the culture. We're oftentimes regarded as freaks and oddballs. And we have no political power at all. And that's why it's an advantage because you tend to draw people into the saṅgha here. Who really are in it for the right reasons. They see the value of monastic life as a way of liberation. They're not in it to kind of gain status or gain any advantages on the worldly scale from it. Report an error in the passage at 40:15 Highlight the passage at 40:15

41:03 Because you don't. You aren't getting the advantages from the world. It tends to have a lot of disadvantages from worldly things. Report an error in the passage at 41:03 Highlight the passage at 41:03

41:19 Right. It's forbidden. Right. Right. Report an error in the passage at 41:19 Highlight the passage at 41:19

41:24 The Buddha made it like in establishing order, monastic order. So you never, you can't teach you dharma. I can't talk to you about Buddhism unless you ask me. You see, so it's, and then for you to ask me, I have to act in a way that you respect. Report an error in the passage at 41:24 Highlight the passage at 41:24

41:49 And then you might think, well, I wonder what this man is about, and then you might come and ask, and then I can talk about. What I'm doing. But where, say, if I were like a, if I had a converting attitude, then I would, you know, tend to go out, seek you out, and try to convert you, convince you that what I'm doing, you should be doing. Report an error in the passage at 41:49 Highlight the passage at 41:49

42:16 And so therefore, and I might, you know, people that do that, we tend to, you know, I find quite, I tend to To not respect very much people who try to convert you to do what they want you to do. I feel it's patronizing, it's insensitive. If I see you only as somebody I've got to convert, I don't see you in the right way. Report an error in the passage at 42:16 Highlight the passage at 42:16

42:49 I see you as an object that I've got to convert. So I mean, like when somebody's out to convert you, they're not, you know, they just, they're trying to be one up on you all the time. You know, they're not really listening or being sensitive to anything you're saying. They just, I'm trying to learn. Like one time down at Chitter's, somebody, some fundamentalist Christian man came to convert me. Report an error in the passage at 42:49 Highlight the passage at 42:49

43:19 Drove up in a really nice car, really impressive kind of dignified, well, Spoken gentleman, English gentleman, you know, we got a very good impression and then we went to sat together and he started, he said, now what do you, he didn't announce himself in the beginning but he more or less said, now what is it that you believe in and why are you a Buddhist and so I started talking about it and then I suddenly realized that he was listening only to try to get things that he could, you know, find wrong. Report an error in the passage at 43:19 Highlight the passage at 43:19

43:56 And so he started arguing with me. He doesn't really care why I'm a Buddhist monk. He's not really interested. He just wants me to talk about it so he can say, well, this is where you've gone wrong, son. You've got it wrong here. I Report an error in the passage at 43:56 Highlight the passage at 43:56

44:25 wouldn't let him do that to me. After a while he kind of looks a bit weary and I said, you know, I think... I think we're really wasting our time talking to each other. I think we are. Report an error in the passage at 44:25 Highlight the passage at 44:25

44:40 it's happened to some of us so often that we the remark about wasting time before they get to the front door Report an error in the passage at 44:40 Highlight the passage at 44:40

44:52 you think that what Mr Chetan was saying that's the reason that he doesn't do a pageant it's the only reason that doesn't have some sort of deity who who says will say thou Thank you. shalt or thou shalt not or someone who says this do it nobody as it were at the top it depends on if he's keeping the right sort of attitude no pressure Report an error in the passage at 44:52 Highlight the passage at 44:52

45:21 It's a religion of encouragement rather than command. Report an error in the passage at 45:21 Highlight the passage at 45:21

45:30 You're trying to encourage what is good and skillful in people rather than commanding them to be good. Like I was saying, a commandment to be good can be a kind of feel like you're being oppressed by goodness. Report an error in the passage at 45:30 Highlight the passage at 45:30

45:46 Where we respond to encouragement. If somebody says, you have to be good, suddenly you feel like you're being attacked. Where if people encourage goodness in their lives, then you feel you rise up to it. Because in our hearts we want to be good. We find joy in being good. But if we're commanded to be good, it brings out a kind of rebellious streak. At least it did with me. Report an error in the passage at 45:46 Highlight the passage at 45:46

46:22 At the same time, the 10 commandments are very similar to what you say you believe. about the business. There's a lot of things in common there. So really the big difference is opportunity. Right, I mean the Ten Commandments are beautiful. But it tends to be commanded. Which is, you know, which... If seen in the right way, when you're commanded, it's different than when you're encouraged. Report an error in the passage at 46:22 Highlight the passage at 46:22

47:15 So, like if you're reflecting on morality, I could be very moralistic and say, you should keep the five precepts, otherwise you'll go to hell. And so then that is a... me telling you what you should be doing you might do it because maybe you're frightened Report an error in the passage at 47:15 Highlight the passage at 47:15

47:44 Ajahn Sumedho says, I'll go to hell if I don't keep those precepts. I better keep them. But you're doing it out of fear and not because you really understand. Report an error in the passage at 47:44 Highlight the passage at 47:44

47:56 But if you're encouraged to keep the five precepts and to reflect on the result of it, then you... I find you love keeping those precepts because they're beautiful. Morality is something we really love. We love morality when we understand it. But when we're commanded to be moral by being threatened, then somehow immorality tends to be even more attractive. Report an error in the passage at 47:56 Highlight the passage at 47:56

48:33 I mean, the perversity of our minds. beautiful way, you know that Report an error in the passage at 48:33 Highlight the passage at 48:33

48:39 I think forbidden fruit is somehow much more attractive than allowable fruit. And so when you make it, you have to be good as a commandment, then it tends to bring up a real desire not to be. Report an error in the passage at 48:39 Highlight the passage at 48:39

49:02 But the encouragement towards goodness and towards developing that reflective mind, When you contemplate morality, you really love it. Something you delight in rather than do because you're afraid of going to hell. Because that's our nature as human beings. You're encouraging, you're bringing into human consciousness the beautiful qualities that we are potential. Report an error in the passage at 49:02 Highlight the passage at 49:02

49:37 We can be obedient out of fear. conditioned, you know, by being threatened with punishment. Or maybe we really love to be good. Maybe that's our true nature. Or maybe we're just creatures that you have to punish in order to be good. I have to threaten you with a terrible punishment in order for you to be good. But then that kind of goodness is not from wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 49:37 Highlight the passage at 49:37

50:07 It's only a... A very unstable, unsteady kind of goodness that easily falls flat and can easily go to its opposite because it's based on fear and ignorance, not on right understanding and real love of the good. Report an error in the passage at 50:07 Highlight the passage at 50:07

50:29 But to me I find the love of the good and the beautiful and the true is something that is quite natural to me. But it can't be commanded. It has to be encouraged. And it's very helpful to have good examples in your life of that. Like I found Lung Po Cha in Thailand, just a lovely example of a human being that was that way. And I thought, this is really, you know, I'm really delighted in seeing, meeting a living, breathing human being who was really good and loved being and loved goodness. Report an error in the passage at 50:29 Highlight the passage at 50:29

51:12 And wanted to give every opportunity to me to be good without being heavy about it. So then it was a delight. One really felt grateful and rose up and one found potential and possibility towards that that you hadn't really realized before. Report an error in the passage at 51:12 Highlight the passage at 51:12

51:41 Where, say, much of my life before that had been quite rebellious, tending to be reactive rather than really, say, responding to life. One tended to be merely reacting to it. So, on one level, one gets stuck in a kind of immature rebelliousness. So, goodness used to be almost like a sneer. She thinks she's so good, goody good. Report an error in the passage at 51:41 Highlight the passage at 51:41

52:17 Smarmy, wet, soppy, weak wimps. Real, real truthful people were the kind of sinners and the ones that had the guts to get out there and sin. Report an error in the passage at 52:17 Highlight the passage at 52:17

52:34 Not just sitting around being good because they were frightened of being punished for being bad. So I found sinners much more attractive as an ideal at one point in my life. But like with Lungphacha, I found him as an example of goodness was a very attractive one because it was encouraging and it offered you hope and it brought out those qualities in yourself. Report an error in the passage at 52:34 Highlight the passage at 52:34

53:10 And you didn't feel you were being forced into it. You didn't feel you didn't... He didn't arouse that rebelliousness, because it wasn't commanded of you. It wasn't kind of, you didn't feel that he was around always kind of on your back, forcing you to be good. There was humor, there was compassion. All the time that I was there, I felt he was giving me opportunity to be good. Report an error in the passage at 53:10 Highlight the passage at 53:10

53:44 He'd set out, I used to think, He set up this monastery just for me so I can come here and practice the dharma. I felt like that. What a kind thing to do. He set up Wat Ba Pong Monastery in Thailand just for me so that a complete foreigner, stranger to the country can come and accept me. He accepts a complete stranger, foreigner, can't even speak the language and he'll still take me on and give me that opportunity. Report an error in the passage at 53:44 Highlight the passage at 53:44

54:14 So I felt... Report an error in the passage at 54:14 Highlight the passage at 54:14

54:26 potential of human behavior and human society, before I tended to be much more cynical about it. I hadn't seen possibilities in my own life. Report an error in the passage at 54:26 Highlight the passage at 54:26

54:42 tended to more on the negative, critical side and cynical side. As I got older, I was becoming... More kind of embittered and disappointed. I Report an error in the passage at 54:42 Highlight the passage at 54:42

55:09 mean, I thought these were sort of concepts that we should not cling to these concepts. This is something we have to let go of. Yeah, but there are things, I mean, like good and evil are what we experience. Report an error in the passage at 55:09 Highlight the passage at 55:09

55:30 So, I mean, these are forces that we have to recognize so that we have, they're not absolutes. Where, say, oftentimes we tend to absolutize right and wrong, good and evil. There's some kind of absolute evil force working in the world. Report an error in the passage at 55:30 Highlight the passage at 55:30

55:53 You know, Satan is behind every bush and there's temptation and this sense of a kind of absolute evil force. This we've rejected. Modern Western people have tended to rebel against that attitude as if there's... As well as they've absolutized goodness with God, as God has been absolutely good, and the devil's been absolutely evil. Report an error in the passage at 55:53 Highlight the passage at 55:53

56:23 That's what we don't believe in anymore. But in Buddhadharma, good and evil are relative. They're not absolutized. So then it takes wisdom to recognize, mindfulness wisdom. Because it's not, it's not like there's anything that is absolutely evil or absolutely good or any person. You can't, you know, you can't say this person is absolutely good, absolutely evil. Report an error in the passage at 56:23 Highlight the passage at 56:23

56:59 You can see in your own mind, you can see it's relative. Sometimes there's very good impulses and tendencies and there's very bad ones that come through your mind, through your consciousness. And so you, but... The ability to recognize, reflect on it, is wisdom. So then you choose to do good and refrain from doing evil. Report an error in the passage at 56:59 Highlight the passage at 56:59

57:24 But you don't feel this, like there's some evil force, kind of continuous, absolute force of evil that's following you around. Because that's a kind of paranoia that develops. But you can, you become more aware of the true nature of your mind and that, and more Report an error in the passage at 57:24 Highlight the passage at 57:24

57:48 Clear through wisdom to see that good, what goodness really is, it's relative to time and place. It's not absolute. Where oftentimes goodness blinds us, where we absolutize us. We think that something is good as a kind of permanent thing. And therefore anything that disagrees with it is bad, absolutely bad. Report an error in the passage at 57:48 Highlight the passage at 57:48

58:17 So you get this dualism. So you can think, you know, like if you regard, say, Christianity as good, absolutely good, then you have to regard any criticism of Christianity as absolutely bad. Your mind goes into black and white. So then you get into this persecution where you kill off the devil, you try to... Report an error in the passage at 58:17 Highlight the passage at 58:17

58:51 You burn the heretics, you crucify, you annihilate all the bad ones. But that in itself is evil. But you haven't the wisdom to see that burning a witch is an evil act. It's put into terms of being a good act to preserve goodness. But goodness can't be preserved. It only depends on causes. So the only way you can encourage the good is by doing good things. Report an error in the passage at 58:51 Highlight the passage at 58:51

59:31 And by kindness, generosity, forgiveness, compassion. All these are good things that we can do to encourage goodness in the world. But you can't make anything kind of permanently good. Report an error in the passage at 59:31 Highlight the passage at 59:31

59:49 And when you do, then of course you end up with being foolish and can do very harmful things in the name of goodness. Report an error in the passage at 59:49 Highlight the passage at 59:49

1:00:01 Like when Jesus is teaching about, you know, he who is without sin cast the first stone, a very clear statement. And yet, how many people will throw stones who sin, Report an error in the passage at 1:00:01 Highlight the passage at 1:00:01

1:00:25 you know. And actually throwing a stone at somebody is a sin. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:25 Highlight the passage at 1:00:25

1:00:33 But if you're of absolute time, you think, this adulterous woman has sinned, and then you throw a stone at her. That's because you see only in very fixed positions. But if you see that the very desire to throw a stone at anybody is a pretty bad mental state. Suffering. Whether they've committed adultery or done anything, you just realize that that very impulse to throw a stone at somebody is a nasty impulse. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:33 Highlight the passage at 1:00:33

1:01:12 Burn Report an error in the passage at 1:01:12 Highlight the passage at 1:01:12

1:01:18 a witch. Maybe the witch is a horrible person. Maybe she has cast evil spells on people in communion with satanic forces. Maybe that's true. The desire to burn her It's another satanic desire, isn't it? You're going along with it. You're not really responding to it in the way of loving kindness or compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:18 Highlight the passage at 1:01:18

1:02:02 Like when, say, somebody like Hitler thinks, if I could ever get hold of Hitler, he should be tortured. And if he's dead, I hope he's in the lowest hell. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:02 Highlight the passage at 1:02:02

1:02:18 Unmitigated pain and misery. You know, because you think somebody so bad deserves to be punished forever. And there's that kind of judgmental force in it. Especially, you know, you can see it in yourself, a kind of strong desire to take revenge or to punish people who've hurt you. I've seen it myself, like somebody, people that have hurt my feelings or that. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:18 Highlight the passage at 1:02:18

1:02:45 I can see a tendency to want to punish them, hope they get punished for it, hope they have to pay for it in some terrible way. But then when you really look at that, that wants to do that, that's painful in itself. When you fall into that state of mind of wanting to get even and punish somebody or hope that somebody really suffers because they hurt your feelings, that in itself is a form of misery. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:45 Highlight the passage at 1:02:45

1:03:14 You've created in your mind. I mean, whether the other person's being punished or not, you're being punished. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:14 Highlight the passage at 1:03:14

1:03:23 You're making yourself miserable. So, you know, whether Hitler ever gets punished for all his wickedness is when we realize one doesn't isn't going to make anything else, be caught up in wishing to take revenge even on a Somebody like that. For one thing, I see that we punish ourselves. Like if I am dishonest or, you know, do something not very good or say something not very kind or foolish, there's something that knows that. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:23 Highlight the passage at 1:03:23

1:04:12 And you know it. And so when you know that, then you try to be more careful and responsible for what you do and say. Maybe no one would ever find out, and you'd never be kind of punished by someone else, but you know yourself. You know that no matter if you might get away with it, nobody might ever find out, but you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:12 Highlight the passage at 1:04:12

1:04:41 And therefore, because you know, then you realize that it's important to really live in a way that you feel good and you respect yourself. And you don't feel guilt-ridden and frightened and full of miserable memory because of, you say, lying or cheating or harming other beings, things like this. Because you might get away with it in the society but you don't get away with it in your mind. And that's where the real suffering is. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:41 Highlight the passage at 1:04:41

1:05:19 It's sometimes easier to be punished from an outer source than to really put up with your own Guilt, remorse. So Report an error in the passage at 1:05:19 Highlight the passage at 1:05:19

1:05:40 I think that's enough for this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:40 Highlight the passage at 1:05:40