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- 2:07
That influence conscious experience. But what the Buddha was pointing to was the karma we make as personalities out of ignorance. That we can stop. We can, through wide understanding of dharma, then we can stop acting out of ignorance, out of desire and fear. fear.
- 2:57
But I like to think of like say telling a lie. Now if I tell something that's untrue there's a kind of knowing. At the moment, this isn't true. And so the result is that even though I say if I tell a lie, at the same time I'm telling it, there's also a knowing. Sometimes you don't want to know, but you know you're doing it. That's the result at the same time while you're doing it.
- 6:48
So you reflect on the results of That's like, say, contemplate the results of your life. Are you peaceful or happy or do you feel self-respect? Do you feel good about yourself or do you feel very unfulfilled or bitter or worried or insecure?
- 13:47
It's not tainted with ignorance. To realize that is nibbāna. Where, say, when one is grasping at the five khandhas or the body or the feelings and Perceptions, conceptions, consciousness as self, then that always is, that is saṃsāra because it's always, it's the habit tendencies, it's the things that have been conditioned into you out of ignorance, out of not understanding truth. So you develop, you know, life just tends to reinforce habitual patterns.
- 34:43
And the lovely ideas feel lovely, but as a human being, we need to develop the balance between the two, between the restraint, the discipline, the very confined form, the tradition that you're in. We need to learn how to stay within. And to fill out that form, to live within a form, to breathe life into the form, to make that form live,
Transcript
0:00 It actually means to do. It's sort of like there's skillful and unskillful things. I mean, we're all involved in, say, karmic things in various levels. Say, for example, the karma of being Jewish, where maybe you're not even religious. Report an error in the passage at 0:00
0:38 ...Jew or anything, maybe you're even a Christian or a communist or whatever, but the fact that you have Jewish blood, then if people are into persecuting Jews, they persecute you, not because of the karma of the result of being born with that particular perception or that condition. So we're affected by, say, like... Report an error in the passage at 0:38
1:08 What happens to America, if America, what the American government does, if it does something bad, then we all have to pay for it in a certain way. Report an error in the passage at 1:08
1:21 People will say, your country is... and they'll attack me, even though I haven't lived there for 30 years, and I don't feel particularly patriotic about it, but yet you still get blamed because of just the... The result of being born and being citizen of that country. That's like common karma, human karma. The karma of being a woman is something that all women share, whether they're Asian, African, European women, or, say, men. Report an error in the passage at 1:21
1:58 There's a common karma of being born into male form and just the masculinity factors that... That influence conscious experience. But what the Buddha was pointing to was the karma we make as personalities out of ignorance. That we can stop. We can, through wide understanding of dharma, then we can stop acting out of ignorance, out of desire and fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:58
2:34 fear. So then the actions we do have are still karma but it's not personal anymore. It's not based on out of ignorance or we're not reinforcing old karmic tendencies or character tendencies. Report an error in the passage at 2:34
2:57 But I like to think of like say telling a lie. Now if I tell something that's untrue there's a kind of knowing. At the moment, this isn't true. And so the result is that even though I say if I tell a lie, at the same time I'm telling it, there's also a knowing. Sometimes you don't want to know, but you know you're doing it. That's the result at the same time while you're doing it. Report an error in the passage at 2:57
3:35 You see, so it's an unpleasant result. Because that feeling of being a liar or deceiving somebody is an unpleasant feeling. So that is the result of an unpleasant result from an unpleasant using an unpleasant means. Report an error in the passage at 3:35
3:59 That's on speech because speech is very kind of immediate. Sometimes we do things out of good intention but not out of wise understanding of something so then we feel we're doing the right thing and the good thing and it's going to benefit somebody else maybe but we don't realize that it's not really very good for them and so then we later on we might realize that we maybe corrupted somebody like giving a bhikkhu a million pounds or something. Report an error in the passage at 3:59
4:42 You might think that's a very nice thing to, all the merit and give it to the Saṅgha, that might be the very, you know, his weak spot. Report an error in the passage at 4:42
4:54 Disrobes, buys a Rolls Royce. Report an error in the passage at 4:54
5:02 Then you realize that, you know, you were intending to do something very good, but you ended up corrupting somebody. But then we learn from all that. We're not, you know, it's not like we're going to do everything right. Or always from pure wisdom. But through reflecting on the results of what we do, we can get it right. Report an error in the passage at 5:02
5:32 One more, because we learn. But we learn through actually trial and error, don't we? None of us learn. We all start out by usually making a mess or doing it very poorly until we learn how to do it well. well. Report an error in the passage at 5:32
5:50 So that's just the way it is. But if you're holding up the ideal, you can see if people in the musical field, if they're comparing themselves to the great masters or the great virtuosos in the musical world, when they're just beginning their piano lessons, they're going to feel hopeless because already they're comparing Somebody who's dedicated a whole lifetime to it, to their maybe first piano lesson. Well, that's a lack of wisdom, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 5:50
6:30 But if you realize that it's through learning to do things a little better bit by bit, then you're intending in the right direction and you learn through the mistakes and errors that you make. So you reflect on the results of That's like, say, contemplate the results of your life. Are you peaceful or happy or do you feel self-respect? Report an error in the passage at 6:30
7:03 Do you feel good about yourself or do you feel very unfulfilled or bitter or worried or insecure? Report an error in the passage at 7:03
7:15 Now, it's not to say you should feel positive about yourself, but whatever way you feel, Then by recognizing, let's say, if you don't feel very good about yourself, then you can say, well, what do I do to feel good about myself? And what have I done in the past to make me feel this way? And so then you begin to see, like a lot of times, it's a habit. Report an error in the passage at 7:15
7:42 We've just developed a habit of being self-critical. Report an error in the passage at 7:42
7:49 It's not that we really hate ourselves so much, it's just a matter... that there's a... Report an error in the passage at 7:49
7:54 We've become addicted to being critical towards ourselves. And that can be just a blind habit without any real, you know, not because there's anything basically wrong with you, but it's just because you haven't seen that you've developed the habit. Once you begin to see that it's merely a soulless, empty habit, you can let it go. Report an error in the passage at 7:54
8:25 Using the right means for Report an error in the passage at 8:25
8:31 This is like learning how to use your mind. Your rational mind you can use, say, to make your intention very pure. Say, for a monk to intend to realize nibbāna, to be liberated from all ignorance, is the deliberate intention of our life. Report an error in the passage at 8:31
9:02 We're making that not from a personality position, because personally you might think you can't do it. You know, you as a personality or somebody, you know, you might feel that you're not good enough to even assume that that is possible. But, say, from using your ability to create this ideal and understand the ideal of realizing nirvāṇa, Making that your goal, your intention, then that helps to reflect, say, your personality view, how you feel about yourself and the fears and feelings that you have about whether you can or can't or should or shouldn't. Report an error in the passage at 9:02
9:53 So more and more one learns how to wisely use the equipment we have in a way that isn't, that our intelligence, And our memories and our learning isn't kind of polluting our minds or backfiring and unpleasant, backlashing on ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 9:53
10:19 I think, you know, if somebody was suggesting in Britain they should teach the law of karma in the school system, actually children take to it quite well because it makes sense. They can kind of prove it. Like if you tell a lie or if you hurt somebody, what is the result of that? Report an error in the passage at 10:19
10:51 Like if you hit your sister, do you feel good about it? Does it make her happy? Does it make you happy? Are you proud that you do those things? And then you reflect on it. You begin to see that doing that is an unpleasant thing. Report an error in the passage at 10:51
11:12 And then you can make, and you can avow not to do that anymore. And that gives a child, you know, developing wisdom faculty there. They're actually using their minds to reflect on their own actions and the results of them, which they, children generally find interesting and helpful to them. Report an error in the passage at 11:12
11:39 Where sometimes we just say, don't you hit your sister, you bad boy, and then it goes that. And then you develop this punishing tendency, punishing for doing bad things. But they never understand that actually what they've done is painful to themselves. They just feel they were caught doing something bad, and then they get punished for it. Report an error in the passage at 11:39
12:06 Where when you're actually... Teaching the law of karma, then you're beginning to see that your own bad actions are the misery, not the punishment that your parents give you, but your own deceitfulness or your own selfishness. Report an error in the passage at 12:06
12:36 Some people, I gather, identify the Report an error in the passage at 12:36
12:46 truth of karma with nirvāṇa. I guess that's sort of looking at nirvāṇa in terms of attainment rather than realization. Is that... Is that contrary to the... Report an error in the passage at 12:46
13:02 tradition. Is that view of karma that isn't actually... would it mean to God? Well, nibbāna is a here and now realization of non-grasping of things. So that it means that there's awareness of the flow of life and of feeling and all that, but there's non-grasping it. Report an error in the passage at 13:02
13:35 So that there's, you know, there's intelligence, there's brightness, there's bliss, but it's not coming out of ignorance anymore. It's not tainted with ignorance. To realize that is nibbāna. Where, say, when one is grasping at the five khandhas or the body or the feelings and Perceptions, conceptions, consciousness as self, then that always is, that is saṃsāra because it's always, it's the habit tendencies, it's the things that have been conditioned into you out of ignorance, out of not understanding truth. Report an error in the passage at 13:35
14:26 So you develop, you know, life just tends to reinforce habitual patterns. As you get older, rather than liberate you from those patterns, where the realization of nibbāna actually allows you to be liberated from the old, boring old habits we have. Report an error in the passage at 14:26
14:46 It's not like going into a realm of vacuousness, but it's actually just freeing one's conscious experience from habitual reactiveness. Report an error in the passage at 14:46
15:02 And therefore, There's much more of the brightness and the intelligence to respond appropriately to time and place rather than just reacting to stimuli. Report an error in the passage at 15:02
15:23 Because the Buddha was over and over reiterated here and now, santidiko, akaliko, and these terms are emphasizing the enlightenment here and now, nibbāna, here and now, not... Bound by time, liberating now. And then the conditioned mind will interpret, will say things like, we've got to practice now in order to become enlightened in the future. Report an error in the passage at 15:23
15:59 That's the time, that past and future, now as something, you've got to do something now in order to become something in the future. is the way your mind's conditioned to think. That's what thought is. Thought is around time, isn't it? I was born, I was, I am, I will be. The verb tenses and the ideals of the shoulds and how things should be and how they shouldn't be. Report an error in the passage at 15:59
16:34 So language binds us to time as a reality. And to ideals as being kind of permanent or solid or real. Report an error in the passage at 16:34
16:54 So the ideals we have become idols that we worship. And the conditioning of the mind is continuously reinforced through life's experiences. I was, as you get older, you know, when I was a young man and when I was... Your age and the future, what is there for me in the future, retirement or redundancy or, you know, what will happen to me when I get old and when will I die and that kind of thing is what people regard as the real world and that's their reality is the I am in time. Report an error in the passage at 16:54
17:44 The personal biography, the personal attainments or lack of them, the worldly success or failure, the accumulations, you know, make you, if you've made a lot of money or you've acquired a lot of things, gives you a sense of being somebody who's attained or achieved something, then the Report an error in the passage at 17:44
18:12 kind of failures of life, they're identified with failure. I'm no good. I've never been able to succeed. I've never, you know, life has been unfair to me. And so they're both are stuck in this realm of time as a reality. But if you really investigate time as an experience, it's unreal. Time is unreal. Because it's only the now as an experience. The future. Report an error in the passage at 18:12
18:49 That's only a concept now, isn't it? Future. The past is only a memory. What happened yesterday is a memory. And now, even this morning, this morning's dharma is now a memory. When I woke up this morning, I was thinking, oh, we have a dharma today. These people are coming to offer this food. And now they've already offered it, they're gone. Now it's a memory. Report an error in the passage at 18:49
19:25 And now I'm sitting here talking. But that's all there ever really is, is not the actual quality or conditions of the present, but the consciousness and awareness of this point now is where you establish where mindfulness is. Report an error in the passage at 19:25
19:49 Why the Buddha taught mindfulness as the way to liberation was because the here and now is the only way you can, through remembering the here and now, then you can more and more trust in being mindful rather than somebody who's got to do something now in order to make sure that you have enough for the future. Report an error in the passage at 19:49
20:13 Or that work hard now so that if you work hard, Then you'll be rewarded by enlightenment in the future. Because we look at meditation sometimes in the same way as if you're being paid by the hour. Report an error in the passage at 20:13
20:38 Yes, that's like the sīla, the moral precepts, the refuges, these all give a sense of These are stabilizing conventions. Report an error in the passage at 20:38
20:59 Like the Panchasila, say, for the five precepts, five silam, five moral precepts, is a necessary sine qua non ingredient of this, of the holy life. You have to commit yourself to the... Report an error in the passage at 20:59
21:26 To refrain from, say, killing and lying and so forth. But those precepts are, they are for, they're not precepts that are, they're not commandments. Report an error in the passage at 21:26
21:45 They're not, you know, like a commandment is like an imperative where you're saying, thou shalt not kill. And that's what we're used to, isn't it? In that kind of, in our own culture, we're used to kind of categorical imperatives coming from the top. Thou shalt not kill. And if thou killest, thou shalt be punished. And so we're used to that, that kind of commandment. Report an error in the passage at 21:45
22:25 But Banadibata is, I take up the precept in which I intend not to kill, not to harm other creatures. So that's coming from you, isn't it? You're not being commanded to take the precept. You are asking to take the precept. You're asking to avow this precept for your own reference to life. Report an error in the passage at 22:25
23:00 So it's bringing out the goodness in yourself rather than threatening you with punishment if you kill somebody, which is one way of handling the problem. Report an error in the passage at 23:00
23:20 But what develops us into maturity is not through being good. By fear of being bad, but by being good because we love the good. And because that in us which is good has been respected, and we respect that in ourselves. So when I take the precept vanadibhata, it's a joy to take the precept that I can choose. Report an error in the passage at 23:20
23:49 I'm going to deliberately choose this precept to... Report an error in the passage at 23:49
24:15 the Asian Buddhists, refuge is so much a part of culture, Dhamma Saṅgha, that it doesn't, you know, it's no problem for the... For the Asian Buddhists, but for Western Buddhists who've come to Buddhism in their adult life usually, then refuge, sometimes we don't see the significance of it at first. But if we don't have this sense of refuge, then we take refuge in the sitting posture or the vipassanā retreat is what happens a lot. Report an error in the passage at 24:15
24:53 People take refuge in... In vipassanā retreats or in sitting postures rather than in Buddha Dhamma Saṅgha. And this sense of refuge then is where we're beginning to, say, take refuge in the Buddha, in the ability to know the truth. And it's not Buddha in the sense of an external, some force out there or something external to us. Report an error in the passage at 24:53
25:24 That which is a real refuge for us is mindfulness and that intelligence that comes from mindfulness, that Buddha mind or the Buddha to the knowing, the reflective, intelligent knowing that's possible for us as human beings. That is our refuge. But that's symbolized In the form of Buddha. Then dhamma is the natural law, the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 25:24
26:02 So we take refuge in the laws of nature, the flow of life, the way things are. Which means that we're kind of abiding in the natural way of things. We're trusting. We have this sense of being at ease with the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 26:02
26:25 Not the way we want them to be, but the way it is. Even if it's not very good or it's painful, we can still be at ease with it when we take that refuge in dharma. And then the refuge in saṅgha is the community. Saṅgha has this sense of community, of the church or the community, the association of those who practice the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 26:25
26:54 Those who are following the teachings of the Buddha. Those who do good and refrain from doing bad. So that this sense of being part of a community at large of not just being an isolated individual kind of alienated lonely person but we're actually identifying or taking refuge in a community of good Report an error in the passage at 26:54
27:26 So that sense of refuge is, so you've got the three refuges and the five precepts as a form, as a basic form. These are Buddhist conventions, of course. I mean, every religion has their own way of stating this or manifesting their own forms, but this is particularly Buddhist style. Report an error in the passage at 27:26
27:59 Like you hear, Report an error in the passage at 27:59
28:04 You don't have to keep moral precepts, all you have to do is be mindful. Report an error in the passage at 28:04
28:10 And so, I mean, some people come from up here. You know, you don't need five pancha-thila, you don't need eight precepts, or all those Vinaya rules are the biggest. That is, that's just nonsense. The Buddha said, mindfulness is the way to the deathless. All you have to do is be mindful. So then, that's... Report an error in the passage at 28:10
28:39 That's true but not right. Right but not true. I mean it's not wrong but it's not right either. I mean it's not absolutely right. But it is because being mindful means that you are. Report an error in the passage at 28:39
28:59 But being mindful also means you're aware of the five precepts. Report an error in the passage at 28:59
29:06 Where you think of You can just throw out morality and be mindful, and that's enough. That, of course, is the libertine attitude, the antinomian hope that we don't have to bother with the form or the tradition or the rules or the precepts. And then there's the opposite side, which is you have to keep all the rules to develop your purity. Report an error in the passage at 29:06
29:41 You have to make sure that you're pure in your sīla, that you've kept all the rules properly, that there have been no infractions, everything has been done in the purest and most wholehearted way, and only through this moral purity can you ever hope to develop the samādhi necessary to have the wisdom to be enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 29:41
30:04 That's the hardliner, isn't it? The moralist that says, So those are the two extremes. The kind of libertine, free spirit, and then the very conservative Puritan. Those are the two extremes that we find represented in various religious organizations, don't we? In Buddhism, Christianity, all of them. There's certainly the very kind of hardliners, the fundamentalists, or the... Report an error in the passage at 30:04
30:41 orthodoxy and then there's the liberals and the modern or the libertarians or the people that have thrown out all those restrictions. Report an error in the passage at 30:41
30:58 But this is why the human mind isn't bound to choosing an extreme, is it? Like if you find that actually the rules and the freedom and mindfulness Mindfulness is the path to the deathless. Or all you have to do is be mindful. Report an error in the passage at 30:58
31:21 That's a reflection, not a position to take. So we need to remind Report an error in the passage at 31:21
31:43 ourselves of that. Mindfulness is the way. And when we become very kind of hardliners and worried and hung up on the rules, then we need to more reflect on mindfulness. mindful, one way, one reflective. Report an error in the passage at 31:43
· · · silence, 1 minute
31:57 As the way, rather than reinforce the tendency to cling to rules and rituals. But if we're the opposite, if we think you don't need rules, you don't need traditions, it's a waste of time, just the Krishnamurti type of teaching, you know, just monks and nuns and all that, it's all just rubbish. Just get rid of it and be free. Go out and love. Love the world. And that's very attractive to the To the liberal spirit, the free spirits of life. But they need to, they already developed this kind of great spirit, but they need to know how to contain and limit, how to work with limitation, how to use forms and how to appreciate conventions and traditions and rules. Report an error in the passage at 31:57
32:51 Because then they'll find a balance. They'll balance each other out. That's like I was, I deliberately chose Ajahn Chah as my teacher because I knew I needed that kind of training. I needed to be... I'm from a very libertine background, Berkeley, California. I was a kind of bohemian graduate student in the early 60s. Report an error in the passage at 32:51
33:24 You know, I loved that kind of follow your heart, the kind of, what the prophet, you know, the... Kahil Gibran, you know, just follow your heart wherever it takes you. That's great philosophy, you know. So I did that, and it took me to total confusion. Report an error in the passage at 33:24
33:48 I mean, it was great fun at the time, but it led, the result was not, was confusion. Then the, so then in monastic life, I chose a particularly strict teacher, say it was a Vinaya, because That's where I needed to put my attention because that's where I was most unstable and inadequate was in the details of rules and refinements in conventions. Report an error in the passage at 33:48
34:19 I had the great vision and a great spirit but it tended to float around. It wasn't grounded on anything. It didn't have any real power because it wasn't coming from any Real stability or strength is based on lovely ideas. Report an error in the passage at 34:19
34:43 And the lovely ideas feel lovely, but as a human being, we need to develop the balance between the two, between the restraint, the discipline, the very confined form, the tradition that you're in. We need to learn how to stay within. And to fill out that form, to live within a form, to breathe life into the form, to make that form live, Report an error in the passage at 34:43
35:18 and then we can use our spirit for that, rather than for just being dissipated into outer space and lost, like some lovely perfume that's just wasted in an empty prairie. Report an error in the passage at 35:18
35:40 Nobody will ever appreciate the fragrant. This Report an error in the passage at 35:40
36:03 is like the human mind, notice like what Buddha did with the dualism of the conditioned realm, where you're taking the opposites and finding the middle way. You're not just looking for the middle way without any reference to the extremes. Report an error in the passage at 36:03
36:30 So this is why that applies to everything, just to, you know, like the Buddha never would, that's why it's oftentimes called a path of no fixed position, or why Buddhism is so kind of difficult for people who think, who are attached to extremes, because they can't get any hold on it because there's no extreme there to grasp. Report an error in the passage at 36:30
37:00 Do you believe in God? Do you not believe in God? Is there a God? Can you answer any of those kind of questions in yes or no terms? Report an error in the passage at 37:00
37:13 When we try to put Buddhism as just the opposite of Christianity, then it becomes a kind of nihilistic philosophy. It becomes no soul, no God, no self. We don't believe in any of that rubbish like you Christians do. And we don't have a personal God, body resurrecting and all that. We just, you know, it's good, sensible, practical dharma teachings that we have, and we don't believe in all that silly stuff. Report an error in the passage at 37:13
37:44 It's one extreme. That takes you to annihilation, to a kind of nihilistic approach. And Buddha was not a nihilist. Then the mind wants to put Buddha always in a, in some place within a spectrum. Report an error in the passage at 37:44
38:08 ideas. So was Buddha a or was he just a sage or, know, trying to figure out was he an atheist, was he a... Report an error in the passage at 38:08
38:25 Buddha doesn't fit into any kind of labels. Report an error in the passage at 38:25
38:33 It's a teaching where the mind is, was Buddha a monist, a non-dualist? Was he a pantheist? Was he a theist? Was he an atheist? It was not a theist. It was an atheist. Well, some people like the idea of Buddha as an atheist. And there's others that think he's more of a monist or a non-dualist, wanting to get it fixed, the position of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 38:33
39:06 But the Buddha's teachings were always kind of counterbalancing extremities. So if any of the other disciples went too far this way, then you point over here. And so eventually, if you're too strict, then loosen up. If you're too loose, then become more strict. If you're an atheist, then be more devoted. Report an error in the passage at 39:06
39:33 devoted, know, bow down a lot. If you're hung up on bowing and rituals, then be more like an atheist. Report an error in the passage at 39:33
39:49 Not that one is better than the other, but it's through understanding the extremes that you transcend the extremes. Just like the conditioned and unconditioned. I'm an atheist. Report an error in the passage at 39:49
40:03 You know, Buddha actually provided us with a perfect metaphysical paradigm, which is that the conditioned arises and ceases in the unconditioned. So you have the conditioned, the unconditioned, or the death, death and the deathless. Now that is a basic religious paradigm. Report an error in the passage at 40:03
40:30 You're always dealing with mortality and immortality. Religion, if it has no immortal, ...goal or doesn't point to immortality, then it's not a religion. Religion is a duty or function of religion is to connect, to remind us or remember immortality or the unconditioned. Because we're very much bound into the conditioned realm through the body. The body is conditioned and it's going to die and everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, all are... Report an error in the passage at 40:30
41:07 Conditioned thoughts and feelings are mortal. And so this is the power and the kind of illusoriness of the conditions that we have, of being conscious in a conditioned form, is just such a powerful delusion that religion's aim is to remind us of the unconditioned or the immortal. Now the materialist, And the empirical scientists, they have the past anyway, has rejected the unconditioned and immortal as just rubbish, poppycock, not real, just airy-fairy thinking. Report an error in the passage at 41:07
41:53 And so that reality is more, say, material, objective material world. So the real world is the world, the objectives, the objects of senses. This is the real world for the committed materialist. This is real. This table is real. But that is such an unsatisfactory world, a world of tables and chairs. Report an error in the passage at 41:53
42:29 We're carrying the material world to its height of taste and comfort and ease and variation. Permutation and all kinds of aberration and, you know, and so you're satisfying all your desires for material, the interesting and fascinating realm of the material world, the manifested world, but we know that basically we get bored with it very quickly. Report an error in the passage at 42:29
43:08 You just get so bored. The richer you are, the more you have, the more bored you are. Life is so utterly boring if all you're doing is, you know, going shopping and just accumulating things. So that religion then is that which is a convention which brings us back to the immortal or the deathless or the unconditioned. Report an error in the passage at 43:08
43:43 Well, the Buddha stated the unborn, uncreated, unoriginated. And this is in cool terms, not in anthropomorphic terms, just in these very kind of unemotional terms, conditioned, unconditioned, born, unborn, created, uncreated. Report an error in the passage at 43:43
44:08 That is, you know, a perfect metaphysical. Statement. Because it, you, but then to realize that in a moment, the condition and uncondition in a moment, now, here and now, is the aim of the meditation. To realize ultimate reality, which doesn't exclude the conditioned realm, but the conditioned realm is in its relationship to the unconditioned. And that you can see, you can know, or you can realize. Report an error in the passage at 44:08
44:54 That's a profound realization through mindfulness that a human individual can do, can have. It's not something beyond anyone's ability. Report an error in the passage at 44:54
45:17 It's quite wonderful, really. really, didn't do it. Report an error in the passage at 45:17
45:26 I think most of us have had an inkling or a sense for it or an intuition in what brings us here, isn't it? What makes me into a monk or why I would devote my life to Buddhist monasticism is because of that, that aspiration or that intuitive longing. Report an error in the passage at 45:26
45:58 For realisation, to understand things properly. Because the condition of my mind, as it was, say, from my background, always led me to just feeling worthless and despairing about life. If I just followed the way my mind had been conditioned through childhood and through the experiences of life before I meditated, I just found it so depressing. Report an error in the passage at 45:58
46:27 depressing and boring and Report an error in the passage at 46:27
46:32 I knew there had to be more to it than that, because that was just a bad joke. That was the most unpleasant way to have to spend one's life, just the kind of victim of the conditioning that had been given you. Report an error in the passage at 46:32
46:53 But you see, what we've been doing this afternoon is really to use the mind. Take it like the conditioned and the unconditioned. First, they're meaningless, aren't they, words? That's why the Buddha said, investigate the conditioned realm. Sankharas are impermanent. All conditions are impermanent. That helps you to get perspective on the conditioned, doesn't it? Report an error in the passage at 46:53
47:21 You start watching how things change. Because even though you can say, oh yes, everything's impermanent, it means that you're just assuming it is and going along with the idea of it. And you agree with it, with the idea, but you've not actually noticed and really stayed with anything to see how things begin and end. Report an error in the passage at 47:21
47:40 And so in, say, in vipassanā meditation, insight meditation, you're starting out with the contemplating anicca or impermanence of the conditioned realm. And that implies in every possible condition, from a mental feeling, To a solid object that you're looking at, you can be aware of it as something that began and will end. Report an error in the passage at 47:40
48:19 Then that condition, through seeing the nature of the conditioned realm, your sense of identity with conditions, with the body and the mental states, is kind of destroyed. You don't see yourself anymore in quite the same way that you do before you've ever contemplated dharma. Report an error in the passage at 48:19
48:52 Then that sense of anattā, the realization that what you think you are and what you believe you are and all the things you identify with are not self. And that's a nice thing to know. Report an error in the passage at 48:52
49:09 You don't have to be anybody or you're not fixed as a person. You're not just kind of a victim of your conditioning or your character or your karma. Report an error in the passage at 49:09
49:28 Anattā, shunyata, emptiness, nibbāna, non-attachment, nirodha, cessation, viraga, desirelessness, all these are... are realizations of the way it is based on letting go of the conditioned realm and then realizing what things are when there's non-attachment because when there's non-attachment there's still consciousness and there's awareness operating so then there's wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 49:28
50:05 Then Report an error in the passage at 50:05
50:09 you see the path very clearly of non-attachment. and just not getting... And it's not in suppressing anymore or indulging, but in just letting go and in non-attaching to things. And then the Eightfold Path is a path based on that profound understanding, but there's still right action, right speech, right livelihood. Report an error in the passage at 50:09
50:38 It doesn't mean you just kind of sit there and afraid to do anything because you might... You know, you might make karma with it, or you attach the idea that you shouldn't attach, but it's right action, right speech, right livelihood comes from mindfulness and right understanding. So there's spontaneity, there's responsiveness to life, there's the whole realm of purity and beauty and bliss that one relates to. Report an error in the passage at 50:38
51:17 sensory world, the other people we live with, to the planet we live on. It comes not from the conditioning out of So, Report an error in the passage at 51:17
51:43 I think Report an error in the passage at 51:43
51:47 that's enough for you to contemplate for the day. from right understanding of the Dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 51:47
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Talk by Ajahn Sumedho. Original at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ajahn-sumedho-dhamma-talks. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Talks of Ajahn Sumedho, archived on Internet Archive. More from Amaravati