Now is the Knowing

0:00 To welcome you to Ramayavati, opportunity Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:11 to contemplate dharma. For those of you who don't quite understand that word, the word dharma, I mean, it is the Buddhist word for truth. It includes everything and no thing. It's the perfect word because it means everything and no thing. In our ways of thinking, we... We find paradoxes quite difficult. It is thinking in a dualistic pattern. Then one is thinking in terms of either it is something or nothing. Report an error in the passage at 0:11 Highlight the passage at 0:11

1:01 But in reflection on dharma, this allows the mind to be receptive to totality, to wholeness, in which the relationships between something and nothing take place. Report an error in the passage at 1:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01

1:22 If we don't know this, then our life tends to be conditioned by our experiences. We tend to just see the conditions as reality. And they don't relate much to anything beyond themselves. We just go from one condition to another. And of course in a modern society, modern day European society, it becomes very complicated. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

1:55 Because our minds become fragmented. We lose our sense. We don't see how things really relate to each other anymore. We're just reacting to this, to that, to this condition, that feeling. Report an error in the passage at 1:55 Highlight the passage at 1:55

2:18 And life can be merely the reacting to the conditions that we happen to be experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 2:18 Highlight the passage at 2:18

2:31 For example, so much suffering we find in modern affluent societies. We Report an error in the passage at 2:31 Highlight the passage at 2:31

2:41 wonder, why do we suffer when we have everything? We shouldn't suffer, should we? According to an idea, if we have everything we want, we should be happy. Report an error in the passage at 2:41 Highlight the passage at 2:41

2:55 But then, this is what we would hope, what we long for, is to be happy, to feel secure, safe. This kind of yearning, longing. Report an error in the passage at 2:55 Highlight the passage at 2:55

3:12 To go back home or to return or union, going back to the one, going to heaven with the Holy Father, realizing Nibbāna. These are all human expressions of longing, aspiration of the human heart, longing to be free from the appearances of isolation. Report an error in the passage at 3:12 Highlight the passage at 3:12

3:44 Separation, alienation, that we feel so strongly within these forms. Report an error in the passage at 3:44 Highlight the passage at 3:44

3:56 The Buddhist teaching is one that is aimed at, pointing to, in other words, the human experience, starting with this very feeling of separation and alienation. Report an error in the passage at 3:56 Highlight the passage at 3:56

4:17 That's what's common to us. If we don't really contemplate our own existence, don't really try to understand it at all, then our life is merely one of activity that tends to increase more and more the sense of alienation and separation. Report an error in the passage at 4:17 Highlight the passage at 4:17

4:39 The romantic images of wanting to find someone that will fulfill it, someone that we can depend on, someone that will never fail us. Report an error in the passage at 4:39 Highlight the passage at 4:39

4:50 We have these kind of, we used to have, now humanity tends to be more cynical about it, but at one time there was that hope and longing to find the right one, the other person that was made for us by God, that in which our fulfillment would take place when we met them, then we would live happily ever after, in a state of bliss. Report an error in the passage at 4:50 Highlight the passage at 4:50

5:19 With this other person. And this was a hope and a longing for that union, completion, because inevitably we do. Each individual human being here, male or female, if they have not awakened to truth, to the reality, ultimate reality, then as we get older and older, we feel more and more alienated and isolated. Report an error in the passage at 5:19 Highlight the passage at 5:19

5:47 And our hopes for finding the right person turn towards cynicism. Because even though we find the right person, it is always a disappointment. Report an error in the passage at 5:47 Highlight the passage at 5:47

6:03 Because we expect, maybe we're expecting some other person to fulfill it, making that demand on them. Why can't, you're supposed to fulfill me, why can't you do it? Report an error in the passage at 6:03 Highlight the passage at 6:03

6:20 So even when we do meet wonderful people, kind, generous, compassionate, wise beings, separate from ourselves, to demand that they fulfill us will also increase our alienation and feeling of separation. Report an error in the passage at 6:20 Highlight the passage at 6:20

6:41 If we attach to them, then they die and then we feel bereft because we're left without that which we've depended on. Or anything separate, anything that comes to you, will inevitably go away from you. So any other being, any other creature who comes to you will inevitably go from you. As long as you have that illusion and make that demand on another creature separate, then of course there is the experience of increased alienation, disappointment, sorrow, grief, despair. Report an error in the passage at 6:41 Highlight the passage at 6:41

7:27 The holy life then is one where we no longer seek union on this sensory plane. No longer making demands on other beings. We're not expecting anything from anyone else. We're no longer even asking God as something separate to come and help us. In the old way Christians used to think, isn't it? of hoping God will come and save the day when we're in trouble. Demanding God to set everything right for us. Report an error in the passage at 7:27 Highlight the passage at 7:27

8:09 That way of thinking we relinquish. We relinquish any kind of interference or intercession from above. We don't expect that or demand that. So we begin to go toward the very center of being in the way that we can actually realize it in this Separative form as a human being. Report an error in the passage at 8:09 Highlight the passage at 8:09

8:40 Now, it is an appearance of separation only, is what it is. There is only the appearance, the illusion of separation, which Report an error in the passage at 8:40 Highlight the passage at 8:40

8:55 we, which our culture very much believes in as reality. Always telling me about the real world that I don't live in. My community. You don't live in the real world. Because the real world to many people, to the The culture that we live in is the reality of daily life, of going to work, family life, friends, and the only good things and bad things that take place within our society, that are part of our society, called Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:40 the real world. But the real world, it only has this illusion of reality. reality. It is conventionally We can regard it as real because in very pragmatic ways we have to cope with it, don't we? We have to get up, we have to get dressed, we have to take care of these bodies, we have to make a living, we have to learn how to get along with others, we have to learn how to raise children and do all kinds of things. Report an error in the passage at 9:40 Highlight the passage at 9:40

10:20 On this worldly conventional plane. So we're not trying to tell you that it's a total illusion and it doesn't really exist. They say that it is what it is, but it's not ultimately real. It is a world of changing and of shadows and of birth and death and arising and ceasing, comings and goings. So this is This is what we can label conventional reality allowing it to be. It's foolish to try to say that it is an illusion because it does seem very real to us. Report an error in the passage at 10:20 Highlight the passage at 10:20

11:11 But in reflection and contemplation we're kind of looking at it from a different position than just total commitment and belief in it as we've been conditioned by it. Report an error in the passage at 11:11 Highlight the passage at 11:11

11:28 We need to question. Conventional reality. Report an error in the passage at 11:28 Highlight the passage at 11:28

11:36 Not just dismiss it and ignore it or look down on it, but to really investigate it. And this is what we do in meditation. We begin to investigate what is closest to us, what is most ordinary in daily life experience that is so ordinary, so common to the average human being that they don't even... You might Report an error in the passage at 11:36 Highlight the passage at 11:36

12:12 question something that is far away, like so much of what we're interested in is more the extremes of the conventional world that are more interesting because they're not so close, they're not ordinary, they're more exotic. Report an error in the passage at 12:12 Highlight the passage at 12:12

12:33 We have to... it. Report an error in the passage at 12:33 Highlight the passage at 12:33

12:35 To go to find them, we have to put effort into concentrating on them. But what is quite ordinary to daily life, we can just regard as not important, not necessary to even think about or look at, investigate. Report an error in the passage at 12:35 Highlight the passage at 12:35

12:58 But now I'm asking you to contemplate, to look at, and just reflect on this ordinariness of life, of just being a breathing, Report an error in the passage at 12:58 Highlight the passage at 12:58

13:11 Being, of feeling, of being in a form that feels, that is sensitive. And feeling means that you're feeling everything, both the pleasant and the painful. And what is personality? Report an error in the passage at 13:11 Highlight the passage at 13:11

13:34 What is that really? Not to judge, make judgments about whether you have a good personality or a bad one, but... really... Report an error in the passage at 13:34 Highlight the passage at 13:34

13:47 To really question, what is personality? How true is that? Is that really, really you? What you kind of manifest out as personality, is that really something true? Report an error in the passage at 13:47 Highlight the passage at 13:47

14:08 Emotions, what are they anyway? The ability to feel things in your heart. Loving and hating. Report an error in the passage at 14:08 Highlight the passage at 14:08

14:20 Feeling high, feeling low. Elated, depressed. Feeling sorrow and anguish, feeling frightened, feeling jealous, envy, feeling greed and lust and obsessed with various desires and passions. This realm of emotion and feeling. Not to judge it, saying you shouldn't feel hatred, you should feel only love. Then we go off into our intellectual nature. Report an error in the passage at 14:20 Highlight the passage at 14:20

15:00 Where we choose. We like this and we don't like that. Personally, I'd like to feel only the pleasant and have the highs and the elations. Report an error in the passage at 15:00 Highlight the passage at 15:00

15:18 That'd be nice if we could just live in a realm where we were just living in ecstasies of joy and bliss and didn't feel any pain. We were feeling only pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 15:18 Highlight the passage at 15:18

15:32 Where these bodies could stay kind of permanently attractive and youthful and vigorous and be more kind of unpleasant functions of these bodies and that which we don't like if we could just kind of let those go away from us and kind of have more ethereal celestial bodies that just radiate light rather than sweat but Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

16:15 then as a human being this is where we are this is what a human being is isn't it? Having a body like this, with all its functions, pleasant and unpleasant, with all its feelings, pleasant and unpleasant, with the aging process, from birth to maturity to death, old age and death, this is our human existence. Report an error in the passage at 16:15 Highlight the passage at 16:15

16:46 We all share this. It's not one of us. that doesn't have... Report an error in the passage at 16:46 Highlight the passage at 16:46

16:51 This is what we have in common, all human beings. And we can reflect on it. We share many of these conditions with the animal kingdom, don't we? Report an error in the passage at 16:51 Highlight the passage at 16:51

17:08 Birth, maturity, old age and death, we share animals do that. They feel, don't they? They have emotions. They can love and they can hate. They can get elated and depressed. And the dogs are very good at that. Why do we like dogs? Why do English people like dogs so much? Report an error in the passage at 17:08 Highlight the passage at 17:08

17:35 Because emotionally they're very close to us, aren't they? You can understand them on the emotional plane. Dogs have emotions that we can understand. They get happy, they get very sad. Report an error in the passage at 17:35 Highlight the passage at 17:35

17:54 If you speak to them nicely, they wag their tail and look happy. If you scold them and... In anger and kick them, they get very depressed. Just like we do. Now, where we have the advantage over the dog is that oftentimes we don't really react much any better than the dogs do in regards to these, but we can. Report an error in the passage at 17:54 Highlight the passage at 17:54

18:21 We can act much better than that by reflecting on it, by our ability to contemplate the feeling of... When we're being praised, what it does to your heart when somebody says, oh, you're so wonderful, you're the kindest, most beautiful, wonderful person. You can observe, you can watch, maybe feeling high, feeling happy, feeling wonderful, rather than just being carried along in that feeling. Report an error in the passage at 18:21 Highlight the passage at 18:21

18:54 If somebody really hates you and criticizes you, humiliates you, You can just be carried away with anger or resentment or grief by that, or you can contemplate it. This is what we mean by the reflexive mind of the human being, the way of wisdom and knowledge, looking into, seeing things as they are. We can transcend the feeling realm by accepting it and noting it and observing it rather than judging it. Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:33 Now, modern man tends to judge it. He tends to make judgments about it. Like we say, if we have ideals that we shouldn't feel angry or we shouldn't feel jealousy. We shouldn't be afraid. A man should be brave. He should never be frightened. A woman should always be loving and kind. She should never feel angry or aversion to her children. She should... Report an error in the passage at 19:33 Highlight the passage at 19:33

20:07 shouldn't be greedy. Report an error in the passage at 20:07 Highlight the passage at 20:07

20:22 person, of jealousy and anger. a terrible man. He's selfish, thinks of himself all the time. So we tend to our culture very much Report an error in the passage at 20:22 Highlight the passage at 20:22

20:35 We're conditioned to make judgments on ourselves, on each other. Now the Buddha, way of the Buddha, is not to judge, not to suppress, not to take sides, but to notice. The awakened mind observing, reflecting, noting what it is to be in this state of continuous feeling. Of having emotion, having intelligence, being able to think, being able to remember. Report an error in the passage at 20:35 Highlight the passage at 20:35

21:17 And because of that we can forgive, we can let go, we can free ourselves from just the burden, the binding of ourselves to these conditions and all the pain, continuous pain that that creates in our lives. Report an error in the passage at 21:17 Highlight the passage at 21:17

21:39 Because as long as we're bound to these conditions, The way we have been conditioned by the society, as long as that is our identity, then we are guaranteed that your life will be a lifetime of continuous suffering. Report an error in the passage at 21:39 Highlight the passage at 21:39

22:03 That's what suffering is, being attacked, being deluded, being attacked. Report an error in the passage at 22:03 Highlight the passage at 22:03

22:13 The title of this talk is called Now is the Knowing. And this I took as a kind of literal translation from the Thai, Report an error in the passage at 22:13 Highlight the passage at 22:13

22:34 which is to be the knowing, to right now, to be the knowing, that which is knowing. Now is the knowing. And this word knowing isn't knowing something, it isn't knowing about, it's knowing in a direct way. The awakened, The ability of a human being to be awake and alert in the present moment, here and now, knowing that this is the way it is, whatever way it is. Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

23:11 Not looking for any particular thing, because then we're no longer in the knowing. We're trying to find something to know. So the awakened mind is receptive. It's a receptive mind. It's a knowing. It's not just a passively receptive mind, just kind of without any intelligence at all, but it is an intelligent receptive mind. Report an error in the passage at 23:11 Highlight the passage at 23:11

23:44 So it's a mind of knowing, because intelligence is very much a part of our human experience, isn't it? We can misuse intelligence, can't we? We tend to misuse it by our ability to grasp. Report an error in the passage at 23:44 Highlight the passage at 23:44

24:05 Ideas and to hold on to views and opinions and to form views, theories, create a whole world of illusion and even quite intelligent illusions about ourselves, about each other, about the world we live in, about the planet we live on. Report an error in the passage at 24:05 Highlight the passage at 24:05

24:33 But when we let go and are in the moment of knowing as it is, then there is a pure Pure intelligence undistorted by desires and fears. The desires and fears are no longer distorting, corrupting the intelligence. The intelligence is allowed to operate fully, clearly, brightly. And so knowing is very much what we mean when we take refuge in Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 24:33 Highlight the passage at 24:33

25:12 Because Buddha actually is The term for the awakened one. It's a person, isn't it? Buddha is a being. That's why you can make Buddha images. They don't try to make Buddha images looking like Martians, even though some of them do, I admit. Report an error in the passage at 25:12 Highlight the passage at 25:12

25:41 Even though they're symbolic Buddha images. They are the representation of the human form, knowing, awakened, knowing, clear, bright, intelligent, receptive, sensitive, not Report an error in the passage at 25:41 Highlight the passage at 25:41

26:05 picking and choosing, not judging, not the judge saying, I like this, we want this, we don't want that, but it's the knowing. And in that knowing, our refuge of knowing, then we can begin to understand how to act. Or how not to act. We begin to understand what suffering really is. And how not to suffer. Report an error in the passage at 26:05 Highlight the passage at 26:05

26:36 How to let suffering see. That there is ultimately no suffering at all. That suffering is the illusion that we create onto life through ignorance, through habit, through the unawakened human heart, human mind. Report an error in the passage at 26:36 Highlight the passage at 26:36

27:00 Time, this contemplate, What time is, is something we take for granted, isn't it? Something that's very real to us. We have clocks everywhere now. There's a chip in the quartz crystal and all this. We have all these, we can just mass produce beautiful clocks and calendars and all kinds of, just to... To hold on to the illusion of time is reality. Time is very much based in the human realm on a lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 27:00 Highlight the passage at 27:00

27:47 Our bodies, our birthdays are very important to us in the European world anyway. In Asia, I don't think they're as important as they tend to be in Europe or America. We celebrate birthdays. How many years have you lived? Report an error in the passage at 27:47 Highlight the passage at 27:47

28:07 And the idea of living a long time, like a hundred years, to many people is very attractive. Say a hundred years, if you could hold on to your health for a hundred years, then a year, we're no longer even lunar-oriented in time. Like the old agrarian societies, we're solar-oriented. Now, we look to the sun, to the planet revolving around the sun. Report an error in the passage at 28:07 Highlight the passage at 28:07

28:39 The planet revolving on its axis around the sun. So we have days and we have years. And these are realities. It's the perception of a day and a year and the age of our body. I am 53 years old. Report an error in the passage at 28:39 Highlight the passage at 28:39

29:03 I am 53 years old. That's very much an identification. It can be, can't it? That I am a 53-year-old person. Report an error in the passage at 29:03 Highlight the passage at 29:03

29:17 53 can have, you have a perception of that. What is your perception of somebody who's 53? Are they young or old? Report an error in the passage at 29:17 Highlight the passage at 29:17

29:29 When you're 53, 40 looks quite young now. When I was 20, 40 looked old. When I was 20 years old, somebody 40 was old to me. 53, somebody 40 is still young to me. Report an error in the passage at 29:29 Highlight the passage at 29:29

29:53 What is it? Just note the perception you have of your own age. If you're glad or happy at your age or if you are ashamed of it because you don't like getting old or older, you can take it very personally, happily. Somehow, being 53 is kind of embarrassing. You're no longer young. You're getting to that point where, you know, in a few years, obviously, you're getting to that age where men retire. Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:33 And now in modern day European society, men that retire, or retire early maybe, they're kind of useless, aren't they? What good are they in the society? Because our perception of being useful is having a work to do, having a profession, and rising up, getting somewhere, going places, reaching to the heavens, attaining and achieving, developing, progressing. Report an error in the passage at 30:33 Highlight the passage at 30:33

31:07 And then when you're getting on to 60, what's left for you? But the degeneration, aging process, bifocals, hair falling out, teeth gone, going, and sagging Report an error in the passage at 31:07 Highlight the passage at 31:07

31:24 body, and no longer an economically productive member of the society, and retirement, and then the fear of being left alone. The fear of being put in one of these old people's homes and forgotten, laying in a bed, incontinent, stinking, unpleasant, unwanted, unlovable, dying in pain, is what we fear. Report an error in the passage at 31:24 Highlight the passage at 31:24

31:55 That would be terrible. Now time, if we look at time at the present moment, starting from the present, this is the way it is. This is the way it is. As a recollection, bringing up into consciousness just that if this is the way it is right now, we're not trying to say it should be anyway or it shouldn't be anyway, it's just even if it's absolutely terrible right now, we're not judging it as terrible, we're merely acknowledging that this is the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 31:55 Highlight the passage at 31:55

32:34 Now this is ability, using our ability to reflect. If you find it very helpful to you and And especially in very difficult situations in your life, where you're working, or family problems that arise, and seemingly terrible problems that you personally have, or your children, or your husband, or wife, or parents, or whatever are having, or the problems of the world, of the society. Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

33:04 This is the way it is, isn't it? It's just a kind of indifference. Like we don't care about the way it is, we just miss the way it is and just ignore it. No, I'm not saying that. But we are accepting the way it is so we can really understand it. We can't understand anything we can't accept. Before you can understand anything, you have to accept it first, even if it's rotten. Report an error in the passage at 33:04 Highlight the passage at 33:04

33:34 If you want to understand something rotten, you have to accept its rottenness. It doesn't mean you like it. You can't like rottenness. It's repulsive. But you can accept it. Which means once there's the acceptance of it, then you can understand it. You can begin to understand it. Now apply that to just your own, say, mental state. Maybe you have some rotten mental state. Report an error in the passage at 33:34 Highlight the passage at 33:34

34:11 Do any of you ever have rotten mental state? Report an error in the passage at 34:11 Highlight the passage at 34:11

34:20 Now if you If you judge them only, say, oh, that's a rotten mental state, I'm a rotten person, I shouldn't think like that, I shouldn't feel like that, I'll have to go to the psychiatrist, there's something wrong with me. Report an error in the passage at 34:20 Highlight the passage at 34:20

34:36 Then, of course, that means you've not accepted it, you've just judged it and said, I don't like this, I don't want it, get out of here. And either you blame somebody else, say it's his fault, or you blame yourself, it's my fault, I'm a terrible person. And that is not an acceptance, that's merely a... Report an error in the passage at 34:36 Highlight the passage at 34:36

34:54 A reaction and a judgment. Therefore, you find yourself increasingly haunted by all that. The more you just react out of ignorance, the more you reject and suppress, you'll find those very things you reject and suppress kind of following you about. They haunt you. Wherever you go, even on your holidays to Mallorca. Report an error in the passage at 34:54 Highlight the passage at 34:54

35:28 If you get drunk enough, you can kind of forget about it, maybe. But when you get back again, if you have a kind of a, what they call a downer or something, where you're trying to get rid of all these unpleasant feelings, you Report an error in the passage at 35:28 Highlight the passage at 35:28

35:51 can get stuck in them, just be whirled, like being caught in a vortex of misery that you're creating out of your mind. Now acceptance doesn't mean approval or liking, but it means the willingness to bear with what is nasty or rotten or unpleasant in Report an error in the passage at 35:51 Highlight the passage at 35:51

36:14 order to understand it, to look at it, not judge it, but to notice it, to bear with it, to be able to endure its nastiness, its pain. Report an error in the passage at 36:14 Highlight the passage at 36:14

36:32 And then by doing that, you'll find that that condition can then cease. You can let it go. You can let go of things when you accept them. But until that time of acceptance, your life will merely be reacting to them, running away if it's bad. If it's good, you're grasping at it, trying to hang on to it, trying to own it, hold on to it. Report an error in the passage at 36:32 Highlight the passage at 36:32

37:14 In our society, we're very much conditioned to believe that our memories of the past are ours, so that we have Because we have retentive memories, we remember what we've done in the past, especially what we've done, the very good things or the very bad things. We don't generally remember, do we, the kind of ordinary things of our lives. But we do remember, we always remember the very bad ones, or Report an error in the passage at 37:14 Highlight the passage at 37:14

37:53 the very good ones, when we won the prize, when we passed the course. The wonderful romance. The super holiday. But we also remember the other things. All the things that we've done or that have been done to us. The bad things. And then this is grasped either by holding on and keep kind of regurgitating all these memories or by trying to get rid of them all the time. Report an error in the passage at 37:53 Highlight the passage at 37:53

38:34 As soon as they come in they try to Get rid of them as quickly as possible. Those are the two forms of grasping, clinging. You cling to something by trying to get rid of it. Report an error in the passage at 38:34 Highlight the passage at 38:34

38:48 That sounds paradoxical, doesn't it? But that's what happens. The more you try to get rid of something, the more you're actually clinging to it. Report an error in the passage at 38:48 Highlight the passage at 38:48

39:00 So that's why these things haunt you, because you're actually clinging to them. Like if you're really caught in an anger, if somebody's really done something, It's pretty terrible to you. And you say, I won't think about it. Just try not to think about it. Report an error in the passage at 39:00 Highlight the passage at 39:00

39:25 Just by willing yourself not to think about it. For maybe one second you can, and then suddenly they'll all come exploding back, won't it? Report an error in the passage at 39:25 Highlight the passage at 39:25

39:37 So just by saying, I won't think about it, means that you're really clinging to it. Even though you... There are desires to get rid of it. That very desire is the clinging process taking place. Report an error in the passage at 39:37 Highlight the passage at 39:37

39:58 So by accepting the pain that one has, that is present, and letting go of it, meaning not by rejecting, not by getting rid of, but by allowing it to be that way, then you'll find the sense of peace and calm, the ability to bear with. And that anything that you have to bear will eventually cease anyway, so that its cessation is always a relief for you. Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:33 Because you're not using that desire to get rid of it and run away from it, you are allowing things to flow and move according to their nature. You are in that harmonious realm. Report an error in the passage at 40:33 Highlight the passage at 40:33

40:52 Now the past is only a memory in the present moment, isn't it? Right now, There's only now. Wherever you are, you're now. Right now, you're here. Report an error in the passage at 40:52 Highlight the passage at 40:52

41:08 And so, anything you can remember is what, you know, about what you've done or what somebody's done or what you've done to somebody or what somebody's done to you or all that. These are memories. And they come and go in the mind in the present moment. There is no past. Report an error in the passage at 41:08 Highlight the passage at 41:08

41:32 Now we are beginning to Explore eternity in the moment. Investigate what is eternity then. Because we believe so much in time that the past is real. That all that I've done and said and all that's happened to me and all that I've done to others and others have done to me and all that is real because we can remember it. Report an error in the passage at 41:32 Highlight the passage at 41:32

42:07 But now I'm suggesting that you look at it in a different way, rather than looking at it as yours and as reality, to look at it as it is, as something that arises and ceases in the present moment. Because that's true, isn't it? That's what's really happening in the reality of the moment right now, is that anything you remember from the past arises now and ceases now. Report an error in the passage at 42:07 Highlight the passage at 42:07

42:37 It will cease. Memories don't last very long. You don't hang on to them. They will arise and cease. Report an error in the passage at 42:37 Highlight the passage at 42:37

42:51 Now the future. What is the future? Well, there's a past, present, future. And the future is what we don't remember. Report an error in the passage at 42:51 Highlight the passage at 42:51

43:07 We can't remember the future. It's absurd, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 43:07 Highlight the passage at 43:07

43:16 Because it hasn't happened yet. So it has to happen in the present before it becomes the past, a memory. To remember. So the future, now, this reflecting on what the future is, is what we don't know. But it also implies infinite possibility, doesn't it? Because what you can remember of the past, your experience of life, you can ignore the present, not by saying, this is the way it is, by worrying about the future. Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:54 What will happen to me in the future? What will I do when my loved ones leave me? What will I do if I lose my job? What will happen to me if I get, what should I do if I get cancer? What if I am in a terrible accident? What if I go blind? What if I lose all my money? What if Britain is taken over by the communists? Is it Report an error in the passage at 43:54 Highlight the passage at 43:54

44:29 better to be Red than dead or dead than red. Report an error in the passage at 44:29 Highlight the passage at 44:29

44:44 Britain is, I think, being taken over by the Americans now. Report an error in the passage at 44:44 Highlight the passage at 44:44

44:50 It isn't much better. Report an error in the passage at 44:50 Highlight the passage at 44:50

45:01 So, in regards to the future, how do we relate to the future? We hope, don't we? Hope that in the future everything will be alright. They're on the positive side. We're optimistic. I know that everything's going to be alright in the future. Report an error in the passage at 45:01 Highlight the passage at 45:01

45:18 I hope that it will be, I expect, I demand that it be all right. I want it to be all right. I want to be fulfilled in the future. I want to get enlightened in the future before I die. And then, that we're all going to die. We'll die in the future too. Report an error in the passage at 45:18 Highlight the passage at 45:18

45:48 Actually, we only die in the present. Report an error in the passage at 45:48 Highlight the passage at 45:48

45:53 But right now we're thinking about what the future is. The possibility of dying, which could be any time, from now to 50, 80, 100 years, depending on how careful you are, or fortunate or unfortunate. Report an error in the passage at 45:53 Highlight the passage at 45:53

46:17 There's the possibility of losing, of loss, of sickness, disease. There's the knowledge in there of getting old, and that's not... Report an error in the passage at 46:17 Highlight the passage at 46:17

46:46 old. My father's 90 and my mother's 86. it's quite interesting to observe what old age is with your parents, you can remember them. In the past, when they were younger, to see a kind of virile, very active, intelligent man sitting in his chair, bent over with age, feeling sorry for himself, feeling frightened and resentful about what's happening to his body. Report an error in the passage at 46:46 Highlight the passage at 46:46

47:27 A very powerful kind of message is being given to us. So in the future, there's always the... Prospect of death and old age, sickness. There's the hope that everything will be all right and that we won't have pain and we'll have good health till we die and our loved ones will be with us and everything will be nice. Report an error in the passage at 47:27 Highlight the passage at 47:27

47:58 And then as long as you hang on to that hope and expectation and demand, you're also going to be pursued by the opposite. Report an error in the passage at 47:58 Highlight the passage at 47:58

48:08 Now notice this. As soon as you say, I hope everything's going to be all right, immediately the opposite worry is going to come into your mind. Report an error in the passage at 48:08 Highlight the passage at 48:08

48:18 That's how I've seen it in myself. The minute I say, I hope everything's going to be all right, that triggers off the opposite. Maybe it won't. Report an error in the passage at 48:18 Highlight the passage at 48:18

48:32 I know it's like with English weather. I say, I hope we have some sunny days. And then immediately there's the reaction to that, maybe we won't, maybe it'll be one of those terrible summers where there's no warm days or no sunshine. Report an error in the passage at 48:32 Highlight the passage at 48:32

48:56 When we attach to one, we're going to get the other along with it, like two sides of the same coin. If you grasp a coin, you're going to get both sides. sides. Report an error in the passage at 48:56 Highlight the passage at 48:56

49:12 So the future then is anticipation, isn't it? It's worry, anticipation, fear, anxiety about all the possibilities of misery and pain. Report an error in the passage at 49:12 Highlight the passage at 49:12

49:29 We can be pessimistic or optimistic, but both really support each other. As optimistic as you can be, you're going to have to fight off the tendency towards its opposite. Report an error in the passage at 49:29 Highlight the passage at 49:29

49:45 Until you really understand how things are, until you really awaken with wisdom and clarity and intelligence to really see how things are, then there is nothing to worry about. Report an error in the passage at 49:45 Highlight the passage at 49:45

49:59 It's true. There isn't any suffering. No such thing as suffering. There's nothing to worry about. Nothing to be frightened of. But if you're just grasping those words in themselves, then you're going to get their opposite. Ajahn Sumedho says there's no suffering. So I'm suffering. He's a liar. The Buddha said there is suffering. The Buddha said there is suffering, yes, as the initial teaching. Report an error in the passage at 49:59 Highlight the passage at 49:59

50:34 And then he said there's the way out of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34

50:40 I teach two things, suffering and the way out of suffering. Now, here and now. Not next lifetime either. His teaching is insane. If you're a good little boy, a good little girl during this lifetime, You'll get out of the whole thing in the next one. You won't have any suffering. It actually is saying right now, here in now, now is the knowing. Report an error in the passage at 50:40 Highlight the passage at 50:40

51:05 And so therefore, there isn't any suffering when there's knowing, when there's clarity. There's still sensitivity. There's still feeling. There's still the coming together and the separations on this separative plane of sensory experience. There's still the ups and downs, highs and lows of the sensory realm and the emotion and all that, but they're no longer seen as me and mine. Report an error in the passage at 51:05 Highlight the passage at 51:05

51:35 They're no longer grasped. They're no longer rejected. Things are what they are. And there is the knowing, the seeing. There's the way things relate to each other. Report an error in the passage at 51:35 Highlight the passage at 51:35

51:53 There's not just the reaction to the particular condition and without it understanding its relationship to the rest of it. Report an error in the passage at 51:53 Highlight the passage at 51:53

52:03 So in this human ability to reflect and to awaken and reflect on life, then we free ourselves from the illusions we have about it, about the mortal condition of the body as being ourself. We no longer demand or expect We no longer blame ourselves or others. All that falls away, fades out towards a true response, sensitive response and understanding through the awakeness, through being awake, through being alert to the way things are. Report an error in the passage at 52:03 Highlight the passage at 52:03

52:50 So then, now is the knowing. Here in now, the time we begin to The more we remind ourselves of this and practice, then we feel an increasing sense of confidence and abiding in the present. Trust, faith in abiding in the present and the ability then to be able to respond in appropriate ways to the things that we're feeling or experiencing in the present. Report an error in the passage at 52:50 Highlight the passage at 52:50

53:27 We have that ability, don't we? We can... There is this intelligence. It's not a personal intelligence. It's not the intelligence that you think about whether you think you're intelligent or not intelligent. It's not that. Even if you're illiterate, it's still there. Even if you failed in the school system in Britain, that doesn't mean there's no intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 53:27 Highlight the passage at 53:27

53:56 This intelligence is not conditioned by the culture. Receptive to the culture and knows it, understands and learns from this span that we're all experiencing as ascension being from the birth, the original birthday to the death day. Report an error in the passage at 53:56 Highlight the passage at 53:56

54:24 So I offer this for your contemplation, reflection for the day and we can open the rest of the time up for questions. Report an error in the passage at 54:24 Highlight the passage at 54:24

· · · silence, 1 minute

55:26 You want to say my father, even though he is 90 and in agony most of the time, he does have still a sense of humor, because when I was leaving him the other day, he said, I really hate to see you go. Then he gives a kind of bright look into his eye and he said, give my regards to the nuns. Report an error in the passage at 55:26 Highlight the passage at 55:26

· · · silence, 1 minute

56:30 Yes. Report an error in the passage at 56:30 Highlight the passage at 56:30

56:39 I understand the meditation, how you let go. Report an error in the passage at 56:39 Highlight the passage at 56:39

56:48 been doing this, the thing that's taking me from inventing these pieces of the Bible to learning from them, which I think is called-evaluation and cancer. Report an error in the passage at 56:48 Highlight the passage at 56:48

56:58 seems to be a bit similar to me. I'm trying to make an analogy between the two. Report an error in the passage at 56:58 Highlight the passage at 56:58

57:08 you can let go of it if you discharge it Report an error in the passage at 57:08 Highlight the passage at 57:08

57:18 Well, that is a kind of maybe a cathartic experience, but really letting go is more with the feeling of it, like being able to bear something, the feeling, the sensation and the feeling that you're experiencing. The problem with us is that we tend to understand the theory of letting go and then that tends to come from the brain, the idea of it. Report an error in the passage at 57:18 Highlight the passage at 57:18

57:53 But the body being a sensitive condition, our practice is more and more to be aware of the feelings of the body, like in the heart. Report an error in the passage at 57:53 Highlight the passage at 57:53

58:09 And by bringing our attention to that with an acceptance of it, not with a judgment of it, then the actual feelings cease more and more naturally. And that way, that's a real cessation of something. Something has ended. It's not just been the actual cause of it has been has been allowed to be fulfilled and then to cease in the mind. So then this is the actual way out of suffering is by being completely more complete and accepting of just the feeling of the sensitivity that we have for a lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 58:09 Highlight the passage at 58:09

59:02 And breaking through the illusions of taking it personally. Like my criticism of a lot of Psychotherapy and psychiatry tends to reinforce the personal side of life too much. It's my inferiority complex or my problems or I'm this kind of person or I... We can wallow in the idea of self where the Buddhist aim is to point out that all these selves are impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 59:02 Highlight the passage at 59:02

59:42 They're conditions that That are not, that aren't really ourselves at all. And so that we don't try to support in any way that sense of a personality or a self in the separate sense, in the separative sense. Report an error in the passage at 59:42 Highlight the passage at 59:42

59:59 But we do, because of birth, being born in a human form, we are always subject to this feeling for the whole lifespan of the body. It's a sense realm that we're experiencing so strongly now. And so this we can't help. It's not an illusion. It's not something we're creating out of ignorance. It's just the way it is. So the more we begin to understand it and accept it for what it is, then we no longer suffer from it. Report an error in the passage at 59:59 Highlight the passage at 59:59

1:00:38 Because the suffering is thinking it shouldn't be like this. Or that... We shouldn't feel things, or that we should feel other than we do, and all the kind of tendencies to want to get rid of or get hold of. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:38 Highlight the passage at 1:00:38

1:00:56 So as we abide more in the knowing and receptivity to life and its sensory offerings, then there isn't any suffering. Even with pain, one can, if you're not... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:56 Highlight the passage at 1:00:56

1:01:14 If you no longer hate pain, then pain is just another sensation. It's just being sensitive. But if it's taken personally with anger and fear and resentment, then it is suffering for us. We suffer from it. We worry about it. We resent it. We blame. We fear with it. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:14 Highlight the passage at 1:01:14

1:01:44 Because the personality illusion can be, like in Buddhist, this is important to not suppress personality as such, but to see what it really is. And therefore, then the illusion of being a person falls away. So there's more just the sense of being alert and attentive and awakened rather than Having to become somebody or feeling bound by the personality that you believe in is what you are and whether sometimes it may not be so good. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:44 Highlight the passage at 1:01:44

1:02:27 Maybe you have a not very nice image of yourself as a person or maybe you're too conceited, arrogant. Maybe you think you're better than everyone else or everyone else is stupid and you're intelligent. Or you might think, Everyone else is intelligent, you're the only stupid one. But either extreme are not what you are. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:27 Highlight the passage at 1:02:27

1:02:52 It's not what anyone can be. It's only the illusion of being a person. Then we find that when that personality view is examined and let go of, then somehow the personality Report an error in the passage at 1:02:52 Highlight the passage at 1:02:52

1:03:14 Manifest, but it's no longer from the sense of ignorance, from ignorance and fear and desire, but it's a natural flow of a manifestation that is natural to this particular condition. And therefore it's not something that is disruptive or confusing to people. A personality that comes from desire and fear It can always cause us friction or irritation or disruption or delusion. I have seen in monastic life, living in monasteries where everybody's practicing according to this way, at Report an error in the passage at 1:03:14 Highlight the passage at 1:03:14

1:04:02 first when people first come, and it's like the anagarikas and the postulants, monks and nuns, and then they, what were they? There's always a strong sense of personality in them. Sometimes they're arrogant or overestimate themselves or they underestimate themselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:02 Highlight the passage at 1:04:02

1:04:29 And so they tend to be much more disruptive in the community. But then as the meditation begins to have its effect and they begin to gain some wisdom, Then those oftentimes disruptive qualities fall away. And then their more positive qualities, they can make offerings of that, like their talents, their abilities, they offer to the community out of love rather than out of desire. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:29 Highlight the passage at 1:04:29

1:05:07 So Report an error in the passage at 1:05:07 Highlight the passage at 1:05:07

1:05:11 then you have a community where there isn't this sense of trying to Report an error in the passage at 1:05:11 Highlight the passage at 1:05:11

1:05:18 Kind of always be reaffirming each other's personality. Like if I should fix a view of you in my mind and I form an opinion about what you are, then every time I meet you I would tend to project that onto you. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:18 Highlight the passage at 1:05:18

1:05:40 Now if you're not awakened and wise, then you would tend to react to my projections. So then you, whenever I come in, I'm projecting onto you something. And then you react to that. So we end up playing a kind of game with each other, reinforcing each other's views and opinions and personalities. That's what happens a lot in what they call relationships, isn't it? Where you're just reaffirming each other's personalities, reconditioning them all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:40 Highlight the passage at 1:05:40

1:06:15 The thing is, as we break through that, when we can let go, when we don't, no matter what, I have of you, I realize is only a memory. If I really know that and clear my mind, then when I see you, it's always with an empty mind, so that there's not any need for you to, and because the mind's empty and receptive to you, then you aren't being forced to react to that. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:15 Highlight the passage at 1:06:15

1:06:47 I mean, you're not reacting to a projection anymore. So then there can be a relationship, a sense of relating and understanding going on. Like with a good teacher, in Thailand, with my teacher in Thailand, Ajahn Chah, just living with him for ten years was a wonderful experience, even though sometimes the life could get pretty boring. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:47 Highlight the passage at 1:06:47

1:07:19 And so forth. On one level, on the whole, I look back and that is a kind of wonderful ten years because it really gave me a time to have a kind of mere reflection for all this tendency to create and project onto the world everything. Because just I found his presence very helpful. It's the clear mind of a human being. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:19 Highlight the passage at 1:07:19

1:07:50 Being around that would help me to suddenly, my mind would go clear. Help me to remember that. Going back into, I remember, going to, after the first year, I was in Laos, in Vientiane. This woman, European woman, who said she was a Buddhist, wanted to give me Report an error in the passage at 1:07:50 Highlight the passage at 1:07:50

1:08:23 Food offering in the morning, on a Sunday morning. So, and she was inviting some mutual friends for this, and I was going to eat at her flat. So I went there, and it was a cocktail party. Sunday morning cocktail party. I walked me in my robe, and all these people, and then Qian in those days, before I went communist, was a kind of... Report an error in the passage at 1:08:23 Highlight the passage at 1:08:23

1:08:53 place of entry and all kinds of journalists and people from and dope peddlers and all the kind of things going on there so then the I was in this kind of in the middle of this thing with all these kind of different people who are doing all different things on this worldly plane and I just contemplated this how you know How this reinforcement of a personality, like some were newspaper reporters, Americans or Europeans, and they were talking about which airline has the best food and name dropping and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:53 Highlight the passage at 1:08:53

1:09:41 And all this way that people have of reinforcing their position at a cocktail party. And I thought, how... I'm fortunate I am not to have to be a part of this world anymore because in a monastery you don't do that anymore. It doesn't matter what your social status is or was or your achievements on the worldly plane whether you have been recognized or unrecognized or if you're a failure or a success. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:41 Highlight the passage at 1:09:41

1:10:15 These things have no importance in a monastery. You're not You're not giving forth from that. One isn't projecting onto another person an image or demanding anything. So then I saw how miserable that whole realm was. That cocktail party circuit, which I never liked anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:15 Highlight the passage at 1:10:15

1:10:43 But coming from a meditation, Situation of meditation and reflection, and I could understand it more, why I didn't really ever like it. You know, before, I would take it personally that maybe I wasn't, something wrong with me. You know, I came from the kind of background where you're supposed to like those things. And I took it personally that I wasn't maybe clever enough to fit into these kind of, into these witty conversations and kind of projections that everybody was going into. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:43 Highlight the passage at 1:10:43

1:11:19 But looking at it more from the reflective mind, I saw that it was a realm of suffering and pain. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:19 Highlight the passage at 1:11:19

1:11:35 Then they brought me a glass of orange juice, and they said, wouldn't you like a little... I said, no, no, no. A little bit, nobody will know. Vodka. And then... I was a bit upset because I wouldn't join the party. Then the woman brought the meal at 5 minutes to 12. We can't eat after 12 o 'clock. She was being really difficult. Brought in this meal. So I started eating. Five minutes I ate and then I stopped. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:35 Highlight the passage at 1:11:35

1:12:21 Then she said, You can eat now. I said, I can't. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:21 Highlight the passage at 1:12:21

1:12:34 Because the world is always trying to get, like that world anyway, doesn't like discipline much, does it? It's intimidating. You don't smoke and drink, at least in those days, and go along with everything. Then it's like a judgment, a rejection. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:34 Highlight the passage at 1:12:34

1:13:19 Yes? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:19 Highlight the passage at 1:13:19

1:13:26 to tell you very interesting Report an error in the passage at 1:13:26 Highlight the passage at 1:13:26

1:13:35 but are just problems, Report an error in the passage at 1:13:35 Highlight the passage at 1:13:35

1:13:48 makes it easier, but there no way to make it a little easier when you're doing it? Well, that's where this reflection helps. Because the sensory world is time-bound, everything is beginning and ending, going through a span. We have to deal with the time world, yes. But we recollect. beginning and ending. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:48 Highlight the passage at 1:13:48

1:14:17 Remember it for what it is, which means that we begin to accept it the way it is rather than react to it. Now that just takes more of willingness as you develop more and more. You begin to feel more accepting of the world as it is and of the way your mind works. You're no longer just, because often times with beginning meditators they have so many ideas of what they should do or shouldn't do and what they'd like to get and what they don't want and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:17 Highlight the passage at 1:14:17

1:14:57 But as you're more, begin to develop more of a patient openness towards the way things are, then your ability to respond to them will increase. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:57 Highlight the passage at 1:14:57

1:15:14 And this is where we're using wisdom because If you go off to a special place where you lock yourself in your room, with nobody distracting you, nothing to do, and you can just sit there, and eventually you'll calm down, and because of the lack of stimulation and demand on you, you'll feel very calm after a while. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:14 Highlight the passage at 1:15:14

1:15:46 And then as soon as you unlock the door and go outside, and then the world starts, I want you to do this, and the whole thing, the whole, the ordinary life starts impinging on you again. Then you think, oh, I wish I could go back into that room and lock the door. Or, you know, if you had a, if you attain the tranquil mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:46 Highlight the passage at 1:15:46

1:16:16 Because it's difficult to go back from tranquility back into the confusion of modern society. One really likes that more refined, unexcited, undemanding, tranquil, serenity of mind. But we have to accept the fact that most of our life is to be lived in the world the way it is, which is not always... Most of the time the way we actually want it to be, which is all right. It doesn't have to be as we want it to be. We learn to be more patient with it and accepting it as it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:16 Highlight the passage at 1:16:16

1:17:00 Then we don't create problems onto it. We can deal with problems as they arise, but we don't create problems anymore onto the world. And I feel, I mean, this takes a lot of patience. Commitment to do this, but it's very definitely possible to do. And it really allows you to feel much more loving and willing to feel life rather than react to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:00 Highlight the passage at 1:17:00

1:17:39 Before, I was frightened of feeling life, afraid of getting hurt by it. So I developed a lot of defenses and reactions to life. You know, and I was afraid to feel it. It was very threatening. So much of life I felt threatened by. By people. I used to feel very threatened by people. And the situations are trying to live in a very narrow way so that I could kind of control things more. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:39 Highlight the passage at 1:17:39

1:18:15 So what I would experience was more of what I was used to and liked. But that always brought the fear and anxiety into the mind of what will I do if I lose control? I can't control it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:15 Highlight the passage at 1:18:15

1:18:34 That would produce anxiety. Even when you're in a fairly safe, controlled environment, you're still suffering a lot from anxiety because there's that anxiety about the possibility of it not being able to control it. Then the meditation, I began to look at this fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:34 Highlight the passage at 1:18:34

1:19:04 I began to accept the fear rather than judge it. Anxiety, I began to really examine this feeling of anxiety, feeling of being threatened, feeling of fear of being rejected, of people rejecting me or not liking me, fear of being looked down on. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:04 Highlight the passage at 1:19:04

1:19:30 All these kind of feelings, rather than judge, say I shouldn't feel like that, I didn't bother to do that anymore, I began to just observe the feeling of it. And then that, by doing that, the feeling of it was accepted into consciousness and then it is, feeling is impermanent, so it ceases. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:30 Highlight the passage at 1:19:30

1:19:53 And began to feel a more spaciousness of mind, the emptiness of mind, which is a It's not a blankness, but more like a spaciousness of mind, where things had space to be, to rise and cease, rather than me trying to make things, grab hold of things and hang on to them or get rid of them. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:53 Highlight the passage at 1:19:53

1:20:22 That's the struggle and conflict in the human heart, isn't it? It's where you, as a person, feel you have to get this and hold on to it, or get rid of this, As strictly as possible, then there's always a struggle, an agitation of the mind going on. When that agitation stops, then things come and go according to so many other conditions that we cannot really control. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:22 Highlight the passage at 1:20:22

1:20:54 So we don't expect, we don't even want to control them, because we have space to accept the way things are, rising and ceasing. We're more abiding in the spaciousness of mind, in the fullness of being, and of being awake, rather than trying to find a place or somebody or something to be awakened in the future. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:54 Highlight the passage at 1:20:54

1:21:24 So it is just so much of being patient and learning more and more, using and applying what you do, like in formal meditation practice. To keep doing that, but then to not just use it just to try to attain a peaceful, pleasant state of mind, but to be more, to develop your practice more, to accept even the times when meditation, when you're not getting tranquil, and you become aware of the desire to get something, or if some Report an error in the passage at 1:21:24 Highlight the passage at 1:21:24

1:22:04 Fear is obsessing your mind. Rather than thinking, well, meditation will let me get rid of it, then meditation will allow me to accept this fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:04 Highlight the passage at 1:22:04

1:22:15 It's changing the attitude of not using meditation as another club to push away the unpleasant, but as the ability, that which will help you to accept the way things are, to allow things to flow and to move according to their... I Report an error in the passage at 1:22:15 Highlight the passage at 1:22:15

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:23:12 used to Report an error in the passage at 1:23:12 Highlight the passage at 1:23:12

1:23:41 practice with, say, with restlessness, reviewing restless characters, so that the Report an error in the passage at 1:23:41 Highlight the passage at 1:23:41

1:23:58 Feeling of always wanting to move and do something. And it took me a lot of, you know, to develop a lot of patience. At first I just tried to will myself into, you know, holding myself down with willpower. And developed willpower a bit, but didn't really solve the problem. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:58 Highlight the passage at 1:23:58

1:24:31 Because in the real, you know, one could do it only under certain circumstances. Willpower only works sometimes. It's not anything to depend on. So that I finally figured out that if you observe more just the feeling of the restless feelings that are going on in your body. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:31 Highlight the passage at 1:24:31

1:24:55 I used to have a lot of twitchiness in my feet. In Thailand we used to have to sit for a long period of time. Listen to, this was in the early years, listen to talk. Ajahn used to talk for maybe three hours in Thai. I didn't understand Thai at that time. A lot of restlessness and anger, aversion. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:55 Highlight the passage at 1:24:55

1:25:26 And I find my feet twitching, like my feet wanted to walk out. And then there was pride in the fact that I didn't want to walk out because that would make me look mean. Like I couldn't handle it in front of the Ajahn. There is a certain pride wanting to look good. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:26 Highlight the passage at 1:25:26