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- 0:26
least understood religious is what we call non-dualism. And Buddhism, like Theravāda, very much is a non-dualistic approach. And this is where many people get confused because they're used to maybe monistic forms of religion, where it's affirming things like a metaphysical doctrine or the oneness of everything.
- 7:59
This I know. So then a Buddha is the ability of a human being to know things as they are. So then the forces of evil, forces, temptations will come to us.
- 15:09
And that's why the symbol of the raft, the Buddha used it, it's a raft that you use to get across the stream. And if you merely hold on to the raft, even when you get across the stream, what's the point of it? You're still hanging on to the raft. It doesn't mean you have to throw the raft away either, but you can use it then. To help others across. You know, if you use this raft, it helps.
- 23:33
The conditioned realm, the world of forms, birth and death, is a little bit, if you really see it, what it is, takes you to the deathless, to the ultimate reality. So everything, even the devil, if you contemplate evil and see it as that which arises and ceases, then even the evil or the bad will take you to the ultimate. So from this what I'm saying is,
- 50:59
But they see it more as a psychological, it's a psychological heaven and hell. Where in the western world, it's either heaven and hell tend to be kind of locations that you go to, if you've been good or bad. That's the kind of childlike vision. But in
Transcript
0:00 Open it up for questions. Report an error in the passage at 0:00
0:12 Bhante, can you say something about the phrase used, not this, not that? I've heard it used a couple of times. The Report an error in the passage at 0:12
0:26 least understood religious is what we call non-dualism. And Buddhism, like Theravāda, very much is a non-dualistic approach. Report an error in the passage at 0:26
0:44 And this is where many people get confused because they're used to maybe monistic forms of religion, where it's affirming things like a metaphysical doctrine or the oneness of everything. And so that is very uplifting to the human spirit, the devotional side, Report an error in the passage at 0:44
1:16 The inspiration, monistic forms do bring that feeling. Where non-dualism is not an inspirational form. It's a practical way of freeing the mind from attachment. So that, like with the Buddhist contemplations on impermanence, suffering, and no-self. These are not doctrinal positions. They're not metaphysical at all, are they? I mean, impermanence is certainly no transcendent doctrine or suffering or no self, anattā. Report an error in the passage at 1:16
2:04 But they are non-dualistic conventions. We're saying, this is not me, this is not mine, this is impermanent. If attached to this, there is going to be suffering. It allows us to look and witness to the conditioned realm for what it is. It's not this, not that. Not me, not my. For this isn't the ultimate reality. That isn't the ultimate reality. Whatever way you use it. Report an error in the passage at 2:04
2:42 And it's not a... A denial, a doctrinal denial or annihilation. No dualism to a convicted monist seems like annihilationism. In the suttas, in the Pāli canon, the Buddha was oftentimes accused of being annihilationist because he wouldn't present a monistic metaphysical teaching. He said, there is suffering, there is the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 2:42
3:20 This is very existential, isn't it? The suffering is existence, the experience of existing and attachment to existence. And then the end of suffering is the detachment from existence, which sounds like annihilation, but doesn't, isn't. It is not annihilation, it's being able to witness existence, but not be attached to it and see it for what it is. Report an error in the passage at 3:20
3:52 This is very interesting because the Western mind has really discovered only fairly recently non-dualism. Where in the Eastern, like in the Eastern philosophy in India, it's always been an ancient, I mean it's part of their whole system really. Like Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism is non-dual. Even though Hinduism offers a wide range of monistic, metaphysical, It also offers this non-dualism in Advaita Vedanta. Then in Buddhism is the real kind of perfection of that, of that particular way. Report an error in the passage at 3:52
4:42 You Report an error in the passage at 4:42
4:47 see, with another reflection, like a monotheism. We were brought up in the West through Christianity as monotheists. So monism is even taken to a particular one god, which is given attributes, like the Trinitarian Christianity does, so that you have this god with attributes, one god, and then you have, but then there's three, there's a trinity, and it gets very confusing. Report an error in the passage at 4:47
5:32 I have to really, I think there's been an enormous amount of literature written about this, trying to explain it all. Report an error in the passage at 5:32
5:41 But monotheism as an attachment tends to bring this sense of we're right, you're wrong, which is very strong in, say, like in Christianity, some forms of Christianity are very dualistic. Report an error in the passage at 5:41
6:01 Good and evil are totally separate and opposed forever, you know, absolutely opposed to each other. And you have to choose this and you have to get rid of the other so that you have this sense of alienation even more. You have this sense of evil. It means something you have to get rid of and annihilate all the time. Report an error in the passage at 6:01
6:29 The devil's up to you every moment and you've got to really make sure that he doesn't get you and that you have to, and you're attached to this very powerful doctrine of goodness. God is as good. Then you get this, and what that does to your mind is it gets a very strong tension, guys. Where you're in this state of tension all the time, where you're always feeling threatened by the devil. But in Christianity itself, if you, say, look at some of the actual stories in the Bible, you realize that there's much more. Report an error in the passage at 6:29
7:17 I mean, Jesus Christ's relationship to the devil wasn't of fear and annihilation, but of just recognition. Wasn't it? that good? Report an error in the passage at 7:17
7:28 When he was tempted by the devil, he didn't push the devil off the cliff. He just said, I recognize you, stand behind me, Satan. Something like that. Now in Buddhism, this is very much the way the Buddha always is dealing with Māra or the devil, the tempter. Report an error in the passage at 7:28
7:50 Never angry or contemptuous or upset by Māra. Just recognizing, I know you. This I know. So then a Buddha is the ability of a human being to know things as they are. So then the forces of evil, forces, temptations will come to us. We will experience that, but we know them. As the Buddha example, I know you, mother. Mother, then, this kind of paranoia where you think, oh, the devil's behind every bush. Report an error in the passage at 7:50
8:31 Life is really dangerous and you've got to get rid of those people because they're possessed by the devil and then you're really taken over by the devil. Report an error in the passage at 8:31
8:43 The king of heretics and witches and all of this comes from evil. It's an evil thing. Even though you think you're doing it in the name of God and righteousness, it's actually, you've actually been... The Buddha would just say, oh, I know you. Somebody, some thing comes in and those people are evil. You should kill them. The Buddha would say, I know you more. In Report an error in the passage at 8:43
9:24 Eastern philosophy, they had what they called a quadrilemma. It's a... Report an error in the passage at 9:24
9:35 There is good, there is evil, there is both, and there is neither. This is the way your mind can work, in which you can, you're not choosing a position in it, but you have ability with a liberated mind to examine life from different angles. Report an error in the passage at 9:35
9:59 It's not like to be a Buddhist, you have to throw out monistic faith. And condemn, I mean, you have Buddhists who are very attached to non-dualism. Report an error in the passage at 9:59
10:14 But that's merely attachment to the idea of non-dualism. Because as a practice, non-dualism frees your mind, so that you have a flexibility to contemplate things. And you realize a oneness. Report an error in the passage at 10:14
10:37 It's a realization, but it's no longer a positioning of your mind or a belief. Report an error in the passage at 10:37
10:49 So when, inevitably, if you want to inspire people, you have to speak more monistically. And so when I want to inspire people, I become a monist. Report an error in the passage at 10:49
11:05 When I'm trying to encourage people to practice meditation, then it's non-dualism. Report an error in the passage at 11:05
11:20 No, it's not that I'm trying to, you know, betraying anything, but just learning to use skillfully what is available. Convention. Because this I find very much a kind of wonder of our humanity is the flexibility and manability of the human mind. Report an error in the passage at 11:20
11:45 It's not that we came to make it become very rigid with our attachment. A tunnel vision is the modern symbol, isn't it? You blink and you just look at something and can't see how it relates to anything else. That's what is one of the big problems. And on the political scene, on the international political scene, there's blinking visions. Report an error in the passage at 11:45
12:14 You see only your side, your particular view. And it doesn't relate to anything wider. And so you're just determined to impose your will on other people through power and corruption. Report an error in the passage at 12:14
12:34 And actually there's room for everything. There's room for communists, there's room for socialists, there's room for conservatives. I mean, these aren't strictly fixed positions, but ways of contemplating things. Report an error in the passage at 12:34
12:51 You know, things change. What is particularly might have been a super idea 50 years ago might not be worth anything right now, even though it doesn't mean that it wasn't good then. But it may not apply to the needs of the present situation. To be aware of the needs of the situation, you have to be open and receptive, not fixed, biased, opinionated. Report an error in the passage at 12:51
13:19 There's Report an error in the passage at 13:19
13:23 somewhere in the speech that a Buddhist should detach himself or herself From Buddhism. What did you mean by that? Buddhism is a convention just like any other religion. It's a conventional, the word Buddha itself, dharma, saṅgha, these are conventions. Report an error in the passage at 13:23
13:50 So what we did, non-attachment doesn't mean that we get rid of the conventions, but we... We see the conventions and we know their purpose rather than being attached to them. Attachment to conventions means that we're kind of blinded by it. And if I'm a Buddhist, attached Buddhist, then I become very narrow-minded. I start thinking, I start looking down on everyone else who's not. Report an error in the passage at 13:50
14:21 It's easy to do, you know, you get, because you know your own way, just like being a Theravāda Buddhist. And so, you know, I've been a Theravāda Buddhist for so long, and it's so much, the convention's so, you know, I've used it so much I understand it. Report an error in the passage at 14:21
14:42 That it's easy to just think, well, this is the way to do it, because it's worked for me, and I think, well, it should work for everyone else. And so if you're not aware of that in yourself, then you can become even, you know, after years of Report an error in the passage at 14:42
15:01 Good intention and meditation still be blinded by the conventions you've used. Report an error in the passage at 15:01
15:09 And that's why the symbol of the raft, the Buddha used it, it's a raft that you use to get across the stream. And if you merely hold on to the raft, even when you get across the stream, what's the point of it? You're still hanging on to the raft. It doesn't mean you have to throw the raft away either, but you can use it then. Report an error in the passage at 15:09
15:35 To help others across. You know, if you use this raft, it helps. Report an error in the passage at 15:35
15:47 This is where religion is... Because religion, you're... It can be where religious conventions, we can easily be deluded by them. Because you're dealing with refinements and subtleties. With a sense of righteousness and truth. Report an error in the passage at 15:47
16:13 And morality and attachment to righteousness and views of truth and morality can make us very, can blind us, make us insensitive. Report an error in the passage at 16:13
16:30 So if I'm attached to a righteous view of how you should be, and I think you should be this way, you should be unselfish and unright, Report an error in the passage at 16:30
16:49 But then if I'm not sensitive to you, all I do is, whenever I see you, I think, you should be unselfish. I'm not sensitive or receptive to how you are or to the way things are. All I'm doing is just imposing a view onto you, which is maybe even a good view. But as an attachment, it desensitizes me. Report an error in the passage at 16:49
17:21 And so that's why people with very high mind abuse can be very, very insensitive. It Report an error in the passage at 17:21
17:36 used to surprise me because, you know, you hear one thing with this lovely kind of philosophical, broad-minded, tolerant reflections and attitudes. Report an error in the passage at 17:36
17:52 And then on the practical plane, be totally insensitive to the feelings of the people around them. Why? What's so unpleasant about that? Is that you hear, you know, we call it hypocrisy. You know, one thing is really wonderful and then the actual experience of being with them is horrible. And you're expecting, oh, if I could only live with people that speak like this, it would be so wonderful. And then... Report an error in the passage at 17:52
18:22 Then you're living with them and you find out they're really insensitive and selfish. Because on one level, what they're saying is right and beautiful and true, but they're attached to it in what Yates called the monuments of unaging intellect. Report an error in the passage at 18:22
18:44 It's just like cement monuments. They're beautiful in their form, but they don't feel anything. So the mindfulness allows you to be sensitive to a situation, a time and place, and therefore you're not judging it from a righteous position. You're still aware of it if it's wrong or bad or unpleasant, but you're not imposing anything onto it. Report an error in the passage at 18:44
19:19 So therefore... You can adapt or you can respond to it appropriately. But when you're coming from, say, high-minded idealism, this is just a reflection on, say, communism, Marxian communism. It comes from this very high-minded ideal. Then when it's imposed on a whole nation of people, it becomes a tyranny. And yet the ideal is... Report an error in the passage at 19:19
19:56 Wilhelm Magen, Report an error in the passage at 19:56
20:02 perspective, but as it's imposed on people, the sensitivity This is a totally sensitive form, the human body. It's not a monument. Report an error in the passage at 20:02
20:29 Like the Buddha Rūpa is a monument. And I could kick it and it wouldn't hurt. I could curse it and its expression would still remain serene. Report an error in the passage at 20:29
20:43 You know, because it's a monument of one aging intellect. But this isn't. This is, you know, if you kick it, it hurts. And if you curse me, you know, it hurts your mind because of the sensitivity. So this is where... You see, you don't want to take sense, you don't want to be just indulging and lost in being sensitive either. Report an error in the passage at 20:43
21:10 But you need that, you need that relationship of the ideal with the realities of living. So the ideal is like a guiding star. You have the ideal and you look to it, but you can't attach to it. Because if you attach to the guiding star, you'll fall off the cliff. So you need to get your direction, but then you need to deal with where you are. Report an error in the passage at 21:10
21:42 On the edge of a cliff, then you find... You might have to, you know... So you won't trip and stumble and hurt yourself. You need to bring attention to the way things are in this realm of feeling and consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 21:42
22:14 A little bit more. You mentioned being able to use the conventions of, say, the Anglican Church in one's moral, searching for a moral path. Report an error in the passage at 22:14
22:35 I've been associated with Buddhism for about 12 years. Now I live in a very tiny village. Which is totally dominated and associated with the church, which I haven't been involved in at all. In fact, I rejected Christianity, you see, years ago. Ever since you've been saying, I've just been turning over my mind all the while you've been talking. Report an error in the passage at 22:35
23:10 I wonder whether you could say more, because I can't see how one could actually use. I can't. I don't know how you, the Christian church, I don't get hostile to it, but you were mentioning that it can be possible to use the convention, you were saying, and the queen could say a little bit more. Report an error in the passage at 23:10
23:33 The conditioned realm, the world of forms, birth and death, is a little bit, if you really see it, what it is, takes you to the deathless, to the ultimate reality. So everything, even the devil, if you contemplate evil and see it as that which arises and ceases, then even the evil or the bad will take you to the ultimate. Report an error in the passage at 23:33
24:15 So from this what I'm saying is, is for your reflection. So you begin to see, look at the conditioned realm, or see exactly what is the conditioned realm. And the Buddha's teaching of it, of that it's impermanent, always announces to use the forms and the experiences and the feelings for that reflection. Report an error in the passage at 24:15
24:41 And as anattā, it's not ours, it's not self. Then religious forms, Which there are like trees you can use. Nature is wonderful for that. If you contemplate trees, you can just see them as just a kind of conventional way that people look at trees. Or you can contemplate there as a symbol. You know, what are they? You know, the roots in the ground, in the planet, reaching out to the sun. Report an error in the passage at 24:41
25:16 And so a tree is a very strong religious symbol, like the Bodhi tree or the cross and all of this. A tree is very much a religious symbol for humanity. So when we start contemplating trees rather than just looking at them for ecological balance or reforestation, which is all right too, but as a reflection on ultimate truth, Then even the trees remind us, like the sun itself is the center of this solar system. Report an error in the passage at 25:16
25:56 And we find ourselves, you know, the planet revolves around the sun and this sun is very important to us, the light it gives and the warmth. And then we realize these bodies are warmed by the sun, the fire, the energy is all somehow part of it all. This human body and its consciousness and its feeling, its blood and nerves and all this are involved in this experience of warmth and fire and energy. Report an error in the passage at 25:56
26:31 So that you're beginning to feel an integral part of it all and a witness to it rather than a victim. Then the religious conventions that we find ourselves with are contemplated. I remember this contemplating, what are church steeples about? Report an error in the passage at 26:31
26:55 And sometimes you get in European cities, there's skylines of these beautiful steeples and all pointing up to, you know, aspiring. Report an error in the passage at 26:55
27:11 So that the stupa in Buddhist country or Hindu, the stupa has this broad base on the earth and then it goes up to this fine point. Report an error in the passage at 27:11
27:26 So that it's pointing, the finger pointing to the transcendent. All these can be, give us that sense of remindedness because say worldly life, human life, family life, Community life can get so involved with all kinds of complicated things, emotional problems and urgent political, social, personal problems that this can overwhelm us. Report an error in the passage at 27:26
28:00 Our lives can be spent just on this kind of realm of like him and he doesn't like me and that kind of thing and what the neighbors are doing. Report an error in the passage at 28:00
28:31 what the neighbors are doing. Report an error in the passage at 28:31
28:40 human, if we start developing this reflectiveness of mind, then we We lose interest in that, in just the gossipy whirl of community and social life because we're aspiring beyond it. And that doesn't make us, we don't want to live in that realm. So in Christianity, because we're living in a country that predominantly the symbols are from Christianity, then it's a way of just really Not trying to contemplate them from a kind of traditional Christian view, but from your own feeling. Report an error in the passage at 28:40
29:27 What does this say to you? Like a crucifix, or a stained glass window, or whatever it is. You're not looking at it from the bias of, oh, it's Christianity, I'm not a Christian, but more as opening to it and contemplating it. What does it do? Report an error in the passage at 29:27
29:47 Like one can see sometimes if you've been disappointed by Christianity, you tend to just shut it out. I used to do it. Oh, that's Christian. It was a total blockage. I wouldn't even bother to consider it because I was biased against it. But then as the mind opened more, then I began to... What is this all about anyway, really? Report an error in the passage at 29:47
30:16 Rather than... Trying to get the party line from the church, I began to just, more or less, contemplate it as it is. Because I remember one time having a really powerful insight. I was in the city of Strasbourg, very briefly, and I went into the cathedral there, and I was contemplating this, all these Very ornate, with all the stained glass windows and statues and images of saints and everything, highly decorated. Report an error in the passage at 30:16
30:57 And there were tourists, tour guides going through there, school children and tourists, and the guides going through and explaining it all. And they had books everywhere, you know, to explain all the details of the windows, the rose windows and so forth. And then I thought, I was contemplating this, I was sitting there and contemplating, well, when this place was built, I wonder, you know, they didn't have tour guides, or they didn't have to explain anything to people. Report an error in the passage at 30:57
31:31 You know, you didn't, this was a way of learning, somehow, in those days people were literate, and only a few were educated to read and write. So that's probably how religious values were inculcated, through stories and pictures, images, in glass, stained glass, or in sculpture. And so it was just then I realized that I had to have it explained through a book, because my way of... Report an error in the passage at 31:31
32:09 My conditioning has been through modern education, where you read and write, and then you read a book to understand what the symbols in a rose window, where actually maybe those windows were created by an artist as an expression of a religious teaching, which needed to be explained through writing, but more or less through teaching and through contemplation. Report an error in the passage at 32:09
32:40 So then I just thought, what do these images do to my mind? If you're looking at them as aesthetic objects, that's one approach. Aren't they beautiful? Or are they too gaudy? Or I don't like this part of that. Looking at it aesthetically is one way of approaching it. Report an error in the passage at 32:40
33:06 Intellectually, just wanting to understand each symbol and have it explained out. And then reflectively, just how it actually affects you. And even if it doesn't affect you to know that, you know, if it just boggles your mind, your mind goes blank to even know that. And then when your mind goes quite empty, then things start... Because then when your mind's empty, it's very receptive. Report an error in the passage at 33:06
33:38 So then symbolism, it gets to... To speak for itself. It no longer has to be, you don't have to write a treatise about it abstractly and study it from a book, but you're beginning to read into it and learn from it. And it's always pointing beyond itself. As you say, everything points in the end, everything takes you to the ultimate reality, the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 33:38
34:13 So even death takes you to deathless. Well, Report an error in the passage at 34:13
34:23 from a dualistic position, I like life and I don't want death. Good and I don't want evil. Everything is fraught, there's tension from polarization. Report an error in the passage at 34:23
34:55 It's probably the expression of a reflective mind. A lot of poetry is very reflective. It's what comes up in somebody's mind that is when the mind is receptive rather than fixed and where you're trying to describe something that's indescribable because it's a realization rather than a thing as such. And so you have to use poetic form to do that. You can't just use descriptive form because that... Report an error in the passage at 34:55
35:35 That's only for describing something rather than for the expression of, let's say, joy or wisdom or beauty, truth. So poetry kind of conveys that, a real insight, an experience of joy or an experience of truth in individuals. Report an error in the passage at 35:35
36:01 And poetry is a... is a form, written form, that suited to that. why a lot of poetry doesn't make sense. Report an error in the passage at 36:01
36:17 can be very personal Report an error in the passage at 36:17
36:34 people have an educational background, a classical education, you know, so much of the images are to, you know, like, Greek, Greek, Grecian and Roman attitude, concepts. And yet now that people have no classical education, that poetry goes right over you. It doesn't mean anything. I remember reading a line, Neobian tears. Report an error in the passage at 36:34
37:12 Neobian tears? What's that? I had to look it up and find out what that was. It was Greek. I mean, but if you've been educated in classics, that would have immediately beat something. Can Report an error in the passage at 37:12
37:47 we be too reflective? Well, Report an error in the passage at 37:47
37:55 it can be. It's this, to develop the reflective mind then allows us to act. Because it's not just to kind of sit down and contemplate things in a very passive way. That is the way. But it's also the ability to respond to life. The feeling of it, to the impingement of it. But with reflection, that allows us to get a perspective. It's not just a reaction anymore. Report an error in the passage at 37:55
38:31 Where life without reflection tends to be just conditioned to react. So we can push your buttons. That person that has no perspective and just is conditioned, then you're easily set off. You know, I can say, you know, the modern term, pushing your buttons. I can make you happy or angry or relate to the button I push. That means you're just a kind of helpless victim of certain stuff. Report an error in the passage at 38:31
39:06 Then you think, well, I'm not going near that monk again because he pushes those buttons that make me angry. Report an error in the passage at 39:06
39:17 I'm going to Report an error in the passage at 39:17
39:22 that monk that pushes the buttons that really inspire me. I'd love to go to the monk that inspires me. Report an error in the passage at 39:22
39:44 recognize with observing. Report an error in the passage at 39:44
39:49 you can respond life you're not just picking and choosing you have a perspective to work in You have the courage to respond to life's challenges that you don't have if you're just reacting to things. Because that tends to make us cowards or blindly aggressive or just power, you know, calling our own power and imposing it on others or just being frightened of doing anything because we might get hurt by it. Report an error in the passage at 39:49
40:24 But this way we have a kind of fearlessness, even to make mistakes. It doesn't mean we're always going to do things rightly, but we're willing to learn from mistakes, from error. I don't want to do anything because I might do it wrong. We're quite willing to take risks in life. Report an error in the passage at 40:24
40:50 But then if you get into just attachment to the idea of contemplation, then you don't want to do the dishes. Report an error in the passage at 40:50
41:11 I'm contemplating the trees and writing poetry while the kitchen sink is... What Report an error in the passage at 41:11
41:49 is it? You said, worry is what we produce, but we don't have any faith in something beyond playlist and playing. Worry? I'm contemplating, because I'm a great worlier. Report an error in the passage at 41:49
42:07 Speaking from personal experience, because Report an error in the passage at 42:07
42:15 the mind just, one Report an error in the passage at 42:15
42:22 can always, the thing that struck me was like here in England, when we first came, everything was very uncertain. Would we, you know, how would we survive this Buddhist month in a non-Buddhist country? Would we be beaten up and attacked by people? Or would anybody give us alms food? Or what would happen? So then, The tendency was to worry about it. What will we do if this happens? Report an error in the passage at 42:22
42:57 What will we do if this doesn't happen? But my life here in this country has been a very good one, actually. The majority of the experiences have been very positive and uplifting. And I began to see that even when everything's going rightly, once you're caught in this habit of worry, you still worry. So it became obvious that people were interested in the dharma and they were going to feed us and that we were going to survive and there was going to, monasteries were going to be supported and all that. Report an error in the passage at 42:57
43:35 But then when there wasn't anything to worry about, then there was, one could find something else. Report an error in the passage at 43:35
43:48 So then I thought, what is the way to, and being in a responsible position, like you're a habit of a monastery and you're a teacher and all this, you're getting into these very, into positions of where you can't just hide behind another, in Thailand I could kind of hide behind Ajahn Chah's robes. And because I wasn't a native Thai, I could get out of a lot of things. Report an error in the passage at 43:48
44:18 Because I was a foreigner, you know, they'd let you get away with more than they would say at the time of. So there are certain advantages. But then being here was your kind of up front and always the focal point. And then there was worrying tendencies and doubt, worry, doubt, anxiety. And then the reflective way, reflective meditation, is to go out to the feeling of it. Like I would begin to just open to that very feeling of worry or doubt, uncertainty, rather than just try to affirm it out of consciousness, everything's going to be alright, I'll just have faith, everything's going to be alright. Report an error in the passage at 44:18
45:06 Affirmation is one way of suppressing worry. But then I found that what was really the way out of worry was not by suppressing it, but by And totally accepting the feeling of it. Then I began to see the insight that came from that was that on the sensory realm there is an awful lot to worry about naturally. Report an error in the passage at 45:06
45:37 It wasn't a neurotic hang-up with me, it was just... And that's just the way life is, it's full of worries. Naturally. Report an error in the passage at 45:37
45:51 On the realm of pleasure and pain and personality and success and failure, the worldly dhammas, then there is, because just physically, just think how much there is to worry about. You could trip and break your leg, you could have a heart attack, you could... You could be beaten up, there could be a nuclear holocaust, there could be an IRA explosion there. I mean, and you don't know, you know, all kinds of things you might end up, you think, I hope if that happens I just die. Report an error in the passage at 45:51
46:23 I mean, I just told my family in ground zero when they dropped the bomb. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? What we're most worried about is we might be on that fringe area and everybody's still alive. Report an error in the passage at 46:23
46:40 And that's what you worry about. All the possibilities. Because there is a lot to worry about. And the human mind being a... Because you have memory, you remember, you see. You can hold on to things of the past, like, well, this happened to me five years ago. What if it happens again? So with the animal kingdom, they don't remember things like that. So they're more... Report an error in the passage at 46:40
47:15 Frightened by the immediate kind of instinctual fear motivates them. Where in a country like this one, where it's definitely a country developed to try to give us a sense of security. You have a stable government, you have political institutions, democratic institutions, you have welfare, medical services. Report an error in the passage at 47:15
47:41 services, of education, all these are laid on for us to give us a sense of security, and still we worry. Yeah, there's tremendous worry, worrisome society. Even when the, when, even when the institutions Report an error in the passage at 47:41
48:13 This experience of life. And if you go to the actual feeling of insecurity, you find it peaceful. It's a kind of paradox. But when you're just reacting to that feeling, you get worried about it, frightened by it. But as you open to that uncertainty, insecurity feeling that you have, rather than reacting to it, as you accept it and bear with it, you'll find it's Peacefulness. You'll find a sense of peace with yourself. So that's why that you can transmute this worry, anxiety problem of our human experience. Report an error in the passage at 48:13
49:01 It's actually, if skillfully used, takes us to serenity of mind. Because then your mind will, you won't be creating all these possibilities in your mind. What if this happens, that happens, and then get all caught up into worry when you're going to, because when your mind, when you're with that very feeling of insecurity, that feeling, that mood, your thinking mind will stop operating and you'll begin to recognize emptiness of mind, which is a mind very receptive to the way things are. Then you have perspective, you have, You begin to have real faith in that the problems of life that you experience, you'll be able to cope with. Report an error in the passage at 49:01
49:58 Like now, for example, myself, I realize the potential for any moment having a heart attack or being beaten up or nuclear holocaust or the ozone hole growing bigger and all the whales disappearing in the ocean and Britain being taken over by the communists or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 49:58
50:20 You know, from the worst to the best. But what I know now is that I trust that whatever happens, I will respond to it appropriately. Because it's not the important issue anymore. One is in tune with something transcendent rather than thinking, well, if I don't have this, I'll just die. If this happens, I won't be able to stand it. I realize that whatever happens, I'll stand it. Report an error in the passage at 50:20
50:56 Buddhism believe in heaven and hell? But they see it more as a psychological, it's a psychological heaven and hell. Where in the western world, it's either heaven and hell tend to be kind of locations that you go to, if you've been good or bad. That's the kind of childlike vision. But in Buddhism is very much a mental, a psychological state. So you hear of Zen masters and that. Report an error in the passage at 50:56
51:33 Somebody says, you know, some story, I'll probably tell this wrongly, but about a Zen master, some Japanese samurai comes and says, explain to me about heaven and hell. And the Zen master... Report an error in the passage at 51:33
51:55 Does something to make the Samurai very angry. And the Samurai is not ready to chop off the head of the Zen Master. And he says, that's hell. So then you see that hell is anger. And then heaven, when the Samurai realized that he let go, and he says, that's heaven. Report an error in the passage at 51:55
52:22 But the heaven is happiness. There's a different heavenly realm. So on one level you have, when you get something that you like, you have, say you want something and you get it, that's a heavenly feeling. If you contemplate it, I'm not telling you it is, it's kind of doctrinal truth, but contemplating it like this, getting something that you want, that feeling of then, if you contemplate it, is... Report an error in the passage at 52:22
52:55 Well, it's a heavenly feeling. You feel, you're happy with it. Report an error in the passage at 52:55
53:02 But then in order to stay in that heaven realm, you have to keep getting things, you have to keep wanting things in order to get them. Report an error in the passage at 53:02
53:13 You see, so this is what capitalism is. It's sending us to heaven by creating all kinds of things that we want and that we can get so we can keep experiencing heaven. But it's still... In Buddhist terms, heaven is not an end in itself, it's a form of suffering actually, attachment to happiness is suffering. Report an error in the passage at 53:13
53:38 Then we can live in a realm of high-minded ideas, of a kind of ivory tower of refinements. You can say you get very refined, aesthetics and subtleties and refinements of form. You live in a very high realm. That's a very pleasing realm to be in. But it's also very unstable in our human state. And the fact that the human condition, you have to deal with very coarse things along with it. And so you begin to, the more attached you are to refinement, the more you suffer from just the coarseness of the material world and the grosser. Report an error in the passage at 53:38
54:30 ...forms that are an inevitable part of our life. So I've noticed that people that are very attached to refinement suffer enormously. Report an error in the passage at 54:30
54:41 David Chithurst, I remember meeting a man, he had a very kind of refined gentleman. He had beautiful gardens and a beautiful home. And everything was, you go inside his house and everything was so tasteful, so... Well done, so perfect, so pleasing, so high-minded, and yet he couldn't, when he left that realm, he just seemed totally confused and averse. Report an error in the passage at 54:41
55:17 So he came one time to Chithurst at a time when we had a big festival, and all the different people, all the... Report an error in the passage at 55:17
55:38 except being averse to it. Because to him, to eat something, it had to be done in just a certain refined way and had to, that kind of milling, confusing was All he could do was feel averse and critical of it because in his own life he developed such a refinement that he suffered enormously when those conditions weren't supported. Report an error in the passage at 55:38
56:08 Then I thought, well that's, you know, I used to admire that. Wouldn't it be nice to live in this realm of such, that kind of ethereal refinement and beauty all the time. But then witnessing him, I thought, No, no. Report an error in the passage at 56:08
56:29 There's too much suffering involved. Because this human realm is, this is the realm of, where, and the human, you know, the idea of non, of choicelessness, like the bhikkhu, where the idea of the Buddhist mind is to get what you, to receive all. no, no. Report an error in the passage at 56:29
· · · silence, 1 minute
56:55 So that you just, you take that food... Report an error in the passage at 56:55
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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