Life Hurts (1993)

0:00 and reflect on it. Last week it was stress and its cessation that attracted a lot of people. Life hurts, right? But Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:20 in this afternoon we can just contemplate how these kind of basic experiences of life, things that are just so ordinary such as happiness and and unhappiness and what they really are and how you know because sometimes our life is caught up in in all kinds of anticipations and and assumptions about things and I found that even when happiness when there is happiness we we seldom can really fully appreciate it because the mind is Report an error in the passage at 0:20 Highlight the passage at 0:20

1:17 Something in us is programmed to go on to something else, because the programming is that way. be able to relax and to just be, to have the confidence and the trust in just being conscious and Report an error in the passage at 1:17 Highlight the passage at 1:17

1:41 Sometimes we feel very guilty if we're not busy going somewhere, doing something, going on to the next thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:41 Highlight the passage at 1:41

1:51 In a reflection on life hurts is trying to bring our attention to that life basically is an experience of great sensitivity. It has a lot of feeling in it. It's this way, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate. unfortunate particular things that happen to us might be. if you contemplate just your own physical just having the human body, what is it like an experience? Report an error in the passage at 1:51 Highlight the passage at 1:51

2:28 when you contemplate it, not judge it, not to make any strong statements about it, but just notice, be aware of what it is is to to be be Report an error in the passage at 2:28 Highlight the passage at 2:28

2:44 The physical form, the sensitive form that we have, you can see it is basically quite a situation that provides with a lot of physical pain, discomfort, and that life itself brings a lot of disappointments and disillusionments to us. Maybe we expect too much from life. When we're young and idealistic and don't have a lot of experience. We sometimes expect life to be something we find out later it's really not that way. Report an error in the passage at 2:44 Highlight the passage at 2:44

3:31 the mind easily goes into blame, either towards oneself or towards other people. Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

3:41 But when you contemplate life hurts, then something in us says, yeah, that's all right. Why shouldn't it? That's the way it is. Why should we expect it to be otherwise? Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

3:56 in that then it's not a kind of bitter resignation to a bad experience but it's an acceptance of the sensitive state that we're in and all the possible experiences that we know, we imagine. imagine, begin to Instead of dreading or fearing, we begin to just take our lives and learn from them, learn what we can from what happens to us. Report an error in the passage at 3:56 Highlight the passage at 3:56

4:33 Life itself is, as far as we know, our understanding of it is this way, that it's planetary life, it's physical existence, it's sensitivity. Report an error in the passage at 4:33 Highlight the passage at 4:33

4:51 Life to us oftentimes means the life of our body. So that we, because we tend to identify so strongly and make assumptions about ourselves as being this physical form, that we assume that when this form dies that that's the end of life. Report an error in the passage at 4:51 Highlight the passage at 4:51

5:12 We can see that we, just the logic there, that the death of a human body means that life is no longer present. But when you begin to Contemplate it more and more, investigate it for what it really is. You begin to notice that this body is just something that is temporarily operating within the experience of life. Report an error in the passage at 5:12 Highlight the passage at 5:12

5:44 And that because it was born, it will die. And when it's time has come for it to die, then that's the natural, that's what's natural for it. Report an error in the passage at 5:44 Highlight the passage at 5:44

5:58 And we begin to see that, understand more the amata, or the deathless reality, rather than see the end of life as a physical death. Report an error in the passage at 5:58 Highlight the passage at 5:58

6:14 It's also a kind of conceit, ingrained conceit, in just the way we think, isn't it? That we assume that once we die, that's the end of life. Report an error in the passage at 6:14 Highlight the passage at 6:14

6:26 What about when we're asleep? You know, what happens to the world when we're asleep? Because we're no longer conscious of anything other than, say, maybe a few dreams that might go through the mind at that time. Or what happened, you know, in the rest of the world, all that's happening, say, in London today or in Paris or in Bosnia or wherever, we can contemplate as being Report an error in the passage at 6:26 Highlight the passage at 6:26

7:00 We assume that other human beings are doing exactly the same thing that we're doing or thinking, feeling, conscious beings that are having maybe moments of happiness or sorrow or despair. Report an error in the passage at 7:00 Highlight the passage at 7:00

7:19 But as an actual experience now, we don't know. We know that we're feeling at this moment. We can know what's going through our mind. We can observe the pleasure or the pain, the doubt or the despair or the indifference or the fear or the happiness or the joy that we might be experiencing at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 7:19 Highlight the passage at 7:19

7:48 That we can know for sure. Report an error in the passage at 7:48 Highlight the passage at 7:48

7:53 And so the Buddha's teaching is aimed at that kind of awareness of seeing how the... The qualities of the conditioned realm are fleeting. They come and go and they move very quickly. They change. They're unstable. You can't stabilize them. You can't make them last. It's their nature to begin and end. Report an error in the passage at 7:53 Highlight the passage at 7:53

8:23 But in that reflection you begin to ask yourself questions like what is it that can be aware of all this? Who is it that knows this? What is it that watches? Report an error in the passage at 8:23 Highlight the passage at 8:23

8:45 And that throws us back onto, say, just that attentive awareness. Report an error in the passage at 8:45 Highlight the passage at 8:45

8:55 Because you can't find out what is aware. You can only be aware. And this is where what we need to trust in is just that being aware, that willingness to just be. With this conscious state, with whatever happens to be going on, noting it, accepting it, reflecting upon it, contemplating it, but no longer just rushing around trying to go on to the next thing, to distract ourselves into something else. Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:36 Like the cessation of stress. is the willingness to relax and stay with the way things are, no matter what they might be. Report an error in the passage at 9:36 Highlight the passage at 9:36

9:54 With the Report an error in the passage at 9:54 Highlight the passage at 9:54

9:58 experiences of life, and just notice how we, in the newspapers and the mass media and just on the telephones and just the gossip or the experiences of just our own family. family or acquaintances. The things that happened in the world, such as divorce, infidelity, adultery, neglect, Report an error in the passage at 9:58 Highlight the passage at 9:58

10:31 child abuse, criminal activities, lying, corruption, all of these kind of subjects are always news for us. But what did they actually do to the mind when we hear about, say, the misfortunes of famous people? What is so fascinating, really, about, say, the unhappiness or the failures or misfortunes of famous people? Report an error in the passage at 10:31 Highlight the passage at 10:31

11:09 Why do we give so much importance to the royal family of this country? Why do we care so much about, why are we so interested in what they do? And so we can, because, you know, when we contemplate this, we begin to realize our own humanity is the same. That we tend to think of ourselves maybe as not being an important or significant figure in the society. Report an error in the passage at 11:09 Highlight the passage at 11:09

11:42 But yet we still have the same life hurt experiences. And I don't think we delight, particularly delight in the misery of the rich and glamorous and famous, but it does help us to realize that it's part of life experience, that everyone gets their fair share of it, no matter who they are. Report an error in the passage at 11:42 Highlight the passage at 11:42

12:06 And nobody's really going to get out of it that much, because life is like this. Report an error in the passage at 12:06 Highlight the passage at 12:06

12:17 Reflect every day. We are the owners of our karma, heir to our karma, born of our karma. So this word karma in Buddhist terminology is quite significant because it's about just the results of having been born and having done the things that we've done, having said the things that we've said, having experienced the things that we've experienced. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

12:46 Sometimes because it is a bit of an exotic word we can empower it, it has a little more impact maybe. We just say cause and effect is a bit bland and not quite so glamorous. And yet some of us would maybe prefer that because karma always kind of has the sound of the exotic orient or some Hindu kind of... Report an error in the passage at 12:46 Highlight the passage at 12:46

13:41 what we really mean, isn't it, is that... That the results, the results now, say this is a resultant karma, the way it is right now. Say just having left your home and come here, the result of that is that you're here. Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

14:01 Why aren't you somewhere else? Report an error in the passage at 14:01 Highlight the passage at 14:01

14:06 And that what you're feeling and hearing and all that is a resultant karma of having made the effort to, say, get up and get into your car and drive here. Report an error in the passage at 14:06 Highlight the passage at 14:06

14:36 you know, quite experience. So we can observe the resultant karma in any moment. Report an error in the passage at 14:36 Highlight the passage at 14:36

14:48 interesting to... As you begin to appreciate your ability to do this, one feels a real interest in life, in what happens. And it doesn't have to be anything special either. Because you're not thinking that you need special kind of extreme experiences for your life anymore. You don't need to have adventures and fantastic special events. Report an error in the passage at 14:48 Highlight the passage at 14:48

15:19 To live your life because just the ordinariness of life is what you begin to look at and observe where before maybe you didn't, maybe you just ignored that. There's so much that one can just not pay attention to and pass over because it doesn't seem significant. We've not given it any significance in our lives. Report an error in the passage at 15:19 Highlight the passage at 15:19

15:44 And yet just the effect of Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

16:03 news or or the neighbors start complaining or the or you hear a possibility of of losing your job or or failing the examination or even passing the examination whatever these these these kind of perceptions they affect our consciousness and we can and we can merely kind of ignore this Thanks for Report an error in the passage at 16:03 Highlight the passage at 16:03

16:30 fact, much of life can be just an escape from, just a way of kind of avoiding these things because we to worry. We worry about passing the examination or... Report an error in the passage at 16:30 Highlight the passage at 16:30

16:46 we'll keep our job or whether the cold and wet, or whether, you know, our lives will be able to maintain them in the same way as we get older. So that even though these are worries for us, the worrying... Report an error in the passage at 16:46 Highlight the passage at 16:46

17:10 Part of our life tends to be one of just going on to the next thing. It's not resolving anything. One's just caught up in a series of unpleasant mental states that lead to a sense of despair or annoyance or exasperation. And then we want to get out of it, get away from it, distract ourselves into something that will stop this kind of proliferation. Report an error in the passage at 17:10 Highlight the passage at 17:10

17:39 So instead of doing that, we think, life hurts. It feels like this. When I hear, when the neighbors complain or somebody criticizes me, it feels this way. Report an error in the passage at 17:39 Highlight the passage at 17:39

17:52 I remember years ago in Thailand, there was some monks, Western monks. They had just come from the United States and recently ordained, and they'd been reading about these confrontations that were very popular back in the, Report an error in the passage at 17:52 Highlight the passage at 17:52

18:20 say, you know, I think that you're this way or I feel that you're that way or whatever feeling they happen to be feeling towards you, they kind of tell you immediately. Report an error in the passage at 18:20 Highlight the passage at 18:20

18:35 so they were talking about that this was probably a very good thing to do. And I could feel his inner terror arising. Report an error in the passage at 18:35 Highlight the passage at 18:35

18:46 Really strong, almost like, you know, quite a strong fear arose when I thought these monks are going to really make my life unbearable because they're going to confront me every day that I'm with them. Report an error in the passage at 18:46 Highlight the passage at 18:46

19:01 We won't be able to just pass the day being pleasant to each other and avoiding issues totally. But we're always going to have to go around kind of saying, why did you look cross-eyed at me? Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:19 Because one really hasn't really maybe fully admitted to oneself the fears and the hurt and the disappointments of one's own life and maybe has developed a whole kind of lifestyle around avoidance and just putting on an act really or passing things off or dismissing. Report an error in the passage at 19:19 Highlight the passage at 19:19

19:48 See, when you hear of someone that is quite frank and forthright in what they say, one tends to, just the thought of them tends to bring forth a sense of fear or threat. And you can actually feel that. You can actually be aware of that feeling. And this is what I found very helpful, is to reflect on that feeling. Report an error in the passage at 19:48 Highlight the passage at 19:48

20:13 You know, one thing... Why do I start shaking when people say, I want to share something with you, Sumedho, in California? Report an error in the passage at 20:13 Highlight the passage at 20:13

20:30 And then you think, oh, I'm in for it now. They're going to say things that will hurt me, that will offend me, that will distress my mind. And so, because, you know, my own background was a background of avoidance. The family I grew up in, we were all kind of determined to not address real issues, but to always put on a good face and a stiff upper lip and make the best of life, as they said, which worked all right in some cases, but it also made you very unable to relate very deeply to anyone else because the only way you knew how to do was to... Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

21:20 To be rather nice and bland and go around pretending that everything's all right. And in that, of course, you felt the result was a sense of never really getting to know anyone and always feeling a bit threatened or frightened at the possibility of anything deeper than just a banal surface pleasantries. Report an error in the passage at 21:20 Highlight the passage at 21:20

21:50 And yet each one of us, I think, longs to get in there and kind of break into the real stuff. I mean, there's something in us also that wants to know the truth and wants to be liberated from our own fears and our own imprisonment of habits and attitudes. Report an error in the passage at 21:50 Highlight the passage at 21:50

22:14 I was reading about some woman poet who is... One of her great lines was, invade my privacy. This was like a cry from a person who lived a very private life. Report an error in the passage at 22:14 Highlight the passage at 22:14

22:37 And yet, you know, it had all the kind of, the defenses up to make, that's exactly what they wanted. And yet, there's also this longing for it to be invaded, to be taken away. Report an error in the passage at 22:37 Highlight the passage at 22:37

22:52 Not to be left in this state of just kind of safe isolation from life and from the feeling of life. One could even look at monasticism as that way of a kind of avoidance. And it can be used like that because monastic life is disciplined. It's based on a high level of etiquette, duties and obligations to each other. Report an error in the passage at 22:52 Highlight the passage at 22:52

23:22 And therefore it can be idealized into what a really good monk should be, a good nun should be, and we can get terribly inspired by the idealism of Buddhist monasticism. Report an error in the passage at 23:22 Highlight the passage at 23:22

23:42 But in the actual nitty-gritty of daily life, one finds that in Saṅgha life, the community life of monastics, You're constantly having to kind of open your heart up to what's actually taking place. You have to, when you're living with each other, the system of, say, obligations, duties and that to each other, based on morality. Report an error in the passage at 23:42 Highlight the passage at 23:42

24:12 So we're not, you know, there's no, we have a strong sense of respecting each other in regards to, You know, the property and the physical body itself and the spiritual aspiration of each member of the Saṅgha. So, I mean, that's something that we must reflect upon and treasure and protect. But in the process of getting on with daily life, all our kind of faults and weaknesses appear. Report an error in the passage at 24:12 Highlight the passage at 24:12

24:53 We can't maintain the stiff upper lip. It's a kind of permanent, petrified posture, can you? You can't keep the lip stiff all that for very long when it starts trembling. And then also, over the years... Report an error in the passage at 24:53 Highlight the passage at 24:53

25:19 Things, you know, one develops as you're developing, say, meditation, mindfulness around the way things are, you become more willing to look at things. You feel more confident that you can actually look at your fears and observe them and accept them. Look at the anxiety or the worry or the doubt in your mind. Report an error in the passage at 25:19 Highlight the passage at 25:19

26:14 Those desires in one that want some kind of sensual pleasure or satisfaction or the anger or the jealousy, the envy or the feelings of self, lack of self-worth. One begins to take an interest in these things. Report an error in the passage at 26:14 Highlight the passage at 26:14

26:41 Take an interest rather than think that these, than look at these things as something that are in your Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

27:21 Their quality or they can be maybe just unnoticed tendencies of your life that you've just been so used to. You've never had any perspective upon them, yet they do leave you at the end of the day maybe with a feeling of incredible loneliness or feeling of resentment. Report an error in the passage at 27:21 Highlight the passage at 27:21

27:48 Because it's not always that terrible, I mean really dreadful or unfortunate things have happened to us that have ruined our lives, but there can be a whole series of little experiences that have influenced the way we tend to react and see to the daily life that we have. Report an error in the passage at 27:48 Highlight the passage at 27:48

28:14 One thing, it's interesting to see the monks and nuns in regards to Report an error in the passage at 28:14 Highlight the passage at 28:14

28:49 Americans are so idealistic, they think that everyone is ideally equal in every way. Men and women equal in every way, there's no difference. Report an error in the passage at 28:49 Highlight the passage at 28:49

29:01 And races, all classes, everybody should be equal anyway, should be totally equal. anything hierarchical then seems to be like something that that shouldn't shouldn't be. be which always leaves Report an error in the passage at 29:01 Highlight the passage at 29:01

29:23 who in practical ways maybe are above us or better than we are or in positions of authority. Report an error in the passage at 29:23 Highlight the passage at 29:23

29:34 interesting to see, it would say, with the nuns and the monks, the attitude of women towards men, just the feelings and that the nuns have about monks or being the male presence, because the Theravāda. Structure is a very kind of highly male-dominated form. It's a very masculine outfit. Report an error in the passage at 29:34 Highlight the passage at 29:34

30:11 That's why I wonder why the nuns want to be with us. They Report an error in the passage at 30:11 Highlight the passage at 30:11

30:22 resent male authority so much. But these things are not to justify or to... criticize but to observe the feelings that one has in regards to these experiences. Report an error in the passage at 30:22 Highlight the passage at 30:22

30:45 It's interesting to see when sometimes when a nun has some authority and in charge of things how to see the way monks react to that. Report an error in the passage at 30:45 Highlight the passage at 30:45

31:01 Because it works both ways. Bhikkhus are used to being the kind of The nuns usually defer to the bhikkhus, so sometimes a nun will have something that she's in charge of, and she might get quite authoritative in that position, and it brings up very strong feelings in some of the monks, including myself. Report an error in the passage at 31:01 Highlight the passage at 31:01

31:38 And so these are the very, this is the nitty-gritty, this is the stuff of life hurts, isn't it? Rather than ignoring these things, one looks at them, one watches, one embraces them, one is willing to feel them. Because you know that this is the way to resolve that kind of karma, rather than just go through the usual ways of reacting to it. Report an error in the passage at 31:38 Highlight the passage at 31:38

32:13 One way I think that is very common among men is to just suppress, just ignore feeling. If feelings get too much, you can just kind of turn the other way, refuse to look at it. Report an error in the passage at 32:13 Highlight the passage at 32:13

32:34 And therefore, the karma never is resolved. One is always caught reacting in the same way through one's whole life, unless we learn to skillfully resolve these tendencies or these kind of hurting... Things of life as they happen to us. To Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

33:04 be the senior figure in a community, be the patriarch, and to be able to fulfill that role within a community without becoming attached to it or becoming embarrassed by it. Report an error in the passage at 33:04 Highlight the passage at 33:04

33:31 Because inevitably we have to relate to each other in different ways. Somebody has to enter the doorway first. We all can't enter at the same moment. When we go through the line for the food, somebody has to go first. There has to be an agreement about how we do things. And therefore, say the conventions we do have are merely practical agreements to make life, to simplify life, to make it possible, this is not terribly confused, to have an order that we all agree to. Report an error in the passage at 33:31 Highlight the passage at 33:31

34:17 And from that order, from that agreement, then it's possible to be mindful of what we actually feel. Report an error in the passage at 34:17 Highlight the passage at 34:17

34:30 And we realize that in our lives the more we are willing to actually feel life, to be hurt by life, to accept the slings and arrows, to accept the problems, the difficulties, the ups, the downs, the willingness to feel all of it, then we really can take an interest in our lives. Report an error in the passage at 34:30 Highlight the passage at 34:30

35:06 When I was saying just a few minutes ago about this confrontation years ago, this idea of confronting. Anyway, the monks, we all decided to have a confrontation session one afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 35:06 Highlight the passage at 35:06

35:20 And so we all met in a certain place, the appointed time, and I was petrified. But I wasn't willing to admit I was petrified. I was pretending that I wasn't. Because you don't want to look like that, because they might actually... You know, confront you with, why are you frightened? So he pretended that I wasn't. Report an error in the passage at 35:20 Highlight the passage at 35:20

35:45 And therefore, one found that myself kind of going to a level of kind of wise cracks or kind of silly humor is to kind of ease the tensions and make it not so important, kind of, you know, make it less threatening by By filling my mind with rather silly thoughts and foolish jokes. Then one of the monks that was really into confrontation, he wanted us to confront him. Report an error in the passage at 35:45 Highlight the passage at 35:45

36:25 Now that's a strange thing. I thought they were all going to have a go at me. But actually, this monk wanted us to attack him. He seemed to have a great need for being told off. So, and he is quite a difficult character, so some of the monks started saying, well, you know, why do you do this, and why are you always late, and why, and this and that. Report an error in the passage at 36:25 Highlight the passage at 36:25

36:52 He seemed to quite enjoy being criticized. I thought, this is strange. And so when it came my turn to, he says, okay. Ajahn Sumedho, what have you got to say about me? I decided, instead of saying anything critical, I just decided to say what I found very nice about him. So I told him. And he was furious. Report an error in the passage at 36:52 Highlight the passage at 36:52

37:25 He thought I was lying. He thought I was afraid to tell him. Because this is a confrontation. Confrontations always have to be critical. We can confront each other with, you know, let me tell you about how wonderful you are. Report an error in the passage at 37:25 Highlight the passage at 37:25

37:43 Rather than I've come to tell you how horrible you are or how much you annoy me. Report an error in the passage at 37:43 Highlight the passage at 37:43

37:53 And then they finally, it came my turn to be confronted and every one of them said, well we have nothing to say about you, you're okay. What a relief. Report an error in the passage at 37:53 Highlight the passage at 37:53

38:04 I got out of that one. Because I was really, you know, really quite terrified. They were going to go in and Report an error in the passage at 38:04 Highlight the passage at 38:04

38:30 out something that you don't want to really know about anyway. And so there is a relief, the fact that somehow with me I've managed to Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

38:42 of it. And I realize that that has been very much a... Report an error in the passage at 38:42 Highlight the passage at 38:42

39:04 that I'm perfectly normal and that they don't, people aren't so, or else maybe I give off the impression that I'm so sensitive and that if they said anything I'd probably be totally shattered by it. But anyway, my life has not been one where people have confronted me very much and had really sad things that were all that shattering. Report an error in the passage at 39:04 Highlight the passage at 39:04

39:31 And it's also, I appreciate that, it's given me a chance to develop, say, mindfulness around the events of life, just the little things of life, just the annoyances. Or the exasperations that one experiences in daily life. Report an error in the passage at 39:31 Highlight the passage at 39:31

39:56 Or because these opportunities were available and made conscious to me, there was also the definite influence of the suggestion that it might be a good thing to really look and observe. Report an error in the passage at 39:56 Highlight the passage at 39:56

40:16 And then... Reading the Buddha's teachings from that, the Satipaṭṭhāna, the four foundations of mindfulness, one began to see that actually Buddha was pointing to this in his own way. Report an error in the passage at 40:16 Highlight the passage at 40:16

40:31 When he talks about the foundations of mindfulness, he's talking about just the physical body itself, just this one's own body with its senses, its eyes and ears and nose and tongue, the sensitivity of the whole form with its... With its brain, with its nervous system, with its organs, with its breath, with its mental state, with the ability to feel, to be attracted, repelled through the senses, with the mind itself, with the memories that we have, with the moods of the mind, the fears, the anguish, the despair, the loves and hates, The happiness, the disappointment, the hurts of life. That the Buddha was, you know, be mindful of these. Report an error in the passage at 40:31 Highlight the passage at 40:31

41:27 Know these things as they are for what they really are. Now, what they really are in terms of dharma is that they're impermanent and they're not self. And so I realized more and more that why I was so frightened. This confrontation years ago was because I would take any criticism or anything that was mental or physical as something that would be filled with a sense of being mine. Report an error in the passage at 41:27 Highlight the passage at 41:27

42:05 And so therefore, when you're so identified with your body, with your sensitivity, with your moods and memories, thoughts and tendencies, when that's... Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:20 a strong identity, then one is, there's a level of anxiety always in the experience of life, these are are terribly you know frightened of what others will say what will the neighbors think what will my friends say my colleagues what will the monks and nuns think what will so forth you know it goes on and on into to A tremendous self-consciousness and fear of being looked down on or humiliated or despised or made fun of or jeered at. Report an error in the passage at 42:20 Highlight the passage at 42:20

43:06 And yet in terms of dharma, what we're doing is we're looking at all of this as it really is, as the fears, the desires, the feelings, the sensitivity, the body itself. I put in the context of whatever is subject to arising is subject to ceasing. Whatever is born dies. And so then we're looking at the dharma of it, but we're still willing to feel it. Report an error in the passage at 43:06 Highlight the passage at 43:06

43:41 It's not this sense of seeing this way of contemplating impermanence isn't a dismissal, just a kind of pushing things away and convincing ourselves that our feelings are not ours. Report an error in the passage at 43:41 Highlight the passage at 43:41

43:56 It's not like you're trying to convince yourself. It's not self. You're willing to feel. You're willing to be hurt. You're willing to experience this whole life experience in this form, in all its aspects, because you know. You begin to know very clearly. You realize. The truth of it is that it's not yours. It's the karma of birth. It's the way it is. Pleasure and pain, praise and blame, happiness, suffering, success, failure, they appear, disappear. Report an error in the passage at 43:56 Highlight the passage at 43:56

44:42 That's what the flow of life is about, these changing conditions. And we... appear, disappear Report an error in the passage at 44:42 Highlight the passage at 44:42

44:51 We are now the observer, the witness, the one who's reflecting on it and seeing it for what it is, rather than the conditions themselves. Report an error in the passage at 44:51 Highlight the passage at 44:51

45:05 And so instead of being somebody who's frightened or threatened by confrontation, instead of being that way, being somebody who's got these anxieties, you change from becoming somebody to being aware. Report an error in the passage at 45:05 Highlight the passage at 45:05

45:35 to let it conscious so you're feeling it willing to bear with it, be patient, be accepting of it and to not be so quick to judge it. Report an error in the passage at 45:35 Highlight the passage at 45:35

46:03 years when I was afraid of being confronted. is also the thought, I shouldn't be afraid of being confronted. I should... This is probably good for me. It's what I need. I need to be told off. I need somebody to come and say, what's wrong with you is this, and I'm just so weak, I can't take it, and I'm so frightened by it, but I shouldn't be that way. Report an error in the passage at 46:03 Highlight the passage at 46:03

46:23 I should be brave. So you're caught in this endless kind of struggle in your mind. You're thinking, I couldn't bear it if people said some things to me and then the other side comes up. But you should, you know, you've got to conquer this fear. You should be brave. You should face life. You shouldn't be so cowardly. And then the other side, well, maybe later on. Report an error in the passage at 46:23 Highlight the passage at 46:23

46:52 Maybe I should go to a therapist or something. You know, the way the mind will go from being this kind of wimpish, frightened being, then into the tyrant that says you shouldn't be that way. And so that kind of war, conflict, goes on in the mind. But in mindfulness of it, both are just seen for what they are. Report an error in the passage at 46:52 Highlight the passage at 46:52

47:34 mean, when the... When a condition is frightened, anxious, worried, it's just this way. Report an error in the passage at 47:34 Highlight the passage at 47:34

47:45 And you've got to listen and willing to feel it, like in your body. You can go more towards, say, the chest or the stomach or around here. You begin to just know just what it like, the kind of tensions you might be feeling, say, in the trunk of your body by that kind of anxiety or fear. Report an error in the passage at 47:45 Highlight the passage at 47:45

48:11 And you can reflect with it saying, it's all right to feel this way. It's a kind of a way of encouraging yourself to not make any problem about it and to let it be what it is. Report an error in the passage at 48:11 Highlight the passage at 48:11

48:29 And then if you go into the old tyrannical mode of, oh, you're so weak and so you shouldn't be this frightened and you need to go to a psychiatrist and... And all that, then you can, as soon as you're aware of that, the tyrant that's always coming down heavy with its moral judgments, value judgments, that feels like this. Report an error in the passage at 48:29 Highlight the passage at 48:29

48:58 So you're also willing to feel the tyranny, that in you that tends to detest and make criticisms about yourself. know about yourself Report an error in the passage at 48:58 Highlight the passage at 48:58

49:15 So that, and it changes, you can't, you know, these, and you can't, at first it's difficult to always, to stay with it, but as you make a determination, resolution to do that, you begin to say, take an interest. Report an error in the passage at 49:15 Highlight the passage at 49:15

49:38 It's interesting, because what happens when you stay with something and you don't make any more karma with it? Like, you know, When you're mindful of a mood or a state of mind or a feeling in the body, when you're really mindful of it, you've accepted it, and you're willing to let it be what it is, you're willing to coexist with it, then it ceases. Report an error in the passage at 49:38 Highlight the passage at 49:38

50:10 And in that cessation, you've resolved that. You're letting go. You're not making any karmic connection to it anymore. Because the karma is the reactiveness out of ignorance, isn't it? Where you follow it, you believe it, you, you know, I'm so frightened, I can't bear this. And then the other is, you shouldn't be frightened, you should be brave. And then that's also, you're making heavy karma through the tyrant or through the terribly sensitive, frightened person, personality. Report an error in the passage at 50:10 Highlight the passage at 50:10

50:51 But that awareness, attentive awareness of it, is that you're not making a karma with a condition. You're letting it end. You're letting it go. You're letting it be what it is. It's impermanent. You're letting it cease according to its nature. And then you're tuning into the peace of the natural state of mind. When you're letting things cease in your mind, You're no longer caught up in just unskillful emotional reactions to things. That whole confusing, frustrating tendency starts fading out, diminishing, and you begin to realize the true nature of mind. Report an error in the passage at 50:51 Highlight the passage at 50:51

51:41 We can call it bliss, peace, serenity, emptiness, empty-minded, or whatever. There are different ways of different... words that people use. But in that, there's a sense of relief. Like I remember reading some Zen book years ago and they were describing the experience of nibbāna. It's like, you know, you've been carrying something heavy and you're very tired and then you put it down. That's nibbāna, it's like that. Report an error in the passage at 51:41 Highlight the passage at 51:41

52:28 Or meeting a good friend at the crossroads, an old friend at the crossroads. I mean, these are not like, you know, ecstasies where you've kind of just gone wild into a state of bliss that is just so fantastic. These are happinesses that are quite ordinary in daily life. But do you really notice them? Report an error in the passage at 52:28 Highlight the passage at 52:28

52:59 Do you really notice them? Do you know, like when you're really tired and you sit down and relax, there's that feeling of just being able to relax. Can you really stay with that and notice the feeling of just rest? Or what do you do? You can just maybe feel tired and then rest, sit down and have a rest, and then your mind gets caught up with... Report an error in the passage at 52:59 Highlight the passage at 52:59

53:28 Thinking about this or that. And so you don't even notice the nibbanic happiness. Report an error in the passage at 53:28 Highlight the passage at 53:28

53:40 Or that sense of just being relaxed and at ease. And trusting in that. And noticing it. Report an error in the passage at 53:40 Highlight the passage at 53:40

53:53 Last week's talk was on stress. And you can see like the term the rat race and stress. The way life has... ...has become such an ongoing, speedy experience. It seems like we're always going somewhere, always having to do something. There's this tension of a kind of urgency in everything. And so the rat race, we'll go back to the rat race. Report an error in the passage at 53:53 Highlight the passage at 53:53

54:32 or the The stress of modern life, because it's much faster now, isn't it? All the technology has relieved us of a lot of kind of tedious chores, but in the process it's speeded up everything. Because we now have to spend more time looking for things to do. And there's more interesting alternatives. You can go back to university when you're 60 years old. Report an error in the passage at 54:32 Highlight the passage at 54:32

55:04 you can't. You know, there's always a whole kind of menu, lists of things that are tantalizing possibilities to get involved with this or that. Report an error in the passage at 55:04 Highlight the passage at 55:04

55:21 And the mind is very much conditioned to always be feeling there's something that you should be doing, that you shouldn't be just being. Report an error in the passage at 55:21 Highlight the passage at 55:21

55:37 I just want you to contemplate this. How many... Is it very easy to just be and Report an error in the passage at 55:37 Highlight the passage at 55:37

55:49 to trust in just being? Which doesn't mean that you don't do the dishes and don't go to work and you just decide you're going to be. Report an error in the passage at 55:49 Highlight the passage at 55:49

56:00 Because life isn't like that, is it? Life is, we have our duties to perform and things like that in life, just the needs of the body and so forth have their force and influence on our life. But we began to kind of relax with the flow of life. We've gotten out of the rat race. We're not caught up in the compulsive pushiness of modern life. And when you do, when you feel that in your mind, when you feel that sense of I've got to do this and I should be doing that and I'm just wasting time and all that, then you can take an interest in that feeling. Report an error in the passage at 56:00 Highlight the passage at 56:00

56:50 Now, this next week, what I assign you your homework is to try to take time out during the day, and you get kind of wound up and caught up into the rat race, to take an interest in the feeling now. What does it feel like? Rather than just thinking, you know, criticizing yourself. Here I go again, I'm caught up again. Report an error in the passage at 56:50 Highlight the passage at 56:50

57:20 What does it feel like to feel like that? And to kind of look, just take a look at your own body and the feeling or the mood of the mind and just question, what is it really like? And accept it. Not question it and judge it, but to just bring attention to it is enough. Just attention. And see if you can... Report an error in the passage at 57:20 Highlight the passage at 57:20

57:50 Just let it be the way it is. Just for a second is fine. You don't have to succeed in this at all. Failure is completely allowable. Report an error in the passage at 57:50 Highlight the passage at 57:50

58:02 Because this is not the rat race. So you don't have to prove that you can do it. I'm just suggesting this as a way that you can change your direction from just being helplessly caught up into... The momentum of your habits and the intimidations of the world to taking an interest in what's actually the way it is for you at this time. Report an error in the passage at 58:02 Highlight the passage at 58:02

58:35 Not for the way it is, some ideal way it is, but the way it is now as you're conscious of it at this moment. And to just reflect and note any kind of, just this kind of thinking itself. What does it do to your mind? Make you feel insecure or what I'm saying, is it kind of threatening to you or is it interesting or just to note any emotional reaction you might have and Report an error in the passage at 58:35 Highlight the passage at 58:35

59:15 just to, it's all right, whatever reaction is there is the way it is. And that willingness to let it be. More you practice with this, then you'll find that all the threats, fears, karma of your life will take you to peace, peacefulness. Report an error in the passage at 59:15 Highlight the passage at 59:15

59:41 You're beginning to see that even the hurts of life, the pain, the humiliations, the disappointments, even the worst side of life, not to mention just the little things of life, as you accept... Life is for what it is. It all takes you to that inner peace, the serenity of the heart, the peaceful mind. Report an error in the passage at 59:41 Highlight the passage at 59:41

1:00:12 And when we say, when we contemplate dhamma, the word dhamma, the truth of the way it is, we use this word, opanaiko, leading inwards. Leading the truth takes us inwards. It takes us to nibbāna, to that Realization of non-attachment. And realization of non-attachment isn't callous indifference and unwillingness to feel, but it's totally being the feeling, not becoming, but being with it and accepting and letting it be. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:12 Highlight the passage at 1:00:12

1:00:54 And then you're allowing that which has arisen to cease. And in the cessation, is the realization of life itself. Because you're letting the mortal things, the birth and death things, the beginning and ending things, you're breaking through the attachment, you're breaking up the illusions you have about them. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:54 Highlight the passage at 1:00:54

1:01:21 You've conquered death, is one kind of heroic way of putting it. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:21 Highlight the passage at 1:01:21

1:01:34 Or you've realized the truth of the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:34 Highlight the passage at 1:01:34

1:01:42 What do you think when, like death itself, what do you think when it's like the end, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:42 Highlight the passage at 1:01:42

1:01:54 And like your own death, your physical death, that's the end. Because that sense of death is very much connected to your body, your identity with the body. Memories and attitudes of mind that you've developed. But with mindfulness and understanding of dharma, you're letting go of all that conditioning, all those assumptions, all those conventions. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:54 Highlight the passage at 1:01:54

1:02:28 You're not getting rid, you're not annihilating, you're letting go. And in that letting go is the realization of the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:28 Highlight the passage at 1:02:28

1:02:39 And so then there's nothing more to fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:39 Highlight the passage at 1:02:39

1:02:44 Because you have taken an interest in the dhamma or the way things are. And then that will also give you the faith and the trust to persevere even through the difficult patches of life. You find you have tremendous ability to use even the worst things that happen to you. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:44 Highlight the passage at 1:02:44

1:03:13 Instead of being That which ruins your life sometimes is that which awakens you to truth. And many people have told me that sometimes like a terminal illness or some terrible thing that's happened to them has actually awakened them rather than ruined their lives. And that's because they suddenly They were, it jolted them out of maybe the momentum of just habitual behavior. They had to look at something in a different way. And now here I'm saying in terms of dharma, what I'm encouraging you to do is to develop the way of looking at things in terms of the dharma, of the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:13 Highlight the passage at 1:03:13

1:03:55 And that allows you to have the understanding, the perspective on the personal experiences, the unique, The eccentric, the odd, the unexpected things that happen to us as well as the ordinary habitual tendencies and functions of life. We see it then in terms of the way it is rather than the way we think it is. So I offer this as a reflection for this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:55 Highlight the passage at 1:03:55

1:04:32 Time now for tea and... In 15 minutes we can then reassemble for further discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:32 Highlight the passage at 1:04:32