No Thing and Nothing (1989)

0:00 Good afternoon. You Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:08 all look kind of with great expectation whether I'm going to say anything. I Report an error in the passage at 0:08 Highlight the passage at 0:08

0:19 wonder that anybody would come to a talk about nothing. But Report an error in the passage at 0:19 Highlight the passage at 0:19

0:36 then to reiterate the reflective, developing the reflective mind to contemplate the way things are and don't know anything. Report an error in the passage at 0:36 Highlight the passage at 0:36

· · · silence, 1 minute

0:53 Nothing and no thing, of course, are quite a popular subject amongst theologians these days, because in Christianity, where they've given God attributes, Report an error in the passage at 0:53 Highlight the passage at 0:53

1:16 then it's like having all numbers with no zero, from one to nine, with no... So there's no way to erase or let everything cease. If you don't have a zero, then everything just gets increasingly more complicated, doesn't it? You just keep adding numbers upon numbers. And so it just goes on and on and on until you have a zero, a nothing, or a naught, which Report an error in the passage at 1:16 Highlight the passage at 1:16

1:55 is a way of, say, letting go of the complications. And when God then, or an ultimate reality, or the deathless truth, becomes giving attributes that are very personal, and all attributes are conditions. Something has to be good, or a father, son, a spirit, whatever attributes, or beautiful attributes you might give. Report an error in the passage at 1:55 Highlight the passage at 1:55

2:33 They also imply mortality rather than immortality because immortality is when you try to describe or give attributes to immortality the mind just stops. There's nothing you can say about it. It's no thing and it's nothing that there's nothing to say about the immortal because words Report an error in the passage at 2:33 Highlight the passage at 2:33

3:11 Attributes, qualities, quantities apply to the mortal realm, to the conditioned realm, the sense realm, the astral realm, the emotional realm, intellectual realm. All of these have attributes, qualities, quantities. Report an error in the passage at 3:11 Highlight the passage at 3:11

3:35 As a perfect paradigm for a religion, one needs to always relationship of the mortal to the immortal. Report an error in the passage at 3:35 Highlight the passage at 3:35

3:53 the conditioned to the unconditioned, something to nothing. Report an error in the passage at 3:53 Highlight the passage at 3:53

4:03 existence to non-existence. Report an error in the passage at 4:03 Highlight the passage at 4:03

4:12 than a created without an uncreated. Report an error in the passage at 4:12 Highlight the passage at 4:12

4:19 like concentrating on the endless possibilities of creation, which just... complicated to the mind. Report an error in the passage at 4:19 Highlight the passage at 4:19

4:32 all religions, really, if they're proper, if they're truly religions, or ways to transcend the created, the born, the originated, or for salvation or liberation or freedom, words religion prefers to describe use for that release. Report an error in the passage at 4:32 Highlight the passage at 4:32

5:00 There has to be an uncreated, an unborn, unoriginated, immortal, deathless, which conveys infinity, eternity, and also doesn't mean a vacuum of blankness or no thing or nothingness, doesn't mean a total annihilation. Report an error in the passage at 5:00 Highlight the passage at 5:00

5:40 Now, intellectually we can think of something as, we tend to, because of the limitations of thought itself, we have to think in terms of one opposing the other, created and opposed to that is uncreated, or mortal against immortal, good against evil, male and female, good and bad. The whole dualistic structure of language. If you have one, you have the other. Report an error in the passage at 5:40 Highlight the passage at 5:40

6:20 Then the word that conveys, say in Buddhism, the totality of it all is the word dharma, which is all-pervasive, including word for every possibility and no possibility. Report an error in the passage at 6:20 Highlight the passage at 6:20

6:51 Especially modern educated people tend to identify very much with ideas and thoughts. You can see it in the present time where the problems that we create about ourselves, about our personalities, about families, societies, culture, civilization, political views, religious views, it's Report an error in the passage at 6:51 Highlight the passage at 6:51

7:15 everything that we tend to think about and believe in. is a product of our own mind. When you take sides with this group, then you feel definitely opposed to its opposite. So that the thinking mind, the conditioned mind, will go from one extreme to the other. You don't have a way of being sensitive to a totality of being because if you choose One particular position, then that forces you out onto an extreme, which means you're in opposition to something, to the other side. Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

8:08 Our Western way of thinking does that very much. We tend to think, if you're not with me, you're against me. If you're not 100 % agreeing with me, then you're 100 % against me, is the kind of very simplistic way of thinking. Report an error in the passage at 8:08 Highlight the passage at 8:08

8:25 If you're not 100 % for the Americans, then you're 100 % against them. Or if you're not 100 % solid communist, then you're 100 % solid capitalist. Report an error in the passage at 8:25 Highlight the passage at 8:25

8:48 So this is a very simplistic view. Everything's black or white. And this is a very primitive way of thinking. And if you think like this, your life becomes very simple. You see everything in terms of extreme positions. But also, it's very frustrating because that's not the way it is. If you want a clearly defined self and everything clearly black or clearly white, aligned up in perfect order with... Report an error in the passage at 8:48 Highlight the passage at 8:48

9:30 ...concepts and ideas and views and divide the whole of the universal system into black and white, then you have to do a lot of overlooking and you have to be an expert at self-delusion and you have to become totally insensitive. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:52 You have to make yourself completely insensitive to go to that extreme where... You can put everything in the universe and in your mind into two very fixed categories. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:12 When we talk about nothing, I remember going to a conference in California, a Christian and Buddhist conference, and with Christians sometimes it's a sensitive issue because nothing sounds like annihilation. If God is nothing, Report an error in the passage at 10:12 Highlight the passage at 10:12

10:35 Or God is nothing. That's a weird word. Nothing. God is nothing. Or God doesn't exist. Then that means you are an atheist. And that it's an attack on God. You're a heretic. Because God is something. Or God is a thing. Or the thing. Or the important thing. Or God is... If God is no thing, then... That means that everything is meaningless, because to have meaning to life we have to have something. Report an error in the passage at 10:35 Highlight the passage at 10:35

11:19 We've got to believe that God loves me, that he created me, that I am his child, and that there's going to be justice eventually, even though one can see there isn't much justice now, that in the long run the evil forces will be punished and the good forces will win. Report an error in the passage at 11:19 Highlight the passage at 11:19

11:42 Then if there's nothing or no thing, then it sounds like it doesn't matter. You might as well be bad. Who's going to punish you if God is no thing? Who's going to spank you when you're naughty? Who's going to punish you for eternity if you happen to lie and steal and kill and all that? Who's going to punish you? If there's nothing, if God is nothing or doesn't exist, then... Report an error in the passage at 11:42 Highlight the passage at 11:42

12:14 It means you might as well just drink, eat, be merry. There's no meaning to life. Just follow your desires and do what you want and kill if you feel like it, steal if you feel like it, lie if you feel like it. Do whatever you want because there's no God, there's no thing, there's nothing. God does not exist. Now that's an extreme. Report an error in the passage at 12:14 Highlight the passage at 12:14

12:44 Isn't it? Of the conditioned mind. The atheist. Then the theistic position, say in reverse to that, is there is a God. He's a benevolent God. He's referred to in the masculine gender. He's a father, patriarch. He has a son, not a daughter. And the Holy Spirit is generally referred to in the Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:20 If you call it it, it tends to sound unloving. Say it loves me. It doesn't say he loves me. It sounds somehow on the heart level more meaningful to it. Report an error in the passage at 13:20 Highlight the passage at 13:20

13:41 God, it loves me. Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

13:53 So the theistic view is using the positive affirmation But affirmation and positiveness give attributes that we tend to cling to. So in the dilemma of modern theology is that you have God as somebody, as a body, as a person, as a patria, as a spirit, as a savior. And this means that the tendency then, what that does, On the religious life, developing a religious practice, is that it keeps you very much in a dualistic mental state. Report an error in the passage at 13:53 Highlight the passage at 13:53

14:43 Because God, no matter if you think about God as someone who loves you and created you and you believe in that particular way of thought, then that will always... Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this recording may be reproduced That, even though it might be reassuring and inspiring to the mind, it also reinforces the sense of alienation, dualism and separation. Report an error in the passage at 14:43 Highlight the passage at 14:43

15:44 But then if you attach, like the atheist, to God is nothing, there's no God at all, God doesn't exist, then you have this sense that it doesn't matter what you do, that this is all there is, just this human existence. Just happened by some cosmic accident. It's meaningless. And there's no ultimate justice after life or anything else. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

16:11 It's just, you know, some kind of total rationalization and negation of this experience without giving it, without relating, say, your life to anything transcended. Report an error in the passage at 16:11 Highlight the passage at 16:11

16:34 Now the way of negation, psychologically, has also its proper function in the religious life. Because affirmation is inspiring, isn't it? We need a certain amount of inspiration, say love and be good, and there's a real meaning to your life. You are important. You're not just a cosmic accident. Your life does have a meaning and it is important and so forth. To inspire the mind has a certain religious importance. Report an error in the passage at 16:34 Highlight the passage at 16:34

17:20 But also the way of negation allows us to let go of the attachments to inspiration and to the very language that we That our minds are conditioned with. And the concepts, the religious concepts and doctrines, dogmas that we can be very much attached to without realizing what attachment is. And so in practice of Buddhadharma it's very much the way of negation not as annihilation it's not taking an atheistic position but it is a way of reflection in which we begin to let go of and begin to witness to our attachments, our obsessions, our needs for inspiration, our dependence upon affirmation and confirmation. Report an error in the passage at 17:20 Highlight the passage at 17:20

18:24 To Report an error in the passage at 18:24 Highlight the passage at 18:24

18:29 be able to say God does not exist. Now to Christians or theists, people that are theists, then that means that there isn't any God. In a kind of dogmatic position of announcing there isn't any God. But God does not exist. You have to contemplate what does exist mean. And existence means that which springs forth. Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

19:01 So existence is mortality. And so when we say God does not exist what we're actually saying is God is immortal. But to the common... It means we're denying that God, totally, is a total denial of God, rather than pointing to the fact that God is not something that just springs forth. Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:32 The conditioned realm, the mortal realm, exists. We can see what exists right now. Your body exists. We can see the existence of each other. Whenever I look at one of you, you spring forth. You exist for me through my eyes. When you go home, you still exist. When the perception of you comes up in my mind, you exist as a perception in my mind. Report an error in the passage at 19:32 Highlight the passage at 19:32

20:08 Say, when somebody dies, the perception of them as living changes to the perception of them as dead. doesn't it? That the perception exists of, say, when my mother died, and my mother is dead. Where before, when she was alive, I'd say my mother is alive. When the perception of mother came, it was her as being alive. Now the perception is that she's dead. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:39 So the perception of mother still exists. Report an error in the passage at 20:39 Highlight the passage at 20:39

20:49 But I can't go and see my mother now. I can kind of... Visualize her as she used to look, but I can't go back to San Diego and my mother spring forth into existence through eye consciousness or through the senses, through the ability to perceive. Say, for example, she died without me knowing it. And I was, say, living in some remote Shangri-La in the Himalayas. Report an error in the passage at 20:49 Highlight the passage at 20:49

21:23 And she died. Nobody told me. Now I still think of her as alive. Maybe years after she died I'd still be my mother and the perception of her as being alive would spring forth. But then when the perception of death comes it changes that whole thing. But it's still, just pointing to what perception is in the human mind. Report an error in the passage at 21:23 Highlight the passage at 21:23

21:53 I've lived away from my mother since I was 17 years old. Many years, over 30 years, 35 years, lived for a good part of that, 25 years, in foreign countries, and yet there's still, even though I wasn't physically with her, there was still the perception of her as being alive. And now that perception is death. So death, what, is the perception that Ajahn Report an error in the passage at 21:53 Highlight the passage at 21:53

23:01 one loses one's memory or dies then one One will remember, one can live in a realm of memory, can't we? Now how many of you live in a realm of memory? Much of your day is spent in remembering the past and thinking about the old days or the past. Report an error in the passage at 23:01 Highlight the passage at 23:01

23:27 And so the past does exist, doesn't it? As a perception. But the past as a reality, That we can actually perceive right now, that we can actually be sensitive to right now. All we can do right now is be sensitive to the memory of the past because the past only exists as memory. It has no existence other than through memory. The future, which we don't know, it hasn't happened, we don't remember the future, but we can... Report an error in the passage at 23:27 Highlight the passage at 23:27

24:13 Project all possibilities into the future. What we've experienced in life so far, all possibilities of success and failure, happiness and suffering, praise and blame, we can project into the future, hoping that the future will be a happy future, but also fearing, dreading the fact that it might be a horrible future, when we can worry about all the possibilities, because the future... Report an error in the passage at 24:13 Highlight the passage at 24:13

24:46 It implies total possibility. It's the unknown. But in the present, the future exists only as a mental state of mind, as an expectation or a worry, doesn't it? Right now, when you think of the future, that is a perception of the mind with the potential for anything that you can imagine of success and failure, happiness and suffering. Report an error in the passage at 24:46 Highlight the passage at 24:46

25:18 So the future does exist, but as a perception, because tomorrow will only be today, tomorrow. Report an error in the passage at 25:18 Highlight the passage at 25:18

25:35 Yesterday this was tomorrow, but now it's today. Play around with that. Report an error in the passage at 25:35 Highlight the passage at 25:35

25:45 Now this brings us to the here and now, to the pachubana, the here and now, the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 25:45 Highlight the passage at 25:45

25:59 Now when we... Talk in Buddhist terms about anattā or no self. This is a mysterious concept to Western mind because just like God being somebody, having attributes of love and having a personal relationship with God, we also very much believe that we are somebody. I am somebody. I am a personality. And this personality, this person here, This self sitting here is real. And the assumption is that it is a continuous person. Report an error in the passage at 25:59 Highlight the passage at 25:59

26:40 That I was yesterday, I was exactly the same person that I am right now. And that I was the same person that was born 55 years ago in Seattle, Washington. I'm exactly the same person. It's the same continuous person. I have a birth certificate to prove it with my footprints on the birth certificate. Report an error in the passage at 26:40 Highlight the passage at 26:40

27:16 I have a birth certificate with baby footprints on it. They look considerably smaller. I think I'll have one made with these feet. Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:38 And yet the idea that I was born 55 years ago in Seattle, Washington, that's a perception of the mind that exists right now when I'm thinking. I mean, this is a reflection. Report an error in the passage at 27:38 Highlight the passage at 27:38

27:52 But the assumption that one makes from grasping that perception is what we call atta, or self-view, which you can have a self-view which can be totally misguided, totally deluded. But which you grasp and operate from for 55 years because you've never questioned it. You've made the assumptions, the conditioned mind, the attitudes, cultural positions, the reference points, all these perceptions have never been questioned or investigated, but totally accepted as reality. Report an error in the passage at 27:52 Highlight the passage at 27:52

28:39 So, 55 years later, I am this person with these problems, this type, this character, from this family, and on and on, and believing that this is reality. But as a reflection of the way things are, we realize that that is just the conditioned mind operating. Report an error in the passage at 28:39 Highlight the passage at 28:39

29:05 And when there's no concept, no grasping of perception of a self, of I am, am, I am not anything. When there's no grasping at all, then we say, there is nobody, there is anattā, no self. Report an error in the passage at 29:05 Highlight the passage at 29:05

29:27 So in no self, there's no suffering, because to suffer, you have to be very much attached to the perceptions of being somebody. So, say, if I'm attached to being abbot of Amaravati, I'm attached to that perception, I'm the abbot. And then somebody says, says, Report an error in the passage at 29:27 Highlight the passage at 29:27

29:52 You're not a very good habit. Then I can feel hurt. I can feel hurt by that. How can they possibly say that? I try my hardest. I've worked hard all my life. Report an error in the passage at 29:52 Highlight the passage at 29:52

30:07 But if there's no self, then there's no habit to get hurt. Maybe there's, at moments, appropriate responses with that perception. But it's not a fixed position. It's not a commitment, an attachment on the personal level. So if somebody says, you're not a very good avid, then one is either curious to know what they're pointing to or one realizes they don't understand. Report an error in the passage at 30:07 Highlight the passage at 30:07

30:41 One more or less is willing to receive criticism and contemplate it rather than take it personally and suffer. Report an error in the passage at 30:41 Highlight the passage at 30:41

30:57 In the training here at Amaravati, then the whole purpose of monastic training is to break through those delusions of being somebody who has to become somebody else. Report an error in the passage at 30:57 Highlight the passage at 30:57

31:16 This is really hard work because most people are very much committed to being somebody and becoming something else. I want to become a monk. In order to become an enlightened personality. I don't want to be a deluded person. I want to be an enlightened person. Report an error in the passage at 31:16 Highlight the passage at 31:16

31:39 And I know I've got all kinds of problems. I've done this in the past. I told lies. I've been selfish. I've kicked a dog. I've done all kinds of immoral actions. I used to get drunk and smoke dope and this and that. So, I want to, I know I'm a terrible person and I should be punished and I want to, I come into the holy life to purify myself in order to stop myself from doing these bad things and become a good person and hopefully an enlightened person. Report an error in the passage at 31:39 Highlight the passage at 31:39

32:17 And if I don't become an enlightened person before I die, then maybe I will become a more privileged person in the next life. Be nice in the next life to become, say, having... A better kind of opportunities, more privileges, and more happiness, wealth, beautiful appearance, opportunities, everything in the next life. Report an error in the passage at 32:17 Highlight the passage at 32:17

32:44 The idea of becoming something that we would in the next life is very attractive. If you feel that you're such a terrible person, you can't possibly get enlightened in this life, many Buddhists settle for the next one. Report an error in the passage at 32:44 Highlight the passage at 32:44

33:03 One thing by the next one. Somebody said to me it would be nice to be a devada in the next life. Devada is a kind of angelic celestial being in Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 33:03 Highlight the passage at 33:03

33:17 It would be much nicer to be a devada, I think, than a human being. Actual pleasure principle operating because devadas don't have coarse bodies like this. They're more ethereal. They have ethereal light bodies. That would be really nice, wouldn't it? To be able to just travel in the ether. Report an error in the passage at 33:17 Highlight the passage at 33:17

33:40 Without a heavy body, without big feet, without having to go to the toilet, eat food and have indigestion and all that. Report an error in the passage at 33:40 Highlight the passage at 33:40

33:55 Ethereal body is a very attractive thing, but ethereal bodies are also impermanent. So that the Buddha aimed his message pointing to a total transcendence of delusion and existence based on On this illusion of a self. Report an error in the passage at 33:55 Highlight the passage at 33:55

34:22 Now this is mind-boggling because generally the realities of our life are based around the sense of me being somebody, me being a person, me being a monk, me being a man, me being somebody that's good or bad, or intelligent or stupid, or likable, lovable, or not lovable, or not likable. Report an error in the passage at 34:22 Highlight the passage at 34:22

34:49 But when we investigate and reflect on all these perceptions, then the perceptions cease, the Report an error in the passage at 34:49 Highlight the passage at 34:49

34:59 feelings and the fears and the emotional reactions that come, that are triggered off through thinking about oneself cease, and in the cessation of self and cessation of delusion is the realization of nirvāṇa or freedom from delusion. Report an error in the passage at 34:59 Highlight the passage at 34:59

35:26 And so that is where there is no thing or nothing or no self where you're not creating God into existence but Report an error in the passage at 35:26 Highlight the passage at 35:26

35:42 is a realization because whatever you say about it tends to complicate it and it is an ultimate simplicity because like zero it's where everything ceases and ends. And yet it's not annihilation. It's not destructive. Just experiment through meditation in your own, watching the way your mind works, you become aware. Report an error in the passage at 35:42 Highlight the passage at 35:42

36:14 When you really let go of everything, which takes a great deal of patience, when you've let go of everything, then what's left, what remains, when there's no attachment, is a genuine peacefulness. Report an error in the passage at 36:14 Highlight the passage at 36:14

36:35 What we call bliss, the natural state of the mind, peaceful, blissful, balanced. That's when there's no attachment, when there's no self, when there's no attachment to attributes of any sort, either in God or yourself or others. There's no delusion of the mind. You're not trying to become that way. You're not trying to be blissful anymore. You're not trying to get rid of anger and agitation. Report an error in the passage at 36:35 Highlight the passage at 36:35

37:05 You're not trying to become happy, or you're not trying to become a person who's fulfilled, or trying to become a person who isn't a person, or trying to find nibbāna as if it were something, or believing nibbāna is nothing, a total blank, where suddenly you just lose consciousness. That's nibbāna. You just go unconscious, pass out. That's what nibbāna sounds like sometimes, doesn't it? Where Report an error in the passage at 37:05 Highlight the passage at 37:05

37:41 you just... Where there's no feeling at all, and no ability to perceive, think, see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or anything, that would be annihilation. Report an error in the passage at 37:41 Highlight the passage at 37:41

38:03 The word thing, then, contemplate the word thing. This is a thing. These are things, aren't they? This is a thing, this is a thing. Everything we talk about, that includes absolutely everything. Things are what? And if God is a thing, then God becomes a patriarch, something that we pray to, somebody that we pray to. Report an error in the passage at 38:03 Highlight the passage at 38:03

38:36 It's a thing, something. But God is no thing, is not an attempt to deny, but to point to a realization of non-grasping. Freedom from the grasping of things. Because all things are mortal. All things are unsatisfactory. And in Buddha's teachings he said, sape saṅkhāra dukkha. All things are unsatisfactory. Report an error in the passage at 38:36 Highlight the passage at 38:36

39:15 So then the absolutists say, Buddhists believe that everything is misery. Everything is suffering. And there's a difference between all things are Report an error in the passage at 39:15 Highlight the passage at 39:15

39:32 All things are unsatisfactory. Report an error in the passage at 39:32 Highlight the passage at 39:32

39:48 Isn't a negative statement condemning them for being that way, is it? It's a reflection. All things, everything, everything is unsatisfactory when we notice in the way I say it all things are unsatisfactory Report an error in the passage at 39:48 Highlight the passage at 39:48

40:00 Things themselves are unsatisfying to us. As long as it's a thing, as long as it's some thing, as long as God is some thing, and whatever the thing is, if it's a thing, it's not going to be satisfying to us. Report an error in the passage at 40:00 Highlight the passage at 40:00

40:19 That's a reflective statement, reflective thought. It's not a doctrinal position. Where, say, the negative, say, everything's suffering. It's all suffering. It means that I don't like it, and it shouldn't be. It's all miserable, the world's miserable, human beings are miserable, everything's terrible, it's all suffering, all unsatisfactory. Report an error in the passage at 40:19 Highlight the passage at 40:19

40:46 It's terrible, I hate it. Don't think of any of it, because it's all horrible. And that way is not a reflection, is it? It's a judgment. It's a judgmental statement. So the two ways of saying the same thing, isn't it? One is a judgment, critical judgment. Everything's suffering, or everything is suffering, is the reflection. Report an error in the passage at 40:46 Highlight the passage at 40:46

41:16 Reflective statements are not judgments, but ways of thinking in which we can contemplate. What do we mean by everything? Report an error in the passage at 41:16 Highlight the passage at 41:16

41:26 Well, when I say everything's suffering, it's just a total put-down of judgment against everything. Isn't it? It's a judgment against everything, where the reflective statement, everything is suffering, isn't a judgment, but a reflection. Everything suffering. What do these really mean? If I say, God does not exist, or God doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 41:26 Highlight the passage at 41:26

42:01 One is a reflection. God does not exist. What do we mean by God and existence? And the other is a position I'm taking. God doesn't exist. We don't believe in God. Buddhists don't believe in God. God does not exist. There isn't any God. Report an error in the passage at 42:01 Highlight the passage at 42:01

42:22 Some Buddhists are determined to take a stand against God through a negative judgment. But that's not dharma at all. That's merely taking a position against, through maybe aversion, through looking down on theistic religions. Report an error in the passage at 42:22 Highlight the passage at 42:22

42:47 whole prejudice operating in the mind in which we take sides against God the reflection God does not exist does not mean that What do we mean by God and existence? And then we have to start contemplating what words... The limitation of words, what they point to. Words are conveniences that we have, convenient or conventions that we have in which we can contemplate our own experience of living, of existence, of happiness, suffering, praise and blame, success Report an error in the passage at 42:47 Highlight the passage at 42:47

43:42 and failure. Report an error in the passage at 43:42 Highlight the passage at 43:42

43:50 When we talk about nibbāna, it's nothing. Extinction. That's a heavy word in the English language. And they used to like to translate nirvāṇa as extinction. So then the theistic-minded Europeans would say, Buddhists believe that the highest realization is extinction. Doesn't sound very inspiring, does it? Sometimes one would, you know, when you're really fed up with things, I mean, I have a great longing for extinction sometimes. Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:30 I don't find extinction an unpleasant possibility, actually. But some people would find that very threatening. Report an error in the passage at 44:30 Highlight the passage at 44:30

44:44 But yet, as a position against everything, it's still coming from a judgment and a self-view, doesn't it? We believe in extinction. There isn't any God, there's no eternal life, eternal soul or self. There's no self, no soul, no God. Report an error in the passage at 44:44 Highlight the passage at 44:44

45:04 When you die, you're dead. Extinction. Nibbāna in this life means you extinguish yourself, which means if you don't have any self, what are you like? Kind of like an insensitive zombie, kind of vacuous nerd, just something that sits around and doesn't feel anything. Report an error in the passage at 45:04 Highlight the passage at 45:04

45:29 You're living in Nibbāna and a maniac attacks your mother. Report an error in the passage at 45:29 Highlight the passage at 45:29

45:37 You don't even notice, would you? You don't even notice. Report an error in the passage at 45:37 Highlight the passage at 45:37

45:49 Maniacs, mothers, it doesn't matter. Who takes science? Maniacs, mothers. Report an error in the passage at 45:49 Highlight the passage at 45:49

46:00 If you're in Nirvāṇa, you wouldn't care, would you? Or, is that the way things are? Recognize that the sensory world and the suffering that we create out of this experience as a human being Report an error in the passage at 46:00 Highlight the passage at 46:00

46:27 And the realization of dharma doesn't mean that you become insensitive and uncaring and indifferent to everything. Otherwise, you know, it would be more, say, a rock is nibbāna, becoming a brick, Report an error in the passage at 46:27 Highlight the passage at 46:27

46:53 becoming more like a brick is nibbāna. Report an error in the passage at 46:53 Highlight the passage at 46:53

47:01 Actually, the way of meditation of a Buddhist isn't making yourself into an insensitive brick, but in being more and more sensitive, allowing sensitivity to be full and complete rather than trying to make yourself an insensitive brick. I know in English they say you're a good brick. Report an error in the passage at 47:01 Highlight the passage at 47:01

47:30 And sometimes I think people in this country try to make themselves into bricks. Report an error in the passage at 47:30 Highlight the passage at 47:30

47:40 But that's not Nibbāna. That might be trying to make oneself insensitive and not feeling, because feeling is taken as a personal thing. Where feeling as dharma, it's no longer, you're not adding a personal, the perception of a person and being mind to it, but it allows you to learn and understand and develop wisdom in this. Report an error in the passage at 47:40 Highlight the passage at 47:40

48:13 Life in this form of the human birth. Now being human means that we are sensitive, intelligent beings. Report an error in the passage at 48:13 Highlight the passage at 48:13

48:30 Human minds are reflective minds. This is what makes a human being different from animals. Animal minds are not reflective minds. They're intelligent minds but not... They've not developed reflective abilities where the human mind, if you notice the history of human, the recorded history of human development is coming from the human being's ability to reflect on its own existence and its own feelings and to wonder about life. Report an error in the passage at 48:30 Highlight the passage at 48:30

49:12 Even the most primitive human beings have wondered about the heavens, the stars and the mysteries. Report an error in the passage at 49:12 Highlight the passage at 49:12

49:23 That's a reflective mind, to be able to wonder, to contemplate. When we lose this ability or we don't develop it, then we become merely brainwashed puppets. We're real zombies then. Report an error in the passage at 49:23 Highlight the passage at 49:23

49:44 We can become monsters. You can brainwash a human being into obedience, conformity, just... Believing in all the wrong things and operating just out of habit. A good percentage of human beings seem to prefer that way of behavior. Report an error in the passage at 49:44 Highlight the passage at 49:44

50:09 But the potential for perfection of humanity lies in its ability to contemplate its own existence and feelings and not to run away or desensitize oneself. But to awaken to full sensitivity, receptivity, within this very vulnerable form of a human body. Report an error in the passage at 50:09 Highlight the passage at 50:09

50:49 Language then, this is the dharma language, when we contemplate dharma, this is what we mean in Buddhist jargon. We reflect on dharma, or the way it is. Dhamma is our words. We have teachings and reflective teachings that we use to contemplate. Like the Four Noble Truths is a reflective teaching. It's not a doctrinal position. You don't take it and believe in it. I believe in the Four Noble Truths and therefore I'm a Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 50:49 Highlight the passage at 50:49

51:32 Because those Four Noble Truths are to take and consider and contemplate what we mean by suffering. The origin, the cessation, and the Eightfold Path, what do we mean? What is that in our own experience of life? Report an error in the passage at 51:32 Highlight the passage at 51:32

51:51 What is it? Why do we suffer? Why do I suffer? As a person, why have I experienced suffering in my life? What is it? Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with the world? Is it my fault? Is it your fault? Is it the... The Americans? Is it the Russians? Is it God's fault? People who believe in God end up sometimes blaming God. Report an error in the passage at 51:51 Highlight the passage at 51:51

52:27 You were supposed to make my life happy and you haven't made it happy. You've created all this misery for me. Report an error in the passage at 52:27 Highlight the passage at 52:27

52:38 So that the mind, the sense of me and mine will create you and you will, you can be, say, like as a child, who's God when you're... when you're two and three years old. Report an error in the passage at 52:38 Highlight the passage at 52:38

52:58 most of us, Mother is God when you're three years old. She's all-powerful. knows everything. Report an error in the passage at 52:58 Highlight the passage at 52:58

53:12 nurtures you, takes care of you, protects you. Report an error in the passage at 53:12 Highlight the passage at 53:12

53:18 you, takes an interest in you, and If your mother died, then there would be nothing left worthwhile. Ajahn that young, isn't it? Mother is God. Report an error in the passage at 53:18 Highlight the passage at 53:18

53:46 nurturing you and telling you what to do you you to rebel you have to i'm not going to do it is no longer god but then then then the father has more of a role Report an error in the passage at 53:46 Highlight the passage at 53:46

54:03 obey your mother. Report an error in the passage at 54:03 Highlight the passage at 54:03

54:07 Because fathers can come on from that position. It's easy for the father to tell you what to do more from a rational position of what you should do, rather than an emotional one. Report an error in the passage at 54:07 Highlight the passage at 54:07

54:25 And so then after a while you see your father is really not God. You become aware of your father, especially when at home he's God, but when he's not at home. doesn't seem to be the same person. Report an error in the passage at 54:25 Highlight the passage at 54:25

54:45 home, he's absolute boss, but at the office, he can be nagged by the secretary. The big boss of the whole universe. universe, big boss of the whole universe. Report an error in the passage at 54:45 Highlight the passage at 54:45

55:14 And that's still very much believing in the appearances and the way life feels as a child, isn't it? From that emotional level of children where you see that you need, I'm a helpless person, I need to be protected. I need to be told, I need to be guided. I need somebody to depend on. I need a stronger force external to me to make me feel safe. Report an error in the passage at 55:14 Highlight the passage at 55:14

55:47 And when you start threatening people's beliefs, sometimes they become very frightened by that because the world that one has created is a world dependent upon external authority that protects and is just and merciful and will in the long run make everything right for you. Report an error in the passage at 55:47 Highlight the passage at 55:47

56:13 Then, say, the maturing of the human being As we mature, emotionally mature, and I would say enlightenment, in the Buddhist term enlightenment, really means an emotionally mature human Report an error in the passage at 56:13 Highlight the passage at 56:13

56:35 being, one whose emotions are truly balanced and clear, where there's true sensitivity, because where the emotions were sensitive, and there's intelligence, and there's clarity. And receptivity. But it's no longer caught in the dualism of thought or feeling. And so in the Buddhist goal of realizing Nibbāna, Report an error in the passage at 56:35 Highlight the passage at 56:35

57:07 then the realization is through the emotional balance and clarity and understanding and wisdom that comes from that realization. Report an error in the passage at 57:07 Highlight the passage at 57:07

57:39 This afternoon's talk is a reflective talk, hoping that you will try to Report an error in the passage at 57:39 Highlight the passage at 57:39

57:53 apply this to your own experience of life, not trying to convert or convince, but to open up the possibilities for the human development, maturity, enlightenment, realization of truth. Because then this gives a true meaning to our lives as individual beings. Report an error in the passage at 57:53 Highlight the passage at 57:53

58:25 If we are just kind of helpless people caught in a system that is so mysterious and so threatening to us that all we can do is just try to, like the ostrich, bury our head in the sand, be too frightened and too threatened to even speculate about the possibilities. Or just take a negative view. It's all meaningless. Doesn't mean anything. Pointless life. Or just trying to depend on everything is meaningful, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 58:25 Highlight the passage at 58:25

59:00 My life does have a meaning. God really loves me. Everything's going to work out all right. Tell me. Tell me everything is all right. Tell me you love me. Say everything is all right. Those two extremes. The one that says, please, say everything is all right. And the other one that is, Nothing's right. It's all a bad joke. Meaningless life. Those are positions one can take. Report an error in the passage at 59:00 Highlight the passage at 59:00

59:28 But on reflective thought, we sometimes feel that way. I've often felt, please tell me everything is alright. I've felt that. I've felt it's a bad joke. It's meaningless. There's no point to living. I've felt that. But to be able to see that and to know that as a When you let the condition of the mind not to grasp it, and when it ceases, what's left? When you let the negative side of your mental equipment cease, what happens? Report an error in the passage at 59:28 Highlight the passage at 59:28

1:00:07 When you're no longer dependent for inspiration, confirmation, affirmation, through positive thinking, when you've let go of that, then what remains? What remains in the pure heart or the mind that is clear from delusion? And that is a realization. That's what we mean by realization of the dharma, realization of the truth. So I offer this for your contemplation, reflection for this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:07 Highlight the passage at 1:00:07

1:00:44 We can have a short break and then after the break, a five minute break. We can have, I'll open the remaining time up for any questions, discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:44 Highlight the passage at 1:00:44