Silence as Prayer (1994)

0:00 I welcome you to Amaravati this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:13 We just completed, yesterday we finished a Christian and Buddhist retreat, a follow-up from last year's conference, intermonastic conference. We had to, starting last Monday and ending yesterday, the group of... Christians and Buddhists, monks and nuns, can Report an error in the passage at 0:13 Highlight the passage at 0:13

0:57 everyone hear? Report an error in the passage at 0:57 Highlight the passage at 0:57

1:13 It's a subtle system. Report an error in the passage at 1:13 Highlight the passage at 1:13

1:21 And the interesting, the interest, say, of people who live a religious life and yet who belong to different religious conventions, who have dedicated their lives towards a commitment to a particular... A celibate life or kind of a total commitment to a particular religious form and where the main experience is contemplative and just what is the, say, what is it that we are all aiming at? Report an error in the passage at 1:21 Highlight the passage at 1:21

2:05 Because this is a question of the time. I think Christianity is going through a lot of investigation. ...in confusion over what is the purpose and what is the real meaning of religion. Because last week in Sussex they forced a priest to leave his parish because he said something to the effect that he didn't believe in God. Report an error in the passage at 2:05 Highlight the passage at 2:05

2:39 And so this is like a... A way of thinking may be that this idea of believing in religious doctrines in which we adhere to beliefs or particular ways of talking or saying things or attitudes. Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

3:01 And of course this tendency, this grasping leaves us in a place where we do, we end up just seeing that we're different. And those differences are... You can't reconcile if you're just working on the level of convention. How can you say that the cross and the dhammajaka, the wheel, I mean, they're just two obviously very different symbols. Report an error in the passage at 3:01 Highlight the passage at 3:01

3:26 Or they look different and they have a different effect. You know, people look at a cross that has one effect and the dhammajaka has another. Report an error in the passage at 3:26 Highlight the passage at 3:26

3:42 But one thing that I was interested in in the Faith and Awakening conference last September was the experience of silence. Silence is prayer. Because in silence, this is like the background of sound. You can't say it belongs to anybody. You can't say silence is Buddhist or Christian or that anyone has any kind of more right to it than anyone else. Report an error in the passage at 3:42 Highlight the passage at 3:42

4:21 It's where we can, when we begin to listen to silence, this is a new way of thinking, isn't it? Listening to silence. Because usually we think of listening to sound, listening to music, listening to somebody give a talk. Report an error in the passage at 4:21 Highlight the passage at 4:21

4:40 But silence is, there's nothing to listen to. What's the point of it? Or we tend to feel very, some of those times when you meet somebody and then there's this very uncomfortable silence where you don't, neither, you don't quite know what to say to each other. You just feel embarrassed or ill at ease because of the silence, this silence that's there between us. Report an error in the passage at 4:40 Highlight the passage at 4:40

5:09 Because in worldly life, silence is something we see as something to ignore, something that is not worth bothering with. It's important to think, to create, to do things, to fill spaces. If you see a space anywhere, fill it with something. You go in some of the old... And yet now Report an error in the passage at 5:09 Highlight the passage at 5:09

6:02 it's interesting. Report an error in the passage at 6:02 Highlight the passage at 6:02

6:17 of words now are words that are beginning to mean something, a direction, or something to develop, something to pay attention to. Report an error in the passage at 6:17 Highlight the passage at 6:17

6:33 one thing we can all say in modern life is that we've... We've managed to blast out silence and demolish space. We've created a society where we're endlessly busy. We don't know how to rest or relax. relax or to just be. We're constantly intimidated by our own personalities, the driven quality of our lives in which we've spent so much time with our clever minds developing a technology to make life easy, and instead we find ourselves stressed out by it. Report an error in the passage at 6:33 Highlight the passage at 6:33

7:14 Time-saving devices, isn't they, were called. Save women from having to go down to the river to wash their clothes. Modern washing machine and have everything convenient. Push button type of situation where you just stand there and push or sit there and push the buttons and what you want manifests. Tedious tasks are turned over to robots and machinery. And we have all the time then to just do what? Report an error in the passage at 7:14 Highlight the passage at 7:14

7:55 What do we do at the time that we say? And that's not really a problem because we find all kinds of things to do. Report an error in the passage at 7:55 Highlight the passage at 7:55

8:13 The thing that I think was very attractive to me with Buddhism was this emphasis on emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 8:13 Highlight the passage at 8:13

8:28 Because this was an experience, I think, that we have in life, but we don't know how to, we don't know what it is. and we don't and And it's not something that is considered like normal behavior. I mean, the emphasis there is very much to become somebody, to have a personality, to be an interesting character, to be somebody who you can prove yourself, prove your worth, or in a very competitive way, to always feel that you have to... Report an error in the passage at 8:28 Highlight the passage at 8:28

9:11 In order to be worth anything, you have to be better than somebody else. And the idea of being at the bottom of the pile, the worst one in the class, the hopeless case, the one without any personality, that was really a worry when I was a teenager. The worst thing you could say about somebody was they didn't have any personality back in the late 40s. If you really wanted to hurt somebody's feelings, you'd say... Report an error in the passage at 9:11 Highlight the passage at 9:11

9:42 She doesn't have any personality. Report an error in the passage at 9:42 Highlight the passage at 9:42

9:55 Little did I know that I'd be dedicating my life to developing a non-personality. But Report an error in the passage at 9:55 Highlight the passage at 9:55

10:18 this isn't trying to destroy a personality or to criticize personality as something wrong with having one, but it's allowing a perspective on it in which we have a resting place, a refuge. Because on the level of always having to prove ourselves or be somebody or always having something to do, keeping busy, always having to fill up silence with sound or space with forms, this is the rat race or the endless cycle that we feel stressed by. Report an error in the passage at 10:18 Highlight the passage at 10:18

11:02 It's a stressful experience. It's suffering. It's an anguishing, miserable state. Because sometimes in life, when you're young and you have a lot of energy and things are going well, you can enjoy the pleasures of youth and good health and excitement and romance and adventures and all those kind of experiences. Report an error in the passage at 11:02 Highlight the passage at 11:02

11:30 But yet, in many cases, those kind of experiences are suddenly... ...stop through maybe some kind of disability or we lose somebody that we're very attached to. Something happens to us, inevitably, that shakes us. And the kind of fascination for just the pleasures of the sense realm and the good health and the vigor and the good looks and the... Report an error in the passage at 11:30 Highlight the passage at 11:30

12:02 And the personality and the praise of the world, suddenly it becomes, we no longer can find happiness in it if it's still going on, or we feel embittered because somehow we've not been able to achieve the level of pleasure and success that we imagine we should have, that is our due, is our right. Report an error in the passage at 12:02 Highlight the passage at 12:02

12:28 We see people around us, we think, you know, we can feel disappointed or embittered or we can blame all kinds of people or situations. The fact that we didn't get the best in life, we didn't get what we imagined we should have and then we feel, we can feel embittered. Report an error in the passage at 12:28 Highlight the passage at 12:28

12:53 So in contemplating the conditioned realm, say in terms of In the contemplation on impermanence or the nature of conditioning, we begin to relate conditioning to the unconditioning. So like the conditioning of your own mind. What is it? You contemplate. What is conditioning in regards to your own mental experience? Report an error in the passage at 12:53 Highlight the passage at 12:53

13:24 And they have koans in the Zen. Zen koans about what is your original face or before you were born and kind of enigmatic reflective conundrums that make us stop. First we think it's nonsense because we think a face is only as a physical face. Report an error in the passage at 13:24 Highlight the passage at 13:24

13:54 But as we begin to say listen To the silence of the mind and to contemplate the space, say just visual space, or timelessness, we begin to notice, say, the time, the perception of time is something that's conditioned into us. We're very strongly committed to the sense of the past, the present time as 215 and the future. Report an error in the passage at 13:54 Highlight the passage at 13:54

14:28 So these are all pointing to the conditioning of the mind, the conditioned realm. The personality is conditioned into the mind. You're not born with a personality. To become a personality, you have to think. You have to conceive yourself as somebody. It can be good or bad. It can be all kinds of things, mixtures of everything. But the personality depends on being able to remember. Report an error in the passage at 14:28 Highlight the passage at 14:28

14:58 remember, have a past, have a history, have all kinds of views or assumptions about yourself whether you're attractive or unattractive, whether you're lovable or not, you're clever or stupid or all these things. And these can vary according to situations. But sometimes we're stuck with a kind of even maybe and maybe an an unconscious unconscious. Report an error in the passage at 14:58 Highlight the passage at 14:58

15:26 assumption about ourselves. Somebody, some type of permanent thing or conditioned thing. But when we develop the contemplative mind or the intuitive awareness of things and we reflect on the way it is, we begin to experience, say, the original mind. Words like original mind. What is the original mind? The original faith or the... Report an error in the passage at 15:26 Highlight the passage at 15:26

16:02 Consciousness before it's conditioned by perception. Report an error in the passage at 16:02 Highlight the passage at 16:02

16:12 And so this, of course, when you try to think about it, you get caught in your analytical abilities. So it's beginning to watch and listen. That position, that kind of awakeness of the watcher, the silent watcher. The listener, the witness, rather than trying to become somebody who's enlightened. This is another thing that doesn't work, is to meditate in order to become somebody who's enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 16:12 Highlight the passage at 16:12

16:52 It doesn't work. Because as long as you're trying to become somebody that's enlightened, you create yourself as a person that is unenlightened now. And then you do something now, hopefully in the future you will become somebody else, who you can say is an enlightened person. Report an error in the passage at 16:52 Highlight the passage at 16:52

17:20 And so this is saying, just notice, just pointing to how we tend to perceive and think about ourselves. How many of you think, you know, we tend to say that the cultural attitude is to see yourself as, well I'm in, unless you're a megalomaniac or over, bit crazy, we all would tend to think of ourselves as kind of enlightened, Report an error in the passage at 17:20 Highlight the passage at 17:20

17:50 people with problems, or can say people with a lot of problems, cases sometimes. Sometimes we imagine the worst thing we can think about ourselves is the truth. Report an error in the passage at 17:50 Highlight the passage at 17:50

18:13 We've got a kind of perversity. To grasp thinking that real honesty lies in admitting the worst possible things about yourself. Report an error in the passage at 18:13 Highlight the passage at 18:13

18:30 So this is just for reflection and contemplation, but the personality, how I use that word, is not trying to make any kind of judgments against personality, but to know what it is. So that you're not operating from the delusion you create around and the assumptions you have about yourself as a person. Report an error in the passage at 18:30 Highlight the passage at 18:30

19:04 So in order to do that, one listens to the silence or one, like the stillness, learning to sit in a still way, like these Buddha images and meditation postures are just a way of, say, stopping us from just... Restlessly moving around, fidgeting or just going from here to there all the time. Learning to stop and sit still. Report an error in the passage at 19:04 Highlight the passage at 19:04

19:34 Stillness, non-movement. Not that that is going to make you enlightened, but it's going against, say, the momentum of habit and restless energies of the body and emotional restlessness. So just sitting still for a while, and then we say mindfulness, paying attention, awakeness, watchfulness. Report an error in the passage at 19:34 Highlight the passage at 19:34

20:05 So we listen to the silence. Because I teach a lot around the sound of silence, the kind of ringing sound that we can hear, the kind of background to everything. If you develop just the... The listening ability. You can even just think of it as listening with your ears. And you can hear my voice. You can hear the sounds of things that happen. But behind all that is a kind of like a high pitch, almost electronic buzz. Report an error in the passage at 20:05 Highlight the passage at 20:05

20:48 And that I call the sound of silence. I find that a very helpful... ...way of, say, concentrating the mind. Because when one begins to notice that, and not as something to, not as any kind of attainment or achievement, but merely it's a convenient method for, say, contemplation, in order to see or even to hear yourself think. Report an error in the passage at 20:48 Highlight the passage at 20:48

21:22 Like thinking itself is a kind of sound, isn't it? When you're thinking, you can hear yourself thinking. I can hear myself thinking. Report an error in the passage at 21:22 Highlight the passage at 21:22

21:35 So when I listen to myself thinking, it's the same as listening to somebody else talking. And so I listen to the thinking of the mind and the sound of silence. When I'm with the silence, the sound of silence, then I can... I notice that I'm not thinking. There's a stillness there. So you note, consciously note the stillness. Report an error in the passage at 21:35 Highlight the passage at 21:35

22:09 And that will help you to begin to see, to experience, or begin to become acquainted or recognize the emptiness. So the emptiness isn't a kind of shut off or a denial of anything, but it's... It's letting go of the habitual tendencies of just restless activity or obsessive thought, just going along with the momentum of your habits and desires. Report an error in the passage at 22:09 Highlight the passage at 22:09

22:43 You can actually stop that momentum by listening. Report an error in the passage at 22:43 Highlight the passage at 22:43

22:51 And in that, with the sound of silence, there's attentiveness, there's consciousness, you don't have to close your eyes, you don't have to... Plug up your ears or even ask somebody to leave the room or you don't have to do it in a special place. Wherever you are, it seems to work. Report an error in the passage at 22:51 Highlight the passage at 22:51

23:13 Very helpful in community life or in family life where life can get very habitual and very kind of automatic. We get used to each other. And then we tend to operate through all kinds of assumptions and habits that we don't even know about, we're not aware of. So the silence of the mind allows, say, the conditions to be what they are and the ability to reflect on them in terms of arising and ceasing and begin to see that all the perceptions Report an error in the passage at 23:13 Highlight the passage at 23:13

23:56 Ideas we have about ourselves are conditions of the mind. That's not what we really are. What you think you are is not what you are. Then you say, well, what am I then? Report an error in the passage at 23:56 Highlight the passage at 23:56

24:09 Do you really need to know who you are? You just need to know what you're not. That's enough. The problem is that we think we're all kinds of things that we're not, and that's where we suffer. We don't suffer from anattā, from not being anybody. Report an error in the passage at 24:09 Highlight the passage at 24:09

24:31 We suffer from being somebody all the time. Report an error in the passage at 24:31 Highlight the passage at 24:31

24:36 That's where the suffering is. Report an error in the passage at 24:36 Highlight the passage at 24:36

24:41 So when we're not anybody, it's not suffering, it's a relief. It's like putting down a heavy burden. If you be self-consciousness, concern, obsession with oneself, fears of what other people think, the whole lot that's connected to the sense of our self, our personality, We can drop that. We can just let it go. What a relief to not be anybody or not feel we have to. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:14 We're somebody now that has got all kinds of problems and hopefully we've got to do something. I should practice more meditation. I should come to Amaravati more often. Maybe I should become a monk or a nun because I've got so many problems. I've got to get rid of all this and I can't do it. All this is thought, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 25:14 Highlight the passage at 25:14

25:35 It's all kinds of assumptions about yourself. It's the critical mind. It's the discriminative mind that's always saying you're not good enough or you've got to be better. Report an error in the passage at 25:35 Highlight the passage at 25:35

25:52 So when you listen, this listening is available to us all the time. At first maybe it's helpful to go through meditation retreats or situations where Where you have reminders around you, where you're encouraged, where you're supported, where all of that is, where a teacher is there to kind of keep prodding you along, helping you to remember. Report an error in the passage at 25:52 Highlight the passage at 25:52

26:24 Because it's easy to fall right back into the old habits, especially mental habits, because mental habits we're so used to and they're subtle. Report an error in the passage at 26:24 Highlight the passage at 26:24

26:38 And the sound of silence after a while doesn't seem like anything. It's not worth listening to. It's not like Mozart or modern rock or anything like that. Report an error in the passage at 26:38 Highlight the passage at 26:38

26:53 And some people say, some people are offended by the fact that monks can't listen to music. They think we should at least be able to listen to Mozart. They say, we listen to the silence. That sounds like a weird thing. Report an error in the passage at 26:53 Highlight the passage at 26:53

27:16 But even music can... You can listen to the silence behind the music as you begin to develop this practice, which doesn't destroy the music. It doesn't mean that Mozart, suddenly you have to switch off Mozart and listen to the sound of silence. But you're putting in a perspective where you're not just being carried away by the music or just... Report an error in the passage at 27:16 Highlight the passage at 27:16

27:50 Being addicted to sound, but you can also appreciate sound and silence. Because the middle way that the Buddha talks about isn't an extreme of annihilation. It's not saying silence, emptiness, no self, this is what we've all got to do. We've got to get rid of our desires, our personalities. All the sense realm is an attack on silence. We've got to destroy all the conditions, all music, all forms. Report an error in the passage at 27:50 Highlight the passage at 27:50

28:31 We should have any forms in this room. Just have white walls. Report an error in the passage at 28:31 Highlight the passage at 28:31

28:45 Or we should... walls. Report an error in the passage at 28:45 Highlight the passage at 28:45

28:48 To see the formed world always as a threat, as an attack on emptiness, that's not it. It's not taking sides for the conditioned or the unconditioned, but recognizing their relationship, which is an ongoing practice. Report an error in the passage at 28:48 Highlight the passage at 28:48

29:11 And that's what... Where mindfulness is the way, because in the state we're in, on the planet Earth and the human bodies, we have a very strong conditioning to bear with. For the whole of our lifetime, we have to live within the limits and problems and difficulties of the human body. Report an error in the passage at 29:11 Highlight the passage at 29:11

29:38 And we have emotions. We're not just kind of human beings. ...mechanisms but we also walk and eat and sleep and so forth but we also feel everything and Report an error in the passage at 29:38 Highlight the passage at 29:38

29:54 we remember all kinds of things and so we're in a state of this sensitive pleasure and pain experience for a lifetime within and whatever happens around us and hits us or impinges on us as a living form. Report an error in the passage at 29:54 Highlight the passage at 29:54

30:16 But we can see it in the right way. And this is the point the Buddha is making, to understand things as they really are. Report an error in the passage at 30:16 Highlight the passage at 30:16

30:30 To be able to let things be what they really are, rather than create delusions around things. Because that's what we do. Out of ignorance, we're creating endless delusions around the things of our life, around our own bodies, around... Our memories around the language, around the perceptions, views, opinions, the culture, the religious conventions, the whole lot. Report an error in the passage at 30:30 Highlight the passage at 30:30

31:00 We create illusions around all of it. And so it becomes complicated, difficult, and separative. At this time, one of the alienation that modern people feel is this alienation of... Selfishness, where we're so full of ourselves, our own kind of sense of ourself is so important. It's been held up to us as this is what life is all about. It's about me getting what I want. Report an error in the passage at 31:00 Highlight the passage at 31:00

31:39 We become full of our own self-importance. Even the fact we might think we're a hopeless case, we still give that tremendous importance. Report an error in the passage at 31:39 Highlight the passage at 31:39

31:50 We can spend years going to psychiatrists. Report an error in the passage at 31:50 Highlight the passage at 31:50

32:22 we can blame the plays I think The place I live in is, I can't bear anymore, I'm going on a holiday. We still take ourselves with us off to Mallorca or someplace like that, planning a holiday from all the pressures of life, and we can take them along with us. Report an error in the passage at 32:22 Highlight the passage at 32:22

32:44 Because the sense of ourself is something, say it's an emotional mental creation that we just can't leave behind at the office or in our house. Report an error in the passage at 32:44 Highlight the passage at 32:44

33:03 So to put the self into perspective. So anattā or non-self isn't, I mean many people misinterpret that and say it's a denial of self, a kind of putting down the self as something that we shouldn't have. But it's not, that's not how anattā works. Anattā or non-self is a suggestion to the mind. It's a tool to begin to reflect. Report an error in the passage at 33:03 Highlight the passage at 33:03

33:33 On what we really are. And in the long run we don't find anything, we don't have to see ourselves in any way as being anything. Even the human body is no longer ours. I mean if we take this reflection to its ultimate, then the body, the emotions, the memories, the whole lot that seems so definitely, so insistently ourselves, We begin to see in terms of they rise, they cease, because we're now aware of the cessation of things. Report an error in the passage at 33:33 Highlight the passage at 33:33

34:15 And that is more real to us than the ephemeral conditions that we tend to be grasping or tend to be obsessed with. Report an error in the passage at 34:15 Highlight the passage at 34:15

34:27 It takes a while to be able to get over the hump of this self-obsession. But you can actually do it. Report an error in the passage at 34:27 Highlight the passage at 34:27

34:40 haven't got this. It's not something one can't do, but it does take a while because remember the habit tendencies are so strong. And the society we live in, and that's everywhere, not just Britain or Europe, but it's every country, there is the culture, acculturation is usually based on ignorance. There's no society based on wisdom that I know of. Report an error in the passage at 34:40 Highlight the passage at 34:40

35:15 Even a country like Thailand. Which is a Buddhist country. It's still basically this culture is an affirmation of the self. But they do offer the opportunity to break through the illusion. Report an error in the passage at 35:15 Highlight the passage at 35:15

35:36 But also there's some psychologists and psychiatrists have commented that maybe we need a self. And this is an important thing to consider. Is that a self is Report an error in the passage at 35:36 Highlight the passage at 35:36

35:52 You know, it's not something that we shouldn't have, but something we need to put in its proper place. And the self, say, based on the goodness of our lives rather than a self that we create out of dwelling on the flaws and faults and negative tendencies of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 35:52 Highlight the passage at 35:52

36:16 Because I notice it's so easy to see ourselves and see oneself in very critical ways. And compare oneself to maybe to other people or to images or to historical people. Like comparing yourself to the Dalai Lama. Report an error in the passage at 36:16 Highlight the passage at 36:16

36:42 I'm not as good as the Dalai Lama. Report an error in the passage at 36:42 Highlight the passage at 36:42

36:50 Because I've met the Dalai Lama, but I've never... uh... Report an error in the passage at 36:50 Highlight the passage at 36:50

36:56 I met him briefly on very formal occasions. But of course somebody you don't live with and that is very famous and has good press, you build up into an icon, you see. Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:15 Mother Teresa. I met her two years ago in Calcutta. But I've never lived with Mother Teresa. I've heard some people complain about her, that have lived with her. Report an error in the passage at 37:15 Highlight the passage at 37:15

37:37 But one can easily make icons out of these people, the living beings, or people of the past, like Mahatma Gandhi was one. I used to, I'd like to be like Mahatma Gandhi. And then Mahatma Gandhi is quite, sometimes was quite candid about his own shortcomings. And in his works, certainly admitting all kinds of weaknesses that some people that are Mahatma Gandhi enthusiasts really don't like to admit. Report an error in the passage at 37:37 Highlight the passage at 37:37

38:14 I remember 20 years ago, I was in this place in India, an ashram there, where there was an international group of people, and they were idolizing Mahatma Gandhi. And so it was their kind of hero. A perfectly kind of super human being, a moral creature that was completely wise. And then somebody gave a talk on an incident in Mahatma Gandhi's life which was not, you know, something that was not common knowledge but was in the books. Report an error in the passage at 38:14 Highlight the passage at 38:14

38:51 But it wasn't part of the image that... It didn't polish the image that was being created. And I remember one man being really angry wanting to throw this man out of the ashram. Saying he's a disciple of the devil trying to destroy goodness in the world because he wanted a Mahatma Gandhi that was like a shiny Buddha Rūpa maybe. Report an error in the passage at 38:51 Highlight the passage at 38:51

39:19 Never tarnishes. So we... Report an error in the passage at 39:19 Highlight the passage at 39:19

39:29 Comparing ourselves always with ideals and the best that we can think of, we can only be critical with the way we are, because life is like this. It's a flow, it's change, it's feeling tired, it's having to deal with emotional problems, with anger, jealousy, fears. Report an error in the passage at 39:29 Highlight the passage at 39:29

39:55 All kinds of desires, all kinds of strange things that we don't want to admit even to ourselves, all kinds of different conditions that don't fit into the idealized being, our sense of purity and goodness that has no flaws in it at all. But it's not to see ourselves as being flawed. Report an error in the passage at 39:55 Highlight the passage at 39:55

40:26 But to see that that's a part of the process is to be able to recognize, to observe the nature of things, that conditions, whether they're good or bad or perfect, imperfect, are impermanent. They arise, they cease. And in this way, we keep learning and we find strength in our own, working through our own karmic conditioning. Report an error in the passage at 40:26 Highlight the passage at 40:26

40:57 So it's not a matter of being... I'm bittered by life because we didn't get the best in the beginning. Maybe we didn't get a very good deal at all in life. Maybe we got all kinds of physical problems, health problems, emotional problems. We could say, maybe we really, you know, when we were passing out all the good traits, we weren't around. Report an error in the passage at 40:57 Highlight the passage at 40:57

41:24 We were standing behind the door in the loo. We missed out. Or God loves them more than he loves me. We can feel, we can blame, people like to blame God for the fact that life isn't fair. Report an error in the passage at 41:24 Highlight the passage at 41:24

41:47 But in terms of dharma, these are not obstacles. Because some of the, you know, it's many times these flaws and difficulties that force us into awakening to life. Report an error in the passage at 41:47 Highlight the passage at 41:47

42:07 Because we recognize, some part of it realizes that just trying to straighten up everything and make everything nice and order everything and make life pleasant is not the answer. We recognize that there's something more to life than just controlling it and trying to get the best of the conditions. And so this recognition of silence, this silence as a prayer, As a way of letting go of our own position, a sense of ourself, our own convention, in order to be in the silence where there is unity. Report an error in the passage at 42:07 Highlight the passage at 42:07

42:53 Because in silence is like the space in this room is the same for all of us. It's not, I can't say this space is mine. I can say things like that, but it's ridiculous, isn't it? Because it doesn't, you know, it looks just like the space where you are. Report an error in the passage at 42:53 Highlight the passage at 42:53

43:16 It doesn't. This is Ajahn Sumedho space. You can only say that when I'm sitting here. But space is just that. It's space. It's where the forms come and go. But it's something we can notice. We can contemplate. And what happens? Contemplating space, the result of just opening your mind up to space, just visual space, you can see. Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:59 But it's not like you can see it as anything, but it's space, it's just what it is. And as you develop awareness of space, then the result is that you do, you begin to have a sense of spaciousness, of infinity. Report an error in the passage at 43:59 Highlight the passage at 43:59

44:21 Because, or a sense of maybe, like infinity, because space has no beginning or end. I mean, you can build rooms and you can look at space as it exists, as it is in a room like this, but you know that actually the building is in the space. So it's like infinity. It has no boundaries. Report an error in the passage at 44:21 Highlight the passage at 44:21

44:51 But in our own limitation of visual consciousness, maybe boundaries help to see space in a room. Because space as infinity is maybe too much. Report an error in the passage at 44:51 Highlight the passage at 44:51

45:05 But as space in a room is enough to get the relationship of form to space, to observe, to contemplate, the relationship of the things, the forms in the space. And then the sound of the silence. Report an error in the passage at 45:05 Highlight the passage at 45:05

45:26 And your own thoughts as you listen. And you can deliberately think. Like I used to deliberately think thoughts, like neutral thoughts, like I am a human being, which is, you know, just a kind of neutral thought, doesn't arouse any emotional feelings. Report an error in the passage at 45:26 Highlight the passage at 45:26

45:52 And just by listening to myself thinking that thought, it would be with the intention of listening. To the thought as thought and the silence that it's in. So that this way you're kind of contemplating and recognizing the relationship of your thinking ability to the silence, the natural silence of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 45:52 Highlight the passage at 45:52

46:25 And in that, then you're really establishing mindfulness. The ability as an individual being to be a witness, to Report an error in the passage at 46:25 Highlight the passage at 46:25

46:55 be the listener, to be that which is awake. Report an error in the passage at 46:55 Highlight the passage at 46:55

47:04 Now emotionally this can be very difficult because we get very negative about it sometimes. Because emotionally maybe one... Report an error in the passage at 47:04 Highlight the passage at 47:04

47:20 We haven't resolved a lot of our desires to have things, to feel things, to get high, or to get rid of things, or to be obsessed with something. So this is where you listen even to your own emotional reactions. Just begin to notice when there is this silence, what happened emotionally. Emotions, I'm using the word emotions as a kind of... Report an error in the passage at 47:20 Highlight the passage at 47:20

47:49 That which arises in the mind like negativity. I don't know what I'm doing. This is a waste of time. The kind of doubting negative states that will arise around this practice. Report an error in the passage at 47:49 Highlight the passage at 47:49

48:07 But you also listen to those emotions. They're just habits of the mind. By accepting them, By admitting them and accepting them, then they cease also. And more and more, the emotional reactions will fall away. And then you'll feel more confident in just being that which is aware. Report an error in the passage at 48:07 Highlight the passage at 48:07

48:37 Establishing your life, say, with the intention, say, to do good and refrain from doing evil things. We need that, paradoxically, we need that self-respect. Report an error in the passage at 48:37 Highlight the passage at 48:37

48:57 Meditation doesn't come from the idea that if you're just mindful, you can do anything you feel like. But it's respecting conditions, not just judging them, but respecting. The body you have, your own humanity, your own intelligence, abilities to do things, to respect that, doesn't mean to be attached or identified, but it's recognizing that these are what we have. Report an error in the passage at 48:57 Highlight the passage at 48:57

49:36 This is the way it is. These conditions are this way. Even respecting disabilities. disabilities. When you talk to people who have, you know, like people who have very obvious physical disabilities, it's interesting to hear how they, through meditation, can come to terms with maybe paraplegia. There's one friend in America who's quadriplegic. How to respect some disability like that doesn't mean that you, Because it's easy to identify. I am a quadriplegic. That's what everybody says. Report an error in the passage at 49:36 Highlight the passage at 49:36

50:28 The doctors say you're a quadriplegic. Your parents probably say, well, you're a quadriplegic now. You become fixated with the condition of your body, which means that you're a disabled person. And that means you're not normal anymore. you're not you're not like the rest of us Report an error in the passage at 50:28 Highlight the passage at 50:28

50:59 you don't have it all there anymore. Report an error in the passage at 50:59 Highlight the passage at 50:59

51:04 that's the self-view, but self-respect or respect for the conditions even means respect for the state they're in. It doesn't mean liking it, but it means accepting it and learning to respect. To work with the limitations of it. So say within the enlightened mind, it's not a matter of having the best, is it? Report an error in the passage at 51:04 Highlight the passage at 51:04

51:28 That you need to have the best health and the best conditions, the best of everything in order to really make it. Because that feeds the sense of yourself, you know, as being somebody who, you know, who can only... ...operate from having the very best of everything. Report an error in the passage at 51:28 Highlight the passage at 51:28

51:52 But when we begin to realize that the disabilities or the flaws and the strange things that we each have are not obstructions anymore because we've seen them in the right way. And we respect them. We're willing to accept them. We're willing to use them. In order to see, to get beyond our attachment to them, to be free from identifying and from being attached to those perceptions of ourself as this or that. Report an error in the passage at 51:52 Highlight the passage at 51:52

52:34 So this is a very marvelous thing that we can do as human beings. And it allows us to use our lives as the whole of our lives. It's an ongoing process, really. It's a... Report an error in the passage at 52:34 Highlight the passage at 52:34

52:52 It's not a matter of age, because as you get older, it even gets more interesting. Report an error in the passage at 52:52 Highlight the passage at 52:52

53:03 It's clearer, because one of the advantages of getting old, it has advantages, especially on a spiritual path. So it's not something to dread, but to welcome and to respect. Report an error in the passage at 53:03 Highlight the passage at 53:03

53:35 It's interesting now when you hear people complaining about life a lot, about how they were abused or their life has been unfair to them or that all kinds of injustices have been done to them or that, you know, we can... you know we can We can hear ourselves, you know, we can recognize that in ourselves. I mean, I certainly am quite capable of thinking like that myself. Report an error in the passage at 53:35 Highlight the passage at 53:35

54:10 One time in my life, that was the way I thought. And you looked around and you think, life isn't fair. It shouldn't be like this. And we can endlessly create this sense that life somehow should be other than what it is. Report an error in the passage at 54:10 Highlight the passage at 54:10

54:33 But that, of course, is not the way life is. Life is like this. It's like the English weather. You never know what you're going to get from one day to the next. Report an error in the passage at 54:33 Highlight the passage at 54:33

54:50 It's continuously changing, dependent on other conditions that we have no control over. This state we're in of this human form, it's subjected to so many things all at the same moment. The effect of Jupiter and Mars, Pluto and Saturn and all the rest. The effects of the different galaxies and all the, who knows what those are doing to us right now at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 54:50 Highlight the passage at 54:50

55:23 Or it's the half moon. Or it's the slaughter in Rwanda. I mean all these things affect us in some way or another. We're all kind of like belong. belong in one thing. Report an error in the passage at 55:23 Highlight the passage at 55:23

55:40 The self-separative self means that we get the idea that I'm completely independent from the rest, completely kind of cut off from the universe that I'm living in. And one can believe that illusion. You can cut yourself off through repression of your mind, through just... As obsessions of your mind, as you attach to very limited views, very narrow-minded attitudes, very obsessive tendencies, you become, you have an appearance, you have a feeling of being completely cut off and isolated from everything. Report an error in the passage at 55:40 Highlight the passage at 55:40

56:27 But that's an illusion only. That's an illusion we create in the mind. And it is, it's a form of hell, isn't it? To where... Report an error in the passage at 56:27 Highlight the passage at 56:27

56:39 To just be stuck with the most kind of negative, narrow-minded illusions about yourself. So with meditation, then the opening of the mind to the whole universe. Report an error in the passage at 56:39 Highlight the passage at 56:39

56:57 And it doesn't mean that if we take it personally, it would be too much to handle. But as we let go of the personality illusion, then we realize we're tuning in to the... Report an error in the passage at 56:57 Highlight the passage at 56:57

57:12 To the deathless, we're realizing, we've returned, we've come home again, we're back where we belong, the deathless. And that means that all the conditions we can, and all their dependent and subtle forms and so forth, that's bearable for us, that we can endure. We have the ability to bear and to endure all that. Report an error in the passage at 57:12 Highlight the passage at 57:12

57:44 If we have the right attitude and right understanding. So Report an error in the passage at 57:44 Highlight the passage at 57:44

57:58 I just want to encourage you in this to contemplate and to develop mindfulness of the silence. The background, they call it nada, which means not Spanish, it's Sanskrit. Report an error in the passage at 57:58 Highlight the passage at 57:58

58:25 It means sound in Sanskrit, in Pāli. And then in Spanish it means nothing. St. John of the Cross, he has a meditation on nada. And then it's also called shabda. Report an error in the passage at 58:25 Highlight the passage at 58:25

58:48 And it's something that I found very helpful to use, especially in an active life. Even in an inactive life. And so that you have, you kind of develop, you gain some confidence in contemplation and begin to get some perspective on your own thinking mind. Because that's where we delude ourselves all the time is with our thinking mind. We're always thinking about things, trying to figure everything out. And then... Report an error in the passage at 58:48 Highlight the passage at 58:48

59:30 Figuring it all out with the sense of me as a kind of underlying assumption, me trying to figure it all out, and then getting confused by all the complications, complexities of our thinking. Report an error in the passage at 59:30 Highlight the passage at 59:30

59:48 And so instead of trying to figure it all out in that way, which goes on and on and on and on, it becomes very complicated, then you're simplifying by recognizing the... With the sound of silence you can actually begin to recognize the emptiness of the mind, the empty mind. And that's a place to turn to, to develop. Not from the view of I've got to do it, but just as a way of... Report an error in the passage at 59:48 Highlight the passage at 59:48

1:00:29 To keep remembering that. So you eventually begin to have a perspective. And you can let go of the obsessions of your mind. Not through an idea that you've got to do it. Not through some kind of sense that you've got to get rid of these obsessions. But you're seeing the suffering. You recognize the suffering of being attached. And therefore... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:29 Highlight the passage at 1:00:29

1:00:56 Your intention and your inclination is towards relinquishment. It's not towards getting rid of things out of aversion, but it's towards not carrying a burden anymore. Freeing yourself from the burden that you've accumulated. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:56 Highlight the passage at 1:00:56

1:01:18 So recognize how much of your life is a burden just through thinking about, worrying about tomorrow. Or things of the past, or all this, but the endless kind of the guilt about maybe things you've done in the past, worrying about the future, about what's going to happen in the future, or just the worry about people, about the family, about people we work with, about this or that. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:18 Highlight the passage at 1:01:18

1:01:49 I mean, the mind just takes on and endlessly seems to... Move toward that habit. There's a habit of the mind to endlessly fill it up with the kind of negative states. And so to break the habit, then we're not trying to suppress the thought, but recognize thought and non-thought, or sound and silence. So then you can think, but you're not just a thinker. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:49 Highlight the passage at 1:01:49

1:02:29 That goes on and on and on. You're not someone who has no refuge. You have to get drunk in order to, or take some kind of drug to stop thinking. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:29 Highlight the passage at 1:02:29

1:02:49 But you can develop the way of understanding, seeing things as they really are. I want to offer this. For your reflection, contemplation for this afternoon. And we can have a break, tea time. And I invite you all to have a cup of tea, or whatever it is. And then in about 15 minutes, we can all reassemble here for any questions or discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:49 Highlight the passage at 1:02:49

1:03:27 And then if any of you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. I'll talk around them anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:27 Highlight the passage at 1:03:27

1:03:42 Yeah, Report an error in the passage at 1:03:42 Highlight the passage at 1:03:42

1:03:55 that's, say we need to, we need to have self-respect. We need to know, like in meditation, or the kind of foundation of it really lies in learning to understand what you really are and your limits, in a sense of a self that is That you respect and then that kind of self is something that gives us the inspiration, the confidence. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:55 Highlight the passage at 1:03:55

1:04:33 If we're just learning, if we just kind of don't like ourselves and we have a low self-esteem and then we're trying to get rid of it all, then it is a kind of, you know, we're just trying to annihilate ourselves really. If, you know, we're just using anattā or the idea of not-self as a way of just destroying ourselves, that won't work. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:33 Highlight the passage at 1:04:33

1:04:57 But it's like, this is what I think in the Western world, especially in the European civilization, and in the sense of oneself oftentimes is like, say, in... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:57 Highlight the passage at 1:04:57

1:05:19 We often see ourselves in very critical ways, as sinners or as people with a lot of faults. And sometimes we don't like ourselves very much. And that tendency is, if we're just using meditation as an annihilation, then it doesn't work. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:19 Highlight the passage at 1:05:19

1:05:51 You know, like keeping the sīla, the moral precepts, and learning to, and being kind and generous and things like this. Then we begin to develop the good side, a sense of ourself as being somebody who's worthy, who we respect, who has some joy in their life. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:51 Highlight the passage at 1:05:51

1:06:15 And that self, rather than just trying to hold on to the joy of one's own life, we're not trying to hold on to it, but we can relinquish it. In other words, we're not trying to get rid of it, but we're not using our life just for that anymore because our goal is the ultimate realization rather than just happiness on the earth. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:15 Highlight the passage at 1:06:15

1:06:52 It's very interesting, say, just to, let's say from my own experience as a monk over the years, having to deal with problem of like low self-esteem or a critical mind that was kind Report an error in the passage at 1:06:52 Highlight the passage at 1:06:52

1:07:16 of a tyrannical critic inside. This is my own experience. Something in me was endlessly kind of, I used to think, you know, and I used to think of other people as, you know, this person has done this to me or, and then I began to contemplate it. Nobody has ever been as relentlessly unkind to me as I have been to myself. Well, Report an error in the passage at 1:07:16 Highlight the passage at 1:07:16

1:07:56 you can't, you can't, I mean, the suggestion, it's important to give that suggestion. Like, I don't find it helpful to give anyone the suggestion that they're worthless and hopeless, even if that's the case. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:56 Highlight the passage at 1:07:56

1:08:15 Because that isn't... Like, I find the idea of not-self is a helpful suggestion, or a positive sense. taste. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:15 Highlight the passage at 1:08:15

1:08:33 You know, to point out that the... Because the human state is a very blessed state in itself, whether you realize it or not, something else. But I mean, we do have so many gifts and potentials, and we need to kind of remind ourselves of it. Or we need people to remind us, because we can forget. Like somebody in my position is... Report an error in the passage at 1:08:33 Highlight the passage at 1:08:33

1:09:05 People listen to. So it's important what I say. You know, to try to give the... to say things that are going to help people rather than to harm them. Like if somebody in an authority position says, oh, someone like you could never meditate, you know, you would... you would Report an error in the passage at 1:09:05 Highlight the passage at 1:09:05

1:09:35 You could easily believe that. You could say, well, Ajahn Sumedho says, I'm hopeless, I can't do it. And one could just get stuck with that. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:35 Highlight the passage at 1:09:35

1:09:55 That's why in teaching, you have to be really careful about not to come from a position of just emotional reacting to somebody and say something just as a kind of... in... Report an error in the passage at 1:09:55 Highlight the passage at 1:09:55

1:10:10 A criticism of them out of your own emotional feeling. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:10 Highlight the passage at 1:10:10

1:10:24 Well, we create other people all the time. And it's, you know, you just, you know, like last retreat I gave, I had everyone, I did this test. I said, okay, now, where is your mother right now? Report an error in the passage at 1:10:24 Highlight the passage at 1:10:24

1:10:52 And then I point out, it's in your mind, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 1:10:52 Highlight the passage at 1:10:52

1:10:59 Even if she's dead. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:59 Highlight the passage at 1:10:59

1:11:03 Because that's a perception in the mind, mother. And then each one of us has our own, you know, we have the same perception of mother, but the, I mean the mother part's the same, but the face that comes up is, each one is different. Or the feeling it arouses of love or hate or whatever is different. But we're pointing to the fact that it's, you know, it's memory, it's perception, and it's not mother. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:03 Highlight the passage at 1:11:03

1:11:35 And when we contemplate that, then we realize, we create, we create like a prejudice. It's always, we think of a group of people, like a race prejudice, and we think of them in certain kind of stereotypes, prejudice stereotypes. And that we create in our mind. It's something we create in our own mind. It's not anything other than a perception. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:35 Highlight the passage at 1:11:35

1:12:04 And so you're looking at it for what it is, to see things as they really are. And it doesn't mean that those perceptions are wrong or that the image of your mother isn't anything wrong with it, but you're seeing it as perception rather than as your mother. You're seeing it as a memory. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:04 Highlight the passage at 1:12:04

1:12:27 Or the emotions that come from the memory. You're looking at it for what it is. You're not judging it and saying that there's anything, that you shouldn't have such a perception. But you're noting it for what it is. And this way you begin to, you know, it's a way of learning to look at everything anew. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:27 Highlight the passage at 1:12:27

1:12:54 Even our own mothers. Rather than always looking at them through a veil of prejudices and memories and emotions, it's like learning how to drop it all and see completely anew, like the sense of beginning anew or renewal or here and now. Suddenly we're not projecting onto each other all kinds of things. That's why sometimes it's more difficult to be around. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:54 Highlight the passage at 1:12:54

1:13:28 say, something like our own mothers. We don't know them very well. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:28 Highlight the passage at 1:13:28

1:14:09 Well, it's not that we don't know, but we begin to see what it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:09 Highlight the passage at 1:14:09

1:14:16 And we can still, we still do that, but we're more aware of it in terms of what it is rather than just being caught up into it blindly. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:16 Highlight the passage at 1:14:16

1:14:28 Because it's still, we can easily know this and then when we meet our mother get caught up in our emotions again and say all kinds of things. But also something in us is beginning, we can remember also. And it's in that It's in that point, the point of remembering, of mindfulness, that you're breaking through the habits. Just the cyclical, the cycle is being weakened. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:28 Highlight the passage at 1:14:28

1:14:57 The habitual cycle is being weakened through mindfulness. It doesn't mean that it's all going to just disappear overnight, but its strength is being disempowered gradually. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:57 Highlight the passage at 1:14:57

1:15:16 And more and more, say with aversion, like I found people that I've had aversion to, say, through having bad experiences with them. And then I found that the mind would easily, even when I didn't see them for years or so, I could still get pretty angry just thinking about them. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:16 Highlight the passage at 1:15:16

1:15:51 They might have changed totally by this time, just this memory of what they did five years ago. So I noticed this, and then I realized, then you get into this state where you think, you should be able to forgive, you should be more compassionate, you shouldn't carry these things around. then Report an error in the passage at 1:15:51 Highlight the passage at 1:15:51

1:16:17 After all, I mean, you should be able to forgive. A Buddhist monk should have filled with mettā and compassion and forgive people who have done him wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:17 Highlight the passage at 1:16:17

1:16:28 And that's the party line, you know, that's all very nice. But then you start thinking of them again, you get the same feeling. So then you... So then you realize that the memory itself It's not the person. It's just a memory. And the memory, as long as you, will always have that. I mean, if it's a bad memory, it'll always be a bad memory. Until you maybe see them again and develop good memories of them. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:28 Highlight the passage at 1:16:28

1:17:04 But if you're just stuck with a negative memory, then it's always, whenever you think of that person, that memory will be like that. It'll always be maybe a bad memory. But you begin to see it in terms of, What it really is, it's a memory, it's impermanent, it's not a self. And so in that way you break down the attachment to these memories and the belief that they're, the habit that arouses the emotion. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:04 Highlight the passage at 1:17:04

1:17:36 So then more and more that anger and just to, like because of... Report an error in the passage at 1:17:36 Highlight the passage at 1:17:36

1:17:50 of that also to develop this meditation on emptiness and silence so that you're always directing your mind not as a reaction but as a determination to not get stuck in just indulgence and suppression of the condition but turning away toward the silence so that more and more the silence is your refuge Report an error in the passage at 1:17:50 Highlight the passage at 1:17:50

1:18:18 power of those habits is you're not sitting kind of simmering away with all this stuff because you're turning away from it. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:18 Highlight the passage at 1:18:18

1:18:31 that way the of that habit pattern begins to fade out. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:31 Highlight the passage at 1:18:31

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:19:13 there's stories where people, you know... You know, there's a story of the man, Gamanita, that spent the night in the potter's shed with the Buddha, and he was on his way to find the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:13 Highlight the passage at 1:19:13

1:19:29 And you see, by a certain chance, a rainstorm or something, he couldn't get where he was going, and so he asked this potter if he could spend the night there, and he said, well, there's another man here. So he was in the same shed with the Buddha, and the Buddha... Talked to him and then the Gamanita said, well, he thought he was just an old crank. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:29 Highlight the passage at 1:19:29

1:20:00 I mean, it's like an idol. This is what happens when somebody dies. You have this apotheosis. When somebody's dead, you tend to... I noticed this with my teacher, Ajahn Chah. He's now apotheosized. I lived with him for 10 years. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:00 Highlight the passage at 1:20:00

1:20:32 So I lived with a human being. But now, how the mind works, now that he's dead, and people never knew him. then in Report an error in the passage at 1:20:32 Highlight the passage at 1:20:32

1:20:45 We've never lived with him. But to hear the stories and that about him, then it tends to become, he becomes exalted. And this happened to Ajahn Man, Ajahn Chah's teacher. You know, Ajahn Man sounds just like Super Bikku, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:45 Highlight the passage at 1:20:45

1:21:28 And Dalai Lama, I heard him say this myself. Years ago, he came to London at Westminster Abbey. Because the dean of, Dean Carpenter, who retired since, but he was a very, he really liked the Dalai Lama. So he invited him and gave him the kind of facilities at Westminster Abbey. And he was treated, you know, very well. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:28 Highlight the passage at 1:21:28

1:21:56 And the Dalai Lama invited all the Buddhist monks one time to meet him in this beautiful old room. One of those buildings in Westminster, and I remember sitting there, and of course we were all filled with this idea, Dalai Lama and titles like that are very impressive, and of course the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and you know, you're thinking he's reincarnated how many times, and he's the 16th of the lot, and he's, you know, and one has all these perceptions of this very special. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:56 Highlight the passage at 1:21:56

1:22:30 A person with a title, reincarnated, and that. But then when asked, he said, forget Dalai Lama. He said, it's just Tibetan culture. He says, I'm a bhikkhu. And so this is what he's talking to us. He says, I'm a monk. I'm a bhikkhu. And that gave me a lot of confidence in the Dalai Lama. Because that... Report an error in the passage at 1:22:30 Highlight the passage at 1:22:30

1:23:01 Where if he was, you know, if there was that sense, I'm the Dalai Lama and somehow, you know, I'm a really special creature, the mind would, you know, my mind would be very suspicious. But because he didn't, he wasn't being falsely humble, one felt that he's coming from the heart. That he saw himself, because he acts, when you're around him, he doesn't, he's not acting like he's somebody special at all. He's quite a natural, good-humored human being. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:01 Highlight the passage at 1:23:01

1:23:37 You don't feel that he's trying to make out that you should bow to him and that he's on a higher level than you are. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:37 Highlight the passage at 1:23:37

1:23:50 I think that's one of the very appealing things about him, is that he seems very relaxed wherever he is. In those meetings in Wembley last year, all those cameras and everybody in that conference center, everybody fixed on him, and he seemed always just to be completely at ease. You know. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:50 Highlight the passage at 1:23:50

1:24:38 on to determination. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:38 Highlight the passage at 1:24:38

1:24:48 and how for the discipline to terminate. Well, that's learning how to think, really, because ought and should is, that's a mental, that can be a skillful kind of way of encouraging one to do something. But when it becomes obsessive, you see, when we attach to that, then it becomes a problem for us. Because then we get into the mode of we always should be doing something. It just becomes an emotional habit with us. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:48 Highlight the passage at 1:24:48

1:25:27 We're compulsive. It becomes compulsive. But as a reflection, it's good. Like in the teaching of the Four Noble Truths, you have three aspects to each truth. And they go like this. The first one is there is suffering. That's the first Noble Truth. And the second aspect is Suffering should be understood. So you're using that form of it should be understood. And then the third aspect is suffering has been understood. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:27 Highlight the passage at 1:25:27

1:26:00 So it's a kind of formula and a way of contemplating. But when we take it on a personal level of I should understand suffering, then it can become a kind of compulsive obsession. obsession in which we don't see what we're doing anymore. It's interesting to observe how meditation can be, you know, you get into it. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:00 Highlight the passage at 1:26:00

1:26:31 And then you... practice so many hours a day you should shouldn't talk, you should, and all these shoulds in this life, this monk, monastic life, and then you... And at first this is, you're quite willing, you know, you agree with it all, you should do all these things. But then, and then you have, maybe in the beginning, you have the inspiration, the energy, the faith, all these things that you can try to do all these things that you should be doing. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:31 Highlight the passage at 1:26:31

1:27:10 But then, after a while, things change, and you don't, you lose that kind of, that inspiration. And because so much of that is feeding a sense of me as a person that's going to do all these things in order to get something that I imagine I should get if I do them. And then you end up not getting them. And then you think you're not practicing hard enough. You should practice harder and things like this. That's an inner tyrant. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:10 Highlight the passage at 1:27:10

1:27:40 It's always, you know, it's always saying you shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have, you should have. done something else. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:40 Highlight the passage at 1:27:40

1:27:50 I've told people before about this kind of reoccurring dream I had for the first several years of monastic life. Because I went through, let's see, I went through university, Report an error in the passage at 1:27:50 Highlight the passage at 1:27:50

1:28:06 and during that time, six years of university training, where this kind of compulsiveness was fixated on me, where you're always preparing for the next exam. You see, so in the monastic life, I found out that I was, that I'd be dreaming. I'd go to sleep and then I'd dream that I was going into a coffee shop. And then the voice would say, you shouldn't be here, you should be studying for the exam. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:06 Highlight the passage at 1:28:06

1:28:40 And then it would change. The theme would be just like that, but it would, you know, like one time I'd go into a pastry shop. And this was at a time when the place I was in, the food wasn't very good. And so you had this incredible kind of fantasies around sweets. And so going to the pastry shop and order all these nice pastries and then the voice would say, you shouldn't be here. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:40 Highlight the passage at 1:28:40

1:29:07 You should be studying for the exam. And so then I think, I wake up and I think, this dream is trying to tell me something. It's because I'm not practicing hard enough. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:07 Highlight the passage at 1:29:07

1:29:21 I'm not a good enough monk yet. I've got to be a better monk because I'm going to be tested. And so I kept the whole, the kind of conditioning of the mind was very much like this. But it kept going and I kept having this dream and I kept contemplating what the meaning, what's it trying to tell me? Because no matter how hard I'd practice, the dream would still go on, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:21 Highlight the passage at 1:29:21

1:29:50 It never satisfied that. No matter how good you tried to be, you couldn't be good enough according to that dream. So then it kept kind of simmering away in my consciousness. And then one day I figured it out. And then I realized what the insight was, was that there wasn't any exam. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:50 Highlight the passage at 1:29:50

1:30:29 And I never had the dream again. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:29 Highlight the passage at 1:30:29

1:30:49 And that's frightening. Because we don't know what's going to happen. Where with the exams, you kind of know. I mean, you kind of think you know anyway. You're used to that. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:49 Highlight the passage at 1:30:49

1:31:04 We're used to living our lives always preparing for the future. But to really trust in the moment. We're not used to that. So that doesn't seem like, it seems like nothing. You know, it's frightening. What am I supposed to do? Just sit here? I'm not supposed to meditate or try or anything? That's how the opposite reaction. I mean, but that's oftentimes the reaction to this compulsiveness. And then we think... Report an error in the passage at 1:31:04 Highlight the passage at 1:31:04

1:31:39 Heck with it, you know. This life is just causing me misery and then one wants to just go out and do everything, you know, follow every little impulse or just chuck it all in, you know, throw in the towel. I think you can't do it. It's the opposite reaction. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:39 Highlight the passage at 1:31:39

1:32:23 Well, that's where we, you know, we need to change. We can't expect the society to help us. Because we are the society, so we need to do it ourselves. So if you think that a lay person can't do it, then probably you can't. But it's better to assume that you can't. Because you can. And the society will change for the better when we do that. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:23 Highlight the passage at 1:32:23

1:32:58 But remember, we're the society. Sometimes we want the society to... To change, but it's only, it's a reflection of what we are, really. And here in Britain, you know, there's, you know, it has a lot of good, it has a lot of, you know, for a worldly Report an error in the passage at 1:32:58 Highlight the passage at 1:32:58

1:33:25 society, it is quite stable and there's a lot of good things in it. But we need to, you know, we realize that now is a time where we're no longer asking, we no longer expect the government to solve all the problems and make everything right. We realize maybe we've got to do something now for ourselves and the society. Well, I think so much in the past it was, we were always hoping the next prime minister or the government, you know, something to do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:25 Highlight the passage at 1:33:25

1:34:00 get it all together for us and make everything right and we know that that is impossible can't expect that anymore from a government because the government reflects I've seen the... Report an error in the passage at 1:34:00 Highlight the passage at 1:34:00

1:34:19 government will, that will increase that possibility within the positions of power, political power. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:19 Highlight the passage at 1:34:19

1:34:31 Futility of just endlessly complaining about... Report an error in the passage at 1:34:31 Highlight the passage at 1:34:31