Everything Falls Apart

0:00 Welcome, everybody. I just returned this morning from the beautiful city of Norwich and spent the weekend there. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:14 I Report an error in the passage at 0:14 Highlight the passage at 0:14

0:18 gave a talk last evening. So Report an error in the passage at 0:18 Highlight the passage at 0:18

0:26 the subject for this afternoon is everything falling apart. And Report an error in the passage at 0:26 Highlight the passage at 0:26

0:41 so this is, of course, a reflection on sometimes that life is like that. Everything goes wrong or seems to be falling apart. And there's this incredible kind of desire to kind of control and one thinks there's something wrong with things falling apart. It's easy to see it as something bad or that you've done something wrong or that life is somehow a disappointment because... Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

1:20 According to ideals, life shouldn't fall apart. We would like life to be something that it's not really, which is something that's always pleasant, always supportive, fair and just, and provides us with the emotional support that we think we need. Report an error in the passage at 1:20 Highlight the passage at 1:20

1:44 And of course those are ideals that we have. Maybe like a heavenly ideal when you try to imagine or picture heaven or a state where you as an individual being abide in some place where everything is what it should be then we probably would refer to that as heaven. Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

2:08 And then hell is the opposite where everything is terrible and what you don't want. And of course falling apart would be I could see in myself tremendous fear of this emotionally falling apart or things falling apart and this desire to prevent that and to hold things together. Report an error in the passage at 2:08 Highlight the passage at 2:08

2:40 So with the Buddhist emphasis on mindfulness we realize that we have a way of dealing with this experience. If we don't understand, if we're just caught in the emotional reactions we have, then when things do fall apart for us or seem to fall apart, then we don't know how to cope with it. We get depressed or morbid about it, blaming somebody, blaming oneself. Report an error in the passage at 2:40 Highlight the passage at 2:40

3:26 So I was in monastic life. One of the practices is to contemplate what we call the eight worldly dhammas. And these eight worldly dhammas are given to us. And Luang Por Chah used to always emphasize this as a kind of necessary contemplation. And these are like Report an error in the passage at 3:26 Highlight the passage at 3:26

4:04 what we want, what we consider maybe a heavenly situation is where we have good fortune, success, praise us and we have happiness. Report an error in the passage at 4:04 Highlight the passage at 4:04

4:18 then the opposite is misfortune, blame and suffering. The Eight Worldly Dhammas are for contemplation. They're about the world that we live in, the conditioned realm. It's about living in society, about families, about being a personality, about politics and economics. and Report an error in the passage at 4:18 Highlight the passage at 4:18

4:55 science, the whole lot of conditioned, worldly states, we can relate to these. I found Report an error in the passage at 4:55 Highlight the passage at 4:55

5:23 in my own life that when everything's falling apart, this sense, it somehow throws me into either kind of getting terribly upset or distressed, falling apart myself, or Learning to find something within me that doesn't. What is it in me that doesn't fall apart when everything else seems to be falling apart? Report an error in the passage at 5:23 Highlight the passage at 5:23

5:55 And you don't get this reflection so well when everything is just going the way you want it to. Because with happiness and success and prosperity and praise and happiness, we become a bit... Lazy about contemplating life. We tend to get a bit dopey when life is just too easy. And it's the challenge when life suddenly changes in a way, an unexpected way, when the security that we felt suddenly is gone. Report an error in the passage at 5:55 Highlight the passage at 5:55

6:37 Or we experience a sudden loss or surprise or a failure. And then that throws us into either this state of depression or into a more alert state of being. When life gets dangerous, physically dangerous, we do automatically become alert. There's a kind of survival mechanism in our psyche that when you can find yourself doing kind of amazing feats when you've To save your life or save the life of someone you love through danger, physical danger. But in the ordinariness of life we can take so much for granted here in England. Report an error in the passage at 6:37 Highlight the passage at 6:37

7:30 We can live a comfortable life in which the kind of great dangers are diminished considerably. And we oftentimes just ride along in a kind of miasma, a kind of Report an error in the passage at 7:30 Highlight the passage at 7:30

7:49 porridge existence, of floating in a sea of oatmeal, and Report an error in the passage at 7:49 Highlight the passage at 7:49

8:00 Because the real challenges sometimes don't exist. Because we can get by on mediocrity. But then, say, when your life, physical body is in danger, physical danger, I found there's a kind of mechanism that automatically, it goes on automatic pilot. Report an error in the passage at 8:00 Highlight the passage at 8:00

8:27 And I think this is why people like these kind of death-defined sports, like riding motorcycles off of cliffs and climbing impossible icy glaciers and things like this, because it does, it gives you... A sense of real presence. I found like even trekking when we went on the trek in Nepal two years ago somehow because it demanded so much physical energy and just endurance that life became very easy because you were dealing with the very basics of survival. Report an error in the passage at 8:27 Highlight the passage at 8:27

9:09 The complexities of emotional relationships and ...societal problems and all this somehow paled into the background, didn't seem at all interesting or important, because each day was a matter of just getting through it, you know, just marching on, climbing up mountains and getting through something. And even though in one way that might have sounded... Report an error in the passage at 9:09 Highlight the passage at 9:09

9:53 know when you are at high elevations it's difficult to breathe and and these kind of experiences can be considered very unpleasant and unwanted But actually they're quite bearable. These are experiences we can endure quite easily. And the simplicity of the life, just one step. Report an error in the passage at 9:53 Highlight the passage at 9:53

10:14 I remember coming back, we had this enormous climb that we had to make. And it seems endless. When you're climbing up a mountain, And you keep thinking, I've been climbing for hours now, I should be near the top. Then you get a kind of view that looks like there's nothing beyond it. Oh, I'm really there. Report an error in the passage at 10:14 Highlight the passage at 10:14

10:37 And you climb up and there's more. And you get this feeling that it's never going to end and you'll never get to the top. And this place, this was in Nepal, it just seemed to be like that. You just would never get there. more. Report an error in the passage at 10:37 Highlight the passage at 10:37

10:58 And yet, just something, and I was physically exhausted, and yet I could keep going. So one step, next step, and, you know, nobody was racing each other at this point. Report an error in the passage at 10:58 Highlight the passage at 10:58

11:13 And finally we did. Suddenly there I was at the top. And this was, you know, when you're doing it, sometimes the thought does come into your mind. Why am I doing these things, you know? What is it that makes me kind of go on these kind of things where you're so utterly miserable? But it wasn't a misery that is unbearable misery. It's physical discomfort. Report an error in the passage at 11:13 Highlight the passage at 11:13

11:47 But there's something exhilarating about it, about conquering something, about doing something that's difficult. And then getting to the top and then the rest was all downhill. We went down the other side and we were in the town and everything was ready for us to fly back to Kathmandu and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 11:47 Highlight the passage at 11:47

12:17 But this is like a trek or even jumping out of airplanes or... Bungee jumping or climbing glaciers or whatnot, these are just moments in our lives. So these are kind of the extremity of a human experience that we might seek because otherwise life gets pretty dull, dreary, boring, meaningless. And the more we depend on these more extreme kind of experiences, then more dreary life can seem. Report an error in the passage at 12:17 Highlight the passage at 12:17

13:00 Because what we hold to is as what we really, you know, bring us to that peak of kind of euphoria or ecstasy is only something that can be experienced as a peak moment in one's life. Report an error in the passage at 13:00 Highlight the passage at 13:00

13:22 And then to experience life as just one peak moment after another is an impossibility. Because it's not like that. That peak moments are, you know, like literally in that case it was the peak of the mountain. And it wasn't the place that I could stay. And if I did stay there, life would get boring again. Report an error in the passage at 13:22 Highlight the passage at 13:22

13:48 And very cold. Report an error in the passage at 13:48 Highlight the passage at 13:48

13:54 So coming down the mountain and then back to the comfort of, you know, Went to Kathmandu and stayed in a very nice Buddhist temple and flew back to England and life went on in its ordinary way. Report an error in the passage at 13:54 Highlight the passage at 13:54

14:17 So mindfulness brings us always into the present and it's not a present that is a peak. It can be a peak moment but it doesn't need to be. It is the way it is because most of our daily life is It's like this. It's neither, you know, you're not in a dangerous situation or climbing to a mountaintop or doing something extreme. Report an error in the passage at 14:17 Highlight the passage at 14:17

14:43 It's the ordinariness of life. And it's interesting the Buddha emphasizing this ordinariness. And in the Thai language they have, because it's a language that has adopted a lot of Pāli words into it, Report an error in the passage at 14:43 Highlight the passage at 14:43

15:03 One of the words for ordinariness is called dhamma-da, which means ordinary. Dhamma is like the dhamma, and dhamma-da means ordinary. And Luang Por Chah used to always be saying, dhamma-da, dhamma-da, and practice, he says, practice dhamma-da. and emphasize Emphasizing this dhamma-da all the time. And in Thai it works very well because of the word dhamma, isn't it? Dhamma somehow has a significant quality to it. Report an error in the passage at 15:03 Highlight the passage at 15:03

15:39 And then putting that last syllable on brings it into the sense of ordinariness. But we can even conceive dhamma as being extraordinary. We take refuge in the dhamma. That's something really high. That's like a peak moment maybe or something. very, very precious, and we can create this idea of Dhamma as being precious. But when you have Dhamma-da, ordinary, and the teacher pointing to the ordinary as Dhamma. Report an error in the passage at 15:39 Highlight the passage at 15:39

16:12 So Report an error in the passage at 16:12 Highlight the passage at 16:12

16:16 ordinariness is what most of our life amounts to. It's neither that wonderful or that horrible. And then in a country like this, where we have a high standard of living, the ordinariness of our life might be extraordinary in another country. Report an error in the passage at 16:16 Highlight the passage at 16:16

16:43 But even life with a high standard of living becomes tamada in terms of experience. We go through the same, getting up in the morning, The procedures of getting ready for the day and eating food and going to work and coming back and on and on like this, the daily routine. Report an error in the passage at 16:43 Highlight the passage at 16:43

17:11 And when you contemplate what most of your life has been, it's been neither one extreme nor the other. The memory does remember the extremities, so we don't remember the tamada, we don't remember the ordinary. Report an error in the passage at 17:11 Highlight the passage at 17:11

17:27 Like the ordinariness of ten years ago, I don't remember, but I could remember maybe important events when everything was falling apart ten years ago. Report an error in the passage at 17:27 Highlight the passage at 17:27

17:50 Mindfulness then is like opening to the present and letting life be what it is. go. Report an error in the passage at 17:50 Highlight the passage at 17:50

18:00 When we're mindful and with wisdom, then it's not criticizing anything. We're not saying, like if we think, oh, this is boring, this is ordinary, then we're passing a judgment on the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 18:00 Highlight the passage at 18:00

18:18 And that very judgment is something that we create ourselves. ourselves. Through not letting things be what they are, we compare them, always compare them with something else. So if you compare your life with peak moments, then you're going to feel really bored with the ordinariness of life. It just seems so meaningless and purposeless in compared to maybe some great mystical experience or some very important peak moment you might have had. Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:54 That you can remember. And this is where we do, we compare our lives. Because we do remember, we have precedence where we were really happy or we felt really a real sense of love for somebody or where life just seemed so perfect, so wonderful, so complete. We felt so alive and so good about everything. Report an error in the passage at 18:54 Highlight the passage at 18:54

19:24 everything, and then things fall apart. Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:31 by remembering those moments where life was so wonderful, then we get even more depressed because at the time when life is wonderful, things aren't falling apart. They don't seem to be anyway. Everything's going for me. The opening to Report an error in the passage at 19:31 Highlight the passage at 19:31

19:55 things falling apart is... When this feeling does arise, or when these things are happening, where everything seems to be going wrong, then just use that, observe that, kind of open to it, rather than just be caught in the extremities of indulging in anguish and despair about it, or just trying to suppress your feelings. Report an error in the passage at 19:55 Highlight the passage at 19:55

20:26 Because the other tendency is to just stiff upper lip, you know, Life is tough and just get on with it and grit your teeth. And that's the other extreme. So these two extremes apply. One, everything's falling apart. Oh, why does life have to be like this? Or the other, oh, life is miserable. Get on with it. Report an error in the passage at 20:26 Highlight the passage at 20:26

20:49 Just bear it. Get through it some way. Grit your teeth. Stiff upper lip. Or begin to just notice it. begin to observe this this feeling within you you know this you learn a lot from just observing how how you feel you know the resentments that arise or the anxiety or the the worry the worrisomeness When we think, when we get dependent on life, A sense of security in life, being a certain way, certain people are there, certain things go on in a regular way. And we have this sense that this gives us a feeling, well, everything's going to be all right. Report an error in the passage at 20:49 Highlight the passage at 20:49

21:44 And then eventually something happens. Somebody dies or a house burns down or something happens that shakes us, that kind of... Shakes us out of that kind of sense of security. And this is why we call them the devaduttas or the heavenly messengers. The messengers that aroused Prince Siddhartha from his kind of privileged existence as a prince, as the special being, the prince that had everything. Report an error in the passage at 21:44 Highlight the passage at 21:44

22:25 Where life was secure and you had everything you wanted. And all that was unpleasant or startling or would remind you of where things would seem to be falling apart were forbidden. So this kind of legend of Siddhartha's father, the king, saying... We don't want anything that will remind the young prince of any spiritual values whatsoever, because I don't want him to become a Buddha. I want you, son, to become a world emperor. Report an error in the passage at 22:25 Highlight the passage at 22:25

23:05 And his father usually wanted us to be world emperors. I don't know any father yet that wants us to become Buddhas. So the Buddha's father was the same. Report an error in the passage at 23:05 Highlight the passage at 23:05

23:21 He was that kind of a father. You know, you inherit the throne, you carry on with the family line. Report an error in the passage at 23:21 Highlight the passage at 23:21

23:33 Oh, then the prince, you know, kind of clandestinely sneaks out of the palace and runs into the four devaduttas, the old man, the sick one, the corpse and the monk. And these are called heavenly messengers, devadutta, Pāli word deva is always some kind of like divine or divine being. Deva and Dutta is like a message. Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

24:07 It's interesting in Thailand how they, you know, these are called the angels of Buddhism. It's an old man, sick corpse and a monk. Report an error in the passage at 24:07 Highlight the passage at 24:07

24:24 It's a different way of looking at life. They aren't white with wings and plain hearts. So the old human being, this reminds us of both when we see old people or when we begin to perceive those signs in ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

24:48 It's something in its awakens a little more. We start seeing that life isn't this kind of secure existence maybe that we've been experiencing or a sense of safety where everything's together. Report an error in the passage at 24:48 Highlight the passage at 24:48

25:11 can be prepared for death intellectually, and we're all going to die and say, oh yes. But when it happens, when somebody you love, or even know slightly, even just knowing somebody who dies has its own kind of shock value. And of course the closer they are, the more kind of shocking it is. It's like Princess Diana, what, three years ago. Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:36 That was a shocking death. You know, because everybody knew who she was. And totally unexpected, you know, sudden death. So the nation was shocked by that. Report an error in the passage at 25:36 Highlight the passage at 25:36

25:58 Also, I think Buddhist monks, we have a shocking effect on the public. Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:07 It's a strong kind of presence, isn't it? With a shaven head and this color of robe. It does convey something, you know, that maybe is... Report an error in the passage at 26:07 Highlight the passage at 26:07

26:21 People don't really want to know yet in your life of just, you know, security and your jobs, your relationships, everything going on like this, to be reminded of a spiritual goal. Or a deathless, because you have the corpse which reminds you of the mortality of your physical body, but then there's the monk or the samana that is the sign of the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 26:21 Highlight the passage at 26:21

26:50 The possibility, the potential for deathless reality. Report an error in the passage at 26:50 Highlight the passage at 26:50

26:58 And that can be, that is a mind-boggling perception. What is the deathless reality? What is it? And then we want to, is there life after death is a common question. Ajahn Sumedho, is there life after death? Or, you know, what happens when we die? It's the unknown, isn't it? We don't know. Report an error in the passage at 26:58 Highlight the passage at 26:58

27:24 And deathlessness is a concept that is, you know, at one time was more or less taken for granted. The immortals or that there was eternal life or these kind of ideas were part of a cultural attitude. But now in modern life the mind tends to not We tend to have these kind of perceptions. We tend to see death as like this idea that we only have this one life and when we're dead what happens and you don't know. Report an error in the passage at 27:24 Highlight the passage at 27:24

28:04 And there's various varying opinions about it. So we gravitate to whatever we're inclined to. Whatever seems most suitable to us we tend to incline to that like going to heaven or A fear of going to hell or reincarnation or oblivion. Just disappearing into no longer existing in any way. Report an error in the passage at 28:04 Highlight the passage at 28:04

28:35 But at this point now we don't know. It's knowing we don't know. And death of the body of course is when the body is falling apart. It's a sense of holding together of... Report an error in the passage at 28:35 Highlight the passage at 28:35

28:53 integration is no longer operating. And so we have to experience this sense of the physically falling apart. And that can be very frightening because the sense of life being something valid is everything's working all right. Everything's cooperating. So sickness... Old age, death, are the awakening signs in this human realm. They're the unpleasantness, what we don't like, what we don't want. Report an error in the passage at 28:53 Highlight the passage at 28:53

29:34 But they also, their value is that they are heavenly messengers, taking us to, say, the samana, or the religious seeker, or the alms mendicant, or the monk, or the nun. Report an error in the passage at 29:34 Highlight the passage at 29:34

29:52 This is going to a human being who in some way is addressing this, is investigating. What is life about? What is death? What is the meaning? What is the way of liberation? Report an error in the passage at 29:52 Highlight the passage at 29:52

30:18 So getting to recognize that these questions needn't be answered in terms of words. What is the meaning of life? Or what happens when you die? One could give kind of authoritative views and opinions about it, and we might be willing to accept them, but the fact is we don't know at this point of experience. Report an error in the passage at 30:18 Highlight the passage at 30:18

30:52 So we're thrown back right into this present moment. This is the way it is. Right now we're here. here. We're with what is happening now, the body as you're experiencing it right now. Your emotional state, the way it is right now, and whether you understand or you feel agreement with what I'm saying or you don't agree or you're just totally confused by it, that which is aware, Report an error in the passage at 30:52 Highlight the passage at 30:52

31:26 there's an awareness of it. Though one part of you is saying your emotional state I don't know what he's talking about or oh that's interesting or I don't agree or whatever. But there's also at the same moment a knowing of that. So this is what we're getting into this reflectiveness, the ability to notice actually what we're feeling as an emotional experience. Report an error in the passage at 31:26 Highlight the passage at 31:26

32:03 So just noting this, what is the way I'm being, what is the, I don't understand what he's saying, what is that like? And now we're looking at this feeling of not knowing, feeling confused or bewildered by something we don't understand. And what we can know at this moment is that, a not feeling bewildered is like this. Now that is, once you begin to To recognize the value of this, then you begin to have a sense of the path of liberation as a practical thing, something realistic, not something abstract and remote and impossible for you. Report an error in the passage at 32:03 Highlight the passage at 32:03

32:49 Because it's just that simple, that ability that each one of us possesses and can do, but which we forget most of the time. We don't use it. We tend to... get carried away by the feeling, the emotion, the passion of the present, just get caught up with stiff upper lip, bear with it, or indulge in your own emotional of So this is what we call mindfulness. Mindfulness and sampacanya. Report an error in the passage at 32:49 Highlight the passage at 32:49

33:30 Sati is mindfulness, sampacanya is... It's intuitive awareness. It's the ability we have to embrace everything in the present, in this one moment. It's called apperception. It includes all the perceptions that exist in this present moment. So it's like intuitive awareness allows us to open to this moment the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 33:30 Highlight the passage at 33:30

34:04 And that's whatever way it is for you as an individual entity. And if I say, the way it is right now, it's like this, and tell you, that's not it, is it? It's not something I can inform you about. It's something you can only know, realize yourself. Because the way it is right now is different. Each one of us, if you tried to explain it, it would all sound very different. Well, this person, how this person, is experiencing this moment from the next person. Report an error in the passage at 34:04 Highlight the passage at 34:04

34:40 And so the path isn't all agreeing on the same perceptions and same beliefs and same ideas but it's our ability to open to the present and learn from what we are feeling and experiencing now. Whether it's sensible or Report an error in the passage at 34:40 Highlight the passage at 34:40

35:07 Admirable or noble or good or it's horrible, nasty, mean, it's nonsense, it's stupid. The quality is no longer the issue. We're not thinking that we should only have very noble thoughts and have only magnanimous intentions towards the universe. That's an ideal, but life is like this. Sometimes everything falls apart. We feel everything is gone. We feel like our life is meaningless, that we lose the sense of our identity. Report an error in the passage at 35:07 Highlight the passage at 35:07

35:47 That happens, doesn't it? Sometimes the sense of ourself as being a certain personality disappears. We don't know who we are anymore. Report an error in the passage at 35:47 Highlight the passage at 35:47

36:00 The world around us changes, like just in my lifetime, the incredible changes of social and political economic changes. And I can see so much of my perceptual habits date back to my childhood. When you're living in a community like here in Marwati, where everybody's younger, then the way they perceive things sometimes... Report an error in the passage at 36:00 Highlight the passage at 36:00

36:31 Surprises me because I'm dated in some way. Because a lot of perceptions were very much formed in those early years, back in the 40s and 50s. And that's just the way it is. But this awareness is transcending those perceptions. you've got Report an error in the passage at 36:31 Highlight the passage at 36:31

36:57 So like our perception includes the perceptions, but it's not a perception. And that we can regard as intuitive awareness, or sati sampacanya. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

37:15 And the Buddha emphasized this. This is the essence of the Buddha's teaching, really. This is the pure teaching. with Report an error in the passage at 37:15 Highlight the passage at 37:15

37:27 teaching is in this sati sampacanya, sati Satipanya is wisdom. And this wisdom isn't anything I can give you, that you can get out of a book, or that a great wise teacher can instruct you with. This wisdom is native, it's natural to us. It's part of our humanity when we're open, when we're not caught. Report an error in the passage at 37:27 Highlight the passage at 37:27

37:59 Closed up in the identities of our perceptions and our ignorant views of life. Report an error in the passage at 37:59 Highlight the passage at 37:59

38:09 So, where I used to conceive wisdom as something you get through studying texts about philosophy or reading the Abhidhamma or the scriptural, the wisdom in the scriptures or reading Confucius or... Lao Tzu or Socrates and whatnot, acquiring all kinds of wise perceptions. But then it became apparent that I could have all these, I could quote all these great wise teachers and still be totally miserable without Report an error in the passage at 38:09 Highlight the passage at 38:09

38:54 any, didn't seem to make that much difference in terms of It could be interesting on the level of intellectual interest, but emotionally it wasn't addressing the problem because on the emotional level it's through this sati sampacanya that we can understand and be free from just reaffirming our habits and just committing the same mistakes over and over again. Report an error in the passage at 38:54 Highlight the passage at 38:54

39:33 Because, like, when everything's falling apart, then the two extremes, as I pointed out before, would be to indulge in this fear and just feel frightened and anxious and blaming, or stiff upper lip, or opening. Report an error in the passage at 39:33 Highlight the passage at 39:33

39:55 Everything falling apart is, we're able to bear this when we open to it. Or even a loss of identity, or not knowing the future. Or being totally confused. Report an error in the passage at 39:55 Highlight the passage at 39:55

40:12 And I remember that I'm a kind of person that didn't like to feel confused. I wanted answers for every question. I wanted order and everything to be kind of neatly aligned in a way that made me feel everything's okay because it's all so, you know. Well presented and every question is answered. And then I'd get confused. And living a monastic life, like in Thailand, for example, when the first year or so I didn't understand most of what people were saying. Report an error in the passage at 40:12 Highlight the passage at 40:12

40:53 You know, you're trying to learn the language. So, you know, and people are saying things and doing things and you just feel so confused. And it would be very frustrating because I didn't like that feeling. I didn't want to be confused. I kept trying to kind of push. I could get quite pushy and aggressive, wanting, is it we do this or do we do that? Tell me, A or B or C? Report an error in the passage at 40:53 Highlight the passage at 40:53

41:24 And wanting clarity and definition and then not getting what I wanted in this state of confusion. And really, Feeling that there's something wrong when I'm confused. And suddenly I recognized, when I had this insight, well, confusion is a state of mind, isn't it, that arises and ceases. So I opened to this sense of confusion, and it went away. Report an error in the passage at 41:24 Highlight the passage at 41:24

41:58 It never goes away that fast, the way I usually try to solve problems. Report an error in the passage at 41:58 Highlight the passage at 41:58

42:08 That's wonderful, you know, because rather than just gritting your teeth and suppressing this unpleasant feeling or in just getting pushy and aggressive and tell me and getting exasperated by everything and feeling there's something really wrong with being confused, just changing the attitude towards the confusion. Report an error in the passage at 42:08 Highlight the passage at 42:08

42:36 Of just knowing that confusion is like this. And so then the struggle stopped, isn't it? The resisting or the struggling with it. And it was an accepting of that mental state of confusion. And it was. Then it was all right. Being confused was okay because it's part of life, isn't it? It's part of the flow. Life is sometimes just very confusing. Report an error in the passage at 42:36 Highlight the passage at 42:36

43:09 And the things around us are very confused, and the people we live with can be very confused, and the society we live in, you know, modern Britain, is quite confused, actually. Report an error in the passage at 43:09 Highlight the passage at 43:09

43:21 And anywhere you go, you'll find the confusion is quite an ordinary thing. And then, of course, politicians, don't they, They play on this need for clarity. If you elect me, then I will see that you'll no longer be confused. Report an error in the passage at 43:21 Highlight the passage at 43:21

43:46 Let's vote for him. Report an error in the passage at 43:46 Highlight the passage at 43:46

43:50 But it doesn't work. That's an impossible promise. You can't do that. Admittedly, clarity is appreciated, but also much of life is... Confused. Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:05 Can't be clarified. It's like this. We get crossed messages. Report an error in the passage at 44:05 Highlight the passage at 44:05

44:16 People say one thing and do another. They contradict themselves. And remember, when you're a very logical person, you don't like contradictions. If you say this, then you do it like this. And we really resent. The cross messages that we get from the people we live with or the society or even with ourselves. But even that is a bearable thing, you know, to something that we needn't suffer from if we understand how to use those kind of situations. Report an error in the passage at 44:16 Highlight the passage at 44:16

45:12 In meditation, there is, as we, because we're actually breaking down The world we've subscribed to, like the world of what is right and wrong, who I am, my place, my identity in this group, in this society. Report an error in the passage at 45:12 Highlight the passage at 45:12

45:36 All these things we can eventually, you know, through... We try to support that maybe in various ways through our lifetime. Or in meditation, this is no longer necessary. Report an error in the passage at 45:36 Highlight the passage at 45:36

45:54 So we can fall apart. And I think that's what many people, like some of the members of the Amaravati community, tell me how grateful they are that they can come to Amaravati and fall apart. Report an error in the passage at 45:54 Highlight the passage at 45:54

46:10 And they thank me for it. Because in lay life maybe, Report an error in the passage at 46:10 Highlight the passage at 46:10

46:32 about you. And so we play the illusion of it. Everything's fine, isn't it? Isn't that? Everything's fine, isn't it? Yes, everything's fine. everything okay? Yes, everything's okay. Report an error in the passage at 46:32 Highlight the passage at 46:32

46:48 Is everything okay? No. Get out of here. I don't want to hear that. Tell me everything is okay. And so the games we play to support this sense of everything is alright, which is because we're so frightened of falling apart, of everything not being alright. yeah. Report an error in the passage at 46:48 Highlight the passage at 46:48

47:17 It's interesting in a community, as it matures, because people that do point out that everything's not all right, suddenly you feel, you know, you can feel, everybody member of the community suddenly feeling quite angry with that person. Report an error in the passage at 47:17 Highlight the passage at 47:17

47:36 So you think, everything's all right, everything's okay, yes, and one person says no. Report an error in the passage at 47:36 Highlight the passage at 47:36

47:47 How did they get here? And so this is because in any group or you find like in religious groups that there's oftentimes this sense of reaffirming our rightness, that we're on the right track, that our way is right, that we're the best or our way is the best. And then when anybody says, no, there's a better way, then we have a way of just dismissing them as not knowing what they're talking about. Report an error in the passage at 47:47 Highlight the passage at 47:47

48:26 And then the in-group, you keep reinforcing this sense that we're all right, we're the best, and this is the right path. And so this keeps us feeling okay, because Report an error in the passage at 48:26 Highlight the passage at 48:26

48:45 that is agreed of how we should live. We should all appear. Falling apart then, say in meditation, this is where we understand this and we allow this to happen. Report an error in the passage at 48:45 Highlight the passage at 48:45

49:03 We're not saying when somebody falls apart that they shouldn't. But to open to this, so that you're encouraging an attitude where they can actually benefit from this experience. And develop wisdom through the experience of falling apart. And this, I think, is what people go to therapists for, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 49:03 Highlight the passage at 49:03

49:34 Because oftentimes you can't fall apart with even your best friends, your family. They just get upset. So you have to pay somebody. Report an error in the passage at 49:34 Highlight the passage at 49:34

49:46 You have to pay somebody some money so you can fall apart with them. Report an error in the passage at 49:46 Highlight the passage at 49:46

49:56 And Report an error in the passage at 49:56 Highlight the passage at 49:56

50:02 psychotherapy is a big, you know, really everybody has a therapist now because this is a basic need, you know, that for maturing, for developing, is falling apart. Report an error in the passage at 50:02 Highlight the passage at 50:02

50:22 So this, like from my own experience, the many times I've fallen apart, but in terms of of the monastic form in one way like the value of monastic convention is that it holds things it's like a vehicle like you're riding on a train or something and it holds you in one place where you get on this train and then you can fall apart on it. Report an error in the passage at 50:22 Highlight the passage at 50:22

51:04 But it's taking you. It isn't stopping your journey. It's part of it. And also it holds you from... I mean, when you're looking out the train window and you see some more interesting option from the window, it's difficult to get off the train right at that point. You kind of ride past it. Report an error in the passage at 51:04 Highlight the passage at 51:04

51:28 The value of monastic tradition has that. It's a container, it's a conventional kind of vehicle that helps to hold you physically and socially in a convention that allows the process to take place, such as the inspiration, the... The dedication, the commitment, all the good side of a religious path, as well as its frightening side, the falling apart side, the dark side, the old age sickness and death, the loss of everything, in this loss of identity. Report an error in the passage at 51:28 Highlight the passage at 51:28

52:28 You know, I find that not being anybody, to me, is liberation. This sense of anattā, to me, is a liberation, because the sense of myself as being something or somebody, eventually, you know, it does, it has its price to pay. It's something quite, that isn't liberating about it, having to be. A person having to be a thing or something for oneself or for others as an identity that you hold to. Report an error in the passage at 52:28 Highlight the passage at 52:28

53:10 And no matter how good it might be, in the long run it's a cause of suffering. Where this non-self isn't like a... Just a kind of wallowing in a cloud, in a mist and fog, just stumbling around. But there's a knowing of not knowing. There's a knowing of confusion. There's a knowing no self. And this knowing is when you're getting to the very center point, the still point of the present moment, to that very What we could call maybe the absolute subject, where the mind is completely open and not caught in any of the conditions of the mind, completely with the present. Report an error in the passage at 53:10 Highlight the passage at 53:10

54:08 And it's not personal. There's no person there. There's pure presence, pure consciousness, pure awareness. And from there then we can... Once we recognize that, and realize that, you don't have to know who you are. It's like, you know, there's just no point to it. You just know what you're not. And everything you think and feel and remember is what you're not. And everything that says you are like this is what you're not. Report an error in the passage at 54:08 Highlight the passage at 54:08

54:47 And it is what it is, you know, so we're not... God. Report an error in the passage at 54:47 Highlight the passage at 54:47

54:51 not saying, we're not, Trying to describe, say, black is white and white is black, we're just recognizing this is the way it is, that conditions are like this. And our refuge is in the awareness of the conditions rather than loving or hating or evaluating those conditions in a personal way. Report an error in the passage at 54:51 Highlight the passage at 54:51

55:17 So I'll stop here, and the tea is being brought to the servery, as usual. Kulanda never fails. Report an error in the passage at 55:17 Highlight the passage at 55:17

55:31 She's been doing this for years. Report an error in the passage at 55:31 Highlight the passage at 55:31

55:37 That's one thing in the holy life you see a lot of, is a lot of just unacknowledged generosity or goodness that people, you know. Go on for years in some kind of low level, low background, low profile situation, but that continuous support. And I remember being brought up as a Christian in the church. There was always this group of usually mostly women, spinsters or widows, who kept the church going. Report an error in the passage at 55:37 Highlight the passage at 55:37

56:19 They polished the brass and made the toast. Did the cleaning. And these women were usually, you know, they were low profile. They hardly noticed. They were always there. And they weren't the kind of grand people that make the gestures, but they kind of do things, you know, behind the scenes to keep it all kind of moving. Report an error in the passage at 56:19 Highlight the passage at 56:19

56:50 And then in Thailand, it was the same in Wat Nanachat. There's all these... These village people would come and they'd just keep the whole thing going, you know, every day, over years and years. And the wealthy people would come with the grand gestures and lots of money. This level was actually what was holding it together. Report an error in the passage at 56:50 Highlight the passage at 56:50

57:14 And it dawned on me, these are the people that hold the world together. They keep it from falling apart too much. Report an error in the passage at 57:14 Highlight the passage at 57:14

57:29 So I'll stop now, and then in about 20 minutes, those who have the time and the interest can come back and we can have further discussion. Report an error in the passage at 57:29 Highlight the passage at 57:29