True Happiness

0:02 Reflecting on true happiness is what we'll do. This word happiness is a common enough word in what everybody wants. And tremendous efforts of modern affluent life to have this illusion of happiness at least. Report an error in the passage at 0:02 Highlight the passage at 0:02

0:33 But then... Even if it's a desirable state, to sustain it or trying to create a life that is full of true happiness is very much an ideal. And the realities of our life are such that sometimes we feel like failures or inadequate. Report an error in the passage at 0:33 Highlight the passage at 0:33

1:01 There is this assumption that we should be happy. This is our normal state. I remember being Report an error in the passage at 1:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01

1:32 an American of course this is one of our rights the right to happiness the British aren't so naive Naive. Report an error in the passage at 1:32 Highlight the passage at 1:32

1:51 And this, of course, this idea of the right to happiness can make you very selfish because you can see anyone, anything that gets in the way of what you think will make you happy, you can see as the enemy and start feeling threatened by the prospect of it being destroyed or not getting it, not achieving it. Report an error in the passage at 1:51 Highlight the passage at 1:51

2:19 So in Buddhism, of course, the first noble truth is not around happiness, but around suffering. And raising this common experience, which we all share, we all experience suffering, and bringing it into a context of a noble truth is Report an error in the passage at 2:19 Highlight the passage at 2:19

2:44 interesting because it does lead to happiness. And not the happiness of of getting what you want and just seeking pleasure and having a good time but it's what we might call true happiness or a sense of well-being or fulfillment which is the reality of our lives when we let go of this desire. To achieve and have it and constantly resist and push away suffering, this in itself is suffering. Report an error in the passage at 2:44 Highlight the passage at 2:44

3:25 The few moments we might have of happiness can become increasingly rare as we struggle more to hold on to it. So this upādāna or this clinging, trying to, out of desire to get, to be happy, to To feel happy, to have the best, this very desire and the attachment to it is the cause of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 3:25 Highlight the passage at 3:25

3:57 So sometimes you see people who are quite happy even though in terms of a kind of superficial view of who should be happy, they shouldn't be. People who have oftentimes physical disabilities or chronic pain or diseases or things like this, that we can feel a sense of pity, feeling sorry for them because they have to deal with such unpleasant experiences as being or pain or in some way and yet through Report an error in the passage at 3:57 Highlight the passage at 3:57

4:47 Rather than just trying to feel desperate to find happiness and see that the disability or the pain is what is preventing them from being happy, the attitude changes to an attitude of accepting, allowing, looking, noticing, paying attention, in which the clinging, To this desire for happiness or clinging to even the desire to get rid of the pain or the disability is relinquished. Report an error in the passage at 4:47 Highlight the passage at 4:47

5:26 So we have this sense of relinquishing or and it comes in in terms of like in the paramitas, these virtues, accumulated virtues that we have in Buddhism, the ten, what they call paramitas are the ten virtues that were cultivated through the previous lives of the Buddha. So in the Jataka stories, they usually recite these previous lives where each lifetime the Buddha... Report an error in the passage at 5:26 Highlight the passage at 5:26

6:02 One of these is renunciation. Report an error in the passage at 6:02 Highlight the passage at 6:02

6:13 And yet we can think of renunciation in terms of, you know, in a very negative way as something that we should get rid of things, or even in a kind of imperative view of we should let go of everything, we shouldn't be attached. Report an error in the passage at 6:13 Highlight the passage at 6:13

6:29 We can look at monasticism as a kind of, it's called a renunciate lifestyle, renunciation, or the Prince Siddhartha becoming a, Renunciate, when he left the palace, gave up the privileged position of his life in the palace, and the communities do live as an ascetic. They call that renunciation. But yet, renunciation becomes more refined than just kind of giving up or getting rid of things, but can be seen in terms of more Letting go, allowing life to be what it is rather than always seeking happiness or trying to hold on to the good things that we can become addicted to or dependent upon. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

7:30 Like happiness itself tends to lead to addiction. And when anything that's pleasant makes us happy, It gives us a high. We want more of it. It's just the way it is. It creates this desire. If you have a tasty food, if you take one bite, then it creates this desire to have another one. Report an error in the passage at 7:30 Highlight the passage at 7:30

8:00 I remember somebody sending me these kind of salted almonds with some kind of special... They're specially prepared and they're prepared in such a way that when you take one, Report an error in the passage at 8:00 Highlight the passage at 8:00

8:42 because and that you can say is addiction we talk about drug addicts or alcohol addiction and all these have this sense of giving some kind of happiness to us or some kind of thrill or excitement Report an error in the passage at 8:42 Highlight the passage at 8:42

9:30 but I assume that the experience is so pleasant. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:38 that you just want to have it as often and as much as you can. means that after that, then you're Your ordinary life, which might be not all that unpleasant, but could seem rather boring and dreary in comparison to the high that you become addicted to. Report an error in the passage at 9:38 Highlight the passage at 9:38

10:01 So the Buddha, he was in his teaching, was pointing what they call the middle way, or the machima bhattibhatta, which isn't like a kind of bland mediocrity. That we just compromise between these extremes for a kind of tasteless porridge as what we're going to experience in life. We shouldn't enjoy delicious things or sweets or pleasures of any sort. This we can see is a kind of tyrannical sense of renunciation where we try to reject pleasure and Sensual pleasure and beauty and all of those conditions because we don't want to become addicted. And so we have an attack against them like the prince Siddhartha when he became the ascetic Gautama was trying to deny his senses from any pleasurable experiences. Report an error in the passage at 10:01 Highlight the passage at 10:01

11:12 So we call that asceticism. Or in the Pāli we call it This extreme of asceticism to deny any kind of pleasure or enjoyment through the senses. So that's a kind of tyrannical renunciation that the ascetic gotama practiced for six years before enlightenment but then realized that this was not the way to liberation, just through denial. Report an error in the passage at 11:12 Highlight the passage at 11:12

11:48 And it led to a kind of, you know, just an unhappy result that even though you could maybe, there is a certain pleasure in asceticism actually. Report an error in the passage at 11:48 Highlight the passage at 11:48

12:07 If you've ever done any ascetic practice, it can be addictive in itself. But also, it's not liberating because you, you have to always control your life so that in a way that you you're in this state of denying uh sense sense stimulation then Report an error in the passage at 12:07 Highlight the passage at 12:07

12:33 the other extreme is called gamma which is the uh just sensory indulgence so this is very much what we find now in modern societies like this where the tendencies to to To kind of seek, endlessly seek sensual pleasures through never saying no to anything that's pleasurable or exciting, sensually pleasing or attractive to us. Report an error in the passage at 12:33 Highlight the passage at 12:33

13:05 So we go the other extreme of always just indulging in sensual pleasures, in the pleasures of seeking happiness as our goal. And then the result of that, is generally, you know, not liberated. We can't be liberated through just indulging in sense pleasures. So the middle way is what the Buddha realized and we call enlightenment or the realization of nibbāna. Report an error in the passage at 13:05 Highlight the passage at 13:05

13:43 Interesting, the word nibbāna can be translated as extinction. So it tends to be a kind of nihilistic, sounding word. remember people are quite shocked sometimes. You go to interfaith groups and some Buddhists will say, well we believe that we should practice in order to not annihilate ourselves, extinguish ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 13:43 Highlight the passage at 13:43

14:10 We practice in order to become one with the Lord. That sounds a little more attractive, doesn't it? When we talk about the middle way, that can sound pretty boring, actually. It doesn't sound like an endless compromise of just neutrality. Where we avoid any kind of pleasure or pain for a kind of bland state of indifference. Report an error in the passage at 14:10 Highlight the passage at 14:10

15:01 Just like eating porridge all the time. Just without salt or honey. Report an error in the passage at 15:01 Highlight the passage at 15:01

15:12 Our life should be just based on just this middle path of compromise. Or is the middle way Not really a middle way at all, but a transcendent way. Report an error in the passage at 15:12 Highlight the passage at 15:12

15:31 So this is what the Buddha was pointing to, a transcendent ability that we have, which is our ability to awaken and be aware of these extremes, because sensory pleasures are conditions that arise and cease. They're always dependent on other conditions. And so in the teaching of his dependent origination, or with the word itabhajita, this Pāli word, enigmatic word, means that things depend for their existence on other conditions. Report an error in the passage at 15:31 Highlight the passage at 15:31

16:12 So nothing is kind of just independently permanent or... the middle way or the transcendent way we're learning to recognize or realize Our ability to notice this, to pay attention to the way things are, because every human life has these, you know, we have the conditions for success, happiness, good fortune, praise, and all the best, and this is what we experience. Report an error in the passage at 16:12 Highlight the passage at 16:12

17:03 And when the conditions aren't there, the conditions for failure, or misery, or... Being blamed or criticized our present, then this is what we experience. But through the movement and change, the rising and falling of pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering, is an awareness that the Buddha points to. Report an error in the passage at 17:03 Highlight the passage at 17:03

17:29 It's this awakened attention in the present in which then we can see and we can notice, we can observe. And reflect on the way it is. So this doesn't depend on any conditions for this. This isn't dependent on things being pleasant or unpleasant or neutral. Because it includes all the extremities and all the shades of grey between black and white are included in this mindful moment. Report an error in the passage at 17:29 Highlight the passage at 17:29

18:15 So mindfulness then is the kind of real essence, the essential of the Buddha's path, the way of mindfulness, awareness or awakenness. And in our tradition in Thailand, we use this bhutto mantra, the bhutto, the knowing. The ability to know or to be the knowing, in other words, to pay attention, to awaken, to observe the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 18:15 Highlight the passage at 18:15

18:55 And in this state of bhutto, it's not a dependent state, it's natural to us, but not noticed or recognized if we are on this journey always seeking happiness and trying to avoid suffering. Report an error in the passage at 18:55 Highlight the passage at 18:55

19:13 Because this takes us to extremities on this dualistic experience of conditionality. Like conditions are, you know, the way they are. They range between the best and the worst. Black and white and happiness and suffering, success and failure, praise and blame, the worldly dhammas that we all experience in various ways. Report an error in the passage at 19:13 Highlight the passage at 19:13

20:09 I can blame myself. I can say it's because I'm basically a failure as a person. It's my fault. And on and on like this. But in terms of the actual experience of failure, we're not blaming or trying to analyze it, but recognize that failure is a feeling that when the conditions for that feeling are present, this is the feeling you have. Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:37 And the awareness of that feeling. Now if we aren't aware, then we grasp the feeling. So we identify with it. We think, I'm a failure. And I'm a failure because you were the cause. And on and on like that. So it becomes complicated. And we see ourselves in terms of our sense of our self, our egos as... Report an error in the passage at 20:37 Highlight the passage at 20:37

21:10 As being, we're either successful or we're not, we're failures. And this identity with the condition then is one that we hold to through grasping, through identity. Report an error in the passage at 21:10 Highlight the passage at 21:10

21:30 So with mindfulness, sati sampatanya and wisdom, panya, then we begin to see that failure isn't really what we are, no matter if... The world thinks we are, or even if I think I am, in the reality of the moment, there is a sense of failure, there's a kind of mental state that might be present. But the awareness of it, we begin to trust in the awareness, rest in the awareness, surrender to the awareness, relax, these are the words, relax into the awareness. Report an error in the passage at 21:30 Highlight the passage at 21:30

22:11 of being present in which then this becomes a mental object. This sense of failure is something that when you really accept it and notice it as a mental object you can't sustain it. Report an error in the passage at 22:11 Highlight the passage at 22:11

22:28 It's a very ephemeral feeling. It has no core to it. It has no substance or essence. It's an empty condition that has arisen. That if we aren't aware, we don't recognize it, then we make assumptions because this particular emotion seems to be what we experience a lot of in the present, then we assume that we, that I as a person, am a failure. Report an error in the passage at 22:28 Highlight the passage at 22:28

23:03 So this is a delusion. I'm creating, I'm coming from my personality, which is very conditioned. You know, I... Assume I'm the same person all the time. We can assume we have a soul or a personality that is a constant factor and that we're always the same person no matter what the conditions are. But as you awaken and observe, you develop awareness about the way it is in the present, you become aware that personality is a changing condition. Report an error in the passage at 23:03 Highlight the passage at 23:03

23:42 You know, it's dependent upon other conditions for feeling like a happy person or an unhappy person, feeling like a lovable person or an unlovable person, feeling like a success or a failure. How our personality changes according to who we're with because the conditions have changed. Remember, when I was young and very idealistic, I... Report an error in the passage at 23:42 Highlight the passage at 23:42

24:07 I wanted to be a very honest person. I didn't want to be a hypocrite. So I used to feel when I'd go home to my parents that I should be the same person that I was when I was in the university. Report an error in the passage at 24:07 Highlight the passage at 24:07

24:24 So I had this idea that I shouldn't play the games. I started blaming my parents and thinking that they were the problem. But now I would see it more as terms of the conditions are different. You know, when you're with mom and dad, it's like this. And when you're with your pals at the university, it's like this. Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

24:48 Conditions are different. So your personality adjusts itself. You can't expect to be the same person under all conditions because this is a very conditioned phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 24:48 Highlight the passage at 24:48

25:05 But the awareness is the constant factor in all this. The awakened attention. Because we, you know, when we, just the idea of, like when somebody, when I'm angry, there's a knowledge that there's anger. Now how I interpret that, if I'm angry or there is anger, or if I'm suffering or there is suffering. Report an error in the passage at 25:05 Highlight the passage at 25:05

25:32 From the personality position, the unawakened, conditioned, conditioned mind that one attaches to and identifies with, then we interpret the mental objects always in this personal way. Report an error in the passage at 25:32 Highlight the passage at 25:32

25:47 am suffering. This is a more honest... way of looking at it because we're not identifying with the condition we're not trying to convince ourselves that it's not present or that it's something it isn't it's a completely direct acceptance and recognition of the way it is but it's also seeing it in terms of dhamma that it is a condition changing rather than a kind of permanent personal personal condition that one makes assumptions. Report an error in the passage at 25:47 Highlight the passage at 25:47

26:41 So Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

26:46 contemplate this in just changing from being the personality that you think you are to being the pure subject. The experience that we all have in terms of being born in human form is experience of subject and object. Report an error in the passage at 26:46 Highlight the passage at 26:46

27:11 So this is the way it is. When you get born into this sensory world that we're all experiencing right now, each one of us is the subject for experience. Report an error in the passage at 27:11 Highlight the passage at 27:11

27:26 So right now, in terms of my own experience, the subjects here, you're the objects. So that's a reflection on the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 27:26 Highlight the passage at 27:26

27:38 I can see your eyes and your faces. I can't see my own face. I can see my spectacles. Report an error in the passage at 27:38 Highlight the passage at 27:38

27:53 But most of the time I don't notice them. Unless I forget them, leave them somewhere. I can see maybe the end of my nose if I cross my eyes. It's about the best I can do. somewhere. Report an error in the passage at 27:53 Highlight the passage at 27:53

28:10 But this is pointing to the reality of the pure subject, which is, is this a person, is this pure subject personal, or is it just the way it is? Report an error in the passage at 28:10 Highlight the passage at 28:10

28:27 Now, becoming a person then, how I interpret this experience, like if I don't reflect on the way it is, and don't pay attention, and just go from the way my mind's conditioned, Report an error in the passage at 28:27 Highlight the passage at 28:27

28:42 Because I'm culturally conditioned to see things in a different way. I'm conditioned to think of myself as definitely a person, a personality, identified with the physical body. And when I do look into a mirror, I see my face in the mirror. I don't see that that's just a reflection in the mirror. I actually can look into a mirror and think this is my face when it's actually at that moment a reflection. Report an error in the passage at 28:42 Highlight the passage at 28:42

29:18 this face that I can't see unless I have a mirror in front of me Report an error in the passage at 29:18 Highlight the passage at 29:18

29:43 I personally feel happy. I like to feel I'm a success. On a personal level that makes me feel happy. And to have a lot of security so I don't have to worry about poverty and not having anything. To have good fortune and position. To be somebody respected and a person that is respected and appreciated. Report an error in the passage at 29:43 Highlight the passage at 29:43

30:09 And a happy person. These are all Then the fear, isn't it, on a personal level is that we might lose it because these things are not permanent and we can't, you know, the more we try to hold on, the more anxious we become. Report an error in the passage at 30:09 Highlight the passage at 30:09

30:34 So we find some of the most anxious, anxiety-ridden human beings in countries like this where there's a measure of security. You know, that you can take for granted. It's like, I remember, you know, I was living in Thailand. I remember the first year when I was a seminarian, just terrible flood. And the Mekong River overflowed. Report an error in the passage at 30:34 Highlight the passage at 30:34

31:02 It was a town in Nong Khai. And the town people, the whole town was flooded. So they all had to, and I was living in a... In a monastery outside the town, which was on a kind of small hill, so it became a refugee camp. So one morning I woke up and there were all the town people out in front of my kuti. Report an error in the passage at 31:02 Highlight the passage at 31:02

31:23 And I realized, what are they doing there? They'd been flooded out of their homes. And one thing I noticed about them is that they seem to take it quite without any great kind of angst. And people just went fishing and seemed to be able to adjust to the loss and inconvenience of a flood because basically they seemed to not expect life to be a guaranteed experience of security for them. Report an error in the passage at 31:23 Highlight the passage at 31:23

32:06 So they did allow these things to happen in their lives in Asia because of the religion. Buddhism especially has this sense that life is like this, is subject to change. And so we are going to experience loss and sickness and disasters and crises and things like this are quite normal expectation in anyone's life. Report an error in the passage at 32:06 Highlight the passage at 32:06

32:37 And in that kind of philosophical attitude of kind of, you know, getting on but not... life just trying to control the forces of nature for your own sense of security, then there is a kind of happiness that you have that you can't have if you're hell bent on holding on, even in the midst of security stable government and economic wealth and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 32:37 Highlight the passage at 32:37

33:13 we notice in countries where Where so much emphasis has been given toward is placed on material comfort and high standard of living and affluence and convenience and so forth. There's also a lot of mental illness, a lot of anxiety and worry because we know that these things can suddenly disappear. Report an error in the passage at 33:13 Highlight the passage at 33:13

33:44 And we want guarantees that they won't. We'd like, we'd vote for whoever, Prime Minister, the one who says, I guarantee no taxes, high standard of living, excellent schooling, good hospital care for our whole life, free, Report an error in the passage at 33:44 Highlight the passage at 33:44

34:10 everything the best, education guaranteed, everything guaranteed at the highest level. Wouldn't that be wonderful? You know, we'd vote for that one definitely. Because that's what we want. That would be, you know, make us feel, you know, we could believe such a man or woman. We might actually, it might make us feel secure. But then also, you notice in third world countries, people aren't necessarily miserable all the time even though they don't have anything. Report an error in the passage at 34:10 Highlight the passage at 34:10

34:47 uh, They can find, they still have happiness in their ways, even when they're quite poor. So happiness then is, we begin to realize, is if the more we seek it and demand it and try to guarantee this experience as our main experience of life, the more unhappy we become. Because that very grasping in itself is a form of misery and suffering that we create that you can't blame on the universe, on nature, on anyone else. Report an error in the passage at 34:47 Highlight the passage at 34:47

35:29 It's just this blind habit of grasping and holding that we can create a misery in our lives even if we have all the best conditions going for us. Report an error in the passage at 35:29 Highlight the passage at 35:29

35:48 So it's not kind of romanticizing third world life or pre-industrial revolution or the primitive tribal existence. It's not trying to promote that we should go back to a golden age either, but recognize, beginning to wake up, how can we live our lives in this society in a way that we learn, we develop, we understand. Report an error in the passage at 35:48 Highlight the passage at 35:48

36:18 Which is not dependent upon these personal demands. Because this mindfulness isn't dependent on everything being pleasant or stable or guaranteed at a high standard. Report an error in the passage at 36:18 Highlight the passage at 36:18

36:43 I remember when I first came to England in 1977, there was a man that used to come and visit me in Hampstead. And he'd been a prisoner of war in Thailand during the Second World War. He was a British military man who'd been taken prisoner, was kind of a slave laborer on the railroad in the River Kwai scenario. Report an error in the passage at 36:43 Highlight the passage at 36:43

37:15 And he kept coming back. He kept wanting to know more about Thailand. He seemed to be fascinated by Thailand all the time. And he wanted to keep talking about his life in this prison camp. And it seemed like it was probably the peak moment of his life. And it was kind of interesting because one thing, he liked the Thais so much because the Thai villagers oftentimes were incredibly He was sympathetic with the prisoners and would smuggle in eggs and various other foods to them. Report an error in the passage at 37:15 Highlight the passage at 37:15

37:55 So he developed a great love for Thailand because he remembers these people risking their lives to give food and things that they needed. Report an error in the passage at 37:55 Highlight the passage at 37:55

38:11 And then he said, well, somehow, under the hardships of being a prisoner of war, it brought out something in him that he, it gave his life a purpose in some way. His life had never had since had so much kind of importance. It was a peak moment of survival in which he rose up and was probably, you know, lived in a way that He has never been able to duplicate, and he remembers that. And I asked him, what is your life like now? And he was a very well-dressed man, looked like a businessman, and drove a nice car. Report an error in the passage at 38:11 Highlight the passage at 38:11

38:56 And he said he was unhappily married, and he and his wife didn't speak to each other anymore, and he was bored to death. Report an error in the passage at 38:56 Highlight the passage at 38:56

39:10 And his life didn't have any meaning. He had it all, you know, comfort and success. And yet, when he remembered the importance, the kind of vitality of survival in a prison camp, this kind of dreary life as a successful businessman in London seemed depressing. Report an error in the passage at 39:10 Highlight the passage at 39:10

39:38 Sometimes we wonder why people do these daredevil sports. Like Evel Knievel must, you know, riding motorcycle across, you know, jumping across vast canyons and whatnot, risking his life, breaking every bone in his body. And yet, there must be, that must be very thrilling, you know. It must be a peak moment that you get addicted to. Report an error in the passage at 39:38 Highlight the passage at 39:38

40:05 Or, you know, doing very dangerous, like mountain climbing and rock climbing. And where you're right on the edge, where your life is, you know, you're no longer caught in the dreariness of worry and the grayness of mediocrity, and where this survival demands that you be with the moment. When you ask mountain climbers about what it is that they find so compelling about this, it's because... Report an error in the passage at 40:05 Highlight the passage at 40:05

40:43 When your life is in danger, your physical body is in danger, there's a part that you let go of. You don't bother to worry or think about other things or hold resentments or carry things around in your mind. You have to be fully with the moment just to know where you're going to put your hand next or your foot, your right foot or your left foot. Report an error in the passage at 40:43 Highlight the passage at 40:43

41:08 If you're... tied together with a group of mountain climbers, then you've got to think of them too. So this sense of awareness and full kind of presence Report an error in the passage at 41:08 Highlight the passage at 41:08

41:47 That is pretty, you know, at least we get a taste of it by trying to do that, but I wouldn't do that, actually. And it's interesting to think of why become a Buddhist monk? Because, you know, in some ways it, you know, I couldn't climb the North Face of Iyengar in this robe. Report an error in the passage at 41:47 Highlight the passage at 41:47

42:18 I'd have to be incredibly mindful. Report an error in the passage at 42:18 Highlight the passage at 42:18

42:23 I have trouble just ordinary walking in this robe. But Report an error in the passage at 42:23 Highlight the passage at 42:23

42:35 with mind, like in this emphasis the Buddha made when he established the monastic order was to develop this awareness as the way or the way of liberation. And then the monastic lifestyle was based on quite ordinary things. So it's not a lifestyle that depends on On extremities of having, you don't have the best or the worst. You know, it's not an ascetic thing where you have to deny everything and just kind of hang on and just fast and just live on, you know, a lettuce leaf once a day or something like this. Report an error in the passage at 42:35 Highlight the passage at 42:35

43:22 You can, you know, you can eat a normal meal. We just limit how many times, that's all. And we're celibate, so this is taking away, you know, relinquishing that kind of pleasure, sexual pleasures, so that we voluntarily relinquish. Because that, like sexuality also, is a very compelling experience. And sexual experience, oftentimes, we reach that peak of an extreme sense of pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 43:22 Highlight the passage at 43:22

44:01 pleasure fulfillment sexual intercourse. So that also is, we can become addicted to sexual activities too if we are not aware, we just seek escape and pleasure. So then we think of celibacy maybe as a kind of mediocrity, a kind of weary life, of denying these natural procreative energies or is it also a way of limiting activity in order to be more aware of the kind of conditions that we are experiencing. Report an error in the passage at 44:01 Highlight the passage at 44:01

44:52 So we begin to recognize that it's not a kind of denial or repressive Attitude the Buddha was pointing to, but an awareness of these bodies as they are, with their various energies, with the desires that we experience, desire for sense pleasures, desire for becoming, desire for getting rid of. This desire is always, we get caught up in these desires and wishes, more sensory pleasure. Report an error in the passage at 44:52 Highlight the passage at 44:52

45:26 More happiness or we desire to become something that we imagine we would be happier if we were famous or we were wealthy or we were prime minister or we were respected or we were even enlightened. We imagine being enlightened as a person would be very nice, wouldn't it? If I could get enlightened, me, tomato, that would be really... Report an error in the passage at 45:26 Highlight the passage at 45:26

45:57 I would be really happy then. You know, this was my old view. Once I get enlightened, I'll be really happy. And all the time. And nothing will ever bother me. Report an error in the passage at 45:57 Highlight the passage at 45:57

46:08 Because on a personal level, that's how, you know, you hope as a person to achieve enlightenment because you don't feel enlightened as a person. Report an error in the passage at 46:08 Highlight the passage at 46:08

46:20 So becoming a monk was, I didn't feel, I felt I was a kind of a burnt out person when I ordained. I'd lived enough and was bored actually with my life and felt not, you know, didn't have any ambition really for worldly success. So I didn't have any kind of that energy to go out into the society and try to succeed in some kind of profession or some worldly condition. Report an error in the passage at 46:20 Highlight the passage at 46:20

47:00 So I didn't have that as a motivation, and I was bored with myself, with the world that I tended to live in. So monastic life gave a kind of hope, a sense of maybe developing in a different way, beginning to see things in a different way, of being able to resolve This feeling of boredom and of failure and of kind of just being fed up within. Report an error in the passage at 47:00 Highlight the passage at 47:00

47:36 Then Report an error in the passage at 47:36 Highlight the passage at 47:36

47:44 in the practice of mindfulness, I thought at first the Buddhist monasticism was an extreme. It looked extreme. I look extreme, don't I, in this society. Well, you know, you don't see many British people walking around like this. And I stand out wherever I go. You know, I can't blend into a crowd very well unless there are a lot of other monks there. Report an error in the passage at 47:44 Highlight the passage at 47:44

48:16 A crowd of monks, even then I stand out because I'm usually taller than them. Report an error in the passage at 48:16 Highlight the passage at 48:16

48:23 So the, but this, and so I think of extreme, but one of the interesting things when we arrived in London in 77 was We lived on Haverstock Hill in Belsize Park and there was all this kind of punk fashion and they were so extreme they made us look normal. Report an error in the passage at 48:23 Highlight the passage at 48:23

48:49 So I remember looking at them with safety pins to their noses and things like this and dyeing their hair different outrageous colors and shaving it on one side and doing... Report an error in the passage at 48:49 Highlight the passage at 48:49

49:08 Outrageous fashions. That's extreme. I thought punk is extreme. And then I noticed that the pinstripe suit bowler hat types, that was extreme too. That's an extreme. Which one would I want to be? In my nature, I think I'd move more toward the punk side. Report an error in the passage at 49:08 Highlight the passage at 49:08

49:34 Because the other side has never been an attractive option for me. But that wasn't an attractive thing to become, to join that movement because it didn't, you know, it was too extreme. Then I began to, then, you know, being a Buddhist monk, shaven head and that in London, of course people would react differently. Report an error in the passage at 49:34 Highlight the passage at 49:34

50:02 They'd see me as weird or strange or whatever. Some people... Pick up on it quite naturally, like they sense it's some kind of person living a religious life. Other people just react to it because it's startling or different, and their first reaction is to jeer or make fun of me. But then in terms of thinking the middle way, is being a Buddhist monk an extreme? Report an error in the passage at 50:02 Highlight the passage at 50:02

50:35 And then I began to... To see that maybe it isn't, maybe we could look at it as the middle way. Because it's not, you know, maybe you're all much more extreme than I am. Report an error in the passage at 50:35 Highlight the passage at 50:35

50:56 It's a very monkish reflection. Report an error in the passage at 50:56 Highlight the passage at 50:56

51:02 But it is only a reflection anyway. And so then I began to recognize even the Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni as a The Buddha established even a kind of lifestyle and a kind of prototype or archetype that was based on no extremes. So like the idea of the shaven head and the robes and everything, we're allowed to wear robes. Going naked, naked is naked, that would be extreme. Report an error in the passage at 51:02 Highlight the passage at 51:02

51:37 And yet that would be perfectly natural in another way, wouldn't it? Because that's... That's just going back to the way we were born. You know, we weren't born with any clothes on. So, I mean, that's just returning to what is quite normal and natural. Report an error in the passage at 51:37 Highlight the passage at 51:37

51:54 But then, as a position to take on life, it has other problems, isn't it? And it would be too cold in this country to walk around like that. And so, the Buddha allowed robes and food, alms food, and... and things that we are allowed to seek or to have that we depend upon for survival. Shelter, robes, food and medicine. So it's established on what is not an ascetic standard nor is it a luxurious one. Report an error in the passage at 51:54 Highlight the passage at 51:54

52:35 It is not to seek a high standard or just just a... on the low Report an error in the passage at 52:35 Highlight the passage at 52:35

52:42 Deny ourselves shelter, robes, food or medicines. But these, when you look at your own life, these are the four basic necessities that we need for survival. Report an error in the passage at 52:42 Highlight the passage at 52:42

52:59 So in this way the Buddha was pointing to what we need to live in a way that isn't just miserable and denying and painful and harmful to us. Living in a way in which we are not spending all our lives just trying to get better food, better clothes, better shelter, the best medicine, more money and everything, but being content with that which is available and allowed. Report an error in the passage at 52:59 Highlight the passage at 52:59

53:37 So that our reflective mind then, our duty as samanas, as monks and nuns, is to reflect on this. That's what the purpose of this life is, is to develop this sati sampacanya, satipanya. Report an error in the passage at 53:37 Highlight the passage at 53:37

53:58 So it does create a way of living that seems to sustain itself quite well. You know, when we look here at Amaravati, what a nice place it is, and yet it comes through to us. It's a lot like we have a business or a big kind of company or funded by wealthy people or things like this, that these things are possible. Report an error in the passage at 53:58 Highlight the passage at 53:58

54:29 But this lifestyle seems to generate a kind of, Generosity that seems to be natural to human beings. Because you might take it for granted in Sri Lanka or Thailand, but I wasn't taking it for granted when I first came here. I didn't know what was going to happen. But to me now, it's more a sense of the humanity that we share, that when we do have opportunities and encouragement, And to awaken and to understand and to free ourselves from the delusions that we hold to, then it arouses that generosity which helps to sustain the visible monastic form. Report an error in the passage at 54:29 Highlight the passage at 54:29

55:25 And the whole thing can kind of... Report an error in the passage at 55:25 Highlight the passage at 55:25

55:32 Go on from one generation to the next, because we think it all started 2,500 years ago, and it's still workable, still a way that still has its value in a modern society like this one. Report an error in the passage at 55:32 Highlight the passage at 55:32

55:56 Now the awareness then, just coming from the Leicester Summer School yesterday, we spent a week In this beautiful place, Botanical Garden, Beaumont Hall in Leicester, in this paradise of all these beautiful trees and flowers, lovely people and life is as good as it gets. Report an error in the passage at 55:56 Highlight the passage at 55:56

56:30 And you know, everybody's there, everybody has a kind of common interest. And realizing how this common interest is what holds us together, brings us together, this common interest in knowing the truth, in being free from delusion, in being able to have some encouragement, some guidance, some opportunity, some occasion, such as this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 56:30 Highlight the passage at 56:30

57:07 An occasion where we can come and contemplate and reflect in the temple itself. It's a kind of lovely space just for sitting still, getting away from a lot of people and busyness and conversations to sit in stillness and quiet to where we can look inward and we're not being endlessly distracted from the outside. Report an error in the passage at 57:07 Highlight the passage at 57:07

57:36 And as we begin to incline more toward these situations, then more and more we begin to have a sense of this inner stillness, this sense of attentiveness, an awareness, an openness that is natural. It's not a conditioned state that depends on things being quiet and still. It's not dependent on Amaravati or A peaceful temple or even a good health or feeling, you know, being with good friends. As we begin to realize this is our natural state, then this is with us all the time, no matter what's happening. Report an error in the passage at 57:36 Highlight the passage at 57:36

58:24 Whether we're disabled, in pain, diseased, in a battlefield, in a traffic jam, or climbing a mountain, or whatever. This is not a state dependent on other conditions supporting it. So then this is what we call our real refuge or our real home. And it's here and now. It's not something you don't have right now, but you may not notice it. It's not something far away that you have to go off to some distant land in order to find it. Report an error in the passage at 58:24 Highlight the passage at 58:24

59:08 Awaken to it now. And in this awakenness, when we come from the idea of I must awaken, then we're not quite there. Because it's an imminent act of just attention and openness that we begin to rest in and trust in. Report an error in the passage at 59:08 Highlight the passage at 59:08

59:35 And then that to me is what, you know, the kind of happiness... True happiness, rather than the happiness that comes through getting what I want or everything going well and having a good time. I don't mind those kind of happy experiences either, but I realize the futility of demanding that and seeking that as my aim in life. Report an error in the passage at 59:35 Highlight the passage at 59:35

1:00:13 So I offer this as a reflection for this afternoon. And the tea is now ready for us to drink. So I invite you all to have a cup of tea. And in 20 minutes or so, those of you who wish, we can have further discussion. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:13 Highlight the passage at 1:00:13