Generosity, A Path to Liberation - Q and A (1997)

0:01 One of the loneliest times of my life was when I lived in the middle of New York City, surrounded by millions. Report an error in the passage at 0:01

0:12 I think many of us felt lonely, even in families, because if you can't get involved in all the things, if you can't kind of buy into the game, Report an error in the passage at 0:12

0:33 And get absorbed into it. And you feel even more lonely when you're in a crowd. And the thing about crowds are like being with the group is to be able to kind of be a member and be caught in the same delusion. And it's very exciting. You know, like football matches and mobs. I mean, they stimulate that kind of human experience where it's exciting to be... Report an error in the passage at 0:33

1:04 To lose yourself in a crowd or in a mob, to be a member of a team, to bond with a group, and then if you can't do that, you feel incredibly, even being around people that you can't do that with, it emphasizes this loneliness. And then you take it as, on a personal level, you feel like as a child, I used to feel like there's something wrong with me. Report an error in the passage at 1:04

1:36 I couldn't quite fit into the group like I thought I should. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the group. As a child, you usually take it as there's something wrong with yourself. Report an error in the passage at 1:36

1:59 Interesting, though, how I was in the military for four years. Report an error in the passage at 1:59

2:07 That was lonely, four years, even though I was living on a ship with 200 other guys. Report an error in the passage at 2:07

2:18 But it wasn't like I could, I didn't subscribe to the same things that they did and couldn't participate in the same way. Report an error in the passage at 2:18

2:31 So I felt even more isolated and kind of like eccentric or odd, like an oddball. I Report an error in the passage at 2:31

2:48 like the thing, you know, I like that image of like being alone. That doesn't have the, that sounds all right, being alone. But lonely always has this sense of despair and negative feeling of being, you know, wanting to be with others but not having anybody, not having any group, not having any loved one, not having anybody to share your life with. Report an error in the passage at 2:48

3:23 And that kind of loneliness. Report an error in the passage at 3:23

3:28 But that loneliness, then, like I was describing, is how we relate to that, how we respond to it. That's how we can, rather than just... I mean, the one way to just distract yourself, just keep busy till you die, till Report an error in the passage at 3:28

3:59 you drop dead. Then other times, people get paralyzed. And then they have to live their lives in hospitals and nursing homes. And sometimes that works as a way of dealing with that particular problem. You know, like a prison cell or a dungeon. And it's not necessarily a bad thing in terms of spiritual development to be paralyzed. Report an error in the passage at 3:59

4:32 Even though, you know, none of us want that. In terms of spiritual development, it's not an obstruction. Paralyzed. Report an error in the passage at 4:32

4:43 Well, in the U.S., I haven't lived there for so long. But from what I know of it, when I did live there, it was hard to find any Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 4:43

4:55 That was why I went to Thailand. But now they're everywhere. There's kind of ethnic temples, Thai or Sri Lankan, Lao, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese. Japanese, Korean, and so many immigrants from Buddhist countries. But also there's a lot of what's really taken off with the American, who are not ethnic Buddhists, is this interest in vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 4:55

5:34 So Buddhism, and there's a lot in various other, like Tibetan tradition or Zen, but as far as Theravāda goes, The non-ethnic Americans that become interested in Buddhism are usually through vipassanā. And it's interesting that word has become almost like zen taken out of its context. Like zen has been, you can just divorce it from Buddhism totally. Report an error in the passage at 5:34

6:08 And vipassanā is almost the same now. You know, there are vipassanā groups that won't even mention Buddha or anything like that. So vipassanā has become a kind of, you know, a word that is now, we say, people will say, we practice vipassanā. We practice Zen. They say, are you Buddhist? No, no, we do vipassanā. That's interesting to see when you come from a very traditional form like this. Report an error in the passage at 6:08

6:42 And where vipassanā is, you know, certainly a part of it, but it's not taken out of its context. But it also, there's a, I mean, I might sound like I'm criticizing it, but it has certainly had a good effect. You know, the vipassanā teaching has, you know, because of the discipline involved in the... Learning to be still and sit quietly and concentrate the mind, all that is certainly increased for many people in the States, you know, a kind of giving them a way to deal with emotional problems and stress and simplification of their lives and give it some kind of way of... Report an error in the passage at 6:42

7:42 developing. But then sometimes you wonder whether it's a transcendent way or not, because the Buddha used so much, you know, he spoke in a very psychological way, so he has, you know, it's easy to use it as a kind of psychotherapy, or vipassanā. Report an error in the passage at 7:42

8:13 Or Zen, even, as a kind of mental training. But to me, the interest has always been a spiritual one, rather than a kind of psychological one. Report an error in the passage at 8:13

8:29 So the idea of realizing nibbāna, being free from delusion, of realizing the deathless, these are what inspire me in my life. But I find some people don't relate to that at all. They realize in the deathless, they could care less about that. Report an error in the passage at 8:29

8:56 All I want to do is be able to enjoy life more and more. Well, Report an error in the passage at 8:56

9:17 we have this new branch monastery now in California. There's a lot of interest in it. There's so much interest in... Buddhism in the States. No, one feels that it's, you know, for monasticism, it's the kind of... You see, in the United States, you don't have... Monasticism has never been a part of its cultural development at all. You know, in Christianity even. I mean, it's a country that developed after the Industrial Revolution. Report an error in the passage at 9:17

9:56 So you have... And where religion was more or less... Relegated to being a kind of, wasn't ever a part of the cultural development of the country. It was always kept outside of the kind of, you know, the idea of the United States originally was to not bind anyone to a religion, to be free from religion. Report an error in the passage at 9:56

10:24 So, or to have religious freedom, you know, where the people would... ...who felt persecuted in Europe. They come to North America where they felt they wouldn't be persecuted. Report an error in the passage at 10:24

10:40 But also, it's a society that has kind of mixed messages. It has a kind of very strong puritanical streak, and yet it has this kind of attitude of libertine, hedonistic freedom. You find in your own mind, like in my own mind, being brought up as a Christian, where there was quite a puritanical approach, and then also being fed in another way, this idea of unlimited freedom to enjoy everything. Report an error in the passage at 10:40

11:19 You find it tends towards, they're never quite sure what the reaction's going to be. Part of me really likes the... Report an error in the passage at 11:19

11:32 Puritan will appear out of nowhere. Report an error in the passage at 11:32

11:39 here. Report an error in the passage at 11:39

11:44 and then in meditation, you can kind of deal with these different. Report an error in the passage at 11:44

11:51 extremes, problems. I think now, like in Europe, even though like in Britain, for example, monotheism was Played a very important part in the cultural development up till Henry VIII. So, I mean, you do, you know, you do have, and then in the rest of Europe, you have, you know, especially in, well, in the Catholic countries, you have, you know, a strong sense of monastic, monasteries being part of a culture. Report an error in the passage at 11:51

12:27 So in, and we find on that level of monasticism a kind of... Brotherhood among monastics, even like with the Anglican or Roman Catholic monastics. We love to meet with each other, and we appreciate that common bond of monasticism. Report an error in the passage at 12:27

12:53 And also there's a kind of now, especially surprisingly, the Roman Catholic Church has... When I was a child, it was the most narrow-minded of the lot in the United States. You know, you couldn't, they wouldn't let, they wouldn't allow, if you were a Roman Catholic, you were not even allowed to enter a Protestant church. Report an error in the passage at 12:53

13:14 You know, it's like going into a satanic place. Report an error in the passage at 13:14

13:22 But now it's, you know, that was under Pope Pius XII, very kind of, you know, rigid. It's a good place. Report an error in the passage at 13:22

13:30 But now, of all the Christian groups, I think Roman Catholicism is the most kind of open, like meditation. Report an error in the passage at 13:30

13:42 I have some really good friends here in England who are like Catholic monks, nuns. There's this John Mayne meditation group in London that is a Roman Catholic organization. They do. But they're quite... John Maynard was some kind of Catholic priest, Benedictine monk, who died, I think, 20 years ago or so. Report an error in the passage at 13:42

14:17 But he established a kind of meditation that was very workable for ordinary people, not just monastics. And I think he lived in Canada, Montreal. And here in London there's a group. Of course, a few years ago they invited the Dalai Lama, two years ago. They have these yearly kind of seminars. Report an error in the passage at 14:17

14:47 They usually invite some really interesting person, you know, kind of meditator, mystic. A couple of years ago they invited the Dalai Lama and he came. Report an error in the passage at 14:47

14:58 And they asked him to give commentaries on the Gospels, four Gospels. and uh And I didn't, I couldn't go to, I went to the final one, you know, kind of, but Ajahn Amaro and Sobhano went to them, to all of the whole seminar, which took place for about a week, in which the Dalai Lama made, you know, gave commentaries on the Gospels. Report an error in the passage at 14:58

15:33 Brilliant. You know, he was very skillful the way he did it, because he wasn't, He was, you know, what they obviously wanted wasn't to be kind of doctrinally or theologically accurate, but they had enough respect for the Dalai Lama that they trusted that his purity of his mind would be able to understand these gospel teachings. Report an error in the passage at 15:33

16:00 And of course... At the end of the seminar, people were saying they could see the Jesus Christ and the Dalai Lama. Report an error in the passage at 16:00

16:16 And they were all very moved by what he said. And he was skillful, too. He wasn't patronizing or anything. In no way was he trying to make any comment about Buddhism being somehow better or superior. It was a brilliant exercise in... Report an error in the passage at 16:16

16:41 Because he admitted in the beginning he'd never really read these gospels, and he wasn't like coming from a person who'd studied the gospels and contemplated them for years. But a mind that's been trained in meditation and has that kind of openness, then... Often times you can read something like that and the kind of profound meaning of it kind of jumps out at you even though it's in a maybe a different expressive way of expression than you say a traditional Buddhist would say it. Report an error in the passage at 16:41

17:22 Then last year they had this Ramon Panicar who's another very interesting Man who's, he's half, his father is a Hindu, mother is Spanish, and so he's half European, half Asian, a Benedictine monk, a Catholic, Roman Catholic monk, and he must be in his 70s. Report an error in the passage at 17:22

17:57 Brilliant, intellectually brilliant man. And sometimes you read his books, I mean, they're so... Report an error in the passage at 17:57

18:36 For me, anyway, to hear him, because he has, he also has, you know, he has also tremendous respect for like Buddhism and Hinduism. And he's even written a book called The Silence of the Buddha. It's in the library, in the library here. And he is very interested in silence. And of course, when the Buddha... Report an error in the passage at 18:36

19:05 In the scriptures, when the Buddha was asked these kind of theological questions, metaphysical questions by the Brahmins, and the Buddha would remain silent, you see, rather than trying to answer. Report an error in the passage at 19:05

19:22 And these silences were oftentimes interpreted as he didn't know the answer, you know, or that the silence was the answer. Report an error in the passage at 19:22

19:36 And Ramon Panikkar definitely, you know, sees the silence as the answer because in the seminar of John Mainside, they have these tapes. I think the title of it was something about silence, the kind of theme for the seminar. And so it's interesting to see in the meditative. Report an error in the passage at 19:36

20:05 The growing interest in meditation in religion now, both in Buddhism and in other religions, that silence is something that is now genuinely appreciated. You know, obviously, and seen as a vehicle, as something to trust in, rather than to endlessly try to analyze and explain everything out and figure everything out with your intellect. Report an error in the passage at 20:05

20:35 As you can see in so much theology, doctrinal doctrines, say, in Christianity, where they endlessly kind of go into most kind of fussy details about, and speculative types of analysis about things you can't possibly know. You know, you can't prove or know anything about it. All you can do is kind of use logic to kind of... Report an error in the passage at 20:35

21:04 Make it more refined, but you end up, you know, with still not knowing. And this not knowing is now seen as, because not knowing also is experience of silence, where you can't, where your mind is nonplussed, you know, and your thinking process shuts down, stops. Report an error in the passage at 21:04

21:31 And then, you know, you're aware of that. ...gap in the mind where the thinking stops. And then I was listening to... I do a lot of long-distance flying, you know, like to Thailand or New Zealand, and on one of the... I think it was BA, they had a few months ago, they had an article on Deepak Chopra, somebody like that. Report an error in the passage at 21:31

22:11 modern guru, new age guru. Report an error in the passage at 22:11

22:39 But he's also talking, and the thing that impressed me was in his, I mean, I've never read any of his books, but cursory description of what he's teaching. And he's talking exactly about noticing the gaps in your mind. And that's exactly, you know, what I've done over the years is really, really, you know, consciously Report an error in the passage at 22:39

23:10 Made fully conscious, the non-plussing of my thinking mind, where there's a space, a gap, and a silence. And that gives, you know, in terms of experience, you know, you're really then tuning into like the background or something where you're... You're not just caught up in the momentum of thinking, just busy, wandering, thinking, the way that I was before. Report an error in the passage at 23:10

23:43 Before I started meditating, in my mind, I was just, you know, obsessed, a non-stop thinker. Just, you know, been through university and read so many books, and the mind was just endlessly producing thoughts and just, you know, being caught up in... In just wandering all over the place with my thoughts and then trying to focus it and trying to enlist it, but it just began to become, you know, at the reach of 30, it just began to be extremely painful and despairing about life. Report an error in the passage at 23:43

24:26 It was just that I had to spend my life in this endless kind of turmoil of thought in my head. And then with Zen Buddhism, or in things, and notice that so much of these are like Zen, also the way of just stopping the thinking mind, like, or something like shocking, like, they'll do things like, you know, the master hits you with a stick or something, and we go, oh, that's brutal, that's abuse, we sue him for, that's not the point, it's not the kind of, ...buddhalize you into obedience, but it's actually stop, so you can get some kind of, you know, experience where you stop thinking and begin to consciously know that, non-thinking. Report an error in the passage at 24:26

25:18 And so in Ramon Panikkar, he's also talking about some brilliant things about silence. And even though he mixes a lot with the Buddhist... With Buddhism, in this particular seminar, he's trying to keep it strictly into Christian terminology, which I found very helpful, actually, to see, you know, because I don't find the terminology so, you know, such a kind of difficult thing for me anymore. Report an error in the passage at 25:18

25:56 The different, you know, religious terminologies are not, I'm not so... Those aren't really difficult for me to deal with. Where before, when it's caught in the thinking mind, when you're trying to figure everything out from definitions of words and doctrines, then it does increase this busyness of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 25:56

26:23 Where in meditation, you're going towards this simplicity. Once you're going to get that sense of... Awareness resting in mindfulness and where you begin to recognize a natural state of a very receptive, all-embracing state that is quite natural to us. It's not like a refined state of consciousness that you have to get through controlling everything. Report an error in the passage at 26:23

27:00 It's so natural, so ordinary that we don't notice it until somebody points it out. Like a meditation retreat, you're trying to point that out so people are realizing it, recognizing it, rather than seeing a meditation retreat as you go on a meditation in order to attain a refined, some very refined state that you can only... Report an error in the passage at 27:00

27:34 It could only possibly achieve when you've got everything under control. This state of natural silence is, you know, it's all pervading. It's here and now. So even if everything's falling apart, a battlefield and an air raid and an earthquake and a volcanic eruption all at once, it Report an error in the passage at 27:34

28:01 still wouldn't cancel out the stillness. I Report an error in the passage at 28:01

28:09 hope I'm not put to that test. Report an error in the passage at 28:09

28:14 I'm working on it as a more ordinary life experience, not from the extremity. It's hard enough to do it just in ordinary, monastic life. Report an error in the passage at 28:14

28:28 I mean, our life's pretty, you know, fairly calm, you know, way to live. But even within the monastic form, you know, the Amaravati. Report an error in the passage at 28:28

28:45 To keep remembering that stillness and resting in it is a challenge because it's so easy to get lost in all the things, the kind of problems of this person or this group. There's always problems with the monks or the nuns or the branch monastery. stereo. Report an error in the passage at 28:45

29:19 Problems about the neighbors, problems about, issues about this. And so, you know, an old thing, you know, that worldly kind of thing, it always has this very intimidating pull on you. You know, you've got to get involved, you've got to do something about it. And so, and then through, but through reflecting on that, you know, I know, this I know, through having, I've contemplated for so many years not to get intimidated or pulled into all the endless urgent problems of the world or the community or anything. Report an error in the passage at 29:19

30:04 And I still forget it sometimes and get pulled in, but I know better. Report an error in the passage at 30:04

30:23 Emotionally, we're not programmed for that. Emotionally, we're very much... Report an error in the passage at 30:23

30:45 It can be terrifying Report an error in the passage at 30:45

30:50 your emotions are, you know, built on the sense of being a person and, you know, excitement and interest and all kinds of things that are stimulating and interesting. And so it's like it's a real threat the emotional level. Report an error in the passage at 30:50

31:12 So that's where the, you know, some people, if they don't have a real strong spiritual aspiration, then I think people wouldn't, you know, they'd like kind of tranquility, kind of calming down of everything. everything. Report an error in the passage at 31:12

31:32 Like the Samatha practices where you kind of learn to calm everything down through concentrating your mind. But that helps in the world to be a little more skillful with the conditioning of your mind. But the actual realization, Report an error in the passage at 31:32

31:54 spiritual realization, can be quite threatening, frightening. My first reaction to it was... realization. Report an error in the passage at 31:54

32:05 Hysteria. I Report an error in the passage at 32:05

32:12 became hysterical. I mean, not laughing, but really terrified. Report an error in the passage at 32:12

32:35 I don't really know because I... I mean, I never had a lot of faith in Christianity. It didn't reach me in terms of on the heart level. So I never felt... Report an error in the passage at 32:35

33:00 And of course the kind of Christianity that I had, that was my experience as a child, was quite childlike, you know, where God is like a father up in the sky kind of thing. And then you kind of outgrow that image. And when you're a little child, a father... That loves you and all that is quite a useful image, but then after 15 or so it doesn't work anymore, at least it didn't for me. Report an error in the passage at 33:00

33:43 And there was never any development of that beyond that basic image, so I just kind of dropped Christianity. And then when I came across Buddhism when I was about 21, that really, you know, that was... Very strong faith arose in Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 33:43

34:11 And I've always, you know, to this day still, you know, I really, on the level of convention, you know, I really have great respect and love for Buddhism. I mean, it resonates in my heart. I like the kind of, the clarity of it. it's... Report an error in the passage at 34:11

34:35 The directness. Report an error in the passage at 34:35

34:53 Well, I don't know exactly what you've been doing in Transcendental, but what I... It's just for you to contemplate. But to me, I mean, Buddhist meditation can be taught in many different styles. There are different techniques. Report an error in the passage at 34:53

35:22 And there's different schools, and then there's Tibetan, and then there's Chinese, and so you've got so many, and then in Theravāda you've got different techniques, and teachers make emphasis, different kind of emphasis on certain aspects of meditation. So, I mean, it all sounds very confusing, you know, and you look at it on that level of the whole spectrum. Report an error in the passage at 35:22

35:49 ...offered within just the label Buddhism, Buddhist meditation. Then you have like transcendental meditation or meditation, you know, but to me the whole point of meditation is like in Buddhism they divide it, in Theravāda you divide it into samatha vipassanā, which is samatha is tranquilizing. So you're developing a more refined level of concentration and you're creating a level of refinement through kind of controlling the mind and through suppressing the grosser or more coarse conditions. Report an error in the passage at 35:49

36:41 And that's a good kind of mental exercise. Then the liberating, the liberation comes through the vipassanā or the insight into the way things are. Like the Buddha's essential teaching is called the Four Noble Truths based on the experience of suffering and investigating suffering until you realize how to not suffer, not create suffering around the conscious experience that we have. you're, The Buddha's emphasis then isn't based on refining the level of conscious experience but in expanding to where conscious experience is expanded to embrace rather than to suppress or exclude. Report an error in the passage at 36:41

37:41 exclude. in, to me, like the, uh, um, If you carry vipassanā through in the way that it was intended, then I find the mind-conscious experience is more expanded and it's not controlled. Where when I do the samatha practice, then I tend to control experience, where I have to kind of shut everything out. Report an error in the passage at 37:41

38:15 And seek a very quiet place and concentrate and develop concentration through kind of sensory deprivation or through controlling and suppressing. And I do both, actually. The liberating one is through this expanding. And then you're realizing through that expansion kind of the infinity of it all. You're realizing... Report an error in the passage at 38:15

38:46 Infinity and eternity and deathlessness. It's a realization. It's not something you're creating. And it's not an abstraction. It's not an intellectual abstraction, but it's the reality. But to realize that, it takes this kind of trust. And you're, you're, you're... Report an error in the passage at 38:46

39:15 Because you're on the level of the self, there's so much fear and anxiety and worry. These kind of negative states are easily, you know, and they're based on, a lot of them, like fear, on just, you know, emotion based on, you know, just physical. You know, you're basically, we're very vulnerable, easily damaged, harmed creatures. Report an error in the passage at 39:15

39:46 It's not like because you're neurotic. But, you know, look at life and, you know, we are subject to all kinds of contingencies, you know, unknown possibilities like being hit over the head or, you know, thunderbolt zappiness or whatever, breaking a leg or just how vulnerable we are emotionally like just somebody Report an error in the passage at 39:46

40:25 statement, you know, because we're so, you know, we're easily, we experience so much suffering in this form there's a lot of fear and a lot of desire to control everything and try to find security through controlling. And then there's... Then this realization is expanding to include all the dark forces, the good, the bad, the totality, to where we transcend this personal reaction that we have called fear, which is normal when we're strongly identified with the body and with the personality we have. Report an error in the passage at 40:25

41:17 To me it's like really, really a very, like expansive is the word I use. It's like radar, you know, it kind of picks up on wide range. Where I started out with Samatha, which is to narrow everything down and just to control the mind. And then that was, I was able to, you know, I found that, A good kind, like an exercise, a helpful exercise, but in terms of real liberation, it's through this insight practice. Report an error in the passage at 41:17

42:07 Well, I don't, because I find alone also useful, but no, I don't really try to control it. Whatever I get is what I use. The Report an error in the passage at 42:07

42:29 problem I had when I did practice alone a lot, because I had a lot of fear and a lot of discomfort around living with other people. So I tended to find I had less stress and less confusion if I was by myself. Report an error in the passage at 42:29

43:03 But then through circumstances, I was thrown into these positions where I had to live with a lot of people. And then I had to work with that as a condition I was experiencing. Just how to use the situation for mindfulness. Because I did have the insight, you know, basic insight. By the time that I had to be head of a community, I did have the insight. Report an error in the passage at 43:03

43:33 insight how to I didn't realize I could use the situation for mindfulness practice. Then that meant that I had to find ways of doing that, using, actually making it work for me. Report an error in the passage at 43:33

44:05 The different kind of emotional reactions and anxieties and that that I'd have in regards to community life or living with other people. Report an error in the passage at 44:05

44:22 I think as a preference, I think on a personal level, I prefer more kind of solitary life. Report an error in the passage at 44:22

44:36 If I was to operate from preference, more Report an error in the passage at 44:36

44:46 kind of Hermetic life, I think, would be very nice. Report an error in the passage at 44:46

44:56 Well, I don't... The conditions for that haven't arisen, you know. I don't... I trust. I trust in that what I get is what I need. That's how I tend to see it. Report an error in the passage at 44:56

45:16 I don't trust my own personal preferences. Report an error in the passage at 45:16

45:23 I'm basically quite a lazy man. Report an error in the passage at 45:23