On Meditation (1993)

0:01 There's a welcoming committee at the entrance. Report an error in the passage at 0:01 Highlight the passage at 0:01

0:08 Having a traffic survey done because we have to, our temple project is, we have to go to the appeal and we want to know just what are the traffic problems here. Report an error in the passage at 0:08 Highlight the passage at 0:08

0:28 They Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

0:47 wanted to do a survey of three days on a Sunday, which is usually the One of the busiest days. And so this Sunday they chose, this Sunday was not particularly busy. Report an error in the passage at 0:47 Highlight the passage at 0:47

1:11 Then they'll do it on a weekday and on a Friday to get some idea of the traffic patterns. Traffic you can see is a problem now everywhere. Report an error in the passage at 1:11 Highlight the passage at 1:11

1:31 It's one of the modern life. everywhere see Report an error in the passage at 1:31 Highlight the passage at 1:31

1:35 Great conveniences, but also it's kind of working against also. You can see in London how difficult it is to move. If you've ever been to Bangkok, you'd realize the ultimate. Report an error in the passage at 1:35 Highlight the passage at 1:35

1:57 Bangkok has the worst traffic problems I've ever seen. Report an error in the passage at 1:57 Highlight the passage at 1:57

2:04 When I went to Rome, I was invited to the Thai embassy in Rome. I was complaining about the Rome traffic and the ambassador said, well at least it moves, because Report an error in the passage at 2:04 Highlight the passage at 2:04

2:27 in Bangkok you can get stuck for hours. So Report an error in the passage at 2:27 Highlight the passage at 2:27

2:43 today's subject is on meditation. The Report an error in the passage at 2:43 Highlight the passage at 2:43

2:53 word itself is a generic term for mental activity. Meditation. Report an error in the passage at 2:53 Highlight the passage at 2:53

3:00 activity. It can mean all kinds of different things. To some people it's a kind of prayer or mantra or it can be contemplative, reflective or concentrative. Report an error in the passage at 3:00 Highlight the passage at 3:00

3:23 It's a word that means something to do with the mind, training of the mind. things. Report an error in the passage at 3:23 Highlight the passage at 3:23

3:31 this is, I think, the... Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

3:35 emphasis that the Buddha The reason why the Buddha's teachings are so appreciated now, say after 2,500 years, is because of his emphasis on the mind. The Buddha talked about the mind. And this is something that we all realize is that maybe we have to do something about our mind. Report an error in the passage at 3:35 Highlight the passage at 3:35

4:10 In the Western world we feel... We've put so much emphasis on the external environment, on developing an economy and political institutions, social structures, material development, all to where our energies have taken place by creating, manifesting the external world, changing it to suit our own ideals of what we would like. Report an error in the passage at 4:10 Highlight the passage at 4:10

4:44 And to the point now that we've been so busy, so caught up into this, that it's turning against us, isn't it? It's now a kind of backing up or a backlash of environmental problems, pollution. Report an error in the passage at 4:44 Highlight the passage at 4:44

5:05 And the mind still has not been developed. We've developed it to a certain degree in the ability to... To think rationally, logically, developing empirical science to where we can produce and change and transmute and create all kinds of things through just our own cleverness, our ability to manipulate the elements around us. Report an error in the passage at 5:05 Highlight the passage at 5:05

5:40 So that kind of mental training, we've certainly been very successful with that. Report an error in the passage at 5:40 Highlight the passage at 5:40

5:51 feel that that is the most important, too, in many ways, and modern education is based on the idea that you train your intellect, you acquire knowledge, and you to think in a certain way, learn ways of thinking you can, say, Report an error in the passage at 5:51 Highlight the passage at 5:51

6:12 a computer programmer or an engineer or some kind of scientist. Psychologist, psychiatrist, and on and on like this. So modern education is about acquiring knowledge and training the mind to think in symbols and images, in the logic that is necessary to achieve success in various fields. Report an error in the passage at 6:12 Highlight the passage at 6:12

6:45 But meditation is about training the mind in a different way. Report an error in the passage at 6:45 Highlight the passage at 6:45

6:52 knowledge or getting information about things or memorizing or instilling into a mind all the kind of that's available which is enormous now isn't it the amount of information that's available to the average human being is is more than any any human being can stand Report an error in the passage at 6:52 Highlight the passage at 6:52

7:18 just got... Try to remember all the things, all the information that comes to us in just the daily life of an ordinary person. Report an error in the passage at 7:18 Highlight the passage at 7:18

7:31 So the meditation is to train the mind towards a discerning ability to know the difference between the real from the illusory, to be able to, say, free the mind from its endless habits, The ultimate Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

8:10 truth, the truth is revealed through the mind. It's not acquired knowledge anymore. It's not something you get out of a book or learn from somebody else. It's not made up. It's not verbal. It's not words. It's what we call insight, insight realization or insight understanding. Report an error in the passage at 8:10 Highlight the passage at 8:10

8:43 So this kind of knowledge and wisdom is universal. It's not cultural. It's not personal. It doesn't belong to To any group or any religion or any class Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

9:01 or race or nation, it's available, it's always here and now, and it's open to anyone who is willing to, say, put forth the effort or take an interest to free their minds from just being caught up in the endless proliferations and attachments and habitual tendencies. Report an error in the passage at 9:01 Highlight the passage at 9:01

9:29 So it's a different attitude. When we start meditating, we find it very difficult usually, even though it's extraordinarily simple. People love to get information they can sink their teeth into, memorizing things and learning all about Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 9:29 Highlight the passage at 9:29

9:51 And sometimes we want to learn the history and the Pāli and Sanskrit and we want to learn, you know, read all the scriptures. Report an error in the passage at 9:51 Highlight the passage at 9:51

10:03 Then we've got the Theravāda. Oh, that's a lot. Then there's Mahāyāna, an enormous amount of literature and things to learn. And so we can become Buddhists in the sense that we learn all about Buddhism, per se, but not realize the truth. Because sometimes we approach Buddhism as if it were just like, you know, geometry or history of England. Report an error in the passage at 10:03 Highlight the passage at 10:03

10:31 It's just some more stuff we learn. Adding to already maybe the overdose we have. So one thing that attracted me too, when I went to see Lungpho Cha years ago in Thailand, and I didn't know what to expect. What would a Thai Ajahn, a Thai forest master, what would, you know, he'd probably have a whole, you know, I was afraid he'd have a whole kind of new system that I'd have to learn, or I'd have to... Report an error in the passage at 10:31 Highlight the passage at 10:31

11:06 You know, learn some more things that acquire more information. But his main approach was put your books away and just calm down. Report an error in the passage at 11:06 Highlight the passage at 11:06

11:22 Which didn't seem like very much in a way, but in another way it was a relief because nobody had ever said that. You know, everybody is saying you should, you know, you should go on to get a PhD. Or you should... Or even in the way we Westerners bring our kind of attitudes and views into something like Buddhadharma, we tend to make it into a big problem for ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 11:22 Highlight the passage at 11:22

11:53 Meditation becomes something extremely complicated. Not because it really is, but because we create it into something complicated. Because our minds are conditioned to be that way. We have complicated minds. Report an error in the passage at 11:53 Highlight the passage at 11:53

12:09 After teaching meditation for the past 26 years or so, I realized I have a fairly simple mind compared to some of these guys around here. I Report an error in the passage at 12:09 Highlight the passage at 12:09

12:29 used to think I was complicated, but I've changed my mind. Because some people's minds are very complicated. And that complication, of course, Report an error in the passage at 12:29 Highlight the passage at 12:29

12:47 In some ways cancer has certain advantages, but much of the time one is so convinced, so kind of caught up into it and reacting to it, that we tend to just get more and more confused. And the approach of the Buddha was, say in Buddhist meditation, was very, very simple. For example, his teaching, his essential teaching, the Four Noble Truths. Report an error in the passage at 12:47 Highlight the passage at 12:47

13:17 is a very simple teaching. It's not easy in the sense that, I mean, easy to memorize, doesn't take very long to memorize four noble truths, but to actually have insight into those truths, to use that paradigm or that structure for reflection contemplation means that one has to give up all one's preconceptions and one has to just more or less Trust and relax and attend to the present moment. We lean to say look, observe, listen, pay attention to the moment, to the body in the present moment, to the breath that's going on right now, the breathing of the body, the feeling of the body, the general mood of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 13:17 Highlight the passage at 13:17

14:14 Now the conditioned mind finds that very frustrating and we get caught into endless doubts about it. I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting here. Report an error in the passage at 14:14 Highlight the passage at 14:14

14:27 And we should be doing something, really getting somewhere, especially if we're well-educated people who think that we have great abilities to learn and understand things in a profound way. And the willingness to just be and sit there and be with. The frustration of the mind, the preconceptions, the whole confusion that may arise, willingness to accept that as unconscious experience and not just try to suppress it, or feel that you're doing something wrong by having it, Report an error in the passage at 14:27 Highlight the passage at 14:27

15:13 resisting it, or trying to figure it out and analyze it, is how we tend to react. Report an error in the passage at 15:13 Highlight the passage at 15:13

15:26 And so as we begin to, say, develop our meditation practice, more and more we realize there's not a lot we can do. We more or less have to give up trying to do things and learn to trust in just bare attention, in being aware of the way it is. And the way it is, we're looking at it in the pattern of... Report an error in the passage at 15:26 Highlight the passage at 15:26

15:57 The conditioned realm that we're most affected by, most aware of, most deluded by, the conditioned realm, the sense realm, the material world, the emotional realm, the psychic realm, the feeling realm, that which we see, hear, smell, taste, touch. The ability to think and remember, all of this is to us something that we are very attached, very identified, aligned with. Report an error in the passage at 15:57 Highlight the passage at 15:57

16:38 We believe in it. We maybe never questioned it as being anything but some kind of reality, the real world that we tend to regard in a very personal way. Report an error in the passage at 16:38 Highlight the passage at 16:38

17:00 You always realize that intuitively there's also that side of an individual human being that intuitively senses that this is not reality. This is what we're used to. This is what we've become accustomed to. Maybe the fantasy world of our own mind. Maybe all the delusions and prejudices and fears and emotional reactions. We tend to... Report an error in the passage at 17:00 Highlight the passage at 17:00

17:30 Easily be influenced and threatened or involved with, but there's something else that recognizes it as not being real. And so in meditation we're using the way of mindfulness, all this attentiveness, this awareness, the watching, listening, and reflecting on the pattern of impermanence. What arises ceases. Report an error in the passage at 17:30 Highlight the passage at 17:30

18:06 And so this we began to notice, not just in a coarse way, but in an increasingly more refined way of just the movement, the fluctuations, the kind of emotional feeling or the mood of the mind. We began to see and recognize it in its characteristic of impermanence. Report an error in the passage at 18:06 Highlight the passage at 18:06

18:38 Now this takes a lot of determination to stay with something and to bear with the doubt or the uncertainty that you might feel about it. Report an error in the passage at 18:38 Highlight the passage at 18:38

18:56 Because the thinking mind, if you think about what you're doing, you end up feeling very uncertain and doubtful. Because remember, your thinking mind... The habitual tendency will inevitably take you to uncertainty and doubt. Now why is that? When we think too much, we end up feeling despair or doubt. If you notice in your own life, if you're trying to think about something too much, you feel usually this sense of despair, frustration. Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:38 And the Buddha made this very clear, that whatever you do out of ignorance, out of not understanding things properly, not seeing, and in Buddhist terms, not seeing into the, not realizing, not having realized the Four Noble Truths, then whatever we do will take us to some form of suffering or sense of discontentment, feeling of despair or doubt. Report an error in the passage at 19:38 Highlight the passage at 19:38

20:09 Now this, Statement is something for you to contemplate, not to believe. Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:17 do have the ability to affirm life in a positive way. And that's a way of concentration, concentrating the mind on positive images, which does give us a momentary sense of confidence and maybe a kind of... Emotional high because just a continuous steady affirmation of the power of positive thinking. All of this is one way of developing the mind which concentrates it and of course when you fill your consciousness with positiveness where that which is positive is being affirmed over and over again and being reinforced then That is a kind of happiness that we have as a result of that. But it also can easily be disrupted because we have to keep affirming it, to keep it going. Report an error in the passage at 20:17 Highlight the passage at 20:17

21:26 Because we haven't realized or haven't been using wisdom, maybe we've been just developing a lot of continuous affirmation. Report an error in the passage at 21:26 Highlight the passage at 21:26

21:41 And you can see that in people in kind of like... Born-again Christians, people that believe very strongly in what they're teaching, what they're preaching, and they have a kind of radiant quality about them where their eyes are kind of glowing and they have a very convincing, sometimes startling ability to convince us or to make us... Report an error in the passage at 21:41 Highlight the passage at 21:41

22:15 Pay attention to what they're saying, because they truly believe what they're thinking, and it's a continuous affirmation of what they think, what they believe in. I Report an error in the passage at 22:15 Highlight the passage at 22:15

22:32 remember meeting some born-again Christians, which was years ago in Cambridge, and the man was absolutely aglow. He had this kind of bright eyes, a kind of radiant look. Report an error in the passage at 22:32 Highlight the passage at 22:32

22:52 His affirmation was also making him a bit stupid because he only saw me as non-Christian. He could only see me in my robes as a non-Christian and that I wouldn't be saved and therefore he wanted to save me. And when I wasn't particularly interested in being saved by him, he got a bit nasty. Report an error in the passage at 22:52 Highlight the passage at 22:52

23:25 And then the radiant sun suddenly collapsed. It was like one of those smiles, you know, you can keep it going through kind of a willful determination, but suddenly it drops when something goes against you, and suddenly your face collapses into a frown. Report an error in the passage at 23:25 Highlight the passage at 23:25

23:51 Now the Buddhist emphasis on mindfulness, on sattvi, and the using and development of wisdom, is to contemplate, use the ability to reflect upon the way things are. Because the human mind, we have this marvelous ability to look at things objectively. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:15 We have an objectivity that sometimes we aren't really aware of, fully aware of, and are maybe not really informed of the significance of this. Now in the Buddhist world, It's generally acknowledged that being born as a human being is a very fortunate thing because the human situation is one that we have this reflective ability. Report an error in the passage at 24:15 Highlight the passage at 24:15

24:46 We can contemplate. We can question our own existence. We can observe our own feelings and emotions. We can study. We can... Watch, we can investigate and examine the conditions of our body. We can contemplate the nature of our own body or our own feelings, Report an error in the passage at 24:46 Highlight the passage at 24:46

25:14 emotions. And this means we can acknowledge that they exist. For example, if you feel anger, say somebody says something that makes you very angry, You can acknowledge it. There's anger now. I feel angry. And if you're willing, you can go further than that. You can begin to contemplate, what does anger feel like in the body? Is it permanent? Is it really mine? You can reflect on it and question about what this anger really is. Report an error in the passage at 25:14 Highlight the passage at 25:14

25:52 You can analyze, how did it start? Why do I feel angry when somebody just said a word to me? He called me a dirty name. Why do I feel so angry over what somebody said? You can contemplate, reflect upon, and observe this condition that is a very strong emotion, if you're willing to. And if we don't, then we tend to go to the extremes of following it, just acting on it, believing it totally, being totally absorbed into anger and becoming... Report an error in the passage at 25:52 Highlight the passage at 25:52

26:27 Somebody who's really angry, or the other extreme of just suppressing it, rejecting it, trying to stomp it out. Now those are the extremes that the Buddha pointed to as the way to experience suffering, is following these two extremes. One extreme of indulgence, of being totally caught up into one, or the opposite reaction of suppression, rejection. Report an error in the passage at 26:27 Highlight the passage at 26:27

26:59 And then the middle way that the Buddha talks about is this reflective acceptance observation, putting it in a context of the way it is. Because no matter how unpleasant or exciting or strong it might be, one thing you will recognize if you observe it for very long is that it's not permanent. You can't... If you determine to... Report an error in the passage at 26:59 Highlight the passage at 26:59

27:31 To make your anger permanent, see how long you can stay angry. After a while you get tired of it. It's very hard work to stay angry. Report an error in the passage at 27:31 Highlight the passage at 27:31

27:47 And if you're really determined to stay angry in a conscious way, sometimes we forget it, but we haven't really observed. We just get angry every time we think so-and-so. called me a dirty name and I'm angry how dare they then then you forget about it but try to sustain that see how long you can really be angry and then you find out that it's it's it's like being a born-again Christian you Report an error in the passage at 27:47 Highlight the passage at 27:47

28:18 can only stay angry by continuously affirming your anger and after a while it kind of drops away and then and then you have to start over again And in this way, you begin to see the ending of anger, the impermanence of anger, that what arises in your mind, what comes into your consciousness, whatever you're feeling, good or bad or neutral, if it arises, it ceases. Report an error in the passage at 28:18 Highlight the passage at 28:18

28:51 And so you're contemplating the way it is. You notice it's not a judgment. It's not saying it's good or bad or how it should be. You're just noticing. Report an error in the passage at 28:51 Highlight the passage at 28:51

29:02 Making a very determined effort to notice the way it really is. Now those are the kind of passions of the, let's say, anger is a very strong emotion, or greed or lust, and jealousy and fear, these kind of strong passions. Report an error in the passage at 29:02 Highlight the passage at 29:02

29:24 But a lot of our life isn't really caught up into these strong, more extreme passions of the heart. There's a lot of our life that's just totally unrecognized and unadmitted. We tend to get dull and sleepy and restless and uncertain and insecure and just perfunctory in the way we live. Just creatures of habit. It's easy to just follow the habits we've acquired and just run around getting caught up in just doing the things we're used to. Report an error in the passage at 29:24 Highlight the passage at 29:24

30:02 So that That our life may not have, you know, at moments have experiences of great anger and hatred and great greed or lust or great jealousy, but most of our life is not to that extreme. It's more on the level of kind of delusory befuddlement, just getting by. Report an error in the passage at 30:02 Highlight the passage at 30:02

30:35 But we can also observe this. We can see this in an objective way. And see that the confusion, the doubt, the insecurity, the restlessness, the dullness of mind, we begin to observe as, recognize it if it's present, and by admitting its presence, we sustain, we accept it for what it is, Report an error in the passage at 30:35 Highlight the passage at 30:35

31:05 because we're just noting the way it is. We're not... We're not passing any judgments about how it should If we accept the way something is, then we recognize its impermanence because you can't sustain it. It won't stay. It's not permanent. And so more and more, you're developing the wisdom around the cessation of the conditions that you're experiencing in your consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 31:05 Highlight the passage at 31:05

31:38 In the teaching of the Four Noble Truths of Buddha, ...was pointing to this pattern, the realizing, pointing to the first noble truth of suffering, abduka, the second of its arising, causes of arising, and the insight into letting go of the causes, which means when we bring attention and awareness to something, we're letting go of it, because we're... Report an error in the passage at 31:38 Highlight the passage at 31:38

32:11 To see it in that objective way, we have to let go of it, which doesn't mean we get rid of it. It means we lose our grip on it. We let go of our blind attachment to things so we can see them in the right way. And then, of course, we realize that when they cease, we recognize that they're impermanent. Report an error in the passage at 32:11 Highlight the passage at 32:11

32:35 What was there, what was bothering you a few minutes ago, suddenly is not there anymore. It's like this. It's the mind, the conscious experience without anger or without greed or without delusion. Report an error in the passage at 32:35 Highlight the passage at 32:35

33:03 Contemplate your own, the way you perceive yourself and the universe. Because we have, we've developed a very strong sense of our self as a kind of very important thing. The sense of our self-importance. Report an error in the passage at 33:03 Highlight the passage at 33:03

33:27 In modern society, this self-importance has become very individualistic, very isolated. Report an error in the passage at 33:27 Highlight the passage at 33:27

33:39 We're so convinced of our own self-identity that it's increasingly more difficult to relate to anyone else because we give so much significance to our separateness, to our individuality. You wonder why it's so difficult to stay married or to, you know, like the family relationships or the old kind of group relationships and identities seem to be on the wane. Report an error in the passage at 33:39 Highlight the passage at 33:39

34:14 And what seems to be significant now in modern Western world anyway is an emphasis on our individuality and our separateness. Report an error in the passage at 34:14 Highlight the passage at 34:14

34:27 So the self has been taken to an extreme. This is how I see it anyway in the Western world. The sense of oneself is we've become extreme, extremists, self-centered extremists. Report an error in the passage at 34:27 Highlight the passage at 34:27

34:43 Now this has its advantages in the fact that we don't feel bound by all the kind of obligations that, say, other societies might feel. like uh are to to our families or our nation or our tribe I'm just speaking for myself, anyway. They say, I'm the only son in the family. I've got a sister. And I don't think my parents ever said, you've got to get married and have children to keep the family name. Report an error in the passage at 34:43 Highlight the passage at 34:43

35:24 I don't think that ever even occurred to my parents, much less to me. And yet, In other societies, that would be if you were the eldest son or the only son, your duty to the family would be to get married so the family name would be carried on. The sense of duty to the family name. And I have absolutely no desire to keep my family name going on for another generation. Report an error in the passage at 35:24 Highlight the passage at 35:24

35:57 Nor did my parents seem to think it very important. Report an error in the passage at 35:57 Highlight the passage at 35:57

36:02 I was brought up to be an individual with rights, freedom, do what you want, and take care of yourself, be independent, don't depend on anybody, be self-sufficient. These were the goals and the ideals, say, at least that I was instilled with. I may have certain advantage, I'm not ungrateful or complaining about it. Report an error in the passage at 36:02 Highlight the passage at 36:02

36:34 Because they did give me a lot of freedom, a lot of choice to just do what I want. That's why we could easily become a Buddhist monk. Report an error in the passage at 36:34 Highlight the passage at 36:34

36:44 Because even though my parents weren't particularly overjoyed about it, they knew they didn't have any right to say no. And so they didn't. Report an error in the passage at 36:44 Highlight the passage at 36:44

36:57 And in the end they kind of went along with it. Report an error in the passage at 36:57 Highlight the passage at 36:57

37:03 So the kind of... Individual rights and freedom, I feel very grateful for that. But the dark side of it was a very strong sense of isolation and loneliness. Report an error in the passage at 37:03 Highlight the passage at 37:03

37:18 Because if you're self-sufficient, independent and individual, you get incredibly lonely. Because you don't know how to. How to depend on somebody else or how to include others in your mind, in your heart. You've already made your determination to be free from the cloying attachments on an emotional level or the duties and responsibilities that might be necessary to accept if you're involved with others, with other people or other groups. Report an error in the passage at 37:18 Highlight the passage at 37:18

38:03 So there's this sense of freedom and ability to do what you want, come and go, but also the unpleasant side of alienation, isolation, loneliness, and inability to really include others in your heart. Report an error in the passage at 38:03 Highlight the passage at 38:03

38:28 So it was very difficult to sustain any relationship with another person because of that. You just said no. No way of doing that. Except sometimes getting just emotionally kind of dependent on somebody was about the best you could do. Report an error in the passage at 38:28 Highlight the passage at 38:28

38:47 And then you had to kind of revert back to kind of childish immaturity to get away with that. Report an error in the passage at 38:47 Highlight the passage at 38:47

39:01 So the self can be reflected upon and contemplated. And this is also an integral part of the Buddhist teaching was the... Report an error in the passage at 39:01 Highlight the passage at 39:01

39:15 Contemplation of the Self. Now, the Buddha taught anattā, or non-self, not as a dogmatic position that we take or assume, but as a skillful means to examine the sense of ourselves, the conditioned sense of I am this personality, this body, this being here, this is me, all the assumptions we make about ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 39:15 Highlight the passage at 39:15

39:45 Notice how much you assume about yourself. That if you have a certain fault or a certain tendency, that you are that kind of continuously. Report an error in the passage at 39:45 Highlight the passage at 39:45

39:58 That if you do feel jealous sometimes, then it's easy to assume I'm a jealous person. There's a kind of ongoing assumption that jealousy is me. Even when there's no jealousy, I'm still a jealous person or I'm a frightened person. I have a lot of fear and I'm frightened all the time. Even though when you're not frightened, you never think, I'm not a frightened person. Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:26 It's easy for us to assume that we are basically all the time a frightened person. Because these perceptions we hold to and cling to, and we don't question, we don't notice what's really operating, what's really taking place. We're caught in making these judgments and having these assumptions that I am this as an ongoing thing. Report an error in the passage at 40:26 Highlight the passage at 40:26

40:54 Even the gender of the body. We think I am a man, a male, all the time. That's what we assume. If you're a woman, then you don't think that. Report an error in the passage at 40:54 Highlight the passage at 40:54

41:15 I don't know, some women might, I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 41:15 Highlight the passage at 41:15

41:24 But that's an assumption we make, isn't it? When I started becoming aware of the gender of the body, they said, you're a boy. And so that was the basis of what boys are like, and that one developed a whole way of thinking and a whole attitude and assumption based around the gender of the human body. Report an error in the passage at 41:24 Highlight the passage at 41:24

41:51 And that is, of course, that... It's now being questioned in the same way modern life, the feminist movement and the man's movement and all the rest of it is in attempt to question maybe these kind of attitudes and biases and assumptions that we have that we've never really, we've just assumed were reality because that's the way it seems. Report an error in the passage at 41:51 Highlight the passage at 41:51

42:16 It seems like I've been a man or a male all my life. From the time I was born, even when I... I was in the womb when the gender started appearing. I started there and up to this present moment. But if you really examine the mind, you begin to see that the perception of being a man or woman is something that comes and goes in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 42:16 Highlight the passage at 42:16

42:45 And you're noting that what arises sees that you don't think. I mean, none of us are... Think of ourselves in a continuous way about being male or female. We just assume we are that. It's an ongoing thing. But in investigation, in terms of dharma, then we begin to see the perception arises and ceases in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 42:45 Highlight the passage at 42:45

43:12 So you begin to change your attitude rather than assuming that you're a permanent man or woman. You begin to see that sometimes that's the kind of... feeling or the attitude or the perception that the moment but it also is impermanent and it's and it's not one's true self one is not truly man or woman Report an error in the passage at 43:12 Highlight the passage at 43:12

43:38 apply that, and that seems, that's taking it to a kind of, you know, to the level of just the body that we have, and the identity with it. But that also to all the other assumptions you make about being Report an error in the passage at 43:38 Highlight the passage at 43:38

43:55 or being Scottish or being European or being working class or middle class or being Buddhists or Christians or whatever this isn't a denial or a refutation of it but it's a noticing of what it really is in terms of experience and you begin to change your Your attitude about it. That sometimes when it's necessary you become English. If that's an identity that's part of your world view. Report an error in the passage at 43:55 Highlight the passage at 43:55

44:46 When you say when you these English people have told me they don't feel so English when they're in England but when they go to America they feel more English. Report an error in the passage at 44:46 Highlight the passage at 44:46

45:01 Because everybody's English and it doesn't stand out. But in America it does. Report an error in the passage at 45:01 Highlight the passage at 45:01

45:10 The same with being American. Being American here is more, you feel, you begin to see what being American is when it's contrasted with, say, something like England or Britain. Report an error in the passage at 45:10 Highlight the passage at 45:10

45:27 But these are assumptions, too, that because I was born in America, that I'm an American kind of ongoing. When I'm asleep, when I'm awake, when I'm in England, Report an error in the passage at 45:27 Highlight the passage at 45:27

45:42 When I'm a Buddhist monk, when I'm sick or crazy or having a nervous breakdown, well, I'm an American all the time. Report an error in the passage at 45:42 Highlight the passage at 45:42

45:57 But on close investigation, what is the real truth behind it is that that perception does arise in certain moments and it ceases. So in this way, you're developing that Buddha wisdom, the ability to see things as they are. And this helps you to break down the way you assume, make assumptions or the prejudices, the biases that you've acquired in your life. Report an error in the passage at 45:57 Highlight the passage at 45:57

46:27 Just the conditioning of your mind. You're transcending the conditioning of your mind. You're no longer just helplessly bound to the way you've been conditioned by life. Report an error in the passage at 46:27 Highlight the passage at 46:27

46:50 Now what this does is it... It allows you to let go or to free yourself. The Report an error in the passage at 46:50 Highlight the passage at 46:50

47:10 ignorance that's caused through attachment to these things, the assumptions and the habitual tendencies that you've acquired in your life, to begin to realize the true nature of the mind, which is pure, which is non-personal, and Report an error in the passage at 47:10 Highlight the passage at 47:10

47:36 which is peaceful. It's not confused. It's not dull. It's not angry. It's not a man or woman. It's not British or American. It's not good or bad or right or wrong or whatever. It is an ineffable realization of truth, which... It can only take place through relinquishment, through letting go of and relaxing your attachments to the conditioned realm and to trust in being aware. Report an error in the passage at 47:36 Highlight the passage at 47:36

48:14 Well, it sounds very simple, doesn't it? All you have to do is relax and be aware. Report an error in the passage at 48:14 Highlight the passage at 48:14

48:22 You've got to relax and be aware. It doesn't work. I remember reading Krishnamurti years ago and Krishnamurti used to say, Don't practice meditation. Don't get into those techniques or anything. Just go out and look at the flowers and listen to the birds. That sounds very nice. Who wants to go on a meditation retreat, sit cross-legged and all that? If I have to just go out in the field, look at the flowers and listen to the birds. Report an error in the passage at 48:22 Highlight the passage at 48:22

49:00 So I went outside, looked at the flowers, listened to the birds. I couldn't stand it. Report an error in the passage at 49:00 Highlight the passage at 49:00

49:17 Nothing wrong with the flowers or the birds, but the mind was, I'm supposed to be getting something out of this. Krishnamurti said, just relax, relax, listen to the birds, listening to the birds. So what? Report an error in the passage at 49:17 Highlight the passage at 49:17

49:41 It's more, you know, it's poetic to think of listening to the birds, but try listening to the birds for a long time. what? Report an error in the passage at 49:41 Highlight the passage at 49:41

49:48 Or try looking at the most beautiful flower and see how long you can sustain your attention on its beauty. We kind of look at it, isn't that lovely? And then we go on to the next thing. But stay with it, you know. I did this experiment years ago in Thailand. I thought, well, say like flowers are very beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 49:48 Highlight the passage at 49:48

50:13 Color, form, fragrance. So that's really, you know, superlative beauty. So why not just, that's enough. All you have to do is look at this flower and you will abide with the beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 50:13 Highlight the passage at 50:13

50:28 So I did, and the mind was wandering all over the place. It's hard to sustain it on the flower, even though the flower was very beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 50:28 Highlight the passage at 50:28

50:41 So even the beautiful, we can't truly appreciate because we tend to just pass it over. We tend to... Get stimulated by beauty, titillated by beauty, excited by beauty, but we don't know how to, we've not been trained how to realize beauty. Report an error in the passage at 50:41 Highlight the passage at 50:41

51:06 So beauty becomes just some kind of temptation for us, something that excites us or stimulates us or something we become attached to, the idea of having beautiful things around us. Report an error in the passage at 51:06 Highlight the passage at 51:06

51:21 Do you really understand beauty, ask yourself? Do you really appreciate it from the pure mind, rather than from the tendency to attach, to identify, to clutch at it, or we become very critical, as we become more kind of aesthetic, the aesthetics of the world. Report an error in the passage at 51:21 Highlight the passage at 51:21

52:13 become one of these kind of dilettantes, snobs, where you look down your nose The ordinary plebeians of life. Because you've attached to maybe a high standard of beauty or a certain kind of beauty. But you're still not. There's still a self. There's still attachment. So that beauty, that attachment itself always creates the suffering. Report an error in the passage at 52:13 Highlight the passage at 52:13

52:47 Even when you get, even when you can maybe control, And influence the world around you to move toward this aesthetic ideal, even if you should succeed in getting it, you still find you are suffering in it because of the attachment, the blind attachment, the ignorant attachment to it. Report an error in the passage at 52:47 Highlight the passage at 52:47

53:17 So that's why the Buddha encourages us to look at our own bodies. To be mindful of the body. Because the body is hard to hold it and to regard it as being beautiful for very long. Report an error in the passage at 53:17 Highlight the passage at 53:17

53:38 We tend, like vanity itself, we tend to, even the most beautiful people, tend to be very critical of themselves. Because vanity is a kind of harsh judgment, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 53:38 Highlight the passage at 53:38

53:58 To see yourself always as some kind of very beautiful, attractive man or woman means that anything goes slightly off and you're very disturbed by it. You're critical. You don't like the body when it's sick or when it starts getting old or getting wrinkles or when it starts having arthritis or when you have indigestion. Report an error in the passage at 53:58 Highlight the passage at 53:58

54:24 Whatever, then you feel only averse and you feel rejection of it. So the body, the human body, we can see as we have ideals of it as beautiful, but for our own body we tend to either not notice it, not really pay attention to it. We tend to have very strong views about it. About what it should be or what we don't like about it, what's wrong with it. Report an error in the passage at 54:24 Highlight the passage at 54:24

54:57 We can dwell on the nature of our body as being not attractive or the nose is too big or the eyes are too small or the lips are too thick or the hair is too thin or the chin is too strong or whatever and we can make ourselves totally miserable about the way the body is. Report an error in the passage at 54:57 Highlight the passage at 54:57

55:22 But when we contemplate the body, And just accepting it for what it is, we're not trying to convince ourselves that it's beautiful or that it's marvelous. We're just willing to accept it the way it is, even when it's not feeling very good. And this you can see in your own experience of, say, physical pain and meditation. Report an error in the passage at 55:22 Highlight the passage at 55:22

55:46 Because one thing that beginning meditators realize very quickly, that sitting still for five minutes, It's not easy. And one starts feeling a lot of physical pain, discomfort, itching, all kinds of sensations, unpleasant sensations. Report an error in the passage at 55:46 Highlight the passage at 55:46

56:11 And we're asked not to try to move or to scratch or do anything about them, but to let them be, to admit them into our consciousness and not try to... To change them, but just accept them. And that, you can see, will bring up the emotional stress because maybe our whole life has been an attempt to avoid pain or discomfort. Report an error in the passage at 56:11 Highlight the passage at 56:11

56:45 And we feel that we can't stand it, we can't bear this pain. But as we relax into it, when we begin to accept it, acknowledge it, Report an error in the passage at 56:45 Highlight the passage at 56:45

57:23 resenting Report an error in the passage at 57:23 Highlight the passage at 57:23

57:27 the relaxation oftentimes helps to do... Where the pain will go. But when we begin to relax and accept life, then the suffering can be resolved. Report an error in the passage at 57:27 Highlight the passage at 57:27

57:45 Now some people have chronic pain. And I've noticed that those that meditate learn how to accept, say, physical discomfort and not be averse to it. Report an error in the passage at 57:45 Highlight the passage at 57:45

58:04 And that's what we can learn because oftentimes in our lives we have to learn. Many people have accidents or problems with illnesses or things that cannot be cured or we cannot get rid of it. And so what can we do about it? One thing is to accept it. And we begin to realize that we can accept The ugly, the unpleasant, the painful in our consciousness and not develop aversion to it. Report an error in the passage at 58:04 Highlight the passage at 58:04

58:46 And this is, you're getting to an understanding of the way things are. Say the reactive mind is when something's painful or ugly or unpleasant is to get averse to it and try to get rid of it. But as we're mindful of it we're We're trusting in being with the flow of life as it is without trying to influence it or change it or direct it to follow with our desires, but to trust in just that bare awareness and to note and to accept and to allow things to be what they are. Report an error in the passage at 58:46 Highlight the passage at 58:46

59:28 And then we recognize their presence and their absence. Because this conditioned realm is a very powerful experience. As you all know, having a physical body is a lifetime of discomfort. Report an error in the passage at 59:28 Highlight the passage at 59:28

59:52 In the time you're born, babies aren't born, are they? Joyfully, you know, goody, goody, here I am again in a human body. Report an error in the passage at 59:52 Highlight the passage at 59:52

1:00:07 Usually they come out crying, I think, screaming. Here I am again in another one of these. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:07 Highlight the passage at 1:00:07

1:00:19 So Report an error in the passage at 1:00:19 Highlight the passage at 1:00:19

1:00:33 the body is to be contemplated and to be noticed. This I found just from my own kind of feelings about my own reflections on this body is that the body actually, this human body you realize more and more is not oneself at all. And because of that as you accept it Report an error in the passage at 1:00:33 Highlight the passage at 1:00:33

1:01:01 And I'm not critical or ignoring it. You just accept it as its right to exist for what it is. And you're not comparing it with somebody else. And you're not ignoring it and refusing to notice it. When you actually notice it and accept it, the body has a sense that it begins to feel much better. I've noticed this. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01:01

1:01:31 This body here, it begins to, it needs to be noticed and accepted. I was reading about somebody who's writing about flowers the other day, and they said, flowers love to be admired. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:31 Highlight the passage at 1:01:31

1:01:47 And I used to think that was all rubbish, you know. But now I begin to see that that's probably true. Flowers, why are they so beautiful? Report an error in the passage at 1:01:47 Highlight the passage at 1:01:47

1:01:58 Because they want to be noticed. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:58 Highlight the passage at 1:01:58

1:02:06 And they'd like to be told they're beautiful. There's nothing wrong with that. So then also the human body, it's a sensitive being in its own right. So when we regard it in a selfish or vain way, then we're not accepting it for what it is. We're criticizing it because it's not what we would like. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:06 Highlight the passage at 1:02:06

1:02:35 We can be so caught up with ideas that we have a way of just suppressing the body and ignoring its needs until it starts getting sick or breaking down. You can see so much, so people oftentimes have no, you know, just totally reject their bodies until suddenly they find their bodies all in very kind of, in a lot of pain and a lot of illness. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:35 Highlight the passage at 1:02:35

1:03:03 And to me that's the body saying, You know, the body's revenge. You've ignored me all these years. This is the result. I just waste away and get sick and feel horrible. So in reflection on the body, it isn't taking it personally or making anything up, but just recognizing it and appreciating it as a vehicle that we have in this lifetime to study and learn from. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:03 Highlight the passage at 1:03:03

1:03:33 And it has its own... Pleasurable, it's pleasure, it's goodness, and it also has its misery. But we accept both. It's not a matter of choosing. I only like you when you're feeling good and you're young and attractive. And when you get old and sick, I don't like you anymore. It's the acceptance of both. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:33 Highlight the passage at 1:03:33

1:03:58 It's beauty, it's goodness, it's pleasure, and it's... Ajahn its illness, its weaknesses. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:58 Highlight the passage at 1:03:58

1:04:18 We have to come out of our heads, our ideals, our fantasy world, learn to just be and accept and be patient with the way one's own body might feel now, the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:18 Highlight the passage at 1:04:18

1:04:36 The feelings, the sensitive state we're in, isn't it? This is a total experience of sensitivity for your lifetime. And it's frightening, isn't it, to be so sensitive and vulnerable all the time when you're taking it personally. You know how hurt, how vulnerable, how easily damaged, damageable you are. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:36 Highlight the passage at 1:04:36

1:05:01 And taking it on a personal level, it brings us a lot of fear and anxiety because we... We know that we can be hurt, physically abused or brutalized or anything, earthquake, fires, whatever. We're always in that state of possible disaster in regards to the physical body because it is a feeling-sensitive form. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:01 Highlight the passage at 1:05:01

1:05:31 So we begin to accept the sensitivity of it by acknowledging it, by noticing. What it is, not judging it, but just this is the way it is. The eyes are sense organs, aren't they? So they see whatever comes in front of them. They see the beauty and the ugliness, or the ears and the nose, the tongue, the body itself, the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:31 Highlight the passage at 1:05:31

1:05:59 We have thoughts that are superlative, wonderful thoughts, and we have... Thoughts that can be abysmal, dreadful, horrible, nasty, demonic thoughts. But in the attitude of a meditator then, it's to note, to be aware of these in the way, in the form that they actually exist as impermanent. And as non-self. Because when you investigate them for what they really are, you realize it's just the... Report an error in the passage at 1:05:59 Highlight the passage at 1:05:59

1:06:40 The state of change that's taking place and it's not a kind of permanent person that you begin to make assumptions about. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:40 Highlight the passage at 1:06:40

1:06:51 What remains is the pure knowing and the connection to that knowing within this individual form and the release, the relief from knowing the truth, from realizing the truth. In which you no longer are caught in just the habitual conditioning of the mind, just the helpless victim of what's happened to you so far, in which you can realize there's nothing to be frightened of. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:51 Highlight the passage at 1:06:51

1:07:29 Death is no more a problem. It doesn't mean that your body doesn't die, but it means you know your body will die and it's okay because that's what it's supposed to do. It's not yours anyway. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:29 Highlight the passage at 1:07:29

1:07:50 So this is... The miracle of meditation, of using this human condition as a way of studying and investigating the truth of the way it is. And this is the great gift we have, the great opportunity as human beings. So I want to offer this for your reflection for this afternoon. And we can have a break now, 15 minutes in which you can have some tea. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:50 Highlight the passage at 1:07:50

1:08:21 And then we will resume this and we'll have a discussion. And Report an error in the passage at 1:08:21 Highlight the passage at 1:08:21

1:08:56 that's the ultimate question. Because that's why you reflect on the way it is. Because just Report an error in the passage at 1:08:56 Highlight the passage at 1:08:56

1:09:11 consider that you're in a separate form. You're born into a human form. So you're actually operating from a position. As an individual entity. And so that's what consciousness is. You're conscious now because you're separate. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:11 Highlight the passage at 1:09:11

1:09:38 And that separation, we tend to take it personally and create illusions about it. But when we reflect upon it, then we... We're realizing the way it is, which is getting beyond the personal expressions or the conditioned attitudes about it to pure awareness, where you're then contacting, you're in touch with the pure mind rather than with the conditioning of the mind, which in the pure mind is universal, not personal. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:38 Highlight the passage at 1:09:38

1:10:22 When we realize the pure mind, realize the empty mind, it's called emptiness. In Buddhism they use the word shunyata, emptiness, or anattā, non-self. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:22 Highlight the passage at 1:10:22

1:10:41 It implies, you know, it's not like a soulless... um... Report an error in the passage at 1:10:41 Highlight the passage at 1:10:41

1:10:52 When we realize that, then... The personal is in a perspective, and we don't need to make problems about, I mean, we know how to resolve, we can solve the problems we make on personal level or, you know, on the individual plane when we know this. If we don't know this, then we tend to get into the old wars and prejudices and them and us and the enemy and me and you and the... Report an error in the passage at 1:10:52 Highlight the passage at 1:10:52

1:11:50 The Serbs and the Croats and the whole lot arises from basic ignorance. In the realization of the pure mind, or the deathless, it's deathless. It's not like the death-bound conditions. Your body's death-bound. And the conditions of your mind, they come and go. They're not permanent things. They're not deathless. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:50 Highlight the passage at 1:11:50

1:12:20 So that the aim, say, for a human meditation is because you don't wait for your body to die. What we do is we die before we die. By recognizing the nature of the condition of the mind, we let go of that to realize the deathless. That's why there's nothing to fear, because fear comes out of identifying with this sensitive state, and it makes us frightened. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:20 Highlight the passage at 1:12:20

1:12:51 And identifying with your body, because you know it's going to die, and you don't know what death is, and it's frightening. If you don't know what it is, it could be, you know, it can be terrifying for you. But when you die before you die, which means you contemplate how things cease, then you realize that actually things come and go and change. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:51 Highlight the passage at 1:12:51

1:13:21 But it's not like it used to be where you were saying, oh, I'm going to die and I'm frightened because life can be so painful and I can be hurt and I can be, you know, the things I love can be taken away from me and I'm terrified of it and all the possibilities of humiliation and pain and that. Because if you're taking it on that level, then we have a lot to be frightened of. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:21 Highlight the passage at 1:13:21

1:13:51 But when we see it in terms of what it really is in real life, there's nothing to fear. Because even in the misfortunes of the conditioned realm, we can bear those. We can bear all kinds of things when we need to. And sometimes we think we're cowardly because sitting in a nice comfortable room, you know, thinking, I couldn't bear it if I ever had a terminal illness. I couldn't take it. But when people get them, they can bear them. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:51 Highlight the passage at 1:13:51

1:14:30 If I'd lost my money, I would just want to kill myself. If you're losing any wisdom in your life, you lose your money, it's okay. You can keep going. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:30 Highlight the passage at 1:14:30

1:14:47 It's not all that important. But if you're attached to somebody, if I lose my loved one, there'll be no purpose left and life will be a dreary desert and a depressing state. We all lose our loved ones and we all experience that. And we learn from it. We can bear those things. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:47 Highlight the passage at 1:14:47

1:15:18 I mean, somebody yesterday, I was talking to a man who, his father died recently, and he's suffering a lot of grief because of his, of the loss of his father. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:18 Highlight the passage at 1:15:18

1:15:29 And so I was telling him, I said, but this is, this is, this is life. You know, life is like this. We all have to experience loss of the loved. It's a part of every human experience. It's a part of what human beings learn from. It's not like bad or unfair. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:29 Highlight the passage at 1:15:29

1:15:49 And when we look at it like that, then of course we can bear these things. We can see there's always an opportunity to learn and rise up. Because especially in the tragedies or the losses of life, these are, you know, something in us has to rise up to it. Otherwise we just sink. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:49 Highlight the passage at 1:15:49

1:16:20 And so that sometimes losing your money or having a terminal illness or losing a loved one forces us to rise up to meet life in a different way than we do when we have these things and we can just kind of sink into maybe a level of just getting by in life. Now here in Britain, just notice how easy it is to just get by. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:20 Highlight the passage at 1:16:20

1:16:51 And the society doesn't demand much from its people. So you can live in this country and just get by. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:51 Highlight the passage at 1:16:51

1:17:04 And because of that, you're not getting any kind of great beans out of it. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:04 Highlight the passage at 1:17:04

1:17:15 But also, we can see that... Report an error in the passage at 1:17:15 Highlight the passage at 1:17:15

1:17:20 I appreciate that. I mean, I like living here because it's a very nice country to live in. But also, it doesn't mean that we have to sink into it. But we can, you know, now say we haven't, because the basic things are quite secure and you can count on, you know, a fairly decent standard of living by living in this country. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:20 Highlight the passage at 1:17:20

1:17:44 But you don't have to kind of, you don't have those kind of Report an error in the passage at 1:17:44 Highlight the passage at 1:17:44

1:18:03 they do in the Sudan right now, Sudan. You see pictures of these Sudanese in the southern Sudan. skeletons, can't develop meditation very well because they're just out to get a, you know, find anything they can to eat. But here, we don't have that problem. But we can think into a kind of spiritual starvation because we can get by in life very easily. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:03 Highlight the passage at 1:18:03

1:18:36 why we want to encourage this kind of rising rising up. up. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:36 Highlight the passage at 1:18:36

1:18:43 to it. It's something, you know, you to kind of... Something has to come up a bit. You can't just, you know, it's a situation you put yourself into voluntarily. It's not forced on you. So you kind of put yourself into it. And then during that time, something has to rise up to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:43 Highlight the passage at 1:18:43

1:19:09 And that many people begin to discover that in themselves that they can do that. Maybe they didn't know that before. These preconceptions and assumptions about themselves get stuck in a rut of maybe self-pity or self-disparagement. And then when put to a test, they sometimes realize they can rise up. And they begin to, you know, that's good for them to realize they can do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:09 Highlight the passage at 1:19:09

1:19:43 Because one can just ride along in a level of mediocrity. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:43 Highlight the passage at 1:19:43

1:19:57 It's that which attracts. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:57 Highlight the passage at 1:19:57

1:20:03 Or you can, I mean beauty is a word that you can use in different ways. Like if you look at beautiful objects, one can look at beauty as temptation because it attracts you. You know the force of say beautiful objects. They're beautiful because they have an attractive force. When you look at them, you want to go to them, you want them. But also, as you reflect on beauty more and more, then you let go of just that kind of greedy or lustful reaction to beauty. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:03 Highlight the passage at 1:20:03

1:20:48 Because that may be how you react to it. But as you understand the nature of beauty, then you begin to appreciate it. Or love the beautiful, not in the sense of wanting it on a selfish plane, but with the love of the beautiful or the good or the true. Like in English, we use these words like the beautiful, the good, and the true. And these are quite meaningful words to us. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:48 Highlight the passage at 1:20:48

1:21:19 And to love the good or love the beautiful or love truth. And this, of course, this is... Report an error in the passage at 1:21:19 Highlight the passage at 1:21:19

1:22:07 more and more, then you let go of these blind reactions to things, then you say your true nature is that pure love of the the true, and the beautiful. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:07 Highlight the passage at 1:22:07

1:22:25 you can see beauty as something that That reminds you of, say, the ultimate reality, rather than something that's tempting you to have lustful thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:25 Highlight the passage at 1:22:25

1:23:05 Love, like Report an error in the passage at 1:23:05 Highlight the passage at 1:23:05

1:23:20 one can see, like one can see feminine beauty, I mean, like I think the rest, we have basically a pornographic outlook on women. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:20 Highlight the passage at 1:23:20

1:23:38 So we only see women as temptresses or beauty queens, things that you want for lustful reasons. And of course there's that side to it. But also, as you let go of those kind of reactions, then you can see that the beauty of a woman is... is Report an error in the passage at 1:23:38 Highlight the passage at 1:23:38

1:24:04 is something that's pointing to ultimate truth rather than to a personal object that you feel lust for. And I think like in the feminist movement, a lot of these women's protests, because they get fed up of just being treated like things that men just want to grab hold of and possess or use. Because maybe intuitively there's this recognition of beauty as pointing beyond just the thing in itself. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:04 Highlight the passage at 1:24:04

1:24:41 And you sometimes wonder, you know, like, say, what are flowers about? Because they're truly beautiful and they don't arouse lust. At least not in me. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:41 Highlight the passage at 1:24:41

1:24:59 They do attract, you know, you look at them and you want to go and kind of, you know, admire them. And sometimes, I mean, if you're heedless and you want to go and pick them or get hold of them and do something with them, but say for a monk, you train yourself, you're not supposed to pick flowers because we're forbidden to pick flowers. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:59 Highlight the passage at 1:24:59

1:25:23 So this, you know, if you've had those tendencies to want to go and pick them, you don't. You learn how to just accept them and appreciate them wherever they are. And you can see color to one thing, like a beautiful color or form or fragrance. So then... What is this about? Where do these come from? What is the purpose? And you can just have a very kind of utilitarian attitude as just the birds and the bees, you know, sex. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:23 Highlight the passage at 1:25:23

1:25:59 That's what it's all about. Those flowers are there just to attract, to keep the whole system going, the procreative system going. And this is why I say we tend to see things always from a very coarse and almost pornographic Report an error in the passage at 1:25:59 Highlight the passage at 1:25:59

1:26:25 flowers to the Shrine. You know, why are flowers an offering, a traditional offering to a Buddhist Shrine? Because they are what is truly beautiful in nature. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:25 Highlight the passage at 1:26:25

1:26:39 and you're offering something beautiful from the heart, where you're giving what is truly precious. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:39 Highlight the passage at 1:26:39

1:26:56 much and you can a cheap offering. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:56 Highlight the passage at 1:26:56

1:27:03 But or you can see it like that, or you can see that you're offering something, you're giving something that in itself is superb. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:03 Highlight the passage at 1:27:03

1:27:14 There's a way of, say, an expression of gratitude and devotion. These kind of acts, ceremonial acts, is the experience of joy. And we feel joyful when we do things like that. It's coming from the purity of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:14 Highlight the passage at 1:27:14

1:27:37 And it's Report an error in the passage at 1:27:37 Highlight the passage at 1:27:37

1:27:44 interesting to just the symbolism of, like the Buddhist, the Buddha form. The Buddha Rūpa is a perfected art form in itself. There's no way you can prove on it. And it's kind of reached its perfection long ago, many hundreds of years ago, a thousand years ago or so. But it's the human form, isn't it? It looks like a human being, but it's the human form in its state of awareness and compassion. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:44 Highlight the passage at 1:27:44

1:28:29 And so the Buddha Rūpa has this sense of serenity and peace and calm and acceptance. acceptance, the posture of the body, the stillness of it. That's why living with Buddha Rūpa is very pleasant, because they in themselves affect your mind, and they remind you of serenity and calm and peacefulness. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:29 Highlight the passage at 1:28:29

1:28:55 Yes, yes. Well, I remember when I first went to Thailand years ago, and you go in some of the temples in Bangkok, and you see rows of Buddha rūpas. One right after another. And in those days, I didn't really appreciate them very much. What do you want all these bitter rippers here? They all look the same. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:55 Highlight the passage at 1:28:55

1:29:17 The Western mind would be looking at it only from a Western conditioned mind and just see it in a critical way, whether I liked it or didn't like it or whatever. But then... Report an error in the passage at 1:29:17 Highlight the passage at 1:29:17

1:29:36 As you contemplate them, because in a monastery you live with so many Buddha images, you start paying attention to them, and you begin to appreciate the stillness of the image. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:36 Highlight the passage at 1:29:36

1:29:52 And if you notice, like Westerners tend to create a sculpture, it's usually passionate. And in Paris... I remember having this insight in Paris years ago, where walking in a public park, there were all these kind of huge sculptures of men and women, all in very, you know, either angry or warriors or arrogant or haughty. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:52 Highlight the passage at 1:29:52

1:30:23 So many of the female statues are women looking very haughty and not very nice. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:23 Highlight the passage at 1:30:23

1:31:00 to the mind, they don't, they don't, You know, you see them and you can admire them in the craftsmanship and the aesthetic value that they do have. But in the Buddha-rūpa, you realize it has its ability to calm the human mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:00 Highlight the passage at 1:31:00

1:31:21 If you contemplate the face of a Buddha, the face of a Buddha-rūpa, like this one here, it's a very beautiful face. Well, Report an error in the passage at 1:31:21 Highlight the passage at 1:31:21

1:31:37 that's how sensitive we are, that we are affected by what... It impinges on us. It does influence our conscious experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:37 Highlight the passage at 1:31:37

1:32:09 We start usually with meditation on the breath. That's the kind of standard. But sometimes that is, it varies according to what people's needs are. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:09 Highlight the passage at 1:32:09

1:32:35 you're doing is you're paying attention to body itself. Because to be mindful of your breath, you have to pay attention to your... Report an error in the passage at 1:32:35 Highlight the passage at 1:32:35