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- 0:54
Well, I see prayer now as just more the total trust in that kind of openness. Even though I think in Christianity they have different kinds of prayer, kind of where you're asking for things. But I think ultimately it takes you to just that, like I see what, let's say, Buddhist meditation has led me to, is a tremendous faith.
- 2:38
Be saved from suffering and so forth. That's one way. But also, to break through the things that cause human suffering in your own mind is the most powerful way to help the people in Rwanda. Because the problem in Rwanda is about the human mind. It's about the human delusion.
- 3:55
Well, like the, you're getting, with mindfulness, you're connecting to the timelessness. And so you're, I mean, it's like in the moment, a moment of mindfulness, it's like an eternity or eternal moment, or it's like the deathless. So we call it mindfulness path through the deathless. Because when you contemplate, as long as we create things like words like deathless and immortality and eternity and so forth, these are concepts that we have.
- 21:44
But acceptance also can mean, you know, it's quite... To be able to understand something, you have to accept it for what it is. You have to accept the disability in order to understand it and to be able to... To work with it. So I mean like this friend of mine in California is a quadriplegic. When he was 20 years old he was a mountain climber and he was resting in a meadow asleep and a jeep ran over him and so he was paralyzed from the neck down.
- 30:52
And so we're just noting like sepe, saṅkhāra, ni ca. All conditions are impermanent. But what we can observe directly are the little things. things then we can we can See, that's the law of nature, that's the law of dharma, but we learn from the little things.
Transcript
0:00 It's society is this way and if the society is still caught up in these delusions then you know it's still doing all right but it's but we've got to allow that the society is going we're always going to feel that something's wrong with it because because the the the members of the society is still you know self-centered and complaining demanding and so forth so then we then we can think well you should change. Report an error in the passage at 0:00
0:29 Then they think, what about me? Report an error in the passage at 0:29
0:35 I can't change you, but I have some influence over my life. Report an error in the passage at 0:35
0:54 Well, I see prayer now as just more the total trust in that kind of openness. Even though I think in Christianity they have different kinds of prayer, kind of where you're asking for things. But I think ultimately it takes you to just that, like I see what, let's say, Buddhist meditation has led me to, is a tremendous faith. Report an error in the passage at 0:54
1:28 And it's in, I mean, you can only say in dharma or God or whatever terms you want to use, but it's a kind of faith, it's a really powerful faith. That it's like you're standing like on the edge of a cliff or in the dark, but you're not creating any problems about it in your mind. You're open to all possibilities and to the unknown and the uncertain. And that's the ultimate prayer because the mind is then totally trusting. Report an error in the passage at 1:28
2:09 At that moment, you see, and it's not asking anything, but it's also what is, you know, it's a great benefit. The more we trust in that, the more benefit it is to all sentient beings. You know, and you think of just like praying for the people in Rwanda, and then you think, I hope all the people in Rwanda will... Report an error in the passage at 2:09
2:38 Be saved from suffering and so forth. That's one way. But also, to break through the things that cause human suffering in your own mind is the most powerful way to help the people in Rwanda. Because the problem in Rwanda is about the human mind. It's about the human delusion. Report an error in the passage at 2:38
3:07 so even the good delusions of ourselves are Report an error in the passage at 3:07
3:15 then you think, then the, then the, the. relinquishment of that, the causes for that delusion, I trust. I don't know. faith that that is for the welfare of all beings. Report an error in the passage at 3:15
3:31 in terms of... Report an error in the passage at 3:31
3:38 saying, well, how is it helping anyone? I don't know. You can't prove it. Report an error in the passage at 3:38
3:55 Well, like the, you're getting, with mindfulness, you're connecting to the timelessness. And so you're, I mean, it's like in the moment, a moment of mindfulness, it's like an eternity or eternal moment, or it's like the deathless. Report an error in the passage at 3:55
4:21 So we call it mindfulness path through the deathless. Because when you contemplate, as long as we create things like words like deathless and immortality and eternity and so forth, these are concepts that we have. But as an actual realization, it can only be now. And then we're... We're in a conscious form, so that consciousness is operating within the limitations of the form it's in. Report an error in the passage at 4:21
5:00 But so to connect that consciousness, because we can usually, consciousness is always interpreted, the force of habit and ignorance operates through the consciousness. So instead of letting that happen, we're just allowing the consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 5:00
5:20 To be what it is, and to learn to rest in it, and then of course it's like timelessness or deathlessness. Report an error in the passage at 5:20
5:48 Well, this gives you a perspective on that. Because, I mean, you're not going to, you can't, it gives you the ability to know what is. Right to do, rather than just being caught up in all kinds of habitual assumptions and obsessive feelings about it. Because sometimes we, you know, we're so, we become obsessed with our own responsibilities or sense of, like I've found, like loyalty, responsibility, all these good qualities can become obsessions of the mind, where you have no perspective on it, you're just operating from. Report an error in the passage at 5:48
6:31 From these ideals, and they're very good, but they can also blind you. So this emptiness will give you that perspective, even on the highest ideals that one respects. Because the ideals, see, if we hold on to ideals, then we're blinded by the ideal rather than guided by it. That's why idealistic people can do horrible things, because they're blinded by their idealism rather than guided by it. Report an error in the passage at 6:31
7:16 I like to think of an ideal as like a guiding star to keep your direction. You have to know where you are, though. I mean, if you just look up at the sky, you can fall into the ditch and trip over the... the log. But you need also, you need to have a star to keep your direction. But you also need to know where your feet are and what's in front of you and what's surrounding you. Report an error in the passage at 7:16
7:48 So this is like mindfulness gives us that perspective. We can include both the present material complications and obstructions and that of the present. And also keep our direction. But when we attach to, if we just keep looking up at the stars, we can't cope with the realities of a physical body or a planetary life. Report an error in the passage at 7:48
8:30 But the suffering that ceases is a suffering we create out of ignorance. That's suffering. That's the miserable suffering. The rest of it we can bear. Like we can... And we're willing to accept the suffering of others because we're not taking it personally anymore. Where the suffering of others is unbearable for us is when we interpret it in a personal way and we become kind of lost in it or we're wallowing in it or taken over by the misery of the world or other people. Report an error in the passage at 8:30
9:14 You see, then we burn out. And like talking to social workers or counselors, it's interesting, what they tell you, what they have to do. Because sometimes, you know, they can easily burn out because they get maybe too sympathetic, too caring, too emotionally, personally caught up in the problems of their clients. Report an error in the passage at 9:14
9:38 And then they burn out. They can't do it for very long, then they collapse. But the ones that learn from that can accept the suffering of somebody else without making it their suffering. But it means you feel it. You're willing to feel life. I thought it very important to know that this realm we're in is a sensitive realm. Report an error in the passage at 9:38
10:13 We're always feeling it and that's why we're so frightened by it because we're so vulnerable and we can be hurt so much by physically or emotionally hurt so that we do develop a lot of defensiveness and fear and anxiety around it because nobody wants to be hurt. Report an error in the passage at 10:13
10:38 And we don't know the difference between being sensitive And just the state we're in in this realm, we haven't contemplated it. And the modern life tends to interpret everything in a highly personal way. Everything is my thing or my feeling. Everything is given one interpretation on a very personal level. Report an error in the passage at 10:38
11:04 So in terms of dhamma, we're seeing the way it is. Like what consciousness and feeling is, it's just this is, you know, we're born, we're living within the limitations of this form and as it grows up, gets old and dies, this is the way it is. And then we kind of contemplate, examine the sensory, you know, how the senses work and how things... Report an error in the passage at 11:04
11:45 then we begin to see just what we create around it and are, you know, out of ignorance. Now, the awakened mind, we can stop creating problems around it, personal side. And that means that we're more... Our way of relating to others is much more useful because we're not creating suffering. Our suffering is not going back onto them, but we can accept their suffering without it becoming ours. But we still feel it, but we know how not to make it into a personal thing. Report an error in the passage at 11:45
12:32 This is what wisdom is. So then compassion isn't like me feeling sorry for somebody, but it's willing to suffer with somebody because I'm not suffering as a person, but as a human being I'm suffering with them, which I can bear, which is completely endurable. Report an error in the passage at 12:32
13:04 But when it becomes personal, then I think I can't stand it anymore. When I become somebody, oh, I've had enough, I can't stand it anymore. Then I become a person, and if I believe that, sometimes those are signs that you need to draw back more. I mean, not always, but if you really Report an error in the passage at 13:04
13:33 You know, believe that I can't take any more of this, then you tend to, you know, then you're suffering again from it. And there's like, because I had a lot of that, that kind of, I can't stand this anymore, then I realized that I could. This thing used to come up in my mind, the monastic life. In the first few years in Thailand, I found it so frustrating some of the time. Report an error in the passage at 13:33
14:03 The way they did things, the kind of tedium of the life and the long talks and so forth. I can't stand this anymore. And then I noticed that I could. Report an error in the passage at 14:03
14:23 That's really funny. This thing, this, I had enough. I can't take any of it. But I could, I could take more of it. Report an error in the passage at 14:23
14:35 Then the common humanity, we understand it. Like we can understand somebody else's suffering, the loss of a loved one, because of our common humanity. Even if someone we hate, when we hear that they lost their wife or husband, we can still feel that. We know what that would be like. Report an error in the passage at 14:35
15:05 Or the aging process or the common human problems. When we hear about what's going on in Rwanda as a human being, we can relate to it as a common, you know, it's a human suffering when we hear about the, you know, children. Orphan children or dying of cholera, even though none of us have been orphaned or have had cholera, we've had enough of the disease and loss of loved ones and that to be able to empathize with any human being who's experiencing that. Report an error in the passage at 15:05
15:53 Because these are common human bonds. Old age, sickness, death, birth, old age, sickness, death. death. Report an error in the passage at 15:53
16:06 Wanting something we don't have, wanting to become something that we're not, wanting to get rid of something we have that we don't like. I mean, this is everyone. We all have this kind of suffering. And there was Queen Elizabeth, the most despised beggar or whatever. It's a common human. When we reflect on our common humanity, then we're not, We're not caught up in kind of racism or sexism or things like that. Those are no longer operating in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 16:06
16:47 When we come into, you know, who's right and who's wrong, the Hutus or the Tutsis, it's a matter of opinion. Each one, you know, feels right. The other one feels wrong. And then we get into... Maybe tribal, tribal, common tribal attitudes. So you have, like women, all women can empathize with what being a woman is like. Report an error in the passage at 16:47
17:24 Where men, we can understand the human side, but the female side we don't understand because we don't have those conditions. Report an error in the passage at 17:24
17:36 Where, you see, you could understand an African woman, a Hutu woman, you would know what it's like to be a woman and to have those kind of feelings because of being the female, the mother, the one who nurtures and things like this. These are common. A karma to all female, to all women. And then say we have it in terms of like our own ethnic identity. Report an error in the passage at 17:36
18:17 Like you would know you have a kind of a common karma with all Italians that say I wouldn't have. Or say I would have a certain kind of sense of Americans. Report an error in the passage at 18:17
18:35 That is, that all Americans have. An interesting one, at summer school one year, way back at Haile, there were only two Americans at the summer school. One was a black American lady from Los Angeles. She was very black and she was a Buddhist from California. California, Report an error in the passage at 18:35
19:03 We were the only two Americans and we had formed this kind of... We were Americans, you know, rather than black and white. Because we were in England. Report an error in the passage at 19:03
19:18 There was a kind of bond there, you know. I mean, nothing all that much, but it was interesting to see how somehow the race issue was, you know, was absolutely of no importance. It was not even, that wasn't anything that anyone was concerned about. Not that anyone was being anti-American or anything, but there was this kind of understanding we had of what it is to be born and grow up in that country. Report an error in the passage at 19:18
19:51 A common, like, the humor or the things that you get when you're growing up in a society that you wouldn't get, say, here in England. Report an error in the passage at 19:51
20:08 Well, I would call that more character. And personality I would define more in terms of verbal or perceptual sense of yourself. Not character tendencies, but more of a I am these character tendencies. Report an error in the passage at 20:08
20:31 Because that's like the Sakayaditti or one of the fetters. It's a sense of yourself that comes through language and memory. Report an error in the passage at 20:31
21:15 It's like to accept something means that you... It doesn't mean... It's not like a kind of negative resignation to a bad thing. It's not a fatalistic thing. Oh well, I'm a quadriplegic and... And I've got to accept it. Because that leads to a kind of apathy, which is very destructive. But acceptance also can mean, you know, it's quite... To be able to understand something, you have to accept it for what it is. Report an error in the passage at 21:15
21:55 You have to accept the disability in order to understand it and to be able to... To work with it. So I mean like this friend of mine in California is a quadriplegic. When he was 20 years old he was a mountain climber and he was resting in a meadow asleep and a jeep ran over him and so he was paralyzed from the neck down. Report an error in the passage at 21:55
22:27 He has a kind of movement in one of his arms. Report an error in the passage at 22:27
22:34 He's only 20 years old, but that happened maybe 15 years ago. He's still going. And he can drive a car, believe it or not. He has a special van that he can wheel his chair into, and the movement he has on the one arm, he can steer the wheel with it. And he's done a lot of work. Helping people in the Bay Area. He did a lot initially when the AIDS epidemic started. Report an error in the passage at 22:34
23:16 Trying to work with people who had AIDS or who were terminally ill. And then he also, with other people with physical disabilities, with death and dying. kind of seminars and he He tends to be an overachiever is his problem because people with disabilities also tend to feel even more they have to prove themselves than ordinary people do. Report an error in the passage at 23:16
23:58 So they can get into a kind of obsessive, compulsive kind of having to prove themselves. And that's where he finds it difficult because he's so conditioned to, he's been so amazingly kind of, people praise him and say, wonderful, you know, this quadriplegic that can do all these things. And he gets a lot of praise, but the result is it feeds the ego and feeds this sense that he's got to keep going, you know, and dreads the possibility of falling apart. Report an error in the passage at 23:58
24:39 But this is where accepting the situation is more willing to recognize limitation and work with those limitations. And then you can go beyond the limitations, but you also know that sometimes it's better not to. I mean, there's a kind of wisdom that comes with it, that you need to know your limits. That doesn't mean that you always stay there all the time, but it means that you're not just always going beyond the limit to where you're... Report an error in the passage at 24:39
25:23 the fact that where you're constantly stretching yourself beyond what you can do, then eventually you burn out or you collapse. Sometimes in life we need to go beyond our limits. We need to rise up to things that are way out of our, you know, what we know. We can do in terms of limitation but this isn't what we feel we have to do all the time. Report an error in the passage at 25:23
25:51 We have to create a standard so high that all we do is end up criticizing ourselves because we think we always see ourselves as not being able to live up to what we imagine we should be able to do or would like to do. And it's humbling because Report an error in the passage at 25:51
26:10 It's humble. A human being, human being is a humble experience. And we do have this kind of conceit in the Luciferian kind of problem where we want to be God. And we want to know everything that God knows. And we don't want to be human because we think it's not worth very much. We want to be Superman, maybe, or God, something, you know, from the top of the macrocosm and know everything. And we don't, we're not, we can't do it. Report an error in the passage at 26:10
26:48 And we can only fool ourselves. Sometimes we think we are doing it, but then we can't sustain it. It collapses, falls apart, or turns against us. So then in the humility is, It's a kind of recognition of the human limitation, which is to see things. We can't know from the macrocosm, but we can from what they call the microcosm. Report an error in the passage at 26:48
27:20 We can learn from little things, small things, like we're learning the nature of, we're learning the law of impermanence just through watching the thoughts come and go. Little things, not universal systems. A rising and ceasing, or expanding and contracting. We're not learning fantastic things, but very simple things. Report an error in the passage at 27:20
27:46 But we're quite capable of learning the universal patterns from the little things. But it's humbling. It doesn't seem like it's worth very much in worldly terms. Report an error in the passage at 27:46
28:04 And that's where monastic life is very good for that. Report an error in the passage at 28:04
28:11 Because most of our Western monks and nuns, we're from these egotistical backgrounds where we're competitive societies. And so we bring this into our monastic life, our big egos and our competitiveness. And it doesn't work in this life, in a monastic life. It just doesn't work. So you're constantly tripping over yourself at first, but it's humbling. Report an error in the passage at 28:11
28:52 But then the aim, the purpose of it is to learn how to trust and how to let go of things and trust and to trust in just very simple things like mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 28:52
29:15 And not think you have to figure it all out and know everything. Report an error in the passage at 29:15
29:25 But we Report an error in the passage at 29:25
29:33 can see the rising and ceasing of our own thoughts or feelings. That we can observe. The planetary, the expansion and contraction of the universe, within our human limits, it's too grand. grand, in... But we can extrapolate, we can see, like all conditions that arise, they cease, all that begins, ends. Report an error in the passage at 29:33
30:05 And we're learning from the little things rather than from the big ones. But we can see it all works in the same principle. But I mean, human life isn't long enough to see a whole universal system expand and contract. But we can... Watch these little things like a day or a Report an error in the passage at 30:05
30:41 year or a feeling, a mood of the mind. Suddenly we feel this mood and we're aware that it ceases. And so we're just noting like sepe, saṅkhāra, ni ca. All conditions are impermanent. But what we can observe directly are the little things. things then we can we can See, that's the law of nature, that's the law of dharma, but we learn from the little things. Report an error in the passage at 30:41
31:18 If I could say, I've seen the universal system expand and contract, that might impress you all, but even if I had seen it, none of you could probably. Probably, you know. Report an error in the passage at 31:18
31:37 You know, if I was some kind of special creature that happened to drop onto this planet and have this ability, it wouldn't do you any good. Report an error in the passage at 31:37
31:52 It might make you impressed with me. But as far as your practice goes, it's not much good for you because you wouldn't be able to see that yourself. But you can see this, the breath. Report an error in the passage at 31:52
32:09 So Report an error in the passage at 32:09
32:19 I think that's enough for this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 32:19
Related talks
Talk by Ajahn Sumedho. Original at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ajahn-sumedho-dhamma-talks. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Talks of Ajahn Sumedho, archived on Internet Archive. More from Amaravati