Life Is Like This

0:15 I want to welcome everybody. Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:29 And this, of course, is the opportunity to reflect and contemplate experience here and now. Life is like this. And we Report an error in the passage at 0:29 Highlight the passage at 0:29

0:45 can say life is like this in a way of just kind of... As a put-down, when life gets difficult and we find everything going wrong, then we can bitterly, cynically say, life is like this. Report an error in the passage at 0:45 Highlight the passage at 0:45

1:04 Or, and that's not what is meant by this title, or life is like this is a way of reflecting, what is it to be a conscious human being on a planet? planets. Report an error in the passage at 1:04 Highlight the passage at 1:04

1:22 So then with that in mind, then we began to just notice the, instead of somebody telling us exactly how we should be or how you should see life, you began to open and observe yourself, what it is like, in terms of having a physical body, in terms of aging process, in terms of pleasure and pain. In terms of sickness and health and then the experiences that we share through a lifetime of loss and frustration, exasperation, irritation, disappointment, as well as the highs of success, peak moments where everything is just the way we want it. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

2:19 But inevitably, most of us live through our peak moments and we get old. And old age is not a peak moment. Report an error in the passage at 2:19 Highlight the passage at 2:19

2:39 You could die young and have a beautiful corpse. Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

2:52 That used to disturb me about, you know, going to heaven. If you die when you're 100 years old, do you take a 100-year-old body with you? Report an error in the passage at 2:52 Highlight the passage at 2:52

3:02 You have to live forever in an ancient body. But that's not reflecting on the way of life, that's speculating. But in terms of noticing life, we're using this reflective awareness, observing direct experience right now, what it is to breathe or just to feel whatever you're feeling, either physically or mentally, emotionally. Report an error in the passage at 3:02 Highlight the passage at 3:02

3:34 It's like this. Report an error in the passage at 3:34 Highlight the passage at 3:34

3:38 So that puts us in a different position than when we're just caught up in the momentum of habit of trying to get what we want, trying to make life something that we think it should be or trying to get rid of all the obstructions, difficulties and problems just through resistance and denial and negative reactivity. Report an error in the passage at 3:38 Highlight the passage at 3:38

4:07 In the example of the Buddha himself, what we have of his life is written in the scriptures, it was a reflective life. The historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha, after his enlightenment, proceeded to age and suffer from physical problems. Report an error in the passage at 4:07 Highlight the passage at 4:07

4:34 Then the death, the physical death. And so this puts us, this is an example we think of. We'd like maybe have a Buddha that didn't die. Have a Buddha that never, once he was enlightened he never got old and he never had any sickness or ill health whatsoever because enlightenment solves everything. So once you're enlightened then you'll never have pain, never get hungry, never... Report an error in the passage at 4:34 Highlight the passage at 4:34

5:05 Have arthritis, never have cancer, and you'll stay young and attractive and never die. That's maybe an ideal that one might have of what you'd like. But the example of the Lord Buddha himself was an example of a human life. We can easily apotheosize the Buddha into some kind of special human being or highly developed celestial being or some god of some sort to where then we can kind of admire from a distance and pray but we can't relate his experience of life with anything that we're experiencing because he's so Special. He's not human. He doesn't have the same difficulties as we have as human beings. But in Buddhism, this isn't what is taught. Report an error in the passage at 5:05 Highlight the passage at 5:05

6:18 Taught that the Buddha was born, grew up, experienced the pleasures of life. Life also has many pleasures and much beauty to it. And then enlightened. And after enlightenment, the physical body aged just like anyone else's and suffered from various, in the scriptures, from headaches or backaches and the usual problems of age until death. Report an error in the passage at 6:18 Highlight the passage at 6:18

6:58 Well, to me this is very significant because to me then I can relate my own life to even what we have of the scriptural, biography of the Lord Buddha because it makes sense. It's something that is common to human beings that are common humanity which we share as human beings rather than if we were some human beings were better than others or the kind of race theories and Aryan race theory and things like that. Report an error in the passage at 6:58 Highlight the passage at 6:58

7:43 These are not based on how things are, these are based on ideas. all these, like racism and all that is an idea, it's not the truth of the way it is. When we're bringing, when we're opening to the truth of the way it is, we're noticing what's the common factor in a human lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 7:43 Highlight the passage at 7:43

8:08 what is common, irregardless of gender, Whether you're male or female, whether you are whatever race or ethnic background, whatever culture, religion, whatever age, and even the common factors of old age, sickness, and death are common to even all the animal realm. All sentient creatures have this cycle of birth to death. Report an error in the passage at 8:08 Highlight the passage at 8:08

8:43 So in reflecting on life is like this, then we begin to open to life, to learn from it, rather than to constantly struggle against it, try to control it. How many of you try to control everything because of fear and wanting to make things into the way you think they should be? Endlessly caught up in self-protection and anxiety about the future or guilt about the past. Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

9:20 We suffer a lot of feelings of remorse or guilt about things we remember that weren't very good actions in the past. And those can haunt us until we die. Or we can endlessly be caught up in anxiety And fear and dread about the future. And the moment that we're actually experiencing life, we don't notice. Report an error in the passage at 9:20 Highlight the passage at 9:20

9:51 The here and now. It's now that we're experiencing life. And that's the only time we ever experience life is now. The future is, you know, whenever the future comes, it's always now. And so... and so it's In terms of direct experience, you know, the future is the unknown. So we can speculate and guess, anticipate all kinds of things about what might happen. Report an error in the passage at 9:51 Highlight the passage at 9:51

10:29 And the past, that's only a memory. Some people even lose their memories as they get older. They can't remember who they are. Report an error in the passage at 10:29 Highlight the passage at 10:29

10:40 So, I mean, memory itself is... is something that you can't depend on or believe in or to obsess your consciousness with, with guilt, remorse, Report an error in the passage at 10:40 Highlight the passage at 10:40

10:58 This brings us always into this present moment and that's where we are all the time. Like for example I've been in Speaking in the conventional way, I've lived in the UK now for nearly 24 years. So I have a lot of memories. Report an error in the passage at 10:58 Highlight the passage at 10:58

11:25 But yet, in terms of experience, because of the practice of meditation, it almost seems like a timeless experience. Like 24 years, in terms of my conditioned mind, seems like a long time. I've been a monk 34 years. Report an error in the passage at 11:25 Highlight the passage at 11:25

11:46 So that seems like a long time, especially if you aren't 34 yet, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 11:46 Highlight the passage at 11:46

11:57 As you get older, it doesn't seem so. But in terms of perceptions, like perceptions of time, I would say, I mean, I remember you, when I was in the Navy, that was four years in the Navy, the longest four years of my life. Report an error in the passage at 11:57 Highlight the passage at 11:57

12:18 It was longer than 24 years in England. England. Report an error in the passage at 12:18 Highlight the passage at 12:18

12:25 Because it was something I was always, I mean I was young and four years at that age, when you're 19 years old, four years seems like an awful long time. Report an error in the passage at 12:25 Highlight the passage at 12:25

12:40 But when you're this age, my age, four years doesn't seem very long actually. But we have to deal with the perception, like if we think of 20 years. Report an error in the passage at 12:40 Highlight the passage at 12:40

13:05 when I look back 20 years, Report an error in the passage at 13:05 Highlight the passage at 13:05

13:10 like years. mean, this is reflecting on the way it is in terms of my own experience of time, of past and future. Report an error in the passage at 13:10 Highlight the passage at 13:10

13:24 we have this. This ability to perceive time, to create perceptions of time. And like 20 years from now is a perception I'm creating right now. Report an error in the passage at 13:24 Highlight the passage at 13:24

13:37 And 20 years from now, and that in terms of the cultural conditioning or cultural attitudes towards time that I have, seems like, you know, a fairly long time. Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

13:53 Could even live 30 more years, which isn't... It's too depressing. Report an error in the passage at 13:53 Highlight the passage at 13:53

14:07 But anyway, if I think about it, it's depressing, isn't it? Twenty years ago, like people now, the monks, most of the monks I live with talk about the 60s as if they were ancient history. Report an error in the passage at 14:07 Highlight the passage at 14:07

14:23 And that's when I became a monk, was in the 60s. So this is just pointing out that this reference point of now we know. What is past? What is future in terms of experience right now? Not in terms of some definition that you get from your cultural conditioning, but in terms of how it seems emotionally to you right now, like 20 years from now or 20 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 14:23 Highlight the passage at 14:23

14:59 And this is the way life is. The time is basically what we... It determined on, even though we see it in terms of clocks and revolutions around the sun and so forth, that actually it's much more subjective than that. That's a scientific perception of it. But in terms of experience, time goes by slow, slowly, or goes by very slow or very fast, according to how interested or how bored we are, how happy. Report an error in the passage at 14:59 Highlight the passage at 14:59

15:36 Or how miserable we might be. Like four years in the Navy, I wasn't happy. You know, wanted to get out. From the day I entered the gate of the naval base, I wanted to leave. I mean, that was just starting off at the beginning of a four-year hitch, as they say. Four-year hitch in the Navy, and then counting down the days, you know. Report an error in the passage at 15:36 Highlight the passage at 15:36

16:08 I remember the last year I had one of these desk calendars with a page for each day of the year and I had it all counted down to the last day. Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

16:20 But it did give me a peak moment when I left. I was discharged in the Treasure Island Naval Base near San Francisco. And so I remember walking out the gate. Report an error in the passage at 16:20 Highlight the passage at 16:20

16:37 It was just wonderful. Wonderful! To know I never would have to go back in that gate. And that's a peak moment where somehow the four years of putting in time, counting time and longing to get out led to a kind of peak moment of great relief. Report an error in the passage at 16:37 Highlight the passage at 16:37

17:01 But then immediately, peak moment didn't last very long. You can't hold it and sustain it. So you get back into... The way you think and react to life, even whether you're in the military or in lay life or monastic life, if you don't reflect on the way it is, don't notice, then we operate from various biases and prejudices and distortions, illusions that we have about ourselves, about the world that we live in. So then this Buddhist, Attitude of awakened awareness, the wake up religion, wake up teaching, which is the point is that wake up and notice how things are. Report an error in the passage at 17:01 Highlight the passage at 17:01

17:54 Don't just let people tell you how they should be or continually complain about what's wrong with the way it is because that's depressing, isn't it? To just endlessly moan about the injustices or the Faults, inadequacies of oneself, the people you're living with, the society you're in. Because things are like this. Report an error in the passage at 17:54 Highlight the passage at 17:54

18:22 Life isn't a peak moment. It's not static. You'll never get this realm into a perfect peak moment and sustain it because that's not the way it is. Life isn't like that. Life is like this. It's consciousness. We're experiencing consciousness now. Report an error in the passage at 18:22 Highlight the passage at 18:22

18:44 So consciousness means that we have a physical body that's very sensitive. We have eyes and ears and nose and tongue. Physical body. We have a brain. We have memory. We have language. We have retentive memory. So we can remember all kinds of things from our past. Report an error in the passage at 18:44 Highlight the passage at 18:44

19:14 And so this is a very sensitive state we're in. This realm is called the sense realm because that means it's sensitive. It's like this. Being sensitive is like this. It means you have to feel all the time. Something's either, you know, something's always impinging on you in some way or affecting you, whether it's externally from outside or your own... Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:46 Karmic tendencies, the way you think and the kind of memories that you hold on to or the prejudices or biases or opinions and views or emotional habits that you have, these are always being triggered off or being set into motion due to various conditions when they arise. Report an error in the passage at 19:46 Highlight the passage at 19:46

20:10 And if we don't understand this, then We do feel generally frustrated. We tend to want to control everything because we don't know what to do if everything got out of control. Report an error in the passage at 20:10 Highlight the passage at 20:10

20:27 That's one of the great fears, isn't it, of many human beings is what will I do if I lose control? And then we imagine the worst possible things of making a fool of ourselves. Doing something stupid, humiliation, all kinds of possibilities. If we lose control, we might go crazy. And this idea of going crazy is a frightening one, isn't it? Where we're no longer considered a compos mentis. Report an error in the passage at 20:27 Highlight the passage at 20:27

21:04 We're always tainted by this perception. He's a bit, you know, off. Or to have some label attached to you, you know. To even prove the medical, the approved diagnosis about you. And then your identity is reinforced with all these perceptions and the fear of losing control. Report an error in the passage at 21:04 Highlight the passage at 21:04

21:34 So with the awakeness, when we're not awake, then we're frightened, because life is very frightening. From the way we tend to perceive ourselves living in this world. Because it is a rather frightening experience in a personal way. To be kind of brought forth as a sensitive form, conscious form in such a vast and mysterious universe. Report an error in the passage at 21:34 Highlight the passage at 21:34

22:10 You know, it's daunting when you start looking out at night at the sky and in the clear light. It's so mysterious and so kind of vast and you feel so helpless, like a nothing, like a little termite or even less than a termite in this vast universe. Report an error in the passage at 22:10 Highlight the passage at 22:10

22:34 And because, you know, when you're with your friend in a nicely decorated room, you can feel there's a level of control and familiarity there, that everything's contained with walls and familiar objects and friendly people. But when those change, isn't it, then it brings up what we won't be able to control it. We'll lose control. Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

23:02 What will we do if... If we allow, we're afraid of foreigners or aliens. There's one, I remember, movie review I read was commenting on why are all these sci-fi films about outer space, all the aliens are kind of horrendous, voracious monsters. Why couldn't there be some nice aliens? Really lovely ones that come down to love us and make us happy. Report an error in the passage at 23:02 Highlight the passage at 23:02

23:34 Why is it always some grotesque, monstrous kind of reptilian type creature? Report an error in the passage at 23:34 Highlight the passage at 23:34

23:46 If you're going to imagine, you can imagine, you know, both really. But because of the fear, we tend to see alien, anything alien, foreign, as what you don't know. I don't know about them. You don't know what they'll do. Report an error in the passage at 23:46 Highlight the passage at 23:46

24:04 You don't know what they think. On and on like that. So then we want to just keep them away from us because if we allow them, then we lose control. We don't have a sense of being unsafe. So awakened awareness is opening to the universe, to all of it. Not to just a nice little room that we have that we can protect. Report an error in the passage at 24:04 Highlight the passage at 24:04

24:33 But towards everything, towards heaven and hell, towards all alien creatures, whether they're reptilian monsters or lovely angelic forms or whatever, our relationship to them then is openness and recognition. They're like this. We begin to see there's a wisdom faculty that begins to We begin to rely on when we awaken to life that we don't notice when we're trying to control it and bend it to our desires or protect ourselves endlessly from any possible danger. Report an error in the passage at 24:33 Highlight the passage at 24:33

25:24 When we talk about wisdom in Buddhism, there's Panya, it's called Panya, is the word, it doesn't mean like knowing a lot about what wise sages have said. It's an intuitive wisdom. It's natural to us. It's not something that you acquire through study or anything. It's not like you lack it or anybody here in this room lacks wisdom or doesn't have any. It's just we may not use it very much. Report an error in the passage at 25:24 Highlight the passage at 25:24

26:01 We don't appreciate it. We don't know how to develop wisdom in our lives. Because the society we live in isn't particularly wise. It's not a society that encourages wise reflection on anything. So that, you know, in the modern world it's very much a controlling situation. You can see how with the fuel strike and all that, there is not any real, you know, not many people interested in really trying to understand the problem. Report an error in the passage at 26:01 Highlight the passage at 26:01

26:40 You know, in terms of what it really is, what it means, but in terms of political perspective, in terms of personal inconvenience, in terms of them against us, in terms of my authority and you, and on and on like this. Report an error in the passage at 26:40 Highlight the passage at 26:40

27:00 So it's a society that is very much, you know, lock up the criminals, mentally ill, put them in institutions. And chuck out the foreigners. And Britain's pretty good, actually. But there is this mentality, because it is based on fear of the unknown, and a very constricted identity with what I am, what I feel I am, what I accept, then I have to, I can only accept that much, and if it expands beyond that, then it's unbearable. Report an error in the passage at 27:00 Highlight the passage at 27:00

27:50 with awakened awareness, I found in my own experience living as a Buddhist monk, just the ability to adapt through mindfulness. example, living in Thailand for ten years, just trying to, learning to adapt, open to the society I was in, rather than just try to... You know, protect myself or find a little niche just for me that I could, you know, live my own life. In fact, with a teacher like Ajahn Chah, he was very much pushing me always into the middle of experience of life as a monk and right into the middle of monastic life. Report an error in the passage at 27:50 Highlight the passage at 27:50

28:34 He would never let me kind of, even though the tendency, sometimes wanting to move out on, you know, to move out and kind of Remain the special foreign monk and keep myself kind of in a special position. He's always bringing me back into the middle of it. Which of course was challenging a lot of doubt and fear and frustration. Because when you live in a country whose language and culture you don't You haven't quite tuned into yet, you know, you really feel very, you can have a lot of paranoia and anxiety around it, frustration. Report an error in the passage at 28:34 Highlight the passage at 28:34

29:25 But then Luang Por Chau was very good at pointing out how life is like this. And I remember one time, this was years ago, in 1966 when I lived in Nong Khai, before Laos went communist, Report an error in the passage at 29:25 Highlight the passage at 29:25

29:46 I lived right across the river from Laos in Nangkai. In those days, Thailand and Laos, you could go back and forth without any passport or any problems. Just go across the river and you were there. And it was very much like northeast Thailand. So I remember... The conflicts that were already operating there, there were all these different CIA agents and then China and Vietnam and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 29:46 Highlight the passage at 29:46

30:25 In fact, Bianchian in those days was considered a kind of like an international spy center. So it was kind of an interesting place to be around. There's a red Chinese embassy, there's an American embassy, and that was seldom possible in those days to have those two embassies in the same city. Report an error in the passage at 30:25 Highlight the passage at 30:25

30:51 But anyway, at one time, just surprisingly, one of the southern towns of Laos, an Air Force general somehow got annoyed with the general up in Vieng Chien, And flew up and bombed the airfield. And so I remember the monks telling me about this and I was thinking, that's really stupid, you know. They shouldn't be doing things like that. And I was very indignant because I've been brought up to get indignant about such kind of actions. And then the monk said, but that's the way life is, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 30:51 Highlight the passage at 30:51

31:33 And my reaction was, Well, I mean, aren't you? Doesn't that upset you? Doesn't that make you angry? We can't allow this. Getting back into my graduate student Berkeley mode, you know, of protest, shaking the fist and blaming, the monk said, isn't that the way life is? And anyway, to me it was such a, I was so surprised at his... Report an error in the passage at 31:33 Highlight the passage at 31:33

32:02 A response, because he was quite a very intelligent man actually, so it wasn't like, you know, somebody that, you know, that you didn't respect. I had a lot of respect for this monk. So I started, you know, I left an imprint in my mind. Life is like this, you know, of this endless battle, controlling power, wanting power, wanting control. Report an error in the passage at 32:02 Highlight the passage at 32:02

32:32 This envy and jealousy and the way that we compete and challenge each other, whether it's on a personal level or political or sports, what not, this is part of our human experience. Report an error in the passage at 32:32 Highlight the passage at 32:32

32:53 Being from an American background, the thing that I found was that you tend to think that the way you think is the way everybody else does. Report an error in the passage at 32:53 Highlight the passage at 32:53

33:03 And when you live in countries, out of the countries, you realize they don't think like that. Not many do. So this is another thing. By noticing the way it is, then, you know, I used to think that they should think like I do. Report an error in the passage at 33:03 Highlight the passage at 33:03

33:25 But if I awaken, and right now I begin to see, that's the creation of my mind. You should, what I feel, what I... My opinion, my values, my principles should be yours also. And when I look at that as experience in the present, I see it as a kind of demand I make on life. That it is always leading me to be disappointed or disillusioned and unaccepting and not open to the variety of conditioned phenomena that I experience. Report an error in the passage at 33:25 Highlight the passage at 33:25

34:02 That I can't You know, when you're caught in that mode all the time, when you see you should think like, your principles, your views should be like mine, then that's asking the impossible from others. And then it always leads to a sense of frustration and disappointment, betrayal. I've found in friendships oftentimes, You form kind of personal friendships with people and then when they don't do something that you think they should or don't respond in the way that you feel a friend should then the word betrayal comes up in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 34:02 Highlight the passage at 34:02

34:49 You betrayed me. Or I would tend to say I don't trust you anymore. It's a kind of way of thinking you've totally disappointed me and I can no longer trust or respect you because you haven't You haven't lived up to what my expectations are and you've failed me in some way. You've let me down. When I look at that as experience, you know, in terms of when I feel like that, I have that emotion and I hold to that emotion, but I start looking at it now with awakened awareness, you Report an error in the passage at 34:49 Highlight the passage at 34:49

35:32 know, it's an unpleasant way to be. You know, it's... The thing itself holds the emotional quality is very distressing and unpleasant to have this sense of demand on others not to betray me or that my respect is so important that people should obey me or never Disappoint me, never betray me, never let me down. Then you're getting it back to a real sense of self-centeredness. Report an error in the passage at 35:32 Highlight the passage at 35:32

36:11 Me, and I want the world to be what I want it to be so that I will, then I'll feel safe, I'll feel loved, I'll feel accepted, I'll feel okay about everything. My fears will go away. I'll have friends that will never let me down, never betray me. That I can trust forever and live in a society that will always be fair and just and democratic and understand all my needs and take care of me till I die. Report an error in the passage at 36:11 Highlight the passage at 36:11

36:45 So this is not the way life is, but we can open to that feeling. This self-centered concern, this identity with yourself as a person that is so strong, so fixed, so unchallenged, that you make all your judgments from that personal experience of life. Report an error in the passage at 36:45 Highlight the passage at 36:45

37:16 So it's interesting with the meditation now, interest in Buddhist meditation, that this kind of Consciousness now is being explored in a way that it never has been. It's quite an interesting subject. Report an error in the passage at 37:16 Highlight the passage at 37:16

37:43 Interesting subject to talk about in psychology, psychiatry. Because consciousness is the thing that we're experiencing all the time. Report an error in the passage at 37:43 Highlight the passage at 37:43

37:54 Whenever we're awake, when we're asleep, We have a sleep consciousness, but other than those moments, we are experiencing consciousness right now. So, just notice the consciousness, what is it in terms of experience right now? Report an error in the passage at 37:54 Highlight the passage at 37:54

38:18 Now, you might want me to define it in terms of what the authorities say or the Abhidhamma or the Buddhist texts, but with awareness, Report an error in the passage at 38:18 Highlight the passage at 38:18

38:30 We're just noticing that consciousness has always this sense of subject-object. Like right now, I'm here, the physical body, this entity is here, and you're an object in my consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 38:30 Highlight the passage at 38:30

38:51 Well, that's different than, say, the conventional way of looking at it, which is that I'm sitting here and you're sitting there and you're listening to me and we're talking on a conventional level of I can see my hands and my knees. I can't see my face. And I can't see my eyes. Report an error in the passage at 38:51 Highlight the passage at 38:51

39:37 So this is consciousness. Consciousness is this point here. Consciousness you can also see as light. It's interesting to observe. Like yesterday morning, I woke up early and I went outside in the garden and there was a crescent moon and a very clear, beautiful, balmy, pleasant night with the stars twinkling. Report an error in the passage at 39:37 Highlight the passage at 39:37

40:08 And it's so beautiful and so pleasant, you know, contemplating this as experience, how this point of light, this light here and that light way out in space like a star or the refracted light that the moon has of the sun and light is this, that consciousness is light. Report an error in the passage at 40:08 Highlight the passage at 40:08

40:32 So when we begin to If we recognize our own gift of consciousness, that this is with us, then we begin to rest in this light, rather than always looking for light as some external experience. If you don't know this, then you tend to think, oh, it's dark. Turn on the light. And we become frightened of the dark. Report an error in the passage at 40:32 Highlight the passage at 40:32

41:02 We don't know what's out there because our attention tends to project outside ourselves a lot into what we can imagine. But in terms of direct experience in the dark, in a dark room, in a black room, the light's still on, you're conscious. And learn to recognize that, to reflect on that. Consciousness is like this. Report an error in the passage at 41:02 Highlight the passage at 41:02

41:33 So it's a knowing, isn't it? It's a way of knowing experience. Consciousness isn't cultural. It's not personal. It's not racial, or there's no gender to it, not male or female, young or old. Report an error in the passage at 41:33 Highlight the passage at 41:33

42:02 It's light, like the sun. Light, you can't say it doesn't belong. experience. It's not conscious. Report an error in the passage at 42:02 Highlight the passage at 42:02

42:07 It's my light and you can't have it. I put a sign, this is my son, keep away. This would be a sign of real delusion. But if you recognize this light of being conscious and then awaken, use consciousness because Consciousness functions, but we can also create endless clouds or delusions into the conscious experience. Report an error in the passage at 42:07 Highlight the passage at 42:07

42:47 So this is what happens when we, like through our experience of life, when we get conditioned, merely conditioned through cultural conditioning or social conditioning, then it's like we have this consciousness, we're conscious, but it's completely kind of distorted. and clouded over and influenced by our emotional habits or our views and opinions our feelings the way we look at our own body, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 42:47 Highlight the passage at 42:47

43:20 the identity we hold personal identity with the physical body that's here we can be quite miserable just because somebody doesn't like the way we look Report an error in the passage at 43:20 Highlight the passage at 43:20

43:35 Anyway, somebody insults, says, you know, you're an ugly old guy, skinhead. Report an error in the passage at 43:35 Highlight the passage at 43:35

43:54 Why are you wearing those sheets? I don't mind Hare Krishna, though, that's okay. Report an error in the passage at 43:54 Highlight the passage at 43:54

44:08 But anyway, this identity, you know, with appearance, that distorts things so that That we become self-conscious and obsessed with appearance and with how we look and how we want others to see us. And those are conditions we create into consciousness. So with awareness, we're learning to see that. We see that the things that we create, we don't have to hold to. Report an error in the passage at 44:08 Highlight the passage at 44:08

44:41 They become habits. And habits are something that just... You are habituated to. Habits are habitual. A habit, you know, what you're used to, even if it's a bad habit, you're used to it. That's why it's hard to stop smoking and things like this, even though it says it's hazardous to your health in big letters. Report an error in the passage at 44:41 Highlight the passage at 44:41

45:09 But it's easier to smoke than not to because it's a habit. You're habituated to it. So with awaken-ness, you're not trying to just stop smoking because out of fear, or just repress all your habits and try to kind of take on more, you know, what you think are better habits by repressing the old ones. That doesn't work. It's learning to understand life is like this, which is not a justification, you know, it's not a, It can be another way of justifying mediocrity and misery. Life is like this. Or we Report an error in the passage at 45:09 Highlight the passage at 45:09

46:00 begin to open to life in terms of what it really is, in terms of beginning to trust in awareness, in allowing, in recognizing the gift of consciousness that we're experiencing and learning that this consciousness is something that we You know, we're not helpless victims of our conditioning. We have a way of liberating ourselves from even bad habits or bad conditioning and attachments. Report an error in the passage at 46:00 Highlight the passage at 46:00

46:33 So this is what the Lord Buddha was pointing to. This was his teaching about waking up and liberating the individual human conscious entity, liberating oneself. oneself from the delusions that we create. I Report an error in the passage at 46:33 Highlight the passage at 46:33

46:56 notice over the years of this kind of practice that it becomes clearer and clearer as you keep trusting Report an error in the passage at 46:56 Highlight the passage at 46:56

47:25 in this reflectiveness, in this awareness. Because there's a wisdom that's natural to us. And the Buddhist teachings, actually, as we find them, say, in the Pāli Canon or the scripture, if you just memorize those teachings, it doesn't mean you're any wiser for it. Report an error in the passage at 47:25 Highlight the passage at 47:25

47:46 But it means that those teachings are helping you to develop wisdom through waking up. The Buddhist, like the Four Noble Truths, all these teachings are pointing to experience now. They're not doctrines in themselves that you operate from. They're not statements that you attach to and then logically deduct from those positions. Like when the Buddha says, there is suffering, it is not saying you have to accept there is suffering and attach to that as some kind of Buddhist doctrine. Report an error in the passage at 47:46 Highlight the passage at 47:46

48:21 He's pointing to what is there is suffering, what is it, what is suffering as experienced now. Report an error in the passage at 48:21 Highlight the passage at 48:21

48:29 And so then, because of that, then I start looking here, you know, the suffering. Of being attached to my own views and opinions, of self-consciousness, feeling betrayed by friends or feeling disappointed or disillusioned with this or that. And the feeling of identity, the identity I have with this physical form is never good enough, it never was. Report an error in the passage at 48:29 Highlight the passage at 48:29

49:07 Even when I was young, I always could think I could look better than I did. Report an error in the passage at 49:07 Highlight the passage at 49:07

49:16 There was no gratitude or appreciation for the good features I did have. It could be better. So this was always this sense of vanity and criticism and so it would take the joy out of one's life. Report an error in the passage at 49:16 Highlight the passage at 49:16

49:35 Even though life has not been a particularly You know, I've not had a very miserable life, actually. It's been quite fortunate. But I've created a lot of misery into my consciousness through not understanding, not reflecting, not awakening to light. Report an error in the passage at 49:35 Highlight the passage at 49:35

50:00 Then recognize that just contemplating this yesterday morning, standing out in the garden and looking up at the sky and this light, you know, seeing this consciousness as light can recognize light, isn't it? Even though it's, Way off in the expanse of the dark night and sees the stars. And this light then is consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 50:00 Highlight the passage at 50:00

50:30 It's something that's with us all the time. It's not something that can let us down. If we open to it, if we awaken, But, of course, what comes up in consciousness can be anything. Your habits, your anger, resentments, jealousies, fears, hatreds, greed in all its forms, doubt and worry, all these things arise into consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 50:30 Highlight the passage at 50:30

51:09 So if you don't know the difference, then you're caught into these mental states that you create endlessly. So, because like if you see life in a certain way, or you have certain character tendencies, or you've had a very difficult background, or a lot of pain and rejection, or alienation in your life, then we form perceptions and memories and attitudes that come up into consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 51:09 Highlight the passage at 51:09

51:43 So then we're caught in these all the time if we don't know the difference between consciousness and the mental conditions we create. Report an error in the passage at 51:43 Highlight the passage at 51:43

51:55 So therefore it's like awakened awareness puts us in the state of a continuity of experience. Like emotional experience It's changing all the time. When you really look at your emotional habits, you can go up and down like a yo-yo sometimes. Report an error in the passage at 51:55 Highlight the passage at 51:55

52:17 I mean, you can feel elated one moment and totally suicidal the next. Because emotions are like that. They change. And then other emotions like dullness or... Report an error in the passage at 52:17 Highlight the passage at 52:17

52:34 worry, kind of worried states of mind, and they seem to hang around us. Report an error in the passage at 52:34 Highlight the passage at 52:34

52:44 experienced now, you see they're changing this. They have no, there's no core to it, nothing that holds it. The thing that's holding you is sati and paññā, or mindfulness and wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 52:44 Highlight the passage at 52:44

52:58 that is aware, that's transcending the mental condition, physical body. The emotional habit, the character tendencies, in Buddhist terms, the vipakakamma. Report an error in the passage at 52:58 Highlight the passage at 52:58

53:16 Now, vipakakamma is a very useful perception, actually, for those of you who don't know what it is. It's karma. Of course, the law of karma is cause and effect. If you do good, you get a good result. If you do bad, you get a bad result. Report an error in the passage at 53:16 Highlight the passage at 53:16

53:38 Vipaka is a resultant karma that arises. Now, karma arises according to conditions. It has no independence. It isn't just kind of latently lying around inside you or collecting in some place, like money in a bank or something. When the conditions arise, when the conditions are there, then this karma arises in your consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 53:38 Highlight the passage at 53:38

54:06 So noticing this, that viparka kamma is, we experience like the Lord Buddha in the scriptures experienced his viparka kamma after he was enlightened. He didn't get out of it. You know, so when people would, when you read the scripture, then the Buddha had to put up with some pretty miserable things after his enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 54:06 Highlight the passage at 54:06

54:33 His cousin tried to kill him, and it was all kinds of nasty things, blamed for things, rumors spread, stubborn and recalcitrant bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, and jealousies and whatnot. Report an error in the passage at 54:33 Highlight the passage at 54:33

54:52 And the Buddha would see this as viparkakamma, you know. So his relationship to his feeling, his experience in the present was of Acceptance and awareness and wisdom rather than of judgment or rejection or blame. Report an error in the passage at 54:52 Highlight the passage at 54:52

55:14 Whatever way you're feeling now, right now, is the vipaka. The conditions that are present now, they come together so this is the way you're feeling. Report an error in the passage at 55:14 Highlight the passage at 55:14

55:30 And this is because the now is where we experience life. So vipaka is what we're always feeling now. And that can change according to whether you're being praised or blamed or loved or hated or you're a winner or a loser, success or a failure. Or nothing much happening at all. The vipakakamma is like this, the way life is. Report an error in the passage at 55:30 Highlight the passage at 55:30

56:02 Then as we... Recognize that, then we don't create karma with the viparka karma. See, the law of karma is you make karma if you attach or reject it. The two extremes. Where, you know, the viparka karma that arises in the present is like this. And then you say, you wallow in it. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, I mustn't think like that. Oh, no, that's a bad thought. I must... Report an error in the passage at 56:02 Highlight the passage at 56:02

56:36 Can't do that, reject that. That's karma also. So you're creating, you're constantly kind of reinforcing your habitual patterns all the time through this heedlessness, not understanding. But in awakened awareness, then when the parka karma arises, you're aware of it. It's like this. But this ability to To embrace it, to let it be the way it is. You're not judging it. You're not blaming anybody. You're just accepting it, whatever it is, good or bad, neutral. Report an error in the passage at 56:36 Highlight the passage at 56:36

57:14 And then it ceases. So you can actually, you observe. If you learn to trust in awareness, you're aware of the presence and the absence of something. So it arises, it ceases. And that which is aware, it's not a person, it's not Ajahn Sumedho or any person. Report an error in the passage at 57:14 Highlight the passage at 57:14

57:36 It's through consciousness that we are aware. And so then we're seeing things through wisdom. We're informing our conscious experience through wisdom rather than through ignorance. So this is the thrust of the Buddha's teaching, to keep developing this, because it does, you know, you might understand it, But to keep practicing it, let's take a determination and willing to really, you know, to open to life and to the things that we're frightened of. Report an error in the passage at 57:36 Highlight the passage at 57:36

58:15 Really be more kind of brave and open to fear and to the things you most dread. And as you change your attitude towards them, then you can... Report an error in the passage at 58:15 Highlight the passage at 58:15

58:33 Resolve, let go of those conditions and not create more, reinforce those habits through just repeating the same thing over and over again. Report an error in the passage at 58:33 Highlight the passage at 58:33

58:46 So life is like this. Report an error in the passage at 58:46 Highlight the passage at 58:46

58:51 And tea time? In England, life is like this. Tea time. Report an error in the passage at 58:51 Highlight the passage at 58:51

59:04 So in, say, 20 minutes from now, anyone who's interested, we can have a discussion on this. Subject. Report an error in the passage at 59:04 Highlight the passage at 59:04