No Thing and Nothing – Q and A

0:00 The remaining time is for questions or whatever, conversation. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:12 Somebody told me yesterday, whenever I ask a question, their mind goes blank. Report an error in the passage at 0:12 Highlight the passage at 0:12

0:22 They say, before I ask that question, they've got all kinds of questions. Before I say that, they've got a question, and their mind goes blank. Report an error in the passage at 0:22 Highlight the passage at 0:22

0:35 Could you tell us if you think it's a practical conversation? the Mamayama idea of the Bodhisattva who can give up from their dharma, or forgo it for a time, in order to help rest of humanity, in fact, even other creatures to attain. It seems to imply that this is indeed a state of consciousness. Would it go without all? Report an error in the passage at 0:35 Highlight the passage at 0:35

1:04 I would I mean I personally can't I don't see the point of that because to me it seems like the Buddha definitely proclaimed Nibbāna as the way of being the greatest blessing to all beings. No one realized that if the Buddha hadn't realized Nibbāna and there was no way that any of us could or that we should there was something else to realize then I... Report an error in the passage at 1:04 Highlight the passage at 1:04

1:41 I shouldn't think that he would have taught that. But nibbāna is a mysterious word and so it can be interpreted in a very narrow way. So how I read the scripture and my interpretations and my own interpolations from Report an error in the passage at 1:41 Highlight the passage at 1:41

2:11 I see that only through realizing nirvāṇa is it possible to be of any real help to other beings. Because things aren't really the way they seem to be. If I still very much attach to me being somebody who has to help others, and I'm attached to that view, then that still is a very limited... Me and you, separative function of mind that is operating. But when that is let go of, then I see that there's a whole potential possibility that goes beyond just the perceptions, the standard perceptions of a civilization or a culture. Report an error in the passage at 2:11 Highlight the passage at 2:11

3:06 The way things can happen through the human form. Report an error in the passage at 3:06 Highlight the passage at 3:06

3:15 be what Buddha was pointing to. sometimes in what Mahāyāna by that, I mean, people have different versions. Report an error in the passage at 3:15 Highlight the passage at 3:15

3:34 they, you know, have, it's like there's one very kind of... exoteric or common kind of market language that people use in regards to religion and so that you have a common popular understanding of a religious teaching which we call an exoteric interpretation and then the esoteric realization is more subtle is a subtle and accurate one a realization of truth Report an error in the passage at 3:34 Highlight the passage at 3:34

4:13 So sometimes on the popular interpretation of religion you have all kinds of ideas. And maybe they're even good. Like the idea of a bodhisattva on the level of exoteric interpretation is the ultimate idealism of the human mind. I mean, what could be more idealistic than that? And that is taking idealism to an ultimate. Report an error in the passage at 4:13 Highlight the passage at 4:13

4:42 ultimate peak of total kindness, total compassion. Report an error in the passage at 4:42 Highlight the passage at 4:42

4:53 it is ideal. Report an error in the passage at 4:53 Highlight the passage at 4:53

4:58 that function of mind is inspiring to the mind, too. Idealism inspires the mind. that many people find Report an error in the passage at 4:58 Highlight the passage at 4:58

5:11 that. It has much more inspiring ideas. Report an error in the passage at 5:11 Highlight the passage at 5:11

5:23 because it doesn't go into a high level of inspiration, but its say, as a very practical approach to understanding the nature of things. Report an error in the passage at 5:23 Highlight the passage at 5:23

5:42 I found it superb as a tool for meditation practice, the Theravāda, the Pāli Canon teaching. And the idea of the Arahant, like even in Theravāda Buddhism, because of the popular versions of Buddhism in Sri Lanka or Thailand, you tend to have Like the Arahant is a kind of superman almost, where some monk who's managed to become an Arahant is looked on almost as a superman or a miracle, one who can perform miracles or read minds or do kind of miraculous or fantastic things. Report an error in the passage at 5:42 Highlight the passage at 5:42

6:33 A popular mentality tends to see enlightenment or Arahantship. As interpreted from more into that level of being a superman. But Arahant really, say, as a reflection rather than a person, is that teaching of like the three mentors, the Sotāpanna, Sakrata, Kami, Anakami, Arahant, as a reflection for investigation of your own mind. Report an error in the passage at 6:33 Highlight the passage at 6:33

7:08 It comes to life more, more useful as a standard for reflection rather than something that you become. Because the conditioned mind is always the mind that I'm going to become an Arahant or I can't become an Arahant or I'll give up Arahantship, I'll become a Bodhisattva. If I have a choice, should I become an Arahant who just thinks of himself, of his own enlightenment or should I become a Bodhisattva? Report an error in the passage at 7:08 Highlight the passage at 7:08

7:38 Who's going to sacrifice my own enlightenment for all other beings. You know, then you're caught in the I am, the view of I am someone who's going to become, I have a choice to become a selfish enlightened individual, Ajahn, or a very magnificent unselfish bodhisattva who's willing to suffer till the last, very last blade of grass gets enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 7:38 Highlight the passage at 7:38

8:07 Well, then that is the ultimate ideal, and the other is, sounds very selfish. Get yourself enlightened, don't worry about the last plate of grass. But if you're developing a reflective mind, then both are valid reflections. And this is where I think in Mahāyāna, It tends to inspire the mind with its beautiful idealism. And that is important also. Report an error in the passage at 8:07 Highlight the passage at 8:07

8:47 Because sometimes in Theravāda, because of the lack of inspiration, it becomes oftentimes just perfunctory merit-making or not particularly concerned with anything other than Then kind of, I'll make merit so that in the next life I will be born as a devadatta. Something like that. Where in, say, if you go on to the bodhisattva path, then it's, you know, I'll sacrifice everything for the welfare of all beings to the last blade of grass of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 8:47 Highlight the passage at 8:47

9:28 That gives you a kind of resolve and determination and ideal to rise up to. But say, to me, the Theravāda teachings from the Pāli Canon, if taken as popular beliefs, then it doesn't work so well. But it does work beautifully as a way of meditating and reflecting on experience of life. Report an error in the passage at 9:28 Highlight the passage at 9:28

9:59 It's brilliant, actually, like the Four Noble Truths. As a... Reflective teaching for contemplating your own experience of life is, I can't imagine a better teaching because it's simple and it points right to where the problem is and there's a way and it points to the problem what the problem what the cause of it is how to let it go, how to let it cease and how to develop that Perfect understanding in a daily life as a human being. Report an error in the passage at 9:59 Highlight the passage at 9:59

10:44 But yet each religion has its own particular emphasis which is not to be despised. One tends to, you know, one obviously I felt more confident and attracted to this particular way than to any other way. Report an error in the passage at 10:44 Highlight the passage at 10:44

11:10 Any way of relinquishing selfish attachment is to be praised. Whether it's through belief, through faith alone, through wisdom, through work, through good works, through meditation, all of it is one. One might feel inclined to one way more than another, but to kind of say that my way is the way everyone here should do it is another kind of conceited position to take and to condemn everything else that you've never developed or used is also being very narrow-minded. But as your mind opens up, To dharma, then one just appreciates the total simplicity. The thing that I really, really love about this particular form of Buddhism is it seems the clarity of it, the simplicity of it, and that it satisfies my intellectual needs very much. Report an error in the passage at 11:10 Highlight the passage at 11:10

12:45 It makes sense to me. It's something where my capacity to think is definitely improved and there's mental clarity. Whereas, say, at one time the mind was very much confused by trying to sort out different, taking positions on things and just being very confused by the positions I was taking. Being able to get any perspective on the problem. Report an error in the passage at 12:45 Highlight the passage at 12:45

13:30 Well, Report an error in the passage at 13:30 Highlight the passage at 13:30

13:43 I think that was it. All the grass here in England has been a bit overwhelming. The way the English grow their lawns, there's no end to it. Report an error in the passage at 13:43 Highlight the passage at 13:43

13:56 If Report an error in the passage at 13:56 Highlight the passage at 13:56

14:00 this drought keeps going, maybe there's more hope. would it know the difference between the abominable and the non-abominable? Report an error in the passage at 14:00 Highlight the passage at 14:00

· · · silence, 1 minute

14:18 that Theravāda is the sin of the school? the heart, for example. still is a lot of different practices. there any... Well, Report an error in the passage at 14:18 Highlight the passage at 14:18

14:38 I would, my whole emphasis on the Four Noble Truths, that's what I found the kind of heart of all Buddhists, you know, that's Mahāyāna or Theravāda. way of approaching it. Report an error in the passage at 14:38 Highlight the passage at 14:38

14:34 various practices that come up. Report an error in the passage at 14:34 Highlight the passage at 14:34

14:53 They all have to respect that teaching. It's often times dismissed though. It's kind of basic or you know Buddha taught that first and then later there was a higher teaching or even in Theravāda it can be easily overlooked for more kind of Abhidhamma type teachings or methods because Although there's certain methods that have developed in meditation practices. But in my experience with Vipassanā very much, that was the whole focus, was the investigation and insight into the Four Noble Truths. Report an error in the passage at 14:53 Highlight the passage at 14:53

15:47 And then that is, say, with other teachers like Buddha Dasa in Thailand, also the emphasis. In Sri Lanka you find so much emphasis on the Visuddhimagga, you see, which was not written by the, not a teaching of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 15:47 Highlight the passage at 15:47

16:11 So you get so much kind of out of Sri Lanka, so much emphasis on Visuddhimagga as a kind of reference book for practice. But Visuddhimagga is not to be all that. Report an error in the passage at 16:11 Highlight the passage at 16:11

16:29 Dependable, really, as far as I'm concerned, and it tends to make everything very complicated, where I find the Four Noble Truths, just the Dhammajakka Sutta, a perfectly adequate teaching in itself, which encourages one to practice and see the suffering and the end of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 16:29 Highlight the passage at 16:29

16:57 truth, within it is the seven factors of enlightenment, you... can't practice seven things at once, I take it. Report an error in the passage at 16:57 Highlight the passage at 16:57

17:11 Well, then, it's like Vissuti Paticca Samuppada. Those are, that particular teaching is the second and third noble truths more in detail. are Report an error in the passage at 17:11 Highlight the passage at 17:11

17:31 But how you use them is you, if you try to figure it out just on an abstract intellectual plane, it just seems to be very confusing. But what we do here is apply that whole process of the arising and the cessation to actual experience. Report an error in the passage at 17:31 Highlight the passage at 17:31

17:54 So like, just to contemplate vijnana, like you say, Avicca, Saṅkhāra, Saṅkhāra Vajramanyam. So you have ignorance conditions, the karmic formations, the karmic formations condition the consciousness. Just that in the first three mentioned in the Paticca Samuppada. If you start really reflecting on ignorance, avicca, which means not knowing the Four Noble Truths, Report an error in the passage at 17:54 Highlight the passage at 17:54

18:32 And then the mental states or latent tendencies of the mind that come from ignorance condition your experience of consciousness. Then you begin to see a kind of connection in how this basic ignorance or this avicca very much conditions how you perceive and relate to life so that if you're caught in that basic ignorance Then whatever you experience in life is going to be affected by ignorance. So it all ends in soka, pari, teva, tukta, to, grief, sorrow, despair and anguish. Report an error in the passage at 18:32 Highlight the passage at 18:32

19:11 But as soon as you penetrate that with wisdom, then all that ceases. The whole thing ceases and stops, that whole cycle. Report an error in the passage at 19:11 Highlight the passage at 19:11

19:24 And then there is dharma, there's clarity, there's Understanding, there's knowledge, there's brightness of the mind, from the ending of ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:41 And the seven factors of enlightenment, they are very, are ways of reflecting on experience. What is, you know, not to think that you have to have all of them in one moment. I mean, the mind can only take one at a time. But if you take one factor and really investigate it, contemplate, what does it really mean? Report an error in the passage at 19:41 Highlight the passage at 19:41

20:09 Like, so much of, we think we understand things because we, like so much of the words we have in the English language, we're so used to them, we think we know what they mean. Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:24 But so much of our languages merely have it, and we've not really looked very deeply or profoundly at At the real meaning of a word. Just like the word religion. You ask most people what religion is. They say it's believing in God. And so they think Buddhism isn't a religion because Buddhists don't believe in God. Report an error in the passage at 20:24 Highlight the passage at 20:24

20:47 And Buddhists would say, no, we're not a religion, we're a philosophy. But what is philosophy? Philosophy is generally that function of what human beings develop out of Out of intellectual positioning of life, taking a position and working with logic from an intellectual abstract position. So then, but that's not Buddha Dharma either. But then if you really look at, say, religion, the actual meaning of it, and its Latin origin, you begin to see, you know, look at religion no longer as a kind of Somebody that believes in God as that which binds you to an ultimate reality. Report an error in the passage at 20:47 Highlight the passage at 20:47

21:43 And then you see that dharma is not just a philosophical abstraction or Buddhism isn't just a kind of philosophy of life. But an actual religion or something that binds you, that holds you to looking, to concentrating, to totally absorbing yourself in ultimate truth to where the self and the delusions of self disappear. Report an error in the passage at 21:43 Highlight the passage at 21:43

22:23 And then it's Report an error in the passage at 22:23 Highlight the passage at 22:23

22:28 like the word Buddha. If you say Buddha to a Buddhist, it can mean go to Mother Buddha. It can mean Almost like a god. I mean, you think Buddha, all-powerful Buddha or whatever, it, you know, depending on whether you're humanist or a deist, you would then think humanist. Buddha was, Gautama the Buddha, prince and daughter of India, of the Sakyan clan in Nepal, born in such and such a time. Report an error in the passage at 22:28 Highlight the passage at 22:28

23:11 It's got to be the history of a human being. He wasn't a god, he was a man that was enlightened. So that's the humanist angle. Then the deist would be Buddha, the almighty, powerful, all-knowing, pure one. Then your mind goes into more of a feeling of faith and belief in some external force. Report an error in the passage at 23:11 Highlight the passage at 23:11

23:42 That is all-powerful and all-knowing. But then Buddha as a word, Ajahn's meaning is the knowing, ability to know things as they are. So then when we take refuge in Buddha, when we say Bhutan Sanangacami, this is what I mean. What I... is to take refuge in that ability to be mindful and knowing of things the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 23:42 Highlight the passage at 23:42

24:14 It's not taking refuge in a dead prophet or in an abstract kind of force external. Nor is it kind of assuming that the Buddha is in here as some entity of power. It's not believing that the Buddha is in here rather than out there. But it's a reflection of the mind. To awaken, to be awake and alert to life. So then it has an immediate direct help, you know, reminder, it's an immediate reminder to be awake and aware now, rather than trying to look for the inner Buddha or outer Buddha, or just take a very kind of historical view of Gautama the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 24:14 Highlight the passage at 24:14

25:19 reliant on being inspired by outside Report an error in the passage at 25:19 Highlight the passage at 25:19

25:26 hand, you get to the point of not being reliant on... Report an error in the passage at 25:26 Highlight the passage at 25:26

25:31 I know that I get inspired by outside sources and people and that makes me feel very good. then if it work out very well then I can feel very resigned and a lot of energy. So I wonder how do you get to the point where you're not inspired by, where you're not reliant on being inspired by outside sources. Report an error in the passage at 25:31 Highlight the passage at 25:31

25:53 Well, as you meditate, you become aware of how to energize, how to arouse, how to bring that effort into the very form you have. Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. Report an error in the passage at 25:53 Highlight the passage at 25:53

26:45 All Rights Reserved. And you have a meditation session and they're sitting there, really. And they're listening to everything you say. And they just want more. They keep wanting you to talk more. Everything inspires them. Then you notice some of the monks and nuns that have been here for a while, as soon as I open my mouth, they start. Report an error in the passage at 26:45 Highlight the passage at 26:45

27:08 They Report an error in the passage at 27:08 Highlight the passage at 27:08

27:15 go to sleep. And as soon as they sit there with meditation, they just... don't. Report an error in the passage at 27:15 Highlight the passage at 27:15

27:25 And you can say the most inspiring things, and they've heard it so many times. Report an error in the passage at 27:25 Highlight the passage at 27:25

27:35 And yet they're probably still working. It's not that they're disillusioned, but their inspiration doesn't work anymore, and they're having to develop an inner effort, which is... is what you really, you know, where you find, if you still depend on inspiration, then that takes you only so far, and then it doesn't work anymore. Report an error in the passage at 27:35 Highlight the passage at 27:35

28:03 You can't be inspired. You reach a peak, and then no longer is the same thing inspiring. But at first you need it. You need to have, you need to inspire people at first, because that gives them a kind of interest. And then when they're interested, then you try to get them to practice. So that when they practice, then they begin to develop within themselves. Report an error in the passage at 28:03 Highlight the passage at 28:03

28:33 They're not just dependent upon... Someone that just depends upon me and firing them, when I'm not around them, they don't know what to do. And if I should die, they wouldn't be able to carry on. The source of energy and inspiration is dead. And so they would just... You know, get depressed by it. But if they, if I had aroused, inspired them and interested them and then they practiced and then they began to develop and cultivate the way, then it doesn't matter what happens to me. Report an error in the passage at 28:33 Highlight the passage at 28:33

29:12 You know, I could die, they'd still, you know, feel a sense of loss, but it wouldn't be any obstacle to their spiritual development. Report an error in the passage at 29:12 Highlight the passage at 29:12

29:23 So, Report an error in the passage at 29:23 Highlight the passage at 29:23

29:28 It's interesting to see what people use in the monastic life to keep themselves... Like some people still don't develop from within. They still depend on inspiration or indignation or something. They're looking forward to the next thing to keep them going. Report an error in the passage at 29:28 Highlight the passage at 29:28

29:55 Like you can get... Indignation is... ...is one kind of lively, energizing emotion. So you hear about this, something's wrong here, and something's wrong there, and you get very indignant about the unfairness, injustice in the world. Report an error in the passage at 29:55 Highlight the passage at 29:55

30:19 Well, that gives you a lot of energy. I remember one monk, back in Chittur's days, he used to... You could tell when he was angry and when he wasn't. Because when he was angry, he would sit straight. When he wasn't angry, he'd fall asleep. Report an error in the passage at 30:19 Highlight the passage at 30:19

30:41 And so he would, you could, he was busy trying to find somebody to be angry with. Because that kept him, that did not give him the energy. Report an error in the passage at 30:41 Highlight the passage at 30:41

30:53 So anger, indignation, looking forward to the next thing, you know, the next event. Or some people just very proud and very, you know, I'm going to, I don't want to look bad in front of everybody, so they use a lot of willpower in, say, in formal practice. They'll just, they'll sit very straight, back straight as a rambo, like this. But then when they're alone, they can't do it, you know, they just collapse, because they depend very much on external things making them sit straight. Report an error in the passage at 30:53 Highlight the passage at 30:53

31:34 But, say, if you're developing that inner energy, because, you know, when you realize it, within your body, it's an energetic form, and you can just stimulate it with things like anger, inspiration, all that stimulates it. So, you stimulate it by that, and it kind of keeps it awake and alert. But if you become dependent on that, then a lot of your life is spent in lethargy. Report an error in the passage at 31:34 Highlight the passage at 31:34

32:07 and sleepiness and dullness where when you develop from the inner inside your body bringing up the energy and developing and cultivating that in the right way then whether you're alone or things are inspiring or not or whether you know somebody is doing something wrong or somebody hates you or Or it's just another ordinary day, just another monastic day in the wintertime, grey skies, the same old thing. Report an error in the passage at 32:07 Highlight the passage at 32:07

32:52 But you're not finding it depressing or looking for the next sunny day or waiting for the next inspiring talk. Or finding somebody to feel angry toward in order to feel alive. Because your real life force is operating in full operation so that the present is good enough the way it is. Report an error in the passage at 32:52 Highlight the passage at 32:52

33:38 Right. That is the beauty of this life. I'm not saying we don't need inspiration. But to become dependent on it, then one just, you know, it's very limited because even good dharmic friends you can become disillusioned with because they aren't always going to be what you want them to be. But so that, you know, one can get very disillusioned with meditation groups or monks or nuns or teachers on a personal level. Report an error in the passage at 33:38 Highlight the passage at 33:38

34:23 But the more you find that inner strength, then you enjoy being with dharma friends, but you're not the expectation or demand on them either. You're not the leaning. But it's the kind of mutual self-supporting, self-respect. You respect each other. And that is beautiful in this human realm. That is a beautiful human experience to live with people that you respect. Report an error in the passage at 34:23 Highlight the passage at 34:23

34:53 And you enjoy being with and who you can support and serve. That is the joy of our human experience. Report an error in the passage at 34:53 Highlight the passage at 34:53

35:09 But if one is expecting you to, if I'm expecting you to be there as my friend and support me, then it's kind of a demand in a way. And if I'm not aware of my demand on you, then when you don't do what I want, then I feel angry and disillusioned with you. That's not a real dharma friend. That's still saying, you know, I want you to be somebody for me. Report an error in the passage at 35:09 Highlight the passage at 35:09

35:51 Whereas a real dharma friend, we can give each other space. Sometimes I'm not demanding that you do what I want. live up to my expectations because even if you're going through a bad patch you can kind of allow for these things with each other like in a good samgha you kind of allow monks and nuns to kind of fall down and not always look smiling and radiant and be disillusioned and still you know kind of support them and not intimidate them and demand that they be What you want them to be, because dharma, like a good community, will kind of support people going through a maybe very difficult patch without, where if you're not supporting, then you tend to kind of nag them or resent them if they don't, to really intimidate them. Report an error in the passage at 35:51 Highlight the passage at 35:51

37:00 I find like the community here, as it matures, is more capable of accepting people the way they are. When I was younger, we tended to be more, you shouldn't doubt or you... When somebody looked disillusioned, you shouldn't be disillusioned, this is the most wonderful... Report an error in the passage at 37:00 Highlight the passage at 37:00

37:31 That just makes them feel worse, you know, because they know all that anyway. anyway, you know what I mean. Report an error in the passage at 37:31 Highlight the passage at 37:31

37:48 that he once said in tape that mind has a new body, the Report an error in the passage at 37:48 Highlight the passage at 37:48

37:56 I heard a science program I may have taught him to, and it said, brain creates the mind. And I thought, well, these are rather strange, contrary views of things, really. So I wonder if you could something about the mind. Report an error in the passage at 37:56 Highlight the passage at 37:56

38:15 Well, it's like in... Mind is an English word, so you... It has... And it comes from the positions of Western science and psychology. Report an error in the passage at 38:15 Highlight the passage at 38:15

38:35 But, say, if one is a brain, maybe, Report an error in the passage at 38:35 Highlight the passage at 38:35

38:48 you know, if the brain stops functioning, then you have certain parts. You do, you can become just a kind of zombie or cauliflower cabbage type being. But even then, you know, you don't really know, maybe their ability to respond and speak and act isn't there, but there's still sensitivity operating. They feel sensitive and they're still conscious of it. So, you know, we can have very narrow views of what the mind is and the brain. Report an error in the passage at 38:48 Highlight the passage at 38:48

39:28 Well, they say the Buddhist world tends to regard the mind as here, the heart, because the brain is an organ of the body, but mind in the Buddhist sense isn't an organ of the body, but more of an all-pervading intelligence that is... Where we tend to connect intelligence with the brain, where in dharma the brain is a discriminative organ but not intelligence per se. Report an error in the passage at 39:28 Highlight the passage at 39:28

40:16 So we would consider like an animal not being intelligent maybe because it functions from the instinctual. level of life where we would maybe consider that unintelligent but yet animals are intelligent beings because they can discriminate and they survive and they feel, they're conscious and they operate according to natural laws so that their procreation, their survival patterns are very much dictated through their form. Report an error in the passage at 40:16 Highlight the passage at 40:16

41:04 The form they have, and the intelligence operates through that form. And the human form, if you notice, we have an animal-type body, but the human form is vertical rather than horizontal in its quality. Where you say the animal kingdom very much aimed at planet Earth and towards survival in the sensory realm of the planet, planetary life. Report an error in the passage at 41:04 Highlight the passage at 41:04

41:52 Where, say, the human represents that coming out of the planetary consciousness, planet Earth consciousness, but is reaching up to the divine or to the heavens or the transcendent. So even the vertical posture of the human body is symbolic of that longing, that aspiration, that tendency or inclination toward a supreme or Report an error in the passage at 41:52 Highlight the passage at 41:52

42:35 Supreme Identity or a perfection. And the fact that we can actually think of perfection and we have perceptions of perfection and deathlessness. So then we realize that with our discriminative mind we have an intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 42:35 Highlight the passage at 42:35

43:08 That, say, with memory, and an ability to create perceptions with our lives, so we have language. So we have language and memory. Report an error in the passage at 43:08 Highlight the passage at 43:08

43:20 If we didn't have language, would we remember? Ask yourself. If you didn't have perceptions to use, would you remember? Or would you just be lost? And because we have, we can perceive, we can remember mother or... When I was 12 years old, my father took the family on a holiday to Oregon. I can remember that. Report an error in the passage at 43:20 Highlight the passage at 43:20

44:00 But if there were no language like father holiday in Oregon right now, I wouldn't remember. so this Report an error in the passage at 44:00 Highlight the passage at 44:00

44:10 remember what I be. So we have the retentive memory and ability to create perceptions. We have creative function of mind, creation. Report an error in the passage at 44:10 Highlight the passage at 44:10

44:25 And then the suffering of all this is that it tends to be interpreted in the wrong way. So that we create ourselves as a personality. Report an error in the passage at 44:25 Highlight the passage at 44:25

44:37 And therefore I am my brain. What is your IQ then? What is your intelligence potion? What is your... Educational qualification. How many books have you read recently? We can become intellectual snobs, or we can create all kinds of problems about ourselves through the creations of our mind. But as with, say, reflection on dharma, then you see through that whole process, the diluted process of creating problems. Report an error in the passage at 44:37 Highlight the passage at 44:37

45:19 And getting in touch with supreme intelligence. And then in mindfulness, when you're truly mindful, when your mind is empty of just the hanging on to the ignorant views, when that stops, then you're in touch, you're in tune with supreme intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

46:06 my heart. It's where you and I no longer are the important issue. That's where, say, there's unity, oneness, unicity in that. That's where, say, where men and women cease. Report an error in the passage at 46:06 Highlight the passage at 46:06

46:25 This person and that person and races and classes and all that cease. When there's mindfulness, there's no longer whether you're male or female or you're rich or poor or black, white, whatever. These are no longer identities. And so for the Report an error in the passage at 46:25 Highlight the passage at 46:25

46:56 compassionately rather than as a personality where you can think you're better or worse or Then someone else, as a person, as in mindfulness and enlightenment, then there's no need, there's no longer delusion of being somebody. So then in that purity of the heart is the, is you relate to us with compassion or muditā, joyfulness, love and joy, rather than fear and jealousy and anger. Report an error in the passage at 46:56 Highlight the passage at 46:56

47:34 And greed, delusion. Right. Because then you align yourself with the divine, with the Brahma, with the purity, pure abodes. Brahma has the pure abodes, the divine abodes. So then in that, these divine abodes manifest through this form. Report an error in the passage at 47:34 Highlight the passage at 47:34

48:06 But if you think Well, I'm going to practice mettā. I'm going to feel karuṇā for all beings here. Me, Catherine Hewitt, I'm going to just love everyone here. You can kind of convince yourself, you know. But then if somebody suddenly does something you don't like, you can, you know, it's hard to maintain compassion from a view of a self. Report an error in the passage at 48:06 Highlight the passage at 48:06

48:34 It easily kind of falls away. Or disappears in a second. And a demon can appear. But if you begin to trust more in that purity through mindfulness, then you're still aware of, you know, you're still feeling, oh, somebody's being rude or unreasonable with you, but you have a clarity to accept rather than... Report an error in the passage at 48:34 Highlight the passage at 48:34

49:09 From a self view, then it's going to be just an emotional reaction, where from the clarity of the pure mind, the pure heart, then there's compassion rather than anger. Report an error in the passage at 49:09 Highlight the passage at 49:09

49:27 So then I find, just the way it seems, I see that this body here is in the mind. I can see that I can contemplate this body as an object. And before I would think of my mind as in my brain. Report an error in the passage at 49:27 Highlight the passage at 49:27

49:59 And then my mind and my brain, then you have some people with good brains, some people with not so good brains, some people with brain damage, some people are brainy, some people are stupid. She has a good mind, he has a good mind, dirty mind, a clean mind, good-hearted. All of this are relating to personality and personal qualities. But if you use, I like to use the word mind more for pointing to mindfulness, where then the compassion, the heart felt Report an error in the passage at 49:59 Highlight the passage at 49:59

50:53 Where if I think, if I think from the self-view, then I have a good mind or I have a bad mind, or, you know, it's all judged from, know, in comparison to other personalities and other beings, and that just, it's very complicated and very Report an error in the passage at 50:53 Highlight the passage at 50:53

51:15 there's no liberation through that. Because on the level of conditions, we're not going to ever attain perfection. Because even if you're the most fortunate human being, you're still going to get old. Report an error in the passage at 51:15 Highlight the passage at 51:15

51:32 And so, I mean, you know, it's still, you know, you can't, it's like the rose, you know, it might reach a peak of perfect form and color and fragrance, but then it... In that maybe for a few hours it maintains itself in its peak of perfection. And then it's just, then after a couple of days you just, get this out of here, stinky old rotten roast. Report an error in the passage at 51:32 Highlight the passage at 51:32

52:08 Where if, you know, yet it had reached maybe a peak where it's at its best. Report an error in the passage at 52:08 Highlight the passage at 52:08

52:23 the conditioned plane, everything reaches a peak and then it goes down. And that's just the way the conditioned realm operates. Report an error in the passage at 52:23 Highlight the passage at 52:23

52:35 as long as there's a delusion of I am a condition, you're always going to be frightened and confused by the conditions that you're identified with because they're always going to be changing and always going to feel... Slightly anxious with life because you'd like to make the assumption everything's going to be all right. Honorable Sumedho, tell me, everything's all right, Catherine. Report an error in the passage at 52:35 Highlight the passage at 52:35

53:01 Then you go, is everything all right, Ajahn Sumedho? Everything's all right. Then, you know, what if I should say, nothing's right. And then we'd become worried if I start saying, oh, we're really having problems here. I don't know what to do. I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 53:01 Highlight the passage at 53:01

53:23 Then everybody, what is it? What's wrong? Isn't everything all right here? Well, we are having some... Then your heart sinks. When I come back from these long trips, you know, three months away, and you're landing at Heathrow Airport, I wonder what's gone wrong. Report an error in the passage at 53:23 Highlight the passage at 53:23

53:59 So then... Report an error in the passage at 53:59 Highlight the passage at 53:59

54:03 The monks come and they're smiling. Everything all right? Well, you know. Report an error in the passage at 54:03 Highlight the passage at 54:03

54:14 And I can hear myself saying, please say everything's all right. Report an error in the passage at 54:14 Highlight the passage at 54:14

54:22 Because one doesn't want to hear bad news. Because you suspect, you know, maybe it's reached its peak and it's degenerating. Report an error in the passage at 54:22 Highlight the passage at 54:22

54:34 Well, Report an error in the passage at 54:34 Highlight the passage at 54:34

54:46 I think it's tea time. Tea Report an error in the passage at 54:46 Highlight the passage at 54:46

54:52 time? Report an error in the passage at 54:52 Highlight the passage at 54:52