-
I'll talk a little bit about
-
meditation practice
-
and then we can try to do some
-
afterwards together.
-
So, I think the most important thing
-
to realise about meditation practice
-
is that it's supposed to be
-
a positive experience.
-
Right?!
-
This may seem obvious,
-
because why else would you want to do it
-
if it isn't a positive experience?
-
It may seem obvious,
-
but as a matter of fact,
-
many of people don't experience
-
meditation as a positive experience.
-
When you start to read
-
the word of the Buddha,
-
and you start to see how he explains
-
what you might call
-
the psychology of meditation,
-
how meditation is supposed to be
-
experienced by yourself,
-
personally
-
you start to realize
-
the incredible emphasis
-
the Buddha has on this thing
-
which is called the positive experience.
-
You'll probably have a look at
-
one of those suttas later on.
-
But basically, one of those suttas
-
which talks about the psychology
-
of meditation,
-
when you read it,
-
it starts off with:
-
okay,
-
you are a virtuous person,
-
this is the foundation of all meditation,
-
is to practice virtue.
-
One of the things that unfortunately
-
is forgotten around the world,
-
people talk about mindfulness
-
and they forget about the virtue aspect.
-
Virtue means both being kind
-
and avoid doing bad things.
-
That is the foundation,
-
so once you have that
-
you can start your meditation practice
-
And then, from that virtue,
-
the Buddha starts to explain
-
from virtue you have non-regret,
-
right?
-
Non-regret is obviously
-
a positive experience already.
-
From non-regret you get gladness.
-
From gladness you get rapture, pīti.
-
From pīti you get calm,
-
calm of the mind and the body.
-
From calm comes even more happiness.
-
Gladness, rapture, happiness, calm,
-
and then from that
-
comes what is called samādhi,
-
which is the unification of the mind,
-
when the mind goes into a profound
-
state of meditation practice.
-
What you can see there,
-
one of the very important facts about this
-
is that meditation is all about happiness!
-
Almost every word the Buddha uses there
-
on how were supposed to experience it
-
is one type of happiness after the other
-
arising through
-
the right practice of meditation.
-
So make sure that when you are here
-
you don't do things which causes you
-
to feel ill at ease,
-
not relaxed
-
which created too much pain
-
and all these kind of things.
-
Because if you do that
-
there's no way you're going to be able
-
to access those positive states
-
that the Buddha is talking about.
-
This is so important,
-
and, your know,
-
it sort of seems obvious,
-
but I think human psychology
-
often gets in the way,
-
human psychology blocks you
-
from seeing that.
-
So,
-
for this reason
-
the very first thing I want to talk about
-
in regards to meditation practice
-
is what to do with the body.
-
The physical body is really the first thing.
-
What you need to know
-
about how to deal
-
with the physical body
-
is for the body to be comfortable,
-
not to sit with too much pain
-
and these kinds of things.
-
For this reason we have
-
all these great chairs at the back.
-
Don't feel shy about using the chairs.
-
You know this is not competing
-
with anyone else, right?
-
Do what you need to do to make
-
sure your own practice makes progress;
-
this is what it's all about.
-
So there's no competition here.
-
It doesn't matter what everyone else does,
-
forget about everybody else.
-
Do what you need to do.
-
It's wonderful
-
more and more these days
-
you go on meditation retreats
-
you see that chairs are coming out.
-
It's natural.
-
Most of us have grown up
-
in a society,
-
in a culture,
-
where we sit on chairs all the time.
-
When you've grown up
-
sitting on a chair all the time
-
and suddenly
-
you're told to sit on the floor
-
it actually can be very difficult.
-
So please don't be shy about
-
using the chairs.
-
Much better to be a little bit
-
more comfortable,
-
extra comfortable
-
than to be a little bit on the pain side
-
while you're sitting.
-
That is much better, so please
-
use that and please do that.
-
There's so many horror stories
-
that I've heard over the years of people
-
who don't get this kind of very basic thing.
-
One of those stories
-
when I was in Singapore
-
a few years ago...
-
One of the things as a monk,
-
you travel a lot
-
it may seem strange
-
but you actually travel a lot
-
because there's so much demand
-
for English speaking monks everywhere
-
English speaking monks
-
are very few and far between
-
so you get ferried around the world
-
by plane everywhere
-
to talk to people.
-
It's very nice,
-
it's a very nice thing to do to
-
be able to give that kind of service.
-
But it means that
-
sometimes you're in Singapore,
-
and when you're in Singapore,
-
of course, you meet Buddhist people,
-
just like here,
-
just like everywhere else.
-
I was staying in the apartment of this man.
-
He was from Kuala Lumpur originally,
-
but he was working in Singapore
-
and he was travelling back and forth
-
and very kindly offered me
-
to stay in his apartment.
-
Then one day while I was there
-
he comes to me and says
-
"Bhante, I have a question for you,
-
have you got a few minutes."
-
And of course I'm staying in his apartment
-
so of course I have a few minutes for him
-
and he says to me that,
-
"a few years ago
-
I was on this meditation retreat
-
and
-
it was the worst experience
-
of my entire life.
-
It was terrible!
-
I was in pain all the way through,
-
I felt so
-
tense
-
and so non-relaxed
-
and so completely ill at ease
-
for nine days.
-
Never, ever in my entire life do I ever
-
want to go on meditation retreat again."
-
I said, "ooh!
-
Wait a minute,
-
you're talking it too far.
-
Just because you had one bad experience
-
doesn't mean you should never
-
ever go on meditation retreat again.
-
Retreats are different.
-
There are different types of teachers
-
that teach in different ways.
-
You can't just assume
-
that everything is the same,
-
that everything is so bad."
-
But he insisted that, no,
-
he never ever wanted to meditate again
-
because the experience had been
-
so terrible, was the worst thing
-
he'd ever done in his life.
-
I couldn't really persuade him
-
so he asked me, "what should I do,"
-
Well, I don't know
-
what he should do in that case.
-
But, essentially he was turned off for life
-
in regards to meditation practice.
-
That is a very unfortunate thing
-
because the idea with meditation,
-
the idea with the spiritual path
-
is that is something
-
which develops over time.
-
When you keep practising these things,
-
when you keep doing things
-
especially in the right way,
-
when you understand what morality is
-
on the Buddhist path
-
you practice that in the right way
-
and you combine that with
-
making the mind peaceful and calm
-
then these things together are
-
incredibly powerful.
-
The longer you do it
-
there's a gradual transformation
-
of your entire character,
-
of your entire person
-
and, essentially, you are creating
-
a new personality for yourself
-
as you go through this.
-
But the effect really is most powerful
-
when you keep on doing it,
-
month after month,
-
year after year,
-
the results become very powerful
-
after a while.
-
So please make sure that you do this
-
in such a way that it encourages you
-
to keep on doing it also in the future
-
and when you feel encouraged to do it
-
also in the future
-
then the long term benefits
-
will be incredibly powerful for you,
-
and something very beneficial
-
will come out of this.
-
So don't do what this man in Singapore did.
-
He was maybe an extreme example,
-
but this is what happens sometimes
-
to people.
-
I know that there are certain types
-
of meditation retreat where only a very
-
small fraction of the people
-
come back to those retreats
-
precisely because of the amount of pain
-
and problems and tensions that
-
people experience as a
-
consequence of that practice.
-
So this is the first step,
-
allow the body to be relaxed.
-
So please use the chairs.
-
Another way, if you want to sit cross-legged,
-
it's nice to sit sometimes
-
against the wall.
-
Sit with your back against the wall.
-
Sometimes when you sit with your back
-
leaning against something,
-
you can relax a little bit better;
-
that's a nice way of doing it.
-
And, especially at the beginning
-
of any retreat.
-
I don't know what you
-
have been doing today,
-
some of you have probably been working,
-
you're probably tired.
-
When you're tired and have been working,
-
usually you need to relax first of all.
-
A good way to relax
-
is just to lean back.
-
Some of the best meditaters I know
-
they always do like that,
-
they lean back, they relax.
-
Many of you would know Ajahn Brahm,
-
Dr. Tan you would know Ajahn Brahm,
-
and Ajahn Brahm tells me that
-
when he starts out meditating
-
he always leans back.
-
Not always,
-
but when he is tired
-
or has been working hard
-
he always starts off by sitting back
-
and leaning again the wall.
-
So if Ajahn Brahm does that
-
you can do that.
-
Ajahn Brahm is just about
-
one of the best meditaters around
-
he gets into these incredibly profound
-
meditations, so if he can do that
-
anybody can do that,
-
because it is about relaxing.
-
It's about knowing what you need,
-
understanding that you need
-
to relax first of all.
-
So sit back, lean back against the wall
-
and you're okay.
-
Another monk I know,
-
is a good friend of mine,
-
he says that every time he meditates
-
every time he meditates
-
he starts off with nodding.
-
He nods for about 10 or 15 minutes
-
and then after you have nodded
-
for about 10 or 15 minutes
-
the mind clears up.
-
And then when the mind clears up,
-
then his meditation starts.
-
He's also a very good meditator,
-
but it's natural to feel tired
-
at the beginning
-
because you've been active
-
you've been socialising,
-
you've been doing all of these kind of things
-
which tire the mind,
-
so it's natural.
-
So allow the mind to be.
-
Just relax.
-
Allow the mind to be,
-
don't do anything in particular.
-
Wait for mindfulness to arise.
-
And when mindfulness arises by itself,
-
it becomes very powerful
-
and very useful.
-
So, what all of this is about,
-
and I'm going to relate it a little bit to
-
the teachings of the Buddha.
-
I'm sure you have probably heard
-
of the middle way.
-
The middle way in Buddhism
-
is essentially, in a way, on the one hand
-
not to torture the body.
-
In India in those days people would
-
torture themselves. You know, sometimes
-
you think that people lying on these
-
beds of nails, you think it's some kind of
-
cartoon caricature of India,
-
and then you open the suttas
-
and it says right there they were
-
lying on beds of nails.
-
It's actually the reality,
-
it's actually what people where doing.
-
So this was one of the ways that people
-
were practising at that time.
-
The Buddha says this is the wrong way.
-
And the other wrong way
-
is then to indulge the body.
-
Here, on a meditation retreat like this
-
you're not really going to be able to
-
indulge the very much.
-
Especially if you keep the eight precepts.
-
So forget about the indulging side.
-
The side to be careful about, is the side
-
which has to do with experiencing
-
too much pain, torturing yourself
-
thinking that: "by torture, I'm going to
-
make quick progress".
-
This is the problem,
-
the classical problem in meditation.
-
What happens when you find that middle way,
-
where you neither torture yourself,
-
nor you indulge the body
-
what happens is that the body becomes
-
irrelevant.
-
The reason why the body
-
is important to us,
-
is because either,
-
we get some pleasure through the body
-
when you get pleasure through the body
-
the body is important because
-
that's where you get your happiness.
-
Or, the body is important because
-
you get pain through the body.
-
If you get pain through the body,
-
there's something to be done with the body.
-
There is a problem there, a problem
-
that needs to be resolved.
-
The mind will always tend to go out
-
to the body, out into the world
-
rather than staying inside and watch
-
the breath, or whatever it is.
-
So this is the idea of the middle way.
-
The middle way, is a way where your body
-
is no longer important.
-
The body falls by the wayside.
-
The body becomes irrelevant.
-
Of course, we all know that meditation
-
in the end is about the mind,
-
and because the meditation
-
is about the mind
-
then getting rid of the body is precisely
-
what we want to do.
-
And that is what the middle way is about.
-
It's kind of strange, the two extremes
-
in a sense are quite close to each other
-
because the two extremes are about the body
-
and the middle way is where the body
-
falls away and the body is irrelevant.
-
So this is the point here,
-
this is what the middle way is,
-
the body is gone,
-
and when the body falls away
-
you feel so at ease.
-
So watch that.
-
If you do feel pain
-
in your meditation practice, please
-
change your posture,
-
don't think that
-
you're going to be some superhero
-
and just get enlightened now
-
on this retreat.
-
It's not going to work.
-
I know Ajahn Brahm did that.
-
He always said that when he was
-
a young man he would sit down and say:
-
"okay, I'm going to sit until I get enlightened"
-
and, of course, it didn't work.
-
But everybody has these ideas sometimes.
-
Please don't try that.
-
Enjoy the practice.
-
Sit down, if you have pain somewhere
-
get up, change your posture,
-
go out, do some walking instead,
-
do something else, if you find that.
-
These are general guidelines
-
for meditation practice.
-
Don't sit with pain, especially
-
when you feel the mind gets obsessed
-
with that pain, it goes back to it
-
again and again, you can't deal with it,
-
then the time is right to change the posture.
-
So this is number one,
-
and I am always surprised
-
how tenacious this idea is,
-
that it's okay to sit with pain,
-
how many people think
-
it is a good thing to do.
-
I think there is something deep
-
in the human psyche
-
that tends to think that
-
if you torture the body
-
you are freeing the spirit.
-
The body is like the sinful thing
-
that keeps you tied to the world
-
and if you torture that evil body a little bit,
-
then you can free the spirit,
-
then the mind gets developed
-
and you get spiritual practice from that.
-
Because it's so common in the world!
-
In Christianity they do that.
-
Christianity is famous in the Middle Ages
-
for having these people who torture themselves.
-
In Hinduism,
-
very, very famous for all the torturing;
-
you find that in the suttas.
-
In Islam, apparently, you find the same thing,
-
people torturing themselves.
-
And then you come to the one religion
-
where the emphasis is on getting away
-
from suffering, it's all about happiness
-
which is Buddhism, and then you find
-
people still do the same thing!
-
People still torture themselves
-
even in Buddhism.
-
This should be the one religion
-
where torture is absolutely prohibited,
-
and yet it still happens.
-
So I think there is something in the human
-
psyche which basically makes us feel
-
that this is the way to develop the mind.
-
If the body gets a bit tortured
-
that's okay
-
because that's just the body.
-
But actually, no, it's the other way round,
-
it's a hindrance for meditation practice
-
to work.
-
Okay, that's point number one.
-
I've said a lot about that and the reason
-
is because in my experience
-
people still don't get it.
-
Even if you talk after half an hour,
-
it still hasn't sunk in.
-
Sometimes it takes years before
-
the basic message sinks in.
-
I'm just talking from my own experience,
-
I know how stupid I am,
-
how stubborn sometimes you can be.
-
It takes a while for these things to
-
actually become clear.
-
So that is number one.
-
The second point in meditation practice
-
is, once your body is at ease,
-
the body doesn't have any pain,
-
the next thing to do is to relax the body.
-
This is one of the things you will find
-
as well, is that you come into your busy life
-
and the business of life
-
always is felt in the body.
-
You feel tensions.
-
You feel tensions in the stomach,
-
you feel tensions in the shoulders,
-
you feel tensions in the face.
-
The muscles tighten up.
-
So the first thing we need to do,
-
is to relax.
-
Again it's about finding the ease.
-
Not only do we not have any pain,
-
but you want to find the ease in the body,
-
where the body feels really nice,
-
and really good.
-
What is happening here,
-
the reason why
-
the body is tense
-
is because the mind is tense.
-
The mind is what controls the body.
-
So, if you get very stressed, of course,
-
during daily life,
-
stress will always reverberate,
-
or will make itself felt
-
in the body afterwards.
-
Mind and body are so closely connected.
-
This idea that these are separate things
-
is really a non-starter.
-
They are very, very closely connected
-
to each other.
-
It's a very useful way of learning
-
how to deal with the mind,
-
by working with the body,
-
because with the body,
-
it's very obvious what is going on.
-
You know what is happening in the body,
-
you can feel if there is any tension there
-
you can feel if there's a problem there.
-
With the mind, everything is a bit more
-
difficult to pin down.
-
So start by feeling the body.
-
What does the body feel like?
-
Start every meditation,
-
every time you do this,
-
go through the same process
-
because then you get used to a good
-
procedure of doing things after a while.
-
Start off, by just feeling the body
-
and then making the body at ease,
-
making the body relaxed,
-
feeling good about yourself,
-
feeling really, really relaxed.
-
There are many ways of doing this.
-
One way is just to take some deep breaths
-
and allowing yourself to relax.
-
Make sure you sit in a comfortable
-
posture, like leaning back so that you can
-
actually allow the body to relax.
-
Use a guided meditation with somebody
-
whose instructions you trust
-
and voice you like to listen to,
-
again that makes you feel nice and relaxed.
-
And the last part is the attitude you have.
-
The attitude is probably
-
the most important thing of all.
-
With the right attitude
-
you will relax,
-
without it, it's very, very hard.
-
Spend time doing this,
-
spend however long it takes
-
even if you spend the whole
-
meditation just relaxing
-
especially at the beginning
-
of a retreat,
-
that's fine.
-
That's good.
-
At least you feel at ease
-
and relaxed when that happens.
-
The idea, here,
-
is really to take the relaxation
-
deeper than what you normally
-
are used to.
-
Ordinary relaxation and ordinary life
-
actually often isn't all that relaxed
-
at all.
-
And you only find that out
-
once you start to meditate
-
and you get into deeper states
-
of relaxation.
-
You start to realise,
-
wow, this is really relaxed
-
I didn't know it was possible
-
to get this relaxed.
-
I had no idea, now I understand
-
what relaxation is all about.
-
The deeper your meditation goes,
-
the more you think,
-
"whoa, this is really nice!
-
The body feels so at ease."
-
The idea here is to start off
-
that process of relaxation
-
as soon as possible.
-
And the sooner you get that done
-
the more easily
-
the rest of the meditation flows along.
-
So, get that depth of relaxation
-
deeper than you had it before
-
at the very beginning,
-
by focusing on the body,
-
by sending metta to yourself,
-
having a sense of kindness
-
and compassion for yourself,
-
and you start to feel the body
-
become so easy,
-
so light.
-
It becomes so light.
-
It becomes like a tuft of cotton almost.
-
It's almost like it starts to disappear.
-
That's what I was talking about before,
-
disappearing of the body
-
which you do by not having any pain,
-
but it disappears even more
-
when you feel really at ease
-
about the body.
-
You find yourself so light,
-
so easy,
-
unless you fall asleep,
-
in which case you feel heavy,
-
that's the alternative.
-
That's okay.
-
If you fall asleep that's fine.
-
Please, fall asleep,
-
falling asleep is not a bad thing.
-
It is very, very common,
-
you've in very good company if you
-
fall asleep. Allow that tiredness
-
to wear off and then the
-
lightness of the mind comes afterwards.
-
So, either you feel very heavy
-
when you do this and you fall asleep,
-
or the mind tends to feel light.
-
It tends to go either one way or the other.
-
When this happens,
-
because you are feeling so much at ease,
-
you are feeling so good about yourself,
-
so good in the body, good in everything,
-
mindfulness starts to arise.
-
What is mindfulness?
-
Mindfulness is basically
-
about the ability to stay in the
-
present moment, to be aware
-
of what is happening in the
-
here and now, that is what mindfulness
-
is about. Mindfulness is not about
-
fantasizing. If you think about future,
-
or you think about the past,
-
or you fantasize about all kind of things,
-
that's not mindfulness.
-
Mindfulness is about the ability to
-
just be here and now.
-
Be in this present moment.
-
Be in this room.
-
Be right here in front of you,
-
being able to watch the breath,
-
that is what mindfulness is about.
-
And mindfulness arises especially
-
when you feel good.
-
If you don't feel good
-
the mind wants to escape,
-
but if the present moment is the
-
pleasant moment...
-
It's an easy one to remember:
-
present moment is the pleasant moment
-
then the mindfulness tends to arise
-
as a consequence.
-
So this is a very easy path.
-
All you have to do is relax.
-
All you have to do is just to feel at ease,
-
and when you do that in the right way,
-
then mindfulness comes all by itself.
-
This is the trick of this path,
-
this is the trick of this whole practice,
-
is that you don't actually have to do anything,
-
you don't have to exert yourself,
-
you don't have to use a lot of will power,
-
there's not a lot of stuff that you have to do,
-
because the whole doing business, actually,
-
is what tires you out in the first place.
-
All this doing makes the mind busy
-
it makes you active,
-
then when you come back home after
-
a long day's work, you feel
-
completely exhausted, that's because
-
of all the doing that you've been doing.
-
So this is the natural way
-
for mindfulness to arise
-
and when mindfulness arises naturally,
-
it is easy, it is pleasant, it is happy
-
and you feel so good about these things.
-
So this is the way.
-
And one of the things to avoid here...
-
this is almost becoming a kind of
-
taboo word in Buddhism, in meditation,
-
is the word 'concentration'.
-
I'm sure you have heard the word 'concentration'
-
being used.
-
People say I've got to concentrate,
-
concentrate on the breath,
-
concentrate on things,
-
but be very careful with words like that
-
because, the word 'concentration'
-
in the English language, very often
-
implies a lot of will power.
-
When you go to work,
-
or you do whatever in ordinary life,
-
if you go to work,
-
your employer expects you to read certain things
-
and write certain reports
-
and all these kinds of things,
-
and because your employer expects that
-
you have to do it because you
-
have to earn your salary et cetera, et cetera,
-
but when you're doing things
-
that you're not really enjoying
-
all that much,
-
maybe it's an incredibly boring report
-
that you have to read,
-
you kind of have to force yourself
-
through it, that is what concentration
-
usually means. You're forcing attention
-
on to something which isn't 100% natural.
-
That is why people who have jobs
-
that demand a very high degree of
-
alertness, and awareness and concentration
-
often feel incredibly tired after
-
a long day's work.
-
I think these flight controllers,
-
you know - what is called? The people
-
who sit in those tall towers at airports?
-
Whatever.
-
Anyway, they sit up there
-
and they have to watch the screen
-
to make sure none of the planes collide.
-
If the the planes collide in midair
-
you feel a bit bad about it afterwards
-
So, you really have to focus on this
-
and this is one of the biggest
-
stress jobs, because you have to
-
concentrate so much and people
-
feel very tired after doing
-
that kind of job all day.
-
This is how we all feel to a certain extent,
-
when you use force
-
to watch and to be in the present moment.
-
So there's an idea of allowing mindfulness
-
to arise naturally, rather than
-
to force mindfulness.
-
If you force mindfulness,
-
after a while
-
you're going to feel exhausted
-
in meditation practice and you're going to
-
sleep for the rest of the retreat
-
and it won't be all that interesting for you.
-
You still may have a good time,
-
but you lose out on all the good fun
-
that everyone else has.
-
So learn natural mindfulness,
-
that is where it's all at.
-
That is what we're trying to get to.
-
Again, when you have no pain in the body
-
- I'm just recapitulating very briefly -
-
no pain in the body,
-
and you are at ease, and you are relaxed
-
natural mindfulness arises as a consequence,
-
or rather I should say, it can arise.
-
It doesn't always arise.
-
The last reason why it doesn't arise
-
is because the attitude.
-
The attitude is probably
-
the most important thing of all
-
in meditation practice.
-
You have to look at the world,
-
look at the people around you,
-
feel the situation in the right way.
-
When you have the right attitude
-
in this way, that is when meditation
-
really becomes possible.
-
It has to be a positive attitude.
-
You have to have a sense of well wishing
-
to the people around you.
-
You have to have a sense of
-
mettā,
-
karuṇā,
-
this means loving-kindness,
-
compassion
-
all of these positive qualities,
-
a sense of friendliness.
-
When you have all of these
-
qualities inside of you,
-
that is when
-
meditation becomes possible.
-
If you feel negative,
-
or you are upset with somebody,
-
or you're angry about something,
-
absolutely no way that your meditation
-
is going to work.
-
So you get this out of the way first of all,
-
and then meditation
-
becomes possible.
-
If we have the chance,
-
I don't know if there will be much time
-
during this retreat,
-
but this is one of the most important
-
things in the entire Buddhist path
-
is learning how to use your mind
-
in a skilful way,
-
so that you can
-
move away from the unskilful.
-
It takes a lot of training,
-
it takes years, often, of training for
-
people to be able to do this.
-
Isn't this what they call
-
cognitive behavioural therapy
-
in psychology?
-
Basically, it's a similar kind of thing,
-
but it's more intense
-
and it's a life long process
-
to keep on doing these kind of things.
-
So the idea is to shift your mind,
-
gradually, more and more away
-
from the negative things towards
-
the positive things.
-
When you have a positive attitude
-
in meditation,
-
then it becomes very powerful.
-
There's a nice sutta which I always
-
like to quote.
-
A sutta is the word of the Buddha
-
and one sutta means one
-
particular instance when he was giving
-
a talk as one sutta,
-
is basically what it means.
-
And in this one sutta,
-
he talks about what happens
-
when you are a good person,
-
when you live a good life,
-
when you have a good heart,
-
and you treat people in a kind way
-
and all of these kind of things.
-
This sutta is Majjhima Nikāya 129,
-
for those of you who are into this.
-
It's called The Wise And Foolish People.
-
So if you're interested in how to be wise,
-
and how to avoid being a fool
-
it's a great place to start;
-
Majjhima 129.
-
What he says there,
-
is that the wise person, the wise person
-
in Buddhism means somebody who
-
acts well,
-
acts with kindness
-
avoids acting in the bad ways,
-
speaks with kindness,
-
avoids speaking in the bad way
-
and crucially,
-
thinks with kindness,
-
doesn't think thoughts which are
-
greedy, or angry, or full of hatred
-
and this kind of stuff,
-
thinks positive things as well.
-
In Buddhism, the idea of morality
-
is stretched the the absolute limit.
-
It includes also morality of the mind.
-
So in Buddhism it's about developing
-
your whole character.
-
The word sīla, in the Pāli language
-
is much broader than the word 'morality'
-
in English.
-
It basically includes your entire character.
-
It's development of character,
-
development of personality
-
it what it really is about.
-
So what this sutta, this discourse,
-
of the Buddha, what he says there
-
is that, it's like a good person.
-
In the evening, when they come back home
-
they might be tired
-
and they might take a while as they sit down,
-
or they lie down on their bed
-
or sit down on a chair, or whatever,
-
and when they do that,
-
and when they relax,
-
all the good actions they have done,
-
the fact that they have
-
avoided the bad actions
-
all that comes back to them.
-
Because it comes back to them,
-
they feel a natural sense of happiness,
-
because a sense of happiness is basically,
-
well, you know that you're a good person,
-
you know that you've done the right things.
-
You have nothing to regret.
-
You feel a sense of,
-
"wow, I've done good things."
-
You feel a sense of joy about that.
-
It is just a natural consequence
-
of living a good life.
-
The more you purify that good life,
-
the more you feel that natural joy.
-
The Buddha says it's like a mountain.
-
In the evening, when you have a mountain
-
and the sun goes down behind the mountain
-
then the shadow is cast from that mountain.
-
The entire earth in front of that mountain,
-
the ground in front of the mountain
-
is engulfed, is enveloped
-
and completely surrounded by the shadow
-
from the mountain,
-
completely engulfed in that.
-
In the same way,
-
when a good person
-
comes back a long day's work
-
you sit down, you rest,
-
or maybe you meditate a bit
-
and then the mountain of good actions
-
come back to you!
-
Then you feel satisfied,
-
you feel a sense of joy inside.
-
You feel gladness
-
because of that mountain
-
of good actions is there.
-
So what we have to do is
-
build a mountain. That's what each
-
one of us has to do.
-
When you build that mountain,
-
the you have that foundation
-
of happiness and joy
-
which also you can bring into your
-
meditation practice.
-
So this is what it's about,
-
we have to build this mountain.
-
This is what our ordinary life,
-
if you are interested in Buddhism,
-
or spiritual practice, or meditation,
-
or whatever it is,
-
this is what our whole life is really about.
-
It's about building up this mountain
-
of goodness inside of us.
-
Then you have no choice,
-
you have to feel happy!
-
Isn't that great, you have not choice
-
but to feel happy?
-
I find that such a wonderful thing.
-
You can sit back, and sometimes
-
if you're a bit grumpy you think,
-
"aw, I don't want to be happy",
-
but you have no choice,
-
happiness just comes to you
-
and you just feel good about yourself.
-
What a wonderful thing that is,
-
when you have no choice about the matter,
-
And it always comes your way.
-
Then, of course, the spiritual path
-
really works as a consequence.
-
So that is one of those
-
similes that I think are so powerful.
-
The Buddha is a master
-
of creating beautiful similes
-
that are so much to the point
-
and show you how these things work
-
in a very beautiful way.
-
So this is what happens
-
when you generally speaking
-
have the right attitude.
-
We were talking about
-
the precepts before
-
and these precepts are very much
-
about having right attitude.
-
I will perhaps very briefly
-
talk about them.
-
The first precept is about
-
not killing any living beings.
-
Okay, so we assume that you're
-
not killing any human beings.
-
If you kill human beings, I would
-
recommend you to stop that very quickly.
-
That is going to be a big obstacle.
-
There is another discourse in the suttas,
-
the word of the Buddha. Actually there
-
was a man who was killing all these beings.
-
He was a mass murderer
-
at the time of the Buddha.
-
It's a very famous sutta,
-
you may have heard about
-
Aṅgulimāla Sutta.
-
But he also stopped doing that
-
and as a consequence of stopping that
-
he actually attained very high
-
spiritual states as a consequence.
-
So even if you are killing human beings
-
there's still hope,
-
which is a very positive message.
-
But it's not just about avoiding killing.
-
So you avoid killing humans,
-
you avoid killing animals and even insects,
-
but it's about being kind as well.
-
This is one of the most fundamental
-
and important facts about
-
the Buddhist idea of morality.
-
It is not just about avoiding doing
-
the bad stuff.
-
It's actively doing the good things
-
as well.
-
Being kind.
-
Being helpful.
-
Being compassionate, to animals
-
and human beings wherever you can find.
-
This is really what gives power
-
to the meditation practice.
-
If you don't do the bad stuff, okay,
-
you don't feel bad about yourself,
-
but, if you do the good stuff you actually
-
actively feel good about yourself.
-
I have noticed in my own life,
-
I try to live up to these things myself.
-
I try not to be the ultimate hypocrite
-
and sit here and tell you
-
to do all these things and
-
do nothing myself,
-
that would be terrible wouldn't it?
-
Of course, you don't know me,
-
so maybe I am a hypocrite, but
-
from my own perspective
-
I don't think I'm a hypocrite.
-
I have always found that
-
it is very powerful sometimes.
-
Sometimes you are in the right mood
-
and you just want to be kind,
-
and you want to be compassionate.
-
Sometimes it's a very powerful force
-
inside of you. Other times you don't
-
really feel compassionate at all,
-
but sometimes you feel very kind.
-
And then, sometimes, when you do
-
something kind, there's an insect that
-
you save or something like that,
-
something very, very small,
-
but because you are in the right mood,
-
and because you are mindful,
-
and because you feel it's coming
-
naturally from you,
-
it often has a very powerful impact
-
on your mind.
-
It's like you do this little act,
-
you think it's nothing and still
-
you feel this joy connected with that,
-
because it is done at the right time,
-
at the right place.
-
The right time and the right place
-
is always usually...
-
you should always do these things,
-
of course, but the powerful times
-
are when it comes naturally.
-
So if you ever feel like being kind,
-
if it comes from your heart and you
-
want to do something kind,
-
do it for goodness sake!
-
Don't hold back.
-
Don't have some cynical thought,
-
"yeah, they don't deserve it or whatever".
-
Please don't think like that because
-
it's going to destroy
-
a wonderful opportunity to do what is right
-
and do what is kind.
-
Always take the opportunity.
-
If other people think
-
you are a bit strange, so be it.
-
It's their problem,
-
you just do what is right.
-
And then you find, that when
-
you do these things again and again
-
there are times when it becomes
-
very powerful.
-
Because you are mindful,
-
you are clearly aware, you're driven
-
by a powerful motivation of compassion
-
inside of you.
-
It makes a very powerful impact
-
on the mind.
-
You sit down to meditate
-
and these things come back to you,
-
because they have made a powerful
-
impact on the mind.
-
And then, that gives rise
-
to the ability to meditate because
-
you have the joy there.
-
This is how it works.
-
This is what kamma is all about.
-
Kamma is about when your intention
-
is pure, when mindfulness is strong,
-
then the impact is very great one the mind.
-
So when you sit down afterwards,
-
it comes back to you very powerfully.
-
That's the idea of kamma.
-
Powerful presence when you do it,
-
gives rise to a powerful result later on.
-
You can see it for yourself
-
happening in reality, it's very easy,
-
very straightforward
-
and you see how these things work.
-
So be kind.
-
On this retreat, if you have
-
an opportunity to be kind
-
to the people around you,
-
take every opportunity, never miss
-
an opportunity to be kind in your life,
-
here or anywhere else, because it is
-
incredibly powerful.
-
And then, of course, the second factor
-
is about not stealing.
-
I'm sure none of you have the intention
-
to steal anything on this retreat,
-
but the opposite is generosity, right?
-
Be sharing, sharing of yourself,
-
and being generous.
-
One of the incredibly important factors
-
on the Buddhist path is generosity.
-
It is something the Buddha talks about
-
all the time. That's one of
-
the foundation stones of the path.
-
And generosity can be done
-
in some many different ways.
-
There's very little distinction
-
between kindness and generosity.
-
They kind of flow into each other.
-
When we talk about generosity,
-
we talk usually more about material things
-
and kindness is more about helping out
-
in a general sense, but they are really
-
part of the same... different ends of the
-
same spectrum, basically.
-
So generosity.
-
The third precept is about
-
no sexuality on this retreat.
-
The idea here is to turn the mind
-
in a different direction.
-
Usually, in the world we find pleasures
-
through the senses, the five sense,
-
through the food that we eat,
-
through the relationships that we have,
-
through music, or whatever it is.
-
Here, the idea is instead of finding
-
happiness in that realm,
-
is to turn the mind
-
in a different direction,
-
turn it inwards instead,
-
and find the happiness and joy
-
inside of you instead.
-
Now, if we indulge in the five sense
-
it is impossible at the same time
-
to turn inwards because they are two
-
different directions.
-
If you find happiness in the five sense
-
it means your mind is going out
-
into the world, by it's very definition.
-
But mediation is precisely about
-
going inside. It's about watching
-
the breath, about being still
-
in the present moment.
-
It's about not being attached to the world.
-
So, if you are finding pleasure
-
in the five senses, it means that your are
-
attached to them.
-
Wherever you find pleasure is also
-
where you are attached.
-
Because you are attached, you can't
-
let go, and because you can't let go
-
you can't focus inside.
-
These are two opposite things.
-
It's very important to understand that.
-
That you cannot do both at the same time.
-
Sometimes people say, "yeah, you know,
-
I want to get really deep meditation,
-
I want to live a kind of ordinary life
-
with my partner and all these kinds
-
of things at the same time".
-
It cannot be combined at the same time.
-
It's impossible to have
-
the full benefit of meditation practice
-
on the one side,
-
and living a completely ordinary life
-
at the same time.
-
They have to be separated from each other.
-
That's why we do this kind of precept
-
on retreats like this.
-
The fourth one is about silence,
-
and silence is a wonderful thing.
-
You find that it's so wonderful
-
not to have to talk.
-
Our society is based on communication,
-
you have to talk all the time.
-
It's great not to have to talk,
-
just to be quiet.
-
It's like you go into
-
your own little bubble
-
and it doesn't really matter,
-
everybody else can do their own thing,
-
you don't have to
-
worry about that any more.
-
The precept is actually not to lie,
-
but because you are silent
-
that's what it becomes.
-
That's the positive aspect of that.
-
And think of it also... sometimes
-
people find it hard to be silent,
-
it should be easy enough,
-
it's only a day and a half this retreat, but
-
sometimes people find it hard
-
and find it oppressive.
-
If you do find it a little bit oppressive
-
think of it as an act of generosity
-
to the people around you.
-
On a retreat like this,
-
there's always some people who
-
get nice meditation, so think,
-
"okay, I'm going to help you,
-
I'm going to do this to help
-
everyone here, to encourage you
-
and to support you
-
in your meditation practice."
-
Then you have a positive attitude
-
about silence.
-
It becomes another positive thing.
-
It becomes a gift
-
to everyone around you.
-
So you're kind of combining
-
these precepts a little bit.
-
The fifth precept is about
-
not using drugs and alcohol.
-
Again, meditation practice is about
-
clarity, it's about presence of mind
-
and drugs and alcohol are about
-
the exact opposite of that.
-
Not using a high...
-
the next one is vikala bhojana,
-
I have to get my sequence right here,
-
which means not eating
-
in the afternoon.
-
Again, the idea is to move away
-
from too much sensuality.
-
It's not a major issue...
-
There's going to be some soup,
-
is that right, in the evening?
-
Okay, you get some soup,
-
so that's good,
-
that should keep you going.
-
Then we have the precept about
-
not using any entertainment,
-
or adornments of the body,
-
which is another very useful one.
-
Entertainment is all about going out
-
into the world,
-
it's about enjoying the senses.
-
That's what entertainment is about.
-
Again we're trying to withdraw from that.
-
And the last precept about
-
sleeping on a high or luxurious bed,
-
is also, of course, about the same thing.
-
It's about not indulging too much,
-
but, you know, the beds here are fine.
-
Back to the seventh one, again,
-
the seventh precept, not adorning yourself.
-
This is also one of the nice things
-
about going on a retreat,
-
just to have simple clothes,
-
no make-up,
-
no jewellery,
-
no trying to impress anybody
-
by the way you look,
-
or anything like that.
-
It's like you can become anonymous.
-
You don't have to worry about
-
all these things that we're always
-
concerned about.
-
It makes you self-conscious,
-
if you always have to worry about
-
what you look like, right?
-
And here you can let go of that
-
self-consciousness completely,
-
and you can be
-
nobody!
-
Isn't that nice to be nobody?
-
We always have to try to be somebody.
-
We always have to try and live up to
-
our own or other people's expectations.
-
Always trying to be a certain person.
-
Now, one of the things about
-
trying always to be somebody,
-
is this sense of self that we have
-
inside of us
-
always needs to be defended.
-
If somebody challenges us
-
and says, "aw, okay, you are no good.
-
What are you doing?
-
This isn't good enough".
-
Or somebody tells you
-
you're not looking your best today,
-
or whatever, we feel upset.
-
And the reason we feel upset
-
is because our sense of self
-
is challenged.
-
So this sense of self is something
-
that always needs to be bolstered,
-
always needs to be kept up.
-
We need to think, how much of the time
-
do we think about ourselves,
-
are we concerned about concerned
-
about ourselves.
-
Stupid little things, right?
-
But this is just life,
-
everybody is like that.
-
Now, for once, you don't have to think
-
about yourself any more.
-
You can start to let go
-
of that sense of who you are,
-
your sense of identity.
-
How you are, who you are
-
compared to other people.
-
When you reduce that sense of identity
-
what you find is that
-
you become more peaceful,
-
because you don't have to think about
-
all those issues
-
concerning yourself any more.
-
So reducing your sense of self
-
is actually one of the great ways
-
of starting to feel peaceful as well.
-
This is what you do,
-
this is why adornments,
-
just wearing ordinary clothes
-
and not adorning oneself,
-
actually is a great benefit
-
and a wonderful thing to do.
-
So,
-
those are the eight precepts
-
and they give you some idea
-
what right attitude means
-
in meditation practice.
-
All this is about right attitude.
-
So this is one of the things
-
we try to build up.
-
Some very general things about
-
right attitude that I can maybe add
-
to what I've been saying before:
-
one of thing things I often remind myself
-
when I do my meditation practice
-
is that when I meditate,
-
that is when I come closest
-
to the meaning of life.
-
That is where I'm touching
-
what life is all about.
-
This is quite radical
-
because most people think,
-
"yeah, I'm going to meditate
-
so I can improve my life,
-
so the rest of my life
-
can become better"
-
That's what most people think.
-
But, no! It's actually the
-
other way round, it's actually
-
when you meditate you're getting
-
closer to the very essence of the
-
purpose of life itself.
-
Why is that?
-
The reason is, is because
-
in meditation practice,
-
what you are finding is
-
you're finding the sort of happiness
-
you're finding the sort of contentment
-
you're finding the sort of satisfaction
-
that you actually,
-
each one of us,
-
always is actually searching for.
-
If you look inside of yourself,
-
look inside of your mind
-
you will see that we are often
-
run by desires, all kind of things, right?
-
From the moment you wake up
-
in the morning,
-
you have to choose what clothes
-
you're going to wear,
-
from breakfast...
-
Everything is run by
-
desires and cravings in our life.
-
Those desires and cravings,
-
they are pointing towards one thing:
-
we want to be satisfied.
-
That's why you want to fulfil that craving,
-
fulfil that desire.
-
Except that it never happens,
-
the desire always comes back to us again.
-
Then suddenly one day
-
you sit down and meditate
-
and you find
-
that satisfaction in meditation.
-
At least a little bit more,
-
than you find it by running
-
around in the world.
-
This is what I mean,
-
you're actually touching here
-
the meaning of life,
-
the purpose of all the running you do
-
in the world, you find it,
-
you find the result,
-
you find what you're searching for
-
in the meditation practice,
-
rather than by actually getting
-
the results in the world around you.
-
So here you are touching
-
the meaning of life.
-
This is what life is all about,
-
this is what you really searching for.
-
This is what you have.
-
Your innermost yearning,
-
actually comes...
-
that yearning actually gets fulfilled
-
finally when you are sitting down
-
and doing your meditation practice.
-
Or rather it can do.
-
Often it doesn't happen,
-
but it can happen.
-
And when it happens, you think,
-
"WOW! This is really it!
-
Now I'm coming to what everything
-
really is all about."
-
And that is very powerful,
-
because when you understand that,
-
when you understand that
-
instead of sitting down and meditating
-
and then fantasize about all the things
-
you're going to do in the world,
-
it's kind of crazy, becuase now
-
you've got the meaning of life
-
so why are you going to fantasize
-
about all those things that
-
have got nothing to do
-
with the meaning of life.
-
In fact, it should be the other
-
way round.
-
When you're running around in the world
-
in daily life, going doing this, doing that
-
you should fantasize about meditation
-
practice.
-
That's the way it should really be,
-
because you understand
-
that everything you do in your ordinary life,
-
that if you can think about
-
your meditation practice,
-
it will give you
-
a guide in your ordinary life
-
to how you should behave.
-
Is this going to lead to an improvement
-
in meditation, which is the purpose of life,
-
or is it not?
-
Is it going to lead me away,
-
or lead me in the right direction.
-
So please fantasize a bit
-
about meditation in ordinary life:
-
"ooh, wouldn't it be nice
-
if I could now go back and
-
be on retreat and just sit peacefully.
-
Wow, maybe as soon as I get a chance,
-
an opportunity I will do that."
-
And then you have this guide,
-
to also guide you throughout life
-
in a sense.
-
So remember that,
-
while you're sitting here
-
on this retreat.
-
This is it!
-
You are touching
-
the meaning of life itself.
-
You're not going to get
-
any closer than this probably,
-
so this is your opportunity.
-
Why waste that opportunity
-
by thinking about
-
all kind of other stuff instead.
-
This is going to be the first talk
-
about the theme of this retreat.
-
The theme is dependent origination,
-
known as paṭiccasamuppāda in the Pāli language.
-
What I thought of doing tonight,
-
is just to do a general overview.
-
Is it loud enough?
-
Can everybody hear alright?
-
I'll just do a general overview
-
of what this teaching is about
-
so that we have a kind of a background.
-
Then we can draw out the details
-
over the few sessions after that.
-
So that is going to be the main purpose
-
of tonight.
-
As I said before,
-
if you have any questions this
-
please write them down
-
and put them in the basket at the back.
-
Good.
-
So, one of the things about
-
dependent arising,
-
it is well known,
-
everybody thinks it is very profound.
-
Everybody says,
-
"ooh, this is very profound stuff."
-
And, of course, there is a reason for that,
-
and the reason for that is that,
-
that's what it actually says
-
in one of the suttas.
-
I don't know if any of you read
-
these suttas already.
-
If you have, then you may have come across,
-
or you probably would have come across,
-
the way things start off
-
in the sutta called the Mahānidāna Sutta,
-
which is The Great Discourse on Causation,
-
found in the Dīgha Nikāya.
-
In that sutta, it starts off
-
with Ven. Ānanda...
-
Ven. Ānanda, of course,
-
is the Buddha's right-hand man.
-
He's always present,
-
always hearing the discourses
-
and he's the one who eventually
-
makes sure those discourses are
-
recorded, if you like,
-
recorded in memory for posterity.
-
He says to the Buddha, he says:
-
"It is wonderful and marvellous, Bhante,
-
how this dependent arising
-
[or if you like, dependent origination]
-
is so deep and appears so deep,
-
yet to myself it seems
-
as clear as clear can be.”
-
And then the Buddha says:
-
“Do not say so, Ānanda!
-
Do not say so, Ānanda!
-
This dependent origination, Ānanda,
-
is deep and it appears deep.
-
Because of not understanding and
-
not penetrating this teaching, Ānanda,
-
this generation has become
-
like a tangled skein,
-
like a knotted ball of thread,
-
like matted rushes and reeds,
-
and this generation
-
does not pass beyond saṃsāra
-
with its plane of misery,
-
unfortunate destinations,
-
and its lower realms."
-
So this is where it comes from,
-
when everybody says,
-
"aw, this dependent origination is so deep".
-
This is actually the
-
canonical reference to that.
-
It's quite interesting because Ven. Ānanda,
-
of course, he knew almost all the suttas,
-
all the discourses of the Buddha by heart.
-
He was also well known for
-
having become a stream enterer.
-
A stream enterer is somebody who has
-
penetrated and understood the teaching
-
on their own.
-
He was a stream enterer fairly early on
-
and here is one the Buddha's
-
chief disciples
-
saying
-
this is really deep, but I understand it,
-
and the Buddha says,
-
be careful what you say,
-
don't be so quick,
-
because this really is profound
-
and it because of not understanding this
-
that people are stuck in saṃsāra.
-
That is fascinating. It makes us wonder,
-
"well, what is the chance
-
of me understanding this if Ven. Ānanda
-
couldn't understand it, what is my hope?!
-
That's a fair question actually.
-
It is a fair question,
-
but remember the idea
-
with a retreat like this is not to grasp
-
these things absolutely fully,
-
in their full depth and all their details.
-
The idea is to get enough understanding
-
that you are moving in the right direction.
-
This is the whole gist, the whole purpose
-
of the Dhamma, is always to move
-
in the right direction.
-
As you keep moving in the right direction,
-
doing some meditation,
-
doing some practice,
-
understanding what the teachings
-
are about,
-
all of these things come together,
-
and one day, who knows, one day
-
you might also,
-
each one of us might also
-
understand the full
-
profundity of these teachings.
-
The reason why they are so profound
-
is basically, just what it says
-
at the end there:
-
it is because of this that people
-
don't make an end of saṃsāra.
-
What that means is that
-
if you are an ariya,
-
if you are a noble person,
-
who has penetrated and understood
-
these teachings through your own insight,
-
through your own understanding,
-
that is when you have that
-
full penetration.
-
So Ven. Ānanda, my guess is that
-
at this point he hadn't yet
-
become a stream enterer,
-
maybe it was later on,
-
or, the alternative is that
-
he was a stream enterer,
-
but even as a stream enterer you understand
-
the general principle for how it works,
-
but you make not be clear
-
about all the details.
-
This is one of the things that is so
-
fascinating about this teaching,
-
is all the details,
-
all the things that actually
-
come out of it once you
-
start to investigate.
-
There are so many aspects to this teaching.
-
To give you some examples
-
of the aspects that I'm thinking of,
-
this teaching,
-
contrary to what some people say,
-
it includes the law of kamma.
-
The law of kamma is very central to
-
this particular teaching.
-
It explains kamma in a very beautiful
-
and very meaningful way.
-
That's one of the things
-
I want to draw out of this teaching,
-
especially if you look at
-
the first three factors
-
of the dependent arising.
-
The first three factors are from...
-
I'll go through the factors latter on,
-
but from ignorance,
-
saṅkhāra, like activities,
-
and consciousness.
-
That is all really about kamma
-
and how kamma works.
-
It's very interesting to understand
-
how kamma works because
-
it's something which is very practical,
-
something we can use in our own lives.
-
So it brings out kamma
-
in a very detailed way.
-
This is one of the things
-
that makes in so interesting.
-
The second thing, which of course,
-
makes in very interesting,
-
is that it shows us how this saṃsāra,
-
how the process of continuous existence,
-
how it is sustained without a self in it.
-
This is one of the key things
-
about dependent arising,
-
it shows us how this is possible
-
that you can go on, and go on, and go on
-
keep on going, but there's no self in there
-
there's no substance,
-
there's no essence to it
-
which is always present.
-
This is one of the things that
-
makes people stop.
-
One of the classic counter arguments
-
against the Buddha's teaching,
-
against rebirth, is the idea that
-
if there was rebirth
-
there must be a self in there,
-
"and you guys,
-
you say you don't believe in a self
-
so you're contradicting yourself."
-
But actually, no, the point of the Buddha
-
is precisely that such a thing as rebirth
-
can exist without a self.
-
This is one of the things that precisely
-
makes it so profound.
-
This is found in the third and the fourth
-
factor of dependent arising:
-
consciousness and
-
conditions, what is some times called
-
name-and-form. We will discuss that term
-
later on, what it actually means.
-
But that kind of nexus between those two,
-
because they mutually condition each other,
-
shows you how this thing sustains itself
-
without a self in there.
-
In fact, the whole dependent arising,
-
the whole chain of factors,
-
is also an example of that.
-
So these are two very important things,
-
crucial aspects of Buddhism which are
-
explained in detail in dependent arising.
-
But the most important thing,
-
and what makes dependent arising
-
so interesting,
-
is that the overall structure
-
shows you...
-
the first factor of
-
dependent arising as I said before
-
is ignorance,
-
the last one of the 12 factors is suffering.
-
What that does
-
- I'll talk more about that in a second -
-
it shows us how suffering arises
-
out of lack of understanding,
-
out of ignorance.
-
This is probably the main purpose
-
of dependent arising
-
and why it is so powerful
-
because it shows us that,
-
if you don't understand things
-
in the right way,
-
you're going to suffer.
-
So you want to try to understand things
-
in the right way.
-
If you don't you have a serious problem.
-
Now, before I go into more detail
-
about these things,
-
I thought that the mistakes that people
-
sometimes do about dependent arising,
-
they think it's a very profound teaching
-
and people sometimes ask:
-
what is Buddhism? Should it be considered a
-
philosophy?
-
Is it a religion?
-
What is it?
-
How do we make sense of Buddhism?
-
What kind of teaching is it?
-
Of course, you can say it's just a
-
wisdom teaching, but that doesn't
-
really say very much.
-
So the first question I want to ask:
-
well, if it is so profound,
-
could it then be said to be a philosophy?
-
Is that an appropriate way
-
of regarding Buddhism?
-
Is it a philosophy or not?
-
The answer to that,
-
is a philosophy or not,
-
is that the early teachings of the Buddha,
-
the teachings that we talking about here,
-
the ones that are found in the four nikāyas
-
and not the later teachings,
-
as far as I can see,
-
they are not a philosophy.
-
The philosophy of Buddhism
-
is something that arises later on.
-
That is what the Abhidhamma is all about,
-
that is really philosophy.
-
You may have heard about very famous
-
simile of the Buddha, the Buddha is
-
in the place called the Gosinga Wood
-
and he takes a handful of leaves
-
and he says, "these handfuls of leaves
-
I have in my hand, compared to
-
all the handfuls of leaves in the forest,
-
which is more?"
-
So the monks obviously say,
-
"the handful of leaves in your hand are few
-
and ones in the forest are great
-
in comparison."
-
And then the Buddha says,
-
"what I have taught you
-
is comparable to the leaves in my hand,
-
but what I know is comparable
-
to all the leaves in the forest."
-
So what is going on here?
-
What about the rest of the stuff?
-
Wouldn't you guys be interested
-
in hearing about the rest of the stuff?
-
If the Buddha has all this knowledge,
-
it would be interesting
-
to hear about all the other stuff.
-
Why does he only teach us
-
these little few things?
-
And the point here,
-
remember that the purpose of the Buddha,
-
he is a compassionate teacher
-
he has understood the one thing
-
everybody in the whole world
-
wants to know about.
-
He has understood about
-
happiness and suffering to the core.
-
Look in your heart,
-
what is it that you want?
-
What is it that you yearn for?
-
We are always trying to move towards
-
more contentment, more satisfaction,
-
more pleasure, more happiness,
-
less depression, less sorrow,
-
less pain.
-
Everybody wants that.
-
I've never met anybody who
-
wants more depression.
-
Unless they are really messed up
-
psychologically, possibly, but then
-
they have other problems.
-
The point is we all want to move there.
-
And the Buddha knows, "I have the answer."
-
So then he decides to teach
-
out of compassion,
-
to help people overcome their problems,
-
and give rise to the highest happiness.
-
That is what nibbāna is all about.
-
So it's pragmatic!
-
The teaching is purely pragmatic.
-
It has a very clear purpose, and
-
you don't want to distract that teaching
-
with things that have nothing to do
-
with that pragmatic goal, which is to
-
alleviate suffering in all beings.
-
This is why the Buddha doesn't philosophise.
-
What is philosophy?
-
Philosophy is about Plato,
-
and Aristotle,
-
and Socrates,
-
and we find people in the present day.
-
We find it not only in the West, of course,
-
you find it also everywhere.
-
This is what the later
-
Abhidhamma people did also.
-
It's philosophising, it's creating,
-
it's speculating about the world.
-
It's based a little bit on fact,
-
because you have a little bit
-
of science and put these kind of things,
-
but a lot of philosophy is
-
thinking out systems,
-
castles in the air
-
that are built up,
-
often with no foundations,
-
a little bit of foundations,
-
but not much.
-
This is what philosophy is all about.
-
And the Buddha, I think he knew...
-
I'm not saying the Buddha
-
would have built up anything
-
without foundation, on the contrary,
-
he probably would have good reasons
-
for saying what he would have said
-
if he had said so, but he didn't.
-
Even though he knew what he was talking
-
about, he knew that it would detract
-
from the actual practice,
-
because, once you start to present
-
a philosophical system
-
a system which explains everything
-
in the world,
-
that's very fascinating, right?
-
I just said before,
-
who of you wouldn't be interested
-
in hearing about all the other leaves,
-
Everybody went,
-
"yeah, that would be exciting"
-
I think the same,
-
it would be exciting for me, too.
-
This is the problem,
-
you get sidetracked.
-
You start to philosophise.
-
The Buddha would've probably
-
had to spend the rest of his life
-
answering critics, saying,
-
"well, you know, this doesn't make any sense",
-
"well, actually it does make sense"
-
"oh, no"
-
and then back and forth,
-
back and forth.
-
So you focus on the essentials.
-
I think this is a very important point.
-
This should remind us that
-
we should really try to be
-
in a similar kind of mindset,
-
where we don't philosophise too much.
-
It means that dependent arising itself,
-
origination itself,
-
is not really a philosophy.
-
The primary purpose of
-
dependent origination is pragmatic.
-
It is to show us that there is a problem,
-
that there is a solution to that problem,
-
and how to apply ourselves.
-
Of course, it also gives
-
a little bit more than that,
-
it gives a little bit of understanding
-
for how it all works,
-
which sometimes gives rise
-
to confidence and faith because
-
you feel that there is a system
-
which is complete.
-
But, essentially, it is a pragmatic thing.
-
It is about release from suffering
-
and a movement towards happiness,
-
and getting out of saṃsāra.
-
This is the purpose of this.
-
So the Buddha didn't philosophise.
-
This is the thing about the Abhidhamma,
-
I don't know what kind of ideas
-
you have about the Abhidhamma,
-
but as far as I am concerned,
-
and I read Pāli,
-
I have read parts of the Abhidhamma
-
not the whole thing
-
because I find it too boring,
-
to be perfectly honest with you,
-
and I've also read the suttas,
-
pretty much everything in Pāli, and
-
in English and in other languages as well,
-
and it is very clear to me,
-
that the Abhidhamma is later
-
than the suttas.
-
It arose over a long period of time,
-
because this is a very complex
-
type of literature.
-
It started arising
-
probably fairly soon after the Buddha
-
and went on being developed
-
for many centuries,
-
perhaps millennia
-
after the Buddha passed away.
-
I'm not going to go into that now,
-
if you are interested
-
you can ask in the Q&A,
-
but there are many, many good reasons why
-
the Abhidhamma is not
-
the word of the Buddha.
-
But the Abhidhamma is precisely
-
a philosophical system.
-
Why?
-
Because it is about creating
-
a system which explains the world
-
completely.
-
So you have this division of
-
mind-moments, or mind-states
-
96 cittas, or something like that,
-
and then you have the various
-
types of mind-factors
-
called the cetasikas,
-
which are 70 or whatever it is,
-
I'm not even sure how many there are,
-
maybe it's only 40.
-
Shows you how much
-
I know about the Abhidhamma.
-
And then you have
-
the factors of materiality,
-
the physical world.
-
There's 28, or something,
-
or 20 something. 24 perhaps.
-
First of all, it's divided up
-
into all the elements of reality,
-
and then you have all these books
-
that show how these things fit together.
-
There is a book called the Paṭṭhāna,
-
which is a book, basically, translated
-
into English as 'conditional relations'.
-
What that book does,
-
it shows you that all of these categories
-
I just talked about before,
-
how they are related to each other
-
through various causes.
-
24 causes are enumerated
-
in the Pāli.
-
And the book, the Paṭṭhāna, is so long
-
because there are so intricacies,
-
so many ways these things
-
can relate to each other,
-
it is so long that if you wrote out
-
the whole thing
-
- somebody apparently calculated this -
-
if you wrote out the whole thing,
-
the book would be so long
-
that it would stretch
-
from Sydney to Melbourne,
-
or something like that.
-
That's how big it is.
-
So this is thought out
-
by the human mind.
-
This is what they call philosophy.
-
And this is what happened
-
later in Buddhism.
-
Of course, the sad thing is that
-
if you travel around the Buddhist world,
-
you find that a lot of people,
-
that's what their interested in.
-
It's exactly why the Buddha didn't teach it.
-
He saw the attraction in that,
-
the danger in that,
-
creating philosophical systems,
-
building them up,
-
and it's never finished.
-
This is the other problem,
-
there's always some hole in the system.
-
Somebody says,
-
"oh, what about this?
-
You haven't thought about
-
this problem over here."
-
And then you have to write a new
-
sub-commentary to fill in that little gap.
-
Then somebody finds a hole
-
in the sub-commentary and the more
-
literature you have,
-
the more holes there's going to be.
-
So for every book you add,
-
there going to be another whole.
-
And it keeps on going like that
-
and there's no end.
-
This is the problem with philosophy,
-
it never, never stops.
-
So the Buddha, very, very wisely,
-
skipped that whole area.
-
So dependent origination
-
is not philosophy.
-
It's pragmatic, it's practical,
-
it's to be used in a practical way.
-
So please keep that in mind.
-
It's so easy to get sidetracked
-
with philosophising.
-
So what is Buddhism?
-
Maybe just very briefly: what it is,
-
because I think it is interesting
-
just as a point of general interest.
-
Is it a religion?
-
Is it a religion?
-
People say,
-
"aah, yeah, maybe,
-
maybe not it's a religion."
-
I think it's a fascinating question.
-
Personally, I think it's fascinating,
-
whether it's a religion or not.
-
Obviously, the answer is,
-
it all depends on how
-
you define the word 'religion'.
-
I looked up the Oxford Dictionary,
-
very recently,
-
at how that defines 'religion',
-
and it says any kind of system
-
where there is some kind of
-
supernatural agency is a religion.
-
From that point of view,
-
is Buddhism a religion?
-
I would say no, it is not, because, certainly
-
from an internal point of view of Buddhism
-
everything is part of nature.
-
Nothing is supernatural,
-
Nothing is outside of nature.
-
If you go to ordinary religions,
-
like, Christianity or Islam, of course,
-
the idea is that God stands outside
-
of nature.
-
That's why he can break all the laws of nature.
-
He doesn't have to care about
-
gravity or whatever.
-
He can just do whatever he wants.
-
Quantum mechanics, no problem,
-
he can do what he likes with the world.
-
He is supernatural.
-
But from a Buddhist point of view,
-
everything is part of nature.
-
So in that way,
-
Buddhism is not, really, supernatural.
-
But, if you're not a Buddhist and you say,
-
"aww, you guys believe in all kind
-
of weird stuff, you believe in devas,
-
okay; supernatural."
-
So from an external point of view,
-
maybe Buddhism is a religion,
-
because other people might think
-
that we believe in supernatural stuff.
-
So it depends on the angle you take.
-
I must admit, I prefer to be very careful
-
when using labels like 'religion'
-
on Buddhism, because the word
-
'religion' has so much baggage,
-
and a lot of that baggage does not
-
apply to Buddhism.
-
So we are taking on this baggage
-
by calling ourself a religion;
-
I'm not sure that is very suitable,
-
or very useful.
-
Sometimes it's better to say,
-
"yeah, I'm not sure we're a religion,
-
maybe we're something else."
-
So what is that something else?
-
I would say that something else is that,
-
Buddhism is essentially...
-
this is maybe something I need to
-
reflect a bit more about, but
-
it's really a type of psychology.
-
That's what I'd call Buddhism.
-
All of Buddhism is about
-
how to use the mind well,
-
how to move from suffering
-
to more happiness,
-
how to eventually end all suffering.
-
It's all really mental stuff.
-
It's all about developing the mind,
-
doing something with the mind.
-
It's a kind of psychology.
-
Maybe not anything like
-
anything we have in the world
-
apart from Buddhism,
-
it's different obviously, but it really is,
-
I think, at the end of the day,
-
possibly a type of psychology.
-
Although, I must admit,
-
I haven't really
-
thought about that carefully enough
-
to really make an absolute statement
-
about that.
-
Anyway, Buddhism is a psychology,
-
and, of course, that includes then
-
dependent origination.
-
So where does this fit in to this picture
-
of psychology?
-
What is it all about?
-
Dependent arising, the first thing,
-
of course, to understand about it,
-
is that it is an important teaching
-
of the Buddha.
-
How do you know
-
it's an important teaching of the Buddha?
-
Well, usually, you know because
-
somebody else says so.
-
That's how people often know
-
it is an important teaching,
-
"this is important because they say
-
it's an important teaching."
-
But is there any objective way
-
of deciding this, apart from just
-
listening to people like me
-
saying it is important?
-
The objective way of deciding
-
whether a teaching is important
-
in Buddhism or not, is to see how often
-
did the Buddha talk about this.
-
How many different audiences?
-
How many different places
-
did he give this particular teaching?
-
And dependent arising is one
-
of those teachings that you see
-
throughout the suttas.
-
You see it in all the four nikāyas.
-
You see it in the Majjhima Nikāya.
-
You see it in the Dīgha Nikāya.
-
You see it in the Aṅguttara, in the Saṃyutta.
-
In the Saṃyutta Nikāya,
-
there is a whole section just about
-
dependent origination.
-
This is how you make a decision
-
about whether a sutta is important
-
or not.
-
This is actually a very useful tool,
-
because sometimes people say,
-
"ah, this is really important."
-
But why is it important?
-
"I don't know, it just is important."
-
There should be some objective
-
criteria for deciding these things.
-
So dependent arising is
-
one of those things.
-
The second question is then:
-
how does it fit in with
-
the rest of the teachings?
-
Because we need to sort of
-
tie it together with everything else.
-
One of the wonderful things
-
about the Buddhist teaching, is that
-
it all fits together into this one picture.
-
It's basically one picture,
-
then you take out a little piece here
-
a little piece there,
-
it's almost like a jigsaw.
-
It's not really like a jigsaw.
-
A jigsaw is a very imperfect simile,
-
or metaphor, because really, often,
-
the different pieces they overlap,
-
or one fits into another one
-
and it's not really quite like a jigsaw,
-
but still, it is an overall picture.
-
And it is the picture that you realise
-
when you awaken to the Dhamma.
-
When you, one day, become a stream enterer
-
and you get a flash of insight,
-
BANG!
-
What is it that you see?
-
What you see is:
-
the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima Nikāya
-
the Saṃyutta Nikāya, the Aṅguttara Nikāya.
-
All in one!
-
That's what you see!
-
Whoa!
-
You're head is going to explode!
-
Imagine seeing all that is one moment.
-
But the point, of course, is that
-
the insight is quite simple,
-
but when you draw out all the implications
-
of that one single insight,
-
you end up with an enormous thing.
-
That is what is so amazing.
-
So dependent origination is part of that.
-
It is part of that big picture,
-
but it is only one little thing.
-
So where does it fit in?
-
One easy way of understanding
-
where it fits in is to look at
-
the Four Noble Truths.
-
Noble Truth number one,
-
is the truth of suffering.
-
Usually, most people shake their head,
-
"okay, I'm not a Buddhist, I don't suffer."
-
That is number one.
-
Anyway, once you get passed the first one,
-
you say, "okay, yeah, life is a bit
-
unsatisfactory sometimes, okay, fair enough."
-
Once you get passed the first one,
-
the Second Noble Truth:
-
the cause of suffering.
-
The cause of suffering is taṇhā, craving,
-
according to the Second Noble Truth.
-
Now, in some suttas,
-
that fact that
-
taṇhā leads to suffering
-
is expanded out,
-
and it is expanded out
-
into dependent origination.
-
Dependent origination is what shows you
-
that suffering arises.
-
It's an alternative way of understanding
-
the Second Noble Truth.
-
So dependent origination fits,
-
bang in there.
-
It is basically another way of speaking
-
about the Second Noble Truth,
-
dependent origination.
-
That's already quite interesting
-
because normally you look at
-
the Second Noble Truth,
-
craving gives rise to suffering.
-
Okay, fine,
-
first of all maybe it's a little bit
-
hard to understand why that is the case,
-
so one thing that dependent origination
-
does, it spells out exactly why it is
-
that craving gives rise to suffering.
-
It puts in all the little pieces in between
-
to show you how this conditionality
-
actually works.
-
That's the first thing that's
-
interesting about it.
-
The second thing is,
-
okay, if craving is the cause of suffering
-
the Third Noble Truth says that
-
when you remove that craving
-
suffering ends.
-
But, how do you get rid of craving?
-
If craving is the cause of suffering,
-
you want to get rid of craving.
-
It's not very obvious, right?
-
Everybody has desires,
-
everybody has cravings in their life.
-
How do you get rid of that?
-
And this is the other thing that
-
dependent arising, dependent origination
-
shows you.
-
It shows you all the links,
-
all the causes that eventually
-
give rise to craving.
-
So it shows you have craving
-
can be removed.
-
And, of course, what it does,
-
it takes it all back down to ignorance
-
I was talking about before,
-
which is the first factor of
-
dependent arising.
-
So if you remove ignorance,
-
then everything else
-
starts to disappear.
-
Craving, and then
-
eventually also suffering itself.
-
So it fills in the gaps.
-
It makes it clear what is going on.
-
This is the power of dependent origination
-
in this case.
-
The second thing that is fascinating
-
about this, and often you will hear
-
people argue about whether
-
dependent origination includes
-
things like rebirth.
-
Is it about rebirth?
-
Is it about one life?
-
Is it about what happens in one moment?
-
People have all these different theories
-
about dependent origination.
-
I don't know about you here,
-
I'm not sure what you think.
-
I'm not going to ask you.
-
I, personally, don't have any doubt
-
that it refers to rebirth.
-
The rebirth process is part and parcel
-
of dependent origination,
-
and you can actually see that
-
if you consider the Second Noble Truth,
-
or at least one hint is found right there
-
because, the Second Noble Truth says
-
it is the craving that leasts to rebirth,
-
which is the source of suffering.
-
It's not just any old craving,
-
it's specifically called ponobhavika
-
Pono is from puna which means 'again'.
-
Bhavika means existence.
-
So the craving that has to do with
-
re-existence.
-
So because dependent origination
-
is just an expansion of that
-
Second Noble Truth,
-
dependent origination, too,
-
has to do with rebirth
-
and re-existence in the future.
-
It becomes very clear once you whack it
-
into that formula and they obviously
-
have to equate with each other,
-
it's the same thing,
-
so it deals with rebirth.
-
That's one thing I've been saying before,
-
I talked about the various
-
things that dependent origination points to
-
such as kamma et cetera,
-
of course, rebirth and kamma
-
are here closely connected to each other.
-
So this is where it is then,
-
it is part of the Second Noble Truth,
-
and straight away you see some
-
interesting things coming out,
-
just by considering that.
-
Third Noble Truth.
-
The Third Noble Truth is about
-
the ending of suffering.
-
It's great that there is a Third Noble Truth.
-
Without that it wouldn't be so great,
-
just the cause of suffering and suffering.
-
So the third one is like,
-
WOW!
-
This is the power of the Buddha's teaching
-
that we have the Third Noble Truth
-
and the fourth on, of course,
-
which is the path.
-
Now the third one
-
shows us that the cessation of suffering
-
comes from the cessation of craving.
-
Again, the sequence of dependent arising,
-
it has a forward order
-
and it has a reverse order.
-
And here it operates in the reverse order.
-
It shows you that
-
when you eliminate avijjā,
-
ignorance, at the bottom
-
all the factors get eliminated
-
until you eliminate craving
-
and then it fills in the gap
-
between craving and dukkha.
-
All of those factors get eliminated
-
and eventually suffering itself
-
gets eliminated.
-
There are two ways that
-
dependent arising works:
-
in the forward order,
-
which shows you how suffering arises
-
and the reverse order,
-
which shows how suffering ends
-
as a consequence of all the other
-
factors ending.
-
Second Noble Truth and Third Noble Truth.
-
I hope I'm making sense to you.
-
I'm not sure how much you
-
know about these things,
-
or how much you don't.
-
I apologise if I go too fast;
-
just let me know later on,
-
write a little complaint or whatever
-
and I'll try to go more slowly.
-
Sometimes it's hard because you have
-
people at different stages,
-
different understandings.
-
So this is, then, where... now you can see
-
why it is very much a psychology.
-
It's all to do with craving, desires,
-
how that causes suffering in the end
-
and about how it's ignorance,
-
which is another mental thing,
-
at the very beginning
-
which causes this whole thing.
-
It all revolves around things in our minds
-
and the why our psyches actually work.
-
Very briefly, perhaps, ignorance itself
-
even though we have this whole chain
-
of things starting with
-
ignorance, what about ignorance itself?
-
Where does that come from?
-
Can we say anything about ignorance?
-
The Buddhist idea is that ignorance
-
has always been there.
-
There is not first cause of ignorance.
-
I'll talk more about this later on
-
but this is one of those things
-
that always has existed
-
You cannot find the first cause of it.
-
Not really always has existed,
-
but you cannot find the first cause.
-
But, that does not mean
-
it cannot be eliminated.
-
It can still be eliminated, even though
-
there is no first cause to it.
-
So that is how it fits into
-
this big jigsaw puzzle.
-
It's directly there.
-
Part and parcel of the
-
second and the third Noble Truths.
-
And this becomes the importance of
-
dependent origination.
-
So now,
-
I thought of maybe talking,
-
very briefly today, just about
-
the various links of dependent origination,
-
starting from the beginning and show
-
just very briefly
-
how the whole system works.
-
Once we have this overview,
-
then we can start to focus in
-
on the details maybe tomorrow morning.
-
So let's have a look at the overview
-
of this whole sequence.
-
As I said, it begins with avijjā,
-
usually translated as ignorance;
-
not a good translation perhaps,
-
- I'll talk more about that tomorrow -
-
and it ends up with dukkha.
-
In between, you have ten other
-
factors in between.
-
There's 12 links in dependent arising,
-
and they are linked,
-
there's like a pair-wise linkage.
-
Each one of these factors is linked
-
to the one which comes after it,
-
and it's a causal linkage:
-
one thing leading to the next one,
-
leading to the next one.
-
So the first thing to understand is
-
this idea of causality that actually drives
-
this thing called dependent origination.
-
We start off with avijjā
-
and the point here is that once you have avijjā
-
the second factor comes into effect
-
then third factor all the way to the
-
twelfth factor which is called dukkha
-
which is suffering.
-
The kind of causality you are talking
-
about here, and this is spoken about
-
in brief also in the suttas themselves,
-
It is a type of causality you can call
-
sufficient causality.
-
Sufficient causality means that
-
when the factor preceding another one exists,
-
the factor that comes after
-
must also exist as a consequence.
-
That's what it means to be sufficient.
-
In other words, ignorance is sufficient
-
for the next factor to exist.
-
And then, the next factor is sufficient for the
-
third factor to exist, and so on
-
all the way to the last factor.
-
Each one is sufficient for the following one,
-
and what that means is that
-
if you have ignorance,
-
you have no choice,
-
you have to suffer.
-
From ignorance comes suffering.
-
What is that stupid English saying?
-
Ignorance is bliss.
-
It's completely wrong!
-
It's a mistake.
-
It's got it completely the wrong way round,
-
ignorance is not bliss.
-
If it is bliss, it's a very kind of
-
shallow form of stupid, silly bliss.
-
The real problem is ignorance must
-
cause suffering. That's what we mean
-
by sufficient conditions,
-
one must lead to the next one,
-
one after the other.
-
If you have ignorance, you have to suffer.
-
It's interesting, right?
-
It means that there is only
-
one solution to this whole thing.
-
But there is the other side,
-
which I mentioned just before,
-
and that side is that
-
once you take away the ignorance
-
once you give rise to knowledge
-
and understanding instead,
-
the second factor also disappears,
-
also ceases as a consequence.
-
This is another type of conditionality.
-
Both types of conditionality
-
apply at the same time.
-
This is called necessary conditionality.
-
Sufficient conditionality
-
and necessary conditionality.
-
Necessary conditionality means that
-
the preceding factor is necessary
-
for the subsequent factor to arise.
-
So if you take away avijjā,
-
if you take away ignorance,
-
the second factor,
-
which is called saṅkhāra in Pāli,
-
cannot exist any more,
-
it must disappear as a consequence.
-
This is called necessary conditionality.
-
Take away the necessary cause,
-
and the subsequence effect
-
also has to disappear.
-
This is in brief what all of dependent arising
-
really is about.
-
It's about this interplay of these two causes:
-
sufficient causality
-
and necessary causality.
-
When you understand those two causes,
-
it's fairly straightforward.
-
When you understand what's going on
-
you can understand how the whole thing
-
comes into being and also
-
how the whole thing ceases
-
as a consequence.
-
So that is in brief what it is,
-
and it's not just dependent arising
-
which works like that.
-
There are many things in life
-
which work on the basis of
-
necessary and sufficient conditionality.
-
In Buddhism, as well, there are other sets.
-
I have included some of those other sets
-
in here as well.
-
They're not called dependent origination
-
because they're not the same set of 12 factors,
-
but the same type of causality
-
is sometimes relevant
-
for those sets as well.
-
Sometimes there are other types of
-
conditionality, which are more loose.
-
If you do this, then usually you get that.
-
Which is not as strict.
-
Dependent arising is a very strict kind of
-
conditionality.
-
Very, very strict.
-
If you have that, that must follow.
-
Haven't got that, that will not follow.
-
So that is the overview.
-
You get the idea of how
-
this process works.
-
Let us briefly have a look at
-
the various factors in this chain,
-
and see roughly how it works out.
-
The first factor is called avijjā in Pāli.
-
As I said, often translated as ignorance.
-
It basically means that you
-
don't understand reality as it actually is.
-
Reality is one way,
-
the world works in one way;
-
you think it's different.
-
Of course, what the Buddha is saying
-
is that we are all like that.
-
We all have this avijjā.
-
We all have this blockage inside ourselves,
-
that make us not see reality
-
as it actually is.
-
What that means is that
-
we are running around like blind people.
-
We are in the dark.
-
We think that we are pursuing happiness,
-
but actually, we're usually pursuing
-
suffering instead.
-
We have got no idea what we're doing.
-
This is basically what ignorance means.
-
Because we don't know what we're doing,
-
it means that we start doing
-
all kind of stuff which leads
-
in the wrong direction
-
this is saṅkhāra. Saṅkhāra is often
-
translated with this terrible translation...
-
this is my opinion, right,
-
I apologise for anybody who
-
likes this translation.
-
The usual translation is,
-
'volitional formations'.
-
At least it leaves me stone cold
-
when I hear 'volitional formations'.
-
It doesn't do anything for me at all.
-
I feel like I could be on Mars
-
when I hear that translation.
-
Some people maybe it means something to,
-
but I find it doesn't really grab you,
-
grab your heart when you hear that.
-
Basically, what it means is the
-
activities of body, speech and mind.
-
The things that we do, especially
-
intentional things that we do.
-
So saṅkhāra can be translated...
-
I'll talk about it tomorrow
-
what a proper translation is,
-
but I will leave it for now.
-
So because we don't understand,
-
we do all these kinds of things, right?
-
And all this doing that we do,
-
from not understanding, has consequences.
-
One of the consequences it has...
-
Because all the doing is based on craving,
-
it's about propelling us into the future.
-
One of the things it leads to,
-
is it always leads to rebirth.
-
Quite literally,
-
always propelling ourselves,
-
projecting ourselves into the future.
-
The saṅkhāras are always about
-
what we want, not about now,
-
it's about the future.
-
From this, we get the idea of viññāṇa.
-
Viññāṇa, which is consciousness,
-
then gets established as a consequence of that.
-
I'll take much more in detail
-
about this tomorrow.
-
This is just very kind of rudimentary.
-
Because viññāṇa is then established,
-
in this case we're talking about
-
established in a new life in particular,
-
in that new life,
-
depending on where that life is
-
you'll have certain experiences, right?
-
If you get reborn as a deva, a god,
-
wow, you have these wonderful experiences,
-
so much happiness, right?
-
If you get reborn as a kangaroo,
-
it's not so great.
-
Maybe you think kangaroos are cute,
-
but actually,
-
kangaroo life is pretty miserable.
-
I live in the middle of the bush,
-
I see what they are like.
-
They are greedy, they are angry,
-
they fight over food.
-
The reality of kangaroo life is pretty,
-
pretty bad.
-
So when you see a cute animal,
-
what you see on the surface
-
is only one thing.
-
But if could be worse, you could be
-
reborn as an insect.
-
Imagine that!
-
Whoa! You get reborn as a mosquito,
-
you're flying around, find this big
-
lump of flesh in front of you and then,
-
smack! You get swatted because of that.
-
All you're doing is trying to get
-
some nice food, right?
-
You're just doing what everybody
-
wants to do, and then that's it,
-
end of story.
-
So the point is that,
-
once you establish consciousness
-
in a certain place, your experience
-
of the world is set within certain limits.
-
That is what nāmarūpa is,
-
called 'name-and-form',
-
also called 'mentality-materiality'.
-
It's all our experiences, basically,
-
and they are set within certain limits.
-
Because we have name-and-form,
-
we have the sense basis.
-
You see things, you hear,
-
you taste, you touch things
-
and through that, through the sense
-
is how we contact the world.
-
All our contact through the world
-
is through our sense.
-
I see all of your, you seem me,
-
we see each other,
-
we hear the sounds,
-
everything is through the sense.
-
It's called contact in the technical term.
-
Phassa in Pāli.
-
The previous term I forgot to say in Pāli,
-
I don't know if you're interested,
-
it's called saḷāyatana, the six sense bases.
-
Phassa, contact in the world.
-
Phassa leads to vedanā.
-
Vedanā means the feeling tone
-
of experience.
-
Is it happy?
-
Is it suffering?
-
Is it neutral?
-
It leads to much more.
-
Contact also leads to all kind of things.
-
We see forms,
-
we have volition, will,
-
drives in us, will in us,
-
it leads to many other things as well,
-
but it's interesting, the Buddha here,
-
picks out vedanā,
-
this idea of the feeling tone of experience.
-
He picks that out specifically
-
because it is much more important
-
than the other ones.
-
Why is it so important?
-
Because, it is vedanā
-
which tends to drive us.
-
Vedanā decides if you like it or not.
-
If you don't like it,
-
you will want to get rid of it.
-
If you like it, you will crave for it.
-
So vedanā makes us act.
-
The feeling tone makes us act,
-
through craving.
-
So you crave and then you act
-
and part of that action is upādāna.
-
Upādāna is how we react to craving.
-
What do we do with craving in the world?
-
We do things.
-
We take up things.
-
We start things.
-
Almost all the things we do
-
are, big picture things,
-
come from this idea of upādāna.
-
Taking things up, almost in a
-
literal sense.
-
You take up having a job,
-
or you take up hobbies,
-
or you take up Buddhism,
-
you take up meditation.
-
You do things.
-
And then because we take up
-
all these things we live in a certain way.
-
It's called bhava, existence.
-
So we live in a certain way,
-
our mind is kind of set in a certain way.
-
This is very similar to what we were
-
talking about at the beginning
-
of consciousness being established.
-
We're established, through the way we exist,
-
and because of that establishment
-
we are reborn in accordance with that
-
establishment later on.
-
Because you are reborn,
-
you must die, right?
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With birth comes all the problems.
-
With birth comes human life
-
and once you have human life
-
you have to have human experiences.
-
I don't know what you human experience is,
-
but it's a bit of everything, right?
-
Sometimes you are happy,
-
and everything is great.
-
Sometimes it's absolute misery.
-
You go through divorce,
-
you get fired from your job,
-
your closest family members
-
and your friends, they die,
-
or you get really sick yourself,
-
or whatever.
-
Life goes through all these ups and downs
-
all the time, there are
-
so many problems there.
-
I think it is very important
-
to be realistic about that.
-
Sometimes you hear people say,
-
"aww, yeah, in my life I won't have
-
any suffering."
-
It's a very shallow, to say the least,
-
shallow outlook.
-
You haven't really looked
-
very carefully if you think
-
you have no suffering.
-
You really haven't.
-
You, kind of say "aww, don't want to see,
-
don't want to see."
-
That is basically what you're saying there.
-
I'm a monk, you could
-
argue that my life is probably quite easy.
-
Ajahn Brahma is probably
-
the most happy person I can imagine.
-
He always is very light hearted,
-
he always jokes, he always messes around,
-
but when he talks about suffering,
-
he says, "life is suffering!
-
Life is really dukkha.
-
It's really, really bad."
-
He's the happiest person,
-
so if he says it's suffering,
-
okay, I'll believe it.
-
I can feel it myself anyway.
-
So no problems there.
-
Okay, so that is dependent arising in brief,
-
just to give you an overview.
-
Those are the 12 links.
-
All the terms and how they all
-
connect together.
-
And then, of course,
-
the cessation mode as well.
-
So that you have the opposite happening
-
when it ceases at the beginning,
-
each one of these links will cease,
-
until you get to the last one eventually.
-
So, I think I will probably stop there
-
because I don't want to go into any more
-
details about things at this particular point.
-
It's probably lots and lots of information
-
for you anyway, maybe way too much.
-
I've always been a bit worried about these
-
one hour talks.
-
You can say a lot in an hour,
-
so that's part of the problem.
-
Anyway, for tonight,
-
have a nice, good night's sleep
-
remember that meditation
-
and going on retreats is about enjoying
-
yourself, having a good time.
-
Meditate until you feel that you are tired,
-
have a really good night's rest,
-
sleep as much as you like,
-
you feel is necessary,
-
and tomorrow you'll be clear and ready
-
for another day.